Will Senate Democrats really confirm the poisonous Rahm Emanuel as ambassador to Japan?

When President Biden announced last Friday afternoon that he would nominate Rahm Emanuel as U.S. ambassador to Japan, the timing just before the weekend was clearly intended to minimize attention to the swift rebukes that were sure to come.

The White House described Emanuel as having “a distinguished career in public service,” but several progressive Democrats in Congress quickly went on the attack. “This is a travesty,” Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., tweeted. “Senators of good conscience must not vote to confirm him.” Another African-American representative, Cori Bush, D-Mo., said that Emanuel “must be disqualified from ever holding an appointed position in any administration. Call your Senator and urge them to vote NO.”

The response from Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was pointed: “If you believe Black lives indeed matter, then the Senate must reject his appointment immediately.” Tlaib accompanied her tweet with a link to an article that The Nation published in the fall of 2018, when Emanuel was nearing the end of his eight years as Chicago’s mayor, with this sum-up: “The outgoing mayor’s legacy will be defined by austerity, privatization, displacement, gun violence, and police brutality.”

All three congressmembers mentioned Emanuel’s responsibility for the notorious cover-up of the Chicago police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. For 13 months, during his campaign for re-election in 2015, Emanuel’s administration suppressed a ghastly dashboard-camera video showing the death of McDonald, an African American who was shot 16 times by a police officer as he walked away.

After Emanuel emerged as Biden’s likely choice for the ambassador job a few months ago, longtime Chicago journalist and activist Delmarie Cobb wrote a scathing assessment of his mayoral record. While mentioning that Emanuel “closed 50 public schools in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods,” Cobb also pointed out that “he closed six of 12 mental health clinics in these communities.” She added: “Now, who needs access to mental health care more than Chicago’s Black and brown residents who are underserved, underemployed and under constant threat of violence?”

Emanuel’s dreadful record as mayor of Chicago was in keeping with his entire career, spanning several Machiavellian decades that included stints as a member of Congress, a high-level aide for Presidents Clinton and Obama, and an investment bank director using his connections to make $18 million in two and a half years. Emanuel cemented his reputation as a combative and powerful player in the Clinton White House, pushing through policies that harmed the working class and people of color, including the NAFTA trade deal, the infamous 1994 crime bill and punitive “welfare reform.”

That Biden has now chosen Emanuel to be the U.S. envoy to Japan — the world’s third-largest economy — is, among other things, a distinct presidential middle finger to the constituency that gave him the highest proportion of support among all demographic groups in last year’s general election: Black voters.

High-profile corporate Democrats were quick to lavish praise on the Emanuel nomination. Both Democratic senators from Illinois helped lead the testimonials. Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Emanuel “has a lifetime of public service preparing him to speak for America.” Sen. Tammy Duckworth chimed in, saying that the ex-mayor’s “years of experience make him well suited to represent the United States of America in this important role.”

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blew hazy blue smoke to an absurd degree, declaring: “In the House and, indeed, across the nation, Rahm Emanuel is known and respected by all for his relentlessness and track record of success. His great experience, from the U.S. House to the White House, will serve our nation well, as he works to deepen one of our nation’s most important alliances, champion American interests abroad and advance regional security and prosperity.”

After the nomination announcement, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that “the Biden administration is apparently willing to spend some domestic political capital with an Emanuel nomination,” noting that “progressives mounted a drive to block the nomination of Emanuel.” That drive, coordinated by my colleagues at RootsAction.org, has already generated several thousand individual constituent emails to senators urging them to oppose the nomination. As RootsAction co-founder Jeff Cohen told the Sun-Times, “the #RejectRahm/’NoToRahm’ campaign has virtually organized itself.”

A coalition of 20 organizations, mostly national while including several Chicago-based groups, has launched a grassroots campaign to ensure that every senator will hear from their constituents urging a no vote on Emanuel’s nomination. In June, 28 victims and relatives of victims of police violence in Chicago released a joint statement, along with a poignant video, denouncing Emanuel and decrying the prospect that he might be rewarded with an ambassador post.

Despite the pressure for party-line conformity, Democratic support for the nomination could fracture in the Senate. Replying to letters from constituents urging him to oppose Emanuel for ambassador, Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon — who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — seemed responsive.

“I have heard from Oregonians who are concerned about certain aspects of Mr. Emanuel’s record during his tenure as Chicago’s mayor, in particular his administration’s response to the tragic shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, a Black teenager who was killed by Chicago police in 2014,” Merkley wrote. He added that “at a time of a national conversation about police accountability and combatting systemic racism, there is so much more that we can and must do to address racism and discrimination in our law enforcement practices. … Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind should Mr. Emanuel’s nomination come before the Senate for consideration.”

Merkley is one of 11 Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee, which will convene a public hearing with Emanuel before voting on his nomination. Whether Merkley and other senators will be open to preventing Emanuel from going to Tokyo with a new title is unclear at best. But it’s possible.

“Thumbs down”: Ron DeSantis hit with brutal poll numbers as COVID-19 cases rise in Florida

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., made a big bet that opposing public health restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus would be a political winner — but a new poll suggests he has massively miscalculated.

New polling from Quinnipiac shows that Florida residents are broadly in favor of taking precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including the mask mandates that DeSantis has tried banning in public schools.

Overall, 60% of Florida voters support school mask mandates, while just 36% are opposed.

DeSantis’ policy of cutting off salaries of school leaders who defy his mask mandate ban, meanwhile, is even more politically toxic for the governor, as just 25% say the policy is a good idea, while 69% say it’s a bad idea.

In fact, even a majority of Republican voters, who are the most opposed to school mask mandates, do not support withholding payment from school administrators who enact mask mandates.

“As COVID-19 makes a frightening resurgence, it’s Tallahassee versus the teaching institutions,” said Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy. “Thumbs down from Floridians on DeSantis’ ban on mask requirements in public schools. Thumbs down on DeSantis’ call to freeze pay of administrators who mandate mask wearing. And he gets scant support from fellow Republicans on penalizing the school leaders who defy him.”

See the entire poll here.

Cheney shoots down Fox News claim that Trump would have handled Afghanistan withdrawal better

In a Fox News interview Tuesday, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) blamed former President Donald Trump for causing many of the problems that are being seen in Afghanistan.

“He set this in motion,” said Cheney, whose father was in the White House when the war first began. “The idea that you can sit at a table and negotiate with the Taliban, count on them to defend our security, is wrong.”

While there have been many criticisms of mistakes President Joe Biden has made, Trump’s former officials have come forward to reveal problems set in motion by the Trump administration.

In an interview with DefenseOne, former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller revealed that there was never any intention of removing Americans from Afghanistan by the May 1 deadline. He said that the Trump administration was going to work with the Taliban to ensure a presence would remain.

Sean Penn doesn’t need anti-vaxxers watching his movies in theater, thank you very much

Sean Penn’s latest movie “Flag Day” has been released exclusively in theaters, and he has a simple message for his fans: don’t watch in theaters if you’re not vaccinated against COVID.

“I do always feel, at this point in time, that I have to say that I hope — I’d ask — that as much as I want people all to go to the theater, I really only want people who are vaccinated and safe to themselves and each other to go,” Penn told NBC’s Seth Meyers Monday night. “It will stream.”

Penn also seemed to distance himself from those who are opposed to the COVID vaccine, telling Meyers, “Most of the people who aren’t vaccinated probably aren’t interested in my movies, anyway.”

Penn, who directs and stars in “Flag Day” as a loving father with a dark past, has starred in iconic films like “The Weight of Water” and “Mystic River.” The actor and director has long been a strong proponent for COVID safety measures, and in July refused to continue shooting the forthcoming Starz Watergate thriller “Gaslit” until all crew members were vaccinated.

At the Aug. 11 premiere of “Flag Day,” Penn said, “I do request people who are not vaccinated, don’t go to the cinemas. Stay home until you are convinced of these very clearly safe vaccines.” And in another interview about “Flag Day” with CNN, he requested that “people who are not vaccinated, don’t go to the cinemas. Stay home until you are convinced of these very clearly safe vaccines.”

Penn’s COVID safety concerns are in sharp contrast with other notable celebrities who have either objected to COVID safety measures or peddled dangerous conspiracy theories to their supporters.

Just last week, beloved country singer Carrie Underwood “liked” a tweet opposed to masks. Eric Claption has refused to perform at venues that require proof of vaccination. And then, of course, there’s Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson’s son Chet, the architect of “white boy summer” who recently shared a video of himself going on a misinformed anti-vaccine rant.

Still, Penn is ultimately in good company when it comes to his pretty reasonable demand that people not frequent confined in indoor spaces if they’re unvaccinated, at the risk of other people’s lives. “Friends” star and pop culture icon Jennifer Anniston recently disclosed she’s lost friends who refused to get the COVID vaccine, putting themselves, her, and others at risk.

In any case, Penn isn’t saying those who refuse to get vaccinated will never see “Flag Day” — it will come out on streaming platforms eventually. He is, however, saying he’d rather not be associated with them, and that seems fair.

What the R. Kelly trial allegations about teen abortions can tell us about reproductive coercion

Each day of R. Kelly’s trial, which charges him with years of sexual abuse, reveals more and more disturbing allegations, particularly allegations of predation and imprisonment of teenage girls.

Following one witness from last week who claims she was first victimized by Kelly as an underage teen, this week, an anonymous witness alleges Kelly married the late, then-15-year-old Aaliyah in 1994 using a fake ID because she was pregnant, and he needed her to have an abortion. Because she was a minor, the witness testified, Kelly believed she would need consent from a legal guardian to have one, Huffington Post reported. Another witness called Jane said she had also been a victim of Kelly, and nearly 25 years after his marriage to Aaliyah, Jane claimed that in 2017, Kelly forced her to have an abortion as well.

The logic behind Kelly allegedly falsely marrying Aaliyah for those reasons doesn’t exactly add up, since in 1994 Illinois didn’t yet have an age minimum for someone to seek abortion care without a parent or guardian’s consent. A spouse also isn’t a legal guardian, except in some conservatorships. And if Kelly could fake Aaliyah’s age for their secret Chicago wedding, it stands to reason that he could also fake her age for her to have an abortion. Abortion laws are purposefully complicated, and have arguably only grown more complicated since the 1990s, but if the testimony is true, Kelly’s reasoning could be seen as murky at best.

In any case, these claims sound like reproductive coercion — or controlling a partner’s reproductive decisions and abilities — that many men use to maintain hold over girls or women in their lives.

Acts of reproductive coercion are prevalent but often hidden and underreported because most of us may not be taught to see them as domestic abuse. This can range from tampering with a partner’s birth control and condoms to denying their ability to have an abortion. A 2010 study found 15% of women who report experiencing physical violence from a male partner also report birth control sabotage. This number is even higher among adolescent girls, making it particularly notable that many of those Kelly allegedly pursued were minors or teen girls.

According to Jane’s testimony, Kelly also allegedly imposed strict rules and punishments, and the people he identified as girlfriends who lived on his properties weren’t allowed to speak to men including those who worked for Kelly. Jane said they were only allowed to wear baggy clothes, and couldn’t leave rooms without Kelly’s permission, even if it meant being left alone in a room for days. Furthermore, she claimed that if they defied these rules, they were spanked or punished in other humiliating ways.

As the nightmarish trial continues, the horrors of allegations of being forced or pressured to have an abortion and being denied agency over one’s body may be buried or forgotten. But it’s crucial to understand how reproductive coercion makes long-term domestic abuse possible — either by forcing a partner to give birth against their will, and rely on their abuser for support in raising the child for years to come, or refusing to let them be pregnant for reasons that serve the man’s needs.

Sexual abuse and reproductive control have always been linked. Stringent abortion laws that supposedly provide “exceptions” for those impregnated by rape require victims to somehow prove their victimhood to medical professionals or law enforcement, two institutions that have historically subpar records when it comes to supporting victims. Many victims reasonably never want to come forward at all, let alone to police or experts who will be the arbiters in whether they’re telling the truth and deserve health care and bodily autonomy. One long-term study found people who can’t get the abortion care they seek are more likely to be entrapped in abusive relationships.

In other cases, victims who have needed help with their pregnancies instead faced punishment — in 2019, a woman who lost her pregnancy after being shot in the stomach was jailed for “endangering” her fetus by allegedly having started the fight that led to her being shot. Migrant women and girls who face high rates of sexual assault coming to the U.S. are often denied or unable to get abortion care, while some detained migrant women have alleged being subject to forced sterilizations by ICE.

State reproductive coercion — from forced sterilizations to abortion bans — and interpersonal coercion are inseparable in their violence, and in the trauma they inflict. When the government exerts control over the bodies and reproductive health options of pregnant people, and especially minors who often must acquire parental consent to get care, this normalizes acts of reproductive coercion that are often mirrored in abusive relationships and situations.

As more disturbing allegations come out during the R. Kelly trial, it’s crucial to recognize how these claims about exerting control over women’s bodies will be understood — not just by the media, but by women who may identify with such behaviors or decisions made by men in their lives.

Britney Spears is a cautionary tale of pornification

Just this morning I noticed I was resting my coffee cup on a disposable coaster advertising Mugaholics with the tag line, “Sip me baby one more time.” Over 20 years since Britney Spears released the No. 1 single “Baby, One More Time,” her work continues in conversation with the culture – mysteriously arriving even on my dresser in 2021.

Britney has been on a lot of people’s minds lately, in the aftermath of the documentary “Framing Britney Spears” and the widespread news about the oppressive terms of her father’s conservatorship. Many reading this grew up with Britney Spears’ music as the soundtrack to our adolescence and youth. We watched her explode into the pop music scene, writing and singing outrageously catchy tunes with a striking confidence for one so young. Then we watched as she was pilloried by talking heads, hounded by paparazzi, and publicly unraveled. Media messaging was almost exclusively damning of the young star, delighting in relentlessly castigating her.

As the narrative describing Ms. Spears evolves into something more compassionate and complex, I join commentators exploring the gender inequality trapping Britney. In particular, I examine Britney Spears’s story in light of the pornification of society over the past three decades. Pornification, the sexualization of culture also referred to as raunch culture, socializes women and girls to believe (and boys and men too) that a key element of female identity is looking “hot” like a porn star or stripper. Pornification sells itself to girls and women using the rhetoric of sex positivity and empowerment. “Look how free you are to express your inner porn star and be sexy.” This narrative falsely equates commodified sexualization with freedom, and devolves the language of sex positivity from an ecosystem of consent, pleasure, safety, and respect into the single expectation that women present themselves as sexual objects first and foremost.

It’s odd to think of something like pornification as having a beginning. Its creep was so gradual and comprehensive that most of us think it is normal to see half-naked and naked women everywhere: on phones, social media, the mall, in magazines, movies, and television, sexualized in music lyrics and videos, in comedy material, on billboards, bus advertisements, bumper stickers, t-shirts, video games and comic books, in hookup culture, at parties and nightclubs, and in everyday conversations. Indeed, most of us barely see female nudity so ubiquitous is it.

I date pornification’s tipping point to the mid-1990s, a period when more and more people used the internet for work, socializing, and shopping, and the content of internet porn began to influence mainstream culture so that behaviors and attitudes, and the clothes and accessories once the exclusive purview of the sex industry filtered into mainstream culture. Being sexy like a stripper or porn star might mean wearing push-up bras and thongs, getting Brazilian waxes, engaging in hookup sex, and taking pole-dancing classes for exercise.

Britney Spears is a child of pornification, and her life story so far illuminates the power and influence of raunch culture. Britney’s story unmasks the following doublespeak: men control the terms and power of pornification, not the girl or woman in a tight skirt and stripper heels.

Britney signed with Jive Records in 1997 at the age of 15 and released “Baby, One More Time” in 1999, delicately surfing an early wave of pornification in a Catholic school uniform. An immensely talented cis girl who enjoyed the spotlight, Britney produced hit song after hit song, performing a coy raunchiness. She catapulted to stardom playing the object of the male gaze. This was powerful . . . until it wasn’t. One of pornification’s many lies is that individual girls and women control the story of their sexiness.

The creators of “Framing Britney Spears” feature many cringe-inducing moments of a very young Britney gracefully fending off lecherous comments from men two and three times her age, demonstrating the skills of a sugar baby, one of the few “occupations” pornification provides skills in. (This may partly explain why so many teen girls are attracted to sugar dating.)

In sugar relationships, which some consider a form of sex work, the younger party offers their youth and beauty in exchange for expensive meals, designer items, trips, and (hopefully) money. Sugar dating, especially between male sugar daddies and female sugar babies, reinscribes traditional gender roles with a twist. A wealthy man pays a young, beautiful woman to charm, soothe, flatter, entertain, flirt, and maybe have sex with him, absent expectations of continuity or fidelity. Britney Spears was in a sugar relationship with the entertainment industry, flattering, soothing, and gently flirting with men who would soon turn on her.

Britney struggled with mental health issues arising in the intersection of sexism and fame in the mid-aughts. Tenacious paparazzi stalked her, seeking to capture any “miss-steps” in photos then widely disseminated. Seemingly everyone – Christian groups, talking heads, media personalities, and fans – felt they had a right to weigh in on Britney’s life, calling her “irresponsible” and a “bad role model.” This captures another dimension of pornification: women’s bodies are on display, such that all viewers –women, men, trans, straight, bi, and gay – claim an ownership of them, a right to judge, evaluate, praise and condemn. In Britney’s case this not only included her physical appearance (like the critical speculation over why she shaved her head for example), but also her character.

Thus, Britney’s sexy performances, once a source of power and esteem, became another reason to condemn her as a “slutty bimbo.” In my earlier work on exotic dancers, I theorize about this phenomenon, calling it “dancing on the Mőbius strip.” The Mőbius strip is a mathematical figure in which one side infinitely blends into another. Thus, the flip side of male worship for sexy women is contempt for those who challenge the bounds of respectable femininity. Because patriarchy controls the terms of pornification, no woman is safe from insult and attack.

For example, a woman might feel strong and sexy wearing a low-cut dress out on a weekend night, but her pride and pleasure in this self-display, like the exotic dancer, like Britney Spears, can quickly become a source of pain and fear when someone calls her a “fat whore” or “a hole no one would want to f**k.” A woman’s feelings of power dissipate when men are threatened by, jealous of, frustrated by or tire of the female exhaustedly objectifying herself for their approval, and so they call her a “slut” and “bad mother” and destroy her. Britney was too famous and talented to easily dismiss, so a patriarchal/patrician legal system conferred and appointed Britney’s father to control of her life.

It remains to be seen if Britney will escape her father Jamie’s rule, even as he recently said he plans to step down from the role of conservator, which suggests progress. I am also heartened by the huge number of fans advocating the “Free Britney movement,” the large number of celebrities supporting her, and the change in the media tone from disparaging to empathetic.

As Britney slowly, hopefully, frees herself from her father’s control, the public again sees Ms. Spears embrace pornification as “empowerment.” She recently posted several topless photos on Instagram, confusing her fans who worried she’d been forced to display them without consent. But, Britney explained that the topless photos (nipples covered by her hands) were her way of taking control of her body and feeling “lighter” after being weighed down by the conservatorship.

As a Gender Studies professor and scholar, I cannot count the number of times I have heard/read/seen young women equate pornification with “reclaiming their body,” like Britney did as teen, and continues to do as a 39-year old woman. It’s immensely challenging to sensitively engage with these claims. On the one hand, I want women and girls to be free, and wear whatever they like, and be as sexy as they please. Further, individually, it’s not my business what anyone else does with their body, and I don’t particularly care how naked anyone is. On the other hand, letting that be the end of the conversation allows patriarchy to run amok defining “sexual freedom” as a monotonous performance for the male gaze that perpetuates gender inequality.

Let me be very clear – I am not telling any girl, woman, and Britney Spears what to wear or not wear. Nor am I judging women who enjoy pornification as “bad” or “wrong.” Instead, I am suggesting that all of us take a breath and ask ourselves who is benefitting from pornification and what do we think of it?

Britney’s journey helps us see that pornification is a big lie. Embracing sexual commodification is not a path to freedom – it is instead a rigged game, a cultural con manipulating girls and women into giving men and boys free sex work, and to call doing so “empowering.” Raunch culture is a cruel form of gaslighting keeping girls and women preoccupied with the male gaze. As Britney’s story illustrates, pornification is simply another tool keeping girls and women under the thumb of patriarchy.

Science quietly wins one of the right’s longstanding culture wars

The bitter culture wars over the teaching of evolution in public schools dominated headlines throughout the 2000s, in large part because of the Bush administration’s coziness with evangelicals who rejected the science on evolution. Yet flash forward to 2021 — when the acrimonious battle over science has shifted from evolution to pandemic public health — and few youngsters are apt to have any idea what “intelligent design” even means. Curiously, despite the right seizing on face mask science and immunology as new battlegrounds in the culture war, the fight over evolution is all but forgotten. In fact, for many Americans, it is completely forgotten.

Though it might seem hard to believe, Americans are more scientifically literate than ever in 2021 — so much so that creationism has become a minority opinion. And Americans are likewise been able to identify intelligent design and other forms of creationism as the inherently religious theories that they are.

We know this thanks to a new study published in the journal Public Understanding of Science, one which analyzed surveys of public opinion since 1985 and noticed a trend in attitudes about evolution. As more Americans became highly educated — obtaining university degrees, taking college science courses, displaying rising levels of civi science literacy — acceptance of evolution grew accordingly.

From 1985 until 2010, there had been a statistical dead heat among Americans who were asked if they agreed that “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.” Acceptance then began to increase, becoming a majority position in 2016 and reaching 54 percent in 2019. Even 32 percent of religious fundamentalists accepted evolution as of 2019, a stark contrast from the mere 8 percent who did so in 1988. Eighty-three percent of liberal Democrats said they accept evolution, compared to only 34 percent of conservative Republicans.

“Almost twice as many Americans held a college degree in 2018 as in 1988,” Dr. Mark Ackerman, a researcher at the University of Michigan, said in a statement. “It’s hard to earn a college degree without acquiring at least a little respect for the success of science.”

The shift in attitudes towards evolution is particularly surprising given that the teaching of evolution was a major aspect of the culture wars of the late from the 1980s through the 2000s, particularly during the Bush Era in which the evangelical right was ascendant. Back in 2005, the then-raging culture war involved the so-called theory of “intelligent design,” and, specifically, a textbook called “Of Pandas and People.”

In a defining moment for the 1990s and 2000s culture wars, the board for Pennsylvania’s Dover Area School District had instructed its ninth grade biology teachers to refer their students to “Of Pandas and People” because it promoted intelligent design. By 1997, the strategy of using intelligent design as a Trojan horse for creationism had picked up enough steam to wind up at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Once there, however, the school district was told that their philosophy was indeed a form of “creation science” and just as scientifically invalid. When the Dover case was heard by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in 2005, a judge appointed by President George W. Bush sided with the plaintiffs and noted the irony of people who claim to be religious dishonestly claiming that they did not admit to having a religious agenda.

“It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID [intelligent design] Policy,” the judge noted in his decision.

Even though the Supreme Court had banned teaching creationism in the 1968 case Epperson v. Arkansas, nine other prominent legal cases occurred between 1981 and 2005 (including the ones in Louisiana and Pennsylvania that were mentioned earlier). Legal setbacks notwithstanding, the teaching of evolution remained a hot button issue by the time of the 2000 presidential election. In 2005, Bush even legitimized the intelligent design movement by telling reporters that “both sides ought to be properly taught” and that “part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought.” His scientific adviser later added, although he did not want creationism taught as an alternative to evolution, “I think to ignore [ID] in the classroom is a mistake.” As recently as 2014, popular science entertainer Bill Nye held a high-profile debate with young-earth creationist Ken Ham.

There is a long history of evolution being rejected in the United States, although a generation of Americans did not even know they had a theory to be potentially scandalized about. While Charles Darwin’s classic book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” made waves in his native Great Britain upon its release in 1859, the book did not arouse widespread ire in the United States until the late 19th century. The issue was particularly contentious among American Protestants, who at that time were splitting into modernist and evangelical camps. By the 1920s, the theory of evolution had been tied in the public mind to other “modern” intellectual trends that they found distasteful, from Marxism to psychology. Fundamentalists pushed to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools since — as former Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan put it — the theory would convince future generations that the Bible was simply “a collection of myths.”

Bryan had a chance to test his views in court during the Scopes Trial, when he squared off as an expert witness on the Bible against legendary attorney Clarence Darrow. American journalist H. L. Mencken famously wrote with contempt about the inevitability of Darrow’s defeat and the massive support for anti-scientific theories, howling that “such obscenities as the forthcoming trial of the Tennessee evolutionist, if they serve no other purpose, at least call attention dramatically to the fact that enlightenment, among mankind, is very narrowly dispersed.”

That exchange, dramatized in the play “Inherit the Wind,” turned public opinion against Bryan, but ultimately did not curb the anti-evolution movements, which won further successes after it was banned in Arkansas and Mississippi. A turning point did not occur until the 1940s, when scientists in the United States had reached a consensus that natural selection drove evolution and explained the rise of human beings.

By 1947, the Supreme Court had ruled in Everson v. Board of Education that the First Amendment’s clause banning the establishment of religion applied to state governments, not just the federal government. As Justice Hugo Black wrote, teaching an explicitly theological doctrine like creationism meant citizens were being taxed to back a religious point of view.

“No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion,” Black said.

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon’s weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist.

The 1947 decision, which was reinforced in a series of other cases over subsequent decades, made it clear to opponents of evolution that they had to adopt a different tactic. By the 1980s a University of California, Berkeley law professor named Phillip E. Johnson came up with a concept known as “intelligent design.” It holds that the complexity of life on this planet is so precise that strictly naturalistic explanations cannot rationally account for them, and that scientists need to acknowledge possible religious or supernatural causes. This movement, though rejected by most scientists as merely a spruced up attempt to teach creationism, gathered enough steam that by the 21st century many states were pushing for laws to allow intelligent design to be taught in public school.

While it is welcome to scientists that acceptance of evolution continues to spread, fundamentalists still pose a threat to America’s overall scientific literacy.

“Such beliefs are not only tenacious but also, increasingly, politicized,” lead researcher Jon D. Miller of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan said in a statement, pointing to the widening gap between Democrats and Republicans on basic science literacy.

Of course “Cowboy Bebop” is already inciting horny male outrage, and it hasn’t even premiered yet

Surprise, surprise! Men of the World Wide Web have mobilized once again — no, not over the rapidly worsening climate catastrophe, stagnant wages, the broken health care system, or endemic rape culture, but rather, over a real issue: the outfit of a female bounty hunter in the live-action adaptation of beloved anime series “Cowboy Bebop.” Netflix released first-look images Monday, and the reaction was quite revealing . . . about one character’s not revealing outfit.

This male outrage follows a long, ongoing history of pitchfork-wielding men gathering in their town square of choice, be that Twitter or Reddit, and declaring war on any onscreen depiction of a female character that doesn’t sexually gratify them.

In any case, the fictional bounty hunter stoking outrage this time around is Faye Valentine, portrayed by Daniella Pineda in the forthcoming Netflix remake of the popular sci-fi anime, which also stars walking thirst trap John Cho as protagonist Spike Spiegel and Mustafa Shakir as fellow bounty hunter Jet Black. “Cowboy Bebop” is set way in the future, at a time when travel across moons and planets is the norm, and, unsurprisingly, crime rates across the universe are quite high. Thus, “space cowboys” or registered bounty hunters like Spike, Jet and Faye emerge to hunt and bring intergalactic offenders to justice.

Thanks to Netflix, the 1990s-era anime space romp is getting a live-action makeover that promises to be a standout, even at a time of arguably way more live-action remakes than we need (looking at you, “Avatar: the Last Airbender” and pretty much every Disney animated film ever). Most fans are feeling the hype, but many male, internet basement dwellers are quite predictably rallying on social media to protest the unthinkable injustice of an onscreen woman existing while not being dressed or designed to titillate.

Pineda as Faye is adorned in stylish but practical attire for an intergalactic bounty hunter who regularly spars with violent outlaws, and leaps from planet to planet on the regular. Just like her male peers, she’s reasonably dressed for her role, and men of the interwebs are losing their minds over this.

“These outfits look awful. I’ve seen far better cosplay. That looks NOTHING like Faye Valentine,” one Twitter user wrote, expressing shocked dismay that a real-life human woman “looks NOTHING” like an animated, fictional cartoon woman with a DDDD cup size and 12-inch waist.

Another concerned citizen tweeted, “I need my Faye Valentine slutty wit the puppies out, idk what the f**k this is.” By “this,” the user means an outfit that a human woman can move and do human woman things in, as opposed to the more revealing garb of the inanimate sex dolls he may be more accustomed to spending his nights with.

As Javier Grillo-Marxuach, a writer on the new “Cowboy Bebop,” told Gizmodo as early as last year, the modern, live-action show has long been planning to get with the times. That means toning down Faye’s remarkably impractical outfit and replacing it with something more realistic, and less centered around sexual wish fulfillment for male audiences who are aroused by cartoons. Grillo-Marxuach told the outlet last summer that the show “[needs] to have a real human being wearing that,” of Faye’s outfit.

If the female outfit-related outrage fest of the day feels a little like deja vu to you, that’s because it is! Almost two years ago, Twitter was awash with internet men ready to go to war over Margot Robbie’s notably unsexualized performance of Harley Quinn in “Birds of Prey,” a movie in which Harley’s main love interest and object of desire is a greasy breakfast sandwich.

“They’ve removed any sex appeal these characters had to appeal to a female ‘girl power’ audience instead of the core male comic book audience,” one disgruntled male wrote of the DC flick at the time. “They literally don’t know who they’re making this movie for.” Here’s a thought: mayhaps “Birds of Prey” was made for the decently sizable demographic of non-internet perverts?

Prior to “Birds of Prey,” the internet males were in a furor over Brie Larson’s performance as Carol Danvers in Marvel Studios’ “Captain Marvel,” in which Carol dons a super suit that reflects most male heroes’ suits, fully covering her body. Carol also isn’t the most feminine, happy or smiley character, and in a deleted scene, nearly kills a male street harasser who tells her to smile more.

As one could guess, none of this was particularly well received by the usual suspects, whom Larson responded to with a legendary series of Instagram stories featuring Photoshopped movie posters of fellow MCU superheroes Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) smiling. As you might have guessed, these posters looked ridiculous.

However depressing male responses to progressively less and less sexualized female characters and superheroes may be, what’s cause for optimism is ultimately what we’re seeing on our screens. From the feminist themes and fashion of movies like “Birds of Prey” and “Captain Marvel,” to the practical garb of a female bounty hunter like Faye Valentine in Netflix’s “Cowboy Bebop,” we’re starting to see change. This is about more than female characters’ outfits — it’s about humanizing women, and treating them as more than sexual amusement for male audiences.

Prior to any of these aforementioned projects, Natasha Romanoff’s (Scarlett Johansson) era in the Marvel Cinematic Universe presents a case study of an increasingly modern female superhero. She begins her story as a catsuit-clad, hypersexualized femme-fatele in 2010, and ends it as bonafide superhero who’s widely beloved not because of her sexuality or appearance, but because she saved the world with her prowess and courage. Her long overdue solo film “Black Widow” is an unapologetic tale of feminist liberation that substitutes seduction with sisterhood.

The point of these shifts in portrayals of onscreen women isn’t to stigmatize or object to sexual women, but rather, object to male writing of women that suggests female characters’ sole purpose is to serve as masturbatory fodder for entitled pervs. The feminist audiences who celebrate this progress in onscreen storytelling are the same audiences who devour the sex-positive likes of “Fleabag,” “Sex Education,” “Tuca & Bertie,” and other shows where sex and sexuality aren’t exclusively written for horny male consumption.

Backlash against these marks of cultural progress, or in this most recent case, a female character wearing pants and having the chest of a real-life human woman on “Cowboy Bebop,” remains inevitable. But thankfully, just as inevitable are the feminist, onscreen changes that attract this backlash.

New documentary “Kipchoge” offers intriguing look at marathoner’s skill but doesn’t go the distance

On October 12, 2019, the Kenyan distance runner, Eliud Kipchoge, set out to run a marathon in under two hours. On a specially designed, closed course in Vienna, with the assistance of a group of pacers, as well as a pair of Vaporfly Nike sneakers, this elite athlete ran non-stop at the speed of approximately 13 miles per hour for 1 hour 59 minutes and 40 seconds to achieve this incredible feat.

The new documentary, “Kipchoge: The Last Milestone,” directed by Jake Scott (son of Ridley, who executive produced) profiles the marathoner and provides some background on the event as well as scenes from the race itself. While there is no doubt that Kipchoge’s story is inspiring (even if the ending is known), the film is oddly underwhelming.

The first section of the documentary is pure hagiography. Kipchoge is humble. Kipchoge is disciplined. Kipchoge is dedicated. Kipchoge is seen training and mentoring young runners. None of this is bad — or in doubt — but Scott shoots it all like one of the many glossy music videos that he built his career on. There is angelic music on the soundtrack and slow-motion scenes of Kipchoge running. Yes, he’s absolute poetry in motion “floating” while moving at an incredible speed, and the balletic quality of his athleticism is glorious. But the film offers mostly soundbites of Kipchoge offering in platitudes about how a marathon is like life — full of pain and joy. He also repeats his mantra, “No human is limited.”

The film certainly leaves viewers wanting to know more about its exceedingly likeable subject. His childhood is glossed over. He grew up with a single mother, a kindergarten teacher, who taught him discipline. He took to running after seeing his neighbor, Patrick Sang, compete. Sang, who became the athlete’s coach, explains (as do others) that Kipchoge is “strong mentally,” and blocks pain to perform his superhuman feats. (It isn’t until midway through the race, an hour or so into the film, that it is revealed Kipchoge has a wife and daughter).

There are discussions of high-altitude running, and pain thresholds. But what his seven months of preparation for the two-hour marathon entail are largely unexplored. What is his diet like? How much does he run a day or week? Kipchoge mentions the pressure he faces near the end of the film, but that pressure is never felt.

Much of the documentary seems to be lacking depth. At one point, the film considers why Kenyans run so fast. A historical tidbit presented in “Kipchoge” suggests that the Kenyans were challenging the regime at the colonial government’s Empire Games. But other theories suggest the genetics and the environment are responsible. (Moreover, running prowess is not exclusive to Kenya; the 2012 documentary “Town of Runners” explored Ethiopian Olympic athletes).

The bulk of Scott’s film focuses on the historic Vienna event. After running a marathon in 2:03:05 at Monza, Kipchoge hopes to shave three or more minutes off his race. To do this, he will perform at an optimal location (the closed course in Vienna) with a road designed to help his performance. He even runs with pacers who, as the film shows in one of its most interesting segments, create a Y-formation that creates an air pocket that reduces wind drag, thereby allowing Kipchoge to run faster. In what may be an overly detailed metric, a nutritionist analyzes how much water Kipchoge drinks by the amount left in a bottle he sipped from and discarded during his run.

These and other scientific efforts used in this controlled event certainly enhance Kipchoge’s efforts, which may be troubling for purists, but the artificial environment does not necessarily detract from the marathoner’s achievement. If Kipchoge performed the same feat on a treadmill, would it be any less valid? Scott shows how difficult it is for two runners to match Kipchoge’s 13 mph pace on a treadmill for 68 seconds (how long it can take to run 400 meters, or one lap on a track field). Doing the math, Kipchoge is running at or above this same pace 105 times in a row without a break!

This is amazing, and the behind-the-scenes information can be interesting, but not always. The mission control elements work overtime to emphasize drama, as when someone indicates the timekeeping may be inaccurate. The color commentary is occasionally inane; the changing of Kipchoge’s pacers is likened to a NASCAR pitstop. That said, it is nice to see occasional shots of Kenyans cheering the runner on from afar as well as the crowds in Vienna rallying in supports of their hero. (Kipchoge, ever the class act, acknowledges how much the cheering crowds mean to him).

Scott, however, has an irritating penchant to frequently cut away from the race and focus on various talking heads, rather than on the film’s subject. At least he does not fumble the final minutes of the race, even if they are shot in clichéd slow motion.

Ultimately, it might be more thrilling to just watch Kipchoge run for two hours than watch “Kipchoge.”

“Kipchoge: The Last Milestone” is available on digital Aug. 24.

In defense of Stiegl Radler, summer’s most refreshing brew with a deep German history

Germany, and especially the area surrounding Munich, is home to some of the most respected brewing techniques and ingredients in the world. The clean lagers, and fruity wheat beers of the area are held up as bastions of perfect quality and esteemed tradition. Of course, there is Oktoberfest where brewery tents act as temporary palaces of worship to German lagers. There’s also the fact that the oldest continuously producing brewery on Earth, Weihenstephan, sits just over 20 miles from Munich.

The village of Deisenhofen is even closer at less than 10 miles away. This is where the “radler” was coined as a cocktail made of half German beer, half lemonade.

Yet, even though it was established so close to the epicenter of German brewing, beer “geeks” scoff at their mere suggestion of a radler. A quick scan of Beer Twitter demonstrates this. “I also enjoy a radler, but it is not beer,” one user wrote, while another said, “Radlers are just alcopop and suck. This is a hill I will die on.” Inevitably, at least a few folks compare its taste to that of human waste, and for all the vitriol thrown at the drink you’d think that it really did taste like a pint of urine.

Want more great food writing and recipes? Subscribe to Salon Food’s newsletter.

However, the collision of refreshing, sparkling German lager and zippy, puckering lemonade is far from a haphazard blending of a spirit and mixer. Instead, it’s a coalescence of two things that may be good enough on their own into something far better. A feat even the snobbiest mixologist at a high end cocktail bar would brag about.

Yes, radlers can be that remarkable. You’ve all just been making radler wrong.

The key that unlocks beer’s most refreshing qualities is its carbonation. Lose the bubbles and a crisp, light pilsner becomes a heavy slice of liquid bread on the palate. The bubbles of carbonation also carry volatile aroma compounds to meet the nose, making each whiff more tempting than the last.

Frankly, when beer loses the fizz, it doesn’t taste much like beer anymore.

There are two surefire ways to eliminate these precious spheres of gaseous refreshment: the first is to let the beer warm (colder liquids can hold more CO2 than room temperature ones). The other is to put something, anything solid or liquid, into the beer. Pouring another liquid, especially an uncarbonated one, into a beer releases gas on contact because of nucleation points (points of contact that force gas out of solution) and because the carbonation level will equalize in the new mixed drink leaving the full volume of liquid with far less fizz.

And this, my soon-to-be-radler-drinking friend, is why the Germans use not just any lemonade. Certainly the not room temperature lemonade made from concentrate sitting on the shelves of the local supermarket. They use cold, fully carbonated lemonade soda to make their signature radler. The mixer is more akin to 7-up than to anything we would typically call lemonade in the States. The beer stays spritely and refreshing with the added benefit of a zing of lemon and a lower level of alcohol.

According to beer lore, low alcohol was exactly what tavernkeepter Franz Xaver Kugler was after when he was said to have coined the term “radler” in 1922. He was looking for a thirst quenching drink to serve cyclists, or “radlers” in German, that rode the bike trail to Munich that crossed right in front of his pub. Something that would loosen them up and keep them energized, and also wouldn’t cut too deeply into his beer supply.

The half and half mix of beer and lemon soda was the effervescent, replenishing ticket. But back in the 1920s Kugler probably didn’t know that beer is considered an excellent recovery drink to consume after exercise, as long as the alcohol level isn’t too high. And at 2.5-4% alcohol by volume (abv) the radlers he was pouring were giving the cyclists the boost they needed to make it the final stretch to Munich.

In fact, the German Olympic skiing team revealed that one of their secrets to success was the nearly 10,000 non-alcoholic beers (technically beer with less than 0.5% abv) sent to their athlete’s village. Furthermore a 2015 study found that even beer with a moderate amount of alcohol had no damaging effect on the hydration levels of athletes.

One more reason to love a radler properly made.

Kamala Harris’s flight delayed after possible “Havana syndrome” incident in Vietnam

Vice President Kamala Harris’ flight to Vietnam was delayed by several hours on Tuesday over fears that two U.S. diplomats in the country were affected by so-called Havana syndrome, a mysterious and debilitating condition intelligence authorities are still struggling to comprehend.

“Earlier this evening, the Vice President’s traveling delegation was delayed from departing Singapore because the Vice President’s office was made aware of a report of a recent possible anomalous health incident in Hanoi, Vietnam. After careful assessment, the decision was made to continue with the Vice President’s trip,” said Rachael Chen, spokeswoman for the US embassy in Hanoi, in a statement.

Harris’ chief spokeswoman Symone Sanders made clear that the development has nothing to do with the present medical condition of the vice president.

Harris was currently in the middle of a three-day jaunt in Singapore, where she rebuked Chinese leaders in Beijing for “intimidation” and “coercion” of other parties in the South China Sea, over which the country has made territorial claims. “These unlawful claims have been rejected by the 2016 arbitral tribunal decision and Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations,” Harris said on Tuesday.

The U.S. intelligence community is still coming to grips with the strange condition, which has presented itself in over 130 people, according to The New York Times, including diplomats, spies, and soldiers. NBC News estimates that this number could be as high as 200. Some of those targeted have been completely debilitated by the syndrome, forced into an early retirement.

Havana syndrome first emerged back in 2016, when a number of U.S. diplomats and government agents in Havana, Cuba reported hearing high and low-pitched ringing sounds as well as pressure in their head. Some heard a “piercing directional noise” and experienced vertigo, nausea, and headaches. Physicians later confirmed via brain scans that many of those affected displayed the hallmarks of traumatic brain injuries.

Last week, U.S. diplomats said that multiple Americans officials were hit by Havana syndrome in Germany. Earlier this year, federal investigators confirmed they were probing two cases of the syndrome that apparently occurred on U.S. soil – one of them right near the White House.

According to CNN, frustrations are growing among rank-and-file staffers within the State Department, whose leadership they feel has not treated the illness with the seriousness it deserves.

The CIA’s watchdog is currently carrying out a probe into how the first cases of the syndrome were handled, NBC noted. According to CIA Director Bill Burns, who called the condition “real, and it’s serious,” the agency has tripled the amount of staff currently working to identify the source of the mysterious syndrome.

American officials have speculated that the condition could be coming as a result of directed energy attacks by U.S. adversaries, like China or Russia. Scientists from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering last year postulated that the condition might stem from a microwave weapon, but experts have so far failed to reach any strong consensus.

Rep. Mo Brooks tells Trump rally to “look forward” from 2020 election: This does not go well

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., is a hardcore Donald Trump loyalist and alleged architect of the “Stop the Steal” movement, which led to the Jan. 6 insurrection. That didn’t prevent him from being the target of ire on Saturday night at a Trump rally in Cullman, Alabama, after encouraging the crowd to move on from the 2020 election.

Brooks was in the process of introducing Trump himself — who may or may not be planning to run again in 2024, and claims it’s “illegal” for him to make that clear (it’s not) — when the congressman suddenly wandered into dangerous terrain.

“Now, our choices are very simple,” Brooks said from the stage. “There are some people who are despondent about the voter fraud and election theft in 2020. Folks, put that behind you. Put that behind you!”

As noted by Tuscaloosa Patch editor Ryan Phillips, who was present at the rally, the crowd did not respond kindly to the unsolicited advice.

Oh boy. Mo Brooks suggested, in seriousness, that those in attendance should accept the results of the 2020 election and move on to the next one

… needless to say it did not go well and he nearly lost the crowd 😮 pic.twitter.com/1htgV3QAgm

— Ryan Phillips (@JournoRyan) August 22, 2021

With more and more boos cascading from the pro-Trump crowd, Brooks continued urging attendees to look ahead. “Yes! Look forward!” he exclaimed, trying to avoid being shouted down. “Beat them in 2022! Beat them in 2024!”

Finally, Brooks threw his hands in the air and appeared to capitulate. “All right, well, look back at it, but go forward and take advantage of it!”

Right-wing media quickly expressed the required dismay atBrooks’ remarks, making clear he had crossed a line with the Trump faithful. “Mo Brooks learns his lesson,” the right-wing news aggregator Citizen Free Press declared. Breitbart News took a different route, highlighting the fact that Brooks faces a primary challenge from a GOP opponent even further right than he is (which is challenging to imagine). But as former Trump adviser Steve Bannon says daily on his “War Room: Pandemic” podcast, getting “to the bottom” of what happened on Election Day in 2020 is a high priority for many in TrumpWorld. To state the obvious, “Trump lost” is not an adequate answer.

While many pro-Trump pundits ripped Brooks, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., defended her congressional ally on Bannon’s show Monday, stating that while Brooks “did mess up in his speech … he was the very first member of Congress to say he was going to object to Joe Biden’s Electoral College votes.”

“Do not judge [Brooks] on that speech,” Greene advised.

Watch the interview above, via YouTube.

Alex Jones turns on Trump after Alabama rallygoers boo the former president

Former President Donald Trump is “a dumbass,” according to far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

The Sandy Hook shooting denier made the colorful comments during a segment of an episode of Infowars on Sunday. Jones was condemning the former president for encouraging attendees at his Alabama rally over the weekend to get vaccinated — an honorable initiative, for once, by Trump.

Alex Jones on Trump recommending vaccines: “Maybe Trump’s actually a dumbass” https://t.co/vNk63BY3Pi pic.twitter.com/tutB4S0OOm

— Media Matters (@mmfa) August 23, 2021

“I believe totally in your freedoms,” Trump started. “I do – you gotta do what you have to do. But I recommend — take the vaccines! I did it, it’s good! Take the vaccines,” Trump enthusiastically said amid boo’s from the crowd — whose unwavering support for vaccine conspiracy theories apparently outweighs their support for the man partially responsible for vaccine hesitancy.

Just last week, Trump said that the vaccine booster shot sounded “like a money-making operation for Pfizer” during an appearance on Mornings With Maria on Fox Business.

Former President Donald Trump discusses COVID-19 vaccine booster shots.@MariaBartiromo @FoxBusiness #MorningsWithMaria #MWM #FoxBusiness pic.twitter.com/Rs4rByuJhI

— Mornings with Maria (@MorningsMaria) August 18, 2021

“When these first came out, they were good for life,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo. “Then they were good for a year or two, and I could see the writing on the wall — I could see the dollar signs in their eyes,” Trump said.

Trump’s changing of tune regarding vaccines during his rally, though, as his comments weren’t well-received by the crowd, nor Alex Jones, who’s done his own research.

Jones claimed that he knew from day one that the advertised efficacy of Pfizer’s vaccine was fraudulent and that Pfizer didn’t even make a real vaccine, but instead a “frakenshot.” Jones then took pity on Trump, saying the former president had been duped by “bad actors,” including Big Pharma and CNN President Jeff Zucker.

“Shame on you, Trump,” Jones said after playing the clip from Trump’s Alabama rally. “At least you’re going to get some good Republicans elected, and we like you. But, my god, maybe you’re not that bright — maybe Trump’s actually a dumbass,” Jones said.

Jones is still banned from Facebook, Spotify, Google, Apple, and Youtube and is under investigation by the FBI, who is examining possible ties between Jones and those involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

FDA approval will not change anti-vaxxers’ minds — but it does make vaccine mandates possible

Last week, Dr. Anita Sircar, an infectious-disease physician in Los Angeles, wrote a moving piece for the Los Angeles Times about how doctors are losing compassion for COVID-19 patients, almost all of whom are willfully unvaccinated. She opens the article with a story of a 40-something father of two she had as a patient. His excuse for not vaccinating? “I was just waiting for the FDA to approve the vaccine first. I didn’t want to take anything experimental.”

As Dr. Sircar notes, this is the same man who “started taking some hydroxychloroquine he had found on the internet,” only to find it didn’t work. In the hospital, she offered to treat him with Remdesivir, which had been under the same emergency use authorization as the vaccines “for most of last year and had not been studied or administered as widely as COVID-19 vaccines.” While he accepted this much more experimental treatment, just as he experimented on himself at home, it was too late. He died.

To be clear, the man’s actual objection was not, as he said, that he “didn’t want to take anything experimental.” No, the likely reason was a right-wing propaganda blitz that has convinced Republican voters that refusing the shot is the best way to stick it to President Joe Biden and the hated Democrats. These are folks who booed Donald Trump himself for promoting the vaccination. The “FDA approval” excuse was only rolled out because even Trumpers know that saying “I’m risking COVID-19 to own the liberals” out loud sounds dumb. But remember, these are the same folks who reject the FDA’s advice against eating horse paste.

You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4

— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021

Yet far too many folks in government and media continue to confuse excuses for the actual reasons for vaccine refusal.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

On Monday, the FDA finally gave this much-ballyhooed full approval to the Pfizer vaccine, causing reports, such as the one in the Washington Post, that “public health officials are optimistic that a large swath of vaccine-hesitant Americans will be swayed” now to get the shot.

Sure, maybe some will. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, only about 20% of the unvaccinated will be swayed. But the grim reality is that most of the people citing the FDA approval as an excuse were just concealing their actual, Fox News-and-Facebook-disinfo-based reasons. Despite the efforts of Republicans like Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to blame anyone else — in his case, Black people — for vaccine refusal, the reality is it’s largely being driven by right-wing identity politics. In fact, recent NBC News polling shows the only group that isn’t majority vaccinated is Trump voters.

A revealing breakdown of vaccine attitudes in America. pic.twitter.com/ajI44yBnep

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 23, 2021

Psychologist Doreen Dodgen-Magee recently explained at Salon how vaccine refusal is being driven by ego protection, both as “a desire to appear powerful” and an avoidance of having “to face the uncomfortable realization that we can be wrong.” Conservative social mores probably make these tendencies worse. Right-wing media is constantly riling up their audiences with stories of “liberal elites” looking down their noses at them. So there’s a lot of defensiveness on the right and an eagerness to prove that they know better than the actual experts. (This also fuels podcast host Joe Rogan’s vaccine denialism.) Witness this recent CNN segment, which really showcases how much ego protection and a fantasy of being more knowledgeable about medicine than doctors is driving the right-wing response.

“I think it is time where God is separating the sheep from the goats….I’m a goat. Because I am not a sheep. I’m not doing what they tell me to do. I’m fighting against it (the vaccine).”

In Alabama — the state with the lowest vaccination rate in the nation. w/@Sarah_Boxer pic.twitter.com/dqCC67cpPX

— Donie O’Sullivan (@donie) August 24, 2021

One can see a similar dynamic in the growing roster of stories from distraught family members of vaccine refusers.

Sociology professor Stacy Torres writes in the Washington Post of a younger sister who accused her of trying to “bully her” into the vaccine. In the piece, her Trump-voting, Arizona-based sister comes across as insecure and defensive, especially in comparison to her more educated sister who lives in San Francisco. Torres ends with a story of how her sister was like this at 10 years old, dangling “from a thin branch, refusing to come down” and how Torres “had to learn to walk away” because pleading with her sister only made it worse.

Yes, it’s ironic that the way that conservatives try to demonstrate they’re smarter than “liberal elites” and doctors is by embracing profoundly stupid ideas. But that’s troll logic for you. And make no mistake — trolling the liberals is exactly why conservatives are doing this. And it’s working, insofar as liberals are really, really mad about losing our freedoms because of the willfully unvaccinated. But conservatives are paying for this trolling with their own health, as COVID-19 tears through their communities, now killing over 1,000 people a day.

Today’s New York Times hot spot map. https://t.co/eFIMvvwxC5 pic.twitter.com/8qpiqd2zLQ

— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) August 24, 2021

So no, the FDA approval isn’t going to change right-wing minds because right-wing vaccine refusal is about identity politics, ego protection, and conservative propaganda. But that doesn’t make the FDA decision worthless. As Jon Skolnik reported in Salon Monday, this approval is clearly what some employers were waiting for in order to finally move towards mandating the vaccine. “Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, the Pentagon and New York City were among the first organizations” to announce new mandates, he reported. More will likely follow.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

Biden also used the FDA approval as an opportunity to push for more mandates, declaring, “I’m calling on more companies in the private sector to step up with vaccine requirements that will reach millions more people” during remarks on Monday. The mandates would be similar to those already in place in many schools and workplaces that people be vaccinated for diseases like the measles. Notably, however, Republicans do not show any interest in opposing those mandates.

Mandates work better than trying to scare people straight with stories about unvaccinated people dying, because of a peculiar trick of psychology that makes small-but-certain consequences weigh more heavily on some people’s decisions than dire-but-less-likely consequences. It’s why seatbelt laws and indoor smoking bans do more to shape people’s behavior than threats of death from lung cancer or car accidents. Losing a job or being ejected from school or even being unable to go to a concert with friends are all less severe consequences than death. But with mandates, they are far more certain to happen, and therefore will be more compelling to unvaccinated people than distant-seeming images of people dying in the ICU.

Nor can we expect education or appeals to the common good to work on these folks. They reject education because it insults their egotistical belief they know more than the experts. They reject common good arguments, because again, their egos prevent them from seeing themselves as part of a society and having responsibilities to it. But avoiding the shame of being fired or thrown out of school or even rejected from a bar will have an effect on people who are so motivated by ego protection. In her Washington Post piece, Torres — who is literally an expert in the sociology of health care — agrees, calling on “the government to get serious about mandating vaccines,” and arguing that mandates “could save my sister’s life.”

And that is the greatest irony of all: The people who stand to benefit the most from vaccine mandates are the minority of people who reject them.

Despite the hype over breakthrough infections, vaccinated people are both highly protected against catching COVID-19, and their chance of getting a severe case is incredibly small. The hospitals are overflowing with unvaccinated, not vaccinated people. Plus, mandates allow unvaccinated people to preserve their ego by saying they still don’t “believe” in the shot while getting it anyway because they “have” to. Some will fight, but by and large, most will accept this face-saving opportunity. The beauty of a mandate is it doesn’t ask people to change their minds. It just requires them to do the right thing, regardless of their dumb opinions.

It’s not enough for Biden to call on others to mandate vaccines. There are still ways he could act — requiring vaccination to get on an airplane is the big one — that would start getting shots in arms faster. It would save lives, but it could also save Democrats in the midterms by wrapping up this pandemic before 2022. The time to act is now.

7 pro-baker tips to make cake way easier (and more fun!)

Baking already has a reputation for being very by the book — and this can also unfortunately translate to “complicated” for many folks. In the newest episode of “Bake it Up a Notch,” I wanted to explore all the wonderful treats you can make without a lot of equipment, mixing in a bowl either by hand, or with a trusty hand mixer. But a few special tricks can take even the simplest recipe to the next level. Here are my tips for making some of the simplest, tastiest bakes.

1. Get to know (and love) the blending method

The blending method is the simplest mixing method in baking. The ingredients are mixed — or blended — until they are combined into a smooth batter. This is the method used for so many cakes, from quick breads and muffins to anything marked a “one bowl” wonder. The key to the blending method is evenly combining the ingredients without over-mixing, which can leave the finished item tough after baking.

Start by whisking your dry ingredients together — this not only combines them, it aerates them. Whisk your wet ingredients together, too, but separately. This allows ingredients that are harder to incorporate, like eggs, to be partially mixed and more fluid when they combine with the dry, which will allow the batter to come together more easily. I usually start by using a whisk to combine the wet and dry ingredients, because at the beginning, that brings things together a bit better. However, some mixtures are too thick to be whisked, and the batter can just sort of gunk up the whisk wires — so a silicone spatula or wooden spoon works great, too. The goal is to mix the two only until they are uniformly combined. Stop mid-mix to scrape the bowl a few times, making sure everything on the base and sides of the bowl is becoming incorporated. Once everything is combined, you’re good to go. Don’t be tempted to over-mix!

See the blending method at work in these recipes: zucchini bread and sweet corn cakes.

2. Yes, ingredients really should be at room temperature

It may be especially tempting to cut a corner (like softening butter) when mixing up an easy recipe. Tasks like these can seemingly slow down what would otherwise be a quick, simple baked good. But anyone who has ever tried mixing cold butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon will know — it’s actually a lot more work when the ingredients aren’t at the correct temperature. The reason so many baking recipes call for ingredients to be at room temperature is because it makes it easier for the ingredients to incorporate into the batter. The good news is that this also makes the batter come together faster, too (like this gingery spice cake, which comes together in minutes).

Need to get to room temperature fast? Try my tricks below:

To soften butter: place a stick of butter (still wrapped in its paper) in the microwave. Heat for 10 seconds, then rotate the stick so the side that was the base is now on the top. Microwave for 5 to 7 seconds more, and the butter should be just soft enough!
To take the chill off eggs: Place the eggs in a heat-safe bowl and cover with very warm water until fully submerged. Let sit for 5 minutes.
To take the chill off dairy or other liquids: place into a heat-safe container and microwave in 3-second bursts, stirring in between. It should only take 3 to 4 times.

3. Prepare the pan thoughtfully

Taking the time to thoughtfully prepare your pan can make the difference in your final bake. I’m not just talking about making it look extra snazzy, it’s also important because some styles of simpler bakes are cut and served right from the pan. To ensure your slices come out clean, try these tips:

When lining a square, rectangular, or loaf pan with parchment paper, try lining it twice. Lightly grease the pan, then place a piece of parchment across one direction of the pan. Lightly grease the parchment paper, then place another piece of parchment going in the opposite direction. Not only will this ensures even coverage, it also makes for easy “handles” to pull your finished item out of the pan come slice time.
If a recipe calls for the pan to be greased, you can use a light coating of oil, room temperature fat like butter, or nonstick spray. Apply a thin, all over coating, paying special attention to the corners and edges of the pan.
Nonstick spray is typically my favorite because it allows for an easy all-over coating. When applying nonstick spray to nonstick pans, apply it just before you’re ready to add the batter to the pan, otherwise the spray may slide down the sides pool in the base of the pan.
When greasing a bundt or tube pan, be sure to apply the greasing agent liberally, paying special attention to the center tube and any ridges or details. Appling the grease with a soft-bristled brush can help you get into nooks and crannies for especially intricate bundt designs. Without grease in these areas, the cake is more likely to bake unevenly and/or stick to the pan — dreaded bundt issue. Try these tips to nail the perfect bundt, like this toasted almond and chocolate bundt.

4. It’s all about inclusions

Easier recipes sometimes opt for inclusions over finishes like frostings. Inclusions are anything added to the batter to add flavor and texture. Inclusions are typically added towards the end of mixing, after the batter has come together. Many inclusions, like nuts or chocolate, require no major preparation beyond chopping to the desired size before being added to the batter. Other ingredients, like fresh fruit may require peeling, pitting, or chopping. Sometimes, inclusions that contain a lot of moisture can be tossed in flour before they are added to the batter. This helps the ingredients stay suspended in the oven, rather than sink to the bottom of the bake. In my blueberry biscuit buckle recipe, for example, it helps keep the berries centered, so they beautifully stud the middle of each and every slice.

5. Embrace the poke cake

Whether you love tres leches or have never had a poke cake (aka, a cake where flavorful liquid is poured over a cake after baking. This method produces an incredible moist cake with a delicious, custardy texture that is nothing short of craveable. It’s typically used on a sheet cake, and the liquid being poured over can be anything from dairy to fruit juice to pudding. Best of all, this method couldn’t be easier or more adaptable.

Here are some things to pay attention to in order to nail this simple technique:

Cake temperature: Depending on the desired results, this method can be done on a warm cake or a cooled cake. Pouring liquid over a warm cake will make it easier to absorb, but will also impact the cake’s texture more — producing a more puddingy result. Pouring liquid over a cooled cake may mean the liquid absorbs more slowly, but it can also produce a more cakey end result.
Your poking tool size: The size of the tool you use to poke holes into the cake will also impact the final result. You can use a smaller tool, like a toothpick or skewer, to make many holes all over — this promotes more even absorption. Using a larger tool, like a chopstick, will produce a more striated effect in the final cake — even making visible stripes in the cake where the liquid was poured in.
Consistency of the pour: As mentioned, just about any flavorful liquid (or even a custard!) can be poured over a cake in this method, and produce delicious results. The classic cake, tres leches, pours over three kinds of milks, which the cake absorbs to become soft and custardy. Other thin liquids, like fruit juice, can make a tasty option (like this watermelonade poke cake). My personal favorite is using pudding to pour over the cake (like in this chocolate pudding cake). Remember, thicker pouring consistencies will also translate into a slower absorption time.

6. Whip out the low-effort finishes

Just because a cake is easy doesn’t mean it has to go naked. There are dozens of ways to make a basic cake more beautiful and more delicious, without going all-in on effort! Here are a few of my most turned-to finishes that can easily gussy up the simplest cake:

Coarse sugar: Turbinado, sanding, or sparkling sugar sprinkled on top of a batter before baking makes a beautifully sparkly and delightfully crunchy effect after baking.
Powdered sugar: A sifting of powdered sugar after baking fancies up just about anything.
Jam, curd and other spreads: Who needs frosting when you can add a pop of flavor and color with just a single swipe? Swirl spreads into batters before baking, or use them to fill or finish them after baking.
Whipped cream: Lightly sweetened or totally plain, whipped cream is the lowest effort frosting around (and always a crowd-pleaser).
Garnishes: Add some final flair to your cake by adding fresh fruit, toasted nuts, chopped chocolate after baking.

Try any of these ideas to dress up this cream cake or angel food cake recipes.

7. Try serving warm

Looking for the fastest way to go from zero to cake? Try something that’s meant to be served warm, like skillet cake; or go for the delightful style of cake the British call “self-saucing puddings,” where a portion of the mixture is molten, soft, and thus sauces the cake (self-sauces, that is). I find these cakes simultaneously easy and comforting — a rare combination that makes it as worthy of an after dinner party treat as it is a lazy Sunday afternoon snack. For a bright, homey option, try this lemon raspberry skillet cake.

Rudy Giuliani ridiculed after clip of him shaving in airport restaurant goes viral

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was caught on film publicly shaving while eating at an airport restaurant on Sunday. The clip has left some to wonder whether the ex-Trump lawyer now lives at the John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The bizarre sighting was originally recorded by traveler Nick Weiss, who caught sight of Giuliani at the Delta One Lounge around 5:30 pm. Weiss told the DailyMail that he had the displeasure of watching Giuliani chow down on lobster bisque, which “took him 15 minutes to have one bowl of soup because every time he’d bring the spoon up to his mouth, half would fall back into the soup.”

After finishing, Weiss detailed, the former prosecutor was then brought a plate of brownies, and shortly thereafter began shaving his face with a razor and a tablet camera. It is not immediately clear why Giuliani opted out of grooming in the restroom, which Weiss noted was just several steps away.

On Monday, American comedian Michael Rapaport shared Weiss’s video over Twitter, earning Giuliani a deluge of online ridicule.

“Look at these disgusting filthy nasty slob @RudyGiuliani shaving in a restaurant at JFK yesterday,” Rapaport tweeted. “You nasty pig you #Rudy The @iamrapaport is now LIVE discussing the disgusting.”

Look at these disgusting filthy nasty slob @RudyGiuliani shaving in a restaurant at JFK yesterday.
You nasty pig you #Rudy

The @iamrapaport is now LIVE discussing the disgusting:https://t.co/miHUOBNbPj pic.twitter.com/yYwUN7lWid

— MichaelRapaport (@MichaelRapaport) August 23, 2021

In less than 24 hours, video of Giuliani publicly shaving while eating has been viewed more than 1 million times on Twitter and on Rapaport’s Instagram account.

“Rudy Giuliani shaving in a restaurant is the least embarrassing thing he has ever done,” iVote Founder Ellen Kurz wrote on Twitter.

Star Wars actor Mark Hamill simply replied with a sick face emoji.

“Can we confirm that he’s not actually living in the airport?” one user on Twitter asked.

The sordid display is just the latest in Giuliani’s apparently never-ending string of public gaffes.

Back in November, Giuliani accidentally held a press conference – intended to discuss Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud – in the parking lot of a landscaping company called Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia.

That same month, the former mayor was caught on camera pulling down his pants in a hotel room with an actress posing as a 15-year-old journalist in Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest Borat film.

Apart from his public blunders, Giulani has also been steeped in various legal battles that appear to be draining him of his financial resources.

Back in April, FBI agents raided the former prosecutor’s house as part of an investigation into Giuliani’s possible violation of lobbying laws during the Trump administration. Investigators believe the ex-Trump attorney may have worked as an unregistered lobbyist for Ukraine, encouraging Ukrainian leaders to open a probe into President Biden’s son, Hunter, in an effort to undermine the Biden campaign in the 2020 presidential election.

Giuliani also faces a $1.3 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, whose equipment Giuliani alleged was compromised in favor of the Biden campaign during the 2020 election.

Last month, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman reported that Giuliani – whose law license was suspended back in June – has generally failed to enlist Trump’s aid in his legal troubles, leading some to suspect that the Giuliani is on the brink of bankruptcy.

It remains unclear how or if Giuliani will manage to redeem his public image in the wake of Trump’s presidency. Perhaps Giuliani’s airport display suggests he’s given up trying.

The would-be D.C. bomber was no “lone wolf” — we can expect many more like him

As the late comedian Paul Mooney observed, “Whiteness is the complexion for the protection.”

Last Thursday, Floyd Ray Roseberry, an apparent follower of Donald Trump, traveled from North Carolina to Washington, D.C. He parked his pickup truck outside the Library of Congress and told police his vehicle was full of explosives, threatening to detonate his bomb if President Biden (and other leading Democrats) did not resign from office. He also talked of “patriots” and “revolution,” near-meaningless buzzwords of the radical right. In an online video, Roseberry also discussed various personal problems, involving inadequate health insurance, his wife’s struggle with cancer and his own physical and mental health issues.

Roseberry apparently did not have a bomb, although authorities have said he possessed “bomb-making materials.” He surrendered to police that afternoon, unharmed. As seen on Jan. 6 and in a multitude of other incidents, white people in America can generally engage in all manner of lawless behavior, including apparent terrorism, and somehow not be harmed by police.

If Roseberry were Black or brown, or had identified himself as a follower of antifa or another left-wing movement, he would likely have been shot dead by law enforcement. In accordance with white America’s public ritual, Roseberry will likely be deemed mentally ill and a “lone wolf.” In reality, whatever his mental state may be, he is a member of a neofascist movement that poses an existential threat to the country’s democracy.

Trumpism, like other forms of fascism, is a political cult which promises the followers an opportunity to achieve glory and immortality by being part of a “patriotic” struggle. In that way, fascism provides meaning for those individuals who are socially alienated, emotionally and psychologically broken inside, or otherwise damaged by their own personal choices, life circumstances, society or some combination thereof.

If Floyd Roseberry imagined himself as a hero and martyr for “the cause,” he is not alone.There are many more such people waiting to act, and the leaders of the Trump fascist movement are actively encouraging them.

Rep. Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican and staunch Trump supporter, came very close to justifying Roseberry’s alleged actions, writing on Twitter:

Although this terrorist’s motivation is not yet publicly known, and generally speaking, I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society. The way to stop Socialism’s march is for patriotic Americans to fight back in the 2022 and 2024 election.

In the Age of Trump, Republicans and the white right are inexorably compelled to believe in a false narrative in which traitors and terrorists become “patriots.”

Opinion polls and other research have repeatedly shown that Republicans and right-wing “independents” increasingly support political violence and other acts of terrorism as a means of getting, keeping and expanding their social and political power. On this, Right Wing Watch observes:

Although it didn’t succeed in shutting down the certification of the Electoral College votes in the free and fair 2020 presidential election, the Jan. 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol was, in its own way, a success nonetheless in its likely inspiration for events such as [last week’s] threatened bombing of the Capitol complex. … As we’ve been saying for a while at Right Wing Watch, Jan. 6 looked like a beta test for future violence to be directed at institutions of the U.S. government.

Former Department of Homeland Security analyst Daryl Johnson, who was forced out of his job by Republicans in 2009 for highlighting the growing threat posed by white supremacist and other right-wing terrorists, has also been sounding the alarm.

In a recent interview with the American Independent, Johnson observed, “It’s under Democratic administrations where these groups proliferate. So, for at least the next four years … we’re still gonna see a period of heightened activity.”

In a separate interview with the same publication, Johnson explained that the results of the recent U.S. census, in combination with white racial paranoia about “the browning of America,” are fueling white supremacist and right-wing extremism. The loss of majority status and white hegemony, he said, “has always been their greatest fear.” He continued, “I think it’s one of the main drivers behind white supremacist recruitment and violence, the demographic shifting in America…. The latest census results just reinforce that fear and realization. Undoubtedly there are going to be people on the far-right that will be agitated and angered by this data and want to do something about it.”

In a recent opinion essay for MSBNC, Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director of counterintelligence for the FBI, discussed the danger posed by delusional conspiracy theorists who believed that Trump would somehow be returned to power this month:

This nonsense about a Trump return to the Oval Office would be at least mildly amusing if it weren’t so dangerous. And the Department of Homeland Security agrees. …

A deceived group of people turning violent when their imagined outcome never materializes is of course what we saw on Jan. 6 — but the problem goes back further than that. Daily Beast reporter Kelly Weill explained last December that Trump conspiracy theorists’ cult-like qualities mean yet another missed prophecy should have us concerned:

“Psychologist and author Robert Lifton uses the term ‘forcing the end’ to describe efforts to push a prophecy into reality. In his book ‘Destroying the World to Save It,’ Lifton describes a series of cults that initially believed Armageddon would happen naturally, without human intervention. But when significant dates came and went without revelation, and the groups perceived themselves to be under attack, members took drastic actions: mass suicides in the cases of the Heaven’s Gate and Peoples Temple cults, and mass murder in the case of the Manson family and Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo cult.”

Shane Burley, the author of “Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It,” largely echoed Figliuzzi’s concerns in an opinion essay for NBC News:

There had been some hope that the threat of far-right violence that marked Donald Trump’s presidency would decline after Joe Biden became president and promised to deal with white nationalist groups. Once Biden took office, the thinking went, Trump’s movement would have been proven to be a failure, while Trump himself would no longer have the world’s most powerful bully pulpit. That would deflate the nativist street movement that acted as part of his base.

Instead, this sense of loss, government crackdowns, removal from social media platforms and difficulties presented by anti-fascist activism could make these groups more militant — and potentially dangerous. …

This pattern of mainstreaming hate, gathering more adherents, experiencing disillusion when the political system doesn’t deliver and in turn resorting to greater violence has repeated throughout modern U.S. history. And it suggests this could be the most volatile period for right-wing violence in recent memory.

Floyd Roseberry’s alleged terrorist acts and possible mental illness (in a court appearance, he expressed concern that he had not been taking medication for his “mind”) reflect a much larger dynamic. Trumpism and its Big Lie are supported and made “real” for their believers by many other little lies and related conspiracy theories.

In that sense, fascism is not a coherent ideology but rather a type of imaginary — a means of processing or understanding reality that involves mental pathology on a societal scale. In a new essay, also at NBC News), Sophia Moskalenko and Mia Bloom, the co-authors of “Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon,” offer this analysis:

For starters, QAnon, like the painkiller abuse epidemic driven by the drug oxycodone, engulfs people who are most vulnerable to its content. An overwhelming proportion of QAnon followers arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, for instance, have mental health problems, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a University of Maryland analysis. If you believe the world is out to get you, you are probably more likely to embrace QAnon narratives that explain exactly how the world is out to get you.

Their psychological pain may make these people especially vulnerable to QAnon’s content, which often speaks to fears, anxieties and anger. People who worry about contamination, for example, are probably more susceptible to lies about the Covid-19 vaccine carrying a contaminating agent that makes their children gay or transgender. …

It is also likely that prolonged exposure to QAnon content exacerbates or even triggers mental illness, as watching video after video about horrific devastation can have a detrimental effect on anyone’s mental health. This then increases the appeal of the remedies QAnon prescribes, such as refusing Covid vaccines, protesting mask mandates or even storming the Capitol in Washington. Though to be sure, most people with mental health problems do not believe in QAnon conspiracy theories, just as a sizable proportion of QAnon followers are not mentally ill.

Donald Trump has been accurately described as a type of human opioid for angry and racially resentful white Americans (and others) who are afraid of losing privilege, power, and control over American social and political life. Public opinion and other research have revealed the extreme depth of this commitment, finding that a large percentage of white Republicans, especially Trump followers, prefer authoritarianism over democracy if that will ensure that white people remain the most powerful and dominant group in America.

In a recent interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” never-Trump conservative Tom Nichols, author of the new book “Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy,” offered this truth-telling about white identity politics and its “poisonous nostalgia”:

We want to believe things are not our fault and things are so terrible and we would do better and wouldn’t have to be so angry if things weren’t so awful all the time. … Every age has its advantages and disadvantages. but the notion that somehow in 2021 — when we’re living longer, healthier, the world is mostly at peace, whether people want to believe that or not, it’s true — people want to believe this is the worst time ever, and it’s a poisonous nostalgia that looks back and there’s no way a democratic government can keep up with that unless they can invent a time machine. …

I think that the problem of becoming a minority is really anxiety-producing for a lot of [white men]. But again, the answer to that is more democracy, not some kind of illiberal backlash and trying to turn the clock back by force. But they’ve been told by politicians and political entrepreneurs that with just enough willpower and rage and anger and resentment they can turn the hands of time back and, you know, make it 1965 again.

What comes next in the neofascist movement’s war on American democracy?

In a new essay at the Atlantic, Hussein Ibish makes the crucial point that America’s crisis of democracy is part of a larger global context, including the sectarian and other political violence in the Middle East.

Decades of living in, studying, and writing about the Middle East have taught me that whenever a political faction becomes obsessed with violent rhetoric and fantasies, brutal acts aren’t far behind. … And while there’s always been a strain of militancy on the American right and left fringes, there is something unmistakably new, and profoundly alarming, about the casual, florid, and sadistic rhetoric that is metastasizing from the Republican fringe into the party’s mainstream.

Again, the unmistakable lesson from the modern Middle East is: When people keep saying they’re fantasizing about how great it would be, and feel, to kill you, believe them. …

The cancer of political violence is not an endemic American disease. … At the moment, it is a Republican disease. No one but Republicans themselves can cure it. Until they do, the violence of the right is only going to keep swelling and crashing. From a Middle Eastern perspective, this is all appallingly familiar.

Floyd Ray Roseberry and those like him are a law enforcement problem, one that can be defeated with sufficient time, energy and resources. Others, including the Jan. 6 coup leaders and their confederates, can also be punished under the law — if the Biden administration and the Department of Justice muster the courage and principle to do so.

Trumpism and the larger neofascist movement, however, represent a deep cultural problem that cannot be corrected by investigation and prosecution, no matter how robust. America’s democracy problem is now in the bones of the body politic. Superficial and palliative treatments will not be sufficient.

Those Americans who believe in a true “we the people” democracy that is multiracial, modern and forward-thinking must force a moral reckoning and critical examination of their nation’s values and beliefs, as well as its social and political institutions. Until that work is done, this country will remain fertile ground for neofascism and right-wing extremism. Entirely too many Americans, including the leaders of the Democratic Party, are standing around looking for a savior or hero or waiting for an opportune moment to act at some point in the future. But America as we know it will have no future unless we act now.

Why are there so many salmonella recalls?

If it seems like every week you’re reading about a food recall due to a salmonella outbreak, well, that’s because you are. In July and August alone, there have been recalls of blueberries, raw carrots, frozen breaded chicken products, frozen cooked shrimp, dry spice blends, and packaged salad greens, all due to salmonella outbreaks. These recalls are covered widely and frequently but rarely do we hear how we’ve gotten to this point . . . and where we go from here. How does salmonella get into McCormick seasoning blends? Why is chicken so often the culprit? Does cooking get rid of salmonella? I spoke with several food safety experts about how we’ve gotten to the point of weekly recalls and what this means for the future of food production.

What is salmonella?

Salmonella is a naturally occurring bacteria commonly found in birds, such as chickens. It’s similar to the gut bacteria that humans naturally have. It is not inherently dangerous to birds or humans, but it can spread easily when anyone handling food or produce does not practice proper hygiene or safe cooking practices, which leads to the severe illnesses that we so often hear about. By definition, salmonella is a group of bacteria that can cause gastrointestinal illness known as salmonellosis, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There are over 2,000 strains of salmonella that are named based on where they were discovered.

Salmonella can cause mild to severe illness and symptoms generally include a fever, vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and a loss of appetite. Symptoms can appear between 12 to 72 hours after infection and generally last for 4 to 7 days. It can be, but is rarely, fatal and most severely affects young children, pregnant women, elderly adults, and those with a compromised immune system.

How is it different than E.Coli or listeria?

All three are forms of bacteria that can cause food-borne illnesses. However, microbiologists classify them in different ways in order to properly identify them. According to Zhou, most food-related bacteria grows better in warm to moderate temperatures and does not grow at all, or only extremely slowly, in colder temperatures. However, listeria is able to grow at cool temperatures under 40℉, such as in a refrigerator. What makes this troublesome is that processing facilities for meat and poultry are often kept at extremely cold temperatures in order to thwart the growth of salmonella or E.coli. But since listeria can thrive in cold temperatures, it’s nearly impossible to eliminate the threat of foodborne pathogens altogether.

How does salmonella form?

Salmonella can form in a number of ways: poor hygiene from food and farm workers, workers who are sick, contaminated irrigation water, unsuitable fertilizer such as manure, and even through insects and wildlife that may infiltrate the fields, says Kang Zhou, a Food Safety Officer for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Any of these risk factors can cause salmonella to grow in raw produce like romaine lettuce, carrots, and blueberries, as well as meat and poultry.

OK, but how does it get into vegetables?

But wait, Kelly . . . I thought you said that salmonella occurs naturally in birds, but you didn’t say that it naturally lives in fruits and vegetables? Yes, reader, you are right. But there are still ways for it to spread beyond poultry. “Fresh produce like carrots can be contaminated from being exposed to improperly treated fertilizers of animal origin (such as chicken litter) that can inadvertently introduce salmonella into the growing environment if good agricultural practices are not being followed,” explains Natalie Dyenson, Vice President, Food Safety & Quality at Dole plc.

Recalls . . . are a good thing

If it seems like there are more recalls than ever, you’re right. Dr. Ashton Merck, a historian who studies public health and the poultry industry, says that food recalls can be alarming, but they can also be a sign that the system is working. Merck explains that government agencies like the USDA and FDA didn’t start paying attention to salmonella, E. Coli, and listeria until the late 1980s and early 1990s. So it’s not that foodborne bacteria has only just started to spread…we just only started hearing about it within the last three decades. “I’d be more concerned about a food system in which you never hear about recalls and there is an incentive to cover them up,” says Merck.

Can salmonella be prevented?

The bad news is that because salmonella is a naturally occurring bacteria in birds, it’s nearly impossible to eliminate completely and forever. “It’s impossible to completely reduce the risk of salmonella or other foodborne illnesses to zero because it is a naturally occurring common bacteria in chickens,” Merck explains. However, with safe practices at food processing facilities, salmonella can generally be prevented from spreading like wildfires. Keeping waterways clean and using quality fertilizer can help. However, it’s trickier to prevent critters and wildlife from passing through fields, which can mean that salmonella may still be spread. “Salmonella has probably been a part of our food supply for a very long time and probably always will be. Those working in the industry do everything they can to ensure that salmonella doesn’t get into our food. They don’t want to have recalls, but it’s just part of consuming meat and consuming animals on an industrial scale,” says Merck.

So does cooking kill salmonella?

At home, there are a few things you can do to prevent the spread of salmonella. First, when you bring chicken or any other meat home, store it at the bottom of the refrigerator. That way if the packaging leaks, the raw poultry doesn’t contaminate anything else stored in your fridge. Second, always use a separate cutting board and knife when preparing chicken or meat to prevent spreading any potentially harmful bacteria. And finally, always cook chicken to 165℉ and use a meat thermometer to ensure it’s thoroughly cooked through. Cooking chicken to the proper temperature will kill off bacteria, but if there’s a recall of meat (or any other item) it’s still best practice to dispose of it. “Storing food at the appropriate temperature and washing your hands before starting to prepare our meals and before we sit down to eat are the easiest and, yet, most effective measures all of us can do to help keep our food safe,” adds Zhou.

So yes, recalls are going to continue to happen, and there’s a risk factor every time to buy a bird. (Or package of shrimp. Or pre-made spice blend. You get it.) But with a few precautions, salmonella isn’t going to be a huge threat for most people.

Can burying power lines prevent California’s next big wildfire?

On July 18, California’s Pacific Gas & Electric revealed that its electrical equipment might have sparked the Dixie Fire, a blaze that has since become the second-largest in the state’s history, torching 700,000 acres and destroying more than 1,200 structures. Three days later, PG&E, which emerged from bankruptcy last year after amassing some $30 billion worth of liabilities from wildfires, announced something more surprising: To prevent future blazes, the state’s largest utility plans to rip out 10,000 miles of overhead power lines in high fire risk areas and bury them underground.

The plan caps a years-long push by utilities to bury more power lines in the face of worsening weather and rising risks from climate change. According to PG&E, it’s the largest such effort ever announced by a U.S. utility: Pattie Poppe, the company’s CEO, described as a “moonshot” on a call with reporters, But whether PG&E can turn its announcement into action is a big “if,” as the utility has not estimated a timeline for the project, and it’s not clear that the benefits will outweigh the multi-billion dollar cost.

PG&E’s announcement, nearly two years after its equipment sparked the deadly Camp Fire, was “a clear recognition that something has to change,” said Julie McNamara, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “But if this is not part of a holistic plan that is clearly reckoning with all of the challenges afoot, then this is a distraction.”

Burying power lines isn’t a new idea. The majority of electrical distribution lines, as well as the larger, higher voltage transmission lines that carry electrons over longer distances, remain overhead, said Sadrul Ula, an energy infrastructure researcher at the University of California, Riverside. But utilities have long buried lines in city centers, as well as parks and recreation areas like golf courses, largely for aesthetic reasons. Even though it can cost as much as ten times more than installing power lines overhead, utilities are now burying an increasing number of new lines. That includes power lines serving nearly allnew residential and commercial developments in the U.S. They do it to meet customer preferences, help keep the lights on, reduce maintenance needs, and to protect against the growing threat of extreme weather.

Today, McNamara says, whenever a storm knocks out power lines and triggers outages, it kicks off a debate about whether the lines should be rebuilt underground. Similarly, as fire season worsens across the West and power lines are implicated in a growing number of destructive blazes, utilities are feeling pressure to move more of their equipment below ground.

Once buried, the risk of power lines starting fires is “very minimal,” Ula says. From that perspective, placing lines underground is a highly effective wildfire mitigation strategy. But the high cost means that companies rarely treat it as a silver bullet, instead using line burial in combination with cheaper retrofitting strategies, routine equipment maintenance, and vegetation clearing.

After its equipment sparked a series of deadly blazes in 2007, San Diego Gas and Electric launched a $3 billion effort to reduce wildfire risk that included “strategically undergrounding ” high-risk lines, flameproofing existing infrastructure by coating it in fire-resistant materials, and deploying sensors that shut off power to broken lines before they hit the ground. Portland General Electric and Puget Sound Energy, the largest utilities in Oregonand Washington state, respectively, are employing a similar set of strategies to help prevent their equipment starting fires, their spokespeople told Grist.

A spokesperson for Puget Sound Energy called burying power lines a “potential approach” that must be balanced with lower cost moves, like coating wires in insulating materials or replacing wooden poles with fire-resistant metal ones. Many factors go into determining whether a line is suitable for burial, with certain landscapes, like open farmland, posing fewer logistical challenges than areas with mountains and rivers, said Andrea Platt, a spokesperson for Portland General Electric.

“There’s an overlay of municipal codes and also easements and right of ways that all play a role, too,” Platt wrote in an email. “Since the costs of undergrounding are reflected in customer prices, we try to be judicious.”

When utilities do bury lines to reduce wildfire risk, their efforts tend to be measured in tens of miles rather than thousands. Since 2007, San Diego Gas and Electric has put 30 miles of high-risk lines underground as part of its wildfire strategy. It plans to bury an additional 25 miles this year, part of a ramp-up driven by the growing necessity of “public safety power shutoffs” to prevent overhead equipment from sparking fires. On a quarterly earnings call with investors last month, Poppe of PG&E said that the company is currently burying about 70 miles of power lines a year.

These numbers raise questions about how long it will take PG&E to hit its goal of getting 10,000 miles of high-risk lines in the ground. (At its current rate, it would take the company 143 years.) James Noonan, a PG&E spokesperson, told Grist that the company is focused on a “near term ramp up” and that within a few years, it hopes to be burying “well over 1,000 miles” of lines a year. While PG&E estimates it has more than 25,000 miles of power lines in state-designated “high fire-threat districts,” Noonan said it will focus on those in “elevated” and “extreme” zones of fire risk.

Perhaps the most important unanswered question about PG&E’s proposal is how much it will cost. In a June 30 filing to the California Public Utility Commission, the state agency that regulates privately owned utilities, the company projected that the cost of undergrounding lines in Butte County, an area ravaged by the North Complex fire last year, would be more than $4 million a mile through 2025. But Poppe told investors last month that the utility has “absolute evidence” that it can accomplish its larger goal for $2 million a mile, or $20 billion total, saying its rebuilding efforts in Butte County “cracked the code” on cheaper methods. The three weeks between that filing and PG&E’s announcement in July are “a short amount of time to have found such great savings,” said Mark Toney, who heads The Utility Reform Network, a California-based consumer advocacy group. Toney added that PG&E hasn’t filed any formal proposals with the commission detailing its plan, so it’s unclear where the savings would come from.

In response to questions from Grist, Noonan said that projects like the one in Butte County are “enabling the acceleration and expansion of undergrounding projects” by “showing us where we can be more efficient,” but declined to offer specifics. Poppe told investors that PG&E would be releasing more information in February, when the company files an annual update on its wildfire mitigation efforts.

What seems clear is that at least some of the cost of the project will be passed on to PG&E’s customers: Noonan said that the company will “leverage customer and public funding” to pay for power line burials. But that cost will eventually be largely offset by reduced need for fireproofing overhead equipment and clearing vegetation, Noonan said, tasks which are together “on par with the cost of undergrounding on a per mile basis.”

Toney is less optimistic. He worries that by diverting funds away from routine equipment maintenance and vegetation clearing — responsibilities the utility has a history of shirking — in order to bury more lines, the utility could inadvertently create more fire risk at the same time that it’s raising electric bills. Higher rates, in turn, could hinder the state’s attempts to slash carbon emissions, if rising electricity prices make residents reconsider switching to electric vehicles and appliances.

The California Public Utility Commission has the final say over any rate increases PG&E proposes. Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the commission, declined to say whether the regulator would consider allowing PG&E to raise rates to pay for the proposal but said it would “work with stakeholders, including PG&E, in a public process to ensure that the utility is making safety investments that are in the best interest of their customers and all Californians.”

If PG&E wants to make communities safer and more resilient to the changes ahead, its new proposal “has to be part of a fully integrated plan” that meets the challenges of our future climate in a way that is just and equitable, said McNamara of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “What that ultimately looks like, what the stakeholder process is, how high risk areas are prioritized, these are all open questions and critically important to get right.”

COVID politics and fatigue work against contact-tracing foot soldiers

Health departments nationwide scaled back their contact tracing in late spring or early summer when covid-19 cases started to decrease as vaccination efforts took center stage.

Then delta hit.

Now state and local health departments are trying to build back operations with depleted resources, as covid fatigue among their workers and the public alike complicate those efforts.

“Contact tracing from the start of this pandemic provided us with really kind of invaluable information,” said Dr. Amanda Castel, a professor of epidemiology at George Washington University. Castel said it’s still “a fundamental part of our response.” As is covid testing, especially for those who are vulnerable or unvaccinated, such as children under age 12. Yet numerous departments now find themselves with fewer contact tracers and less robust programs. Like testing, contact tracing seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Contact tracing is a resource-intensive operation, requiring workers to quickly call people who test positive for a disease and offer medical advice, and then to identify and reach out to anyone with whom the infected people came in close contact. The hope during the pandemic is to prevent spread of the covid virus, and to observe how the virus is changing. The process has been used for decades by public health officials to stop disease transmission.

But many public health departments were overwhelmed by the onslaught of covid. Last winter — before vaccines provided relief — they were unable to stay ahead of the virus through contact tracing. And as case counts dropped by virtue of increased vaccination rates in the spring and early summer, more than a dozen state health departments scaled back the workforce, said Crystal Watson, a senior scholar and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The resources were needed for vaccination initiatives and to restart other public health programs.

The situation has grown critical in a number of states during the past month or so as local health officials find themselves once again behind the curve as the delta variant drives up case counts. Resources are already stretched, and the politicization of covid-19 has left these local officials making tough calls regarding whom to trace in places like Missouri and Texas. And some states just don’t have enough personnel to do the job. The army of disease detectives more often than not included temporary staff or civil servants from outside the health department. In Kentucky, the former contact-tracing director is now the aviation department commissioner. The state health department said he has a successor but declined to name them.

The highly contagious delta variant makes the job harder. Cases can stack up quickly. Public health departments, which are chronically understaffed and underfunded, must pick and choose which tools will serve them the best.

“Some places have done a good job at retaining a kind of reserve workforce that they could call back up. And I’m sure that’s coming in handy right now. Other places did not. And they’re probably going to be quickly overwhelmed,” Watson said. “It’s also hard to say because there’s not a lot of public reporting.”

Arkansas, where Republican Gov. Asa Hutchison now says it was an error to sign a law in April banning mask mandates, is averaging around 2,000 new cases a day, one of the steepest upsurges among states. But the state health department has significantly fewer contact tracers now — 192 compared with 840 in December, when case counts were at the same level, according to the department and data collected by Johns Hopkins.

Danyelle McNeill, an Arkansas health department public information officer, said contractors performing this work have been authorized to increase their staff size. She also said that the agency is triaging cases, prioritizing those who tested positive for or were diagnosed with covid within six days of specimen collection or symptom onset, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended when capacity is limited, and that its vendors are not calling all positive cases the same day they receive lists when infections near 2,000.

In states that have opted to downplay contact tracing, county and city health officials are left to fend for themselves. In hard-hit southwestern Missouri, the flood of cases has overwhelmed a staff already stretched thin, said Springfield-Greene County Health Department Director Katie Towns, so the department pivoted to conducting contact tracing only in cases involving children younger than 12, who aren’t eligible for vaccination, Towns said.

Lisa Cox, a spokesperson for the state health department, said that “local health departments will work to triage and prioritize case investigations and will work with them if assistance is needed.” Her department expects financial support through the federal American Rescue Plan, but funds have yet to be appropriated. Ultimately, local strategies will come down to priorities. “We’ve made it clear that local jurisdictions need to make decisions locally based on their unique situation.”

The Springfield-Greene County Health Department’s surge capacity has diminished as team members have been redeployed to other health programs, which had been neglected during the pandemic. But even if Towns had unlimited resources, she said, she questions how effective investing it all in contact tracing would be: Covid is rampant and compliance with public health measures has waned. She would likely deploy more people to perform vaccine outreach and distribution.

Kelley Vollmar, executive director of the Jefferson County Health Department in eastern Missouri, said the delta surge is hitting a community polarized against public health efforts. “You have a public who is really not supportive of contact tracing and quarantine, as well as the funding for contact tracing and infrastructure is not there like it was last year,” she said.

In Texas, the Department of State Health Services is “winding down” the contact-tracing program to meet the requirements of the budget. In the new budget, which takes effect Sept. 1, taxpayer dollars are expressly banned from being used for covid contact tracing. “We will still be doing case investigations and other public health follow up,” said Chris Van Deusen, the state health department’s director of media relations, via email, “but won’t be providing contact tracing for local health departments.” The Texas Education Agency, which oversees primary and secondary education, also said earlier this month that schools are not required to conduct contact tracing.

Contact tracing has been clouded by controversy in Texas. Five legislators sued Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and the health department in August 2020 for awarding a contract to conduct the program. “The contract tracing policy has never been established as a policy accepted or supported by the Texas Legislature,” the suit said. Another lawsuit filed the same month by dozens of Texans alleges that the adoption of contact tracing violates their constitutional right to privacy.

In Texas’ Williamson and Bexar counties, where community covid transmission is high, local health officials are troubled by the lack of statewide tracing.

Williamson County turned to the state health department for help in contact tracing and case investigation as 50 to 100 new cases per day were being reported.

The county health department, which is separate from the county government, also trained more than half its staff to do contact tracing, everyone from clinical staff to press, said Allison Stewart, lead epidemiologist at Williamson County and Cities Health District, but the 65 people, including external staff and volunteers, couldn’t keep up with cases. Some worked seven days a week or 12-hour days, but now the county relies on the state for that work. “We can’t return to those days now, because all the people that we used actually are doing their real jobs,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out right now what the plan is come Sept 1. And it may mean the plan is that we don’t do case investigation or contact tracing.”

“Honestly, we don’t know,” she said.

San Antonio, one of the country’s largest cities and located in Bexar County, has its own contact tracers but leans on the state whenever there is a surge, said Rita Espinoza, the city’s chief of epidemiology. San Antonio is currently relying on the state and thus able to handle the load without backlogs, Espinoza said. She worries about what will happen in the fall, after school starts and there are more opportunities for transmission. The staff is already operating at a reduced capacity of 80 people.

“The specific impacts are unknown, but it may impact efforts to enhance other infectious disease investigations,” said Espinoza.

Florida, where covid has become a political buzzword, is another state where this tension is playing out. Broward County Mayor Steve Geller said he’s asked about contact-tracing capabilities, including how many investigators the state health department has, but he said he’s only ever told, “We’re working on it. It’s under control.” Contact-tracing data is not publicly available, but Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis once told local reporters contact tracing “has just not worked.”

Geller has not pushed health officials for information, given that “contact tracing doesn’t work well when everyone has covid” and that covid data has become contentious in Florida. “I’m not looking to create any new martyrs,” he said.

Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber contributed to this story.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson is “an apostle of authoritarianism to America”: conservative

Writer Shikha Dalmia, in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on August 23, slams Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson’s obvious admiration for Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán as profoundly un-American.

Carlson recently visited Hungary, where he interviewed Orbán and lavished the authoritarian prime minister with praise. And Carlson is hardly the only far-right supporter of former President Donald Trump with an openly pro-Orbán perspective. Orbán has also been praised by everyone from “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance (who is seeking the GOP nomination in Ohio’s 2022 U.S. Senate race) to former President Donald Trump himself.

Dalmia explains, “A strange spectacle has been unfolding among some factions of the American right in recent years: The more Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán suspends liberal democracy and turns autocratic, the more they admire him. But Fox News’ top-rated host, Tucker Carlson, took matters to a whole new level earlier this month when he declared that he found it ’embarrassing to be an American’ during a trip to Hungary.”

Orbán embodies a type of far-right nationalism that Trump supporters like Carlson find appealing.

“Carlson is down on America because, unlike Orbán’s Hungary, it has allegedly lost its will to defend its cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions against the forces of mass immigration and woke liberalism and is therefore in danger of losing its national identity,” Dalmia notes. “But liberal democracy is the sine qua non of American identity and, indeed, of the post-Enlightenment West. How about defending that?”

Orbán, Dalmia warns, not only rejects left-wing liberalism — he rejects liberal democracy itself.

“If Orbán were using Enlightenment liberalism to fight the excesses of progressive liberalism, it would be one thing,” Dalmia writes. “However, he deliberately conflates the two . . . And in his opposition to progressive liberalism, he goes on to subvert Enlightenment liberalism and its protections for individual rights and limits on his own power.”

Orbán, Dalmia observes, “has dismantled the institutions of Hungary’s liberal democracy and has tilted the playing field decisively to lock Fidesz, his political party, in power.”

“As soon as he assumed office in 2010,” Dalmia says of Orbán, “he used his large parliamentary majority to overhaul the Hungarian Constitution to make it impossible for civil groups to challenge the constitutionality of laws . . . He also reduced the retirement age for judges, resulting in the premature departure of a good chunk of them, including 20% of the country’s supreme court, allowing Orbán to appoint loyalists. He also packed the constitutional court — charged with judicial review of laws passed by parliament — expanding the number of justices from 11 to 15.”

Some of Carlson’s apologists have argued that his visit to Hungary is no different from President Richard Nixon visiting Communist China in the early 1970s. But Nixon never praised China’s communist government or exalted dictator Mao Tse Tung as heroic, whereas Carlson obviously admires Orbán and views him as someone the U.S. should emulate.

Dalmia writes, “Nixon was an advocate of liberal democracy to an authoritarian country, and Carlson is an apostle of authoritarianism to America . . . Patriotism — genuine affection for America’s core liberal principles — is simply an impediment to his neo-nationalist quest.”

Lauren Boebert’s gas problem: Far-right lawmaker concealed blatant conflict of interest

As the AP and the Washington Post recently reported, Rep. Lauren Boebert, the pro-gun Colorado Republican and Trump loyalist, failed to disclose that her husband worked for an energy consulting firm even as she pushed for looser regulations on oil and gas drilling as a member of the House Natural Resources Committee. If the intention was to conceal the source of the Boeberts’ income and the obvious conflict of interest, the Post reports, the failure to disclose could be a criminal act.

Further investigation by Salon reveals just how closely tied both the congresswoman and her husband, Jayson Boebert, are to the Colorado natural gas industry, which raises the question of why Rep. Boebert was assigned to the committee with direct oversight over-regulating that business.

As Salon previously reported, Rep. Boebert’s financial disclosure filing earlier this week stated that Jayson Boebert earned close to a half-million dollars working for an energy firm called Terra Energy Productions in 2020, and is on track to earn $768,000 in 2021. That company name appears to be in error: The Post reports that Boebert actually works as a contractor overseeing drilling operations for the Houston-based firm Terra Energy Partners, which operates various subsidiaries in Colorado, including TEP Rocky Mountain LLC and Terra Energy Holdings LLC. Those companies collectively own more than 5,500 natural gas wells in Colorado’s Piceance Basin, which is located in Boebert’s congressional district.

TEP Rocky Mountain was the largest taxpayer in Garfield County, where Boebert owns a home and a restaurant, according to the county’s 2020 analysis, which is public information.

According to a June 2021 EPA report, Terra Energy Partners ranks fourth in the industry in methane emissions, above the fossil fuel giant BP, which produces more than five times as much natural gas, despite producing less than a fifth of its output. Another EPA report shows that Terra’s subsidiary, TEP Rocky Mountain, was the largest onshore oil and gas greenhouse gas emitter in Colorado and the 10th largest in the country in 2018.

Tiffany Pollock, who is vice president of land at Terra Energy Partners and lives in Texas, contributed $500 to Lauren Boebert’s congressional campaign in September of 2020. Pollock is listed as one of 12 key managers on Terra’s website.

In one of several unexplained transactions in Boebert’s career, she and her husband entered into a 2010 oil and gas lease with the Antero Resources Piceance Corporation on property they owned in Silt, Colorado. Antero sold its Piceance Basin assets in 2012, the same year the Boeberts set up a consulting firm that is listed on Lauren Boebert’s financial disclosure forms as the source of her husband’s income. That firm, Boebert Consulting, is listed as delinquent by the Colorado secretary of state’s office, “meaning it hasn’t filed the necessary reports or kept a registered agent on file,” as the Post reports. Both Antero and Terra Energy are companies connected to the venture capital firm Warburg Pincus. It’s not clear whether the Boeberts still hold oil and gas rights on the property in Silt, which they purchased in 2007 for $349,000 and sold in 2012 for $155,000, a significant loss.

In 2020 Boebert explained her husband’s job by saying, “He started at the bottom rung in the energy industry, and he’s worked his way up, and now he is Terra Energy’s go-to guy for everything. He’s worked his way to the top out here, and we’re very fortunate that he still has work; it’s never a guarantee. It’s always something that we’re looking for backup plans for.”

Boebert didn’t return a request for comment on this story. She has certainly made no effort to conceal the nature of her husband’s work, despite the appearance of conflict of interest, posting this photo of herself and Jayson at a drilling job site last September.

On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that Rep. Boebert may have violated House ethics rules and filing procedures, since Terra Energy did not pay Jayson Boebert directly but rather through the now-delinquent firm Boebert Consulting, to which Lauren Boebert was legally connected. A Terra Energy spokesperson told the Daily Beast that Lauren Boebert “did not play a role in the company’s business relationship with her husband.”

Boebert has previously suggested that her restaurant, Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado, was the source of at least some of her family’s income and a key part of the above-mentioned “backup plan” to ensure her family’s stability. In fact, according to Boebert’s financial disclosures, Shooters Grill has posted $600,000 in operating losses over the last three years, going back to well before the pandemic. Why a money-pit restaurant purchased a cargo plane in 2016, and whether the plane was used as a tax-avoidance scheme during the two years Shooters Grill owned it, remains unclear.

Scientists just overcame a major hurdle in nuclear fusion research

Fusion power has long been the holy grail of alternative energy. Though it is arguably not a “renewable” — at least when compared to solar, wind or hydroelectric power — fusion is an incredibly energy-rich source that would take up far less space than these other sources, and requires only a comparatively small amount of heavy hydrogen isotopes as its fuel source. Fusion is the power source for the Sun, and thus indirectly all life on Earth; and while humans have succeeded in harnessing the power of fusion in uncontrolled reactions such as hydrogen bombs, harnessing it on a small scale has proved elusive — in part because of the high energies and complex engineering required to contain and miniaturize such high-pressure, high-heat reactions.

Yet science made a motion toward solving these problems earlier this month when an experiment in fusion at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF) yielded more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ) of energy. By focusing laser light from NIF (which spans more than three football fields) onto a BB-sized target, researchers at the California lab generated more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power over a span of tiny fractions of a second. The results could be used to better develop future technologies that produce fusion.

So what, exactly, is fusion energy? The underlying concept is straightforward: If you merge the nuclei of two lightweight atoms together at high temperatures, they produce more energy than was invested in the action. This not only creates energy in the form of heat (which can be harnessed and converted into electricity), but does so through a safe process that does not produce large quantities of dangerous waste, unlike nuclear fission. If not for the fact that every known material on Earth would melt at the conditions necessary for fusion to work, it could be the solution to our energy problems.

Unfortunately, the Earth does lack those necessary substances. This means all attempts at fusion must occur in massive reactors where superconducting magnets create a vacuum which confines super-hot plasma fuel in a ring that never touches the walls. It takes a lot of money to build facilities that can replicate the conditions which lead to fusion in the centers of stars, and even more to adequately develop our existing technology to a point where fusion could produce most of the world’s energy.

Perhaps the most famous example of a tokamak (the donut-shaped machine that serves as a fusion reactor) is ITER, Latin for “the way,” an international scientific facility (35 countries have invested in it) located in southern France. The multi-billion dollar ITER hopes to be the first proof of concept of a viable confined fusion reactor, paving the way for commercial power plants; research such as that which is conducted at Lawrence Livermore Labs help contribute to ITER’s success.

Although scientists have long dreamed of a future where fusion could help power the planet, such a goal has, thus far, eluded humanity.

“This is really incredibly exciting,” said Dr. Arthur Turrell, a plasma physicist and author of “The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet.” Turrell said that the National Ignition Facility has improved its ability to harness more energy produced than invested in fusion reactions from 3% to 70% since 2018. Notably, fusion reactions take a tremendous amount of energy to initiate; researchers’ goal, clearly, is to generate more energy than it takes to start such reactions — in other words, to attain “energy gain,” Turrell explained. NIF’s results mean that scientists are moving in the right direction, and may one day “smash through the barrier” that prevents this technology from being effectively commercialized.

“Gaining experimental access to thermonuclear burn in the laboratory is the culmination of decades of scientific and technological work stretching across nearly 50 years,” Thomas Mason, who directs the Los Alamos National Laboratory which helped with the project, said in a press statement. “This enables experiments that will check theory and simulation in the high energy density regime more rigorously than ever possible before and will enable fundamental achievements in applied science and engineering.”

Turrell says that the NIF was aided by some very clever engineering.

“NIF operates at a level that is above the damage thresholds for the 30,000 or so delicate optics that guide and focus the laser beam to its ultimate target,” Turrell told Salon. “Every time it fires it actually breaks some of the optics a little bit, but they’ve actually made a system where those optics are continuously repaired by learning algorithms machines. This is how they can actually operate above the damage threshold.”

When that day comes, it will not be a moment too soon.

“For a long time, people have said that energy gain from fusion reactions is 30 years away,” Turrell told Salon. “This shows that we’re incredibly close. That’s really timely for the planet. We have the IPCC report last week, so the world needs carbon free sources of energy desperately.”

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon’s weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist.

Rudy Giuliani “should be concerned” about Igor Fruman “testifying against him”: former prosecutors

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti on Monday commented on the new agreement by former Rudy Giuliani henchman Igor Fruman to plead guilty to charges of campaign finance violations and other charges.

Taking to Twitter after the news broke, Mariotti said that Giuliani “should be concerned about Fruman testifying against him at trial.” He explained that if a co-conspirator were to testify against Giuliani that it would have more power.

The campaign finance issues that Fruman was charged with aren’t the same as the investigations into whether Giuliani was working as an unregistered foreign agent.

It’s possible, however, that a close associate such as Fruman could have some knowledge based on his experience with Giuliani.

Another former prosecutor and CNN legal analyst, Elie Honig, also wondered if Fruman’s guilty plea is part of a possible agreement to implicate Rudy Giuliani, who is being investigated by the Justice Department.

“The big question now: Is this a cooperation plea deal, or a ‘straight’ plea, without cooperation?” tweeted Honig. “We’ll know soon, either by the structure of the formal paperwork around the deal, or by intrepid reporting.”

See their comments below:

Rudy Giuliani should be concerned about Fruman testifying against him at trial.

The prosecution’s case will have more power if a co-conspirator testifies and claims that Giuliani was part of the scheme with him. https://t.co/eRvaeCgrkA

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 23, 2021

The big question now: is this a cooperation plea deal, or a "straight" plea, without cooperation? We'll know soon, either by the structure of the formal paperwork around the deal, or by intrepid reporting.https://t.co/NTGhATZEhy

— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) August 23, 2021