Help keep Salon independent

“They’re admitting it”: Experts say megamerger helps corporations that used pandemic to raise costs

Major food conglomerates that hiked prices amid the pandemic could benefit a $24.6 billion grocery megamerger facing a federal court challenge from the Federal Trade Commission over concerns that the newly created company would raise Americans’ food prices.

The country's food supplier system is dominated by corporate conglomerates that stand to flourish under the megamerger between The Kroger Co. and Albertsons, experts say.

“Throughout the food supply chain, we've got these market power bottlenecks,” Randy Stutz, president of the American Antitrust Institute, told Salon. “We need to prevent any and all of them from getting any worse than they already are.”

Related

“What will happen to our store?”: Uncertainty still plagues the Kroger and Albertsons merger

"Market power bottlenecks" in grocery and food products

Under the deal, The Kroger Co. would acquire Albertsons, combining America’s two largest grocery chains in the biggest supermarket merger in U.S. history. The combined company would control 22% of the U.S. food retail market; Kroger and Albertsons collectively own and operate nearly 5,000 supermarkets and 4,000 pharmacies across nearly 40 brands in 48 states. There’s a decent chance you shop at one of Kroger’s or Albertsons’ supermarkets: Kroger Co. owns brands like Dillons, Ralphs, Mariano’s and King Soopers; Albertsons’ regional brands include Safeway, Jewel-Osco and Randalls.

Kroger says the sale will unlock efficiencies that would lead to “lower prices and more choices for more customers.” The FTC argues the deal would “eliminate fierce competition,” likely translating into higher prices and a smaller variety of brands, among other impacts. Four out of five consumer product mergers in the U.S. (which includes food retailers) lead to higher prices for customers, according to a 2008 study from the FTC and Princeton University.

Antitrust experts and food economists told Salon the merger could create a dominant grocery giant with power to raise food prices, largely without losing customers. A combined Kroger-Albertsons could also create conditions in which the biggest food brands prosper – corporate giants that, according to one federal report, exploited the pandemic and high inflation to raise prices.

"There isn’t actually much choice" in the grocery aisles

America’s food industry is incredibly consolidated, often dominated by a handful of conglomerates that produce the majority of a given food product.

In 2022, the four biggest food brands in pork, coffee, bread, beer and cookies controlled 60% of those markets. Laid out more plainly: in the snack bar category, four companies – General Mills, Kellogg, Simply Good Foods and Mars – made 66.4% of the snack bars stocked on shelves, per 2021 data.

The biggest food brands have power in a range of products. PepsiCo, for example, controls 88% of the chip dip market. The J.M. Smucker Co., known best for jarred fruit spreads, owns 25% of the coffee market – and 47% of the premium pet food space. Unilever, which owns beauty brands like Dove, Pond’s and Axe, makes half the mayonnaise on grocery shelves. Kraft Heinz owns another 30% of the mayonnaise market, as well as nearly 20% of bacon, 10% of coffee and juice, and more than 70% of dry mac & cheese mixes.

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalism

“For the average shopper, the grocery store seems more abundant and full of variety than any other time in human history,” Claire Kelloway, program manager at the Open Markets Institute, told Salon. “But all these different brands mask the fact that there isn't actually that much choice.”

In recent years, and during the pandemic, costs associated with many of those companies’ products have soared. The cost of eggs is up 54% from November 2020 to March 2024. Milk prices are up 36%, and cereal prices are up 28% since then. In 2022, food prices rose 9.9% – the steepest annual price hike since 1979. Grocery prices rose more than overall food prices in 2022, swelling 11.4%. As of July 2024, food prices have risen 25% since the pandemic. 

But during periods of high prices, profits soared. Food retailers’ profits increased to 6% over their total costs in 2021; in the first three quarters of 2023, that rose to 7% – “casting doubt on the assertions of some companies that rising prices at the grocery store are the result of retailers’ own rising costs,” the FTC said in a recent report on the grocery sector’s pandemic pricing practices.

In an analysis from The Guardian of 100 top public companies’ quarterly earnings statements from early 2022 vs. early 2020, profits were up by a median of 49%. Albertsons’ quarterly profits were up 671%; Keurig DrPepper’s quarterly profits were up 83%, and Hershey’s were up 62%.

“There's some basic red flags in terms of economic indicators that strongly suggest there's serious market power problems,” Stutz told Salon.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Food brands using the pandemic or inflation ‘as cover’ to raise prices

Executives at some of the biggest food conglomerates have admitted to raising prices more than necessary during the pandemic and periods of high inflation. In 2021, executives from Tyson, which owns brands like Sara Lee and Hillshire Farm, told investors that “pricing actions” in beef led to sales earnings that “more than offset the higher (cost of goods).” In 2022, executives from Procter & Gamble – which owns Tide, Bounty, Gillette and many other brands – told investors that, looking at future sales growth, “we continue to believe that the majority of that growth will be price driven with a negative volume component, as you would expect given the inflationary pressure.”  

Last month, a Kroger executive testified in the FTC’s case against the Albertsons merger about an email that seemed to imply Kroger did, in fact, raise prices more than needed earlier this year. “Retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation,” Kroger’s senior director for pricing wrote in an email to his bosses in March, per Bloomberg.

“If they're admitting it, and the federal government is finding evidence of it, then we absolutely know that to be true,” Amanda Starbuck, research director at Food & Water Watch, told Salon of grocery and food conglomerates exploiting outside events. “There's plenty of evidence out there that (suggests) it is pretty easy for them to point to a terrible, tragic disaster, and use it as coverage to profit and to raise prices.”  

A spokesperson for Kroger said in a statement that "this cherry-picked email covers a specific period and does not reflect Kroger’s decades-long business model to lower prices for customers by reducing its margins."

"What’s missing is the fact that Kroger’s retail prices include the cost to run a grocery store, including labor, transportation, advertising and other costs. Many of these costs have significantly increased since 2020. Kroger’s pricing decisions are impacted by factors beyond inflation," the statement continued. "We work relentlessly to keep prices as low as possible for customers in our highly competitive industry. This is especially true for essential products like milk and eggs. Since 2020, these commodities saw significant cost fluctuations for a broad range of products. Despite these challenges Kroger has maintained competitive pricing for milk and eggs, especially compared to Walmart. Reducing margins to lower prices over time so more customers shop with us is our business strategy, and the strategy we will implement at Albertsons after our merger.”

Under a more powerful Kroger-Albertsons, an already deeply consolidated pool of food brands could stand to prosper from even further consolidation. More consolidation – and more influential corporate giants – risks more deeply entangling the interests of profit-driven companies in America’s food system.  

“Allowing a merger like that to go through really threatens to lock in and entrench a very concentrated market structure,” Stutz told Salon. “Among the levers to pull, in terms of promoting competition, that's one less lever that can be pulled, right?”

Read more

about the Kroger-Albertsons merger

Taylor Swift’s “Childless Cat Lady” endorsement of Kamala Harris exposes what MAGA men fear most

"With love and hope," Taylor Swift signed her endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, "Childless Cat Lady."

Most of the global star's Instagram post praising the Democratic presidential nominee and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, was thoughtful and earnest. She thoughtfully laid out her frustrations with Donald Trump for falsely claiming she backed him, writing immediately after Tuesday night's debate, "It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter." Swift heralded Harris as "a steady-handed, gifted leader," and lauded Walz for "standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades." She included information for her young fans on registering to vote. The General Services Administration announced that more than 337,000 visitors followed Swift's link to Vote.gov as of 2 pm the day after the debate. 

The cheek only came at the end of Swift's endorsement, with a pithy "childless cat lady" callback. Well, that and Swift's photo of her hugging one of her enviably adorable cats. 

For the few who remain blissfully ignorant of what Swift was referencing, it's a swipe at Donald Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. At this point, it's impossible to keep track of how many clips have been unearthed of Vance raving about how much he hates and fears childless women, who, in typical MAGA projection, he calls "miserable" and "sociopathic." Vance has insisted such women hate children and that shaming them is necessary to set them straight. (In reality, childless women support pro-family policies more and are happier than the average voter.) With her signature, Swift trolled Vance and all the sad MAGA men who want to believe calling women "cat ladies" is fresh humor. 

In contrast, Swift reclaiming the term "childless cat lady" was a sick burn. She deftly mocked what scares and enrages MAGA men most: women who don't care what they think.

Despite Trump's prediction that "she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace," Swift is going to do her thing, write the music she wants, date the men she likes, and live her life as she sees fit. If men don't like it, well, too bad. They can cry about it online, and boy, they never seem to stop. But their lame insults don't matter to her. 

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

Obviously, the MAGA fury isn't really about Swift, who is just one person. She's a symbol of a much larger social change. There are metrics we can use to gauge women's liberation, from the closing of the gender pay gap to increased levels of female education to later marriage and motherhood ages. Swift, however, puts a face to the shifting social dynamics between men and women that these tangible gains have allowed. Simply put, millions of women have been liberated from having to care what stupid men think of them — and boy, are a lot of men mad about it. 

Vance's compatriot in the club of wealthy men who can't seem to overcome the stench of sexual insecurity, Elon Musk, made himself the avatar of this impotent MAGA rage. Having purchased Twitter for $44 billion just so people would have to look at his tweets, the Tesla CEO used the platform to sexually harass Swift for having an opinion. He tweeted in response to her Harris endorsement, "Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life."

It's painful to give this pathetic trolling any attention, but necessary because it so perfectly illustrates a crucial point. Musk embodies what is often called "toxic masculinity." As his tweet demonstrates, it's often too pitiable to warrant a word as powerful as "toxic." Other Trump supporters, like podcaster Dave Rubin, resorted to the more familiar right-wing fearmongering: "It’s like, Taylor Swift, you are a young, pretty girl. Do you know what the gang members from Venezuela do to young, pretty girls? It ain’t pretty.”

There's a flailing quality to this behavior of men lashing out because they can't force women to care what they think. Swift will almost surely wrinkle her nose and say, "ew," of course. But so will most other women. 

It wasn't always this way. Even those a mere decade older than Swift can remember how much it was drilled into female heads that we should care for nothing more than male opinion, often with little discernment over what man was offering the opinion. If a man, any man, deigned to render judgment on your looks, your behavior, your waist size, your lifestyle, or the tenor of your voice, there was an expectation that you, as a woman, were to take his opinion seriously. Women's magazines were an endless stream of articles about what men supposedly "liked" and strategies to mold yourself into that form. Men in prestigious publications and TV programs were empowered to offer their behavioral prescriptions for all womankind, and women were expected to apologize for their failure to please the male gaze. 

Related

Taylor Swift gets it: Cats are better than (some) men

The moment I could feel that tide shifting was probably the Great Vocal Fry Wars of 2013. It started with the standard practice of men opining in public that women, as a group, are Doing It Wrong and must change immediately. Vocal fry is a normal vocal affectation — used by both men and women — where you drop your voice for emphasis. (NPR's Ira Glass does it a lot.) In the 90s, women were castigated for pitching voices "too" high for emphasis. In the 2000s, however, many women went low, instead. Men got mad about that, too. They yelled on social media. They wrote angry emails. They even did podcasts calling women who used low registers for emphasis "repulsive." 

With her signature, Swift trolled Vance and all the sad MAGA men who want to believe calling women "cat ladies" is fresh humor.

Instead of simply bowing their heads and begging for forgiveness, young women revolted. They pointed out, correctly, that they were previously forbidden from going high and now they aren't allowed to go low.  They noted that there is no way a woman can talk that won't draw male ire. They concluded that these men don't want women talking at all. And a mass consensus among women began to grow: No one should care what men think. Talk how you like, and stop worrying about the opinions of random men. 

The 2010s had many examples, such as the "Man Repeller" fashion blog that refused to incorporate the male gaze into its analysis of clothing trends. Or Gamergate, an online harassment campaign that exploded as male video game fans raged about women not obeying male dictates on who to sleep with, what games to like, or how to do their jobs. Words like "mansplaining" were developed to mock pushy men. Women grew more comfortable keeping their own counsel. Some men grew more comfortable with just leaving women alone. Taylor Swift's success owes much to this major social shift, which created more space for female fans to like what they like, regardless of male opinion. Even the #MeToo movement is a part of this, as women started to feel safer talking about sexual abuse and harassment, without fear of being told by men that they were "asking for it." 

The "cat lady" discourse reflects this profound, if immeasurable, change. Vance and his bitter male comrades keep reaching for the term "cat lady" because they have a lingering memory of when that phrase had power. But nowadays, it says more about the man flinging it than the woman being so labeled. The image of a lonely spinster comforting herself with cats has been replaced with, well, Taylor Swift: a sexy and successful woman who has cats because she likes them and because no man can tell her otherwise. And it makes MAGA men fume. 

Read more

about this topic

From “Star Wars” to “Fences,” we’ve lost a universal voice and noble presence in James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones introduced me to August Wilson by way of his play “Fences.” Our acquaintance was forged indirectly and vicariously, I should say, through my mother. In 1986, Mom was a season ticket holder with the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, where Jones starred in a pre-Broadway run of Wilson’s plan.  

Mom attended a lot of Goodman productions, but Wilson’s play is the only one she couldn’t stop talking about for years, due to the writing and Jones’ anchoring presence. “Fences” was the playwright’s third production, and by the mid-‘80s, Jones was already a bonafide star, having completed his arc as Darth Vader in the first “Star Wars” trilogy and played Alex Haley in the groundbreaking miniseries “Roots” and “Roots: The Next Generation.” 

Darth Vader wasn’t Jones’ first father role for the big screen; in John Berry’s 1974 feature “Claudine” he co-starred with the late Diahann Carroll as Roop Marshall, a charming municipal waste collector who falls behind on child support. 

Thanks to George Lucas tapping in to provide the voice of the films’ great villain, however, he held separate identities in the minds of children and their parents. To the young, his voice could be synonymous with authoritative menace or vast warmth, depending on the circumstances of their first encounter. His cameo on "The Big Bang Theory" encapsulates both sensations in a single, wonderful interaction. 

“Fences,” I came to understand much later, provided Jones an opportunity to originate another kind of father, Troy Maxson, burdened with a different type of destiny. Wilson’s lead is a working-class Black man, a former Negro league superstar whose dreams festered when baseball’s color barrier prevented him from rising into the big leagues. 

Related

Celebrities mourn the loss of James Earl Jones, dead at 93

In his remembrance of Jones, a Grammy, Emmy, Tony and honorary Oscar winner who died Monday at the age of 93, Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips recalls the actor explaining Troy Maxson’s appeal in their long-ago conversation. “This is a character who comes on the stage representing something hopeful, especially for the Black female,” Jones said. “He’s a strong man who has the chance to make something happen right, rather than just (mess) up.”

Then he does mess up, Jones continues. “It’s the last thing they want to see,” he told Phillips, “because the audience has gotten pretty wrapped up in the play by then.”  

This, at last, explains why my mother was so taken by Jones' performance. By 1986 she and my father were divorcing, and hideously. And there was Jones, a tower of a man, breathing warmth and dignity into this flawed man worked over by life but still trying. Still doing right by his children, which must have been the least of what she wanted from her dispiriting situation. 

Memory is tricky, though, and perhaps that emotional context didn't enter her evaluation of the experience at all.

Either way, a scene from its Broadway performance is still making the rounds featuring Jones' Troy dressing down his son Cory – played by Courtney B. Vance, another incredible talent – for having the temerity to ask his father why he never liked him. Jones pours all his passion into his response, ensuring the scene is carved into whatever monument to stagecraft might exist. Denzel Washington played Troy Maxson in the movie version of "Fences" in 2016, and if you thought his work was excellent, that's probably because he had a mountainous standard to meet. 

The multitude of tributes to Jones that have come out in the days since his death tend to lead with references to his voice, and well they should. There are indelible voices in entertainment, and there is James Earl Jones’ baritone, variously described as sonorous, commanding, and booming. 

It is a voice that erupted from beneath the thick mantle of a difficult childhood, nearly muted by a stutter that a teacher taught him to overcome by forcing him to read a poem aloud. He says this made him realize performing the written word was his path to moving the world.

This happened long before “Star Wars” changed how a generation saw him, before “The Lion King” introduced him to Millennials as Mufasa, Simba's father and the rightful and just ruler of the African savannah. News-watchers recognized him as the voice of CNN. Om is said to be the mantra describing the sound of the universe. Likening the music produced by Jones’ golden vocal cords to that would be pushing it, we know. 

But Jones’ timbre perhaps gave voice to something universal, a sound to nobility and resplendence. That was true whether he was playing kings, garbage collectors, or a hope-weaving author, as he did in “Field of Dreams” – or one of the many fathers he brought to life on stage, in movies, or in the many TV series in which he appeared or starred, including the short-lived ABC drama "Gabriel's Fire," for which he won one of his two primetime Emmy awards.

Inimitable voices might stay with us for a time, but it’s the vessels, the deliverers, who might ensure their immortality.

If it seems to many of us that Jones has been with us since we were in our cradles, that’s because he was. Before his first major Hollywood breakout, he became part of the test run for “Sesame Street,” seen in a 1969 video clip of him reading the alphabet.

That appearance was one of many over the years, and made him the show’s first celebrity guest, although it was recorded a year or so before he starred in the movie adaptation of “The Great White Hope.” 

By then Jones had already won a Tony for playing the role on Broadway as well as playing roles on TV shows like “Dr. Kildare” and “N.Y.P.D.” The movie added a Golden Globe (for most promising newcomer-male) along with an Academy Award nomination, although review averages on sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes sit on the lower edge of middling. 

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalism

It could be that modern critics and audience reviewers are evaluating it from the stance of those already deeply versed in the actor we know from modern movies, such as the “Field of Dreams" author Terence Mann, who transformed from a disillusioned hermit to a revitalized believer.

Those came years after Jones learned to calibrate that voice and energy to reach not to the back row but into our spines and souls. Still, within his Jefferson lives a version of William Shakespeare’s Othello, another part Jones played to great acclaim with Christopher Plummer as his Iago. 

Jones was 6 foot 2 inches tall and put his muscular chest into everything whether via a quiet push, as when he growls “All I got to do is be Black and die, lady,” or a roar  — as when his Jefferson, exiled from this home country, pounds his chest in frustration and screams at the sky.

Maybe that movie was too small to contain his thunder. Still, in that performance, one can appreciate the luxury of the tight shot on Jones’ face, a panoply of expressive glowing and fading between pride, joy, anger and sorrow that only theatergoers in the good seats might have been able to fully experience. Jones’ glower could chill you to the bone, but his smiles were radiant and honest. His “people will come, Ray” speech from “Field of Dreams” is preserved in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's permanent collection, in addition to being imitated at countless auditions. 

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

The real magic, however, is the giddiness sparkling around Terence Mann who starts as a lost soul and ends the film believing in magic again, simply by touching the edge of a cornfield.

His “Field of Dreams” character and the man he played in “Fences” have in common an intense love affair with baseball, the sport romanticized for the way it connects us to our personal and shared histories. This, too, reflects the actor’s ultimate legacy. 

The voices we never forget tend to come out of incredible performers, and we’ve gotten several tremendous ones within the last two years, including Andre Braugher and Lance Reddick – two other actors whose tone and cadence we can still hear if we listen hard enough to memory, and who were undoubtedly inspired by Jones.

“August Wilson, it is clear, can write like an angel,” the Tribune's reviewer concluded in 1986.

The same article cites Jones’ performance as integral to making Troy Maxson “a man of almost mythic power and nobility who, despite personal failings and life’s limitations, is still fit for heaven’s gates.” The playwright’s words can transport us, but only a monumental performer like Jones’, in body and voice, can propel his sentiments aloft.

Read more

about this topic

Chemicals in common skin care products are linked to child health issues, study finds

A new study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives reveals that a number of widely-used skin care products, such as lotions and sunscreens, contain dangerous industrial chemicals known as phthalates. When these phthalates enter the human body, they have been linked to serious health issues such as asthma, allergies and cancers. That's because phthalates disrupt the endocrine system, causing problems with neurodevelopment,  pulmonary and immune function, and more.

"The study looked at the breakdown products of different types of phthalates in children’s urine in association with using skin care products," corresponding author Dr. Michael S. Bloom from George Mason University told Salon. Because different products use different types of phthalates, the scientists wanted to distinguish between the health hazards associated with low molecular weight phthalates (such as those in skin care products) as opposed to those with high molecular weight (such as those in plastic packaging.)

Related

Beyond their years: Behind the alarming obsession Gens Z and Alpha have with skincare and anti-aging

"Based on the different types of phthalate breakdown products we found," Bloom explained, "we were able to estimate if the presence of phthalates in children’s urine was more likely to be related to the skin care products themselves or to their packaging. We also studied if these patterns were different based on race, ethnicity, and gender."

The authors learned that there are higher urinary concentrations of phthalates among children ages 4 to 8 if they frequently use products like lotions, oils, sunscreens and others. Similarly, the scientists discovered that "distinct patterns of using multiple skin care products were predictive of higher urinary concentrations of phthalate and phthalate replacement chemicals that are typically used as plasticizers in packaging." They also learned that there are "different relationships between use of skin care products and urinary phthalates and phthalate replacement chemicals in children with different racial and ethnic identities and different sex assigned birth."

Consumers can check product labels to identify potentially dangerous ingredients like phthalates. Yet unfortunately, there is only so much consumers can do just with their pocketbooks.

"The widespread use of these chemicals, lenient labeling requirements, and the possibility for these chemicals to migrate from plastic packaging into product suggest that regulation may be the most effective strategy to limit children’s exposure to potentially harmful chemicals in skin care products," Bloom said.

Read more

about health

Trump’s self-destruction was epic — but this is America, so it might not be enough

In a sane, normal and functional democracy — and even in a mildly dysfunctional one, which is a widespread condition these days — Donald Trump’s appalling performance in Tuesday night’s presidential debate would not just have ensured his electoral defeat but ended his career as a public figure. But — and you know where I’m going here — we do not live in such a democracy. 

Whether we live in one at all, indeed, is up for debate. Yes, we still hold elections that are not entirely predictable in advance (although, way too much of the time, they are), and whose winners get to assume positions of authority. But the popular superstition that purportedly “free and fair” elections between rival gangs of millionaires equates to democracy is one of the most dangerous of American delusions. We went from two wildly unpopular geriatric candidates stuffed with dark money, who transparently did not reflect majority opinion on a wide range of issues, to just one of those plus a last-minute substitute, chosen in desperation with no semblance of a democratic process, who has ridden a wave of exuberance based on nothing more than novelty and sheer relief. Those emotions are highly understandable, but do we have to pretend that anything about that is healthy? 

Related

"She whupped him": Harris turned a potential disaster into a laugh-in

Too many of us in the media have made jokes over the past decade about living in the “worst timeline,” or suggesting that the godlike alien authors of this simulation should simply switch it off. But the anxiety beneath such alleged witticisms is deeply troubling: Facing the fact that this is our reality, and that you and I will never get to live in any other hypothetical sliding-doors universe, is acutely painful. 

There is a profound darkness within America, a widely shared sensation that something has gone wrong, even if we can’t quite identify it and don’t remotely agree about what’s causing it. That feeling of rootlessness and discontent, of society coming unstuck — the academic term is anomie — definitely isn’t unique to this country, but it gets massively amplified by our national narcissism and our physical isolation. Nearly all of us feel it, regardless of where we live or who we vote for. (If we conclude it’s worth voting for anyone at all, that is; nearly one-third of adult citizens never even bother.) 

One tangible symptom of that darkness is the fact that a visibly disordered man appeared on television before a worldwide audience and delivered an angry, incoherent diatribe fueled by grotesque fantasies about baby-killing doctors and cat-eating Haitians, and that he appears, two days later, to have only slightly diminished his 50/50 chance of being elected president.

Accurately reproducing Trump’s belligerent rants about Hannibal Lecter, Venezuela, his “radical left liberal” opponents who seek to perform “transgender surgeries on illegal aliens” and the million-dollar bribe paid to Joe Biden by “the mayor of Moscow’s wife” is like spending too much time reading H.P. Lovecraft’s “Necronomicon.”

Certainly Kamala Harris deserves some of the credit, if that’s the right word, for Trump’s thorough self-beclowning. She was competent and controlled, did not raise her voice or lose her temper, and generally managed to avoid perplexing policy questions by setting obvious rhetorical traps for Trump, into which he tumbled over and over again. Now we are forced to ponder unanswerable or metaphysical questions about whether Harris appeared sufficiently presidential, and how wavering independents or notional “undecided” voters in a handful of swing states, who have somehow avoided drawing any firm conclusions about Donald Trump, interpreted this spectacle. The real and glaringly obvious question is admittedly harder to face: How the hell did we wind up here?

As various commentators have observed lately, summarizing or paraphrasing the things Trump says can amount to “sanewashing” him, lending his remarks a clarity or sense of direction they almost never possess. On the other hand, accurately transcribing and reproducing Trump’s belligerent rants about Hannibal Lecter, Venezuela, the all-purpose panacea of tariffs (!), his “radical left liberal” opponents who seek to perform “transgender surgeries on illegal aliens” and the alleged million-dollar bribes paid to Joe Biden by “the mayor of Moscow’s wife” — fact-check that, libtards! — is like spending too much time reading H.P. Lovecraft’s “Necronomicon,” the book of forbidden knowledge that drives you mad. 

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support commentary you can't read anywhere else

I actually spent 10 or 15 minutes of my allotted time on this Earth trying to identify “Abdul,” the Taliban leader Trump purportedly cowed into submission with a threatened drone strike. I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn that no one of that name, or anything close to that name, has ever been a major military or political figure in the Taliban, and that news accounts of the Trump administration’s negotiations with that group suggest its leaders were treated with great solicitude. It’s true, however, that the Trump team authorized many drone killings in Afghanistan (as did the Obama and Biden teams), a significant proportion of which — the exact number is a state secret — were war crimes against unarmed civilians.

That digression isn’t entirely irrelevant: The drone wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places we were never officially told about have been consigned to the memory hole, along with the entire tragic and gruesome history of America’s misbegotten 20-year war in the Middle East. But nothing could more clearly symbolize the dark places in America’s troubled conscience, where we’re dimly aware that we don’t know the real story, and it’s not unreasonable to assume the worst.

Trump’s distinctive and probably unconscious political genius was to channel that American darkness while also vowing to defeat it, and for years that contradiction was his strength, not his weakness. He was the “antiwar” candidate who promised to bring back torture, the crusader for the “forgotten man” who gave huge tax breaks to the wealthy, the builder of imaginary border walls, nonexistent health care plans and vaporware agreements with foreign tyrants. 

The “American carnage” of Trump’s inaugural address was more like an erotic fantasy than a depiction of reality. As George W. Bush reportedly said to Michelle Obama at the time, “That was some weird shit,” and if W. were capable of honest self-reflection about his own role in brewing it … but let’s not go there. 

Isn't there a word for the political system that thrives on unfocused discontent, in which an autocratic leader seeks to combine incompatible ideologies and overcome class divisions in pursuit of impossible goals, while both threatening and promising apocalypse? I'll think of it later.  

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

It’s not exactly breaking news that Trump’s delusional, conspiratorial rants are grounded in the most depressing and small-minded kinds of bigotry rather than facts, and that his core audiences like it that way. Right-wing commentators spent an entire day feigning outrage that ABC’s debate moderators dared to challenge at least a few of the ex-president’s blatantly false assertions. But asking whether Trump actually believes the outrageous things he says, whether his followers take them literally and whether fact-checking serves any real purpose amid a thundering Niagara of lies is largely missing the point.

Of course we could find MAGA true believers who have imbibed not just the Trumpian Kool-aid but paid hundreds of dollars for the Trump-branded smiley-face pitcher it came in, and who adjust their views daily to conform to their cult leader's latest utterances. But most of Trump's voters, I suspect, see themselves as knowing participants in the con. They judge their god-emperor on style rather than substance, and understand truth as an endlessly fungible cryptocurrency compared to wicked memes and liberal tears. What was truly damaging about Tuesday’s debate, in that regard, was not that Trump got fact-checked (lol who cares!) but that he got owned, pantsed, Melvined and defenestrated, and clearly knew it. Snowflakes were triggered, and flung their tear-soaked red hats to the ground.

The Washington Post convened a mini-focus group of about 25 supposedly uncommitted voters in swing states — a methodologically murky sample with no statistical or predictive value, to be clear — and the short-term news was clearly positive for Harris. Nearly all participants said she'd won the debate, and a couple of previously Trump-friendly voters now said they leaned toward Harris.

Most readers probably got no further than that: Phew, democracy saved and all! But if you pushed past the top-line data into what those folks actually said, it got a whole lot darker: The sense of discontent was pervasive and nonpartisan, as was a shared awareness that nothing that happens in November is likely to fix it. Melissa, a 40ish woman in Nevada, said she leaned toward Harris on reproductive rights, but strongly favored Trump on the economy. She appreciated “his strong views” and trusted “his ability to make strong, decisive choices.” Seriously, that was Melissa’s verdict on the guy who said Democrats would allow doctors to “execute the baby” in the delivery room: Strong views!

A plurality of the group, including several likely Harris voters, agreed with Trump’s statement that “[W]e have a nation in decline. … We have a nation that is dying.” According to Alexander in Arizona, a young white man who leans toward Harris, “Our economy is dying, and the American dream for the next generation seems extremely bleak.” Tamara in Michigan, a young white woman who remains undecided, said, “We need substance from both candidates, and we are not getting it.” Debra in Pennsylvania, an older white woman who went into the evening leaning toward Trump, concluded, “I don’t want to vote for either of them.”

Steven in Nevada, a middle-aged white man and likely Harris voter, was agnostic on Trump’s decline comment, but not in a good way. Let's commend him for brevity: “I think the world is in decline,” he said, “not necessarily the USA.” 

Read more

about 2024 and the struggle for democracy

The problem with pinning Donald Trump down: Americans’ attention spans are too short

The Age of Trump has assaulted and undermined America’s governing institutions and the rule of law, civil society, and shared sense of normalcy. Beginning to heal these many great challenges, as President Obama and Michelle Obama implored last month in Chicago, will take much hard work. In total, it will be a project of democratic renewal that will last decades and not just one debate or election cycle. Doing the work of democratic and civic renewal will require that the American people develop a different relationship to time.

The attention economy with its endless and empty “content” and algorithms is how the late capitalist experience machine distracts and profits. This dynamic of constant stimulation in an age of spectacle has contributed to epidemic rates of loneliness, social atomization, depression and other mental and emotional unwellness. We've seen a decline in the type of social capital essential for a healthy democracy. How can the American people and their leaders do the work of reinvigorating democracy and defeating Trumpism and the larger neofascist threat if average attention spans have been greatly decreasing over the last two decades?

Doing the work of democratic and civic renewal will require that the American people develop a different relationship to time.

For example, research shows that the average American’s ability to focus on a computer screen has decreased from 2.5 minutes in the early 2000s to 47 or so seconds today. Other research suggests that many Americans can only pay attention to one task for 8 seconds — that is less than a goldfish.

For decades, the American news media with its endless 24/7 coverage, sensationalism, traffic-chasing, and an “if it bleeds it leads” ethos has contributed to this problem instead of intervening against it. The Age of Trump has been enabled and normalized by that behavior and how the corrupt felonious traitor sexual assaulter as confirmed by a court of law ex-president is worth billions of dollars in advertising revenue to the news media.

Related

The debate was a total debacle for Donald Trump

Anton Jäger describes this late capitalist media and political environment with its rejection of substantive mass politics in favor of empty identity politics and performance, with its “brands” and virtue-signaling to get attention on social media and across the digital space as an example of “hyper-politics”:

“hyper-politics” is what happens when post-politics ends — something like furiously stepping on the gas with an empty tank. Questions of what people own, and control are increasingly supplanted by questions of who or what people are, replacing clashes of classes with the collaging of identities and morals.

Social theorist Henry Giroux offers a complementary framework (what he calls “emergency time”) for understanding the crisis in American and global democracy:

The Republican Party is now mostly a vehicle for fascist politics. The United States has reached the endpoint of a cruel economic and political system that resembles a dead man walking–a zombie politics that thrives on the exploitation of the working class, immigrants, the poor, dispossessed, and helpless children dying under the bombed-out rubble of state terrorism. White Christian nationalism merges with the most extreme elements of capitalism to enforce cruel and heartless policies of dispossession, elimination, and a politics of disposability. Mouthfuls of blood saturate the language of authoritarianism, and policies of destruction, exploitation, and utter despair follow. Public time based on notions of equality, the common good, and justice fades into the dustbin of a white-washed history. As James Baldwin once noted, until the Nazis knock on their door, these “let’s be balanced” types refuse to have the courage to name fascism for what it is.

In the face of emergency time, it is crucial to develop a great awakening of consciousness, a massive broad-based movement for the defense of public goods, and a mobilization of educators and youth who can both say no and fight for a socialist democracy.  The fight against fascism cannot take place without new ideas, vision, and the ability to translate them into action. Dangerous memories and the resuscitation of historical consciousness help. And are even more necessary as democracy is choking on the filth of demagogues, white nationalism, class warfare, militarism, and Christian nationalism.  Those Americans who believe in democracy and justice can no longer accept being reduced to a nation of spectators; they can no longer define democracy by reducing it to a voting machine controlled by the rich; nor can they equate it with the corpse of capitalism;  they can no longer allow the silence of the press to function as a disimagination machine that functions to largely depoliticize the public;  they can no longer allow education to be pushed as machinery of illiteracy, historical amnesia, and ignorance.

Ultimately, the American people and their leaders need to take a breath, slow down, and gain perspective as they try to step away from the spectacle.

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalism

As I often warn here at Salon and elsewhere, the American people are not well. Sick societies produce sick leaders. In the Age of Trump, it appears that we "the Americans" are even more afflicted with a 21st-century version of the malady known as “Americanitis." In an essay in Smithsonian Magazine, Greg Daugherty applies this therapeutic language: “Too much stress, too little sleep, rushed meals, technology that seems to change faster than we can begin to keep up with. If those complaints sound familiar, chances are they’d have resonated with your great-great grandparents too":

More than a century ago, Americans had much the same concerns, and some leading thinkers and medical practitioners even took it a step further. They suggested that the country’s legendary work ethic and go-getter spirit might be a form of mental illness that they called “Americanitis.”

The Journal of the American Medical Association acknowledged the condition as early as 1898, linking it in one article to the increased noise level in industrialized America. “Who shall say how far the high-strung, nervous, active temperament of the American people is due to the noise with which they choose to surround their daily lives?” the author asked.

It wasn’t long before Americanitis had spread beyond the medical journals and into everyday vocabulary, shorthand for a deadly mix of hurry and worry. Orison Swett Marden, a self-help author and editor of Success magazine, and Elbert Hubbard, the flamboyant “Sage of East Aurora,” were two of the many popular writers to address the subject.

Marden devoted a chapter to “The Cure for Americanitis” in his book, Cheerfulness as a Life Power. “How quickly we Americans exhaust life!” he wrote. “Hurry is stamped in the wrinkles of the national face.” The “cure,” as he saw it, was to stop worrying so much. “Instead of worrying about unforeseen misfortune,” he advised, “set out with all your soul to rejoice in the unforeseen blessings of all your coming days.”

Hubbard attributed the disease to “an intense desire to ‘git thar’ and an awful feeling that you cannot.” He advised readers to “cut down your calling list, play tag with the children, and let the world slide. Remember that your real wants are not many—a few hours work a day will supply your needs—then you are safe from Americanitis and death at the top.”

Theodore Dreiser raised the question “Americanitis—Can It Be Cured?” in The Delineator, a women’s fashion magazine he edited. “The morning paper gives us a daily list of deaths by suicide, apoplexy, and insanity,” he lamented, “men in the prime of life rushing into eternity, desperate because they are left behind in the race, or driven mad by the rush of the business world.” He recommended learning to relax the muscles.

Harris, Walz, the Democrats, and other pro-democracy leaders and organizers have a great challenge ahead of them. They need to continue to sound the alarm about the existential dangers of Trump and the MAGA movement and the larger neofascist tide without creating a sense of mass despair, futility, learned helplessness, and nihilism that fuels the vibe that “nothing really matters anymore.”

They must also continue to mine the energy of “joyful warriors” for democracy. But being joyful warriors must not mean being conflict-avoidant or retreating from a high-dominance leadership style against Trump and his MAGA forces and their agents. In all, Harris and Walz can be joyful warriors who still pack a great punch and are willing to do all that is necessary to defeat Trump and the other enemies of American democracy.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Whatever the outcome on Election Day, the American people will need to take a breath and collect themselves as they prepare for the hard work of democratic renewal if Harris and Walz win or what will be the even more difficult work of resistance if the worst outcome of Dictator Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, taking the White House comes to pass. Either way, time is not (and will not be) on the side of the American people.

On this, Rick Wilson, co-founder of the pro-democracy organization the Lincoln Project, recently counseled here at Salon: 

 That was my first big campaign,1988. At this point in the election contest, Dukakis was ahead by 17 points. Here are the lessons from that defeat. Don't ever take anything for granted. Run through the tape. Never take your foot off the pedal. It's a simple and what should be an inviolate rule. You have to run all the way through. You have to fight all the way down. You can never, ever, take a break from the campaign at this early point. You've got to drive through the tape.

One of the things we have to watch for here is that Trump can beat Trump. Harris can beat Trump. Trump, I do not believe can beat Harris with the popular vote. But Trump could beat Harris because of the Electoral College….My worry tank is diminished meaningfully. My hope tank is on three-quarters, but I'm going to stop for gas again soon before Election Day in November.

Read more

about this topic

“I’m not sure what happened”: Coppola speaks out about fake reviews in “Megalopolis” trailer

Director Francis Ford Coppola was finally asked about a since-pulled trailer for "Megalopolis" that featured fake, negative reviews from critics like Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael. 

"It was a mistake, an accident, I’m not sure what happened,” Coppola told Entertainment Tonight, while walking the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The first trailer for "Megalopolis" showcased negative reviews for Coppola's films "Apocalypse Now," "The Godfather" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula." The pans were accompanied by a voice-over from Laurence Fishburne, sharing that "true genius is often misunderstood."

The trailer appeared to be playing damage control after Coppola's initial festival screenings garnered mixed reviews. The framing that Coppola's classics were once rejected by critics would be a great point, if it were true. Unfortunately, none of the quotes used in the trailer were real. Frequently, the critics cited were overwhelmingly positive about the films in question upon their release. Distributor Lionsgate recalled the trailer, saying "we screwed up."

At TIFF, Coppola took credit for the idea of centering old negative reviews, but shared that he had no idea how the AI-generated non-quotes ended up in the trailer. 

"I know that there were bad reviews. I’m the one that who said there were bad reviews,” he said.

Related

The cutthroat casting of "The Godfather":

“Good job”: Trump congratulates Harris for debate performance before 9/11 memorial

Even Donald Trump had to give it up for Kamala Harris' performance at the first presidential debate. 

The ex-president appeared to say "good job" to Harris multiple times as they shook hands at a 9/11 memorial event in Manhattan on Wednesday. In video from the event, Vice President Harris can be seen responding "Thank you, thank you."

The encounter was orchestrated by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who tapped Harris on the arm to pull her attention away from a conversation with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. JD Vance, who was standing to Trump's left, stayed out of the conversation. 

The meeting came hours after Harris wrongfooted a flustered Trump in their first nationally televised debate. Harris won the night handily, with viewer polls and Trump allies agreeing that the Democratic presidential candidate ran away with the debate. 

Related

The debate was a total debacle for Donald Trump

 

The Harris campaign ended the night raring to debate again.

"Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?"  Harris Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley-Dillon asked in a statement.

Trump, for his part, dodged the idea of a second debate and blamed his performance on "dishonest" moderators from ABC News while talking to Fox & Friends hosts on Wednesday. He also said that Harris' eagerness for a second debate is just proof that he won the first meet-up. 

"They lost very badly. The first thing they did is ask for a debate, because that’s what when a fighter loses, he says, 'I want a rematch. I want a rematch,'" Trump said.  "They always the losing person, the fighter, the debater, they always ask for a rematch."

Read more

about this topic

How “Beetlejuice” uses music to elevate teen angst, spanning generations

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is haunting its audience 36 years after the release of the original and, in keeping with the vibe of the 1988 film that put calypso back in rotation — starring a 16-year-old Winona Ryder as spooky goth Lydia Deetz — there's a whole new batch of earworms — scratch that . . . sandworms — to become sonically possessed by. 

The sequel, in part, revolves around a grown-up Lydia reluctantly reuniting with Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to save her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) after she gets tricked into swapping lives with a parricidal ghost boy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), narrowly avoiding being trapped in the afterlife. 

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" features many of the same players from the original film aside from the former angsty goth teen — who has evolved into a professional ghost seer — including her artist step-mother, Delia (Catherine O'Hara). The cast is rounded out with newcomers like Gen-Z scream queen, Ortega, Justin Theroux, who plays Lydia's narcissistic boyfriend, Rory, and Willem Dafoe, the ghost of a dead actor. 

However, at the crux of "Beetlejuice" has always been Lydia's perpetual teen angst, which Delia points out in the sequel is missing, saying, "Where’s that obnoxious goth girl who tortured me?” But, lucky for fans of the Beetle-verse, the angst didn't fall far from the tree.  

Related

How “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” used cringe and chaos to beat low expectations for sequels

Salon glances back at the 1988 classic's ability to highlight Lydia's teen grit via the music that accompanies it, juxtaposed with the far more upbeat anthem of her daughter Astrid in the 2024 sequel. Angst may sound a bit different for Gen-Z, but 'tude is genetic, or so it would often seem. 

Lydia's "I am alone. I am utterly . . . alone" scene 

Following the infamous ghost-haunting scene where Delia and Charles (Jeffrey Jones) — along with their New York City friends — are possessed into singing "Banana Boat (Day-O)" by Harry Belafonte, Lydia is struggling in a very Bell Jar sort of way.

The troubled teen pens a Tumblr-worthy farewell note to her ghost family Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam (Alec Baldwin) and her real family, dripping in sorrow over feeling out of place in her own home, which seems like it would actually be easy, given that it's haunted and she's a goth. 

In the scene, operatic strings and the voice of legendary opera singer Maria Callas usher the audience into the darkness of Lydia's mind. She writes, "I am alone.
I am utterly . . . alone. You have sealed my fate with your betrayal. I can no longer stand to be used like a puppet between two deceitful worlds. By the time you read this, I will be gone, having jumped off . . . She scratches that out . . . having plummeted off the Winter River Bridge. Then you will know that I am no longer a toy in your petty feuds. Goodbye, Lydia."

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalism

The music's opera origins 

The song that emphasizes this struggle in Lydia is "Regnava nel Silenzio" from the tragic opera,Lucia di Lammermoor. Written by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, this 1835 gothic opera is centered on a character named Lucia. In this version, Callas sings this aria while telling her maid that she has just seen the appearance of a ghost near a fountain. The ghost draws Lucia in but the fountain turns blood-red.

Lydia, who craves to be seen by her family, feigns craving death because of her relationship with Barbara and Adam, who live in the afterlife. In the song, Lucia is drawn to a similar yearning for death. Callas sings, "I forget my troubles/Tears turn into joy."

She concludes that "Heaven opens up for me." A potential parallel with Lydia's ability to see and be connected to the afterlife and death. The opera itself injects a level of drama into Lydia's heightened emotions. It's only right that "Beetlejuice" accentuates the fleetingness of teenage intensity through a tragic opera.

Astrid's "MacArthur Park" scene

Like her mother, Astrid also knows what it feels like when someone leaves your cake out in the rain.

Similarly trapped between the living and the dead, having fallen for a killer ghost who definitely has obsessed over a Death Cab For Cutie song or two (yeah, he's been dead awhile . . . remember), while simultaneously mourning the loss of her father and grandfather, Astrid's angst gets set to music in the sequel via a stand-out full-circle moment that bookends the film's love of musical numbers.

As her mother is about to make the very bad decision of re-marrying to a tiny pony sporting money-grubber, Rory, Beetlejuice saves the day as much as a crusty sex pest is capable, possessing the Deetz family once again in an effort to break up the wedding and claim Lydia as his own bride — an effort that only works in part, after Lydia disses him once again.

Astrid dances, twists, contorts and sings lyrics she's likely never heard before in her life. And soon, all is well again.

"'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' is excellent, writes @jimbobbennett in a post to X, sharing a GIF of the dance number featuring Ortega and O'Hara. "Especially for Willem Dafoe jumping through a window to 'MacArthur Park."

Like mother, like daughter, sometimes the quickest way to get out of a funk is to press play on your favorite haunting tune . . . or have a ghost do it for you. 

Read more

about this topic

Where Trump’s “execute the babies” lie comes from

This week during a presidential debate, former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that Democrats want to “execute” babies, suggesting that the Democratic party supports abortions "after birth.”

The lie came up during the first confrontation between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris when asked about abortion. As ABC News anchor Linsey Davis mentioned during her real-time fact check, there is no state where it is legal to kill a baby after birth. A report from KFF notes that abortions “after birth” are illegal in every state. Trump's false statements are in line with his previous comments about "late-term abortions," which isn't a technical medical term, that he also brought up in the debate with President Joe Biden.

Related

"Dangerously warped": Care for pregnant people since Dobbs is "compromised," doctors say

As Salon has recently reported, abortion bans are pushing people to terminate later in pregnancy. It’s estimated that less than 1% of abortions in the U.S. occur after 21 weeks of gestation. The reasons pregnant people might seek abortion care after 21 weeks is generally due to severe medical complications — such as the fetus having a fatal anomaly. In fact, when Trump is suggesting that Democrats want to “execute” babies after birth, he is referring to perinatal palliative care. 

Trump has touted the false claim since 2019, when he mentioned it in his State of the Union address. It stems from remarks made by Democrat Ralph Northam during an interview with a local radio station when asked about Bill HB 2491, a bill that would have loosened some restrictions on abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy. 

The priority in perinatal palliative care in a situation where a newborn is born with a life-limiting condition is to both ease patient suffering and honor values.

When giving a hypothetical example of this situation, such as a fetus was nonviable, Northam said: “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” As explained by a Reuters fact-check, Republican commentators took this out of context as an endorsement for infanticide. Since then, Trump has extrapolated that Democrats support so-called “after-birth abortion.” 

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), perinatal palliative care is a strategy that includes “options for obstetric and newborn care” that focus on “maximizing quality of life and comfort for newborns with a variety of conditions considered to be life-limiting in early infancy.”

The priority in perinatal palliative care in a situation where a newborn is born with a life-limiting condition is to both ease patient suffering and honor values. What this looks like will vary depending on the life-limiting condition. Dr. Stacy Seyb, an Idaho-based maternal-fetal medicine specialist, told Salon in July that for some lethal anomalies, like holoprosencephaly, it could be keeping the patient warm, allowing them to be with their parents, and keeping them comfortable. 

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

The idea that infants are being born in the third trimester of pregnancy and being aborted after birth is a “scare tactic” and “an insult to the medical profession,” Seyb said.

But as ACOG states: “At no point in the course of delivering a newborn with life-limiting conditions and subsequently providing palliative care does the obstetrician–gynecologist end the life of the newborn receiving palliative care.”

David Hackney, a Cleveland-based maternal-fetal medicine specialist, told Salon, “perinatal comfort care” often gets conflated with “abortion,” and "euthanasia.” But as ACOG emphasizes, “abortion cannot be performed after a pregnancy has ended.”

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalism

“Conflating abortion care with the murder of an infant serves only to stigmatize lifesaving health care, defame doctors who provide critical treatment, attack people who are already suffering the loss of a wanted pregnancy or facing serious illness, and further a politicized agenda that aims to restrict access to health care and erode people’s rights to bodily autonomy,” ACOG states. “Such allegations endanger the lives of people seeking health care and the physicians who provide that care.”

Hackney told Salon patients who are pursuing pediatric palliative care do so in “complicated and gut-wrenching circumstances.” To take those scenarios and “cartoonishly amplify” them as “murdering babies” is harmful and offensive. For people who have to go through complicated pregnancies with fatal fetal anomalies, and give birth to infants who don’t survive outside the uterus, the experience, Hackney said, stays with people for a long time. To see candidates talking about it in such a way on television, he said, would be “painful.” He added that palliative care for other situations hasn't become weaponized for political gain.

“If you take a lot of the same fundamental decision making and you apply it to an old man with cancer who uses comfort care, you wouldn't have politics and fabricated stories and presidential candidates talking about things,” Hackney said. 

Spreading misinformation about perinatal palliative care, ACOG says, "serves only to endanger those who need it and who provide it."

Read more

about this reproductive rights

“I’ll guard your cats with my life”: Musk makes creepy offer to Swift after Harris endorsement

Elon Musk is the latest conservative having trouble beating the "weird" allegations. 

The X owner jumped on his social media platform following Taylor Swift's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, offering to impregnate the pop star and "guard [her] cats with my life."

Elon's offer to "give" Swift a child came shortly after the "Karma" singer threw in behind the Democratic Party ticket for president. 

"I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election," Swift shared via Instagram on Tuesday night. "I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them."

Musk's  unsettling proposition kicked off the hashtag #ElonIsCreepy, with users pointing out that the Tesla head has been an unfulfilled reply guy of Swift's for quite a while. Musk's daughter Vivian Wilson weighed in on his behavior on Threads, calling the tweet "heinous incel nonsense."

"It's just abhorrent," she wrote. "It's disgusting, it's belittling and incredibly sexist."

Related

Trump says he was "never a fan" of Swift

Musk wasn't swayed by the reaction to his post, doubling down the next day with a dig at so-called "childless cat ladies." The insult from Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance was repurposed by Swift in her endorsement of Harris. Musk inferred that voters like Swift are suffering the effects of toxoplasma gondii, a single-celled parasite that is carried by cats.

Musk was far from the only right-wing figure to respond to Swift's endorsement. Donald Trump told Fox News on Wednesday that he wasn't surprised by the move.

"It was just a question of time," he said. "She's a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat. And she'll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace."

Read more

about this topic

“A great day for Red Lobster”: Seafood chain to exit bankruptcy after approval of restructuring plan

A little less than four months after Red Lobster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the seafood restaurant chain received court approval for its restructuring plan to continue operating under a new firm. 

Red Lobster will be acquired by RL Investor Holdings LLC — an “entity created by funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group LLC” — alongside co-investors TCW Private Credit and Blue Torch, the company announced in a press release Thursday. The acquisition is anticipated to close before the end of September.

Once the acquisition is complete, Red Lobster will also bring in new leadership. Jonathan Tibus, who has served as the company's CEO, will step down from his role and leave the Red Lobster restaurant chain. Damola Adamolekun, the former CEO of P.F. Chang’s, will succeed Tibus.  

“This is a great day for Red Lobster,” Adamolekun said in a statement. “With our new backers, we have a comprehensive and long-term investment plan — including a commitment of more than $60 million in new funding — that will help to reinvigorate the iconic brand while keeping the best of its history. Red Lobster has a tremendous future, and I cannot wait to get started on our plan with the Company's more than 30,000 team members across the USA and Canada.

Related

Flavor Flav is doing everything he can to save Red Lobster

“I want to thank Jonathan Tibus and his team for their stewardship, and look forward to welcoming them as frequent Red Lobster guests,” he added.

Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy on May 19 after shutting down nearly 50 restaurant locations across the U.S and liquidating restaurant equipment via auctions. A day later, Red Lobster said it was investigating a “pattern of mismanagement” by its majority owner Thai Union, which played a huge role in the restaurant chain’s “endless shrimp” promotion that caused $11 million in operating losses, according to court documents. Per CNN, the company said it was more than $1 billion in debt and had less than $30 million available in cash. As part of its Chapter 11 reorganization, Red Lobster said it would sell its business to lenders and receive financing to continue operations. The company also would continue to close more restaurants.  

In an attempt to save the beloved seafood chain, Flavor Flav vowed to do everything he could to “help save one of America's greatest dining dynasties.” In June, the Public Enemy rapper shared on X that he had visited a Red Lobster location and ordered everything on the menu.

“Ya boy meant it when I said I was gonna do anything and everything to help @redlobster and save the cheddar bay biscuits,,, ordered the whole menu,!!!” Flavor Flav wrote alongside a photo of himself posing in front of an elaborate spread of Red Lobster menu items, including shrimp scampi, popcorn shrimp and clam chowder.

Red Lobster said in its recent press release that it will continue to operate as an independent company. The chain currently has 578 restaurants across 44 states and Canada, and serves approximately 64 million customers a year.

“I'm proud of what Red Lobster has achieved during this restructuring — the Company will emerge from Chapter 11 stronger financially and operationally, and with new backers who are resolutely focused on investment and growth,” Tibus said in a statement. “I'm incredibly grateful for the support we've received from our team members and diners, and from so many of our landlords and vendors throughout this process. I'm looking forward to cheering on Red Lobster as an ardent fan in the years ahead.”

Want more great food writing and recipes? Subscribe to Salon Food's newsletter, The Bite.

In addition to advancing its restructuring plan, Red Lobster launched its very own “bite-partisan campaign” in anticipation of the Harris-Trump presidential debate on Sept. 10. Called Cheddar Bay 2024, the campaign “champions the values we can all rally behind — cheesiness, freshness, and that warm, buttery goodness we crave — because when biscuits rise, America thrives,” according to a press release.

Up until Nov. 10, 2024, Red Lobster consumers can visit their local restaurant and scan a Cheddar Bay 2024 QR code found on the table for the chance to win the brand’s famed Cheddar Bay Biscuits and seafood for a presidential term — an entire four years.  

Red Lobster’s campaign also comes with its own merch. The official “Campaign Kit” includes Cheddar Bay 2024 lawn signs, t-shirts, hats and buttons all touting the Cheddar Bay Biscuits. Items are available on the campaign’s official website on a first-come, first-serve basis while supplies last.

“Over the last few months, our guests have shared countless reasons why they love Red Lobster and Cheddar Bay Biscuits always rise to the top,” said Jeff Matray, vice president of marketing at Red Lobster. “As election season heats up, there's one thing we can all rally behind – a shared love for Cheddar Bay Biscuits. The truth is, Red Lobster food brings people together, and we're excited to unite everyone, even if it's just over lunch or dinner.”

Read more

about Red Lobster:

What causes food cravings? And what can we do about them?

Many of us try to eat more fruits and vegetables and less ultra-processed food. But why is sticking to your goals so hard?

High-fat, sugar-rich and salty foods are simply so enjoyable to eat. And it's not just you – we've evolved that way. These foods activate the brain's reward system because in the past they were rare.

Now, they're all around us. In wealthy modern societies we are bombarded by advertising which intentionally reminds us about the sight, smell and taste of calorie-dense foods. And in response to these powerful cues, our brains respond just as they're designed to, triggering an intense urge to eat them.

Here's how food cravings work and what you can do if you find yourself hunting for sweet or salty foods.

 

What causes cravings?

A food craving is an intense desire or urge to eat something, often focused on a particular food.

We are programmed to learn how good a food tastes and smells and where we can find it again, especially if it's high in fat, sugar or salt.

Something that reminds us of enjoying a certain food, such as an eye-catching ad or delicious smell, can cause us to crave it.

The cue triggers a physical response, increasing saliva production and gastric activity. These responses are relatively automatic and difficult to control.

 

What else influences our choices?

While the effect of cues on our physical response is relatively automatic, what we do next is influenced by complex factors.

Whether or not you eat the food might depend on things like cost, whether it's easily available, and if eating it would align with your health goals.

But it's usually hard to keep healthy eating in mind. This is because we tend to prioritise a more immediate reward, like the pleasure of eating, over one that's delayed or abstract – including health goals that will make us feel good in the long term.  

Stress can also make us eat more. When hungry, we choose larger portions, underestimate calories and find eating more rewarding.

 

Looking for something salty or sweet

So what if a cue prompts us to look for a certain food, but it's not available?

Previous research suggested you would then look for anything that makes you feel good. So if you saw someone eating a doughnut but there were none around, you might eat chips or even drink alcohol.

But our new research has confirmed something you probably knew: it's more specific than that.

If an ad for chips makes you look for food, it's likely a slice of cake won't cut it – you'll be looking for something salty. Cues in our environment don't just make us crave food generally, they prompt us to look for certain food "categories", such as salty, sweet or creamy.

 

Food cues and mindless eating

Your eating history and genetics can also make it harder to suppress food cravings. But don't beat yourself up – relying on willpower alone is hard for almost everyone.

Food cues are so powerful they can prompt us to seek out a certain food, even if we're not overcome by a particularly strong urge to eat it. The effect is more intense if the food is easily available.

This helps explain why we can eat an entire large bag of chips that's in front of us, even though our pleasure decreases as we eat. Sometimes we use finishing the packet as the signal to stop eating rather than hunger or desire.

 

Is there anything I can do to resist cravings?

We largely don't have control over cues in our environment and the cravings they trigger. But there are some ways you can try and control the situations you make food choices in.

  • Acknowledge your craving and think about a healthier way to satisfy it. For example, if you're craving chips, could you have lightly-salted nuts instead? If you want something sweet, you could try fruit.

  • Avoid shopping when you're hungry, and make a list beforehand. Making the most of supermarket "click and collect" or delivery options can also help avoid ads and impulse buys in the aisle.

  • At home, have fruit and vegetables easily available – and easy to see. Also have other nutrient dense, fibre-rich and unprocessed foods on hand such as nuts or plain yoghurt. If you can, remove high-fat, sugar-rich and salty foods from your environment.

  • Make sure your goals for eating are SMART. This means they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.  

  • Be kind to yourself. Don't beat yourself up if you eat something that doesn't meet your health goals. Just keep on trying.

 

Gabrielle Weidemann, Associate Professor in Psychological Science, Western Sydney University and Justin Mahlberg, Research Fellow, Psyschology, Monash University

 

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

“Do you believe Americans can afford higher prices?”: Trump’s food tariffs criticized in debate

The word "food" was mentioned only twice in Tuesday’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump. Once, when moderator David Muir asked Trump if his proposed tariffs on foreign imports might affect the price of everyday items like food and medicine, and again when Trump, veering into divisive rhetoric, claimed without evidence that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, had started eating fellow residents’ pets. 

“The people on television say my dog was taken and used for food,” Trump declared, invoking one of the GOP’s latest inflammatory and unfounded accusations against migrants.

The absence of substantive discussion on food policy was, in many ways, both notable and totally unsurprising. Just last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a report showing that 18 million families, or 13.5% of American households, faced food insecurity in 2023, the highest level in nearly a decade. Meanwhile, Harris has already divided the grocery industry over her promise to pass the first ever federal ban on price-gouging. 

Yet, it quickly became clear that policy discussions would be secondary to performance last night, something Jon Stewart noted in his “The Daily Show” wrap-up of the debate: “After surviving the PTSD of the last presidential debate, how unbelievably refreshing it is to go back to the same old ‘nobody's gonna answer any f**cking questions!’” 

Related

How a Kamala Harris presidency could change how we feed America

Still, concerns about hunger continue to plague the country, as the vast majority of Americans report feeling anxious about food inflation and as federal nutrition programs like WIC and SNAP are under consistent Republican fire despite a growing nationwide need for the services they provide. So, let’s flesh out a bit of what was actually discussed last night to better understand each candidates’ positions on major political flashpoints like the economy and immigration, and how those coincide with food. 

Muir’s question to Trump regarding tariffs is actually a great place to start. 

“Let’s drill down on this because your plan is what [Harris calls] a national sales tax,” Muir said. “Your proposal calls for tariffs, as you pointed out here, on foreign imports across the board. You recently said you might double your plan, imposing tariffs up to 20% on goods coming into this country.” 

Muir continued, saying many economists predict that tariffs at that level would pass increased costs onto the consumer. 

“Vice President Harris has argued it'll mean higher prices on gas, food, clothing medication arguing it costs the typical family nearly $4,000 a year,” Muir said. “Do you believe Americans can afford higher prices because of tariffs?” 

Trump responded by saying there wouldn’t be higher prices for Americans. “Who's gonna have higher prices is China and all of the countries that have been ripping us off for years,” he said. “[In] charge, I was the only president ever — China was paying us hundreds of billions of dollars and so were other countries.” 

To better understand what impact Trump’s new proposed tariffs would have on the economy (and specifically food prices), one only needs to consider how the tariffs he implemented during his first presidency impacted consumers. After Trump levied billions of dollars in tariffs against China, the country struck back with its own set of retaliatory tariffs. Other nations soon followed suit. 

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalism

As reported by CNBC, Trump’s trade war with China “cost Americans an estimated $195 billion since 2018, according to the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. The economic battle also led to the loss of more than 245,000 U.S. jobs, according to the U.S.-China Business Council.” 

The impacts of the original tariffs were felt by consumers quickly. When interviewed by the network in 2018, just a few weeks after they went into effect, Matt Gold, a former deputy assistant U.S. Trade Representative for North America under former President Barack Obama, told CNBC that, “Absolutely, you’re going to see higher prices passed on to consumers — almost immediately.”

The impact of the trade war is still being felt in the U.S. agricultural industry and could impact future production, further raising food prices. In March, Stephen Craven, a former US commercial diplomat and trade negotiator for the US Department of Commerce, wrote for CNN that a second Trump presidency would cost Americans more at the produce aisle, candy store and coffee shop. “You can check the origin of any product,” Craven said. “If it’s of a foreign origin, its price is likely going up if Trump becomes president.” 

He continued: 

Trump’s proposed tariffs will do immediate damage. He has called for a baseline 10% tariff on all imported goods. Given that the United States imports 15% of its food supply — including nearly all of its coffee and cacao, 60% of fresh fruit and nearly 40% of fresh vegetables — a 10% tariff would amount to a cost increase on some of America’s most important imports.

After all, importers will no doubt pass on the cost to consumers unless they have a reason to eat the cost themselves. As domestic suppliers are unlikely to be able to undercut them on price any time soon (America’s limited coffee farms, for instance, produce nowhere near the amount of coffee Americans drink), consumers are likely to foot the bill.

To address rising grocery prices, Harris has already promised to implement the first ever federal ban on price-gouging. “We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed, but our supply chains have now improved and prices are still too high,” Harris said in an Aug. 16 speech. “ Many of the big food companies are seeing their highest profits in two decades, and while many grocery chains pass along these savings, others still aren’t.” 

Citing U.S. Department of Agriculture data, Harris noted that grocery prices have increased 25% between 2019 and 2023, outpacing other consumer goods. Her plan, she said, would target businesses illegally hiking prices and failing to “play by the rules.”

The National Grocers Association (NGA), however, pushed back, calling the proposal “a solution in search of a problem.” NGA president Greg Ferrara argued that independent grocers, already strained by inflation, face rising costs across the board. He emphasized that unfair competition with big-box retailers, not price gouging, is the real issue driving up prices for smaller stores.

"He’d prefer to run on a problem rather than fixing a problem."

In addition to broad comments about inflation and the economy, immigration was a hot topic during the debate, which predictably turned to questions about the border. Trump attempted to deflect the moderators’ questions about policy by emphasizing what he sees to be a connection between immigration and crime (this, despite the fact, that  “the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country,” per Muir), while Harris advocated for a bipartisan solution to what she characterized as broken immigration system. She pointed out how Trump obstructed the Border Act of 2024, a bill that aimed to balance stricter border enforcement with legal pathways for immigrants.

“He’d prefer to run on a problem rather than fixing a problem,” Harris said. 

How the next president chooses to deal with immigration policy and the border is more closely tied to the health of the American food system than many supermarket shoppers might initially believe. According to the organization Farmworker Justice, the agricultural industry relies on a predominantly immigrant workforce,with approximately 68% of farmworkers being foreign-born, the overwhelming majority from Mexico.

Though other issues tied more directly to hunger in America, like the future of SNAP and WIC, or the possibility of universal free school meals nationwide, were not mentioned during the debate, there’s always the possibility they may appear in a second presidential debate ahead of the election — that is, if Donald Trump actually agrees to participate. 

Read more

about this topic

Trump dismisses Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, saying he was never a fan

Donald Trump made another flip-flop when it comes to his view of Taylor Swift, dismissing the singer's fresh endorsement of Kamala Harris and claiming to not be a fan of her music.

Only weeks ago, Trump was singing a much different tune and seemed thrilled to receive Swift's endorsement — even if he never actually had it — sharing an AI image of her to Truth Social featuring a caption reading: "Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump," to which he commented, "I accept!" 

Shortly after the first debate between Trump and Harris on Tuesday night, Swift took to Instagram to finally clarify who she plans to vote for in November. The "Tortured Poets Department" singer even got a dig in about the AI debacle before writing, "I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election."

Snubbed by Swift, Trump took to Fox News on Wednesday morning to say, "It was just a question of time. She couldn't possibly endorse Biden. You look at Biden, you couldn't possibly endorse him. But she's a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat. And she'll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace."

Elsewhere in the Fox appearance, Trump referred to Brittany Mahomes, the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who's recently been embroiled in scandal after she liked an Instagram post supporting Trump. 

“I actually like Mrs. Mahomes much better, if you want to know the truth," he said. "She’s a big Trump fan. I was not a Taylor Swift fan."

Harris campaign says she is ready for another debate, but asks: “Is Donald Trump?”

Vice President Kamala Harris is "ready for a second debate" after a stellar performance on Tuesday night, but Republican nominee Donald Trump isn’t so sure.

“Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris, or going backwards with Trump,” Jen O’Malley-Dillon, the Harris campaign chair, said in a statement. “That’s what they saw [Tuesday night] and what they should see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?"

Trump, meanwhile, dodged questions about a second debate in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity after Tuesday night’s head-to-head. When Hannity told Trump that Harris wanted a second debate and asked whether he wanted the same, the former president was noncomittal.

“That’s because she lost. She wants it because she lost,” Trump responded.

“Do you have an answer?” Hannity asked.

“Well, I don’t know. I have to think about it,” Trump answered, before comparing Harris to a “prize fighter” who lost and immediately seeks a “rematch.”

Related

"Sad": Trump allies admit he lost the debate but direct their rage at ABC's fact-checking moderators

This election season’s debate proceedings have been quite the debacle. In May, President Joe Biden and Trump agreed that they would not participate in the usual trio of fall debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has organized presidential debates for over 30 years.

Instead, Biden and Trump agreed to two debates, one on June 27 and one on Sept. 10, hosted by CNN and ABC News, respectively. 

But after a catastrophic first debate performance led to Harris taking Biden’s spot as the Democratic nominee, all future debates were up in the air. Trump repeatedly tried to get out of the Sept. 10 debate with Harris, drawing on a wealth of excuses, including that ABC News was an unfair host. 

After Tuesday night, it looks like he’s returning to that age-old excuse.

“Would you be inclined to say yes?” Hannity asked Trump.

“Maybe if it was on a fair network I would do that,” he responded.

Though a second debate between the two presidential candidates remains uncertain, the vice-presidential nominees, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. J.D. Vance, have agreed to face off on Oct. 1 in New York City.

Read more

about the debate fallout

“Dangerously warped”: Care for pregnant people since Dobbs is “compromised,” doctors say

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision, doctors on the frontlines have shared horror stories about how medical care for pregnant people has changed. Women are being pushed to have abortions later in pregnancy due to the barriers they have to overcome to access care. Women who can’t travel are being forced to carry nonviable or unwanted pregnancies, which experts say is a human rights violation. Doctors in states with abortion bans can’t provide their standard treatment of care putting women’s lives at risk. 

This week, a new report from the University of California San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) tells more in-depth stories about how healthcare providers are unable to provide proper medical care to pregnant people in abortion-ban states. Through the accounts of 86 healthcare providers between September 2022 and August 2024, the report documents a range of harm occurring, such as situations of increased risk of death, complications and delays in care causing worsened health outcomes.

"Our findings suggest that, rather than increasing clarity and identifying workarounds over time to provide evidence- based care, abortion bans have fundamentally altered how pregnancy-related care — and even other medical care for people with the capacity for pregnancy — is delivered," the report authors wrote. "In several cases, patients experienced preventable complications, such as severe infection or having the placenta grow deep into the uterine wall and surrounding structures, because clinicians reported their 'hands were tied,' making it impossible for them to provide treatment sooner."

"As a consequence, patients’ health and wellbeing are being compromised. In order to provide evidence-based, high-quality care and avoid these harms, abortion bans must be repealed," the authors added.

Related

New research suggests tube tying isn't as permanent or effective as once thought

“In the two years since Roe fell, medical care has become dangerously warped as states with abortion bans continue to tie the hands of providers,” said Dr. Daniel Grossman, ANSIRH Director and lead report author in a media statement. “This research shows that every pregnant person in these states is at risk of being denied the care they need.”

The doctor proceeded to do a typical dilation and curettage to remove the placenta, from which the patient bled "from everywhere."

In one story, a physician described the case of a patient who had preterm prelabor rupture of the membranes (PPROM) between 16 and 18 weeks gestation. Doctors denied this patient an abortion because of a new state law. The patient was sent home only to develop a severe infection requiring management in the intensive care unit two days later. The patient eventually delivered her fetus, who could not survive outside the uterus, but required a procedure to remove her placenta. The physician wrote in their story: “The anesthesiologist cries on the phone when discussing the case with me — if the patient needs to be intubated, no one thinks she will make it out of the OR.”

The doctor proceeded to do a typical dilation and curettage (D&C) to remove the placenta, from which the patient bled “from everywhere.” While the patient survived, the physician recounted the patient was still in fear that she maybe broke the law: “She asks me: could she or I go to jail for this? Or did this count as life threatening yet?”

PPROM is when a pregnant woman’s water breaks early. The likelihood of a fetus surviving under 22 weeks of gestation is low. At the same time, when a pregnant woman’s amniotic fluid sac breaks during the second trimester, it puts the woman at an increased risk for infections like chorioamnionitis and sepsis. Prior to Dobbs, the standard of care in states with abortion bans was to immediately offer patients the option of a dilation and evacuation (D&E). According to the report, doctors in these states are now frequently sending patients home or admitting them for observation. Even with careful monitoring in the hospital serious complications are occurring. 

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

“Patient presented with previable [PPROM], was admitted,” another doctor shared in the report. “Due to laws, we can only provide expectant management until fetal demise or immediate threat to patient life.”

Despite the patient’s desire to terminate the pregnancy, medical providers “were forced to manage expectantly until she developed an intraamniotic infection, which progressed to sepsis requiring IV antibiotics for multiple days.”

In some states with abortion bans, physicians have to coordinate care with doctors in a different state to provide emergency care. In one case, a patient pregnant with twins at 17 to 19 weeks gestation experienced the death of one of the fetuses and developed HELLP (hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelets) syndrome. HELLP syndrome, considered a variant of preeclampsia, is a rare and life-threatening pregnancy complication. However, the care team could not offer to terminate the pregnancy under existing state law resulting in an increased risk of death, and a transfer to another state where they could legally terminate the pregnancy.

“[The patient’s] condition worsened during the duration of transport time,” the doctor wrote. “The patient was separated from family and resources. Astronomic hospital costs. Ultimately at the time of procedure [the patient] had demise of the second twin.” 

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalism

An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside of the uterus in the abdomen, a female's cervix or more commonly, the fallopian tubes. It is a life-threatening condition; there is no way that an ectopic pregnancy can become a full-term pregnancy. Despite some abortion bans having exceptions for the life of the mother, or specifically for ectopic pregnancies, physicians are documenting that care for ectopic pregnancies in abortion ban states is being delayed, too. 

In some cases, pregnant patients with underlying medical conditions from previous pregnancies — like peripartum cardiomyopathy, which can be fatal — had to travel out of state to terminate their pregnancies. “The risk of her dying from childbirth would have been extremely high—but she was unable to find anyone in her state willing to do the procedure,” a doctor wrote, noting it took her six weeks to find an appointment, and she had to drive 10 hours to get reach care. 

“This study shows that abortion bans are fundamentally degrading medical care – not just in a single state or for a certain type of patient but for people with a range of health conditions living anywhere these bans are in place,” Dr. Kari White, executive director of Resound Research and study co-author, said in a media statement. “That a high proportion of patients described in the study narratives are Black and Latinx makes this even more concerning given the long-standing structural barriers to high-quality care that these groups encounter in the U.S. medical system.”

Read more

about this topic:

New right-wing conspiracy theory: Kamala Harris’ debate earrings were a high-tech cheating device

Post-debate polls indicate that Vice President Kamala Harris defeated former President Donald Trump at their confrontation on Tuesday evening, with various commentators, including some Republicans, suggesting that Harris came well-prepared while Trump talked himself into a disaster. Then there's the explanation by some internet conspiracy theorists that Harris cheated her way to victory by means of secret earpieces disguised as earrings, through which aides fed her a script to attack Trump and defend her positions.

This new theory follows claims by Trump and his supporters that Harris would be given the questions in advance of the debate to give her an unfair advantage. In the wake of Harris' debate performance, the earpiece theory is now being circulated on Elon Musk's X, where posts promoting the claim have garnered millions of views. “The VP cheated with earring headphones? Not surprising,” former NFL player Antonio Brown, who has 2.1 million followers, posted on X.

Related

"The same old, tired playbook": Harris baits an aging Trump into being his grumpiest, weirdest self

An account called "Election2024" explained the theory in more detail, falsely identifying the vice president's earrings as a product developed by Nova H1 Audio Earrings, an earpiece technology company. "This earring has audio transmission capabilities and acts as a discreet earpiece," Election2024 tweeted. "Kamala Harris confirms claims that a candidate against Trump gets to break all debate rules."

To prove their point, some of the accounts peddling the theory showed an image-by-image comparison of Harris' earrings to the device worn by a woman in a Tom's Guide review of the Nova H1 audio earrings, pointing to what appears to be a pearl, a gold stalk extending out from the pearl and two small gold hoops on both pictures.

But as other users pointed out, Harris' earrings do not have a gold stalk, and the hoops in the Tom's Guide picture were clearly worn separately from the pearl audio earring. A community note on X later clarified that Harris' earrings were in fact from Tiffany & Co. and cannot receive any transmissions.

Read more

about the 2024 campaign

Missouri Supreme Court rejects Republican effort to get an abortion referendum taken off the ballot

The Missouri Supreme Court decided Tuesday to keep a measure that would legalize abortion on November's ballot, despite Republicans’ 11th-hour attempts to stop the amendment. 

The ruling orders Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft to “certify to local election authorities that Amendment 3 be placed on the Nov. 5, 2024, general election ballot and shall take all steps necessary to ensure that it is on said ballot.”

Amendment 3 would restore constitutional protections for abortion after the state enacted a near-total abortion ban following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Related

New GOP conspiracy theory: Babies are getting abortions!

“The government shall not deny or infringe upon a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which is the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care,” the amendment reads.

Reproductive rights advocates in the state, led by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, fought hard to get the initiative on the ballot, collecting over 380,000 signatures.

In August, it was certified to be on November’s ballot by Missouri’s Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft. Shortly after, however, Republican state Rep. Hannah Kelly and state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman sued Ashcroft for certifying the amendment, arguing that the measure did not state which laws it would repeal. Last week, the attempts to decertify Amendment 3 continued when a Cole County judge ruled the amendment invalid for "violating state law." 

Three days later and just weeks after his approval, Ashcroft announced he was decertifying the initiative, citing “serious concern about whether the proposed petition satisfies the legal requirements for adequate notice to the public.” His decertification was appealed, sending the case to the state's highest court. 

Just hours before the deadline for the general election ballot, the Missouri Supreme Court proved the Republicans’ efforts to be futile. 

“Today’s Missouri Supreme Court decision is a victory for both direct democracy and reproductive freedom in Missouri,” Missourians for Constitutional Freedom said in a statement. “The court's ruling ensures that Amendment 3 will appear on the November 5th ballot, giving voters—not politicians—the power to decide on this critical issue.”

With the decision, Missouri will become the 11th state to vote on reproductive rights come November. Amendment 3 will require 50% of the vote to pass.

Read more

about reproductive rights

Trump isn’t even sure he would do another debate on Fox News

According to former President Donald Trump, his testy, at times bizarre debate performance was anyone's fault but the man who performed. Trump phoned into Fox & Friends early Wednesday morning to first cast blame on ABC News, which hosted the debate, for a "rigged deal" that favored Vice President Kamala Harris. He then suggested that a potential second debate could be hosted by some of his favored anchors, though he said he might not participate anyway because he claims to have won the first round.

Poll respondents and a slew of political commentators disagree with Trump. A post-debate CNN poll of registered voters showed that most watchers thought Harris won by a decisive margin, 63% to 37%. The same pool of voters was evenly split on who they expected to win before the debate. But Trump continued to insist that he did great, telling Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade that he saw web polls that showed him winning by overwhelming margins and that because moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis sided with Harris, in his view, he was actually debating against three people "when you look at the fact that they were correcting everything, and not correcting with her."

Related

"The same old, tired playbook": Harris baits an aging Trump into being his grumpiest, weirdest self

"We knew it, when it was 100% good coverage for her over the last month or last year, I looked at it and only bad coverage of me, no matter what. The press is so dishonest in this country it’s amazing," he complained. He went on to argue that CNN, which did not fact-check Trump during his debate against President Joe Biden, was "honorable" and that ABC was "the most dishonest news organization, and that's saying a lot because they are all essentially really dishonest." Trump even suggested that ABC should no longer be allowed to broadcast after the debate, saying regulators "ought to take away their license for the way they did that."

When co-host Steve Doocy suggested another debate hosted by Fox News anchors Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier, Trump interjected that he "wouldn't want to have Martha and Bret, I'd love to have somebody else other than Martha and Bret," saying that Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters or Laura Ingraham would be far better choices. Though all three Fox anchors are enthusiastic Trump supporters, the former president singled out Watters as giving a "fantastic" commentary on the debate. "Jesse really got it. Jesse said to Trump once that debate was done, that we won that debate by a lot," he said.

MacCallum and Baier are less subservient to the former president than their colleagues at the network, at times trying to correct him in interviews and at one point cutting off his phone connection mid-ramble so they could move to the next segment.

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalism

But Trump appeared unenthusiastic about debating Harris again regardless of the circumstances, claiming he won the debate and doesn't want to indulge Harris with another swing at him.

"When two fighters fight and one loses, the first thing they do is ask for a debate or they ask for a fight," he said. "So in this case, a debate. So we had two people. They lost very badly. The first thing they did is ask for a debate, because that’s what when a fighter loses, he says, 'I want a rematch. I want a rematch.' They always the losing person, the fighter, the debater, they always ask for a rematch."

"So you don't know if you want to do another debate? It sounds like you're a no," Doocy asked.

"I'd be less inclined to, because we had a great night," Trump responded, doubling down on his claim that ABC was a "terrible network" that kept correcting him when "what I said was largely right or I hope it was right." He took particular issue with Muir and Davis declining to intervene when Harris tied him to Project 2025, a right-wing policy blueprint for his presidency developed by a team that included many current and former Trump aides.

At the end of the segment, Kilmeade stepped in to defend MacCallum and Baier, who he said Trump would find "extremely fair."

Read more

about this topic

How to sell an ‘ugly’ vegetable? Give it googly eyes

You may have seen them wielded by prank-loving grandmas in department stores, peeking out from robotic vacuum cleaners, or adorning statues on college campuses. But googly eyes, those cartoon-like eyeballs often found in arts and crafts projects, aren't just good for making people smile. If you ask researcher Kacy Kim, when used correctly, a set of sticky little eyes can be a clever tactic to influence consumers — specifically, to get them to buy fruits and vegetables that might otherwise become food waste. 

An associate professor at Bryant University, Kim is the lead author of a recently published study in the journal Psychology & Marketing that found that when googly eyes are placed on pictures of irregular-appearing vegetables, or human names are used to describe misshapen fruits, consumers are more inclined to buy "ugly" produce.

The team was inspired by past marketing campaigns that attempted to anthropomorphize imperfect produce, and spent six years putting together their case that making irregular produce appear more human could increase sales.

"How can we think about any inhuman produce like a human? Googly eyes," said Kim. "By enhancing the attractiveness of the 'ugly' produce, the outcome is going to be, consequently, cutting waste." 

Billions of pounds of food across the nation end up wasted every year. Much of that loss is driven by over-purchasing, and strict regulations for food donations, but at least part of the problem is that U.S. consumers widely avoid taking home fruits and vegetables that are too small, oddly shaped and discolored, or cosmetically scarred. Some estimates suggest as much as 20 percent of produce ends up in landfills and incinerators because of cosmetic imperfections, with a degree of that due to consumer rejection of visually "suboptimal" foods.

Despite a wave of companies in recent years attempting to turn a profit on the problem of "ugly" produce contributing to food waste, consumer preferences haven't shifted much, particularly at mainstream supermarkets. And roughly 40 percent or so of harvested fruits and vegetables are deemed "imperfect" by wholesalers and retailers, contributing to the mammoth emissions footprint of food loss and waste. In part, this is grounded in an overarching consumer preference: When given the choice, people still tend to steer clear of imperfect items in favor of those that look like they think they should. 

Kim's team argues that the problem is that supermarkets, and even "ugly" food specialty companies, are going about it all wrong. It's not about discounting irregular produce to try and get people to buy it, it's about making that produce appealing enough that it doesn't need to be discounted in the first place. That's where the googly eyes come in. 

"By testing and adding some human characteristics, we examine whether that effort will increase the attractiveness of the produce, and [whether] that attractiveness is going to be increasing the purchasing of the produce and consuming of the produce," said Kim.

The team experimented first with adding visual cues like googly eyes on irregular-looking eggplants, showing study participants pictures of normal or abnormal eggplants, either with or without googly eyes. In a second study, they tried giving imperfect fruit gender-neutral human names — such as "Taylor" the four-tailed lemon and "Jordan" the three-headed strawberry. In both cases, they discovered that the bulk of people found the imperfect produce more appealing, and were more open to purchasing it when it had been anthropomorphized. 

It's all about how the human psyche is programmed to see the world, explained study co-author and Bryant University professor Sukki Yoon. "We process things unconsciously as we are told to. 'Apples are supposed to look like this,' that is a human bias. By extension, it is a type of stereotyping," said Yoon.

Popular "ugly" produce companies — Yoon cited Misfits Market as an example — are structured around discounting the irregular produce they sell, which he said veers into a problematic territory, as lowering the price on such products communicates to consumers that a conventionally imperfect stalk of celery is worth less than an aesthetically perfect one. "What they do is, 'Oh, we'll give you a discount. You get more, but it's ugly. You take it and you live with it.' No, that kind of trade-off may not be necessary in the first place, if we process those [foods] as an individual, perhaps with a personality," he said. 

In fact, this contradicts past studies that found discounted pricing of such products to compensate for imperfections can help enhance consumer perceptions of quality. 

The team also found that the perceived origin of imperfect produce matters. Participants were either shown videos of human hands placing tomatoes in boxes, which they were told was filmed at a small local farm that supplied fresh vegetables to grocery stores, or a clip of robotic hands boxing produce for an agricultural corporation presented as a high-tech operation that distributed nationwide. It turned out that anthropomorphizing imperfect produce believed to be sourced from local farmers had little impact, as consumers were already more inclined to buy irregular-looking fruits and vegetables if they knew it came from a small, local operation. 

"If you go to the farmers market and buy five apples, you expect those five apples to look different. If you go to the big grocery chain store, and you pick five apples, you may want to pick those five apples that look alike," said Yoon.

Anthropomorphizing imperfect fruits and vegetables has been shown to move the needle on shifting consumers' intentions to purchase such produce in the past. In 2014, "The Grotesque Apple" and "Ridiculous Potato" were promoted in an advertising campaign helmed by a French supermarket chain that sold the produce at discounted rates. The following year, "Beautiful on the Inside" launched as a U.K. campaign that promoted the idea that flavor and nutrition trump aesthetics when sold at cheaper price points. And in 2016, a major U.S. supermarket launched a "Produce with Personality" campaign aimed at discount shoppers in Pittsburgh.

Kim and Yoon's new research emphasizes how much simpler marketing tactics, such as googly-eyed eggplants, can be used by retailers to increase consumer demand for irregular-looking produce, and reduce emissions associated with food waste — without needing to slash prices.

The idea is something Libby Christensen, a state food and agriculture specialist at Colorado State University Extension, applauds. However, she questions whether it's possible to draw such a direct connection between increasing sales of irregular produce and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The research doesn't take into account the emissions associated with any produce products as they travel through the supply chain, noted Christensen, nor does it consider that while some produce may be considered aesthetically "ugly" without impacts on the integrity of the product, this is not always the case.

"It's really complex to try and understand disposal on the farm versus disposal at the grocery store, and the potential unexpected consequences of shifting that disposal wasn't taken into consideration by the article," said Christensen. (When asked, both Kim and Yoon were unable to provide specifics quantifying just how much this strategy may actually divert food waste emissions, which is an issue that has haunted the broader "ugly" produce industry.) 

Christensen would like to see research on food loss and waste, particularly around the diversion of "ugly" produce, take into account the full life-cycle emissions of such systems, and to at least attempt to quantify the climate impact this kind of intervention may have.

Besides, literally asking every supermarket to put googly eyes on irregular produce might not be realistic, and would generate quite a bit of waste of its own. That's not truly what Kim's team is proposing — they're thinking more about marketing campaigns and ads. But while outfitting an unusually tiny tomato with a pair of googly eyes isn't likely to radically change historically entrenched consumer habits, nor will naming a lumpy carrot "Alex" tilt America's emissions trajectory with food waste, campaigns like these could spark small changes in how consumers consider what to buy and eat. That, in itself, may be a win.

"I was personally really scared of eating eggplant. Whether it's ugly or pretty, I never purchased [it]," said Kim. "But after I did this research, now I'm an eggplant shopper. And I'll be happy to grab any googly-eyed eggplant."

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/how-to-sell-an-ugly-vegetable-give-it-googly-eyes/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

Dave Grohl admits he fathered a child outside of his decades-long marriage

Dave Grohl, former drummer for Nirvana and current frontman for the Foo Fighters, has revealed he fathered a child outside of his marriage.

Grohl, who has spent most of the summer touring the Foo Fighters' recent album, "But Here We Are," shared the shocking news in an Instagram statement Tuesday, admitting he has "recently become the father of a new baby daughter," who was conceived with someone who is very much not his wife of over two decades, director Jordyn Blum.

The post continued, "I plan to be a loving and supportive parent to her. I love my wife and my children, and I am doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness. We're grateful for your consideration toward all the children involved, as we move forward together."

According to NBC News, a spokesperson for Grohl would not share any additional comment.

The Foo Fighters rocker has three daughters with Blum, whom he married in 2003: Violet Maye Grohl, 18, Harper Willow Grohl, 15, and Ophelia Saint Grohl, 10. Previously, Grohl was married to photographer Jennifer Leigh Youngblood for three years, divorcing in 1997 due to Grohl's infidelities.

In 2007, Grohl spoke of Blum and their first daughter in an interview with The Guardian, saying, “For the past 20 years when I’ve been touring, I’ve always craved stability. I’ve never gotten off on chaos. Throughout the whole Nirvana experience, I retreated to Virginia whenever I felt sucked into the tornado of insanity. Same thing with the Foo Fighters – I wouldn’t be able to do this if I didn’t have my feet planted firmly on the ground. So Jordyn and Violet are anchors that keep me from completely disappearing.”

CNN flash poll finds that 63% of viewers thought Harris beat Trump in the debate

American voters thought Vice President Kamala Harris handily beat Republican nominee Donald Trump in Tuesday night’s presidential debate, according to a CNN flash poll conducted Tuesday night.

Sixty-three percent of voters who watched the debate thought Harris won, while just 37% of viewers said the same of Trump. Before the debate, the same voters were split 50-50 on who they expected to prevail.

Throughout the 90-minute head-to-head between the two candidates, Harris showed composure, wit and a steadiness in her responses intentionally designed to bait Trump.

Related

"The same old, tired playbook": Harris baits an aging Trump into being his grumpiest, weirdest self

It was one of Harris' first candid opportunities to explain her positions in he general election, something voters wanted. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 28% of those surveyed said they needed to learn more about Harris, compared to 9% of voters who said the same about Trump. 

While it’s too early to know if Tuesday night was enough to fundamentally change the race, the debate seems to be a win for Harris.

The Washington Post asked 25 uncommitted swing-state voters who they thought won the debate and all but two said Harris. 

“Trump was on defense. Harris stuck to her points, was coherent and frankly, more professional than I have ever seen her. Trump missed too many opportunities,” one man told The Post.

A group of Gen Z voters told GBH News they thought Harris was the decisive winner of Tuesday night’s showdown. 

Media analysts and even some Republicans also agreed that Harris came out on top. 

“She was exquisitely well prepared, she laid traps, and he chased every rabbit down every hole instead of talking about the things that he should have been talking about,” former Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said in an interview on ABC News. “This is the difference between someone who is well prepared and someone who is unprepared."

Pressure on Harris to have a good night was high after President Joe Biden’s disastrous June debate performance, which eventually led to him stepping down as the Democratic nominee. 

According to CNN’s poll, Harris improved dramatically on the president's performance, with 67% of viewers saying Trump had outperformed Biden that night.

Read more

about the Harris-Trump debate

“Sad”: Trump allies admit he lost the debate but direct their rage at ABC’s fact-checking moderators

After his campaign-ending debate in June, allies of President Joe Biden — those who had not yet come to terms with the gravity of what had happened — were adamant: If he’s to have any chance of winning in November, we can’t be doing this again. The 81-year-old Democrat had appeared frail and sounded incoherent, undermining confidence that he could do the job for another four years, much less another televised contest with his Republican opponent.

“We didn’t even need this debate,” one California Democrat assured reporters. “You have a debate so that you can learn about a candidate. There’s nothing else to know.”

“I probably wouldn’t do it,” another Democrat from Ohio said, arguing the format would have to change for them to even consider it. “I’m not his advisor, but I probably wouldn’t advise him to do it.”

Related

The debate was a total debacle for Donald Trump

Following Tuesday’s debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, it was the 78-year-old Donald Trump asserting that the time for conversation was over.

“Why should I do another debate?” the former president asked Fox News host Sean Hannity, trying to spin the Harris campaign’s desire for one as evidence he’d won the showdown on ABC News. “She immediately said we want another debate … You know what happens when you’re a prizefighter and you lose? You immediately want a new fight.”

Speaking to Hannity, Trump said he would only consider another debate if the format were to change. “Maybe if it was on a fair network, I would do that,” he said. Later on Truth Social, he would repeat his boxing analogy, citing a web poll from the far-right Newsmax to a victory so massive he wouldn’t bother doing it again.

Trump lost the 2020 election by millions of votes and still claimed to have won in a landslide. The Republican candidate lies as a matter of course; that ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis actually called him on it — no, Democrats are not aborting babies after they are born; no, Haitian immigrants are not eating people’s cats and dogs — is one reason he got flustered and flopped on prime-time television. Claiming he won this contest might not even work with his base.

And it was Harris, not the moderators, who repeatedly baited Trump into being the worst version of himself. Instead of lying about the economy, Trump, scowling and shouting for all 90 minutes, was forced by his own ego into defending the crowd sizes and the brilliance of his oratory. The vice president made it look easy, as Trump fell for every obvious trap.

“Unlike Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, the loaded-for-bear vice president knew exactly where to aim and what the reaction would be,” noted an analysis of the debate from Deadline editors Dominic Patten and Ted Johnson. “By the end of the 90-minute debate and its closing statements, Trump looked haunted and, frankly, old.”

We need your help to stay independent

Subscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalism

Not even Trump’s allies could spin this one, most not even attempting to claim that he won but redirecting their anger to ABC News’ moderators, who were "so in the tank for Harris that it was repulsive,” conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt declared (Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, called on prosecutors to "criminally charge" them).

“Let’s make no mistake. Trump had a bad night,” Fox News’ Brit Hume conceded. “We just heard so many of the old grievances that we all know aren’t winners politically.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was more blunt: “Disaster” is how he described Trump’s debate performance to The Bulwark’s Tim Miller.

“I’m just sad,” one House Republican told The Hill. “She knew exactly where to cut to get under his skin.”

Other Trump surrogates retreated to the comforts of conspiratorial insinuation.

Vivek Ramaswamy, who himself sought the 2024 GOP nomination, said on Fox News that “Kamala Harris exceeded the very low expectations that were purposely set for her,” as if that were the fault of a biased mainstream media trying to help a Democrat and not the Republican candidate himself, who repeatedly claimed that Harris was avoiding a debate with him because she isn’t smart. If Harris benefited from low expectations, at least among viewers of Fox News and users of Truth Social, then it was awful dumb for her opponent to set them there.

There were also low expectations for Trump. All he had to do was seem kind of normal — to restrain himself just enough that a swing voter could believe they were casting a ballot for a savvy businessman who’s actually a moderate on abortion, not the unhinged, visibly declining version that appears at rallies and on right-wing media claiming that liberals literally murder babies.

Trump failed to clear the exceptionally low bar that has been set for him since 2015. When he first entered politics, he could, for better or worse, credibly claim to be the candidate of “change.” In 2024, facing an opponent a full generation younger than him, the former president was successfully portrayed as the candidate of yesterday — a man who had already been given the chance to govern, failed and just can’t come to terms with his own defeat (“clearly he’s having a very difficult time processing that,” Harris said of the 2020 election).

In June, Trump came across as relatively youthful, if only because he delivered the usual nonsense with more energy than his opponent; in September, he just seemed angry, elderly and easily manipulated into being the worst version of himself, which isn’t very good at all.

“Donald Trump looked old,” as Chris Wallace put it on CNN, summing up the former president's performance against his 59-year-old opponent, who was the only one on stage who even hinted at a positive vision for the future. The previous debate ended one candidate’s political career, the former Fox News anchor observed. “I think tonight was just as devastating.”

Read more

about the Harris-Trump debate