An appreciation of Björk’s swan dress, 20 years later

Twenty years ago on March 25, avian history was made while simultaneously changing the significance of the red carpet look forever.

In less dramatic terms, it’s the day that Icelandic musician Björk debuted her swan dress at the Oscars. The swan dress – designed to mimic the large bird with its white body gracefully draped across the neck and torso of the wearer – is a cultural touchstone for lovers of modern celebrity culture. Although other major stars dabbled in the sartorial absurd – like Dennis Rodman with his colorful experimental outfits, Justin and Britney’s infamous denim ensemble, or Rose McGowan’s see-through 1998 VMA’s dress – Björk’s set the tone for the following decades of Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj-filled-camp couture as its own form of promotion and spectacle.

The garment in question was designed by Marjan Pejoski, and came from Björk’s inspiration to send a message in the briefest and most effective way possible.

“I was very aware when I went to the Academy Awards that it would probably be my first and last time. So I thought my input should really be about fertility, and I thought I’d bring some eggs.”

When she mentions eggs, that is not just a metaphor. At the awards ceremony, Björk literally had an egg underneath her gown, squatted to the ground and then proceeded to “lay it” in front of the masses.

Predictably, this dress caused quite the stir. Fashion commentators like the late Joan Rivers noted, “the girl should be put into an asylum,” while others said that she was simply there to provide the “kook factor,” whatever that actually means.

The gown also became an indelible part of the cultural zeitgeist. Both Ellen Degeneres and Kevin James wore their own versions of the dress in parody. It has arguably been one of the most widely debated fashion moments in recent history, even being featured at an exhibition exploring the camp aesthetic curated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2019. Björk’s decision to wear this gown to one of the most prestigious awards ceremonies out there indicates that there was more to this look than being just, well, a look. What Björk gave us was a moment.

And so, as we find ourselves fondly reminiscing two decades later while our society is largely still on pause, one can’t help but wonder: Can we return to a time where there’s another swan dress moment?

Despite the pandemic eliminating in-person red carpets, we are still getting red carpet looks . . . just from home. Zendaya wore a stunning custom Giorgio Armani Prive gown with a simple updo for her acceptance of best actress at this year’s Emmy awards. Regina King and Anya-Taylor Joy were just some of the many stars that drew praise for their respective ensembles at the Golden Globes.

But even then, part of the excitement around King’s gown centered on her senior dog, 15-year-old Cornbread, who appeared in the background as she modeled her sequined Louis Vuitton dress. There’s a level of humanity to these remote ceremonies that’s heartwarming, and yet removes some of the performance aspect of wearing such elaborate attire.

This humanity can also be taken to extremes. An exhausted-looking Jason Sudeikis was a topic of discussion that same night for wearing a now sold-out tie-dye hoodie for his unexpected acceptance speech for best actor in Apple TV’s comedy series “Ted Lasso.”

Some other highlights of these more laid-back looks include Jodie Foster’s pajama set to accept her award for best supporting actress, as well as Chloe Zhao’s green long-sleeve shirt and braids for best director of a motion picture.

While these people have every right to simply be comfortable at home, this gravitation towards a casual awards ceremony could mean trouble for the future of the very shows themselves. Without the promise of celebrities looking their best in designer duds, fans of all kinds or even just fashion enthusiasts may not tune in.

Adweek reports that viewership for the Golden Globes has taken a sharp decrease with about 6.9 million viewers in 2021, a 62% drop from the previous year, and the lowest turnout the ceremony has faced in about 26 years.

The trend is not isolated to just the Globes: The Emmys, The Grammys, and the American Music Awards also saw significant decline in their numbers. This could be attributed to a number of factors, like a global pandemic still raging that would likely distract some from the navel-gazey nature of watching rich people talk about each other for an entire evening.

But it could partially be due to the fact that the excitement involved with keeping up with your favorite celebrities’ outfits is for the most part, gone. Even if they do decide to dress up, it’s much less satisfying to try and parse the entire thing via a grainy Zoom display.

It’s difficult to say whether or not these kinds of moments will have a place in future award ceremonies or red carpets. Perhaps people have lost interest in the usually long, drawn-out shows and their stale writing that caters to an impossibly small niche of the human population.

But if there is a renewed interest in the costuming spectacle that we witnessed in meat dresses past, then maybe we’ll get a comeback post-COVID. And leading the flock will always be a small Icelandic woman in a white feathered get-up.

110 years since the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, its lessons are still unlearned

On this day 110 years ago, 146 garment workers, including 123 mostly young immigrant women, died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in lower Manhattan. Many of these women were forced to jumped from several stories to the pavement below because the intensely anti-union sweat shop owners had insisted on keeping exits locked and only one of four elevators were operating.

These women were paid $15 a week and worked at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week. The owners of the sweatshop were outliers, who refused to acquiesce to the workers’ demands that were made during the city-wide strike by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union for better pay and a more humane work schedule.

The very public grotesque death on a city sidewalk of so many women, filled with all of the potentiality of youth, pricked the conscience of New York City and helped spark a national movement for unions, labor rights and worker safety that would, a generation later, be foundational to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

The manslaughter trial of sweatshop owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, a.k.a. the “Shirtwaist Kings”, resulted in their acquittal. Yet they were forever condemned in the court of public opinion, which was informed by the disclosure that they had previously had fires at the Triangle site and their Diamond Waist Company plant had also burned twice.

In the years since, the annual commemoration in lower Manhattan of this horrible day has served as a solemn occasion to remember all of the lives of workers lost the previous year as a consequence of corporate greed and of government complicity in the form of lax or non-existent regulation on the commercial interests that rent our politics to this very day.

And in the intervening years, these gatherings have helped to spotlight just how, with the decline of the union movement, we have seen a dramatic increase in the precarity of employment itself. Union activists, alongside the descendants of the victims from the 1911 fire, annually commemorate the names of the Triangle victims — and, in recent years, also reference the dozens of undocumented immigrants that have died at non-union construction work sites without basic protections like workers’ compensation or disability and death benefits.

This year, the Triangle Fire Coalition and the New York Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO annual memorial will be a virtual celebration to highlight the plight of the nation’s millions of essential workers and their families who have been infected with COVID-19 and have died by the thousands from the deadly virus.

And as with the death of the Triangle workers, the culpability for the death toll is to be found at the confluence of corporations and the government — who turned a willful blind eye to the spread of the highly contagious and deadly virus in places like the nation’s meat plants at the beginning of the pandemic. It was there that the Trump administration, in complete supplication to the meat processors, subverted the efforts of unions and local public health officials to stop the spread of the virus.

Indeed, thousands of workers have suffered nationwide due to a lack of adequate workplace protections during the pandemic. In nearly all cases, having a union could have helped.

Hence, pandemic-related labor strife is happening all around the country. In Amazon’s Bessemer Alabama distribution plant, the multinational behemoth is doing all it can to defeat the union organizing drive aimed to enlist 6,000 mostly Black workers into the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).

At a March 22 Moral Monday celebration, Rev. Dr. William Barber took Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to task for trying to use his commitment of gifting $10 million to African American causes “to show he is concerned about Black Lives Matter” while seeking to derail Amazon workers bid for collective bargaining.

“I am going to say today that Amazon doesn’t care about Black Lives Matter if you give chump change to Black organizations but then block the labor and union rights for workers right here in Bessemer,” Barber preached. “Don’t play with us like that. If they are any national organizations taking money from Jeff Bezos they ought to give it back until he stops the attack on these workers.”

“If you care about Black folks, let them have labor rights . . . if you care about Black folks let them have sick leave and health care . . . if you care about Black folks don’t pay a woman two weeks when she needs three weeks because she got sick in your plant,” he said.

As 20,000 Amazon workers fell sick with COVID-19, some of whom died Bezos’s personal wealth “skyrocketed from $113 billion to $189 billion during COVID,” Barber said. The co-leader of the national Poor People’s Campaign observed that spike in wealth happened as eight million more Americans fell into poverty during the pandemic, which continues to pose significant occupational health risks for essential workers that are not getting hazard pay.

Amazon’s labor pains extend to New York state, too. Last month, New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued Amazon for “repeatedly and persistently” failing “to comply with its obligation to institute reasonable and adequate measures to protect its workers from the spread of the virus in its New York City facilities” in Staten Island and in Queens.

New York’s attorney general alleged that Amazon’s “flagrant disregard for health and safety requirements… threatened serious illness and grave harm to the thousands of workers in these facilities” and posed a “continued substantial and specific danger to the public health.”

James also called out the company for allegedly retaliating against their employees who had raised concerns about how Amazon was addressing the considerable occupational health challenges posed by the pandemic.

Amazon has maintained in its court filings that its COVID precautions “far exceeded” what New York State required and that it had passed a March 30 surprise inspection by New York City officials. Back in the fall it reported that just 1.44 percent of its workforce had been infected by the virus, 42 percent lower than the rate of spread detected in the general population.

With over 30 million Americans infected by COVID-19, we can project, depending on the research study one examines, that as many as one in three Americans will be left with lingering health effects from COVID of varying severity. That’s millions of people, many of whom will have contracted the virus while working. Yet right now, most states do not provide a Workers Compensation presumption from COVID meaning that employers can, and already have, fight the claims by disabled workers.

One of the problems with today’s pandemic-inspired labor movement is that no one really knows how many workers have died or been infected on-the-job. We have hints here and there from reporting projects: for instance, thanks to a joint reporting project by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News, we do know that more than 3,500 health care workers who were under 60 years of age died from COVID, with 700 from just New Jersey and New York alone.

We also know that hundreds of law enforcement officers have died from COVID-19, making it the leading cause of death for that workforce.

But certainly, the COVID disease and death toll for health care workers and first responders is only a partial picture of the bigger picture of the occupational health crisis that has ensnared the entire essential workforce.

Some legislators are working to change that. New York State Senator Brad Hoylman lives in lower Manhattan just three blocks away from the site of the Triangle Fire and not far from the World Trade Center. Recently, Hoylman has introduced state legislation to create a voluntary COVID Health Registry, similar to the one that was created for the 9/11 WTC first responders and survivors. It was that registry which helped both state and federal policy makers gauge the public health implications from the toxic exposure as they became evident years later.

“We don’t know what the long-term effects of COVID are yet,” Hoylman said. “Yet, we know there are lingering side effects from respiratory conditions to psychotic breakdowns and that is all just coming to light. Hopefully, this is not a lifetime disability, but there are some worrisome signs that suggest the impact could be long term for as many as ten percent or more of COVID cases.”

New York state is one of at least thirty states that don’t not have a workers compensation guarantee for essential workers who contracted the deadly virus on their job. In these states, workers that are sidelined can be left unemployed without the financial resources to support themselves while they convalesce.

Similarly difficult to account for are undocumented workers, many of whom kept working amid the pandemic.

“I am hopeful that this kind [the health registry] of evidence of long-term health consequences from COVID can help change that,” he said.

Without these basic numbers, the number of essential workers battling COVID-19 will remain hidden. The best way to honor the essential workers that have died from COVID is to honor the ones that are still living.

Former FBI agent demolishes Fox News claims that Boulder shooter’s gun was not “a weapon of war”

With the King Soopers mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado, rocking the nation, commentators at Fox News have taken to circling the wagons around America’s gun culture, and in particular defending the high-powered AR-style weapons of the type used in the shooting.

“These are not weapons of war,” said reporter John Roberts during a segment on Wednesday. “These are not assault rifles.”

Former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa, however, was quick to point out that this is false — and that the weapons in question are in fact very similar in classification to weapons used on the battlefield.

AR (“ArmaLite”) style semi-automatic rifles are among the most popular sporting weapon in the U.S. However, they have many features that make them similar in firepower to true machine guns.

You can watch the video below via Twitter:

QAnon and the Trump cult: Expert Steven Hassan on whether they can be saved

QAnon, the anti-Semitic and white supremacist conspiracy-theory cult and live action roleplaying game, may actually be a new type of American religion, as Adrienne LaFrance argued in a recent article at the Atlantic. In an interview with CBC radio, sociologist Edwin Hodge offered this complementary insight:

QAnon develops like a lot of conspiratorial movements do: It develops this kind of internal logic that governs the behavior of people, that governs how people view the world, how they interact with authorities, with social elites, that sort of thing. But it’s also beginning to construct a moral framework. It’s also beginning to construct … almost a cosmology, that draws in government agents, celebrities, economic systems, and has been drawing in scripture. We’re starting to see QAnon begin to … become infused with religious iconography, particularly of the sort of evangelical Christian variety. We see pastors, folks of religious persuasions, beginning to use biblical scripture to justify or support the predictions that are made by the conspiracy.

QAnon may endure. But it is more likely to become yet another bizarre and obscure cult lost to history, described in future historical footnotes but forgotten by most people. In our present moment, however, QAnon and its power are very real.

QAnon commands the loyalty of millions of mostly white, right-wing Americans. It wields increasing power over the Republican Party up to the highest levels of government, including a former president, others in his circle and Republican-elected officials on the national, state and local level.

QAnon provides a sense of meaning and community for its followers. In a country struggling through a pandemic with more than 500,000 dead, a ruined economy, a growing distrust of elites and the existing social and political order, spiraling rates of loneliness and other forms of social alienation, QAnon attracts the vulnerable and despondent. In total, the emergence and popularity of QAnon, like other cults, is a sign of a sick society experiencing a deep crisis of meaning.

QAnon is a national security threat: It was integral to the Jan 6 coup attempt and attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters. National security and law enforcement experts are warning of its influence in the military, and it is playing a role in radicalizing members of the white right and other Trumpists into political violence and terrorism.

In keeping with its “religious” dimensions, QAnon has now become a powerful influence in right-wing evangelical churches, where it is radicalizing congregants towards ever more extreme views and actions.

Steven Hassan is one of the world’s foremost experts on mind control, cults and similar destructive organizations. He was once a senior member of the Unification Church, aka the “Moonies.” He is now founder and director of the Freedom of Mind Resource Center Inc. and has written several bestselling books, including “Freedom of Mind,” “Combating Cult Mind Control” and, most recently, “The Cult of Trump.”

In this conversation, Hassan details how the coronavirus pandemic has amplified the ability of QAnon and other cults to recruit new members. He draws upon his personal experiences to explain why Trump’s followers would attack the Capitol and be willing to kill and die for their leader. In addition, he shares the insight that QAnon is much more than a mere “kooky conspiracy theory,” but is part of a sophisticated “undue influence” campaign and authoritarian movement designed to cause chaos in American society.

At the end of this conversation, Hassan shares his experiences in trying to help QAnon followers leave the cult and explores how family members and friends are integral to that process.

This conversation has been edited, as usual, for clarity and length.

You are one of the world’s leading experts on cults and mind control. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about QAnon?

Two things. One is minimizing the QAnon threat by calling it a “kooky conspiracy theory.” The second is this language about a “post-truth world.” We are not living in a post-truth world. We are living in an age of undue influence. QAnon is better understood as an authoritarian cult.

There is a myth of invulnerability: The average person believes that they could never be manipulated into joining a cult. Nobody is invulnerable. And I want people who are exiting a cult to not be humiliated and shamed. I want them to join the rest of us who were in a cult. We need to de-stigmatize the experience: We all can be deceived and manipulated. The important thing is getting out of the cult and reclaiming your power in your life.

How has the coronavirus pandemic amplified the power of QAnon and other cults and conspiracy theories?

The pandemic situation has made people more suggestible and susceptible. Social isolation is very important here: Human beings are not meant to be without touch and being in front of a screen or on a smart phone for all these hours each day. Social isolation and the pandemic are definitely influencing people’s ability to function.

The Trump-inspired attack on the Capitol was an example of groupthink. Yes, of course there was the white supremacy and the Christian fascism and violence. But when I saw the coup attackers, I saw Trumpists, the vast majority of them white men, who looked as if they were almost possessed by some otherworldly force. They were maniacal. It was collective narcissism and groupthink. What did you see when you watched the events of Jan. 6?

When I was in the Moon cult in 1974, Sun Myung Moon gave a lecture to us about how God wanted Richard Nixon to be president despite Watergate. We were bussed down to D.C. We fasted for three days on the Capitol stairs because God wanted Nixon to be president. I was watching the attacks on the U.S. Capitol and I was thinking that I would have done that. If Moon told me we had to attack the Capitol for God I would have done it. I was already indoctrinated that democracy was Satanic and we needed a theocracy to rule America and the world.

Watching the attack on the Capitol, I actually expected far worse. I thought there would be way more violence and death. I’m grateful that I was wrong, but I am absolutely not surprised that there was a violent coup attempt.

What do we know about the members of Trump’s mob who were willing to kill and die for him during the coup attack on the Capitol?

Many of them are likely members of religious cults such as the New Apostolic Reformation groups. Such groups have millions of American members. The leaders of these NAR groups claim to be an apostle or a prophet of God who gets direct revelation and has the power to cast out devils and to do faith healing and even speak in tongues. These leaders also practice the BITE model of authoritarian control — which involves behavior, information, thought and emotional control — to create a new dependent and obedient identity where your thoughts, feelings and conscience are suppressed. This also involves such things as “thought stopping.” People subjected to these techniques live in a world they understand to be one of “us versus them” and “good versus evil,”

The members of these NAR groups are programmed, as I was, not to believe the news media because it is “fake news” and “the enemy of the people” and the like.

They are engaging in thought-stopping against any doubts or criticisms. They are also in an information silo, where their trusted sources may be religious talk radio or Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Alex Jones, Breitbart, Daily Caller or some other far right-wing site. The mindset is war. The people who attacked the Capitol thought that they were actually going to save America from the evil “communists” and “socialists” who somehow put Biden in power.

QAnon is also a type of live action video game for the cult members and other followers. It gives them the illusion that they are being heroes. It also gives them meaning in their lives.

I did a TEDx talk about dismantling QAnon. One of the participants was a former developer of alternate reality gaming named Jim Stewartson. He explained to me how in that alternate gaming world, there were rules and an end point for the game.

As he sees it, QAnon is using the same principles to get people excited to solve the puzzle with these “Q drops” and trying to make sense of the secrets. The participants get into QAnon so deeply that it is not a game to them anymore. They are out in the streets. They infiltrate the anti-vaccine movement. They get the soccer moms, people involved in yoga and the New Age movement. QAnon could also be a type of psy-op being run by a hostile foreign power.

Do the leaders of QAnon actually believe in it? What of the Republican elected officials and others on the right who claim QAnon membership and support?

We would have to do a case by case evaluation. Is this person doing this because they took money from Russia? Or because they are being blackmailed? I do not know if they are true believers or not, but my guess is that there is a group of them that basically want to keep the votes and are willing to fall in line with the desires of their funder. I believe that there are probably a good number of Republican officials and other right-wingers who actually believe in QAnon.

You have been trying to help many of these QAnon people. How are they different or similar from those people who do not join cults?

The pandemic has created, in a sense, an ideal set of conditions for people to engage in mind control over others. This is because of fear and social isolation, and being online so much more. Many people are being recruited deceptively. They do not start out wanting to join a cult. But someone on Facebook or other social media is saying to them, “Would you watch this and tell me what you think of it?” If someone is not politically sophisticated and does not know how to discern credible sources versus very uncredible ones, they can be very vulnerable to QAnon.

What are members of QAnon — and those who join other cults — looking for? What is the crisis of personal meaning that they are trying to solve?

There is a tendency to blame the victim and say they were weak and that is why they were sucked into the cult. But I would argue that in my experience, all people want to better themselves, learn, improve, make more money, have healthy relationships and the like. People who find themselves in QAnon and other cults want to be involved with a community that is greater than themselves. They want to feel like their life has some greater purpose. Ultimately, in my experience they have just been co-opted through deceptive recruitment and indoctrination.

What advice would you give to families and friends who have someone they care about who is in QAnon? How can they extricate them?

Here is what you should not do. Do not argue with your friend or relative who has been manipulated into joining QAnon or another cult. Do not call them names and try to argue facts with them, because you’ll just propel them deeper into the cult reality.

So what should be done? Brainwashing is not 100% effective and permanent, and people do wake up and get out of the cult. Understand that love is stronger than mind control. Maintain a regular relationship with the person you are trying to help. Agree to create boundaries. Agree to not talk about politics for example. Talk about areas where you have common ground. Empower the person to think for themselves.

The most powerful technique is asking a good question in a respectful way and waiting for an answer, and then following up. For example, the single most powerful frame to use when engaging somebody in a cult is as follows.

Say something such as, “Look, you’re an intelligent, educated person. I respect you very much. It’s clear that you believe sincerely that QAnon is real. I would like to think that I am an intelligent, educated person too. If what you are following with QAnon is real, and I’m not understanding it, then I need to know what you know. Let’s agree to pursue truth together. If it is legitimate, it will stand up to scrutiny. And if it’s not, why would either of us want to spend time believing and acting on things that aren’t real?”

Then typically the Q person will send you 60 links and they’ll say, “Do the research I did.” Which is code and loaded language for, “I got indoctrinated. You get indoctrinated.” And you should say, “You know what? I’m interested in pursuing this based on my faith and my relationship with you. So what I’d like to propose is you pick one thing that was very influential and important to you. Let’s watch it together and agree to discuss it. After we do that, I get my turn and I will present something. We’ll watch it together and we’ll discuss it. And we’ll take turns back and forth. Are you game?” If done properly, with love and respect — and the frame isn’t, “I’m right, you’re wrong. I’m smart, you’re stupid for believing” but instead, “Let’s find out together what’s really true” — this can be the most effective approach that family members and friends can take to helping someone in QAnon.

The other thing I have learned in trying to help people extricate themselves from cults is that it is important to have a team or network of other family members and friends involved. It is a group that got them into QAnon, and it is more effective to have a group working to empower a person trying to leave the cult to start questioning things and doing effective reality-testing.

Alleged “associate” of Marjorie Taylor Greene appears in Jan. 6 video — inside the Capitol

An ally of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has been caught red-handed in new video footage obtained by CNN’s K-File, which shows the pro-Trump vigilante inside the Capitol building on Jan. 6.

The conservative activist and live-streamer Anthony Agüero, whom CNN described as an “associate of Greene,” is clearly seen in the newly uncovered video inside the Capitol, after previously denying that a picture shot inside the building depicted him.

“At the time of that February report, Agüero declined to answer if he had been inside when pressed by CNN. He claimed videos later posted to social media accounts from both inside the Capitol and outside were not his,” CNN reported on Wednesday afternoon.

As CNN reports, Agüero has sent mixed messages regarding whether he was inside the Capitol and in what capacity he was there. At one point, he claimed to be an “independent journalist” who had entered the Capitol to cover the breaking news. “The publicly posted videos of the riot reviewed by CNN’s KFile are now the first visual confirmation that Agüero went inside the building. Agüero previously confirmed to CNN that he was at the Capitol on January 6 and said he was an ‘independent journalist’ there reporting the events,” CNN’s report added.

Yet his claim of a journalistic or reportorial mission seems dubious, since Agüero never uploaded any video footage or other content from the siege on social media or elsewhere. CNN reports that in video footage, Agüero “can be heard chanting ‘heave ho’ as rioters were attempting to break in on the West Side of the Capitol. In a comment, Aguero wrote ‘MAGA’ under the video. Later, Aguero can be heard chanting ‘our house’ among the Capitol mob on the East Side of the building.”

CNN has also uncovered video footage in which Agüero says the riot was carried out by “patriots” and that “a message was sent.”

“He later described those who broke in as ‘patriots’ and commented ‘#PatriotsSaveAmerica2021! Not Antifa/BLM!!!’ in a since-removed comment made immediately following the ransacking of the Capitol by rioters,” CNN further summarized.

On Sunday night during a CBS “60 Minutes” segment, Michael Sherwin, former interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said the department continues to investigate many people connected to the Capitol riots, and did not rule out the possibility that former President Trump could face criminal charges.

“Now the question is, is he criminally culpable for everything that happened during the siege, during the breach? What I could tell you is this, based upon, again, what we see in the public record and what we see in public statements in court,” Sherwin said during the interview. “We have soccer moms from Ohio that were arrested saying, ‘Well, I did this because my president said I had to take back our house.'”

Mitch McConnell keeps getting caught telling lies: Being minority leader is less fun

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., remained steadfast in his decades-long commitment to alternative facts, bandying falsehoods this week about the civil rights history behind the filibuster, H.R. 1, and his contact with President Biden.

McConnell delivered his first lie when he argued during a Tuesday press conference that the filibuster “has no racial history at all. None.” He added, “There’s no dispute among historians about that.”

There’s not much dispute because McConnell’s claim is flat-out untrue. Historians broadly agree that the filibuster is deeply rooted in the legislative tradition of obstructing civil rights for Black people. According to a study conducted by The Washington Post, of the 30 measures derailed by the filibuster between 1917 and 1994, “exactly half addressed civil rights –– including measures to authorize federal investigation and prosecution of lynching, to ban the imposition of poll taxes and to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race in housing sales and rentals.”

In fact, one of the key factors in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the defeat of the filibuster routinely employed by segregationist senators, which is why former President Barack Obama once called the maneuver a “Jim Crow relic.”

McConnell doubled down on the untruths on Wednesday morning when he alleged that the Biden administration has thus far made “no effort whatsoever” to work with Republicans. The minority leader specifically claimed the had not been invited to the White House and had not spoken to President Biden since he took office.

“I don’t believe I’ve spoken with him since he was sworn in,” McConnell told reporters. “We had a couple of conversations before then.”

According to the Washington Post, McConnell in fact spoke with Biden twice in early February. On one occasion, the minority leader himself claimed the two had spoken about the status of the coronavirus relief bill. On another, McConnell claimed he “spoke with both President Biden and Secretary (of State Antony) Blinken yesterday about the situation in Burma.”

McConnell’s office later acknowledged those conversations had in fact occurred.

In the past, Biden and McConnell have been on comparatively amicable terms. As Obama’s administration came to a close, McConnell praised Biden’s work as Obama’s vice president. “He doesn’t waste time telling me why I am wrong,” McConnell said of Biden at the time. “He gets down to brass tacks, and he keeps in sight the stakes. There’s a reason ‘Get Joe on the phone’ is shorthand for ‘Time to get serious’ in my office.”

In a December interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, the senator referred to his relationship with the president as a “friendship.” McConnell was the only Senate Republican who attended the funeral of Biden’s son, Beau.

Last week, however, McConnell decried the Biden administration’s “left-wing” tendencies, but said he had expected them all along. “I’m not surprised that he’s not a moderate. He just seemed moderate,” said the Senator. “So I’m not surprised there’s a left wing administration. I anticipated it.”

He concluded, “And that’s why it’s going to be very difficult to craft bipartisan agreements, because they want to jam things through their way, hard left, which I don’t think the American people expect any bipartisanship to support.”

McConnell’s third lie of the week came when he claimed during a hearing that the Democratic-backed voting rights bill, H.R. 1 or the For the People Act, is a wholly unnecessary piece of legislation because “states are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever.”

That’s a stark contrast with reality, which has seen an intense Republican-backed push for state-level voter restrictions across the nation. More than 150 Republican-sponsored proposals in at least 33 state legislatures are currently under consideration — all of which aim to restrict voting rights by limiting mail-in ballots, heightening voter ID requirements, closing alternative registration options and other tactics.

In Georgia, voting rights activist Stacey Abrams made headlines this month when she called the state’s new voting bill “a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie.” The bill, if signed into law, would repeal no-excuse absentee voting for Georgia residents, 1.3 million of whom used the method to cast ballots in last year’s general election.

In South Carolina, one bill under consideration would mandate signature matching for all absentee ballots. A Texas proposal would require the Department of Public Safety to verify each voters’ citizenship.

The For the People Act, meanwhile, aims to set national standards in voting rights by establishing independent redistricting commissions, prohibiting campaign spending by foreign nationals, reforming the Federal Election Commission and more. McConnell has forcefully argued against the bill, labeling it a partisan Democratic power-grab. “This is clearly an effort by one party to rewrite the rules of our political system,” he said on the Senate floor, “But even more immediately, it would create an implementation nightmare … that would drown state and local officials who run elections.”

McConnell also claimed in a Tuesday podcast that Democrats want to turn the FEC into a “prosecutor” in issues of campaign finance.

“We had record turnouts last year. … So this is not to drive up turnout,” McConnell said of the bill, “Turnout’s already driven up.” In fact, despite record turnout, there were numerous reports of voter-suppression tactics in 2020.

The Senate minority leader also described the Democrats’ plan to reduce the FEC board from six to five members — two from each party and one unaffiliated member — as yet another partisan power grab. It could better be described as an effort to break partisan gridlock. As Salon reported in November, Republicans themselves have tried to pack the FEC board with members of their own party, and left it without a viable voting quorum for 14 months under the Trump administration.

Top luxury travel agency quietly eliminates all 10 Trump-branded hotels and resorts from its network

Former President Donald Trump’s hotel business took a fresh blow this month when a top luxury travel agency reportedly ended its preferred partnership with ten different Trump hotels.

Luxury Launches reports that the Trump hotels received “awful news” in early March when Virtuoso, which it describes as “the travel industry’s most prominent and undisputed player,” removed all Trump hotels and resorts from its network.

“This quiet elimination of all 10 Trump-branded hotels and resorts from its list of preferred partners will . . . severely hamper Trump’s hotel management and licensing business, which is already down $24 million since 2019, as well as his golf resorts in Miami and Europe, which are down another $120 million,” the publication writes.

A spokeswoman for Virtuoso confirmed that Trump hotels were no longer part of the agency’s network and said that “we consider many variables when reviewing both existing and new network participation,” although she would not comment on why the Trump hotels had been delisted.

Trump is facing an array of legal and financial challenges now that he’s no longer in the White House, and tax records obtained by the New York Times last year revealed that he must pay back at least $421 million in personally guaranteed debt — and that much of that debt is coming due within the next four years.

What is an NFT, and why does John Cleese want to sell you his for $69.3 million?

“Monty Python” actor John Cleese wants to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Well, a very rudimentary sketch of the landmark that he made on his iPad Pro. And for the low, low price of $69.3 million, you can own this unique digital piece of art, the latest celebrity offering of an artform known as the NFT, aka non-fungible token.

While you could, ostensibly, just screenshot Cleese’s image that he shared on Twitter, it would essentially be a knock-off or a fraud, and wouldn’t have much (if any) value. That’s because an NFT is like a virtual trading card that comes “tagged” with digital proof of authorship and ownership.

Cleese’s foray into digital art and currency is being done with a wink; it’s a kind of commentary on the current NFT frenzy that has infiltrated the worlds of traditional art and music. For instance, an NFT of a piece by the digital artist Mike Winkelmann, who goes by Beeple, sold for $69 million at Christie’s earlier this month. Cleese’s asking price is a play on that number.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Cleese said that the selling price of Beeple’s work is proof that “the world has gone terminally insane.”

“Technology is changing and moving so quickly that we can’t even see we’re standing in quicksand as we stare at a bunch of pixelated JPEGs, wondering what they might sell for next,” he said.

However, the sale of Cleese’s image will run through April Fools’ Day and the current bidding is up to nearly $36,000, so people obviously don’t think it’s a total joke. So, what exactly are NFTs? And what impact is their use going to have on music and culture? Here’s a beginner-friendly guide to what you need to know:

What exactly is an NFT?

An NFT — or non-fungible token — is part of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin.

“Non-fungible” essentially means that the tokens are unique, in that they can’t simply be replaced with something else. For example, if I have a dollar bill and trade it for another dollar bill, I’m in basically the same position I started. If, however, I have an ace of hearts playing card and exchange it for a Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card, I have something that is similar in form, but fundamentally different.

There are non-fungible assets that we already interact with on a day-to-day basis.

“Domain names, event tickets, in-game items, even handles on social networks like Twitter or Facebook, are all non-fungible digital assets,” Devin Finzer, CEO of the NFT marketplace Open Sea, wrote in an explainer. “They just vary in their tradeability, liquidity, and interoperability.”

This concept has simply reached the mainstream art market. While NFTs can still be traded in the same way as bitcoin — they’re stored on a decentralized database without much government oversight — they represent the ownership of artwork, songs, videos or poems, instead of cash-like balances in a digital wallet. It’s like you have proof of provenance for your own digital art and collectibles gallery, which can include GIFs, digital renderings, video clips and video game skins.

“[NFTs] are unique files that live on a blockchain and are able to verify ownership of a work of digital art,” Jacob Kastrenakes wrote for The Verge. “Buyers typically get limited rights to display the digital artwork they represent, but in many ways, they’re just buying bragging rights and an asset they may be able to resell later.”

Like analogue artwork, there is typically only a select amount of these digital pieces, which drives a competitive market.

Are NFTs new?

Relatively so. As Andrew Steinwold, a crypto investor and analyst who founded the NFT investment firm Sfermion, wrote in a post about the history of the digital tokens, forms of NFTs have been around since 2012; but it wasn’t until 2017 that NFTs really hit the mainstream with the introduction of CryptoKitties

“CryptoKitties is a blockchain-based virtual game that allows players to adopt, raise, and trade virtual cats,” Steinwold wrote. “Cats, on a blockchain!”

The game’s developers describe them as “breedable Beanie Babies,” each with its own unique 256-bit genome. Like real-world pet breeding, the CryptoKitties are “tagged” with documentation about their origin. In 2017, the average price for a CryptoKitty was about $27, but CNN reported in December of that year that the most expensive CryptoKitty had sold for the equivalent of $110,707.

“It might seem a strange way to spend a small fortune, but no more so, it could be argued, than splashing out on real-world collectibles,” CNN’s Matt Linares wrote. “A Pokémon card, for example, sold for almost $55,000 in 2016.”

If NFTs aren’t new, why am I hearing so much about them now?

While NFTs steadily gained popularity in some artist circles, more mainstream artists and corporations tossed their digital hats into the ring during the pandemic when traditional income streams, like concerts and live shows, weren’t possible. As Rolling Stone reported earlier this month, Kings of Leon released their new album “When You See Yourself” as an NFT— becoming the first band to do so.

Three types of tokens were released: one was a special album package, the second included live show perks, and the third included exclusive audiovisual art. The album was released everywhere albums are currently released, as well — Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music — but the NFT, which was originally priced around $50, will be the only product with enhanced media.

The sale of the album NFT lasted for two weeks, and no more are currently being made, hence the token is now a tradable collectible.

This is just one example of how NFTs could revitalize the music business. Josh Katz is the CEO of YellowHeart, “a company that wants to use blockchain technology to bring value back to music and better direct-to-fan relationships.” He helped organize the “When You See Yourself” NFT sale.

“Over the last 20 years — two lost decades — we’ve seen the devaluation of music,” he told Rolling Stone. “Music has become great at selling everything except music. There’s been a race to the bottom where, for as little money as possible, you have access to all of it. Previously, it cost $20 to go get one song.

He continued: “It’s early stages, but in the future, I think this will be how people release their tracks: When they sell a 100,000 at a dollar each, then they just made $100,000.”

Other musical artists have jumped on the NFT bandwagon, as well, including Grimes, Portugal the Man, Post Malone, Snoop Dog, Lionel Richie and, as of Wednesday, Boy George, who is planning to release exclusive NFT content.

“I think life turned me into art,” George said in a press release about the decision. “My role models were both artistic types and hard-working types. I’ve painted myself and others. I have painted myself into a corner. I love metaphors and mystery and crypto sound like klepto so that makes me a crypto maniac.”

Alright, so music I get — but why are people investing in digital clips of NBA stars dunking a basketball?

Right, so you’re talking about entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s recent purchase of a clip of Dallas Mavericks player Maxi Klieber from NBA Top Shot, an online-only marketplace where users can buy, sell and trade NBA highlights. Those highlights are being traded and sold as NFTs.

Cuban, who also literally owns the Mavericks, wrote about the decision on his blog, where he likened it to old-school trading cards.

“I get to enjoy knowing I own my Maxi Klieber dunk Moment, along with knowing the serial number and much more,” he said. “Some people might complain that I can get the same video on the internet anywhere any time and watch it. Well guess what, I can get the same picture on any traditional, physical card on the internet and print it out, and that doesn’t change the value of the card.”

He continued: “The value is still set by the same laws of supply and demand.”

And currently, the demand is high. As CNBC reported, Top Shot has generated over $230 million in gross sales, according to its creator Dapper Labs, whom, it should be noted, is the firm that also developed CrytoKitties. In February, a LeBron James highlight sold for $200,000. A Zion Williamson edition went for a little less than that.

As with any collectible, the market determines what it’s worth, even if some of the collectibles seem kind of silly, like Cleese’s Brooklyn Bridge. But it’s like any other collectibles market — wine, motorcycles, modern art — where consumers drive the price. It’s one of those situations where if enough people believe that Cleese’s digital rendering is worth $69.3 million — suddenly, it’s worth $69.3 million.

Do NFTs help up-and-coming artists?

The jury is still out on this one, honestly. In many ways, the current digital art market is reminiscent of 2020’s OnlyFans boom. There were a ton of independent content creators and sex workers who used the platform before celebrities with pre-established fan bases started to join.

There was a lot of outcry, for instance, when actress and singer Bella Thorne became the first creator on OnlyFans to make $1 million in a single day. Many of the site’s users complained that Thorne was just “a celebrity gentrifying a platform and making obscene amounts of money,” as Rolling Stone reported, without recognizing or acknowledging actual sex workers who rely on it for income.

“For a technology that promises to ‘disrupt’ the world of digital art, it is tremendously efficient at replicating the most inaccessible paradigms of its physical predecessors,” Arielle Gordon wrote for Stereogum.

There are already hierarchies in the physical world when it comes to music, art and fame — and celebrities benefit from those in the digital world, as well. Grimes, for instance, sold over $6 million worth of digital art via NFTs in a week, temporarily crashing the NFT platform NiftyGateway.

This causes investors, Gordon wrote, to seek out some undiscovered talent and treat them like stock that’s meant “to be consumed at their lowest possible value to be cashed in after they’ve achieved mass popularity.”

Is this particularly innovative? That’s how things work in the analogue art market. It just means that, despite blockchain’s “decentralized, supposedly more democratic nature” it’s currently operating under many business practices that are exhaustingly familiar: supply and demand, speculation, investment trends and the power of celebrity.

Questions remain, however, about how many average art and music enthusiasts will start putting their real-world dollars into NFTs, how long the current craze will last and whether it’s as accessible for burgeoning digital artists as it purports to be.

GOP senator defends proposal to ban early voting by saying God doesn’t want us to vote on Sundays

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., on Wednesday defended Georgia Republicans’ proposal to ban early voting on Sundays by saying allowing voting on that day would go against God’s word.

The Georgia Republicans’ proposal to ban Sunday voting is seen by many critics as a thinly veiled effort to stop Black churches from conducting “souls to the polls” voter drives that helped Democrats win Senate elections in the Peach State earlier this year.

However, Hyde-Smith argued that they’re really only interested in obeying God’s command to keep the Sabbath Day holy.

“God’s word in Exodus 20:18, it says remember the Sabbath and keep it holy,” she said.

Hyde-Smith also emphasized the importance of obeying God’s views on Sunday voting by taking out a dollar bill and pointing out that it says “In God We Trust” on it and that senators’ oaths of office end with the words, “So help me God.”

You can watch the video below via Twitter:

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith defends preventing people from voting on Sunday, because God pic.twitter.com/69tYzgi4jU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 24, 2021

Former Yale psychiatrist says she was fired after Alan Dershowitz complained about anti-Trump tweets

A formerly Yale-affiliated faculty member says she was unjustly sacked after attorney Alan Dershowitz complained about her tweet that claimed Trump supporters were suffering from a “shared psychosis.”

Dr. Bandy Lee, a former faculty member in the School of Medicine and Yale Law School, filed a complaint on Monday alleging “unlawful termination” which she says was “due to her exercise of free speech about the dangers of Donald Trump’s presidency.”

In a Jan. 2020 tweet, Yale Law alumnus and former chief White House ethics lawyer noted to Dr. Lee that Dershowitz’s had recently used phrasing similar to Trump’s use of the word “perfect” to describe the call between himself and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zalensky that was at the center of the former president’s first impeachment trial.

Lee then tweeted that “Alan Dershowitz’s employing the odd use of ‘perfect’…might be dismissed as ordinary influence in most contexts,” adding that “given the severity and spread of ‘shared psychosis’ among just about all of Trump’s followers, a different scenario is more likely.” That scenario, she said, was “that he has wholly taken on Trump’s symptoms by contagion.”

On Jan. 11, Dershowitz responded with a missive to Yale Law School call asserting that “Dr. Bandy Lee of the Yale Medical School has publicly ‘diagnosed’ me as ‘psychotic,’ based on my legal and political views, and without ever examining or meeting me. “

“This constitutes a serious violation of the ethics rules of the American Psychiatric Association,” he concluded, “I am formally asking that association to discipline Dr. Lee. By this email, I also formally ask Yale University, Yale Law School and its medical school to determine whether Dr. Lee violated any of its rules.”

According to Lee’s complaint, Dr. John Krystal, the Chair of the Psychiatry Department, warned Dr. Lee that the department would “terminate [her] teaching role at Yale University” if her “behavior d[id] not change.” Yale Law School later ceased its referral of student cases to Dr. Lee and called her into a meeting held by Dr. Krystal, where she was told by three additional faculty members that she’d breached academic conduct, an assertion with which Lee strongly disagreed. No further efforts at reconciliation were made before Lee was sent a notice of her termination in mid-May.

“I have done this with a heavy heart, only because Yale refused all my requests for a discussion, much as the American Psychiatric Association has done,” Lee wrote in an email to the Yale Daily News. “I love Yale, my alma mater, as I love my country, but we are falling into a dangerous culture of self-censorship and compliance with authority at all cost.”

According to court documents, Lee continued to speak about Trump’s mental fitness, a topic she has covered extensively with Salon, after Krystal’s warning. “Although the committee does not doubt that you are acting on the basis of your personal moral code,” Krystal wrote in a letter to Lee on Sept. 4, “your repeated violations of the APA’s Goldwater Rule and your inappropriate transfer of the duty to warn from the treatment setting to national politics raised significant doubts about your understanding of crucial ethical and legal principles in psychiatry.”

Per the Goldwater Rule, The American Psychiatric Association deems it unethical for licensed psychiatrists to comment on a public figure’s mental or psychological health unless granted official permission.

In her complaint, Lee called the rule a “gag order” that operated “in conflict with psychiatrists’ duties, responsibilities, and role in the interest of public health in light of her belief that Donald Trump posed a dangerous threat to this country and the world.”

Lee also noted that she had not diagnosed Dershowitz but had commented on the “widespread phenomenon of ‘shared’ psychosis’.” Lee believed that “President Trump’s followers were likely to be influenced to some degree by his pathology because of the level of exposure, not necessarily because of the specific use of the word “perfect” but by the exaggerated sense of self and impunity they seemed to share.”

Dershowitz told the Yale Daily News that he was not privy to Lee’s suit until the paper had contacted him. “[Lee] credits me with getting her fired,” hehe said. “I’m not that powerful. I am pleased with the fact that I brought to Yale’s attention the facts that demonstrate her deviation from professional norms. The facts are the facts, and Yale acted on the documented facts, not on my opinion.”

Watchdog group files complaint against Turning Point org over not disclosing donors

Turning Point Action, a sister organization to the conservative student activist group Turning Point USA that was launched to target Democrats in the 2020 election and founded by Trump ally Charlie Kirk, was hit with a Federal Election Commission complaint Tuesday filed by the dark money watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

In the FEC complaint, CREW alleges that Turning Point Action, a fundraising 501(c)(4) entity, failed to disclose donor information and violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by soliciting donations that were specifically targeted at re-electing Donald Trump and opposing Democrats in the 2020 election cycle.

“The FEC should investigate Turning Point Action for violating the Federal Election Campaign Act by failing to disclose any of its donors despite making more than $1.4 million in independent expenditures in 2020,” the complaint argues. “According to its filings with the FEC, Turning Point Action made more than $250 in independent expenditures in 2020 — indeed it made more than $1.4 million in independent expenditures — but it disclosed no contributors.”

According to the CREW complaint, Turning Point Action worked to influence “federal elections” and should therefore be required to disclose all of its donor information.

“The evidence shows, however, that Turning Point Action solicited and, on information and belief, received donations of more than $200 for the purpose of influencing federal elections and additionally for the purpose of furthering Turning Point Action’s independent expenditures,” the CREW complaint added.

“Because it solicited money it said it would spend supporting President Donald Trump’s reelection and Joe Biden’s defeat, Turning Point Action was required to disclose contributors who gave it money to influence federal elections or run independent expenditures under a landmark court decision won by CREW,” the watchdog group said in a Tuesday press release.

“According to its FEC reports, between August 20, 2020, and December 31, 2020, the group spent $1,428,161 on independent expenditures in federal elections,” CREW further noted. Furthermore, the group said, Turning Point Action did not disclose any contributors in those reports, and did not correct the filings by last week’s deadline, “despite the FEC notifying the group in early February that it was missing donor information in its reports.”

CREW President Noah Bookbinder told Salon on Wednesday that he was not surprised by this, since groups such as Turning Point Action “seek to avoid disclosing their donors at all costs.”

“The law, as clarified by CREW’s landmark victory in the Crossroads GPS case, makes clear that a group like Turning Point Action that spends money on independent expenditures has to disclose the identity of its major contributors and those who contributed more than $200 to further those ads,” Bookbinder said. “By bringing this complaint, CREW is seeking to compel the Federal Election Commission to enforce the law and Turning Point Action to disclose its contributors as it should have done from the start. Most dark money groups like Turning Point Action seek to avoid disclosing their donors at all costs, but in cases like this where the law is clear, that has to change. We hope the FEC will act promptly to compel compliance with the law so the public can know who is influencing elections.”

Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet declined to comment on the complaint when reached by Salon on Wednesday afternoon.

The news of the FEC complaint comes on the heels of a The New York Times report that Liberty University had “opted last fall not to renew” its contract with Kirk, the Turning Point founder. Liberty’s “think tank,” The Falkirk Center, which in part bears Kirk’s name, parted ways with the youthful conservative firebrand, a frequent guest on Fox News who reliably parrots right-wing talking points. Kirk’s departure from the conservative Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia, follows a storm of controversy after former university president Jerry Falwell Jr. was ousted after posting compromising pictures of himself not long after Politico published an exposé on his colorful personal life.

But the trouble for Turning Point USA and its subsidiary Turning Point Action doesn’t stop there.

In December, at the annual TPUSA Student Action Summit, student activists were locked out of their own conference due to coronavirus restrictions in West Palm Beach, Florida. “Let us in, let us in, let us in,” TPUSA activists yelled at the doors of the convention center. At the same gathering, the energy drink company, Bang Energy, sent its “Bang Girls” to blast cash into the crowd with a massive T-shirt cannon. “Oh, wow. I thought that was some sort of Vegas nightclub. That really happened at a conservative conference for teens?” conservative radio host Todd Starnes stated at the time. The American Conservative headlined its commentary on the blasting of cash, “Charlie Kirk’s Hooters Conservatism.”

Kirk’s organization, when not being hit with complaints or embroiled in evergreen right-wing drama, has also had to combat the upsurgee of white nationalist “groypers,” guided by Unite the Right attendee Nicholas Fuentes, who have shown up on college campuses across the country to hound Kirk over policy disputes and pepper the TPUSA founder with claims of not being right-wing enough.

At one Turning Point USA event featuring Donald Trump Jr. in November 2019, Fuentes’ far-right followers heckled Kirk over skipping the Q&A session of his speech and refusing to take questions from the far-right crowd. With many of Fuentes’ followers reportedly taking part in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, TPUSA may have an opportunity to distinguish itself from the far-right, overtly racist “groypers.” who often ridicule Kirk and others as “cuckservatives” or worse.

In fairness, Kirk sent a tweet before the Capitol riots urging students to take part in the pro-Trump activities on Jan. 6, which he subsequently deleted. Turning Point Action chartered buses to bring TPUSA student activists to Washington to attend Trump’s rally that day, although the group has since tried to scrub all evidence of that from the internet.

“Turning Point Action (TPA) did bus some students to the January 6th rally, which included a speech from the President of the United States. Following the president’s remarks, and in keeping with itinerary, TPA bused those students immediately out of the area,” a Turning Point Action spokesperson told The Daily Dot in January.

What were cupcakes like in the 1700s?

Amelia Simmons invented the cupcake. And if that wasn’t enough for the history books, when she first published her cookbook in 1796, she cemented herself as the author of what is now recognized as the first American cookbook.

American Cookery, or (to give its full title) American Cookery, or the Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves and All Kinds of Cakes from the Imperial Plumb to Plain Cake. Adapted to This Country, and All Grades of Life (catchy, right?), is considered by food historians to be the first cookbook published in the U.S. by an American. The book included 119 recipes, marrying the traditions of British cooking at the time with new American ingredients, like “pompkin” (pumpkin), “cramberry-sauce” (cranberry sauce), and molasses in place of British treacle; it was also one of the first books (yet another pioneering moment for Simmons) to introduce the use of “pearlash,” a precursor to the baking soda most home cooks keep in their pantry. Before American Cookery, the only cookbooks available in the U.S. were British. In the introduction to a 1996 edition of American Cookery, food historian Karen Hess characterizes the book as inherently American, citing “the bringing together of certain native American products and English culinary traditions.” (And really, what could be more American than a cupcake?)

Figures like Fannie Farmer, author of the 1896 volume The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (now known as The Fannie Farmer Cookbook), are still well regarded in the industry today; but surprisingly, for such an important historical figure, and all those “firsts,” Simmons remains relatively unknown.

Simmons identifies herself in her book’s preface as “an American orphan.” It’s generally assumed that she worked in domestic service, and hailed from the Northeast, either Hartford, Connecticut, or in New York’s Hudson Valley.

“She was establishing herself as someone who struggled early on but made something of herself,” Elizabeth Fleitz, an associate professor of English at Lindenwood University in Saint Charles, Missouri, told me in an email exchange. At this time in the U.S., orphaned young women were not given much agency — as Simmons writes, women without family or money, “must depend solely upon character.”

“What’s more stereotypically ‘American’ than that?” notes Fleitz of Simmons’s attitude. “It’s relatable, it’s inspiring, and it makes you want to know more about her.”

Unfortunately, there’s not much more information on Simmons to be found.

Pamela Cooley, an archivist, instructor in historical cookery, and a leading expert on Simmons, explains one theory: She may have died shortly after publishing the second edition of American Cookery, in the same year as the first. “Other cookbook writers of that time we do know something about, like English writers, and even just 10 years later [than American Cookery‘s publication] we knew a lot about other American women authors,” she explains, calling to mind writers like William Verral, author of A Complete System of Cookery, published in 1759 in London; or Mancunian Elizabeth Raffald, whose book The Experienced English Housekeeper was published in 1769.

Fleitz though, has another hunch: that Simmons’s absence from mainstream food history is simply because of her gender. “In part it’s likely due to misogyny, since it would be hard for a woman to be published elsewhere other than cookbooks.”

In her writing on the topic, Fleitz points to cookbooks as a unique space where a woman could “establish her own voice, expertise, and ethos, even while remaining inside a patriarchal paradigm.” Social historian Janet Theophano echoes this sentiment in her book Eat My Words: Reading Women’s Lives Through the Cookbooks They Wrote, emphasizing the importance of cookbooks as “opportunities for women to write themselves into being.” Fleitz also notes that classism played a huge role in the little information available on Simmons: “Since she was a domestic servant, that’s why there aren’t other documents to establish her existence, such as real estate records.” In The Atlantic, Andrew Beahrs describes Simmons’s writing as “sure and confident,” another surprise, given that the degree of literacy required to write and publish a cookbook in the late 1700s would have been unusual for an American woman, particularly a woman of Simmons’s modest social standing. When she registered the copyright for her book in 1796, of approximately 78 registrations, Simmons was one of only two women to register a copyright in the U.S. that year.

Though we can assume she likely had little formal education, by the time the book went into its second edition (later in 1796), Simmons included a new introduction to correct the numerous mistakes and additions made by the transcriber. “She was really mad,” notes Cooley, “because the transcriber made a lot of errors,” as well as included a “market guide” (which reads similarly to many cookbooks published today, offering the reader instructions on how to pick out the best produce). But Simmons had higher expectations of her audience, acidly calling the guide, “an affront upon the good sense of all classes of citizens,” claiming that it was added to the manuscript without her knowledge or consent, due to “the ignorance or evil intention of the transcriber for the press.”

While Cooley notes that a lot of the recipes in American Cookery are directly copied from English cookbooks, some of them “copied word for word” from existing cookbooks (a common practice at the time), we can assume many were written by Simmons herself.

In her research, Cooley notes that going into service in a kitchen (as it is believed Simmons did) would have given her “the guidance of ‘virtuous guardians,’ who might have aided her in developing her culinary expertise,” which she would then have used in creating some of the recipes in American Cookery.

* * *

While many of the ingredients mentioned in American Cookery are recognizable, and the recipes usable, by today’s standards, others are a bit odd. Though Simmons effectively published the first cupcake recipe (she called it “a light cake to bake in small cups”), it’s quite different from the treat we know today.

“Half a pound sugar, half a pound butter, rubbed into two pounds flour,” reads the first part of the recipe, which feels comparable to the average cake. Then, things take a turn: “one glass wine,” plus the same amount of rose water. (How big a glass? Your guess is as good as mine.) Nutmeg, cinnamon, currants, and “emptins,” (which American Heritage defines as “a mixture of hops and the dregs of beer or cider casks,” theoretically introducing yeast to the cakes as a leavening agent, given there are no eggs, baking powder, or baking soda here) — no measurements given — round out the recipe. To me, these “cupcakes” are more akin to a modern fruitcake or British Christmas cake than a boxed mix of Duncan Hines Classic Yellow.

By 1828, the term “cup cake” was used in Eliza Leslie’s Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats cookbook. Though the recipe was starting to look a bit more comparable to today’s cupcakes (eggs, molasses, brown sugar, butter, milk, flour, and warm spices), there’s no doubt she was influenced by Simmons.

Though we still know very little about Simmons’s background, we do know she was a remarkable woman for her time, eking out a living from writing about food — a trade still very much alive today.

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The $0 trick to always-clean kitchen shelves

Welcome to Your No-Sweat Guide to Spring Cleaning, a month-long series that puts the fun (yep, for real!) back into cleaning. We’re talking spruce-ups that take less than five minutes, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that hacks, and hands-off cleaning tasks that basically . . . do themselves — plus our trustiest tools and helpers. The goal: clean less, go outside more.

* * *

Kitchen cabinets are actually some of the messiest spots in the home: where spills, stains, and drips go to turn into unrecognizable gunk. This can be particularly upsetting if, like me, you have recently updated cabinets that you want to try to keep shiny and new for as long as humanly possible. (All this time spent indoors has made that window real short!) A couple months after moving into our home early last year, I was forced to clean a nasty mess of cooking oils, turmeric, and sugar off an otherwise pristine surface, and that was when I decided there had to be a better way.

Enter, a tried-and-true trick à la Mom: recycled-paper liners.

I scrambled to start saving old magazines and newspapers (Yes, I still buy those on weekends). The sheets of paper that came as packing material with so many online purchases? Those would do, too. Bit by bit, I built up enough to go around my kitchen. Months later, I have a shelf in my coat closet that’s earmarked just for old paper. In a New York-sized apartment that might seem like a generous allocation of space — but let me tell you, it’s worth it. A shelf-liner makes clean up both quicker and easier.

Full disclosure: I’ve had sporadic runs-ins with other liners in previous homes. I once tried the self-adhesive kind, which was decidedly tough to remove and left residue on the surface. Never again! I was also once bequeathed a couple rolls of a spongy, no-slip liner by a previous occupant, but it had little holes in it, which let all the crumbs and dirt out onto the surface beneath. It was also not always no-slip — bunching up every time I took something out.

With paper, on the other hand, you can either wipe it down (glossy, thick magazine paper works best for this), brush it off, or just pick it up carefully and dust it into the sink. And when things get real nasty — you just replace it, no purchases necessary. Either way, the surface of the shelf stays clean.

Heavy-weight (used or new) wrapping paper also does the job — with the added bonus of bringing good cheer via a bright color or pattern. Like the bright sole of a shoe, a kitchen drawer liner is a fun place to find a bold surprise. I once absentmindedly used a magazine spread with risqué underwear ad, which was interesting to find peeping out from under my condiments.

Here’s how I recommend you use them (but I bet you know this one):

Dampen a cleaning cloth and wipe down your shelves and drawers thoroughly, using a cleaning solution.
Wait for them to dry.
Position a sheet of paper (double up for problem areas) on the shelf.
Fold inward along the edges of the shelf for size (I run my thumbnail along the lengths of the folds to make ’em sharp) and invert the paper. Voilà! You don’t even need to cut it.

I now use this trick all over my home, in every closet, under-sink cabinet, and bathroom vanity. Lining my dresser drawers provides a clean surface for my clothes, and in the case of my vintage furniture (that’s not necessarily in impeccable shape . . . because, vintage) liners give them a fresh start.

But it’s still the kitchen where it’s the handiest in helping me keep things tidy. Is it perfect? No. Are there other liners available to purchase? Of course. But paired with a couple other storage tricks to catch drips and dribbles, like lazy Susans and trays, I’d say my shelves are in good hands.

My final piece of advice: Always make sure the bottles you’re putting back are clean. I like to give repeat offenders a quick wipe with a damp sponge cloth after a cooking sesh. Clean containers = clean shelves.

Read more:

8 Cleaning Tasks That Basically Do Themselves

Meghan McCain gets roasted after suggesting “identity politics” could force her to lose “View” job

Meghan McCain once again finds herself at the center of online controversy, this time for complaining that demands for more diversity in President Biden’s administration are simply a “natural progression of identity politics.”

On Wednesday’s episode of “The View,” the co-hosts discussed Democratic Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s recent pledge to vote no on “all non-diversity nominees” until Asian Americans are named to more high-level positions in the Biden administration. Duckworth told CBS News, “We don’t have anybody either (at a senior level) in the West Wing or in a cabinet-level position, and I don’t think that’s a good message to send to a significant portion of our nation’s population — a population that’s really hurting right now after a year of being under attack.”

21-year-old Robert Aaron Long went on a shooting spree in Atlanta and killed eight people, six of whom were Asian-American women, last week.

On Wednesday, McCain directed a question to her fellow co-hosts and viewers: “We’ve only had one Asian American host co-host this show. Does that mean one of us should be leaving because there’s not enough representation?”

McCain fretted that someone who is “more qualified who happens to be a white straight person who has more experience” in their field may lose out on opportunities to a “minority with less experience.”

In response, Sunny Hostin pointed out “it’s not about gender and race being more important than qualifications” it is about “the fact that there are many qualified women and minority candidates that never get the opportunity because of the advancement of generally white male mediocrity.”

Sunny to Meghan McCain: "It's not about gender and race being more important than qualifications. It's about the fact that they're MANY qualified women & minority candidates that never get the opportunity because of the advancement of generally white male mediocrity." 🔥#TheView pic.twitter.com/kFWJjf2eUV

— Live On The Chat (@LiveOnTheChat) March 24, 2021

Others on Twitter have taken McCain to task for the comment:

There have been more View co-hosts who are children of famous people than view co-hosts who are Asian. Does she really think that's because there aren't enough Asian people with the right qualifications? https://t.co/y5MGiQRtDD

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) March 24, 2021

Whew: this is an interesting take in many fronts. First: does Ms. McCain think she is qualified for this job or could it be possible that her bold face name late father opened those doors? Why does increasing diversity in Ms. McCain’s mind correlate with not ‘qualified’? https://t.co/S8UcG21huN

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) March 24, 2021

She says this so unironically. There are so many women more qualified for this seat at The View than Meghan McCain – and yet, there she is. pic.twitter.com/GxY20cSjKP

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 24, 2021

Racism is also being directed at yet another group: Black farmers, a group mentioned in McCain’s bizzarre rant. The Biden’s recently passed American Rescue Plan sets aside $5 billion in aid, mainly debt relief, directed to Black farmers, who have historically been discriminated against by the U.S. government, in particular. That has bothered many Republicans and right-wing commentators like McCain.

Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., decried the relief as “reparations.”

Black farmer: Lindsey Graham must apologize for 'racist' comment about subsidies kept from farmers of color for years https://t.co/iBHtBflEQq

— Dr. John W. Boyd, Jr. (@JWBoydNBFA) March 15, 2021

During an appearance on MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton”, John Boyd Jr., the president of the National Black Farmers Association called Graham out.

“I’ve been by his office and asked him to help me fix the problems at the United States Department of Agriculture that caused Black farmers to lose millions of acres of land and address the lack of loans and subsidies,” he said

He added: “He’s never once used his megaphone to speak out against the discrimination.”

In the latest of attacks against Black farmers, Steven Crowder, a conservative commentator also made a horrifically racist reference to slavery.

Marjorie Taylor Greene tries to attack Democrats over Boulder shooting and it blows up in her face

Pro-QAnon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA, on Tuesday attacked gun safety laws as ineffective in the wake of the mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado that left 10 people dead.

“Colorado has everything the left has asked for,” Greene wrote on Twitter. “And it still didn’t stop a thug like Ahmad Al-Issa from murdering Americans.”

Many of Greene’s followers noted that she was wrong about Colorado’s gun laws, as one noted that it’s possible to buy a handgun in Colorado without a permit, contrary to Greene’s claims.

Additionally, some of her followers noticed that she jumped to name the shooter when he had a foreign-sounding name but didn’t mention any of the many white mass shooters that have killed Americans over the last year.

Check out some replies to Greene below.

Colorado has everything the left has asked for…

• Universal Background Checks
• Red Flag gun seizure laws
• "Hi-capacity" magazine bans
• A passing gun-control grade from @GiffordsCourage

And it still didn't stop a thug like Ahmad Al-Issa from murdering Americans.

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) March 23, 2021

Can electoral politics save us? On guns and voting, our democracy is broken

Ted Cruz just had another one of his many childish tantrums, this time over the indignity of having to care if the Americans he was elected to govern live or die. The bodies of the ten shot dead by a gunman on Monday in Boulder, Colorado were hardly cold, yet Cruz was far more concerned about the tender feelings of gun nuts.

“After every mass shooting,” he whined, “Democrats propose taking away guns from law-abiding citizens,” holding it out as self-evidently preposterous that someone might want to stop such crimes before they happen.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing Tuesday was a direct response not just to the Boulder shooting, but the one in Atlanta, Georgia that left eight dead just the week before. Cruz’s implication that Democrats are just trying to exploit the news cycle, however, is flat out false. Just days before the Atlanta shooting, Democrats in the House passed two bills meant to close down loopholes in the federal background check system.

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Background checks help but are an incomplete solution. Ideally, the U.S. would implement a near-total ban, coupled with a buyback program, like the ones that have worked in Australia and New Zealand. Still, background checks are indisputably popular.

In response to misinformation being spread on social media by an NRA talking head earlier this month, Politifact looked over the polling data on universal background checks and found that support wasn’t just robust, but wildly so. Depending on the wording of the question, polls in 2019 and 2020 found support for the policies in the Democratic bills ranging from 83-93% of the public. Not only is the idea popular with Democrats, but also Republican voters. NPR’s 2019 poll, for instance, found 79% support for universal background checks with Republicans. Similarly, 70% of voters — including a majority of GOP voters — support banning assault weapons, such as the AR-15 recovered at the scene of the Boulder shooting.

The reality is that only about 10% of Americans are Lauren Boebert types, that is to say such fanatical right-wing zealots as to flip out at even the most reasonable restriction on gun purchases. Most everyone else in the country would like it to be slightly harder for wife beaters and would-be school shooters to get their hands on weapons of mass death. But despite the Democratic bill polling at ice cream and puppies levels, the general opinion in the political media is there is no way it will become law.

The most immediate reason is the filibuster, which gives the Republican minority in the Senate veto power over most legislation the Democratic majority would want to pass. In theory, Democrats could — and most want — to reform the filibuster so that it’s not an all-purpose veto point for the minority. Unfortunately two Democrats — Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Krysten Sinema of Arizona — continue to foolishly insist that keeping the filibuster is good for “bipartisanship,” even though the reality is that it allows Republicans to unilaterally determine what passes, despite being the minority.

The larger problem is that the entire federal system has been tilted in such a way as to give conservative voters a disproportionate amount of representation. Democrats in the House won more votes than Republicans in the 2020 election, but somehow still lost a dozen seats. Democrats in the Senate represent 41.5 million more people than Republicans, but only have half the seats, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaker. If Democratic representation in Congress reflected who voters actually vote for, Democrats would have all the votes in the Senate they need to end the filibuster, even without Manchin and Sinema.

The problem is that all this procedural and legal analysis is both boring and too complicated for anyone who isn’t a total political buff to follow. So a lot of voters don’t understand how thoroughly broken the system is, beyond some general sense that politicians are incapable of getting anything done. There’s a real danger, then, that voters will blame Democrats, and not the larger system, for the gridlock. Indeed, that’s what Republicans are counting on, which is why they obstruct every bill, no matter how popular it is. The hope is Democratic voters will get disillusioned and give up even bothering to vote — and there’s a very good chance it will work.

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The For the People Act has been and should remain the topline Democratic priority because it directly addresses some of the anti-democratic obstacles that make it hard for voter opinions to be heard in D.C. It is, however, a complicated issue that is hard to explain in soundbites. It’s hard to quickly explain to confused voters how Biden’s victory doesn’t disprove the fact that Democrats face an unfair playing field. The whole issue involves math and statistics, often complex ones, which are notorious for turning people’s attention off.

With the gun control issue, however, Democrats are looking at either a serious threat or a major opportunity, depending on how they handle it. The issue is both attention-getting — nearly everyone in the country is attuned to the threat of mass shootings — and straightforward. People are getting guns who shouldn’t be getting guns. The vast majority of Americans oppose it. This should be simple. If any issue illustrated how the system is tilted to favor a minority — in this case, a minority of only 10% of Americans! — over the majority, it’s this issue.

This shooter was able to kill 8 people the same day he purchased a gun, but right now the Georgia legislature is trying to prevent people from voting the same day they register.

That’s a distortion of values. pic.twitter.com/qFok7lMibx

— Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) March 22, 2021

Passing voting rights legislation is key, of course. But the gun control bill, due to its simplicity and popularity, may be even more effective at capturing public attention and highlighting for voters how broken our system is and how obstructionist Republicans really are. It might also be useful to help Manchin and Sinema understand how badly they’re failing voters if they can’t even get a bill backed by 90% of people — talk about bipartisanship! — through the Senate.

Sen. Padilla: "In a majority of states, new voters are able to obtain a rifle quicker than they're able to cast their first ballot. It seems to me we have our priorities entirely backwards when it comes to this — when we make it easier to buy a gun than we do to cast a ballot." pic.twitter.com/W87OCNCkJ0

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 23, 2021

Failure to pass a universal background check through the Senate could do the opposite, illustrating to voters that nothing they care about matters to politicians in D.C. And while technically it’s true that the answer to the dilemma is for voters to redouble efforts to elect more Democrats, preventing a couple of obstruction-friendly holdouts from gumming up the works, the reality is that’s not how voter psychology works. It’s very difficult for people to keep going in the face of failure. They need proof their efforts matter — and a popular gun bill passing would be that proof.

A recent report from the democracy watchdog group Freedom House shows a precipitous drop in the U.S. ranking among world democracies, dropping 11 points so that it’s no longer ranked among nations like the United Kingdom and Germany, but instead has slipped to where countries like Romania and Poland rank. Frankly, that may still be too generous, considering how it’s become impossible to pass even broadly popular and commonsensical laws like universal background checks. The chance to change the narrative and reinvigorate American democracy is now. Can Democrats pass a bill supported by 90% of Americans? Or has our democracy failed to the point where even that is impossible?

Biden adds Asian-American liaison after Tammy Duckworth, Mazie Hirono threaten to block nominees

The White House announced on Tuesday that it will add a senior-level Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) liaison after Sens. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, threatened to block President Joe Biden’s nominees over lack of representation.

Duckworth and Hirono dropped their ultimatum late Tuesday after White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced that the administration would add a senior AAPI liaison “who will ensure the community’s voice is further represented and heard.”

“The President has made it clear that his Administration will reflect the diversity of the country,” Psaki said in a statement to CBS News.

Duckworth, the first woman of Thai descent in Congress, and Hirono, the first Asian-American woman to serve in the Senate, welcomed the move. They are currently the only U.S. senators of Asian descent, although there have been seven others, including Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Senator Duckworth appreciates the Biden Administration’s assurances that it will do much more to elevate AAPI voices and perspectives at the highest levels of government, including appointing an AAPI senior White House official to represent the community, secure the confirmation of AAPI appointments and advance policy proposals that are relevant and important to the community,” Duckworth spokesman Ben Garmisa said in a statement to NBC News. “Accordingly, she will not stand in the way of President Biden’s qualified nominees — which will include more AAPI leaders.”

Hirono said she too would “continue voting to confirm” Biden’s “historic and highly qualified” nominees after a “productive conversation with the White House today to make clear my perspective about the importance of diversity in the President’s cabinet.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Duckworth told reporters that she would block Biden’s sub-Cabinet and judicial appointments after criticizing him for not including any Asian Americans among his 15 Cabinet appointments.

“I’ve been talking to them for months. And they’re still not aggressive,” Duckworth told reporters, according to HuffPost. “So I am not going to be voting for any nominees from the White House other than diversity nominees. I’ll be a ‘No’ on everyone until they figure this out. … I will vote for racial minorities and LGTBQ, but anybody else I’m not voting for.”

Duckworth said the “trigger” for her ultimatum was a tense phone call with Biden aides, including deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon on Monday, according to Politico, who she said touted Vice President Harris’ South Asian heritage when the senator raised concerns about the lack of AAPI representation in the Cabinet.

“To be told that you have Kamala Harris, we are very proud of her, you don’t need anybody else, is insulting,” Duckworth told reporters. “That’s not something you would say to the Black caucus — that you have Kamala — we’re not going to be putting any African Americans in the Cabinet — why would you say that to AAPIs?”

Hirono backed Duckworth hours later.

“We would like to have a commitment from the White House that there be more diversity representation in the Cabinet and in senior White House positions and until that happens I will be joining her in voting on non-diversity nominees,” she told reporters, according to The Hill. “This is not about pitting one diversity group against another. So I’m happy to vote for a Hispanic, a Black person, an LGBTQ person, an AAPI person. I’d just like to see more diversity representation.”

There are no AAPI members in Biden’s Cabinet but Katherine Tai, who is of Chinese descent, was unanimously confirmed last week as the first Asian American U.S. trade representative, which is a Cabinet-level position but not one of the 15 federal department heads.

“I realize that we have Katherine Tai, but I don’t think the trade representative is what the community understands as a Cabinet level,” Hirono told CNN.

Biden previously nominated Neera Tanden, who is Indian-American, to be the head of the Office of Management and Budget — another Cabinet-level position — but Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., along with every Republican in the Senate, sank her appointment, ostensibly over Tanden’s mean tweets about senators.

Biden has also named Asian Americans to several sub-Cabinet level positions. Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is of Indian descent, was confirmed as surgeon general on Tuesday. Biden has also nominated Julie Su to become the first Asian American woman to serve as deputy labor secretary. Asian-American lawmakers and advocates had pushed for both to be named to Cabinet positions, according to Politico.

House Veterans Affairs Chairman Mark Takano, D-Calif., said earlier this year that he was “profoundly disappointed” in the lack of AAPI representation in Biden’s Cabinet.

“As much as I view myself as a friendly ally of this president, I think he’s erred in [that] he has chosen to exclude Asian Americans from his 15 Cabinet secretaries,” he told PBS News in January.

The issue has gained prominence in recent days after a gunman went on a shooting spree at three Atlanta-area spas last week, killing eight people, including six Asian women, and sparking a national conversation about anti-Asian racism.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed to quickly advance two bills aimed at addressing the issue, according to The New York Times. The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, sponsored by Hirono and Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., would assign a Justice Department official to “expedite the review of COVID-19-related hate crimes, providing support for state and local law enforcement agencies to respond to these hate crimes, and coordinating with local and federal partners to mitigate racially discriminatory language used to describe the pandemic.”

A separate bill sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would create new offices at the DOJ, FBI and Department of Homeland Security to focus on domestic terrorism.

“Here in America, we all know that an attack against any one group is an attack against all of us,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “So it is up to all of us now to stand up and speak out in support of the Asian-American community in America.”

Michael Moore facing right-wing backlash over Boulder shooter “truly assimilate” tweet

Documentary filmmaker and activist Michael Moore is facing criticism online after floating the idea that “people can come from all over the world and truly assimilate into our beloved American culture,” in light of the news that the alleged Boulder, Colorado, shooter was born in Syria.

“The life of Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa shows that people can come from all over the world and truly assimilate into our beloved American culture,” Moore tweeted on Wednesday night, with an attached photo of the Statue of Liberty.

Moore faced swift backlash Wednesday morning on from many on the political right who resented the implicit message that mass shootings have become a part of “beloved American culture.” Critics called Moore’s tweet “heartless,” in “poor taste,” and a bit too soon following the deadly shooting.

“Did you really tweet this? We allowed him [to] refuge in our country & he repaid us by murdering our own people,” Trump superfan and MAGA activist Scott Presler replied on Twitter. “This is most heartless tweet I’ve seen in a long time.” Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro also fired back at Moore’s tweet: “Yes, clearly ‘American culture’ is to blame when a reportedly mentally ill Syrian immigrant who expresses hatred for Trump and concerns about “Islamophobia” shoots up a supermarket. You are egregiously terrible,” he responded.

Right-wing podcaster Tim Pool, who reportedly used his cat as a “bargaining chip in an ugly business negotiation,” tweeted, “Michael Moore supports gun violence and terrorism.” Conservative pundit Dave Rubin added: “What a vile creature you have become.”

The alleged shooter, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, has been arrested in connection to the mass shooting at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder on Monday, which left 10 people dead.

A family member of the alleged shooter told The Daily Beast that he believed his sibling was mentally ill. The alleged shooter’s 34-year-old brother, Ali Aliwi Alissa, said he thought the shooting was “not at all a political statement” but rather reflected “mental illness.” Ali Aliwi Alissa continued, “The guy used to get bullied a lot in high school. He was like an outgoing kid, but after he went to high school and got bullied a lot, he started becoming anti-social.” The Beast also reported that in a now-deleted Facebook posting, the alleged shooter said he was “born in Syria 1999 came to the USA in 2002.”

Moore is best known for his award-winning film on gun violence, “Bowling for Columbine,” which spotlighted “the proliferation of guns” in America. His film makes the case that the rise of guns in the U.S. lead to the deadly 1999 Columbine High School shooting. Back in 2019, Moore told MSNBC that gun control activism efforts would make a difference one day. “The 78 percent of this country that does not own a gun are going to get the legislation passed,” he stated at the time. “We can fix this.”

“Morning Joe” guest accuses hosts of spreading “inaccuracies” about Biden’s border policies

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” was recently called to task by a guest who claimed the hosts pushed a number of inaccuracies when discussing President Joe Biden’s border policy.

“There were a lot of inaccuracies in a Morning Joe segment that just ended,” Atlantic reporter Caitlin Dickerson tweeted soon after appearing on the show Tuesday. “I only got a chance to respond to some of them and wanted to provide further clarity.”

On the segment, host Joe Scarborough and Dickerson discussed the current influx of migrants crossing the border that’s been causing an immigration crisis. Scarborough insinuated that immigration during the Biden Administration has seen the most migrants crossing the border, accusing them of not doing enough.

Dickerson clarified, however, that American asylum laws allow unaccompanied minors to cross the border, which was already in place before Joe Biden’s presidency. She also said that the Biden administration is restoring case management programs that were eliminated by the Trump administration, which means court appearances have increased.

“The general implication was that requesting asylum is unfair or illegal. It’s not,” she said.

Later in the conversation, Scarborough falsely stated that the Biden administration is “sending a message across Central America if you’re an unaccompanied minor and make that really dangerous trek, we’re going to let you in.”

“The facts are that Joe Biden has really botched this up,” said Scarborough. “His administration has botched this up.”

Scarborough referred to reports that some migrants weren’t given instructions about when to appear for an immigration hearing.

“Even when illegal immigrants get a notice to appear, often, maybe 25, maybe 25%, maybe a third of those given those notice to appear actually come back and show up in court. This is sending a message that I fear is going to just lead to more chaos at the border.”

On Twitter, Dickerson used the platform to explain herself and the policy fully.

“It is a not a ‘Biden administration policy’ that allows unaccompanied minors to request legal protection at the border,” she Tweeted. “That is the American asylum system, codified into law by congress in the the Refugee Act of 1980,” she continued.

Backlash to Dr. Oz hosting “Jeopardy!” grows: Past contestants protest, angry fans call for boycott

Following the death of longtime “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek in November 2020, fans of the show speculated about who would be a worthy successor. Several proposed hosts gained immediate traction — former “Jeopardy” champion Ken Jennings, actor and “Reading Rainbow” host LeVar Burton, CNN legal analyst Laura Coates.

One name that did not come up, however, was Dr. Mehmet Oz, whose current guest hosting gig on the show has sparked the hashtag #BoycottJeopardy.

The initial backlash began in February, when it was announced that Oz would host the show for two weeks, part of a line-up of temporary guests that includes “Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the associate chief of the neurosurgery service at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and chief medical correspondent at CNN.

As Salon’s Igor Derysh reported, Oz has “been repeatedly called out by other doctors as a ‘quack’ for pushing discredited ‘miracle” health products,'” most recently espousing the virtues of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment on Fox’s airwaves. Criticism about his unfounded claims has been ongoing, however.

In 2014, Oz was criticized by Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri after he touted a supplement called green coffee bean extract, which he called “a magic weight loss cure for every body type,” which was based on a single, small study that was later retracted. Several months later, a British medical journal published a study claiming that fewer than half of the on-air recommendations on “The Dr. Oz Show” were supported by scientific evidence.

Following the announcement from “Jeopardy!,” over 500 of the show’s former contestants signed an open letter to the show’s current executive producer saying that they believe “Dr. Oz stands in opposition to everything that Jeopardy! stands for.”

The letter alleges that Oz used his authority as a doctor to push harmful ideas onto the American public, including “promoting supplements that do nothing, legitimizing gay conversion therapy (which is banned in California, as well as 19 other states), dangerous ‘cures’ for autism, and, most recently, the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.”

It continued: “And what kind of message does this send to the LGBTQ+ and autistic contestants and viewers of Jeopardy!?”

Despite the outcry, Oz started his guest hosting stint on Monday.

“You know, I was so fortunate to become friends with Alex, and I visited him and this show as often as I could,” Oz said at the top of the show. “One of my favorite memories was of Alex showing me, with immense pride, a room full of letters and support for him from you, from his fans. And of all of his achievements he was most proud of his connection with all of you at home.”

Fans of the show, however, did not extend the same support to Oz. Using the hashtag #BoycottJeopardy, viewers called Oz a “snake oil salesman” and “the antithesis of the honest desire for knowledge that Alex Trebek stood for throughout his career.”

This isn’t the first “Jeopardy!” guest host that has incited controversy. In December, “unartful and insensitive” tweets by Ken Jennings, who holds the all-time record for most consecutive “Jeopardy!” games won, resurfaced.

One tweet from 2014 read, “Nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair,” while another in 2015 included a joke about a terminally ill “Star Wars” fan who got to watch “The Force Awakens” before he died. Jennings had previously refused to delete these tweets, saying that they “could lead to smart replies and even advocacy. Deleting them felt like whitewashing a mistake.”

He eventually issued a full apology on Twitter, writing: “Sometimes I said dumb things in a dumb way and I want to apologize to people who were (rightfully!) offended. It wasn’t my intention to hurt anyone, but that doesn’t matter: I screwed up, and I’m truly sorry.”

He then stumbled into additional controversy by coming to the defense of John Roderick, his “Omnibus” podcast co-host — whom the internet dubbed “Bean Dad” after he tweeted a viral story about his daughter and a can of beans — after old racist, ableist and anti-semitic tweets were uncovered.

Both the Jennings and Oz controversies reignited interest in the Change.org petition endorsing LeVar Burton as the next host of the game show, which was, as Salon’s Melanie McFarland reported, created to “show Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and producers Mike Richards and Harry Friedman just how much love the public has for Burton.” It now has almost 115,000 signatures.

Corporate climate pledges earn failing grades from investors

A group of more than 500 investors is shining a spotlight on the companies most responsible for climate change — and least prepared to change course. On Monday, the initiative, known as Climate Action 100+, released scorecards for the top carbon-emitting companies, spanning sectors like oil and gas, electric utilities, cement, airlines, steel, and chemicals. The group, which manages more than $50 trillion in assets, found that despite the barrage of corporate climate plans in the past year, most of those promises are still largely hollow.

The companies were assessed across nine categories of accountability; first and foremost, whether they had committed to achieving net-zero — a point where they are no longer contributing to the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere — by 2050 or sooner. Only about half of 159 companies passed that test.

In theory, getting to net-zero by 2050 could help the world achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and avert catastrophic warming. But in reality, success hinges on the pace and scale of action along the way. Even for the companies that have committed to going net-zero, Carbon Action 100+ found that their definitions of the goal varied, with only half accounting for the full scope of their emissions. Even fewer corporate plans contained short- and medium-term targets that passed muster under the report’s criteria.

Take BP, for example. The British oil company, which is now rebranding itself as an “integrated energy company,” has advertised its “net-zero ambition.” However, BP’s net-zero plan doesn’t cover all of the emissions that come from burning the oil it produces. And while BP has some semblance of short, medium, and long-term targets, none of those targets are ambitious enough to help the world limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). For oil companies, that’s par for the course.

Climate Action 100+ looked at more than emissions targets, assessing companies on whether they’ve disclosed specific strategies for achieving them, as well as the transparency of their lobbying activities and trade group memberships. While BP committed to conducting its lobbying to support policies that will help achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, for instance, the company does not publicly disclose its lobbying activities, making it impossible to see if it’s keeping that promise.

Pretty much every company failed one test — making an explicit commitment to align their capital expenditures with their emissions targets. These are their major, long-term investments, like plans to build new power plants or drill new oil wells. “The capital expenditure indicator doesn’t surprise me one bit, because this is new disclosures that we’re asking for for the first time,” said Adam Matthews, an investment officer for the Church of England Pensions Board, during a press briefing.

Part of the point of this “benchmarking” analysis, which Climate Action 100+ expects to do annually, is to clearly communicate what exactly investors expect of companies. Matthews said he expects the capital expenditure benchmark to look considerably different on the next report, “because it’s hard to ignore when you’ve got $54 trillion knocking on your door.”

The strategy appears to be working so far. The Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog organization, recently reported that investor pressure from Climate Action 100+ led the top two carbon emitting electric utilities in the U.S., Duke Energy and Southern Company, to disclose more information about their trade associations. Still, important details are missing, the watchdog group writes, such as information about the companies’ direct lobbying activities, which include advocating for policies that would slow climate action. Those exceptions did not elude the Climate Action 100+ assessors, who gave both utilities failing marks on the metric of “climate policy engagement.”

The investor group plans to expand its criteria to include a “just transition” in the next report, assessing whether each company has disclosed the impacts of transitioning to a lower-carbon business model on its employees and the communities it operates in. Some investors with Climate Action 100+ are pursuing complementary strategies on their own, like filing proposals with companies demanding specific disclosures and commitments. Those proposals will be voted on during the companies’ annual general meetings this spring. While the investors in the group have shared goals, ultimately it’s up to each member to decide whether they take further action, such as pull their investments, if companies don’t step up.

“This is an ambition that can’t be dodged, delayed, diluted,” said Anne Simpson, director of board governance and sustainability for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, during the press briefing. “We’ve got to be clear about the net-zero ambition, and then we’ve got to hold companies accountable.”

STDs are rising among teens. Can video games help?

Perhaps for no group does the specter of sexually transmitted diseases loom larger than it does for young people. At the beginning of the last decade, youth aged 15 to 24 accounted for half of new STD cases in the United States, though they made up just 27 percent of the sexually active population. An estimated 44 percent of all adolescents and young adults living with HIV/AIDS were unaware of their status. And by many accounts, the problem seemed to only be getting worse: Between 2016 and 2017, rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis each climbed by between 7 and 16 percent among U.S. adolescents.

Public health experts say these worrying trends likely result from a number of individual and systemic factors, including stigma, inadequate access to clinics, and a lack of appropriate sexual health education. In response, a growing cadre of researchers has begun to explore an alternative, technology-based approach to educating young people about healthy sex practices: video games.

The push to gamify sex education is part of a broader movement to deploy video games in targeting health issues ranging from depression to tobacco use. Proponents tout the games as cheaper and more accessible alternatives to the traditional small-group discussions typically held in schools and clinics. And while relatively few randomized controlled trials — considered the gold standard for research — have been performed to test the efficacy of game-based interventions in sex education, the ones that have suggest virtual sexual health education, and in particular video games, could be at least as effective as traditional methods in promoting things like condom use and STD testing.

In the past, the games’ developers — based largely in academia — have struggled to get their tools out of the research lab and into classrooms. They’ve been hampered by, among other things, funding constraints and a patchwork of state educational regulations. But the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace at which many of the country’s middle and high schools are moving toward digital learning, which has given some researchers hope that sex education curricula, and the age-old strategies for delivering it, are ripe for change.

* * *

For more than a decade, Lynn Fiellin, a professor of medicine at Yale University, has been at the forefront of the push to bring gaming into sex education. Fiellin is the founding director of play2PREVENT, a laboratory at the Yale Center for Health and Learning Games that develops video games and digital technology focused on improving the health of adolescents. Between 2012 and 2013, she and her colleagues developed a game called PlayForward, designed to improve teenagers’ knowledge of STDs and promote healthy sexual practices in general.

Like other games that play2PREVENT has developed, PlayForward is an interactive, story-driven role-playing experience. The user must navigate their avatar through a gauntlet of social situations: They might be asked to give advice to a classmate, talk about condom use with their partner, or get tested for STDs at a virtual clinic.

Although its storylines are original, PlayForward is conceptually similar to other sex education games developed in recent years, including interventions created by researchers at the University of Texas School of Public Health and by a collaboration involving researchers at George Washington University. A driving force behind all of these efforts is the idea that digital technologies, and specifically video games, by nature of their ability to engage with teenagers in a familiar medium, can be more effective than educational pamphlets or lectures as agents of behavioral change.

The evidence amassed so far offers some support for that idea. In one randomized trial involving 333 subjects aged 11 to 14, participants who played PlayForward twice a week for six weeks showed improved sexual health knowledge and attitudes compared with a control group. They were more likely, for instance, to believe that condoms should always be used during intercourse. Importantly, the positive effects lasted for at least 12 months after the gaming regimen concluded.

However, the study’s primary variable of interest — the timing of students’ decisions to become sexually active — showed mixed results. In the trial, students who played the game didn’t delay sexual activity for any longer than those who didn’t.

Still, other studies suggest games could be effective on this front too. In a three-year study of more than 4,000 Texas middle school students, those who played It’s Your Game: Keep It Real, developed at the University of Texas School of Public Health, were less likely to report having engaged in sexual activity by the time they reached ninth grade. Those that did have sex were also more likely to report having used condoms than were students in a control group.

Other studies have yielded similarly promising results. A University of Kentucky group’s analysis of a dozen randomized controlled trials found that computer-based interventions — including video games — were at least as effective as traditional sex education at decreasing the incidence of STDs and increasing condom use.

Still, some academics, such as Marc Potenza, professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, caution that the benefits of educational video games must be balanced against the potential consequences of encouraging teens to play video games in general, particularly considering the rising rates of internet gaming disorder among adolescents. Fran Blumberg, a psychology professor at Fordham University, worries that the games could be used by age groups they weren’t developed for and advises against relying on games as substitutes for traditional person-to-person learning.

These concerns are acknowledged by many of the game developers themselves. “We can do a lot with technology,” says Christine Markham, who is part of the University of Texas group. “But we also need to remember the interpersonal piece that young people really crave and need.”

Nevertheless, the promising results from clinical studies are fueling optimism that sex education video games can be a viable strategy for reaching young people who might otherwise slip through the cracks of the traditional sex education model. That model, which relies heavily on in-person group discussions, usually scheduled outside of class time, can suffer from limited capacity and low attendance rates, say experts. And with the Covid-19 pandemic disrupting in-person education for many U.S. students, those challenges are likely to grow. Fiellin says that in the year since remote learning began across the country, she has received more than 1,400 requests from educators seeking to access play2PREVENT’s offerings — which also include games focused on tobacco and opioid use prevention — as teachers have sought new digital tools to use during the pandemic.

* * *

If recent study results and the rise of digital learning are cause for bullishness about video games in sex education, history also offers this sobering lesson: It is one thing to develop a sexual health education intervention, and another entirely to scale it up and convince schools to incorporate it into their curricula.

Fiellin and her Yale colleague Tyra Pendergrass have learned this from experience. The researchers say that, in the past, as they’ve sought to distribute PlayForward and other games through school-based health centers, they’ve often had to jump through a frustrating series of bureaucratic hoops. “You may get three yeses from people working in the school,” Pendergrass said. “But then you also had to get three yeses from people who ran the school-based health centers.”

Complicating matters is the patchwork nature of education policy in the U.S., where different states impose different limitations on the content and implementation of sexual health education curricula. For example, 29 states require that abstinence be stressed when teaching about sexual health, and another 10 plus the District of Columbia require that abstinence be covered. Eight states either explicitly prohibit discussion of homosexuality and gender-nonconforming identities or prohibit the positive portrayals of those identities in public schools. Tailoring the games to meet these varying strictures adds another potentially costly layer to the development process.

Even when developers can customize games to meet state standards, they may not always want to. Some state-specific guidelines — especially those restricting LGBTQ-friendly content — run ideologically counter to developers’ aims, says Marguerita Lightfoot, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She says that inclusive gaming features, such as allowing users to choose their sexual orientation or gender-nonconforming pronouns, will be important for engaging broadly with young people and maximizing an intervention’s impact, particularly on issues like HIV/AIDS.

Efforts to deploy sex education gaming interventions can also run up against funding roadblocks, says Lisa Hightow-Weidman, a professor of medicine and health behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She notes that federal grants typically go to support the development of gaming interventions, but not the costs of distribution and maintenance, which must then be borne by the private sector or by cash-strapped states and local school districts.

Nevertheless, developers like Fiellin and her colleagues at play2PREVENT say they’ve been able to make encouraging inroads. After pilot testing PlayForward and putting it through the rigors of a randomized control trial, they made the game freely accessible to schools online. So far, says Fiellin, they’ve received more than 400 requests from educators, which, by her calculation, would allow it to reach 19,000 adolescents.

* * *

In early 2020, the play2PREVENT laboratory began pilot testing a new game, playTEST!, specifically aimed at boosting rates of HIV testing among adolescents. Modeled after PlayForward, the game allows players to go through the HIV testing process in a discreet, virtual setting, before having to do it in the real world. The hope, says Fiellin, is that it will ease some of the intimidation of traveling to a health clinic and talking about sexual health.

During the development stage, Fiellin and Pendergrass leaned heavily on partnerships with school-based health centers to enlist students to participate in testing and focus groups. Pendergrass says the focus groups delivered valuable feedback about which content worked and which didn’t: If a student can’t answer what HIV is, she explains, that tells the developers that they need to include a simple definition of the virus.

But Pendergrass says the students also provide another critical measure of the game’s viability: They reveal whether a game is any fun to play. Experts say this engagement factor is what sets a video game intervention apart from a pamphlet or lecture, a crucial ingredient for not just imparting knowledge but changing behavior.

In a pilot study involving 26 teenagers published in the journal mHealth last year, playTEST! appeared to clear the all-important bar of user engagement: Participants overwhelmingly said they enjoyed the game and felt connected to the characters. They also expressed increased intent to protect themselves against HIV.

The researchers are now analyzing data from a recently completed randomized controlled trial. If the game passes that more rigorous test, Fiellin and her colleagues will place it online and invite health educators across the country to make it a part of their sexual health education curricula. Although Fiellin says her hope is that playTEST! can help boost the woeful rates of HIV testing among young people, she says that such quantitative measures aren’t her only barometer for success. “Did they walk down to the school-based health center?” she asks. “Did they ask for a pamphlet on STDs?” If a video game pushes teenagers to develop self-efficacy and lead healthier lives in any way, she says, then it has served its purpose.

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Claudia Lopez Lloreda is a freelance science writer and neuroscience graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. See more of her work at claudialopezlloreda.com.

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

I’m uncomfortable attending a large Easter gathering. Am I being unreasonable?

Dear Pandemic Problems,

Easter is around the corner and my extended family wants to get together to celebrate — unmasked. Seven of the fifteen people (from 6 different households) would be vaccinated. The remaining are 4 children and 4 unvaccinated adults.

No one in my household of four is vaccinated yet.

Because we’ve been extremely cautious, they are all comfortable with us attending. We’ve been with the unvaccinated household before (to keep our kids together) and they’ve seen all the other vaccinated family members. We have not. Until my family (or at least the adults) are all vaccinated, I am uncomfortable with a large Easter gathering. Am I being unreasonable?

Sincerely,

Concerned Unvaccinated Family Member

Dear CUFM,

Easter is a holiday that symbolizes rebirth, even if you’re not Catholic. And legend has it that the Easter Bunny lays, decorates and hides its eggs, bringing in new life for spring. So it makes sense in a time where we’ve been surrounded by so much death — both literally and metaphorically — that Easter is a holiday many families are looking forward to. But by trying to arrange the logistics of such an event, like you’re doing right now, we’re reminded that we aren’t completely out of pandemic danger yet. Like an egg’s incubation period, we’re still in a transitional state. Unfortunately, it’s not quite time to hatch yet.

I know we are all desperate for some normalcy, some sort of gathering that isn’t confined by masks, social distancing, and the ever-present fear of getting COVID-19 and dying from it. You say seven of the fifteen people from six different households would be vaccinated. The remaining four are children and then there are four unvaccinated adults. The other households, you say, are okay with yours joining because you’ve been “extremely cautious.” Yet nobody in your household is vaccinated, which is making you “uncomfortable.”

Concerned Unvaccinated Family Member, I can see why you’re concerned. My head is already spinning with these numbers and keeping track of these households, who’s vaccinated and who’s being cautious and who’s comfortable with what. It’s. A. Lot. I could have spent hours consulting statistical tables to give you the probability of infection. Yet none of these details, frankly, will give you assurance you need that one of the unvaccinated won’t get COVID-19. So yes, you’re concerned. But is that different from being “unreasonable”?

Let me tell you a little story about a family gathering of my own.

Over Christmas, my extended family in the Midwest got together for a small family gathering (only four people). Everyone took the best precautions they knew to take. They isolated themselves for 14 days before Christmas. They took COVID-19 tests before getting together, all of which were negative. They were in the clear! They could have Christmas together! They could have fun! And so they did, albeit with heavy hearts since not everyone (like myself) could be there.

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On Christmas Day, one of the family members in the group had a small cough. But it couldn’t be COVID-19, he thought — his test had just come back negative. A couple days later, after Christmas, he felt even worse — fever and body aches. So he got tested again, and sure enough, he was positive for COVID-19. Not too long after, another one of my family members got COVID-19, too — and did I mention together they took care of my 89-year-old grandma? Miraculously, she managed not to get it by isolating in her room for two weeks, surviving on the food family would drop off. Everyone survived, fortunately. Still, it was a very stressful and uncertain few weeks.

I don’t mean to scare you, but my point of sharing this with you is that as long as people are unvaccinated and gathering unmasked, eating and drinking — even when they “do the right things” and have been “extremely cautious” beforehand — there is a risk that there could be a COVID-19 outbreak. And the more unvaccinated people that are gathering, the higher that risk is. My family, frankly, has no idea how they all got COVID-19.

So no, I don’t think you’re being “unreasonable” when it comes to this pandemic problem.

I don’t know much about this gathering, but it sounds like proper safety precautions won’t be in place, since you mention specifically that it will be “unmasked.” I know it’s no fun to be the one to throw gloom over a fun event, but you are in the unvaccinated household. There’s a lot at stake for you and your family. Now it’s time to assess the risk, and make a decision that you feel good about. And however you decide to proceed, don’t go on worrying if you’re being “unreasonable” or “reasonable” or not. Like I said before, Easter is a time of rebirth. New life. Perhaps it’s time to stop questioning yourself when it comes to being worried about the health and safety of your family. It’s OK to be concerned. In fact, I’d say it’s totally normal.

Sincerely,

Pandemic Problems

“Pandemic Problems” is a weekly advice column devoted to answering readers’ COVID-related questions — often with help from public health data, philosophy professors and therapists — who weigh in on how to “do the right thing.” Do you have a pandemic problem? Email Nicole Karlis at nkarlis@salon.com. Peace of mind and collective commiseration awaits.

Republicans have moved past the NRA: The GOP is now even more extreme on guns

After a year of illness, death and economic destruction, the vaccines are providing us with a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. So naturally, as we are all preparing to go back to the office or out to dinner or take a trip, it’s also time for us to start back up with the senseless mass shootings that are as much a part of our culture these days as March Madness and pizza delivery. Within the last five days, we have had two mass shootings killing a total of 18 innocent people in two separate states. Two 21-year-old men were able to get their hands on semi-automatic weapons in the days before they opened fire, one in Georgia and one in Colorado.

As I have confessed before, I’ve become regretfully pessimistic about the prospect for sensible gun laws in this country in recent years. After Newtown, Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, Pittsburgh, El Paso and dozens more, it just seems that we watch these horrific events unfold on TV and ask ourselves over and over what kind of civilized country would allow this carnage. Then the gun proliferation enthusiasts rush in with “thoughts and prayers” and make some empty gesture about banning an obscure firearm accessory after which there is grieving, political haggling and then, finally, nothing.

In years past, along with the usual “thoughts and prayers” there would often be some kind of temporary bipartisan agreement that “something must be done” as pundits and analysts insisted that “this time” we’ve come to “an inflection point.” Republican senators would offer some ineffectual band-aid that meant nothing, Democrats would balk after which the NRA, led by Wayne LaPierre, would sweep in and denounce even those small measures and that would be that.

The most heinous example of that dynamic came after the Newtown massacre of a classroom full of 6 years olds and their teachers by a very disturbed young man, once again using a semi-automatic weapon, purchased for him by his mother, whom he also killed. It was one of the most horrific mass shootings in US history, shaking even Republicans and NRA board members who assumed that they had no choice but to accede to some form of gun regulations. LaPierre, however, knew better. In the midst of overwhelming national grief and horror he went to Washington and declared that not only was the NRA not going to acquiesce to the demands of the political establishment and the public, but he was also going to double down. He defiantly declared:

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. What if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook elementary school last Friday, he’d been confronted by qualified armed security? Our children— we as a society leave them every day utterly defenseless, and the monsters and the predators of the world know it and exploit it.

And that was the end of that. The Republicans backed out, the Democrats backed down and the status quo was preserved. It was very politically risky but it paid off. LaPierre was able to demonstrate that not even the senseless murder of dozens of tiny children would make the Republicans defy the gun lobby. That’s real power and he wielded it ruthlessly. To that end, his contribution to the election of Donald Trump was one of LaPierre’s greatest accomplishments.

So, while I may have lost faith that the government would break its gridlock on this issue, I did think that it might start to crack when LaPierre flamed out last year in grand fashion after having been revealed to have financed a very extravagant lifestyle for himself through gross corruption on a massive scale. His ignominious firing and the infighting and recriminations in the organization that followed seemed to spell doom for the lobbying juggernaut’s hold on the Republican party and perhaps opened the door to some common sense.

Sadly, as with so much else in today’s GOP, the opening only made things even more extreme.

As Matt Cohen at Mother Jones reported, a number of extremist groups have stepped into the void. There is the Second Amendment Foundation, which recently filed a number of lawsuits challenging state gun control laws, and the National Association for Gun Rights, which paints itself as a more conservative alternative to the NRA — just in case you thought that organization was a bunch of bleeding hearts. There are also numerous local groups loosely and not so loosely affiliated with Neo-Nazi groups, militia, and others way out on the fringe who are filling the void that the NRA has left in its wake. In January of 2020, 20,000 armed extremists showed up in Virginia on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to protest a gun control law signed by Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam.

And we’ve seen the results of this new extreme gun proliferation activism in Congress with the election of freshmen representatives like Lauren Boebert, R-Co, Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga, and Madison Cawthorne, R-NC, all of whom have flaunted their devotion to firearms, even demanding they be allowed to carry them on to the floor of the congress. There have even been several incidents since the insurrection in which Republican representatives have attempted to bring their guns through metal detectors.

Greene tweeted this after President Joe Biden called for new gun safety regulation on Tuesday:

Molon labe. https://t.co/cc9IvnmDCr

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) March 23, 2021

“Molon labe!”, roughly translated as “come and take them” became popularized among the gun fetishists after they all saw the movie “300” and thought it was totally awesome.

Boebert reacted by rushing to fundraise:

Greene is from Georgia and Boebert is from Colorado, the two states where the mass shootings took place. You can see where their priorities lie.

And they aren’t the only ones. In the Senate on Tuesday, we saw the likes of Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of Lousiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Tom Cotton of Arkansas all making it clear in different ways that not only don’t they think this gun violence is a problem, they believe people should arm up to “defend themselves” against Antifa and Black Lives Matter, not to mention getting ready for some vigilante work on behalf of the police (who they apparently don’t mind seeing hit over the head with flagpoles and baseball bats as long as it for the cause.) The NRA is no longer necessary to buck up the wobbly Republicans at times like these. They are all Wayne LaPierre now.

Salon’s Amanda Marcotte had a somewhat optimistic take on this issue, pointing out that there is now a strong activist opposition, much more grassroots energy and some institutional support that hasn’t existed in the past. And she’s right that you just have to keep trying. There is simply no choice. But with the right getting more extreme in every way, their obsession with unfettered gun rights may take an even darker turn than we’ve seen up until now with its close ties to the domestic terror threat. It’s hard to believe but we may still not have seen the worst of this yet.