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Long thought to be immobile, some sea sponges can actually move — but at a grisly price

Viewers of “SpongeBob Squarepants” have been woefully misinformed about the reality of being a sponges. Far from being yellow, rectangular and hyperactive, sponges come in all shapes, sizes and colors; they are believed to lack even SpongeBob’s child-like intelligence; and, far from being hyperactive, most of them are not known to move at all.

At least, they weren’t known to move at all. New research may change what we know about them.

In a recent study published by the journal “Cell Biology,” scientists describe finding a group of demosponges — the most diverse class in the phylum known as Porifera — in the Arctic Sea. Notably, they observed that many of the individual sponges from the Geodia parva, Geodia hentscheli and Stelletta rhaphidophora species were living on a thick mat of spicules, a spike-like substance that helps a sponge support its body and ward off potential predators.

Given that the spicules were “connected directly to the underside or lower flanks of sponge individuals,” and that there were long trails covering nearly 70 percent of the sea floor containing live sponges, the scientists hypothesize that they were probably left behind by those sponges as they slowly moved across the ocean floor.

This theory is further supported by the fact that many of the sponges were on the uphill portions of their trails in areas that lacked strong flows of water. This makes it unlikely that gravity or ocean currents could explain the shed body parts. Instead the scientists believe that the sponges stick their spicules into the ground and then slowly pull their bodies forward.

They pay a grisly price for this, though: Like the honeybees that rip off part of their abdomen after stinging someone, the sponges seem to rip off their spicules in order to move. Unlike with honeybees, however, this process does not seem to kill the resilient creatures.

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While sponges had previously exhibited this kind of behavior in laboratory environments, this is the first time that this specific method for moving was displayed in the wild. When it came to sponges moving in natural environments, the most notable previous evidence was that certain types of encrusting sponges are able to remodel their bodies in a sliding fashion as they grow around rocks so they can move to a limited degree.

“These trails may relate to feeding behavior and/or a strategy for dispersal of juveniles,” the authors speculate. “Such trails may remain visible for long periods given the regionally low sedimentation rates.”

Indeed, the researchers speculate that other types of sponges may leave these trails all the time. We just don’t know it because they quickly get covered up by ocean sediments.

“We thought sponges settled when juveniles, then had to put up with conditions where they settled,” Autun Purser, a deep-sea ecologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute at the Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research in Germany and co-author of the paper, told Live Science. “It seems now that, some species at least, can move if they feel conditions are not right.”

Fox News host slams ‘right-wing echo chamber’ for pushing false reports

A Fox News host is displeased with his network’s publishing of false reports over the last several days.

According to The Huff Post, Juan Williams admitted that he is skeptical of the allegations being leveled against former Secretary of State John Kerry due to the number of inaccurate reports his network has released.

During the Fox News broadcast of “The Five” on Tuesday, April 27, Williams weighed in on the details surrounding Kerry’s alleged discussion Iran’s foreign minister regarding Israeli intelligence. However, Williams made it clear he was not sure if he could believe allegations due to the onslaught of falsehoods reported by his network over the last several days.

He also expressed concern about right-wing news outlets that echo scathing stories simply because the report attacks a member of the opposing party.

“It just worries me, like last week we had the hamburger story, ‘Oh, Biden is going to take your hamburger.’ Kamala Harris’ book is being given to immigrants,” said Williams. “These stories are false, but the right-wing echo chamber starts going crazy because you can go after a Democrat.”

You can watch the video below via Twitter:

As reports about the allegations began circulating on right-wing news outlets, Kerry who now serves as the first United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, tweeted to set the record straight.

According to the former lawmaker, the allegations are “unequivocally false.” With John Hudson’s tweet detailing the truth about the allegations, Kerry tweeted, “I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false. This never happened – either when I was Secretary of State or since.”

Williams’ remarks come just days after Fox News addressed the criticism of its inaccurate report about President Joe Biden’s so-called push to limit Americans’ beef consumption. On Monday, Fox News’ John Roberts addressed the issue as he corrected the story.

Biden’s Earth Day breakthrough: The best week for climate policy in recent history

Breakthrough: That’s the best way to describe President Biden’s Earth Day climate summit. Setting aside the Paris Climate Agreement, that was clearly the best week in history for climate progress, and the most important Earth Day since 1970.

The most unexpected good news came when Vladimir Putin, in the midst of Russia’s mini-Cold War with the U.S., stepped forward to pledge to “significantly” decrease Russia’s emissions. More important, Putin belled the cat on the urgency of methane, in advance of a UN report sounding precisely that alarm on Friday.

“The fate of our entire planet, the development prospects of each country, the well-being and quality of life of people largely depend on the success of these efforts,” Putin commented of the methane challenge — to which Russia has been a major contributor, with leakage increasing 40% in 2020. Now, according to Putin, the problem can be profitably addressed clean by capturing methane leaking from wells and pipelines and turning it into petrochemicals. (An excellent venue for Ronald’s Reagan’s catchphrase: “Trust but verify.” New satellite monitoring can hold Putin to his promise.)

Other nations got the big headlines for their 2030 emission targets; the U.S. promised to cut by 50%, the U.K. 63%, Japan 46% and Canada 40%, while the EU solidified its binding target of 51%. Major emitters India and China made less meaningful longer-term pledges, with China recognizing the need to cap and then curb coal, and India emphasizing the ambition of its renewable goals. South Korea pledged to phase out its role as one of the world’s two biggest financiers of new coal projects (along with China). Brazil, however, ruined the goodwill value of its new 2050 zero-emission pledge by announcing cuts in spending on climate and environmental protection the very next day.

An unanticipated positive result of the world’s focus on U.S. credibility after four years of Donald Trump was to shift global focus from gauzy 2050 targets to more accountable 2030 goals — which demand action on Biden’s watch. A likely outcome of front-loading those 2030 targets to put pressure on Biden is that much of the uncertainty about major-emitter ambition, which otherwise might have been stowed up as bargaining chips for COP26 — the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this November — has been resolved. That suggests that Glasgow will become even more the climate finance summit, because few of the G7 nations can plausibly come forward with more ambitious domestic goals than they have offered, but all of them can and should do more to help developing economies leapfrog to low-carbon development.

But what made Earth Day 2021 such a breakthrough was that nations were not the only major participants pressuring Biden. In the run-up to the Earth Day Summit, states representing almost half the U.S. vehicle market urged the Biden administration to require all new passenger vehicle to be electrified or otherwise zero-emission by 2035, while Washington state set a 2030 deadline for its own fleet. This clearly increased the odds that each of these states will individually adopt the 2035 deadline for its own market, something the auto industry has thus far resisted.

Then the private sector weighed in, as 400 major U.S. corporations jointly urged the Biden administration to offer a 50% emission cut as the 2030 national pledge — effectively creating expectations that each of them would support state and federal regulatory initiatives requiring them to provide their share of that 50% reduction. Most significantly exposed from this call for 50% were Ford and General Motors. Both of the giant automakers have remained silent as auto industry trade associations to which they belong have vigorously lobbied against federal and state efforts to adopt emission-reduction mandates that will clearly be required for the U.S. to meet Biden’s goal of a 50% cut. 

If Putin was the biggest surprise, the most significant individual moment was provided by United Mine Workers president Cecil Roberts, who released the union’s new “Preserving Coal Country” plan at a press conference alongside West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. The UMW plan for the first time gives the union’s imprimatur to a major emphasis on investment in clean energy as a priority for coal miners and West Virginia. Manchin, widely seen as the key to the Biden administration’s chances of passing the American Jobs Plan, buttressed Roberts by saying, “As chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, ensuring all coal miners aren’t left behind as America transitions to a cleaner energy future is one of my top priorities.”

The lack of a low-carbon transition acceptable to the UMW has been a major hurdle to establishing a clear pathway to the full decarbonization of the American power sector. A goal of 100% clean electricity is at the heart of Biden’s pledge. Virtually every model that achieves the Paris climate goal assumes 100% clean power. Now that a broad set of demands from the most affected community of workers — coal miners and their communities — is on the table, it’s likely that the long-simmering conversation about a “just transition” will come rapidly to a rolling boil.

I’ll be very surprised if the president’s response to this call for clean energy for the coal belt doesn’t generate some intense and potentially game-changing conversations. As Paul Krugman points out, restoring Appalachia’s economy won’t be easy, no matter what. But it will be hopeless if we keep postponing a serious effort and a serious commitment. Indeed, Appalachia will be the crucial test case for our overall ability to accelerate clean energy progress by intensifying the economic benefits for fossil-dependent and fossil-exposed communities.

Pfizer may have an anti-viral COVID-19 pill available by the end of the year

Pfizer, which along with Moderna developed successful mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 late last year, announced on Tuesday that it could have ready by the end of the year an experimental oral drug which would treat COVID-19 as soon as patients display symptoms. The announcement was made by CEO Albert Bourla on the CNBC program “Squawk Box,” who said that for the drug to be released to the public it will first need to perform well at clinical trials and receive approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“This is an inhibitor of the protease enzyme in the SARS-CoV-2 which is promising in pre-clinical studies to block the ability of the virus to replicate,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, infectious disease doctor and professor of medicine at the University of California — San Francisco, told Salon by email.

Pfizer had announced that Phase I trials, the first stage in testing a new drug, were to start soon to see if the virus was safe in adults. 

Gandhi said that it was a “promising” oral antiviral drug, one that “could be used easily in the outpatient setting to treat COVID-19.”  Remdesivir is the only other existing antiviral drug used to fight COVID-19; famously, it was administered to President Trump when he contracted the virus.

Dr. Russell Medford, Chairman of the Center for Global Health Innovation and Global Health Crisis Coordination Center, said the drug held “significant promise as a potential treatment to be used at the first sign of infection or exposure to the SARS-CoV2 virus,” with the caveat that the clinical trial process had barely begun. 

“To have this drug available for broad use by the end of the year is very ambitious but not without precedent as exemplified by the extraordinary rapidity in which multiple COVID-19 vaccines were developed, tested and deployed,” Medford added.

Because such a drug would be administered to those who contracted COVID-19, and thus were either unvaccinated or breakthrough cases, its utility may be slightly more limited than the vaccine. Dr. Alfred Sommer, dean emeritus and professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, noted that preventing a disease through a vaccination is more cost effective than treating it after a person has been infected and diagnosed.

Pfizer, like Moderna, currently distributes a vaccine using a revolutionary new technology called mRNA vaccines. While conventional vaccine platforms take a weak or dead version of a pathogen (disease-causing organism) and inject it into the body, mRNA vaccines simply use a bespoke RNA strand that trains the body’s cells to recognize proteins associated with the microscopic invaders. In the case of their COVID-19 vaccine, the immune system is trained to recognize proteins associated with the spikes that poke out of the virus’ central sphere like spines from a sea urchin.

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Democratic insider David Rothkopf on Biden’s historic first 100 days — and the danger ahead

To the surprise of many people, in a series of interviews last year Noam Chomsky, noted truth-teller and bold voice of the left, urged Americans to vote for Joe Biden to save the world from Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Chomsky continues to implore people of conscience to hold Biden accountable by encouraging him to adopt a progressive policy agenda.

It would appear that Chomsky’s advice and wisdom was correct.

Joe Biden will reach his 100th day as president of the United States this week. During that short time, his administration has made amazing progress in defeating the COVID pandemic, has proposed the sweeping infrastructure package known as the American Jobs Plan and has pulled the country’s economy (at least for now) out of its death spiral. Biden is attempting to craft a legacy as the next iteration of Franklin D. Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson. It appears he aspires to be a progressive and transformative president and not a mere caretaker as many observers reasonably suggested he would be.

Biden has also reversed many of his predecessor’s most evil, vile, and cruel policies. The presidency was debased by Donald Trump, but Biden has already restored dignity to the office and has also made great strides in restoring America’s leadership role in the world.

To this point, Biden’s policies are extremely popular among the American people. Why? Because he is responding to their needs.

At this early stage, at least, Biden has also struck a blow against critics who assumed that his age would somehow be a detriment to his capacity to lead the country. Steven Beschloss addressed this in his newsletter “America, America”:

But look at him now. Just days away from 100 days in office, there’s already a vigorous record of achievement that belies the notion that an old guy can’t handle the rigors of the job. Quite the opposite. For all those who complained before the election about another old white guy taking the reins, whined that we needed someone younger and fresher, and worried that he was the last guy to take the country into the future, Biden has proffered a compelling (and calm) counterpunch.

Knowledge, experience and the wisdom of age — matched with the common sense to surround himself with talented professionals and experts — looks not only like the right package for this moment, but a winning approach at any time. 

For all of Biden’s success, the threat of Trumpism, the Jim Crow Republicans and their neofascist assault on multiracial democracy and freedom is escalating. Across the country Republicans are enacting legislation that will make it more difficult for Black and brown people and other supporters of the Democratic Party to vote. The Big Lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump and the Republicans endures (and perhaps is even gaining momentum). The attack by Trump’s forces on the U.S. Capitol as part of a larger coup attempt has been largely thrown down the memory hole in an act of organized forgetting by the American people and leaders on both sides of the political aisle. Such cowardice all but ensures that another attack on the country’s democracy is inevitable.

Across the country, Republicans are also attempting to make protest and other acts of free speech and dissent by liberals and progressives — especially the Black Lives Matter movement — illegal.

The Republican Party’s war on democracy is ascendant and victorious on the state and local level, as well as in the courts. White supremacists and other right-wing paramilitaries remain the greatest threat to the country’s domestic safety and tranquility.

To discuss all this, I recently reached out to David Rothkopf, who held a senior position in Bill Clinton’s administration and is the author of numerous articles and several books, the latest being “Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump.”

Rothkopf is also a frequent contributor to such media outlets as the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, Time magazine and CNN. He also hosts the twice-weekly podcast Deep State Radio.

In this conversation Rothkopf assesses Biden’s first 100 days as president, arguing that “retail politics,” in combination with Biden’s ability to ignore culture-war issues, has been so successful (for now) in advancing his legislative agenda and overcoming Republican obstructionism. Contrary to the warnings of many other pundits, Rothkopf believes that the Democratic Party will remain in a strong position during the 2022 midterms and beyond.

Rothkopf also warns that the Republican Party of the Trump era poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the events of Jan. 6 and other crimes by the Trump regime must be properly investigated and punished.

At the end of this conversation, Rothkopf reflects on how new information related to the 2016 Russia scandal again confirms that Donald Trump is a traitor to the United States.

Biden is approaching his 100th day as president. The threat from Trumpism continues to endure, and may be escalating. The pandemic has killed more than 550,000 people in the United States. How are you feeling?

I’m feeling good. I do not want to minimize the challenges we are facing, such as the scars that exist from the Trump presidency, the Republican Party seeking to undermine democracy in America, voter suppression, the horrific record of police departments in their treatment of communities of color and the pandemic resurgence in a number of places across the country. Those are all serious things.

The question is whether the needle is pointing in the right direction in terms of our leadership. Right now, in Washington, I think it certainly is. Biden has very quickly put in place an exceptionally competent team. The Biden administration has not made many wrong moves.

Their response to COVID-19 has been remarkable. Of course, there were bound to be missteps. We recently discovered that there was no plan from the Trump administration about how to defeat the pandemic. One of Trump’s biggest crimes is probably his willful mishandling of the pandemic, which led to the loss of life of hundreds of thousands of people here in America. 

Biden brought in a team that said, we’ve got to get these vaccines out. They did that. Now all of a sudden, the United States, which was lagging behind the world, is leading the world in terms of vaccinations.

On top of that, of course, Biden passed the American Rescue Plan, which is a $1.9 trillion package. It got money into the public’s hands and now there are estimates for economic growth in this country that are unprecedented in American history. I can’t help but notice that there is hope on the horizon.

What does accountability and justice look like for the Trump regime? There should be a truth and reconciliation committee. Trump and his inner circle and others should be put on trial for their willfully negligent response to the coronavirus pandemic. Moreover, the Trumpists are not going away. They continue to menace the American people. If they are not held accountable these threats to democracy will only escalate.

When Stephen Miller offers suggestions for how we as a country should deal with migrants and refugees at the border, we must never forget that he is an architect of crimes against humanity. He has no credibility on these issues.

Is there still a threat to American democracy? Yes. Is voter suppression and other threats to American democracy a serious threat? Yes. Are we out of the woods? No, we’re not. If the Republicans take back the Senate or the House, we as a country are going to have a real bad time from 2022 onwards.

These are some of the things which keep me from being as vocal in my frustration with certain missteps of the Biden administration as I potentially could be. Not advancing the $15-an-hour minimum wage is a failure, for example. They also could have done something preferable in terms of refugees. But ultimately, it is critically urgent that Democrats do not lose the sense of purpose that we had going into the 2020 campaign as we approach the 2022 campaign. Frankly, I want to direct my ammunition against the bad guys, not against the good guys.

What are one or two the things that President Biden has done which most surprised you?

I’m an Elizabeth Warren Democrat. I make no bones about it. To me, she is the intellectual leader of the party. I think if you’re looking at what was surprising about Biden, he very quickly made it clear that he was going to listen to that wing of the party. He is not just paying lip service. There are key people in key jobs that come out of the Warren camp and the Sanders camp. They are going to make a difference in the Biden administration, in terms of its policies.

This administration has also decided to go big instead of embracing compromise. The greatest stroke of genius by Joe Biden is that he is, in his own way, deaf to the culture wars. When he says, “I’m going to go bipartisan,” Biden will give the folks on the Hill every chance to listen to him. But when they reveal themselves — the Republicans particularly — to be obstructionist and unwilling to collaborate in any way, Biden says, “I work for the people. I’m going to go to the American people.”

The American Rescue Plan has a huge level of support among the American people. Support for the infrastructure plan is also very popular. Biden is actually president at a moment when America is very divided, yet he is forging a bipartisan alliance of voters by bypassing Capitol Hill. It is “retail politics” at their best.

As a country we are in a situation where one side, the Democrats, are trying to do what’s good for the people and the Republicans are trying to do what’s good for the 1% and special interests. That is not political posturing. That is just the fact.  

How can the Democrats tell a better story about their progress, and frame their successes as a moral crusade? Where are the commercials and talking points that consistently brand the Republican Party as traitors given Trumpism, Jan. 6, the collusion with Russia and so many other betrayals of American democracy?

There are people in the Democratic Party, particularly younger political leaders, who understand how to use social media and new media in better ways than others in the party. I believe that the best messaging in the world is good results.

Here’s what I know. If the economy is in good shape next year, that is good for Democrats. If the pandemic is under control next year, that is good for Democrats. If infrastructure is getting built and jobs are being created, that is good for Democrats.

As for the traitor issue? The reality is that some chickens are going to come home to roost for Donald Trump in the next 18 months. Matt Gaetz is just one example of a Republican scumbag getting called out for being a Republican scumbag. He is not going to be the only example. Where it counts, I believe the Democrats are going to have momentum on their side, because Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, the White House team, the Cabinet and others in the administration are doing a good job.

Why does the Republican Party hate democracy? 

The Republicans are afraid of democracy. They’re afraid that if every American had an equal right to vote, the Republican Party would not exist. As demographic trends continue in the United States over the next few decades, we are going to be a minority-majority country. The United States will be a country where people of color are the majority. The Republican Party’s message of racism and clinging to the cultural models of the 19th century will not be able to survive.

The only way the Republican Party can survive is if they gut our democracy and essentially create a kind of two-tiered system in U.S. politics, where if you are white and conservative you get more votes than if you are Black or brown and progressive.

Fox News is one of the most dangerous elements in American society and politics today. That network and its hosts and guests are mainstreaming white supremacy and fascism to their millions of viewers. Tucker Carlson is perhaps the worst offender, on a near-daily basis repeating literal white supremacist talking points. How can the Democrats, and Americans of conscience and principle more generally, fight back?

I think the first thing to do is recognize that this is not Fox News. This is American history. I grew up in suburban New Jersey in the 1960s. We went trick-or-treating, and the guy next door turned us away because we were carrying a little orange “Trick or treat for UNICEF” box, because the United Nations was communist, and UNICEF was therefore communist, and we were therefore communist.

When I was growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, on “mischief night” they drew swastikas on our driveway because we were Jewish. Our neighbors who lived down the street in this beautiful, idyllic, green-lawn New Jersey community said, “We have a bomb shelter, but you will not be allowed to use it come the apocalypse, because you are Jewish.”

If you are a Black American, this is not new. Racism has been deeply ingrained in the United States from the outset. Sexism and gender bias has been deeply ingrained in the United States since the outset. Fear of the Other is part of this country’s history.

What we have got to do is call the Fox News types out. The other thing we have to do is empower the people that the right-wing “news” media is trying to silence.

The proposed “America First caucus” was another example of the ways right-wing extremists are pushing and testing barriers as a way to mainstream fascism and hate. When you heard that language of “America First,” what was your response?

Outrage and nausea. This is not what we’re supposed to be about in America. The greatness of America is not a given, it is a struggle. The white majority in the United States has sought to impose their will in very anti-democratic and inhumane ways throughout the country’s history.

George Floyd is not just the tragic story of one person on one street corner in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s the story of the United States since its very beginning. We as a country have still not fixed these problems with racism and other social injustice. American democracy is starting to change. We are at a tipping point, where for the first time in the entire history of this country those people who have been oppressed because of the color of their skin are entering the majority. This change will not come without struggle and strife. There will also be hope because of these changes.

There are new revelations from the Treasury Department about Paul Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign manager, and had a close, direct connection with a known Russian asset, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 presidential campaign. Manafort gave Kilimnik internal polling data that he then apparently passed to Russian intelligence agents. This is more proof of collusion and treason by Trump and his inner circle. You highlighted this fact in your book “Traitor.” Given this new information about Trump and Russia, what does justice look like?

Ultimately, everything that we assumed was true about Donald Trump will be borne out. Donald Trump and his campaign willfully reached out to the Russians, knew it was illegal, worked around the law and obtained Russian help. It made a difference in the election. Then Trump and his inner circle rewarded the Russians, defended the Russians, obstructed justice to protect themselves and the Russians and encouraged the Russians to intervene again in the country’s upcoming elections. Donald Trump and his campaign did it because Trump wanted to win. They did it because Donald Trump thought it was in his financial interest to do so.

Some of the characters in and around Trump were highly conscious of what they were doing. Paul Manafort worked in that part of the world. He worked with a guy, Konstantin Kilimnik, who was widely thought to be a Russian agent. Kilimnik worked for a Russian oligarch who sat at the right hand of Vladimir Putin. Manafort knew what he was doing. He’s a scumbag, but he’s not an idiot.

Roger Stone knew what he was doing. Donald Trump knew that he needed people like Roger Stone, who were willing to color outside the lines, to get done what Trump wanted done. Did Donald Trump Jr. know that? Probably. Did Jared Kushner and Ivanka know what was going on? Probably. Steve Bannon and some of these other characters, I suspect that they did as well.

I think gradually, over time, we as a country are going to finally come to the realization that, “Holy mackerel. The Russians collaborated with American traitors to tip the scales in a U.S. election. They succeeded. They did untold damage to the United States and the world. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died as a direct result of this. And they all got away with it.”

I suspect that, 10 years from now, it is going to be just a matter of public knowledge that what you think happened and what I think happened with Trump and Russia is accepted because it is the truth. I do not know if there will be justice through the courts. But there will be justice in the eyes of history.

GOP supervisor’s COVID-19 vaccine “tracking devices” question met with laughs

A California health official couldn’t stop himself from laughing as a Republican supervisor grilled him on the coronavirus vaccine and tracking devices.

Orange County supervisor Don Wagner has been a skeptic about efforts to mitigate the pandemic, and he demanded answers Tuesday evening about the vaccine from Dr. Clayton Chau, the county’s chief public health officer and director of the Orange County Health Care Agency.

“Is there any intention of tracking folks?” Wagner asked.

Chau indicated there was no intention of that.

“We heard about an injection of a tracking device,” Wagner said. “Is that being done anywhere in Orange County?”

Chau did not immediately respond, and then the microphone picked up his audible laughter.

“I’m sorry, I just have to compose myself,” Chau said after a pause. “There is not a vaccine with a tracking device embedded in it that I know of [that] exists in the world, period.”

Social media users have shared content suggesting that a microchip on vaccine syringes used to certify that individual doses are safe could be injected for nefarious purposes, but no such technology exists at this time.

After the video went viral, Wagner sent an email to The Washington Post explaining his line of questioning. He said some of his Orange County constituents had “made wild charges” about vaccines that he sought to debunk.

“I led Dr. Chau through those charges and to have him debunk them,” Wagner said. “I knew they are not true but wanted the public to hear that directly from Dr. Chau. I got exactly the response from Dr. Chau I expected, with the same laugh at the absurdity of the charges that they deserve.”

CORRECTION: This story was updated when Raw Story was alerted to Supervisor Wagner’s intentions in his line of questioning. We regret the error.

Giuliani’s son says search warrant worse than being mocked on “SNL”

Andrew Giuliani, the former Trump administration official, continued to be the public face of his father’s legal defense after FBI agents served a search warrant on the former New York City mayor.

On Wednesday, Andrew Giuliani held a combative press conference outside of Rudy Giuliani’s apartment building.

Andrew Giuliani, who is considering running for governor of New York, followed up with an appearance on Newsmax, where he attacked the judge who signed the search warrant for his father’s electronic devices.

He then tried whataboutism about Hunter Biden.

“I mean, tell me, what is going on here?” he asked. “Is this America anymore?”

He then addressed former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer.

“You and I have been made fun of on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ this is nothing — that’s nothing compared to this,” Andrew Giuliani explained.

 

Right-wing erupts after Biden declares Jan. 6 “worst attack on democracy since Civil War”

President Joe Biden declared Wednesday night that the U.S. Capitol siege by a mob of Trump supporters on Jan. 6 was “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War,” a claim that angered many right-wing and pro-Trump pundits online.

Biden made the statement during his first address in front of a joint session of Congress, noting in his speech the numerous crises facing America as he wraps up his first 100 days in office. 

“While the setting tonight is familiar, this gathering is very different – a reminder of the extraordinary times we are in,” Biden said, from the same chamber that a pro-Trump mob breached just three months ago.

“As I stand here tonight — just one day shy of the 100th day of my administration. 100 days since I took the oath of office, lifted my hand off our family Bible, and inherited a nation in crisis,” Biden continued.

“The worst pandemic in a century. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. Now, after just 100 days, I can report to the nation: America is on the move again. Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Set back into strength. Life can knock us down. But in America, we never stay down. In America, we always get up. And today, that’s what we’re doing: America is rising anew. Choosing hope over fear. Truth over lies. Light over darkness.”

The “civil war” comment in particular sparked anger among right-wing pundits and Trump allies, who were quick to point out various foreign attacks that have taken place on American soil. 

“Biden says the January 6 protest was the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. Surprisingly, the room did not break into uncontrolled laughter at this ridiculous claim,” pro-Trump pundit Dinesh D’Souza tweeted, along with a video where he calls the Jan. 6 ransacking of the Capitol a “walk-through.” 

Right-wing radio host Eric Metaxas responded, “FACT: The “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” was when Democrats STOLE AN ELECTION from #WeThePeople–and then dared to pretend WE were the threat to democracy. Shame on them. They will not get away with this. Many are praying. God sees.”

Trump campaign flack Steve Cortes added: “So…Pearl Harbor, presidential assassinations, 9-11…all less threatening to our democracy than a bunch of unarmed fur hat hooligans?” 

Daily Wire founder and conservative pundit Ben Shapiro snarked, “He should know better than this, considering he’s old enough to remember all the intervening events since the Civil War.”

“Worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War? Not 9/11? Not Pearl Harbor???” disgraced Trump spokesperson Jason Miller tweeted. 

The far-right website Breitbart “fact-checked” the claim as “false.” “Not only wasn’t it the worst attack on our democracy; it wasn’t even the worst attack on the Capitol,” the site opined.

One other noteworthy right-wing reaction to Biden’s evening address came from American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp, who proudly tweeted about having lead pipes in his home after Biden called for lead pipe replacement:

“I have lead pipes in my 100-year-old house. Some are impossible to take out. Joe Biden is going to replace them? Cool,” Schlapp stated, which was quickly blasted by Twitter users who pointed out his attempt to “own the libs” had backfired.

Meghan McCain defends Fox News after network spreads fake Biden beef stories: “Fox is killing it”

At one point saying that she was “the only conservative woman in all of media,” “The View” co-host Meghan McCain railed against the “pro-liberal bias” of her own show while defending Fox News after the right-leaning news outlet spread fake news this week.

McCain’s rant was spurred by a question from fellow host Whoopi Goldberg about a recently debunked report published by The New York Post that claimed migrant children held at a holding facility had been given Vice President Kamala Harris’ picture book in welcome kits, as well as several stories which aired on Fox News suggesting that American beef consumption would be limited under a new plan proposed by President Joe Biden. Both stories were categorically false.

In an attempt to turn the question around on her co-host, McCain listed stories which she claimed had been given insufficient airtime on “The View,” namely alleged misconduct by the president’s son, Hunter Biden — a topic which Twitter users pointed out had indeed been covered by the daytime talk show multiple times in the past.

“Whereas Ivanka Trump or Donald Trump Jr. coughed in the wrong direction, and it probably would’ve taken up the first two blocks,” she said.

To prove her point, McCain referred to herself as the “token” conservative, both on the show and in mainstream American media as a whole.

She also deflected from the nascent scandals at both Rupert-Murdoch-owned outlets, suggesting that publishing the inaccurate stories simply wasn’t that big of a deal. 

“I take such umbrage at this entire concept that liberal media which runs all of media, all of tech, all of entertainment, all of music, all of politics, all three branches of government,” McCain said. “I’m supposed to feel bad that Fox News has like, two things that have been inaccurate?” 

She also claimed — without offering any examples — that “liberal” outlets such as CNN and MSNBC publish false stories “every day.” 

“There’s a reason why Fox is killing it in the ratings and laps everyone else,” she said. “It’s because it seems like it’s rigged every place else.”

You can watch the video below via Twitter:

New “weapons of mass destruction” charges filed against accused Whitmer kidnap plotters

Federal prosecutors filed new “conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction” charges Wednesday against three of the men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, tacking on one count each over the men’s alleged plans to use explosive devices in their foiled attempt to capture the rising Democratic star.

The additional charges against “Wolverine Watchmen” militia members Adam Fox, 38; Barry Croft, 45; and Daniel Harris, 23; involve their alleged plans to use bombs in a variety of situations that would slow down law enforcement and harm the governor’s security detail. One instance cited by prosecutors involved Fox and Croft allegedly inspecting the underside of a bridge near Whitmer’s vacation home, looking for weak spots that could be exploited to bring the structure down.

Fox was ultimately caught trying to order $4,000 worth of illegal explosives from an undercover FBI agent, according to the feds’ charging document, and incriminated Harris when he brought his fellow militiaman along on his trip to pay the agent.

In the federal complaint, prosecutors paint both Harris and Croft as being the group’s explosives experts — and cite several instances of the men allegedly testing out homemade bombs.

A total of 14 men have been charged in connection with the plot, according to The Detroit News, including one who has already pleaded guilty, 25-year-old Ty Garbin. The newspaper is reporting he is expected to testify against the others.

“This may be the kind of thing prosecutors are adding on as pressure in hopes that this, on top of all the other charges, will lead to quicker negotiations in the plea process,” Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told the News. 

The plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor came on the heels of several months of right-wing agitation in the state, including from then-President Donald Trump, who endorsed the eclectic group of heavily armed demonstrators who stormed the State Capitol building in May of last year to protest COVID-19 lockdowns.  

Whitmer became a special target of the nationwide anti-lockdown crowd’s ire following Trump’s comments, spurring “lock her up” chants at Trump rallies that evoked similar statements about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Fox, Croft and Harris all face sentences of up to life in prison if convicted of the new charges. 

Hulu’s tiresome “Handmaid’s Tale” should learn from the sins of “Planet of the Apes”

Since its second season I’ve likened “The Handmaid’s Tale” to another serialized alternate history depicting a world upended by a beastly totalitarian regime.  

In that other show, as in “Handmaid’s,” powerful oppressors lord over those they deem lesser and press humans into slave labor. A few of the bravest attempt to escape bondage time and again only to fail and be imprisoned once more.

I’m alluding to the TV adaptation of “Planet of the Apes,” a flop that starred Roddy McDowall, Ron Harper and James Naughton.

Most people never knew a small screen “Planet of the Apes” spinoff existed because it scraped by on CBS from September to December in 1974. But its relevance isn’t in the fact that it lived but why it died.

“About three or four episodes before the end, I’d realized, ‘This is a boring series,'” Harper told an interviewer years later. He went on: “In every episode, one of us, Roddy, James or me, would get captured by the apes and the other two would rescue him. We took turns. ‘Whose turn is it to get captured? Is it Roddy, me or Jim?'” Another time he referred to it “The Fugitive with Fur.“

Nearly five decades later “The Handmaid’s Tale” runs on a similar premise, and we call it a prestige drama. June (Elisabeth Moss) doesn’t try to run out on her Gilead captors every week, but she’s busted free and been recaptured enough times to make a person wonder what in the world is so special about her.

Fair question, considering that over the course of the series we see other Handmaids executed or maimed for looking at someone the wrong way. Not June! The writers find any number of excuses to keep her scowling and breathing despite her being a guaranteed flight risk. As this new season begins  she’s liberated scores of Gilead’s precious babies in a mission called Angel’s Flight. This happens after freeing her own at the end of Season 2, and returning to the home, only to be handed over to a new household, that of Joseph Lawrence (Bradley Whitford), so as we can see this mercy thing is really working out for her. However, in the course of fulfilling the Angel’s Flight mission she’s been shot. Badly.

But we know she’s going to survive. You can be similarly confident in knowing freedom cannot be a permanent state for June, otherwise the writers would be wasting a fine opportunity to place Moss in the same room with Ann Dowd, who plays the vicious Aunt Lydia, and watch the two actors blow us away with their expressiveness.

Time was that “The Handmaid’s Tale” won plaudits for its eerie relevance. During the previous administration it made our fears about democracy’s slide into right-wing fascism real, giving that anxiety red robes and wings. Now its primary function is to showcase performances its stars can submit for Emmys and Globes – Moss and Dowd, centrally and primarily, but also Alexis Bledel (the show’s other individual Emmy winner), Yvonne Strahovski and Samira Wiley.

The acting is excellent, so very good in fact that its fans probably forgive June’s perpetual cycle between Hell and near-freedom and back again.

 The “Planet of the Apes” producers and CBS thought that show would to go for five years, and its reliance on such a cycle doomed it to last precisely for as long as it should have. Meanwhile Hulu picked up “The Handmaid’s Tale” for a fifth season before its fourth premiered trusting that its audience will show up – which it likely will, because it knows what it’s getting.

Tougher to predict is whether its Christofascist dystopia will feel crusty; we haven’t seen a new episode since 2019. That isn’t to say we’ve halted our march to Gilead; the man (and woman!) in the White House seem committed to slowing its pace. But we have bad news: the Supreme Court could very well accelerate it despite the executive branch and Congress’ barest efforts.

We’re not there yet, but series creator and showrunner Bruce Miller seems bent on dragging out this series to some point at which fiction and reality connect in part by ensuring June can never entirely wriggle free of Gilead’s patriarchy.

True to its main purpose, Season 4 showcases Moss’ talents in front of the camera and behind it; she directs three of the season’s 10 episodes.

This narrative’s leg also spends more time with Wiley’s Moira and June’s husband Luke (O. T. Fagbenle) in Canada, where Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife Serena Joy (Strahovski) are also in custody and may stand trial.

Increasing the screen time for these characters and Bledel’s Emily is wonderful, but if you get the sense that they’re placeholders making space for a change in June’s situation . . . to confirm that would be a spoiler. But I refer to previous points about situational redundancy. The handmaiden, if you will, to that problem is predictability.

Very little of the bombastic white feminism that drove me away from the third season has been ameliorated. If anything, June’s successfully shipping more than 80 Gilead children to Canada along with a number of adults has given her even more of a Moses complex. (In case you didn’t get the reference in the third season finale, that’s Exodus June is quoting in voiceover as she’s borne aloft by her fellow Handmaid rebels.)

Only now, June is done with bearing up under her sorrows. In the presence of a psychologically damaged child wife played by Mckenna Grace, she allows the malevolence and rage she’s carrying around inside of her to flower. By the tail of this season she’s a transformed figure which, again, gives Moss fresh extremes to play with.

All of this focus on June, and Moss, costs the other characters and actors opportunities to flourish. Some of that is corrected in these latest episodes, especially with regard to Wiley and Fagbenle’s roles. Not only do Luke and Moira get meatier scenes, they’re provided a reason to exist in this series beyond tying themselves in knots as they wait for June to parent her child Nichole. Through them and other figures filled out more extensively, including (thankfully) Amanda Brugel’s Rita, the new season starts to explore what it means to survive an extended period of degradation. Then it asks whether it’s possible for a person to come to terms with the damage that’s been done to them and reconcile with the individuals who inflict that damage. I should say it begins to do this but, in the eight episodes provided for review, never fully gets there.

Blame that addiction to the round and round of escape and return, amped up this time to include a torture episode. That part exceeds an hour and incorporates a smiling version of Gilead’s Torquemada into the sort of dimly lit chambers we’d expect from “24” at the height of its sadism. Perhaps this is a way for Miller, who writes the episode with Moss directing, to address those critiques about June’s inexplicable survival by making her wages of her sin very dear this time. But yet another round of inflicted savagery is unnecessary at this point, and worse, it’s tiresome.

People who love “The Handmaid’s Tale” probably won’t care about any of that, and may even welcome it, accepting that Moss is at the center of its existence. True to that notion Moss consistently adds new layers of grime and rot into June until she’s barely recognizable.

Placing this insistent spotlight on Moss and June undercuts the potentially powerful themes the story might have explored with more fullness, and that June keeps insisting is the case, which is that the struggles of one woman aren’t more important than the suffering endured by untold numbers of people oppressed and enslaved in Gilead.

That means that while the fourth season moves toward breaking that old catch and release merry-go-round, it doesn’t sufficiently persuade us to wholly invest in what’s beyond it.  June despises Gilead and hates it more each time she’s forced to go back, but without providing a vision as to where the story’s headed the best we can muster in reaction to her plight is a yawn.

The first three episodes of “The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 4 are currently streaming on Hulu, with new episodes released weekly.

GOP state lawmaker urges schools to teach “good” side of slavery — and La. hearing goes off rails

During a local Louisiana House Education Committee hearing, Republican state Rep. Ray Garofalo argued that the state’s public schools should teach students about the “good” part of slavery. The statement from Garofalo, which he later said had been a mistake of sorts, comes on the heels of the lawmaker introducing a statewide bill seeking to ban “divisive concepts” when public institutions teach about race. 

On Tuesday, the hearing quickly turned tense when Garofalo was hit with a series of questions from fellow Republican Rep. Stephanie Hilferty on the terminology of the bill proposed by Garofalo, who chairs the committee. “Prohibit discussion of divisive concepts as part of a larger course of academic instruction. What does that mean?” Hilferty asked Garofalo. 

“It’s exactly what it says,” Garofalo snapped back. “The words on the page are, if there is a …” before Hilferty interrupted to ask, “But what is a larger course of academic instruction?” 

Garofalo then responded by giving an example while making the case that the “good” side of slavery should be taught in public schools. “If you’re teaching, if you’re having a discussion on, whatever the case may be, on slavery, and you can talk about everything dealing with slavery. The good, the bad, the ugly, the whole …” Garofalo declared, to which Hilferty quickly replied, “There’s no good to slavery, though.”

Some individuals in the hearing room broke out in laughter directed at the suggestion that there was a “good” side to slavery. 

“Then whatever the case may be,” Garofalo stated following the laughter from the audience, before moving on to a partial retraction, and then seemingly getting entangled in his rhetoric. “You’re right, you’re right, I didn’t mean to imply that. And I don’t believe that, and I know that that’s the case,” he said. “I’m using that ‘good, bad and ugly’ as a generic way of saying that you can teach any facts, factually based anything regardless.”  

Later on in the hearing Garofalo again attempted to clean up his previous remark, only to once again deliver an indecipherable word salad. “There’s no good side to slavery; I get that. That’s, I don’t think anybody in this room would argue that fact. I’d be really shocked if they did,” he added. “But, if there’s a different concept that you’re trying to teach the once, as it was conceptually brought in, and you don’t think, you don’t give a personal opinion; you don’t give a politically based ideologically based opinion, you teach what occurred, what is generally accepted by the historians in the area, and what’s prescribed by the curriculum that the district has chosen.”

One of the provisions outlined in Garofalo’s bill would seek to squelch the idea that the United States and Louisiana are “systematically racist or sexist.” The bill further calls for a halt to the use of “critical race theory” in schools, which has left many Louisiana lawmakers divided.

Rudy Giuliani’s attorney accuses the FBI of “legal thuggery” after agents raid his home

Federal agents raided the home of Rudy Giuliani and seized his electronic devices on Wednesday as part of an ongoing investigation into his business dealings in Ukraine, according to the former mayor’s lawyer.

Investigators in Manhattan executed a search warrant at the Upper East Side home of the former New York City mayor and personal attorney for Donald Trump, officials told the Associated Press and The New York Times. Seven FBI agents woke Giuliani at his apartment after rejecting his attorney’s offer to voluntarily speak to prosecutors, local news outlet 1010 WINS reported.

The raid comes amid a long-running federal investigation into whether Giuliani illegally lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian oligarchs who helped him search for dirt on President Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign.

The Department of Justice repeatedly blocked prosecutors from the Southern District of New York — which Giuliani once led — from executing the warrant in the final months of the Trump administration, The Times previously reported. But that interference ended when Attorney General Merrick Garland took over the department, the outlet revealed on Wednesday.

Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing. His attorney, Robert Costello, told the outlet that the raid was “legal thuggery.”

“Why would you do this to anyone, let alone someone who was the associate attorney general, United States attorney, the mayor of New York City and the personal lawyer to the 45th president of the United States,” he said.

Though the warrant is not an “explicit accusation of wrongdoing,” the outlet noted, “it shows that the investigation has entered an aggressive new phase.” Officials would have had to convince a judge that they had sufficient belief that a crime was committed and that the raid would yield evidence of it.

Costello told The Wall Street Journal that the search warrant focused on possible lobbying violations and sought communications between Giuliani and other individuals, including John Solomon, a columnist who spread Giuliani’s false claims about the Bidens.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, former associates of Giuliani who helped him search for information on Biden and connected him to Ukrainian officials, were previously charged with unrelated crimes in 2019. Both men have pleaded not guilty. Investigators gained access to some of Giuliani’s communications in their probe of the two men, according to CNN.

Prosecutors have reviewed Giuliani’s business dealings in Ukraine, according to The Times, and his role in ousting then-Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who testified to Congress in Trump’s first impeachment that Giuliani orchestrated a smear campaign against her because she opposed his effort to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into Biden. Giuliani seemingly admitted to this in an interview with The New Yorker in 2019, telling the outlet that he “needed Yovanovitch out of the way” because she “was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.”

Prosecutors are looking at whether Giuliani worked on behalf of Ukrainian officials or companies while representing Trump, sources told the Times. The investigation is also looking at whether Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires anyone lobbying the federal government on behalf of foreign officials to register with the Justice Department. Former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort and former Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy both pleaded guilty to FARA violations before they were pardoned by Trump in January.

Prosecutors are particularly interested in Giuliani’s dealings with former top Ukrainian prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko, who was fired for corruption before feeding Giuliani false information about Biden. Though the deal ultimately fell apart, documents obtained by The Times and The Washington Post in 2019 showed that Giuliani had negotiated a contract to represent Lutsenko in his bid to recover assets taken in the corruption probe for at least $200,000. Lutsenko ultimately admitted to reporters that there was no wrongdoing on behalf of Biden or his son, Hunter, in Ukraine.

Prosecutors have also looked at Giuliani’s dealings with Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch with deep ties to Russia who faces extradition to the U.S. on bribery and racketeering charges. Firtash claimed in 2019 that Giuliani had offered to help with his legal case in exchange for assistance finding dirt on Biden.

Prosecutors have also looked at Giuliani’s dealings with Pavel Fuks, a Ukrainian-Russian developer who was involved in discussions about a potential Trump Tower project in Moscow. Fuks claimed in 2019 that he had hired Giuliani to lobby on behalf of Ukraine in the U.S., a claim which the former mayor denied.

Prosecutors prepared the search warrant for Giuliani’s home as early as last summer, according to The Times. However, political appointees shot down the idea because it was too close to the election, even though career Justice Department officials “largely supported the search warrant.”

Prosecutors reportedly sought to execute the warrant in December following the election but Trump’s appointees again blocked the move, arguing that Giuliani was representing Trump in his legal challenges over his election loss.

Though reports about the investigation have focused on lobbying violations and Giuliani’s efforts to oust Yovanovitch, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that subpoenas issued in the probe “indicate a broad federal investigation into possible money laundering, obstruction of justice and campaign-finance violations.”

QAnon fans are obsessed with Arizona vote “audit,” still hoping for Trump comeback

There is a storm brewing in Arizona. For the past week, Maricopa County — the state’s major population center — which narrowly favored President Joe Biden during the 2020 general election, has been holding its very own election audit following demands from a Republican-led coalition to recount the ballots. 

Stoking the fire behind the audit is an army of online QAnon conspiracy theorists, who have taken it upon themselves to fastidiously monitor live streams of each and every auditor in the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, where the recount is being held, according to VICE. Any suspicious activity seen in the streams is reportedly being flagged by QAnon fans, who then spread word of such activity on various fringe pro-Trump forums and QAnon Telegram channels, often attached to grandiose claims of election conspiracy. 

Several prominent members of the MAGAverse have already taken the reins of the surveillance campaign, as VICE reported. Ron Watkins, the former administrator of the message board 8kun, which has been called “ground zero for QAnon,” recently shared a series of videos alleging foul play by various auditors. “We are watching the auditors,” Watkins wrote. “No shenanigans will get through the sharp eyes of the watchers.” Watkins is believed by many to be the original architect behind Q, the anonymous leader whose online “drops” launched the QAnon conspiracy theories.

The audit is being conducted by Florida-based tech company Cyber Ninjas, owned by Doug Logan, a known QAnon conspiracy theorist who, in advance of the recount, speculated that it would garner an extra 200,000 votes for Donald Trump, according to the Huffington Post. Logan himself has widely spread false claims on Twitter that Trump lost the election due to systemic fraud, without of course supplying any evidence. 

Arizona Republican officials had reportedly never heard of Cyber Ninjas, which has no known experience in auditing elections. On Friday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury demanded that the firm provide more transparency regarding its recount procedures. Cyber Ninjas has so far refused to hand over such information, claiming it would “compromise the security of its recount,” according to The Arizona Republic. The company also alleged that divulging the details of its recount procedures would threaten its trade secrets. 

Members of the MAGAverse have also bandied unsubstantiated fears that the left will attempt to physically shut down the recount in order to prevent Trump’s miraculous return to office. (Which, to be clear, is a legal and constitutional impossibility.) According to the Daily Beast, many watching the auditors have expressed fear that the Arizona Rangers, a civilian law enforcement auxiliary that has been patrolling outside the recount premises, cannot provide enough security to ward off a leftist attack. 

One MAGA influencer by the name of Joe M. stoked fears that Arizona Gov. Greg Ducey, who refused to fortify the audit’s security detail at Trump’s behest, speculated that Ducey’s refusal indicates the presence of “domestic paramilitary paid mercenaries, cunningly named ‘Antifa'” who “are on standby and will be deployed against American civil servants, and the public at large, when political and media subterfuge is no longer effective, and the true result is finally revealed.”

Trump’s former national security adviser, the Q-curious retired general Michael Flynn, claimed in a speech last month to have “intel” that antifa and Black Lives Matter activists “from Portland and Seattle” planned to come to Arizona “to disrupt finding the truth.” No such invasion has occurred to this point. 

The Arizona Rangers themselves attempted to allay security fears by sharing an article from the right-wing fringe news site Gateway Pundit, which only added fuel to the fire by claiming: “The Coliseum is well guarded and there are contingencies if someone tried to bully their way in. But the Democrats are desperate and will do anything — even steal an election to gain power.”

On Thursday, the Arizona Democratic Party, along with the sole Democrat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, filed a lawsuit against Republican State Senate President Karen Fann and Cyber Ninjas in a last-ditch attempt to put an end to the audit, according to AP News. The suit alleges that Fann and another GOP state senator have outsourced the recount to an “inexperienced third party with clear bias” who will cause “irreparable harm to the integrity of Arizona’s election systems.”

Jared Holt, resident fellow at the Atlantic Council ‘s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told Salon that members of QAnon are “anticipating discrepancies they hope will validate their false beliefs about the integrity of the vote.”

“Even a minor flaw that does not alter the result of the final tally has the potential to revamp falsehoods about the election and inspire calls for additional recounts or further action,” Holt explained. “Given how desperate these communities have proved themselves to be in their search for a smoking gun, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where they would actually accept a finding that reveals no foul play. Many are seeking validation, not answers.”

Right-wing lies like Biden’s beef ban and Kamala’s book spread too fast for corrections to counter

Over the weekend, two sensational fake stories — a Fox Business Network segment about President Joe Biden’s supposed plans to impose strict beef rations on Americans and a New York Post news article claiming Vice President Kamala Harris’s book was being distributed to migrant children in shelters — spread rapidly through right wing social media after being injected into the bloodstream by outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch and his family. Both stories were eventually corrected — Fox on air, and the Post in two separate, corrected articles — after being debunked by fact-checkers. 

In both cases, however, it’s highly unlikely that corrections will ever penetrate the consciousness of the average person who shared straight-faced posts referencing these fake stories on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or the other social media sites. On the contrary, you’ll probably be hearing right wing relatives griping about Harris using her book to indoctrinate migrant children and “jokes” about Biden’s burgers for years to come.

There’s a popular maxim — ironically, often falsely attributed to figures like Mark Twain or Winston Churchill — that a lie can travel around the world while the truth is still lacing up its boots. In right wing circles, that observation is starting to morph into what looks very much like a strategy. 

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Tuesday night, Laura Italiano, the New York Post reporter who wrote the original story about Harris, dramatically resigned, claiming on Twitter that she was “ordered to write” the story and that it “was my breaking point.” The original story falsely claimed migrant centers are issuing “welcome packs for migrant children” that, along with “basic hygiene supplies and clothing,” include copies of “Superheroes Are Everywhere,” a picture book Harris co-authored about how teachers and moms and other adults in kids lives are “superheroes.”

In reality, there was one copy of the book at one HHS center in California — a donation, not part of any official “welcome pack.” (Like many lies that find credulous ears, this one bears a resemblance to a true, yet utterly unrelated to Harris, story: Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh got caught profiteering off her position with a scheme involving children’s book sales.)

Still, as Zachary Petrizzo documents, the false Harris book story tore through right wing media, referenced by figures like Fox News host Tucker Carlson. It also — and perhaps more importantly — ripped through social media. Figures like Dan Bongino and Glenn Beck, who routinely show up on the list of Facebook’s most popular posters, amplified the story. Bongino’s post on it has more than 12,000 reactions from his fans, with thousands of irate comments about Harris “pawning off” her book to kids. 

For weeks now, Carlson has been exploiting the influx of refugees at the southern border to mainstream “replacement theory.” It’s a white nationalist conspiracy theory that accuses shadowy elites — the neo-Nazis say “Jews,” Carlson cleans it up with “Democrats” — of trying to replace the current electorate with new people, “more obedient voters” from the Third World. It’s a preposterous accusation — it’s well known that most refugees are fleeing violence in Central America, and the Biden administration has actually been criticized for not processing applicants fast enough. Carlson has not only pushed the “replacement theory” lie, he’s been publicly defended by Lachlan Murdoch, son of right wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and CEO of Fox News, after doing so.

This particular fake story about Harris’ book — again, published by another Murdoch-owned company, the New York Post — is handy fodder for those amplifying the “replacement theory” narrative. They can suggest it’s proof that kids in migrant centers are being indoctrinated by the Biden administration. Carlson, for his part, did not simply repeat the fake Harris story as printed but did connect the book donation — his question: “How many copies exactly?” — to a rant about the U.S. resembling “North Korea” and the suggestion that maybe it’s Harris who’s secretly running the Biden administration now.

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The corrections have been issued. But as anyone who has spent more than five minutes on Facebook can tell you, the horse simply does not go back into the barn like that. People share the story because they want to believe it, and for the same reason, they’re disinclined to do a quick Google search to see if it’s even true before they share it. In general, questions about whether a story is true barely even enter into the way people discuss and spread them on social media. 

Jared Holt, a researcher for Right Wing Watch, tweeted on Tuesday, “it’s becoming undeniably evident that the GOP is treating blatant disinformation as fair-game politics. It has for a long time, to varying degrees, but it really is front and center right now.”

Right now, all the incentive structures reward right wing outlets spreading misinformation. It goes nuts on Facebook, swiftly hardening into right wing common wisdom that won’t get pried out of their heads with a crowbar and will be repeated like gospel in conservatives social circles for years to come. Corrections are merely a blip in time compared to the lifespan of the lie itself.  

As Parker Molloy at Media Matters writes, the situation is often made worse by mainstream media outlets refusing to label lies and misinformation for what they are. For instance, Bloomberg’s White House reporter, Jennifer Jacobs, tweeted, “White House pushes back on claims Biden wants to steer Americans off meat,” language that casts this merely as a partisan “dispute.” As Molloy writes, “Jacobs could have more honestly framed her reaction to the White House’s cheeky response to a lie by describing it as exactly that: a response to an obvious lie.”

The good news is that clear, concise debunkings — Daniel Dale at CNN and Katie Shepherd at the Washington Post provide good examples with the Biden burger story — can help slow down the speed by which fake stories spread. Not because many conservatives bother to check mainstream sources before they share fake stories. But, as Dan Pfeiffer at Message Box writes, such fact-checkings can be used “in response to your MAGA uncle calling Biden ‘the Hamburglar'” on social media.

In my experience, a quick, “Hey, turns out that story isn’t true” on someone’s Facebook page — while it means people will be salty with you — often does embarrass them enough that they stop talking about the fake story. It helps to use a light tone and not get drawn into a debate about whether or not one is a bad person for sharing the story or whether or not “liberals do it too.” Just a quick-and-dirty “it’s not true,” then move on. 

As I wrote Tuesday, this problem is only going to get worse. Right wing media outlets are amply rewarded for putting out misinformation that spreads rapidly. Social media companies also profit from the spread of lies, and reluctantly putting fact checks on the links after they’ve already gone viral does little to change things. The only hope is for media outlets to get clearer in calling out fake stories for what they are and for people who value fact-based reporting to stay strong in correcting — gently, without getting drawn into arguments — the lies. But until right wing media starts paying a higher price for spreading lies, this problem will continue. 

D.C. cop beaten on Jan. 6 calls out Trump supporters for “whitewashing” MAGA mob

Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was beaten by pro-Trump vigilantes on Jan. 6 on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, reflected on that dark day Tuesday night during an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. In particular, Fanone expressed frustration over the way Donald Trump’s supporters are now seeking to “whitewash” the events of that winter day in the nation’s capital. “It’s been very difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals kind of whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened, some of the terminology that was used,” Fanone told Lemon. 

Asked by Lemon about what he experienced that day, Fanone responded that he “experienced the most brutal, savage hand-to-hand combat of my entire life, let alone my policing career, which spans almost two decades. It was nothing that I had ever thought would be a part of my law enforcement career, nor was I prepared to experience.”

As for the attack on Fanone on that Jan. 6, federal prosecutors have filed charges against a man named Thomas Sibick, who was allegedly involved in Fanone’s beating. “Prosecutors said Sibick was seen in police body-camera footage assaulting Fanone while lying on the ground outside the Capitol during the riot,” CNN reported. 

“I want people to understand the significance of Jan. 6,” Fanone continued during the Tuesday primetime CNN interview. “I want people to understand that thousands of rioters came to the Capitol hell-bent on violence and destruction and murder.”

Lemon at one point asked Fanone if he wanted to watch the body camera footage from that day. The officer responded, “Absolutely. … I can’t say it in stronger terms. I don’t know how you can watch my body-worn camera footage and deny that Jan. 6 was anything other than violent and brutal.”

Near the end of the segment, Lemon host asked, “What’s the most important thing you want people to know about what happened on Jan. 6?”

Fanone, apparently overcome with emotion, replied, “The most important thing — well, Jan. 6 was real. It didn’t happen in a fucking movie studio in California. And a lot of police officers who, to me, are some of the most selfless, courageous individuals, almost lost their lives that day. A lot of us are still experiencing the emotional trauma. And some are still grappling with physical injuries as well.” Fanone also clearly rejected attempts by right-wing pundits to characterize the Capitol rioters as nonviolent, or to blame the events of that day on “antifa” or other outside forces. 

An ode to slimy, slippery, sticky food

Few foods paint upon the blank canvas of a bowl of rice quite as brilliantly as natto. A much-loved Japanese dish of fermented soybeans, natto complements the rice sitting beneath, its gooey, stringy texture and pungent aroma lending the plain grains a satisfying kick. The moment natto hits my tongue, the luscious mouthfeel leaves me craving another bite.

This simple breakfast — topped with the sharp fragrance of garnishes like mustard, soy sauce, and chopped spring onions — appeared frequently on my family’s table when I was growing up. With an enthusiasm instilled in me by my father from the time he spent in Japan, I always devoured natto, delighting in its punchy flavor and never minding its sticky texture. Natto and similarly slick foods such as seaweed and mountain yam (usually known as nagaimo or yamaimo) were permanent fixtures in my diet, their distinctly slippery textures downright slurp-worthy.

Because of what I was accustomed to eating at home, it always surprised me as a child when I heard people use the word “slimy” unfavorably in descriptions of food. It wasn’t until the stringiness of a classmate’s okra lunch induced a few stunned gasps at the fourth grade cafeteria table that I learned sliminess, for many, is not a texture that induces greedy salivation. In America, it was all about crunchy, crispy, and creamy — foods like potato chips, fried chicken, and clam chowder were exalted as textural ideals; with sliminess often relegated to try-it-once novelty foods, or items past their expiration date.

“I think it is because of an unfamiliarity with slimy foods, and the association of slime on foods with decay and rot,” noted Japanese cookbook author and food writer Makiko Itoh in an email. “In other parts of the world that’s not the case.”

Scrumptiousness certainly looks different across the planet — in many cultures’ foodways, gooeyness is not merely tolerated, but savored (in West Africa and the Southern U.S., for example, viscous okra is seen as a great soup thickener). In Japan, there’s even a word that describes foods with a slippery texture: neba-neba, translated as “sticky” or “slimy” — an ideophone considered to be onomatopoeia for the noise one’s mouth might produce when enjoying such ingredients. Because many neba-neba foods are high in soluble fiber (the main element responsible for their ooziness), they are often regarded as exceptionally healthy. “The viscosity of the mucous glycoproteins contained in the stickiness slows the movement of food, suppresses the rise in blood sugar levels, and lowers blood cholesterol levels,” explained cookbook author and food journalist Nancy Singleton Hachisu over email.

Some of the most widely consumed neba-neba foods are nameko mushrooms, mekabu seaweed, tsuru murasaki (Malabar spinach), moroheiya (jute mallow), and of course natto, all of which can be unmistakably slimy and delightfully slurpable.

Though some may be inclined to pigeonhole all neba-neba foods into a class of their own, most people in Japan wouldn’t think of them so specifically.

“Historically, they’re not in any kind of category like that,” said Eric Rath, a professor of premodern Japanese history at the University of Kansas. “There’s actually more that separates them than makes them one unique category.” He notes that while natto’s powerful aroma and crunchiness can serve as a contrast to a mild and fragrant bowl of rice, nameko mushrooms would be more likely to appear in miso soup. As for neba-neba greens, the leafy vegetables are more often served on their own: steamed or blanched, then seasoned with light soy sauce.

“The texture of food is just considered to be part of each food’s unique character,” added Itoh. And when an ingredient does happen to feature that viscid texture, many Japanese cooks like to let it shine, maximizing the sliminess rather than masking it. “Okra, for instance, is usually cut up small, sprinkled with salt or soy sauce, and mixed vigorously, which brings out lots of sliminess.” The creamy result, in turn, becomes the perfect structural vehicle for soaking up aroma and delivering concentrated flavor, Itoh explained. “It suspends flavors in that texture and helps your palate appreciate them.” And yet, gooeyness is still only one aspect of that dish. Served raw, the okra also brings to the table a delightful crunchiness and refreshing grassy aroma.

Even when a neba-neba ingredient isn’t the main event of a dish, it can still lend silkiness to help create a thicker consistency or creamier mouthfeel. Nameko mushrooms, the caps of which naturally form a glossy glaze, facilitate thickening when added to miso soup, and also impart a delightfully earthy flavor. The luscious texture of mountain yam serves as a binding agent in okonomiyaki, a savory Japanese pancake made from wheat flour and eggs.

Something wonderful also happens when mountain yam is paired with an equally slick carb, observes Mitsunori Kusakabe, chef and owner of the San Francisco restaurant Kusakabe. “Neba-neba foods go well with noodles because you can slurp together,” he explained in an email. (In Japanese food culture, it’s customary to audibly slurp noodles — to fully experience the retronasal smell and express enjoyment of the meal.) For example, tororo, or grated mountain yam, commonly tops a bowl of soba noodles — often served with a raw egg, too, for maximum slurpability.

While many eaters, myself included, enjoy neba-neba dishes for their flavor, one might also make the argument for practicality: It’s easy to slurp something slimy. “People in Japan tend to eat breakfast in a hurry. In order to get the food into the stomach quickly, they put yamaimo on top of the rice and eat it with dashi and soy sauce,” said Kusakabe.

Thinking back to the breakfasts of natto and rice I frequently ate as a child — and how tempting the snooze button was (and still is, on early mornings), I suspect that the speed at which I could scarf the mixture may have been chief among the reasons my parents often served it before my school’s 7:20 a.m. start time.

Of course, I certainly never thought of it that way at the time. I didn’t have to be running late to want to gobble up every last slimy bite.

The U.S. doesn’t need to rewrite its hate speech rules

We dodged more than one societal bullet with the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict. The streets remained quiet and the phalanxes of heavily armed police girding for civil unrest in dozens of cities went home without a shot fired or a head cracked. We also avoided an explosion of online hate speech that many expected to fuel street violence — although the preparations for that didn’t involve armored personnel carriers. Rather, it was a sterile operation of turning the dials on algorithms.

Facebook announced the day before the verdict that it was preparing both to remove content that “praises, celebrates or mocks” the death of George Floyd, and to “limit the spread” of hate speech and incitement. In other words, Facebook was ready to aggressively censor speech on its platforms, either by eliminating it or reducing its amplification so that fewer people see and share it. That it made that announcement was not surprising. Its Community Standards already forbid such toxic speech, although they have been — to put it mildly — inconsistently and selectively enforced.

What should also be no surprise is the extraordinary latitude the social media platforms have to manhandle speech, and in a country where government censorship is almost entirely forbidden. As the U.S. struggles to deal with hateful and divisive speech, particularly given the recent spike in anti-Asian violence, the questions of who may address it, and how, have taken on new urgency. Unlike in Europe, where hate speech is increasingly criminalized and the governments penalize the platforms for not suppressing it en masse, our government is impotent to interfere with even the most divisive speech, while private entities have tremendous power to censor anything under their control — and to mess up doing it time and again.

The result is a chaotic mess that satisfies no one, but the alternative of government speech mandates on the European model is even worse. Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey have made themselves easy to loathe, but unlike governments they have no power to arrest, jail, or tear gas anyone. It’s the combination of guns and speech control that pose the biggest threat, and we should be grateful our fractured system keeps them separate.

The Constitution isn’t a ceiling on acceptable speech, but rather a low floor. The government must allow most all speech unless it risks causing an imminent threat of violence. Free speech, the Supreme Court ruled back in 1949, in fact serves “its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest … or even stirs people to anger.” To give the First Amendment “breathing space,” the Court said in another case, the government must permit speech that is “insulting, even outrageous.” That leaves hate speech and a raft of other offensive material well outside the reach of police. Even many of the communications used to organize the January 6 insurrection against the Capitol would survive constitutional scrutiny.

The truth is that many Americans aren’t comfortable with such permissiveness. A late-2019 survey found that about half the American public believes hate speech should be illegal. This attitude is not new. From at least the early 20th century, minority groups have pushed for protections from speech advancing hateful stereotypes, but as they were left without recourse in the courts, the private sector picked up the slack. Coffee shops, private universities, and even immense internet platforms are free to censor or amplify almost any message. As a man who participated in the 2017 Charlottesville rally discovered, the law will protect you when you march for white supremacy, but will leave you in the cold when you are fired from your job for doing so.

Where does this leave us? In Germany, the larger Internet platforms are being forced, on pain of enormous fines, to remove often vaguely defined hate speech in a matter of hours. This has resulted in massive sweeps that have ensnared much unpleasant but legal speech along with the truly bad. Police have also conducted surprise raids in seven European countries to arrest and confiscate the phones and computers of online posters for crimes as earth shattering as insulting politicians.

Despite their overreach, these efforts still appear well intentioned. It is chilling to think of what Donald Trump — who saw criticism of his administration as treasonous — would have done with the force of criminal law to censor and jail speakers he didn’t like. Even before he was deplatformed for his own hate speech and incitement, it’s safe to assume his administration would have made aggressive use of any law allowing it to punish internet platforms for their content moderation decisions. Laws are only as good as those enforcing them, and Trump’s excesses are an object lesson on the virtues of restricting government power over speech.

If the First Amendment saved us from some of Trump’s worst depredations, it has also given the platforms room to experiment with ways to rein in hate speech without the distorting pressure of fines or criminal penalties. In the period surrounding the 2020 election, Facebook took measures to deemphasize incitements to violence, which worked: actual news climbed to into lists of most-viewed posts along with extreme right-wing content. It and the other platforms should be encouraged — and under threat of antitrust enforcement and increased privacy regulation, nudged — to make this their policy all the time, and continue to find ways to deemphasize harmful content along the lines Facebook planned to with respect to the Chauvin trial.

America’s two-tiered system of speech governance is exasperating, but the alternatives, especially in the hands of an authoritarian leaning government, are far more harmful. 

These infamous TikTok recipes are also taking over morning TV

It started with the Dalgona whipped coffee. Then it was the pancake cereal. The folded quesadilla. The feta pasta. Love them or hate them, you definitely know them. They start on the popular video platform TikTok, then all of a sudden they’re all over the internet. Viral recipes are nothing new, but the speed at which they’re spreading, gaining traction, and being replicated is unprecedented. And these recipes are reaching beyond the internet. There’s a growing number of these trends being picked up by morning TV, especially through programs like Good Morning America and The Today Show. Are these shows going for clicks, or do the recipes have the chops to back them up? I decided to investigate.

Vegan Blueberry Cookies

It comes as no surprise that these cookies picked up quickly with their bright bluish-indigo hue and simple, pared-down ingredient list. Originating with blogger Justine Snacks, the recipe for Blueberry Cookies that are both vegan and naturally, yet vibrantly, colored immediately took off on TikTok, even getting picked up by Good Morning America this week. They came up on my ‘For You’ page and I’ll admit, I was intrigued. They were eye-catching and so easy in a way that, as a recipe developer, led me to be a little skeptical. So I decided to make them myself, in the name of science!

They start as most cookies do, by creaming butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then, instead of adding eggs or an egg substitute, the ‘wet’ ingredients in this recipe are just blueberries. Specifically, thawed, jammy blueberries. When I first added them to my stand mixer, the batter looked separated and slightly curdled, particularly alarming due to its bright violet hue. My told you so! senses started tingling. But I hiked up the speed on my stand mixer, and after another minute or two of beating, the batter was uniform again. Even after adding dry ingredients (flour, salt, and baking powder) and white chocolate chips, the batter is pretty slack (Justine recommends popping them in a fridge or freezer for 20 minutes or so before baking). A quick 10 to 13 minute trip in a 400°F oven, and they’re slightly golden brown around the edges. Mine definitely emerged more browned and less vibrant than her photos, but still pleasantly colorful.

And how do they taste? Shockingly delicious. I’ll be the first to admit, I wanted to hate them. I am skeptical of quick swaps and don’t love white chocolate, so I thought they would be cloying. Instead, they emerged cakey and soft in the center with toasted notes from the edges and browned bottom, reminiscent in taste to a blueberry muffin. My white chocolate chips took on a good amount of color in the oven, which rendered them toasty and delicious. If you like cakey cookies and true berry flavor, these are the cookies for you.

Blue Blueberry Drop Biscuits

Another idea (with a vegan adaptation written in!) from baker and cookbook author Jerrelle Guy. These have a few more ingredients, but they make for a more complex treat that with textural contrast. Plus, these drop biscuits, in name and with their whole wheat flour, are slightly more traditional to eat for breakfast (not like I didn’t eat the cookies with my morning coffee).

Vodka Sauce (Or “Sawce”)

From Gigi Hadid to the Barefoot Contessa, pasta alla vodka is everywhere. It’s the comfort food we all needed this past year. It seems as though rigatoni has overthrown penne as the official vodka sauce companion. Last week food blogger and recipe developer Dan “Grossy” Pelosi shared his internet-famous Vodka “Sawce” with GMA as part of their “Ultimate Pasta Week.” Pelosi’s is a pretty faithful rendition, albeit one that does not shy away from the dairy (a full pint of heavy cream to be exact). If you’re looking for a lighter-on-the-lactose version, or just to further your pasta journey, here are a few of my favorite recipes.

Rigatoni With Vodka Sauce

Editor Rebecca Firkser’s take on vodka sauce stands out because she chooses to “amp up the creaminess with a mixture of grated Parm and pasta water, both of which are more salty and nuanced than cream.” It’s a brilliant move that adds that silky, unctuous quality you’d expect from a restaurant, but is actually so easy to recreate at home.

Smoky Pasta Alla Vodka

This smokier, more intense adaptation of vodka sauce takes a shortcut to smoky flavor with the addition of ‘nduja, a spicy, spreadable Calabrian salami. The whole dish comes together in less than half an hour, but delivers the flavor of a sauce that’s been stewing all day.

Kale Pesto Orecchiette

Eat your pasta and get a serving of greens, too! I love this verdant kale pesto recipe because it makes a double batch: one for now, one to freezer for later. It’s family friendly and when covered in a generous dusting of parm, even your pickiest eaters will be happy to be eating kale.

Feta Pasta (Yes, That Feta Pasta)

Do I even need to recap what this pasta is? It is everywhere. The basic formula: cherry tomatoes and a block of feta get baked in a dish with olive oil and spices. Once everything’s gotten all friendly and soft in the oven, you combine the contents of the dish until they form a creamy, cheesy sauce. Throw in cooked pasta, mix it up, and eat. Super simple, endlessly adaptable, and according to the internet, extremely tasty. On GMA last week, New York Times Melissa Clark took it even further and eliminated the second pot needed for boiling pasta. In her recipe, Melissa follows the original recipe up until the feta sauce is cooked and mixed. Instead of adding cooked pasta, she sprinkles the pasta straight into the dish and tops with water, covers the whole dish in foil, and sends it back into the oven. It’s a brilliant twist on the ubiquitous one-pot pasta — here are a few more ideas for one-pot meals if you’re all feta-ed out.

Farro Risotto with Greens and Feta

This adapted Ottolenghi one-pot ‘risotto’ hits a lot of the same flavor notes as the feta pasta: creamy feta and rich tomatoes. But a swap of pearled farro for pasta and addition of hearty greens makes this dish more substantial and complex. It’s the perfect dish to level up from feta pasta without straying too far from the original.

Martha Stewart’s One-Pan Pasta

Martha Stewart’s One-Pan Pasta walked so Feta Pasta could run. The original internet-famous pasta, this recipe went viral for good reason. The sauce comes together as the pasta cooks, so by the time you’ve got al dente noodles, you’ve also got a delicious, simple tomato sauce, all in the same pot (no straining required!)

Beware Liz Cheney 2024: If you think that’s a big improvement on Trump, think again

I have thought for a long time that it wasn’t at all improbable that the first woman president would end up being a Republican. I know that seems absurd considering the right’s patriarchal ideology and their strong reliance on ultra-conservative, white evangelical voters. But it isn’t. After all, some of the most successful anti-feminist activists, such as Phyllis Schlafly, were women with important public careers, even when that was extremely unusual in American society. As we now know, Republican adherence to the tenets of “traditional family values” is much more malleable than anyone suspected. After all, GOP “base” voters remain big fans of the dishonest, profane, crude, thrice-married ex-president to this day. 

I wrote about this for Salon a couple of years ago, suggesting that while former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley looked perfect on paper — an experienced Southern politician, a person of color, the child of immigrants, even a respected member of the Trump administration — she was not likely to be that first Republican woman nominated for president. I’m afraid that person-of-color, child-of-immigrants thing is a serious liability for a white nationalist party.

Haley left the administration on good terms and has tried to walk a fine line between being someone the suburbs could vote for as a mainstream candidate while also pandering to Trump’s whims. But it’s pretty clear at this point that the best she could hope for would be to become his 2024 running mate. Recently, she declared that she wouldn’t enter the race if Trump did, which shows what a bind she’s in.

But there is a different path, and it’s being taken by another Republican woman, who I also wrote about back then: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. I characterized her at the time as “a white woman who’s an authoritarian nationalist with a Republican establishment pedigree a mile long,” which makes her a very good fit for the modern GOP. I also suggested that she “eagerly marches in lockstep” with Trump, based on her clever tactic of letting him take the heat for the crude racism the base craved, while she went after his enemies with a complementary set of attacks.

At the time, Trump had just directed the four members of the “Squad” to go back where they came from, prompting the usual denunciations from the Democrats and the press. Cheney got into a protracted back and forth with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York over the latter’s use of the words “concentration camp,” fatuously implying that AOC was being antisemitic. Then she took to the microphone to offer this:

As I pointed out then, Republicans complaining about this, while serving the man whose inaugural address is commonly referred to as “American Carnage” — and who has insisted for 40 years that the U.S. is a loser nation, run by fools who have made it the laughing stock of the world — is so dissonant it makes your head spin. But there she was, subtly distancing herself from his crudest commentary but nonetheless joining in the dishonest assault.

Cheney made little mention of Trump in those days. She didn’t condemn the racism, that’s for sure. In fact, she ostentatiously voted against an “anti-hate” piece of legislation, reportedly mystifying GOP leaders who had proposed it. It wasn’t until Trump lost the election that she spoke up.

Today Liz Cheney is widely hailed as the Last Good Republican, repeatedly defying Donald Trump and standing solidly in front of the GOP caucus daring them to dethrone her. Her leadership post was threatened after her comments about Trump’s culpability and her vote to impeach him for the events of Jan. 6. She survived because the caucus took the vote on a secret ballot, betraying the fact that a substantial majority of House Republicans were on her side but were simply too cowardly to say so in public, thereby raising her reputation as the brave maverick even more.

Just this week at the Republican retreat in Florida (they still need to be near Dear Leader, evidently), Cheney and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy locked horns once again over Trump and the events of Jan. 6. Politico reported that it was virtually all the attendees were talking about, which says something about the state of the party in itself.

McCarthy wants Cheney to shut up about Jan. 6. He’s doing everything in his power to shut down any meaningful inquiry into the matter by insisting on throwing in a kitchen sink’s worth of poison pills. She disagrees, and thinks it needs to be thoroughly and impartially investigated. He’s begged her to stop criticizing Trump and she refuses, saying that support for Trump’s bogus challenges to the 2020 election should disqualify any 2024 GOP presidential nominee. That puts a lot of people on the sidelines, in particular Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, both of whom voted not to certify the electoral votes — after the Jan. 6 insurrection — along with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who backed Trump’s ridiculous lies to the hilt.

This week Cheney herself refused to rule out a 2024 presidential bid, and it’s obvious her strategy is to run on her new reputation as the tough conservative woman who stood up to Donald Trump. It’s not a bad plan. Cheney understands politics and realizes that her only hope for the presidency is to be the anti-Trump, in the hopes that his star fades or he decides not to run and she can emerge as the GOP standard-bearer who might be able to lure back some of those suburban women and college-educated white men who had been staunch Republicans until the Trump circus came to town. It may not work, but it makes sense for someone to make that bet. 

But let’s not get carried away with tributes to her great integrity and courage. After all, she’s just saying what we should expect any elected official to say if the entire Republican Party hadn’t turned itself into a cult of craven Trump sycophants. I have no idea if Liz Cheney truly believes what she’s saying. Maybe she does. But it doesn’t change the fact that she is also a far-right hawk who, just like her father (who is said to be her most trusted adviser), has never met a war she didn’t eagerly back, a military budget she didn’t want to hike or a tax she didn’t want to cut. She’s as hardcore conservative as it’s possible to be. Being her daddy’s daughter that includes being completely comfortable with illegal domestic surveillance, torture and unilateral military action. (Her father was also, you might recall, perfectly willing to usurp the Constitution to maintain his own power, so her paeans to democracy ring just a bit hollow.)

If you want a president who combines the worst aspects of Dick Cheney and Margaret Thatcher, then you’ll love President Liz Cheney. And if you think that’s an improvement over Donald Trump, it really isn’t. 

A year into COVID, states debate public health shutdown powers

In a debate on the floor of the Tennessee state House early last month, a power struggle was underway. A Republican-sponsored bill aims to strip the state’s six metropolitan health boards of their authority to limit public activity and make other rules during times of disease outbreaks. “If we don’t pass this legislation, these health boards would have more power in that county than the governor does, and that’s not the way our system of government works,” declared the bill’s chief sponsor, Jason Zachary of Knoxville.

An incredulous Bill Beck, a Nashville Democrat, was unmoved: “For us to sit here and say that we would want to follow the politicians instead of following the science I think is the wrong message to be putting out, especially during a pandemic,” Beck said. “We need to know that we can follow the experts, and not somebody who’s worried about getting re-elected.”

Tennessee is far from alone. Since early in the Covid-19 pandemic, some lawmakers have argued that public health measures intended to combat the virus — such as mask mandates and business closures — were overwrought and misguided infringements on personal liberties. Now, as state legislatures convene across the United States for their 2021 sessions, a Republican-led legislative backlash is seeking to relocate, reduce, or otherwise refine the power to make these and other public health decisions.

In Florida, for example, a proposed bill would prevent local governments from issuing emergency orders for more than six weeks. Legislators in Ohio, meanwhile, recently passed a bill that would limit the governor’s own power to issue public health orders, while also weakening the authority of local boards of health. And numerous other measures — in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and other states — aim to challenge or curtail the authority that governors, mayors, and public health officials have wielded during the current pandemic.

Many of these proposals, supporters say, are grappling with gaps in state law that came to light amid the Covid-19 crisis, including the ability of some officials to issue open-ended edicts, or wield other unchecked public powers. And even among public health law experts, there’s widespread agreement that some reforms are warranted. “An event of this magnitude is always going to have repercussions and ramifications in the law,” said Jill Krueger, an attorney at The Network for Public Health Law, a nonprofit that offers legal support to public health officials across the country.

But Krueger and other experts say they also worry that misinformation, partisanship, and the rancorous politics of Covid-19 have warped the new legislative push. The result, they argue, could quietly reshape the landscape of public health authority in the United States — and hamper the role of scientific expertise in combatting future crises.

“We see this as a serious threat to public health,” Krueger said.

* * *

Under U.S. law, states have extensive powers to respond to threats to public safety. That’s why, during a crisis like Covid-19, governments can institute mask mandates, shutter businesses, limit gatherings, and require people to quarantine.

Each state has its own way of distributing and limiting those powers, and arrangements vary widely. Typically, some authority in a pandemic-scale crisis rests with the governor, who can invoke emergency powers, guided by the advice of state health experts. In many states, some power also sits with local boards of health — appointed bodies generally composed of a mix of medical experts and community leaders.

In principle, these powers allow officials to respond quickly to threats, guided by expert input. But, civil libertarians warn, public health authority sometimes infringes on individual rights. And it can be subject to abuse.

When Covid-19 lockdowns began in March 2020, governors and local officials issued public health orders intended to combat the spread of the virus. Many invoked emergency powers designed to last for a few days or weeks — not for a months-long pandemic. Issues like mask-wearing soon became polarizing, and while prominent Democrats called for stringent public health measures, many Republicans, including then-President Donald Trump, questioned the science and law underpinning certain policies.

Public health has, to some extent, become “yet another of America’s endless political battlegrounds,” said Wendy Parmet, who directs the Center for Health Policy and Law at Northeastern University School of Law. “We fight, politically, everything from Dr. Seuss to Covid,” she said. “What has happened is that in many states, as a result of this, legislatures are rushing to consider and enact measures to reduce the governor’s authority.”

Most state legislatures in the U.S. do their lawmaking between January and May. As the 2021 legislative sessions began, momentum grew for longer-term changes. In January, the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, weighed in. An influential advocacy organization, ALEC writes model legislation that right-leaning lawmakers can then adapt to their specific states. The organization’s proposed Emergency Power Limitation Act, for example, appears designed to limit the scope of business closures and similar orders from governors and local officials. This includes ensuring that after a certain amount of time — ALEC suggests 30 days at most — such public health policies automatically expire, unless state legislatures approve them.

Under this concept, a public health order closing restaurants, for example, might expire in 30 days unless it received majority support from a state House and a state Senate.

Although it’s unclear if ALEC influenced any specific state-level bills, legislation reflecting many of these principles has appeared in many states. In places like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Republican-controlled legislatures have clashed with more moderate governors, the bills often aimed to take power from governors and give it to legislatures. In states like Florida and Tennessee, where more progressive cities have conflicted with Republican state leaders, the bills often aim to strip power from local communities, or shift it from boards of health to elected officials.

The idea that elected assemblies should have such direct power over public health decisions has alarmed some advocates, who say it could hamper emergency responses and further politicize public health. “If elected officials are making these decisions outside of the advice or the recommendations or the guidance of public health, they’re just going to be seen as political,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, the chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, or NACCHO.

“It’s a really dangerous game that we play when we pick a crisis and we make lasting changes based on that crisis alone,” Freeman said. She worries that legislation passed during Covid-19 will limit health officials’ ability “to act quickly and nimbly” in future crises.

Such concerns have not stopped lawmakers from pressing forward with legislation, and supporters of those bills have sometimes argued that they say are necessary to prevent public health measures from infringing on individual liberties.

In February, Florida state representative Bob Rommel introduced a bill that, in its current form, would prevent local governments from implementing emergency orders for more than 42 days. Under the bill, a municipality that wishes to close bars during a pandemic, for example, would have to renew the policy weekly — and then lose the power to implement it altogether after six weeks. (Other bills aiming to curtail local governments’ emergency powers are currently moving through the Florida state Senate and House.)

In an interview, Rommel questioned the public health value of restrictive public health policies — and said that, as the owner of a restaurant in New Jersey, he has experienced firsthand the impact of pandemic-era public health policies. And the complaints he’s heard from his constituents, the Naples Republican said, are mostly about “the draconian measures of local governments taking away their right to earn a living, or go to church, or any other liberty that they thought was best for themselves.”

Asked whether taking powers away from cities was itself an example of government overreach, Rommel demurred. It was important, he said, to have consistent policies across the state, rather than a patchwork of local regulations.

In Tennessee, meanwhile, tempers have simmered for months over public health orders, including a long-running dispute in Knox County, which encompasses the city of Knoxville. There, the elected county mayor — a longtime professional wrestler — has frequently clashed with the appointed members of the Knox County Board of Health.

In November, Zachary, the Knoxville Republican, first proposed his bill stripping rulemaking power from the boards of health in Knox County and the five other large metropolitan areas in Tennessee, including Nashville and Memphis. Instead, the power would shift to local elected leaders, like county mayors. During last month’s hearings, Zachary criticized a system that allows unelected boards to wield power for months on end, describing the boards as oligarchies. His bill, he argued, would just add some democratic oversight.

The proposal has elicited skepticism from Democratic lawmakers. During another hearing, Nashville Democrat John Ray Clemmons pointed out that boards of health are appointed by the county commissions. “The county commission’s elected,” he said, “and held accountable to the voters.”

In an emailed statement to Undark, Knox County Health Department director Martha Buchanan wrote that it was too soon to speculate on the precise implications of the final legislation, which passed the House on March 8. But, Buchanan added: “We have concerns over politics influencing public health decisions.”

Soon after, the local officials bypassed the state: At the end of March, the Knox County Commission voted to strip powers from the Board of Health. A version of Zachary’s bill, meanwhile, is still awaiting a vote in the state Senate.

* * *

In interviews, several public health experts said they shared some of the broader concerns about democratic oversight that Zachary and other Republican lawmakers have raised. “I think the pandemic has certainly exposed gaps in our laws,” said Parmet. “Important gaps.” In many states, she said, governors and public health officials have invoked emergency powers designed for a short-term incident, like a tornado, and then stretched them to last for months.

Krueger, the Network for Public Health Law attorney, appeared to agree. “I think those concerns are legitimate, and deserve a fair hearing,” she said “They deserve to be aired and grappled with, and resolved. But resolved in a thoughtful, deliberative way.”

Some public health law experts are beginning to sketch out what those resolutions might look like, and last year the Uniform Law Commission, an influential nonpartisan organization that drafts model legislation for states, assembled a committee (which includes Parmet) to explore public health emergency laws.

For now, the worry, Krueger and other analysts suggest, is that the legislative push in many states is neither thoughtful nor deliberate, which could have potentially serious consequences the next time a major public health threat emerges — something scientists suggest is all but certain. “My concern is that, if state legislatures essentially handcuff public health, that the people living in those states, the health of the people living in those states, may suffer,” Kreuger said.

“Decisions might be made more on public sentiment, or even misinformation,” she added — and not “based on the facts.”

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

Another soda tax bill dies. Another win for Big Soda

SACRAMENTO — A rogue industry. A gun to our head. Extortion.

That’s how infuriated lawmakers described soft drink companies — and what they pulled off in 2018 when they scored a legislative deal that bars California’s cities and counties from imposing taxes on sugary drinks.

Yet, despite its tarnished reputation, the deep-pocketed industry continues to exert its political influence in the nation’s most populous state, spending millions of dollars on politically connected lobbyists and doling out campaign contributions to nearly every state lawmaker.

The result? Bills long opposed by Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo and other beverage companies continue to flounder. Just two weeks ago, a measure that would have undone the 2018 deal that lawmakers so vehemently protested was shelved without a hearing.

“Big Soda is a very powerful lobby,” said Eric Batch, vice president of advocacy at the American Heart Association, which has petitioned lawmakers nationwide to crack down on sugar-laden drinks that health advocates say contribute to diabetes, obesity and other costly medical conditions.

“They’ve spent a lot of money in California to stop groups like ours from passing good policy,” Batch added. “And they’ve been doing it for a long time.”

In the past four years, soft drink companies spent about $5.9 million lobbying California lawmakers and giving to their campaigns or favorite charities. A California Healthline analysis of campaign finance records from Jan. 1, 2017, to Dec. 31, 2020, found that the American Beverage Association, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have given to nearly every state officeholder — from Gov. Gavin Newsom to roughly five-sixths of the 120-member legislature.

The American Beverage Association declined an interview request to discuss its political giving and this year’s bill that would have upended the soda tax moratorium it helped orchestrate. Coca-Cola and Pepsi did not return requests seeking comment.

In 2018, the industry spent $8.9 million to boost a statewide ballot measure sponsored by the California Business Roundtable that would have made it more difficult for cities and counties to levy taxes — not just taxes on sugary drinks — by requiring them to be approved by two-thirds of voters instead of a simple majority. Fearful that local governments could face a higher voting threshold for taxes and fees that would fund libraries, public safety and other services, lawmakers at the time said they had no choice but to negotiate with the industry.

In a deal that several lawmakers described as “extortion” and a “Sophie’s Choice,” the legislature agreed to pass a bill banning new local taxes on sugary drinks until Jan. 1, 2031, if the industry and other supporters dropped the ballot measure. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown, who had dined with industry executives several weeks before, signed the bill.

The California deal was a coup for Big Soda, which doesn’t appear to have paid a political price: Legislation that would have imposed a state tax on sugary drinks died a year later, as did a bill that would have required health warning labels on sugary drinks and another that would have banned sodas in grocery store checkout aisles.

This year’s bill, which would have reinstated cities and counties’ ability to put soda taxes before voters, is all but dead.

“They’re gaming the political system,” said Assembly member Adrin Nazarian (D-North Hollywood), the author of AB 1163. Nazarian said he hopes to revive the measure before April 30, the deadline for policy committees to hear legislation for the year.

“It’s one thing for us to make a bad policy decision once,” he said. “It’s another thing to give a signal to all the industries that will then utilize this loophole against us. How many more times are we going to be doing this?”

Public health advocates point to such taxes as a way to cut consumption of soda, sports drinks, fruit juices and other sweet beverages, citing studies that show the more they cost, the less people buy them. On average, a can of soda contains 10 teaspoons of sugar, nearly the entire recommended daily amount for someone who eats 2,000 calories a day. Some energy drinks contain twice that.

Four California cities — Albany, Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco — had soda taxes in place before the 2018 legislative deal that were allowed to remain. Boulder, Colorado; Philadelphia; Seattle; and the Navajo Nation also have soda taxes, with proposals under consideration in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.

The revenue stream from the taxes could help fund financially strapped public health departments depleted by the covid pandemic, health advocates say.

For example, last year San Francisco directed $1.6 million of its soda tax revenue to local programs that feed residents affected by school closures and job losses. Seattle tapped its soda tax revenue to give grocery vouchers to its hardest-hit residents.

Nazarian said he expected his attempt to undo the soda tax moratorium to be an uphill battle, but he is frustrated the bill was denied even one hearing.

Nazarian, like lawmakers before him, is butting up against a strong anti-tax environment in U.S. politics, said Tatiana Andreyeva, director of economic initiatives at the University of Connecticut’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. So, while more than 40 countries have imposed national taxes on sugary drinks — including the United Kingdom, Mexico, Portugal and South Africa — national and state efforts have stalled here.

There’s also the political might of the soda industry.

“Look at how much money they spend fighting all these bills that have been proposed,” said Andreyeva, who has studied the soda industry since 2007. “We have seen dozens and dozens of bills at the state and local level. There’s always a lot of opposition by the industry. They are well-funded, they will organize and it’s very hard.”

In California, soft drink companies spent $4.4 million in the past four years lobbying lawmakers and state officials, treating them to dinners and sporting events. They hired veteran political firms staffed by former government employees who know how the Capitol works and often already have relationships with lawmakers and their aides.

For instance, until earlier this year the American Beverage Association had Fredericka McGee on its payroll as its top California lobbyist. She had worked for five Assembly speakers. Now, McGee is chief of staff to Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, a former state legislator who in 2018 was the chair of the powerful Senate Budget Committee, which oversaw the deal banning new local soda taxes.

In addition to lobbying, the industry spent just over $1.5 million on contributions to lawmakers, including big checks written to charities on their behalf.

The largest contributions flowed to the lawmakers with the most influence.

Pepsi and Coca-Cola gave a total of $25,000 to charities in the name of Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, according to the state Fair Political Practices Commission, which tracks the donations, known as “behested payments.” That’s on top of the $35,900 Rendon collected in his campaign account from the industry over the past four years.

Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins cashed $26,000 in campaign checks from Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and accepted a $5,000 donation to one of her charities from Coke’s bottling plant in her San Diego district.

In an emailed statement, Rendon described the issue of sugary drinks as complex and said he co-authored legislation in 2015 that would have imposed a tax on distributors of sugary drinks. It died in committee.

“I want us to do something to reduce the consumption of sweetened beverages,” Rendon said. “These bills have been hard to pass, but I think it’s simplistic to pin it on contributions.”

Atkins did not comment on Big Soda’s political power but said in an emailed statement she would review Nazarian’s bill “on its merits” if it comes before the Senate.

Nazarian’s bill is on hold in the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee, led by Autumn Burke (D-Inglewood). A spokesperson for Burke did not return calls and emails requesting comment.

Burke also received money from soda companies, collecting about $22,000 from Coca-Cola, Pepsi and the American Beverage Association from 2017 through 2020.

Public health groups aren’t willing to admit defeat and are mobilizing a grassroots effort to get a hearing for Nazarian’s bill. They say California must address the disproportionate health effects of sugary drinks on Black and Latino communities, which covid-19 only exacerbated.

“If the members of the legislature were looking at data and using data as the decision-making criteria for whether we should allow a ban on local taxes to be lifted, they would have to support that,” said Michael Dimock, president of Roots of Change, a program of the Public Health Institute. “But they are not looking at the data. Something else is influencing them.”

Elizabeth Lucas of KHN contributed to this report.

Methodology

How California Healthline compiled data about soda companies’ political spending

Among the ways soft drink companies exert influence on the political process are contributing money to campaigns; hiring lobbyists; plying elected officials with drinks, meals and event tickets; and making charitable contributions on the behalf of lawmakers.

Using the California secretary of state’s website, California Healthline downloaded campaign contributions made by the American Beverage Association PAC, Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo — the three largest contributors from Jan. 1, 2017, to Dec. 31, 2020.

To track lobbying, we created a spreadsheet of expenses reported on lobbying disclosure forms, also available on the secretary of state’s website, by the American Beverage Association, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. We found details about how much the industry paid lobbying firms and which lawmakers, or members of their staff, accepted gifts.

To find how much these entities gave in charitable contributions, California Healthline pulled data on “behested payments” from the California Fair Political Practices Commission website. These are payments special interests can make to a charity or organization on behalf of a lawmaker. Sometimes, a few of these payments also show up on lobbying forms. We compared the behested payments with the lobbying reports to ensure we did not double-count money.

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

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

“I know this”: Kimberly Guilfoyle claims that Kamala Harris is secretly in charge of the White House

The girlfriend of Donald Trump, Jr. announced how Newsmax Tuesday that she “knows” Vice President Kamala Harris is secretly in charge of the White House.

“It’s really sad, he’s way in over his skis,” former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle said of Biden during an appearance on Newsmax.

“Kamala Harris is really the de facto commander-in-chief,” she argued. “She made it very clear.”

“She’s calling the shots here, I know this, I’ve known her a long time,” Guilfoyle said.

Indeed, Guilfoyle first met Harris over twenty years ago. Back then, Guilfoyle was dating Gavin Newsom, the current Democratic governor of California. The two were married in 2001 and Guilfoyle became the first lady of San Francisco when he was sworn in as mayor in 2004. They went on to divorce in 2006.

But it is difficult to imagine how Guilfoyle now has insight into the inner workings of the Biden White House, which she sought to block from happening while being paid by the re-election campaign of her boyfriend’s father.

Key Democrats want to keep most of Trump’s corporate tax cut — and slash more taxes for the rich

After decrying Republican tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the rich and corporations, some Democrats, including progressive House members, are pushing to revise President Biden’s infrastructure proposal to include tax breaks that will largely flow to the wealthy.

Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal would be primarily funded by raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, after former Donald Trump signed the 2017 Republican tax cut law that cut the rate from 35% to 21%. But after torpedoing Biden’s proposed minimum wage increase and forcing reduced unemployment benefits and stimulus checks in the American Rescue Plan, some moderate Democratsm led by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., are intent on preserving most of Trump’s corporate tax cut.

Senate Democrats’ plan is expected to increase the corporate tax rate to just 25%, sources told Axios last week, which would raise about $600 billion over the next 15 years. That would fall far short of the price tag of the bill, though Biden’s proposal also includes a hike on corporate foreign earnings that is expected to raise another $700 billion. The White House has not changed its proposal, but Democrats close to the administration told Axios that Biden would accept the 25% as a “political win.” Sources likewise told Reuters and other outlets that they expect the final bill to include a 25% corporate tax rate.

Manchin, who called for a 28% corporate tax rate before the Trump tax cuts, said he would oppose the bill unless the hike was pared back to 25% and would use his “leverage” in the 50-50 Senate to force the change.

“If I don’t vote to get on it, it’s not going anywhere,” he told CNN earlier this month. “So we’re going to have some leverage here. And it’s more than just me, … There are six or seven other Democrats who feel very strongly about this.”

The other Democrats calling to preserve most of Trump’s corporate tax hike include Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Mark Warner of Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, according to Axios. Some moderate House Democrats, like Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., have also called to reduce the proposed corporate tax rate to 25%, which would effectively result in a bipartisan 10% corporate tax cut from Obama-era levels. Earlier, Biden vowed to “get rid of the bulk of Trump’s $2 trillion tax cut,” which he labeled “irresponsible.”

“I’m not trying to punish anybody, but damn it, maybe it’s because I come from a middle-class neighborhood, I’m sick and tired of ordinary people being fleeced,” Biden said in a speech earlier this month. “It’s just not fair. It’s not fair to the rest of the American taxpayers. We’re going to try to put an end to this.”

Manchin defended his opposition to the higher rate, echoing a frequent Trump talking point that lower corporate tax rates were necessary to keep American corporations “competitive.” But even the massive Trump corporate tax cut largely failed to result in the much-hyped windfall that was promised. Even before the pandemic, the tax cut failed to boost longterm corporate investment, spark hiring, boost wages or pay for the deficit it caused, though it did result in record stock buybacks.

Of course, many corporations pay no federal income taxes at all. The Trump tax cut doubled the number of companies that had an effective 0% tax rate, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), while giving the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies an average federal tax rate of 11.3% the year it went into effect.

The Senate Democrats’ 25% corporate tax rate puts them to the right of corporate executives like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Lyft cofounder John Zimmer and even former Trump economic advisr Gary Cohn, who backed a 28% rate.

“To me, 28% is probably a good number to land on, to end up being attractive to corporations to be in the United States,” Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs, told Yahoo Finance last year.

There is no data suggesting that a 25% tax rate would make the United States more competitive than a 28% rate, said Zach Liscow, a professor at the Yale Law School who studies tax policy.

“There are good reasons to think that those higher taxes will not do much to affect corporations’ investment in the U.S., owing in part to the tax incentives the U.S. has adopted over the past few decades to encourage investment, which just get more valuable when the tax rate goes up,” Liscow told Salon. “At the same time, there are lots of reasons — based on considerable economic research on the importance of infrastructure to economic growth — to think that better infrastructure will encourage investment in the U.S. and help corporations grow here. All in all, it’s a good bet that a somewhat higher corporate tax rate to fund infrastructure would actually be good for U.S. competitiveness, not bad.”

A Quinnipiac poll earlier this month found that voters are also significantly more likely to support Biden’s infrastructure proposal if it is funded through tax hikes on corporations.

The Senate Democrats’ proposal comes as House progressives call on Biden to do more, not less, in his infrastructure proposal.

“This is not nearly enough,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said of the $2.25 trillion proposal.

“This package can and should be substantially larger in size and scope,” agreed Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, calling for the plan to ensure that “large corporations finally pay their fair share in taxes.”

Nina Turner, the Ohio House candidate backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and other progressives, argued that the corporate tax rate should be even higher than Biden’s proposal.

“Saying ‘corporations must pay their fair share’ should mean that pre-Trump rates are the starting point,” she said on Twitter.

But some progressives have been pushing for their own preferred tax cut in the proposal that would primarily benefit the rich.

Every member of the California House delegation, except House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has called on Biden to lift the $10,000 limit on the State and Local Tax Deduction, a provision of tax law that is massively unpopular in affluent suburban areas increasingly represented by Democrats. Those California members include prominent progressives like Reps. Katie Porter and Ro Khanna, the former national co-chair of Sanders’ presidential campaign.

“Enactment of the SALT cap specifically targeted states and localities that have chosen to provide strong taxpayer support for critical government services such as education, health care, transit, and social services,” the lawmakers argued.

Every member of New York’s congressional delegation, except for Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., went further, signing a letter vowing to oppose the entire infrastructure bill unless it includes a repeal of the SALT cap. The letter’s signatories included newly-elected progressives like Reps. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y.

“This issue is so critical to our state and our constituents that we will reserve the right to oppose any tax legislation that does not include a full repeal of the SALT limitation,” the letter said.

The New York lawmakers claimed that a full repeal would ensure “that New York State middle-class families were not taxed twice on their income.” But an analysis by ITEP found that 86% of the benefits of repealing the SALT cap would go to the richest 5% of the population. In New York, 83% of residents earning under $100,000 would get no benefit at all while the other 17% would gain, on average, about $190 per year.

An analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) similarly found that the bottom 80% of households would receive just 4% of the benefit of the repeal, calling it “very regressive.” An analysis by the Tax Policy Center found that 96% of households earning between $52,000 and $93,000 would see no tax reduction, while the remaining 4% would get an average tax cut of $400. On the other hand, 93% of those earning over $1 million would see an average tax cut of $48,000. An analysis by the Brookings Institution concluded that a repeal of the cap would be three times more favorable to the rich than the overall benefits of the heavily pro-rich Trump tax cut.

ITEP also warned that repealing the cap would “worsen economic disparities and exacerbate racial inequities baked into the federal tax system,” noting that Black families are 42% less likely to benefit from the cut than white families, while Hispanic families are 33% less likely to benefit. Roughly 72% of the benefit would go to white households.

“There is also a long history of tax and other public policies that have allowed white families to build more wealth,” said Carl Davis, the research director at ITEP who authored the report. “Repealing the SALT cap without replacing it with a stronger limit on tax breaks for the rich would cement yet another inequitable policy that advantages rich white families.”

Bowman, who will deliver the progressive response to Biden’s first congressional address on Wednesday, defended his support for the repeal but backed off the threat to oppose the bill unless it is included, telling Salon that he does “not intend to hold up its passage based on that single provision alone.”

“Many of our constituents have communicated to us that repealing the cap on the SALT deduction imposed by Trump is important to them, especially given the economic impacts of the pandemic,” Bowman said in a statement. “While it is true that a repeal of the cap would benefit wealthy Americans, the benefits are not exclusive to the wealthy, and we want to be responsive to the needs and priorities of our constituents, which includes first-time homeowners and homeowners of color. For this portion of SALT filers, repealing the cap can present a material opportunity to disrupt intergenerational wealth gaps.”

Bowman’s district includes part of the Bronx but also part of affluent Westchester County, where the median $89,968 annual income dwarfs the $62,765 median income across the state. Prior to the cap, Bowman said, about 230,000 Westchester County residents used the SALT deduction.

“In communities like Westchester County, where residents pay the highest property taxes in the nation, the SALT deduction cap leaves families in need of additional relief. In addition, the cap limits states’ abilities to provide the essential social services needed to recover from this pandemic and ensure our constituents are able to get the resources needed to thrive,” Bowman told Salon, noting that he also supports a federal wealth tax and a New York proposal to tax the wealthy, and is working on his own tax legislation.

A full repeal would also undermine the efforts to find revenue to pay for Biden’s infrastructure proposal. Repealing the cap entirely would cost about $357 billion over the next five years, according to an analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation, more than half the revenue to be raised by the Senate Democrats’ proposed 4% corporate tax hike over 15 years. An analysis by CBPP estimated that the repeal would cost $600 billion over nine years, effectively canceling out the corporate tax increase revenue.

The issue has caused a rift among progressives. Jayapal told reporters that the Congressional Progressive Caucus “doesn’t have a position” on the repeal, but Ocasio-Cortez called it a “giveaway to the rich” and a “gift to billionaires.”

“I don’t think that we should be holding the infrastructure package hostage for a 100% full repeal on SALT,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters earlier this month. “I think we can have a conversation about the policy, but it’s a bit of an extreme position, to be frank.”

The issue has resulted in an unusual coalition of progressive Democrats and most Republicans, who oppose the repeal as well. Many Democrats have complained that the cap, which was included in the Trump tax cuts, was intended to punish blue states. Tax fairness groups have long argued that it was a rare progressive measure in a bill that otherwise overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy.

“I think there’s better ways to get money to people who need it, rather than folks who have very large values in homes,” Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told The Hill last week.

The White House, meanwhile, said it was open to discussing the repeal if Democrats find a way to offset the massive cost.

“If Democrats want to propose a way to eliminate SALT — which is not a revenue raiser, as you know; it would cost more money — and they want to propose a way to pay for it, and they want to put that forward, we’re happy to hear their ideas,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this month.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., has suggested that increasing IRS audits on the wealthy and corporations could pay for the repeal. Biden supports a plan to boost IRS funding by $80 billion to increase audits and enforcement, which the administration believes will bring in an additional $700 billion over the next decade, according to The New York Times, but the proposal is aimed at funding a separate big spending bill — the American Families Plan.

But even the New York Times editorial board, which has supported similar policies, warned the repeal would be “bad politics and bad policy,” instead calling to eliminate the deduction entirely. The limited deduction, the Times argued, primarily benefits the wealthy and drives inequity by burdening lower-income households with a larger share of the tax burden.

“Most members of this editorial board are paying more in federal taxes because of the SALT deduction cap. In a narrow financial sense, we would benefit from its repeal,” the op-ed said. “But we believe in the broader benefits of progressive taxation, and in the necessity of concrete steps toward creating a more equal society. Members of Congress who have espoused those principles repeatedly now have an important opportunity to demonstrate their sincerity.”

Even Emory University professor Dorothy Brown, the Democrats’ lead witness at last week’s Senate Finance Committee hearing on the tax code, warned that repealing the SALT cap would benefit the wealthy and worsen racial income disparities.

“Since roughly one in 10 Americans itemize deductions — and you only get this tax benefit if you itemize — repeal of the cap will benefit the highest-income taxpayers,” Brown, the author of “The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans and How We Can Fix It,” told Salon. “If you want to help fix how tax laws exacerbate racial inequality, you won’t support repeal of the SALT cap.”