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Rick Santorum makes ignorant claim there was “nothing” in America until white settlers arrived

CNN commentator Rick Santorum, a onetime Republican senator from Pennsylvania and 2008 presidential candidate, is facing calls for his firing after seemingly erasing Native Americans from American history during a speech to a conservative student group last week.

Santorum argued that countries like Italy, Greece, China and Turkey evolved over time but claimed that Europeans seeking religious freedom built America from scratch — even though estimates suggest there were already millions of indigenous Americans living in what is now the United States before the arrival of European settlers.

“They came here, mostly from Europe, and they set up a country that was based on Judeo-Christian principles,” Santorum said in a speech to the Young America’s Foundation’s Standing Up for Faith & Freedom conference, first flagged by Media Matters. “That’s what our founding documents are based upon. It’s in our DNA.”

“We came here and created a blank slate. We birthed a nation from nothing,” he continued. “I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes, we have Native Americans but candidly there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture. It was born of the people who came here pursuing religious liberty to practice their faith, to live as they ought to live, and have the freedom to do so.”

After his remarks were widely circulated on social media, Santorum said in a statement to Salon that “I had no intention of minimizing or in any way devaluing Native American culture.”

“Yes, strange how when you commit a genocide against an existing people, their culture goes away,” tweeted author John Scalzi.

Santorum’s claim is also untrue. The U.S. representative democracy system “stems from a political system developed by the Iroquois Confederacy of Nations, founded in 1142,” explained HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery. “Beyond that, all kinds of aspects of Native American culture ― sports, food, dance, art, languages, spiritual practices― are very much a part of American culture today, even if Santorum may not be aware of it.”

“The word ‘Minnesota’ is literally from a Native American language,” wrote reporter Tom Weber. “Every time you say the name of this state — and several others — you’re speaking a Native language.”

“I guess Rick Santorum is doling out the red meat, potatoes, beans, corn, peanuts, pumpkins, tomatoes, squash, peppers, nuts, melons, and sunflower seeds. (all foods first grown by Native Americans that we still eat today),” quipped documentarian Jeremy Newberger.

Critics accused Santorum of parroting “white supremacist” talking points and ignoring the genocide of Native Americans after Europeans arrived.

“Native & Indigenous nations lived, governed, and thrived here before their land was stolen and they were murdered in a mass genocide, you ignorant white supremacist,” tweeted Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis.

“Scholars call this the ‘pristine nature’ or ‘untouched wilderness’ myth — the claim nothing was happening in America before colonization,” wrote Gizmodo reporter Dell Cameron. “It was used to justify the extermination of indigenous people, policies that Adolf Hitler said he drew inspiration from in writings & speeches.”

Many questioned why CNN still employs Santorum given his history of offensive statements. A spokesperson for the network did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Seriously is any one surprised to hear this hot garbage coming from Rick Santorum?!” tweeted Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “Nothing was here?! No native American culture in American culture?! America hasn’t changed?! Ok @CNN … ok!”

“If you are this ignorant about American history, then you probably shouldn’t be a political commentator on @CNN,” wrote former Obama aide Tommy Vietor.

Even Santorum’s CNN colleague, “United Shades of America” host W. Kamau Bell, publicly called out the former senator as a “white supremacist, white nationalist, racist, xenophobic sentient wet bag of garbage.”

“We both work for @CNN & that has never stopped me from calling him out,” he said on Twitter. “I look forward to all my CNN colleagues who regularly have him on doing the same. This is no ‘both sides’ to this. Mainstream media doesn’t have a Black version of this on air regularly. This is QKKK.”

Trump-appointed justices give gun rights activists the Supreme Court case they’ve sought for decades

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Monday that it’s set to hear a landmark gun rights case which, if ruled in favor of the plaintiff, could set a radically conservative precedent for the judiciary’s interpretation of the Second Amendment. 

The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett, likely to be argued this fall, will address whether Americans have the right to carry a firearm outside their homes –– a right generally obtained through a license given out on the basis of “proper cause.” A New York state restriction first implemented in 1913, proper cause mandates that someone applying for gun ownership must establish a legitimate reason to own a gun. According to NPR, most states in the U.S. allow residents to carry a firearm outside their home without a specific license for doing so. However, states like California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island have strict requirements around the practice. Those who establish “proper cause” may argue that out-of-home gun ownership is required for the purposes of hunting or personal safety, for example. 

However, the two individual plaintiffs, Robert Nash and Brendan Koch, both New York residents, are claiming that the current restrictions in place for proper cause are far too stringent. Paul Clement, a lawyer representing the plaintiff, argued that proper cause “makes it virtually impossible for the ordinary law-abiding citizen” to get a license. Both Nash and Koch reportedly petitioned the state for licenses for reasons of personal safety, but were denied licenses after a district court found that neither men faced “any special or unique danger to [their] life,” according to CNBC. The state’s denial would later prompt them to file a suit with the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association.

The state of New York currently prohibits anyone from carrying an out-of-home firearm without demonstrating to a court that the petitioners possess “a special need for self protection distinguishable from that of the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.”

Last June, the Supreme Court refused to hear ten appeals to cases related to gun laws, sparking particular ire from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote in a dissent at the time that “in several jurisdictions throughout the country, law-abiding citizens have been barred from exercising the fundamental right to bear arms because they cannot show that they have a ‘justifiable need’ or ‘good reason’ for doing so.”

“One would think that such an onerous burden on a fundamental right would warrant this Court’s review,” the Justice added.

However, with the newly-appointed conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett cementing the 6-3 conservative bent of the bench, Thomas may see a more sympathetic judiciary to gun rights advocates, As Vox‘s Ian Millhiser explained, after a 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, which established the constitutionality of “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” Barrett argued that ruling should be narrowed to “dangerous people,” suggesting that felons should have the right to bear arms.

Back in 2011, Justice Kavanaugh also argued in a dissenting opinion that “courts are to assess gun bans and regulations based on text, history, and tradition,” and “not by a balancing test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny.” In other words, there is a good chance that Kavanaugh, a proud textualist, will rule in favor of the plaintiffs by way of a strict interpretation of the Second Amendment, which does not outline any specific restrictions on who should obtain firearms under what circumstances. 

A conservative ruling on the case could prove exceptionally damaging for the gun reform movement, which has long fought for tighter restrictions on gun ownership. The issue has become particularly salient amid the flurry of recent mass shootings, many of which obtained legal licenses to buy guns. 

Vox’s Ian Millhiser argued with a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court, a ruling in favor of gun rights has the potential “to unwind a consensus within the lower courts that permits many gun regulations to stand, and then to allow those lower courts to complete the process of dismantling other gun laws.”

A decision is likely to be delivered by the summer of next year.

Maddow focuses on key Capitol insurrection detail: “I don’t understand how this isn’t the headline”

The host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC focused on a key detail in a New York Times article on House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calf.

“Can we talk about what else we learned about the House Leader Kevin McCarthy and what he himself did on January 6th? I don’t understand how this isn’t the headline,” she explained.

“This anecdote — totally new to me and as far as I can tell, previously unreported — it comes 34 paragraphs in to a story that is 39 paragraphs long,” she said. “I’ll read it to you verbatim.”

“After the House chamber was evacuated on Jan. 6, Mr. McCarthy retreated to his Capitol office with a colleague, Rep. Bruce Westerman, Republican of Arkansas. When it became evident the rioters were breaking in, Mr. McCarthy’s security detail insisted he leave. But Mr. Westerman was left behind in Mr. McCarthy’s inner work area, he said in a recent interview,” the article reported. “For protection, Mr. Westerman said he commandeered a Civil War sword from an office display, barricaded himself in Mr. McCarthy’s private bathroom and waited out the siege while crouched on the toilet.”

“Friends describe the post-election period as traumatic for Mr. McCarthy, who publicly perpetuated the fiction that Mr. Trump had won while privately asking him to stop,” The Times reported.

Maddow chuckled after reading from the article.

“Wait, traumatic for Mr. McCarthy?” she asked. “For Kevin? I mean, he’s the one who got rushed out of there because the rioters were breaking in.”

Maddow explained, “He brought another member of Congress to his office with him and then it was like, ‘Oh, no, Bruce, we came here to hide but the rioters, they’re inside now, they are coming for us. Bye Bruce, I’ll see you later, I’m out of here. There’s a toilet in there, maybe good luck crouching on top of the toilet, they won’t see your feet if they look under the door.'”

You can watch the video below via YouTube: 

Fox News host Laura Ingraham accuses civil rights attorney of “sporting an accent” on TV

Fox News on Monday continued to whine about Americans standing up to end police misconduct.

Laura Ingraham lashed out a civil rights attorney and CNN legal analyst Bakari Sellers.

Sellers, one of the attorneys representing the family of police slaying victim Andrew Brown, Jr., had blasted Pasquotank County Attorney Michael Cox earlier in the day for refusing to release body camera footage of the fatal shooting. Sellers said Cox was disrespectful in dealing with the victim’s family.

“I will say that Mr. Cox told me, a grown Black man, that he was not f*cking going to be bullied,” Sellers said.

Ingraham, however, was more interested in the attorney’s voice.

“Bakari Sellers suddenly showed up in North Carolina today to condemn the police in another case,” Ingraham said of an attorney for the victim’s family, in apparent disbelief.

She accused Sellers of “pouring on the dramatic affect, as if you needed it.”

“And sporting an accent that — maybe I’m missed something, but I never heard him use on TV before,” she said of the former South Carolina legislator.

You can watch the video below via Twitter: 

 

Push to bar trans students from school sports hits legal roadblock

On Sunday, a federal judge threw out a Connecticut lawsuit that sought to bar transgender athletes from participating in high school girls’ sports teams.

The suit, brought by four cisgender runners — Selina Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, Alanna Smith, and Ashley Nicoletti – was filed against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC), a governing state body which sets the requirements for student athletic participation. The suit alleges that “CIAC policy puts non-transgender girls at a competitive disadvantage in girls’ track and, as a result, denies them rights guaranteed by Title IX.” The plaintiffs specifically claim to have been deprived of titles and opportunities as a result of their competitive disadvantage, according to AP News. 

The presiding judge over the case, U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny, dismissed the suit because the two transgender athletes – who the plaintiffs allege held a competitive advantage – have since graduated from high school.

“I conclude that the request to enjoin enforcement of the CIAC policy has become moot due to the graduation of Yearwood and Miller, whose participation in girls’ track provided the impetus for this action,” Chatigny wrote. “There is no indication that Smith and Nicoletti will encounter competition by a transgender student in a CIAC-sponsored event next season.”

Chatigny argued that the plaintiffs were no longer harmed by the damages they brought forth, seeing as they were no longer competing against transgender athletes. “If it turns out that a transgender student does register to compete in girls’ track next season,” the judge added, “Smith and Nicoletti will be able to file a new action under Title IX along with a motion for a preliminary injunction.”

“It’s discouraging that the court ruled to dismiss my right to compete on a level playing field,” said Mitchell, one of the athletes. “Today’s ruling ignores the physical advantages that male athletes have over female athletes. Female athletes like me should have the opportunity to excel and compete fairly. No girl should have to settle into her starting blocks knowing that, no matter how hard she works, she doesn’t have a fair shot at victory.”

Meanwhile, the ruling marks a decisive win for LGBTQ advocates who have long fought for transgender rights to be protected by Title IX, which sets out to protect students from sex- and gender-based discrimination in education programs. 

Joshua Block, Senior Staff Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that Chatigny’s decision actually upholds Title IX. “No court, no agency,” he said, “has ever defined a participation opportunity as winning an equal number of trophies.”

If won, the lawsuit may have reversed CIAC’s policy of allowing students to participate in sports teams that match their gender identity, and instead require of them to participate in teams that correspond to their biological sex, according to the Hartford Courant. The lawsuit also may have forced state officials to retroactively alter transgender athletes’ track records. 

CIAC told WFSB that it “is pleased with the court’s decision.”

The decision comes amid a nationwide Republican-backed push to prevent transgender athletes from participating in high school and college teams corresponding to their gender. During 2020, state lawmakers introduced 20 bills that sought to bar transgender people from participating in athletics. Last Saturday, Alabama became just the latest in a spate of states to prohibit transgender athletes from playing in female K-12 sports teams. Pennsylvania lawmakers are currently pushing a bill in the same spirit.

How Census data collected during a pandemic will shift political power in the US

New data from the 2020 U.S. census released April 26, 2021, indicates that starting in 2023 – after the next congressional elections – seven states will have fewer seats in Congress than they do now, and six will have more.

These calculations and changes are the primary purpose of the government’s efforts every 10 years to count all the people who live in the United States. It’s written into the U.S. Constitution. In addition, the number of House seats a state has helps determine the size of its delegation to the Electoral College, increasing or decreasing state residents’ power to pick the president.

The seven states that each lost one seat in the House as a result of the 2020 census are California, from 53 to 52; Illinois, from 18 to 17; Michigan, from 14 to 13; New York, from 27 to 26; Ohio, from 16 to 15; Pennsylvania, from 18 to 17; and West Virginia, from 3 to 2.

The six states that gained one or more seats after the 2020 count are Colorado, from 7 to 8; Florida, from 27 to 28; Montana, from 1 to 2; North Carolina, from 13 to 14; Oregon, from 5 to 6; and Texas, which gained two, from 36 to 38.

Who gets counted?

During the census, the U.S. Census Bureau counts the number of people who live in each state on census day of the census year – in this case, April 1, 2020.

The bureau also counts all military and U.S. government employees and their dependents who live overseas on that day – and determines which states they claim as their residences when in the U.S.

Any military personnel who are only temporarily deployed overseas are not counted where they live, but in the states where the military bases from which they were deployed are located.

Those numbers deliver a total number of people who live in each state, for apportionment purposes.

Doing the calculations

When determining how many seats a state gets, there are a few constraints.

First is that there are 435 seats and 50 states; the District of Columbia participates in the Electoral College, but gets only a nonvoting delegate in Congress.

In addition, states cannot get partial seats. Because every state must get at least one seat, the first 50 seats are assigned automatically, one per state.

The Constitution does not specify the specific method of apportioning the rest of the congressional seats, but the underlying assumption is best summarized as “one person, one vote” – every person residing in every state should be included, and no person should have more of a voice than any other.

After the first 50, the 385 remaining seats are assigned according to a system called the Method of Equal Proportions, first proposed in 1911 by a U.S. Census Bureau statistician named Joseph A. Hill. This method was first used in the apportionment based on the 1940 census, and has been used ever since. It is a statistical and mathematical series of calculations that determines the priority order in which states receive second seats, third seats and additional seats beyond that.

In states that have more than one congressional district, additional calculations will be necessary to determine the boundaries of each of those districts. Often that process is left up to state legislators. The data needed for that next step will be available by Sept. 30, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said during a virtual press conference announcing the apportionment results.

Dudley L. Poston Jr., Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University

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

How religious leaders can help fight COVID vaccine hesitancy

A nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that focuses on studying intersections between religion and politics released a survey on Thursday that is both hopeful and troubling: While millions of Americans remain hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine, religious leaders could actually help convince many people to do the safe and right thing.

The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that Protestant Christians are particularly likely to be hesitant to receive vaccines, including 42% of Hispanic Protestants who are vaccine hesitant and 15% who say they do not plan on getting vaccinated; 28% of white evangelical Protestants who are vaccine hesitant and 26% who say they will not get vaccinated; and 32% of African American Protestants who say they are vaccine hesitant and 15% who say they will not get vaccinated.

By contrast, Jewish Americans are by far the most likely to support vaccinations, with 85% being either vaccine accepters, having already received a vaccine or saying they plan on getting vaccinated soon. There are also a majority of vaccine acceptors among white Catholics, other Christians, white mainline protestants, other non-Christian religious Americans, religiously unaffiliated Americans and Hispanic Catholics. The study also found, not surprisingly, that Republicans are less likely than Democrats and independents to be vaccine accepters, with the numbers being more extreme as a given Republican’s media outlets skew farther and farther to the right. While only 45% of Republicans are vaccine acceptors (compared to 73% of Democrats and 58% of independents), that number becomes a majority among those who trust mainstream news or Fox News. It drops to less than one-third among those who trust far right outlets like Newsmax or One America News, or don’t trust any television news.

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“The current picture we have is a complex one,” Robert Jones, the CEO and founder of PRRI, told Salon. “If I just take two groups, you can see the differences. For example, among African-American Protestants — one group that that is more hesitant than the general population — we find there that clergy seem to be playing a positive role and moving congregants to being more likely to be vaccine accepting. Among African-American Protestants who attend services regularly, six in ten are vaccine acceptors, but among those who seldom or never attend, it’s only about four in ten. So we see there a positive role that black clergy are playing in their churches.”

He added, “We see the opposite thing among white evangelical churches. Among those who attend regularly, only 43% say they are vaccine acceptors and for those who never attend, it’s actually a 48%. It’s actually a little bit higher.”

These numbers reflect broader national trends. The PRRI survey found that 26% of all Americans who are hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine, and 8% of those who are resistant to getting one, say that at least one of six faith-based pro-vaccine approaches could change their mind on the subject. That number increased among Americans who attend religious services at least a few times each year, with 44% of the vaccine hesitant and 14% of those who are resistant saying they could be persuaded through faith-based approaches.

Scientists and other public health experts have long been concerned about the possibility that not enough Americans will get vaccinated. Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told Salon in December that experts hope that somewhere between 70% and 75% of the population getting vaccinated will be enough to achieve herd immunity. Dr. Russell Medford, Chairman of the Center for Global Health Innovation and Global Health Crisis Coordination Center, explained to Salon at that time that “Americans should expect, with 95% certainty, to be personally protected from developing any symptoms or complications from COVID-19 after receiving both doses of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.”

He added that “the current rapid rise in infection, hospitalizations and death will not be immediately impacted by the roll-out of the vaccine alone but the faster that Americans are vaccinated, combined with rigorous mask wearing and social distancing, the greater and more rapid that impact.”

According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 68% of Americans either plan to or have already been vaccinated while 27% do not plan on getting vaccinated. As Jones told Salon, America has already utilized its best scientific, manufacturing and logistical resources to produce working vaccines and distribute them throughout the country.

“We’re at a point where we need to marshal the best of our cultural resources,” Jones told Salon. “That includes the media. It includes religious and political leaders that are really about making appeals so that people feel safe, that they feel like it is either an act of solidarity or it’s put in religious terms as an act of loving their neighbors, to participate and get vaccinated so that we reach herd immunity. We’re at this point where it really is going to be the cultural resources that are going to carry us over the finish line. Religious appeals can be part of that.”

How kids can summer camp more safely this year, according to the CDC

Summer camp is a go this year, but thanks to new guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the experience will be adjusted. The hope is that these extra precautions with a largely unvaccinated population will prevent outbreaks at summer camps — unlike what happened last year. 

Last summer, an overnight summer camp in Georgia was the center of a major outbreak. On the second day of camp, one camper tested positive for COVID-19 which led to nearly 76% of the 344 campers getting infected with the coronavirus. Staff was required to wear masks, but the campers weren’t required to do so. The camp also didn’t open windows and doors to increase circulation, and 15 campers occupied the overnight cabins.

To guard against such conditions, on Saturday the CDC released updated guidance for daily and overnight summer camps to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Even though millions of adults are receiving the COVID-19 vaccine each day, currently there are no vaccines available for use in the U.S. for children under the age of 16. According to the updated guidelines, children must stay at least 3 feet apart from each other most of the time at camp, which is aligned with the recommended guidance for schools too. When children are eating and drinking, the CDC recommends children maintain at least 6 feet of distance from each other.

“As feasible, have children and staff eat meals and snacks outdoors or in well-ventilated spaces while maintaining physical distance as much as possible,” the CDC explains. “Campers should store masks in a space designated for each child that is separate from others when not being worn (for example, in individual, labeled containers, bags, or cubbies) and put their mask back on when not eating or drinking.”

In regards to mask-wearing, the CDC states that all staff, visitors and campers should wear masks with a few exceptions — campers who are younger than the age of two don’t have to wear masks. Activities like eating, drinking or swimming, won’t require masks either. Most activities are recommended to take place outside, but if the weather doesn’t allow it the CDC states that windows and doors should be left open to well-ventilate the space.

“Bringing fresh, outdoor air into your facility helps keep virus particles from concentrating inside,” the CDC states. “Open windows and doors when possible, use fans to increase the effectiveness of open windows, and decrease occupancy in areas where outdoor ventilation cannot be increased.”

The CDC provided additional guidance for overnight camps, specifically recommending unvaccinated campers and staff members to quarantine for two weeks before camp begins, which means maintaining a physical distancing, wearing a mask and refraining from indoor social gatherings with people outside of their household. The CDC also recommends asking staff and campers who aren’t fully vaccinated to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken no more than 3 days before arrival.

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“Campers and staff should be screened for COVID-19 symptoms, as well as a known recent close contact with a confirmed COVID case, when entering the camp (or before boarding camp transportation),” the CDC states. “Upon arrival at camp, campers should be assigned to cohorts that will remain together for the entire camp session without mixing with other campers and staff in close contact circumstances.”

This summer, the CDC is recommended that campers who bunk together in a cabin act as if they are a pod or “household cohort.” Together, they don’t have to wear a mask and keep their distance. But when interacting with other campers, they should always wear a mask to keep a distance.

Upon their return home, campers and staff who are not fully vaccinated should get a COVID-19 test within three to five days after returning, and self-quarantine for one week.

As far as vaccinations are concerned for teens and school-aged children, they most likely won’t be available until after this summer. As Salon previously reported, teens will likely be able to get the vaccine this fall. Elementary-aged children likely won’t be eligible for vaccinations until the beginning of 2022. As far as how vaccinations will change summer camp in 2022, that remains unclear. 

Anti-Trump Republican group begins grading GOP members: Kevin McCarthy gets an F

The Republican Accountability Project, an anti-Trump conservative group has gone from holding top GOP lawmakers such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accountable on social media to launching a new “scorecard” website that grades GOP members on their commitment to democracy. 

“The Republican Accountability Project has created what it’s calling a ‘GOP Democracy Report Card,’ which assigns grades to Republican members of Congress ranging from an ‘A,’ which the group describes as excellent, to an ‘F,’ which it describes as very poor,” CNN reported on Monday morning. 

The group is led by longtime Republican operatives (and Trump critics) Bill Kristol and Sarah Longwell, along with former Trump administration official Olivia Troye. It has already doled out numerous failing grades to prominent GOP lawmakers, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. “Only 14 Republicans in Congress received an ‘A,’ the highest possible grade. In contrast, more than 100 Republicans received an ‘F,’ the lowest possible grade,” CNN further noted. 

The group’s report card grading of GOP lawmakers considers how legislators voted on various issues pertaining to the 2020 election, along with the veracity of their statements about the 2020 election results and whether they voted to convince former President Trump during his second impeachment trial. “Actions have consequences and this is part of us working to hold these individuals accountable and not let them get away with it as time passes and they try to move past it and paint it under a different light,” Troye told CNN. The former Trump official added the website can be used to track “who have been actively trying to do what’s right for the country.”

On Sunday, McCarthy was faced with a stringent line of questions from Sunday Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who pressed the House minority leader over his phone call with Trump while the Capitol riot was in progress on Jan. 6. Wallace began the segment with Trump’s reported words during that call: “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” Things grew ever tenser after that.

McCarthy then fired back, claiming he was the “first person” to get in touch with Trump on Jan. 6. “I was the first person to contact him when the riots were going on,” McCarthy said. “When he ended the call, he was telling me he will put something out to make sure to stop this. And that’s what he did. He put a video out later.”

Responding to McCarthy’s comment about the video, the Fox anchor pointed out that Trump’s video was rather weak and came a bit too late to stop the mayhem.

Rather than directly addressing his call with Trump, the House Republican leader dodged a myriad of questions from Wallace on the topic. “My conversations with the president are my conversations with the president,” McCarthy said. “I engaged in the idea that we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time; the president said he would help,” he added. McCarthy further insisted he had done nothing wrong, and said he was unbothered by the prospect of ongoing investigations into what occurred in Washington on that winter day. 

“He is sending a message”: Jen Psaki explains to Fox News reporter why Biden continues to wear masks

White House press secretary Jen Psaki schooled a Fox News reporter on Monday about the importance of wearing masks and previewed upcoming mask-related guidance from the administration as President Biden’s 100-day mask challenge nears its end this week.  

The schooling began after Psaki was asked by Fox News’ Steve Doocy about why the president was seen wearing a mask during a recent climate change summit that was held virtually.

“Because he is sending a message to the world that he is putting in place precautions and continuing to do that as leader of the United States,” Psaki explained Doocy. She added that she did not know how other countries had set up the call on their end but that there were other personnel in Biden’s room when the call occurred in the White House.

Doocy replied by without context claiming that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says “you can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask or staying six feet apart.”

Psaki corrected Doocy, telling him that “that’s actually for in your private home. So it’s not workplace guidance and we still masks around here, just like you are all wearing masks. And we wear masks in our offices and continue to abide by that until that guidance changes.”

The Psaki-Doocy exchange occurred within a broader context about the Biden administration’s policies on Americans wearing masks. When Biden delivers a speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, he is expected to be flanked by two public officials wearing masks — Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Other people attending the speech are also expected to wear masks.

Journalists have also been told to anticipate an announcement this week on mask-wearing protocol. NBC News reports that they are planning on loosening guidelines for wearing masks outdoors and perhaps even offering even more latitude to people who are fully vaccinated. Officials have not yet finalized the new rules, but they are expected to continue the Biden administration’s overall policy of gradually transitioning to normal life while remaining guarded.

There has been considerable opposition to wearing masks as a way of limiting the spread of COVID-19, even though scientists agree that they’re helpful and harmless. Biden’s predecessor, President Donald Trump, frequently downplayed the need to wear masks and denigrated Biden himself for doing so on the campaign trail. Trump encouraged his supporters to ignore a number of basic scientific facts about addressing the pandemic, while sympathetic media outlets like One America News Network (OANN) and Newsmax have directly promoted anti-mask pseudoscience or provided platforms for those who do. There is evidence that men may avoid wearing masks because they fear it is emasculating; there is also evidence in general that conservatives will lash out at right-wing outlets when they urge mask-wearing, as happened with Fox News viewers last month.

As a result of this politicization of mask-wearing, Republican governors in states like Texas and Mississippi are eliminating mask mandates and rolling back other COVID-19 precautions. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky admitted to reporters last month that the premature decision to pull back on some of these protections could cause the pandemic to surge.

“I’m going to pause here, I’m going to lose the script and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” Walensky explained at the time. “We have so much to look forward to. So much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope. But right now I’m scared.”

Salon has spoken with public health experts who share her concern.

“The decision to reduce mask wearing and reopen business anywhere in the US in extremely unwise and in fact dangerous,” Dr. William Haseltine, a biologist and chair of Access Health International, told Salon by email earlier last month. “Twice we reopened prematurely and have suffered grievously in terms of numbers of dead and of those who are suffering from long-term COVID-related disease.”

His views were echoed by Dr. Alfred Sommer, professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, wrote to Salon.

“From a public health perspective it makes zero sense to abandon pandemic precautions at this time!” Sommer told Salon last month. “Only a small percentage of our population has been vaccinated as yet — we won’t have herd immunity that would materially reduce our collective risk until 70+ percent have been immunized. Nothing has changed that should embolden relaxing our guard at this point.”

Biden’s response to the pandemic has been praised by public health experts. In his first week as president he implemented a federal mask, reentered the World Health Organization (WHO), used the Defense Production Act to get more Americans vaccinated faster and signed almost a dozen executive orders related to the pandemic. Salon spoke with public health experts at the time, who gave the president at least an ‘A’ based on his performance.

As reports of Scott Rudin’s workplace abuses pile up, the producer steps back from big-name projects

Scott Rudin is one the most established producers in both Hollywood and on Broadway. He is an EGOT — having won multiple Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards — who was behind projects like “No Country for Old Men,” “Lady Bird,” “The Book of Mormon” and eight Wes Anderson films. 

But, according to multiple reports that began surfacing earlier this month, he is also allegedly an abusive boss who has used his power to make the people with whom he worked feel “worthless, unvaluable and replaceable.” 

The allegations began with an April 7 expose by Hollywood Reporter writer Tatiana Siegel, who interviewed multiple of his past employees who described him to be an “absolute monster” with a volcanic temper, whose violence in the workplace — Rudin once shattered a computer monitor on an employee’s hand after the young man failed to get him a seat on a sold-out flight — was excused because of his professional brilliance. 

Curiously, Rudin’s abusive behavior has been lauded in the past; in 2005, the Wall Street Journal ran a profile on him under the headline “Boss-zilla!” while the Hollywood Reporter previously dubbed him, as a compliment, “The Most Feared Man in Hollywood” in 2010. 

However, in addition to spotlighting instances of sexual harassment in Hollywood, the #MeToo Movement has also caused many to reassess the workplace abuses perpetrated by powerful men, now including Rudin. 

Since the publication of Siegel’s story, more former employees and show business professionals, including actress Rita Wilson and playwright Sara Ruhl, have recounted what it was like being the target of his wrath. This has resulted in boycotts of his planned projects which has left Rudin, as the New York Times put it, “an immobilized impresario just as Broadway is preparing to put tickets back on sale following a lengthy pandemic shutdown.” 

This story continues to develop as more and more people speak out, but here is a timeline of the allegations and what we know so far about the status of Rudin’s upcoming productions. 

April 7: Ex-employees speak out about Rudin’s “unhinged” behavior

Andrew Cole was a development executive at Scott Rudin Productions in 2012. He described an environment where 14-hour workdays were standard. 

“There were the guys that were sleeping in the office, the guys whose hair was falling out and were developing ulcers,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “It was a very intense environment, but that just felt different. It was a new level of unhinged — a level of lack of control that I had never seen before in a workplace.”

But he was shocked when Rudin sent an employee to the emergency with cuts on his hand after striking him with a computer monitor while in a fit of rage. 

Another staffer, Caroline Rugo, described a similar environment in 2018 in which Rudin threw or damaged various objects ranging from beating on a napkin dispenser to shattering a glass bowl after throwing it in the direction of a colleague, which then caused the HR employee to leave in an ambulance “due to a panic attack.”

A recent assistant told The Hollywood Reporter that Rudin threw a baked potato at his head when he alerted him that executives from A24 were in the building for a meeting that Rudin hadn’t planned on taking, while another assistant witnessed Rudin “throwing a stapler at a theater assistant and calling him a ‘retard.'” 

Rudin would also allegedly leave employees and fellow producers stranded on the highway if they got into arguments while driving and attempt to physically intimidate individuals by standing over them while they were seated to yell at them. 

“On Indeed.com,” Siegel wrote. “Where Rudin posts ads for a constant stream of vacancies, one anonymous reviewer warned prospective applicants to ‘Please Run Far, Far Away.'” 

April 22: Protesters march on Broadway against Rudin

According to Deadline, New York City protesters gathered in the streets to petition for greater diversity and equality in Broadway as theaters eye reopening following COVID-19 shutdowns. One of their demands to revoke Rudin’s membership from the Broadway League, a trade organization of theater owners and producers. 

“If he is not removed from the Broadway League, we want restoration,” the March on Broadway organizers told Deadline in an email. “We want Scott to publicly choose 20 BIPOC run theatres and donate a LARGE SUM of money to them.” 

April 24: Rita Wilson claims Rudin attempted to intimidate her after her breast cancer diagnosis

Actress Rita Wilson was starring in a Rudin production of Larry David’s play “Fish in the Dark” when she learned that she had breast cancer. She alleges that when she told Rudin the news, he demanded to see her medical records and complained that she would need time off during Tony Awards voting season. 

She told the New York Times that, several days later, she received a call from her agent “saying her surgeon needed to call the insurance adjustor immediately, per Mr. Rudin’s demands. 

“I felt like he was trying to find a way to fire me legally,” Wilson said. “He is the kind of person who makes someone feel worthless, unvaluable and replaceable.”

April 24: Rudin reveals he’s resigning from the Broadway League and distances himself from shows

In a statement to the Times, Rudin said that he would be resigning from the Broadway League. 

“I know apologizing is not, by any means, enough,” he said. “In stepping back, I intend to work on my issues and do so fully aware that many will feel that this is too little and too late.”

He also said that he would be “stepping back” from several highly anticipated projects, including a revival of “The Music Man,” which is set to star Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster and begin previews in December. 

According to the Times, Jackman and Foster were “committed to a healthy workplace at “The Music Man” and were pleased that Mr. Rudin had stepped away.” 

Rudin told the publication that he “resigned from the shows so that nobody would have to defend me or defend working with me — the decisions were mine and were based on my desire to see the shows go forward.”

It’s unclear at this time whether Rudin will financially benefit from the show, despite having resigned. 

Rudin also had several other projects in the works, including Broadway revivals of “Our Town” starring Dustin Hoffman, “The Piano Lesson” starring Samuel L. Jackson, and “Death of a Salesman” starring Nathan Lane. The fate of those projects is unclear, as well.

 

Bernie Sanders calls backing waiver for COVID vaccine patents “common human morality”

Calling the issue a matter of “common sense and morality,” Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday—backed by millions of Americans demanding the same—urged U.S. President Joe Biden to support an international effort to suspend coronavirus-related patent protections that are artificially limiting vaccine supply and depriving poor nations of access to life-saving shots.

“We must do everything humanly possible to crush this global pandemic and save millions of people who are in danger of needlessly dying,” the Vermont senator said during a virtual event hosted by Public Citizen and joined by other lawmakers and public health advocates.

“Ending this pandemic requires collaboration, solidarity, and empathy. It requires a different mindset… the mindset that tells the pharmaceutical industry that saving perhaps millions of lives is more important than protecting their already excessive profits,” Sanders continued, echoing experts’ warnings about the emergence and spread of vaccine-resistant mutations. “To me, this is not a huge debate, this is common human morality.”

The Friday event was held to mark the delivery of two million petition signatures calling on Biden to endorse the patent waiver, which the U.S. and other rich nations have blocked repeatedly since India and South Africa first introduced the proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) last October.

Matthew Rose of Health GAP, one of the advocacy groups behind the petition drive, said during the virtual gathering Friday that “it’s time the Biden administration stopped dragging their heels and got on board with the millions of people supporting the… waiver, which will save lives and help end the Covid-19 pandemic.”

According to a Data for Progress survey released last week, 60% of U.S. voters want Biden to support the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver, which is backed by more than 100 WTO member nations. The proposal would lift a key legal barrier preventing generic manufacturers around the world from replicating vaccine formulas.

“This event and the success of these petitions shows that not only is the TRIPS waiver the right thing to do to end the pandemic everywhere and stop vaccine apartheid, but that it is overwhelming popular,” said Ben Levenson of People’s Action. “At this point the only thing standing in the way of the Biden administration is their willingness to stand up to the greed of the pharmaceutical industry.”

Watch the full event:

The virtual event came as global coronavirus infection numbers continue to surge in large part due to exploding case counts in India, Brazil, and other countries that have struggled to vaccinate their populations amid inadequate supply and deeply unequal distribution.

In a New York Times op-ed on Friday, the head of the World Health Organization estimated that people in low-income countries have received just 0.3% of the total number of coronavirus vaccines administered across the globe. People in high- and upper-middle-income countries, meanwhile, have received 81% of total doses.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who is leading the effort to build support for the waiver among U.S. House lawmakers, said during Friday’s livestream that “this is an international pandemic, and time is running out.”

“The answer is right in front of our eyes, a waiver at the WTO to allow countries to be able to produce their own pharmaceuticals, vaccines to help people who are sick, to really save the day,” said Schakowsky. “We need to do this now.”

 

“Plant-based beer” and beef bans: How Larry Kudlow set off a right-wing anti-Biden smear campaign

Fox Business Network host and former economic Trump adviser Larry Kudlow set off something of a right-wing smear campaign over the weekend when he went on a tirade against President Joe Biden’s nonexistent plan to force “plant-based beer” upon the American public, calling Biden an “ideological zealot” intent on scrapping America’s most cherished tradition of meat-eating.

In an interview on Thursday, Kudlow erroneously attacked Biden for putting forth a climate plan that calls for the elimination of meat, eggs, and dairy from the American diet. “There’s a study coming out of the University of Michigan which says that to meet the Biden Green New Deal targets, America has to…stop eating poultry and fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, and animal-based fats,” he started. “Ok, got that? No burger on July 4. No steaks on the barbecue. I’m sure Middle America is just going to love that. Can you grill those Brussels sprouts?”

Kudlow, notably livid over the thought of grilling vegetables –– let alone foreign ones –– continued to rail against Biden’s new climate action plan.

 “You can throw back a plant-based beer with your grilled Brussels sprouts and wave your American flag. Call it July 4th Green. Now, I’m making fun of this because I intend to make fun of it. This kind of thing is stupid. It comes from a bunch of ideological zealots who don’t care one whit about America’s well-being. Not one whit.”

It should be noted that beer, generally made from water, grain, hops, and yeast, and barley malt, is already, in fact, plant-based. Furthermore, nothing in President Biden’s plan so far calls for a prohibition on meat consumption. The original culprit of this misinformation, a Thursday Daily Mail article headlined “How Biden’s climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH,” speculated that Biden intends on “cutting red meat consumption by 90% and animal products by 50%.” 

The article, quickly feasted upon by Kudlow and amplified by Fox Business News without the slightest fact-check, was then picked up by Republicans in government, including Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who spread the lies to their voting bases.

“Joe Biden’s climate plan includes cutting 90% of red meat from our diets by 2030. They want to limit us to about four pounds a year,” tweeted Boebert. “Why doesn’t Joe stay out of my kitchen?”

“Not gonna happen in Texas!” Gov. Abbott tweeted, with a screenshot of Kudlow’s broadcast. 

Greene, posting a picture of Biden eating a hamburger with others a table, echoed: “The Hamburglar. No burgers for thee, but just for me.”

The misinformation also came into the good graces of Donald Trump Jr., who declared most proudly, “I’m pretty sure I ate 4 pounds of red meat yesterday. That’s going to be a hard NO from me.”

On Saturday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explained how Kudlow’s remarks planted the seeds for a concerted misinformation campaign.

“If you read what Kudlow actually said,” Krugman argued on Twitter, “he’s cagey — doesn’t say that Biden proposed this, only that some people say this is what would happen. But Fox viewers won’t notice, which is the intention. This is what right-wing politics is down to. It’s all false claims about evil liberals, which the base is expected to believe because it’s primed to believe in liberal villainy. They’re not even trying to engage on actual issues.”

The White House has thus far released scant information about any formal plan to address emissions. According to the Washington Post, on Thursday, the President made vague remarks about investing in “American infrastructure and American innovation” in order to build “a critical infrastructure to produce and deploy clean technology.”

The right’s outrage was widely mocked online by the left, who were quick to point out that Biden’s apparent political aversion to meat has no factual or historical basis at all. On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took a jab at his conservative colleagues . “Excited to be watching the Oscars with an ice cold plant-based beer,” he tweeted, with a picture of himself holding a beer while watching the Oscars. “Thanks Joe Biden.”

The Charlottesville model: Trump’s “fine people” praise of white nationalists is now GOP mainstream

Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean had some choice words for the modern Republican Party during a recent interview with Molly Jong-Fast of The Daily Beast. He called the GOP “racist” and “neo-fascist” and, hilariously, compared the Republican congressional caucus specifically to a “sentient YouTube comment section.” I expected there to be some outrage, but so far not so much. Apparently, even Republicans are running out of energy to deny what is obviously true about their party. Donald Trump’s only been out of office for a little over three months and his once-shocking levels of racism have now become just normal Republican politics. 

In August 2017, Trump incited one of the larger of his nearly infinite controversies by insisting that a crowd of neo-Nazis and other white nationalists who gathered for a race riot in Charlottesville contained “very fine people” in it. Over the next few days, Trump did his usual thing of backing off the racist comments and then backing off the back-off. Ultimately, everyone walked away with the same general understanding: Trump’s heart was with the white nationalists and any half-hearted gestures otherwise were political theater no one actually took seriously. Efforts by conservative pundits to clean up Trump’s comments over the next few years were merely meant to get liberals to stop bugging them about it, not a genuine sign of confusion over where he stood on the matter. 

Trump was constantly in the news for saying racist things, but this one stuck out because that crowd of “very fine people” that Trump had so much love for produced a murderer that day. James Fields Jr. rammed his car into a crowd of anti-racists that were counter-protesting, killing a woman named Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others, five critically. Fields went to prison for the attack, but Republican politicians, following Trump’s “very fine people” lead, have since moved to legalize what Fields did that day. 

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In Oklahoma and Florida, Republicans have passed new laws making it legal for motorists to run over protesters, so long as they claim that they felt afraid of a “riot.” The laws are clearly meant to give cover to people who attack anti-racist protesters, a trend that started with Fields murdering Heyer but has spread rapidly on the right. Over the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, there were a whopping 104 incidents — including 8 by police — of motorists hitting protesters with cars. The 2017 video of Fields slamming his car into a crowd was a genuine shock, but similar images became sadly common in 2020. Now Republicans want to make it legal. 

Such laws are part of a larger push to use violence and threats to silence anti-racism.

The pro-vehicular homicide law in Florida, for instance, is part of a larger package signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that redefines “rioting” in order to make it easier for police to shut down anti-racism protests. DeSantis has explicitly tied the bill to the conviction of former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd, insisting that the conviction was because “the jury is scared of what a mob may do” and not because of the evidence — including a video of the murder, which happened in broad daylight — of Chauvin’s guilt. 

Indeed, this overwhelming evidence against Chauvin is also overwhelming evidence that his supporters in the media and politics simply believe that police should have an unchecked “right” to kill people of color at will. In fact, Chauvin’s guilt was so obvious that many in the right-wing media initially seemed to feel the smart move was to throw him under the bus. But Tucker Carlson of Fox News went all-in on treating the verdict like a travesty and now even supposedly more “intellectual” outlets like National Review are hyping the idea that the “real” bad guys are the ones who wanted Chauvin to pay for his crimes. 

The “anti-anti-Chauvin” messaging appears to be working.

Right after Chauvin’s verdict, a Morning Consult/Politico poll showed that 61% of Republicans said the jury decided correctly while only 29% defended Chauvin. A few days later, after much of the right-wing media portrayed Chauvin as a martyr, a CBS News/YouGov poll showed a shift with 46% of Republicans opposing the verdict and 54% supporting it. That’s still the majority, thankfully. But considering how the murder was both dramatic and indisputable, these numbers suggest that Carlson and other figures are successfully winning over Republicans with the notion that people who commit racist violence shouldn’t be held accountable. Which, of course, is also the message of the laws legalizing hitting protesters with cars. 

It’s not just that the larger GOP is increasingly embracing Trumpesque levels of comfort with racist violence. They are also embracing Trump’s racist reaction to the 2020 election, which he continuously insisted was “stolen” with racist rhetoric painting voters in cities like Philadephia and Detroit as illegitimate. 

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A new bill in Texas further dispenses with the GOP’s paper-thin rationale of “concerns” about “fraud” to nakedly target the ability of voters in racially diverse cities to cast ballots at all. It sets forth a bunch of regulations to make it much harder to vote, but limits the restrictions to cities with populations of over a million people. It’s crystal clear why: The cities of Texas are racially diverse and left-leaning, whereas most rural districts in the state are white and conservative.

The racist intent is right on the surface, and likely, that’s a huge part of the point. We already saw this in Georgia, where the racist signaling around the signing of an anti-voting law was so over-the-top that it had to be intentional. Making it hard to vote, but only in the cities, sends a message from the GOP leadership to their own voters: “We are targeting people of color.”

The big takeaway that Republican leaders and conservative pundits clearly got from the Trump era was that the Republican base wants their racism delivered piping hot and with the minimal amount of subtlety. It’s a situation that is likely to get much worse before it gets better. 

Why Joe Biden’s popularity baffles the media and angers the opposition

I’m sure you all remember the endless media forays into so-called Trump country after the 2016 election to find out what “the country” was really thinking. The media were fascinated by the fact that Donald Trump managed to pull off his narrow electoral win in places none of them had ever been so they sent out intrepid reporters to rural towns and small cities in the rust belt to find out what Real Americans™️ were thinking. And they went back every few months for years to take the temperature of these folks who always said the same thing: they just loved Trump and supported him no matter what. Trump’s supporters believed with all their hearts that everything the press reported about him was a lie and the whole country was really with them if only the media would tell the truth about it. After all, just about everyone they knew and everyone on Facebook were in total agreement. 

So sure, the media was fascinated by this phenomenon and that’s understandable to some extent. It was quite weird. But one might have thought it would be at least somewhat interesting to check in with the other side to see what they were thinking in the months after the recent election. It was quite eventful, after all. Yet you probably won’t be surprised to learn that there haven’t been many forays into the same states that Biden narrowly won. When NBC News did take a trip into the wilds of Pennsylvania recently to see how Biden voters are faring, they found that rather than the worshipful adoration of the Trump voters, most Biden voters have a very different reaction:

Robin Westcott remembers her joy when Joe Biden was elected last fall. Not only had Biden won with a narrow victory in Pennsylvania, but he also had carried Erie County, where Westcott has lived for most of her 62 years. Once reliably Democratic in presidential elections, the voters here in 2016 broke for Donald Trump — the first time they favored a Republican White House hopeful since Ronald Reagan in 1984. The county, which pokes out from the northwesternmost corner of the state and into Lake Erie, became something of a Rorschach test for the Rust Belt…

Nearly 100 days into the Biden presidency, voters who backed him in this political battleground-within-a battleground say they feel a sense of relief.

Or, as one man told NBC News pollsters last week:

“I don’t have to think about what Joe Biden is doing every day,” said a North Carolina man who voted for Biden. “The best thing about Joe Biden is I don’t have to think about Joe Biden.”

In line with those anecdotal sentiments, a spate of public polls was released this past weekend in the run-up to Biden’s 100-day mark, and they all show Biden to have an approval rating ranging from 52% in the ABC poll to 58% in the CBS poll. There is widespread approval for his COVID response, his infrastructure policy and the economy. Unsurprisingly, Biden does poorly on immigration and guns, both of which are intractable issues that have critics among both Democrats and Republicans. And he hasn’t managed to unify the country which is, of course, something he should have been able to do with a flick of his wrist — or maybe a magic wand?

All in all, Biden is doing well, particularly considering that he was given almost no transition time to prepare and had to hit the ground running to deal with a historic catastrophe that killed over half a million people and isn’t over yet. His handling of this issue, about which the vast majority approve, is an impressive accomplishment considering how badly the previous administration handled the crisis and the ongoing lack of cooperation from red-state governments.

One of the more disturbing results in these polls is the fact that so many Republican voters are still resisting the vaccine and frankly, don’t seem to be willing to reconsider. If they don’t, the U.S. is going to have a much more difficult time getting the caseload down to an acceptable level which could, perversely, affect the public’s opinion of the rollout. The same dynamic that blames Biden for the GOP’s refusal to cooperate in Congress could be at work here, but with much more lethal consequences.

That dynamic should also be informing the media’s understanding of why Biden is not able to achieve the kind of approval rating that the presidents before Donald Trump were able to achieve in their first 100 days. Unfortunately, it isn’t. ABC’s headline, for instance, was:

Biden’s 100 days: Low-end approval, yet strong marks on pandemic response. His April approval is lower than most of his predecessors, save Trump and Ford.

Newsweek’s headline was similar: “Joe Biden Approval Rating Beats Only Donald Trump and Gerald Ford’s 100-Day Score: Poll”

What a bizarre way of spinning it after four years of a president who could never get above 45% (and even that was very rare.) It shouldn’t have to be said that none of the previous presidents came into office in the middle of a global pandemic with their predecessor spreading a Big Lie that the election was stolen and inciting an insurrection just days before the inauguration. Neither did any of those presidents have to deal with a level of political polarization not seen since the civil war, thanks to the radical partisanship of the opposition. I’d say that having a 53% approval rating under those circumstances is something of a miracle. Apparently, we are just going to pretend that Donald Trump was an anomaly and that nothing he did had any serious effect on the political system that might not make this administration directly comparable to what came before.

Still, there is some good news in all this. The media can pretend that Joe Biden’s approval rating is a terrible disaster all they want. But nothing will make it as bad as Donald Trump’s, which is currently at 32% in the NBC poll. That’s a drop of 8 points since January, which is unusual because ex-presidents usually gain back some popularity after they leave office. Yet he will maintain control of the party with the supporters he has. And that’s very bad. According to the CBS poll:

Republicans still do not say Biden was the legitimate winner of the election, and six in 10 of former President Trump’s voters now want to see their congressional representatives oppose Biden at every turn. This isn’t just politics. That particular group who wants opposition — while constituting a minority of Americans — also has very different views on issues from most Democrats, moderates and independents as well. For instance, most of them think efforts at racial equality are making American society worse; they say illegal immigration should be the top priority, as opposed to the pandemic or even the economy.

That isn’t enough people to win elections legitimately. But Republican officials are happy to do whatever it takes to please them since they do represent the base of the party. Joe Biden could have a 70% approval rating and it wouldn’t reduce their power. It would be nice if the media spin didn’t obscure that fact.

Organ harvesting’s troubled past — and complicated present

At an international conference on kidney transplantation in 1963, a disagreement broke out about exactly when a patient should be considered dead enough to become an organ donor. One doctor stood up, angrily declaring that he was not “going to just wait around for the medical examiner to declare the patient dead. I’m just going to take the organ.” The sentiment wasn’t as shocking as it sounds; there weren’t any solid criteria for brain death at the time, and many doctors were asking why they should wait on the dead and dying to save the living.

Medicine has long been shadowed by the specter of the resurrection men who dug up and raided recently buried coffins in the dead of night to supply 19th century anatomists with objects for study. The need for grave robbers had largely been obviated by body donation programs when, in 1954, the first successful kidney transplant at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston kicked off the race to transplant other organs. And physicians weren’t willing to confine themselves to those like the kidney that the human body has in duplicate. They wanted to transplant the heart. And that, of course, requires a donor who will not survive the surgery. The age of resurrection men might well have been over, but the age of what we might call harvest men had only begun.

When are you dead enough to donate your organs? It sounds like an easy question to answer, but there is still no single, simply-applied medical definition of that curious and ephemeral moment. Before the advent of life support, death usually resulted from a halt in respiration or a stopped heart. By the mid-1950s, however, artificial respiration was possible through the use of machines that filled the lungs with air, oxygenating the blood and thereby keeping the brain and heart working on. What, then, was a physician to make of a patient with fixed pupils, no reflexes, and no autonomous breathing who still, mechanically, drew breath? Dead? Dead enough? Even with the advent of technology that could detect brain activity, or electroencephalography (EEG), physicians of the ’50s and ’60s were in uncharted territory. It wasn’t clear if a person needed EEG activity to be considered alive, and even some patients already determined to be brain-dead still had occasional blips.

The problem went from philosophical to actual when, on Jan. 2, 1968, at a hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a surgeon named Christiaan Barnard took the heart from a 24-year-old Black man named Clive Haupt and placed it in the chest cavity of Philip Blaiberg, a White dentist with chronic heart disease.

Haupt had been bathing in the sea while on a family picnic when he suddenly suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage resulting in bleeding in the brain. He was admitted to the hospital and placed in the care of Raymond Hoffenberg, the physician on duty at the time. That night, Hoffenberg had a visit from the hospital’s transplant team, who asked him to confirm that the patient was dead. Hoffenberg refused. Something was still going on inside Haupt’s head, activity Hoffenberg called elicitable neurological reflexes. “What sort of heart are you going to give us?” Hoffenberg recalled the head of surgery asking him, flanked by an eager Barnard. Their patient, Blaiberg, was in greater danger of death with every passing minute. They wanted the heart out as soon as possible, and Hoffenberg, fearful of undermining Barnard, agreed to declare Haupt dead by the next morning.

With his new heart, Blaiberg lived for 18 more months, became a media sensation, and paved the way for the future harvest of organs from what are called beating heart donors, that is, living bodies with allegedly dead brains. This, despite the fact that no one could yet agree about what brain death really meant.

While newspapers in apartheid South Africa announced Barnard’s surgical success, some journalists pointed out that Haupt’s heart would now be permitted to go places his body could not. News of Barnard’s heart transplant was also met by the Black press in the United States with trepidation. The Afro-American, a weekly newspaper in Baltimore, warned that doctors might start taking the organs of any Black patient, whatever their ailment.

A few months later, that scenario seemed to play out in Virginia when a factory worker named Bruce Tucker suffered a head injury, was declared unclaimed dead, and had his heart removed, all in the space of 24 hours.

Tucker’s family sued, and the ensuing case established a first legal definition of brain death. The initially skeptical judge was persuaded by testimony from the ad hoc committee at Harvard Medical School, which had been formed to craft a medical definition of brain death that very same year: When a patient falls into a permanent vegetative state — marked by coma, a lack of independent breathing, and “irreversible loss of all functions of the brain” — they are considered brain-dead, even if their heart still beats. And if they are brain-dead, the jury in the Tucker case ultimately decided, they are also harvestable; their organs may be taken, with consent. The Tuckers argued that the doctors did not allow them enough time to respond to inquiries before making their declaration and taking their quarry, but the family ultimately lost in court.

The decision favored the doctors, and by doing so, also offered the first precedent where brain death was death in the eyes of the law. While medicine continues to follow this legal precedent, the field of organ transplantation is struggling with a different kind of ethical tangle today.

Sometimes called the Red Market, the illicit trade of human organs and tissues has become a lucrative business. Kidneys are especially commodifiable, as the donors can live after surgery. In 2010, the company behind St. Augustine’s Hospital in Durban, South Africa, paid out a large settlement in a cash for kidneys scheme; convictions for similar practices were won against doctors at a Kosovo facility around the same time. In 2018, six physicians were arrested in China’s Anhui province for illegally selling organs of accident victims, and an independent tribunal reported to the United Nations Human Rights Council that the Chinese government harvested organs from religious and ethnic minorities on an “industrial scale.”

Much has changed since the first hearts and kidneys were harvested to save lives. Organ transplantation and donation have become safe, effective, and mainstream, a modern miracle we scarcely think of beyond the checkbox on our driver’s license application. What has not changed is the sense of urgency. In 1963, when a doctor stood up to declare he would not wait on a medical examiner’s declaration of death, only a handful of transplants had even been attempted. In 2020, nearly 40,000 transplants were performed in the U.S. alone and more than 100,000 Americans currently have their names on transplant waiting lists. Transplant tourism, whereby ill patients travel to countries with less-stringent regulations to purchase hard-to-source organs, is on the rise.

The ethics are, naturally, complicated. While we justly condemn a traffic in bodies, we are no longer shocked by the removal of organs, even beating hearts, from brain-dead victims. This is medical progress; we can now save lives that once would be forfeit. The medical and legal criteria for brain death may have remained largely consistent since the 1960s, but our cultural expectations have changed. Our medical institutions are held to the highest standards of ethics, but faced with the impending death of a parent or child, how much might we as individuals be willing to overlook?

The harvest continues.

* * *

Brandy Schillace, Ph.D., is a historian, author, and editor in chief of BMJ’s Medical Humanities journal. Schillace’s nonfiction books include “Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher,” “Death’s Summer Coat,” and “Clockwork Futures.” 

“Nomadland” wins big at the 2021 Oscars, which made history — and some unfortunate choices

Few frustrations irritate more than a decent movie that ends poorly. Downright awful closers have a way of retroactively ruining virtually everything that came before it. Think “The Ninth Gate,” or how the last episode of “Game of Thrones” tanked the eighth season.

The 93rd Oscars didn’t wipe out that badly, but it sure did massage us toward a specific climax that did not arrive. Producers Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher embraced the pandemic era’s lack of normalcy to completely upend the telecast’s classic format in several ways, including rearranging the announcement of the final three awards. 

Best Picture, which typically closes out the ceremony, was announced third to last. It went to “Nomadland,” whose director Chloé Zhao made history as the first woman of color, the first Chinese woman and the second woman ever to win the Oscar for directing. The second-to-last award revealed that “Nomadland” star Frances McDormand won her third best actress Oscar over, among others, Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom“) and Andra Day (“The United States vs. Billie Holiday“).

Leaving the best actor category for last was a bet on the part of the producers that Chadwick Boseman would posthumously win for his stunning work in “Ma Rainey’s”. He’d already won a Golden Globe and a SAG Award. Why wouldn’t he? 

Because this is the same set of voters that gave “Green Book” best picture two years ago. Of course they chose Anthony Hopkins for “The Father,” granting him his second Oscar. From what I understand, Hopkins was terrific in “The Father,” so you can’t say his Oscar wasn’t earned. But Hopkins wasn’t present, and didn’t send a proxy to accept the statue in his place, so the no-host telecast ended abruptly and left a sour aftertaste.

Considering all that came before, what an unfortunate way to go.

Exciting the 93rd Oscars was not, but it did feature a relatively diverse set of nominees, unless you were looking for Latinx and Native American directors and actors. There’s still plenty of work for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to do in that regard. Nevertheless, this year’s Oscars made history. 

In addition to Zhao’s win, “Minari” star Youn Yuh-jung’s win for best supporting actress win made her the second woman of Asian descent to win this award and the first Korean to do so. Hopkins’ upset(ting?) win over Boseman makes him the oldest Oscar winner ever.

Academy voters spread the love among favorites, with Daniel Kaluuya winning best supporting actor for his work in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” which also won best original song with “Fight For You.” Pixar’s “Soul” clinched a best animated feature Oscar, along with best original score. 

Davis and Boseman may have gone home empty-handed, but “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” won Oscars for best costume design and best makeup and hairstyling, making Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson the first Black winners in the latter category.

Sensibly, “Sound of Metal” won for best sound and film editing; less explicable is awarding “Mank” the prize for cinematography when better choices were available, including “Nomadland.” (“Mank” also won for production design.)

A more polarizing may be the best documentary feature Oscar going to “My Octopus Teacher” in a category that included stronger choices such as “Time,” “Crip Camp” and “The Mole Agent.” Also shut out were “One Night in Miami,” “Trial of the Chicago 7” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.”

Voter choices aside, what we should remember most about this two months-delayed 2021 Oscars telecast is production’s creative detour — that is, if we can forget the bad wager it finished with.

Going host-free worked for the third year in a row, and so did the choice to hold the ceremony in-person, which was only possible by adopting movie set protocols: vaccinations, testing, re-testing and being careful about masks and exposure. By trading in the Dolby Theater for Los Angeles’ Union Station, the Academy created the illusion of a classic Academy Awards ceremonies held in places like the Biltmore Hotel or the Ambassador by kitting out the transit hub with tables, floral falls and drapery — after clearing out the homeless. 

Surely nobody was inconvenienced. 

In turn the audience was given a more intimate pre-show. Instead of the cacophony of press lining the red carpet, an outdoor area was transformed to resemble a swanky Hollywood cocktail mixer.

Stars in their finest gowns and sharpest suits swooshing around roses and greenery and conversing on designer seating, occasionally stopped by to joke with pre-show host Lil Rel Howery, who reveled in not being clear on the concept much of the time.

This gave the pre-Oscars an airy, casual feel and actually felt like a Hollywood event as opposed to the awkward Zoomified snooze that was the Emmys or the hybrid of distanced and live participation that the Golden Globes attempted. There is no pageant competition for major awards seasons, but if there were this would come in a close second, maybe third. Nothing is going to beat the 2021 Grammys telecast, which Collins also produced, although MTV’s VMAs provided an early clue as to how it could all work.

And this makes the choice to bury the best original song choices in the pre-show baffling. If pandemic TV has taught us anything, it is that musical artists figured out how to create pre-recorded, lushly realized pieces that can easily be integrated in live shows. In an awards show, where the energy is likely to flag, musical interludes can be life rafts.

About two hours into Sunday’s broadcast, let’s just say they were missed. But then, a lot of the old Oscars magic wasn’t there. What was Elvis’ old plea about a little less conversation, a little more action, baby? Soderbergh and the other producers flipped that around. They wanted to make this Oscars feel like a film instead of a typical self-congratulatory snooze, treating the presenters and the winners like performers instead of stars. 

In small doses, that worked. Opening with “One Night in Miami” director Regina King power-strutting her way to the stage as colorful “credits” bounced around her teased us with a heist flick vitality.

King used her platform to address the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial: “I have to be honest, if things had gone differently this past week in Minneapolis, I might have traded my heels for marching boots,” she said, adding, “I know many of you want to reach for your remote when you feel Hollywood is preaching to you, but as the mother of a Black son who fears for his safety, no fame or fortune changes that.”

From there she and the other presenters did what they could to make each award feel personal. In telling us about the people who make the movies, the stars — excuse me, cast mates— downplayed the perception that celebrity is impersonal. King, for example, described how the nominated screenwriters supported themselves by working catering jobs or suffering through telemarketing. 

Directors and actors shared stories about the movies that influenced them, or the first films they ever saw. All of it was consciously designed to remind us that Hollywood is an industry run by people, that even stars are just like us in some ways. And if you love the movies — which you do, presumably, if you’ve tuned in to this show — then you may not have minded this emphasis on the human factor. 

Legendary theaters are closing and may never open again. Lots of people whose names you never stick around to find in the film credits are out of work.

Highlighting this within the telecast was the segment touting Tyler Perry’s acceptance of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars for, among many community efforts, creating Camp Quarantine at his Atlanta-based production studio, enabling artists to work safely during the pandemic.

These conversations and Perry’s poignant speech about reserving judgment and practicing generosity are reminders that so much of the movie industry runs on the efforts of people that don’t cavort around in borrowed jewelry or couture gowns.

The downside of this is we didn’t see much of the fruits of their labor due to the lack of clips for categories such as sound editing, costumes or set design. Film clips were only shown for the major award choices earlier in the show, presumably to allow for the winners’ speeches to go on for as long as they liked. 

There was no orchestra, and Questlove, the show’s musical producer, was directed not to play them off. 

But as is the case of any awards show, not all speeches are alike. 

Some, like Kaluuya’s acceptance for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” combined heartfelt sentiment with expressing the awesome randomness of living this life. “It’s incredible! Like, it’s incredible! My mom and my dad, they had sex. It’s amazing, man. I’m here. So, I’m happy to be alive!”

“Two Distant Strangers” writer and director Travon Free, upon accepting the award for best live-action short, quoted a literary great. “James Baldwin once said the most despicable thing a person can be is indifferent to other people’s pain,” Free said, adding, “Please don’t be indifferent to our pain.” 

Thomas Vinterberg, director of best international feature “Another Round,” stirringly paid tribute to his late daughter.

Best original screenplay winner Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) was quite funny, but it was hard to top Youn’s freestyle tight five upon accepting her best supporting actress Oscar, in which she ribbed Brad Pitt and informed Glenn Close that “I’m luckier than you.” 

Close, a nominee for “Hillbilly Elegy,” wasn’t entirely shut out of the ceremony’s spotlight thanks to a questionable music trivia bit that would have been indulgent in a normal year. She closed it out by dropping some (scripted) knowledge about “Da Butt,” E.U.’s one-hit wonder from Spike Lee’s “School Daze.” Then she stood up and actually did Da Butt, becoming a meme only minutes later.

Now that’s an ending we can all get behind, if we remember anything about this Oscar season. This strange time has a way of taxing our short term memory, and once this awards season is a dot in our rearview mirror perhaps we’ll simply look at this Oscars as an adventurous effort that in the end, couldn’t wriggle free from of clichéd habits. At least it wasn’t for lack of trying. 

Gun crazy: For too many Americans, guns are tied to masculinity, patriotism and white power

Too many Americans love guns more than they do other human beings.

There have been at least 50 mass shootings in America since the massacre and apparent hate crime attack against Asian Americans in the Atlanta area on March 16.

The COVID-19 pandemic has done nothing to stop America’s addiction to gun violence. Writing at the Nation, Tom Engelhardt explains, “In the first 73 days of Joe Biden’s presidency, there were five mass shootings and more than 10,000 gun-violence deaths. In the Covid-19 era, this has been the model the world’s ‘most exceptional’ nation (as American politicians of both parties used to love to call this country) has set for the rest of the planet. Put another way, so far in 2020 and 2021, there have been two pandemics in America, Covid-19 and guns.”

Too many Americans love guns even more than money. It is estimated that gun violence costs the United States at least $150 billion a year.

In response to discussions about an assault weapons ban after the mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Sen. Lindsey Graham told Fox News’ Chris Wallace, “If there’s a natural disaster in South Carolina where the cops can’t protect my neighborhood, my house will be the last ones that the gangs will come to, because I can defend myself.”

The next day, Graham circulated a video of himself shooting an AR-15 assault rifle at a South Carolina gun range.

For many progressives, liberals and other Americans who are not part of the MAGAverse, TrumpWorld or America’s gun culture, Graham’s performance of gun-toting hyper masculinity was laughable. His comments about defending his family from “gangs” were also criticized as being especially ill-timed given the recent mass shooting events. But again, as is so many other instances, those outside of the right-wing echo chamber were not the audience for Graham’s performance.

The South Carolina senator was speaking to a right-wing culture, moral universe and imaginary where guns, whiteness and toxic masculinity are tightly if not immutably linked together. He was channeling the idea of the white American male as defender of his home and family — and of heterosexual white (right-wing) male power and privilege — against some type of “criminal” or “invader,” generally understood to be black or brown. This enemy to be defended against may be a “Muslim terrorist,” an “urban” black male or a “Latino gangbanger.” He may also be a member of “antifa,” the right wing’s current bogeyman.

Lindsey Graham’s assault rifle and others like it are also central to end-times survivalist dystopian fantasies of societal breakdown and failed government that involve “race war,” environmental collapse, another pandemic or other such disaster.

In years gone by, the enemy was the “Indian” attacking white settlers in the Old West. Of course, America’s imperial Manifest Destiny project viewed white-settler colonialism as a noble “civilizing” project, in which the gun was an indispensable tool for killing the Other and maintaining control over black human property and other “subject races.”

Evoking the mythos of the Revolutionary War, the MAGAverse and TrumpWorld (and ammosexuals and gun fetishists more generally) also consider Lindsey Graham’s AR-15 as his “musket” or “freedom rifle.”

As signified in an oft-discussed advertisement for a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, such weapons supposedly offer their owners a chance to get their “Man Card,” which evidently confer godlike power over life and death, and with it enhanced libidinal drives and allure. The totemic power of such assault-style weapons also enhances their “rights” as (white) men and by implication control over “their” women and families, and society at large.

New research from University of Illinois-Chicago political scientists Alexandra Filindra, Beyza Buyuker and Noah J. Kaplan offers insights into these connections between gun ownership, white masculinity, racism and patriotism.

In an essay for the Washington Post, they elaborate:

With two mass shootings in one week, in Georgia and Colorado, the United States is again discussing how to prevent gun violence. Within hours of the Boulder shooting, President Biden urged Congress to enact a ban on assault-style weapons. Recent history suggests that no such law will materialize. Studies find that gun rights supporters are highly politically organized and unwavering on their views, while gun regulation supporters are not.

Our research found a reason for this difference: racial differences in rates of gun ownership and beliefs about guns. White Americans are far more likely than any other group to own firearms and oppose gun regulations. To them, guns are potent political symbols. For many people, especially White Americans, guns are integral to who they are as citizens and what it means to be a good citizen.

These scholars’ new research points to further conclusions:

Our data also show that Whites, and especially White men, are the demographic group most likely to associate gun ownership with good citizenship. Specifically, our 2015 nationally representative survey of 1,900 Americans, conducted by YouGov, found that 43 percent of Whites but only 23 percent of African Americans view owning a gun as a sign of good citizenship. That gap persists when we compare White and Black men and even White and Black men who live in gun-owning households. …

Whites with anti-Black attitudes are the most likely to believe that a good citizen owns a gun, and that owning a gun makes you a good citizen. That’s true even when we account for other important factors, such as a person’s partisan identification, ideology and whether they worry about crime.

Specifically, we find that Whites who think that Black people are violent are 38 percent more likely to believe that gun ownership is a sign of good citizenship than those who do not view Blacks as violent. Similarly, Whites who think that Blacks have too much political influence are 32 percent more likely to believe good citizenship and gun ownership go together than Whites who do not.

These attitudes are broadly shared among White racial conservatives, even those who do not own firearms.

These findings complement other research showing the connection between gun ownership and death anxiety where the gun is understood, on a subconscious level, to confer some form of immortality. Filindra, Buyuker and Kaplan’s findings also support other research showing the connections between gun ownership, support for “stand your ground” and concealed-carry laws and racial hostility towards black people.

A majority of Americans — including many gun owners and even NRA members — support commonsense gun laws such as mandatory waiting periods for buying handguns, limiting access to certain types of weapons and ammunition, improving background checks and closing the “gun show loophole.” President Biden has repeatedly expressed his support for such initiatives.

Unfortunately, these rational and reasonable approaches to gun violence as a public health problem will do little if anything to heal or fix the way many Americans — especially white men — understand guns as a key part of their core identity and fundamental personhood. As Jonathan Metzl shows in his book “Dying of Whiteness”, many white men in America are literally willing to die (and kill) for their guns.

America’s gun violence crisis is a public policy problem. But resolving that problem involves overcoming the way that powerful, moneyed interests such as the gun industry and the NRA can manipulate the spiritual emptiness and emotional insecurities felt by many gun owners.

Ultimately, America is sick with gun fever, and will remain so, because too many Americans want it that way.

Sen. Mazie Hirono on Trump, anti-Asian hate crimes and her remarkable immigrant story

When you read Sen. Mazie Hirono’s beautiful new book, “Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter’s Story,” you understand that the Hawaii Democrat’s strength to speak truth to power comes from one place: Her mother. Hirono was born in Japan and came to Hawaii with her mom as a child of seven. From her mother she learned a tireless work ethic, the need to stand up for herself and the fact that life can put many obstacles in your way but you can’t let them defeat you. 

I discussed both the book and politics of the day with the senator from Hawaii in our recent “Salon Talks” conversation. You can’t help but be moved by her book, which is a love letter to her mother intertwined with her own memoir. Hirono, who was the first Asian-American woman in the Senate and the only immigrant currently serving in that chamber, shared details about her father’s abusive treatment of her mother, which led her mother to take her children from on the long sea voyage from Japan to Hawaii, where her own mother had been born. From there we learn how Hirono’s mother worked numerous jobs to make ends meet and later in life played a key role in Hirono’s various political campaigns.

“Heart of Fire” also addresses today’s politics, including the oversized role Donald Trump played in inciting anti-Asian hatred, which looms especially large at the moment. In fact, Hirono was the primary sponsor of the anti-Asian hate crimes law that recently passed the Senate, which became necessary in large part because of Trump continually drawing specious links between COVID and the Asian community. 

Hirono also shares an experience that I imagine many women in politics have confronted: being told by men that she wasn’t ready to run for higher office. But despite the naysayers and challenges, Hirono rose from being an immigrant child living in a boarding house to the U.S. Senate. And if you ask her how she did it, the senator will gladly tell you it was because of her mother.

Watch the “Salon Talks” interview with Sen. Hirono here or read the transcript below, lightly edited for length and clarity.

Share a little bit about your mom and how she helped shape you and inspire you.

My mother changed my life by bringing me to this country. Back then, for a young wife to decide that she had to leave my father, who I never got to know, and taking three of her children with her, that took tremendous courage. So that is my mother’s heart of fire. And as you know, your fire can burn like an ember, it can last for a long time. It can pass from one generation to the next. This book is truly about my mother’s story and my grandmother, who also raised me when I was a child and her heart of fire and the risks she took also.

Your mom worked multiple jobs. My immigrant dad, same thing. How much do you have of your mom’s immigrant work ethic? 

A lot. Because I watched my mother struggle. She never complained. She just was so determined. And it’s not as though she had time to sit us down and say, “Here’s what I want to teach you.” She just went about her life and showed me that determination and focus and getting control of your life, those are hugely important aspects of my mother’s story. 

Over the years I really came to appreciate my mother even more. And so I have said that there’s nothing in my life that I can do, in all the races that I’ve had, that comes nearly as hard as what she did to change our lives.

It was really the anti-war movement that sort of lit the candle for you to get involved. What was it about that that made you say, “You know what? I’ve got to do more than just ignore this stuff and live my life and have fun?”

At a pretty early age, Dean, I decided that I wasn’t put on this earth just to make my little self happy. I said that to my mother. And when I was pretty young, I said and thought that I was going to do something that was going to give back to a country and a state that gave me opportunities I never would have had. I just didn’t look at politics as the way that I was going to express that desire. However, it was protesting the Vietnam War, and the first time I ever questioned our government. The first time I sang, “We Shall Overcome” and marched with others was an awakening for me. We have all kinds of awakenings for a lot of us, but that was my political awakening. And I thought, here’s a way that we can make some changes through politics. But it also took me a long time to run for office myself.

You mention in your book that every time you aspired to something bigger, like lieutenant governor, the men would be like, “No, no, no. You’re not ready. Wait your turn.” What’s your message to women who are told, “Wait your turn. This is not your time”?

I think that now there are more women who are not going to be diverted from where they’re going by people saying to them, “It’s not your turn. Wait your turn.” In my generation, it was still somewhat unusual for a woman to run for office. So pretty much when I was running for higher office, particularly for lieutenant governor and clearly for governor, these kinds of notions come up: “Are you sure you can do it?” All of that. And this is not unique to me. There are all kinds of studies that show that women are more likely than not to think that we are not as prepared as we should be for elected office. One of my employees told me — and he’s a guy — he said, “Yeah, we’ve got guys who think it’s their God-given right to run for office.” Women don’t think that way.

It took me 10 years after I ran my first campaign for other people to kind of think about, “Oh, I should run for office myself.” And this was after somebody came to me and said, “You’ve been encouraging all of us, younger people, advocates, to run for office. Don’t you think it’s time you did it?” And I thought, “Oh!”

You ran for governor and you lost. And I think there’s a lesson there. What do you tell people about losing a race?

That you can survive it. You can live to tell the tale. The governor’s race was the toughest race. And even after I lost that race that night, my mother told me, “Another door will open.” I said to both my mother and my husband, “I think I have one big race left in me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance. But I think I have one big race left in me.” As I said in the book, that’s when my husband began to set aside money for me to be able to take that shot when it came. And it did come.

It didn’t take me long when that opening came, to decide that I would run, because that was the one big race left in me. And I thought I either had to win that race or not. There’s a lot that you can learn from losing a big race. I had never lost a race up to that point. And I learned from that how to win the next one. Because people asked me, “How are you going to win?” I said, “Well, I learned how to win.” Especially when I ran for the Senate against the same person who beat me for governor.

What do you learn about yourself when you lose an election? What did it make you do in reassessing your choices, your priorities and what you wanted to do with your life?

I had already said that I thought I had one big race left in me. And I spent that time, basically about three years before I ran for U.S. House, just restoring myself and getting back into the art that I loved. I had taken a lot of art history courses. I took all kinds of applied art courses, drawing and painting ceramics, everything. Basket weaving, I took. I love art. So I was able to get back to it in a way that I continue to this day. I gave myself that time to restore myself, and I got to travel with my husband where I could be the spouse that didn’t work. It was really nice.

But at some point I thought, “Well, I should be working.” So after three years, I thought I should become an arbitrator or something like that. But right around that time, my husband said, “I don’t think you’re going to be happy doing all that. You should just do what makes you happy.” That is my husband. He’s very precious, unique. Uniquely supportive and totally unthreatened by me, to the point where my friends ask if he has any brothers.

Is it as simple as that it brings you joy to help others as an elected official? Does it bring you self fulfillment?

It’s a purpose, to be able to help other people. I feel really grateful, who would’ve thunk it! I have classmates now who say, “We didn’t know you were interested in politics.” In high school, it was not as though that manifested itself. This is one of my other little sayings, that one should not peak in high school.

You became very outspoken during the Trump administration. In your book you talk about Trump’s cruel family separation policy, and it made you reflect on your own brother who passed, and how he was separated from your family. Share a little bit about that and why it so pained you, what Trump was doing, taking children away from their mothers.

I had a younger brother who was left in Japan when my mother brought the two older kids. And she explained to me why she did that. My younger brother would be too young to go to school. So she brought the two older kids.

We didn’t know at that time the trauma of that separation from his mother for two whole years. And that trauma stayed with him for his whole life. So I really understood from my own family’s experience what family separation, how traumatic that is. To watch Trump separating thousands of little kids with no thought and no record as to how to reunite these children with their parents, it was just so painful that I spoke up. But I’ve been speaking out against his mindless cruelty from practically very soon after he got elected. He was terrible during the campaign, and he did not get any better. There were all these people who thought, “Well, he’s going to grow into the presidency.” Are you kidding me? 

You introduced the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act along with Congresswoman Grace Meng of New York. From your point of view and from being part of the community, the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community, how much do Trump’s words, in your view, play a role in this uptick we’re seeing in hate crimes?

Of course it played a role. When the president of the United States starts calling the virus, “the China virus” and members of his administration called it the “kung flu,” it just created an environment where people who have those kinds of discriminatory attitudes to begin with, and toss in some sadism, violence and everything else, to act out in this way to randomly have unprovoked attacks against Asian-Americans. 

Trump just threw more gasoline on the flames by his discriminatory language. It’s very harmful, to say the least. So my bill is, in my view, not controversial. It just calls for the DOJ to appoint someone to pay attention, to review these kinds of hate crimes, to work with state and county law enforcement and advocacy groups, to make sure that we get the kind of information and reporting that we need to find out the extent of this problem and to be able to do something about it. President Biden is already putting that in place, thank goodness.

Has Trump been held accountable, in your view? If he’s not held accountable, are you concerned for the future of our nation, that we’ll see more similar events to Jan. 6, from Trump or Trump-like figures in the future?

Trump has not been held accountable by the Senate, that’s for sure. And they had two chances to do it. So the House impeached him, twice, and the Senate did not convict him, twice. And I say that we all lived through Jan. 6. It’s not like the first impeachment. Jan. 6 was an experience we all had. 

In your book, “Heart of Fire,” at the end, you talk about the crane. And in fact, before we started the interview, you mentioned there are cranes behind you. And that they are about healing and hope. Does America need some cranes right now? 

So people began to send me cranes when I got my cancer diagnosis. So people who come to my office, they will fold cranes. I now have thousands of cranes. I decided to install them in my office, on the branches of cherry trees that I literally find walking around in D.C. I don’t cut off the cherry branches, but they fall during the windy times. It has to be cherry blossom branches. So I’ve collected all these branches, which I have installed, and I put on them the cranes that people have folded. I usually ask them to sign the wing of the crane and date. Generals, ambassadors, people who know nothing about Japanese culture will fold the cranes.

Bill Gates says no to sharing vaccine formulas with global poor to end pandemic

Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men and most powerful philanthropists, was the target of criticism from social justice campaigners on Sunday after arguing that lifting patent protections on COVID-19 vaccine technology and sharing recipes with the world to foster a massive ramp up in manufacturing and distribution — despite a growing international call to do exactly that — is a bad idea.

Directly asked during an interview with Sky News if he thought it “would be helpful” to have vaccine recipes be shared, Gates quickly answered: “No.”

Asked to explain why not, Gates — whose massive fortune as founder of Microsoft relies largely on intellectual property laws that turned his software innovations into tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth — said: “Well, there’s only so many vaccine factories in the world and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so moving something that had never been done — moving a vaccine, say, from a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India — it’s novel — it’s only because of our grants and expertise that that can happen at all.”

The reference is to the Serum factory in India, the largest such institute in the country, which has contracts with AstraZeneca to manufacture their COVID-19 vaccine, known internationally as Covishield.

The thing that’s holding “things back” in terms of the global vaccine rollout, continued Gates, “is not intellectual property. It’s not like there’s some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines. You know, you’ve got to do the trial on these things. Every manufacturing process needs to be looked at in a very careful way.”

Critical advocates for robust and immediate change to intellectual property protections at the World Trade Organization when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccines, however, issued scathing indictments of Gates’ defense of the status quo.

Nick Dearden, executive director of Global Justice Now, one of the lead partner groups in an international coalition calling for WTO patent waivers at a crucial meeting of the world body next month, characterized Gates’ remarks — and the ideological framework behind them — as “disgusting.”

“Who appointed this billionaire head of global health?” asked Dearden. “Oh yeah, he did.”

Journalist Stephen Buryani, who on Saturday wrote an in-depth Guardian column on the urgent need for the patent waivers and technology sharing, offered a similarly negative view of the billionaire’s “awful” arguments against sharing the vaccine technology.

Gates, charged Buryani, “acts like an optimist but has a truly dismal vision of the world.”

During the Sky News interview, Gates said it was “not completely surprising” that the richest nations like U.S., U.K. and others in Europe vaccinated their populations first. He said that made sense because the pandemic was worse in those countries, but said he believed that “within three or four months the vaccine allocation will be getting to all the countries that have the very severe epidemic.”

Watch the full interview:

10 memorable PSAs that attempted to save Generation X

Thanks to Afterschool Specials that put beloved stars in perilous situations and the Sunday Night Movie of the Week that exposed youngsters to the horrific effects of the nuclear apocalypse, Gen X was well-versed in fear. Luckily, television also showed this generation how to stay safe by providing them with a steady stream of powerful public service announcements. Whether it was a mustached dad, an egg in a frying pan, or Pee-wee Herman holding a crack vial, these PSAs tried — and possibly even succeeded — in saving some Gen Xers’ lives.

1. Like father, like son

“Parents who use drugs, have children who use drugs,” the tagline for this 1987 public service announcement, created by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, warned. Its most gutting line — “I learned it by watching you” — remains an utterance Gen Xers will never forget. The poor teen in the PSA is constantly interrupted by his mustached dad, leading kids to believe he doesn’t really want to hear the answer to his question: “This yours?”

2. “Give a hoot — don’t pollute”

Nothing warned of the dangers of pollution like a giant singing owl named Woodsy carrying a sign and wearing a green hat while leading a band of kids through a variety of landscapes while uttering “dirty bird.” “In the city or in the woods, help keep America looking good!”

3. “This is crack”

A special public service announcement showed a very serious Pee-wee Herman warning kids everywhere of the dangers of crack . . . all while holding a crack vial. “Every time you use it, you risk dying,” Pee-wee said, as he looked directly into the camera —  and into viewers’ souls. “The thrill can kill.”

4. C-3PO says no to smoking

In a message from a galaxy far, far away, beloved protocol droid C-3PO warned kids of the dangers of smoking after catching pal R2-D2 lighting up. Perhaps the best part of the commercial came when C-3PO unexpectedly broke the fourth wall and spoke directly to the television audience.

5. “Kids bring more than lunch to school”

Marla Gibbs took a break from her sitcom “227” to talk about the unexpected things kids were bringing to school, including bruises, drugs, and teen pregnancy. Seeing her ask, “Johnny, are you high on something?” was supposed to scare viewers . . . but it just made them laugh. Perhaps they should have asked Marla’s “227” co-star Jackée to drive the point home.

6. Conserve energy with Captain America

This 1980s commercial by the United States Department of Energy featured superhero Captain America showing Gen X kids how to conserve energy. Images of the Thermal Thief, the Wattage Waster, and The Cold Air Crook appear on wanted posters as the good Captain fights the “insidious villains” at the home’s entrance, in the living room, and in the kitchen.

7. “This is your brain on drugs”

Quite possibly one of the most famous PSAs of all time, this anti-drug commercial fit right in during the “Just Say No” 1980s. A middle-aged man standing in a kitchen cracks an egg into a frying pan to show what happens to a brain under the influence of drugs. The beauty of this PSA was in the simplicity.

8. “Only you can prevent forest fires”

While Smokey Bear was created in 1944 — and the Wartime Advertising Council slogan, “Only you can prevent forest fires,” came about in 1947 — Gen Xers still carry Smokey in their hearts. The sight of seeing a typical nuclear family forget to put out a campfire reminded kids to tell their own parents to stub out their butts carefully on that annual family camping trip.

9. “Drinking and driving can kill a friendship”

Brought to Gen Xers by the U.S. Department of Transportation, these commercials featured a teen being pressured to drink by the rest of their peer group. The message in the ads was clear: drink, drive, die. Often the images were shocking, like in the PSA above, which concludes with a group of teen skeletons — one of them still wearing his jacket.

10. She-Ra and He-Man talk about bad touches

In this surreal spot, two well-known cartoon characters talk to kids about inappropriate touches while Orko air boxes the imaginary bad person away. The bulked-up animated duo were simply trying to help kids realize there were a lot of trusted adults they could talk to, but the PSA felt awkward and wrong on many levels.

Why our dislikes should be celebrated as much as our likes

Millions might tune into the Oscars every year, but I’m always interested in the Razzies, which recognize spectacular cinematic underachievement.

I’m not the only one who thinks dislikes can be every bit as interesting as likes, either: While the internet and social media are full of praise for fandoms and stans, there’s a deep well of content honoring profound dislikes.

Why do deep dislikes matter, and why might it matter, for instance, whether “Dolittle” or “Absolute Proof” wins the Razzie for Worst Picture?

For several years I’ve been trying to answer these questions. Many dislikes of media content are simple and fleeting: Change the channel and they’re gone. But my forthcoming book “Dislike-Minded: Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste” aims to explore when and why dislikes can weigh more heavily upon us.

For all the attention heaped on what we like, what we dislike can be just as important, interesting and empowering.

Dislike as snobbery

Among academics who have explored dislike – yes, that’s a thing – the most cited work comes from French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who saw dislike as snobbery. More specifically, he saw all judgments of taste, favorable or not, as performances of class. The rich could justify their place in society, he argued, by claiming to have more refined tastes. Knowing which literature, music or art to praise could signal to others their rightful place at the top of society.

I’d argue that Bourdieu oversimplified in seeing all dislike as snobbery and all snobbery as class-based. But he’s not entirely wrong. In fact, dislikes often scream out elitism, sexism and racism.

Media associated with women – romance or soap operas – might be sneered at as “chick flicks” or “chick lit.” Music associated with people of color, like rap, is still dismissed as obscene, while country music songs are often derided as all sounding alike.

So many -isms do their work in and through dislikes.

Furthermore, dislikes are often used as a way not to stand apart but to fit in. It means learning the unspoken rules of what’s OK to like or dislike, and to proclaim those likes or dislikes loudly for others to hear. When some of us do swim against the social tide, we might be savvy enough to label our likes as “guilty pleasures,” which both acknowledges the rules and apologizes for violating them.

Spitting out what you’re force-fed

In my research, though, I found that dislike isn’t just a form of snobbery.

My research assistants conducted hourlong interviews with more than 200 people over the course of several years. The interviewees were a diverse group in terms of race and gender. Their ages ranged from the 20s to the 70s. Some were working class, while others were upper class. Yet all tended to actively dislike media content far more when they felt they couldn’t escape it.

Sometimes simply changing the channel isn’t possible. Many people can’t choose the radio station that’s playing at work, the playlist in a grocery store, what’s on the TV at the bar or what’s blaring out of someone’s car window. And certain programs or movies creep into other aspects of people’s lives – think “Star Wars” BB-8 branded oranges or “Frozen” toothpaste.

For all the chatter about cancel culture, many consumers are powerless to cancel or even to escape. So when people can’t stand what an item of media represents, its ubiquity can invite criticism or dislike.

Surely we are all annoyed at least some of the time by some media. But some of us are subjected to more annoyance than others.

A less discussed privilege is the power to control what media is seen or heard, even if only by being “the type of audience” many producers and their funders want to address.

Remote controls, for instance, have long been envisioned as an appendage of dads everywhere, with women and kids being given less power to change the channel. Store playlists are regularly chosen with middle-class customers’ tastes in mind. And people of color are still often regarded as niche audiences for much media, with white preferences and interests acting as the default.

Those without as much power in society might be expected to be more actively annoyed, haunted and hounded by media. Everyone turns to media hoping for specific needs and desires to be met, but those who have those needs and desires realized less often are those who might be expected to dislike with passion more often.

Seen this way, speaking about dislikes is an act of resistance – it’s a refusal to allow public space to be conquered by the ads, merchandise and buzz for media that doesn’t connect.

Whatever the reason, to dislike is to acknowledge that much of our media diet is force-fed.

Keep your likes close – and your dislikes closer

Dislike can certainly transform into anger or hate, but it may also take a more playful form. Many reviewers strive for a poetry of putrescence in how they excoriate their objects of dislike.

Three of Roger Ebert’s books, for example, collect only his most damning criticism. Parents sharing their disdain with me for Caillou – the whiny children’s character – did so while laughing, not raging. And “hate-watching,” or watching something to revel in all the ways you despise it, has become a common form of viewing.

Instead of tuning out and turning off, why would someone gleefully watch the object of their dislike and offer a running commentary of damnation?

Reveling in dislike can reassert control in a world that inundates everyone with content. Keeping the shows, songs and movies the hate-watcher despises close at hand – rather than trying to avoid or repel them – can make them better prosecutors in the court of public opinion. If popular media regularly produce discussion, the hate-watcher is better equipped to poison that well.

Or some dislikers might enjoy their dislikes as a way to avoid their corroding certain relationships. Many of us can probably relate to the experience of having a friend, partner or family member who insists we watch something against our will.

What if, rather than resenting the show or the person, we simply embrace it in all of its cringeworthy glory?

Impassioned dislike can be too easily mistaken for hate and anger, but it is a distinct reaction: Nobody at the Razzies will be pounding their fists, red-faced, on the podium as they present.

By all means, heed the colloquial advice to “ignore the haters.” But a lot can be learned by listening to the dislikers.

Jonathan Gray, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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

A new study explains how straight women keep the Jolenes of the world away from their man

If you’re wooing a mate that has potential, the last thing you want is a potential rival to distract them from your advances. The nightmare scenario of the partner-stealer is a tale as old as time — what Dolly Parton sang about in “Jolene,” and key to the plots of the Betty & Veronica comics, “The Wedding Planner,” and just about every season of “The Bachelor.”

Aside from penning a catchy ballad, how do you signal to the Jolenes of the world to back off from taking your man? A new study into how straight women flirt reveals how women use nonverbal communication to signal their connection to men in which they are interested, and thereby ward off observers who may try to interfere with attempts at courtship. The study has intriguing insights into the oft-unconscious mechanisms that women in Western cultures use to signal their claim over a potential mate. 

In an article for the journal “Personality and Individual Differences,” American and Canadian researchers analyzed female behavior while flirting. At the outset of their paper, they write that women tend to initiate the courtship process, citing earlier research which found that women are often “the ‘selectors’ and, thereby, the ‘initiators’ in the courtship process, and that the communication of this selection is primarily performed through nonverbal channels.” 

With that in mind, the researchers set out to learn about how women “competitively flirt,” the role played by nonverbal messages in competitive flirting, and whether the different possible tactics used during competitive flirting are perceived as effective.

“Actions that suggest the woman has a connection to the man are most effective (actions that indicate there is some relationship between the woman and her target man),” Dr. T. Joel Wade, corresponding author on the paper and presidential professor of psychology at Bucknell University, told Salon by email.

The paper identifies this type of behavior as “tie-signs.” These include initiating eye contact, butting in between him and a rival, touching a man, hugging him and laughing at his jokes. He explained that these kinds of actions can be effective at signaling to potential competitors that they need to stay away, regardless of whether the woman performing them actually does have a connection with the man, because observers would not want to be perceived as “mate poachers.”

“My prior research, as well as the research of others, indicates that mate poachers are not viewed positively,” Wade explained, to the surprise of no one. “Being labelled as a mate poacher can lower an individual’s mate value, making it harder for them to attract mates. Thus the competitor is more likely to stop competing when she sees that a potential partner is already connected to someone else.”

He added that indicating a tie to a man also works because potential rivals will assume it is easier to attract someone who is not already in a relationship.

“The mating effort to acquire that unconnected potential partner could be much much lower, so one would be less likely to pursue (compete for) the connected individual,” Wade told Salon.

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Salon asked Wade about how the study’s findings apply to people on the autism spectrum, who struggle with non-verbal communication.

“Flirting is harder for individuals on the autism spectrum as they may not be as aware of their nonverbal behavior as those not on the spectrum are,” Wade responded. “This is true for both men and women.”

In the paper, the authors explained that when heterosexual women flirt by “conveying sexual accessibility,” they are more likely to attract the man, but that this can sometimes conflict with efforts that are undertaken “to deter a female competitor.” Wade talked about the practical implications of the paper’s findings for women seeking relationships.

“People should be aware that nonverbal behavior plays a large role in social relationships, and that they can send strong messages to intended partners and romantic competitors with their nonverbal behavior,” Wade told Salon. He added that shy heterosexual women may be able to better compete for a potential male partner by “effectively using their nonverbal behavior.”

6 tips for adopting the vegan diet

“No one likes vegans, except other vegans, though sometimes even that is debatable,” says food writer Alicia Kennedy, who is currently working on a book about plant-based eating and made omnivores’ perceptions of vegans the topic of a recent newsletter. Is a negative perception of vegans and veganism holding you back from taking the plunge into a meat-free, dairy-free, egg-free diet? You might need to rethink who vegans are or dig into the history of veganism to better understand that vegans can’t and shouldn’t be stereotyped. Whatever you’re picturing, and whatever your associations, you’re probably not seeing the whole picture — and there’s definitely a place for you.

Plant-based eating has deep and diverse roots. The earliest known documentation of vegan eating is from 500 BC, when the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, known for the Pythagorean Theorem, wrote about a vegetarian-like diet. Many followers of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism follow the vegan diet, advocating for benevolence among all species. There are traditional African and Caribbean vegan communities, and Bryant Terry and Haile Thomas are just two of the many cookbook authors celebrating Black Veganism, which is historically rooted in pre-colonial African diets, the Civil Rights Movement and anti-racist advocacy. In Hispanic communities, the diet is regaining popularity, thanks in part to young community members and groups like the Veggie Mijas who are reconnecting with their ancestral heritage.

Why have so many cultures adopted this approach to eating for so long? The reasons are wide-ranging, but for many, it can be summed up in a deep respect for the planet, animals and the people around us. The industrial animal agriculture system is unnecessarily cruel to animals; wreaks havoc on the environment and public health, polluting waterways and the air surrounding factory farms; and is built on exploitative labor practices. And research shows that one of the biggest ways to shrink our personal impact on climate change is to reduce our meat consumption.

All of these reasons, along with the allure of fancy packaging and clever marketing of new vegan brands, have brought more and more vegans into the fold. There are an estimated 6.5 million self-identifying vegans in the US today. Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have household brand recognition and are sold in fast-food restaurants nationally. US sales of dairy and meat alternatives grew by 11% in 2019, with sales of coconut milk yogurt, tempeh bacon, plant-based burgers and the like raking in $5 billion in sales annually.

Whether for health, climate, animal welfare or labor concerns, more and more people are incorporating plant-based eating into their lives. If you are choosing to eat a vegan diet on Meatless Monday or every day, here are some tips to keep in mind.

Start small

If you’ve been eating an omnivore diet your whole life, the idea of going vegan may seem overwhelming. If that’s you, we understand, and there are ways to ease into the diet. The Meatless Monday campaign suggests giving up meat one day a week; according to their research, skipping one weekly serving of beef for a year saves the equivalent emissions to driving 348 miles in a car. Go the extra mile and increase that impact by doing Vegan Mondays. Once you are comfortable with a weekly vegan day, continue to add days until you feel confident eating vegan all the time.

Another approach is Mark Bittman’s VB6, which suggests adopting a flexitarian diet by eating vegan “before 6 p.m.” Once you get into the swing of things, you can slowly adjust to eating vegan all the time. And remember, you are choosing what you eat, which means that while you’ve committed to a plant-based diet for whatever reason, there is always a chance that you will eat cheese or eggs accidentally, or decide you’d like to once in a while.

Embrace plants

It may sound obvious, but switching to a plant-based diet doesn’t mean simply substituting Impossible burgers and Just Eggs into every meal. Not only are these ultra-processed foods generally high in calories and sodium, but they are also usually made from industrially grown ingredients, like soy and peas. While better for the environment than cattle production, industrial crop production is still extremely taxing on the environment. Instead, really focus on the plant in plant-based: subscribe to a CSA, shop the farmers’ market, add as many different fruits and vegetables into your diet as possible. Rather than meat, look to high-protein legumes, beans and vegetables. While many shoppers think of only the white, black and red/pinto beans commonly sold in the grocery store, there is a wide world of beans. From the nutty Christmas limas (wonderful in winter soups, stews and gratins) to the rich, coffee-chocolate flavor of the Rio Zape (great eaten out of bowl, or eaten refried) — along with grains, pulses, seeds and legumes — beans can be a great way to diversify a vegan diet.

Get inspired

A surefire way to get bored with vegan eating (and possibly the reason many switch back to an omnivore diet) is by sticking to your old meal plan, minus the meat. When you adopt a plant-based diet, it’s smart to change things up. You can find inspiration by turning to the many cultures and cuisines that have been doing vegan cuisine for hundreds of years — like Buddhist Chinese or South Indian — or from cuisines that aren’t strictly vegan but have lots of delicious plant-based options, like Middle Eastern cuisine. We’ve shared our favorite vegetarian and vegan cookbooks in the past, including Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Plenty” and Madhur Jaffrey’s “World of the East Vegetarian Cooking,” which all have great vegan recipes and tips for flavorful, filling and healthy plant-based meals. Some new cookbooks to look out for this year include “The Vegan Iraqi Cookbook,” “La Vida Verde: Plant-Based Mexican Cooking,” “The Korean Vegan” and “Afro Vegan.”

Don’t break the bank

The vegan diet gets a bad rap for being a lifestyle for rich Whole Foods shopping eaters. If your wallet starts to feel slim after a few weeks of eating vegan, rethink your strategy. While many wellness blogs will suggest expensive oils, nuts, seeds and powders for their recipes, you don’t need to splurge on fancy ingredients to go plant-based. Shopping at the farmers’ markets can be done on a budget; shop in bulk, purchase seconds and make use of SNAP and other market-matching programs when possible.

Meat, even inexpensive industrially produced meat, tends to suck up a large percentage of the weekly grocery budget. In a vegan diet, that area of the plate can be replaced by beans and other high-protein foods including quinoa, broccoli and avocado. Cookbooks can also help: In Toni Okamoto’s new cookbook “Plant-Based on a Budget,” you’ll find $30 weekly meal plans and vegan recipes that can be prepared in less than 30 minutes. “Broke Vegan” is another new book aimed at helping vegans cook plant-based meals quickly and inexpensively.

Remember the why

For many eaters transitioning to a vegan diet, giving up favorite foods such as cheese, ice cream or hamburgers can be tough. Remembering and focusing on your reason for choosing the diet can help strengthen your resolve. If reducing your foodprint is top of mind, remember that livestock production accounts for 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions, with beef and dairy production accounting for two-thirds of that amount. Research shows again and again that moving towards a plant-based diet is necessary to help mitigate climate change. If animal welfare is your main concern, reading some of our reports on Beef, Chicken, Pork or Egg production could also illuminate how poorly animals are treated in concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFOs).

If you need more information to back yourself up, the new book ” 72 Reasons to Be a Vegan: Why Plant-based. Why Now.” may be a helpful resource. Authors Kathy Freston and Gene Stone have covered the topic widely, spanning everything from the health benefits (plant-based diets limit exposure to antibiotics in the food system) to environmental aspects (one study found vegans generate about 42% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than meat-eaters). It’s a good book to help convince yourself, and explain to those around you why you’ve made the diet changes.

Discover a community

Another way to stick to a stricter lifestyle to do it with a friend. Studies have shown that finding a buddy to adopt a habit with makes it easier to stick to it. If you don’t know someone interested in making the vegan diet plunge, find a vegan community near you. It will help to have a group to ask questions to, share tips for local restaurants and favorite products and connect with over shared experiences. Some ways to meet fellow vegans: in a cooking class or other vegan events, on social media or plant-based webinars or other online resources. Latinx eaters interested in vegan cooking can check out a local chapter of Veggie Mijas, which hosts potlucks and other events to help introduce the diet to their communities. The Afro-Vegan Society offers resources, recipes and hosts events, while Food For the Soul lists a number of Black vegan/vegetarian societies around the country. For new vegans looking to embrace intersectionality along their plant-based diet journey, organizations like A Well Fed World, Food Empowerment Project and Vegan Outreach prioritize efforts in communities of color and include women and BIPOC leaders.