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Jim Jordan worries dozens of members may leave en masse over House Freedom Caucus civil war

A dramatic divide is erupting in the far-right House Freedom Caucus after the group voted to oust a third member in the span of a year.

The ejection of Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, was led by allies of Chairman Bob Good, R-Va., Politico reported. Good recently lost a primary election for his district in Virginia – the only congressional Republican to do so – and Davidson openly backed Good’s challenger, the Trump-ensorsed John McGuire.

Good’s allies believed Davidson’s endorsement of McGuire violated rules against publicly attacking a fellow member and merited his removal from the group, Axios reported. Caucus members voted to oust Davidson 16-13, but the vote occurred when some of Davidson’s allies weren’t present.

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Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Politico he disagreed with the decision and acknowledged that it could lead to resignations among the group’s members.

“I voted against it and spoke against it. … I’ve always been opposed to that,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Politico.

One member has already left. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, resigned immediately after Davidson’s ousting.

According to caucus bylaws, members usually only fall out of good standing if they miss meetings or don’t pay their dues. Davidson didn’t have issues with either. 

Historically, the caucus has been tight-lipped when it comes to speaking on internal matters, but the increasing division between old and new members who joined during and post-Trump has led to some to begin speaking out publicly, according to Politico.

In October, the decision to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy caused a major divide in the caucus. Earlier this year, the group voted to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., over her feud with fellow member Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. The group also split over whether to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson.

"Back stabbing Bob Good and the Never Trump freedom caucus members are the problem. They have destroyed the freedom caucus and have made it ineffective," Greene posted on X after Davidson’s removal.

Good, who has publicly stated he will request a recount in his primary election, will likely step down as speaker once his loss is formalized, sources told Axios.

George Stephanopoulos caught saying Biden can’t serve “four more years” days after interview

Less than a week after interviewing President Joe Biden about his viability as a candidate, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos was caught on camera saying he doesn’t think the president is fit to serve another four year term.

Stephanopoulos was walking on 5th Avenue when a pedestrian approached him, according to a video obtained by TMZ.

“What do you think, do you think Biden should step down? You’ve talked to him more than anybody else has lately. And you can be honest,” the pedestrian said to Stephanopoulos.

Though his response is slightly muffled and caught off-camera, Stephanopoulos responded: “I don’t think he can serve four more years.” 

In a statement on Tuesday, Stephanopoulos acknowledged making the remark. “Earlier today I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn’t have,” he said, The Washington Post reported.

A spokesperson for ABC told the Post that Stephanopoulos “expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News.”

Biden’s interview with Stephanopoulos on Friday was considered to be a “make-or-break” event to prove to skeptics he is fit to run for president after his disastrous debate performance last June. In the interview, Biden, who was at times incoherent, asserted that he will not withdraw as the Democratic candidate and that only the “Lord Almighty” could make him do so.

Dishonest Biden defenders sound like MAGA surrogates as they privately admit he can’t win

It’s what you would expect a co-chair of the candidate’s re-election campaign to say, thrust into the impossible position of defending the vitality of an elderly man whose clear and rapid decline was witnessed by 50 million Americans on live television. But that didn’t make it any less excruciating, and certainly not any more believable.

“I have got complete confidence in our president,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told NPR on Tuesday. “I am an enthusiastic supporter of President Biden's, and I'm going to work my tail off to make sure he gets a second term.”

Whitmer, often floated as a Hail Mary replacement for the 81-year-old Democrat, was none too inspiring when pressed on that display of loyalty, which was undercut by NPR airing a clip of Biden speaking alongside her at a campaign stop in 2020. The decline from then to now was readily apparent. How could anyone deny it?

“Our choices on the ballot right now are President Biden and former President Trump,” Whitmer demurred. “That is the binary choice in front of us.”

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If the cold hard reality is that there is no other choice for the 70% of voters who say the incumbent president lacks the physical and mental fitness to complete another four-year term in office — and that the message for the next four months is going to be that the president is totally fine, but also what else can you do? — then the cold hard reality appears to be that Democrats are going to lose not just the White House but likely both chambers of Congress.

“Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House,” Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who is not a Biden surrogate and thus more capable of speaking freely and honestly, told CNN Tuesday night. “This isn’t a question about polling,” he continued, referring to concerns about Biden’s competency and the continued viability of his campaign (the polling, like the vibes, is quite bad). “It’s not a question about politics. It’s a moral question about the future of our country.”

It is indeed a question for Democratic leaders: Do you want to be seen as the party that still has integrity — that is willing to concede that 90 minutes of borderline incoherence is not a “one off” for an octogenarian, who clearly does not appear to have the vigor to serve until January 2029 — or do you want to be seen as a party of liars?

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Claiming that one has “complete confidence” in Biden’s brain is, unfortunately, an obvious lie at this point. In the days since his atrocious debate, Biden only further displayed that he does not have what it takes anymore.

In an interview with a radio host who was fed questions by his campaign, Biden still managed to bungle his scripted answers, referring to himself as the “first Black woman to serve with a Black president” (the interviewer was subsequently fired). On ABC, eight days after the debate, he was at times incoherent and, when he was not, still garbled and infuriating, portraying a loss to Trump as acceptable to him so long as he “did the good as job as I know I can do” (the interviewer chosen by the Biden campaign, George Stephanopoulos, subsequently commented: “I don’t think he can serve four more years”).

Whether Biden can capably read from a teleprompter is not so much the question — and him continuing to do so will not resolve any of the public’s legitimate concerns. There is indeed nothing that the president can do at this point to address them, and that’s actually fair: because there is no destroying the evidence that has already been made public. The debate, and Biden’s later unscripted performances, reveal in absolute clarity why his campaign was hiding him; why, two years in a row, the president declined to appear for an interview before the 120 million people watching the Super Bowl.

Elected Democrats absolutely know this too.

“I haven't talked to one who privately says they think Biden is capable of running and beating Trump at this point,” Heather Caygle, managing editor at Punchbowl News, wrote Tuesday.

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While only seven congressional Democrats have explicitly called for Biden to step aside, almost all of them know the score, even if they’ve been cowed by a president who half-assed the “proving himself” part — in two weeks: about a half-hour of unscripted remarks, in friendly venues, that went poorly — before shifting to petulant defiance.

As Politico reported Wednesday morning, most Democrats “remain 100 percent convinced Biden will lose to Trump, and many privately want him to gracefully bow out — even some who are publicly supporting him as the nominee.”

Loyalty can be a virtue but it can also be a vice. Here, it looks more like cowardice and dishonesty. “I wish I was more brave,” a Democratic state party chair told NBC News.

“I could say something, but I’m a pragmatist,” one Democratic lawmaker told the outlet. “I fall in the category of a lot of front-liners who were staying quiet in the hopes that he was going to do the right thing,” they continued. “But he’s choosing to stay.”

The question now is whether Democrats want to be truthful with the public and an American super-majority that thinks Biden should step down. They do not need to be vicious toward a man who has empowered organized labor, boosted real wages for the working class and helped stave off a recession while investing record sums in clean energy. But they will be serving him and his legacy poorly if they don’t honestly confront their ailing leader and remind him that there will be no moral victories if an authoritarian demagogue is returned to power in November.

The alternative is looking voters directly in the face and lying to them in ways more befitting of a MAGA surrogate, convincing no one of anything but the Democrats’ own dishonesty. The world does not deserve a second Trump presidency, but if the president’s political allies shred their integrity for the next four months that is just what we will get. And they know it.

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Stephen King: Biden should bow out “in the interests of the America he so clearly loves”

Acclaimed horror writer Stephen King has joined a number of other high-profile Democrats in asking President Joe Biden to bow out of the presidential race against Donald Trump.

The "Shining" and "It" author on Monday took to X/Twitter to share his thoughts, writing, "Joe Biden has been a fine president, but it’s time for him — in the interests of the America he so clearly loves — to announce he will not run for re-election.”

King's remarks follow Biden's widely panned June 27 debate, in which he appeared to suffer from a series of age-related gaffes. Since then, his ability to not only defeat Trump but also lead the country successfully for another presidential term has fallen under question.

Despite being heavily scrutinized across media platforms since the debate, the president affirmed that he intends to continue his campaign. Speaking to ABC's George Stephanopoulos last week during a prime-time interview, Biden argued, “I don’t think there’s anybody more qualified to be president or win this race, than me.” He chalked up his “bad night” at the debate to being "exhausted," adding that he would only drop out of the race if "the Lord Almighty" instructed him to do so.

A death knell for NATO: Project 2025 calls for Trump to “restructure” US foreign policy

We haven't seen much of Donald Trump lately but he did poke his head up Tuesday to speak at a little rally he held at his Doral golf resort, almost certainly paid for by his campaign so any profits are put directly into his pocket. (Too bad he's stiffed so many of the other venues that have hosted him but that's just his way.) It wasn't anything special. He sounded as unhinged as usual, delivering his greatest hits to a hot and wilted but adoring Florida crowd.

He admitted that when he became president he didn't even know what NATO was before he launched into his tiresome rant about making the alliance countries pay their dues (they don't have dues) and reiterating that he told some unnamed foreign leader that he wouldn't defend them against Russian aggression if they were "delinquent."

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MAGA marks 80th anniversary of D-Day with vote to defund NATO

That stale lie is standard boilerplate at his rallies and hasn't changed since he first started saying it years ago. But it was especially crude of him to say it on the day the NATO meeting began in Washington D.C., marking the 75th anniversary of the alliance. He was speaking at roughly the same moment as President Biden, in fact, and the contrast couldn't be starker:

Setting aside all the current drama over Biden's candidacy, when it comes to his presidency there is simply no comparison between his performance on the world stage and Donald Trump's. Trump was a dangerously ignorant embarrassment with a strange need to beg and scrape for approval from dictators and tyrants like some sad little flunky trying to impress the playground bully. Part of his suck-up performance was to browbeat America's allies to impress the despots whose attention he craved. NATO was his favorite punching bag for obvious reasons. His idol Vladimir Putin is its sworn enemy. 

Biden, on the other hand, very deftly brought NATO together to meet the most acute threat it's faced since WWII, with the invasion of Ukraine by Trump's bosom pal, Russia's Vladimir Putin. The most striking evidence of just how important this was is the fact that Sweden and Finland joined the alliance after 50 years of neutrality due to the dire threat from Russia. His leadership has been, by all accounts, reassuring and stabilizing, the exact opposite of what they felt during Trump's administration and what they fear from another one. 

Right now NATO allied countries are in the midst of a massive military buildup and it has nothing to do with Trump's demands that they "pay their bills" despite Trump's boasts that he is responsible for forcing them to do it. It's because they rightfully fear that the US is no longer going to be a reliable ally should Trump win. He's made it pretty clear that he thinks treaty obligations are for suckers and losers. 

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Trump has been trying to distance himself from Project 2025, the MAGA Manifesto and detailed plan for his second term. It's ridiculous, of course. It was written by former Trump administration officials, most of whom are being mentioned for important roles in a second term. Nonetheless, Trump and his campaign managers are obviously worried about the fact that it's so extreme that it would be radioactive if people were aware of it so they are pointing everyone to the RNC platform, which is so puerile it reads like a 5th grade book report.

When it comes to foreign policy, this is all it says:

Prevent World War Three, Restore Peace in Europe and in the Middle East, and build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country —- all made in America.

That sounds just great. How exactly any of it is going to be accomplished is unknown. When asked, Trump simply says that if he were president nothing bad would have happened and if he's re-elected everything will magically fix itself. His followers like to think it's because all the "bad guys" will slink away with their tails between their legs when they see his huge hands once more on the tiller, but the truth is that he will no doubt give the green light for his dictator buddies to do anything they want. 

There are people at Project 2025 thinking about how to change the direction of America's foreign policy, however, and it's not much better. Generally speaking those writing on national security and foreign policy are concentrating on many of the same culture war issues that the domestic policy planners are obsessed with. They want to take a wrecking ball to all the institutions and replace the personnel, including the officer corps of the military, whom they claim have weakened the services with their "woke" attitudes. Virtually the entire State Department will also have to go because they are similarly seen as a bunch of wimpy liberals who don't recognize the great strategic brilliance of Donald Trump. It recommends that all treaty negotiations halt immediately for re-evaluation by the president and it appears that they feel perfectly comfortable reneging on any agreements they don't believe serve "the national interest," which will be defined by Trump, the man who sees the entire world as one big potential real estate con. They say, "the next conservative President has the opportunity to restructure the making and execution of U.S. defense and foreign policy and reset the nation’s role in the world." Yikes.

One of the positive consequences to come out of the brutal conflagrations of the first part of the 20th century was the idea (only sporadically realized and often betrayed) that democracy and shared values among allies could prevent any more bloodbaths like the horrors of the two world wars. The various authoritarian movements that are growing throughout the world today present a serious challenge to those ideas and the consequence of the planet's only superpower joining them isn't just terrifying for those of us who live here. Much of the rest of the world is petrified at the prospect as well.

As NATO was preparing for the big meeting taking place in Washington, over the last two weeks we've seen Trump's favorite European neo-fascist, Viktor Orban of Hungary (a NATO member), travel to Moscow and then Beijing to meet with their respective autocratic leaders on a so-called "peace mission." (Putin put an exclamation point on that one by bombing a children's hospital in Kiev on the same day.) The Prime Minister of India, the largest democracy in the nation, was in Russia with Putin just this week. And Putin met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and President Xi of China recently as well. This is the club Donald Trump would like to join. These are his role models. There is no group of world leaders he admires more.  

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Biden blames Texas officials for delayed federal response to Hurricane Beryl

"Biden blames Texas officials for delayed federal response to Beryl" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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Texas is receiving federal aid for Hurricane Beryl later than needed because state leaders were slow to request an official disaster declaration from the White House, President Joe Biden told the Houston Chronicle Tuesday.

With Gov. Greg Abbott out of the country on an economic development trip in Asia, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has served as acting governor amid the storm, making him responsible for putting in the state’s request for aid.

A White House spokesperson told the Chronicle that officials had tried multiple times to reach Abbott and Patrick, and Biden said he only connected with Patrick Tuesday, after which he issued the disaster declaration. Beryl came ashore on Texas' Gulf Coast early Monday morning, bringing heavy rain and winds that wreaked havoc over Houston and other parts of southeast Texas.

Patrick denied Biden's account, writing on social media that the president was "falsely accusing" him of being unreachable.

"I am disappointed that President Biden is turning Hurricane Beryl into a political issue," Patrick said, describing a "cordial call" with Biden earlier Tuesday in which the president granted his request for a major disaster declaration.

Patrick added that state officials "needed to determine what our outstanding needs were" before they could make an official request.

"We were working on that with local officials as we traveled the impacted areas," Patrick said. "As I was being briefed today, the president called."

An Abbott spokesperson added that Biden's comments were "a complete lie" and said the president and his administration "know exactly how to get in contact with the Governor and have on numerous occasions in the past."

"The State of Texas has been working closely with FEMA and other federal partners ahead of and throughout the storm to get the support Texas needs," Abbott press secretary Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement. "The State of Texas had all necessary disaster declarations in place well before today, despite what President Biden said."

As Beryl approached the Texas coast, Patrick issued a state disaster declaration authorizing the use of "all available resources of state government" needed to respond to the storm. At issue Tuesday, though, was the state's request for federal aid, which Patrick made earlier in the day. The major disaster declaration from Biden allows federal officials to help Texas pay for debris removal and emergency supplies and goods.

In a statement early Tuesday evening, Biden noted that FEMA resources had been on the ground in Texas “since well before the storm." That included 500,000 meals and 800,000 liters of water that were "ready to distribute at the state's request," FEMA officials said in a statement Monday. The agency also deployed 60 generators "to provide power to critical infrastructure, if needed."

The disaster declaration includes 121 counties, including Harris County and other parts of southeast Texas that were hit hard by Beryl, Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

A TDEM spokesperson said the state had been able to fulfill all requests from local officials, and FEMA officials had been in briefings with Kidd and Patrick "before, during, and after" Beryl and have "a permanent seat in our State Emergency Operations Center."

Biden, a Democrat, has frequently butted heads with Abbott, Patrick and other Texas GOP leaders over immigration policy and other areas. Politics have also regularly infused the response to past Texas storms, most recently when then-Land Commissioner George P. Bush, a Republican, feuded with then-Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, over Hurricane Harvey aid. Bush also accused the Biden administration of using "red tape" and "complex regulations" to slow the distribution of aid.

The political sparring came as millions of Texans remained without power as temperatures climbed into the 90s in parts of the state, one day after Beryl’s deadly winds and rain caused widespread damage.

James Barragán contributed to this report.

Big news: director and screenwriter Richard Linklater; NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher; U.S. Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California; and Luci Baines Johnson will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/07/09/greg-abbott-dan-patrick-biden-beryl-federal-texas/.

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The grift behind Project 2025: Leader John McEntee made an app to hustle cash from lonely MAGA men

Donald Trump wants the press and the voters to look away from Project 2025. Instead, his defensiveness is causing journalists to report on the intricate web of connections between Trump and the far-right playbook for his desired second term. For instance, one of the many close Trump advisors who now works on Project 2025 is John McEntee, former Trump White House personnel director. McEntee has already confirmed that the plan is to "integrate" Project 2025 into the official Trump campaign.  

When McEntee isn't scheming for ways to purge the federal government of reality-based bureaucrats and replace them with MAGA loyalists, he's busy separating foolish MAGA men from their money with a dating app called "The Right Stuff." The app, which was funded initially by far-right tech investor Peter Thiel, purports to connect Republican singles looking for love. In truth, it's not clear what the app does, though many users express concerns about the data it may be collecting. One thing that seems unlikely is that it's a sincere effort to get its Republican users to the wedding altar. 

Even if they achieve half of what they wish, the people behind Project 2025 will leave behind an American populace that is lonelier, more alienated, and angrier.

For one thing, while it's exclusively for heterosexual people, the app seems to suffer a dearth of female users, despite recruitment efforts led by the sister of Trump's ex-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Ryann.  "Two Republican staffers in Washington, D.C., said many young conservative women have ignored McEnany’s outreach and have instead jeeringly passed around screenshots of her messages to group chats," Zachary Petrizzo of the Daily Beast reported in 2022. The problem doesn't seem to have abated. As one college Republican recently complained to a right-wing student website, "Women on the app are eligible for a free premium subscription, which goes to show how few women sign up in the first place." He complained it's a "commercial failure," even though conservative men, in his estimation, don't do any better with the ladies on mainstream dating apps. Other users report being deluged with spam after signing up, especially from sex websites. 

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The strangest red flag may be in the primary way McEntee markets the website: with videos selling the fantasy of being a man on a date with a woman who cannot wait to hear your most despicable opinions. As Tim Miller of the Bulwark explained, "the conceit" of these videos, which are shared widely on Instagram and TikTok, is McEntee "is on a date" and the "POV is you and the camera are on a date" with him. So the audience takes the role of the rapt woman listening to McEntee's conspiracy theories about "false flags." 

Or you're positioned as an adoring lady silently soaking in McEntee's rant accusing drag queens of being pedophiles while he houses a hamburger. 

McEntee often makes these opinions as shocking as he can, so the videos get outraged reactions and press. In May, for example, he made a video claiming he gives homeless people fake money, so they'll be arrested if they try to spend it. It's unlikely to be true since the Secret Service tends to go after the person distributing counterfeit money, and not the victims who mistakenly take it. But it worked to get people talking about his feed, attracting more attention and perhaps more gullible men downloading the app. 

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One thing this marketing campaign almost certainly is not about: attracting female users to The Right Stuff. Even for conservative women, it's not exactly the dream date scenario to sit there in silence while some dude unloads his cruelest and dumbest ideas. No, this appears to be a fantasy for MAGA men. The dream is a woman who will do that for you. And if you can't have that in reality, you can watch these videos and pretend to be the guy on a date, bleating nonsense while a woman listens. 

McEntee appears to be yet another one of the seemingly endless stream of masculinity "influencers" who have created a perfect grift cycle for themselves. First, identify alienated men and promise them a path out of loneliness and into the heterosexual relationship of their dreams. Second, encourage those men to adopt even more repugnant behaviors that make it even harder for them to attract women. Then, when those men become even more frustrated, push them further to the right, blaming all their problems on feminists, liberals and LGBTQ people. 

It's a schtick we've seen from Jordan Peterson to Andrew Tate to the Proud Boys. I call it the male insecurity-to-fascism pipeline and, from a purely sociopathic viewpoint, it's evil genius. Marketing toxic masculinity as self-help benefits both the authoritarian cause and the influencer pocketbooks. MAGA figureheads get to tear down liberal society and make money doing so. They simply don't care that, in the process, they aren't just hurting most Americans. They're doing real damage to the men who follow them by encouraging them to adopt attitudes and behaviors that will make life harder in every arena, from work to romance. 

McEntee's goals of running a dating app and gutting American democracy might seem, at first blush, to be disparate interests — but they're tightly entwined. The policy agenda of Project 2025 couldn't be better designed to tear further into the already fraying social fabric of America. So many of their goals — from gutting public education to decimating reproductive health care access — will put more stress on communities and families. If Trump wins, their platform will make it harder for people to maintain social relationships, much less create new ones. Try dating without birth control, for instance. Or having children without access to schools. Or having a safe community without environmental protections. Or having a decent job without labor protections. Even if they achieve half of what they wish, the people behind Project 2025 will leave behind an American populace that is lonelier, more alienated, and angrier. 

But hey, why should John McEntee care? A meaner and more isolated public just means more lonesome men to exploit with his shady dating app. 

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5 Lessons Joe Biden should have learned from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss

In the summer of 2016, the Hillary Clinton campaign was confident. Despite the pesky level of support shown for Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s team still foresaw a successful Democratic National Convention in August followed by winning the presidency in November. In the lead-up to Election Day no one on the Clinton team, amongst the Democratic party elites, or in the center-left conventional news media imagined there was any chance that Donald Trump — a lying, racist, misogynistic bully with not one single day of public service experience —had any chance of winning the race. The New York Times predicted that Clinton had an 85% chance of being elected. 

And yet, Hillary Clinton didn’t win. We all missed the signs because we refused to see what was right in front of our eyes.

If we were stupid in 2016, Joe Biden’s campaign is even dumber now. Clinton wasn’t popular enough to win the election, but she was at least close in 2016, winning the popular vote. Biden, in contrast, has never even been close to beating Trump according to  2024 polling. In April, Biden had the lowest approval ratings of any president in the last 70 years, and this was before his epically bad debate performance. In fact, Clinton polls ahead of Biden right now. 

The writing is on the wall. 

Not remembering what happened a mere eight years ago doesn’t constitute historical amnesia; it’s a deliberate dive into sheer lunacy.

We thought Clinton could win, yet she lost. Now we have a candidate who doesn’t come close to her numbers, and for some reason we are still debating whether he has the vim and vigor to pull this off? If we don’t take a moment to learn from the past and make the needed adjustments to open the convention and seek an electable candidate, Joe Biden is not just going to simply lose the election, he will do so spectacularly. And, most importantly, we will have all seen it coming because we have been through it before. 

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One of the most shocking pattern matches between 2016 and 2024 are the arguments about what a total nightmare it would be to have Trump in office, as if that fact simply means we just vote for whomever else there is on the ballot. The argument goes that we have to support Biden, because Trump is worse, just as we were told to vote for Clinton because the alternative was dystopia. But guess what? Being worried about a potential win of one candidate does not necessarily translate into support of their opponent. That logic didn’t work for Clinton then and it won’t work for Biden now.

So, are we ready to remember what happened in 2016 and learn from it? Here are five lessons Democrats would do well to take to heart, and fast, unless the party wants to face a predictable disaster in November. 

1. You can’t wish someone into electability.  

Clinton was simply never as popular as her insiders wanted her to be, and it was that myopic mindset that kept them from seeing the reality that she had underwhelming support.  The problem with the Clinton campaign, ultimately, wasn’t just that she didn’t have the voter support needed, it was that her supporters refused to just admit it. Even worse, when confronted with the truth of her weak likability, they argued against it instead of taking it seriously. If someone doesn’t like a candidate, there is simply no arguing them into it. It may not be logical to you. It may go against your decision-making. But you aren’t shaming or bullying someone into changing their mind. Voters didn’t like Clinton, even when they were not supportive of Trump and that fact kept her out of office. 

All these factors are in play in the Biden campaign, only much worse. He was considered old when he ran in 2020 and since then that issue has been an ongoing concern even among people who initially voted for him. In February, polls showed 70 percent of voters found him too old. There are even jokes and merch claiming that a vote for Biden is a vote for a cadaver.  

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And yet, for the most part, those concerns are gaslit by Biden and his team. Not only do we see Biden himself refuse to admit his flaws, but the reaction to those who don’t want to vote for him is to tell them they need to get behind Biden or else risk four more years of Trump. It’s as if the problem here is not an unlikeable candidate, it’s those of us who have the audacity not to like him. This perspective framed a lot of the conversation around Clinton in 2016 and it continues to circulate now. Biden isn’t popular enough to win. Not liking that reality isn’t changing it. 

2. You can’t ignore unpopular policy positions.

Clinton had to face a tremendous amount of misogyny. That was real. Just as Biden faces ageism. In his case, though, such concerns are indisputably valid. These realities, however, shouldn’t eclipse the fact that these candidates also hold unpopular policy positions.  

Since the debate, more attention has focused on whether Biden is fit to run for office than on the fact that many voters, particularly young ones, do not like his policies. If Biden were 20 years younger, he’d still be losing with a lot of voters who don’t like his track record. 

The problem is that focusing primarily on the dislikeability of these candidates as an identity issue allows too much of the conversation to circle around Biden’s age, just as it did with Clinton’s gender, and not on policy that doesn’t sit well with voters.

We’d do well to remember that Clinton held a lot of unpopular policy positions—she supported the War in Iraq, was cozy with Wall Street, presented herself as a hawk, and exercised poor judgment with her email. These were valid reasons why she lost votes. 

It’s also important to recall that Clinton’s unpopular record pales in comparison with public disapproval of Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, his seemingly unfettered support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza, and his refusal to support the free speech rights of students. In May, the Nation reported that Biden stood alone among Democrats “in the degree of his complicity in Israel’s morally indefensible and increasingly unpopular campaign,” leading to congressional Democrats polling ahead of the president in several key battleground states.   

Irrespective of Biden’s age, his unpopular policies placed him well on track to lose in November and no amount of proving his vigor can fix that. 

3. You can’t trust the conventional news media to get the story right.

During the Clinton campaign, the conventional news media stuck to a script, one that assumed Clinton was going to win. When Sanders won the debate against Clinton, the news media literally admitted that despite that win, they still were going to cover it as though Clinton had come out on top.  But here’s the thing. The media debacle of 2016 should have taught us that we can’t let the conventional news set the agenda, because at the end of the day, their focus is on supporting a corporate elite and building a devoted audience, not on covering the news in an accurate and balanced way. Study after study showed that the news media effectively got Trump elected and it’s no better now. 

The news media sticks to tired talking points, rehashes the same arguments with the same boring sides-taking, refers to polling that is often skewed and inaccurate and refuses to allow significant policy issues to enter their dialogue.  Even more, as in 2016, the news media continues to allow Trump to set the tone and intensity of his coverage, all the while refusing to cover his opponent in a meaningful way.   

This is why it is important to take the post-debate coverage and calls for Biden to drop out of the race with a healthy dose of skepticism. Almost all coverage has focused predominantly on how Biden has responded to pleas for him to drop out, which party insiders support him, and how he matches up against Trump. Rather than offer evidence of how an open convention could take place and instead of covering the issues that matter most to voters, the media sticks to the sensational drama of whether Biden will agree to step aside and skips over the issues, like inflation, healthcare and immigration, that matter most to voters. 

4. You can’t dismiss Americans’ disdain for the political oligarchy.

Perhaps the biggest blind spot in 2024 is the fact that potential Democratic voters are totally and unequivocally sick of the political oligarchy that runs the DNC and the Democratic Party and has circled the wagons around Biden just as it did with Clinton.  As Jon Stewart pointed out this week on “The Daily Show,” voters are fed up with the “arthritic status quo” and “suffering gerontocracy,” which has thus far been “unable or unwilling to respond in any way to the concerns of voters.”

Shortly after the debate, DNC leader Jaime Harrison claimed that the "hand-wringing" over Biden was “coming from the media” and “not the people.” This after anyone with eyeballs could see that Biden wasn’t fit to run and also after poll after poll showed Biden did not have strong voter support. That stunningly tone-deaf comment was followed by Harrison’s claim that the DNC would continue to have Biden’s back. Harrison’s comments made it clear that his plan was to protect party oligarchy, not voter interests, just as it did with Clinton in 2016.   

These days the DNC seems to do nothing more than ask us for donations and anoint the next party insider. With Clinton the DNC did everything it could to make sure that Sanders couldn’t beat her. Rather than listen to voters and represent party values, the DNC has increasingly moved to select insider candidates and make it virtually impossible for anyone else to take the nomination. 

Today, as Norm Solomon, founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, points out, the Democratic Party is totally tied to Wall Street and corporate interests. So, voters just no longer trust it when it “claims to be fighting for working people [or] claims to be on the side of the victims of the corporate capitalist system” because it is incessantly siding with the victimizers and refusing to name the victimizers of oligarchy.” The party just doesn’t “have a coherent message that makes sense to people.”

Now with Biden, party leaders claim that this is a matter of loyalty to Biden, missing the point that voters just don’t trust the party itself. Remember that back in 2016 DNC leader Donna Brazile released a book where she claimed that the nomination process had been rigged. Since then, the party has not recovered its image because it hasn't offered voters significant change. Until the DNC learns its lesson from the 2016 election, they will continue to risk losing voter support.    

5. Listen to Michael Moore. 

Michael Moore was the one lone public intellectual voice that called the Trump win in 2016. He predicted Clinton’s loss when no one wanted to believe it. And like many of the other times that he has expressed unpopular views, he took flak for it. But, he was right then, and he is right now.  

Moore isn’t just predicting that Biden will lose. He has called on Biden to step aside right now. Resign today. Describing what he witnessed at the debate as the worst form of elder abuse he had ever seen, Moore went on to make his position clear: “I don’t think we should be waiting until September or October to deal with this. We have to deal with this right now. This is not about whether he’s fit to serve another four years. After what we saw on debate night, this is about whether he should serve another four days in the toughest job in the world. That’s the question we should be asking.”

Moore is right in 2024 as he was right in 2016. We shouldn’t be debating whether Biden should stay in the race, we should be discussing whether he should stay on the job one minute more. 

We have to remember the obvious. The debate was the last nail in a coffin that was months in the making. The good news, though, is that Biden’s disturbing debate performance creates an opportunity to seek a better option in a race he is set to lose otherwise. 

They say that those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it. In this case, we aren’t even talking about history. We are talking about paying attention to two election cycles. Not remembering what happened a mere eight years ago doesn’t constitute historical amnesia; it’s a deliberate dive into sheer lunacy.

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Bird flu seems to be slowly mutating to better infect humans. Experts warn the time to act is now

In late March, a worker on a commercial dairy farm in Texas developed a case of pink eye. He eventually tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza Type A H5N1, also known as bird flu. Scientists were shocked to find out that cattle, not birds, were the host — and that large amounts of H5N1 were found in the infected cattle.

So far this year, there have been four confirmed cases in humans following exposure to a dairy cow, with at least 143 dairy herds affected in a dozen states. For years, scientists have warned that bird flu could become another pandemic like COVID-19 (which hasn't exactly ended.) In other species, scientists have seen H5N1 decimate populations of seals and cats.  Now, a new study published in the journal Nature takes a deeper look at the virus infecting cows, shedding light on the risk it poses to the human population. 

In the study, scientists found that after being isolated from an infected cow, the H5N1 virus spread to the mammary glands of mice and some ferrets. 

“There's good news and bad news,” co-author of the study Keith Poulson, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, told Salon. The good news is that scientists have a model to infect laboratory animals and get them to shed the virus in their mammary glands. Specifically, in the study, scientists found that when the mice and ferrets were infected with the virus, it spread to the brain, intestines, kidney, heart and lungs. It also spread the mammary glands of mice and some of the ferrets. While transmission did not occur throughout direct contact between the mice, the female mice did transmit it to their pups through their milk. 

Related

Experts say bird flu is a Pandora's box. Are we about to open it?

Typically influenza viruses — like the kind that peaks every winter, but are considerably more benign than bird flu — spread among mammals through droplets in the air when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks. This is known as respiratory transmission. The results of the study suggest the current strain isn’t great at respiratory transmission. At face value, this is good news. However, the last part of the study left scientists concerned. 

 “The bad news is that this will attach to both sets of sialic acid receptors,” Poulson told Salon. These receptors are prevalent throughout the upper respiratory tract of humans. In birds, H5N1 strains typically attack different sialic acid receptors. But now it has clearly adapted to mammalian receptors, which could give the virus greater capacity for transmission between people.

One of the main reasons H5N1 hasn't become a pandemic yet — emphasis on yet — is because it is kind of lousy at spreading from person to person. If it ever evolves that ability, a distinct possibility, it could then easily surge through a population, creating a textbook pandemic. In fact, this is exactly what SARS-CoV-2, a virus that first existed in bats, managed to do in 2019.

“So we really need to pay attention to this virus; we can't let it continue to be endemic in our dairy herds," Poulson said.

"We really need to pay attention to this virus."

Indeed, in the last part of the study scientists discovered that unlike older strains of H5N1, this one has the capacity of “dual binding,” which suggests that it could be possible for humans to get infected in their respiratory tracts — but the scientists said they need more information.

Poulson said in light of the findings, he thinks it’s a good idea that last week, the Human Services announced a contract with the vaccine developer Moderna to manufacture an mRNA vaccine that targets bird flu. “We have successfully taken lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and used them to better prepare for future public health crises,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. "As part of that, we continue to develop new vaccines and other tools to help address influenza and bolster our pandemic response capabilities."

“We don't want to get caught behind the eight ball like we did with COVID,” Poulson said. “It's worth the prep, so if this were to change, even though it's a very low chance, if it were to change, we're ready for it.” 

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Professor Ian Brown of The Pirbright Institute, who leads a research consortium that is addressing similar questions on receptor binding, said in a media statement that the “predicted binding to cells offers new evidence for wider attachment including to cells lining the upper respiratory tract of humans but requires further study to understand the underlying factors.”

“Overall the study findings are not unexpected but this report provides further science insight to an evolving situation,” he said. “That emphasizes the need for strong monitoring and surveillance in affected or exposed populations, both animals and humans to track future risk.”

Dr. Rajendram Rajnarayanan of the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., told Salon he is concerned about the latest study’s findings, but the concern isn't “alarming” just yet. 

“There are the things that we expect that's going to happen when we do not control the spread,” Rajnarayanan said. “There is a possibility that if it binds right now, it's going to try to bind better. It's always going to mutate and that’s a key concern.” 

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Genomic surveillance, Rajnarayanan said, is key to getting ahead of efficient human-to-human respiratory transmission. 

“Typically, anything that infects the upper respiratory tract, their ability to transmit human to human, is pretty high,” Rajnarayanan said. “So far, we haven't seen that yet, but what we have seen is that this is able to bind to both receptors. That's the information we have right now.” 

How efficiently they bind is what scientists should be looking for next. “Once it hits human-to-human transmission, it's going to spread much like what we have seen in other pandemic-potential viruses,” he said.

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It’s our democracy, America! A second Trump presidency would be nothing like the first

Just when you wonder how MAGA world’s love affair with violence could get any more torrid, they show you it can. On Friday, the New Republic’s Greg Sargent reported the shocking speech given last week by Mark Robinson, the “pro-life” MAGA Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina. “Some folks need killing!” he said to a church audience in White Lake, a small town in the state’s southeastern corner. 

“It’s not a matter of vengeance,” he emphasized. “It’s a matter of necessity!”

This is the ugly permission slip for violent speech and action that Donald Trump has issued in America. Extreme right politicians out-MAGA one another for attention from the base. 

Such horror-laden escalations will not stop if Trump is elected. The history of 20th-century totalitarianism shows that despots accelerate intimidation and savagery. Their threats become official government policy.

While MAGAworld has long told us where this is heading if we elect Trump, some in the non-MAGAworld who have been sleep-walking are finally waking up. Each of us can be the alarm clock on the bedside table.

Spread the word. It matters. Sensible Americans do not want to lose their freedoms. We do not want a country where exercising our rights could risk the end of our lives. Or those of our parents, spouses or children.

Related

"Some folks need killing!": It's time to take MAGA threats of violence literally and seriously

The looming threat is an infinitely worse-than-the-first Trump presidency, as former Republicans at the Lincoln Project are urgently showing us. And our anxiety understandably rises during the short window when President Joe Biden makes his final decision about whether he will continue his campaign. 

It’s his decision, as many have rightly said. There is nothing we ordinary Americans can do to influence it. He will decide, with his wife and perhaps two or three closest advisories.

Americans who value their liberties are in the enterprise of defeating Trump’s existential threat to constitutionalism and law. We’re ridin’ with Biden, if he chooses to stay. We’ll ride with whomever the nominee becomes, if Biden decides that is better for the country. 

In the meantime, those who grasp the threat Trump poses have an understandable urge to speculate about which course is better for staving off the worst case scenario. Here are two questions I have sometimes forgotten to ask myself in our current moment of alarm: “Are you distracting yourself with discussion of matters in which you have no agency? Is there something more useful to do?”

In the 2015 film, “Bridge of Spies,” Tom Hanks played a heroic lawyer representing the Russian super spy of the early 1960s, Rudolf Abel. When Abel’s jury was about to come in with its verdict, and later, when Abel faced the prospect of Siberia as he was returned to the Soviets, Hanks’ character asked Abel, “Aren’t you worried?” 

Abel answered: “Would it help?” 

Likewise today, we can have long conversations over what might happen atop the Democratic ticket, but do they help? Better to stay inside what author Steven R. Covey calls our “circle of influence” – what we actually can affect – while decisions get made by those whose choice it is. 

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One way is to support grassroots organizers who talk to potential voters. Unlike the decision before President Biden, we have agency about organizing, sending postcards encouraging citizens to register to vote, using social media, talking to neighbors or writing letters about what is at stake in this election.

If the risks to reproductive freedom and personal privacy are your issues, you could share messages about them, including the looming threat of big brother monitoring women’s menstrual cycles. Looking for hope? To date, state-by-state abortion rights ballot measures are seven-for-seven, and as many as 10 more may be on the ballot in November.

In truth, it’s ALL of our rights on the ballot. So remind others of Trump’s expressed wish to terminate the Constitution, to be dictator on Day One, or that generals like Mark Milley, retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, be executed for reassuring China about America’s stability after January 6. The menacing statement about Milley sounds a lot like Robinson’s, “Some folks need to be killed.”

What makes it all worse is that Trump’s wishes seem to be the Supreme Court majority’s command. If elected, he will appoint more justices like the ones who just protected him in Trump v. United States. It effectively put presidents above the law, making real the specter of a president with a scepter.

One last subject to amplify. Attention is growing over the dangers in the rightwing Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a roadmap to a post-constitutional nation under a second Trump presidency. In a pre-July 4, premeditated statement, Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage, unmistakably threatened violence if there was resistance to his project’s ideas: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

The iconic 1992 campaign meme of James Carville – “it’s the economy, Stupid!” requires reframing today: “It’s our freedom, America!” Including if we speak out to resist tyranny, our freedom to live, as Mark Robinson is screaming to us.

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McDonald’s is adding a new, limited-edition McFlurry flavor to its U.S. lineup

McDonald's is finally treating its U.S. customers to a limited-edition McFlurry flavor. The latest release comes after the fast-food chain released several exciting flavors, including Lotus Biscoff and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, in locations outside of the States.

News of the latest frozen offering was first dropped by Snackolator, the popular online food reviewer. The dessert is called the Kit Kat Banana Split McFlurry, Snackolator revealed in an Instagram post. It features vanilla soft serve mixed with pieces of Kit Kat and strawberry banana crunchy bits. The combination is unique, to say the least, but Snackolator — who was able to get his hands on the product early — said the McFlurry is quite tasty.

“Overall, I really like this . . . this is a good one,” he said in a video review. “So, what I like about this is the strawberry and banana pieces give it that extra little bit of crunch. So, the Kit Kats are not as rice crispy crunchy, so I like that. I wish this maybe had some strawberry syrup or something? Just one more element. Maybe a hot fudge cause you can add that through the app.”

The new McDonald's menu will be available nationwide for a limited time only starting July 10. Snackolator added that select restaurants have been selling it early, both in stores and on their website.

Fans online expressed excitement in anticipation of the recent drop. Many said they were surprised to see the Kit Kat Banana Split McFlurry was being released in the States. Another fan called the new offering a “miracle.”

Gypsy Rose Blanchard is pregnant

Gypsy Rose Blanchard is expecting her first child with her boyfriend Ken Urker, per an announcement video Blanchard shared on her YouTube channel on Tuesday. Blanchard, a survivor of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, served an eight-and-a-half-year prison stint for her involvement in the death of her mother Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard. 

 "I know the rumors have been flying around for quite some time now," Blanchard says in the video, "and I'm happy to announce that I am 11 weeks pregnant. . . .Ken and I are expecting our very first child come January of 2025."

Blanchard also addressed concerns from her fans and the public, saying,  "I know that there are going to be people who feel like I'm not ready to be a mother, and I don't know if anyone's really ready to be a mother.

"All the things that I wanted in a mother, I want to give to this baby," she said, becoming emotional. "I am a mother now, I am happy, and I just want to be a good mother for my child. I want to be everything my mother wasn't.

"This was not planned at all, it was completely unexpected, but we're both very excited to take on this new journey of parenthood."

Blanchard was paroled in December. Not long after being released, she divorced her then-husband, Ryan Anderson, whom she met while in prison. She rekindled a past connection with Urker, who was previously her pen pal, according to PEOPLE.  "Ken and I reconnected as friends. It wasn't like, jump out of a marriage and then let me meet up with you, and boom, we're in a relationship," she shared. "We had kept a friendship for the longest time. He was in a relationship. I was with Ryan, and so we were living different lives with respect to our partners, a 'wish you the best' type of thing."

Experts: Black voters still back Biden after debate amid Trump’s “highly anti-Black” campaign

As President Joe Biden returns to the campaign trail to do damage control in the wake of his lackluster debate performance, he's turned to a more comfortable yet critical part of his base to shore up support: Black voters.

Speaking without a teleprompter but with notes, Biden on Sunday sought to reassure a group of voters key to his 2020 victory that he is still able to beat former President Donald Trump and handle the trials of a second term at a worship service at one of Philadelphia's largest Black churches.

“The joy cometh in the morning,” Biden told several hundred congregants at Mount Airy Church of God in Christ, a sought-after location for Democrats, according to The New York Times. “You’ve never given up. In my life, and as your president, I’ve tried to walk my faith.”

Related

"He is not leaving this race": AOC professes support for Joe Biden

Given that he'll "lose this election guaranteed" if Black voter turnout falters, Biden's recent efforts to attend to this part of his base are likely meant to send a signal to Black voters that he's not taking them for granted, according to Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University. 

"It's Black voters who propelled him to the nomination in 2020, and it's Black voters who helped him get elected president," she told Salon, adding: "I think the question is whether or not Blacks are interpreting that as attentiveness, or whether they are reading something else into it, and in particular, whether or not the concerns that are being raised about Biden's mental acuity actually resonate in Black communities."

Black voters have been an instrumental part of Biden's coalition since his 2020 campaign, particularly when voters in South Carolina, driven in part by the endorsement of Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., placed Biden on the path to the presidency by jumpstarting his then-ailing campaign, according to NBC News.

Though polls have indicated Black voters' enthusiasm for him in the current election cycle has taken a dip, the voter demographic still sports higher opinions of his June 27 debate performance than other groups and is less inclined to believe he should withdraw from the race. Now, as he works to recover from his debate gaffe and less-than-impactful interview attempting to do the same, retaining and bolstering support of Black voters — and lawmakers — may again be critical to his political future.

"Biden knows where his bread is buttered," Nadia Brown, a professor of government at Georgetown University and its women's and gender studies program's chair, told Salon. "He's aware that he can't win an election solely with Black votes, but he can certainly lose an election without Black votes."

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In a recent CBS News/YouGov survey of nearly 3,000 registered voters conducted in the days immediately following the debate, 58 percent of Black respondents said they believed Biden should be running for president, while 42 percent felt he shouldn't.

While those numbers fell closely in line with the overall sentiment of Democrats polled, Black voters comprised the only racial demographic surveyed where a majority felt Biden should be in the race. White respondents overwhelmingly indicated they believe Biden shouldn't be running, 74 percent to 26 percent, and 66 percent of Hispanic respondents said the same, compared to just 34 percent who said Biden should run.

Black voters were also more likely to say the debate did not change how they felt about Joe Biden at 52 percent, compared to 36 percent of both white and Hispanic respondents. 

Brown and Gillespie both credited that steadfast support of Biden in large part to the "pragmatism" of Black voters who understand they don't have large enough numbers to play big in elections but can still make their voices heard and influence a race.

"The way that they do that is by understanding the temperature of the room — so who are white people likely to vote for?" explained Brown, who specializes in Black women's politics. "We want to hook our wagon to the candidate that white people will put their massive numbers behind, that we can add to ours, to influence what that candidate does."

Though Black voters, she said, may not feel "head over heels" for Biden, they also recognize "the policies and the leaders that he surrounds himself with" as better than the alternative presented by Trump. 

But where might that pragmatism guiding their backing of Biden despite his CNN snafu stem from?

"The experience of racism and discrimination in this country, and an understanding that the potential for things to get way worse is much greater than the potential for things to get way better regardless of who the Democratic candidate or nominee is," argued Christopher Towler, an associate professor of political science who researches Black voter thought and behavior. 

"There's a sense of detachment and alienation from American Politics such that there's always going to be the need to protect oneself with an understanding that the opportunities for real, actual material gain are few and far between," said Towler, who also serves as the director of the Black Voter Project. 

Brown added that Black people have to engage in politics "with an awareness that they can do but so much and that their fates are tied to people who control the structures" of power.

"Because politics is life, you have a recognition that what happens in the halls of power, if you're there, or if you're not there, will still impact what you do," she said. "You don't have the luxury of putting your head in the sand and saying, 'I'm not going to engage."

The same likely applies to Black lawmakers, who've stepped out in high numbers to voice their support of the president amid the Democratic scramble over his potential nomination, in which five Democratic leaders have called for Biden to step aside.

On a private call between Democratic committee leaders Sunday, which saw four senior Dems and other ranking leaders call on the president to withdraw, two former chairwomen of the Congressional Black Caucus — Reps. Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee of California — "forcefully" defended Biden, two sources familiar with their comments told NBC News.

CBC Chair Steven Horsford, D-Nev., who faces a competitive race of his own this fall that Biden's candidacy could jeopardize, also affirmed his support for the president.

“President Joe Biden is the nominee and has been selected by millions of voters across the country, including voters here in Nevada,” Horsford said in a statement posted to X.

Nevadans, he added, "know President Biden and Vice President Harris are fighting for them. Like me they don't want to see Donald Trump back in the White House and are ready to work and VOTE to ensure that doesn't happen. We're not going back, we're moving forward."

Another CBC member, Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., issued a statement boosting Biden and denouncing his critics.

“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris defeated Donald Trump in 2020 and they are the Democratic ticket that will do so again this year," she said. "Any ‘leader’ calling for President Biden to drop out needs to get their priorities straight and stop undermining this incredible actual leader who has delivered real results for our country."

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Notably, none of the five House Democrats who have since called on Biden to drop out of the race — Reps. Lloyd Doggett of Texas; Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, Angie Craig of Minnesota, Mike Quigley of Illinois and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts — are Black, NBC News notes.

Neither are any of the four Democratic committee leaders who urged Biden to bow out on the Sunday call — Reps. Joe Morelle and Jerry Nadler of New York, Mark Takano of California and Adam Smith of Washington.

Towler and Gillespie speculated that one of the key reasons why Black lawmakers are backing Biden is because they are "listening to their constituents" and paying attention to data that indicates Black voters are still backing Biden in decent showings.

"Both Black constituents and Black lawmakers understand the gravity of this election in different ways than the rest of America does," Towler said, emphasizing Black communities coalescence around fighting against Trump in the primaries, similar to how they voted in 2020. "The main objective is to stop Trump, to keep from allowing him free rein this time with an agenda that is highly anti-Black."

Gillespie added that CBC members are likely also being good strategists, owing their reticence to publicly jump into the debate around Biden's fitness for the presidency to their recognizing the factors "being weighed" behind the scenes.

"CBC members have every reason and incentive to, one, be loyal team players to Joe Biden," Gillespie said. "Two, Vice President Harris is also playing that card of 'She's a loyal team player. She doesn't see blood in the water, and isn't gunning for her shot.' I think they will all be, 'We'll do it if we're drafted, or Harris will do it if she's drafted. But she wasn't gunning for the job.' Nor are Black politicians being craven saying, 'Oh, we get one of our own back in as president by calling for you to stand down because we think she has next.' That could also backfire."

As far as the role Black voters will play come November, Gillespie said she expects the demographics' voting patterns to follow its historical course, with the Democratic candidate winning about 90 percent, give-or-take two points, of the Black vote. 

"That's all great and well and good, but if turnout is anemic among Black voters, then that could be the difference between winning or losing a battleground state," she said, noting that Black constituents would "have to turn out at rates that are proportional to their numbers in the electorate" in order for Biden to reach at least 50 percent of the vote. 

Towler agreed, explaining that should Biden fail to boost Black voter turnout to rates as high as the numbers he saw in 2020 — which current turnout projections suggest is the case — it's going to be tough for him to win those battleground states that he needs to keep the White House.

Brown said she expects older Black voters to "remain in Biden's corner" due to a "certain generational and cultural tie" with respect to their historical allegiance to the Democratic Party. On the other hand, however, she predicts younger Black voters — Gen Zers and Millennials — to split from their older counterparts as they question what Biden is doing for them now in a moment characterized by higher costs of living and policies that work to the "detriment of of young folks, young black folks, young queer folks, young women."

Gillespie said that in order to mobilize those disaffected Black voters, the Democratic strategy will have to "be what it always was," door-knocking and making phone calls, while also properly addressing questions of Biden's age and mental acuity. 

"This race is not going to be won on debates. It's not going to be won on the airwaves," Gillespie said. "It's going to be won on the conversations that people have at community fairs, at barbecues, at potlucks, at coffee klatches. This is where all of these concerns get aired out, and Democrats are going to have to craft a credible and ready response to these and not be floored when people ask these questions."

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We know what to eat to stay healthy. So why is it so hard to make the right choices?

A healthy diet protects us against a number of chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

From early childhood, we receive an abundance of information about how we should eat to be healthy and reduce our risk of disease. And most people have a broad understanding of what healthy eating looks like.

But this knowledge doesn't always result in healthier eating.

In our new research, we set out to learn more about why people eat the way they do – and what prevents them from eating better. Lack of time was a major barrier to cooking and eating healthier foods.

 

How do you decide what to eat?

We spoke with 17 adults in a regional centre of Victoria. We chose a regional location because less research has been done with people living outside of metropolitan areas and because rates of obesity and other diet-related health issues are higher in such areas in Australia.

Participants included a mix of people, including some who said they were over their "most healthy weight" and some who had previously dieted to lose weight. But all participants were either:

  • young women aged 18–24 with no children
  • women aged 35–45 with primary school aged children
  • men aged 35–50 living with a partner and with pre- or primary-school aged children.

We selected these groups to target ages and life-stages in which shifts in eating behaviors may occur. Previous research has found younger women tend to be particularly concerned about appearance rather than healthy eating, while women with children often shift their focus to providing for their family. Men tend to be less interested in what they eat.

We asked participants about how they decided what food to eat, when, and how much, and what prevented them from making healthier choices.

 

It's not just about taste and healthiness

We found that, although such decisions were determined in part by taste preferences and health considerations, they were heavily influenced by a host of other factors, many of which are outside the person's control. These included other household members' food preferences, family activities, workplace and time constraints, convenience and price.

Healthy eating means consuming a balanced diet rich in nutrients, including a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and healthy fats, while limiting processed foods, added sugars and excessive salt. Healthy eating also includes how we eat and how we think about food and eating, such as having a positive relationship with food.

One 35- to 45-year-old woman, for example, said that time constraints and family preferences made it difficult to prepare healthier food:

I love the chance when I can actually get a recipe and get all of the ingredients and make it properly, but that doesn't happen very often. It's usually what's there and what's quick. And what everyone will eat.

One of the 35- to 50-year-old men also noted the extent to which family activities and children's food preferences dictated meal choices:

Well, we have our set days where, like Wednesday nights, we have to have mackie cheese and nuggets, because that's what the boys want after their swimming lesson.

Research shows that children are often more receptive to new foods than their parents think. However, introducing new dishes takes additional time and planning.

 

An 18- to 24-year-old woman discussed the role of time constraints, her partner's activities, and price in influencing what and when she eats:

My partner plays pool on a Monday and Wednesday night, so we always have tea a lot earlier then and cook the simple things that don't take as long, so he can have dinner before he goes rather than buying pub meals which cost more money.

Despite popular perceptions, healthy diets are not more expensive than unhealthy diets. A study comparing current (unhealthy) diets with what the Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend people should eat found that the healthy diet was 12–15% cheaper than unhealthy diets for a family of two adults and two children.

However, learning and planning to prepare new types of meals takes effort and time.

Simply educating people about what they should eat won't necessarily result in healthier eating. People want to eat healthier, or at least know they should eat healthier, but other things get in the way.

A key to improving people's eating behaviors is to make it easy to eat more healthily.

Policy changes to make healthy eating easier could include subsidizing healthier foods such as fresh produce, providing incentives for retailers to offer healthy options, and ensuring access to nutritious meals in schools and workplaces.

 

So how can you make healthier food choices easier?

Here are five tips for making healthy choices easier in your household:

  1. If certain days of the week are particularly busy, with little time to prepare fresh food, plan to cook in bulk on days when you have more time. Store the extra food in the fridge or freezer for quick preparation.

  2. If you're often pressed for time during the day and just grab whatever food is handy, have healthy snacks readily available and accessible. This could mean a fruit bowl in the middle of the kitchen counter, or wholegrain crackers and unsalted nuts within easy reach.

  3. Discuss food preferences with your family and come up with some healthy meals everyone likes. For younger children, try serving only a small amount of the new food, and serve new foods alongside foods they already like eating and are familiar with.

  4. If you rely a lot on take-away meals or meal delivery services, try making a list ahead of time of restaurants and meals you like that are also healthier. You might consider choosing lean meat, chicken, or fish that has been grilled, baked or poached (rather than fried), and looking for meals with plenty of vegetables or salad.

  5. Remember, fruit and vegetables taste better and are often cheaper when they are in season. Frozen or canned vegetables are a healthy and quick alternative.

Nina Van Dyke, Associate Professor and Associate Director, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

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

“Someone you love who is in obvious decline”: Public Biden support masks Democrats’ private concern

The presidential debate lasted 90 minutes but the fallout is still being felt twelve days later, with many Democrats still fretting over the viability of President Joe Biden's candidacy and privately worrying that he can't win in November, Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman said Tuesday morning.

Appearing on CNBC's “Squawk Box,” Sherman, speaking ahead of a House Democratic Caucus meeting, noted that Biden has enjoyed a good deal of public support.

"There’s still a lot — a lot, a lot, a lot — of House Democrats and by the way every Senate Democrat,” who publicly support Biden, Sherman said. He noted that “no Senate Democrat has called on him to step off the ticket. It would take 60, 70, 80% of them to get him off the ticket."

Sherman arged that it would take both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ support to push Biden off the Democrats’ ticket. 

Refraining from calling the pair “weak leaders,” Sherman added that neither has seemed to waiver in their support of Joe Biden, at least publicly. However, “Every single Democrat that I’ve talked to, off the record, has said that they think he should step away,” Sherman said, including some of Biden’s most “fervent” public supporters worry that Biden cannot beat Trump.

Following the Democratic meeting, Sherman took to X, reporting that a Democratic lawmaker described the vibe as “like a funeral.” 

But there is still no consensus, he added. “Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) said that putting [Kamala] Harris atop the ticket would be setting her up for failure." At the same time, Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who has called for Biden to step down, said he saw a poll recently that had Biden losing in his district. Biden won his district with 62% of the vote last time.”

Heather Caygle, managing editor at Punchbowl, likewise reported that public dissent over Biden's continued campaign was a small reflection of what had been said privately in weeks past. “The debate was just a public airing of the concerns many of them have experienced/expressed privately," she wrote on X.

Reports following the meeting continue to paint a grim picture. Lauren Fox, a CNN correspondent, posting on X, quoted one Democratic lawmaker as saying it was a sad occasion, "talking about someone you love who is in obvious decline."

Stephen Colbert believes Biden can put “needs of the country ahead of the needs of his ego”

Stephen Colbert on Monday night's "Late Show" delivered an impassioned and "painful" message to Joe Biden, following the President's highly scrutinized June 27 debate performance against his GOP opponent in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump. 

“So, should he stay? Should he go? Who am I to recommend? I don’t know what’s going on in Joe Biden’s mind. Something I apparently have in common with Joe Biden," the comedian quipped, before pivoting to a more serious demeanor. Biden's shaky delivery during the debate has led media outlets and even some of his own constituents to question his ability to defeat Trump and succeed in a potential second term. Though there have been calls for the President to bow out of the race, he announced via letter on Monday that he was "firmly committed" to it. 

Speaking about an interview between himself and the President several months ago, Colbert claimed that at the time, "He seemed ancient but cogent. But our politics have become so weird, I don’t know what’s the right thing to do here.

“It’s a shame because Joe Biden is a great president,” he said at another point during Monday's episode. "I don’t know what’s the right thing to do here,” he said. “And I think that this is actually a battle of two virtues. One of them is perseverance. Biden is famous for that . . .  [the other] is self-sacrifice. And self-sacrifice takes a particular kind of courage, and that is a courage I believe Joe Biden is capable of. I believe he’s a good enough man. He is a good enough president to put the needs of the country ahead of the needs of his ego, and however painful that might be, it is possible.”

 

Trump aides “frustrated” by media attention on Project 2025, New York Times reporter says

Former President Donald Trump's aides have long worried about his being tied to Project 2025, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN, explaining why the Republican felt the need to distance himself from what is widely viewed as a far-right blueprint for his second term.

Penned by the conservative Heritage Foundation and boosted by Trump aides such as Stephen Miller, Project 2025 outlines a hard-right plan to purge the federal government of career civil servants, among a slew of other controversial provisions. In recent weeks it has been highlighted by President Joe Biden's campaign, which has sought to tie it to Trump despite it not being directly authored by his campaign, Haberman noted, saying Trump's staffers “have actually been frustrated by” it, Mediaite reported. 

The New York Times reporter explained that Trump can try to distance himself from the initiative, but his campaign's close ties to the authors will make any attempt difficult to believe.

Trump can say he "has nothing to do with this," Haberman said. "But then everybody’s going to fact-check that statement and it has just made this into a bigger deal. So, this is exactly what Trump’s advisers had been concerned about for some time. Is this statement going to make this go away? It doesn’t really seem like it.”

Trump  attempted to distance himself from Project 2025 after, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, received flack for claiming that the U.S. is currently in a “second American Revolution” that will only be “bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

In a Truth Social post over the weekend, Trump wrote:  “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

 

“We do not make this request lightly”: Senators demand criminal investigation into Clarence Thomas

U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., are requesting a criminal investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for potentially violating federal ethics and tax laws.

In a letter written to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week, Whitehouse and Wyden requested the appointment of a Special Counsel to determine whether Thomas violated several laws in his failure to disclose a forgiven loan and gifts he received from benefactors. 

Thomas failed to disclose a forgiven loan of $267, 230.00 as income after he failed to repay said loan, which he used to purchase a luxury motorcoach.

It raises questions of whether Thomas “properly reported the associated income on his tax return,” a statement from Whitehouse reads. 

“We do not make this request lightly. The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations,” the Senators wrote in the letter. 

The senators also requested that the Department of Justice name a special counsel to investigate the undisclosed gifts Thomas received from “billionaire benefactors,” including private jet travel, a country club membership, home renovations and tuition for his son. According to an investigation by ProPublica, Thomas has been treated to vacations by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow for over 20 years. 

Thomas, who has been a Supreme Court Justice for over 30 years, failed to disclose many of these gifts, which would violate ethical rules applied to other branches of the government. Members of Congress, for example, are generally prohibited from accepting gifts of $50 or more. In June, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez D-N.Y., introduced an act that would impose the same restriction on Supreme Court justices. 

In their letter, the senators demand that the court be held to an equal standard.

“Court justices are properly expected to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety and to comply with the federal tax code,” the letter reads. “We therefore request that you appoint a Special Counsel authorized to investigate potential criminal violations by Justice Thomas under the disclosure, false statement, and tax laws; pursue leads of related criminal violations by donors, lenders, and intermediate corporate entities; and determine whether any such loans and gifts were provided pursuant to a coordinated enterprise or plan."

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that local officials may now effectively accept de facto bribes if they come in the form of gratuities, like many of the gifts Justice Thomas himself has accepted, The Guardian reported.

Sen. Whitehouse has previously pressed for an investigation in Justice Thomas’ failure to disclose gifts, but did not previously request the appointment of a special counsel.

Heat-related deaths in Maricopa County have nearly doubled compared to last year, report finds

Summer isn't close to over yet, but heat-related deaths in Phoenix, Arizona have doubled from their rate over the same period last year, according to a new report by the Maricopa County medical examiner. As burning fossil fuels worsens climate change, the largest metropolises in the American Southwest are predicted to keep suffering from record-breaking heat waves.

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Record-breaking Category 5 Hurricane Beryl wouldn't be possible without climate change

NASA imagery revealed that Phoenix streets reached temperatures as high as 160º F during the heat wave, with Sky Harbor Airport reaching 118º F by 3 PM. This breaks the record of 116º F that had been set in the Arizona city more than four decades ago in 1983.

Some advocates believe fossil fuel companies should be held criminally accountable for these deaths that are linked to climate change. Following a July 2023 heat wave in Maricopa County that killed over 400 people, an extreme event attribution study determined that the occurrence of such heat in the American Southwest would have been "virtually impossible" but for human-caused climate change, with lead author Mariam Zachariah, a climate scientist at Imperial College of London, saying, "Had there been no climate change, such an event would almost never have occurred."

In 2022, Salon spoke with Dr. Juan Declet-Barreto, a senior social scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who explained that "without short-term adaptation measures to protect the most vulnerable, what will happen is that the gap between populations with social, economic, and technological resources to avoid the worst of extreme heat impacts, and those without those resources, will continue to widen."

Declet-Barreto added that in a study he co-authored in 2013, he learned that "a large proportion of heat-related deaths in Maricopa County ocurred among persons experiencing homelessness for example, and another 2016 study found that population vulnerability to heat, and not weather conditions, were responsible for the spike in heat-related deaths that year," Declet-Barreto explained.

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Through Alys Rivers and Mysaria, “House of the Dragon” shows the power of being a nobody

Harrenhal, the notorious power pit of a stronghold featured in George R.R. Martin’s stories, ends up being something of a strange spiritual retreat for Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) on “House of the Dragon.” 

Easily taken from a castellan with no love for his great nephew Lord Larys Strong, it’s a crumbling, leaky mess from stem to stern. For a conflict-loving man like Daemon, not even its deferential staff provides much entertainment. Except, that is, for Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin). 

From the moment Daemon interrupts Ser Simon Strong (played by Sir Simon Russell Beale) as he’s dining on venison with cabbage and peas – sorry, no red currants on offer here – Daemon is surrounded by stooped servants. He badgers them into referring to him as “your grace,” reminding him that he is the husband of Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and therefore the king consort.

The sole holdout is Alys who, in “The Burning Mill,” strides into a roomful of bowing men and stares directly at Daemon with nary a curtsy. Their second meeting is in the castle’s godswood, where she soothes his insomnia with the assurance, “You will die in this place.”

Once Daemon finally engages Alys in a direct conversation during the fourth episode, “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” she doesn’t refer to him as “my king” or “your grace” or any royal titles. 

To her, he’s just another man jealous of his wife’s power who would rather run from that truth than face it. To him, she’s a witch – or a bastard, as he calls her when she tells him her last name is Rivers, not Strong. Instead of taking that as a signal to know her place, she blithely replies, “Once you get to know me, you’ll find I’m not so bad.”

Related

Who really pays the cost when "House of the Dragon" dances

In the oh-so-serious realm that “House of the Dragon” is building, Alys serves the type of wry humor you can only get from a woman unimpressed with the likes of Daemon and other highborn men who have come and gone before him.

House of the DragonSonoya Mizuno as Mysaria in "House of the Dragon" (HBO)She and Daemon’s jilted consort Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) have that in common. Mysaria has sold the confidences of scores of rich men who viewed her as an object instead of a person with cunning, strategy and ambition. For a time she was Daemon’s mistress who he threatened to marry, mainly to scandalize his brother. 

"House of the Dragon" expands on a main subtext introduced by its predecessor by depicting all the ways the men of the realm fail to take women seriously.

After he dumps her, Mysaria disappears from the story only to resurface as the unofficial mistress of whispers who knows everything going on in the streets and the belly of the Red Keep. That gives her power until she makes the mistake of flexing it in the face of Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), who responds by burning the livelihood she built from nothing to the ground.

Season 2 shows this to be a minor setback as Mysaria emerges once again from Dragonstone’s prison and talks her way into the queen’s inner circle. Rhaenyra decides they have a common enemy, and that hatred is something you can trust more affection. 

Besides, Mysaria more than proves her worth by thwarting an assassination attempt on Rhaenyra — although, as she tells her queen when she first tried to warn her guards, they didn’t believe her. Which tracks with this franchise’s overall consideration of what a woman’s word is worth.

“House of the Dragon” has stood by its word to refrain from using sexual exploitation as a narrative device in the same manner as “Game of Thrones” creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff.  Instead, the series expands on a main subtext introduced by its predecessor by depicting all the ways the men of the realm fail to take women seriously.

The primary players in this exasperation play are Rhaenyra and her cousin and ally Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best), who warns her from the moment she’s named heir that the men of the realm would rather put the place to the torch than see a woman sit on the Iron Throne. Still, when Rhaenyra sets her mind to claiming what is rightly hers, Rhaenys backs her – eventually to the death.

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Before The Queen That Never Was met her end, she faced the many indignities of a small council full of minor lords dismissing her substantial efforts at leadership and scoffing at her granddaughter Baela’s (Bethany Antonia) reconnaissance efforts. Although Baela follows orders from her queen not to engage, she’s chastised by the men supposedly counseling Rhaenyra.

“You should have burned them when you had the chance,” says an especially snippy Ser Alfred Broome (Jamie Kenna) in reply to her report about the enemy’s movements.

“Perhaps you can, Ser Alfred, when you next sight them on your dragon,” Baela replies. Yet to them, she is still a highborn woman – a child, no less — expected to know her place among her men, dragon and political position notwithstanding. 

That reality long chafed Rhaenys, who says as much to Alicent (Olivia Cooke) near the first season's end when the elder royal questions the younger’s dedication to toiling in the service of men – her father, her freshly dead husband, and now her sons. 

“You desire not to be free, but to make a window in the wall of your prison,” Rhaenys says before whispering into Alicent’s ear, “Have you never imagined yourself on the Iron Throne?”

Rhaenys embodies the lifelong frustration of knowing what power social rank, wisdom and temperament should entitle a person to hold if not for the lack of a certain flesh member between one’s legs. Rhaenyra still battles it with her entirely male council smugly offering to prosecute a war for her despite her willingness and capability to do so and the fact that making decisions without consulting her amounts to treason.

House of the DragonSonoya Mizuno as Mysaria in "House of the Dragon" (HBO)Alys and Mysaria exist on the other end of the social scale, invisible to the point that Alys can lip off to a would-be king and keep her head, and Mysaria can be honest about where her ambition has taken her so far: “The Hand did not like it when I showed my teeth, but I thank him for it,” she said. “For too long, I made it my aim to be of consequence. But now I see that was the wish of a child. Daemon, Otto Hightower, makes no difference. They will never accept me.” 

“There is no power but what the people allow you to take,” says Mysaria.

The second season of “House of the Dragon” takes us into the houses, private and public, of the lowborn. We see an artisan pleading for the king to pay his workers struggling to put food on the table or obtain medicine for his sick child, and the measurably meager circumstances lived by the children fathered by kings, princes, and other noblemen. 

Alys might have commanded more respect from Daemon if she were a Strong, but possibly not. In “Fire & Blood” Martin writes Alys as a witchy woman who may possess mystical foresight.  Rankin plays her somewhere in the middle, leaving whether she was warning Daemon of his fate during their outside meet-and-greet or antagonizing him for sport as an open question. 

As those “House of the Dragon” viewers who have read Martin’s book know, Alys may play a more significant part in Daemon’s story than what their brief interaction suggests. 

To those for whom Alys Rivers is simply a new face, though, she signifies a type of character series co-creator Ryan Condal and his writers make integral to the show’s commentary about power, which is the version wielded by the powerless. Mysaria’s value is in her invisibility – nobody recognizes or listens to her, making her an effective spy.

Alys is part of the castle’s staff assumed to have no eyes, ears or voice, and that nothing she says matters. But she’s also integral to its operation since she’s Harrenhal’s makeshift maester. (The previous one “fled in the night,” she tells Daemon as she prepares a sleep aid she knows he needs even if he didn’t ask for it.)

That frees her to be completely honest about everything to everyone. “Did you come here after quarreling with your wife?” she asks the fearsome Daemon Targaryen, referring to her presumed queen as just another crabby spouse.

House of the DragonGayle Rankin as Alys Rivers in "House of the Dragon" (HBO)Later she prods him with an even more daring, neutering coo, “It's a hard thing, I imagine, to give obeisance to one who replaced you as heir.  A woman too — a girl child you bounced on your knee. I mean, does it please you that her legitimacy is contested as you stand here in a castle and a dragon attempting to draw an army of men?”

What’s he going to do, kill her?

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

After all, his dreams have told him the same thing. Besides, Harrenhal is trash – a rainy, desolate place cursed by its lord builder’s decision to chop down a grove of mystical weirwood trees to make way for its construction. Firing by death would be a relief. 

But Alys knows neither Daemon nor any other man in charge has the stones to do that, in the same way Mysaria is right to suspect that value will rise regardless of which side wins in the Targaryen’s civil war. 

Martin’s lesson in “House of the Dragons” and “Game of Thrones” before it is a simple one, echoed in Mysaria’s warning to Otto Hightower. “There is no power but what the people allow you to take.” The trick is in knowing which people are holding the keys to the vault in any situation, and what a woman is to them. From there, they can act accordingly and, to a degree that suits their mood and ability to profit —freely.

New episodes of "House of the Dragon" premiere at 9 p.m. Sundays on HBO and on Max.

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“Great British Bake Off” alum Dawn Hollyoak, who competed on the show in 2022, has died

Great British Bake Off alum Dawn Hollyoak has passed at the age of 61. 

Shared on her Instagram account called "thebakerDawn," a photo was shared with the caption "💔 It’s with a heavy heart we announce the passing of our star 🌟 baker Dawn." The caption continued: "Not only a wonderfully talented baker but first and foremost an amazing mother, grandmother, wife and friend. Dawn passed away peacefully surrounded by her family. We will miss her forever, but promise to continue her baking legacy!"

Angel Saunders wrote in PEOPLE that Hollyoak "was a contestant in collection 10 on the Netflix series, known as the Great British Bake Off in the U.K" and that she "earned high praise from the judges for numerous bakes before she was eliminated during Halloween Week on episode 6."

According to Saunders, in the episode in which she was eliminated, Hollyoak said, "I really don’t want to shed tears over it because it’s just been the most amazing experience really, one of the absolute best experiences of my life." Before leaving the program, she said, "I'm really proud of what I've done. I've had fun — such fun." 

Many fellow competitors from the show, along with judge Paul Hollywood, has expressed condolences, happy memories and kind words about Hollyoak both on and off the show.

One of Hollyoak many life-like cake creations was shared on her Instagram last August, an incredibly realistic lion's head cake. On her Instagram, Hollyoak also shared many other images of her creations as well as other dishes and foods she enjoyed eating. Details about the cause of death have not been released 

Tastes from our past can spark memories, trigger pain or boost wellbeing. Here’s how to embrace that

Have you ever tried to bring back fond memories by eating or drinking something unique to that time and place?

It could be a Pina Colada that recalls an island holiday? Or a steaming bowl of pho just like the one you had in Vietnam? Perhaps eating a favorite dish reminds you of a lost loved one – like the sticky date pudding Nana used to make?

If you have, you have tapped into food-evoked nostalgia.

As researchers, we are exploring how eating and drinking certain things from your past may be important for your mood and mental health.

 

Bittersweet longing

First named in 1688 by Swiss medical student, Johannes Hoffer, nostalgia is that bittersweet, sentimental longing for the past. It is experienced universally across different cultures and lifespans from childhood into older age.

But nostalgia does not just involve positive or happy memories – we can also experience nostalgia for sad and unhappy moments in our lives.

In the short and long term, nostalgia can positively impact our health by improving mood and wellbeing, fostering social connection and increasing quality of life. It can also trigger feelings of loneliness or meaninglessness.

We can use nostalgia to turn around a negative mood or enhance our sense of self, meaning and positivity.

Research suggests nostalgia alters activity in the brain regions associated with reward processing – the same areas involved when we seek and receive things we like. This could explain the positive feelings it can bring.

Nostalgia can also increase feelings of loneliness and sadness, particularly if the memories highlight dissatisfaction, grieving, loss, or wistful feelings for the past. This is likely due to activation of brain areas such as the amygdala, responsible for processing emotions and the prefrontal cortex that helps us integrate feelings and memories and regulate emotion.

 

How to get back there

There are several ways we can trigger or tap into nostalgia.

Conversations with family and friends who have shared experiences, unique objects like photos, and smells can transport us back to old times or places. So can a favorite song or old TV show, reunions with former classmates, even social media posts and anniversaries.

What we eat and drink can trigger food-evoked nostalgia. For instance, when we think of something as "comfort food", there are likely elements of nostalgia at play.

Foods you found comforting as a child can evoke memories of being cared for and nurtured by loved ones. The form of these foods and the stories we tell about them may have been handed down through generations.

Food-evoked nostalgia can be very powerful because it engages multiple senses: taste, smell, texture, sight and sound. The sense of smell is closely linked to the limbic system in the brain responsible for emotion and memory making food-related memories particularly vivid and emotionally charged.

But, food-evoked nostalgia can also give rise to negative memories, such as of being forced to eat a certain vegetable you disliked as a child, or a food eaten during a sad moment like a loved ones funeral. Understanding why these foods evoke negative memories could help us process and overcome some of our adult food aversions. Encountering these foods in a positive light may help us reframe the memory associated with them.

 

What people told us about food and nostalgia

Recently we interviewed eight Australians and asked them about their experiences with food-evoked nostalgia and the influence on their mood. We wanted to find out whether they experienced food-evoked nostalgia and if so, what foods triggered pleasant and unpleasant memories and feelings for them.

They reported they could use foods that were linked to times in their past to manipulate and influence their mood. Common foods they described as particularly nostalgia triggering were homemade meals, foods from school camp, cultural and ethnic foods, childhood favorites, comfort foods, special treats and snacks they were allowed as children, and holiday or celebration foods. One participant commented:

I guess part of this nostalgia is maybe […] The healing qualities that food has in mental wellbeing. I think food heals for us.

Another explained

I feel really happy, and I guess fortunate to have these kinds of foods that I can turn to, and they have these memories, and I love the feeling of nostalgia and reminiscing and things that remind me of good times.

 

Understanding food-evoked nostalgia is valuable because it provides us with an insight into how our sensory experiences and emotions intertwine with our memories and identity. While we know a lot about how food triggers nostalgic memories, there is still much to learn about the specific brain areas involved and the differences in food-evoked nostalgia in different cultures.

In the future we may be able to use the science behind food-evoked nostalgia to help people experiencing dementia to tap into lost memories or in psychological therapy to help people reframe negative experiences.

So, if you are ever feeling a little down and want to improve your mood, consider turning to one of your favorite comfort foods that remind you of home, your loved ones or a holiday long ago. Transporting yourself back to those times could help turn things around.

Megan Lee, Senior Teaching Fellow, Psychology, Bond University; Doug Angus, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Bond University, and Kate Simpson, Sessional academic, Bond University

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

“I don’t like to play it safe”: What professional golf taught Soo Ahn about competing on “Top Chef”

One unique aspect of the recently concluded season of "Top Chef" was the way Chef Soo Kyo Ahn —  a Korean-American chef based in Chicago, currently leading the kitchen team at Adalina — entered the kitchen. For the first time ever, a cheftestant would join "Last Chance Kitchen," a challenge normally reserved from competitors eliminated from the main competition, to fight their way into the "Top Chef" kitchen. Ahn was that chef. 

 "In a move that's never been done before on the long-running series, a new cheftestant is set to break into the competition late — after the show's premiere," Antonia DeBianchi wrote for PEOPLE. 

This threw some fans for a loop — as I discussed in my recap back when this was announced — and if Ahn didn't win his LCK battles against the first few eliminated competitors, he would be eliminated from LCK and would never have the opportunity to compete in the actual competition

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But alas, that never came to fruition: Ahn wound up conquering LCK, along with fellow cheftestant Kaleena Bliss. and they both entered the main competition. For Bliss, she was re-entering, but for Ahn, he was meeting the cheftestants and experiencing the "Top Chef" experience proper for the very first time.

Ahn performed well in the competition itself, making inventive, out-of-the-box dishes, but unfortunately fell victim to the Door County Fish Boil challenge and was sent back to LCK, where hw as He re-entered his old domain of Last Chance Kitchen, but lost a three-way battle to Amanda Turner and Laura Ozyilmaz, who eventually won LCK round 2 and reentered the competition before ultimately finishing in fourth place.

Salon Food has the opportunity to connect with Ahn to speak with him about his culinary background, his food experiences, his transition from golf to professional kitchens, the whiplash of getting married and then immediately competing in a ferocious culinary competition and much more. 

Top ChefSoo Ahn on "Top Chef" (David Moir/Bravo)

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Hi! You talked about the differences in growing up in Korea and then moving to the states. How do you think that impacted you — and impacted your food?

I think being able to experience two different cultures definitely helped shape me into who I am today. When it comes to food, it definitely helped with my style of cooking because I love to mix and match different ingredients, techniques, flavors, etcetera. 

I’d love to hear all about your pivot from golf to cooking — and how that translated into your applying for and being recruited for Top Chef?

I've played golf my whole life: Played in high school, little bit of college and even some at a professional level. Towards the end, I was getting burnt out. Not playing well and traveling a lot definitely took a toll physically and mentally. I decided to do something totally opposite of golfing, so I decided to wait tables and bartend.

At the place I was bartending, I was lucky to have a chef who always showed me cool ingredients and techniques he was working on. One thing led to another, I enrolled into culinary school and eleven years later, I am chatting with you guys. 

Alum Joe Flamm [ed. note: LCK victor and ultimate winner of "Top Chef" season 15] posted on Instagram that the show was casting and [I] decided to give it a shot. I didn't really think that I had a chance but somehow got lucky. 

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What overlap, if you will, is prevalent between golfing and chef-ing? 

I think in both industries, you have to work hard. Talent can only get you so far and hard work beats talent any day of the week. Just like in golf, I knew that I had very little talent when it came to cooking.

I knew that I was far behind the other cooks/chefs that had been doing this for a longer period of time. So I had to work twice as hard as anyone else to catch up. Even after a long shift/week, I would push myself to read more books, sharpen my knives or cook random things to better myself and catch up. 

Did you do any sort of special preparations for Top Chef?

I didn't really have any time to prepare. If I had time to prepare, I would have done more cardio and meditating. 

Top ChefSoo Ahn and Tom Colicchio on "Top Chef" (David Moir/Bravo)

What was it like to be the "mystery 16th cheftestant?" I don't know what you can or cannot say, of course, but just from your perspective, what was the motivation like to get into the "real" competition? How did that inform your dishes, your strategy, your approach? 

Being the 16th contestant was pretty cool. I honestly didn't know what was going on until I got to Milwaukee. Since I had no idea what was going on, my strategy never changed. Cook your heart out. 

What would you say is your favorite or best moment of the competition thus far? 

Working my way onto the show was definitely my favorite moment. Coming onto Last Chance Kitchen, I had no ideas how far I would get. Honestly, I just wanted to make it to round two.

But to compete against such talented chefs and make it onto the show, that's a feeling I can’t really describe into words. 

Top ChefSoo Ahn on "Top Chef" (David Moir/Bravo)

Winning LCK round 1— along with Kaleena — must’ve been amazing. Talk me through what that was like for you? 

It was an honor to compete against so many talented chefs and come up on top with Kaleena. Anybody could have [had] a bad day and gone home. Thankfully, luck was on my side and I came up on top during the first round of Last Chance Kitchen. I was able to stick to my gut and put out some good food that got me onto the show.  

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I love some of your unique flavor profiles that we’ve seen on the show. Do you have a few favorite ingredients you primarily love working with? 

I was fortunate to have worked under so many talented chefs who have shown me so many different techniques, flavor combinations, ingredients, etcetera. When I cook or create dishes, I try to pull from what I've learned from the past.  

I don't have any favorite ingredients. I try to incorporate a little sweetness into all dishes, even if it is a savory dish. 

You had such an amazing run on the show — and an unprecedented trajectory, coming exclusively through LCK and making it all the way to the top six. It was a bummer seeing you go out when you did. What were your proudest moments on the show? Favorite dish?

I think my proudest moment was making my way through LCK to come onto the show. 

One Bite Caesar is definitely my favorite dish. We are known to take your everyday ordinary dishes and put unique spins on them at Adalina. I tried to do that with the Caesar salad and have it be an amazing bite. 

To take something so common and to put my own twists on it to make it onto the show was definitely something I will remember forever.

I loved watching your turnaround in episode nine, from gnocchi that didn’t seem to work that well to a dish that wound up in the top three. Can you describe a bit about that process, as well as your pivot? (Huitlacoche always boggles my mind, also — what was it like to work with that ingredient?) 

Chef Elena told us a story about how her kids would love to eat wild rice and berries for breakfast. I took that and tried to put my own spin on it. Obviously, cooking with the limited ingredients that were given to us was hard but as chefs, that's what we do. We pivot and try to make the best out of a situation. 

Huitlacoche was an interesting ingredient. I have never worked with it. Thankfully, Amanda was nice enough to shed some light on the ingredient for me. I feel like it has very truffle-like properties. 

Top ChefSoo Ahn and Tom Colicchio on "Top Chef" (David Moir/Bravo)

You said on the show that you’re a risk taker now because of your upbringing. How is that shown in your cooking? 

I think you can see throughout the show that I don't like to play it safe. I like going for bold and unique flavors. Come up with dishes that tilt the guests' heads in confusion, but when they taste it, they understand and nod in approval.

You got married just before "Top Chef." What was it like to have such momentous experiences back-to-back like that? 

2024 was quite a year for me. My wife had mixed feelings about me going away for "Top Chef," just because we wanted to enjoy our time together as a recently married couple, but in the end she understood that opportunities like this did not come often. 

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“He is not leaving this race”: AOC professes support for Joe Biden

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., stated her unwavering support for Biden's presidential candidacy on Monday amid calls from some of her colleagues for the Democratic nominee to step aside.

“The matter is closed. He had reiterated that this morning. He has reiterated that to the public. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on Capitol Hill after speaking with the president. 

The progressive lawmaker stressed the importance of focusing on “what it takes to win” in November’s presidential election and tackling issues that will help Biden beat Trump, such as Medicare, Social Security and rent relief.

“And if we can do that and our work on student loans, secure a cease-fire, and bring those dollars back into investing in public policy, then that's how we win in November,” she said.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is also part of the progressive "Squad," likewise shared her support for Biden, Bloomberg reported.

“Outside of a few outliers, I think everybody’s supporting the president,” she claimed.

The comes after several House Democrats publicly called on the president to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election. Rep. Lloyd Doggett became the first Democrat to publicly state that Biden should step down on July 1, triggering other Democrats to express doubts about his his viability on a House Leadership call Sunday. 

On Monday, Biden told congressional Democrats in letter that it is too late to replace him as a candidate and he is “firmly committed” to beating Donald Trump in November.