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Netflix’s engrossing Rubik’s Cube competition doc reminds us what we’re missing without the Olympics

For some, trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube is a way to pass the time – without the guarantee of satisfaction. For competitive “speedcubers,” solving the 3-D puzzle is a given, with the goal of achieving increasingly faster times to break records.

Solving is all that and more to Max Park, an American competitor who stole the World Championship title in 2017 from Australia’s Feliks Zemdegs, who had previously held back-to-back titles. Sue Kim’s absorbing and surprisingly sweet documentary “The Speed Cubers” – one of Netflix’s many July offerings – chronicles the rise of both of these young puzzle masters, their genuine friendship, and their highly anticipated face-off in 2019.

The beginning of the 40-minute short has no dialogue, but the images from the World Rubik’s Cube Championships in Melbourne are evocative. As glowing red numbers of a digital clock advance through seconds and milliseconds, competitors sit at long tables, laser-focused as their fingers fly and solidify the colors on each side of the cube. Solved, mostly in about 7 seconds – but less in the case of Feliks and Max.

How do they do it? In the film, Portland State University statistics professor Kit Clement explains the general method: the speedcubers learn algorithms (sequences of movements) to shift specific squares to different locations on the cube. If you string together the right algorithms, you solve the cube. Simple, eh?

Champions have the ability to memorize some 300+ algorithms and put them into practice. You can see it at work in this video in which Feliks first studies the patterns on the cube, and then makes a sub-5 solve, i.e. he solves the cube in less than 5 seconds. 

In the film, it’s fascinating to witness solve after blurry solve because no matter how many times we see it, it’s hard to follow what’s going on in Feliks’ or Max’s heads, much less their fingers. We can only imagine the mental nimbleness required to assess the patterns in seconds and translate that into dexterity born of muscle memory; this is not the work of an Average Joe’s brain. 

It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that some neuro-atypical people would be drawn to speedcubing, as is the case with Max. While “The Speed Cubers” first delves into Feliks’ childhood, showing early footage of him proudly featured on the local news for his cubing feats, the film shifts to reveal the less straightforward way that Max came to cubing. 

Diagnosed with autism as a child, Max had difficulty engaging with his parents, not to mention other people. Solving Rubik’s Cubes became an activity that his mother Miki taught him in order to bond; he was instantly hooked. But while his speedcubing skills improved, his social skills were lagging behind, and the competitions offered unforeseen lessons in life experience: how to act in public, how to make friends, and most importantly, how to deal with failure. 

Central to that development is Feliks. As a two-time World Champion and multiple world-record holder, he was Max’s cubing idol . . . and eventually became both rival and friend. But he also became a mentor or older brother of sorts. Feliks would always congratulate Max by text whenever he broke a record, even if it was Feliks’ own. He became a big part of how Max navigated leisure activities and the stressful competition atmosphere. 

Kim found and amplified this story beneath what might have become just another documentary highlighting a niche competition and its fans. She could have focused more on the oddball categories – like solving cubes one-handed, blindfolded . . . or with your feet. Instead, “The Speed Cubers” is an origin story of two champions and their unexpected friendship. Sure, you can root for either competitor going into the 2019 World Championship, but more importantly, the viewer is invested in an outcome that will make everyone as happy as possible.

Watching this short made me even more acutely aware of how much I’ve been missing the Tokyo Olympics, which had to be postponed this year due to the novel coronavirus. But to fill that void, I haven’t been watching old competition highlights or opening ceremonies. Instead, I’ve been consuming podcasts like ESPN’s “30 for 30” gymnastics miniseries “Heavy Medals” or even the non-Olympics series “The Competition,” which follows various real-life contests from the Cliburn International Piano Competition to the Los Angeles Mr. Leather contest. Both podcasts are deep dives that contextualize what competitors experience.

But back to the Olympics. Yes, the thrill of competition and watching feats of strength and agility are enough reasons to tune in, but the truly compelling aspect is the storytelling. The packages that reveal the character and personalities of the athletes are essential narratives that creates heroes and underdogs. I may know nothing about artistic swimming or sport climbing, but give me a few pointers and a horse to back, and I’m in. 

Most successful sports or competition narratives know this and make the stories personal, but “Speed Cubers” also makes the fantasy of having two friends on opposite sides of the globe into a reality. As with the Olympics, the bigger narrative is about global cooperation and empathy, that we are aligned in celebrating people who are alike in their pursuit of greatness no matter what country they’re representing. Despite past terrorist attacks and the scandals, the Olympics represent a time of international amity. Seeing the various competitors – from Germany, Australia, Korea, America – in “Speed Cubers” swarm around each other like reunited pals at summer camp also lets the viewer in on that easy camaraderie, in which neither language nor culture is a barrier.

And of course, kudos to Netflix for programming yet another project that highlights people with different abilities, such as those seen in the dating series “Love on the Spectrum.” While these young people with autism are learning skills to better navigate life, each new documentary is helping avearge viewers better appreciate people with atypical neurology, no matter how differently they’re presented. More representation of people with autism adds to the spectrum of our knowledge. Already, Max’s excellence has redefined what it means to be a champion and to have a disability. Upon meeting him, viewers around the world – because what bigger global platform is there than Netflix these days? – will be inspired to follow his progress.

Unlike the Olympics, the World Rubik Cube’s Championship is held every other year, which means that after the 2019 competition in “The Speed Cubers,” we’re not due for another until 2021 – the same year the Olympics are also supposed to return. Let’s hope that some advancement is made in coronavirus vaccines or safety precautions so that these competitors can once again take the world’s stage. In the meantime, the speedcubers are hard at work during quarantine to break the next record once the world opens up. 

“The Speed Cubers” is currently streaming on Netflix.

GOP congressman with COVID-19 tells Fox News he will take unproven treatment hydroxychloroquine

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tex., speaking from quarantine, told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday that he would be taking the unproven treatment hydroxychloroquine to combat COVID-19.

Gohmert — who earlier in the day tested positive for the disease at a White House screening ahead of a morning flight to Texas on Air Force One with President Donald Trump — told Hannity that he “would never have known” he was infected had it not been for the president.

After claiming that “all the models and all the doctors were wrong,” Hannity inquired about Gohmert’s health.

“Well, I feel OK. I’m a little tired,” Gohmert said. “But when you look at all the symptoms of COVID-19, I didn’t have any of them.” (Doctors say fatigue is one of the key symptoms.)

Gohmert’s audio failed for several seconds. When the signal cleared up, he credited Trump for knowing he was infected:

The president — don’t you love him — he called me from Air Force One on the way home tonight. I told him, “Mr. President, if you had not invited me to go with you to West Texas, I would never have known I had the coronavirus. Because that’s when I got tested for it, and when I found out I had it.” And so that allows me to help protect the people around me better.

Gohmert had attended Attorney General William Barr’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in person the day before testing positive for COVID-19. Video footage shows the two men, both maskless, only footsteps apart. Barr has reportedly tested negative for the disease.

The eight-term Republican has repeatedly expressed his disdain for facial coverings. Gohmert took a break from praising Trump at a White House roundtable in May to preemptively knock reporters in the room, saying the only reason the group would wear a mask was “to protect ourselves from you.”

“We had tests, and nobody in here has the coronavirus unless it’s somebody in the media,” Gohmert said at the time. “So the only reason we would wear masks is if we were trying to protect ourselves from you, in the media, and we’re not scared of you.”

Gohmert continued to vent about reporters — and his critics — on Hannity.

“They say, ‘Oh, I contaminate the gym.’ I haven’t been to the gym in months,” Gohmert claimed.

“They say I berated staff for wearing masks — and that’s a lie,” he added. “And nobody has come forward. It’s a lie.”

After Politico broke the news about Gohmert’s test results, one of his own aides asked the outlet in an email to include “the fact that Gohmert requires full staff to be in the office, including three interns, so that ‘we could be an example to America on how to open up safely.'”

“When probing the office,” the aide’s email continued, “you might want to ask how often were people berated for not wearing masks.”

In an interview with local Fox News affiliate KETK-TV, Gohmert appeared to blame his mask for getting him infected:

I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t been wearing a mask so much in the last 10 days or so — I really wonder if I would’ve gotten it. But I know moving the mask around, getting it just right, I’m bound to put some virus on the mask that I sucked in. That’s most likely what happened.

CNN congressional correspondent Manu Raju on Wednesday reported that he had “never seen [Gohmert] wearing a mask on the House floor as he’s carried on” with colleagues.

The Texas lawmaker claimed in June that he was not wearing a mask on the House floor because he was frequently tested.

“[I]f I get it,” Gohmert told CNN at the time, “you’ll never see me without a mask.”

Hannity, for his part, assured his audience that he follows the recommended guidelines for face coverings. 

“I wear masks to protect older people. I meant it,” he said to Gohmert, before turning to a favorite subject of his: the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.

The drug has become an unlikely political flashpoint amid the president’s inexplicable affection for the unproven coronavirus treatment. Citing possible heart problems, Trump’s own government has repeatedly warned against using it.

Hannity ticked off a list of studies purported to speak well of the treatment.

“Have you thought about — based on all that you’ve learned in consultation, obviously, with your doctor — the Ford study?” the host said. “The one that Dr. Oz cites study. The one study that said hydroxy, zinc and azithromycin — didn’t say was actually retracted.”

“Have you thought about any of these?” he asked Gohmert. “Have you talked to your doctor about it? Any thoughts on it for yourself?”

“My doctor and I are all in,” Gohmert responded. 

“I got a text just before I came on from a dear friend — a doctor — that just found out he had it, and he started the HQ regimen, too,” he added.

“So zinc, arithromycin and the hydrogoxycine chlorine [sic], and that’ll start in the next day or two,” Gohmert concluded. “So thank you.”

A study this spring found that viewers of Hannity, who regularly pushed hydroxychloroquine on his show, were more likely to die of COVID-19 than viewers of colleague Tucker Carlson’s show, which has not peddled the unproven treatment as frequently.

You can watch the full interview below via Fox News:

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain dies from complications of COVID-19 at 74

Herman Cain died from complications of COVID-19, a spokesperson announced Thursday on the former Republican presidential candidate’s website. He was 74 years old. 

Recently the co-chair of the “Black Voices for Trump” coalition, Cain is one of the most high-profile figures in the U.S. to have died from complications of the respiratory disease. He was hospitalized July 1 in the Atlanta area following a positive test for COVID-19 after posting a photo of himself without a mask at President Donald Trump’s controversial June 20 campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla.

“Herman Cain – our boss, our friend, like a father to so many of us – has passed away,” Dan Calabrese said in a statement. “We all prayed so hard every day. We knew the time would come when the Lord would call him home, but we really liked having him here with us, and we held out hope he’d have a full recovery.”

Calabrese said that Cain’s inner circle knew “this was going to be a rough fight” from the start for the cancer survivor. Despite a series of optimistic social media statements, Cain “never quite seemed to get to the point where the doctors could advance him to the recovery phase.”

The week before the rally, the Tulsa City-County Health Department issued a warning that the city had recorded its “highest daily increase of COVID-19 cases to date,” with indoor gatherings the likely culprit.

“It is transmitting very efficiently,” Tulsa Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart cautioned the next day.  “I’m concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and I’m also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe, as well.”

Dart added his wish that the rally be postponed. Two weeks later, he told reporters that his agency believed that the rally “more than likely” contributed to a local spike in infections.

“The past two days, we’ve had almost 500 cases, and we know we had several large events a little over two weeks ago, which is about right,” the doctor said. “So I guess you can connect the dots.”

The afternoon of the rally, Trump campaign staffers physically removed thousands of social distancing stickers from the backs of seats in the Tulsa arena. Six Trump campaign workers tested positive for COVID-19 after helping set up the event, plus two more after the event. Two Secret Service agents also tested positive.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, a fundraising official on Trump’s campaign and the girlfriend of the president’s eldest son, also tested positive for COVID-19 after attending the Tulsa rally. The campaign held another rally with students in Phoenix, though it has since shifted to virtual “tele-rallies.” 

Cain, grew up in Atlanta, entered the Navy after graduating from historically Black Morehouse college in 1967. In the ’70s and ’80s, Cain ascended the ranks of the chain restaurant world. In 1989, former president Ronald Reagan elevated him from his position as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza to Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Omaha Branch.

He served on the board until retiring in 1996 to pursue politics. He worked in Washington as a conservative adviser and lobbyist before emerging in 2010 as a leading voice of the Tea Party movement in the wake of the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first Black president.

Cain’s colorful, long-shot presidential candidacy in 2012 drew the most coverage of all Republican primary candidates. However, multiple women came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment from his days running the National Restaurant Association in the ’90s. Though Cain denied the accusations, he suspended his campaign.

The allegations played a role in thwarting his return to the national stage last year, when Trump was said to be mulling Cain’s appointment to the Federal Reserve Board.

Cain had recently started hosting a show on Newsmax TV, and was “so pumped up about playing a role in the 2020 election campaign,” according to his death announcement. 

“Alas, he only ever got to host one episode,” the statement said.

Cain’s survivors include his wife, Gloria Etchison, and two children, Melanie and Vincent.

Trump’s call to “delay” the election is a distraction — but it’s also a serious threat

The first thing to understand about Donald Trump’s threat to delay the November election — should we call it a public fantasy? — is that it’s a distraction, like so many things our president says and does.

Around 8:30 Eastern time on Thursday morning, news came down that the U.S. economy saw its worst contraction since the advent of modern economic recordkeeping after World War II, with GDP falling at an annual rate of nearly 33% in the second quarter, 9.5% below where it was the previous quarter. This is a plunge exponentially larger than the fallout from the crash of 2008, and probably the largest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

At 8:46 a.m., Trump let loose with this Twitter turd: “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

As a distraction, the gambit worked. Immediately, the shift in headlines and cable news focus went from the country’s record-setting economic devastation toward this idiotic but deeply troubling question of whether Trump can really get away with delaying the election until such time as he thinks he can win it (which may be never). 

The second thing to understand about Trump’s threat is that it’s nonetheless deadly serious. No matter how many reassuring articles come out about how there’s no mechanism available to Trump to delay the election, the public should not be complacent about this.

Rule of law, for the people who surround Donald Trump and prop him up, is something to be broken, not respected. Trump is a profoundly stupid man, but he does have a flight of much smarter people around him to do his bidding, especially when it comes to securing power for themselves and shutting down the ability of the American people to vote the bastards out.

We should not underestimate what people like Attorney General Bill Barr and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could come up with, if they decide that Trump’s harebrained notion of using the pandemic as cover to “reschedule” (read: cancel) the election is the only path to keeping Republicans in power in 2021. 

Barr, after all, has spent his time in charge of the Justice Department focused on remaking the institution as one focused on covering up Trump’s crimes, instead of dedicated to fighting crime. He started by using his powers to falsely frame the findings of Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference, claiming that Mueller found “no collusion.” That was an outright lie. Mueller found extensive collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian conspiracy, much of it right out in public, even if it fell short of what Mueller felt could be charged as criminal conspiracy. But Barr successfully pushed out the “no collusion” narrative, and the impact of the entire Russia investigation’s dwindled to almost nothing, despite Trump’s demonstrable guilt in the cover-up. 

Since then, Barr has been dedicated to the singleminded goal of making sure Trump’s power is secure and untouched by the meager concerns of people who believe in democracy, the rule of law or accountability. He’s pushed out U.S. attorneys for being insufficiently corrupt and compliant, backed Trump’s outrageous lies about voter fraud, helped spring Trump’s cronies from prison, and enthusiastically supported Trump’s expanding experiment in using federal police as a fascistic armed force to suppress dissent.

So, yes, Trump is both dumb and cowardly. But he has Barr at his side, an intelligent but dark-hearted man who has never hesitated to lie, cheat or swindle to secure Republican power. Above all other things, Barr is good at coming up with legal rationales to gut democracy and the rule of law. There’s good reason to suspect that he’d view the problem of concocting legal rationales for canceling or delaying the election not as a repulsive task but a fun and exciting challenge — exactly the sort of authoritarian overreach he came out of retirement to enact. 

Trump also has McConnell by his side, a Machiavellian wizard of politics who has never met a line he won’t cross when it comes to securing power for himself and the Republican Party.

McConnell has already used a delaying tactic to steal one of the highest offices in the land from a Democratic president who had the legal and constitutional right to control it, and deliver it to a conservative who will hold that office until he dies or retires.

The mainstream media has basically forgotten about this, but we should not: Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first nominee, holds a seat that should have belonged to Merrick Garland, Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia after the latter’s death in 2016. McConnell didn’t even bother to come with some elaborate legal justification for holding the seat open until (he hoped) a Republican president could fill it. He made some bad-faith argument about the looming election, but gleefully abandoned it once he no longer needed it. The whole maneuver was unconstitutional (or, in the most generous possible interpretation, extra-constitutional), but McConnell got away with it because, as it turned out, no one in Washington had the power to stop him. 

That’s also the question we must consider when it comes to Trump attempts to hold power through some sort of coup, as he has increasingly indicated he’s willing to do. Even if he can’t delay the election — and there’s no obvious remotely legal way to do that — by making these demands, Trump is laying more groundwork for declaring the election fraudulent and rejecting the results if and when he loses in November. He’s surrounded by powerful people, such as McConnell and Barr, who are likely to back his play, especially if they see no other way to hang onto power. 

Just because there’s no visible mechanism for how they might do that is no reason to relax. Barr and McConnell are pretty much kept alive, at this point, by coming up with innovative, bad-faith ways to “interpret” the law in order to undermine what remains of our democracy. 

Sure, whatever Trump tries to do to hang onto power in the face of an actual or impending electoral defeat — delaying the election, rejecting the results — will technically be illegal.

But I often think of the scene in the first season of “Game of Thrones” when Ned Stark presents Cersei Lannister with a document that gives him, not her, the right to sit on the throne. She tears the paper up and throws it down, saying, “Is this meant to be your shield, Lord Stark? A piece of paper?” You know, before having him arrested and, eventually, beheaded in public. 

The Constitution didn’t stop McConnell from stealing a Supreme Court seat. The rule of law hasn’t slowed Barr down one bit. We will need more than futile gestures toward the sanctity of the law to keep Trump and his minions from doing whatever they can to steal the election.

We can only hope that Democrats understand this and are working on a plan. For instance, they need a clear and secure way to swear Joe Biden into office on Jan. 20 — as the Constitution specifically mandates — out of the reach of Trump’s shadowy “federal police.” They need to know that the Secret Service and the leadership of the military will cooperate in an orderly transfer of power, and will accept or enforce the rule of law. 

To drive Donald Trump from office, we can’t rely on a piece of paper. It simply isn’t enough. 

Reporter inundated with e-mails from GOP staffers who claim they were forced to work without masks

Republicans and allies of President Donald Trump have made the coronavirus pandemic deadlier than it had to be — for example, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who tested positive for COVID-19 this week and, according to Politico’s Jake Sherman, repeatedly “berated” staffers for trying to protect themselves by wearing a mask.

The far-right Texas congressman has been highly critical of wearing face masks, which countless medical experts have stressed can slow down the spread of coronavirus. And Gohmert isn’t unique in that regard: after the media reported that Gohmert had COVID-19, Sherman said he received a “flood” of e-mails from GOP staffers who complained that they were being berated for wearing face masks.

Sherman received an e-mail from a Gohmert staffer that read, “Jake, thank you for letting our office know Louie tested positive for the Coronavirus. When you write your story, can you include the fact that Louie requires full staff to be in the office, including three interns, so that ‘we could be an example to America on how to open up safely.’ When probing the office, you might want to ask how often were people (were) berated for wearing masks.”

After tweeting that text, reporter Jerry Lambe notes in Law & Crime, Sherman reported that he had “gotten a flood of e-mails from Republican staffers who say they too are being forced to come to the Hill without a mask now.”

But Gohmert, instead of having the decency to acknowledge that his critics were right about the benefits of wearing a face mask, doubled down on his idiocy and even went so far as to say that perhaps wearing a mask was the thing that caused him to be infected with COVID-19. Gohmert argued, “I can’t help but wonder if by keeping a mask on — keeping it in place — if I might’ve got some germ, some of the virus, on the mask and breathed it in.”

On July 22, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, issued an executive order making face masks mandatory in a variety of public situations, ranging from offices to stores to hotel lobbies. But employees of the federal government are exempt from the order while working, and that includes Trump as well as members of Congress such as Gohmert.

Obama calls out Trump for stoking “nativist, racist, sexist” fears: report

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that former President Barack Obama unloaded on President Donald Trump in private with party donors.

“At fund-raising events where he has pulled in more than $24 million for Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign in the past two months, former President Barack Obama has privately unleashed on President Trump to party donors, bringing up past accusations of Mr. Trump’s ‘assaulting women’ and warning of his efforts to push ‘nativist, racist, sexist’ fears and resentments,” reported Shane Goldmacher and Glenn Thrush.

“With less than 100 days until the presidential election, Mr. Obama has laid out the stakes of 2020 in forceful fashion,” continued the report. “He has urged support for Mr. Biden, his former vice president, while worrying about the state of American democracy itself, even making an oblique reference to Nazi Germany, according to notes made from recordings of Mr. Obama’s remarks, donors and others who have been on the calls.”

“It’s just glued to Fox News and Breitbart and Limbaugh and just this conservative echo chamber — and so, they’re going to turn out to vote,” said Obama. “What he has unleashed and what he continues to try to tap into is the fears and anger and resentment of people who, in some cases, really are having a tough time and have seen their prospects, or communities where they left, declining. And Trump tries to tap into that and redirect in nativist, racist, sexist ways.”

Obama has publicly been more careful about direct criticism of his successor, often avoiding mentioning him by name even when making indirect criticisms.

Rep. John Lewis calls for justice in posthumous op-ed: “You can redeem the soul of our nation”

On Thursday, The New York Times published a posthumous op-ed from the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, calling on Americans to take up the call for justice, saying that “you can redeem the soul of our nation.”

“While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society,” wrote Lewis. “That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.”

“When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st Century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war,” wrote Lewis. “So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”

You can read more here.

Trump floats delaying election over false claims about voting by mail, but he doesn’t have the power

President Donald Trump floated the idea of delaying the election on Thursday amid his ongoing poor performance in national polls, but he has no authority to change when an election is held.

Trump suggested that the country should “delay the election” as he trailed presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by an average of more than eight points in national polls. Trump made the remark while repeating the same false claims he has pushed for months about voting by mail.

Despite Trump’s attacks on voting by mail, Republicans have desperately tried to convince their voters to use mail-in ballots amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The practice has been shown to be safe from both disease and fraud, according to research. 

Some states already have all-mail elections without any issues, while all but a handful of states have expanded their rules about voting by mail to allow anyone to cast a mail ballot amid the pandemic. A Washington Post analysis of mail-in ballots recently found only a 0.0025% rate of possible fraud. State officials have repeatedly insisted that there are numerous safeguards in place, and those who are caught trying to commit fraud are prosecuted.

Over the past 20 years, more than 250 million mail-in ballots have been cast, and there have been only 143 criminal prosecutions for mail ballot fraud, or a fraud rate of about 0.00006%.

Despite overwhelming evidence showing that voting by mail — a practice which has already been used for years in the U.S. and is a term interchangeable with “absentee voting” (which Trump says is OK) — the president suggested a “delay” of the election over his unfounded conspiracy theory.

“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” Trump baselessly claimed despite evidence showing mail voting has been reliable and secure. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

To be clear, Trump has no power to “delay the election.” Congress set the date of the election as the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November back in 1845; only an act of Congress can change that. Both chambers of Congress, including the Democratic-led House of Representatives, would have to approve such a change.

“The president has no authority to change this date. The Constitution also significantly limits the ability of Congress to delay choosing the next president, even if it wants to — as under no circumstance can any president’s term be extended past noon on Jan. 20 without amending the Constitution,” the bipartisan National Task Force on Election Crises said in a report.

If Trump tries to declare “martial law,” University of Kentucky election law expert Josh Douglas wrote, “even that would likely not give him power to postpone election or delay end of his term on Jan. 20, 2021. As Supreme Court said in Ex parte Milligan (1866), martial law does not suspend the Constitution.”

“Let’s be clear: Trump does not have the ability to delay the election. Our elections are enshrined in the Constitution,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said. “The Constitution also says that if the date of the election is to be changed, it must be changed by Congress.”

And there appears to be little appetite among Republicans to back Trump’s idea.

“I don’t think that’s a particularly good idea,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a staunch Trump ally, told CNN.

“No, we’re not going to delay the election,” Sen. John Barrraso, R-Wyo. told Fox Business. “We’re going to have the election completed and voting completed by Election Day. It’s going to take awhile to get all the votes counted, I am certain. We need to continue to do this as we do state by state.”

Some pundits suggested that the tweet was an attempt by Trump to distract from the latest economic numbers showing the GDP plummeting more than during any other quarter in history. Others questioned why he floated delaying the election while demanding schools reopen next month.

But many worried that Trump’s intent was not to try to delay the election — which he cannot do — but something more sinister.

“The president, facing sagging support, suggests defying the constitution and delaying the presidential election for the first time in the country’s history, something that didn’t happen even during the Civil War,” CNN host Jim Sciutto tweeted. “Fact is, this is insidious despite fact he doesn’t have the power to do so. He is delegitimizating the election in advance.”

“Unless Trump loses by a landslide or wins, I’m convinced Trump, aided by [Attorney General Bill] Barr, fully intends to challenge the election—not in court but by resisting being removed from the White House,” former White House ethics chief Walter Shaub wrote. “I have long believed it will come down to whether the military is loyal to the Constitution.”

“To be clear, I’m not worried that Trump can delay the election,” he added. “I’m worried Trump can incite violence.”

Susan Collins insists she hasn’t “changed” after Lincoln Project ad labels her a “Trump stooge”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, insisted that her politics have not “changed” after the Lincoln Project launched a $1 million ad campaign accusing her for abandoning her independence in deference to President Donald Trump.

Collins has long touted her moderate credentials during her 23-year Senate career but has seen her support among Mainers plummet after her votes to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and to acquit Trump during the impeachment trial. Collins had long been a popular senator among her state’s voters, boasting a 67% approval rating when Trump took office. That number has fallen to just 36% in recent polls, and she was ranked the most unpopular senator in the country earlier this year.

Collins is one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans up for re-election. The race has drawn a massive amount of outside spending, including a new $1 million ad campaign launched by the conservative anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, which accuses her of becoming a “Trump stooge” since the president took office. Collins refuted that criticism in a campaign video posted to Twitter.

“My opponents say I’ve changed. I haven’t, but politics sure has,” Collins said. “The non-stop false attacks against me began more than a year ago. Especially offensive are the outrageous attacks on my integrity.”

After touting that she has not missed a single roll call vote in the Senate, Collins vowed that she “will not back down from doing what I believe is right for Maine.”

The ad was released on the same day that the Lincoln Project — which was co-founded by George Conway, the husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, and Steve Schmidt, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — entered the Maine race with an ad taking aim at Collins’ moderate credentials.

The Lincoln Project ad begins by touting former Maine Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who “called out” former Sen. Joseph McCarthy for smearing his opponents as communists during his Cold War crusade.

“Just like Susan Collins stands up to Donald Trump,” the narrator says. “Oh, wait. Susan Collins never stands up to Donald Trump.”

“That’s why Maine is done with her weakness and excuses,” the ad continues. “Collins isn’t an independent — she’s a fraud. Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump control her voice. She makes excuses for corruption, for criminality, for cruelty, all while pretending she’s worried, concerned.”

While playing a montage of McConnell and Trump administration officials, the ad goes on to claim that “Collins doesn’t work for Maine — she works for them.”

“Maine deserves a leader — not a Trump stooge,” the ad concludes. “It’s time for Susan Collins to go.”

The ad is part of a larger Lincoln Project $4 million ad buy targeting other vulnerable Republicans in states like Alaska and Montana, Axios reported.

Collins has received plenty of outside help herself from groups like the Federalist Society, which helped bankroll Kavanaugh’s nomination. But she has been massively outraised by her Democratic opponent, Maine Speaker of the House Sara Gideon.

A new Colby College poll released Tuesday showed Gideon leading Collins by five points. To put the numbers into perspective, Collins won her previous re-election race by about 37 points. Collins has seen her approval rating among women drop to just 39% while her approval rating among voters under 35 has fallen to just 24%. Roughly as many voters said they are voting against Collins as those who said they are voting to support Gideon.

The poll also shows Trump trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by 11 points in the state. The president’s approval rating in the state is only 39%.

“Moderation has been key to the senator’s image for more than two decades,” Colby College professor Dan Shea, who conducted the poll, said. “If that perception is gone, voters will fall back on their partisanship or attitudes toward the top of the ticket. When combined with the president’s low approval rating across the state, that spells trouble for Susan.”

Would-be dictator Donald Trump would be unstoppable in a second term. That must not happen

Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist with antisocial proclivities and a core sadism. It is this combination of psychopathology that leads him to be intensely attracted to the powers of a dictator. Indeed, Trump has proven repeatedly that he wants America to be an autocracy, not a democracy. He has systemically and purposefully guided our country toward dictatorial rule during the past four years. He has frequently embraced, admired, complimented, envied and even fawned over autocratic leaders throughout the world.

Donald Trump in a second term would be unstoppable. And America might be changed forever. 

Trump seeks complete power and control. According to him, the president has absolute, all-encompassing authority. As such, Trump does not abide by norms or rules. He breaks laws with impunity. He interferes with all attempts at oversight and accountability. He believes that he is free to exert his power as he sees fit, no matter the motivation or legality or well-being of anyone other than Donald Trump.

Despite taking the presidential oath, Trump exhibits no intention to uphold or defend our Constitution. He does not recognize that the three branches of government are co-equal. He has demonstrated his belief that the executive branch holds all power. Look at how he has politicized the Department of Justice; he has been able to get investigations of himself and his cronies stopped. Branches of government in a dictatorship exist solely for the benefit and pleasure of the leader. Trump treats our judicial branch as an extension of himself, and as a vehicle for obtaining power and hiding his corruption. 

Trump does not believe in the value of the free press because its function is antithetical to his needs and wishes. His constant proclamation of “fake news” is his way of trying to undermine and even destroy the credibility of the free press. Trump asserts that he has the right to jail journalists. He tries to portray journalists as “the enemy of the people,” even though their role is to serve as a watchdog of government and to inform the citizenry. In a similar vein, Trump believes he has the right to jail political rivals. He sees them as his mortal “enemies” because they have the audacity to compete against him or to speak out in opposition. He seeks to exact sadistic vengeance on his political rivals in order to destroy them and to enhance his power.  

For Trump, gaslighting the American public is real, while facts and information are “fake.” Reality for Trump is not defined by data or rationality but by his own needs and wants. To reach his goal of control and power, Trump is more than comfortable with his lies, misinformation, conspiracy theories, magical thinking, scapegoating, denials and rambling blather.

Trump has just begun a strategy of provoking peaceful protesters so that he can exert his absolute and even cruel authority. Trump engages in “stochastic terrorism” by saying just enough to trigger vulnerable people to act out in anger while he maintains a thin veneer of deniability. Now Trump is sending federal troops into American cities to escalate conflicts with protesters in order to demonstrate his raw sadistic strength. While claiming he is our “Law and Order” president, Trump is lawless and shameless himself. That is the twisted irony of a dictator. 

Trump shows no empathy for others. He has an unquenchable desire for praise and adulation, but he is incapable of understanding human pain and suffering and plight. All but a very few of his personal alliances are fleeting and transactional. Trump treats others as dupes to be influenced and then dismissed at will when they are no longer of service to him. 

Trump’s lack of empathy is not just a matter of theory or abstraction. His complete denial and inaction in response to the current deadly pandemic is reflective of his thinly-veiled solipsism and sadism. He has been an active accomplice to the mass murder of more than 150,000 Americans, with the numbers growing every day, and it is but a minor inconvenience to him if it serves his personal or political goals. Sadly, American deaths are palatable to him if they somehow set the stage for his re-election. 

Trump’s authoritarianism explains his attraction to other authoritarian leaders around the world, especially Vladimir Putin. His admiration of Putin is openly expressed. He is envious of Putin’s strength and boldness and lack of conscience. He wants to be like Putin; he wants absolute power and he wants to be adored but feared by the people. Yet paradoxically, Trump is so in awe of Putin and other autocrats, that he presents himself as subservient and inept, as he did in Helsinki and North Korea. 

Trump’s mode of governing has been to stoke division, confusion and chaos. An America in crisis is exactly what Trump desires since it then becomes easier for him to exert control and power, to profit from corruption, and to wreak vengeance on his foes. 

Trump views the presidency as a way of marketing his brand and of skimming profits. Making money, for him, is an end in itself. Trump has not abided by the emoluments clause of the Constitution. His golf properties and Washington hotel have made huge profits off the public payroll and from foreign dignitaries. Trump’s claim that he has lost money by assuming the presidency is a lie and part of his scam. Even money from his Inaugural fund in 2016 has been skimmed off by family members. 

Finally, Trump is anti-science and anti-intellectualism in his approach to governance. Why? Because he believes that his ideas, his notions, his hunches and his narratives are far superior to data and knowledge. In other words, he does not want facts and information to interfere with his wishes and desires, either personal and political. Trump does not care if you believe the world is flat if it embellishes him or profits him.  

If re-elected, Trump will feel empowered and emboldened to march the country toward dictatorial rule. If Republicans continue in their complicity, Trump’s dictatorial strivings will not be stopped. And, sadly, Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr, will clear the path for him in his quest for an authoritarian presidency.  

Trump is unfit to be president. He represents a clear and present danger to our democratic way of life. The psychopathology that underlies and fuels his wish to be an authoritarian dictator is severely malignant. 

Will a new America be transformed in Trump’s image? Will the Oval Office become the seat of a dictator?

The election on Nov. 3, 2020, may well determine the future of our democracy for decades or generations to come. Vote like your life depends upon it.

It. Does.

Trump’s properties: A playground for white nationalists, Groypers and other far-right loons

Conspiracy theorists, alt-right memers and prominent white nationalists have frequently appeared at properties owned by President Trump, where they’ve hosted gatherings, mingled with officials and spent money, according to research obtained by Salon.

Trump properties are well-documented hot spots for MAGA-world luminaries and hangers-on, particularly Trump International Hotel in Washington, where the lobby is frequently a blur of lobbyists, administration officials, lawmakers, corporate leaders and foreign dignitaries — the physical embodiment of the president’s numerous conflicts of interest.

But in a sense those properties are also real-world iterations of the president’s Twitter feed, a running scroll of the same groups. Both are also sprinkled to varying degrees with influential right-wing extremists and internet trolls (Diamond and Silk kicked off their 2019 “Chit Chat Live” tour at Trump Hotel D.C.), some of whom now are now moving into legitimate electoral politics under the auspices of the Republican Party in various states, including Oregon, Colorado, Georgia and Trump’s new home state of Florida.

And though Trump fandom is little more than an ironic lark to young fringe-right adherents, who see themselves as more pure, edgy and extreme, those places draw an older generation that has influence, but might be looking for someone who knows better how to wield it today.

“Trump properties are the place to be if you’re an elected Republican looking to dip your toe in alt-right waters. So no one should be surprised that once-mainstream Republicans and the NRCC are now backing the very QAnon supporters and fringe factions they’ve mingled with for years,” said Kyle Morse, an American Bridge 21st Century spokesperson.

The more high-profile of these patron-extremists include:

Trump properties are a particularly popular draw for the Fuentes-led Groyper movement, a loose affiliation of far-right and alt-right nationalists who peddle racist and anti-Semitic tropes while mocking mainstream conservatives — including some less radical white nationalists — as phonies.

As with most things born in the nether regions of the internet, the origins of the Groyper movement are not easy to understand. Its name is drawn from a specific Pepe the Frog pose, in which the alt-right cartoon mascot rests his chin on his interlinked hands. 

Marilyn Mayo, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremis, described the movement in a 2019 interview.

“What they’re trying to do, there’s this whole grouping who refer to themselves as the dissident right, they want to move the Overton window,” said Mayo, referring to the shifting spectrum of acceptable ideological and political discourse. “They want to make racism and anti-Semitism mainstream.”

Trump made waves this January when he retweeted a clip of Michelle Malkin, the self-described “mommy” of the Groyper movement, complaining about online censorship. Trump added his own caption, thanking her:

“The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google. The Administration is working to remedy this illegal situation. Stay tuned, and send names & events. Thank you Michelle!”

That Malkin clip was produced by Fuentes’ internet show, America First.

“Donald Trump is watching America First Clips,” Fuentes tweeted.

Fuentes has attended events at Trump International in Washington, including with friend and fellow Groyper Megan Harris, and both appeared there during the conservative gathering CPAC this year, as documented in a since-deleted Instagram post. The two were joined at CPAC by musician and Groyper Ricky Rebel, who shared a number of pictures from Trump International on his Instagram story.

Fuentes, like several other fringe-right personalities, has also patronized Trump National Doral, the president’s golf resort near Miami, where he appeared in an Instagram photo with alt-right internet personality Baked Alaska (Tim Gionet).

Gionet, a former BuzzFeed writer who later got Trump’s face tattooed on his arm, has shared Instagram posts from Trump properties three times in the last year: at Doral National, and the Trump International hotels in Las Vegas and Washington. The last of those included a photograph of a burger and fries, captioned, “imagine eatin this good.”

Three summers ago, Gionet joined Fuentes at the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where he was billed as a scheduled speaker alongside leading white supremacist Richard Spencer. He has tweeted the “14 Words” (a well-known neo-Nazi phrase) and, in since-deleted tweets, shared videos of friends saying that “Hitler did nothing wrong.” He’s also posted images of people in gas chambers.

In March 2019, Gionet attempted to distance himself from the alt-right, denouncing it as hateful and violent. Following the mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, he posted a video in which he apologized for his contributions to the culture, but a few months later was caught spewing Islamophobia at an ICE protest. He subsequently linked up with the Groyper movement and deleted his apologies.

Other fringe-right associates of Gionet have spent time and money at Trump properties.

One of the more well-known names is alt-right personality, Pizzagate truther and noted misogynist Mike Cernovich, whom Gionet engaged in multiple projects. Cernovich has spent considerable time at Trump properties. 

Gionet once spent Christmas with blogger Chuck Johnson, the aforementioned “most hated man on the internet,” who reportedly had a hand in vetting Trump Cabinet picks during the transition (working with Facebook’s Peter Thiel) — and may have acted as an inadvertent conduit between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Donald Trump Jr.

In January 2017, Johnson posted on Facebook that he was “building algorithms to ID all the illegal immigrants for the deportation squads.” HuffPost quoted a source claiming to have seen Johnson discussing that same project with “a whole bunch of really important people” at the Trump hotel in D.C. Former Breitbart editor Katie McHugh has said that Johnson asked to be connected with senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller so he could pitch a “way to identify every illegal alien in the country.”

In 2018, Johnson was also spotted at Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.

Then there’s the Posobiec, who while not exactly a Groyper is a fringe conspiracy theorist with anti-Semitic views whom Trump has retweeted a number of times. Posobiec and his wife met Brexit architect Nigel Farage at the Trump Hotel in Washington in February, 2017, and have spent both Christmas and New Year’s holidays there.

In July 2019, Posobiec joined QAnon acolyte Tracy Beanz, MAGA alt-right memesmith Carpe Donktum and former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for a conservative conference called AMPFest, held at Trump National Doral. Documents obtained by the Washington Post showed that the Florida property’s revenues were “in steep decline” at the time.

Posobiec spread the debunked conspiracy theory that the Las Vegas mass shooter was affiliated with ISIS, but was challenged for credit by right-wing provocateur, Islamophobe and Trump patron Laura Loomer. The two seemed to smooth things over before AMPFest 2019, where Loomer appeared alongside Posobiec.

Loomer is currently running as a Republican congressional candidate in Florida’s 21st district — home to Donald Trump’s private Palm Beach club Mar-a-Lago, where she appeared at a 2019 winter gala that featured Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka and guest of honor Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Just a few days after that, Trump tweeted his support for Loomer’s candidacy. And since the 21st is officially his district of residence, he will have the chance to vote for her should she appear on the ballot in November. (Her chances of winning are not strong: Incumbent Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat, was re-elected without opposition in 2018.)

On March 3, Loomer was back at Trump International in D.C.

Joe Biden is right. Pay for home health workers is paltry

In a speech this month, former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, offered the third installment of a four-part economic plan being rolled out in advance of the Democratic National Convention in August. This set of proposals focused on caregivers — whether for children, older adults or people with disabilities — and is about “easing the squeeze on working families who are raising their kids and caring for aging loved ones at the same time,” Biden said.

His campaign’s sweeping set of initiatives, which represent a $775 billion expenditure in a variety of programs, aims to get significant traction among middle-class voters, whose struggles with caregiving issues have been exacerbated during the coronavirus pandemic.

When it came to home health workers, Biden zeroed in on their paychecks. “They’re doing God’s work,” he said. “But home health workers aren’t paid much, they have few benefits. Forty percent are still on SNAP or Medicaid. So my plan is direct. It gives caregivers and early childhood educators a much-needed raise.”

That 40% is a striking number.

After all, there are an estimated 3.3 million home health and personal care aides in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These workers provide a range of daily living services to millions of older Americans and people with disabilities, chronic illness or cognitive impairment — making them an important part of the health care continuum. As baby boomers age, demand for home health workers is expected to increase rapidly. And, because Biden put a spotlight on the role caregivers could have in boosting the economy, we decided to investigate further.

We contacted the Biden campaign to find out the source for the 40% statistic. A spokesperson pointed us to information from PHI National’s Workforce Data Center. PHI is a New York-based advocacy organization that studies the direct-care workforce and is frequently cited as a source on this topic.

The group indicated that in 2017 42% of direct care workers, a category composed of personal care aides, home health aides and nursing assistants, received some form of public assistance — defined by PHI as food and nutrition assistance, public health insurance or cash assistance. A further breakdown of this broad job category showed that 53% of home care workers received public assistance, with 30% having received food and nutrition assistance and 33% Medicaid insurance coverage.

Based on these figures, Robert Espinoza, PHI’s vice president of policy, said Biden was certainly in the ballpark.

More numbers, and some context

But there’s more.

The two programs Biden mentioned by name — SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, and Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income people — peg eligibility to income limits at or near the federal poverty level, which for an individual is $12,760. Those eligibility limits vary by program and state.

Medicaid  for adults depends on where they live, and ranges from 138% of poverty in states that chose to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act to a median of 40% of poverty in those states that didn’t. For SNAP, those limits are set at 130% percent of the poverty level for gross monthly income and 100% for net monthly income. For an individual, that’s $1,354 and $1,041, respectively.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay for home health workers is about $24,060 per year, and a 2019 report by PHI concluded that 47% of home health workers have incomes at or below 138% of the poverty level. These numbers further back up Biden’s assertion about the number of home health workers on Medicaid or SNAP. If anything, they suggest his 40% figure may be a lowball estimate.

And one more bit of evidence that Biden was on the right track: The National Employment Law Project noted that many of these workers “supplement their home care work with other jobs to make ends meet.” That PHI report asserted that half of home care workers have only a high school education and often work part time or inconsistent schedules. These jobs are also marked by high turnover rates.

Our ruling

Biden said home health workers were paid very little, citing a statistic that 40% of these workers relied on public assistance programs like SNAP and Medicaid as evidence.

According to the experts with whom we spoke, and the documents we consulted, Biden accurately described home health workers’ income and their reliance on these programs. His number appears to represent the low end of the spectrum.

We rate this statement True.

Yale psychiatrist backs Mary Trump’s assessment: The president “is mentally incapable of leading”

A Yale psychiatrist who has sounded the alarm on President Donald Trump’s mental health for years says that Mary Trump’s book warning that her uncle is too unstable to lead the country corroborates what mental health professionals have been saying since before the president took office.

Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, wrote in her new book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” that she believes her uncle suffers from multiple personality disorders.

“I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist — he meets all nine criteria. But the label gets us only so far,” she wrote. “A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe forms is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others…. Donald may also meet some of the criteria for dependent personality disorder, the hallmarks of which include an inability to make decisions or take responsibility, discomfort with being alone, and going to excessive lengths to obtain support from others.”

She went on to suggest that Trump has a “long-undiagnosed learning disability that for decades interfered with his ability to process information.”

Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale School of Medicine and a former research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health, told Salon that she has been warning about exactly this since Trump’s election. Lee suggested that Trump’s recent deployment of federal forces to cities like Portland and Chicago was intended to distract from questions over his mental fitness.

“We know what Donald Trump is doing in dispatching federal forces into cities by what he did at the last election when he sent 5,600 active military troops to the southern border because of an ‘invasion’ by a migrant caravan: he is turning a non-concern into a campaign issue in order to distract from the real issues,” she said in an interview. “What are the real issues? That his expert niece just exposed that he is mentally incapable of leading and is committing mass murder — what we independently said since a year ago, based on a standardized assessment, and since a month ago, because of his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.”

Despite guidelines precluding mental health professionals from diagnosing patients they have not personally examined, Lee and others have argued that they have a duty to society that is separate from making a diagnosis and have sought to warn about the dangers of Trump’s mental health since the 2016 election.

Lee, the author of the textbook “Violence,” is the president of the World Mental Health Coalition, which issued a “Prescription for Survival” during Trump’s presidency earlier this year and is launching a podcast series with radio host and former California Democratic Party chair Bill Press that features many of the authors included in the book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” which Lee edited.

Lee spoke with Salon about Mary Trump’s book, the president’s enablers, and the American Psychiatric Association’s guidelines against discussing the president’s mental health.

Mary Trump’s new book highlights many of the same concerns about Trump’s mental health that you’ve warned about for years. What did you think of her conclusions? Did anything surprise you? Is there anything you disagree with? 

Yes, I was delighted to see this. But then she is a professional who is highly proficient at what she does, as evidenced in the scholarship and clinical soundness she applies to her reasoning. Any honest and competent mental health professional has come to the same conclusion, which is why there was an astonishing consensus from the start. 

Yet, like history repeating itself, no amount of professionalism — expertise, evidence and facts — seems to matter. We are literally dying for our inability to understand expertise. I started an interview series with my colleagues just because there has been little concept of what she was bringing, or somehow the media cannot go there. Three and a half years ago, I would not have believed this was possible, but after the biggest newspapers and cable and network stations deleted only my quotes or killed entire articles, and canceled broadcasts at the last minute almost 70 times, it would rather surprise me if public discussion were ever allowed to reach critical mass. 

Mary Trump describes her uncle as the “world’s most dangerous man.” You and other psychiatrists have made similar arguments. Why do you think these warnings have gotten so little traction among lawmakers, particularly members of the Republican Party? 

People will not like this, but it is an indication of the poor state of mental health in our society. We would rather resort to all manner of extreme conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, to justify the unjustifiable — the continuation of a presidency that should never have been for a day — and to deny the undeniable — that a president who is supposed to protect us is killing us. Ironically, the American Psychiatric Association played a central role in enabling denial and in creating stigma around even mentioning the topic, causing us to miss a crucial opportunity before the problem spun out of control. 

In January 2018, the public and the media were listening, to the point where the president’s mental health had grown to the No. 1 topic of national conversation. Many of us were interviewing several hours a day, every day. But then the APA stepped in, grinding the discussion to a complete stop. Its influence was decisive, since I and my colleagues had met with over 50 members of Congress, and they were counting on us to educate the public so that they could act. Instead, the APA has effectively conditioned our culture into expecting not to hear from mental health experts about the mental health of the president, the most consequential public servant on whom our lives depend. 

Mental health itself had been gaining more respect as a result of decades of education, but through an aggressive misinformation campaign by the APA, on which I blew a whistle, we have been thrown back into a dark age. We are suffering the same with the novel coronavirus: what distinguished our time from the Middle Ages was science and knowledge. Removing these, we have the plagues again. 

Do you think that the book will lead to more discussion about the president’s mental health in mainstream political circles that have largely avoided the topic? 

I hope so, and the public dearly hopes so, judging from the incessant requests that pour in for us to speak more. But the more people clamor for us, the more tightly we are censored out of the major media. For 15 years I taught students at Yale Law School representing political asylum seekers escaping autocracies, so I recognize the pattern of suppression, primarily of expertise and facts. Madeleine Albright recently repeated a phrase I often use: “Fascism is not a political ideology.” I usually add: “It is mental pathology writ large.” 

The actions of the American Psychiatric Association, the Department of Justice and the Republican Party make no sense from a scientific, legal or rational point of view. But they make perfect sense from a power-alignment perspective. The regressed psychology of the president demands this, just as any other autocrat. The next phase is, literally or figuratively, elimination of portions of the population that do not comply or remind the autocrat of reality. We have seen Donald Trump remove scientists from their positions or cut their funding, because science challenges his fantastical thinking. 

Trump has repeatedly cited his “acing” of a mental cognitive test as proof of his mental fitness. Why do you think he keeps bringing this up, particularly in the context of his attempts to paint Joe Biden as unfit? 

He is likely frantically trying to convince himself that he is mentally fit. This is because the now-removed White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, falsely used the 10-minute cognitive screen — which has nothing to do with fitness and which researchers have found full-blown Alzheimer and hospitalized schizophrenia patients to “ace”, by the way — to declare the president “fit.” The president is resurrecting it to try to use it to the same effect, but of course he only gives himself away. We know what he thinks of himself by what he says of Joe Biden. Projection is a way of disowning what you cannot tolerate in yourself by attaching it to others, and since his case is severe, what he says almost has nothing to do with Biden but is a very accurate portrayal of himself. 

Top officials like Bill Barr and Chad Wolf have deployed federal officers to cities like Portland in response to protests. What does it mean for someone whose danger has been described by numerous mental health professionals to lead what Oregon officials have described as an invading force, particularly ahead of an election? 

Well, this is exactly what we anticipated he would do. In February, I warned that the very delayed impeachment and subsequent acquittal would powerfully inflate his delusions of grandeur and impunity, such that he was now likely to thwart the electoral process and use force to remain in office. The pandemic has accelerated this process. For this reason, I have been advising activist groups not to wait until after the election — and so there should be notices about nonviolent action sooner. If he succeeds in forcing a second term, he will likely use it purely for revenge, and I agree with Dr. Trump that our democracy and our nation as we know it will not survive.   

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How the Trump administration allowed airlines to keep workers’ relief money

This spring, as the coronavirus spread and international travel bans grounded flights, Gebrish Weldemariam got a layoff letter from his airline catering job at Dulles International Airport.

He’d been working as a driver making more than $18 per hour for Flying Food Group, ferrying in-flight meals between the company’s kitchen and gated planes waiting on the tarmac. Between overtime at the airport and a part-time job driving buses on the side, Weldemariam felt that times were good. Last fall, with his wife expecting a fourth child, the family bought a house not far from the airport, allowing him to be nearby to help care for his oldest son, who has Down syndrome and needs constant attention.

“I have kids. I have a mortgage. I have two car loans,” Weldemariam said. “That’s why I work hard.”

Flying Food Group told him only that when business picks up, it would call him. Now, even with boosted unemployment benefits, he said he makes $600 less than a typical week when he was working. He’s worried he won’t be able to cover all of his monthly bills.

Flying Food didn’t just lay off Weldemariam. The Chicago-based company, one of the largest airline caterers in the country, has pink slipped more than 2,000 other workers since March. The cuts left the vast majority of its workforce out of a job at facilities in California, Chicago, Virginia and the New York City area, according to the union UNITE HERE, which represents Flying Food workers. Then in June, the Flying Food was approved to receive $85 million from the Trump administration from a pandemic relief program that was intended to preserve those very jobs.

After ProPublica first wrote about the Payroll Support Program in early July, we heard from dozens of distressed aviation industry workers, many of whom worked for over a decade cooking and loading airline meals onto planes. They wondered why they had been laid off by companies that received government aid.

Those cuts were deeper and more widespread than previously known. Interviews and public records show that Flying Food was among at least seven companies that laid off at least 7,000 workers or cut hours and received money from the $32 billion program.

The companies were allowed to get money to cover payroll for workers they had already laid off because of a series of decisions by the Trump administration in interpreting the CARES Act, which created the program to support aviation industry workers in March.

Flying Food’s CEO David Cotton said in a statement that the company “fully intend(s) to comply with the terms of our agreement.” The massive decline in the industry forced the company “to make the difficult decision to conduct furloughs, layoffs, and salary reductions to keep our business viable.” He added, “The funds from the CARES Act have enabled us to keep our facilities open with reduced staffing levels.”

The Payroll Support Program was designed as a pass-through: money would be distributed to airlines and their contractors in a package made up mostly of grants plus a smaller portion of loans. The companies would then pass along the money to workers by keeping them on and paying their wages. Companies accepting the money would have to use it for that purpose and would be barred from laying off employees, even if their business had dried up. It is the part of the pandemic relief law that came closest to the kind of direct payroll replacement enacted in European countries such as Germany.

Congressional Democrats and major airline unions such as those representing flight attendants and pilots are now desperately fighting to extend the program because the prohibition on layoffs expires at the end of September. The large carriers have gotten behind it as well, warning of catastrophic layoffs in the fall if the program is not extended. Both the unions and the Treasury Department agree that the program has supported hundreds of thousands of jobs in the industry.

But workers at the lesser-known businesses that cater to large carriers have not fared as well.

Precisely how many workers have lost their jobs is not publicly known. The application created by the Treasury for companies to apply for Payroll Support Program aid asks them to disclose layoffs conducted since March 1. But a Treasury spokeswoman declined to release the data, and the agency has not yet responded to a public records request for the numbers.

Under the CARES Act, companies were to submit their payroll costs for a six-month period from last year, before the pandemic. Once they signed an agreement with the Treasury, companies had to use the aid for payroll and were not allowed to conduct layoffs through Sept. 30. The idea was that companies would receive money covering six months of payroll, and then they would pay it out over the next six months to keep their workforce at roughly the level it was before the pandemic. The law, which was signed March 27, includes a deadline that the first payments to companies were supposed to go out within 10 days.

That didn’t happen. In the case of Flying Food and other firms, the agreements weren’t signed until June, long after most workers had already been laid off. The Treasury declined to comment on this delay.

Advocates for the program pointed to two decisions by the Trump administration that then opened the door for companies to get aid packages based on the wages of workers they had already laid off.

First, the Treasury issued guidance on the law in April stating that “there is no deadline” for recipients to spend the aid, an issue on which the statute is silent. The change proved critical. Since the law requires that the aid go only to workers on the payroll, a time limit on when it could spend would have given companies an incentive to keep on as many workers as possible to get the maximum benefit. With no time limit, companies have the opposite incentive, which is to shrink their workforces to make the money last as long as possible.

Second, the administration declined to reduce aid packages for companies that had laid off workers before the money arrived. The application form produced by the Trump administration states explicitly that 2019 payroll sets the “maximum potential amount” that a company can get. Using language not in the statute, the Treasury form states that the amounts to be given out are “determined by the Treasury Department in its sole discretion.”

Despite requesting how many workers a company had laid off since March, the Treasury did not cut their aid packages or require them to rehire workers. Experts told ProPublica that the application’s language gave the Treasury the ability to do so.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said his office “is concerned by any report of a company taking Payroll Support Program grants and still proceeding with layoffs.” The senator believes there needs to be “greater transparency and oversight by the Treasury Department, and for the Trump administration to better administer these programs that are meant to support small businesses and help protect workers.”

A Treasury spokeswoman disputed that the department could have cut the aid. She contended that the law “does not give Treasury flexibility to deviate” from the 2019 payroll calculation.

“Treasury’s PSP application materials note that the calculation will be made by the Secretary in his sole discretion,” she said in a statement. “That means Treasury’s calculation of the statutory formula governs. It does not mean that Treasury is not required to apply the statutory formula.”

Other companies that made cuts and are receiving government aid include:

  • Gate Gourmet, which cut around 5,000 of its 8,000 U.S. workers, according to the union UNITE HERE. A company spokeswoman previously said, “To ensure the long-term sustainability of our business in the U.S., layoffs and furloughs were necessary during these unprecedented times.”

  • Eulen America, a Spanish-owned firm that offers a range of airline support services, laid off more than 1,000 workers in Florida and New York. A spokeswoman declined to comment.

  • Illinois-based ACTS Aviation Security laid off an unknown number of workers, including in Atlanta. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.

  • Indianapolis-based regional carrier Republic Airwayscut 5% of its workforce, including dozens of flight dispatchers. The company, which received $206 million in government aid, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Perhaps the most drastic cut was at Flying Food’s Dulles operation, where, as of June, just two of about 170 were still working, according to UNITE HERE.

In the meantime, Weldemariam, the laid off driver at Dulles, is looking for other jobs.

Concerned that Flying Food wasn’t taking safety around the virus seriously before he left this spring, he said he hopes that when flights return, he can go back to work, and that the company and his union can work out a plan to address workers’ safety concerns. The company said in a statement that it has an “extensive Pandemic COVID-19 Plan which is compliant with CDC guidelines.”

Weldemariam told ProPublica he hasn’t heard anything from the company since it got the bailout money. “They took $85 million. I don’t know where they put the money; they didn’t tell us,” he said.

Yale study on $600 unemployment lifeline championed by Democrats destroys favorite GOP talking point

A new study by Yale economists out this week debunks the repeated GOP talking point that the $600 federal expansion of unemployment benefits has disincentivized people from returning to work — findings published the same day Senate Republicans released a coronavirus relief proposal which critics condemned as an “utter disgrace” that will “unleash widespread suffering” on people nationwide.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed in late March provided those who qualified for unemployment insurance (UI) with an extra $600 per week on top of state benefits, a boost that meant total payments for some low-wage or middle-class workers exceeded their normal weekly incomes. With the GOP in the Senate now refusing to pass an extension approved by the Democrat-controlled House, those added benefits are set to expire on July 31.

Despite polling that shows the public popularity of the added boost—and economists warning that taking it away would spell financial catastrophe for the country—the Trump administration and GOP lawmakers who oppose an extension claim it encouraged layoffs early in the pandemic and deters people who make more from UI benefits than their former job from returning to work as businesses reopen.

The Yale study (pdf) destroys that GOP talking point. The economists examined weekly data from Homebase — a firm that provides scheduling and time clock software to small businesses — and found “no evidence that more generous benefits disincentivized work either at the onset of the expansion or as firms looked to return to business over time.”

“The data do not show a relationship between benefit generosity and employment paths after the CARES Act, which could be due to the collapse of labor demand during the Covid-19 crisis,” said co-author and Yale economics professor Joseph Altonji.

Although the Homebase data does not represent the entire U.S. labor market, as it is primarily focused on hourly workers at businesses like bars, restaurants, and retail stores, the segment of the workforce studied by the researchers has been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Additionally, as Yale News noted, “the researchers tested their results against employment outcomes in the federal government’s Current Population Survey, a more representative sample of the labor market than the Homebase data, and obtained similar findings.”

The Yale study found that people with expanded unemployment benefits actually resumed working at a similar or slightly quicker rate than others did. As MarketWatch reported Wednesday:

 

The Chicago Federal Reserve found a similar trend. “Those currently collecting benefits search more than twice as intensely as those who have exhausted their benefits,” a recent study conducted by the Chicago Fed concluded. Typically, unemployment benefits last six months and on average pay individuals approximately 35% of their previous weekly salary, according to the Chicago Fed. People on unemployment benefits on average spend more than 14 hours a week job searching and send more than 12 applications a month.

The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act that House Democrats passed in May would extend the $600 boost to UI benefits through January — but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has refused to put that measure to a vote.

The Senate GOP’s new Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection, and Schools (HEALS) Act, released Monday, would temporarily cut the weekly boost from $600 to $200 until states can implement a new, more complex system to pay laid-off workers 70% of what they earned before losing their jobs. Although the proposal is reportedly approved by the Trump White House, critics warn the system would likely overwhelm states and cause notable delays in relief to those who need it most.

As the congressional debates over Covid-19 relief drag on, CNBC/Change Research polling results published Wednesday show that most voters in six key swing states want lawmakers to continue the aid that was implemented in previous coronavirus relief legislation, including the $600-per-week boost to UI. Across Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin 62% of voters somewhat or strongly support continuing that specific initiative.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested in a Tuesday night televised interview with Chris Hayes of MSNBC that Republicans in Congress are failing to serve not only the American public but also their own electoral interests by trying to cut government assistance during the health crisis:

“It’s just a disgrace, what their bill does,” Schumer said broadly of the Republicans’ HEALS Act, which he called “a giveaway to corporate interests.”

“We Democrats are standing firm,” the Senate minority leader added. “We know the needs are real, we know the needs are deep, we know working people need help, and we are gonna fight for the very strong and very bold bill that the House passed called the HEROES Act.”

WATCH: GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy calls Rep. Louie Gohmert “Congressman COVID”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) got a little tongue-tied before the press when asked about Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).

Gohmert has refused to wear a mask and mocked his staff if they dare to do so. So, the internet responded by calling him #CongressmanCOVID. When McCarthy turned to mention Congressman Gohmert, he inadvertently said Congressman COVID.

The video has taken off as many mocked the Republican leader.

Fresh off of being diagnosed with COVID-19, Gohmert went to his staff to tell them and spread the virus among his people. He said that he wanted them to hear the news from him and not from the press.

Gohmert has since blamed a “tainted” facemask for giving him the virus.

See the video below:

Anti-mask Republican lawmaker who called coronavirus a “hoax” gets COVID-19

Jason Rapert, an anti-gay Republican Arkansas state senator who has called face mask mandates “draconian” and shared articles calling COVID-19 a hoax, has tested positive for COVID-19 after speaking at a church service and other recent events without a face mask.

For the last three months, Rapert has been sharing articles on his social media about how “liberal quacks” are “spreading fear” about coronavirus, about how COVID-19 is the “biggest political hoax in history” and about how the recent face mask mandate ordered by Republican Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson is “draconian” and an “overreach of executive power.”

Though Rapert has occasionally mentioned the importance of using masks, he’s now in the hospital being treated for coronavirus and pneumonia.

“We have all been doing our best to wear a mask, social distance and be careful like everyone else,” Rapert wrote in a statement on Thursday. “This virus is serious and can attack anyone regardless of age or general health…”

Rapert also has a reputation for being a Christianist who introduced a bill seeking to ban gay marriage nationwide in 2017, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages nationwide. He also  wanted to defund PBS in February 2020 because gay actor Billy Porter appeared on Sesame Street.

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, Arkansas had its second and third highest-ever daily tolls of newly confirmed coronavirus cases, at 1,013 and 990 new cases, respectively.

Tiffany Cross on why Biden needs a Black woman: If he thinks he’s “Joebama,” he’s wrong

Joe Biden has promised to announce his vice presidential running mate in August, perhaps as soon as next week. Tiffany Cross is pushing for him to choose a Black woman, saying that she’s tired of Black voters being afraid to make demands because they fear another term of Donald Trump.

“When you sit at the epicenter of political power, if you don’t use that power now, then when will you use it?” Cross asked me recently on “Salon Talks” while discussing her new book “Say It Louder! Black Voters, White Narratives & Saving Our Democracy.” For Cross, a resident fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, Biden’s VP pick is less about how Black someone is and more about “how Black are her policies?” From Kamala Harris to Susan Rice to Stacey Abrams — Black women who appear to be in the mix — Cross is zeroing in on “who could do the job on day one.”

In her book, Cross further explains how Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party and why they should demand more from Democratic leaders to address the community’s needs. “A lot of people think Donald Trump is the first white supremacist to occupy the White House. That’s simply not true. Do you know how many devils Black women had to vote for again and again and again? We assess, this person will cause the least harm to the community relative to this other person,” Cross said.

Cross also calls out the news media, where she has worked behind the scenes as a producer, for not embracing Black voices. She notes that when the media fuels baseless, negative stereotypes of a community, that can lead to government policies based on that caricature, from policing to allocation of resources. The media has the power to define minority communities in a good, bad or ugly way. Having voices from those communities in all levels of the process increases the likelihood that Americans will see a more accurate depiction.

Watch my “Salon Talks” episode with Cross here, or read a transcript of our conversation below to hear more about how Biden can better address the Black community during the 2020 presidential campaign and beyond and how Cross’ experiences in newsrooms have pushed her to disrupt the power structure and challenge unchecked privilege.

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

How can the Democratic Party be more responsive to the Black community?

Very few people are talking to Black men as voters and that has got to change. The Democratic Party is so interested in securing and speaking to people who left them a long time ago. The Democratic Party has not won the majority of white votes since 1964 with Lyndon Johnson. In 1976, the American voting electorate was 89 percent white. Things have changed drastically since then. And so now, during the Democratic primary process, you saw a lot of candidates come out and say, “Hey, I’m the only candidate who can win back Trump voters. I’m the only candidate who can win red states.”

And you want to say, hey, you’re running as a Democrat. Talk to me about how you can win some blue states. Talk to me about how you can win over people who look like me. Talk to me how you can win over the dudes on the block instead of how you can win over MAGA cult-like followers. They aren’t the ones who elected you. They aren’t the ones who uphold this party.

The media is guilty of this too — centering people who are not interested. It’s like going out to an ex-girlfriend who left you a long time ago, she’s moved on. So we’re attempting to attract that voter and it doesn’t happen. It’s not proven fruitful for any of them. When you see candidates walk the middle of the road, because they’re afraid to scare the MAGA voter and they’re afraid to make appeals and inroads to communities of color. Walking in the middle of the road is how you become roadkill, because the streets are talking and they are not interested in polite, political epithets or people giving these canned speeches. They are demanding difference.

For a lot of people, Obama’s historic presidency was the floor, not the ceiling. And so now they say, “Yeah, Obama did all this and we’re ready to take that and take it to the next level.” As long as you have politicians and a party running a playbook from yesteryear, they’ll keep getting their answers handed to them because people are just not here for that anymore. And I stand with the streets who are out here and demanding — not asking, but demanding that a government serves them. If government is supposed to be by the people and for the people, when does that government start to include us? When does “for the people” include us? And I’m just thrilled that we’re in this moment of a cultural shift that I hope is accompanied by a power shift where our voices can be heard and help to make and shape policy.

Clearly Donald Trump is trying to alienate every Black person not named Diamond and Silk and Ben Carson. Trump’s going to get maybe 5 to 8 percent, the typical teeny numbers of Black supporters. You co-wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post about Joe Biden having a Black VP, arguing that should there be a Black VP on this ticket, it’s going to be a woman. Why is that so important?

It’s not necessarily a question of how Black are you, but how Black are your policies? We want someone who can adopt an agenda that comprehensively addresses issues that impact the Black community. And I think there is an embarrassment of riches of Black women who are able to accomplish that. Look, Julián Castro had a very impressive, comprehensive agenda when he ran for president. Unfortunately, he did not get a lot of attention in the media. Elizabeth Warren, she had a beautiful policy proposal that directly addressed issues in the Black community. I’d be a bit concerned about having two white candidates over the age of 70 on this ticket. It may be challenged, but I don’t know that I would consider her a loss.

I think the important thing is when you have capable Black women who are able to inspire a voting electorate and able to go into these communities with a sense of familiarity, it would strike some of us as wrong to leapfrog over such candidates. I completely understand a lot of Black people saying, “Wait, don’t ask for too much. We have a white supremacist in the White House. We just have to get rid of him.”

But when you sit at the epicenter of political power, if you don’t use that power now, then when will you use it? And I think because Black voters, again, have been so historically brutalized, people have fear in making these demands. They’re saying, “We are afraid of making these demands because we don’t want to risk having another term of Donald Trump.” I understand that fear, but I would have to respond to that and say, “I have to move without fear. Before I just lay down and die, I will fight to the death and to do that, I need a large army of people.” And for me, that would take someone who looks like me running on this ticket. That would make my job easier and help ushering this man over the finish line from November.

Are there one or two candidates that you like for potential VP?

It’s not so much who I like the most, but who I think could be the most impactful. Somebody who could do the job on Day One. And I think again, he has an embarrassment of riches. Sen. Kamala Harris has run a national campaign. She’s been vetted on the national stage. She’s taken a punch, she’s thrown a punch. I think she wouldn’t be a bad choice. Man, I think there are people who could be excited by her. Stacey Abrams would have been a great choice. I’m not sure that she’s being vetted, but she’s proven that she can turn out the votes. She’s helped to turn Georgia purple, practically. I think she would have been a great choice. Susan Rice has an impressive résumé of foreign policy experience. I’m not sure how many people would be excited. Can she show up to a podium and excite people and get millions of people enthusiastic about casting ballots? I don’t know, but certainly there are multiple people that he is considering that are more than capable.

If Joe Biden does not pick someone who’s Black, is there a chance it crushes the turnout? Or is the opposition to Donald Trump so great that we’re still going to come out, and it doesn’t really matter?

I think it would be a mistake to look at this race like it’s a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. This is the choice between Joe Biden and staying home. I’m not encouraging that. I’m certainly going to cast my ballot, but I think there are people who feel that way. There are people who feel like, “I’ve been voting for a long time. My life has never changed. I’ve seen other people vote. The system has never really changed for me. So I don’t know that I can take this election seriously.” I hope people have certainly learned how federal policy and local policy impacts their lives.

Yes, there are some people who are excited about Joe Biden, but for a lot of people a vote for Joe Biden isn’t necessarily for him. It’s a vote against Trump. I think to make this a decisive victory, because that’s what it’s going to take to unseat a white supremacist from the highest office of the land, you want to organize and excite as many people as you can. So why not give the people what they’re asking for? Why not make an exciting ticket? Because if Joe Biden thinks he is Joebama, he simply isn’t.

I mean, we have to be realistic that the idea of a 2008 Joe Biden is one thing, but the reality of a 2020 Joe Biden is another. And he quite frankly, does need someone who can bring some energy onto the ticket. He brings humanity. He brings sense. It’s nothing against Joe Biden in any way and I don’t want that to be misconstrued, but for people who kind of grew up with him and he’s nothing new, I think they want something that they can be excited about, quite frankly.

For people who don’t know you, you’ve got a really interesting story. You came through a lot of challenges. I love the quote you have in your book by Henry van Dyke, and I’m paraphrasing, “Some succeed because they are destined to, others succeed because they are determined to.” Why were you so determined to want to be in the media?

I’ll tell you, Dean, when I started I wanted to be the brown Murphy Brown. When I was in high school, she was like all the rage. And you remember that she got into that big tête-à-tête with Vice President Dan Quayle at the time. I didn’t really see a direct path. I saw people like Oprah and I knew I wanted to be in this field, but I didn’t really know how to get from where I was to where I wanted to be. Every time life knocked me down, I just picked myself up and dusted myself off and I got back to it again. And I still feel that way, honestly, because when you look at the Black experience historically, I come from a lineage of people and that’s what we’ve always had to do, figure it out and find a way or make one.

It was very important to me that I would not let life define my circumstances and keep going. That’s something that I really want younger people to understand as well, because none of us have an easy path. Despite what people around you tell you, despite what your circumstances dictate, we really have to harness our own spirit and let that be the driving force. I had a lot of angels in my life help me along the way, for sure.

On some level it seems like you accepted the fact that there’s going to be struggle and it’s not going to be easy and it inspired you to work harder and not be dissuaded by a challenge.

Don’t get me wrong, it was frustrating, Dean. I’ve navigated newsrooms for 20 years. I’ve won awards. I’ve been a producer and an executive producer. I’ve run a D.C. bureau. I landed a fellowship at Harvard. I taught journalism. If I were a white woman in this space, my career in television news would look vastly different. It is frustrating sometimes to see people who don’t have my intellectual curiosity, who are not the best interviewers, people who ride their last names into fame and are gifted these platforms, are allowed to act the plum fool on TV and throw temper tantrums on TV. And they’re elevated and celebrated by mostly white media executives.

Sure, that is frustrating, but I’ve had to focus on achieving what I could in the lane that I created for myself. And there has been a modicum of success, and I’m certainly not done. I anticipate doing a lot more in life. But I mean, we do have to disrupt the power structure that allows for that level of privilege to go unchecked and celebrate it while you have people like myself and many others who drive ratings, who raise relevant points, who change the national conversation. And we have rarely gotten even a paycheck, let alone a thank you for doing such.

In your book, “Say it Louder!” you talk about media and you talk about representation. Sometimes it gets lost even to our white liberal allies, who might say, “OK, even if you’re not in the newsroom, I’m a white progressive, I’m going to stand up for your community.” But you make the point that the lived experience that you bring is important. While we love the white allies, we need to be there. It actually matters what people see on the screen.

The media has a direct impact on democracy. When you look at voter suppression, for example, Black people have been dealing with voter suppression for almost a century. You see videos of people standing in long lines in the rain, that’s nothing new for Black people in Black neighborhoods. Polling sites are closed routinely. Thousands of voters are purged from the polls routinely. It didn’t become a story. And so white people were impacted, and Donald Trump started threatening going after mail-in ballots, which he himself uses, which a lot of other people outside the Black community use. And then all of a sudden it was like, “Wait a second. This sounds like voter suppression!” How that must feel to those of us who’ve been battling and enduring that for a long time.

And then there are just these awful takes that are just painfully wrong. So even though someone may consider themselves an ally, it matters to actually have a seat at the table. So not just diverse faces and voices in front of the camera, but diverse faces and voices at the executive level, in the C-suites, people with editorial decision-making power who can help drive the conversation. I talked to you a bit offline about the Kanye West thing. He was going to run for president and there’s the awful takes that people had on that. They actually thought that Kanye would split the Black vote. They don’t know that Black people canceled Kanye a long time ago.

But that’s just an example of someone thinking, “Oh, we should do this story on Kanye,” because that represents diversity to them. Where if you have a Black person at the table, they could say, “Let me just tell you, nobody’s taking that seriously, and that’s probably not the best take.” Or the take that people had in 2016 that, “Oh, well, Black folks just didn’t show up because Hillary can never rebuild that Obama coalition. And now we have Trump.” Well, that’s not true. If we’re going to say that, we have to talk about GOP-led voter suppression. We have to talk about foreign election interference that specifically targeted Black voters. And we have to talk about the Black people who did in fact show up.

I write about this in my book, there were 75,000 people who voted for president in Detroit, whose votes were not counted. They simply had their votes thrown out. So Hillary lost that state. Had she carried those 75,000 voters, she would have carried the state. But you did not hear about that in breaking news. If 75,000 people had their data stolen from Target or Equifax, if 75,000 people missed a flight, it would be breaking news for days. But because these voters came out of Detroit, a predominantly Black city, it simply got swept away and we didn’t hear about it because the media landscape was too busy chasing the latest tweet or asinine comment from this president.

That’s a great point. It’s not just about who you see on TV and saying, “Oh, it’s nice to see different faces,” it actually has an impact on cultural norms, the way people see our various communities and then the way people talk about our communities. During the campaign, Donald Trump painted the entire Black community every time as if everyone who was Black lived in a ghetto somewhere in the 1960s. In your book, you talk about how Black women are the biggest supporters of the Democratic Party. And we hear that a lot. I’d love you to explain why. Ninety-five percent literally voted for Hillary Clinton.

It is not that Black women are altruistic or that Black woman are so wedded to the Democratic Party, but Black women vote in the greater interest of the greater good. And so when Black women organize, they don’t just organize themselves, they organize community and have had to be pragmatic. Black women are the No. 1 business owners relative to any other community of color. Black women join the armed forces significantly more, relative to any other community. We represent over a third of all armed forces in this country. So we have multiple tentacles scratching into many different areas. When we assess the landscape where we are not reflected, we have to make pragmatic choices.

A lot of people think Donald Trump is the first white supremacist to occupy the White House. That’s simply not true. Do you know how many devils Black women had to vote for again and again and again? We assess, “This person will cause the least harm to the community, relative to this other person.” And the battle we’ve waged and won, political and social battles seemingly on our own, it’s not just for a president, it’s not just the Democratic Party. It was Black women who kept an accused pedophile from roaming the halls of the Senate. When you look at the special election in Alabama and Roy Moore, we put Doug Jones in that office and in the process helped elect nine Black women to the federal court in Alabama.

It was Black women who overwhelmingly supported the candidacy of Stacey Abrams, but in Georgia white women outpaced even white men with their support for Brian Kemp, a well-documented suppressor of votes and an anti-choice advocate. And so the sweeping policy that impacts everybody, I think Black women have a unique ability to multitask and look at what makes the most sense and work hard to make that happen, because we are voting to save our sons, our daughters. We’re taking care of our parents, we’re worried about our siblings. The weight and the load that we bear in this process is that we have faith in a system that has denied us, but we have to become a part of it in order to disrupt it.                                                                                       

Trump promoted a coronavirus conspiracy video: Health experts say it’s bunk

On Monday, Twitter removed a video from President Trump’s account in which a group doctors made blatantly false claims about the novel coronavirus and alleged that medical experts were involved in a conspiracy. It’s unclear how many of the president’s 84 million followers saw the video before it was taken down, but Donald Trump Jr. quickly shared a version of the video before Twitter responded by removing it and temporarily restricting his account. Facebook and YouTube have also taken down versions of the video.

The video, originally published by Breitbart News, showed a group of doctors claiming that masks are not necessary to contain the virus and that a combination of hydroxychloroquine, zinc and the antibiotic azithromycin can cure it. The video featured medical personnel from a group that calls itself “America’s Frontline Doctors” and includes Dr. Simone Gold, an emergency medicine specialist who has appeared on Fox News to claim that stay-at-home orders are harmful, and Dr. Stella Immanuel, who has made inaccurate medical assertions such as arguing that impotence, miscarriages and gynecological problems are caused by sex with “tormenting spirits.” She has also claimed that extraterrestrial DNA has been used in medical treatments and predicted that Jesus Christ would destroy Facebook’s servers if her videos are not restored.

To learn more about the claims in the controversial video, Salon reached out to health experts. They found that the video’s arguments about masks, hydroxychloroquine and the relationship between COVID-19 and heart problems are easily debunked.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told Salon by email that the video’s assertion that there have been no coronavirus deaths “is not the experience of everyone else in the world who is treating COVID-19 patients, so one wonders what she was treating and if she treated anyone with COVID-19 who was seriously ill.” He noted that the doctor in the video “misstates the concern about cardiovascular risk” with regard to hydroxychloroquine. “We know what that risk is and it is possible to get a population of patients with COVID-19 who are not at risk. But the risk is real and unquestioned.”

Regarding the doctors’ claims about masks, Benjamin observed that “masks are preventive not curative.”

Dr. Russell Medford, chairman of the Center for Global Health Innovation in Atlanta, echoed Benjamin’s observation, telling Salon by email that “the objective scientific evidence is extensive and clear: Masks can help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and that the more people wearing masks, the better.”

He added, “As there is yet no cure for COVID-19, and in the absence, yet, of an effective vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, it is the responsibility of every American citizen today to protect themselves, their families and their communities by taking three simple but effective steps that are proven in multiple scientifically rigorous studies to inhibit the spread of the virus: practice social distancing, wash your hands frequently and wear a mask.”

Medford described hydroxychloroquine as providing “no benefit” to patients with COVID-19 adding that “it might even be harmful. … This is the clear conclusion of multiple, scientifically rigorous clinical trials.”

Dr. Henry F. Raymond, associate professor and epidemiologist at the Rutgers School of Public Health, also told Salon that “hydroxychloroquine has not proven effective in the treatment of COVID-19 and may have negative side effects in terms of heart arrhythmia. As for masks… they have to cover your mouth and nose at all times when in environments where you may encounter the virus or if you might be shedding the virus that will spread to others.”

Salon also reached out to legal experts about whether the de-platforming of the video constitutes an infringement of free speech. Trump and his supporters have accused social media platforms of violating free speech rights on previous occasions when they have flagged or removed content posted by Trump and his movement. For instance, Twitch temporarily suspendd Trump’s account after he posted a clip from a speech that contained racist statements about Mexican migrants and Twitter fact-checking two of the president’s false tweets about mail-in ballots. Trump later retaliated against Twitter by signing an executive order that could exempt social media platforms from certain legal protections, a move the president hailed on the grounds that “we’re here today to defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers.”

“Twitter is a private platform even though, as one federal circuit court rightly held, its use by a public official like the president can create public forum duties on the part of that official,” Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe told Salon by email. “Certainly Twitter’s own decision to take down a medically misleading and thus dangerous video, by Breitbart or by President Trump or by Donald Trump Jr. or by anyone else, raises no First Amendment issue — any more than a decision by a television network to refuse to run a particular video as an ad would create a First Amendment issue.”

He added, “In my view, what Twitter does in taking down what it deems a misleading or otherwise dangerous video or other posting does not interfere with the free speech rights either of the tweeter or of what might be called the tweetees — those who read and view Twitter posts.”

Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA Law School, echoed Tribe’s observation that this is not a First Amendment issue but argued that one could consider it a free speech issue “in a broader sense than just the legal”:

An analogy: Say that Twitter said that they will take down any videos that it thinks are unpatriotic (or for that matter that criticize Twitter). Not a First Amendment violation; not illegal more generally; but I think we might say that it undermines free speech, by making it harder for people to debate important topics. Likewise for other kinds of takedowns.

Now one might also say that, despite the interference with free speech, the takedown was a good idea, on the grounds that the video was inaccurate or dangerous or some such. That’s especially so if you’re talking about free speech as a social practice, and not just as a legal right. But I do think that, when immensely influential platforms such as Twitter decide what people can communicate on those platforms and what they can’t, that is a free speech issue.

Scientists revived microbes that were more than 100 million years old

A new study reveals that microbes which lay dormant for millions of years may be capable of being revived, raising intriguing new questions about the nature of life itself.

A research team led by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology experimented on sediment samples from the South Pacific deposited more than 100 million years ago, according to an article published in Nature. Because there are few nutrients in the sediments, the area in theory would not be hospitable to life forms. Yet the scientists were able to revive nearly all of the microorganisms in the samples through an incubation process, indicating that they may have been able to survive in a dormant state for millions of years due to traces of oxygen within the sediment.

A key factor in understanding the significance of the study? The seabed microbes were able to survive while expending far less energy than microbes at the surface. This could help explain how they were able to live within the uniquely hostile conditions of the deep sea sediment, though it adds to the mystery of how the same microbes were also able to accommodate to life on the surface.

“The main relevance of this study is that it challenges understanding of the ‘rules of life,'” Steven D’Hondt, a geomicrobiologist who contributed to the study, told Salon by email. “It’s not yet understood how any community of any kinds of organisms can survive so long on so little energy and then return to normal activities when brought back to surface-world conditions.”

He added, “The most important contribution to our understanding of ancient life is the demonstration that ancient life is still present in the world. I say this because these subseafloor populations probably haven’t reproduced at very fast rates or accumulated many new mutations since they were buried.”

A particularly notable detail of the study, as the authors wrote in their paper, is that “the sampled communities have likely been trapped in the sediment since shortly after its deposition. The physiological status and growth potential of these buried communities, and more generally, the fractions of these energy-starved subseafloor microbes that are alive, dormant or dead have been essentially unknown.”

Virginia Edgcomb, a microbial ecologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who did not participate in the study, told Science Magazine that the study indicates that “microbial life is very persistent and often finds a way to survive.”

Another scientist who was not involved in the study, microbiologist Andreas Teske of the University of North Carolina, told the magazine that “if the surface of a particular planet does not look promising for life, it may be holding out in the subsurface.”

Salon asked D’Hondt if the microbes discovered in the sediment meet all of the qualifications for being “alive.” This is not always a cut-and-dried question, as there is vigorous debate among scientists about whether microscopic entities like viruses can technically be considered forms of “life.” However, D’Hondt was confident these microbes made the cut.

“Something is generally considered alive if it can grow, reproduce and harvest energy on its own,” D’Hondt told Salon. “As shown in our paper, Yuki Morono’s experiments showed directly that 99% of the microbes in our buried communities do these things (grow, reproduce and harvest energy).”

When asked if the experiments could bring about real-world manifestations of science fiction scenarios — such as the premise of “Jurassic Park,” in which dinosaurs were brought back from extinction — he was deeply skeptical.

“I guess it’s conceivable that someone might revive something like yeast in this way,” he responded. “But something like a ‘Jurassic Park’ scenario (e.g., living dinosaurs) would require recreation of dinosaurs rather than revival of still-living organisms (like our bacteria).”

The beginning of the end for Big Tech? Congress grills Facebook & Amazon over abuse of market power

On Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law gathered together to grill the CEOs for Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon. The nearly six-hour hearing marked the beginning of a new era that will ultimately determine how much power the federal government will deem is appropriate for Big Tech to have going forward. Indeed, power and how much is too much, was the name of the game during the testimony with a spotlight on antitrust and monopolistic behaviors.

The hearing marked the first time the companies’ chief executives – Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sundar Pinchai, and Jeff Bezos – testified live since the committee launched its investigation of the internet companies. Since then, lawmakers have collected hundreds of hours of interviews and obtained more than 1.3 million documents that included accusations of how the companies used their power to suppress competitors. It was also the first time Bezos, the richest man in the world whose personal wealth recently grew $13 billion in one day during the COVID-19 pandemic, had to defend to Congress that his $1.49 trillion company isn’t a monopoly.

A contentious hearing

Cisco’s Webex video conference platform allowed the hearing to be conducted with the four execs testifying virtually in front of Congress members who were mostly, sometimes, wearing masks (more on that later).

Antitrust panel chairman David Cicilline’s (D-RI) kicked things off at 1 p.m. ET with an emphasis on bipartisanship, which quickly unraveled when he stated the companies of the executives testifying “have too much power” in his opening remarks. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI), who has served in Congress for 40 years, acknowledged some issues, but countered, “Being big is not necessarily that bad.” Matters devolved even further when Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) started the first of many temper tantrums. “Big Tech is out to get conservatives,” he declared, wandering off topic to voice a popular complaint that Silicon Valley is silencing Republicans.

Despite the ongoing political theater, and random shouts at members about mask etiquette (“put your mask on!”), the testimony soon began to question the execs in earnest. After about an hour into the event, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) went back and forth with Zuckerberg over internal company emails, which have now been uploaded by the subcommittee. In one rather revealing email, Zuckerberg explains that acquiring companies like Instagram and Foursquare will give Facebook “a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again.” It’s this kind of evidence lawmakers will use in determining if Facebook is a monopoly or not. Zuckerberg was later questioned about threatening rivals, which he denied.

Bezos, whose opening remarks focused on his personal story, managed to stay out of questioning for the first hour, but eventually he had his time in the hot seat. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) asked him about how Amazon employees allegedly used seller data to help determine what products they should offer, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. This behavior, Jayapal said, is part of what makes Amazon a monopoly that puts its marketplace sellers in a bad position.

“You have access to data that other sellers do not have,” Jayapal said. “The whole goal of this committee’s work is to make sure that there are more Amazons, that there are more Apples, that there are more companies that get to innovate and small businesses get to thrive. . . . That is why we need to regulate these marketplaces so that no company has a platform so dominant that it is essentially a monopoly.”

“We have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business,” Bezos countered. “I can’t guarantee you that that policy has never been violated.”

Over the course of the next five hours, concerns around civil rights, discrimination, if Facebook is the arbiter of truth or not, how Amazon harms small business, China, and more fringe conspiracy theories, had their time in the spotlight.

What’s next

After Wednesday’s bit of interrogation, Big Tech has done its part, and now their fate – whatever that may be – rests with the antitrust subcommittee, which will examine the evidence, publish a report with the findings, and propose solutions that determine whether or not Big Tech will be forced to break up. 

But the companies’ fates don’t appear decided yet. As the CEOs were compared to tycoons like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, Rep. Sensenbrenner concluded that current antitrust laws don’t need to be changed. “They’ve been working just fine,” he said. “The question here is the question of enforcement of those antitrust laws.”

Rep. Cicilline had a different stance. “This hearing has made one fact clear to me: these companies have monopoly power,”  he said. “Some need to be broken up; all need to be regulated.” 

Minneapolis “Umbrella Man” is white supremacist who tried to incite riot after Floyd killing: police

A masked man with an umbrella seen smashing windows in Minneapolis amid protests over the killing of George Floyd has been identified as an affiliate of a white supremacist group who sought to “incite violence,” police said in a court filing obtained by The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

A video showing a masked white man, who was dubbed the “Umbrella Man” online, smashing the windows of an AutoZone that was later set on fire with a hammer went viral in June and quickly became the subject of speculation.

Some activists alleged that outside “provacateurs” had tried to spark violence at the protests. Police said the man spray-painted the words “free s— for everyone zone” on the store’s windows, according to The Star Tribune. Some people initially falsely identified him as a police officer in nearby St. Paul, though officials quickly refuted those IDs. 

A police arson investigator said the vandalism of the AutoZone store helped “spark a chain reaction that led to days of looting and rioting,” The Star Tribune reported. The store was one of dozens burned in subsequent days.

“This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city,” Sgt. Erika Christensen wrote in a search warrant affidavit obtained by the outlet. “Until the actions of the person your affiant has been calling ‘Umbrella Man,’ the protests had been relatively peaceful. The actions of this person created an atmosphere of hostility and tension. Your affiant believes that this individual’s sole aim was to incite violence.”

Christensen said police identified the man after receiving a tip that he was a member of a Hells Angels biker gang who “wanted to sow discord and racial unrest by breaking out the windows and writing what he did on the double red doors.”

The Star Tribune did not identify the 32-year-old suspect, who has not been charged with a crime. The outlet did note that he has a criminal history, which includes convictions for assault and domestic violence.

He was also linked to another incident in Stillwater last month in which men wearing “white supremacist garb” confronted a Muslim woman and her 4-year-old daughter. Police determined that the man is an associate of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison gang based mostly in Minnesota and Kentucky, according to The Star Tribune.

“They’re another group that’s basically a farm system,” former Minnesota police officer Andy Shoemaker told the outlet, “a minor league for the Hells Angels.”

Leaked intelligence briefings obtained by the outlet also showed that the president of the Hells Angels called up 75 members of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood to defend the club’s headquarters in Minneapolis amid the protests in June. Another leaked memo suggested that local biker gangs “associated with white racially motivated violent extremists” discussed trying to incite riots while dressed as members of the anti-fascist movement antifa, though it remains unclear if the discussions were ever followed through.

President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr, among dozens of other high-profile Republicans, have tried to blame unrest on antifa despite no evidence linking its supporters to any violence.

The report comes days after police in Virginia said white supremacists “under the guise of Black Lives Matter” had instigated “riots” in Richmond over the weekend, local news outlet WSLS reported.

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said white supremacists were the “leading force” behind the violence, which saw numerous fires and attacks against police, WWBT reported.

“There were white supremacists marching under the banner of Black Lives Matter attempting to undermine an otherwise overwhelmingly peaceful movement towards social justice,” Stoney said Sunday, though he did not provide evidence. “Their mission is simple: to undermine the month of peace, community-driven protest that this city has seen. It’s not the Richmond we know.”

More than 20 people were arrested after the unrest caused about $100,000 in damage to Virginia Commonwealth University, a city dump truck and other buildings,” according to The Washington Post.

The FBI arrested three men in June with ties to the far-right “boogaloo” movement after they allegedly planned to use protests in Las Vegas to “hijack the protests into violence” by planning terrorist attacks against government officials and property.

The Department of Justice later charged a California man linked to the “boogaloo” movement after he allegedly killed a federal officer while using protests in Oakland as cover in hopes of sparking mass violence.

A leaked FBI memo last month also said white supremacists using online social networks “incited followers to engage in violence and start the ‘boogaloo’ — a term used by some violent extremists to refer to the start of a second Civil War — by shooting in a crowd.”

Political commentators criticized Trump and Barr for pushing claims about antifa violence while ignoring mounting evidence of right-wing violence and incitement.

“The truth behind this fearmongering and dangerous rhetoric,” MSNBC host Chris Hayes said, “remains that the worst actual documented instances of violence over the last two months were perpetrated by right-wing white nationalists.”

Trump-loving Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert blames wearing a face mask for his positive COVID-19 test

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tex., who has publicly scorned face masks and not regularly worn one at work for months, tested positive Wednesday for COVID-19.

The GOP congressman got the results at a White House screening ahead of his scheduled flight to Texas that morning with President Donald Trump, CNN reported.

Gohmert attended Attorney General William Barr’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in person one day earlier. Video footage shows the two men, both maskless, only footsteps apart.

Barr will also get tested for the disease, Department of Justice spokesperson Kerr Kupec said Wednesday.

One of Gohmert’s own aides asked Politico in an email to include “the fact that Gohmert requires full staff to be in the office, including three interns, so that ‘we could be an example to America on how to open up safely.'”

“When probing the office,” the aide’s email continued, “you might want to ask how often were people berated for not wearing masks.”

Gohmert returned to his office after testing positive so that he could break the news to his staff in person, reportedly catching some aides as they were departing.

The eight-term Republican has repeatedly expressed his disdain for facial coverings. He took a break from praising Trump at a White House roundtable in May to preemptively knock reporters in the room, saying the only reason the group would wear a mask was “to protect ourselves from you.”

“We had tests, and nobody in here has the coronavirus unless it’s somebody in the media,” Gohmert said at the time. “So the only reason we would wear masks is if we were trying to protect ourselves from you, in the media, and we’re not scared of you.” 

The Texas lawmaker claimed to CNN in June that he was not wearing a mask on the House floor because he was frequently tested.

“[I]f I get it,” Gohmert told CNN in June, “you’ll never see me without a mask.”

CNN reporter Manu Raju on Wednesday reported that he had “never seen him wearing a mask on the House floor as he’s carried on” with colleagues. 

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., authorized the House Sergeant at Arms last month to ban any member who refuses to wear a mask at committee hearings days after Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., tested positive for COVID-19.

A senior House aide said at the time, “Ultimately, chairs will have the option of not recognizing members in committee proceedings that fail to comply with the mask requirement.”

“I’m so sorry for [Gohmert],” Pelosi told reporters Wednesday. “But I’m also sorry for my members who are concerned, because he has been showing up at meetings without a mask and making a thing of it.”

The House speaker told colleagues in a Wednesday call that she would be unveiling a mandatory mask policy for the chamber floor.

Gohmert did not don a mask in a video statement confirming the reports, which he recorded in his office. He claimed that he was asymptomatic and would be “very, very careful not to give it to anybody else.”

“Reports of my demise are a great deal premature,” he said. “I took a quick test, but they get false positives sometimes, so they retested me with the swab that goes way up in your sinuses. It came back positive, too.”

“Apparently, I have the Wuhan virus,” he said. (The term for COVID-19, used among some Republicans, has been decried as racist.)

Gohmert added that he had consulted with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who tested positive for the disease in March. Gohmert said that Paul, the son of physician and former Sen. Ron Paul, assured him that “within 10 days or so, I should be fairly well immune.”

The Texan also pushed back against unnamed critics on Twitter.

“I’ve worn a mask in the last week or two a whole lot more than I have in the last four months,” Gohmert asserted.

The congressman also congratulated himself for evading a “fussing” from Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., by wearing a mask during Barr’s hearing. However, he omitted his interaction with Barr.

Gohmert also suggested that his mask was to blame for his positive diagnosis. 

“I don’t know about everybody else, but when I have a mask on, I’m moving it to make it comfortable. And I can’t help but wonder if that, you know, puts some germs in the mask,” he said. “Keep your hands off the mask.”

The blame game was more clearly articulated during an interview with local Fox News affiliate KETK-TV. 

“I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t been wearing a mask so much in the last 10 days or so — I really wonder if I would’ve gotten it,” Gohmert said. “But I know moving the mask around, getting it just right, I’m bound to put some virus on the mask that I sucked in. That’s most likely what happened.”

But such a suggestion contradicts science. The CDC recommends face coverings as a way to slow the spread of COVID-19.

“Cloth face coverings are most likely to reduce the spread of COVID-19 when they are widely used by people in public settings,” the agency says on its website. “The spread of COVID-19 can be reduced when cloth face coverings are used along with other preventive measures, including social distancing, frequent handwashing and cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces.”

In HBO’s sobering “Weight of Gold,” athletes reveal the mental toll of becoming an Olympian

If roughly 40 seconds of athleticism dictated the outcome of your life (and how you think people will perceive you for decades to come) it’s understandable that you’d begin to view yourself as more performer than person. That’s what happened to swimmer Michael Phelps —who is the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time with 28 medals, 23 of them gold — after he was arrested for a second DUI in 2014. 

“I thought of myself as just a swimmer and not a human being,”  Phelps says in the “Weight of Gold,” a new HBO Sports documentary. “That’s where I was like, ‘Why don’t I end it all?'” 

It’s a shocking admission, but as the documentary makes clear— which is hosted and executive produced by Phelps — he isn’t alone in feeling that way. The timely film, which was originally set to premiere in conjunction with the 2020 Olympics, which have been postponed, turns the spotlight away from the event’s fields, tracks, pools, and rinks and onto the mental health issues that are common among elite athletes.

It’s estimated that about 80% of Olympians experience post-competition depression; from champions like Phelps, speed skater Apolo Ohno and snowboarder Shaun White, to perceived “disappointments” like hurdler (and eventual bobsledder!) Lolo Jones or figure skater Sasha Cohen. 

Regardless of where they place on the podium, there are some commonalities in all their stories that explain how the potential for mental health issues develops long before arriving at the Olympic Village. Once these athletes are identified — often as adolescents — as having “Olympic potential,” they are expected to commit to training hours a day, often exchanging a traditional childhood for the promise of an achievement that may not happen. 

This is a practice that is currently coming under more scrutiny. Earlier this month, ESPN’s “30 for 30” released “Heavy Medals,” a seven-episode podcast series about legendary gymnastics coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi and the intense pressure cooker of a training camp they’ve run for decades. 

In an interview with Salon, “Heavy Medals” host and ESPN senior reporter Alyssa Roenigk said she spoke with a number of Olympic gymnasts who described preparing for the 2000 Olypics. 

“To hear someone like Tasha [Schwikert] say she cried herself to sleep every night at the Olympics as a 15-year-old because she was starving,” Roenigk said. “Nothing is worth that, right? I mean, no gold medal is worth that. So many of them are our national treasures.” 

But as “Weight of Gold” lays out, our so-called national treasures don’t necessarily live like it. 

Lolo Jones, who is a two-time world champion and three-time U.S. champion, felt that her life was defined by the 2008 Beijing Games where she was leading the 100-meter hurdles, but failed to medal after clipping the penultimate hurdle. She eventually competed for the U.S. bobsled team, making her one of the few athletes to compete in both the summer and winter Games. 

But she still went on to work at a smoothie bar at a recreation center for $7 an hour, where she would sometimes catch replays of her races on the gym televisions. Ohno brings up that a month after his Olympic run, his health insurance ran out, and that many athletes are actually deeply in debt due to coaching, lodging and travel expenses.

It’s not all sponsorship deals and Wheaties boxes.

Through it all though, as all the stresses and expectations build up — all the pressure from coaches, fans and yourself — mental healthcare resources for Olympic hopefuls are still lacking. Of course, part of this can be attributed to the general stigma surrounding mental illness and depression that exists in the country as a whole, but another part of this is that we need better language to talk about what happens when you build your entire life around a single sport and suddenly that identity is stripped away. 

In “Weight of Gold,” we see what happens as a result of not having that language. As Gracie Gold, a figure skater who has been incredibly vocal about her struggles with depression and its impact on her training puts it, “How many more dead Olympians do they need before they realize there may be an epidemic here?”

As a documentary, “Weight of Gold” maintains a steady pace, aided by well-placed archival footage and a star-studded cast who lend their deeply personal stories and struggles, which really helps the filmmakers stick the landing after building up to an important message. 

One point of criticism is that the lack of diversity of voices presented in this film is really stark, especially as continued protests around the country are encouraging many to interrogate topics of white privilege and Black personhood. The Olympians interviewed for “Weight of Gold” are overwhelmingly white (Jones is biracial, and Ohno is half Japanese), and some insight into the specific struggles and biases faced by athletes of color would have added to the documentary’s timeliness. 

However, especially in the absence of the 2020 Olympics, “Weight of Gold” remains essential viewing. Inherent to the documentary is the message that if those at the top of the world podium struggle with mental health and can ask for help when it’s needed, perhaps the stigma will be reduced for the rest of us.

“Weight of Gold” premieres on Wednesday, July 29 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.