Catherine Breillat, legendary provocateur, on her sexual manifesto on film and why she hates porn

The uncompromising filmmaker Catherine Breillat‘s sensational 1999 film, “Romance” has recently been restored in a new 4K HD version. The film is being showcased in a retrospective of Breillat’s work screening Feb. 11-17 at the IFC Center in New York. (“Romance” is also available on Amazon.)

The program is not just an opportunity to see some of Breillat’s rarely seen early features — “A Real Young Girl” (1976), “Nocturnal Uproar” (1979), “Dirty Like an Angel” (1991), and “Perfect Love” (1996) — but also revisit her classic “Fat Girl” (2001), her historical drama “The Last Mistress” (2007), as well as her “Fairy Tale” films, “Bluebeard” (2009) and “The Sleeping Beauty” (2010). Rounding out the program are her features, “Sex Is Comedy” (2002) and “Abuse of Weakness” (2013), both of which feature protagonists based on Breillat. (Sadly, her stunning “Anatomy of Hell” (2004), is not included in the retrospective.)

Anyone who has seen a Breillat film is familiar with her uneasy and explicit depictions of sex. That may be why the provocative French filmmaker has long had battles with censors. Moreover, her heroines are often empowered by their sexuality; Breillat highlights the power dynamics between men and women when it comes to sex and sexuality.

Her early films, “A Real Young Girl,” and “36 Fillette” (1988) were about teenage girls exploring their sexuality and losing their virginity. In “Fat Girl,” the title character, Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux), looks on as her older sister Elena (Roxane Mesquida) is in the next bed with her boyfriend, Fernando (Libero de Rienzo) who is trying to deflower her.

Her controversial drama, “Romance,” follows Marie (Caroline Ducey), whose boyfriend Paul (Sagamore Stévenin) leaves her unfulfilled. She therefore ventures out to explore and has sexual experiences ranging from a tryst with Paolo (Rocco Siffredi), an S&M encounter with Robert (François Berléand), and is raped by a stranger (Reza Habouhossein) in a stairwell.

In a recent Zoom interview Breillat spoke, with the assistance of interpreter Robert Gray, about her films and her career as well as debates about depicting sex and being censored.

“Romance” was your biggest success in the U.S. What does the film mean to you?

The film represents a huge step forward for me in my filmmaking. It was a film I had wanted to make for a long time; I was working on it for 20 years. To me, the film is about the question of century — the quest for sexual identity. I knew the film would be a challenge, and getting it released would be a challenge, because of the images I wanted to show. I’m very proud of the fact that I overcame censorship around the world through discussions and explanations of what the film represented — even in a country like Norway, where I was told the film would never be released. I wrote a piece explaining that the film was a quest for sexual identity, and in cinema, it is not the images per se, that are important, but the meaning the images have — the intent and the vision of the artist. The female censor in Norway not only came around, but she said it was a film that all young women should see.

This film isn’t just a film, it’s a manifesto for me, a statement about being a woman, and the problem of being a woman. Being a woman means, historically, that you’ve always been humiliated. It is an identity that is defined by sex; I have a vagina. Because of in terms of our cerebral hemispheres, there is nothing that distinguishes my cerebral hemispheres from those of a man.

Your films are often controversial, explicit, and provocative. I like that you make viewers uncomfortable. Can you talk about that?

I always say that it is not I who is provocative or scandalous, rather that the world is old and moldy. I refuse to allow myself to have censors dictate what I can and cannot show or decide for me what I, as an artist, should be presenting or representing. As both a woman and a director, I should be allowed to speak out and decide what images I want show, and how I am going to make my film. I forbid that censors dictate what my works are going to be like, or where I can place the camera or what I can show.

In terms of provocation and what is censored, we just have to think of Elvis who wasn’t allowed to appear on television, or we can go back two centuries ago to Victor Hugo, the great French writer, and the “Bataille d’Hernani,” which refers to a fight about censorship [that occurred after the performance of his play, “Hernani,”] created a scandal. But now, no one would think twice about not allowing all of his works to be read and distributed. When one is modern or ahead of their time, inevitably one provokes or creates scandals because society insists that we conform or be conformists. Anything that is new disturbs.

The endings of your films are often shocking. Why are you so confrontational in your work?

At the end of “Romance,” I love the idea of showing the birth of a child. I was often asked, “Why do you show it head-on like that? Usually we see births from the side.” I realize this is like the Courbet’s painting, “The Origin of the World.” I realize with “Romance” I was quoting Courbet — we both had the same intention. When you see infant’s head coming out with blue veins, it’s the globe of the earth that is appearing, and that has huge symbolic value to me. It is essential for me to see where we’re from.

I look to painters for inspiration. “A Real Young Girl” was based on hyper-realist American painters. When you look at painters, it is always about the framing. And cinema is framed. You have to choose what people will see and choose what you will pass over with an ellipse, what you are not going to show. And even though you may not show it, the spectator may believe that she or he has seen it.

You frequently focus on women’s pubic hair and men’s erect penises, which are so taboo in American cinema. Can you discuss filming and framing bodies? You are explicit, which makes your films more potent.

In France, also, it was absolutely forbidden, unheard of to show an erect penis. In fact, a lot of feminists criticized me for this — not for the erect penis, but for undressing women on screen. I said, all male directors do this for all sorts of reasons, or even no reason — they will invent a shower sequence just to show a woman naked. “Romance” was the first time in France that a film that was sexually explicit was allowed to get a general release. Normally, it would be forbidden or classified as a porn film. I am interested in debating the censors. I tell censors, I don’t mind if you censor my film, but you have to explain why, which opens up room for discussion.

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Personally, I also hate porn films, I’m not interested in pornography, and I find them degrading to men and women. I have no desire to make porn films. Regarding sexuality, when we make love in our private lives, that is thought in motion, thought in movement. Otherwise, if it were simply the act itself, it would be repetitive, it would be ugly, and it would be without any pleasure. To me, sex is about transcendence, it’s about the fiction and how we project ourselves in the act. It’s about thought. In our intimate lives, when we are love and making love, we are not porn actors. There is no fiction in pornography, that is what distinguishes pornography from cinema. I’m interested in transcendence; I am seeking the exaltation that sexuality brings to our lives. If you look at Renaissance paintings of saints, both men and women, you see them naked and absolutely pure despite their nudity. I thought that must be true in cinema, too. It’s not the image that is shown that determines whether something is art or pornography, but rather, it is the vision, the thought, and the meaning behind it.

You are an author as well as a filmmaker. What artists and writers influenced you?

As a girl I was allowed to do things that were “pretty,” but I hated Marie Laurencin. I wanted to be savage and wild like the painter Francis Bacon. When I was growing up, I was marked by great writers like Henry Miller and Comte de Lautrémont, who were violent and absolute great misogynists. Nonetheless, what they wrote made me who I am. I chose to be influenced by them. When I was 16, I wrote my first novel, [“A Man for the Asking,” which became the film “A Real Young Girl”] and when it came out, it was forbidden to anyone under the age of 18, which meant that I was forbidden to myself. And I refuse to be forbidden to myself! I want to be able to be who I am. In fact, Agnes Varda picked up the American paperback of “A Real Young Girl,” and on it, there was a banner proclaiming “Banned in France.”

Do you feel that you faced resistance because you are a female filmmaker?

Absolutely! We have to talk about the fact that why in France, as a woman, I was never accepted into a French film school. Even as a young girl, I was very proud and stubborn and insistent that I was going to take on the world on these terms. This was also the case of “A Real Young Girl.” I was a female director in France that historically and traditionally has been the most misogynistic country in all of Europe. The Salic Law (loi salique) forbade women from ascending to the throne. Only a man could ascend to the throne. Napoleon perpetuated this with his code that kept women in guardianship even in adulthood. The great French Revolution, for which France is so proud, guillotined Hortense de Gouge who demanded equal rights for women. The motto: Fraternity, Equality, Liberty — what it really means is the liberty for all men to impose on fraternity and equality on all men and strip women of their rights.

“Romance” is a story about a woman who has to separate love (emotion) from sex (physicality). It’s about male frigidity in that Paul is indifferent to sex. Marie’s fulfilment comes from the pleasure and control she has in her attempts at intimacy with others. What decisions did you make about Marie’s journey?

You are right, this is the female experience — it’s the problem that once a man falls in love with you, then inevitably, you become his mother. Then you are at the same time the virgin and the whore. When he puts you on pedestal, it is impossible for him to have an erotic relationship with you, because that would dirty you. In French, we say when a man is making love to a woman, he honors her. But at the same time, he dishonors her, so there is this contradiction which screws up all relationships, which makes it impossible to have a fulfilling sexual relationship. None of Marie’s encounters harm her. She comes out of them as pure as she did going in — even the rape scene didn’t hurt her. She is always looking at herself in a mirror. To me, it’s about rejecting shame and assuming, embracing, and accepting who she is.

Caroline [Ducey, who played Marie] had a very hard time after the shooting coming to terms with the film and spoke very badly of it. She wasn’t able to acknowledge who she was and what the film was about. Interestingly, it wasn’t the scenes with Rocco Siffredi that were problematic for her, it was the rape scene, even though the sex in that scene was simulated. The actor [Reza Habouhossein] was an Iranian my assistant found in swinger’s club. He was supposed to have non-simulated sex with Caroline, but once he got on set, he was unable to get a hard on, despite all our attempts. We decided the hell with it, we’ll just shoot this as if it were a normal film in which we are pretending and not showing certain things. I am actually very happy that is how we went about it. The film is all the stronger for it. What counts in the film isn’t what is shown, but the emotion in the filmmaker’s gaze.

One thing that is essential to your films is the power dynamic between men and women. This is not just the virgin/whore dichotomy, but also about how the characters negotiate sex. Can you explain this more? You have made several films about teens losing their virginity.

This is the lovers’ discourse. There is a medieval notion that codifies how a love relationship is to proceed and what steps a man has to follow to obtain his love one. Seduction is always about this codified step. That’s the difference between flirtation, which is much more spontaneous. Virginity doesn’t belong to women themselves, but to society, which determines when it can be surrendered and who it can be surrendered to. That is why, as I show in “Fat Girl,” it is often the case that men suggest young women engage in sodomy so they would remain virgins as if nothing had happened.

It’s also something that we say in France, that when a woman sleeps with a man, “she gives himself to her.” And there is this notion, that the first time for a girl will mark her for her entire life. Whereas for boys it is something that is quickly forgotten. As a young girl, I wanted to relieve myself of my virginity so I would be the author of my first time and not have to submit to the idea that I should belong to someone else for the rest of my life.

Even about rape today, society imposes that women should be marked, traumatized by rape all their lives. I disagree. That refers back to Marie who is raped in “Romance,” and comes out unscathed, as pure as before. Rape can be horrible, but what is horrible about rape is the violence and fear of dying that is involved — that’s what’s traumatizing about it. For a large part of my life, I was not the equal of men legally, and men had the right over me in terms of French law. Why is that the case? Society finds it very difficult to deal with and confront sexuality. I am not sure, even today, that situation is improving.

Any thoughts about your legacy?

It’s very difficult to know what my legacy will be. It depends on how society evolves. Cinema is so much about escapism, and entertainment, and I have nothing against that. But my cinema is marked by thought and by emotion. That is what I am trying to transmit. I think perhaps, I should write a book explaining what my cinema is about, because my cinema is so emotional, and it strikes people so strongly that I’m not sure the thoughts come through. It might be a good idea to put my thoughts about my work in writing, but I’m not sure I ever will, because, by far, I prefer to make films than write about them.

“Romance” and other films in the Breillat retrospective will re-release at New York’s IFC Center Feb. 11-17. “Romance” can also be streamed on Prime Video. Watch a trailer via YouTube.

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Americans are popping melatonin to get to sleep. Researchers say it may not be helping

Earlier this month, a study questioning the safety of using melatonin for sleep went viral, sparking fear around a seemingly innocuous over-the-counter supplement that is taken by millions of Americans.

“Melatonin has surged in popularity —but is it safe?” Self magazine reported.

“Americans use higher melatonin doses for sleep, but study warns of possible health risks,” USA Today stated.

The news came via a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which found that more Americans are taking higher doses of melatonin than people were a decade or two ago.

In the study, the researchers examined data from a national health and nutrition survey that was conducted between 1999 and 2018. Researchers estimate that for each cycle analyzed, 4,865 to 6,214 participants were included. They found that Americans surveyed increased their use of melatonin, from 0.4 percent in 1999-2000 to 2.1% in 2017-2018.

But Americans really started taking melatonin in the 2009-2010 survey years. Notably, few reported taking more than 5 milligrams per dose of melatonin before 2005-2006. (5 milligrams is the recommended dosage.) However, the percentage who took more than that dosage tripled, from 0.08% in 2005-2006 to 0.28% in 2017-2018.

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“Among US adults, reported prevalence of melatonin supplement consumption significantly increased from 1999-2000 to 2017-2018 across all demographic groups,” the researchers stated. “Although it remained very low, prevalence of self-reported use of greater than 5 mg/d of melatonin also increased over time.”

The reason that increased melatonin usage is concerning, researchers say, is partly due to the problem with melatonin supplement manufacturers. The actual amount of melatonin in supplements is often far, far greater than claimed on the labels. “The actual content of melatonin in marketed supplements may be up to 478% higher than the labeled content,” the study’s co-authors found.

But also, the melatonin may not be doing much to make us drowsy anyway.

“Evidence supporting melatonin use for sleep disturbances is weak,” the researchers add.

In other words, what is in melatonin supplements doesn’t always correspond to what’s on the label — and that’s because the melatonin market is largely unregulated.

In our bodies, melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland, which sends a message to our brains that it is bedtime. People who take the hormone supplement do so because it’s easily accessible, “natural,” and inexpensive — they are often the type who would rather avoid prescribed sleeping pills.

But the supplement form of melatonin on pharmacy shelves is synthesized outside a person’s body, and labeled by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a dietary supplement, which are regulated differently than foods and drug products. For dietary supplements, the FDA only requires “reasonable assurance” that dietary supplements do not pose “a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury.”

“Several studies have shown as many as 70% of [supplement] labels do not correspond to what is inside,” sleep science advisor Dr. Carleara Weiss, Ph.D., MS, RN, told Salon over email. “This is a critical issue and can be avoided by choosing a melatonin supplement that is verified by the United States Pharmacopeial convention (UPS verified),” Weiss added.

Weiss said she does believe this viral study should prompt a rethinking of one’s sleep habits.

“Although often taken as a sleep aid, melatonin is a hormone that signals to our body that sleep time is approaching; therefore, taking melatonin without adequate behavioral changes that include sleep hygiene, creating a bedtime routine, exercise, and so forth will not magically make good sleep,” Weiss said. “In addition, melatonin supplements are not FDA regulated, and studies indicate that some supplements have other components and have doses of melatonin higher than recommended. Thus, taking melatonin without guidance can be harmful.”

That doesn’t mean melatonin supplements (the UPS verified kind) can’t be helpful to some. Weiss recommends melatonin supplements for those with insomnia, depression and temporary sleep disturbances — with the caveat that it shouldn’t be the “first line of treatment” for these problems.

“Melatonin consumption should be avoided by individuals taking birth control, corticosteroids, medication to treat high blood pressure, and anticoagulants should avoid using melatonin or discuss with their primary care doctor before taking it,” Weiss added. “Older adults may also experience confusion and drowsiness when taking melatonin, especially while taking higher doses.”

As the JAMA study noted, widespread use of melatonin is a relatively new phenomenon. When asked why this might be, Weiss said she wasn’t surprised by the rising number of people using melatonin, given that Americans have issues getting enough sleep. Indeed, in 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 1 in 3 Americans do not get enough sleep.

“Our society functions on a 24/7 pattern, sleep is under-appreciated, and many people struggle to find the best sleep quality,” Weiss said. “Thus, most people think that melatonin works as a ‘quick fix’ for sleep problems.”

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Deputy Virginia AG resigns over enthusiastic Jan. 6 support: Her field was election law

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who won last fall’s gubernatorial election by creating plausible distance between himself and Donald Trump, has seen that distance shrink a bit more. A top deputy to the state’s attorney general, Monique Miles — who represented Virginia in election-related legal matters — has been forced to resign after the Washington Post found social media posts in which she repeatedly praised the Capitol insurrection and embraced Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Monique Miles, who until Thursday was deputy attorney general of government transactions and operations, apparently spread baseless claims about voter fraud and election interference over the course of several months on Facebook. Her office was unaware of this until Post reporters inquired, according to Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares.

“This information was unknown to the Office of the Attorney General prior to this morning,” LaCivita told the Post. “Ms. Miles has resigned from her position at the Office of the Attorney General.”

While the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021, underway, Miles reportedly wrote that it was the work of “patriots.”

“News Flash: Patriots have stormed the Capitol. No surprise. The deep state has awoken the sleeping giant,” Miles wrote on Facebook. “Patriots are not taking this lying down. We are awake, ready and will fight for our rights by any means necessary.”

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That post was later revised after pushback from commenters, with Miles claiming that demonstrators were in fact “antifa dressed as Patriots,” a claim made by many conservatives at the time that has been widely debunked.

In earlier posts unearthed by the Post, Miles appeared to spread false or unproven claims about Chinese interference in the 2020 election, alleging that systematic voter fraud had marred the outcomes in battleground states like Arizona and Pennsylvania.

“The China interference is real,” Miles wrote in one post. “That is high level national security stuff. They can’t just release this evidence in civil court without following the proper protocol.”

On more than one occasion, Miles declared that Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election. “These left wing violent loonies better realize that [Donald Trump] is getting a second term,” she wrote.

In an email exchange with the the Post, Miles said that it was “important for people to be able to have free and open dialogue on topics of concern without being cancelled.”

Within the Youngkin administration Miles reportedly represented the Commonwealth of Virginia in election-related litigation and provided legal counseling to both the state to the state department and board of elections. Her division also handled election administration during the pandemic.

Elon Musk’s Tesla factory in California sued (again) as alleged racist work environment

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing is suing Tesla, Elon Musk’s pioneering electric-vehicle manufacturer, after receiving hundreds of complaints from workers indicating that Tesla’s Fremont factory is a segregated and racially hostile work environment.

The lawsuit filed by DFEH against Tesla on Wednesday claims that Black workers at the Fremont, California, factory were the targets of racist graffiti and repeated verbal taunting, and were further discriminated against in ways that affected their job assignments and salaries. Defendants stepping forward in the case claim to have heard upper-level management at the California factory refer to workers as “monkey toes” and “hood rat,” according to coverage by The Verge, and there are further claims that an area within the factory primarily manned by Black workers was referred to as the “porch monkey station.”

Defendants in the suit also claim that they encountered racist graffiti in break rooms, restrooms and work areas that no one in upper management addressed in any way anything about. Among the graffiti described in detail were such messages as “all monkeys work outside.”

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Just before the suit was filed on Wednesday, Tesla posted a blog post to its official site called “The DFEH’s Misguided Lawsuit,” which strongly denies the claims against the company. The timing of that post suggests that management was aware that a wave of bad publicity was likely to follow. The post states that “Tesla strongly opposes all forms of discrimination and harassment and has a dedicated Employee Relations team that responds to and investigates all complaints,” and goes on to list ways Tesla has purportedly benefited the state of California.

“The Fremont factory has a majority-minority workforce and provides the best paying jobs in the automotive industry to over 30,000 Californians. No company has done more for sustainability or the creation of clean energy jobs than Tesla,” the post asserts. It ends by asking the court to pause the case to “ensure that facts and evidence will be heard.”

Last year, a jury in a federal case awarded almost $137 million to a Black former employee who suffered racial abuse at the same factory, where most Tesla vehicles are manufactured. Musk, the Tesla founder, purchased the former GM/Toyota plant in Fremont for $42 million in 2010.

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“Stroganachos” are a sheet pan twist on two classics — and an easy dinner that’s ready in 30 minutes

After the pandemic began, it wasn’t too long before I realized that I was going to have to rethink some of the pleasures I previously considered to be specific to restaurants. Want a handmade cocktail? Better learn how to make one at home. Want a big plate of classic apps to share? Time to develop a whole new respect for the construction of the blooming onion, the basket of garlic bread and the humble but mighty platter of nachos.

Food writer Dan Whalen’s “Nachos for Dinner” arrives at exactly the right moment — when quarantining fatigue and winter doldrums conspire to create a simultaneous, conflicting desire to socialize and to hibernate. Whalen takes the familiar classic and shows off its inherent versatility, as he’s done in his previous books like “S’mores!” and “Tots!”

“Nachos were the first thing I ever learned how to make,” Whalen says during a recent phone call. “As a young kid, I would come home from school in the afternoon and put some chips on a plate and put the cheese on top, microwave it — and that was like my afternoon snack most days. It’s those little dishes like that that really informed me as a cook and made me pursue this in my life.”

“Fast-forward to many years later, being a blogger and loving the idea of doing mashups — and nachos are such a great thing to mash up with,” he continues. “There’re so many things out there that you can ‘nachofy,’ or convert into nachos. And it’s a great idea for that sheet pan dinner for easy suppers for the whole family. It’s customizable, and you can make it how you love it.”

There’s nothing wrong with putting cheese on chips and calling it dinner, but Whalen’s imagination sends the nacho on a trip around the world with creations such as bánh mì nachos, poke bowl nachos, tikka masala nachos, and more.

“It has always been interesting to me to be able combine all these different things and come up with new things, while making sure to shine a light and be super respectful of the places that they came from,” he says. “I’m not trying to necessarily make nachos ‘better’ in any sense but just more sort of dinner-focused.”

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The clever name didn’t hurt, but it was Whalen’s genius “stroganachos” that made a true believer out of me. Rich and old-fashioned, there’s something about beef stroganoff that signals comfort like nothing else. Combine it with cheesy, crunchy, salty nachos — and you’ve got a guaranteed home run.

I tweaked Whalen’s recipe ever so slightly for the Quick & Dirty version, cooking the mushrooms longer and using his lime crema as both a filling and a topping. Serve these nachos at the dinner table, or eat them under a blanket on the couch. Either way, they’re absolutely perfect.

***

Recipe: Quick & Dirty Sheet Pan Nachos
Inspired by Dan Whalen’s “Stroganachos” from “Nachos for Dinner“

Yields

4 servings

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

15 minutes

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
1 pound sirloin or similar steak, cut into cubes or strips
4 ounces baby bella mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1 lime
1 bag (12 ounces) tortilla chips
8 ounces shredded jack cheese (or your favorite melting cheese)
2 green onions, thinly sliced
Pinch of sea salt

Directions

Step 1

Preheat your broiler to high heat. Meanwhile, over medium heat, melt the butter in a large frying pan.

Step 2

Add all of the chips to a large sheet pan, spreading them out as evenly as possible.

Step 3

In a medium bowl, mix the sour cream with the juice of the lime. Add a pinch of salt. Stir well.

Step 4

Add the mushrooms and sauté until browned, about 5 minutes.

Step 5

Add the steak to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until medium rare, another 4 minutes or so. Turn off the heat and stir in half of the sour cream and lime mixture.

Step 6

Sprinkle half of the shredded cheese over the chips. Evenly add the steak and mushroom mixture, then the other half of the cheese.

Step 7

Broil for 3 to 5 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the chips are just starting to brown. Keep a close eye on the pan.

Step 8

Remove from the oven and top with the rest of the sour cream and lime mixture, plus the green onions. Serve immediately.

Cook’s Notes

If you’re feeling ambitious, “Nachos for Dinner” includes a recipe for homemade fried tortilla chips that are next-level good.

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Can’t afford college? Go work for Dollywood, which is offering the greatest gift of all: tuition

Sure, Biden is doing his part to pause repayments on student loans, but Dolly Parton asks, “What if there were no loans in the first place?”

We can always count on the iconic “I Will Love You” singer to come to offer aid without being asked. Parton, who notably helped fund the Moderna vaccine during COVID’s peak, has a new initiative to make people’s lives easier.

Parton’s theme park, Dollywood, announced Wednesday that it will cover full tuition, fees and book costs for all employees pursuing higher education. The tuition coverage plan, called “Herschend’s GROW U.,” is available to seasonal, part-time and full-time employees on their very first day of work. It will officially launch on Feb. 24.

The reasons for joining our team keep growing!https://t.co/z1r3oftlme https://t.co/zWHVAtSIQQ

— Dollywood Parks & Resorts (@Dollywood) February 9, 2022

“Herschend’s GROW U. is not only a significant and transformational investment in our employee’s growth but also our love culture in action,” said Andrew Wexler, CEO of Herschend Enterprises, in a recent press release.

The plan will offer more than 100 fully funded diploma, degree and certificate programs through Guild’s Learning Marketplace, including business administration and leadership, culinary, finance, technology and marketing. Partial funding of up to $5,250 per year will be provided for additional programs in hospitality, engineering, human resources and art design.

While Parton’s generosity has been proven time and again, this move demonstrates how in tune she is to the difficulties facing would-be students. Most can’t afford the astronomical cost of college, where accruing massive debt on student loans for decades is expected these days, and for new students or those wanting to pivot from their current careers, the cost are often prohibitive.

This isn’t the first time the theme park is giving back to its employees. Dollywood’s detailed “benefits & perks” plan touts complimentary ticket passes, discounted meals, low-cost healthcare and plenty more.

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“Whether it’s to pursue a new dream or advance their career with us, we care about our employees’ personal and professional growth, because we believe that their futures should be grown with love, not loans,” Wexler added. “Our team members’ success is our success – and that’s why we’re thrilled to make this benefit available to all, regardless of their role in the company and without the burden of debt.”

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The revelation of Bob Saget’s cause of death makes his loss all the more painful

In a new statement to Variety on Wednesday, Bob Saget’s family revealed the beloved “Full House” patriarch cause of death, which has answered questions while amplifying his tragic and unexpected loss.

“In the weeks since Bob’s passing, we have been overwhelmed with the incredible outpouring of love from Bob’s fans, which has been a great comfort to us and for which we are eternally grateful,” read the statement. “Now that we have the final conclusions from the authorities’ investigation, we felt it only proper that the fans hear those conclusions directly from us.

“The authorities have determined that Bob passed from head trauma. They have concluded that he accidentally hit the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it and went to sleep. No drugs or alcohol were involved.”

On Jan. 9, officials responded to a man-down call around 4 p.m. and found Saget unresponsive in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Florida. Saget was in the state for a nationwide comedy tour and performed his last stand-up show in Ponte Vedra Beach. He was 65 and pronounced dead at the scene.

At the time, since Saget was not known to be ill, his sudden death was a mystery. Some speculated that substance abuse was a factor.

“As we continue to mourn together, we ask everyone to remember the love and laughter that Bob brought to this world, and the lessons he taught us all: to be kind to everyone, to let the people you love know you love them, and to face difficult times with hugs and laughter,” the statement continued.

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The cause of death is particularly sad and reminiscent of the circumstances of the death of actor Natasha Richardson, who at 45 died from an epidural hemotoma in 2009. After a beginner’s ski session during which she hit her head, she seemed relatively fine but later complained of a headache. She died in the hospital two days after she was admitted. Singer Teena Marie also later had seizures and ultimately died from a picture hitting her head in a hotel room years before.

Saget’s death after what might have seemed to him a minor incident seems particularly senseless. He probably had no idea that he had sustained such a serious injury, and therefore did not know he needed medical attention.

In addition to his starring role on the classic ABC sitcom, Saget was best known for his roles on the 2016 spinoff “Fuller House,” and the sitcoms “How I Met Your Mother” and “Raising Dad.” Saget also performed multiple live comedy shows and was hailed for his memorable hosting gig on “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

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Ron DeSantis has a habit of throwing the term “woke” around — here are some of the silliest examples

For many years, the term “woke” had a very positive connotation in the Black community. But these days, “woke” is often used as a pejorative by the MAGA right — and even some supporters of the Democratic Party, including political strategist James Carville and “Real Time” Host Bill Maher, are critical of what they view as the excesses of modern “woke” culture. Carville and Maher are very specific in their criticisms of contemporary “wokeness,” whereas countless MAGA Republicans toss the word around so casually that it becomes nothing more than dumb, empty, buffoonish rhetoric. One of the worst offenders is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and journalist Abigail Weinberg cites some examples in a cutting article published by Mother Jones on Feb. 9.

“The word that was once a rallying cry for Black Americans to stay alert to racial injustices has been co-opted by the conservative right to denounce any educational, cultural or policy position that attempts to reckon with our nation’s racist history,” Weinberg explains. “People appropriate the language of Black struggle all the time . . . Arguably, no one has done more to dilute the meaning of ‘woke’ than Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.”

Weinberg continues, “When the potential 2024 GOP nominee proposed legislation to ensure that a student ‘not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race,’ he named it The Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act. Get it? ‘Stop W.O.K.E.,’ for short. But that’s hardly the start of it. We dug up some examples of DeSantis’ attempts to label anything that bugs him as ‘woke.’ And, don’t worry, this list is a work in progress.”

No one has done more to dilute the meaning of “woke” than Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. https://t.co/1iJb6jpFiR

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) February 10, 2022

Weinberg goes on to show how silly DeSantis’ constant use of the word “woke” has been, noting that he has applied it to everything from infrastructure to anti-Semitism to big tech. At the Common Sense Society Conference and Gala in January, Weinberg writes, DeSantis railed against “corporate wokeness” and told the crowd, “This wokeness, it’s a religion of the left, and it’s infecting a lot of institutions: big Corporate America, big tech, the bureaucracy, of course academia. It is wokeness, a form of cultural Marxis . . . This wokeness is dangerous, and we’ve got to defeat it on all fronts.”

DeSantis, according to Weinberg, has become so obsessed with “wokeness” that he sees it lurking behind every corner.

“At this hit rate,” Weinberg observes, “Ron DeSantis will have trouble defeating wokeness. To him, it seems to be nearly everything.”

The chardonnay that will convince chardonnay haters

I can’t remember the first time I tried Chardonnay, which I’m sure is due, in part, to the fact that it was so bad I blocked the tasting experience from my memory. Chardonnay is one of the white wine varietals that’s pretty ubiquitous. It’s guaranteed to be one of two, maybe three reliable white wines available at a wedding. It’s a variety that, in a sea of intimidating wine lingo on an extensive drinks menu, is familiar and approachable. At a liquor store three blocks from your college campus, you’ll be hard-pressed to find Sancerre or Txakoli (not a problem for the 19-year-old with a fake I.D. that hasn’t heard of Txakoli), but you’ll have your pick of Chardonnays under $15.

All of this is to say that Chardonnay and I have taken more than a few walks around the block and we never got along. It was easy for me to write off Chardonnay entirely. That is, until I was introduced to unoaked Chardonnay.

The characteristics that I dislike in a glass of Chardonnay — those buttery, oaky, rich vanilla notes — are polarizing. You either love ’em or you hate ’em. If you’re in the anti-buttery camp allow me to offer you a good time with unoaked Chardonnay.

Unoaked vs. oaked chardonnay

If Chardonnay is the popular sorority girl who everyone knows, unoaked Chardonnay is its artsy sister. But what’s the difference between them? Oaked Chardonnay is aged in oak barrels, whereas unoaked Chardonnay is aged in neutral oak barrels or stainless-steel tanks; the type of vessels affects the final flavor. Neutral oak barrels have generally been used three to four times previously, which means the most pronounced oaky flavor is absent, allowing for a leaner tasting wine. “Chardonnay is such a neutral grape, you can pretty much do anything to it to develop the characteristics that you like to drink,” explains Elise Cordell, brand ambassador for Perrier-Jouet.

What this means is that the type of barrel will ultimately determine what the wine will taste like. “Oaked Chardonnays tend to have rich, buttered popcorn flavors, while unoaked Chardonnays tend to be more fruit-forward with flavors of green apple and citrus,” explains Lexi Jones, director of imports for Argaux & Amlière Imports.

Wine regions

As a rule of thumb, expect that Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley and Napa Valley in California, and Burgundy in France will be aged in oak barrels. The northern coast of California, including wine-producing cities like Mendocino, as well as the Champagne and Chablis wine regions of France, tend to favor aging chardonnay in neutral oak or unoaked chardonnay. The latter is a clean, neutral palette, which results in a crisper, fruiter wine, sans “oakiness.” “Chablis, in France, is a great example of a region that typically resorts to stainless steel for aging their Chardonnay. Outside of France, Western Australia also tends to produce great value stainless steel Chardonnays,” says Jones.

Shopping for unoaked chardonnay

Cordell says that U.S.-based wine producers tend to be more transparent when it comes to labeling. You’re more likely to find a California Chardonnay clearly noted as “unoaked” compared to other regions like France. For example, Joel Gott produces a California chardonnay that is unoaked and the label leaves no room for guessing; the description reads “Our Chardonnay is unoaked with tropical fruit flavors, a round mouthfeel, and crisp minerality on the finish.”

“Learn the language of what it is that you prefer,” says Cordell. Descriptors like vanilla, pineapple, baking spice, and butter are clear indications that the wine is oaked; on the other hand, phrases like crisp, citrus fruit and white flowers are likely used to describe unoaked Chardonnay.

My favorite unoaked Chardonnay is Louis Jadot Macon Villages ($14) from Burgandy — “This fresh, brilliant pale-gold Chardonnay shows delicate varietal aromas with flavors of apple and melon offset by citrus notes and a crisp acidic balance ending in a clean, lively finish.” Jones loves the 2019 Domaine De Oliveira Lecestre AC Chablis ($35), which she pairs with Italian Wedding Soup, or the 2019 Vignerons Ardéchois ‘Les Classiques’ Chardonnay ($20) to pair with pad thai

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “Gazpacho police” is very dumb — but we underestimate her at our peril

Poor Marjorie Taylor Greene! Not too long ago, this taxpayer-funded troll knew how capture the news cycle for days with a glib comparison of public health officials to the Nazi brass or a shameless equivalence of COVID-19 mitigation measures to the Holocaust. She regularly drew juicy denunciations from famous Democrats. She even got the Anti-Defamation League and Holocaust Museum involved, which is like winning the troll lottery. But recently, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia has been suffering diminishing returns for her relentless, risible Nazi talk. Why, she went on Infowars last week to compare Dr. Anthony Fauci to Josef Mengele and barely anyone paid attention. To add insult to injury, the decline in attention also means that triggering-the-liberals money is drying up.

Suddenly, in what is truly a tremendous stroke of good luck, Greene mispronounced a word. On Tuesday, during one of her approximately 8 trillion public statements accusing her perceived political opponents of being Nazis, Greene used the word “gazpacho” when she meant “Gestapo.” She was on One America News when she very loudly and unmistakably mispronounced this word, so the moment went unnoticed for about a day. But then, blessed forever by the gods of trolling, Greene got lucky and a never-Trumper group called the Republican Accountability Project tweeted the video out.

“Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress,” squawked Greene in her usual tone of maximized faux-outrage. She was referring to a Capitol Hill controversy involving Republican members of Congress who, for some reason, are extremely sensitive about Capitol police coming into their offices without giving them sufficient time to flush the toilets.

But the context hardly mattered. For liberals on social media, all that mattered was the opportunity to mock her. Each joke was more groan-worthy than the last, all meant to showcase how much smarter we are than the CrossFit fanatic who convinced enough Georgia voters to put her in Congress where she can draw a salary to do nothing but troll the left and fundraise for fascism. Greene was able to collect dunks from all the Democrats her fans hate the most, from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York (who had one of the few actually funny burns) to chef-activist José Andrés (who did not).

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It was a jolly good time for all, especially Greene, who joined in on the fun with a punning tweet: “No soup for those who illegally spy on Members of Congress, but they will be thrown in the goulash.” Why shouldn’t she be happy? She got everything she wants: More attention to her claims of victimhood for the January 6 insurrectionists and their supporters. More people spreading her false accusations that Democrats are fascists. More downplaying of the horrors of the Holocaust. And, to add a cherry on top, more evidence for her supporters that liberals are a bunch of smarmy know-it-alls.

Indeed, it couldn’t have worked out better for Greene than if she had done it on purpose.

In our collective rush to dunk on Greene’s idiocy, progressives are failing to notice that she’s actually an incredibly effective communicator and strategist for the far right. While her liberal detractors are worried about who would get a better grade on an imaginary vocabulary test, Greene is growing her power, pushing the GOP and the nation as a whole closer to her vision — actual fascism, not the “fascism” she’s always accusing her opponents of perpetuating.

Green’s relentless accusations of Nazism are a crude but potent form of propaganda. Call it “projection” or “false equivalence” or “whataboutism,” but it works. Trump, like his hero Vladimir Putin, uses the technique to great effect. It’s the favorite rhetorical technique of Tucker Carlson, the number one cable “news” host on TV. The relentless accusations of fascism aimed at Democrats and public health officials serves to de-fang the term, so when Republicans commit actual acts of fascism, it’s difficult to persuade the people to be as alarmed as they should be. The mainstream media and far too many members of the public shrug it off as “both sides call each other fascists.” As I argued in last week’s Standing Room Only newsletter, “If everyone is a ‘fascist,’ then no one is. It’s the fascist’s way of hiding in plain sight.”

And make no mistake, normalizing fascism — even making it seem cuddly with fun soup puns! — is Greene’s goal. She’s been at the forefront of rewriting the Capitol insurrection as a noble act of patriotism and portraying the people arrested in the attempted coup as “political prisoners.” Indeed, that is part of the argument she’s making in the “gazpacho” video, which now has exponentially more views on it than if she’d pronounced “Gestapo” correctly.

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Greene has been incredibly effective at mainstreaming fascism, and she’s not alone. Just last week, the Republican National Committee, which has previously been a bit antsy about publicly embracing political violence, released a statement declaring the January 6 insurrection to be “legitimate political discourse.” In the face of public outcry, they backtracked a little, adding the clause “that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.” But everyone knows, especially far-right sympathizers like Greene and her fans, that this was insincere ass-covering. If anything, it just fuels the right’s narrative that they are victims of an all-powerful “cancel culture.”

In our collective eagerness to feel smarter than the illiterate D students of the authoritarian right, it’s all too easy for progressives to overlook their strategic cunning. Sure, Greene got made fun of on Twitter. She doesn’t seem to mind, and why should she? Liberals have their jokes, but she and her allies control the GOP — and the GOP controls the Supreme Court and, riding a wave of Democratic voter complacency, they will likely control Congress next year. And they are doing a pretty sterling job at organizing the scheme to steal the White House for Trump in 2024.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is pretty successful for such a dum-dum! Perhaps it would be unwise to continue underestimating her. Progressives and Democrats would do well to pay closer attention to why her dummy dum-dum talk just keeps working out so well for Greene and the authoritarian movement she’s helping Trump lead.

More stories about Marjorie Taylor Greene:

I thought I hated beer until I tried porters

I have never been a beer person. I’ve tried and failed (or, rather, it failed me). I’ve sipped fruity IPAs that are supposed to taste like a dichotomy of bitter sunshine or juicy pineapple mixed with volcanic ash (all I tasted was ash), Oktoberfest beers to get back to my German roots, and light summer ales (or maybe they were lagers . . . what’s the difference anyway?). I all but swore of the category altogether, opting for hard ciders at breweries and literally anything else at a restaurant or cocktail bar.

That is, until a painfully exhausting day when I helped my sister and her husband move into a new apartment. We were bone tired, hungry, dehydrated, and in desperate need of a cold drink. We grabbed lunch at a nearby brewery where I ordered an 8″ cast iron skillet of baked macaroni and cheese and the only hard cider that was on the menu (this is, for the record, my ideal last supper).

“Kelly, do you want to try this porter?” my sister offered.

“You might like it! It’s not bitter,” she added. My fiancé and mother concurred — “you actually would like it,” my mom urged. “I’ve been telling you for years that you’d like porters or stouts,” Evan, my fiancé added.

I pursed my lips, skeptically held out my hand, frowned at the foamy dark liquid set in front of me, and took the smallest sip. I was told I needed to drink more than a ¼ teaspoon of beer in order to taste anything. Fine.

I took a regular-sized sip. And then I tried it again, this time drinking what could only be described as a giant gulp. It was smooth in texture, void of any bitterness or hoppy flavors, and tasted like a mocha milkshake. I polished off not one, but two five-ounce tasting glasses. Porters have made me into a beer believer. Here’s why.

Porters vs. stouts

Even if, like me, you failed every math class since freshman year of high school, you’ve probably heard the phrase “Every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square.” Same goes for porters and stouts: all stouts are porters, but not all porters are stouts. Stouts have been, historically, considered to be a sub-category brew within porters that are darker, stronger, and generally more full-bodied. Both are made with a combination of malts and grains, and may be brewed with other ingredients like oats, lactose (milk sugar), or coconut to give them a more dessert-like finish.

But what do they taste like?

For starters, they don’t taste like pilsners or pale ales. But their appearance can be deceiving. “For some reason, people tend to associate dark beers like porters and stouts with heaviness, high alcohol content, and intensity. But in reality, the porter and stout umbrella offers a wide range of styles from the super “light” bodied and easy drinking dry stouts to the strong, dessert-like “pastry” stouts (and a whole lot in between),” says beer professional Anne Becerra.

Some of the misconceptions are warranted though, says Steve Gonzalez, senior manager of brewing and innovation at Stone Brewing Co. “Just like roasting coffee beans, when you roast malts and grains to get that dark color, the end product will taste more acidic,” he explains. To counteract any bitterness, brewers may use a specific type of less acidic water to enhance the chocolate characteristics found in most malts.

Wait . . . Now I’m hungry

Girl, same. I will always gravitate towards comfort foods like Shepherd’s Pie (kiss me I’m Irish) and the aforementioned, heart-stealing baked mac and cheese. But people like to tend to pair booze with cheese that’s not melted and folded into elbow macaroni, too. If that sounds like you, try a porter with blue cheese. “A full-bodied, bitter roasted stout with funky blue cheese will blow your mind,” says Becerra. Laura Ulrich, a small batch brewer at Stone Brewing Co. agrees: “the beer cuts some of the sharpness of the blue cheese. Gonzalez prefers something like a double- or triple-cream cheese, which is less about contrast and more about complementing the creaminess found in a porter or stout.

The chocolate, caramel notes typically found in most porters and stouts mean that they’ll also go well with any chocolate dessert. Or better yet, have them for dessert on their own. (who am I kidding? I want chocolate cake too.)

Porters and stouts to drink in 2022

Druther’s Brewing Company

Sadly, I cannot remember the specific porter I tasted (those two, five-ounce tasting glasses really clouded my memory), but I can thank Druther’s in Albany for my newfound love of beer. Looks like you can try their Imperial Raspberry Porter, which is probably delicious if chocolate and fruit combos are your thing (I once thought it wasn’t mine, but Druther’s has already proved me wrong once before). The other dark brew that is really calling my name is an Oatmeal Stout, which they describe as a “rich, malty ale” with “flavors reminiscent of cocoa and coffee.” Now someone just needs to teach me how to do a keg stand and we’ll be in business. I reached out to some other beer pros for their favorite porters and stouts. Here’s what they had to say:

Dieu Du Ciel Péché Mortel

“I’m a huge coffee lover and this was almost like drinking the best iced espresso I’ve ever had, but with a kick. Even if people don’t think they like beer, if they drink coffee or enjoy good dark chocolate, a well-made stout or porter could very well hit that same spot.” — Beer professional Anne Becerra

Black Is Beautiful

“This is an Imperial Stout that tastes like coffee, toffee, and roasted malts. It was partially bourbon barrel-aged, so that’s where you get those toffee and caramel flavors.” — Steve Gonzalez, senior manager of brewing and innovation at Stone Brewing Co.

Stone Xocoveza Tres Leches

“This Mocha-style stout has vanilla, cinnamon, and a touch of cayenne. It’s full of spices and extremely decadent. It’s exactly what you want to warm you up from the inside out.” — Laura Ulrich, small batch brewer at Stone Brewing Co.

Trump’s White House toilet was repeatedly “clogged” with documents: Maggie Haberman book

White House staff repeatedly found “wads of printed paper” clogging former President Donald Trump’s toilet in his residence, raising suspicions that Trump had flushed documents, according to a new book from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.

Trump, who reportedly had a habit of tearing up documents and failing to follow federal document preservation laws, needed a repairman on more than one occasion to fix his bathroom plumbing, according to Haberman’s upcoming book “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” which was recently excerpted by Axios.

Staff at the “White House residence would periodically find the toilet clogged,” Haberman told CNN on Thursday. “The engineer would have to come and fix it, and what the engineer would find would be wads of, you know, clumped up printed wet paper.”

Haberman stressed that this was “not toilet paper.”

“This was either notes or some other piece of paper that they believe he had thrown down the toilet. What it could be, Brianna, it could be anybody’s guess,” she told host Brianna Keilar. “It could be Post-Its, it could be notes he wrote to himself, it could be other things, we don’t know. But it certainly does add … another dimension to what we know about how he handled material in the White House.”

Haberman said she is not sure how many times the toilet was clogged but “it was not just once.”

Trump denied the report in a statement on Thursday morning.

“Another fake story, that I flushed papers and documents down a White House toilet, is categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book,” he said.

Trump himself extensively spoke to Haberman for the book, according to Axios, which described his “marathon sessions” with authors whose reporting he later denied.

Bloomberg White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs backed up Haberman’s account as “100% accurate.”

“Staff did find clumped/torn/shredded papers and fished them out from blocked bathroom toilet — and believed it had been the president’s doing, sources told me at the time,” she said on Twitter.

Many social media users jokingly linked the new report to Trump’s frequent complaints about plumbing.

“Now we know why he was so angry and obsessed with low flush toilets,” tweeted Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte.

“People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once,” Trump complained while still in office.

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The report raises further questions about the handling of sensitive materials in the Trump White House.

Trump repeatedly tore up documents that had to be taped back together. The National Archives and Records Administration has said that some documents turned over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot had to be reconstructed. Archives officials also had to recover 15 boxes of White House documents that had been improperly brought to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to the New York Times. Officials believe those boxes contained classified documents. The Mar-a-Lago trove included letters from world leaders, including those Trump once described as “love letters” from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and gifts and mementos that are property of the federal government under the Presidential Records Act. The boxes also included Trump’s infamous Hurricane Dorian map, on which he used a black Sharpie to draw his own hurricane track in order to back up his incorrect claim that the storm was headed for Alabama.

Trump claimed in a statement that the report was “fake news” and that the papers were turned over to the Archives “easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis.”

“In actuality, I have been told I was under no obligation to give this material based on various legal rulings that have been made over the years,” he claimed.

But National Archives officials believe Trump may have violated the Presidential Records Act, and have asked the Justice Department to investigate the former president for a possible crime, according to the Washington Post. The Archives said in a statement that Trump’s team is still “continuing to search” for additional records.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly maligned former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for using a private email server in office, calling her unfit to be president because of her “extremely careless” handling of “very sensitive, highly classified information.”

Not only did Trump improperly remove potentially classified documents from the White House, according to reports, but his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, both used personal email for White House business while serving as his top advisers.

Anne Weismann, the longtime chief counsel for Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, told the Post that Trump “clearly violated the records act in multiple ways, and that — even if the statute was essentially not enforceable — the Justice Department should still investigate.”

Weismann added that if the Justice Department doesn’t investigate, “given how flagrant these violations appear to be, it would basically be saying there is no accountability under the statute.”

The House Oversight Committee on Thursday launched its own investigation into the documents taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said in a letter to National Archives chief David Ferriero that she is “deeply concerned that these records were not provided to NARA promptly at the end of the Trump administration and that they appear to have been removed from the White House in violation of the Presidential Records Act.”

“I am also concerned by recent reports that while in office, President Trump repeatedly attempted to destroy presidential records, which could constitute additional serious violations of the PRA,” Maloney wrote. “Former President Trump and his senior advisors must also be held accountable for any violation of the law,” she added. “Republicans in Congress obsessively investigated former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton for her use of a private email server for official communications. Former President Trump’s conduct, in contrast, involves a former president potentially violating a criminal law.”

Read more on the Trump White House records:

Chaos reigns: A Cold War déjà-vu crisis, and a press corps too dumb to understand it

If you’re sensing a bit of déjà vu, just remember David Byrne’s 1980s classic and realize that what you think may be “Once in a Lifetime” is actually the same as it ever was.

It appears, at least in Eastern Europe, that the world is reliving a Cold War scenario; a rerun, or at the very least a reboot.

Russia’s unsympathetic autocrat, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer who likes to ride horses shirtless for reasons that defy explanation — unless he wants to be in a Randy Rainbow parody — may or may not be threatening to invade Ukraine (depending on who you choose to believe). This ratcheting-up of tensions in Europe is fast approaching those experienced during the Cuban Missile crisis — at least among many living in Europe and some politicians in the U.S. who are aware of what the threat portends.

The Republican Party, however, with the exception of Russia-hater Mitch McConnell, is probably ready to call it something else: Legitimate political discourse.

In censuring Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for participating in the House inquiry into an actual attempt to overthrow our government, the former party of Abraham Lincoln, on the eve of his 213th birthday, has proven that its leading lights are not his political descendants, nor those of Teddy Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower. Twisting the ideals and goals of those who fought to preserve the Union, trust-busted or led American troops in Europe during World War II, the current iteration of the GOP is ready to destroy it all for the sake of racism, religion and authoritarianism — all while claiming to support democracy.

This happy group of warriors is convinced Joe Biden is responsible for a pandemic they think doesn’t exist, while Donald Trump is responsible for vaccines they won’t take and don’t need. They are racists, delusional tyrants who wish to rule by fiat and want a nation of Christian subjugation dedicated to the violent overthrow of “the government of the people.” They are dedicated to lunacy and oblivious of history and science. Many of them happily embrace conspiracies that suspiciously sound like they were spawned by tainted hallucinogens.

I witnessed the Jan. 6 insurrection. I know people who, because they were reporters, got sucker-punched by those people the RNC defends. I saw a crowd beating police officers. I saw the Confederate flag paraded through the halls of our Capitol. Cops got doused with bear spray. Pipe bombs were found planted in the area. Someone defecated in the Capitol and spread it through the halls. The insurrectionists stole government property. They built a scaffold and threatened to hang the vice president.

And those who insult the legacy of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Eisenhower by calling themselves Republicans began their censure of Cheney and Kinzinger last week with these words:

WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse …

Lincoln, a Kentucky-born country boy, gave his last full measure of life defending the Union and trying to bind the wounds that tore us apart. The current blathering idiots who claim to be members of his political party and bathe themselves in red are ignorant of what the original Republicans stood for and are eagerly stoking the fires to tear the country asunder.

McConnell, the Senate Republicans’ leader, proved on Tuesday that he has at least one foot in reality. “It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next. That’s what it was,” he said regarding the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

He also called into question “singling out members of our party who may have different views from the majority. That’s not the job of the RNC,” he added.

That’s critical in understanding the stance of today’s Republican Party. It consists of a solid bloc, a minority of intransigent, predominantly white and mostly older voters who will allow almost no variety of opinions. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa told us Tuesday that he likes to think of the Republican Party as a “big tent,” but that tent is only big enough to house those who think alike. The strength in that is the ability to guide the party through rough waters with an ease that can’t be done with a big tent of moderates, conservatives and progressives, such as the Democratic Party. Never underestimate the ability of a large number of stupid people working in unison — to paraphrase someone wiser than myself. That’s the Republican Party.

It is interesting to see a “Once in a Lifetime” crack in the solidarity of the repugnant Republicans — especially on an issue as important as the insurrection. Perhaps McConnell is trying to bring people like Joe Walsh and George Conway, who’ve broken ranks with the party, back into the fold. Maybe he’ll be successful. It would take a lot more to make that happen, at least according to those who’ve lost faith in the party of Lincoln.

It is increasingly apparent that many of us in the press don’t get this. We don’t understand the historic perspective of the times we live in. We don’t get the sense of déjà vu others feel. On Monday, with 57 reporters in the White House briefing room, a young reporter asked press secretary Jen Psaki about troop commitments in Europe:

Question: The secretary-general of NATO has recently talked about the possibility of a more permanent military presence in Europe in response to Russia. Where does the Biden administration stand on that issue?

Psaki: We’ve had a permanent military presence in Europe.

Yeah. We have. At least since the end of World War II. But some reporters apparently don’t understand our position in the world, the déjà vu of our problems in Europe or the real problems inside our country.

So while the country is facing a chorus of “same as it ever was,” the press today is younger, less informed and far more ignorant of events than in previous years. As a result — and here’s one thing that isn’t the same as it ever was — the president is treating the press corps like a high school study hall of reprobates who are failing history. There’s no déjà vu there. This is an invention of the Biden administration in response to an extremely young and often ignorant press corps. Some of the reporters are so green they smile when administration staffers call us “friends,” never realizing how condescending that is.

As a result, the rest of us are less likely to see the news for what it is — and for what it isn’t. Domestically, the Republican Party, or the “MAGA party,” as Trump is now calling it, is a cancer threatening to destroy what remains of the nation that led the world to the moon, invented the computer chip, pioneered free speech and was founded on the idea that a democratic majority rules.

Donald Trump considered seizing voting machines, said he would pardon the convicted Jan. 6 rioters, and tried, in his uniquely cowardly fashion, to overturn the 2020 election.

In response, the Republican National Committee officially sanctioned the only two Republican House members willing to participate in the investigation of that insurrection.

There is no reasoning with the unreasonable, and as violence is indeed the last refuge of the incompetent (thank you, Isaac Asimov), the question remains: What can we do about this?

Internationally, the Biden administration faces a scenario straight out of the Cold War: Trying to deal with a Russian autocrat who desperately wants to gather Ukraine back into the Russian fold. It is no secret Putin would love to rebuild the Soviet (or even the czarist) empire, and recapturing Ukraine would be a big step in that process.

Putin has reached out to China as an ally against NATO and the United States. The U.S. is relying on Germany, Britain, Europe and the rest of the world to assist with economic sanctions that would choke Russia should Putin decide to move forward with an invasion.

This is serious, dangerous territory — and though it seems like déjà vu all over again, there is no guarantee that we will get the same results we did when we faced similar crises during the Cold War.

On the world stage, the dynamics are not necessarily the same. Biden hosted the new German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, at the White House this week, trying to keep him on board with severe sanctions against Russia — including shutting down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline — if Putin actually invades Ukraine. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron tried a diplomatic shuttle between Moscow and Kyiv, trying to get Putin to back down. It remains to be seen if any of this worked.

The concern worldwide is that an escalation in Ukraine could quickly get out of hand, leading to “legitimate political discourse” that could threaten the existence of all life on the planet.

But for some Republicans, that would apparently be just fine.

They’re too blind to see or handle any serious issues involving the country at large. They are more concerned about their party, their jobs and their influence over those who give them money to realize the danger they put us all in with their treasonous behavior.

And since Donald Trump entered the political arena, it has been the “same as it ever was.”

Read more from Brian Karem on the conundrums of the Biden White House:

The Lord God bird and dozens of other species declared extinct in 2021

On Sept. 29, 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its intention to remove 23 long-unseen species from the protection of the Endangered Species Act — because they’ve probably gone extinct, and you can’t keep protecting what’s already gone.

Among the proposed dead: the ivory-billed woodpecker, an iconic lost species often referred to as “the Lord God bird,” supposedly based on the words of wonder people once exclaimed upon seeing the magnificent creature flying above them.

The news set off a firestorm of media coverage and social-media shares.

The similar extinction of a frog from Kenya did not. Nor did that of a lichen from Florida, a dragonfly from the South Atlantic or a fish from Maryland.

And that’s all too typical of the extinction crisis, which United Nations scientists predict could cost the planet up to a million species this century — most of which will disappear in silence, unnoticed, unremarked upon, even as the web of life that supports humans on this planet continues to unravel.

Yet the stories of these losses deserve telling. They help motivate efforts to save what still exists, allow us to reflect on our place in and on this world, and — especially in this age of pandemics — remind us that our ecological fates are all interconnected.

Here, briefly, are dozens of these stories — of the birds, reptiles, invertebrates, trees and other species declared extinct in 2021, pulling from scientific reports, the IUCN Red List, news articles and my own reporting. As with my lists of extinctions from 2019 and 2020, most of these lost species haven’t been seen in decades. Many may still be the subject of later searches, because proving an extinction is always hard, and hope remains eternal.

And of course, all these disappearances can be linked to human activities — a reminder of the effect we have around us.

The Lord God bird and 22 other American species — These birds, mussels, fish and other long-unseen species from the contiguous United States, Hawai’i and Guam disappeared due to human activity, ranging from habitat destruction to pollution and the introduction of nonnative species. Most hadn’t been seen in decades; all were added to the endangered species list too late to save them.

Bachman’s warbler
Bridled white-eye
Flat pigtoe mussel
Green-blossom pearly mussel
Ivory-billed woodpecker
Kauai akialoa
Kauai nukupuu
Kauaʻi ʻōʻō
Large Kauai thrush
Little Mariana fruit bat
Maui ākepa
Maui nukupuʻu
Molokai creeper
Phyllostegia glabra var. lanaiensis
Po`ouli
San Marcos gambusia
Scioto madtom
Southern acornshell mussel
Stirrupshell mussel
Tubercled-blossom pearly mussel
Turgid-blossom pearly mussel
Upland combshell mussel
Yellow-blossom pearly mussel

Maryland darter — This 3-inch fish hasn’t been seen since 1988, despite intense searches for any evidence of its continued existence. As with the ivory-billed woodpecker, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now preparing to declare it extinct.

Norwegian wolf — Hunters and agriculture killed off the last wolves in Norway and Sweden more than 50 years ago. They were never a separate species, but research published this past year found that the wolves in these two countries were genetically distinct from the animals in nearby Finland, which have since partially repopulated their cousins’ home territory.

Half the snakes and lizards of the Guadalupe Islands — Two papers published last year identified at least 31 species (which people had forgotten even existed) that disappeared after the 1492 colonization of the islands. Introduced species such as cats and rats, along with intense transformation of the landscape by humans, appears to be to blame.

13 Australian species — This list of 12 mammals and one reptile (the Christmas Island forest skink) contains no real surprises. The species had all been declared extinct already, but the Australian government acknowledged their loss this past year and formally added them to its list of the country’s extinctions.

Eungella gastric-brooding frog — This Australian frog may be the latest victim of the amphibian-killing chytrid fungus. A last-ditch search this past year failed to find any individual frogs, and although the species hasn’t yet been formally declared extinct, things don’t look good. On the other hand, the researchers did observe three other critically endangered species in the same habitats, and they now have a chance at protection.

Epactoides giganteus — This dung beetle was newly described in 2021, based on a specimen collected on either Réunion Island or Madagascar in the 19th century and unseen since. Wherever it came from, it’s probably no longer there.

Gongylomorphus borbonicus — Another Réunion species, in this case a skink not seen since 1839, shortly after the accidental introduction to the island of the lizard-eating Southeast Asian wolf snake. The IUCN formally declared it extinct this past year.

Java stingaree — This Indonesian ray was only observed once, back in 1862. As part of an assessment finding that more than one-third of sharks and related species are now threatened, scientists have classified it as “critically endangered (possibly extinct)” due to overfishing. It joins the previously reported “lost shark” and the Red Sea torpedo in that category.

Xerces blue butterfly — No surprise here, as the striking butterfly was last seen in the 1940s and has long been considered the first North American insect driven to extinction by human activities (in this case urban development). But new genetic analysis of remaining specimens finally concluded that the Xerces blue was a unique species, not a subpopulation of another butterfly, as some had previously thought, making that extinction even more notable.

Carolina parakeet — Again, no surprise, as this bird was declared extinct in 1939 after decades of hunting for its feathers and to protect crops. But new models suggest that the parakeet actually went extinct twice, with the western subspecies disappearing around 1914 and the eastern subspecies persisting as late as the mid-1940s. Why does that matter now? As researchers wrote, “Since the Carolina parakeet was a wide-ranging species that went extinct during a period of rapid agricultural and industrial expansion, conditions that mirror those occurring in many parts of the world where parrot diversity is highest, any progress we make in unraveling the mystery of their disappearance may be vital to modern conservation efforts.”

Four Czech orchids — A thorough assessment of the orchids found in the Czech Republic classified four species as extinct: Dactylorhiza curvifolia, Gymnadenia odoratissima, Anacamptis coriophora and Herminium monorchis (some of these still exist in other nations). Agriculture, livestock and pollution get the blame for the disappearance of these plants in the country — and the remaining orchid species there aren’t doing too well, either.

Cora timucua — This Florida lichen was identified this past year, after sitting in historical collections for decades. The fungus was last collected in 1985 and most of its known habitats have been converted from their natural states. Researchers call this species “potentially extinct” and say it could still exist in Ocala National Forest, “although recent macrolichen surveys in that area did not encounter this species.”

Du Toit’s torrent frog — Last seen on Kenya’s Mount Elgon in 1962, this evolutionarily unique frog was part of a group of species that split off from other amphibians 70 million years ago. More recently, its habitat was destroyed by logging and agriculture. Intense searches have failed to find evidence that the frog still exists, and a paper published in 2021 concluded it’s probably extinct. “It’s not just losing a species, it is losing a distinctive branch of the evolutionary tree,” said coauthor Simon Loader of the Natural History Museum, London.

Arachis rigonii — No one has seen this yellow-flowering South American legume — a relative of the peanut and nutmeg — in the wild since 1959, and they likely won’t see it again. It only grew in one location, which is now “in one of the most populated cities of Bolivia,” according to the IUCN, which declared it “extinct in the wild” in 2021.

Rodrigues blue-dotted day gecko — Native to the island nation of Mauritius — famously also home to the dodo — this once-common reptile hasn’t been seen in more than 100 years. The IUCN declared it extinct this past year, blaming its disappearance on invasive rats, and possibly on the cats brought to the island to control the rats. Deforestation also likely played a role in this extinction.

Bois Julien — Also from Mauritius, this tree isn’t technically extinct, but you can’t get much closer to gone. One wild specimen remains, fenced in on private property, “but it is not producing viable fruits,” according to the IUCN, which declared the species “extinct in the wild” last year. Several nonfruiting clones also exist, but the likelihood of propagation or rewilding seems slim.

Myoporum rimatarense — This tree from French Polynesia was only collected once, back in 1921, and extensive plant surveys have failed to find another. The IUCN declared it extinct this past year, blaming habitat destruction and logging for its loss.

Bourreria veracruzana — No one has seen this Mexican tree since 1984. The IUCN declared it extinct in 2021, blaming habitat degradation “by agro-industry farming and agro-industry-ranching.”

Tetramolopium lepidotum arbusculum — This Hawaiian plant, part of the daisy family, once grew on the island of Maui. Last seen in 1842, the IUCN assessed it as extinct this past year, blaming “severe decline in habitat due to the impacts of invasive plants and animals.”

Boesenbergia albolutea and Boesenbergia rubrolutea — Neither of these plants (ginger relatives native, respectively, to the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean and northeastern India) have been seen since the late 19th century. A paper published last year recommended classifying them each as “extinct in the wild,” although they remain unseen. The IUCN currently lists B. albolutea as “data deficient” but does not have a listing for B. rubrolutea.

St. Helena darter — This dragonfly, native to the South Atlantic volcanic island for which it’s named, was last seen in 1963, when a single female was collected. The species was assessed as extinct in 1986, then listed by the IUCN as “data deficient” in 2011, and then “critically endangered (possibly extinct)” in 2019. Last year it was reassessed again, removing the “possibly” from the equation — although the invasive frogs that killed it off appear to be doing just fine.

Licaria mexicana — An evergreen tree from Hidalgo and Veracruz, Mexico, last seen around 1930 and unlikely to persist “as a result of forest clearance in the area and habitat completely destroyed where it was known from,” according to the IUCN.

Gallirallus astolfoi — Scientists described this rail, a type of bird, in a paper published Dec. 20, making it the last reported extinction of 2021. This potentially flightless bird from the island of Rapa Iti in the South Pacific is known only from a single leg bone, although that was enough to declare it a “new” species — the seventh extinct rail species from French Polynesia. This one probably went extinct hundreds of years ago after humans colonized the island. Other extinctions on Rapa Iti have been blamed on predation by people and feral goats, as well as rats and cats, along with habitat destruction. Exactly how this species disappeared remains a mystery.

“Karma” bites GOP in N.Y.: Republicans whine after Dem gerrymander may flip three seats

After years of unilaterally drawing Democrats out of their seats, Republicans are suddenly shocked and outraged by partisan gerrymandering now that New York’s state legislature has approved a new congressional map, which is expected to give Democrats an advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional seats.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last week signed into law a new congressional map that could net Democrats an additional three congressional seats, while costing the Republicans four — since New York lost a seat as a result of the 2020 census. The map is one of the most aggressive gerrymanders of the cycle, which Democrats hope will help offset expected Republican gains in states like Texas, Florida and Georgia. Redistricting analyst Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report said the New York map was “probably the biggest shift in the country,” giving national Democrats their first redistricting edge over the GOP this cycle. Though Republicans were expected to extend their redistricting advantage after an ultra-aggressive 2010-11 cycle, the New York map is “so skewed toward Democrats that it could single-handedly change that,” wrote FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich.

The new map would make it far more difficult for two New York Republican incumbents, Reps. Nicole Malliotakis and Claudia Tenney, to win re-election this year after their districts were redrawn to include more Democratic-leaning areas. Malliotakis, whose current district largely consists of Staten Island, by far the most Republican borough of New York City, accused Democrats of ignoring the “will of the people” and trying to “take away the voice” of conservatives in her district.

Democrats extended Malliotakis’ district into more Democratic areas of Brooklyn, where former Mayor Bill de Blasio is now considering a congressional bid. Meanwhile, Tenney’s upstate seat was effectively eliminated and broken up into several neighboring districts, forcing her to run for a different seat. The new map will also pack more Republicans into a Long Island district represented by Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., making the other three districts on Long Island districts predominantly Democratic.

Republicans have also criticized the new S-shaped boundary of longtime Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler’s district, which stretches 15 miles through two boroughs, 15 State Assembly districts and New York Harbor — labeling it a “jerrymander.” Although Nadler, a 15-term incumbent, faces no realistic threat in his re-election campaign, his redrawn district shores up neighboring seats for other Democrats. Nadler disputes that the district was changed drastically, saying it has had similar boundaries for years.

Democrats rejected the Republican complaints. State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris told Salon that the New York map is an “un-gerrymander.”

“We’re taking a map that over decades has been gerrymandered to benefit Republicans and make it fair,” he said in an interview. “That doesn’t make it a gerrymander, that just makes it fair. So we can’t compare this to what currently exists because that is the result of built-in unfairness.”

Gianaris, who has slammed Republican gerrymandering in the past, disputed that the map was unfairly skewed toward Democrats, arguing that the map complies with constitutional requirements and that “voters have a way of making their own decisions” of who will represent them.

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Redistricting, particularly when conducted by state legislatures, has long been criticized for allowing lawmakers to choose their voters instead of the other way around. In this case, some Democrats wanted the New York legislature to go even further. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, pushed for the Democratic-dominated legislature to draw a map giving Democrats 23 seats. The map they drew is likely to give their party a pronounced advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 districts, which would effectively give 84% of the seats in a state President Biden carried with 61% of the vote.

“It’s a very carefully constructed aggressive gerrymander and clearly is designed to take out a number of Republican incumbents,” said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. “But it’s also very carefully designed to give Democrats arguments in defending it.”

Nick Langworthy, chair of the New York Republican Party, called the new map “textbook filthy, partisan gerrymandering.”

“These maps are the most brazen and outrageous attempt at rigging the election to keep Nancy Pelosi as speaker,” he said in a statement. “Voters spoke loud and clear in rejecting their partisan power grab last year and in 2014, but Democrats are circumventing the will of the people. They can’t win on the merits so they’re trying to win the election in a smoke-filled room rather than a ballot box.”

For Republicans to complain about partisan gerrymandering is “certainly rich,” said David Daley, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan voting advocacy group FairVote and the author of “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count,” who has written extensively about Republican gerrymanders. If Republicans were concerned about fair maps, he said in an interview, they should have supported the ban on partisan gerrymandering in the Democrats’ Freedom to Vote Act.

“All of those Republicans who would like to decry partisan gerrymandering, I didn’t see many of them vote to put an end to it when they had the opportunity,” Daley said. “If Republicans wanted to put an end to this,” it would only have taken two U.S. senators to enact that bill, “and that didn’t happen.”

After Democrats spent years fighting against partisan gerrymanders, Daley said, the aggressive New York map is the result of an “inevitable arms race” caused by aggressive Republican gerrymanders over the last decade that have tilted state legislatures and congressional delegations to their advantage.

“Democrats have worked, I think, honestly and honorably to try to defuse this arms race,” he said. “This case is the inevitable result of a decade of Republican cheating and unfair play,” he added.

Li agreed that the New York map was effectively “karma” for Republicans, who have pushed partisan gerrymanders for decades. The Republican position is a major turnaround from where the party stood in the 1980s and ’90s, when Democrats had controlled the House for most of the preceding four decades. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., now the Senate minority leader, and other Republicans backed a bill in 1989 that would have outlawed partisan gerrymandering. But a new breed of Republicans took over the House in the ’90s and increasingly began to focus on aggressive redistricting to shift the balance of power. After Barack Obama’s election, Republicans used a wave of victories in state legislative races to carve up congressional and legislative maps to give themselves disproportionate power.

Outlawing partisan gerrymandering was “a good idea when Mitch McConnell was proposing it,” said Li. “It is a good idea when Nancy Pelosi is proposing it.”

If Republicans had supported the Freedom to Vote Act, New York’s map would have been immediately struck down by the courts.

“It’s amazing to me that some of the Republicans who have been jumping up and down crying foul actually could have done something about it by voting for the Freedom to Vote Act,” Li said. “But you got no Republican votes in either house.”

The new map was drawn by New York’s legislature, where Democrats hold supermajorities in both chambers, after the failure of a bipartisan redistricting commission approved by voters in 2014. Unlike other states that have created independent commissions to draw new maps, the New York commission only has the power to make non-binding recommendations to the state legislature, which can draw its own maps if it twice rejects the commission’s proposals. The supposedly bipartisan commission quickly grew overtly partisan, with Democratic and Republican members recommending different maps that were both voted down by the legislature. The commission did not even submit any maps during the second round, with both sides accusing the other of acting in bad faith. Democratic leaders then rushed out their maps without public hearings and with only days notice to members.

New York’s foray into redistricting reform failed because the commission members were appointed by lawmakers, which inevitably injects politics into the process, Li said.

“States that created a truly independent process, like Michigan and Colorado and California, have good maps, both from the standpoint of partisan fairness but also from the standpoint of racial fairness,” he said. “I think that in some ways the system in New York was designed to default to the legislature,” he added.

Daley agreed: “It’s pretty clear that New York Democrats never had any intention of making that commission work.”

“They had pretty clear designs all along on forcing that commission into deadlock and pushing the maps into the legislature,” he said. “You can argue fairly and honestly that the Democratic lawmakers in New York abused the spirit of the independent commission approved by voters in almost the exact same way that Republicans did in Ohio.”

It remains to be seen whether courts will uphold the new map. The Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that federal courts had no jurisdiction over partisan gerrymanders, leaving such litigation to state courts. State courts in North Carolina and Ohio have already struck down Republican-drawn maps because they were blatantly partisan.

This time the shoe is on the other foot, with a Republican-led lawsuit challenging the New York districts as unconstitutional. The lawsuit claims that Democrats “brazenly enacted a congressional map that is undeniably politically gerrymandered in their party’s favor” and asks a state court to throw out the map because it is an “an obviously unconstitutional partisan and incumbent-protection gerrymander.”

The New York constitution differs from those in Ohio and North Carolina, however, which have more specific criteria for district maps.

“The simple fact that a map is biased is not enough to strike it down” in New York, Li said, noting that the plaintiffs would have to show that the result was intentional. Democrats have sought to preempt those arguments by rolling out a long memo ahead of the map vote detailing neutral reasons for the district boundaries.

New York courts are also different, and no legislative redistricting plan has been rejected in the Empire State in more than 50 years, said Jeff Wice, a law professor and senior fellow of the New York Census and Redistricting Institute at New York Law School.

“The plaintiffs in the lawsuit started out with an uphill battle and have to prove that the plan violated the state constitution beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. “And then, if they can reach that bar, they have to show the legislature acted in bad faith. So it’s difficult.”

Wice noted that the state legislature can argue that it met population equality requirements and other criteria relating to keeping together “communities of interest” as justification for the partisan outcome.

Li said it will be hard to justify some of the boundaries, such as in Malliotakis’ carved-up New York City district, but Democrats drew the lines knowing the criteria they needed to meet, and it’s not likely a court can resolve the suit before party primaries begin in March.

Gianaris, the gerrymander-hater-turned-gerrymander-defender, said that Democrats consulted with lawyers at every step of the process to ensure that they complied with state law.

“I believe that everything we have done is in strict compliance with the legal requirements,” he said. “Our lawyers believe that we’ve been very careful. Every district we’ve drawn has a reason it was drawn the way it was, based on the law, and I’m confident that the courts will find that as well.”

Read more on redistricting and gerrymandering:

How Kellyanne Conway spun Trump’s past to work for a right-wing evangelical audience

The new book by New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters goes all the way back to the early days of President Donald Trump’s foray into politics and how he was able to capture a Republican Party divided by their 2012 election failure.

“Insurgency” talks about how 2012 impacted Kellyanne Conway’s way of spinning issues and the way that she was able to move Trump’s history in the Democratic Party to appeal to the far-right base of the GOP.

“Compounding his difficulties with the religious right, Trump didn’t know how to speak their language,” the book said. “When he addressed more socially conservative audiences, aides often took extra care reminding him to be on his best behavior. ‘No cursing . . . The local press will not cover cursing favorably.'”

When it comes to Trump’s stance on abortion, Conway was able to help him shift the conversation to make it seem empathetic, a tactic she uses with her male candidates.

“As a way of making their opposition to abortion sound less judgmental and uncompassionate, Conway counseled them to talk about a personal experience — for instance, seeing the ultrasound of their unborn child for the first time. For years, Trump had been telling the story of ‘a friend’ whose wife he said had become unexpectedly pregnant. The couple was leaning toward an abortion but then changed their minds and ended up with a beautiful, talented child, Trump would say.”

The problem, the book said, is that everyone assumed that Trump was talking about himself and one of his three marriages. There was then the matter of Trump’s sister, a judge, he said he would appoint to the Supreme Court. She, too, is pro-choice.

After the post-mortem of the 2012 loss, Republicans said that they needed to be more moderate, but conservative Christians wanted the GOP to take a turn to the right. So, that’s the route he took.

Peters’ book “Insurgency” is on sale now.

Will Madison Cawthorn be barred from Congress? N.C. election board says maybe

Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., the freshman firebrand who has vociferously backed Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, might face a formal bar from seeking re-election to Congress over his apparent role in fanning the flames of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which put his own congressional colleagues in peril.

On Monday, the North Carolina State Board of Elections argued that it has the power to disqualify Cawthorn’s candidacy, an assertion that came in direct response to the lawmaker’s challenge against his potential ouster.

In two court filings in federal court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, state attorneys called the congressman’s arguments “dubious,” adding that the “burden” Cawthorn claimed was “outweighed by the interest of the state and its people.”

In January, a coalition of North Carolina voters petitioned the state election board to invalidate Cawthorn’s candidacy over his apparent role in stoking the Capitol riot. The group invoked the “disqualification clause” in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads, in part:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same …

Last week, Cawthorn waged a legal offensive against his potential disqualification, suing the above-mentioned voters and asking a federal judge to dismiss their complaint.

“The undemocratic scheme contained in the North Carolina Challenge provisions supplants voters for state bureaucrats who will determine who can represent the People,” Cawthorn’s lawyers said in a court filing last week. “This is fundamentally anti-democratic and contrary to the public interest.”

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Now the board is asking for Cawthorn’s suit to be dismissed, writing that “states have long enforced age and residency requirements, without question and with very few if any legal challenges. …The State has the same authority to police which candidates should or should not be disqualified per Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Cawthorn may be in more jeopardy than most other Republican members of Congress when it comes to the period just before and after the Capitol assault. In December, just weeks before the insurrection, Cawthorn encouraged his followers to “lightly threaten” their representatives, instructing voters to say, “If you don’t support election integrity, I’m coming after you.”

During the “Stop the Steal” rally, which presaged the riot, the lawmaker blasted certain Republicans for “not fighting” hard enough against Biden’s electoral victory, calling Republican detractors “cowards.” He initially appeared elated when rioters breached the House chamber and began vandalizing it, writing on Twitter: “The battle is on the house floor, not in the streets of D.C.”

Read more on the gentleman from North Carolina:

As states drop school mask mandates, health experts clash on whether it’s too soon

As U.S. omicron case numbers drop from their January peak, some states with in-person instruction have started to drop their mask mandates for schools.

Yet not all are in agreement that masks should be unilaterally discarded in school settings. Indeed, the widespread move away from masking in schools has sparked debates among public health experts, teachers, and parents alike.

News about removing mask mandates made headlines this week when governors of four states — Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon — announced plans Monday to lift statewide mask requirements in schools by the end of February or March. Meanwhile, in Illinois, Chicago-area school districts are removing mask mandates in the wake of an Illinois judge’s decision to temporarily prevent Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s school mask mandate; various schools and parents in the area spoke out against it. The state of California announced plans to end its indoor masking requirement for vaccinated people next week, but children in school will still be required to wear masks.

On Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that universal mask-wearing in schools “still remains our recommendation.”

”The guidance is very clear, which is that we recommend masking in schools. That is the recommendation from the CDC,” Psaki said, referring to the guidance urging universal masking in schools over the age of 2, regardless of vaccination status. “It is also true that at some point when the science and the data warrants, of course, our hope is that that’s no longer the recommendation — and they are continually assessing that.”

Psaki added: “It’s always been up to school districts. That’s always been our point of view and always been our policy from here.”

Are schools ready to go without masks? Infectious disease experts seem somewhat torn on the matter, which compounds the confusion over the issue. Most, but not all, of those with whom Salon spoke felt it was too soon.

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Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, tells Salon he is concerned that prematurely lifting mask mandates in schools could potentially prolong the phase of the pandemic where COVID-19 transitions from being in pandemic-mode to becoming an endemic disease.

“Generally speaking, I think we ought to try to transition from pandemic mode to endemic carefully and slowly, and I think we ought to look at the data and see that there is a sustained downturn in the number of cases, proportion of tests that are positive, hospital admissions and deaths,” Schaffner said. “And when I say ‘sustained,’ what do I mean? I mean, beyond a few days — and into four to six to eight weeks . . . we need to continue to be careful before we can be carefree.”

Schaffner said he worries that the governors doing this are ill-advised.

“We’ve opened up too freely, too early, before, and what did we get? We get a surge of infections every single time,” Schaffner said. “Omicron has become among children one of the 10 leading causes of death. Everybody is on the same page that children are less severely affected than our adults— but that does not mean that they’re not seriously affected; we have children being admitted to hospitals with Covid.”

Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases and associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, Davis, agreed that it’s too early for schools to lift their mask mandates.

“We know that routine widespread masking has worked to make schools a safe place,” Blumberg told Salon. “And we know there have been few outbreaks in schools when they’ve had the mask mandates in place, and this has assured that schools can remain open for in-person learning.”

According to the CDC, a report from Arizona showed that schools in two of the state’s most populous counties were 3.5 times more likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks if they did not have a mask requirement, compared to those schools that required masking. (Notably, while the CDC and its authors stand by the study, it has faced criticism from some groups.) A separate report touted by the CDC found that children’s COVID-19 case rates were lower in counties with school mask requirements.

Blumberg noted that the pediatric immunization rate was “lagging,” and said that he thought that it was still safer to have mask mandates in place until the pediatric immunization rate rises and the high transmission rate spurred by the omicron variant dies down. Blumberg noted that models suggest that the rates of transmission in California are higher than when the delta variant was at its peak. “Even though it’s not as bad as it was a month ago, there’s a whole lot of COVID going around,” he added.

Blumberg said he is optimistic that we will get to a post-pandemic moment, but only once pediatric immunization rates increase. According to the CDC, only 23.1 percent of five to 11 year olds are fully vaccinated in the U.S.; moreover, 56 percent of 12 to 17 year olds are fully vaccinated. An FDA panel is meeting on Feb. 15 to review Pfizer’s data for low-dose Covid shots for kids under 5, possibly paving the way for approval soon.

Blumberg worries that if masking in schools ceases, more outbreaks will occur in school and schools will shut down.

“From the school and from the students’ and parents’ perspective, the worst thing that can happen is that there could be transmission that it’s occurring in school — and this may result in the schools shutting down to limit that transmission to limit outbreaks, and then children won’t be able to take advantage of in-person learning,” Blumberg said. “I mean, we’ve got pretty robust data at this point at schools that have the mask mandates in place that they do have decreased risk of outbreaks.”

Jeanne Noble, an associate professor of emergency medicine and director of Covid response for the University of California San Francisco Hospital emergency department, told Salon she disagrees. Noble believes it is time for children to go to school with masks.

“Our kids — our adolescents particularly — really have been suffering through a mental health crisis that has been recognized by the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics, and masks just interfere with kids’ relationships socially and emotionally,” Noble said. “I think getting rid of the masks as soon as possible is helpful for the mental health of our kids.”

Noble added she doesn’t believe the data is convincing enough that masks in schools are needed, as she wrote in an op-ed she co-authored for The Atlantic last month. When asked what she would say to pediatricians and infectious disease doctors arguing otherwise, Noble said: “I would say that persistent masking of kids really fails a cost benefit analysis.”

“We can’t just continue to focus on children’s health through the lens of disease control,” Noble said.

Read more on the omicron variant:

We aren’t only facing a supply chain issue — for grocery workers, it’s also a labor rights issue

Two years into the pandemic, viral posts showing empty grocery store aisles across the nation are continuing to capture our collective attention. On the right, some blame President Joe Biden, misleadingly linking the phenomenon to socialism. From local chains in small towns to Trader Joe’s in New York City, there has been an undeniable disruption in the ease at which Americans are accustomed to showing up at the store and walking away with exactly what they want, regardless of season or scarcity.

Since the early, meme-filled days of the Suez Canal blockage, explanations of how everything is related to a severely backed-up supply chain have permeated the news and social media. This is with good reason, as there are still millions of dollars of goods held up in shipping ports, trapped for the time being due, in large part, to a shortage in workers.

What has not been included in the conversation is how that shortage of workers has rippled from the coastal ports to nearly every industry that relies on in-person labor. Amid the Great Resignation, where hundreds of thousands of American workers have decided to move on from their employers and onto better opportunities, there has been a vast gap left behind. That gap has only widened due to inconsistent messaging and safety standards among the omicron wave, which has quickly become the prominent strain of COVID-19 in the US and forced many workers to take time off to recover.

The market is being reclaimed by the worker, and employers are being forced to offer better wages and benefits as they compete to fill record vacancies. Without acknowledging this shift in power, many companies run the risk of not having anyone to run their stores at all.

It’s a stark new reality for so many powerful corporations that have relied on the desperation of entry-level minimum wage workers for so long. And it is far more to blame for the current disruption of your local store’s shelves being out of the items on your grocery list than almost anything else.

The King Soopers and Kroger strike held by members of the UFCW Local 7 in Colorado over the last few weeks is a perfect case study of the larger labor issues impacting grocery shortages in the US.

Union members say they organized for many reasons, including demanding liveable wages, expanded healthcare benefits, and a less exploitative workplace culture. The main concern for many, however, has been safety. Kim Cordova is the current president of the UFCW Local 7 and has been leading workers throughout their efforts. She expressed fears for employee safety.

“More than 2,400 people quit on them [King Soopers] last year, and they have not been able to fill those spots,” Cordova said. “And every day those numbers were growing.”

In addition to making less than $15 an hour, hourly employees encounter safety hazards presented by customers who are anti-maskers or drug users, Cordova added.

“So, this supply issue is really a workers issue,” she said. “And it’s about workers rising up saying, ‘You know what? This just isn’t worth my life today.'”

(Representatives from King Soopers and Kroger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

King Soopers employees in Colorado have consistently asked for increased safety and security measures since the start of the pandemic. This came to a head in March 2021, when 10 people — three of whom were employees — were killed after a gunman opened fire in a mass shooting at a King Soopers in Boulder, Colo.

Though the shooter has since been deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial, employees have continued to advocate for enhanced security at stores. It was announced yesterday that the King Soopers where the shooting occurred was set to reopen.

Andres Becerril is a head clerk at a King Soopers in Aurora, Colo., and has witnessed the dramatic shift in the public perception of essential work.

“Finding out how expendable we were is what it really came down to,” Becerril said. “We get told that they care about us. That they have our safety in mind — and then we asked for these things in regards to safety, like security guards or hand sanitizer, and it just kind of falls by the wayside. So, it’s been pretty frustrating to get told that someone cares about you and then having to live with the opposite of that.”

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Since the beginning of the strike, workers made slow but steady progress towards reaching an agreement for a new contract that honors some of their demands for an improved workplace.

Finally, at the end of January, Denver-area King Soopers workers voted to ratify an updated three-year contract. More King Soopers stores in other regions of Colorado have yet to vote, and Ms. Cordova explained the pressure businesses like King Soopers face to meet workers’ demands.

“If you go into grocery stores — like, if you crossed the line and went in — they have no product,” Cordova said. “They’re not operating any of their departments, you can only buy center of store stuff, no customer service. They’re not even selling fuel in most of these stores, because by law, you have to have a worker there.”

The struggle that these workers in Colorado face is not unique; in fact, there have already been several efforts to organize with other Krogers locations across the country. This all seems to work in tandem with a new type of worker that you can find everywhere: one that does not value a paycheck over their wellbeing.

With their historic victory, the members of the UFCW local 7 could help determine the fates of other similar jobs that historically do not come with strong work protections and liveable wages. Until then, those thousands of job openings will likely stay vacant, much like the shelves at your local grocery store.

More stories about the labor behind our food systems:

GOP senator rips proposed stock ban for lawmakers: “They might as well start sending robots up here”

Trump-loving Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., came out firmly against a ban on lawmakers buying and selling stocks while in office.

In an interview with the UK Independent newspaper, Tuberville said that he worried fewer quality candidates would run for office if they didn’t have the ability to personally profit from it in addition to the generous taxpayer-funded salary they receive.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Tuberville said. “They might as well start sending robots up here . . . I think it would really cut back on the amount of people that would want to come up here and serve.”

The move to ban lawmakers from trading stocks while in office was sparked by public outrage after it was learned that several lawmakers traded health care and technology-related stocks at the very beginning of the novel coronavirus pandemic, before the public was generally aware of how disruptive the virus would come to be.

Although none of the lawmakers were charged with criminal wrongdoing as a result of the stock trades, the appearance of corruption was enough to spur a coalition of elected officials to band together to ban the practice.

“Very destructive”: Fox News host blasts Tomi Lahren for defending “thuggish” trucker protests

Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera on Wednesday called out Tomi Lahren for supporting the “Freedom Convoy” in Canada that is disrupting life for residents in the city of Ottawa.

During a discussion about the anti-vaccine protests taking place in Canada, Rivera accused Lahren of whitewashing their behavior.

“Their behavior has been nothing short of thuggish in Ottawa,” he said. “They kept people in the neighborhood awake all night revving their engines, blowing their horns. They’ve deprived Ottawa of business — of tens of millions of dollars — now they’re blockading the international bridges.”

Rivera concluded by telling Lahren that “to give these guys the mantle of freedom fights is appallingly naïve.”

Lahren responded by comparing the truckers to America’s founders and said that Rivera would have called George Washington and Thomas Jefferson “thugs” and “degenerates” were he alive during the Revolutionary War.

Rivera, however, was not having it, and he was offended that Lahren would compare people carrying swastikas and Confederate flags to America’s founders.

“What the hell is that about?” he asked incredulously. “They have been very destructive! 40% of Canada’s trade goes over the bridge they have blocked!”

You can watch the video below via YouTube:

How to negotiate moving forward from “The Book of Boba Fett” … like a Godfather

“The Book of Boba Fett,” thank you for bringing together the heads of the other Tatooine families: Dokk Strasi, of Klatooinians; the guys from Trandoshans and the Aqualish, Mayor Flatworm, or whatever he goes by; really, all the randoms whose action figures might be worth something some day if I never open the box.

Truly a “Godfather”-level move this is, gathering all the bosses in one place for a master assassin to wipe them out. If they remained alive and this show is granted another season, we’d get a headache wondering how Jon Favreau will navigate so many backstories. Look at how poorly he handled just the one this time around.

How did things ever get so far? And by “things,” I mean the plans for this season. I don’t know. It was so unfortunate, so unnecessary. We could have forgiven this trespass if the makers had given the show a more honest title like “The Mandalorian Chronicles,” since the reappearance of Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) provided the best reason to keep watching.

Plus, both heroes lost something after they met in Season 2 of “The Mandalorian.” Din Djarin lost his Grogu, while through this show’s storytelling, Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) loses the plot.

Only one man’s forfeiture was restored by the time the episode “In the Name of Honor” ended, and his name was not in the title. Despite where the second season finale of “The Mandolorian” left us, there was no way that the show would go on without Mando and Grogu flying the unfriendly skies together.

In keeping with the rest of “The Book of Boba Fett,” the best parts of the finale were the sequences that made the most of that reunion, not the elder bounty hunter determined to walk the “serve and protect” path for motivations that are still unknown. Even he in the very end doubts his decision to take over Jabba the Hutt’s empire.

“If not us, then who?” his partner Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) wonders aloud – and although they’ve proven their worth as fair and loyal protectors of the people, a person can’t be blamed for answering her with, “Virtually anyone more fascinating than your famous partner.”

But this season of “The Book of Boba Fett” has ended; we’re quits. And if Favreau and Dave Filoni agree, then I’m willing to let things go on the way they were before – meaning, calling a “Mandalorian” a Mandalorian instead of the bait-and-switch proposal to build out Boba Fett’s mythology and establish one for Wen’s character, one of the more enigmatic people introduced in this fictional cosmos’ expansion.

We remain grateful to “The Book of Boba Fett” for its effort, mainly granting Morrison the chance to bring to life the titular bounty-hunter-turned-kindhearted mob boss. For he is as charming a figure as Boba Fett is, inexplicably, a modest man, despite his reputation as one of the baddest killers in the galaxy.

Yes, but here, he is too modest. He had all the credits in his pocket, and refused to use them to purchase some common sense. Years of bounty hunting somehow brought him up short on contacts in the criminal world, it seems. In the end, as the cruel Pyke Syndicate invaded Tatooine and blew up the best bar in town (Jennifer Beals, we miss your shady Twi’lek lady already!) all he could rustle up were a few adorable scooter kids, a hotheaded Wookiee, and Pascal’s popularity. (Even that is something of a trust fall; who even knows if that was the actor under that shiny bucket?)

Anyway, everyone came together in standard spaghetti western “last stand” fashion: there was a pin-down or four, a lot of laser blaster pew-pew-pew-ing and double crosses, a moment of reinforcement they didn’t expect from Freetown and we totally did, and scrapes staged to appear inescapable.

We knew they weren’t, because killing one of the most popular characters in the “Star Wars” universe is, to quote various Hutts, “bad for business.” And when did the audience or this franchise’s creators ever refuse an accommodation? When?

“In the Name of Honor” was nothing but accommodation, which is a more elegant way to say “pandering.” There was Boba Fett riding a Rancor, which he said he wanted to do and that Machete (Danny Trejo) warned him would take a long time and training for him to accomplish. We never saw him put in that training, not even through a training montage, yet there he was, yee-haw.

I honestly forgot about the Rancor, one of several savior drops jammed into an episode that looks like a sugar-shocked 10-year-old choreographed it using supplies from his toy collection. “Boom! P-s-s-s-sh! But then he smashed up the building, like King Kong! Oh no! But look, here’s Grogu with a sleepy-time spell. Jedi magic! The good guys win! Mom, can I have my snack now?”

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The season finale of “The Book of Boba Fett” is the culmination of six episodes’ worth of missed opportunities in a seven-episode mash-up between the original “Star Wars” trilogy, the franchise’s first successful spinoff and a future that includes a series starring Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), one of this season’s cameos of convenience.

Timothy Olyphant in “The Mandalorian” (Disney+)

Others have purpose, like mid-end credits tease let us know that space zaddy Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant) is still alive despite taking a blast from Cad Bane, the Lee Van Cleef of the “Star Wars” universe. Cobb resides on Tatooine, and could return as some kind of Robocop (these folks love their genre movie references something fierce!) so bringing him into Boba Fett’s network is only natural. Also, Boba Fett’s overall lack of political skill makes it somewhat believable, to the accommodating, that the two never would have previously met despite how small this planet seems to be.

And kids, if you don’t get that Van Cleef reference, look him up. The world is much larger than what Wookieepedia tells you!

But I digress – we were speaking of avoidable messes. If “The Book of Boba Fett” were conceived to be anything other than a misdirect or a collectible parade, it could have augmented this universe in marvelous ways.

The story could have fleshed out any number of characters – including Wen’s Fennec Shand, an entirely new character who proved her reputation for being a deadeye and, in this episode, efficiently mopped up the villain’s lair by assassinating everyone inside.

Beyond a few “super cool” action scenes and ample consigliere to Boba Fett, her main role was to explain developments neither the script nor most of its directors adequately depicted. And this may be the show’s largest fumble. Wen is a magnetic actor billed as a co-lead but made to show up mainly as a walk-and-talk partner.

Her shortchanging is but one example of the ways that Favreau (who wrote or co-wrote all the episode) scattered story crumbs onto the table and expected hungry viewers to squish them together and call it cake.

Temuera Morrison and Ming-Na Wen in “The Book of Boba Fett” (Lucasfilm Ltd/Disney+)

Going by the contortions in which “Star Wars” acolytes engaged to decode or legitimize this heap, drawing generous links between narratives that stole time away from a main plot that was already thin to start with, that was a fine wager on the part of the executive producers.

What it is not, or shouldn’t be, is a model for long term success. It’s a short-term high, but I believe this business is going destroy this franchise expansion if it’s replicated in the spinoffs to come. I mean, it’s not like gambling or liquor, or even more cameos by cult favorites like “Clone Wars” heavy Cad Bane. That is something Disney story dealers think Marvel and “Star Wars” want nowadays, and they’re more than happy to pour them down our gullets without mellowing the product with that essential ingredient of backstory or going through the process to mix it.

Even we critics have helped them bridge these holes in the past – we’re fans too! – but more are going to refuse when it comes to these clumsily manufactured narrative highs. I believed that then, and I believe that now.

Times have changed, and the extension of properties like Boba Fett and Marvel side characters into the TV universe prove this. It’s not like the old days when a season of a show was judged on how well its profundity and emotional potency strengthens an overall story. Instead this realm’s emphasis on product extension, whether cinematic, plastic or plush, lords over all.

As a reasonable person, but mainly because it’s by job, I’m willing to wait out any solution to these problems. But look, we are all reasonable people here. We don’t have to give assurances as if we were lawyers.

All right. Now I have to make arrangements to figure out how this whole “Obi-Wan Kenobi” business could possibly land safely. But I’m a superstitious sort. So if some unlucky business should befall Ewan McGregor — if he should be overwhelmed by similarly terrible scripts or Hayden Christensen’s thin acting skills, if he’s struck by a bolt of lightning — then I’m going to blame some of the people responsible for this whole enterprise. And that, I do not forgive.

But that aside, let me say that I swear on the souls of my official “Star Wars” merchandise that I will not be the one to break the peace that we have made here today.

All episodes of “The Book of Boba Fett” are currently streaming on Disney+.

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Sherri Shepherd replaces Wendy Williams as a permanent guest host for now

Talk show host Wendy Williams will not be returning to “The Wendy Williams Show” to close out season 13, PEOPLE reported on Tuesday. At this time, it’s uncertain when Williams will make her comeback as she continues to recover from various medical issues. Former “The View” co-host Sherri Shepherd will take over as a permanent guest host.

“Wendy won’t be returning to the show for the rest of this season,” a close source told PEOPLE. “Her healing is going slower than everyone had hoped. She continues to deal with a number of medical issues, including Graves’ disease, and she and her team are taking it one day at a time.”

During the past years, Williams has publicly shared her health concerns and conditions. In 2018, Williams announced that she had Graves’ disease — an autoimmune disorder that causes increased hormone production in the thyroid — which contributed to her scattered absences on the show. Last year, Williams suffered from a breakthrough COVID-19 case. As a result, the premiere of her show’s 13th season initially was pushed back to Oct. 4. The premiere was pushed back once more to Oct. 18 as Williams continued to battle other health issues.

Shepherd, who previously appeared as a host in the rotating guest spot on Williams’ show, is slated to start her permanent guest hosting gig in September, TMZ says. The notable television personality previously served as a co-host on “The View” from 2007 to 2014 and hosted the 2019 game show “Best Ever Trivia Show.” Shepherd also appeared as a contestant on the 14th season of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” and a costumed star on the second season of “The Masked Singer.”

TMZ added that the show’s producers plan to monitor Williams’ health until Shepherd makes her debut. If Williams recovers, then she’ll continue hosting her eponymous show. However, if Williams is unable to return, then the show will change its name as early as September.

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“The Wendy Williams Show” had a series of temporary guest hosts in the past, including Whitney Cummings, Leah Remini, Michael Rapaport and Jerry Springer.

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Tinder Swindler victims set up GoFundMe page to help retrieve the money they were conned out of

The women on Netflix’s documentary “The Tinder Swindler” may have successfully sought revenge after publicly outing infamous love scammer Shimon Hayut. But their efforts to retrieve the large sums of money they were all scammed out of is still ongoing.

Earlier this week, Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte collectively launched a GoFundMe page to help them clear their debts. The three victims all met Hayut on the dating app Tinder, where he posed as “Simon Leviev” — the swanky son of Israeli diamond tycoon Lev Leviev — and meticulously conned them out of millions of dollars. In 2019, Leviev was extradited to Israel and served just five months of a 15-month sentence.

“The past few days have been a whirlwind, and we three (Ayleen, Pernilla and Cecilie) have been completely shocked and floored by the flood of compassion and support from everyone,” the women wrote on their page. “The sheer love is more than we ever expected, and we appreciate you all so much.”

“After careful consideration, and many chats, we have decided to start this GoFundMe fundraiser,” they continued. “So many people reached out to us asking if we had one, and it hadn’t occurred to us to make one prior to this. However, we’ve spotted plenty of fakes, which makes us uneasy. We don’t want more people getting defrauded.”

The trio set a crowdfunding goal of £600,000 (approximately $812,000). As of Wednesday, they’ve acquired 2,600 donations worth a total of £54,198 ($73,419.32).

“We realise there are a thousand other worthy causes to donate to, and remain forever grateful if you choose to donate to this one,” they added. “All we want are our lives back.”

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According to a NBC report, Hayut has been banned from Tinder, Hinge and other dating platforms under Match Group Inc., including Match.com, Plenty of Fish and OkCupid.

“We banned Simon Leviev and any of his known aliases as soon as the story of his actions became public in 2019,” a Tinder spokesperson told NBC shortly after the premiere of “The Tinder Swindler.” “In the lead up to the release of the documentary, we conducted additional internal investigations and can confirm Simon Leviev is not active on Tinder under any of his known aliases.”

Per NME, Hayut recently took to Instagram to share a few thoughts on the documentary before deleting his account:

“I will share my side of the story in the next few days when I have sorted out the best and most respectful way to tell it, both to the involved parties and myself. Until then, please keep an open mind and heart.”

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