Supreme Court approval rating drops to record low

Just over a third of all Americans support the Supreme Court’s conduct, with nearly half saying they don’t support the court, according to a new Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday.

The figures mark the Supreme Court’s “worst job approval since Quinnipiac University began asking the question in 2004, and a steep drop from July 2020, when registered voters approved 52 – 37 percent,” Quinnipiac noted.

Over a third of U.S. residents feel that the Supreme Court is too right-leaning, the poll found. Meanwhile, roughly 19% believe the court is too liberal.

Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said that the court’s abysmal approval rating likely stems from a recent “swirl of partisan issues on their plate.”

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court upheld measure that institutes a near-total abortion ban in Texas, preventing women more than six weeks into pregnancy from receiving an abortion. The bill also deputizes private citizens to sue potential offenders for $10,000 or more. The ruling was handed down through the court’s “shadow docket,” which allowed the bench’s conservative justices to circumvent traditional judicial proceedings. This week, the Justice Department issued an emergency order to revoke the law, challenging it on constitutional grounds.

“This relief is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of women in Texas and the sovereign interest of the United States in ensuring that its States respect the terms of the national compact,” the DOJ said. “It is also necessary to protect federal agencies, employees, and contractors whose lawful actions S.B. 8 purports to prohibit.”

The Supreme Court also took heat last month, when it officially ended President Biden’s eviction moratorium. The ban was originally intended to buoy those struggling to pay rent under the weight of the COVID-19 crisis. Over 7.9 million Americans are now at risk of being evicted and rendered effectively homeless, according to CBS News. The ruling was also delivered via shadow docket.

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“If [the justices] can make significant decisions without giving any reasons, then there’s really no limit to what they can do,” David Cole, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told Reuters.

This week, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Catholic conservative, argued in a speech that the court is politically unbiased, saying that her colleagues are not “a bunch of partisan hacks.”

“Judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties,” Barrett said on Sunday. “It’s not my job to decide cases based on the outcome I want.”

However, critics have noted that Barrett’s very appointment to the court by Donald Trump – who defied the tradition of delaying appointments until after election years – was a patently political maneuver.

In “Whether the Weather Is Fine,” typhoon survivors “transform from being zombies to becoming human”

Filipino filmmaker Carlo Francisco Manatad has edited nearly 100 films, but “Whether the Weather Is Fine,” is the first feature he has directed. This impressive drama about three people in Tacloban City coping with the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, just had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film opens with sounds of wind and rain and images of the storm before Manatad’s dazzling overhead shot of Miguel (Daniel Padilla) lying on a couch, surrounded by rubble. The atmosphere is both tense and tactile, and Daniel and his friend Andrea (Rans Rifol) wade through water and corridors of debris searching for his mother Norma (Charo Santos), who is searching for her injured husband.

As the three survivors wander around the city, and aim to board a ship for Manila, they have a series of encounters that range from frightening to magical. But they also face some moral issues and are forced to make some irrevocable decisions.

Manatad spoke about making his ambitious and accomplished film, “Whether the Weather Is Fine,” which would have extra resonance for folks who’ve recovered from the aftereffects of tropical cyclones, such as Hurricane Ida.

This is your first feature film as a director. What prompted you to tell this story, having worked as an editor for so long?

I think working as an editor helped. I graduated from the University of the Philippines Film Institute, and I wanted to become a director, but everyone in my class wanted to become a director. I didn’t want to compete with them; you cannot delve into the industry that fast. So, during film school, I concentrated in something I’m interested in, and editing is, in a sense, a kind of directing — you have this control over the story and can actually change some of the narrative. So, I focused on editing. After a few years, I realized I’ve edited a lot of films, so let me try directing. I started making shorts. If it doesn’t work out, I can still go back to editing.

I was working on the feature for a while. I spent seven years developing it. When the storm happened, it was really traumatic. I realized I had to tell a more fleshed-out and personal story; I had to put my experience into the film. If I had made this earlier, it would have been a different film. The whole process gave me liberty and confidence to do this. Editing helped me collaborate with directors and talk to them about their mistakes and what not to do. I got all these ideas from them.

What can you say about your, or your family’s experiences, with Typhoon Haiyan that inspired the film?

I have been working in Manila for many years, and I don’t go home to Tacloban that often. Going home, I felt awkward or insecure. I went back [after the storm], and it was the most surreal experience. I arrived in a place where I was born and raised, and knew everything geographically, but it felt like a new place. I didn’t know where to go. I was on board a military plane to go to Tacloban, and I had images from the news that everyone was dead, and there were corpses on top of each other. On the flight, I programmed myself that everyone was dead. I arrived, and my only concern as I was walking through the ruins, was if I saw my family dead, I wanted to give them a proper burial. As I was going to my home that was destroyed, I saw my friends were dead. I saw all these familiar things already gone. But, luckily, I found almost all of my family. The only thing that mattered was to leave that miserable place. In the Philippines, we have the concept of being very territorial. My dad was like, “No, I won’t leave, everything will be fine.” I said, “Look around you. Nobody is alive. It’s good that we’re alive. Let’s just leave.” He was pushing it to the point that we actually fought, almost physically. He was born here and wants to die here.

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The film’s landscape is extraordinary and surreal. The background characters are not unlike zombies roaming around the rubble. What can you say about shooting the film?

We shot this film years after the storm, so the locations we used were basically back to normal. If you go to the location, it’s as if no storm passed by. We had to recreate everything from scratch. Because of budget constraints, we had to recreate things in Manila. There were some non-negotiables for me — especially key scenes, like those in the Astrodome relief center — and we shot on location in Tacloban. I had been collaborating with my production designer, Whammy Alcazaren, on my shorts, and he understood what I wanted. We had reference photos and I really wanted it to be as authentic as possible, so the slightest detail had to match the reference photos. It actually took quite a while; the set-building took two to three months. With the production design and cinematography, they knew the look I wanted.

The characters go to some dark places, walk through murky water, and are constantly reminded that they may have lost everything. There is a real emotional pull with that which comes across in the film, and it is felt with every tracking shot. How did you conceive the use of space in the film?

With this kind of film, the use of space and the trickiness of using the space actually matters. The film’s treatment is meant to be post-typhoon. Usually you see all these things going on, but in key scenes, where you need to see that, I don’t show it. Because the film is a journey of the characters. You know the synopsis, and the space is always with them, regardless of their movement. I want the film, in a general sense, to follow this journey of being lost with the characters. I didn’t want the space to obstruct the viewers. It’s a messy, organized chaos. You follow something, but there’s something going on in the background, then you follow them again. Everything is journeying, and there is a sense of geography, but they don’t know where they are going. It’s a walking film. You walk, arrive at this point, and then they walk again.

“Whether the Weather Is Fine” is in that genre of road movies that never leaves town. What decisions did you make with the narrative and the difficulties each character would face?

I needed all these roadblocks to slowly create the essence of the violence that they have had all their lives. At this very moment, you see how it progresses until it explodes. The particular moments may not be dramatic, but it can be the violence of the space, or the event. Sometimes nothing happens actively, but the visual is violent in essence. The more it pushes the character, the greater the impact when something has to be decided.

What can you say about themes of faith, politics, and belonging in the film? There are moments of prayer, encounters with authority figures, and a sense of community.

The Philippines is a Catholic-dominated country. I went to a Catholic school when I was young. I’m Catholic, but I’m not practicing. I believe there is a higher being, regardless of who it is. I question how religion makes up a community and how this community performs or how it effects another community. A big thing that I wanted to push forward is that in disasters like this, money is not even a currency. People try to find something to look up to. What I portrayed with the authorities or the government are contrasts. “You have this storm coming,” and “The storm is not coming.” Religion is the only thing [people] cling onto, because there is nothing more. But if you cling to it, does it give something back? By just believing in something, they feel something positive. I’m not saying I’m anti-religion, but how do they see religion in times like this? Religion can bond people together, but believing in something higher than you, you feel that there is certainty regardless of what it is. And in the Philippines it’s always like this. You have to adore and pray to this God, and it will give something back. But it’s uncertain. It makes them feel good. Faith doesn’t give you answers back. It’s just there. It depends on how you interpret and how it affects you. It’s a choice, and it’s within you how it affects you.

There are also moments of levity in the film. You have a nice scene at a tattoo parlor, where Andrea inks Miguel, and there is a flash mob-like dance scene, and children playing. Can you talk about creating the tone of the film? The images are so heavy, but there are some very life-affirming scenes.

When you see all these films that discuss tragedy, or are “post-apocalyptic,” they can be super dark and melodramatic. I felt that the film, with all this violence, and people trying to survive, and all the things that are actually happening, I wanted to have specific moments that were mundane, absurd. But these moments transform the characters from being zombies to becoming humans again. They talk about their future, their dreams, their hopes. It’s cliché to say, but it has the effect like coming of age of a character. Andrea is very spunky and aggressive and jokes a lot, but she had dreams, and maybe she has lost her family, but she pushes on. That comes from what transpired. Miguel has been a good son, who follows his mom and Andrea, but his journey helps him find his own freedom. Is that the freedom that he always wanted? It’s also nice to look at the random characters of the kids. This is based on what I thought when I experienced it — there are people crying and weeping, and I always saw kids just playing. They were the ones who just thought straight. Their innocence plays a bigger part on the violence they have endured. They are more mature. The older people are in a dog-eat-dog survival mode, and then you have these kids who have more control than the adults. This dictates how the space and place will be in the near future.

Yom Kippur is a reminder to Americans that humility is good for your health

Yom Kippur, the holiest of all the Jewish High Holy Days, literally translates to “day of atonement.” Jews throughout the world express remorse for both their individual sins and those of humanity by fasting, praying and focusing entirely on religious observance. For the spiritually vigilant, this process requires authentic humility, a quality described by the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides as the middle path between pride and shiflut, or “self-abasement.”

Fasting and atoning can be profoundly spiritual experiences for many Jews who observe the religious holiday. Yet there is also a psychological and mental health benefit to embodying humility, as Maimonides defined it. Indeed, from both a mental health perspective and a social perspective, psychology research today affirms that humility is a trait with many personal benefits — on Yom Kippur as much as on other days.

“I think when a person is culturally humble, they are more aware of their limitations when it comes to their own cultural perspective and worldview,” Joshua Hook, a psychology professor at the University of North Texas and lead author of the book “Cultural Humility,” told Salon by email. “They understand that their own perspective is one way of viewing the world; it may not be the ‘right’ way or the ‘only’ way.”

In other words, people who lack cultural humility are prone to being rigid in their perspectives and filtering out information that does not confirm their preexisting viewpoints. This can lead to decisions that harm not only others, but themselves — a moral that is particularly relevant in this drastically politically polarized moment.

The health benefits of humility

Noelany Pelc, an assistant professor of psychology at Marian University and co-author of an academic article on psychology and cultural humility, says that humility is essential for both social success and individual health. Cultural humility is a great example of a type of humility that accomplishes both objectives.

“While there are several dimensions of humility, including intellectual, relational, and cultural humility, it seems to center around a couple of themes: having an accurate view of ourselves (not better or worse), portraying ourselves accurately and modestly to others, and being other-focused,” Pelc writes. “Essentially, humility allows us to be non-defensive, open, willing and interested in learning about and with others, without feeling threatened by perceived attacks to our sense of self.”

The same principle applies to humility more broadly. It “is a good insulator to a tendency or desire to compare ourselves to others, or to compete with others,” Pelc explained. “People who embody humility feel more at peace and satisfied with their own sense of self and identity, and are not as motivated to look for approval or admiration from others around them. In other words, humility allows people to remove themselves from harmful social competition and a fragile sense of self-worth or esteem.”

Humility does more than simply prevent negative personality traits. It also strengthens interpersonal bonds because it allows individuals to better appreciate others’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as in general behave in a more empathetic and helpful way. People who admit to their own limitations will be less inclined to focus on themselves and instead listen to others; they will also feel confident enough to assert themselves when the sentiment is justified and the situation calls for it.

“Openness, and willingness to learn makes humble individuals more effective problem solvers and learners, as they take in feedback and acknowledge their limitations,” Pelc pointed out. “In general, acknowledging that there is much in the world that we simply don’t know, allows us to be open to experiences that are different from our own.”

So how does one draw a line between confidence and lacking humility?

“Healthy confidence is the knowledge that you have ‘done your homework’ in obtaining all relevant information and that you have logically, as objectively as possible, evaluated the information or data,” David Reiss, a psychiatrist who contributed to the book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” told Salon by email. “Having done so, you can then be confident – and you can assertively maintain and defend – that you have reached the most reasonable conclusion possible given the data available.”

Humility adds an important caveat to that confidence, however. First, all information can be tainted by subjective opinions, and therefore even the most well-grounded research should still be open to debate, as long as the debaters are equally well-researched and act in good faith. Second, people who are confident that they are right in one moment should be flexible about later changing their mind based on new information.

“Changing one’s assessment or point of view would not indicate that the initial assessment (or having had confidence in the initial assessment) was wrong at the time, but that you are not arrogantly/grandiosely tied to your conclusion if additional data or reasoning suggests a different perspective or alternative conclusions,” Reiss explained.

Can you have too much humility?

Shauna Bowes, a research assistant and doctoral student at Emory University and co-author of an academic article about the relationship between intellectual humility and being susceptible to misinformation, explained to Salon that researchers are only starting to pay attention to the downsides of humility. Certainly people need to be aware if they are in abusive situations and not view standing up for themselves as arrogant or lacking humility.

“If in an abusive relationship for instance, one engages in humility to appreciate the abuser’s perspective, then this may not be helpful and instead may be harmful,” Bowes wrote to Salon. “In such a relationship, assertiveness and self-preservation are key.”

Bowes added that race and sex also play a role in how healthy it can be to display humility. “It may be more costly for a woman or individual identifying as a racial/ethnic minority to engage in humility when they are in a subservient role (e.g., boss is a man or a White individual) compared with a man or an individual identifying as a racial/ethnic majority; again it may be more important in these relationships to practice assertiveness and prioritize the self.”

She added that these downsides have more to do with specific contexts, however, than any inherent downsides to humility as a personality trait.

Humility is a particularly crucial trait on Yom Kippur in 2021 because of the very unique social and political conditions of this year. Americans are deeply polarized on COVID-19 vaccines, climate change, and racial justice. There is seemingly no visible end in sight to the bitter culture wars that have riven the nation.

“I think a lot of political polarization can be characterized by an absence of humility,” Bowles observed. “As the late John McCain once said, ‘Among its other virtues, humility makes for more productive politics. If it vanishes entirely, we will tear our society apart.’ I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. If we go into a political conversation with 100% certainty that our views are correct, that there is nothing else someone can say to change our minds, and that you (rather than scientists) are the expert on the topic, then how does bipartisanship happen?”

Pelc elaborated on how this principle applies to how people are behaving during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Humility includes being compassionate to others, even when there is no immediate benefit to us, or social pressure to do so,” Pelc wrote. “In many ways, it intersects with issues of social power, as prioritizing the needs of those who have less representation or who are vulnerable (e.g., children, older individuals, minoritized groups and immunocompromised individuals) requires us to value the welfare of others in a meaningful way.”

In its own way, that scientific explanation is also the Judaic one. True humility requires both self-respect, so you can be healthy and happy, and self-awareness, so you will remember your obligations to society and to defer when necessary to people more knowledgable or skilled. Judaism teaches that every person is collectively responsible for all of humanity’s sins, that the most virtuous person and the most vile share some level of responsibility for one another. While science does not offer moral arguments of any kind, the existing body of knowledge strongly suggests that this attitude toward humility is actually the healthiest one for everyone.

The once-sedate astronomy world is quarreling over whether ‘Oumuamua was an alien craft

‘Oumuamua, the cigar-shaped object from another solar system that whizzed through our own in 2017, continues to perplex astronomers. Its inexplicable properties have prompted some to propose that the object was an alien craft of some sort, while other astronomers are steadfast in their insistence that it had natural origins.

Now, there’s a new chapter in the saga of this mysterious 650-foot-long tube-shaped object. Earlier this year, researchers at Arizona State University published a new study claiming to “resolve” the mystery surrounding ‘Oumuamua (pronounced “oh moo ah moo ah”).

Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the researchers stated in a pair of papers that ‘Oumuamua was likely a nitrogen ice ball, perhaps from a planet like Pluto yet in another solar system — not an artificially made light-sail spacecraft, comet, or interstellar ball of dust, as some researchers have previously suggested. Nitrogen, the primary component of Earth’s atmosphere, occurs primarily as a gas on our home planet; yet in very cold conditions, it can freeze and become solid or liquid. The frigid surface of Pluto, for instance, contains a substantial amount of nitrogen ice.

‘Oumuamua’s characteristics, the Arizona State University researchers argued, suggested the strange object bore similarities to the surface of Pluto.

“This research is exciting in that we’ve probably resolved the mystery of what ‘Oumuamua is and we can reasonably identify it as a chunk of an ‘exo-Pluto,’ a Pluto-like planet in another solar system,” said Steven Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University and an author of the new study, in March 2021. “Until now, we’ve had no way to know if other solar systems have Pluto-like planets, but now we have seen a chunk of one pass by Earth.”

Previously in 2020, in a separate paper published by a different group of scientists, researchers argued that ‘Oumuamua was actually a hydrogen iceberg — a similar proposal to the nitrogen iceberg theory of the Arizona State researchers.

But if you thought the scientific world was closing the book on ‘Oumuamua — or at the very least coming to peace with the idea that the interstellar object was of natural origin (and not alien made) — not everyone agrees with the Arizona State researchers. Multiple papers co-authored by Harvard physicist Avi Loeb have argued that it is unlikely that ‘Oumuamua was a hydrogen iceberg, or a nitrogen one for that matter.

In a series of co-authored papers and a book, Loeb believes the most likely explanation is that Oumuamua was artificially made — perhaps some sort of light sail made by an alien civilization.

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“I would say that the [idea it is of] artificial origin appears to me is quite likely and it should definitely be considered in the future,” Loeb told Salon. “Of course, what we want to do is find more objects of that same type, and then catch them early enough on the approach to us so that we can send a spacecraft that will intercept the trajectory and take a close up photograph.”

Loeb’s latest co-authored paper, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, argues ‘Oumuamua definitively was not a piece of a Pluto-like exoplanet or a glob of hydrogen ice. To disprove this, Loeb and his fellow researchers calculated how cosmic rays — background radiation that constantly permeates empty space — would have slowly caused such an “iceberg” to evaporate over millions of years of travel. If ‘Oumuamua were comprised of such exotic ice, Loeb and his co-authors calculate that significant cosmic ray erosion would have whittled it down during its journey.

Simply put, Loeb doesn’t believe there’s enough hydrogen or nitrogen in nearby planets that could have accumulated to being ‘Oumuamua’s hypothetical original size.

Loeb stressed that we have never seen something like a hydrogen or a nitrogen “iceberg” drifting through space. If ‘Oumuamura were such a thing, it would have to have originated from very nearby to avoid evaporating due to erosion.

“Those environments need to be close enough to us, or at least closer than a percent of the size of the Milky Way Galaxy, because otherwise these chunks would entirely evaporate,” Loeb said. “The solar system or whatever produces them must be a very different environment.”

Loeb does not rule out a natural (non-alien) origin for ‘Oumuamua, but said that the numbers don’t add up for something that was made of nitrogen.

“Arguing that it’s a nitrogenous base to me, now that we did this calculation of the cosmic rays evaporating — it makes it very unlikely,” he added.

Indeed, the clash over theories of ‘Oumuamua’s composition and origins are causing some tension among astrophysicists.

Part of the debate, as Loeb alludes to, stems from observations of the object’s odd behavior when it was first discovered in October 2017. Back then, a postdoctoral researcher named Robert Weryk at the University of Hawaii was sifting through the data stream from the Pan-STARRS astronomical survey of the sky when he noticed an unexpected object. It appeared to be highly elongated, like a stick, with a long axis 10 times longer than its short axis — unprecedented for an asteroid.

Upon a further analysis, researchers found that it appeared that ‘Oumuamua received an unexpected “push” from the sun as it left our solar system — as though it had a mirror or a sail of some kind that it was using for propulsion. The manner of its push resembled what one might see from a solar sail spacecraft, a type of proposed interstellar probe propulsion that humans actually tested with an experimental probe in 2010.

In any case, no one had ever seen anything ‘Oumuamua at the time that it was first observed. Some scientists hypothesized that ‘Oumuamua swung towards our solar system as a result of a gravitational slingshot of a binary star system; others postulated that it might be an odd comet, though no tail was evident. Thus the search began to collect and analyze as much data as possible before it left our solar system.

Loeb, who wrote a book about ‘Oumuamua entitled “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth,” continues to believe that the only possible explanation (unless the data was wrongly collected) is that Oumuamua was something akin to a light sail spacecraft created by an extraterrestrial civilization.

Loeb’s idea has understandably sent shockwaves through the scientific community and stoked controversy. Most astronomers coalesced around the idea that ‘Oumuamua was of natural origin, rather than artificial.

In an interview, Desch told Salon Loeb’s most recent paper was yet another “attack” on any explanation that ‘Oumuamua was a naturally made object.

“We took great pains to make sure we were comprehensive about all the data that existed and we took into account everything . . . we’re careful about it, and went through the peer review process, and I stand by our work,” Desch said, adding that Loeb’s paper doesn’t include findings that suggest cosmic ray erosion is slower than they suggest in their calculations. “I can tell you that the experiments say [cosmic ray erosion] is a lot slower than he’s saying — in fact we cited those experiments — and in this case they are just basically are saying, ‘well, all of the energy of the cosmic rays can be used to erode the ice, but the experiments show that that’s just not true.'”

Desch emphasized: “If you took a chunk of Pluto and you knocked it off and made it go by the sun, it would look, move and behave exactly as this object did.”

Over the last couple of years, Loeb has been encouraging the scientific community to change and be more “open-minded to change.” In Loeb’s perspective, the idea that ‘Oumuamua was artificially made has not been as widely embraced as the various ideas that it is of natural origin.

Desch said that most astronomers believe there are aliens out there, but do not believe that ‘Oumuamua wasn’t a sign of extraterrestrial life.

“If you ask almost any astrophysicist, ‘Do you think there are aliens out there?’ Almost 100% would say, ‘somewhere in the universe, it’s a really big place — but [it’s] really hard for them to get here,'” Desch said. “But this thing? No, this is a snowball.”

Loeb rebuffed Desch’s “snowball” theory for ‘Oumuamua’s properties.

“We did the calculations from first principles,” Loeb said of his research. “[Desch] underestimated the evaporation by cosmic rays in his paper.”

Justice Department asks judge for emergency order to block Texas abortion ban

The Justice Department filed an emergency order on Tuesday in a bid to immediately block Texas’ near-total abortion ban after filing a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law.

DOJ lawyers asked a federal judge in Texas to issue a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to halt the enforcement of Texas’ Senate Bill 8, which created a six-week abortion ban, before most women know they’re pregnant, enforced by a bounty hunter-type system that allows any citizen to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion and potentially win damages at least $10,000, with no penalty for losing. Providers say the law bans at least 85% of procedures that were previously performed in the state.

“This relief is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of women in Texas and the sovereign interest of the United States in ensuring that its States respect the terms of the national compact,” the DOJ said in the filing. “It is also necessary to protect federal agencies, employees, and contractors whose lawful actions S.B. 8 purports to prohibit.”

The DOJ further argued in the filing that the law is unconstitutional. “It is well-settled that the Fourteenth Amendment prevents states from banning abortion before a fetus is viable,” the department said. “Because S.B. 8 has that effect, it is plainly unconstitutional under binding precedent.”

The DOJ also argued that the law violates the Supremacy Clause, which gives federal law precedence over state law. The lawyers said that the law “irreparably injures” the federal government because it is explicitly designed to avoid court challenges.

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“The Act harms the United States’ interest in ensuring that States do not evade their obligations under the Constitution and then try to insulate their actions from judicial review, as well as its interest in protecting the constitutional rights of women in its care and custody,” the filing said. “To allow States to circumvent the Federal Constitution in this manner would offend the basic federal nature of the Union. Thus, the unconstitutionality of S.B. 8 alone suffices to establish irreparable harm.”

The filing added that the law has resulted in an influx of women seeking abortion in other states, “overburdening out-of-state clinics and creating backlogs for residents of other states seeking care.”

It’s unclear when a judge might rule on the filing, though the request could make its way to the Supreme Court. The filing comes after the Trump-packed Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, refused to block the law from going into effect earlier this month. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan blistered the court in her dissent for allowing a law in “undisputed conflict” with the court’s precedent to stand without a “full briefing or argument, and after less than 72 hours’ thought.” Fellow Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the “majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand,” arguing that the law was “flagrantly unconstitutional” based on the court’s precedent.

President Biden vowed a whole-of-government response to the “extreme” law, agreeing in a statement that it “blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v. Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century.”

The DOJ filed a lawsuit last week, arguing that the law violates the 14th Amendment and the Supremacy Clause.

“Texas does not dispute that its statute violates Supreme Court precedent. Instead, the statute includes an unprecedented scheme to, in the Chief Justice’s words, ‘insulate the State from responsibility,'” Attorney General Merrick Garland said while announcing the lawsuit. “The obvious – and expressly acknowledged – intention of this statutory scheme is to prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights by thwarting judicial review for as long as possible. Thus far, the law has had its intended effect,” he added.

As a result, abortion clinics have “ceased providing services,” leaving women in the state “unable to exercise their constitutional rights and unable to obtain judicial review at the very moment they need it,” Garland said, adding that this “kind of scheme to nullify the Constitution of the United States is one that all Americans — whatever their politics or party — should fear.”

Abortion providers have also sued over the law, arguing that it violates the Roe v. Wade precedent. But the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas abruptly canceled a planned hearing and denied an emergency motion sought by more than 20 abortion providers in August, prompting the Supreme Court challenge. The Supreme Court’s refusal to block the law means that abortion providers can continue to litigate the case in court, but that process could take months or longer while the law is in effect.

Meanwhile, in state court, a Texas judge on Monday issued an injunction blocking the anti-abortion group Texas Right for Life from suing Planned Parenthood to enforce the abortion ban. Texas District Court Judge Karin Crump said the injunction would remain in place until at least April 2022, when the case is expected to head to trial.

“We are relieved that … our providers and health care workers will now have some protection from frivolous suits as litigation against this blatantly unconstitutional law continues,” Helene Krasnoff, Planned Parenthood’s vice president for public policy litigation and law, said in a statement.

But the injunction only applies to Texas Right for Life and its affiliates, meaning other persons or organizations may still sue to enforce the law.

“This temporary injunction is an important step,” Krasnoff said, “but it is not enough relief.”

California recall ends in a resounding rejection of Trumpism — providing a roadmap for Democrats

Despite the polls looking hairy for a few weeks over the summer, Wednesday morning brought relieving news as California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom crushed a well-financed recall effort. Republicans had seen Newsom as a soft target ever since he was photographed attending a fancy dinner during the time of the most severe pandemic restrictions. They were counting on Democratic voters being too tuned out and demoralized by the pandemic to bother voting in this deeply blue state. But Newsom was saved by a landslide — 64% to 36% in the vote count, as of this writing.

Newsom likely won by making the campaign a referendum on his leading opponent, right-wing talk radio host Larry Elder — a man so repulsive that he gives his idol, Donald Trump, a run for his money. Newsom highlighted how Elder opposed any COVID-19 mitigation measures and reminded voters that letting thousands of people die is worse than occasional bouts of hypocrisy. Newsom also relentlessly tied Elder to Trump.

“We may have defeated Donald Trump, but we have not defeated Trumpism,” Newsom told a crowd on the final night of the campaign.

The political press was swift to seize on this aspect of the Newsom campaign as the dominant narrative, not just for how the California governor survived, but how Democrats will win in other off-year elections and possibly in the 2022 midterms.

“Democrats wanted Trump gone. Now they want him on the ballot,” reads a Washington Post headline, which points not just to California, but Virginia and New Jersey and Virginia, where Democratic candidates Terry McAuliffe and Phil Murphy regularly invoke the specter of Trump in their 2021 gubernatorial campaigns.

“While Trump, of course, isn’t on the ballot this fall, the Democrats in the most closely contested statewide races of 2021 are acting as if he basically is,” political analysts Rick Klein, Averi Harper, and Alisa Wiersema write at ABC News.

“Even before the final ballots were cast, Newsom’s advisers were selling his campaign as a template for Democrats nationally in the midterm elections,” David Siders and Carla Marinucci write in Politico. Democrats “can find some comfort in this fact” that “Trump continues to be a disqualifying figure at the polls,” argues Philip Elliott in Time.

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It’s tempting to roll one’s eyes at these Trump-centric campaigns. After all, Trump lost not just the election but failed to pull off a coup, even after inciting a violent mob to storm the Capitol. He also continues to be a ridiculous figure. His most recent activities involve skipping the 9/11 memorial ceremonies to be a painfully terrible boxing announcer because this supposed “billionaire” never turns down a chance to make money.

The grim reality, however, is that Democratic voters are responsive to Trump-centric messaging because they know that Trump remains an active threat both to democracy and the wellbeing of everyday Americans.

Barring some miracle, such as Joe Biden’s administration getting serious about prosecuting Trump for his dizzying number of crimes, Trump is going to run again. Most Republicans still say they want him as their leader, so he will likely to be the GOP nominee in 2024. The vast majority of Republicans are still in his thrall, not just constantly kissing his ring but actively covering up for his criminal activity, as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., did when he attempted to obstruct the formation of a commission to investigate the events of January 6. Republicans in state legislatures are rewriting election laws to make it easier for Trump to steal the 2024 election. And they are doing all this while understanding full well that Trump is an unhinged maniac.

Just this week, reports are coming out that Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, understandably panicked during the heights of Trump’s attempted coup and started maneuvering to keep Trump from starting a nuclear war with China. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa write in their new book “Peril” that Milley was alarmed because “Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election,” and was “screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.” Worried about Trump trying to save his presidency by doing something nuts, like nuke China, Milley talked to other military leaders about taking steps to slow down any orders from Trump.

There’s been a lot of press hand-wringing, some of it even from liberals, about Milley’s actions and the dangers of the military rejecting presidential authority. But that’s the problem with coups — they are so disruptive to the normal order of government that they leave many officials facing impossible choices. Milley was faced with a choice between backing a president who is actively trying to overthrow democracy or protecting peace and democracy. There is no such thing as a clean choice in such a dilemma, either morally or legally. The very notion of “civilian control of the military” becomes elusive in such moments. The real moral of the story is not that Milley did the right or wrong thing, but that Trump is, to quote Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a “very dangerous person.”

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Failing in his coup effort hasn’t mellowed Trump either. On the contrary, his loathing for American democracy has only grown stronger. At every opportunity, he repeats the flat-out false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him and encourages those organizing around the Big Lie. He’s actively rewriting the history of January 6, trying to frame it as a noble effort to save America, instead of what it was, which is a violent attempt to overthrow democracy. He’s cast Ashli Babbitt, a woman who was shot as she tried to lead a charge of Capitol rioters to run down fleeing congressional members, as a martyr. On Tuesday, Trump appeared on Sean Spicer’s Newsmax show and unleashed some more ominous hints of violence, declaring, “The election was rigged and we’re not going to have a country left in three years, I’ll tell you that.”

This sort of rhetoric is often described as a “prediction,” but it needs to be understood for what it is: A threat.

Trump needs to be understood for what he is, which is the leader of an authoritarian movement that is attempting to gut American democracy. He’s got a real chance at success, due to the onslaught of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and even vote nullification laws being passed in Republican-controlled state legislatures. Should there be a Republican majority in Congress if Trump tries to steal the election again in 2024, he may very well successfully overcome the will of the voters and ascend to the White House again.

A growing number of voters understand this, which is why they are moved by reminders of the threat of Trumpism. A new CNN poll confirms how well voters recognize the threat, with 51% saying they worry about politicians simply overturning the results of an election they disagree with. Sadly, Democrats still underrate the threat, with only 46% seeing the threats to democracy. Still, that nearly half of Democrats see the problem, despite Trump’s failed coup, is heartening. The poll results are unfortunately polluted by Republicans pushing the Big Lie, with 78% falsely claiming that Biden stole the election. But even this result underscores the real threat to our democracy: Trump-led Republicans, armed with lies painting themselves as victims, have talked themselves into believing they’re entitled to actually steal elections.

The only real question now is whether the politicians Democratic voters are relying on to protect democracy can actually put up the necessary fight. On a national level, things aren’t looking great.

A couple of dunderheaded Democratic senators refuse to provide the votes necessary to end the filibuster, and so legislation to stop Trump’s plans for a coup redo in 2024 appears DOA. A Republican-controlled Supreme Court feels assured enough that the GOP is shielded from voter accountability that they basically overturned Roe v. Wade with a memo. So for now, Newsom’s win is a reprieve from disaster in California — but the rest of the nation is still very much in danger.

What is CBN? What to know about the latest cannabis-based sleep aid

For the last couple of years, CBD has taken over the beauty, food and drink, and wellness industries in the form of every type of product ranging from bath salts to fruit gummies to seltzer water to chocolate to oil drops. However, there’s a new cannabis-derived chemical that is soon to become just as popular as CBD, thanks to its ability to aid in a good night’s sleep. Meet CBN. It’s a cannabinoid found in the cannabis plant that offers relaxing, sleepy properties, which means your sleep might be more restful after consuming CBN gummies or oil drops.

What is CBN?

Cannabinol, aka CBN, is derived from hemp plants. “CBN and CBD are both cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant, but they have different chemical structures,” explains Dr. Elizabeth Ardillo, Director of Medical Education at Green Thumb Industries. When THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), which is the main active ingredient in cannabis, is heated and exposed to Co2 (oxygen), it converts to what is known as CBN. So what makes it the latest and greatest cannabis-derived product? “CBN products are popular right now because they help promote a better night’s sleep. They have a relaxing effect,” she adds.

But what about CBD?

They’re just one letter off, so what’s the difference between CBD and CBN? CBD, which is a Cannabidiol, is present in cannabis and hemp plants. On the other hand, CBN is created by exposing THC to light. Biology aside, CBN has mild psychoactive effects unlike CBD products; you may feel a high from taking a CBN product, but it won’t be nearly as intense as the high you’d feel from consuming THC.

The benefits of taking CBN

Similar to CBD, the benefits of consuming CBN include improved sleep quality, pain relief, and anti-inflammation. However, CBN is far more powerful when it comes to sleep. “CBD is not as useful as CBN when we’re talking about those relaxing properties,” explains Dr. Ardillo. After taking a CBN supplement, the average consumer can expect to feel the effects within 30 to 180 minutes. “We don’t want anyone to take a dose and after 15 minutes, take another dose because they’re not feeling any effects. Understanding how these products work is very important to ensuring your health and safety,” she says. If you are not feeling the effects of CBN, wait at least one hour before taking another dose.

CBN products

Currently, CBN products are treated more like marijuana than CBD, meaning that you can only purchase CBN in states where recreational marijuana is legal, or where a licensed medical professional can provide you with a prescription. Unlike CBD, which is widely available at big retailers like Sephora, Urban Outfitters, CVS, and Amazon, CBN is only available through regulated, adult-use dispensaries.

Dr. Ardillo warns that you may feel a psychoactive high if you consume a CBN product, like Incredibles Snoozzzeberry Gummies if it also contains a low-dose of THC. “If you’ve never consumed cannabis before or it’s been a while, you are more likely to feel a sense of euphoria,” she says. If you’re brand new to the world of cannabis products, Dr. Ardillo recommends new consumers start with no more than 2.5 milligrams of THC per dose of CBN. Once you become comfortable with the product and build a tolerance, you may want to increase the amount of THC in order to continue to feel the stress of the day wash away with, say, a blueberry gummy.

No idle threat: After Trump, U.S. must reform nuclear procedures

From the moment Donald Trump won the presidency, I was worried about the possibility of a foreign adversary making a tragic miscalculation or seeing an opportunity to challenge the U.S. or one of its allies on the basis of Trump’s ignorance of America’s unique position in global security. It wasn’t that I necessarily thought that he would launch a war willy-nilly, although that was certainly within his power, I instead worried that other countries could misunderstand his bluster and erratic personality. Now a soon-to-be-released book by veteran D.C. reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, appropriately called “Peril”, suggests that was no idle worry.

According to reports on what’s revealed in the book by various news organizations, in the waning days of his presidency, Trump’s unstable behavior caused serious alarm in the Chinese government. The Washington Post reports that after reviewing intelligence reports, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A Milley called his counterpart in the Chinese military, Gen. Li Zuocheng, to assure him “that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay. We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.” Milley reportedly stressed the long-standing relationship he had with his counterpart and even told him that he would alert him in advance if the U.S. decided to attack. That phone call reportedly went on for an hour and a half.

After the January 6th insurrection, Milley once more got on the phone to reassure a very rattled Li that the U.S. wasn’t coming apart. “We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.” Sloppy indeed.

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The New York Times’ Peter Baker and the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser also reveal in an upcoming book that General Milley had been gravely concerned that Trump seemed intent upon taking military action against Iran in the final days of 2020. Woodward and Costa likewise report that after a November meeting, CIA director Gina Haspel was equally troubled, telling Milley, “this is a highly dangerous situation. We are going to lash out for his ego?”

We also knew that Milley had become convinced that Trump was becoming more and more unstable and was looking for a “Reichstag Moment” as a rationale to go forward with overturning the election. Glasser reported that “Milley had, since late in 2020, been having morning phone meetings, at 8 a.m. on most days, with the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in the hopes of getting the country safely through to Joe Biden‘s Inauguration.”

Now “Peril” reveals that after January 6th and a phone call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — in which she demanded to know whether or not there were any precautions being taken to prevent Trump, whom she called “crazy,” from unilaterally launching a nuclear strike — Milley convened a meeting of senior officers and told them that in the event of an order to launch nuclear weapons. “No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure!”

That “I’m part of that procedure” has caused an uproar as well as his contacts with China’s General Li. According to experts on the nuclear procedures, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has no role aside from advising the president in such decisions, so if Milley meant that they could not proceed without his order, he was flat wrong. But Glasser’s earlier reporting has it a little bit different saying that Milley “told them to make sure there were no unlawful orders from Trump and not to carry out any such orders without calling him first.” Pentagon sources say he never said to violate procedure. It will likely take some more investigating to determine exactly if or how much Milley defied the normal line of authority.

The calls to Li may not have been quite as unusual, contrary to claims by outraged Republicans.

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Apparently, flag officers in these positions do have conversations with one another although the fact that the president wasn’t informed and he promised to give a heads up if the U.S. decided to attack are unusual, to say the least. But I have to say that I’m grateful someone got on the horn to reassure the Chinese government that the U.S. was not on the verge of attacking them. Obviously, none of Trump’s inner circle were willing even though they had the same intelligence reports. Nonetheless, this erosion of the constitutional requirement for civilian control of the military is almost as frightening as Trump’s volatile behavior. Almost.

Milley became convinced that Trump was dangerously mentally unstable and he took it upon himself to, as “Peril’s” authors put it, “pull a Schlesinger” which refers to the last time a Republican president started to buckle under the pressure of his own mistakes and left office in disgrace. That was in August of 1974 during the final days of the Nixon administration when Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger reportedly ordered certain presidential orders — especially those related to nuclear arms — to be cleared by himself personally or National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. (How comforting.) This was supposedly after Nixon had told him “I can go into my office and pick up the telephone, and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.” This was the kind of comment Trump made on a regular basis:

Pres. Trump claims he could win Afghan war "in a week. I just don't want to kill 10 million people."

"I have plans on Afghanistan, that, if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth…I don't want to go that route." https://t.co/CFdzczE0fE pic.twitter.com/HwWqd9VjYA

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 22, 2019

And keep in mind that after the election Trump had abruptly fired Acting Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and installed a loyalist in his place along with a handful of other henchmen in strategic posts in the Pentagon. He’d pushed out others at the NSA and the CIA and attempted to replace them with cronies. Nobody knew exactly what they were up to but it was very weird for a president to do that in the last two months of his presidency. Even former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is quoted in “Peril” saying, “he’s in a very dark place right now.” You can’t blame Milley or anyone else for fearing the worst.

The Daily Beast reported that Trump called around to allies on Tuesday telling them to go on TV and say that Milley should be arrested for treason. GOP officials are also calling for his head. I’ll leave it to the experts to say whether or not he violated the chain of command so egregiously that he has to go.

But I will say this: It’s a miracle that we have managed to survive the nuclear age so far with the biggest nuclear arsenal on earth in the hands of irrational leaders like Richard Nixon and Donald Trump. We’ve been lucky so far but I doubt that luck will hold out forever. If we cannot rid the world of these terrifying weapons as we should, or always elect sane, competent people to the presidency as we apparently cannot, the least we could do is find some way to ensure that one unstable person doesn’t have the sole power to unleash them. This system must be reformed before something unthinkable happens.

Study: More than half of young people think “humanity is doomed”

Growing up was already hard enough. Now kids are also facing the prospect of living with rising temperatures, ferocious floods, and an unstable climate for the rest of their lives.

The largest study of its kind shows that the environmental crisis is causing widespread psychological distress for young people across the globe. In a paper released Tuesday, researchers from the United States, United Kingdom, and Finland found that 45 percent of teens and young adults say climate anxiety is affecting their daily lives and ability to function. It’s the first study to suggest that young people’s emotional distress is strongly linked to their governments’ failure to respond.

“This study paints a horrific picture of widespread climate anxiety in our children and young people,” said Caroline Hickman, a co-author and a researcher at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom, in a statement.

Three-quarters of those surveyed said that the “future is frightening,” with more than half believing that “humanity is doomed.” Nearly 4 in 10 said that they are hesitant to have children.

The study, under peer review in the journal Lancet Planetary Health, surveyed 10,000 people between the ages of 16 to 25 in February and March this year. The respondents came from 10 countries: Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, the U.K., and the U.S. Researchers found that concern about climate change was concentrated more heavily in poorer countries, which have contributed the least to the greenhouse gas emissions heating up the planet. In the Philippines, for example, 92 percent agreed that the future was frightening, compared with 68 percent in the United States.

Some 58 percent of those surveyed said that their governments are betraying them and future generations. That number was particularly high, 77 percent, in Brazil, where deforestation and fire in the Amazon rainforest have risen under President Jair Bolsonaro.

The results lend credence to lawsuits in which young people have taken their governments to court over climate change, arguing that political leaders have failed to protect their futures and their right to a healthy environment. Because government inaction is so psychologically damaging, the report argues, it could be considered a violation of human rights. Young activists in Germany saw some success with this logic earlier this year. In April, the country’s highest court said that parts of Germany’s emissions reductions laws were unconstitutional since the goals were too vague and offloaded the burden onto younger generations.

The study uses “climate anxiety” as a catch-all to describe the many emotions that people feel when confronted with the facts about climate change: worry, fear, anger, grief, despair, guilt, even hope. These feelings, the authors write, are a rational response. But they are often disregarded by others: Among the 81 percent of respondents who said they talked to people about their concerns, nearly half said they were ignored or dismissed.

And while climate anxiety is often seen as a personal problem with an individual solution (“take action!“), the study suggests that action really needs to come from those in power.

“I grew up being afraid of drowning in my own bedroom,” said Mitzi Tan, a 23-year-old from the Philippines, in a statement accompanying the study. “Society tells me that this anxiety is an irrational fear that needs to be overcome — one that meditation and healthy coping mechanisms will ‘fix.’ At its root, our climate anxiety comes from this deep-set feeling of betrayal because of government inaction. To truly address our growing climate anxiety, we need justice.”

Why at-home rapid COVID tests cost so much, even after Biden’s push for lower prices

Rapid at-home covid tests are flying off store shelves across the nation and are largely sold out online as the delta variant complicates a return to school, work and travel routines.

But at $10 or $15 a test, the price is still far too high for regular use by anyone but the wealthy. A family with two school-age children might need to spend $500 or more a month to try to keep their family — and others — safe.

For Americans looking for swift answers, the cheapest over-the-counter covid test is the Abbott Laboratories BinaxNOW two-pack for $23.99. Close behind are Quidel’s QuickVue tests, at $15 a pop. Yet supplies are dwindling. After a surge in demand, CVS is limiting the number of tests people can buy, and Amazon and Walgreen’s website were sold out as of Friday afternoon.

President Joe Biden said Thursday he would invoke the Defense Production Act to make 280 million rapid covid tests available. The administration struck a deal with Walmart, Amazon and Kroger for them to sell tests for “up to 35 percent less” than current retail prices for three months. For those on Medicaid, the at-home tests will be fully covered, Biden said.

An increased supply should help to lower prices. As schools open and much of the country languishes without pandemic-related restrictions, epidemiologists say widespread rapid-test screening — along with vaccination and mask-wearing — is critical to controlling the delta variant’s spread. Yet shortages, little competition and sticky high prices mean routine rapid testing remains out of reach for most Americans, even if prices drop 35%.

Consumers elsewhere have much cheaper — or free — options. In Germany, grocery stores are selling rapid covid tests for under $1 per test. In India, they’re about $3.50. The United Kingdom provides 14 tests per person free of charge. Canada is doling out free rapid tests to businesses.

Michael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard University, lauded Biden’s announcement on Twitter while saying he “had some reservations” about its scale and noted that 280 million tests represent “less than one test per person over the course of a year.”

Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) for months has advocated for rapid testing at a lower cost. “In an ideal world, a test would either be free or cost less than a dollar so that people could take one a few times a week to every day,” she said in the days before Biden’s announcement.

Biden’s initiative “is a great start” for broader rapid testing, Schrier said Friday. “But there is a lot more to be done, and that must be done quickly, to use this really important tool to combat this virus.”

A nationwide survey released in February by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Hart Research found that 79% of adults would regularly test themselves at home if rapid tests cost a dollar. But only a third would do so if the cost was $25.

Billions in taxpayer dollars have been invested in these products. Abbott Laboratories, for instance, cashed in on hundreds of millions in federal contracts and gave its shareholders fat payouts last year, increasing its quarterly dividend by 25%. Even so, according to a New York Times investigation, as demand for rapid tests cratered in early summer, Abbott destroyed its supplies and laid off workers who had been making them.

More than a year ago, Abbott said the company would sell its BinaxNOW in bulk for $5 a test to health care providers, but that option is not available over the counter to the public. Even with the anticipated price decrease, a two-pack will be more than $15. Abbott did not comment further.

Schrier said in spring that test prices were high because “big companies are buying up all the supplies.” Also, “their profit is far higher making 1,000 $30 tests than 30,000 $1 tests” — in other words, they can make the same amount of money for many fewer tests.

In March, the Biden administration allocated $10 billion as part of the American Rescue Plan Act to perform covid testing in schools, leaving the rollout largely to states. This followed $760 million spent by the Trump administration to buy 150 million of Abbott’s rapid-response antigen tests, many of which went to schools. The rollout has been mixed, with states like Missouri mired in logistical challenges.

In late August, Schrier wrote a letter asking four federal agencies to update their distribution plans. She also urged the government to increase spending on rapid testing, saying “time is of the essence” as children returned to school.

Antigen tests can give real-time information to people exposed to covid, said Dr. Dara Kass, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. Waiting for lab results from polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests can take days, and many states — particularly in the hard-hit South — are seeing appointments fill up days in advance. At-home collection kits for PCR tests can cost over $100.

Rapid tests take under 15 minutes to detect covid by pinpointing proteins, called antigens. The tests are similar to a pregnancy test, with one or two lines displayed, depending on the result.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that fully vaccinated people exposed to covid wear a mask indoors for two weeks and get tested three to five days after exposure. The unvaccinated should quarantine for 14 days. But that leaves gray area for those vaccinated people hoping to attend classes or go about their lives, Kass said.

“Rapid tests give information,” she added, “that allows somebody to engage in society safely.” People can follow up with a PCR test, which is more sensitive, for confirmation of a diagnosis.

In Massachusetts, for example, a “Test and Stay” strategy for students exposed to covid allows them to remain in school: Students take BinaxNOW tests five days in a row following close contact with an infected person.

More than 30 antigen tests have been developed in the U.S. — though just six companies have FDA authorization for over-the-counter use. No rapid covid tests have full FDA approval. Two rapid molecular options, made by Lucira Health and Cue Health, also have emergency use authorization (EUA).

“Unfortunately, many submissions are incomplete or contain insufficient information for FDA to determine that they meet the statutory criteria,” FDA spokesperson James McKinney said.

The agency has taken a stricter stance than its European counterparts. In June, the FDA warned Americans to stop using Innova Medical Group’s rapid antigen test, stating that the agency had “significant concerns that the performance of the test has not been adequately established.” Yet in the U.K., which has contracts worth billions with the California company, the regulatory agency OK‘d the product.

In Germany, regulators have given special authorization to dozens of antigen tests.

“As long as these tests are regulated as medical devices, the FDA has to regulate them not as critical public health tools, but as medical tools, with all of the onerous clinical trials that slow everything down 100-fold,” Mina said on Twitter.

With only a handful of rapid tests on the market, it is harder for companies that have not yet received FDA authorization to catch up and, in turn, drive the prices down, said Michael Greeley, co-founder and general partner at Flare Capital Partners, a venture capital firm focused on health care technology. “If we’re talking about people testing their kids every day going to school,” he added, “for many families, the current costs are a real burden.”

Broad adoption of rapid testing seems premature, he said, even with a mass purchase of tests by the U.S. government: “We can’t even get people to floss, so the idea that people are now going to start rapid testing as their standard operating procedure is a flawed assumption.”

Regardless, companies can’t keep up with demand.

Ellume said it saw a 900% spike in the use of its tests over the past month. Its at-home rapid test costs up to $38.99. On Walmart’s website, it was listed for $26.10 Friday but was out of stock.

The Australian manufacturer received $232 million from the U.S. Defense Department in February to scale up production, after the FDA authorized its at-home use late last year. But the federal Health Care Enhancement Act, which furnished the funding, does not impose pricing restrictions. Ellume said it will begin production at a Frederick, Maryland, plant this fall. For now, it is shipping tests from Australia.

This summer, Lucira Health stopped selling its about $50 molecular rapid test online to focus on larger clients, including San Francisco’s Chase Center, home to the Golden State Warriors, and the Olympics, Dan George, Lucira’s chief financial officer, said during a recent earnings call.

The company is still losing money as it ramps up production but hopes to return to selling directly on its website and Amazon later this year.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

Congressional Republicans privately admitted Trump was an “unstable person”: former GOP lawmaker

Former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., on Tuesday said that she understood why Gen. Mark Milley tried to prevent former President Donald Trump from launching last-minute military strikes in a desperate bid to stay in power.

While speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Comstock explained that she agreed with Milley’s assessment that Trump was in a dangerous mental state following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

“What he was doing was saying this is an unstable person we’re dealing with,” Comstock said. “I can assure you that was said by lots of Republican members of Congress, and we need to make sure that all of the processes that are in place are taken if he tries to do something, anything untoward because this was an unstable person.”

Comstock rejected criticism of Milley for usurping Trump’s role as commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces and said he deserved praise for potentially stopping Trump from doing something catastrophic.

“I thank General Milley and thank all of the people who stopped this president from his unconstitutional action,” she said. “That’s why this Jan. 6 commission is going to be so important, and God bless all the Republicans who are out there fighting for it.”

You can watch the video below via YouTube:

Novelist and veteran Elliot Ackerman says Biden blew it in Afghanistan: Was there another way?

When the World Trade Center towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001, a huge hole was left in the skyline of New York — and perhaps also in America’s psyche. If Americans first filled that hole with grief, that was quickly transformed into rage, violence and destruction. The United States sought vengeance across the world, in Afghanistan, Iraq and many other countries in what would become known as the War on Terror or the “forever wars.”

Branko Marcetic recently wrote about this lost opportunity in Jacobin, observing that 9/11 and its aftermath “could have been a chance for Americans to realize what kind of impact the foreign policies pursued in their name have had on millions of ordinary people around the world, and to change course before more blood was spilled.” That’s not how things turned out, of course.

America’s leaders would eventually be forced to acknowledge that it is difficult, if not impossible, to defeat an idea. Ultimately Osama bin Laden would be killed by American troops, and al-Qaida and other international jihadist organizations would be decimated. But after 20 years of the forever wars, there is no catharsis or closure. On Aug. 31, the U.S. formally “withdrew” from Afghanistan. The harsher truth is that the U.S. was defeated — or at least outlasted — by the Taliban, which is now back in power.

The human cost of America’s war in Afghanistan includes not just the 2,400 American troops who were killed, along with 3,800 military contractors. More than 20,000 U.S. service members were injured. Shockingly, at least 30,000 active-duty service members and veterans have committed suicide because of PTSD and other combat-related causes.

That’s all before we count the 67,000 members of the Afghan military and police who died battling the Taliban, or the 47,000 Afghan civilians killed in the conflict. Both are low-end estimates. Perhaps a million people across the broader Middle East have died as a direct result of the War on Terror and events it unleashed.

The Afghanistan war cost the United States at least $2 trillion, and some estimates suggest that the real cost of two decades of war may be more than 10 times that amount.

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As the world now knows, the hasty U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan has left many people behind, notably thousands of former Afghan soldiers and civilians who worked with American forces. For novelist, journalist and Marine Corps combat veteran Elliot Ackerman, this was a moral betrayal that epitomizes everything that went wrong for the U.S. in Afghanistan. Although the American people across the political spectrum clearly supported withdrawal, Ackerman argues it was not necessarily the right choice, and suggests that the endgame could have been very different.

Ackerman’s novels include his most recent, “2034: A Novel of the Next World War” (co-authored with retired U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis), the National Book Award finalist “Dark at the Crossing” and “Waiting for Eden.” His nonfiction writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Time magazine, Esquire and elsewhere. He served five tours of duty as a Marine officer in Afghanistan and Iraq and received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart.

In this conversation, Ackerman reflects on the meaning of the Afghanistan conflict and the War on Terror in America’s narrative about itself. He discusses the human cost of the war, including how it felt to see Afghans he served with basically abandoned by the U.S. to face violent retribution by the Taliban. He argues that Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was a grave strategic error that he believes will empower international terrorists and global rivals such as Russia and China.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Watching the events in Afghanistan, I have been thinking about two things. One is, who wants to be the last person to die in a war? The other is Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires. Help me work through that resonance.

The narratives and stories that we tell ourselves about war are really important. When I was in high school, we read the Iliad. On the cover was a photograph of American soldiers landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day. That always stuck with me because for Americans, World War II is our origin story and how we think about war. It is a war with a beginning, middle and end. We’re the good guys and we win. How we as a people think about war is derivative of that model.

We are at this moment in Afghanistan, where, yes, we’ve been in this 20-year war, but Afghanistan does not fit neatly into that narrative. In the American psyche there is this narrative that the war only ends when all of the troops come home. That’s not accurate. In fact, the only time the war ends when all the troops come home is when we lose the war. The wars that we’ve won, like the Second World War, or even fought to a standstill, like the Korean War, we’ve left troops in those countries to secure the peace.

There are different measures of war and victory that we should have been considering relative to Afghanistan. For example, 18 months ago, the Taliban only held four districts, all of which were rural. They held virtually none of the town centers. The last U.S. service member to die prior to the withdrawal was in February of 2020. I believe that the way we framed this war in many respects has led to us losing the war. If we had looked at Afghanistan with a long-term view — as with the U.S. military involvement in Colombia, where we have had troops for 30 years fighting both the narco war and the war against the FARC — we could have seen a better outcome.

Ultimately, a different narrative was applied to Afghanistan, and I think that’s why we’ve backed ourselves into this corner.

How should we have defined victory in Afghanistan? How long is too long to continue a war? 30 years, 40 years? How do we decide that?

That depends on how you view America’s role in the world. Consider the Korean peninsula. The United States has nearly 30,000 troops stationed in the Korean peninsula. They have been there since the 1950s. Should we pull those troops out? I would say no.

Obviously as the United States, we behave differently. Most countries don’t have that kind of significant overseas military presence. The counter is: Why do we behave this way? This is American imperialism; we should retreat to within our borders. That’s certainly one worldview. I would argue that America has and should continue to serve as the one indispensable nation. We have managed to secure a relatively stable world order since the end of the Second World War. That outcome is in our interests and in the interests of the world, if the costs aren’t too great.

Would I make the claim that the United States should stay in Afghanistan if the cost of doing so was 150,000 U.S. troops in a country where upwards of 40 or 50 Americans are being killed a month? No. I would say that is not a good expenditure of our blood and our treasure. However, in 2019 that is absolutely not where American efforts in Afghanistan were. We had already paid that cost. At that point, before Trump started negotiating with the Taliban, we were again at about 12,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops.

By and large, the Afghans were the ones fighting the Taliban. We were taking minimal casualties. Given the outcome, it was a worthwhile investment. In my opinion, what is tough to deal with is how the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been handled: The disorganized nature of it, the haphazard deadlines and our willingness to allow the Taliban to set the terms has diminished American credibility in the world. There will be long-term impact from this.

What troubled you most about the withdrawal from Afghanistan and how it was conducted?

The administration has conceded that they have not been able to get out even half of our Afghan partners, translators, activists and people who worked for the U.S. government. What’s not captured by numbers is, who were these people? Days after Kabul’s fall there was a mad rush on Kabul airport.

How could this have gone differently? First of all, there’s this argument that, well, it was inevitable. It is Afghanistan, so of course the withdrawal is going to be a debacle. If you look at the Soviet withdrawal in the late 1980s, that was done in an orderly fashion, with the last Soviet troops going across the Friendship Bridge back into the Soviet Union with a photo-op. It’s not a fait accompli that this had to necessarily be a debacle.

There were obviously many people saying, “Well, we don’t want to see another Saigon.” I think if you’re a planner you should look at Afghanistan and say, “Jesus, we’d be so lucky to have another evacuation like in Vietnam.” Vietnam had hundreds of miles of coastline.

Afghanistan is a landlocked country. So you’re going to have to get everybody out by air. Why would you start shutting down your major military air bases, that you can control? From the reporting I have seen, the reason those bases were shut down was because Biden was staunch about drawing down troop levels in accordance with a certain timetable.

This left a single point of egress, Kabul International Airport. I personally participated in some of these evacuation efforts and can tell you how difficult it was. It was basically the equivalent of going to see the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden and trying to work your way from the back of the crowd up to the stage — and then to get the band to call you on stage. That’s how difficult it was to get through these gates. So that in and of itself was a failure.

We have all seen those images. I would like to play a voicemail for you from an Afghan who worked for the U.S. Embassy. His brother worked very closely with the Afghan government. He was assassinated two weeks ago. I’m working, along with some other people, to get him out of the country right now. His situation is desperate, and it mirrors those of countless others.

Please, sir, please. I want you to help me, my family, my kids in this hotel. This is not a safe place. I’m going to shut down my cell phone and put it somewhere. If the situation is good at that time I’m going to be turn on my cell phone. I’m just completely lost and I have no idea what to do.

My phone is filled with messages like this from our Afghan partners. This individual is hiding in a hotel, waiting for a flight that may or may not come. The Taliban are right now going room to room searching for people like him.

In your recent writing and comments you have been very direct about questions of accountability with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. How much of this failure, as you describe it, is on Joe Biden’s shoulders? How much is on Trump for making a deal with the Taliban, or on the previous presidents who began and continued this war?

I don’t put the last 18 years of Afghanistan policy on Biden’s shoulders. What I do put on his shoulders is this withdrawal and how it’s been handled. Do I put the lurch from a tight counter-terrorism mission in the days after Sept. 11 to a broader nation-building mission on Biden? No, of course not. Do I put the onus on Biden for Obama’s announcement in 2009 that we’re going to surge troops into Afghanistan, and in the very same speech announcing that we’re also going to withdraw them, which immediately undermined us? I was in Afghanistan when he gave that speech. I think it was a huge strategic mistake. Do I put on Biden Trump’s bad deal that he negotiated with the Taliban? No, I don’t put that on Biden. That’s not Biden’s fault.

Do I think it’s Biden’s fault that he didn’t try to renegotiate that deal and, in his messaging right now, that he makes it sound as though the president had no power to move away or distance himself from Trump’s deal? Yes. I put that on Biden. If he wanted to negotiate a new deal with the Taliban, he could do it. He’s the president of the United States, but he chose not to. At that point Biden owns the deal.

When we look back at the operational level and how the withdrawal was handled, I put that right on Biden’s shoulders. For someone who ran for office on the proposition that he was empathetic, and that he understood deeply the value of service, I believe that Joe Biden behaved counter to those two values. This is especially so with regards to empathy for all our Afghan partners that he’s leaving behind.

I also have seen very little empathy to our veterans. I don’t know if you can imagine how psychologically brutal this has been for veterans. It is not abstract, because so many of us now have every Afghan we ever served with calling us, pleading with us for help. Asking us to not forget them. It has forced me to basically go back into the war in Afghanistan and relive it.

I think if you were involved in these wars, it’s as tactile as these are old friends of mine, old contacts of mine, who are begging me for help. How do I help them? And I think for so many veterans, what’s so difficult is you can’t help them. There’s no way to help them, and you have to tell them you can’t help them. I’ve talked to many vets who’ve tried to help their Afghan friends and then have had the conversation with them: “I’m sorry, the airport’s closed. I can’t help you. I don’t know how to help you anymore.”

What is being done to help the Afghans who were allied with the American forces to escape Afghanistan and the Taliban?

The window for charter flights is very rapidly closing, if it’s not entirely closed already. Early on it was about raising money. Before, you could get an Airbus into Kabul airport for about half a million dollars. So people were doing GoFundMe and pitching very wealthy individuals to try to fly those planes in. I was involved in some of those efforts. There are also efforts to smuggle people through Taliban checkpoints to get them to the airport.

Now that the airports are pretty much shut, most of those efforts are switching to overland routes and smuggling people out that way. This is going to keep going on. Sadly, it’s becoming more difficult. The Taliban are arresting people and you’re seeing reprisal killings occur. We’re going to watch that happen in real time, as the people you’re trying to get out either go dark or you hear about them being killed.

Strategically, who are the winners and losers in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan?

The big winners are nations like China and Russia who use intimidation to project power in their regions of influence, their global neighborhoods. They can use the withdrawal, and the fact of the United States turning its back on Afghanistan and its allies there, as proof that the United States will behave similarly if called upon to fulfill its obligations. The Chinese moving into Afghanistan also gives them the ability to extract mineral wealth there as well.

The other big winner here is the international jihadist movement. Al-Qaida and others just scored a massive victory. They just beat the world’s greatest imperial power in Afghanistan, echoing out previous victories like the victories against the Soviets and the victory against the British. That is going to be great fodder for recruitment. The withdrawal from Afghanistan has emboldened our adversaries.

What do you think would have happened if the United States had treated 9/11 as a law enforcement problem, instead of as a reason to go to war in Afghanistan?

The huge “what if” involves the invasion of Iraq and keeping our eye on the ball in Afghanistan. Moreover, what if the United States had been smart enough to not enter into a huge nation-building program in Afghanistan? Another variable: After 9/11 the Taliban offered their surrender to the United States and we didn’t take it.

To me, the alternate history post-9/11 involves this: What if the United States recognized that the Taliban might be people we could do business with, as long as we kept them in a minority and really kept our eyes on what was going on in Afghanistan? And doing that not so much by sending in more troops, but by making sure that we were catering our true presence there to the counter-terrorism threat. Perhaps then we would be in a different place now.

Don’t toss that sourdough discard! Make biscuits

The Perfect Loaf is a column from software engineer turned bread expert (and Food52’s Resident Bread Baker) Maurizio Leo. Maurizio is here to show us all things naturally leavened, enriched, yeast-risen, you name it — basically, any excuse for slathering on a lot of butter. Today, he’s discussing how to turn sourdough discard into tender drop biscuits.

* * *

Mixing flour, butter, and a leavener is the starting point for many great baked goods, savory or sweet. Flour provides the structure, and butter gives savoriness (and, of course, that sought-after flaky texture), while the leavener acts to lighten everything up. Adding buttermilk and some ripe sourdough starter brings a touch more tang and tenderness to the equation, giving my sourdough drop biscuits a little something extra.

I like the idea of having a go-to dough that has more than one use in the kitchen, one that can be adapted to suit varying moods, flavors, and palates. It’s a bonus that the sourdough starter called for lends not only a touch of flavor, but also tenderness — not to mention that it’s a great way to use up any excess sourdough discard from your regular feedings.

This sourdough starter discard is the portion of your starter that’s removed during each feeding and replaced with fresh flour and water. The discard is essentially fermented flour and water, and as we know, fermentation brings with it a wide range of unexpected and bright flavors through the acids, alcohols, and other compounds created. Lengthy sourdough fermentation also helps break down the gluten in flour, meaning the discard can improve the texture of any baked good—and especially these drop biscuits. Plus, it’s a great way to put something you’d normally compost to better use!

While drop biscuits are delicious warm from the oven, the base can also be used in more ways than just simply buttered (although who could tire of that classic?). Let’s take a look.

With Butter and Preserves

The natural first stop in using these biscuits — besides just eating them plain, of course — is to cut them in half and slather them with butter and whatever preserves you have kicking around in the fridge. For me, the primo choice is raspberry preserves — the tart flavor pairs so well with the rich biscuit dough. If jam isn’t your thing, no worries; no one has ever complained about a humble buttered biscuit.

Drop Biscuit Cobbler

The dough for my sourdough drop biscuits can be thought of almost as a pie crust, but instead of using it as a bottom and top crust for a pie, make things even easier on yourself by using it in a rustic cobbler.

How to use sourdough discard in any recipe

How to make sourdough with . . . beets? (Or any vegetable!)

Pick a juicy and seasonal cobbler filling (my current favorites are blueberries, blackberries, peaches, and nectarines),and combine the mixture in a 10-inch round cast-iron pan or any baking dish about this size. Then mix together one batch of sourdough drop biscuit dough, gather it up into a rough mound, and roll out with a rolling pin to about ½ inch thick. Cut the dough into circles using a biscuit cutter or glass and place the pieces on top of your filling like a jigsaw puzzle, with some pieces overlapping. If you have any extra dough, you can bake the circles on a baking sheet for 15 to 20 minutes alongside the cobbler until golden — they’re a tasty snack!

Savory Drop Biscuits

During the summer, it seems I’m always eagerly waiting for two things in the garden: fresh tomatoes and hot peppers. Hot peppers grow exceedingly well in the dry Southwest, where I’m based, and since I plant serrano and jalapeño, I’m always just moments away from fresh salsa or baked goods with a spicy slant. I love working jalapeño and grated cheddar cheese into a large loaf of sourdough bread, but a new contender for my attention is a batch of jalapeño-cheddar sourdough drop biscuits. The jalapeño provides a welcome spicy kick, while the cheddar cheese melts as the biscuits are baking, bringing with it luxurious savoriness. In the end, you’re greeted with a warm, cheesy, and spicy biscuit that’s heavenly on its own or to accompany that backyard barbecue.

Sourdough Drop Biscuits

I like to use 125 to 150 grams grated sharp cheddar cheese and a medium jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped, about 1½ tablespoons (but both can be increased or decreased to your preference). Mix both additions into the dough after you cut the butter into the flour.

Shortcakes

Another natural outlet for any biscuit dough is to use it for shortcake — particularly, the classic strawberry shortcake. For this preparation, I like to gather together the biscuit dough after it’s just mixed, then roll it out similar to how I roll it out for cobbler. You can leave the dough a bit thicker, about ¾ inch, to give each shortcake a little more heft and chew. Once the dough is rolled out, cut an even number of circles from it, with the intention of using two pieces for each serving: one biscuit on the bottom and one in the middle among the chopped and macerated strawberries. Top the whole stack off with freshly whipped cream, take a bite, and declare strawberries fresh from the garden (or farmers market) a worthwhile investment.

Sandwiches

Now that we’ve ticked the dessert boxes and a savory mix-in, let’s talk about sandwiches. When halved along the equator, a drop biscuit can hold any number of ingredients, from slices of crispy bacon and tender prosciutto to roasted zucchini and fresh, juicy tomato. If you’re accustomed to having a biscuit with butter and jam alongside your eggs for breakfast, relocate and spice up those eggs. Make a drop biscuit breakfast sandwich with eggs, sharp cheddar cheese, and a dash of hot sauce — the flaky biscuit makes for one heck of a bun substitute. And who could refuse a drop biscuit sandwich with ham, cheddar, and fig jam — I know I wouldn’t.

Herby Biscuit Tomato Sandwiches

Country Ham Biscuit with Fig Jam

With so many uses for sourdough drop biscuits, it’s no wonder I’ve had them on the weekend menu for the past month. As each item from the garden comes into season, a dough like this can be adapted to carry, top, and hold all the, ahem, fruits of our labor. Happy baking!

Boebert and other GOP members party in NYC with Capitol rioters and AOC challenger — no masks

Two weeks ago, the Conservative Party of Richmond County, New York, held a dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant where Republican members of Congress and aspiring GOP candidates mingled with Capitol rioters.

Those facts may require some unpacking: Richmond County is the same thing as Staten Island, the southernmost borough of New York City, which remains predominantly white and leans Republican. The Conservative Party is a relic of old-time New York machine politics, which today is almost entirely aligned with the GOP.

The dinner was held Sept. 2 at Da Noi Restaurant, a family-owned Italian eatery that is something of a Staten Island institution. (In fact, there are two on the island, plus another in nearby Bayonne, New Jersey, not to be confused with several similarly-named restaurants in Manhattan, the Bronx and suburban Long Island.)

The event reportedly kicked off with “energizing remarks” from the seemingly ubiquitous far-right firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Colorado Republican known for her love of guns (which are strictly controlled in New York City).

Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis was joined by her colleague from Colorado, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who energized the crowd with her remarks. Thank you Councilman Joe Borelli for your support of the Conservative Party and event sponsors Letitia Remauro and Geoge Wonica. pic.twitter.com/CVXOyxUUpD

— Conservative Party of NYS (@cpnys) September 3, 2021

Much of what was said at the donor-filled event has not been made public. But Boebert was highly visible at the venue and was seen posing for instance, with Tina Forte, who live-streamed extensively from the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 and has “repeatedly used hashtags related to QAnon conspiracy theories,” according to Snopes. Forte plans to run as a Republican against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who defeated her 2020 opponent by more than 40 percentage points. Boebert also spent time with self-described “American patriot, publicist & consultant” Jen Remauro, former co-host of a Sirius XM Radio show. (Her mother, Leticia Remauro, is the Conservative Party candidate for Staten Island borough president.)

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTW2v3cnOy6/?utm_medium=copy_link

“Conservative Dinner. Great food. Great people. Great candidates running for office,” Remauro captioned her picture on Instagram with Boebert. “Oh yeah, and [Rep.] Lee Zeldin brought Lauren Boebert with him!”

Photos taken at the event depict a crowded room, with no attendees visibly masked. As Remauro noted, Boebert arrived at the event with Rep. Lee Zeldin and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, both New York Republicans.

This was followed by a meeting with the publisher and owner of the second largest set of weekly newspapers in NYC with the day concluding at the Richmond County Conservative Party dinner. pic.twitter.com/aPGYeRZMjZ

— Conservative Party of NYS (@cpnys) September 3, 2021

While conservative pundits, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have at times baselessly blamed the FBI for the Jan 6 Capitol siege, some of the radicalized right-wing Capitol rioters now appear to be normalized within conservative politics.

Forte, a TrumpWorld social media influencer and reputed QAnon believer, live-streamed herself and the above-mentioned Jen Remauro from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Forte was wearing riot gear. In a video uncovered by Snopes, Forte is seen in a restricted area outside the Capitol, claiming, “I’m wearing a bulletproof vest, because I’m on everybody’s fucking hit list that you can possibly think of.”

She continues, “Now we’re at the Capitol, and now we’re on to the next one,” while winking into the camera.

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Following initial publication of this article, Jen Remauro sent a lengthy statement to Salon denying that she and Forte were near the Capitol on Jan. 6, despite considerable video evidence to the contrary. Remauro wrote:

We were nowhere near the Capitol during the riots and that wink Tina gave was because the Capitol was our fourth stop for the flag drop we did of Nancy Pelosi. The next stop was John Tobacco’s video podcast which we left to go do immediately after her wink. The wink was because we were going to talk about Nancy Pelosi on air. Me and Tina Forte did not enter the Capitol, we did not break anything, touch anything and we’re by the reflection pool. We couldn’t even hit the building with a rock if we tried. We were there to support artist Scott LoBaido and drop his flag in numerous locations which we did. Tina’s bulletproof vest was because Antifa had her and myself listed on their website as targets. There was never talks of a riot or an insurrection.

Snopes also found that Forte “took multiple photographs in October, November, and December 2020 with far-right Proud Boys leader Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio.” She pushed false election conspiracy theories, including the phrase “Stop the Steal,” and attended the Nov. 14, 2020, “Million Maga March“ where she posed with a Proud Boy and “Proud Girl” Magan Peevey Stephens, flashing the white power sign.

New York City has mandated that patrons entering indoor venues such as restaurants must display either the city’s new app, the state’s Excelsior app or a card showing proof of vaccination, which raises questions about the unmasked attendees at the Staten Island event. The owner of Da Noi, Edward Gomez, told Fox News in August, “People, when they come in, we have to kind of guard the gate to make sure they are [vaccinated] and if they are not, turn them away.”

Boebert’s vaccination status remains unknown. The GOP freshman member has been an outspoken opponent of vaccine and mask mandates, although her own step-grandfather, Bob Bentz, died of COVID last December.

UPDATE: This story now includes a statement from Jen Remauro submitted after its original publication.

Graham thinks “damaged” Trump needs to fix “personality problems” if he wants to run again: report

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Donald Trump loyalist, privately believes the former president is a “damaged team captain,” according to “Peril,” a new book by veteran journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

In response to speculation about Trump trying to win back the White House in 2024, Graham reportedly told the authors that “if he wants to run, then he’s going to have to deal with his personality problems . . . We’ve got a very damaged team captain.”

CNN noted that Graham’s tune has been much different in public statements and in direct conversations with Trump.

As recently as May, he told Fox News that the Republican Party “can’t grow” without Trump.

And, in a private conversation with Trump, Graham said “you’ve been written off as dead because of January the 6th,” according to Woodward and Costa.

“The conventional wisdom is that the Republican Party, under your leadership, has collapsed,” Graham told Trump, before adding that if “you came back to take the White House, it would be the biggest comeback in American history.”

Biden’s racial justice agenda must be central to post-Ida disaster recovery

President Biden says he will put the full power of the government behind Hurricane Ida recovery, but unless he makes good on his promise to centers equity and racial justice in this effort, as he and his administration have vowed to do, the government will fail in its recovery efforts — and only worsen the racial wealth gap in this country

We all remember the pictures of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans after the federal levees protecting the city failed in 2005 — a majority Black, working-class neighborhood devastated by the failure of neglected infrastructure. Families still haven’t been able to return home, years later. Redlining, years of disinvestment and systemic racism have burdened communities of color with higher poverty rates, lower property values, inadequate infrastructure and increased exposure to industrial hazards and the impact of climate change. Those in homes with lower property values in disinvested communities are oftentimes unable to navigate the bureaucracy of the federal government and other non-federal recovery efforts.

A longstanding legacy of discriminatory policies and practices in disaster-recovery funding makes the recovery of many frontline communities, particularly communities of color, nearly impossible. We have seen this process occur over and over: A disaster hits, and relief goes to more affluent white communities while communities of color suffer, even when those communities are in the same city. These families are pushed deeper into poverty and thus more vulnerable to the next disaster.

The current system, created for middle-class families, has proven to be inaccessible for low-income communities. Following a disaster, filing for FEMA assistance is one of the first steps survivors are expected to take. But without computers, internet access or the ability to wait for hours on overloaded phone lines, low-income survivors often come up short in receiving direct relief funds. The barriers go beyond individual assistance. Even after the program designed to help New Orleanians recover from Hurricane Katrina provided a clear example of how basing recovery aid on the value of a home perpetuates discrimination, disaster recovery is all too often directly tied to property values and the ability to navigate the byzantine bureaucracy of both federal and non-federal recovery funding mechanisms. Disaster relief efforts have become a mechanism to exacerbate wealth inequality instead of one that meets its most basic purpose — providing economic relief to those who need it most.

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Numerous reports, including some conducted by the federal government itself, have outlined the flaws in disaster relief funding:

Natural disasters widen racial wealth gap: “Whites accumulate more wealth after natural disasters while residents of color accumulate less,” said Jim Elliott, a professor of sociology at Rice University and one of the authors of the report. “What this means is that wealth inequality is increasing in counties that are hit by more disasters.”

Damages Done: The Longitudinal Impact of Natural Hazards on Wealth Inequality in the United States: “In counties with $10 billion in natural disaster damage, white families gained, on average, $126,000 in wealth, while Black families lost $27,000 in wealth, Latino families lost $29,000 in wealth, and Asian families lost $10,000.”

Following Hurricane Harvey, white residents in higher income communities received an average of $60,000 in FEMA assistance while Black residents in low-income communities received an average of $84. Low-income survivors of Hurricane Harvey are still living in unrepaired and unsafe houses, and their neighborhoods still don’t have adequate infrastructure to protect them from flooding.

The American disaster recovery system is broken and the federal government knows it. FEMA’s own National Advisory Council Report found that the agency does not meet the equity requirements of federal disaster recovery or civil rights laws. “The core definition of equity is to provide the greatest support to those with the greatest need,” the report states, yet “[t]hrough the entire disaster cycle, communities that have been underserved stay underserved, and thereby suffer needlessly and unjustly.”

The flagrant disregard for equity and the civil rights of communities of color that make it harder for these communities to receive assistance from disaster recovery funding sources also makes it harder for smaller, less affluent and rural communities to access federal disaster recovery programs. Fidelity to the entrenched, discriminatory way of doing business absolutely hurts communities who are hit the hardest and have the hardest time recovering from natural disasters. Furthermore, it holds the country back from mitigating future disasters. So how do we ensure that federal funding works for those who need it most?

In the aftermath of Ida, Biden must elevate disaster recovery as a key piece of the administration’s racial equity agenda, reorient infrastructure programs so that resources are directed to historically underfunded areas — instead of valuing property over people’s lives — and require FEMA to center low-income communities for access to both its housing and infrastructure recovery programs.

If we don’t make these changes and create an equitable system of disaster relief that centers the communities with the greatest need, our country will be stuck in a perpetual state of recovery — and we will never get to the finish line. It benefits everyone to address the racial inequities in our federal funding programs. President Biden has an opportunity to turn the page on decades of failed disaster assistance.

Trump predicts that “we’re not going to have a country left in three years” during Newsmax interview

Former President Donald Trump made several dark and ominous statements during a Tuesday appearance on Sean Spicer’s Newsmax show.

Trump argued “our country has gone really downhill in the last eight months like nobody’s ever seen before.”

He then predicted that America would end within the next three years.

“And you go to these elections coming up in ’22 and ’24 — we’re not going to have a country left. The election was rigged and we’re not going to have a country left in three years, I’ll tell you that,” Trump falsely claimed, repeating his debunked “Big Lie” about election fraud.

After Trump’s prediction of the end of the country, Spicer — the former Trump press secretary who infamously lied about the turnout at Trump’s inauguration — sought to bring the interview to an end.

“You’ve been very generous with your time, thank you for that,” Spicer said.

You can watch the video below via Twitter:

this guy's 2024 campaign is going to be so bleak pic.twitter.com/hH6PYZtNBi

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 14, 2021

Gavin Newsom beats back Republican recall effort, remains governor of California

Less than one hour after polls closed on Election Day, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, declared victory over a multi-million dollar recall effort.

With 59% of precincts reporting, the Associated Press called the election for Newsom with 66.8% of voters — far above the requisite simple majority needed to survive — voting “No” on the question to recall the governor. It looks like the recall effort was not even close.

“Tonight I’m humble, grateful, but resolved in the spirit of my political hero: Robert Kennedy.”

Far from striking a celebratory tone, Newsom acknowledged that his victory is tempered by a “spirit of reconciling” with the Californians — led by Republican leaders in the Golden State — who voted to oust him from office.

The recall was originally launched back in June of last year due to grievances over Newsom’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, which ravaged a number of high-density cities throughout the state, namely Los Angeles. Frustrations grew largely out of Newsom’s decision to quickly enforce public health precautions, like mandatory school shutdowns and business closures. However, Newsom implemented these measures with a relatively on-again, off-again approach, leaving many Californian parents and business owners upset over the lack of state consistency.

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The effort reached fever pitch back in November, when Newsom was exposed dining out at a Michelin star restaurant in California’s wine country, apparently flouting his own COVID-19 guidelines. By April of this year, state officials announced that the recall effort garnered enough signatures (1.5 million) from California voters to prompt an official ballot vote.

California voters were faced with 45 different candidates in the election, with Larry Elder right-wing talk radio host Larry Elder as the frontrunner by way of polling and fundraising.

Elder has a past besieged by controversy. Throughout the years, the host has made numerous incendiary comments about women, race, and LGBTQ+ issues, once even suggesting that the descendants of slave owners should benefit from reparations. The radio host has also been accused of sexual harassment on multiple occasions.

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Elder has repeatedly backed Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud, and this month propounded similar skepticism about the California gubernatorial recall election – of which he is a part – telling voters to expect election “shenanigans.”

“We may have defeated Trump but Trumpism is not dead in this country,” Newsom said after the race was called for him, describing the past year as a “remarkable moment in our nation’s history.”

Newsom’s attempted recall marks the second of its kind in the state’s history when it comes to recalls that reached an election. According to The New York Times, state budget officials estimate that the total price tag of this year’s recall hovers around $276 million. The Times reported that Newsom raised a total of $70 million to fend off the recall, allowing him to saturate the airwaves with far more advertisements than his competitors.

Expectedly, policies around COVID-19 remained hot button issues in the recall election. Over the last year, Newsom has aggressively pushed for pro-vaccine policies, mandating a vaccine requirement for K-12 public school staff and other state employees.

Newsom first entered public office back in 1998, when he filled a vacancy in San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. Later, at 36, he was elected as the youngest mayor in the city’s history. He earned a reputation as a progressive princeling back in 2004, when he ordered a city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples back in 2004, just four years before the 2008 passage of Proposition 8.

Trump’s top general feared all-out nuclear war with China in final days, new Woodward book alleges

Just days after the fatal Capitol insurrection on January 6, Trump’s top military adviser secretly maneuvered to stop Donald Trump from “going rogue” and launching an all-out nuclear war with China, according to bombshell revelations from a forthcoming book excerpted by CNN and The Washington Post.

The book, titled “Peril,” was written by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, and provides a never-before-seen glimpse into Trump’s presidency, which apparently culminated in fears that Trump might initiate a last-minute military attack.

During Trump’s final days in office, the book describes, Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, grew increasingly “certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election.” The president was reportedly “all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.”

At one point, Milley thought the president might “go rogue” and engage in drastic military action, telling his staff: “You never know what a president’s trigger point is.”

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Anticipating the worst, Milley responded with unprecedented action, calling top Pentagon officials to review military protocol on the nuclear launch codes.

“No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure,” Milley reportedly told his fellow officers.

According to The Post, Milley also made “a pair of secret phone calls” – one before and after the 2020 election – to Li Zuocheng, the general of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, promising the Chinese general that the U.S. would not attack Beijing.

“I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be OK,” Milley reportedly told Li back in October of last year. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.” If an attack did come to pass, Milley allegedly said, then China would be forewarned.

In a similar exchange following the Capitol riot, Milley reportedly received a call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in which she conveyed fears that Trump might actually use the nuclear launch codes.

“What I’m saying to you is that if they couldn’t even stop him from an assault on the Capitol, who even knows what else he may do?” Pelosi asked him. “And is there anybody in charge at the White House who was doing anything but kissing his fat butt all over this?”

Shortly after the call, Milley told the directors of the CIA and NSA to be on guard for erratic actions by the Trump administration.

“Peril” further details a number of personal ruptures in various relationships within the Trump administration, specifically shedding light on the former president’s schism with former Vice President Pence.

In one encounter just a day before the riot, Trump apparently berated Pence over his unwillingness to block then-President-elect Joe Biden’s election certification – a maneuver that is legally impossible.

Referring to Pence’s nonexistent ability to block the certification, Trump asked his vice president, “But wouldn’t it be almost cool to have that power?”

When Pence rejected Trump’s proposal, the president reportedly exploded.

“No, no, no! You don’t understand, Mike. You can do this. I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this.”

The book, which interviewed 200 first hand participants and witnesses in Trump’s administration, is set to be released September 21.

From AOC to Cara Delevingne, are the Met Gala’s feminist displays meaningful or just performative?

“PEG THE PATRIARCHY.” “EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN.” “TAX THE RICH.” “ERA NOW.” “KILL THE FILIBUSTER.” “IN GAYS WE TRUST.”

After a nearly two-year, pandemic-induced hiatus, the Met Gala returned on Monday evening, rife with feminist, LGBTQ and even apparent anti-capitalist displays. Fashion has always been political, a vehicle through which power and privilege can be flaunted (which is, you know, the whole point of the Met Gala) or critiqued. But political messages at such events have rarely if ever before been so overt as they were at the 2021 Met Gala.

New York Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney got the conversation started with a colorful and eye-catching gown covered in pro-Equal Rights Amendment taglines, and a purse that appeared to be a replica of the iconic green “ERA YES” sign of the 1970s. Her fellow New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a bold statement of her own with a floor-length white gown that reads “TAX THE RICH” in red on its back, created by rising designer Aurora James.

But that was just the beginning. There were feminist and progressive displays aplenty Monday night. Cara Delevingne attempted to send a message of some sort in a white pantsuit, with a top that read “PEG THE PATRIARCHY.” Teen Vogue’s editor-in-chief Versha Sharma donned a colorful, bright pink and gold gown with a matching clutch purse that reads “KILL THE FILIBUSTER.” Soccer icon Megan Rapinoe was in attendance as well, decked out in the stars and stripes and clutching a purse with the text “IN GAYS WE TRUST.”

Megan Rapinoe arrived at the #MetGala carrying a red, white and blue clutch that reads “IN GAY WE TRUST,” matching her pantsuit.

Follow live updates: https://t.co/RorS6d0Lu0 pic.twitter.com/jc8frYVwNb

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 14, 2021

One can appreciate the effort being made here to take societally important messages, or even just cheeky and subversive slogans, to a highly visible event like the Met Gala. Love it or hate it, the star-studded affair attracts worldwide attention, and can spark all kinds of conversation. The gala provides a platform that can either be left alone, maintaining its status quo of opulence, excess and privilege — or it can be wielded to focus attention on messages that disrupt this in some way, however small.

The reactions to these aforementioned political costumes at the Met Gala have been predictably mixed on social media. Pending who you follow, you might see endless applause for the “TAX THE RICH” dress, and a “yass queen!” or two for the “PEG THE PATRIARCHY” pantsuit. Or, you might see an endless onslaught of eye rolls at the performativite nature of it all, attending a stunningly capitalistic, privileged affair armed with but a pithy slogan to vaguely critique it.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrived at the #MetGala in a white Brother Vellies dress emblazoned with the words, "TAX THE RICH" in bright red letters across the back.

Follow live updates: https://t.co/pgWIImmR7J pic.twitter.com/MydkD42ow6

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 14, 2021

Neither of these competing reactions is all right or all wrong. Fashion choices can, indeed, be performative activism when performed in isolation as an individual’s sole act of political resistance. Many of the criticisms of the elected officials in attendance, who are supposed to be public servants rather than celebrities or cultural idols, are fair and even important.

But whether or not Ocasio-Cortez’s attendance at the Met Gala was a capitalistic blunder, it shouldn’t detract from how she raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Texas abortion funds earlier this month, nor any of her legislation to redistribute wealth and hold the ultra-rich accountable. As long as someone is doing more than wearing clever outfits to high-society events, we shouldn’t always be quick to mistake seizing an opportunity and a platform with empty performance.

What’s easily lost in social media’s quickness to outrage is that multiple truths can be held at once. We can simultaneously enjoy and recognize the frivolity of an event like the Met Gala. We can also enjoy the small, seemingly inane political messages on display at the gala and understand that we need infinitely more than glib slogans at ultra-rich-people parties to enact real change.

On the other hand, shaming people for enjoying the glitzy spectacle of cultural events like the Met Gala isn’t the political action or bold act of resistance that keyboard activists seem to think it is. If we want to engage impactful conversations around class struggles, or address the actual crises of economic injustice and capitalist rot in everyday people’s real lives, the Met Gala bears little to no relevance to any of this. Arguably the only feat less impactful to the material conditions of our day-to-day lives than enjoying the hollow displays of the gala is being angry at those who enjoy them.

Between a global pandemic, mass flooding and hurricanes, stagnant wages, and numerous other signs that the end of days is nigh, a “TAX THE RICH” dress alone won’t save us. An “ERA NOW” gown and “PEG THE PATRIARCHY” pantsuit won’t reverse Texas’ nightmarish, dehumanizing abortion ban. Meaningful change requires meaningful action, and tangible redistributions of wealth and power. But as far as just trying to have some fun as we live through something of an ongoing apocalypse, none of these aforementioned fashion choices do much harm, either.

“Impeachment” portraying Linda Tripp by an actress in a fat suit undermines the series’ strengths

“Impeachment: American Crime Story” is more than just a rehashing of Monica Lewinsky’s well-known relationship with former president Bill Clinton and its fallout. The FX drama is a story of women denied power, and the ways they’re compelled to harm each other to achieve some semblance of relevance. Unfortunately, the show ends up denying power to a particular group of people just in the way it portrays Linda Tripp.

Because this is a Ryan Murphy project, Sarah Paulson is required to play a key role. Here she portrays Tripp, the civil servant who became a close confidante to Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein) before betraying her. The role required Paulson to don prosthetics, a wig and . . . a fat suit.

That last detail has earned the series a certain amount of scrutiny and backlash. For decades, fat suits have allowed thin, privileged actors to perform fatness as a costume, intentionally or unintentionally mocking fat people in the process and taking roles from fat actors in a sizeist industry that offers them few opportunities. “Impeachment” is no different.

In August, prior to the show’s premiere, Paulson expressed regret for wearing a fat suit to portray Tripp. “It’s very hard for me to talk about this without feeling like I’m making excuses,” Paulson told the Los Angeles Times. “There’s a lot of controversy around actors and fat suits, and I think that controversy is a legitimate one. I think fatphobia is real. I think to pretend otherwise causes further harm.”

She also told the paper she wouldn’t make the same choice to wear a fat suit going forward. “You can only learn what you learn when you learn it. Should I have known? Abso-f**king-lutely. But I do now,” Paulson said.

The criticism of Paulson’s use of a fat suit isn’t new. Courteney Cox’s portrayal of a young, fat and therefore supposedly undesirable Monica Geller on “Friends” may be the most iconic, well-known performance involving a fat suit. Of course, the the main message conveyed by the backstory of a young, fat Monica was that beneath her plus-sized exterior, she was deserving of love, and just had to lose the weight to receive it — which she did, after being motivated by rejection from her brother’s friend Chandler (Matthew Perry). It should be self-explanatory why such a message is toxic, dangerous and false, in suggesting that potentially endangering oneself and losing weight at any cost is necessary to find love and acceptance.

Yet, despite excuses that “Friends” was a product of its times in the less evolved 1990s, fat suits have persisted. On “How I Met Your Mother,” a 2000s sitcom that’s been widely accused of drawing from the entire premise of “Friends,” Neil Patrick Harris as beloved playboy Barney Stinson at one point dons a fat suit, making the character’s weight gain a punchline. This costume choice is meant to represent how much Barney has “let himself go” in his unhappy relationship with Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders). As in “Friends,” the insinuation here is that fatness is a joke — and specific to “How I Met Your Mother,” a depressing “joke” that signals someone has given up on their life.

In 2001’s “Shallow Hall,” Jack Black plays a superficial dude who is hypnotized to see women’s inner beauty. When he meets Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit), he sees her as slender. A few years later, in 2005’s “Just Friends,” Ryan Reynolds donned a fat suit to play his character when he was an unpopular high school student who was laughed at for confessing his crush. In both instances, thinness is equated with beauty and happiness.

The use of a fat suit by Chris Hemsworth in “Endgame” follows the same motivations as in “How I Met Your Mother.” When “Depressed Thor” first appears to uproarious shock and laughter from in-theater audiences in 2019, he’s understandably traumatized by the loss of his brother, some of his closest companions, and half of his kingdom, Asgard. But his depression and body size are reduced to much-needed comedic relief in the suspenseful and emotional “Endgame” thrillride.

All of these examples reveal that fatness remains a costume in Hollywood. This, of course, is despite having no shortage of talented plus-size actors, who aren’t be offered the roles that remain exclusively reserved for actors who meet Hollywood’s impossibly thin beauty standards. Even as the conversations around body acceptance and positivity have advanced – and representation of people of all body sizes has increased through the years with shows like “Shrill,” “This Is Us,” and others – fat suits are the one thing Hollywood refuses to shake.

“Impeachment” is clearly conscious of rampant American fatphobia and pressures to be thin, especially in the 1990s. The series makes a point to show Lewinsky and Tripp frequently bonding over their experimentation with varying weight loss regimens and trends. The show opens with Monica exercising furiously at the gym, just before being apprehended at the mall.

The casting of Beanie Feldstein, a heavier, notably not rail-thin actress who’s vocally criticized the ways society conflates “thinness with goodness,” as Monica Lewinsky shows that “Impeachment” cast Paulson despite clearly knowing better. Just as Feldstein delivers a brilliant, unrepentantly human portrayal of one of the most maligned women in modern American history, a fat or plus-size actor could have made for a brilliant Linda Tripp, too.

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The representational disappointments of “Impeachment” are especially frustrating, considering how much the show gets right. Through its nuanced storytelling of gendered power dynamics and political intrigue, Linda Tripp emerges as a three-dimensional person beyond the vile, treacherous, even sexually perverted caricature of her that we’ve long been fed. She remains a power-thirsty gossip who plays a not-insignificant role in ruining a young Monica Lewinsky’s life. But she’s also been betrayed and slighted herself, all while struggling with loneliness, boredom, professional disappointment, and the challenges of being a single mom to teenage children.

Sarah Paulson is a brilliant actor — yet, if it was so important for “Impeachment” to portray Linda Tripp with this body type, it’s clear Paulson wasn’t the right fit. As the twisty, melodramatic thrills of “Impeachment” continue, a fat suit-clad Paulson hangs like a dark cloud over its otherwise commendable feminist overtures.

“Impeachment: American Crime Story” airs Tuesdays on FX.

An ode to the humble, healthy (?) pizza pie

Pizza is not meant to be a gourmet meal. Pizza is meant to be a rustic treat. It should be a delicious, inexpensive, fun experience. It should result in a collision of orgasmic flavours stimulating your taste buds with a bundle of different, mouthwatering sensations. Flowing all the way over to your brainstem and down your throat to your gut, it should bring on smiles and laughter and perhaps some guilt for the size 0 diet-conscious.

Originally, the pizza we know today was a cheap, easy-to-transport and easy-to-eat food for poorly paid labourers in late 18^th century Napoli. It was a pie with humble beginnings, originally made from inexpensive, easy-to-find ingredients with plenty of flavour, never meant to be a pretentious, formal affair.

The two most important elements of a pizza are: (1) It is delicious, outrageously delicious; and (2) it resembles the Italian flag with red (tomato sauce –preferably made with San Marzano tomatoes), white (thinly sliced garlic and fresh mozzarella cheese) and green (a pinch of oregano and fresh basil leaves). This aromatic trio of colours, now known as pizza margherita, received royal patronage in 1889 when Queen Margherita of Savoy, on a visit to Napoli, declared it her favourite and elevated its status from poor man’s slopped-together food to a dish worthy of satisfying royal taste buds. Or so the legend goes.

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Although not necessary or even recommended, other toppings can be added, but those ingredients must be Italian. Plastic dairy products, American cheeses, eggs, bananas, pineapple, tandoori chicken, bean curd, labneh, sweet corn, honey roasted ham, nutella, peanut butter, jelly? These items do not belong in or on or anywhere near a pizza. Pizza deserves better than this. Untraditional items should be outlawed as the president of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, jokingly suggested when he said if he had the power to pass laws, he’d ban pineapple on pizza across the land.

Stuffed crusts, thick crusts, cracked crust? No. An unstuffed, raised, bendable, tasty crust is necessary. Of course the crust should be soft enough so that when gently folded lengthwise it forms a sort-of horseshoe shape. And the dough should be stretched by hand. No rolling pins. Rectangular shaped pies? Square pies? No. It has to be round. That is why it is called a pie.

If the pie does not come pre-cut, a pair of scissors or a pizza slicer can be used to cut it into 6 or 8 equal-sized triangles. If at all possible it should be eaten as soon as it comes out of the oven. A bit of warmth adds to the deliciousness. Forks and knives? No. It should only be eaten by hand. If ordered as a take-away it should be eaten directly from the box that it came in. Linen napkins? Never. Paper napkins? Yeah, if absolutely necessary. If a bit of olive oil and tomato sauce spills onto your clothes – no problem, this is acceptable and probably means that just the right amount of oil and sauce was used in the preparation.

This simple, universal comfort food is appreciated by young children, rebellious teenagers, young lovers and middle-age and downright old couch potatoes. It is eaten at home, in restaurants, on street corners and park benches. There are pizza joints all over the world. China, Laos, Viet Nam, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Senegal, The Gambia, Kenya, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador and many more countries have adopted the pizza. It has even been cooked and eaten by members of the British Antarctic Survey in the most isolated place on earth. It is a meal capable of crossing borders and oceans and uniting enemies. It is beyond doubt a truly intergenerational, international meal.

When you sit down (or stand or slouch or lie down) to eat pizza there is really no reason to be riddled with guilt. Yes, we all know that pizza is often high in salt, fat and calories and this can result in negative health effects. However, pizza might – just might – also be considered a health food because of the powerful chemical antioxidant in cooked tomatoes called lycopene. Depending on who and what you read and who and what you believe and how much you need to justify your cravings for a pizza, the traditional Italian pizza (note the words traditional and Italian) with its use of health-giving olive oil and cooked tomato sauce can protect against oesophageal, breast, prostate, stomach, lung, colon, throat and mouth cancer, lower the risk of heart attacks, tackle male fertility problems by boosting sperm quality and can help you look younger by preventing sunburn and protecting against premature wrinkles – or so they say. I mean, what can you loose? Feasting on a pizza might very well be a complete win-win, mouth-watering, gastronomic activity.

Over the centuries, this humble wonder from Napoli has gone through a mixture of transformations. What was once considered a poor person’s food not worthy of being included in cookbooks morphed into a delicious dish satisfying royal tastebuds. It has gone from being the go-to ultimate junk food to a possible health food – possibly one of the few fun, delicious, saliva-dribbling health foods out there. And yet in spite these transformations it has always remained a simple and convenient food.

So important was the simple artistry of creating the perfect pizza, that in 2009 the European Union’s quality food board recognized this by granting ‘Pizza Neopoletana’ the ultimate seal of approval, a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed label (TSG). This coveted label ensures that all pies sold as ‘Pizza Neopoletana’ and sporting the TSG label, adhere to incredibly strict, traditional standards regarding ingredients and preparation and protect it from imitation.

So let us now, with olive oil and tomato sauce dripping down our chins, dribbling down our wrists, splotching our clothes, with pieces of basil caught between our teeth, the odour of garlic emanating from our mouths and strings of melted mozzarella stretching everywhere, hail the humble, healthy (?) pizza pie.

For all things pizza, don’t forget to check out:

Originally published in Petits Propos Culinaires 117, pages 96 – 98. Prospect Books. July 2020.

Netflix’s Tokyo-set action flick “Kate” tries to critique imperialism while ultimately relying on it

There’s no escaping the imperialist mindset, even in fun action flicks like Netflix’s “Kate.”

The Cedric Nicolas-Troyan-directed film, which is currently No. 1 of the Top 10 most-watched on the streamer, is an explosion of nonstop action with a compelling premise: an assassin named Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has been fatally poisoned and has just 24 hours to live. Naturally, she intends to use those 24 hours to find and exact revenge upon her killer. Not so naturally, “Kate” is set in Tokyo, where Kate, a white woman, spends most of the movie’s two hours killing nearly any Asian person who crosses her path.

It’s a disturbing trend to witness, especially if you’re a person of Asian descent. Although the movie was no doubt made before the events of last year, the alarming rise in anti-Asian violence can’t be ignored while watching this. Earlier this year, one study found a 164% increase in reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in the first quarter of 2021, across 16 jurisdictions nationwide.

As the film begins to wind down, Kate finds and confronts the man she believes to be responsible for her impending death: Kijima (Jun Kunimura), head of an elite Japanese clan whose brother is slain by Kate in the movie’s opening minutes. Through their revealing conversation, Kate learns that it’s in fact her own boss Varrick (Woody Harrelson) who poisoned her.

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“A smug westerner,” Kijima says of Varrick, a white man attempting to take over Kijima’s clan. “It’s their way to take and take until there’s nothing left. To gorge on cultures they don’t understand and then evacuate their bowels on the rest of the world.”

The commentary here is a spot-on description of western imperialism and its violence and greed. In this way, the movie attempts to acquit itself of its racist imagery with half-baked criticism of western ambition. But this criticism is misplaced and almost meaningless from a movie that uses Asian culture and people as a two-dimensional backdrop. “Kate” is happy to put Japanese fashions, pop music and other visual elements on display, but it never engages with the culture in any meaningful way, beyond killing the people responsible for said culture.

“Kate” also relies on the tired trope of white superheroes, or superspies and assassins, roaming foreign countries and killing unsympathetic “criminals” of color. Much of “Kate” feels like some vastly prolonged version of Hawkeye’s senseless murder spree, presumably also set in the streets of Tokyo, during “Avengers: Endgame.” Because Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) is a well-loved, white superhero and family man, his violence is naturally excused by his sadness from the loss of his family.

Intentionally or not, movies like “Kate” suggest there’s something inherently criminal and dangerous about foreign, nonwhite countries, which thus need to import white superheroes or supervillains to come in, and either clean up or partake in their messes. This ignores how America and Europe frankly have no shortage of their own problems — perhaps, in the U.S., starting with an overly funded military that’s spent decades “fighting crime” in other countries, not unlike our onscreen “heroes.”

In a way, “Kate” follows HBO’s summer hit “The White Lotus,” Mike White’s smart and enjoyable mystery drama that critiques the privilege and delusion of rich white guests at a luxurious Hawaiian resort. Despite its overt attempts at criticism of race and class, “The White Lotus” has also been slammed by critics of color who point out that its centering of rich white people and callous disposal of its few characters of color render the show complicit in the very forces it attempts to condemn.

“Kate” falls into a similar trap. In the film’s moment of truth, it offers scathing critique of western individualism, avarice and greed as corrosive and dangerous, like a disease. But like “The White Lotus,” “Kate” attempts to critique whiteness while using people of color — specifically, the hordes of Asian men and supposed criminals she slaughters one after another — as props, void of humanity.

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Both “Kate” and “The White Lotus” try their hand at subversive, anti-imperialist themes, while ultimately demonstrating the shortcomings of whiteness trying to critique itself. After all, both projects are directed by white men, with great focus placed on white characters. They present almost as progressive white men “ironically” spouting racist jokes in an awkward and misguided attempt at signaling their own anti-racism.

Just as “The White Lotus” tosses out hospitality workers of color like used paper towels, the white characters of “Kate” shred the streets of Tokyo and leave untold numbers or slain Asian people in their wake. No amount of explaining that these white-led projects actually oppose imperialism changes what audiences are subjected to watching on our screens.

At the end of the day, nearly all projects that claim to criticize white supremacy and imperialism while centering the perspectives of white and privileged people can’t really be taken seriously, or without at least a grain of salt. If there were any real interest in meaningfully commenting on power and privilege, these stories would be told from the perspectives of characters without power and privilege.

“Kate” is as thrilling and dynamic as any top-tier action movie of today, mostly because action sequences set in Tokyo don’t miss. But if anything, this raises the question of why the titular Kate had to be cast as a white woman, rather than an Asian woman. It’s also telling that the one Asian character she finds the most sympathy for – and plays white savior to – is a girl who is half white.

Despite the popularity and general awesomeness of Winstead, most recently seen kicking ass as Huntress from “Birds of Prey,” the Netflix film is rendered impossible to enjoy given the inherent racism and inequality of its sequences of violence. Granted, “Kate” was conceived and filmed prior to the reckonings with anti-Asian racism that unfolded earlier this year. We can only hope Hollywood has actually learned something from this moment, and will think twice before its next “white hero in Asia” flick.

“Kate” is currently streaming on Netflix.

Norm Macdonald, beloved comedian and “SNL” star, dies at 61

Norm Macdonald, the acclaimed comedian, actor and writer, has died after treating cancer privately for nine years, Variety reports. Macdonald, who was 61, was best known for his five-year stint on “Saturday Night Live” during the 1990s, and in particular, his deadpan performance as a “Weekend Update” anchor on the show.

On “SNL,” Macdonald quickly gained a fan base for his spot-on impressions, most notably of Burt Reynolds, David Letterman, Larry King, Quentin Tarantino, Bob Dole, and many others.

Macdonald’s life is already being celebrated by his comedic contemporaries, and other public figures on Tuesday afternoon.

“I was a huge fan of Norm Macdonald and I essentially ripped off his delivery when I first started acting,” Seth Rogen tweeted. “I would stay up specifically to watch him on talk shows. He was the funniest guest of all time. We lost a comedy giant today. One of the all time greats. RIP.”

Stand-up comedian Whitney Cummings called Macdonald “the pinnacle of bravery and originality” in a tweet. Steve Martin, comedian and current star of “Only Murders in the Building,” called the “SNL” legend “one of a kind.”

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Comedy Central has also responded to Macdonald’s death, tweeting the statement: “Norm Macdonald was an irreplaceable voice in comedy. His commitment to jokes and unique perspective will inspire generations.”

Even conservative firebrand Ann Coulter marked MacDonald’s death with a simple “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!,” and former “The View” co-host Meghan McCain called Macdonald “one of the great comedic geniuses, free thinkers, all around true originals of all time” in a tweet mourning his death.

Prior to working at “SNL,” Macdonald got his start at Canadian comedy clubs, and eventually joined the writers’ room of the sitcom “Roseanne” in 1992. After his five-year tenure on “SNL” between 1993 and 1998, Macdonald created the ABC sitcom, “The Norm Show,” starring as Norm Henderson, a former NHL player subject to five years of community service for tax evasion and gambling.

Outside of Macdonald’s television career, he starred in the 1990s films ”Billy Madison,” “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” and director Bob Saget’s beloved movie “Dirty Work,” which follows two friends who create a “revenge-for-hire” business.