CORBEVAX, a new patent-free COVID-19 vaccine, could be a pandemic game changer globally

The world now has a new COVID-19 vaccine in its arsenal, and at a fraction of the cost per dose.

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has seen over 314 million infections and over 5.5 million deaths worldwide. Approximately 60% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. But there is still a glaring and alarming gap in global access to these vaccines. As a virologist who has followed this pandemic closely, I contend that this vaccine inequity should be of grave concern to everyone.

If the world has learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that viruses do not need a passport. And yet approximately 72% of vaccine doses were administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries – and only 1% in low-income countries. Wealthy countries are giving boosters, and even fourth doses, while first and second doses are not available to many worldwide.

But there is hope that a new vaccine called CORBEVAX will help close this vaccination gap.

How does the CORBEVAX vaccine work?

All COVID-19 vaccines teach the immune system how to recognize the virus and prepare the body to mount an attack. The CORBEVAX vaccine is a protein subunit vaccine. It uses a harmless piece of the spike protein from the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 to stimulate and prepare the immune system for future encounters with the virus.

Recombinant vaccines commonly use yeast to produce the immune-stimulating proteins of a virus in the lab.

Unlike the three vaccines approved in the U.S. – Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines and Johnson & Johnson’s viral vector vaccine, which provide the body instructions on how to produce the spike protein – CORBEVAX delivers the spike protein to the body directly. Like those other approved COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, CORBEVAX also requires two doses.

How was CORBEVAX developed?

CORBEVAX was developed by the co-directors of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine, Drs. Maria Elena Bottazzi and Peter Hotez.

During the 2003 SARS outbreak, these researchers created a similar type of vaccine by inserting the genetic information for a portion of the SARS virus spike protein into yeast to produce large amounts of the protein. After isolating the virus spike protein from the yeast and adding an adjuvant, which helps trigger an immune response, the vaccine was ready for use.

The first SARS epidemic was short-lived, and there was little need for Bottazzi and Hotez’s vaccine – until the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, emerged in 2019. So they dusted off their vaccine and updated the spike protein to match that of SARS-CoV-2, creating the CORBEVAX vaccine.

CORBEVAX received emergency use authorization in India on December 28, 2021.

A large U.S.-based clinical trial found the vaccine to be safe, well tolerated and over 90% effective at preventing symptomatic infections. The vaccine received emergency use authorization in India, and other developing countries are expected to follow.

Interestingly, the group at Baylor was not able to drum up interest or funding in the U.S. for their vaccine. Instead, newer technologies such as mRNA vaccines raced ahead, even though Bottazzi and Hotez’s vaccine design was more advanced, thanks to their previous work during the 2003 SARS and 2012 MERS outbreaks.

A vaccine built for the world

Protein subunit vaccines have an advantage over mRNA vaccines in that they can be readily produced using well-established recombinant DNA technology that is relatively inexpensive and fairly easy to scale up. A similar protein recombinant technology that’s been around for 40 years has been used for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, which is available for use in 170 countries, and the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine.

This vaccine can be produced at a much larger scale because appropriate manufacturing facilities are already available. Also key to global access is that CORBEVAX can be stored in a regular refrigerator. Therefore, it is possible to produce millions of doses rapidly and distribute them relatively easily. In comparison, producing mRNA vaccines is more expensive and complicated because they are based on newer technologies, rely on highly skilled workers and often require ultralow temperatures for storage and transport.

Another major difference is that the CORBEVAX vaccine was developed with global vaccine access in mind. The goal was to make a low-cost, easy-to-produce and -transport vaccine using a well-tested and safe method. Key to this, the researchers were not concerned with intellectual property or financial benefit. The vaccine was produced without significant public funding; the US$7 million needed for development was provided by philanthropists.

COBREVAX is currently licensed patent-free to Biological E. Limited (BioE), India’s largest vaccine maker, which plans to manufacture at least 100 million doses per month starting in February 2022. This patent-free arrangement means that other low- and middle-income countries can produce and distribute this cheap, stable and relatively easy-to-scale vaccine locally.

Combined, this means that CORBEVAX is one of the cheapest vaccines currently available. How well it works against the omicron variant is under investigation. However, the CORBEVAX story can be used as a model to address vaccine inequity when it is necessary to vaccinate the world population – against COVID-19 and other diseases on the horizon.

The necessity of vaccine equity

There are many reasons global access to vaccines is inequitable. For example, the governments of wealthy nations purchase vaccines in advance, which limits supply. While developing countries do have vaccine production capacity, low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America still need to be able to afford the cost of placing orders.

The Indian government has ordered 300 million doses of CORBEVAX, and BioE plans to produce more than 1 billion shots for people in developing countries. For context, the U.S. and other G7 nations have pledged to donate over 1.3 billion doses of COVID vaccines, yet only 591 million doses have been shipped. These numbers mean that if BioE is able to produce 1.3 billion doses of CORBEVAX as planned, this vaccine will reach more people than those vaccinated by what’s been donated and shipped by the wealthiest nations.

As the omicron variant has shown, new variants can spread across the world quickly and are much more likely to develop in unvaccinated people and continue to emerge as long as global vaccination rates remain low. It is unlikely that boosters will end this pandemic. Rather, developing globally accessible vaccines like CORBEVAX represent an important first step in vaccinating the world and ending this pandemic.

Maureen Ferran, Associate Professor of Biology, Rochester Institute of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Madison Cawthorn cleans his gun during hearing on toxic chemicals’ effects on veterans

Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., decided that a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on toxic chemicals killing American soldiers would be a good time to clean his gun, drawing the fury of witnesses who testified.

Cawthorn participated in the hearing via Zoom, apparently from his congressional office, so the public could not see what he was doing, but some witnesses who appeared before the committee definitely noticed. Veteran Lindsay Church, the co-founder of Minority Veterans of America, spoke at the hearing and later tweeted a photo of Cawthorn holding his gun backward.

“Imagine you showed up for a Zoom meeting and a colleague decided that was when he needed to clean his gun,” Church tweeted. “Because that’s what happened today in a Congressional roundtable on toxic exposure. We’re better than this.”

Church told The Daily Beast that Cawthorn’s behavior at the hearing was “misguided and lacking the dignity of his office.”

“He was doing this while the ranking member of his own party was conducting actual business,” Church said.

The hearing focused on toxic burn pits. The military for years burned trash, including toxic chemicals, in pits near military sites in Afghanistan, Iraq and other locations. Veterans and other experts spoke for nearly three hours on Thursday about how soldiers stationed near burn pits have developed serious heart, lung and other ailments, likely from exposure to the toxic chemicals, although the Department of Veterans Affairs has limited disability benefits to some of the veterans.

“That is insane,” Rosie Lopez Torres, the founder of Burn Pits 360, told the Daily Beast of Cawthorn’s behavior. “Total disregard and disrespect to America’s warfighters. He was so bored with the topic. Those that are sick and dying and the widows in his district should see how much he cares about the issue.”

John Feal, a 9/11 first responder who was at the virtual hearing, told the outlet that Cawthorn’s actions were “immature.”

“He’s a child. He lacks common sense,” he said. “I think the congressman was overcompensating for something that he lacks and feeling inadequate among the heroes on that call.”

Witnesses told the Daily Beast that Cawthorn continued to clean his gun for several minutes but it was only visible during the testimony of Jen Burch, an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan. Cawthorn appeared to be in his Capitol Hill office at the time.

“Here we are taking time out of our day, including the representatives, to talk about a very important issue — a life or death issue for many veterans — and it’s like, I’m sorry am I boring you? You’re not paying attention,” Burch told Task & Purpose.

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Luke Ball, a spokesman for Cawthorn, shrugged off the incident.

“What could possibly be more patriotic than guns and veterans?” he told the Daily Beast.

Cawthorn has frequently touted his support for the military and claimed that a car crash that left him with a permanent disability prevented him from attending the U.S. Naval Academy. But reporters later found that the academy had rejected his application before the accident.

Cawthorn last year was caught trying to bring a handgun through airport security. The congressman was not detained in the incident.

Cawthorn’s apparent inattention during the committee hearing underscores how little attention Congress has paid to the suffering of veterans who have returned home with debilitating illnesses. The Veterans’ Affairs Committee last year advanced the Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, which would provide health care for up to 3.5 million veterans exposed to airborne hazards and burn pits, but the bill has yet to get a full House vote.

Comedian Jon Stewart, who used the first episode of his new Apple TV+ show to highlight the frustrations of veterans and their families bogged down by bureaucratic hurdles while seeking live-saving health care, called out Congress’ inaction at Wednesday’s hearing.

“We are a country that loves its veterans, or certainly would purport to. We support the troops, and we put on our flag pins and we stand, and they get discounts at Denny’s. But the true support of having a veteran’s back is when they need the support,” Stewart said. “Our country exposed our own veterans to poison for years and we knew about it and we didn’t act with urgency and appropriateness,” he added. “And therefore, we’ve lost men and women who’ve served this country. They’ve died out of our inaction.”

Read more:

Fermented vegetables are a critical part of worldwide cuisines — and for good reason

When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, the word “fermented” prompted scrunched noses, sickly frowns and gagging. Synonyms might as well have been “putrid” or “gross” — conjuring old, decaying food matter that was past its prime yet eaten primarily out of necessity. “Bacteria” didn’t have a health halo, either. Of course, fermentation was the genesis of so many of our foods, from soy sauce to pickled mustard greens, which were amongst the most common examples in my mother’s Chinese-American kitchen. I recall a group of construction workers in my house when I was younger, who probably thought no one else could hear when they incredulously read the label on a jar of fermented black bean garlic sauce, an umami-boosting paste stirred into dishes like beef with broccoli. Only, it had that word “fermented” in its name. They doubled over in laughter — the stuff sounded too disgusting to believe.

Fermentation was not well understood in the U.S. until it was suddenly everywhere: hyped by bread bakers and craft beer enthusiasts, emblazoned on pickle jars and kombucha bottles, and extolled by sustainable lifestyle gurus as a waste-saving hack that happens to work wonders for one’s gut. This was the mid-to-late 2000s, following an explosion of interest in food culture and production in mainstream media, and the publication of a book called “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Ellix Katz that developed a cult following in health food circles. The rallying cry was that fermentation was a part of everyone’s heritage, but having fallen to the wayside since the advent of refrigeration, it was now sorely missing in most Americans’ unhealthy diets.

Now, 20 years later, “fermented” and related terminology like “cultured” and “live” are big selling points, proudly incorporated into the spin of foods from hot sauce to ice cream. And many of the finest restaurants in the world employ fermentation chefs to create condiments in-house.

What’s old may be new again here in the U.S., but fermentation never went out of style throughout much of the rest of the globe. It’s the chemical transformation responsible for some of the most beloved foods on earth, from bread to cheese to chocolate, as well as wine and beer. And fermented vegetables have their role in almost every cuisine in the world. For many home cooks, putting up a jar of Kosher dills or kimchi is their first introduction to fermentation. Fermenting vegetables is a relatively easy and practical way of getting a hands-on perspective of the process, before moving onto something a bit more cumbersome, like beer-brewing. So let’s take a closer look at vegetables (and some fruits) that are commonly fermented, acquiring bacteria and flavors galore while often earning the name “pickle.”

Lacto-fermentation: A vegetable’s best friend

A fermentation process that is well associated with vegetables is lacto-fermentation — where the bacteria lactobacillus produces lactic acid in the food. This beneficial bacteria is naturally occurring in many vegetables, and the typical process of lacto-fermenting involves little more than salting the vegetable and letting it soak, unrefrigerated, in its own juices. After a few days, the liquid will begin to bubble and take on a sour, funky flavor in addition to the saltiness. The result — often called a pickle — serves as a complement to rich, hearty foods, and helps you digest them. Here are a few examples of lacto-fermented vegetables from around the world.

Sauerkraut: Cabbage, salted and pressed, becomes wonderfully pungent after fermentation kicks in. Sauerkraut is a vital part of culinary traditions in much of Europe, especially in Germany, where this name derives. There are annual sauerkraut-making festivals in communities throughout the U.S. as well. Cabbages (and their brassica family members, like cauliflower and Brussels sprouts) are tough, hardy vegetables that tend to ferment easily when shredded. Red or green cabbage can be used, and sparse seasonings, such as caraway seeds, might be added to the ferment.

Kimchi: In Korea, cabbage (typically the thick-ribbed napa cabbage variety) is mixed with a few more seasonings along with salt — namely, garlic, ginger and gochugaru, or Korean chile flakes. This turns the resulting lacto-fermented brine bright red, although it wasn’t that way until the introduction of chiles from the New World a few hundred years ago. Before then, kimchi was white (which you can still find available now). Either way, it’s used plentifully in Korean cuisine, served on its own or simmered into soups and stews.

Suen Cai: Meaning “sour vegetable” in Chinese, this is made from greens — often mustard greens — that have been lacto-fermented. The varietal of mustard greens that is typically used has a bulbous stem and thick stalks; these sections retain a crisp bite as they ferment. It’s all chopped up so there’s a contrast of deep green leaves and crunchy stems in each scoopful, which can be stirred into stir-fries, cradled in a steamed bun, scattered atop a bowl of noodles or just enjoyed on the side of a meal as a refreshing complement.

Achaar: Also known as Indian pickle or South Asian pickle, achaar is a category of fermented foods that can be made with many types of vegetables and fruits, such as limes and unripe mangoes, along with many seasonings, such as mustard and chile powder. Eggplantor brinjal pickle is one classic variety that makes a great side or condiment for hearty dishes like lamb, or it can play more of a starring role topping rice and yogurt for a quick meal.

Preserved Lemon: Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, preserved lemons are a crucial flavoring agent for many dishes, like Moroccan chicken tagine. These citrus fruits grow wild and are naturally antibacterial, making them great candidates for preserving. The lemons are typically nearly halved lengthwise then nearly quartered, so that they still hold together, then they’re rubbed with salt. As they ferment, the rinds soften in texture and deepen in flavor; it’s the chopped rind that you add to dishes like tagines or pilafs, lending a refreshing piquancy.

Kosher Dills: Cucumbers can be challenging for the beginning pickler, as they’re not as dense or firm as some of the other vegetable candidates. But they’re one of the most popular fermented foods in the U.S., where Jewish immigrants kept up the tradition with their signature garlic and dill seasonings. (Though they’re known as Kosher dills in the U.S. thanks to that legacy, cucumbers that are lacto-fermented are enjoyed throughout the rest of the world, too.) To make them, cucumbers with smaller seed pockets, such as Kirby, are submerged in a salt water brine along with garlic, dill and other seasonings like peppercorns. They’re typically enjoyed as a side or snack—like beside a pastrami sandwich.

A harvest’s helper

Any way you brine them, fermented vegetables are a way of preserving the harvest throughout the year. Vegetables that pickle well — like cabbage — were traditionally planted for that reason over the centuries. Nowadays we have refrigeration, which can lengthen the time before a vegetable starts to naturally decompose. But fermenting them is far more energy-efficient —imagine if all the refrigerated warehouses and cargo trucks that ship fresh vegetables around the world were replaced with barrels of bubbling sauerkraut, or crocks of kimchi buried in the earth. And even with all that refrigeration, we waste roughly 40% of the food we produce in this country, leaving many vegetables to rot in the fields because of market volatility. Farmers and growers can recoup some of that loss by fermenting what might otherwise go to waste. But 40% of food loss happens right in our own homes. So fermenting vegetables that you may have overpurchased or that are starting to wilt is a great way of keeping them from the landfill, and giving yourself a good dose of healthy bacteria.

Boosting the microbiome

Let’s talk a little more about that. Gut science has come a long way in recent decades. And it’s clear that pickled, fermented, probiotic foods are great for your digestive system. But not only that, maintaining a healthy gut microbiome — that’s the assembly of microorganisms (mostly live bacteria) in your intestinal tract — may help out with everything from improving mental health to fighting cancer. While these studies are ongoing, every scientist can agree that one’s diet has a huge impact on one’s gut bacteria. Having “good” bacteria like lactobacillus in your gut can help reduce “bad” bacteria that cause diseases or other conditions.

In short, fermented vegetables are a critical part of worldwide cuisines for good reason. They protect your health, preserve the harvest and promote using up all of your farmers’ market haul. And while talking about a healthy gut and digestive system is now part of Wellness 101 — goodbye, “gross” — it’s important to recognize the wisdom of pickling practices from around the world. They’ll still be here for the next health trends, too.

We tried 17 dark chocolate brands to find our snack soulmate

Director of Content Brinda Ayer and I share a filing cabinet, which is to say, we share snacks: crackers, halva, popcorn, and, most importantly, dark chocolate. There are few things — coffee included — more reliable to pull me out of a 2 p.m. slump.

So, in the name of selfishness research, we decided that a taste test was in order: Whenever we’re in need of a restock, which brands of dark chocolate bars should we seek out? I went to five supermarkets and bought every dark chocolate I could find in the 70% to 85% cacao range, which totaled at 17 brands. Chunky mix-ins, like nuts and dried fruit, were a disqualifier, but salt was OK if the brand insisted upon it.

What does good chocolate mean?

As a rule of thumb, dark chocolate should contain at least 70% cacao. “When you see labels that read ‘70% cacao,’ this means the product contains 70% chocolate liquor by weight and the rest is mostly sugar, plus a little emulsified chocolate and/or vanilla,” according to the editors of America’s Test Kitchen. Good-quality dark chocolate should not contain a dozen extra additives, with the exception of flavorings like sea salt or caramel. But again here, we weren’t interested in caramel, mint, or fruit fillings; all we want is a delicious bar of solid dark chocolate.

We also appreciate when dark chocolate bars are committed to fair-trade and organic practices, but we don’t believe that those factors don’t necessarily indicate good chocolate. In fact, some of our taste testers’ favorite brands of chocolate were the ones that you’d probably find lining the aisles of a pharmacy. Spoiler alert: One of the most popular brands of dark chocolate was from Trader Joe’s, which should come as no surprise to us since that grocery store can do no wrong.

Health benefits of dark chocolate

Look, we’re not here to tell you what to eat or not to eat for your health and wellness. That being said, we’re certainly not mad about the fact that dark chocolate may have significant heart-healthy benefits. According to the American Heart Association, dark chocolate contains high levels of flavonoids, which is associated with a lower risk of heart disease and high blood pressure in adults.

Best dark chocolate bars

Here’s how the dark chocolate bars fared, in alphabetical order:

Alter Eco Deep Dark Sea Salt (70%)

This chocolate is a minimalist at heart: no artificial flavors, or emulsifiers, or soy, or GMO ingredients. The cacao is single-origin from Ecuador and spiked with fleur de sel. Plus, what a pretty pink package! On the whole, our taste testers were into it: Multiple people called it “nice,” which is nice, and one person summed it up as “rich but not too heavy.”

Chocolat Stella Noir Dark (72%)

Like some of its brethren, this bar’s ingredient list includes vanilla (common but by no means a given with dark chocolate), which adds some candy energy to the mix. “I could EAT THE WHOLE BAR,” one taste tester declared. Another called it “fruity and roasty and delicious,” while another still said they would “pair it with something sweet to let it shine in all its bitter glory.” Maybe a cold clementine? Or a couple sticky dates? Another experiment is in order.

Chocolove Strong Dark Chocolate (70%)

Chocolove gets a gold star for effort. This bar was thoughtful enough to come with its own love poem(printed inside the wrapping!): The Elizabeth Barrett Browning sonnet sighs, “If thou must love me, let it be for naught.” (You tell ’em, Liz!) Despite its good intentions, our taste testers weren’t smitten. One said it was “pretty good,” while another said it was “pretty good?” Some complimented its warm, coffee flavors, while others lamented that it wasn’t “as ‘strong’ as the name implies.”

Divine Deliciously Rich Dark Chocolate (70%)

But how delicious and rich are we talking? Quite delicious, according to our taste testers! One “could imagine this with peanut butter,” which is the ultimate compliment, if you ask me. Other praises included “cocoa-y,” “yum,” “creamy, not too bitter,” and “good for dark chocolate devotees.” Which is all of us, right?

Equal Exchange Panama Extra Dark Chocolate (80%)

Though we love its commitment to fair-trade food systems and organic ingredients, this chocolate bar’s flavor wasn’t our taste testers’ favorite. One wrote that it had “no distinct chocolatey flavor,” which I think it’s fair to say is the goal here. Another “probably wouldn’t have this again,” while someone else found it “bitter, but in a tangy way?” That all said, one lone wolf totally loved it: “very rich and deeply cocoa-y, like a fudgy brownie.”

Ghirardelli Intense Dark Twilight Delight (72%)

We can all agree that this bar wins the name contest — who doesn’t want a twilight delight? But the reviews were mixed. While Ghirardelli didn’t have the highest cacao percentage of the bunch, taste testers still found its flavor intense: “Smoky tasting,” said one, “too much for snacking.” Another remarked on its “buzzy, coffee-like taste.” On the bright side! This chocolate “blooms pretty nicely” and “melts well.”

Green & Black’s Dark Chocolate (85%)

The darkest dark chocolate we tried. Made with Trinitario cacao beans, this bar proved to be a little extra for afternoon snacking. Several people commented on its bitterness (“bitter,” “very bitter,” another “very bitter,” you get the idea), which left us somewhere between “can’t eat too much of it” and “not my bag.” That all said: One taste tester summarized it as “deep,” which is something all of us wish to be called.

Hu Simple Dark Chocolate (70%)

The word no appears eight times on the Hu label: no palm oil, no refined sugar, no cane sugar, no sugar alcohols, no dairy, no gluten, no emulsifiers, no soy lecithin. Which leaves us with . . . cacao, coconut sugar, and cocoa butter. This standout sweetener seemed to catch the eye (tongue?) of our taste testers. “Obscured by the coconut sugar flavor,” said one. “Fruity,” said another. A couple of people noted that it was “caramelly” and “too molasses-y.” Meanwhile, others appreciated its balance of sweetness and bite.

Lily’s Extra Dark (70%)

Another atypical sweetener — this time, stevia, a no-calorie buzz-ingredient that our taste testers weren’t all that into. A couple people found it unpleasantly “bitter.” Also thrown around: “synthetic flavor,” “tannic” (is this a compliment outside of wine?), “not bad,” and two instances of “not my fave.” Of course, there’s always an outlier: “I thought I would hate it because of the stevia,” one wrote. “But I didn’t.”

Lindt Dark Chocolate (70%)

Lindt prides itself on “exceptional cocoa flavor” and the group was inclined to agree. “Solid dark chocolate,” one noted, adding that it had “good snap.” While this boasted the same cacao percentage as several other bars, it stood out for its creaminess. “This is the chocolate for milk chocolate lovers who wish they liked dark chocolate,” one taste tester wrote before scribbling a big star and exclaiming “Favorite!” Similarly, someone else said it was “milk chocolate–esque” and that they could “eat a ton of this one,” before becoming self-conscious: “Am I basic?” they wrote. No! You’re great.

Madécasse Pure Dark Heirloom Chocolate (70%)

This bar won the New York Chocolate Show 2009 Best in Show, a competition I had never heard of before a minute ago, but now would very much like to attend. Madécasse describes itself as “dark chocolate with a subtle fruit aftertaste,” which our taste testers would say is quite the understatement. Almost every review remarked upon its fruitiness, including but not limited to: “immediately tangy and fruity,” “wow so fruity,” “tastes like a cherry tart,” “tastes like chocolate-covered blueberries,” and “tasted like blueberries?”

Mast Dark Chocolate (80%)

On its label, this chocolate bar compares itself to “a black dress” and “a charcoal suit” and “your best jeans,” which sound like three very different days/nights to me, but maybe that’s the point? This bar really divided the group. Some were fans: “Whoa, this one’s pretty nice” and “SO GOOD!” Others found it boozy and not in a nice way. A couple people remarked that it was “winey,” while someone else tasted “hops.” And one particularly honest taste tester compared its flavor to “straight alcohol. Or cherry liqueur? Also gasoline.”

Scharffen Berger Bittersweet Dark Chocolate (70%)

Another divisive pick, Scharffen Berger was neither an outright winner or loser according to the team. Favorable reviews included “really nice” (to “eat plain or for hot chocolate!”), “a crowd-pleaser,” and “bitter with a nuanced flavor.” Meanwhile, others thought it was “flat” and “eh not bad, but not my fave.”

Taza Dark Chocolate 70%

This chocolate was the only round bar in a sea of rectangles, but that wasn’t what our taste testers talked about. Unlike the others, Taza is stone-ground with molinos, or traditional Mexican mills, which yield a nubby texture. While some found it distracting, most taste testers were super into its “Crunch bar vibes” and “gritty,” “grainy” consistency. One person even drew four stars and . . . circled two of them? But why?

Theo Sea Salt Dark Chocolate (70%)

When Theo says sea salt, Theo means sea salt. We were here for it, though. One taste tester called it “a celebration.” Another said: “There is a lot of salt happening here, but also dried fruit vibes. This would kill on a s’more and I would pair with a beer.” Honestly, what else do you need to know?

Tony’s Chocolonely (70%)

Tony’s mission is to make chocolate production “100% slave-free worldwide,” which you can and should read more about here. Also worth your time: this deep dive by Melissa Clark about how chocolate gets made. As I unpacked my haul, several people spotted the Tony’s wrapper and said something like, “I love Tony’s!” And the taste test results echoed as much. The kind words included: “very snackable,” “delightfully bitter,” “yummy,” “impressively silky for a dark chocolate,” and “I’d eat it on a plane.”

Trader Joe’s Pound Plus (72%)

The title says it all. This bar weighs in at a whopping 17.6 ounces, which makes it either very impractical or practical to keep in your desk, depending on the size of your desk and stress of your job. “Now that’s what I look for in chocolate — a nice snap!” one taste tester announced. “Chocolate that I want to snack on,” said another. And: “Not mad about this at all. Would buy, but not gift.” But isn’t every chocolate a gift? Especially to yourself?

This post contains products that are independently selected by our editors and writers, and as an Amazon Associate, Food52 would earn from qualifying purchases.

A pegboard wall DIY that would make Julia Child proud

A pegboard is possibly one of the most functional pieces a kitchen could have. It’s beyond just a magnetic knife strip, a pot rack, a utensil crock — it’s all of these things and more. Home cooks have been employing this modular (before modular was en vogue) system for decades, and that’s because it works. Seeing all you have on hand in a kitchen is crucial for successful cooking, and it makes life that much easier when you need to reach for a small saucepan or quickly have to grab a whisk.

Of course, the grandmother of all pegboards was Julia Child, who favored practicality above most things. Her iconic kitchen — with its saturated blue pegboard walls and a litany of well-used tools and copper pots — have served as inspiration for countless cooks to come, so much so that it’s actually memorialized in several different museums.

You don’t have to go to a museum to enjoy the ease of a pegboard wall, though. You can simply (and we mean it when we say simply) install one in your own home, and get to hanging all manner of kitchen tools at eye level and within reach. Inspired by how Charles and Ray Eames brought panache to the humble coat hanger, I gussied up a pegboard organizer with inexpensive wood balls available in any local craft shop. Combine the utilitarian nature of the pegboard with Eames Hang-It-All inspired hooks, and you’ve got a kitchen organization system that’s truly timeless (both in its function and its design).

Interested in how you can replicate this for yourself? Follow along, we’ve got all the details.

What you’ll need:

A sheet of pegboard, cut to your desired finish dimensions
6-8 peg hooks (or as many as you’d like!)
6-8 unfinished 1 1/2-inch wood balls (if you modify the number of peg hooks, modify this quantity accordingly)
One piece of 1″ by 2″ lumber (a 1×2) that is at least twice the length of the desired width of your finished pegboard
One piece of 1″ by 2″ lumber (a 1×2) that is at least twice the length of the desired height of your finished pegboard
A handsaw (optional; you may be able to have the 1x2s cut to size at your local hardware or home improvement store.)
One tube of 5-minute instant mix epoxy
Wood screws
Paint

(Photo by Mark Weinberg)

A paintbrush
Painter’s Pyramids
An electric drill
Blue tape
A pencil
A measuring tape

Note: In an effort to keep this project as accessible as possible, the steps below are aimed at beginners with a limited array of tools. If you’re an experienced DIY-er, you may wish to substitute wood glue for wood screws, and more elegant joinery for the butt joint; particularly if you have access to clamps and a miter box or more advanced saw.

How to make the pegboard:

Measure And Cut Your 1×2’S To Create A Frame On Which To Mount Your Pegboard.

Measure the height of your pegboard. Using a straight edge (like your other 1×2) and a pencil, make a cutting line at the midpoint of both 1×2’s that will result in the four lengths you need to frame the pegboard.

On a surface suitable for cutting, use the hand saw to cut along your pencil mark.

Place your pegboard face down on your working surface. Align the outside edge of each 1×2 with the outside edge of the pegboard. These will form the vertical and outside components of your frame, designed to conceal the seam of the butt joint when the pegboard is viewed from the side.

How the 1×2’s will look on the back of the pegboard. (Photo by Mark Weinberg)

A few tips for using a handsaw: The piece of wood you’re cutting should be elevated, for ease of use and to avoid cutting into your working surface. You can use scrap wood to elevate the 1×2 or cut it on the edge of a table or countertop. (If you use the table/countertop method, you can even put a trash bin under the cut line to catch saw dust.) With either method, just be sure the wood is resting solidly and remains stable on your working surface. In the absence of a clamp, press down firmly with the palm of your hand to keep the wood steady while you cut. Check out this site for more tips on how to use a handsaw.

Now, attach your pegboard to the face of the frame.

In order to attach the pegboard to the face of the frame, flip everything so that it’s right side up. Because the components aren’t yet attached, this means recreating the frame on your working surface, using the pegboard as a template to be sure your 1x2s are placed and spaced appropriately.

How the front of the same corner will look, screwed in. (Photo by Mark Weinberg)

Using your electric drill, put a wood screw through the top right of the pegboard, as close to the corner as you can while still hitting the piece of 1×2 that spans the width. Repeat on the top left side to secure the piece. Do the same thing along the bottom of the peg board, to secure the other width, and on both vertical 1×2’s as well.

You should have eight screws inserted in total, two in each corner and two in each 1×2.

Paint Your Pegboard And Frame.

Using painter’s pyramids, elevate the pegboard and frame on a surface suitable for painting. Paint the face of the pegboard and the sides of the frame. Let rest until completely dry.

I painted this pegboard unit the same color as the wall to achieve a discrete “built-in” look and contrast with the unfinished wood knobs. You can use any color you like. For example, to replicate the look of the Limited Edition Eames Hang-It-All, released by Herman Miller in 2010 to appeal to adults, you could paint the pegboard black and stain the wood balls in a walnut finish.

(Photo by Mark Weinberg)

Attach French cleat and hang pegboard.

Follow the instructions on the French cleat packaging to install it on the back of the peg board, being sure to use a level. Secure the pegboard to the wall.

Drill holes in the wood balls.

Select a drill bit with a diameter just slightly larger than the head of a peg hook. Hold a wood ball alongside the drill bit, aligning the tip of the drill bit with the center of the ball. Wrap a piece of blue tape around the drill bit where it meets the outside edge of the ball. (This tape will serve as your guide for how deep to drill each hole, preventing you from drilling past the center, which risks cracking the ball.)

With the drill bit inserted into the drill, hold a wood ball in your non-dominant hand. Using your dominant hand, slowly drill into the ball until the drill bit is submerged up to the blue tape — very carefully!

Choosing a drillbit, and adding tape to ensure you know when to stop drilling. (Photo by Mark Weinberg)

If you have a table clamp at home, you can clamp the wood ball as an extra safety measure. If you take the hand-held approach, please use caution and stop when you reach the blue tape!

Repeat with the remainder of your wood balls.

Glue wood balls to peg hooks.

Mix the epoxy according to package instructions to activate the adhesive. Squeeze a bead of epoxy into the channel in the wood ball and slip it over the head of the peg hook. Wriggle the peg hook around to increase contact between the wood, epoxy and metal. Then, let rest to dry.

Repeat with the remainder of your peg hooks. If you plan to hang items that won’t slip easily over the circumference of the hook, you may want to leave a few wood balls unglued.

(Photo by Mark Weinberg)

Insert peg hooks.

Insert hooks into the pegboard, arranging them to accommodate the size and shape of the items you’d like to hang. To replicate the look of Eames’s Hang-It-All, stagger the peg hooks.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a scheme mapped out in advance. The beauty of the peg hooks is that they can be rearranged as often as you like!

(Photo by Mark Weinberg)

Extra credit: Add a shelf.

If you’re feeling ambitious, consider adding a display shelf to your pegboard. You can purchase inexpensive utility brackets from your local hardware or home improvement store. Simply cut a piece of wood to your desired size and rest it on top of the brackets. If you’re using the pegboard as a kitchen organizer, as I did, this is a great way to store and display your salt and pepper mills.

* * *

A cheat code: If you’re short on time (or just feeling low on DIY moxie), purchase a pre-made pegboard panel to skip steps 1-3.

Just keep in mind that if you purchase a metal panel, you’ll need to use paint specially formulated to adhere to metal. You’ll also skip the French cleat and use the fasteners that come with the panel to attach it to the wall. The rest of the steps are the same! This cheat will cost a bit more, but save you roughly 30 to 45 minutes.

And lastly, the fun part! Here are some goodies to help style your finished pegboard:

Alex Kalita is the co-founder of Common Bond Design, an interior design studio in New York City.

This post contains products independently chosen (and loved) by Food52 editors and writers. Food52 earns an affiliate commission on qualifying purchases of the products we link to.

Tucker Carlson wonders if vaccine mandates are racist, cites voter ID laws: “I don’t understand”

Fox News firebrand Tucker Carlson on Wednesday asked why vaccine mandates aren’t racist if overly restrictive voter ID laws are.

“I just have to ask – and this is a rhetorical question,” Tucker said during an interview with Will Cain, co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend.

“If it’s racist to ask people to show a driver’s license in order to vote, why is it not racist to ask for a vax card to prove their medical history before going to dinner or staying in a hotel?” Carlson continued. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either,” Cain chimed.

It isn’t the first time Carlson has falsely tarred certain COVID-19 policies as racist. Last Tuesday, Carlson specifically attacked New York City’s recent policy to consider race in the city’s provision of monoclonal antibody treatments.

https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1480709361035055108?s=20

“It doesn’t matter what kind of health they’re in,” he said. “All that matters is their skin color. Whites don’t qualify.”

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Carlson’s sudden concern about the allotment of COVID-19 treatments flies in the face of his past comments about the virus. In fact, the Fox host has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the disease by fear-mongering over common sense COVID-19 precautions.

Back in April, Carlson encouraged his audience to “call the police immediately” if they see children wearing masks to protect themselves from COVID, saying: “Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart.”

Carlson has also casted doubt over scientific value of the vaccines, and even labeled vaccine mandates as part of a conspiracy to “separate the obedient from the free.”

“The point of mandatory vaccination is to identify the sincere Christians in the ranks, the freethinkers, the men with high testosterone levels and anyone else who doesn’t love Joe Biden and make them leave immediately,” he said of the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate in September.

Last year, when asked by Time whether he was vaccinated, Carlson called the inquiry a “super vulgar question” akin to asking someone what their favorite sex position is. In the end, he declined to disclose his vaccination status.

Trump’s new legal troubles mount — even as Russia probe officially runs out of steam

If last week was considered Joe Biden’s no-good, very bad week, there’s a case to be made that this week was Donald Trump’s no-good, even worse week.

Let’s look at all of the legal cases and investigations that seem to be pushing forward against Trump despite his best efforts to repel them with lawsuits and delaying tactics. The good news for Trump is that it appears the Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided that all of the obstruction of justice Trump perpetrated in plain sight during the Russia investigation is not worth prosecuting. Unless they make a move very quickly, the statute of limitations is about to run out on that front. So much for Robert Mueller’s sanguine pronouncement that we needn’t worry about his refusal to recommend indictment because, of course, they could always do it after the president left office.

But that’s the only good news on this front that Trump’s received in recent days.

The former president is still facing a flurry of legal investigations from New York to Georgia while the evidence is piling up at the January 6th committee and the DOJ. The case that seems to be closest to coming to a head is the civil investigation by New York State Attorney General Leticia James. Last Tuesday, James filed a response to one of Trump’s frivolous arguments with a filing and a statement that her office has “uncovered significant evidence indicating that the Trump Organization used fraudulent and misleading asset valuations on multiple properties to obtain economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions for years.”

It’s not that anyone’s surprised by this. The New York Times exposed the massive tax fraud perpetrated by Trump’s father over decades — and Trump learned everything he knows about “business” from his daddy. There have been numerous other journalistic deep dives into Trump’s corrupt business practices defrauding customers, investors and insurance companies. The joint investigation by Pro-Publica and WNYC called Trump Inc. and the book by its main producer Andrea Bernstein called “American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power” alone uncovered years of misrepresentations and double-dealing in Trump’s real estate businesses in the U.S. and abroad. This family business — as we know from previous cases such as the Trump University fraud case which Trump settled for 25 million dollars when he assumed the presidency and the embarrassing con game they ran called the “Trump Foundation” which turned out to be little more than a slush fund for themselves — has been skirting the edge of criminality for years.

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This case by the NY attorney general is the first to take an official look at some of those allegations and it appears that there is plenty of evidence to back them up. For instance, James brought receipts showing that Trump had refinanced the loan on his 40 Wall Street tower in Lower Manhattan by claiming that it was worth $735 million when it was worth less than half of that. The Trump Organization’s Aberdeen Golf Club’s value was massively inflated based upon lies about how many luxury houses it was planning to build. The AG also claims that Trump gave untrue statements to the IRS, overstating the values of land at two of his golf courses by counting the values of nonexistent mansions for which he then took deductions. I don’t know about you, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if any of us tried to do something like that even on a tiny scale we would be in serious criminal trouble.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has an ongoing criminal investigation based upon the same evidence and there is some coordination between the two offices, a fact which Trump and his offspring are using to argue that they should not have to appear under subpoena. You see, if they wish to avoid incriminating themselves in the criminal case, they would have to take the 5th in the civil case, and unlike criminal cases, that can be used against them.

Just think about that: the former president of the United States and his children, one of whom was a senior white house adviser, are arguing that they will not be able to testify because they might incriminate themselves criminally. You might think they’re just trying to delay the proceedings but they must actually be very worried about criminal exposure. According to James, Eric Trump, the only one to testify until now, took the 5th 500 times in his deposition.

The criminal investigation has been much quieter than the New York attorney general’s but they have indicted the Trump Organization’s Chief Financial Officer on unrelated fraud charges and since the case is intertwined with the civil case, one can assume they are operating from the same evidence. It’s possible they won’t be able to put together criminal charges from what we’ve seen, but if what James says is true, that means something is terribly wrong with our criminal justice system.

Meanwhile, down in Georgia, the district attorney investigating Trump’s attempt to coerce state and local officials into committing voter fraud has requested a special grand jury to hear the case. That’s the one where he was recorded calling up the Secretary of State to tell him he would be in legal trouble if he didn’t “find” 11,800 votes to put Trump over the top. It looks as though that case isn’t going away any time soon either.

Back in DC, Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court betrayed him once again, ruling this week that the National Archives can turn over the records requested by the January 6th committee. (I would be very surprised if lawyers in the White House who were reportedly so concerned about the president’s unconstitutional coup planning, did not write notes to the file outlining their objections.) The committee subpoenaed Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and has asked Ivanka Trump to appear voluntarily to tell what she knows about her father sitting on his hands while his supporters sacked the Capitol.

And now we have this story of Giuliani coordinating the use of fraudulent Trump “alternate electors” who actually sent fake documents to the National Archives, which may end up being the most notorious case of voter fraud in history. (It’s enough to make your head explode.) Two state attorneys general have referred the case to the Department of Justice and it’s hard to imagine that they will not look into this. People are in jail right now for far less.

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It’s raining bad legal news for Donald Trump. Unfortunately, what this means is that Trump will definitely run for president which he believes will insulate him and his family from legal exposure. Coming from the man who won his election with promises to “lock her up!” that’s especially rich, but this is Trump. And if he were to win (or “win”) in 2024, he would gain himself four more years in which to run out the clock on all prospective crimes since the DOJ policy is that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Perhaps that’s one norm that really deserves to be shattered.

Voter suppression in action: Mail-in ballot rejections many times higher under new Texas law

The number of rejected mail-in ballot applications is skyrocketing in Texas counties under new Republican-authored voting restrictions recently signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott.

The Texas crackdown on mail-in voting appears to be hitting hardest in the state’s most densely populated counties, which also tend to have more voters of color and predominantly vote Democratic. In Travis County, which includes Austin, about half of all mail-in ballot applications have been rejected ahead of the state’s March primaries, up from a rate of about 11% in the 2020 election cycle, according to the county clerk’s office. About half of applications were rejected in Hidalgo County as well, according to elections administrator Yvonne Ramon.

Dallas County has rejected 43% of the applications it received, according to elections administrator Frank Phillips. In Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, more than half of the applications received on Monday were rejected under the “ridiculous” new law, said county elections administrator Jacque Callanen. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said the county is rejecting applications at a rate 700% higher than previous cycles because of the new “voter suppression laws that create a maze of technicalities.” Harris County includes the city of Houston, and with 4.7 million residents has a higher population than 24 U.S. states.

“Voters are being mistreated in this circumstance,” Travis County election clerk Dana DeBeauvoir told reporters on Tuesday. “My friends, this is what voter suppression looks like.”

Many of the applications have been rejected because of the new identification requirements under Texas’ new voting law, SB 1. Texas law already restricted mail-in voting by people under age 65 but the new law requires voters to include their driver’s license or state ID number in their application, or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Counties must match those numbers against the information in each individual’s voter file to approve their application.

Counties have struggled to match ID information because they lack certain data, particularly because voters are not required to provide both their state ID and Social Security numbers when they register to vote. The Texas secretary of state’s office last year said more than 2 million of the state’s 17 million registered voters did not have one of the two ID numbers on file and more than 250,000 did not have either number on file. The numbers have declined since then, but more than 700,000 voters still do not have both numbers on file and more than 100,000 don’t have either, according to the secretary of state’s office.

Nearly 500,000 Texas voters do not have a driver’s license on file, which is the first number voters have to provide on their applications.

“The voter is playing a guessing game with this,” DeBeauvoir said at a press conference. “The voter is trying to remember the number they signed up with at the voter registration office 10, 20, 30 years ago. ‘What number did I use for the voter registration database? Was it my driver’s license number? Did I use my Social Security number?’ Do you remember what you signed up with? I didn’t. I had to go back and look it up. Voters are going to have to play the same guessing game.”

DeBeauvoir said some voters’ applications were rejected because they used an older form that did not include the new voter ID requirement.

“A lot of people are still trying to use the old form because we’ve had a paper shortage, and printing of these new forms means they’re scarce,” she explained. “They’re hard to come by. Nevertheless, you have to use the new form. If somebody sends in an old form, their ballot will be rejected.”

Election officials have sought to help voters avoid mistakes that lead to rejections but the new law also bars election officials from sending unsolicited mail-in voting applications, which would include the updated form and instructions on how to properly fill it out.

“So far, we have not received instructions from the secretary of state’s office to tell voters how to look up this information, and therein is the beginning of the problem for voters,” DeBeauvoir said.

Republicans are pushing back on the concerns raised by election clerks. Republican Secretary of State John Scott said the rejection rate in Travis County was “surprising” and demanded a review of the applications.

“We call on Travis County to immediately review and re-examine the mail ballot applications in question to determine whether they were processed in accordance with state law, with the goal of reinstating and minimizing any disruption to eligible voters who have properly submitted their application for ballot by mail. We anxiously await the results of their re-processing of these mail ballot applications,” he said in a statement.

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Voting rights advocates say the new law was largely aimed at restricting voting expansions in areas like Harris County, which sent mail-In ballot applications to every voter in 2020.

“They sent vote-by-mail applications to every registered voter in the county, and it caused state leadership to go berserk,” James Slattery, the senior staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, told Texas Public Radio.

Isabel Longoria, the Harris County elections administrator, filed a federal lawsuit last month challenging the law’s ban on sending out unsolicited mail ballot applications.

“SB 1 makes it a crime for me to do a critical part of my job, and it hurts the most vulnerable voters,” Longoria said in a statement. “SB 1 subjects me to criminal prosecution for encouraging eligible voters to vote by mail so they may participate in our democracy — an option they have under Texas law.”

While county officials are banned from sending out unsolicited mail ballot applications, candidates and political parties are not. The Texas Democratic Party said Monday it will send out hundreds of thousands of mail ballot applications to voters 65 and older.

“We can’t rely on our Republican-run state government to do this for us,” Rose Clouston, the party’s voter protection director, said in a statement. “Texas Republicans have made it very clear that they only think Republicans should have the right to vote and it is therefore incumbent on us to help voters navigate the maze of voting laws Republicans have erected — too much is at stake if we don’t.”

Texas is one of 19 states that passed new voting restrictions last year that Democrats worry will suppress voter turnout, particularly among voters of color, especially after the U.S. Senate failed multiple times to pass new voting rights legislation in the face of a Republican filibuster.

Georgia, which also passed a sweeping new voting law last year, saw absentee ballot applications increase by 400% in November’s municipal elections, with more than half of those rejected because they were submitted past the deadline set under the new law.

The laws were prompted by a campaign of false claims of voter fraud pushed by former President Donald Trump after his election defeat. Trump’s ire was particularly directed at cities with large Black populations like Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee. President Joe Biden last week highlighted the importance of protecting Black voters from “new laws designed to suppress your vote” as he called on the Senate to change filibuster rules to pass voting rights legislation after Republicans repeatedly blocked debate on the bills. The renewed voting rights push died this week, at least for now, when Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., joined all 50 Republicans to block the filibuster changes.

“Across the United States, dozens of voter suppression laws have been introduced in state legislatures, with 34 laws enacted in 19 states,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., said in a statement. “These laws are clearly aimed at restricting access to the ballot box, disproportionately impacting Black, Indigenous, Latino and other communities that have borne the historical weight of voting restrictions. The failure of the U.S. Senate to restore the Voting Rights Act and protect our communities from these restrictions is a failure of our nation’s moral compass.”

Read more on the battle over voting rights:

Who were the Jan. 6 attackers? Isolated white folks, searching for meaning — and enemies

The Age of Trump empowered many “zombie ideas,” both here in America and around the world. Fascism is the most dangerous of those zombie ideas. There is also the Big Lie that the 2020 Election was rigged or somehow stolen.

Donald Trump is no longer president, but zombie ideas continue to grow in number and force, devouring the unprepared or those who have left themselves vulnerable through carelessness or negligence or, in some cases, who are willing human sacrifices. America’s democracy crisis is in many ways a story of zombie politics, about how lingering social, political, economic and other problems nourished an abomination that could no longer be easily denied or ignored.

The claim that the rise of Trump is primarily a story of “economic anxiety” among the white working class is one of the most powerful zombie ideas in recent memory. It appears highly resistant to facts, evidence or reason. Social scientists and other researchers have clearly established that white racism in its various forms explains why white voters support Trump, the Republican Party and neofascism.

It is of course true that questions of class cannot be easily separated from the color line in America. And it’s unquestionably true that the working and middle classes in America (white or otherwise) have suffered greatly since the 1960s from deindustrialization and gangster-capitalist attacks on upward mobility, the commons and the overall quality of life. Those shocks to the system have definitely made right-wing authoritarians, demagogues, fake populists and “friendly fascists” like Donald Trump seem more appealing to many disgruntled white voters.

But it is also true that, in practice, “economic anxiety” among white people has historically manifested itself through white racism and the politics of white supremacy. The evidence also undercuts the claim that Trumpism is primarily a function or corollary to economic suffering or “anxiety.”

For example, the average 2016 Trump voter lived in a household with a median income of $72,000, slightly above the national median income at the time. Poor and low-income voters — well below that level, in other words — often do not vote, but are more likely to support Democrats than Republicans.

Black and brown people — a community disproportionately impacted by globalization, neoliberalism and other economic shocks — have overwhelmingly opposed Trump and his movement. If Trumpism was in fact an authentic revolt against the “the system”, one would expect them to be among its most enthusiastic supporters.

Last January’s assault on the U.S. Capitol was a white supremacist attack against America’s multiracial democracy. Yet these zombie ideas about the “white working class” still color how too many political observers understand that event.

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New research sheds additional light and clarity on the role played by white identity politics in the Jan. 6 attack.

A paper by social scientists Austin Wright (the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy) and David Van Dijcke (the University of Michigan) details how participants in the Capitol assault were more likely to come from areas of the country with comparatively high levels of Trump support. In addition, Wright and Dijcke also show that the likelihood of participating in the attack on the Capitol greatly increased if the participants came from a community that Trump narrowly lost.

Trumpists who participated in the insurrection were also more likely to perceive their communities as being politically isolated, i.e., they live in an area where their neighbors or the surrounding community do not share their affinity for Trump and his movement. This perceived isolation also heightens a sense of threat and vulnerability.

Wright and Van Dijcke’s paper, “Profiling Insurrection: Characterizing Collective Action Using Mobile Device Data,” also finds that people who participated in the Capitol attack were more likely to come “from Trump-voting ‘islands,’ where residents are surrounded by neighborhoods with higher numbers of Biden supporters.”

Not surprisingly, Trumpists who participated in the insurrection were also more likely to have been radicalized by right-wing social media platforms such as Parler, and to live in close geographic proximity to right-wing extremist paramilitary, terrorist or hate groups.

These new findings complement the much-discussed research by Robert Pape and his colleagues at the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, which shows — contrary to stereotypes about rust belt and rural America — that a large percentage of those who attacked the Capitol last January came from white suburban middle- and upper-class communities. Trump’s attack force also included a large number of older, married white-collar professionals, in other words, people who would generally be considered part of mainstream American society. Another singular finding is that many people who participated in the insurrection came from formerly white-majority areas that have experienced rapid demographic change.

In an essay at the Conversation, Pape offers this additional context: “We have found that 47 million American adults — nearly 1 in 5 — agree with the statement that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.” Of those people, close to half, or 21 million, also agree that “use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency”:

Our survey found that many of these 21 million people with insurrectionist sentiments have the capacity for violent mobilization. At least 7 million of them already own a gun, and at least 3 million have served in the U.S. military and so have lethal skills. Of those 21 million, 6 million said they supported right-wing militias and extremist groups, and 1 million said they are themselves or personally know a member of such a group, including the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Only a small percentage of people who hold extremist views ever actually commit acts of violence, but our findings reveal how many Americans hold views that could turn them toward insurrection.

A recent working paper entitled “Bowling with Trump: Economic Anxiety, Racial Identification, and Well-Being in the 2016 Presidential Election” expands our understanding of the relationship between white identity politics and support for American neofascism and Trumpism. Its authors explain:

We find that the oft-observed positive relationship between racial animus (prejudice) and Trump’s vote share is eliminated by introducing an interaction between racial animus and a measure of the basic psychological need for relatedness. We also find that rates of worry have a strong and significant positive association with Trump’s vote share, but this is offset by high levels of relatedness. Together, these two results imply that racial voting behavior in 2016 was driven by a desire for in-group affiliation as a way of buffering against economic and cultural anxiety. … This suggests that the economic roots of Trump’s success may be overstated and that the need for relatedness is a key underlying driver of contemporary political trends in the U.S.

In keeping with the scholarship on fascism and other forms of radical and extremist movements, there is strong evidence that Trump supporters are driven by a search for belonging, meaning and identity. As an example of that dynamic, people — especially young men — who are attracted to extremist movements are often seeking out a type of family and community that is tied together, generally in opposition to some out-group or “enemy,” by what sociologists describe as “bonding” social capital.

When it comes to zombie ideas, white supremacy and racism are among America’s oldest examples. In many ways, America was actually founded on them. Donald Trump can be seen as a political necromancer who took those zombie ideas and made them powerful in ways not seen since the era of Jim Crow white supremacy, or perhaps the end of Reconstruction following the American Civil War. To this point, Joe Biden and the Democrats have shown themselves incapable of stopping or reversing these zombie ideas. America’s democracy teeters on the edge of disaster as a result.

Social scientists Hakeem Jefferson and Victor Ray address this in a recent essay for FiveThirtyEight:

The idea that the racial reckoning of 2020 would last preyed on some of the most pervasive myths about race in America — in particular, optimism about what would come out of the protests and activism of 2020. It required that one believed, as Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, that the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

But history presents a much more complicated story than an optimistic read of King’s famous quotation suggests. Racial progress has never been linear, nor has it ever been wholly forward-moving.

Yes, there are moments of racial reckoning — fleeting though they often are — that go some way to improve the lives of racial and ethnic minorities. But these moments that hint at a change in the racial hierarchy and a change in the status and social position of Black Americans are never met with uniform support from the American public.

Instead, these moments are often met with violent responses. They are also often met with new laws that attempt to weaken the political power of Black people while strengthening the political power of white people. And, yes, these moments are also often met by attempts to ensure a particular telling of American history that helps to maintain the mythology of racial progress that so many Americans find so deeply attractive.

White supremacy, racism, authoritarianism and fascism are intimately tied together. In fact, Jim and Jane Crow white supremacy was (and is) America’s native form of fascism. As such, what today’s Republican-fascist movement represent is not something exotic, brought from foreign shores, but something truly American.

On that point, political scientists Jesse Rhodes, Raymond La Raja, Tatishe Nteta and Alexander Theodoridis have conducted new research showing a clear relationship between white racism and support for Trump’s coup and the Capitol attack. They summarize their findings in an essay for the Washington Post:

People who deny White racial advantages and the prevalence of racial inequities also doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, express more positive attitudes toward the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and absolve former president Donald Trump of blame for the riot.

These patterns suggest that the desire to maintain White advantages — the impulse that King identified as largely responsible for the nation’s democratic failures — continues to threaten the well-being of U.S. democracy.

Too many white liberals, progressives and Democrats have convinced themselves that improving economic mobility and other life opportunities will slow or stop the neofascist movement by undermining its support among the “white working class.” Considering the evidence, this is unlikely to be effective. Whiteness, white racism and white rage in their various forms are not that easily overcome — they pay their owners a potent psychological wage, and often a material wage as well.

In short, Donald Trump, the Jim Crow fascist Republican Party and the larger white right made an offer to the “white working class,” which a large proportion of the latter did not refuse. For many reasons, tens of millions of white Americans chose racism, racial resentment and white supremacy. By doing so, those white Americans decided to make the lives of black and brown Americans and other marginalized groups much worse with the hope that somehow it would elevate their own collective feelings of power and self-esteem.

The sooner the Democrats come to grips with that fact, and fully recognize the compelling power of zombie ideas such as racism and white supremacy, the faster they can focus their energy on mobilizing their own base and doing the hard work of preserving, defending and redeeming the country’s democracy. Time is running out.

More on the aftermath of Jan. 6 and the one-year anniversary:

Cracks open between Republicans as alleged scheme to falsify 2020 election documents emerges

As Merrick Garland explained in his big speech earlier this month, the way to dismantle a criminal conspiracy is to start at the bottom and work up. It’s a slow process, but it can be devastatingly effective.

That’s why the fifty-nine Republicans who cast fake electoral votes are a gift to investigators seeking to understand Trump’s role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election. These pseudo-electors impersonated public officials in a bid to overturn a presidential election.

They signed forged paperwork and sent it to the government. It’s an open-and-shut case, but investigators could parlay this into something much bigger than prison terms for a few dozen local GOP operatives.

In a group of nearly 60 people facing serious prison time, at least some of them will be willing to implicate the higher ups to save themselves.

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“Once those individuals see that they could possibly be facing prison time, I do think we’re going to see some people flip and we’ll get some further information as to who orchestrated this in the first place,” Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel told MSNBC viewers last week, adding that, “It may go all the way to the top.”

Nessel noted that under Michigan law, those who signed the fake certificates could face up to 14 years in prison for forging a public record and five years for election law forgery.

The AG said she’s prepared to prosecute if she has to, but said the federal government is better suited to handle what is clearly a sprawling conspiracy orchestrated across state lines. Wisconsin’s Attorney General Josh Kaul agrees this is a case for the feds.

They’re not wrong.

The fake certificates come from seven states, but they have nearly identical verbiage and formatting. Real certificates of ascertainment all look slightly different because there’s no standardized form. Yet the fake ones all look alike. The question: Who supplied the template?

Trump’s inner circle was obsessed with the fake electors scheme. Memos by Trump lawyer John Eastman show that he assigned these fake electoral votes a starring role in his procedural coup. It was these fake votes he hoped Mike Pence would count instead of the real ones.

Weeks before the electoral vote, Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows was texting about how much he loved a plan to seat fake electors. Trump advisor Steven Miller even went on television to describe the plan to present congress with “alternative” electoral votes. US Rep. Mo Brooks led an effort to throw out the electoral votes of the Biden swing states, reportedly with Trump’s blessing.

US Rep. Louie Gohmert teamed up with some of the pseudo-electors to sue Mike Pence in a doomed bid to force the VP to count the phony votes. The connection between the fake electors and that lawsuit was reported well ahead of J6.

“[The fake electors] are counting on Pence and congressional Republicans to treat those informal votes as equal to the slates certified in those states where Trump was defeated,” Kyle Cheney of Politico wrote on Dec 28.

The pressure is on, and the cracks in the facade are spreading.

Arizona state Rep. Jake Hoffman refused to answer a reporter’s question about how he came to cast a fake vote for Trump, nervously referring all questions to “the party chair.”

The chair of the Arizona GOP is Dr. Kelli Ward, who was not only a fake elector but also Gohmert’s co-plaintiff. A number of the fake electors are high-ranking officials in their state parties. Wisconsin’s fake votes were even submitted by the state party’s chair on Wisconsin GOP letterhead.

Pennsylvania’s fake electors are already distancing themselves from their co-conspirators, stressing they refused to sign the electoral vote paperwork unless they could include a proviso that they weren’t the lawful electors unless a court recognized them as such.

“We were not going to sign unless the language was changed to say ‘if,’ fake elector Sam DeMarco told a local paper. “This was in no way, shape or form us trying to go around the election.”

The fact that Pennsylvania and Nevada felt it necessary to include a disclaimer makes the states that didn’t look even worse, like they were trying to, well, go against the election.

Jared Kushner trying to assure partners Trump won’t interfere with new private equity firm

Jared Kushner wants other financiers to know that he plans to remain with his private equity firm whether or not his father-in-law returns to the White House.

Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior White House adviser has been telling limited partners at Affinity Capital about the contacts he made while serving in government, particularly in the Middle East, reported Axios.

“Jared’s intention is for this to be his long-term opportunity and, other than the book he has coming out, he’s spending most of his time on it,” the source said. “He can’t live his life just waiting on what [Trump] may or may not do …. People wouldn’t have joined the firm if they thought Jared is going to leave in a couple years.”

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However, those efforts could be complicated if Donald Trump is re-elected because some of those limited partners are said the be sovereign wealth funds, and because technology companies are generally hostile to the twice-impeached one-time president.

The Miami-based private equity firm, which is reportedly looking for office space in Israel, has a little more than $3 billion in verbal commitments for its debut fund, and its first deal is expected to come by the end of March.

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Howard Stern to anti-vaxxers: “In my America, all hospitals would be closed to you”

During Wednesday’s episode of “The Howard Stern Show,” its host took the opportunity to blast COVID anti-vaxxers.

“If it was up to me, anyone unvaccinated would not be admitted to a hospital,” Stern said on his SiriusXM radio show, per Variety. “At this point, they have been given plenty of opportunity to get the vaccine.

“No one’s sitting there conspiring against you,” he continued. “Americans don’t want to create a vaccine that’s going to turn you into a robot or magnetize you. There’s enough Americans now who have taken it. Look at us as a sampling where nothing has happened to us. It’s time for you to get it. Now, if you don’t get it, in my America, all hospitals would be closed to you. You’re going to go home and die. That is what you should get. Absolutely.”

The outspoken television personality — who allegedly received three doses of the jab — previously made headlines last September after telling the unvaccinated to “go f**k yourself” for refusing “the cure.”

“When are we gonna stop putting up with the idiots in this country and just say it’s mandatory to get vaccinated? F**k ’em. F**k their freedom. I want my freedom to live,” he said, per CNN. “I want to get out of the house already. I want to go next door and play chess. I want to go take some pictures. This is bulls**t.”

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According to the Los Angeles Times, Stern also spoke out against controversial podcast host Joe Rogan’s decision to medicate with ivermectin — a drug used to treat some parasitic infections, head lice and skin conditions in humans — following his positive COVID diagnosis.

“They go to the doctor and they’ll take horse de-wormer from a doctor, like I heard Joe Rogan was saying,” Stern said. “Well, a doctor would also give you a vaccine, so why take horse de-wormer?”

“Stay home, don’t bother with science, it’s too late. . . . We want you to go away,” he added. “We want you to leave the country. Go somewhere where they have ultimate freedom, wherever that is, some bizarro world where you don’t have to take the vaccine. . . . I don’t know when nonsense became such a thing.”

Last week, Stern slammed Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic for choosing to stay unvaccinated. Djokovic was slated to compete in the 2022 Australian Open but was ultimately forced to leave the country due to concerns of him being a threat to public health.

Stern labeled the athlete as “selfish,” a “douchebag” and a “f**knut,” according to the HuffPost.

“The joker, I call him the joker, what a f**king asshole,” Stern said. “They should throw him right the f**k out of tennis. That’s it. Goodbye.”

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Sia reveals she entered rehab following backlash for her directorial debut film “Music”

Sia revealed that she struggled with her mental health and subsequently entered rehab after receiving widespread backlash for the portrayal of autism in her directorial debut “Music,” according to Variety.

“I was suicidal and relapsed and went to rehab,” the singer shared in a recent New York Times profile of Kathy Griffin. She also added that the comedian — who received death threats after a 2017 photo scandal of her holding a bloody rendition of Donald Trump’s head — helped her and saved her life.

The 2021 musical-drama film stars 19-year-old Maddie Ziegler, who is neurotypical, as Music Gamble, an autistic 15-year-old girl. The dancer, who appeared in Lifetime’s reality show “Dance Moms,” was also featured in Sia’s 2014 and 2015 music videos for “Chandelier,” “Elastic Heart” and “Big Girls Cry.”

During last year’s Golden Globe Awards, “Music” garnered multiple nominations — one for best motion picture, musical or comedy and another for best actress — despite multiple reviews criticizing the film’s casting choice and depiction of individuals on the autism spectrum. In a 2020 interview with Australia’s 10 News First, Sia defended her decision to cast Ziegler, stating that the film wasn’t a documentary but rather, a work of fiction.

“There is no way I could have used someone of [Music’s] level of functioning to play her,” Sia told Network 10’s Angela Bishop, per Yahoo Entertainment. “I also needed a dancer, for [the character’s] imaginary life.

“The character is based completely on my neuro-atypical friend,” Sia continued. “He found it too stressful being nonverbal, and I made this movie with nothing but love for him and his mother.”

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Following the critical reviews, Sia announced on Twitter that a warning would appear at the beginning of the film.

“I promise [I] have been listening,” she said. “The motion picture ‘Music’ will, moving forward, have this warning at the head of the movie: ‘Music in no way condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people. There are autistic occupational therapists that specialize in sensory processing who can be consulted to explain safe ways to provide proprioceptive, deep-pressure feedback to help with meltdown safety.”

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“Single Drunk Female” isn’t just sobriety TV. It’s a show that makes recovery feel universal

“Single Drunk Female” is an “of these times” show that skips over the COVID part of life circa 2022-ish. People probably won’t mind that, even ones who usually do, because the show does such a bang-up job of replicating how heavy life feels right now without putting its characters in masks or talking about vaccines.

Alcoholism is the disease around which this story revolves, one that brings Samantha Fink (Sofia Black-D’Elia) to her knees, costing her friendships and a good job, and generally delaying her launch into independence.

Her situation has nothing to do with the pandemic . . . until we come to understand how much of Samantha’s first hours, days and weeks of sobriety are a struggle through exhaustion. That part hits close to home.

If television is a mechanism that both defines and moves with the current of fashion, “Single Drunk Female” is right on time in this respect and others. Debuting in the midst of Dry January guarantees its alignment with a surge in temperance trends.

Just as many people, if not more, are headed in the opposite direction of willful sobriety, a product of pandemic exhaustion and depression. You know, those ongoing concerns we met in early 2020 with joking/not joking about day-drinking.

Series creator Simone Finch recently explained in a Television Critics Association press conference that the seeds for this show began germinating in 2012, before she got sober. So if this story about substance abuse recovery derived from her own life feels relatable to folks living out the definition of surge depletion that is coincidental.

Samantha is messy when we meet her, which coincides with the final inebriated moments before she’s fired from her media site job. One court mandated month in rehab later, she’s moved back to Boston with her self-absorbed mother Carol (Ally Sheedy) whose main concerns as she picks up her daughter from rehab are a) not being late for her spiritual book club meeting, and b) how much Samantha talked about her in therapy.

Carol is a classic undermining parent, smiling brightly while nitpicking her child’s efforts to apply concealer to her zits, and Sheedy plays her like a length of barbed wire brought to life. Her comic chemistry with Black-D’Elia keeps the show flowing with black humor.

Balancing that out is Rebecca Henderson’s bone-dry delivery as Sam’s reluctant Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor Olivia and Lily Mae Harrington’s party girl Felicia, who is equally Sam’s biggest supporter and the devil on her shoulder always luring her back out to the bar. Garrick Bernard’s droll yet down-to-Earth James is also wonderful as a friend Samantha gets to know for the first time in meetings . . . even though it’s not the first time they’ve met.

The opening episodes are very good at conveying the raw irritation of sober life to someone who’s a newborn to it. Samantha is grieving her father’s recent death and a break-up with her best friend Brit (Sasha Compère), and the writers excel at presenting these as contributing factors, not excuses, in Sam’s journey from self-loathing and egotism into responsibility.

Even so, “Single Drunk Female” doesn’t relinquish the right for Sam and everyone else in recovery to laugh at themselves at their best and worst. Jojo Brown’s Mindy Moy gets the cream of these moments as Samantha’s fellow AA member and new boss at the local grocery store, who gently smacks the air out of her ego at work and refuses to sit too close to her sloppiness at meetings. “I’m your chic friend who needs you to try a little harder,” Mindy tells Samantha – but truly, isn’t she reading everyone who’s traded in couture for sweatpants?

This being a story about resetting from a wild life of black-out partying to a new one centered in alcohol-free stability, Samantha does her best to abide with all of it.

This being a comedy shaped in part by the sensibilities of executive producer Jenni Konner (“Girls”), Samantha and everyone who puts up with her are blessed with the gift of snark and full to the brim with empathy as they have conversations about working the steps and avoiding triggers, and call Samantha out for her immaturity.

I should note that the appeal of “Girls” escaped me entirely; I grasped why it was a cultural phenomenon while never finding any of main characters to be anything short of insufferable. Maybe it’s because its creator’s paradigm is a galaxy removed from my own. Having said that, “Single Drunk Female” similarly benefits from Finch’s introspection about her sobriety, filtered with care and grace through Black-D’Elia performance.

Through her, Samantha’s struggles feel universal, in that you don’t have to have battled cravings for drugs and alcohol for her perpetual life fatigue to speak to you. There’s a “been there” familiarity to Samantha’s failed attempt to sneak a nap during a shift at her new grocery store job. It’s because she’s nine-days sober and her body is adjusting to sleeping free of depressants, but haven’t we all felt like crawling behind a row of cereal boxes to sack out at some point recently?

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And who doesn’t crave the tangible return to community as we crawl past the two-year mark in a pandemic that’s teased so many promises of bright new days only for us to slip into yet another hangover from darker months?

Millions of us are going though our versions of detox and rehabilitation right now, real and metaphorical. It must be said out that actual recovering addicts have had a far tougher run in a pandemic that has forced many of the community gatherings that are essential to their healing into virtual spaces.

Still, there’s something about Black-D’Elia’s slouching through the hours, one step at a time, that makes even the most over it straight-edger feel seen. You may be a teetotaler, someone who imbibes in the occasional cocktail or a person on the verge of joining the Temperence movement. However you define yourself, the massive interruption we’re living through has forced all of us to start over in some small corner of our lives. That’s all “Single Drunk Female” is, clear-eyed and writ large.

“Single Drunk Female” premieres with back-to-back episodes Thursday, Jan. 20 at 10 p.m. on Freeform and debuts the next day on Hulu. Subsequent episodes air Thursdays at 10:30 p.m.

Watch a trailer for it below, via YouTube.

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Georgia prosecutor investigating Trump’s alleged election misdeeds requests special grand jury

A local District Attorney probing former President Donald trump’s pressure campaign on Georgia officials to overturn the state’s 2020 election results is requesting a special grand jury to aid in the investigation, reports said.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose jurisdiction includes the capital city of Atlanta, said the decision was necessary due to the “significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony,” according to a letter to the county’s chief judge cited by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Willis’ office has dedicated significant resources to the investigation, which is reportedly focusing in particular on Trump’s interactions with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who at one point was asked to “find” enough votes to overturn the former president’s loss in the state.

Raffensperger wrote in a book published last year that he understood the conversation as a “threat” — one that put him in danger due to the potential actions of Trump’s more “radical followers.”

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“I felt then — and still believe today — that this was a threat,” Raffensperger wrote. “Others obviously thought so, too, because some of Trump’s more radical followers have responded as if it was their duty to carry out this threat.”

But in her letter, Willis noted Raffensperger’s unwillingness to cooperate with her investigation — including a quote from last year in which he said, “if (Willis) wants to interview me, there’s a process for that.”

The special grand jury in question cannot by itself make indictment decisions, but it can subpoena witnesses and compel them to produce documents, making it a useful tool as Willis continues her investigation into the former president’s actions.

It will be in session for up to two months and includes at least 16 members, AJC reported.

Trump didn’t seem happy about the news Thursday — issuing a statement calling his interactions with Raffensperger a “perfect phone call.”

“What this Civil Special Grand Jury should be looking into is not my perfect phone call, but the large scale voter fraud that took place in Georgia,” Trump said in a statement.

Raffensperger, in an interview with Fox News, also claimed he had been fully cooperative with the investigation and diverged from his previous statements on the matter, saying nothing untoward had taken place.

“I think she’s just trying to score some cheap political points with her Democrat friends,” he said.

Trump is also facing a number of other investigations — including one examining his family business’ financial dealings led by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and another civil fraud case overseen by the New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Willis is also reportedly sharing information with the House select committee investigating the attempted Jan. 6 insurrection, which in recent weeks has focused its attention on Republican leaders’ communications with Trump before, during and after the riot.

How one young actor is using American Sign Language in animation

At only 12 years old, Shaylee Mansfield is already breaking new ground with the animated series “Madagascar: A Little Wild.” Despite her youth, it still took her a while to get here.

In an interview with Salon, she said she started acting “by accident,” but according to her mother, Mansfield was “born with a camera.” At a young age, she began making videos with her family for their YouTube channel ASL Nook, which teaches American Sign Language (ASL) and aspects of Deaf culture.

Mansfield was born deaf to deaf parents. Her younger sister is hearing. The whole family was profiled in the documentary special “Born This Way Presents: Deaf Out Loud,” executive produced by Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin.

Though Mansfield said she “loved being in front of the camera just hamming it out,” soon ASL Nook became an influential channel, especially among hearing families raising deaf children. In one of the most popular videos, a small Mansfield sits cross-legged in an armchair before a Christmas tree and performs the children’s book “The Polar Express” with the gravitas of a Shakespearean actor. She’s mesmerizing.

Her big acting break came with “Noelle,” the 2019 Disney+ holiday film starring Anna Kendrick. Mansfield plays a young girl who believes in Kendrick’s female Santa Claus. “We all thought it was a one-time thing because Deaf roles do not happen often,” Mansfield said.

But she started booking commercials. One for Disney World featuring her whole family in the amusement park, communicating with characters who know or are learning sign language, went viral and won the Gold Award at the LA Addys, the advertising industry’s largest award. Her first lead role came in the 2020 Netflix film “Feel the Beat,” where she portrayed a dancer.

The art of the sign-over

Shaylee interacts with Dave in “Madagascar: A Little Wild” (DreamWorks)

As if all that weren’t enough, Mansfield is even teaching the entertrainment industry new ways to incorporate deaf actors. She accomplished this latest milestone with her work in the series “Madagascar: A Little Wild,” a prequel to the DreamWorks Animation film franchise about animals at the Central Park Zoo who decide to escape.

In the show’s sixth season, Mansfield plays an animated character named and modeled after her. The show is billing it as the first time a signing performance (a sign-over) is credited alongside speaking performances (voice-overs).

“To be credited is a huge deal,” Mansfield said. “This should have happened a long time ago.”

Her acting for the animated series had to happen over Zoom, due to the pandemic. “No set, props, and people to bounce off,” Mansfield said. “I had to sign my lines several times, a bit slower, from different angles in order for the animators to capture in drawing.”

Her favorite part of the experience? “Going all-out with my facial expressions.”

Sign language is more than merely hand signs, but complex languages with grammar that involves facial expressions, body movements, different dialects and regional accents. And ASL is simply one kind of sign language. As Mansfield wrote on her Facebook page, “the word “voice” is not just for people who “speak” with their mouth. My hands and language are very much my voice.”

But, as Mansfield told Salon, “People automatically associate voice with sounds,” leaving sign language out.

A cautious step forward

We seem to be at a time of new awareness and interest about deaf stories featuring, for the most part, performers (though not writers) who are actually deaf. Shows like “Hawkeye” feature deaf actor Alaqua Cox and Jeremy Renner, who identifies as Hard of Hearing.

It’s hard not to feel cautious, however. The Deaf and disabled community is used to our stories being told about us without us, usually badly. Marvel’s “The Eternals,” for example, didn’t have open captions for deaf audiences to experience deaf superhero Lauren Ridloff in theaters, and while “Hawkeye” had an episode that was the closest thing to my own personal experience of deafness I’ve ever seen onscreen, it also had an episode with grating ableism.

When asked what she wished hearing people understood about experiences of deafness, Mansfield said: “Know that not all Deaf people are the same. Different backgrounds, identities, places, cultures, languages, communities, and opinions. Even our communication and accessibility preferences are not always the same. I do wish hearing people would listen to Deaf people first and let us lead.”

For Mansfield, who dreams of one day working behind the camera as well as in front of it, acting is a process of combining imagination and her lived experiences: “playing as someone that’s not really me and also me.” Her biggest challenge is to “be hired for any roles — not just the Deaf roles. Many said that I looked like Rapunzel from ‘Tangled’ — how cool would it be to play her?”

Along with the signing character named Shaylee, this season of “Madagascar: A Little Wild” has a chimp character, Dave, who is deaf and signs. Dave’s hearing sister also signs and interprets for him.

“To be credited [as an actor],” Mansfield said, “I only hope will inspire people to redefine what “voice” truly means and create more voice-over jobs for signing Deaf people. I mean, they’re masters at facial expressions!”

“Madagascar: A Little Wild” is now streaming on Hulu and Peacock.

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How likely is it for omicron to mutate into something deadlier?

It’s hard to know what omicron means for the future of the pandemic. While some have optimistically suggested this could be the final surge before the U.S. moves into a more hopeful period of endemicity, scientists have also warned that the omicron variant — which is less severe albeit more transmissible than delta — could turn into something deadlier.

“People have wondered whether the virus will evolve to mildness, but there’s no particular reason for it to do so,” Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University, told the Associated Press last week. “I don’t think we can be confident that the virus will become less lethal over time.”

As Salon has previously reported, RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2 are, of course, always mutating; every replication in a hosts’ cells creates a moment for a chance mutation to emerge. While viruses are technically not alive, it is their nature to mutate and evolve as they infect hosts’ cells and replicate; this is how they survive.

In general, the process of evolution favors those who reproduce faster and better than their siblings. For viruses, this happens when they become more transmissible — which is what we saw with delta, then omicron. But who’s to say the virus won’t mutate into something more transmissible, and then more deadly later on during the infection period?

“We have two issues — one is can omicron take what it has and attach better to the receptors in the lungs with a single mutation?,” said Dr. George Rutherford, a professor and head of the division of infectious disease and global epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco. “They have a couple of mutations away, and if it did do that better, then it would cause more severe disease and potentially be deadlier — but the evolution of this organism is taking some real twists and turns.”

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Indeed, while it’s scientifically possible for omicron to mutate into a deadlier version of its transmissible self, there are reasons to believe this won’t necessarily happen.

“Both delta and omicron weren’t kind of logical extensions of what they had been before. They weren’t sort of two amino acid mutations from the prior variants; they were very different from the prior variants, which leads to two possible scenarios,” Rutherford told Salon. “One scenario is that there was somebody who was infected who was immunosuppressed, and it took an estimated 200 days to clear the virus. So, in one person it went through multiple mutations.”

The other scenario, Rutherford explained, is that omicron had a “parallel evolution track” — from infecting animals from a human and then back to humans — that could have caused all of its mutations.

“There is a theory circulating, with both theories circulating, that this was from an HIV infected patient in southern Africa,” Rutherford said. “Or there is some compelling data that would lead you to think that this might have evolved in mice and then crossed over from a mouse back into a human population.”

Indeed, scientists know animals like minks can develop COVID-19. In 2020, Denmark culled millions of minks in response to COVID-19 outbreaks at more than 200 mink farms.

“As to predicting what’s going to happen with the omicron variant, it could get replaced by something that looks very different,” Rutherford said, adding that there are three possibilities he sees happening with omicron, considering it’s already so transmissible that increased transmissibility might not favor the variant from an evolutionary perspective. “You have to envision something that has a selective advantage for the virus.”

According to Rutherford, the first of the three possibilities is that omicron could become more transmissible and “dock the receptor.” A second possibility is that the virus could shed in individuals for a longer period of time — instead of two to three days, it could be seven or eight — and infect more people that way. The third possibility is that it could develop properties to become more immuno-evasive and completely bypass immunity built by vaccines.

“So, what does the next mutation hold? Who knows, but those are the sorts of characteristics that would lead a virus to produce progeny per infection and give it a selective advantage,” Rutherford said. “Killing the host doesn’t necessarily give it a selective advantage — but don’t overthink it because if it makes the virus more transmissible, the virus doesn’t really care.”

Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told Salon that omicron’s transmissibility might get in its own way of being able to mutate into something worse because so many people have been, and are likely to be exposed, to omicron. This means that more individuals in the population are building immunity.

“If omicron mutated to become more deadly, you’d still have immunity towards all of its other epitopes [little pieces of the virus],” Gandhi said. “With omicron and vaccinations, there’s going to be fewer and fewer people in this country with no immunity whatsoever. So, if omicron mutated to become more deadly, you still have immunity towards all of its other antigens. It would have to be a whole new virus for you not to be able to combat it.”

Gandhi added there is “no doubt” omicron has also increased worldwide immunity, more so than the delta variant.

“And because it’s more mild, that’s a big deal in terms of some people not knowing they have it,” Gandhi said. “And that’s how the [flu] pandemic ended. It’s not that it went away — it became endemic and became something that we just dealt with.”

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Lauren Boebert makes bizarre comment to group of Jewish visitors at U.S. Capitol

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., made a series of bizarre remarks to a group of Jewish visitors at the U.S. Capitol Thursday morning, BuzzFeed reported, asking them if they were doing “reconnaissance” while stopping to look them over “from head to toe.”

“You know, I’m not sure to be offended or not,” one rabbi present for the incident told the outlet, adding that he was “very confused.”

The people in question were meeting with Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., to commemorate the 41st anniversary of the Iran Hostage Crisis, and wearing yarmulkes, a traditional Jewish headwear. The person coordinating the visit was also Orthodox and wears a traditional beard, according to BuzzFeed.

Boebert claimed that she was making a joking reference to her own mysterious Capitol visit, which came just three weeks before the attempted Jan. 6 insurrection. Salon exclusively reported at the time that Boebert hosted several guests on a Dec. 12, 2020 tour of the complex — despite the fact that she was not yet a member of Congress, and the building was closed to visitors at the time.

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In the months since Jan. 6, Boebert has repeatedly denied rumors that she hosted “reconnaissance tours” to would-be rioters, which were fueled by accusations from Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and others.

As for Thursday’s events, she said: “I saw a large group and made a joke.”

“Sadly when Democrats see the same they demonize my family for a year straight,” she added. “I’m too short to see anyone’s yarmulkes.”

Suozzi, for his part, denounced the comments — saying that Congresspeople can’t be “cavalier” in their public comments.

“The bottom line is that everyone, especially members of Congress, have to be very, very thoughtful in the language they use,” Souzzi said in a statement. “Because when you’re a member of Congress, you have an important role to play in society. You can’t be cavalier in the comments you make especially if they could be perceived as being antisemitic, or discriminatory.”

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What’s the difference between Morton’s and Diamond Crystal kosher salt?

Chefs are anything but nonchalant about sourcing ingredients. Missy Robbins, who cooks at Lilia in Brooklyn, has been using La Valle tomatoes for the past ten years; when it was time to choose a cooking olive oil for their restaurant, she tasted fifteen types before landing on Monini; and they bring in Tutto Calabria jarred chiles from Italy.

Even the salt, an ingredient often taken for granted, is carefully chosen: At Lilia, they use only Diamond Crystal kosher salt — and if Morton’s kosher salt comes in, Chef Robbins says, it throws everything off. (When Food52’s Test Kitchen Manager worked in the kitchen at Franny’s, he remembers using “the red box” — that’s also Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt too).

It’s not just chefs who have an expressed preference for a certain name in salt. When we asked our Twitter followers what brand of salt they use in cooking (as opposed to finishing or garnishing), they showed allegiance to Morton’s.

But is this brand loyalty among kosher salts based on family biases and traditions — it’s what your dad used, it’s what you’re comfortable with — or is there a real, taste-able difference between Morton’s Kosher Salt and Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt?

What Samin Nosrat says

Samin Nosrat basically wrote a book-length love letter to Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt in “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.” OK, not really, but she did single-handedly save the three-pound boxes from being discontinued in early 2019. Safe to say that she is the foremost expert on these two brands of kosher salt. “There are two major producers of kosher salt: Diamond Crystal, which crystallizes in an open container of brine, yielding light and hollow flakes; and Morton, which is made by rolling cubic crystals of vacuum-evaporated salt into thin dense flakes.” But what does that mean for cooking and baking purposes? Diamond Crystal is less salty and more crumbly, whereas Morton is much saltier and denser. You cannot, I repeat, cannot swap out one for the other without adjusting the amounts. Doing so will either create a much saltier recipe or a significantly undersalted dish.

Nosrat also notes that Diamond Crystal dissolves much more quickly than Morton. “The more quickly salt dissolves, the less likely you are to overseason a dish, thinking it needs more salt when actually the salt just needs more time to dissolve.” Oh, and did we mention that Diamond Crystal sticks to food much better because of the smaller crystals, which means if you season meat or vegetables, the salt won’t just fall off in the pan. We’re starting to understand why Nosrat loves it so much.

What is table salt?

Even though Diamond Crystal and Morton both have “kosher salt” in their name, Morton Kosher Salt is considered table salt. Diamond Crystal contains 53% less sodium by volume compared to table salt. If you see a recipe call for table salt, or if it specifically calls for Morton, then you should obviously use Morton. But if a recipe calls for kosher salt, stick with Diamond Crystal.

As a rule of thumb, Food52’s recipes are tested with Diamond Crystal, unless one says otherwise.

Turns out that there are visible differences at the level of the individual salt crystals. As Jill Santopietro reported for Chowhound back in 2010, Diamond Crystal and Morton’s have different shapes: Morton’s is made by flattening salt granules into large thin flakes by pressing them through high-pressure rollers, whereas Diamond Crystal is formed by a patented method in which “upside-down pyramids [are] stacked one over the next to form a crystal.”

This process, according Edward Schneider of the New York Times, who also wrote about D.C. versus Morton’s in April of that year, is the patented Alberger method (yep — that’s the same process used to make Flavacol stick so well to popcorn): It results in “handsome hollow pyramid-shaped grains. This hollow structure accounts for the salt’s lightness, and the thin walls of the ‘pyramids’ for its crushability.”

In each pinch of Diamond Crystal, there’s more space between the grains of salt (because the crystals don’t sit as snug against each other) — which makes it, writes Santopietro, lighter and less salty than Morton’s (and fine sea salt or table salt) — “and therefore more forgiving in the kitchen.” You’re less likely to over-salt if you use Diamond Crystal. Switch from Diamond Crystal to Morton’s without making adjustments and your food might burn a hole through your tongue.

Schneider recounts his own experience:

Suddenly, I lost my knack for getting the salt spot-on: everything was oversalted. Everything. Pound cake tasted like something you might serve with pot roast, and pot roast tasted like the barrel-preserved meat served on HMS Bounty. For heaven’s sake, the spaghetti was too salty — I was overdosing the pasta water.

If you’re wondering about converting between the different kinds of salts, Santopietro and Schneider have done that research for us:

Schneider: 1 : 1.85, Morton’s : D.C.
Santopietro: 1 1/4 : 1 3/4, Morton’s : D.C.

Santopietro’s rule of thumb? “Think of Morton’s and fine salt as roughly the same” and substitute it with nearly twice the amount of Diamond Crystal.

But recipe writers frequently neglect to identify the brand of kosher salt (shame on us!), even though it makes quite a difference. So what’s a home cook to do? “Pretend they used Diamond salt,” says Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen: You can always increase the amount of salt later.

Seed companies and customers say paper seed catalogs are not obsolete — yet

Despite unseasonal winter heat waves in swaths of the South, Midwest and Northeast that might get green thumbs itching to get out and get planting, it’s a mostly fallow time for gardeners and farmers across the U.S. Cover crops have been sown, winter storage crops have been stashed away, and some idle moments in which to plot out next spring’s planting beds have descended at last.

So have the paper seed catalogs, which often ship in late fall to arrive in mailboxes in late December or early January. Booklets from organic and heirloom seed companies take months or even years to plan and offer pages and pages of bright, alluring images of future bounty. (There are endless options: just a partial list includes nearly 100 companies). Some varietals are old favorites; others are fresh out of breeding trials and ready to dazzle with pest or drought resistance, or appealing new colors and flavor profiles. For farmers, gardeners and homesteaders, seed catalogs “are the unofficial beginning of the [planting] season,” says Catherine Kaczor, sales and marketing manager for Hudson Valley Seed Company in New York.

And while online catalogs have been around for decades now, seed companies continue to send out paper seed catalogs to their customers by the tens or hundreds of thousands. But do people still look forward to receiving them? Is anyone actually filling out the stapled-in order form, affixing its accompanying envelope with a stamp, and mailing it in? Or has everyone transitioned completely to online browsing and ordering?

Beth Hoffman runs a grassfed beef operation in South Central Iowa. Her quarter-acre garden supplies a summer’s worth of produce like lettuces, Sun Gold tomatoes, sweet corn, butternut squash, watermelons, herbs and Turkey Craw beans to her household and about 10 of her neighbors. She favors a hybrid ordering approach. “The Johnny’s [Selected Seeds] catalog arrives and that’s a physical reminder in the house that you should do the ordering or at least, start looking,” she says. “The paper catalog looks really hopeful and beautiful. It’s good for flipping through and seeing the whole breadth and depth of what’s available. But then I go online to place my order.”

High Mowing Organic Seeds brand strategist Darby Weaver says this is a common scenario among her company’s 126,000-ish commercial and home-garden customers — all of whom had the year’s new catalog shipped to them in late October. People like to “luxuriate” with paper catalogs, she says. “They’re this steadfast thing that have existed for a long time. They’re beautiful, and you’re cold and it’s winter and you want to see some green stuff.” But more and more sales are happening virtually these days, even though requests for print catalogs continue to rise so, “I don’t foresee them going anywhere, even if the trend is to buy online,” Weaver says. Although she says there are two notable exceptions to this rule: older shoppers, who tend to phone in orders; and farmers from the Amish community in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, who send in hand-inked order forms.

Keegan Clifford grows 13 raised beds worth of vegetables — potatoes, mustard greens, radishes, turnips, various brassicas, kohlrabi, lettuces — in his tiny garden plot in Middletown, Maryland, for himself and five weekly CSA customers. He places his seed orders online, usually with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. But he also has an outsize appreciation for print catalogs. “I’m still kind of old school; I like to pick them up, circle and highlight things I find interesting, fold the pages and circle back,” Clifford says. But he also finds himself referring again and again to out-of-date catalogs. “I never recycle them so I have catalogs that are four or five years old. It’s cool to flip through them and see that about 80% of the stuff in them doesn’t change. But you also see the evolution of a seed company.”

Clifford, a full-time parks department geographic information systems coordinator, is no Luddite, however. In addition to buying virtually, he also relies on technology to organize the seeds he already has on hand. “I keep a spreadsheet on the computer of all the different seeds I have, and each one is color-coded,” he says. This helps him keep track of his inventory, to avoid making redundant purchases. Also, “If I see something interesting, I can check that I’ve never grown that before.” This year Clifford is eyeballing pak choi and tatsoi; summer and winter squashes that are resistant to the vine squash borers that decimated his crops last year; bush beans; and some new varieties of carrots. “I’m just browsing on Friday nights and one night after a couple of beers I’ll probably pull the trigger” on a dozen new varieties, he says.

Still, there are certain disadvantages to ordering online. These were driven home for Hoffman last year, when a combination of new pandemic farmers placing first-time orders and people hoarding seeds for fear of a shortage, actually managed to cause a shortage. “That was part of the experience of using the catalog,” Hoffman says. “You’d look through it and say, ‘This one looks great,’ and then you’d go to order it and it would be gone.”

Hudson Valley’s Kaczor doesn’t expect that to be a problem for 2022. “We’ve been closely monitoring the trends and people are not hoarding seeds this year,” she says. But it was not a seed shortage that influenced the company’s decision to pivot to a much smaller, 12-page catalog — down from some 75 pages — that highlights the company’s mission and the 40 new seeds it’s selling in 2022 including caribe cilantro, green-skinned bitter lemon, and red Malabar spinach. The cause was a paper shortage that Bloomberg estimates resulted in 100 million catalogs not going to print this year. Also a factor: a customer base that’s becoming younger, more urban, and ever more likely to do things virtually. “We tried to compromise by sending out at least something, and I think people will appreciate that gesture,” Kaczor says. “But we’ll see how they react.”

One person not likely to mourn a smaller catalog, or even no catalog at all, is Letisha Cobb. The Atlanta-area single mom started gardening in her minuscule backyard years ago to save money on groceries for her four (now grown) kids; she currently provides collards, strawberries, kale, and most especially tomatoes to friends, families and “anyone else in my community” who wants it. “I do love both [print and online] but when it comes to paper, I can see where the waste is coming in,” she says. “Because afterwards what do you do with it? We can go on the internet and find whatever we want faster.”

Like Clifford, Cobb is a fan of Baker Creek, which offers so many varieties of the tomatoes she says she’s so “obsessed” with that she jots their names down on paper as she scrolls through their website, to help her remember which ones she’s considering. Last year she got so carried away she grew out 25 tomato varieties and “almost made myself sick with them.” Even though she’s got a stash of seeds from swaps and left over from last year’s order, “I still want to do some, but I’m trying to keep myself down to 10.” Her current and possibly still-expanding list of tomato seeds includes Rose, Great White, Green Giant, Brandywine Yellow, Hillbilly, Mortgage Lifter, Pink Oxheart, Brandywine Pink, Black Cherry, Sart Roloise and Giant Crimson. “I’m trying to slim this down,” she says. “Wish me luck.”

McConnell dismisses voting rights: “Black Americans” have same turnout as “Americans”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sparked outrage on Wednesday after the Republican vaguely implied that Black Americans are not Americans.

McConnell’s remarks came during a press conference held just after the GOP’s filibuster of the Democratic-backed voting rights overhaul known as the “Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act” – a measure designed to counteract the wave of Republican-led restrictive voting bills that has swept the country.

During the presser, a reporter asked McConnel to address the concern of voters of color, now that the bill had reached a dead end.

“Well the concern is misplaced,” McConnell responded, “because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”

McConnell’s comments drew a wave of scorn from politicians and pundits on the left, many of whom suggested that his remarks were symptomatic of the GOP’s attitudes writ large.

“McConnell did not misspeak,” tweeted Huffington Post blogger Bryan Behar. “In one quote, he summarized the entire GOP worldview. They think it’s a White nation and anyone who isn’t White isn’t a true American.”

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“Tell me African-Americans aren’t Americans without telling me you’re a racist

@LeaderMcConnell,” echoed Scott Huffman, a U.S. congressional candidate from North Carolina.

Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., suggested that McConnell doesn’t support the voting overhaul because he doesn’t truly consider Black Americans to be real Americans. “Newsflash to the GOP Leader,” she said, “I am an American; we are all Americans.”

It’s possible that McConnell meant to suggest that Black Americans vote with the same frequency as Americans at large. And this is true, according to The Washington Post’s Philip Bump, who noted that “Black turnout exceeded the national turnout rates in 2008 and 2012 before aligning with them in 2016 and 2020.”

However, Black turnout has “consistently been below White turnout” with the exception of 2008 and 2012, so “saying that Black turnout aligns with the national level ignores that disparity,” Bump added.

Last year, Republicans in 19 states passed 34 restrictive voting bills apparently designed to ratchet up “election security” in the wake of Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy that the 2020 presidential election was marred by widespread fraud.

Central to the Democrats’ counteroffensive is the “Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act,” a bill that combines the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act into one sweeping measure, standardizing voting laws across all fifty states. Specifically, the bill would make Election Day a federal holiday, expand voter identification options for registration, prohibit partisan gerrymandering, make it easier for groups to challenge election laws they find discriminatory, and more.

Media messes up coverage of voting rights, blames Biden for GOP’s racism

Remember: With Republicans, every accusation is a confession.

Nowhere is that more true than in the discourse around fair elections and voting rights, both of which Republicans stand firmly against. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats attempted to pass a bill that would both protect voting right s and strengthen elections against blatant Republican sabotage. In response, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., lied and said that Democrats don’t care about “securing citizens’ rights,” but just “about expanding politicians’ power.”

The opposite is true, however. It’s Republicans who are swiftly dismantling the right to vote, in the name of preserving their own power. As such, the party has been passing state-level voting restrictions targeting people of color, redrawing district maps to marginalize minority populations, and running unmistakeably racist purges of election offices. So President Joe Biden was right to ask, in a speech in Atlanta last week, “Do you want to be the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”

Republicans made their choice Wednesday, using their filibuster power — which is shamefully being protected by two turncoat Democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — to block the passage of the Senate voting rights bill. Some Republicans are no doubt personally racist, in full agreement with Donald Trump’s repeated insistence that racially diverse voters in cities like Philadelphia and Detroit are “frauds”. Some are just worried about their own power, which they know is threatened in all Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity, have equal rights to the ballot box. Either way, the use of the filibuster — in line with its history — was leveraged by Republicans as a tool of white supremacy.

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The obvious people to blame for this gross behavior are Republicans themselves. But what’s the fun in that? So, instead, far too many in the media are letting Republicans off the hook and instead fixing the blame on Democrats for somehow not doing more to make Republicans less evil.

In the hours before Republicans killed this crucial democracy protection legislation, Biden held a marathon press conference, talking about a wide range of topics from COVID-19 to Russian/Ukraine tensions. But on the mind of many reporters was one burning question: Why wasn’t Biden doing more to stop Republicans from being racist? ABC reporter Mary Bruce kicked off this line of inquiry, claiming, ridiculously, that Republicans “may be open to major changes on voting rights” and complaining that Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, “says he never even received a phone call from this White House.”

Romney released this bait to the press over the weekend, correctly assessing that it would be filtered through the mainstream media assumption that Democrats are the only politicians who possess autonomy. And sure enough, as the press conference demonstrated, Biden was being blamed for not “reaching out,” while Romney is not being asked why he needs to be cajoled to take a very basic stand for the right of all Americans to vote.

This idiotic assumption — that Democrats are responsible for GOP racism, but not Republicans themselves — only got uglier as the press conference went on.

At least two reporters parroted feigned Republican outrage over Biden’s comments about George Wallace and Bull Connor at Biden. NBC News reporter Kristen Welker noted that Biden has made his inauguration speech about “bringing people together,” before confronting him about the people who “took exception” to last week’s comparison of voting rights opponents of today to George Wallace and Bull Connor. Shortly after, Philip Wegmann of RealClearPolitics asked a similar question, implying that the blame for the conflict over voting rights lay not with Republicans passing racist laws, but Democrats for being too blunt in their opposition.

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Implicit in such lines of questioning is an assumption — beloved by the right — that to be called out for racism is far worse than actually being racist. Biden is being accused of being divisive for drawing a clear and accurate line between voter suppression of yesteryear and today. But Republicans don’t face similarly harsh questions about their opposition to voting rights, or why they think it’s acceptable to systematically target people of color for disenfranchisement. Biden is asked why he didn’t somehow persuade Romney to support voting rights, but Romney isn’t asked why he needs such persuasion, or why his own supposed morality doesn’t drive him to stand up for basic human rights.

This idiocy began even before Biden’s press conference Wednesday. Over the weekend, Chuck Todd of NBC accused Biden of failing “to build a small coalition of governing Republicans,” rather than asking why Republicans are so relentlessly obstructionist. And in his preview piece of the failed voting rights Senate vote, New York Times political reporter Jonathan Weisman implied that Republican votes were somehow gettable, but “Democratic activists have spent far more time and energy trying to break the will of Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema on the filibuster than they have working to win over Republicans on the actual legislation.”

The layers of irony here are heavy to the point of being debilitating because the usual media excuse for not holding Republicans’ feet to the fire over such questions is that it is pointless to do so. As Greg Sargent at the Washington Post writes, because GOP opposition to voting rights “is a foregone conclusion, Republicans are too rarely asked by reporters to justify it.” Instead, reporters treat Republican attitudes about this issue as “natural, unalterable, indelibly baked-in.” But only, critically, when it comes to reporters themselves refusing to hold Republicans accountable. When the topic shifts away from media responsibility to the responsibility of Democrats and activists to somehow change GOP minds, suddenly the assumptions change. No longer are Republicans viewed as resolute in their opposition to the point where it’s useless to talk to them about it. All of a sudden, Republicans are recast as soft targets who are one friendly lunch or flattering phone call away from dropping their stubborn opposition to basic democratic protections.

Biden was castigated in some media corners for showing a flash of anger over the repeated questions about why he wasn’t nicer to Republicans who are trying to decimate voting rights. But it’s honestly surprising he held back as much as he did. Wednesday’s press conference was a perfect illustration of the deeply unfair double standard the press holds itself to, where reporters aren’t expected to press Republicans about their opposition to voting rights, but Democrats are supposed to wave a magic wand and make Republicans act like decent human beings. This dereliction of both duty and common sense is annoying at the best of times, but right now, the vapidity is morally indefensible.

As media critic Margaret Sullivan noted in the Washington Post recently, “That American democracy is teetering is unquestionable,” and yet much of the press is “afraid to stand for something as basic to our mission as voting rights, governmental checks and balances, and democratic standards.” Instead, the coverage all too often resorts to the typical-but-misleading bothesiderism the D.C. press loves, in which Biden’s blunt characterization of Republican opposition to voting rights is regarded as equally bad — or sometimes worse — than the actual fact that Republicans are trying to take away the basic right to vote.

Jon Ossoff confronts Susan Collins over her past support for voting rights legislation

Sen. Jon Ossoff, one of the two Georgia Democrats elected in last year’s runoff elections, confronted Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on the Senate floor Wednesday over her previous support for voting rights legislation and her opposition to Democrats’ new voting rights proposal.

Ossoff, the youngest member of the Senate, called out the fifth-term senator before she joined the Republican filibuster to block the voting rights bill. Democrats later held a vote to change the filibuster rule in an effort to advance the legislation but as expected, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., joined every Republican in the chamber to sink the rules proposal, and with it likely the Senate’s last hope of passing voting rights legislation ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Ossoff called out Collins, a self-described moderate, for opposing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act despite voting to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006.

“Abraham Lincoln must be turning in his grave to hear the senators from the Grand Old Party, the party of abolition and emancipation and reconstruction, echoing the states’ rights rhetoric of Dixiecrat segregationists to oppose federal voting rights legislation,” Ossoff said.

Collins took issue with Ossoff’s remarks, suggesting he risked violating a rule banning senators from imputing “to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

Collins argued that the Voting Rights Act still allows the Justice Department to challenge laws if they restrict voting rights. Ossoff countered that a Supreme Court decision in 2013 gutted a portion of the law that allowed the DOJ to block voting restrictions in states with a history of racial discrimination before they went into effect, a provision the act named for John Lewis would restore.

Ossoff noted that Collins previously said that reauthorizing the 1965 Voting Rights Act would “ensure that the voting rights afforded to all Americans are protected” and accused Republicans of hypocrisy for praising the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., while opposing the bill named after him.

“I speak for the state of Georgia when I say do not invoke Congressman Lewis’ name to signal your virtue while you work to erode his legacy and defy his will,” Ossoff said.

Collins argued that to “equate that to the legislation that is before us” to the 2006 reauthorization is “simply not worthy.”

“I’m not sure that the senator from Georgia was even born in 1965,” she said. “I voted enthusiastically and I did say that about the Voting Rights Reauthorization in 2006, and surely my colleague is not confusing that bill, which was five pages long … with the bill that is before the Senate tonight, which is 735 pages long.”

Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Tim Scott, R-S.C., also tangled over Democrats’ comparisons of the new voting restrictions imposed in Republican-led states to Jim Crow-era laws that blocked Black people from voting.

Scott, the lone Black Republican in the chamber, accused Democrats of pushing “a negative, false narrative” that is “offensive not just to me or Southern Americans, but offensive to millions of Americans who fought, bled and died for the right to vote.” Scott argued that the fact that three of the 100 members of the Senate are Black shows that minority voters are not “being suppressed.”

“Don’t lecture me on Jim Crow,” Booker fired back. “I know this is not 1965. That’s what makes me so outraged — it’s 2022 and they’re blatantly removing more polling places from the counties where Blacks and Latinos are overrepresented. I’m not making that up. That is a fact.”

Booker noted that Black voters statistically have to wait in line to vote twice as long as white voters.

“In the United States today, it is more difficult for the average African American to vote than the average white American,” Booker said. “That is not rhetoric, that is fact.”

But all the rhetoric and facts could not convince Sinema and Manchin, who have opposed filibuster rule changes for months, to change their minds, although both voted to support the voting rights legislation itself.

More than a half-dozen Republican senators lined up to shake Sinema’s hand after the vote, including Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., one of the GOP members who voted to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory after the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021.

Manchin argued that changing the filibuster would “break” the Senate and inflame partisanship while Sinema argued that if the filibuster rule was changed Republicans could roll back voting rights and impose other partisan legislation with a simple majority.

“Eliminating the filibuster would be the easy way out,” Manchin said. “I cannot support such a perilous course. … It’s time we do the hard work to forge the difficult compromises that can stand the test of time.”

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The doomed vote likely means that the Senate will not pass any new voting rights legislation ahead of the midterms amid the wide array of voting restrictions passed by Republican-led state legislatures, which Biden said on Wednesday threaten to make elections “illegitimate.”

Biden vowed not to give up on the legislation but admitted that “it’s going to be difficult. I make no bones about that. It’s going to be difficult.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock, the other Georgia Democrat elected last year — who faces a difficult battle to win a full term this fall — also vowed that Congress would try again to pass voting rights legislation, though it’s unclear when or how.

“Despite tonight’s vote, we cannot turn away,” Warnock wrote on Twitter. “This will not be the last opportunity we get to fight for voting rights. We will meet the moment again, to try again. And again. Until we succeed.”

Read more on the struggle to save voting rights:

Joe Manchin’s revisionist history: Filibuster stands after Senate Democrat sides with Republicans

On Wednesday, just months out from the midterm elections, Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., blocked their own party’s effort to pass a sweeping voting rights overhaul by refusing to exempt the measure from a Republican filibuster. The conservative Democratic explained his reasoning during a floor speech that day, addressing the upper chamber just as President Joe Biden prepared to address the nation ahead of his one-year anniversary in office. As Biden continued to push his stalled agenda, Manchin erected a big poster with one sentence to encapsulate his defense of the filibuster: “The United States Senate has NEVER been able to end debate with a SIMPLE MAJORITY.”

Manchin’s logic rests on the claim that no party has ever ended debate with a simple majority, largely because a filibuster requires 60 votes for a cloture (i.e., the official procedure used to end the filibuster). By creating a voting rights carveout in the filibuster that would allow Democrats to pass the bill with a simple majority, Democrats would be breaking legislative tradition, Manchin argues. His central assumption, however, is untrue.

The last three Supreme Court nominees – Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch – were all confirmed with a simple majority, noted political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen. In fact, Manchin himself was the 51st senator to back Kavanaugh, single-handedly ending debate on the scandal-plagued judge’s confirmation.

And during Gorsuch’s 2017 nomination, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., lowered the cloture threshold for a Supreme Court nomination from 60 to 51 votes – or a simple majority.

Manchin’s opposition to a filibuster carveout also flies in the face of his past comments around changing the Senate rules.

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Back in 2011, when Manchin was just a freshman senator, Senate Democrats failed to circumvent a Republican filibuster of then-President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan. At the time, Manchin expressed frustration over the GOP’s maneuver, suggesting that a bipartisan compromise may have been reached if not for the filibuster.

“We have become paralyzed by the filibuster and an unwillingness to work together at all, just because it’s an election cycle,” Manchin told the Charleston Daily Mail. “We couldn’t even get the horse in the start gate, let alone to run the race. That’s the problem here. It’s political and it’s being played absolutely unmercifully at the highest level.”

Later that year, Manchin issued a press release expressly calling the Senate to “fix the filibuster.”

“If senators want to halt action on a bill, they must take to the floor and hold it through sustained debate; end filibusters on motions to proceed to debate,” the Democrat said.

On Wednesday, emotions ran high amongst Democrats, who have endured months of slow-walking by both Manchin and Sinema on President Biden’s Build Back Better Act, the president’s signature $2.2 trillion social spending plan.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was clear on this point, saying that “it’s not just this [filibuster] vote” that’s frustrating.

“These are people who I think have undermined the President of the United States,” he told reporters after Wednesday’s failed vote. “They have forced us to go through five months of discussions which have gotten absolutely nowhere.”

Back in December, Manchin effectively ended negotiations with both Biden and Senate Democrats on Build Back Better, saying that he could not support the measure due to fears around inflation and the national debt.