The crispy fried eggs that made me a better cook

Every week in Genius Recipes — often with your help! — Food52 Founding Editor and lifelong Genius-hunter Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that will change the way you cook.

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Sixteen years and seven homes in, my husband Mike’s fried eggs are a constant in our life — even, and especially, when life gets harder.

They were just as good on the twitchy gas burner in our fourth-floor walk-up apartment (our first, and highest, in Brooklyn) as they’ve been on all of the surprisingly aggressive electric stoves we’ve inherited since, from New York to California.

His eggs morph to fill out any half-formed meal idea or jumble of leftovers to become breakfast, lunch, and, most often, very late-night dinner. I’ve dissected what I think makes them so good to so many friends that eventually they became Mike’s Famous Fried Eggs. And if I were still cooking the way I cooked when Mike and I started dating, I might never have tasted them at all.

Because when I met Mike, I wanted to cook everything the best possible way (maybe some of you can relate): I was so eager to get better, so proud when I figured out a new trick, and so, apparently, unwilling to change course once I did, that I got fidgety as soon as I saw the meal starting to diverge from my plan.

It was usually an internal struggle, but in one especially low moment during a BLT phase, I watched Mike put the bacon into the skillet without cutting it in half first — my favorite way to rotate the strips so the edges wouldn’t burn before the middles crisped. So I found myself pulling the already-melting pieces of bacon out of the pan, cleaving them in half, and then slipping them back in. And then realizing uh oh — I . . . need to back off.

The bacon would have been fine. Even if the edges had burned, everything would have been fine. Mike said nothing and I just squirmed. Luckily, I decided then that I wanted to be more flexible, and curious, in the kitchen, and so I didn’t take over the night Mike fried the eggs.

Because my cooking education up to that point had been more influenced by French traditions than I realized, I had internalized the notion that eggs should be cooked gently and never browned — though even then the idea of there being only one way didn’t sound quite right, given all the other fried eggs I’d grown up eating. And Mike was about to cook them very, very differently.

He started heating the pan on high and wandered away. Smoke curled. He poured a stunning amount of oil into the pan. The eggs billowed and crisped at the edges, but instead of going tough like the cooking manuals had warned, they stayed impossibly tender within.

Mike by no means invented crispy, lacy-edged fried eggs, which are cooked and appreciated by people around the world. But ever since Mike’s eggs taught me to question the rules I’d been taught, I’ve loved learning about the differences in how his tend to come out, like little flying saucers, compared to ones gorgeously puffed and almost deep-fried, Thai-style; and the effects that different moves like flipping vs. basting vs. nudging can have.

But still, why share a recipe that’s already common and well-loved in so many food cultures? Because I hope that no matter what you’ve been taught, you might take a step back, watch other people cook, and reconsider what you think a dish has to be, just like I did. And I hope, no matter how you like to fry eggs, that you might try Mike’s. I think you’ll be really happy you did.

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Recipe: Mike’s Famous Fried Eggs

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 5 minutes
Serves: As many as you like, but best for smaller groups

Ingredients:

Neutral oil, such as canola
Eggs (as many as you want to eat)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Directions:

Get a large cast-iron skillet very, very hot on the stovetop over medium-high heat — it should be just starting to smoke, or close to it. Pour in enough oil to coat the bottom of the skillet, then quickly and carefully crack in your eggs — they will start spattering immediately. (In a 10- to 12-inch skillet, two eggs at a time is good to give you enough room to maneuver.) Alternatively, you can pre-crack them into small bowls first so you can get out of the way faster.
When the edges of the first egg white are crispy and golden and the rest of the white is set, slide a thin, wide spatula quickly under one egg and free any stuck edges.
Gently flip the egg over, aiming away from you to avoid splashing the hot oil. Repeat with the second egg. Immediately flip the first egg back over (you’re just barely setting the tops while keeping the yolks runny) and transfer to a plate. Repeat with the second egg. Sometimes a yolk will break — that’s OK, just keep moving.
Salt and pepper the eggs to taste. Eat immediately with toast or whatever else you’re having for dinner.

Walt Disney’s radical vision for a new kind of city

Since Epcot’s inception, millions of tourists have descended upon the theme park famous for its Spaceship Earth geodesic sphere and its celebration of international cultures.

But the version of Epcot visitors encounter at Disney World — currently in the midst of its 50th anniversary celebrations – is hardly what Walt Disney imagined.

In 1966, Disney announced his intention to build Epcot, an acronym for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.” It was to be no mere theme park but, as Disney put it, “the creation of a living blueprint for the future” unlike “anyplace else in the world” — an entire new city built from scratch.

Disney died later that year; his vision was scaled down, and then scrapped altogether. But when I was writing my book on urban idealism in America, I was drawn to this planned community.

Since the arrival of the first colonists, Americans have experimented with new patterns of settlement. Imagining new kinds of places to live is an American tradition, and Disney was an eager participant.

A city of the future

A captivating 25-minute film produced by Walt Disney Enterprises remains the best window into Walt’s vision.

In it, Disney — speaking kindly and slowly, as if to a group of children — detailed what would become of the 27,400 acres, or 43 square miles, of central Florida that he had acquired.

Echoing the rhetoric of American pioneers, he noted how the abundance of land was the key. Here he would achieve all that could not be done at Disneyland, his first theme park in Anaheim, California, that opened in 1955 and had since been encroached upon by rapid suburban development. He proudly pointed out that the land on which Disney World would be built was twice the size of the island of Manhattan and five times larger than Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom.

Walt Disney announces his ambitious vision for Disney World and Epcot.

Among the remarkable components of Disney’s Epcot would be a community of 20,000 residents living in neighborhoods that would double as a showcase of industrial and civic ingenuity — a running experiment in planning, building design, management and governance. There would be a 1,000-acre office park for developing new technologies, and when, say, an innovation in refrigerator design would be developed, every household in Epcot would be the first to receive and test the product before it was released for the rest of the world.

An airport would enable anyone to fly directly to Disney World, while a “vacation land” would provide resort accommodations for visitors. A central arrival complex included a 30-story hotel and convention center, with the downtown featuring a weather-protected zone of themed shops.

Epcot’s more modest wage-earners would be able to live nearby in a ring of high-rise apartment buildings. And there would be a park belt and recreational zone surrounding this downtown area, separating the low-density, cul-de-sac neighborhoods beyond that would house the majority of residents. There would be no unemployment, and it was not to be a retirement community.

“I don’t believe there is a challenge anywhere in the world that’s more important to people everywhere than finding solutions to the problems of our cities,” Disney said.

‘New Towns’ abound

During the 1960s, the aspiration of building anew was much in the air.

Americans were becoming increasingly concerned about the well-being of the nation’s cities. And they were unsatisfied with the effort — and, especially, the consequences — of urban renewal.

They felt insecure in the face of growing urban poverty, unrest and crime, and frustrated about increasing traffic congestion. Families continued to move to the suburbs, but planners, opinion leaders and even ordinary citizens raised concerns about consuming so much land for low-density development.

Sprawl as a pejorative term for poorly planned development was gaining currency as a fledgling environmental movement emerged. In his popular 1960s ballad “Little Boxes,” Pete Seeger sang of “Little boxes on the hillside / Little boxes made of ticky tacky” to criticize the uniform suburban and exurban tracts of housing rippling out from America’s cities.

A hope emerged that building new towns might be an alternative for unlovely and unloved city neighborhoods and for soulless peripheral subdivisions.

Self-described “town founders,” most of them wealthy businesspeople with ideals dependent on real estate success, led America’s New Towns movement. As Disney was preparing for his Epcot presentation, the Irvine Company was already deep into the process of developing the holdings of the old Irvine Ranch into the model town of Irvine, California. Today, Irvine boasts nearly 300,000 residents.

Meanwhile, real estate entrepreneur Robert E. Simon sold New York’s Carnegie Hall and, with his earnings, bought 6,700 acres of farmland outside of Washington so he could create Reston, Virginia. Fifty miles away, shopping center developer James Rouse started planning Columbia, Maryland. And oil industry investor George P. Mitchell, keeping an eye on the successes and setbacks of Rouse and Simon, would soon take advantage of a new federal funding program and embark on establishing The Woodlands, near Houston, which today has a population of over 100,000 people.

These new towns hoped to incorporate the liveliness and diversity of cities while retaining the intimacy of neighborhoods and other charms associated with small towns.

Disney’s dream today

Disney, however, didn’t want to simply spruce up existing suburbs.

He wanted to upend preexisting notions of how a city could be built and run. And for all of its utopian promise, the genius of Disney’s Epcot was that it all seemed doable, an agglomeration of elements commonly found in any modern metropolitan area, but fused into a singular vision and managed by a single authority.

An important innovation was the banishing of the automobile. A vast underground system was designed to enable cars to arrive, park or buzz under the city without being seen. A separate underground layer would accommodate trucks and service functions. Residents and visitors would traverse the entire 12-mile length of Disney World and all of its attractions on a high-speed monorail, far more extensive than anything achieved at Disneyland.

In the car-crazed America of the 1960s, this was a truly radical idea.

Given Walt Disney’s legendary tenacity, it would have been fascinating to witness how far his vision would have advanced. After his death, some sought to fulfill his plans. But when urged by a Disney designer to carry through on Walt’s broader civic-minded vision, Walt’s brother Roy, who had taken the reins of the company, answered, “Walt is dead.”

Today, Disney’s utopian spirit is alive and well. You see it in former Walmart executive Marc Lore’s ambitions to build a 5-million-person city called “Telosa” in a U.S. desert and Blockchains LLC’s proposal for a self-governing “smart city” in Nevada.

But more often, you’ll see efforts that tap into the nostalgia of a bucolic past. The Disney Corporation did, in fact, develop a town during the 1990s on one of its Florida landholdings.

Dubbed “Celebration,” it was initially heralded as an exemplar of the turn-of-the century movement called New Urbanism, which sought to design suburbs in ways that conjured up the small American town: walkable neighborhoods, a town center, a range of housing choices and less dependence on cars.

However, Celebration has no monorail or underground transport networks, no hubs of technological innovation or policies like universal employment.

That sort of city of tomorrow, it seems, will have to wait.

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Alex Krieger, Research Professor in Practice of Urban Design, Harvard University

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

Steve Bannon contacted Jeffrey Epstein over worries he would flip on Trump, new book claims

According to a report from Insider, former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon had a conversation with billionaire child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein where he admitted that, during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, he feared Epsten would run to the press with stories about the New York real estate mogul.

According to excerpts from Michael Wolff’s upcoming book, “Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Damned, the Notorious – Twenty Years of Columns, Essays and Reporting,” Epstein believed he could bargain his way out of criminal charges by investigators by turning over information on both Trump and former president Bill Clinton.

According to Wolff, Epstein “believed that the Justice Department had arrested him, under the instruction of then-President Donald Trump, because they wanted information on Bill Clinton, who had flown on his private jet multiple times.”

As Wolff wrote, “The White House, through the Justice Department, was looking to press a longtime Republican obsession, and Trump ace-in-the-hole, and get Epstein to flip and reveal the sex secrets of Bill Clinton.Trump, if he was obsessed with Clinton, which he was, was also obsessed with what Epstein knew about Clinton.'”

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In his book, the author also recalls a phone call between Bannon — who is currently being pressed by the House select committee to testify about the Jan 6th insurrection — speaking with Epstein and admitting he feared what other secrets the jet-setting financier might expose.

As Insider reports, “Wolff revealed that months before Epstein’s death, he visited the billionaire at his infamous $75 million mansion in New York City,” during which he claims he witnessed a phone call between Epstein and Bannon.

“During Wolff’s visit, Steve Bannon reportedly called Epstein on the phone and told him that he had feared him during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign because he thought the financier knew secrets about Trump,” Insider is reporting.

“You were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign,” Bannon told Epstein. “As well you should have been,” Epstein reportedly replied, according to Wolff.

The report, which can be read here, also notes, “Wolff wrote that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was also present at Epstein’s house when he visited.”

Consultant Hal Malchow: Dems can still win, but they’re “spectators in a world of opportunity”

Democrats are struggling to try to pass Joe Biden’s domestic spending agenda, which enjoys double-digit support, even after months of mostly negative, misleading and defeatist media coverage. The disconnect between how popular Democrats’ policies are and how hamstrung they are politically couldn’t be clearer. But what’s far less clear is what to do about it — and how that disconnect can be overcome. On the flipside, we see almost a mirror image: Republicans have largely abandoned any sort of policy agenda, aside from sabotaging democracy (and soothing one man’s injured ego), while spreading COVID denialism that’s killing their base by a thousand or more people every day while seemingly suffering no consequences as a result. We know that our politics have become extremely dysfunctional, but we’re flummoxed about how to fix it.

In a recent op-ed for The Hill, “How the Democratic Party’s campaign strategy is failing America,” Democratic consultant Hal Malchow presented a compelling argument that echoed some of the analysis I’ve written about before, from the likes of Alan Abramowitz and Rachel Bitecofer, but with his own distinctive twist. Like both of them, Malchow sees the sharp shrinkage of the persuadable voter population — i.e., the “swing voter” — as a fundamental point of departure, and like Bitecofer, he sees party brand identification as something Democrats need to focus on much more clearly. Both the similarities and the differences intrigued me, along with the echoes of other experts I’ve interviewed who are engaged with different aspects of partisan identity.

Malchow is in the American Association of Political Consultants Hall of Fame, and is recognized as “the first political consultant to regularly use statistical modeling to target voter communications and fundraising mail.” So he has experience on the cutting edge, and a track record that suggests he’s worth listening to. This interview has been edited for clarity and length, as usual.

In your recent op-ed for The Hill, you wrote about two developments you said “represent the most unnoticed earthquake in the history of American campaigns.” What are those two developments?

The first development is the diminishment, almost disappearance, of the swing voter. There’s a Republican pollster, Public Opinion Strategies, and every two years they poll the percentage of the electorate that actually casts ballots for candidates. In 2000, the percentage of ticket-splitters was 36% of the electorate. At that level, they decide almost every election. But the 2020 number was 11%. So basically, nine out of 10 voters are choosing parties and not candidates. This is a big deal, because the entire campaign structure is built around influencing the choice of candidates. So the terrain has shifted, but no one’s reacted to it. That’s No. 1.

The second development is the fact that political advertising is really not working — or is working at a minute level. I’ve been on the board of The Analyst Institute, and our job is to measure campaign methods and determine what works, how much it works and how much it costs to get a vote, using various techniques. In a 2017 study of 49 control group experiments measuring the effectiveness of political mail, mailings that were sent in primary elections and ballot referendums showed statistically significant effects. Mailings sent to support candidates in general elections, with the parties on the ballot, showed no effects at all.

So the lessons you drew from those developments had to do with campaign focus and timing. I’d like to ask about focus first: your suggestion to shift from candidate-focused to party-focused advertising. You write, “Can advertising affect party affiliation? No one knows. It has never been tested.” But you go on to make two further points. First, that the benefits of doing that could be huge.

If 90% of the voters are voting straight party tickets and you convert someone from being an independent to being a Democrat, and they go, “All right, I’m in,” a fair assumption, an empirically-supported assumption, is that this new Democrat is going to vote straight tickets. So in converting someone from an independent to a Democrat, you affect not just one race that you were previously spending all your advertising dollars on, you are getting votes up and down the ticket.

But here’s the kicker. The data on party registration in states where you register by party indicates that the length of a decision about party registration lasts in excess of 30 years, that the turnover is about 2.5% a year. So if that’s the case, and you get the whole ticket, plus you get some portion of the next 30 years, how many elections are you affecting, compared to spending your money on one candidate? And so the question is, can you move party affiliation?

That takes us to a second thing you said, which is that it’s already happening. You write that “it is not correct to ask whether advertising can move party affiliation. The more appropriate question is can highly targeted advertising accelerate the movement that is already taking place.”

That’s correct. Gallup does the most regular party affiliation polls. Their fourth-quarter poll for 2020 had the Democrats and Republicans, with leaners, dead even. At the end of the first quarter of 2021, the Democrats had a nine-point advantage, and this was after the Jan. 6 insurrection, after Republicans spreading the Big Lie and voting to overturn the election, after Republicans voted unanimously, at least in the Senate, against the stimulus package, which sent $1,400 checks to 85% of our households. Their misconduct fueled a fairly major movement in party affiliation, without any advertising or any reinforcement of their sins.

I think one of the things you have to think about is: What is the information voters are getting? What we need to use our advertising for is not to try to make a particular candidate into Satan and describe all their bad deeds, because no one believes that. What we need to do is enter into the news cycle and enhance or amplify news that is good for us, but also elaborate on that division, with key information that is often left out on television news. For instance, key information on the certification of the election was that 80% of Republicans in the House voted to overturn the election, when 70% of Americans believed the election was fairly decided. That’s pretty powerful news, but it didn’t get out. It wasn’t the lead of the story. So voters weren’t seeing that.

If we’re in the news cycle and we’re amplifying or enhancing news that is taking place — if CNN or NBC or any of the major news outlets are talking about something, then you insert yourself into the conversation. That’s a much more believable delivery of information, because it’s validated by what the mainstream news outlets are saying. We shouldn’t try to create a message. We should take the messages that are out there, amplify them and enhance them with the information that is particularly favorable to us.

You also note that there are examples of such shifts going on long-term, and one of those you look at is about younger voters. What’s most significant about them?

With younger voters, there’s a couple of things to keep in mind. They tend to be more independent than other age groups, they are less affiliated. Generally, it’s fair to say younger people have less information about politics than older people do. So, frankly, they’re a little more malleable. And this shows up in the study the Democracy Fund did, I thinkin 2017. About 30% of the younger voters changed their party affiliation in states where you register by party, and most of the movement was from Republican to independent, but there was some movement to Democrats.

I think we have excellent messages for younger people. We are on one side of climate change, Republicans are on the other side. Biden, to my knowledge, has not done student loan forgiveness but has come out for it, and Democrats have been talking about reducing the cost of college, which is something you don’t hear from Republicans. So you have that contrast, and of course generally young people are a more liberal audience.

Young voters weren’t the group that moved most, though, right?

The group that moved most into the Democratic column in the 2017 study was Asian-Americans. I don’t doubt that they’re feeling more afraid of Republicans now than they were in 2017, with all the violence that has taken place. They’ve been sort of a quiet minority, but now they’ve gotten a lot of attention in threatening ways. So this is an opportunity.

In targeting the people that you want to move, you have all the data you need to do a great model. All you have to do is look at the voter lists, look at the people who move toward the Democrats, and construct a model that includes age, includes ethnicity, includes education, includes gender, marital status, all sorts of things that may be predictive of someone moving. It’s an easy problem. Targeting is the easiest problem to solve.

So the second big lesson had to do with timing, with what’s wrong with the current timing of campaign spending and what might work better. Could you explain?

Let me start with some background on that. I forget what year it was, but when Rick Perry was running for governor of Texas, he brought Don Green from Yale down — the shocking scandal in all of this is that the measurement of political tactics started the academic community, and not within the industry itself. He went down and worked with Rick Perry, and they discovered that TV could move votes, but they also showed that the effect tended to diminish. And since then, everyone has kind of packed the advertising into September and October of the election year. If they have a plethora of money, they might back it up into June or whatever. But here’s the thing: There has to be a balance.

So if I sent a mailing in September of 2022 and say, “Whoa! The Republicans all voted against your stimulus check, $1,400!” That’s a big deal, but it’s two years ago. People have already spent the money. If we run it at the time when they’re actually receiving the check, the initial impact is going to be much greater. And if the initial impact is much greater, even if there’s some diminishment you’ll end up with more. All the advertising has gotten so difficult. It’s hard to move these voters, and the best way to move them is when they are being personally affected by an issue, when the issue is current and in front of them.

Not many voters probably know that 80% of the Republicans in the House voted to overturn the election. If we had put that out and it was widely known, maybe it wouldn’t have been a nine-point shift, maybe it would have been an 11-point shift. I believe in being opportunistic and talking to voters and delivering messages at the point in time when they are feeling the issues most strongly.

Let me give you another example. Portland, Oregon, had temperatures of 112 this last year. Why are we not, in the midst of this, running ads showing Republicans talking about how climate change is a hoax? Politics is not about reason. There’s a great political scientist, Drew Weston, he was at Emory, who wrote a book called “The Political Brain.” He put sensors on people’s heads to determine when they were processing information, and where the information went. Well, it didn’t go to the frontal cortex, where reasoning and advanced thinking takes place. It went to the most primitive part of the brain, which was there before we could speak, before we could do anything but be scared, be excited, be sad and be happy.

Politics is about emotion. Your messages need to be about emotion, and if you can hit the voter at the time that the voter is emotional, that’s how you have the greatest effect.

You just gave some examples of things earlier this year that Democrats could have messaged about. What are some examples right now?

Well, right now the Republicans just voted to shut down the government and default on the American debt. And I think the only reason they did that was because they knew the Democrats would have the votes to raise the debt ceiling. But you could quote the Wall Street Journal — a big Republican paper — and they would say it is catastrophic, it would wreck the economy, it would raise interest rates. You just put a list out there of all the things that would happen if the Republican vote prevailed. It’s frightening. And it’s not fake-frightening, it’s real-frightening. But who is explaining this to the voters? Not the goddamn Democrats. They’re spectators now, the Democratic Party. They’re spectators in a world of rich opportunity.

Now that world of rich opportunity may be passing, because the Democrats can’t get their stuff together to pass anything and they’re all fighting amongst themselves, and Biden has had a bad several months. So what opportunities lie ahead is another question. But we have had a treasure trove of opportunities to diminish their credibility as a responsible political party in this country, and we haven’t done anything about it.

You’ve also suggested a proactive proposal about advancing proposals to exploit the gap between politically popular measures and the position of the GOP base. So how would that work?

The Republican Party has a problem. And the problem is that their base has become so extreme and so Trumpified that it’s hard for them to move to the middle, to offer moderate proposals, which leaves them in a trap. A couple of things I’ve mentioned: One is QAnon. Here’s this group, this internet group that believes the “deep state” is run by a cabal of pedophiles who are kidnapping children and emptying their adrenal glands in order to get some hormone that helps them live longer. They said the election was stolen, but there’s going to be a great wave that’s going to sweep all the new leaders out and replace them with their rightful leader. This is an organization of extreme nonsense. How any large, substantial segment of the population can believe all this is baffling to me. But they represent, according to one poll, 25% of the Republican base, and in addition to that you’ve got another 50% of Republicans who are not rejecting QAnon completely. They’re a little skeptical, but they are kind of interested.

So let’s say in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi decides that we need a congressional resolution condemning QAnon. Well, this puts the Republicans in a bad spot. Because they either have to do something that’s going to really anger 25% of their base, or they’ve got to accept that they’re creating an issue in the general election campaign, because their Democratic opponent can say, “Look, this person voted against condemning an organization that says America’s governed by pedophiles,” and all these strange, untenable beliefs. You could do that with the Proud Boys, and I think many Republicans, in fact most, would find it very difficult to condemn these groups, because they’ve become an important part of the party’s base.

You also suggest some things that can be done to cause problems with the Republican donor base.

Yeah. Some of that was actually done. A number of them said they would not support candidates who voted to overturn the election, but there has been some movement from those positions. That sort of happened as a natural development.

You also suggest taking votes on different kinds of tax proposals, where Republicans either have to go with their donors or go with the vast majority of the American people.

Well, I think the tax issue was a big opportunity for us, but it was not done in the most effective form. So you had this big infrastructure bill and you had tax proposals to pay for it. The tax proposals basically increased the corporate tax a little bit, nothing like what it was, but also raised taxes on Americans who make more than $400,000 a year. Excuse me! How many Americans believe that people who are making $400,000 a year are paying their fair share of taxes?

This was so ripe, if instead of putting this infrastructure thing into one big package, we had put the tax proposals first — how we’re going to pay for it, which makes us look very responsible, right? — and made them vote against raising taxes on Americans making $400,000 a year. I haven’t seen a poll on that, but I would be shocked if support for that tax increase is not overwhelming. Then you’ve got it paid for, and that makes it easier to pass. People can’t go around saying, “Oh, this is reckless spending.” No! We already paid for it. And virtually every Republican in Congress has signed a no-tax-increase pledge. There would be a lot of squirming over that one.

You also talk about things I would call splitting the base of GOP supporters, who see anything Democratic as evil. You put it in terms of Mitch McConnell’s intransigence, his refusal to support anything in the Biden agenda. But it’s not just McConnell and not just in Congress. We also see it in governors and state legislatures fighting against masking and vaccines, for example. What about that?

That’s another big issue, the vaccine mandate. That one is a little complicated, because you’ve got people going a lot of different ways. I think people who got their vaccines are resentful toward the people who haven’t gotten them. That’s an issue, and you’ve got places like Florida, where it could be a bigger issue, although I think most of the news cycle is putting out the information about DeSantis and it has hurt him, but not hurt him at the level you might expect.

I asked before about shifts favoring the Democrats but I’d like to ask about the opposite, shifts away from the Democratic Party where there are people working against the grain. With rural voters, for example, Nebraska Democrats have had significant success mostly below the level of national awareness. Party chair Jane Kleeb has written a book, “Harvest the Vote: How Democrats Can Win Again in Rural America” (Salon interview here). She notes the success of progressive initiative campaigns for medical marijuana and Medicaid expansion. There was also the 2018 teachers’ strike wave, set off in West Virginia and heavily concentrated in red states. These are examples of issues in the news cycle Democrats could take advantage of, to counter if not reverse that pro-GOP shift.

I think rural voters are a tough nut. I think oftentimes there more votes to harvest where you’re doing well than where you’re doing poorly. If you look at the voters supporting Trump, the majority of them are white, they’re not college-educated, they are struggling financially and really all the programs of the Democrats are favorable to them, particularly compared to the sort of things the Republicans advocate.

But it’s a cultural problem. The people who support Trump feel looked down upon by Democrats and the liberal elites and the people who live in New York City and Philadelphia and Denver. And even though all economic arguments would cause them to vote for a Democrat, they feel so resentful about their place in the world, the fact that they feel looked down upon, that I think they ignore the economic issues and just want to give the elites the finger.

I guess what I’m saying is that your suggestions seem to point to a way to work against that, or at least to make a difference on the margins, especially where you’ve got dedicated grassroots people working in the community on an everyday basis. It can help create opportunities that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

I think that’s right. If you can move some of these counties that gave 20% to Biden up to 30%, that would would be a good thing. I think our opportunity at the current time is just the irresponsible behavior of the Republican Party and their domination by Trump in a way that forces them. You know, Adam Kinzinger from Illinois said there are only 10 House Republicans who are dumb enough to believe the election was stolen. But all the rest of them are afraid that if they stand up to Trump they’ll get a primary and they won’t be in Congress anymore. And that’s a bad spot to be in, although the tolerance of voters for misconduct surprises me every day.

The greatest barrier I see to the kinds of changes you’re proposing is the existing set of institutions dedicated to doing things the way they’ve always been done. But there clearly are a lot of people who see that current practices just aren’t working. So who might step up and support the changes you’re suggesting?

After the article came out, I got a ton of emails from people who said, “Yes! This is spot on! This is right, we need to do this!” But they weren’t from anybody who actually made these decisions.

You know, I’ve been through this twice. Once in the early ’90s, when I started campaigning for using advanced statistical analysis to gather voter target data. And you would think, oh, that’s easy. Why would you target a precinct when you can target an individual, and you know whether or not they’re voting, what their registration is and all this individual stuff. It took 12 years to get the party to finally move. It was 12 years on issues it really should have been able to settle with a 30-second conversation.

What happens is people are making money doing things a certain way. They’re at a table in the campaign and you know there’s a pollster and a media consultant, a direct-mail consultant, a research and internet guy, and they all have their piece of the pie, and anything that threatens to mix that up is likely to get opposition. People will protect their turf. The way we’re doing things is the same way we’ve been doing them for 70 years, and now the idea that we would have to change is jolting.

And there’s another aspect to this that should be mentioned. A campaign can be the best-run campaign ever run, and still lose. Or it can be the worst-run campaign ever, and still win. There’s so many factors involved in this. But the campaign manager, in either case, is held accountable. So if you’re a campaign manager and sort of know how all this works, you don’t want to do anything new, because if you do something new, something different, and you lose, you’ll get blamed.

So actual campaigns aren’t the ones who would implement this. The campaigns raise their own candidate money, they’re going to spend that money on the candidates. The groups that could change this are the three Democratic committees, their big super PACs like Priorities USA, and other groups. In particular, I think the super PACs that have a lot of money are the ones that could step in and really do this, and make a difference.

One of the first things we’ve got to do is get messages out there and test how they affect voters. But I’ll tell you, you don’t have to affect voters very much to make this worthwhile if it affects everyrace on the ballot, and it goes on for 20 years. Just a tiny piece of movement is a big deal over time.

From astrology to tax policy, Netflix’s “The Baby-Sitters Club” shows tween girls contain multitudes

Netflix’s “The Baby-Sitters Club,” the charming and precocious coming-of-age show based on Ann M. Martin’s classic book series of the same name, is back for a triumphant second season, as its leads embark on their next big adventure: the eighth grade.

The friends had already proven their entrepreneurial know-how last season, even beating out the competition of older girls who didn’t take their childcare responsibilities seriously. This season doubles down on the complexity, business acumen, and frankly, the genius of the tween girls as an expanded membership requires navigating new dynamics.

But it’s not all dollars and bottom lines here. On “The Baby-Sitters Club,” standing out from a world that often mocks anything teen and tween girls enjoy as trivial or stupid, our favorite feminist sitters contain multitudes in their interests and expertise.

The show picks up at the end of summer vacation with Mary Anne (Malia Baker) desperate to know what her relationship status is with Logan (Rian McCririck), after as hot and heavy a romance as two 13-year-olds could have at summer camp (they kissed, people!). Now, with the first day of school just days away with only silence from Logan while he spends the rest of summer with his grandparents in Kentucky, Mary Anne is left to piece together the hints of where they stand.

She turns to Dawn (Kyndra Sanchez), the edgy, hipster, and anti-capitalist Californian with a mastery of astrology chart-reading and tarot, for a night of candles and consulting with the spirit world to get to the bottom of Mary Anne’s situation-ship.

“Yours is Virgo sun, Virgo moon, Virgo rising,” Dawn tells Mary Anne. “Triple Virgo — very rare. . . . You’re organized and extremely detail-oriented. We’ll do his [chart], and cross-reference compatibility.”

The two deduce that Logan, with his Jan. 10 birthday, is a Capricorn — perfect for Mary Anne — and wind up prank-calling Logan masquerading as the Census Bureau to try to determine his birth time and location in order to work up his full chart. This, of course, isn’t the only scene in which astrology is referenced on the show, or even in this season.

In the end, Mary Anne and Logan try being a couple, but after some epic dating cringe, the two decide not to let others – or even the stars – determine how they should relate to each other. Instead, they won’t label their connection and just take their time discovering what “us” looks like.

Mary Anne’s foray into astrology, however, isn’t something to be dismissed. It’s light, joyful and even empowering watching teen and tween girls embrace something widely popular and feminized in our culture without the usual reaction of being mocked or ridiculed. This is reminiscent of how Hulu’s comedy “PEN15” depicts how it middle school BFFs are suddenly convinced they have become witches and use this newfound magic to try and get boys to like them. It may sound small and unimportant — letting girls have fun with something that’s popular among their demographic, without shame or belittling. But our policing and derision of girls and young women’s interests has been a long-standing feature of the social hierarchy that’s dictated by men.

The dismissal of boy bands, Justin Bieber, reality dating shows, YA series like “Pretty Little Liars,” astrology and other interests with predominantly female and youth fan bases, is about putting women and girls down and insulting their intelligence. One could also argue it’s a slippery slope from mocking these interests, to any other issue matters young women in particular care about, like reproductive rights, a matter that’s often written off even by progressives as just a “women’s issue,” or “identity politics,” and less important than hard, supposedly more masculine economic issues.

Speaking of economics, of course, “The Baby-Sitters Club” also shows that teen and tween girls can both obsess about astrology and know more about tax policy than at least 75% of our Congress. Really.

The debate first kicks off when Baby-Sitters Club president Kristy (Sophie Grace) is sidelined by strep throat. In her absence, alternate officer Dawn steps up and makes numerous changes during her brief one-week tenure. One of her policy changes that she attempts to push through is reevaluating whether or not the current amount of dues is fair to expect of each member.

The cast of “The Baby-Sitters Club” Season 2 (Netflix)

In a principled and thoughtful conversation about whether club members should pay fixed dues or a percentage of their earnings, Dawn goes from a walking, human version of the CoStar app to Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the flesh.

“If I work more, I’m covering for other people,” Stacey McGill (Shay Rudolph) points out, raising a concern about a percentage system for their dues.

“That’s how progressive taxation works — those who have more give more,” Dawn explains.

At this point, Jessi (Anais Lee), the club’s newest junior member, also reminds Stacey, “I can’t work as much as you because I can’t stay out late and I have ballet. So when I pay the same amount it’s a way bigger percentage of my earnings.”

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I hope Congressional Republicans and opponents of a wealth tax are watching! Granted, these conversations are written for the girls by adults, but taxation really is that simple, and young people who are running their own businesses and influencer accounts understand that.

Redistributing wealth and expecting different “dues” from low-income people versus wealthy people, billionaires and corporations, isn’t just equitable and essential for economic justice. It’s also a public good. The conversation about progressive taxation segues almost at once into the charitable component of the club’s dues, as its members will donate a percentage of the dues to a charity.

“If we start paying a percentage of our dues to charity, who gets to pick the charity? And is it going to be the same charity every time?” Mary Anne asks. Therein lies another issue our representatives seriously need to learn more about: how to democratically invest in society and public goods.

The club eventually decides they’ll take turns picking where to donate their dues so that everyone’s voice can be heard, and everyone’s values supported — as opposed to, say, undemocratically elected politicians pouring trillions into the U.S. military and police departments, when most of us just want health care and affordable education.

The transitions between Dawn and her fellow sitters chit-chatting and dishing about star signs, relationship statuses, and what’s otherwise called “girl-talk” flow so naturally, that the message of “The Baby-Sitters Club” is clear. These interests among young women and girls aren’t in any way at odds.

Being feminine and enjoying traditionally feminized interests isn’t inconsistent with being brilliant and political. The multi-faceted interests, hobbies and passions of the sitters are a testament to how seriously “The Baby-Sitters Club” takes the intelligence and political participation of young women and girls.

Both seasons of “The Baby-Sitters Club” are now streaming on Netflix.

How Miles Davis electrified jazz

Thirty years after his death, the music of Miles Davis is going strong. Davis defined the sound — and sounds — of modern jazz like no other in the way he integrated the electrical instrumentation of genres like rock, funk and soul. He is one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, in any genre.

One way this can be seen is just how often he is sampled by modern musicians.

For example, Davis can be heard providing the smooth, laid-back accompaniment to Trademark Da Skydiver’s more energetic and accentuated rapping on the track Super Sticky. Listen, and after the velvet tones of John Coltrane’s tenor sax, you’ll hear the instantly recognisable plaintive wail of Davis’s muted trumpet from his song “Flamenco Sketches” — one of the most famous tunes from Kind of Blue (1959), the best-selling jazz album of all time.

Hip-hop artists like The Roots, Mobb Deep, The Beatnuts, Black Moon, Heavy Da and The Boyz, Notorious BIG, Diddy, Outkast, Queen Latifah — to name just a few — have all sampled the jazz trumpeter.

Innovating jazz

Davis seemed destined for greatness from the start. His recording debut could not have been more auspicious. In 1945, having failed to finish his education at the prestigious Julliard School in New York City, he replaced Dizzy Gillespie in a recording session for saxophonist Charlie Parker — the most highly regarded jazz musician of that, if not any other time. Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia” is a good example from this session.

Though Davis’s schooling in the fast-paced, aggressive bebop of the 1940s proved essential, it is his subsequent work as bandleader for which he is primarily remembered.

He formed a Nonet (group of nine musicians) with an unusual line-up, including French horn and tuba. Although the recordings were not immediately successful, they heralded the “cool jazz” that would prove popular with musicians dissatisfied with the formulaic nature of bebop and its emphasis on virtuosity. It would be the 1957 issuing of the album “Birth of the Cool” containing recordings dating back to 1949, which brought the music to wider recognition.

In those heady years, one style quickly followed another and Davis was at the leading edge of most of them. After cool jazz came “hard bop” — a return to the edginess of bebop combined with the emerging “rhythm ‘n’ blues.” This can be heard in the song “When Lights Are Low” (1955). There was also the rise of “modal jazz,” using scales as the basis for melodic invention, rather than the underlying chords. The result was “Milestones” (1958), one of his masterworks, which was soon followed by the legendary “Kind of Blue.”

These works cemented his reputation, arguably making Davis the most admired jazz musician of the 1960s. It is characteristic that Davis wasn’t satisfied with this adulation but continued to experiment.

Electrifying jazz

Fascinated by rock, funk and soul, he added electric instruments — electric guitars, pianos and keyboards — as well as a driving beat to his music. The result was “fusion” and from that came the album I“n a Silent Way” (1969). Then came the “jazz rock” of “Bitches Brew “(1970). As it did for folk artist Bob Dylan, electrification proved risky for Davis. Parts of the jazz community have never forgiven him for what they saw as “selling out.” However, beyond jazz, his reputation has steadily grown.

In 1975, Davis withdrew from the public sphere. He had long been plagued by ill-health, which was exacerbated by drug abuse.

This was part of the dark side of his life. While he courted controversy in his lifetime because of his drug abuse and often moody and bad-tempered behaviour, it is his often abusive and violent treatment of women that threatens to overshadow his legacy. In 2006, his ex-wife Frances Davis claimed that she “left running for [her] life — more than once,” further detailing how the musician pressured her to give up her career because, as he said, “A woman should be with her man.” Some of his other wives and partners have made similar claims.

Davis would re-emerged in 1980 and managed to continue his career right up to his death on September 28, 1991.

In this time he remained open to new influences, including hip-hop, which he incorporated in his last studio album “Doo-bop” (1991). So he would almost certainly have approved his work being sampled.

His unique skill as a composer and bandleader consisted of collecting an often diverse group of uniquely talented, often young, musicians and feeding off their ideas — to the point that the authorship of many of his best-known tracks is contested.

For example, many believe that the pianist Bill Evans composed “Blue in Green” from “Kind of Blue.” However, even if it is not always clear who contributed which note, the results are almost always unmistakably Miles.

Björn Heile, Professor of Music (post-1900), University of Glasgow

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

We now know how badly our cities will be flooded due to climate change

When it comes to climate change, the point of no return has already passed.

That is the message of a new report published in the esteemed scientific journal Environmental Research Letters. It paints a picture of a future Earth in which, regardless of actions taken today, hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homes by rising sea levels. The carbon dioxide emissions already released into our atmosphere will linger for hundreds of years, warming the oceans and thus causing sea levels to rise. The only question now is whether the damage can be limited.

The answer, according to the report, is yes — but humans will need to take specific, drastic actions as soon as possible.

“Meeting the most ambitious goals of the Paris Climate Agreement will likely reduce exposure by roughly half and may avoid globally unprecedented defense requirements for any coastal megacity exceeding a contemporary population of 10 million,” the authors write. (The report was co-written by Benjamin H. Strauss and Scott A. Kulp of Climate Central, DJ Rasmussen of Princeton University and German scientist Ander Levermann.) The long-term goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit the mean increase in global temperatures to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Even if that happens, however, oceans will continue to swell, meaning there will be millions upon millions of drenched city dwellers.

“Roughly 5 percent of the world’s population today live on land below where the high tide level is expected to rise based on carbon dioxide that human activity has already added to the atmosphere,” Strauss told AFP. With roughly 7.8 billion human beings alive today, this means approximately 390 million currently live on land that will be under the high tide level as a result of climate change.

That said, reducing the temperature rise is crucial, experts say. If Earth’s average temperature increases by even half a degree Celsius, an extra 200 million people will be vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise and increased storm surges. Each successive degree only increases the damage, as sea levels progressively rise and thereby displace more people.

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In the report, the scientists offer detailed projections for the 20 most-affected large countries (those with at least 25 million people) in terms of the percentages of their populations that currently occupy land below high tide lines based on different warming scenarios. If the planet merely warms by 1.5°C, 2.8 percent of the population of the United States could be directly impacted. Increase that by half a degree, and suddenly 5.9 percent of Americans could deal with rising sea levels. If it goes up by 3°C or 4°C, 7.9 percent or 9.9 percent of the American population could see rising sea levels where they live.

Things will be particularly bad in New York City, where officials are already considering sea walls and other measures to fortify its population against rising sea levels. Even under the most ambitious Paris Agreement target, land will fall under the high tide line that is currently home to 6.7 percent of the population. At 2°C, that rises to 13 percent; at 3°C, it reaches 19 percent; and at 4°C, it hits 28 percent.

The most vulnerable region, however, is Asia. Nine of the ten megacities at the highest risk are on that continent, and many of the countries with the starkest projections are also located there. The jump from 1.5°C to 2°C makes the difference, in Vietnam and Bangladesh, between more or less than half of their total populations living below the high tide line. If the planet’s temperature rises to 4°C above pre-industrial levels, more than 60 percent of those nations’ populations could fall below the high tide line. More than 30 percent of the populations of Egypt, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan and Myanmar would also suffer that fate in a scenario where the temperature rises by more than 4°C.

Climate Central has also released visual illustrations of how prominent American landmarks will look after sea level rises. Almost all of the land around the Statue of Liberty National Monument will be submerged, as will the area surrounding Space Center Houston. Yet these and other major landmarks would almost certainly have to be abandoned long before sea levels rose that high, as there will be an increase in heavy rainfalls and storm surges.

Capitol cop charged for helping Jan. 6 rioter hide evidence

A veteran of the Capitol Police has been indicted for obstructing justice after he allegedly tipped off a Trump supporter on Facebook and advised him to take down photos he posted of himself at the MAGA riot.

Via Law and Crime’s Adam Klasfeld, a newly unsealed indictment charges that U.S. Capitol Police Officer Michael Angelo Riley went on Facebook the day after the Capitol riots and advised an unidentified rioter to remove photos he’d posted of himself at the siege.

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“Hey I’m a Capitol Police officer who agrees with your political stance,” Riley allegedly wrote. “Take down the part about being in the building they are currently investigating and everyone who was in the building is going to be charged. Just looking out!”

Prosecutors say that this was the first time that Riley and the rioter had been in contact one another, although Riley mysteriously sent the rioter a friend request days earlier. According to prosecutors, both Riley and the rioter “were avid fisherman and members of fishing-related Facebook groups.”

See a portion of the indictment below:

New:

U.S. Capitol Police Office Michael Angelo Riley, who spent more than 25 years with USCP, has been charged with obstruction of justice in connection with Jan. 6. pic.twitter.com/BOr2z8Wy7N

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) October 15, 2021

After 20 years, it’s time to repeal the Patriot Act and begin to dismantle the surveillance state

Imam Salahuddin Muhammad thought it peculiar when Shahed Hussain appeared at his mosque in Newburgh, New York. Hussain’s expensive cars seemed out of place in the low-income city of about 40,000 people in the Hudson Valley, 60 miles north of Manhattan.

“This guy said women should not be heard, not be seen. I thought that was strange,” Muhammad said.

Muhammad should have trusted his instincts. Hussain was an FBI informant sent to surveil and entrap followers at the Newburgh mosque.

With the FBI’s resources, Hussain manufactured an ambitious “terrorist” plot to fire a Stinger missile at U.S. military planes and plant car bombs. He entrapped four Black Muslim men, inducing the men with the prospect of free vacations, expensive cars and $250,000 in cash. The four men were stuck in extreme poverty, and one suffered from severe mental-health issues. No actual weapons were acquired, let alone used. Yet in 2011, all four were sentenced to 25 years in prison. Hussain walked free.

This October marks 20 years of the Patriot Act — and more than 20 years of far too many accounts like that of the Newburgh Four.

Over the last two decades, the U.S. government has built a vast network to police, surveil and entrap people when no crimes have even taken place.

Just six weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress passed the PATRIOT Act, vastly expanding the government’s unchecked authority to spy on its citizens. The PATRIOT Act broadened the government’s power to obtain an individuals’ records held by third parties, including phone records, computer records, credit history and banking history. It also allowed government agents to search private property without notice to the owner. The FBI in many cases could issue National Security Letters and obtain such personal information without judicial approval. Even under sections of the Act that did require judicial authorization, the FBI just needed to specify that the request was related to a foreign intelligence investigation — no reasonable suspicion was required.

A network of laws and policies — both preceding and following the Patriot Act — work together to target people of color and immigrants, all across America.

In the 1960s, the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) illicitly spied on and targeted groups considered “politically dangerous,” including civil rights leaders. Their tactics ranged from spreading disinformation to inciting discord between groups on the left. After various abuses were uncovered, congressional intelligence committees were established in the 1970s to provide oversight of intelligence agencies. In 1981, Executive Order 12333 instituted further limits on intelligence agencies and included guidelines meant to restrain abuses. Despite such efforts, the FBI has not always followed those guidelines and, over time, broadly interpreted them to weaken attempts at reform.

Any limits that remained on FBI practices quickly fell away after the 9/11 attacks.

A 2019 report from the Coalition for Civil Freedoms and Project SALAM found that the broader landscape of “material support” laws have been used to criminalize activities of a non-criminal nature, such as speech, association, charity and peacemaking. Similarly, conspiracy laws have been manipulated to treat friendships and organizational memberships as criminal conspiracies, even if most group members were not involved in or aware of any criminal activity. In one such case, the government claimed that because a group of individuals knew each other, they must share a common ideology.

No victims of entrapment in a terrorism case have successfully argued against the practice in court. Under the “ready response” standard developed after 9/11, juries are told that a person is “predisposed” to engage in terrorism if they do not back out of the government-manufactured and government-induced plot. The current standard fails to account for the fact that FBI informants in such cases have often manipulated people for months on end.

The USA Freedom Act in 2015 ended the bulk collection of phone records under the PATRIOT Act, but the government is still collecting large swaths of private information. The Freedom Act authorized the NSA to operate a system that kept the bulk records in the hands of phone companies; but with judicial permission, the agency may acquire a suspect’s records — and those of everyone with whom they have been in contact. In 2018, with only 11 court orders, the NSA gathered 434 million phone and text message records. A key section of the PATRIOT Act, which allows the government to require third parties to hand over records, technically expired in March 2020, but the government may still use it for investigations that were already underway in 2020 or for any new investigations of “offenses or potential offenses” that occurred before then.

Mass surveillance strategies have also been used by local police departments, which operate under different accountability structures. One of the most notorious examples was in New York City, where the NYPD’s Intelligence Department created a “Demographics Unit” to systematically map out and spy on immigrants from at least 27 different Muslim-majority countries throughout the city. The program did not detect a single terror plot, but did succeed in creating a culture of fear, discrimination and stigmatization of Muslim communities.

The New York program was not isolated or unique. Through cross-agency information-sharing networks, communities of color more broadly have been targeted by the same infrastructures. For example, 80 fusion centers across the country share intelligence information with each other and with local and state law enforcement agencies and federal intelligence agencies. This network has come under fire for targeting Black Lives Matters organizers, and events as benign as an online meditation series.

Two decades after 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act — one of the most deeply flawed acts of legislative overreach in U.S. history — we need to begin dismantling the institutions and legal systems that allow for mass surveillance and criminalization of Muslim, Black and immigrant communities.

As a starting point, the laws which passed in the wake of 9/11, including the Patriot Act, need to be immediately repealed. And we must continue to work towards abolition of the policing, entrapment and surveillance structures that target our communities.

Monsoons that make deserts bloom are becoming more extreme and erratic thanks to climate change

If you’ve never lived in or visited the U.S. Southwest, you might picture it as a desert that is always hot and dry. But this region experiences a monsoon in the late summer that produces thunderstorms and severe weather, much like India’s famous summer deluges.

And this year, it generated a lot of rain.

July 2021 was the wettest month since record keeping started at the Tucson, Arizona, airport in 1895, with 8.06 inches (205 millimeters) of rainfall – equivalent to 70% of what the city receives in an average year. This year’s monsoon is the third-wettest ever in Tucson, with 12.80 inches (325 millimeters) of rain.

It was completely the opposite in 2020: Tucson had a dry “non-soon”, with less than 2 inches of rain. These conditions and record high temperatures fueled Arizona’s largest wildfire season in a decade, including the Bighorn Fire, which decimated over 60% of the forest in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson.

Our monsoon system impacts some 20 million people in the Southwest. As researchers studying water and climate, we investigate monsoon prediction, which is becoming more complicated due to climate change. Understanding monsoons is critical for educating communities about their benefits and risks, and about how to stay safe from effects like flash flooding.

During the North American monsoon season, the dry U.S. Southwest can suddenly turn very wet.

From dry to wet

The word monsoon comes from the Arabic word mausim, or season. Its most traditional use is to describe the large-scale wind shift into the Indian subcontinent from the ocean that coincides with intense summer rains there. But monsoons also occur in Africa, Australia and South America, as well as in Mexico and the southwestern U.S..

Monsoonal circulations carry warm, moist air inland from the ocean, which causes rainfall in the summer season. In the Southwest, this pattern starts when an area of high pressure, called a monsoon ridge, builds over the mountainous areas of Mexico and moves toward the western U.S.

In May and June, when the center of the ridge is directly overhead, the Southwest is very hot and dry. Monsoon rains begin when the warm, moist air moves into the region on the southern side of the ridge. The monsoon in Arizona officially begins June 15 and ends Sept. 30, with most rainfall usually occurring in July and August.

The monsoon has been vital to southwestern ecosystems for thousands of years. Many species have evolved and adapted to take advantage of monsoon rains. The first storms signal milkweed plants to bloom, attracting butterflies to lay their eggs. Great Plains toads and red-spotted tadpoles start their reproductive cycles in rain-filled puddles. Cactus fruits and insects provide food for hummingbirds, white-winged doves and many other birds and animals.

Floods in the desert

Monsoon thunderstorms occur when clouds develop over mountains during the day, producing rain in the afternoon and early evening. They create unique and severe dangers in the desert environment.

Flash flooding occurs when dry soil can’t quickly absorb short-lived, high-intensity downpours. Washes and arroyos – drainage channels that are dry except during heavy rainstorms – can turn into raging currents within minutes, strong enough to carry away cars and people.

Strong thunderstorms can generate microbursts – strong surface winds that gust near hurricane force. They may also trigger dust storms known as haboobs – giant walls of dust a mile or more high that reduce visibility to near zero.

The dry, gusty thunderstorms that herald the beginning of the monsoon can start and spread wildfires. One of these storms ignited the infamous Yarnell Hill Fire in June 2013, which killed 19 firefighters. Monsoon rains on fire burn scars can trigger mud and debris flows, compounding the initial wildfire damage.

The atmospheric circulation pattern in July and August 2021 was especially favorable for an active monsoon and severe weather in the Southwest. Most of southern Arizona experienced torrential rains over multiple days and weeks. These storms caused flash flooding, high winds, dust storms, mud and debris flows and heavy lightning. Emergency responders carried out almost 100 swift-water rescues in Tucson. Forecasters in Phoenix issued more than 100 flash flood warnings in August.

This year’s record monsoon also brought benefits. It replenished local water supplies throughout Arizona, which is in an intensive long-term drought. In the Tucson Basin, the monsoon generated sustained flows in tributaries of the Santa Cruz River, which helped to recharge groundwater. Water reserves rose by 5% in reservoirs managed by the Salt River Project, which supplies water to more then 2 million people in central Arizona, at a time when others elsewhere in the West are dropping to record lows.

Monsoon rains also brought the Sonoran desert back to life, including areas where the 2020 Bighorn fire killed thousands of Saguaros.

The future of the monsoon

Forecasting the monsoon and how it may change is challenging. High-resolution atmospheric models that explicitly simulate individual thunderstorms, including our own regional modeling system at University of Arizona, have greatly improved daily weather forecasts in recent decades. But it is still virtually impossible to predict exactly when and where storms will occur on a given day.

It’s also essentially impossible to forecast months in advance how strong monsoon rains will be. This year, long-range forecasts didn’t start to trend wet until mid- to late June. Climate change is making monsoon rain more extreme and variable, driven by hotter summers and characterized by less frequent but more intense storms.

If recent years are any indication, our region is already experiencing these effects, with record heat waves, larger and catastrophic wildfires, and a monsoon that is basically nonexistent one year, then produces record rainfall and severe weather the next. Such shifts are exacerbating people’s exposure to weather and climate extremes in the Southwest.

The big concern is whether a more extreme and erratic monsoon will cause an increase in threshold points of failure – for example, flood control infrastructure that collapses from intense rainfall, or wildfires so devastating that forests can’t recover. Clearly understanding these types of risk is critical to creating a more resilient and sustainable future for the Southwest.

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Diana Zamora-Reyes, PhD Candidate in Hydrology, University of Arizona and Christopher L. Castro, Professor of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona

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

The conservative group using the courts to push ivermectin on COVID patients

Two years ago, ivermectin was an obscure drug consigned only to those who had the rare displeasure of contracting parasites like scabies or river blindness. American doctors wrote a mere 150,000 prescriptions for the drug in 2019 – roughly 0.1% of the prescriptions written for Lipitor, a widely used atorvastatin designed to lower cholesterol.

Last year, however, as the pandemic raged on and conservatives stood their ground against common sense public health measures like masks and vaccines, ivermectin became a household name. Despite lacking proper consensus from the scientific community, the drug has been widely touted by right-wing pundits, politicians, and entrepreneurs as the unofficial magic bullet for COVID-19.

In many ways, the right-wing frenzy around ivermectin can be traced back to that of hydroxychloroquine, which was last year baselessly extolled by Donald Trump and many of his supporters in media and Congress. However, ivermectin appears to have taken a much stronger hold over Trump’s following (and beyond), benefiting from a robust network of profit-seeking providers continuously selling it to thousands of Americans.

Over the last several months, much of the battle to normalize ivermectin as a legitimate COVID treatment has played out in courts, which have seen a sudden surge in lawsuits filed against hospitals unwilling to administer the drug. Such offensives have arisen in states like Louisiana, Illinois, California, Kentucky, Delaware, Texas, and more.

“I’ve never encountered this and I’ve been in practice over 40 years,” Dr. Rodney Hood, who serves on the National Medical Association’s COVID-19 Task Force on Vaccines and Therapeutics, told FiveThirtyEight. “You don’t get treated based upon what you feel or think,” Hood said. “There are certain approved treatment regimens for certain diseases. If [what a patient is demanding] doesn’t fit within that regimen, then you cannot treat them.”

In one of the most widely publicized cases from August, Julie Smith, the wife of a 51-year-old coronavirus COVID patient in Ohio, sued a Cincinnati-based hospital network for not administering the ivermectin to her husband, demanding that the hospital deliver a three-week course of the drug. That month, Smith saw a favorable ruling from Butler County Judge Gregory Howard, who formally ordered the hospital to administer the drug to her husband despite warnings from the Centers for Diseases Control that its use could be unsafe. In September, the decision was reversed by a different Ohio judge, who noted that “medical and scientific communities do not support the use of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.”

In May, Desareta Fype, the daughter of a 61-year-old woman with COVID-19, similarly sued an Illinois hospital after all of its affiliated doctors refused to administer ivermectin to her mother. A judge later told the hospital to “get out of the way” and allow any board-certified doctor to give Fype’s mother the drug, according to The Daily Herald. The hospital’s attorney, Daniel Monahan, said that 20 physicians and 19 other health care workers at the hospital all refused to deliver the medicine despite the ruling, ultimately prompting Fype to hire an outside doctor to administer the drug.

While many of the ivermectin suits have been filed by seemingly unconnected individuals throughout the country, there do appear to be several common threads.

One of these threads is Ralph Lorigo, who this year became the most “in-demand” attorney for plaintiffs looking to compel the use of ivermectin in hospital systems for their loved ones, according to The Daily Beast. Lorigo helms a general practice law firm in West Seneca, New York, and has reportedly worked on at least 60 ivermectin cases, per a Journal News report. The attorney, who represented both Julie Smith and Desareta Fype, claims to be “largely successful” in delivering wins, allowing patients to force ivermectin’s use.

Citing an array of dubious studies, Lorigo told the Beast that his legal actions are aimed at delivering “last-ditch” treatment for patients that have exhausted every option. But many medical professionals argue that the suits put unnecessary strain on hospitals that are already buckling under the weight of a pandemic.

“Hospitals are dealing with the unvaccinated COVID-19 patients at a very high pace,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told the Beast. “And then you’re going to burden them by filing a lawsuit or creating legal problems over them trying to provide the best care for these people who chose not to be vaccinated and who are now crushing their hospitals?”

Timothy Brewer, an epidemiology professor at UCLA, added that Lorigo’s “why not?” approach is far from justified, largely because the studies proffered by Lorigo are hardly conclusive, potentially adding complications to drugs patients are already being given. For instance, many of the studies use statistically insignificant sample sizes, deliver unsafe doses of the drug, or were written by doctors with clear conflicts of interest.

In recent months, Lorigo, the chairman of New York’s Erie County Conservative Party, has said that his business has become effectively consumed by ivermectin suits, telling SpectrumNews1 that he receives “somewhere between 80 and 150 emails and requests for information and help” on a daily basis.

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“We freely give the information. I’ve been here seven days a week for the last seven weeks without a day off, trying to get people the information that they so desperately need,” he added.

It remains unclear how much the attorney profits from each suit – or how the suits are structured. Asked who fronts the money, Lorigo refused to answer. According to Bloomberg Law, he alleges that he offers his services at a “reduced rate.”

Aside from Lorigo, another common thread in the ecosystem of ivermectin litigation is America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLD), a conservative political group founded by Dr. Simone Gold in 2019.

AFLD is arguably the most dominant force currently working to legitimize ivermectin as a valid COVID treatment, connecting hundreds of patients with drug providers happy to fuel what’s become a multimillion-dollar industry in ivermectin sales, Time reported. The Intercept estimated that, between mid-July to mid-September of this year, AFLD and its partners raked in roughly $6.7 million in revenue by coordinating telehealth consultations for the drug. But in the process, the group reportedly bilked hundreds of unsuspecting customers out of thousands in consultation fees by, in many cases, failing to deliver the drug at all.

Irwin Redlener, who directs the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University said that the group AFLD is “the 21st century, digital version of snake-oil salesmen.”

“And in the case of ivermectin, it’s extremely dangerous,” he added.

Throughout the pandemic, AFLD waged a whole host of right-wing disinformation campaigns. It advocated for the use of hydroxychloroquine, called lockdowns “mass casualty events,” disputed the efficacy of mask-wearing, and alleged that death certificates were being forged to artificially inflate the pandemic death toll.

While Gold has reportedly labeled the group “grassroots,” AFLD is led by a cavalcade of high-brass conservatives with roots in think tanks and advocacy groups like the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and FreedomWorks. Its founding director, Jenny Beth Martin, is the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, a right-wing group started in opposition to President Obama’s domestic agenda before becoming a pro-Trump outfit.

On top of AFLD’s connection to the Tea Party Patriots, the group is also affiliated with the Council for National Policy (CNP), a “shadowy coalition” founded in 1981 “that coordinates initiatives among conservative megadonors, political operatives, and media owners, many of them Christian fundamentalists,” the Washington Examiner reported. Conservative businessman Richard Uihlein gave the group $4.3 million over a five-year period through 2020.

Low-income voters were key to defeating Trump in 2020, new study finds

Calling into question widespread perceptions of lower-income Americans and their level of political engagement, a new study released Friday detailed the high turnout among poor voters in the November 2020 elections—particularly in battleground states which helped deliver victories for President Joe Biden and Democrats in the Senate and House—following a concerted effort by campaigners to engage with low-income communities regarding the issues that mattered to them in the election.

Released by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival (PPC:NCMR); the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice; and Repairers of the Breach, the study shows that of the 168 million Americans who cast ballots last year, 59 million, or 35%, had an estimated annual household income of less than $50,000, classifying them as poor or low-income.

According to the report, titled “Waking the Sleeping Giant: Low-Income Voters and the 2020 Elections” and written by Kairos Center policy director Shailly Gupta Barnes, those voters were among the Americans that the Poor People’s Campaign reached out to last year when it held a non-partisan voter outreach drive across 16 states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.

The organization reached over 2.1 million voters, with campaigners speaking with them about “an agenda that includes living wages, healthcare, strong anti-poverty programs, voting rights, and policies that fully address injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy,” according to the report.

Ahead of the 2020 vote, the #PoorPeoplesCampaign launched a nonpartisan voter outreach drive across 16 states, targeting urban and rural areas. The action reached over 2.1 million voters, the vast majority of whom were eligible low-income voters. READ: https://t.co/Q5K3MkZqzJ

— Poor People's Campaign (@UniteThePoor) October 15, 2021

The Poor People’s Campaign found “that the reason poor and low-income voters participate in elections at lower rates is not because they have no interest in politics, but because politics is not interested in them.”

“They do not hear their needs and demands from candidates or feel that their votes matter,” wrote Rev. Dr. William Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign, in the foreward to the report. “They are less likely to vote because of illness, disability, or transportation issues, not to mention the rise of voter suppression laws—all systemic barriers rather than individual failures.”

“Intentional efforts to engage these voter” in the leadup to the 2020 election,contact the groups found, were key to turning out low-income voters in states where Biden’s margin of victory was near or less than 3%, including:

Arizona, where low-income people represented 39.96% of voters;
Georgia (37.84%);
Michigan (37.81%);
Nevada (35.78%); and
Wisconsin (39.8%)

“While the data cannot be used to claim that being contacted by PPC:NCMR was the only factor that drove them to vote, we can say that our efforts to directly reach out to low-income, infrequent voters improved their turnout rates in these states,” the report reads.

The groups highlighted the case of Georgia, which was carried by Biden—marking the first Democratic presidential victory in the southern state since 1992. Outreach by the Poor People’s Campaign helped encourage more than 39,000 Georgians who didn’t vote in 2016 to cast ballots last year—”accounting for more than three times the final margin of victory for the presidential contest in the state.”

The racial demographics of low-income voters in Georgia were fairly evenly split between Black and white low-income voters, with 1.9 million low-income white voters casting ballots last year and 1.6 million Black Georgians going to the polls. Another 164,000 low-income voters were classified as Hispanic.

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In other states carried by Biden, white people made up a larger share of eligible lower-income voters reached by the PPCNCMR, including in Michigan, where 2.95 million out of 3.8 million poor voters were white; Pennsylvania, where three million of the state’s 3.95 million eligible low-income voters were white; and Wisconsin, where 1.8 million out of 2.1 million low-income voters were white.

The statistics present “a challenge to the media-driven narrative that emerged out of 2016 and before, i.e., that white low-income voters are the de facto base of the Republican Party and delivered Donald Trump into the White House,” wrote Gupta Barnes.

“While the narrative that white low-income voters are voting not only against their own interests, but also the interests of other racial segments of low-income voters, persisted through the 2020 elections, our analysis suggests something significantly different,” the author added. “The findings suggest that, rather than writing white low-income voters off, it is possible to build coalitions of low-income voters across race around a political agenda that centers the issues they have in common.”

Though the Poor People’s Campaign made an intentional effort in 2020 to reach low-income voters, listen to their concerns, and urge them to turn out in the elections, the report notes that legislative action must be taken to turn last year’s high turnout among poor Americans into a long-term reality.

“To realize the potential of the low-income electorate, our voting infrastructure must be expanded to encourage these voters to both register and vote,” the report reads.

As Common Dreams has reported this year, the PPCNCMR has campaigned extensively to urge the passage of the For the People Act, which would outlaw partisan gerrymandering, expand early voting, establish a national automatic voter registration system, and take other steps to strengthen the country’s election system.

“While mechanisms to increase registration are important for low-income voters, there is an even greater need for policies and legislation that increase their ability to cast a ballot and actually vote,” wrote Gupta Barnes.

Additionally, the report says, Democrats must identify—and pass—”an agenda that appeals to important concerns of low-income voters across race, that is, issues like raising hourly wages, stimulus payments, paid leave, housing, and healthcare.”

“According to exit polls, 72% of Americans said they would prefer a government-run healthcare plan and more than 70% supported raising the minimum wage, including 62% of Republicans,” the report reads. “In Florida, the $15/hour minimum wage referendum got more votes than either of the two presidential candidates.”

The report comes as progressives in Congress are pushing back against corporate Democrats’ claims that the Build Back Better Act—the spending package which would invest $3.5 trillion in climate action, child care, affordable housing, and other measures to help lower- and middle-income people—is unaffordable.

As Common Dreams reported on Tuesday, the Poor People’s Campaign held a press conference on Capitol Hill this week to demand the legislation’s passage.

The report, wrote Gupta Barnes, “underscores why the needs and concerns of low-income voters must be brought more fully into our political discourse, platforms, and campaigns—and why candidates who are elected on these platforms must live up to their campaign promises.”

John Deere tried hiring scab workers — and immediately had a tractor crash in its plant

On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that agricultural equipment maker John Deere, facing a massive labor strike by the United Auto Workers union over a contract dispute, has brought in nonunion workers to keep their plants running — but according to a new report Friday, they almost immediately suffered a workplace accident in one of their plants.

“The strike includes more than 10,000 workers at 14 Deere plants, including seven in Iowa, four in Illinois and one each in Kansas, Colorado and Georgia,” reported the Washington Post’s Aaron Gregg. “The company has activated a continuity plan that will bring in nonunion employees to keep operations running. “Our immediate concern is meeting the needs of our customers, who work in time-sensitive and critical industries such as agriculture and construction,” Hartmann said.

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But on Friday, Jonah Furman of Labor Notes flagged an incident report on a plant floor, in which a non-union salaried employee crashed a tractor into a utility post and severely damaged an electrical box.

Day 1: A non-union salaried worker just crashed a tractor inside the plant. Whoops! pic.twitter.com/d6zgADiiiA

— Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) October 15, 2021

As the Post noted, the UAW strike action is one of many around the country, as workers return from the pandemic: “Thousands have gone on strike at food plants operated by Kellogg’s, Nabisco and Frito-Lay over work hours, pay and benefits. On Monday more than 24,000 Kaiser Permanente workers authorized a strike over a new two-tiered pay and benefits system opposed by the union. And Hollywood production workers announced plans to strike Monday in pursuit of improved pay and working conditions.”

The latest “You” makes a killing in the ‘burbs, fulfilling the dark fantasies we’d rather ignore

With each new season, “You” moves to a new locale, and its serial killer (protagonist? Antagonist? How one characterizes Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg in its third season is up for debate) attempts to start fresh.

In any case, with each new place, Joe tries to transform — and not necessarily for the better.

“You” is a thriller that behaves like soap populated with shallow, beautiful people. What makes it stand apart from other is that the terrible, gorgeous characters who aren’t Joe or his new wife Love (Victoria Pedretti) are there to be reaped and bled.

Then again, that’s what Joe and showrunner Sera Gamble want us to think. Nearly every aspect of the story filters through the killer’s perspective, or one adjacent to it. Joe is the hero, pursuing the maiden fair, the man of her dreams lurking on the periphery, waiting for her to notice how wonderful he is. Each time, Joe chooses a fresh object to chase, his very own new “you.”

If one were to observe the action from the point of view of another character Joe would be an emotional grifter swooping in to play the part of the rescuer — the white knight — to be everything a lonely, slow-to-trust woman needs. This is the nature of his pathology: he believes in true love as it is described in great literature. He believes in finding The One and has faith that she will be perfect, everything she needs. Should that object of his desire fall short of his expectations … she’ll simply vanish. And the hunt renews.

Marriage doesn’t change that pattern, which fits the third season’s identity shift and reiterates how equally important the current crime scene to who Joe is trying to be. And in this show, the scene of the crime is an entire city.

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The first season in New York, which aired on Lifetime, introduces Joe as a bookstore clerk in love with hardcovers and paper pages in a world quickly going the way of short takes and Kindles. Books define romance for Joe. The Internet is for researching and reading people – their habits, weaknesses, and movement patterns. New York is a perfect place to meet-cute and ditch a girl in a ditch.

Los Angeles, the stage for season 2, is the land of stage names and rewrites. This is where he meets Love, a sunny chef working at a gourmet grocery store her family owns who happens to share his fixation with homicide. Before Joe can end their relationship for all time, she announces she’s pregnant.

Now, in the third season, we’ve been brought to the suburbs, and the show is given renewed purpose: catharsis. Madre Linda is a hive of keto-worshipping, gluten-phobes run by gossipy, two-faced momfluencers and self-important tech millionaires.

Loosely translated, Madre Linda means “hot mama,” clever trolling of Love’s insecurities. But the suburb’s name also announces the place’s shared sense of superiority and separateness — that its residents are somehow better because they’ve figured out how to engineer their fortunes, their bodies and their attitudes to an elevation above the masses.

The second season ends with Joe glimpsing the next-door neighbor Natalie (Michaela McManus), who is a supermodel smoke-show, bored and ready to cheat on her emotionally distant tech CEO husband (Scott Speedman). That’s the first problem. Joe tells himself that he murders to protect his obsessions, you see. Love kills when she feels threatened. Joe enjoys the long game, the stealthy hunt. Love is impulsive. This “nest full of narcissistic vipers,” as Love calls it, might as well be asking for her to unleash her rage on it. At least the schools are top-notch.

“You” is a sly guilty pleasure as such things go. Joe’s prolific and wry inner dialogue narrates and critiques the action, ensuring that we see him as weird, funny, appealing, carnal, sexy and menacing. He sweet talks our darker impulses in a way that makes his murders justifiable, understandable even, although we – and he – know his compulsions are immoral.

That makes him a spiritual relation to Dexter Morgan, Showtime’s famed anti-hero serial killer who is also making a return this year. Following in Dexter’s footsteps, Joe and Love are married and on their way to becoming parents. Impending fatherhood enables Joe to style a new dream and a better identity for himself – the heroic, protective father to an innocent little girl. Pure perfection.

None of that goes as planned.

Examining the challenges of marriage and parenthood through the lens of two psychopaths is probably entertaining enough for the show’s passionate fanbase.

Strip away the frilly ideals about giggling babies after and white picket fences, and maintaining a successful long-term relationship boils down to nonglamorous operating concepts like teamwork, sacrifice and compromise. Joe wants to live up to those truths and the beast inside him resents that effort.

Outside Joe and Love’s magazine-perfect home, life takes a series of subversive turns attuned to current irritations.

By insinuating themselves into the community, they encounter a variety of suitable targets who — let’s face it — most people won’t mourn. Everyone in Madre Linda shapes their lives around an awareness that they’re being watched, surveilled, and judged. Keeping up appearances matters less than absolute acceptance, determined by a cartoonish clique of women who run blogs with names such as “Heart-Shaped Mistakes.”

Gamble and the writers created this season during the pandemic, which explains why and how the denizens of Joe and Love’s new home in the wealthy California town of Madre Linda are designed to be suitable prey. Nosy neighbors who spread hateful rumors in one moment and turn into amateur true crime detectives when their target turns up dead? How about the anti-vaxxer family spreading a deadly virus to an infant? Abusers using their connections to rig the justice system against women lacking means to hire decent legal representation, or parents bribing admissions boards to get their average children into the best universities? Sure – each of them can spend some time in Joe’s plexiglass cell.

“You” has a lot of fun hanging the sins dominating the culture’s conversations on the shoulders of characters born in the writers room to die onscreen. But its sharpest slices are reserved for its ongoing dialogue with corrosive masculinity and the demon needling Joe, which is the urge to assert control in a place where he’s powerless.

The latest incarnation of Joe wants to control himself and his world by trying to control his wife — who, to be fair, is precariously unhinged. She’s also an extreme version of all the women she’s wary of. Like most of them, she’s white and rich enough to view work as a hobby. But while they’re busy taking yoga and murdering their Peloton workouts, she is figuring out whether the man she’d kill for is doing things behind her back that — in her eyes — justify bludgeoning someone to death.

Self-actualization has been branded into a virtue, and while it’s not necessarily a terrible pursuit in the wrong hands – like, say, a dominant Adonis who strangles squirrels to signify his masculinity — it can destabilize an entire social ecosystem. Joe is not that man, and that’s the secret to his continued appeal as the face of “You.” He’s the wrong kind of man in a sea of them, a principled romantic whose might change, but whose loss of affection can be lethal.

The genius of Love is that she’s equally dangerous, making it more worthwhile. The scary part is that she means it when, in response to an unexpected token of affection, she thinks to herself “I don’t deserve him!” and her tone is sweetened with affection.

In the same moment, Joe has an identical reaction. “I don’t deserve her,” Joe thinks at the same time, but resentfully. He’s captured his quarry, and, as it turns out, she has him trapped. The frightening titillation vibrating behind this exchange is that we know he’s already stalking someone else, and we can’t tell whether the man or his wife is the greater threat.

The third season of “You” is now available to stream on Netflix.

Netflix fires organizer of trans employee walkout as Dave Chappelle controversy grows

Netflix came under withering fire Friday after firing the leader of a trans employee resource group that was organizing a walkout next week over a controversial stand-up comedy special called “The Closer” hosted by Dave Chappelle.

The streaming platform accused the employee of leaking confidential company metrics to the press, including the special’s reach and how much the company paid for it. That information was published in a report by Bloomberg earlier this week.

A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the employees’ dismissal in a statement to technology news site The Verge.

“We have let go of an employee for sharing confidential, commercially sensitive information outside the company,” a spokesperson said. “We understand this employee may have been motivated by disappointment and hurt with Netflix, but maintaining a culture of trust and transparency is core to our company.”

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“The Closer” was widely criticized online for its alleged transphobia and homophobia, and has led to an unprecedented wave of internal employee activism within Netflix. The company even suspended a trans software engineer who apparently tried to attend a C-suite meeting recently that she was not invited to, and then posted a viral Twitter thread about the situation. She was subsequently reinstated, though the incident continues to roil the company.

Netflix is widely known for its internal transparency, sharing salary data and quarterly finances with most employees — though the information comes with a strict rulebook that does not permit sharing outside of the company. As a result, this week’s leak was unprecedented for the company, which has until now kept a tight lid on its data.

Because of the employee’s actions, however, we now know how much Chappelle’s special cost to produce — $24.1 million, a sum that appears vastly greater than other comparable comedy specials. By comparison, Bo Burnham’s widely acclaimed “Inside,” which was released earlier this year, cost just $3.9 million.

This is presumably due to Chappelle’s popularity — and indeed, at least 10 million people have watched “The Closer” so far, making him the most-watched comedian on the platform, according to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos.

Chappelle apparently has a history of cutting incredible deals with the company, too. His last special, “Sticks & Stones,” cost the company $23.6 million, Bloomberg reported. It remains unknown whether Netflix was able to draw a profit from either special.

The information, however, only served to further anger current and former employees who were already outraged at the comedian’s perceived special treatment by Netflix.

One former employee venting their frustration to The Verge: “All these white people are going around talking to the press and speaking publicly on Twitter and the only person who gets fired is the Black person who was quiet the entire time,” they said.

“That’s absurd, and just further shows that Black trans people are the ones being targeted in this conversation.”

Joe Rogan calls out right-wing media for cherry-picking clips of interview with CNN’s Sanjay Gupta

Joe Rogan doesn’t appreciate it when media outlets cherry-pick his lengthy interviews for confrontational moments.

This week, it was right-wing media the popular podcast host appeared to be calling out, after a number of prominent conservative outlets shared snippets from Rogan’s more than three-hour discussion with CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

In particular, several publications seized on a contentious back-and-forth over Rogan’s personal use of the anti-parasite drug ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment — an unproven use which the FDA has discouraged.

At one point, Rogan even accused CNN of “lying” about his use of the drug, after at least one anchor said he was taking “horse de-wormer.” Rogan maintains that he was prescribed ivermectin — the human version — by a doctor.

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“I can afford human drugs, motherf***er,” he added at one point.

The clip spread like wildfire across social media — thanks to headlines from Fox News, Breitbart and a number of other conservative outlets — though Rogan clearly doesn’t see the incident as representative of his entire conversation with Gupta.

“If you’ve only seen clips online you would think that @drsanjaygupta and I had a tense and uncomfortable encounter when we sat down for 3 hours,” he wrote on his Instagram account. “The reality is that disagreement was a very small part of what was overall a very enjoyable conversation.”

“Sanjay is a really nice person and I like him a lot. After our time together I consider him a friend,” Rogan continued. “People on network TV don’t have anything remotely similar to the kind of freedom I enjoy doing the podcast. For him to dive into my world and have an open form conversation with no restrictions took real courage, and I appreciate it very much.”

Joe Rogan asks Sanjay Gupta if it bothers him that CNN outright lied about Rogan taking horse dewormer to recover from covid. This is fantastic: pic.twitter.com/PEgJqIXhSD

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 14, 2021

According to Gupta, the major headline to come out of the interview was that Rogan claimed he almost got vaccinated, but didn’t due to “logistical hurdles.”

Going into the interview, Gupta had hoped he would be able to change Rogan’s mind about COVID-19 vaccination. Despite his efforts ultimately proving unsuccessful, he wrote at CNN: “Truth is though, I am still glad I did it.”

Startup propaganda has demonized sleep as “for the weak.” That couldn’t be less true

You should turn in early tonight. Grab a quick nap this afternoon, if you can. Sleep is for winners.

In the aftermath of beleaguered media company Ozy’s recent spectacular — if not entirely unsurprising — implosion, the site’s content remains intact. There’s a video of economist Noreena Hertz urging setting aside time to rest and recharge, saying, “If we don’t, we risk letting others always set our priorities. We need time, to dream.” There’s a feature on how “Just getting 16 minutes less sleep than normal can negatively affect work performance.” There’s another, from just last year, on the growing industry of “sleep retreats,” because “the effects of sleep deprivation are ugly.”

Yet behind the scenes, Ozy perpetuated the kind of sleep-averse culture endemic to media startups, Wall Street firms, cults and brazen violators of the Geneva Convention.

In a feature this week for The Intelligencer, ex-employees described a workplace they say was “abusive and cult-like.” Their founder and CEO Carlos Watson “didn’t like that people slept,” recalled former senior editor Kate Crane. “There was one meeting where he stood up and he said, ‘I’m sick of hearing about how people need to sleep! This is a start-up! This is not for the weak!'”

And writing in the New York Times, another ex-employee, Eugene S. Robinson, recalled that Watson would evoke his mother’s dictum that “no one should be able to outwork you.”

Reading those anecdotes, I immediately thought of Daniel Barban Levin’s recent memoir of his experience in the “Sarah Lawrence cult,” and of how the victim accusations against Lawrence Ray in his indictment included “sleep deprivation.” Going without rest is not a badge of honor. It is a form of psychological and physical torture.

It’s also terrible business. In 2017, Rand Health looked at a number of health and mortality risks associated with sleep deprivation and projected that “the costs of insufficient sleep in 2020 for the U.S. range from $299 billion to $433 billion.” Fatigue is “strongly associated with motor vehicle crashes” and among physicians, it puts patients “at higher risk for medical error.” There is not an industry in which being dead on your feet makes you better at your job.

We know this, right? We know this in our bodies and Arianna Huffington bestsellers. Yet the CDC has estimated that roughly one third of us are getting insufficient sleep — and that was before the pandemic unleashed our mass exhaustion. But that insane philosophy, expressed in a controversial Fiverr ad a few years ago, that “Sleep deprivation is your drug of choice,” persists. The “996” culture (working 9am – 9pm, six days a week) is normalized in parts of the Chinese tech industry, even as workers drop dead. Yet that might sound like a part-time job schedule if you work for Goldman Sachs, where “inhumane” and “abusive” 100 hour weeks are not uncommon among junior analysts — who, last year, reportedly “begged to work just 80 hours a week.”

Celeste Headlee, author of “Do Nothing: How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Under Living,” has been following the Ozy story. As she tells Salon: “This is terrible for you. You are not more productive when you’re tired. When I say it like that, everyone says, ‘Of course,’ but we don’t believe it. We push through it. We grit our teeth and keep going, under the delusion that at some point we’re going to get ahead. When was the next time you worked until 10 or 11 at night and woke up the next morning like, ‘I can take it easier, I got so far ahead’? The things you’re telling yourself to justify that incredibly toxic behavior are not true.”

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Headlee adds, “These managers who are also under this delusion. They’re using the same logic that 19th century factory owners used, which was that was the longer we have our workers on the line, the more products we produce and the more profit we gain. In fact, you are getting less productivity, less innovation, more errors, because you’re forcing people to work past their capacity. It is literally counterproductive to expect workers to put in those hours. You’re not just damaging your bottom line, you’re damaging your company’s ability to be resilient, to be accurate, to innovate and move forward. It’s just lose, lose, lose all the way down the line. We’ve know for at least a hundred years that this addiction to productivity is cult-like behavior.”

And just look what’s on the other side.

“The health benefits of sleep, I could go on and on about them, says Stephanie Griggs, assistant professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at at Case Western Reserve University. “Sleep is so important for productivity. Our emotions are going to be better regulated, all of those things tie in. If you want a healthy workforce, that is going to stay healthy for a long time, sleep is an absolute necessity.”

Dr. Sara Mednick, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, agrees. “I just keep thinking that people are going to come around to understanding the importance of what I call downstates,” she says, “and take time to restore so that you can be ready and repaired for the next upstate. There’s so much work that needs to get done in the downstate. These recovery processes are so critical. There’s so much research on the balance of your autonomic nervous system. One of the most important balances is to give yourself a long part of the night to not have any sympathetic stress responses at all. If they don’t happen during deep sleep, they’re not going to happen at all. Protein synthesis, genetic transcription, it all happens in these downstate periods.”

And rest and sleep can’t just be flipped on and off, because we are not actually machines. We are delicate things, evidenced by our counterproductive habits of “revenge scrolling” to grab a little precious downtime. But it backfires, because, as Mednick notes, “Any ping from your computer or phone, anything that alerts you to what you ‘should’ be doing, your system is immediately going to be put into a stress mode.”

It says something about how difficult it is to power down that, this week when I sent out a query looking for experts on sleep deprivation, I was quickly flooded with responses with timestamps from 5am in the morning to midnight. One individual emailed me at 10pm, and again around 8 the following morning. I know not everyone keeps traditional daylight work hours, but it’s also obvious that even for a story about not being on call 24/7, too many of us are on call 24/7.

I don’t have a compelling response for anyone with a tyrannical boss who insists that sleep is for the weak — an ideology that is as stupid as saying that peeing is for the weak. I do completely recognize that a sleep-deprived workforce feeds the corporate ego and makes insecure employees believe they’re proving how tough and indispensable they are. But I also know that Dr. James Allison, the one person I know with a Nobel prize, is as hardworking as you’d imagine — and plays harmonica in a band and takes vacations.

Meanwhile, every person I’ve ever talked to who survived a cult has talked about the sleep deprivation they endured. Smart, successful, creative, world-shaping people get their zzzs. I try to remember that before I do something pointless like staying up late and not even having fun doing it. And I consider Dr. Sara Mednick’s words: “The idea that a human being, like any animal, isn’t going to need deep time for rest, the idea of being always on call — it’s terrible.”

Trump supporters hurl profanities at Joe Biden as he greets children at daycare center: report

President Joe Biden was greeted with profane taunts from Trump supporters on Friday despite the fact that he was in the presence of children.

According to NPR White House correspondent Scott Detrow, Biden on Friday travelled to a daycare center in Hartford, Connecticut to promote childcare plans that are part of his “Build Back Better” agenda.

While there, he greeted several children at a playground, only to be interrupted at one point by Trump supporters who were yelling at him from across the street.

As recounted by Voice of America News reporter Patsy Widakuswara, “at one point Biden put a twisty blue tube toy on his head” while meeting with the children and “as this happened you could clearly hear Trump supporters across the street yelling ‘traitor’ and “f*ck Joe Biden.”

Despite this, Biden continued into the daycare center and delivered a speech talking about Democratic policies such as the expanded child tax credit and universal pre-K.

How to make a Rye Old-Fashioned, a classic 3-ingredient drink (plus ice)

Spirits, bitters, sugar, water. Since the early 1800s, those are the four elements that have defined the cocktail. And while it’s easy to believe otherwise, given the dazzling heights to which contemporary bar menus aspire, those four building blocks are all a cocktail requires. What you do with them, though — that’s where inspiration, regional tastes and ingenuity come in.

For my money, the Old-Fashioned is the elegant apex of these four elements’ harmonious combination. According to David Wondrich’s history “Imbibe!,” the Old-Fashioned came about as a reaction to the increasingly complex modern mixology inventions of Gilded Age bartenders: Don’t make me a whiskey cocktail — with god knows what flourishes and fancies — I’ll take an old-fashioned cocktail, please. (History just repeats itself, doesn’t it?) “The Old-Fashioned,” Wondrich writes, “was a drinker’s plea for a saner, quieter, slower life.”

Life is hard; ordering an Old-Fashioned is easy. Maybe a “saner, quieter, slower life” in practice sounds appealing but out of reach. But there is something to be said for the practice of stripping all the complicated extras and conveniences we pile onto our lives down to reveal the basic elements we need to thrive: Spirits. Bitters. Sugar. Water. If we can do that with a cocktail, is there another part of life to which we could apply the same simplified rigor?

Once upon a time, I thought mixing cocktails — anything more complicated than liquor + mixer, really — was an activity best left to the professionals. Anything categorized as “old fashioned” was sure to be fussy and complicated with a steep learning curve like sewing my own clothes. Then my friend and cocktail expert Jared Schubert called me one summer day to assist him like a vagabond Vanna while he gave a talk and demonstration on the Old-Fashioned at a music festival’s bourbon tent. That’s where he blew my mind with the basic elements and showed me a pathway to their wild possibilities and elegant limits.

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Now, Jared is brilliant. Whether you need dozens of different bespoke cocktails created for an afternoon tasting event or one day-long in-depth clinic on a single bourbon, he should be your first call. I am . . . not. Neither trained in the mixing arts nor a mad genius behind the bar. But after that event, I realized that even I — a person too messy to take on more than a neat pour — could mix a beautiful Old-Fashioned. And what’s more, I could refer back to those four elements to mix up any number of drinks on a whim, based on what I have on hand, without needing to run to the store. When I visit a good bar, of course, I want a professional creator like Jared or those Gilded Age inventors to surprise me. At home, though, the Old-Fashioned helps me practice the saner, quieter, slower life I crave.

Originally, an Old-Fashioned could be made with whiskey, brandy, or Holland or Old Tom gins. These days a standard base is bourbon or rye. Muddle a sugar cube with a few dashes of bitters (and a splash of water, if you need it, but “water” in the Old-Fashioned can just be the ice), stir in whiskey, serve over a big ice cube with a lemon or orange peel. Deceptively simple. The result is a soft and sublime transformation of a good whiskey, while still allowing it to hold center stage.

I used to only take my Old-Fashioneds with bourbon, but lately I’ve been reaching for rye whiskey for the extra bite — Peerless Rye, Willett Rye 4-year, or Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel Rye are some of my go-to bottles — to build the drink around. If you’re just starting to build your Old-Fashioned preferences, your favorite whiskey is a good place to start.

Every home bar should have a bottle of Angostura, but I also like playing around with my bitters to add slightly different dimensions to the Old-Fashioned flavor. With a Rye Old-Fashioned, I’m enjoying Cocktail Punk’s Saturnalia bitters (cranberry, toasted walnut, citrus) or Old Forester’s Bohemian bitters (sour cherries, clove, smoked black pepper, cacao). Bitters typically come in small bottles, so they’re easy to store, and building a small collection is an easy way to adapt classic recipes without much risk. Also, you can add them to cold seltzer with a squeeze of lemon for a refreshing non-alcoholic, carbonated drink.

Ingredients

Serving size: One drink

2 oz. whiskey
1 sugar cube
Bitters
Orange or lemon peel
One large ice cube for serving

Gear:

You don’t need any specialty equipment to mix a simple cocktail — you can muddle and stir with the same cereal spoon. Improvise with what you have. But here’s what I keep at hand:

Rocks glass
Jigger or measuring device (a standard shot glass holds 1.5 oz, if you’re eyeballing it)
Cocktail shaker
Muddler
Bar spoon
Strainer
Small knife or peeler

Instructions:

Chill a rocks glass. In your mixer glass, add a couple dashes of bitters to a sugar cube, and muddle them together until the sugar is dissolved. Add ice, then whiskey. Stir until good and chilled, then strain into the rocks glass over one large ice cube. (Regular ice is fine! Just use 2-3 cubes.) Pinch the peel over the drink to release the oils, then let it sink into the drink.

Variations:

If you’re in Wisconsin, you know they do an Old-Fashioned differently there: The sugar is muddled with an orange slice and cocktail cherry, then you mix in brandy and top with soda water. You can also riff on an Old-Fashioned with a good aged dark rum — reach for orange bitters, or even allspice dram, and if your rum is a sweeter variety, maybe go lighter on the sugar.

More Oracle Pour:

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Yes, there are sparkling red wines that taste good

When I was in college I had a roommate whom I loved dearly, but who had incredibly different taste from me. I whipped cream by hand while she bought a tub of Cool Whip. I drank red wine while she drank fruity vodka concoctions whose names shouldn’t be repeated in polite company.

So, when one day she brought home a bottle of sparkling red wine that she was over the moon about, I was skeptical. Plus, red wine isn’t supposed to be fizzy, right?

What she had was a bottle of cheap Lambrusco: fizzy, cloying, and about on par with a wine cooler as far as complexity of flavor goes. My skepticism was confirmed and my opinion on sparkling red wine was set.

That is, until a number of years later, when I was visiting a family friend of ours who was passing through Vermont. Our friend Karen and her husband Paul own a vineyard in Southern Australia, where they make really beautiful handcrafted wines. Karen was on a sales trip in Canada and she popped down into the U.S. so my mom and I could meet up with her to say hello.

She brought us a bottle of sparkling wine that we all split, and I was floored. The difference between this sparkling Shiraz and the Lambrusco I’d tasted half a decade earlier couldn’t have been starker. The Shiraz was effervescent and awash with a complex mix of inky berry, violet, pepper, and oak flavors.

Just a few months later, my husband and I were at a fantastic restaurant in Boston where our server vigorously recommended we try a dry Lambrusco they had just gotten in. We acquiesced, and I once again I was amazed by the complexity and brilliance of the wine. “Sparkling red wine is bound to become the next big thing here soon,” I thought to myself.

But, it didn’t take off. Pinot Noir, rosé, dry Riesling, and others varieties of wine exploded in turn, but sparkling red wine has continued in relative obscurity. So, what gives?

I think the problem is that while there are wonderful, extremely enjoyable sparkling red wines out there, they can be hard to uncover, and the sparkling red wine selection at even a large, well-stocked liquor store is liable to be a minefield littered with horribly bad wine choices. I spent the last several weeks combing the state of Minnesota for sparkling red wines and so far, I’ve only found a few I actually wanted to drink. Yikes.

But, let’s have a look at the types of sparkling red you’re most likely to run into out there and try to figure out how to navigate.

Lambrusco

Lambrusco, which is probably the best-known style of sparkling red wine, is from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and is made from the Lambrusco grape. What most people don’t realize is that there is huge variation within the Lambrusco category: Lambrusco can range from cotton candy sweet to bone dry and tannic. A Lambrusco that is secco will not be sweet in the least, while one labeled dolce or semisecco will be quite sweet or semi-sweet respectively (off-dry can also be called amabile).

My friend Chuck, who runs a fantastic wine shop called Solo Vino in the Twin Cities told me another trick for discerning how sweet a Lambrusco: Look at the alcohol content. It’s not a guarantee, but it is a clue. As wine ferments, sugar is converted to alcohol. There’s a tradeoff there, so generally a wine with a lower alcohol content has more residual sugar and will be sweeter (around 6% will be very sweet), while a wine with a higher alcohol content (around 11%) will be drier and more tannic — sometimes so tannic that it will give you cotton mouth and you wouldn’t want to pair it with anything but the richest of meals. And in the middle (around 8%) is likely to be in the sweetness ballpark of a berry-forward Merlot.

Just like other varieties of wine, there are a couple of different styles of Lambrusco to look out for. To make Lambrusco even more complicated, there are light styles, usually called Lambrusco di Sorbara. You can also tell by looking at them that they are lightly sparkling because they will be pinker in comparison to the deep red of the richer style of Lambrusco known as Grasparossa. Lighter styles will have marked notes of strawberries, raspberries, and rhubarb; I like them on the drier side to keep the fruit from being cloying. On the other hand, I like the Labrusco Grasparossa style to have just a touch of sweetness to keep it from being tannic (tasting a dry Lambrusco Grasparossa can be like taking a sip of black tea that has steeped for a half-hour).

My favorite that I tried recently was 8% — that is, amabile — from the Cleto Chiarli vineyard, which tasted intensely of raspberries, blackberry jam, dark stone fruit, and violets. Lambruscos that are dry or semi-dry can be fantastic pairings for rich food because both the bubbles and acidity cut through the richness. Pair it with creamy pasta, cheese and meat plates, or Thanksgiving dinner.

Sparkling Shiraz

Sparkling Shiraz is extraordinarily popular in Australia, at least according to my friend Karen, and is the pre-dinner drink of choice for many people. Like Lambrusco, it can be dry or sweet or in between, but it is not necessarily labeled, so the alcohol content trick can come in handy here. Shiraz has higher alcohol content in general than many varietals, however, so expect them to be in the range of 12.5% to 14%.

A nice sparkling Shiraz has all the varietal characteristics of a regular Shiraz — deep berry flavors mingling with pepper, anise, hints of herbs, and vanilla, combined with a creaminess and zest from the bubbles. Many of these wines are actually blends of Shiraz and other grape varietals.

The problem with sparkling Shiraz is that much of what is available is cheap Shiraz, produced en masse and suffering from the same faults as any cheap, bad Shiraz: dull, vinegary, unbalanced fruit flavors, all made more punctuated by the presence of bubbles. If you want a sparkling Shiraz worth drinking, you’ll likely have to look in the $30 and up price range, and many liquor stores aren’t willing to carry pricey Australian wines because they don’t think anyone will buy them. But, if you find one, buy it! And serve it slightly chilled as an aperitif or with barbecued meats or rich foods.

Brachetto D’Acqui

This is the final style of sparkling red wine you’re likely to run into in a liquor store, and it brings us back to Italy. It is made in the Piedmont region from Brachetto grapes, and it is always sweet and quite low alcohol, usually around 5%. Brachetto d’Acqui is so sweet and candy-like, I consider it a dessert more than I consider it a wine.

The aromas and flavors of Brachetto are reminiscent of strawberries combined with potpourri, and violet pastilles. Think a combination of a Moscato, a berry-rich rosé, and the aromatic lychee flavors of a Gewurztraminer. Because of its sweetness, a Brachetto, like a sweet Lambrusco, should be saved for the end of the meal. It could be a dessert on its own, or you could serve it with something like chocolate cake or cheesecake — or even use it to make an ice cream float. But unlike Lambrusco, which pairs well with salty cheeses and salami, hearty pasta and lasagna, and of course pizza, Brachetto is best with something sweet.

There are a variety of other styles of sparkling red wine floating about out there in the universe of available wine. After all, in the right hands, any red wine could become a sparkling red. Of course, this doesn’t make it any easier to feel confident in making a good choice when looking at sparkling red wines. The best bet, I think, is to talk to someone at a liquor store or a restaurant whose taste and advice in wine you trust, and see if they can steer you towards something fun. Because when it comes down to it, anything with bubbles should be fun. In the meantime, get acquainted with a few of our editors’ favorite sparkling red wines to buy. Not only are they delicious, but they all come in at under $20!

4 best sparkling red wines to buy

Penisola Sorrentina “Gragnano,” Monteleone

One style of sparkling red wine that we didn’t discuss is Gragnano, aka the perfect pizza wine. I learned about this style of wine at my favorite Neapolitan pizza joint in Astoria, Queens. It’s a crisp, fruit-forward, fizzy wine that is refreshing in summer when I’m dining on the patio and still cozy in the darkness of winter. It never distracts or overpowers the pizza, no matter if I’m sticking to a simple Queen Margherita or going all out with toppings. And the best part is this style is almost always under $20.

Lini 910 Labrusca Lambrusco Rosso

This sparkling red wine has fruit flavors of bright, ripe red fruit, like cherries and berries, while still veering towards a dry Lambrusco. It’s a highly-rated $15 bottle from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its alcohol content hovers around 11%, which means that it will be on the drier side.

La Divina Lambrusco Di Sorbara NV

Food Editor Emma Laperruque loves this not-too-sweet, under-$20 Lambrusco that’s naturally sparkling. “Perfect for takeout pizza and Love Island,” says Emma. It comes from the small town of Sorbara just north of Modena, Italy.

Cleto Chiarli Lambrusco Grasparossa Di Castelvetro Amabile

If you’ve never tried sparkling red wines before, this variety from Cleto Chiarli is a great place to start. Look out for notes of rose petals, orange peel, and ripe red fruit. It has an alcohol content of about 11%, which means you can expect it to be dry without veering towards bitter.

An FDA panel brings Moderna booster shots one step closer to reality

On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) moved one step closer to giving the green light to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine booster shots when an advisory committee unanimously recommended authorizing it for emergency use.

The decision was made by the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a panel whose advice is often but not always followed by the agency. The panel found that the vaccine was effective and safe, at least based on initial studies, and therefore can be given to vulnerable segments of the population at least six months after their second dose. Eligible recipients include people over the age of 65 and young adults whose medical conditions or jobs elevate their risk level. These are the same conditions that were applied last month when the FDA authorized a Pfizer-BioNTech booster. (Third doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have already been authorized for immunocompromised individuals.)

This is not to say that the committee lacked concerns. They noted the absence of thorough data to prove that the booster was justified by a need for more protection. Several members of the panel also voiced reservations about whether emergency authorization should be granted for younger adults who are not in a vulnerable group.

As virologist Dr. Stanley Perlman explained, the FDA has already set a precedent that additional shots of this nature can be authorized on an emergency basis. It may be difficult for them to rationalize saying “yes” to Pfizer and BioNTech but “no” to Moderna.

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“From a pragmatic point of view, because we’ve already approved it for Pfizer, I don’t see how we can possibly not approve it for Moderna,” Perlman explained.

The next step in this process is for the FDA to make a final decision about Moderna boosters, which could come in a matter of days. After that, if it recommends approval, a vaccine advisory committee assembled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will vote on the FDA’s proposal. If the CDC affirms the FDA’s decision, the booster shots could become available immediately for Americans who meet the necessary criteria.

In addition to the controversy over whether most Americans need booster shots right now, there are also concerns that giving out booster shots right now could exacerbate existing vaccine equity issues. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged wealthier countries to refrain from giving out boosters until people in poorer countries who have yet to receive one shot have been inoculated. After the United States authorized the more limited use for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in August, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus said, “We cannot accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it.”

Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s head of emergencies, compared the practice to handing out life jackets to people who already have them and allowing others to drown.

“International human rights law obliges governments to refrain from actions that frustrate the efforts of other governments to comply with their human rights obligations, including when negotiating international agreements or participating in decisions as members of international organizations,” wrote Human Rights Watch at the time. “Yet, when rich governments impede access to vaccines, either by buying up more than is equitable or by hamstringing speedier vaccine manufacturing and distribution through blocking intellectual property waivers at the World Trade Organization, that is what is happening.”

Democrats hit the panic button. Is it too little too late for Joe Biden?

Democratic voters are depressed, demoralized, and tuning out — and there’s no use in denying it.

President Joe Biden’s economic agenda is stuck in the mud, supported by 96% of Democrats in the Senate yet blocked by two senators whose massive egos and lobbyist addictions are causing them to turn against the party. Biden failed to enact vaccine mandates early enough or broadly enough so now millions of Fox News-addled Americans still are resisting vaccines, prolonging the pandemic and contributing to the national sense of despair. On top of that, Donald Trump has faced no real consequences for his attempted coup while the various criminal apparatchiks he surrounds himself with are also walking around happy and free. So efforts to stop the next coup are moribund, hitting the wall of Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who love that lobbyist-pleasing filibuster more than they love democracy.

Biden and Democrats were able to pass the American Rescue Plan early in his administration, and that staved off a worse situation. But “well, it could be worse” is an unsatisfying message, especially when the country is in dire straits and the threats against democracy are only escalating. The sense that this country is in a nosedive hasn’t changed, even if the rate of descent has been temporarily slowed down.

Unsurprisingly, then, Democratic voters are increasingly giving up hope.

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Biden’s approval ratings are down and he’s taking a hard hit among the very voters Democrats need to win in 2022 and 2024. As NBC News reported this week, “A Pew Research Center poll found that from July to September, Biden’s approval rating fell by 18 points among Black voters, 16 points among Hispanics and 12 points among women.” His approval is down 13 points among Democratic voters. As Cleve Wootsen writes in the Washington Post, the “Black and other minority voters who helped fuel Biden’s victory” have started to “see what they consider unfulfilled promises and dwindling hope for meaningful change.”

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post details a similar phenomenon in which “female voters, whose engagement and activism fueled the gains that Democrats made during Donald Trump’s presidency, are increasingly tuning out politics.” Pollsters report that women in focus groups register a “sense of growing political ennui.” One pollster noted that Black women especially are saying, “It doesn’t matter who we elect, it’s all the same.”

This is really bad, especially as Republican voters are fired up by their bottomless sense of aggrieved entitlement and ready to turn out in 2022. Add to that voter suppression and gerrymandering, and it’s looking like a bloodbath for Democrats in the midterms if they can’t turn this ship around.

To be entirely fair to Democratic leadership, they seem well aware that they have a serious problem on their hands, and they are trying to do something to change the growing sense that Democrats are a do-nothing party.

The first big test of whether or not Democrats can show even a modicum of initiative and spine is in the handling of Trump crony Steve Bannon, who could soon be held in contempt of Congress for his refusal to answer a subpoena pertaining to Trump’s coup and the January 6 insurrection. In theory, this is a jailable offense and Bannon should be in danger of a dramatic perp walk. Bannon clearly believes Democrats don’t have the guts to do it. Democrats, however, are insisting otherwise.

“He will be prosecuted, that’s our expectation,” Rep. Adam Schiff of California told MSNBC. “He apparently feels he’s above the law. But he’s about to find out otherwise.”

Big talk, but can they make good on it?

The process of actually doing so — described by CNN as “a series of steps needed to move forward,” including holding meetings, writing a report, and referring it to the House for a vote, then referring it to the Justice Department — doesn’t inspire confidence. Every step allows the notorious cowards in the party to get cold feet and telling themselves an idiotic story about how inaction somehow plays better with the voters than action. No wonder Bannon is so sure he’ll get away with this.

Looking to the legislative agenda, there’s a similar question about whether or not Democratic leaders, who clearly understand that their future success depends on current accomplishment, can get anything past the do-nothing obstructionists in their own party.

Voters want the entire package Biden promised, $3.5 trillion price tag and all, but Manchin (sigh!) is demanding they shrink the size of it. The good news is it appears most of the Democratic caucus is ready to play ball, understanding that doing something is better than doing nothing. House Democrats are strategizing about how to cut the topline number to placate Manchin, without giving up on must-pass policy items.

The remaining problem appears to be Sinema, who is, if it can be believed, an even worse person than Manchin.

Arizona’s senior senator is reportedly still insisting that a smaller infrastructure bill that she helped craft with Republicans be passed before the larger bill. Her motives aren’t exactly mysterious — this is a transparent effort to trick the 96% of the party that disagrees with her into giving her what she wants, so she can then renege on the deal and kill the bigger bill. Sinema isn’t as clever as she thinks she is, but she is unfortunately powerful. Her combination of ego and idiocy may prove fatal to Biden’s agenda.

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Finally, there’s voting rights and democracy reform, without which, there is probably no stopping Trump’s out-in-the-open plans to steal the 2024 election.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is still trying to get bills to prevent at least some of the GOP efforts to gut democracy. Next week, he is bringing up for a vote the Freedom to Vote Act, a pared-down version of earlier voting rights legislation that Manchin claims to believe will attract enough Republican votes to overcome the filibuster.

Of course, it will not. The GOP is unified in their opposition to democracy. Even the two anti-insurrectionist House Republicans who are on the January 6 commission reject bills to shore up the right to vote. But Schumer’s clear hope is that Manchin will see the entire GOP vote down a bill Manchin put so much hope in, and will change his mind, allowing filibuster reform so that voting rights can be protected.

I’m not holding my breath. Manchin’s commitment to the filibuster is likely not as principled as he claims, but rooted more in protecting wealthy interests that constitute his donor base, who feel threatened by the possibility of real progressive change. But as repugnant as Manchin is acting, his behavior is just the symptom of a larger problem, which is the institutional morass making it hard for Democrats to make any of the changes necessary to stave off the looming threat of a total GOP takeover and, eventually, Trump’s second term as president.

Still, it is actually quite remarkable how, despite all the roadblocks and institutional failures, a strong majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill do seem to understand both the problems the country faces and what the solutions should be. That wasn’t always true, as anyone who has witnessed decades of do-nothing centrist control over the party can attest. In many ways, that makes the 2022 electoral bloodletting that is the likely result if Democrats can’t turn the ship around even more tragic. These are mostly folks that are trying, and simply running up against a wall built by generations of their forebears who feared all change.

No wonder voters are so depressed. A party that refuses to listen to voters is frustrating, but so is a party that hears them but still can’t do anything about it. Either way, it may not feel to many worth the effort to even vote.

Tucker Carlson mocks Pete Buttigieg for taking paternity leave after adopting twins

Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Thursday mocked Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for taking paternity leave after adopting twins.

Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, announced in August that they had adopted newborn twins. Buttigieg’s office told Politico this week that he has been on paid paternal leave since mid-August to spend time with his family.

During a rant about inflation and supply chain shortages in his Thursday broadcast, Carlson mocked Buttigieg over the news.

“Pete Buttigieg has been on leave from his job since August after adopting a child. Paternity leave, they call it, trying to figure out how to breastfeed. No word on how that went,” he said, arguing that it shows that the White House “does not seem concerned” about rising costs.

A spokesman for Buttigieg told Politico that Buttigieg has been “mostly offline except for major agency decisions and matters that could not be delegated” for the first four weeks but has been “ramping up activities since then” while continuing to “support his husband and take care of his new children.”

Fox News also offers paternity leave to its employees. In fact, Fox host Todd Piro announced that he would take an extended leave after the birth of his child in August.

“Fox is amazing, it’s a great organization, they really are a family-friendly organization. They give us six weeks as dads for paternity and I’m taking that six weeks. I can’t wait to bond with my little one,” Piro said. “I cannot thank Fox enough for providing all fathers who work here with such a generous paternity leave. This experience has changed me in a profound way and in ways I won’t fully comprehend until my daughter is older,” he added.

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Fox host Jesse Watters said that his own experience after the birth of his third child changed his mind about paternity leave.

“Now I am pro-paternity. I used to mock people for taking paternity, I used to think it was a big ruse, but now, you know, I wish I could take six weeks,” he said.

Carlson, who has been criticized in the past for various anti-LGBTQ statements, came under fire earlier this year after a journalist unearthed his 1991 college yearbook, in which the Swanson frozen dinner heir labeled himself as a member of the “Dan White society,” an apparent reference to the man who killed Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician elected in California, and the “Jesse Helms Foundation,” named after the notorious segregationist senator with a history of homophobic comments.

Carlson’s remark about Buttigieg was widely panned as homophobic on Thursday.

“Tucker Carlson has a pathological obsession with homosexuality,” tweeted Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile.

“Tucker belittles a Navy vet for being a good dad, throwing not-so-thinly veiled homophobic jabs, and lying through his teeth about current affairs,” the veterans’ group VoteVets said on Twitter, calling the taunt “pathetic.”

"Paternity leave, they call it, trying to figure out how to breastfeed, no word on how that went."
Tucker belittles a Navy vet for being a good dad, throwing not-so-thinly veiled homophobic jabs, and lying through his teeth about current affairs.
You're pathetic, @TuckerCarlson. pic.twitter.com/owVJorlYzs

— VoteVets (@votevets) October 15, 2021

Despite Carlson’s claim that Buttigieg’s brief absence was a sign of the White House’s lack of interest in inflation, the administration’s point man on infrastructure since Oct. 7 has already attended a meeting with President Joe Biden to address supply chain issues, held virtual events to promote the infrastructure bill with groups from Chicago and New York, and appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Bloomberg and NPR to discuss supply chain issues.

The administration is pushing to include legislation to guarantee 12 weeks of family leave to all workers with newborns or newly-adopted children.

Though it has become more common for women and men serving in top federal positions to take family leave, many have come back sooner because Cabinet officials are not covered under the leave system for federal workers, a White House spokesperson told Politico.

“They do not earn leave and serve at the pleasure of the President,” the spokesperson said. “The President can choose to allow him to take time off.”

It’s unclear whether Biden has personally approved Buttigieg’s leave.

“Pete’s been a key member of the team since Day One, and has been critical as we shepherd the President’s agenda across the finish line,” a White House official told the outlet. “We’re overjoyed for him and Chasten, and believe every American should have access to paid family leave.”

Trump brings up “golden showers,” unprompted, during private event with GOP senators

Donald Trump denied ever enjoying “golden showers” during a posh Thursday event with Republican donors, defending himself against years-old allegations that he hired two Moscow prostitutes to urinate on a bed together.

“I’m not into golden showers,” Trump said at a National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) retreat, which hosted sitting senators. “You know the great thing, our great first lady – ‘That one,’ she said, ‘I don’t believe that one.'”

Trump’s remarks, first reported by The Washington Post, are a clear reference to allegations first floated in 2016 when British spy Christopher Steele released a dossier probing Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia to undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in the 2016 election. Steele’s dossier reportedly contained a video – now colloquially known as the “pee tape” – that shows Trump instructing two prostitutes at Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel to urinate on a bed that President Obama had previously slept on. The video was allegedly taped as part of surveillance done by FSB, Russia’s main state security agency, and had been lightly corroborated by a number of Steele’s sources who had second-hand knowledge of the dossier, according to The New Yorker.

Ex-FBI Director James Comey, who in 2017 testified about the Trump campaign’s alleged relationship with Russia, wrote in his book that the former president was fixated on the rumor, dead set on dispelling it from the national discourse.

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“I’m a germaphobe,” Trump reportedly told Comey, per the book. “There’s no way I would let people pee on each other around me. No way.”

In 2018, Comey told ABC News back that he couldn’t be sure whether the rumor was true. “I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current President of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” the ex-FBI director said. “It’s possible, but I don’t know.”

Besides dredging up old rumors unprompted, Trump reportedly cast himself as the “GOP’s savior” during Thursday’s event, stressing that he has held the party together over the past several years. “It was a dying party, I’ll be honest,” he said, according to the Post. “Now we have a very lively party.”

The former president also castigated a number of his Republican detractors, including Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Ben Sasse, R-Neb, stressing that the party needs to “stick together” rather than splinter off into pro and anti-Trump factions.

Later, Trump reportedly reiterated his equally baseless conspiracy that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” by President Biden, telling the crowd that Democrats “cheat like hell.”

“It’s a terrible thing what they did in Georgia and other states,” he said. “You look at Texas, you look at a lot of states — they are correcting all the ways we were all abused over the last election … last two elections if you think about it.”

There continues to be no significant evidence that the 2020 election was marred by outcome-altering fraud.