More gay and bisexual men can donate blood after American Red Cross updates guidelines

Donating blood can be one of the kindest, simplest ways to save someone else’s life (and sometimes afterward, you get a free cookie, too). For decades, however, certain individuals have been excluded from donating their blood, a practice criticized as discriminatory by the nation’s leading LGBTQ+ advocacy groups. Specifically, men who have sex with men (MSM) have been excluded from donating blood, as stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS remains.

On May 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) updated its recommendations for assessing blood donor eligibility, which employs a series of risk-based questions aimed at reducing the risk of HIV infections that can occur from blood transfusions. The updated questions are now the same for all donors, regardless of sexual orientation, sex or gender.

“The FDA is committed to working closely with the blood collection industry to help ensure timely implementation of the new recommendations,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said at the time. Now, the American Red Cross — a nonprofit that holds more than 500 blood drives every day, which bring in more than 4.6 million units of blood per year — has taken the FDA up on these recommendations, effective Aug. 7, 2023.

North Carolina Health Secretary Kody Kinsley, who is gay, promised to be among the first in line to donate under the change. “I’m thrilled that after decades of a policy that was reinforced in stigma, that the FDA has leaned into the science and created a policy that’s based off risky behaviors, and not who people are,” Kinsley told WFAE.

Despite the recent updates, some barriers to blood donation still remain for MSM. For example, potential donors who report having anal sex with new partners in the last three months won’t be able to donate, according to the Advocate. “The Red Cross celebrates this significant progress and also recognizes there is more work to be done to make blood donation even more inclusive,” the agency wrote on its website.

Yet, some progress has been made on an issue that advocates say has maligned MSM for decades, diminishing a policy that wasn’t rooted solely in science. It will almost certainly provide more blood for the individuals who need it.

J.K. Rowling removed from Museum of Pop Culture exhibit for her transphobic commentary

J.K. Rowling has been removed from a “Harry Potter” exhibit at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, due to her “super hateful and divisive” transphobic views. In a blog post published in March, the museum’s project manager Chris Moore — who is also transgender — slammed Rowling’s anti-trans rhetoric: “There’s a certain cold, heartless, joy-sucking entity in the world of Harry Potter and, this time, it is not actually a Dementor. We would love to go with the internet’s theory that these books were actually written without an author, but this certain person is a bit too vocal with her super hateful and divisive views to be ignored.”

Moore continued, “For the time being, the curators decided to remove any of her artefacts [sic] from this gallery to reduce her impact. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s what we were able to do in the short-term while determining long-term practices.”

Rowling was previously inducted into the museum’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. But amid the controversy, the museum removed any mentions of Rowling in its “Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic” gallery — which still includes memorabilia from the “Harry Potter” films.

Rowling came under fire for her transphobic rhetoric in June 2020, when she called out a Devex op-ed for using the term “people who menstruate” instead of “women.” The “Harry Potter” author continued to voice her beliefs in blog posts and even a 3,500-word essay, asserting that transgender rights essentially threatens the women’s rights movement. In March 2022, she openly opposed Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which would improve the process by which trans people can legally affirm their gender. And in the following month, she organized a boozy TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) lunch amidst a trans-rights protest urging former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to include transgender people in a U.K. conversion therapy ban.

Ne-Yo apologizes for “insensitive and offensive” criticism of parents of transgender children

Ne-Yo took to social media to apologize for his recent rant, in which he criticized parents who support children deciding their gender identity. “After much reflection, I’d like to express my deepest apologies to anyone that I may have hurt with my comments on parenting and gender identity,” the singer and father of seven wrote on Twitter (now X) Sunday night. “I’ve always been an advocate for love and inclusivity in the LGBTQI+ community, so I understand how my comments could’ve been interpreted as insensitive and offensive. Gender identity is nuanced and I can honestly admit that I plan to better educate myself on the topic, so I can approach future conversations with more empathy.”

The comments in question were made Saturday during an interview with Gloria Velez for VladTV. In it, both Velez and Ne-Yo questioned parents who allow their children to declare their own gender identity: “I feel like parents have almost forgotten what the role of a parent is. If your little boy comes to you and says, ‘Daddy, I want to be a girl.’ And you just let him rock with that?” Ne-Yo asked. “He’s 5 . . . If you let this 5-year-old boy decide to eat candy all day, he’s gonna do that. When did it become a good idea to let a 5-year-old, let a 6-year-old, let a 12-year-old make a life-changing decision for themself? When did that happen? I don’t understand. He can’t drive a car yet, but he can decide his sex?”

Ne-Yo stood by his sentiments later on Saturday, saying, “1st and foremost, I CONDEMN NO ONE. Who am I to condemn anybody? Your life, your kids, your choice. I was asked a question and I answered it. My opinion is mine. I’m not asking anybody to agree with me nor am I telling you what you can and cannot do with your children.”

I’d like to express my deepest apologies… pic.twitter.com/M5aTFN40tn

— NE-YO (@NeYoCompound) August 7, 2023

“It will not work”: Jan. 6 investigator says Trump lawyer’s claim already contradicted by indictment

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyer John Lauro made appearances on five different Sunday morning shows, asserting that his client’s involvement in attempting to overturn the 2020 election did not amount to criminal conduct, but was merely “aspirational.”

“Every single thing that President Trump is being prosecuted for involved aspirational asks – asking state legislatures, asking state governors, asking state electoral officials to do the right thing,” Lauro told Fox News. “In fact, even asking Vice President Pence was protected by free speech.”

Lauro made appearances on CNN, ABC, Fox, NBC and CBS defending his client, who was indicted last week on four federal charges, including conspiracy to defraud, obstruction and conspiracy of rights.

“These shallow attempts to explain away the damning conduct described in the indictment are a clear sign that Trump does not have a strong defense to the charges, Temidayo Aganga-Williams, a white-collar partner at Selendy Gay Elsberg and former senior investigative counsel for the House Jan. 6 committee, told Salon. “When a defendant has a convincing defense, he leads with it. President Trump’s lawyer is instead ignoring the detailed indictment and leading with baseless claims. This may work for Trump in front of his political base, but it will not work for a jury.”

Experts: Trump lawyer’s “aspirational” defense suggests “they know they’re going to lose at trial”

Former federal prosecutor Kevin O’Brien pointed out that Trump is still entitled to a “vigorous defense” in and out of court and his lawyer is well within his rights to make arguments that offer Trump’s side to the issues raised in what is a “very unusual indictment.”

“John Lauro’s various statements to the press defending his client’s conduct by invoking the First Amendment and other principles may well be wrong, even glaringly so, but they are part of a defense attorney’s job,” O’Brien said.

Lauro continued to defend Trump even in the face of evidence that he exerted pressure on his then-Vice President Mike Pence to discard valid votes for Joe Biden.

“What President Trump didn’t do is direct Vice President Pence to do anything,” Lauro told CNN. “He asked him in an aspirational way.”

“Sounds like a coup to me”: Experts say Trump lawyer’s statement is “an admission, not a defense”

When questioned about Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state, he claimed that Trump’s comments weren’t a “threat at all.”

He continued: “What he was asking for is for Raffensperger to get to the truth. He believed that there were in excess of 10,000 votes that were counted illegally. And what he was asking for is the Secretary of State to act appropriately and find these votes that were counted illegally. … That was an aspirational ask.”

None of his lawyer’s statements would be out of place in a courtroom, where the advocate usually “must milk every possible inference to support reasonable doubt,” O’Brien said.

He added that since the prosecution has filed a massive indictment generating “unprecedented publicity,” Lauro and Trump’s other lawyers should be able to respond to its arguments in any way they plausibly can.

“Attacking the judge like this is trouble”: Experts warn Trump over demand for judge to “recuse”

Smith very likely anticipated this defense that Trump’s directives were merely “aspirational,” and the indictment spells out the evidence the government would seek to use to defeat it, former federal prosecutor Christine Adams, a partner at Los Angeles-based Adams, Duerk & Kamenstein, told Salon.

“It seems from the indictment that the most important witness will be former Vice President Mike Pence himself, who would testify that Trump directed him to reject the legitimate electoral votes or send them to the state legislatures to review, and that when Pence refused, Trump berated him, threatened to publicly criticize him and told Pence he was ‘too honest,'” Adams said. “These key moments in the indictment will certainly challenge Trump’s narrative that he did not ‘direct Vice President Pence to do anything.'”

Aganga-Williams said that characterizing Trump’s requests as “aspirational” is utterly contradicted by the indictment, which includes several examples of Trump “acting with a sober mind and with criminal intent.”

“The indictment is filled with evidence that Trump knew what he was doing and that he knew it was wrong,” Aganga-Williams said.

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The former president has pleaded not guilty to all the charges filed against him and has maintained he is innocent.

While Lauro made his rounds defending his client’s actions, Trump took to Truth Social to claim that his lawyers will request the recusal of the federal judge overseeing his criminal case as well as a venue change, though Lauro said in an interview that no “final decision” has been made.

“There is no way I can get a fair trial with the judge ‘assigned’ to the ridiculous freedom of speech/fair elections case,” Trump posted on his social media platform.”Everybody knows this and so does she! We will be immediately asking for recusal of this judge on very powerful grounds and likewise for venue change, out (of) D.C.”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s case, is renowned for her reputation as one of the more strict judges in matters concerning January 6 defendants and has issued more severe sentences for certain defendants than what the prosecution had sought, according to The New York Times.

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Chutkan has also described the attack on the Capitol as a “very real danger” to American democracy. Trump in his social media posts asserted that his legal team will try to move his trial out of Washington since he would never get a “fair trial.”

There has been no formal request and they would “appear to have little or no chance of success,” O’Brien said.

Trump also continued to attack special counsel Jack Smith in his social media posts calling him “deranged,” and suggested that he could have brought the case “years ago,” but instead waited until “right in the middle of [his] election campaign.”

His posts come just two days after prosecutors filed a motion for a protective order, which would prevent Trump from publicly sharing evidence in the case.

The protective order is meant to govern the disclosure of discovery material, including witness names, and not the current threats, O’Brien pointed out.

“Judge Chutkan will probably have to impose a gag order forbidding them, on pain of going to jail – where Trump will likely wind up if the threats continue,” he added.

about Trump’s legal woes

Reframing that “Oppenheimer” sex scene as a Hindu woman who delved into my religion’s sacred truths

Two weeks ago, on a Sunday, I literally ran out of my six-hour Patient Care Technician shift to watch “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan‘s biopic starring Cilian Murphy as the Manhattan Project scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer. In ninth grade, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Benjamin Bederson, who was a bomb switch operator for the Manhattan project, so the inner high school history nerd in me was ready to be enthralled by the movie of the summer.

However, the iconic and controversial “Gita” sex scene where grad student Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) descends on Oppenheimer had me literally running out of the room faster than I ran out of my job to watch it in the first place. In this scene, the two sleep together for the first time following a communist party gathering. Midway through intercourse, Jean picks up a bound copy of the Hindu scripture “Bhagavad Gita” from Oppenheimer’s bookshelf, and asks him to read from it – where we get the foreboding quote, “Now I become death, the destroyer of worlds” – before proceeding with the act as he continues to read. Although the film has received rave reviews, this scene has garnered immense criticism from Hindu nationalist group, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for its insertion of religious scripture into sexual intercourse.

Disclaimer: I started squirming in my seat during the scene and spent a good 10 minutes afterwards in the bathroom stall, calming myself down. Then I bought a blue Icee and ran back in to watch the rest.

That “Oppenheimer” sex scene speaks to a larger problem with Christopher Nolan’s storytelling

The scene, although uncomfortable, was mind-opening. All of a sudden my present started to articulate my past forward as I was transported out of the movie theater and into my eighth grade health classroom. Today’s topic: the forms of sex. All three forms – as my teacher called it. As someone who didn’t even know that sex existed until that moment, I immediately started twisting in my chair and had to leave the room as the teacher’s descriptions got more and more detailed. My mind could not handle the fact that two people could crave touching each other’s private parts out of choice or out of adoration. But several of my classmates were unfazed. And several of them laughed at my reaction for weeks.

At that point, I knew I had to change. I had to take initiative to learn what my parents had always avoided discussing with me. So, I started reading “Game of Thrones” and its fanfiction to educate myself. And lots of it. By the time I had finished high school and college, I had read so much of it that I thought I had numbed my mind to sexual thought and literary depiction. But that “Oppenheimer” Gita sex scene told me differently.

When I saw it on screen, I still could not handle it.

Across the whiteboard he had written in all caps these words: KAMA SUTRA.

Growing up in a conservative Indian American household in the midwestern United States, I never heard from my parents discussions about certain bodily actions seen as “obscene” or taboo and why society perceived them in that way. I’d never seen them even kiss each other in front of my sister and me. I never had a person who could talk candidly with me about embarrassing or scary changes in my body and make them no longer seem so mysterious and foreign. After that revelatory eighth grade sexual health education class, there were questions that I was dying to ask but knew it was not OK to ask my mom or dad. To them, there was no comedy nor beauty in discussing sex and sexuality, especially when they were starting from scratch with someone like me, who was on the brink of puberty but still had many gaps in her knowledge. I wondered why my parents always shied away from this topic – even when it is something so deeply human and important.

“You don’t have to know these things. The more you know about it, the more you will want to jump in earlier,” my mom would say. “I don’t know why they teach these things to kids so early in this country.”

Two years later, in 10th grade world history class, I was a raging “Game of Thrones” fan who had read almost every Sansa/Tyrion fanfic on the internet (including the rated M for mature ones). We were learning about ancient India, and my favorite teacher of all time told us something that shocked me more than the Oppenheimer scene: that early Indian civilization was a pioneer in and center of sexual desire.

Across the whiteboard he had written in all caps these words: KAMA SUTRA.

“Do you know what this is,” he yelled across the room to the whole class. “Anyone? How about you, Sibani?”

I was the only Indian American student in my high school class. I honestly and vigorously shook my head. I worshiped this man on many levels, but I sincerely did not know the answer to his question. I was also embarrassed that I didn’t know about this supposedly very important text from my own culture.

“This is a book . . . about sex,” he continued. “All the different positions and the ways to enjoy them. And it originated in INDIA.”

I felt my face flush. My parents had ensured that I watch re-enacted versions of the Indian epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana on our tiny TV screen in my small Iowan midwestern town. My late grandmother had ensured that I learned how to speak my native language TamiI, and my parents pushed me to retain that. They put me through Carnatic singing lessons over the phone to help me better connect with my heritage and culture. Yet, they had conveniently chosen not to mention this uncomfortable but fascinating truth about the book of sex originating in India.

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That day, I went home and scoured the internet. And what my genius of a world history teacher had told me was beyond true. It turned out that I did not have to even turn to the internet, but rather had to dig back into my own memories of visiting temples across South India during my summers and sometimes seeing their walls adorned with near-naked female idols. When visiting, I remember being a bit surprised that these sculptures were not taken down by the conservative Indian communities that surrounded them. However, history reveals that the communities that initially surrounded the sculptures may have been ones where sex and spirituality were united, not untied.

For example, the seven-foot-tall Sathyamurthi Perumal Temple in my motherland of Tamil Nadu, India features detailed and sacred architecture depicting intercourse. In fact, these structures are protected by the Archeological Survey of India. This is not a standalone example. The juxtaposition of sexuality and sanctity can be seen in Hindu temples ranging from the Sun Temple in Gujarat to the Jain temples of Rajasthan to the Virupaksha temple in Karnataka – all located in India.

Sex was a characteristic of early Hindu civilizations in a way that was arguably more explicit than any scene in “Oppenheimer.”

Early India’s fascination with sex is not limited to architecture but also spills over into literature beyond the “Kama Sutra.” While the major Hindu epics “Mahabharata” and “Ramayana” are certainly not as pornographic as “Game of Thrones,” these ancient religious epics are far from devoid of the depictions of sexual pleasure. The pages contain stories of great sages committed to abstinence, who could resist everything but the temptations of sex. Draupadi, a pivotal character in “Mahabharata” and powerful example of polyandry, simultaneously keeps and sleeps with five husbands. Hindu scripture is not devoid of sexual exposure. In fact, the “Gita “that Oppenheimer invests his mind in is derived from a scene in the “Mahabharata.”

When my mom sent me an article on the Hindu nationalists’ criticism of the questionable sex scene in “Oppenheimer,” I immediately defended the Western approach to sex.

“The difference between the Western world and the Indian one is that the Western one can own up to human temptations and sins, versus in India, we like to hide from what makes us human anyway. Just remember that India – not USA – was the earliest erotic place in the world where a so-called ‘book’ originated. Read beyond headlines,” I wrote in response.

However, I now realize that my scathing response – while it is not fully false – lacks sensitivity. The “Gita” is a sacred text. While it does encourage sex for procreation, it discourages sex for pleasure. I do not agree with that principle in the “Gita” (isn’t sex called making love for a reason?), but I do think Nolan crossed the line a bit. Just a bit. But only a bit.

Even if the scene made me very uncomfortable, walking through Hindu temples trying to recite prayers and seeing naked copulation sculptures has also made me very uncomfortable. So, when the Hindu nationalist BJP calls the scene a “disturbing attack on Hinduism” that “wages a war on the Hindu community,” that is not at all accurate either. The earliest Hindus saw sex as a soul of their religion and culture. Maybe that is not how things are today, but as a Hindu woman myself, history and religion calls upon me to pursue the truth. The truth is that sex was a characteristic of early Hindu civilizations in a way that was arguably more explicit than any scene in “Oppenheimer.” The truth is that my parents and several of my Indian American friends’ parents unfortunately often avoid this reality. The truth is that Nolan saw the raw sexual stuff of life as text to be read, art to be created and conversation to be generated. If anything, this scene pays tribute to the reality that several sacred Hindu spaces – even if this excludes the “Bhagavad Gita” itself – do indeed sing of the sexual.

To all Hindus in this world – including the BJP – let’s not be angry and offended. We’ve not earned the right to be given the past. Instead, let’s invite a responsible dialogue about what history can teach us about our own religion. And then, we can talk about how we would like for that religion to be accurately represented.

about “Oppenheimer”

“Oh yes he did”: Judge dismisses Trump’s countersuit against Carroll after jury found he “raped her”

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a Monday order dismissed former President Donald Trump’s attempt to countersue writer E. Jean Carroll, after a jury found him liable of sexually abusing and defaming her in May. Trump attempted to bring a defamation suit against Carroll after she said, “Oh, yes he did,” in response to a question about the jury’s verdict finding that he sexually abused but did not rape her.

“Indeed, the jury’s verdict in Carroll II establishes, as against Mr Trump, the fact that Mr Trump ‘raped her’, albeit digitally rather than with his penis. Thus, it establishes against him the substantial truth of Ms. Carroll’s ‘rape’ accusations,” Judge Kaplan wrote in the dismissal. “In consequence, there is no merit to Mr. Trump’s argument that the jury’s finding on Penal Law ‘rape’ question established that Ms. Carroll’s statements were false even if her statements reasonably could be construed as referring to ‘rape’ in that specialized Penal Law sense, a subject on which this Court now expresses no view.”

Trump is slated to go to trial in January for a separate defamation suit Carroll raised against him in 2019, amid his campaign for the 2024 presidency and three other criminal indictments. “We are pleased that the Court dismissed Donald Trump’s counterclaim,” said Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer. “That means that the January 15th jury trial will be limited to a narrow set of issues and shouldn’t take very long to complete. E. Jean Carroll looks forward to obtaining additional compensatory and punitive damages based on the original defamatory statements Donald Trump made in 2019.”

Experts: Cannon daring court to replace her after “coming out swinging” at Jack Smith in new order

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee overseeing his classified documents case, came “out swinging at special counsel” Jack Smith on Monday, striking two sealed motions filed by Smith’s team and directing him to address the legal propriety of an “out-of-district grand jury” that is continuing to investigate the case, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported. “Among other topics as raised in the Motion, the response shall address the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district,” the Florida judge wrote.

Legal experts raised concerns about the ruling. “Looking like a good week to ask the 11th Circuit to replace the judge,” tweeted former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance. “If the DOJ filed under seal certain documents, and Judge Cannon just disclosed the existence of an otherwise confidential grand jury proceeding, we might be at the motion for recusal stage for the DOJ,” added MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang. “I’m betting that Judge Cannon’s account of the out-of-district investigation is not the full story. But hard to see how she can justify not sealing her order referring to another Grand Jury. Could this be a possible vehicle for taking her up and seeking her recusal? Not clear yet,” wrote former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman.

Bloomberg’s Zoe Tillman noted that Smith’s team previously confirmed that they continue to use the D.C. and Florida grand juries after Trump’s indictment to “investigate further obstructive activities.” But former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller’s team, said Cannon’s ruling “clearly shows her ignorance (bias? both?)” The “obstruction crimes that were investigated are charges that could have been brought in FLA or in DC and thus could be investigated in either district. And there was conduct that is alleged to have occurred outside FLA,” he explained.

Alaska’s capital Juneau is flooded out by melting glaciers

Residents of Alaska’s capital, Juneau, are undergoing an emergency evacuation as of Monday due to major flooding, which began due to a glacier lake outburst flood. This is a situation when a dam containing a glacial lake — in this case the Suicide Basin, a side basin on the Mendenhall Glacier — suffers a breach. The break in Suicide Basin was so significant that the subsequent flood has washed away and severely damaged homes all along the Mendenhall River.

According to FEMA, there was a less than 1 percent chance of “extreme” flooding like this occurring in that region of Alaska. “We didn’t even think that this was possible,” National Weather Service Juneau hydrologist Aaron Jacobs told ABC News.

Scientists have predicted since 2021 that melted glaciers will increase the risk of flooding as climate change continues to worsen. Climate change is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels, which releases carbon emissions into the atmosphere. These carbon emissions then act to trap heat, overheating the planet and leading to problems like melting glaciers.

If all of the glaciers and ice caps on Earth melt, sea level will rise an estimated 230 feet (70 meters), flooding out the billions of humans who live in nearby communities. The melted ice will also significantly alter weather patterns, in particular ocean current systems like the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). If AMOC shuts down, temperatures are predicted to plummet in Europe, storms will increase in frequency and intensity, and there will be food shortages.

“She should call the coward’s bluff”: Experts say Trump “daring” judge to punish his witness attacks

Legal experts warned that former President Donald Trump could face court sanctions after firing off a series of Truth Social posts aimed at special counsel Jack Smith, the judge overseeing the case and likely witnesses for his upcoming trial.

Trump repeatedly attacked his former Vice President Mike Pence, who recently said he would “comply with the law” if he were obligated to testify in Trump’s conspiracy trial case, in which he stands accused of trying to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“I have no plans to testify, but, look, we’ll always comply with the law. But … I don’t know what the path of this indictment will be,” Pence said during a CNN interview that aired Sunday. “The president’s entitled to a presumption of innocence. He’s entitled to make his defense in court. But actually there are profound issues around this, pertaining to the First Amendment, freedom of speech and the rest. I’m confident he and his lawyer will litigate all those things.”

Experts: Trump lawyer’s “aspirational” defense suggests “they know they’re going to lose at trial”

The previous day, Trump took to Truth Social, writing, “WOW, it’s finally happened! Liddle’ Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as Governor Indiana until I came along and made him V.P., has gone to the Dark Side.”

“I never told a newly emboldened (not based on his 2% poll numbers!) Pence to put me above the Constitution, or that Mike was ‘too honest,'” the ex-president continued. “He’s delusional, and now he wants to show he’s a tough guy. I once read a major magazine article on Mike. It said he was not a very good person. I was surprised, but the article was right. Sad!”

Trump on Monday targeted Pence again after his remarks.

“I never said anything bad or even slightly inappropriate to Liddle’ Mike Pence,” he claimed. “What I did do was make him, over the many people who wanted it, Vice President of the United States. Disloyalty in politics is alive and well. MAGA!!!”

“Attacking the judge like this is trouble”: Experts warn Trump over demand for judge to “recuse”

While Trump seemed to have a negative read on news of Pence’s willingness to testify, his criminal defense attorney, John Lauro, claimed that “Pence will be one of our best witnesses at trial.”

“I read his book very carefully, and if he testifies consistent with his book, then President Trump will be acquitted,” Lauro predicted on Sunday during a sit-down with ABC News.

Trump over the weekend also lashed out at U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge randomly assigned to his trial case, asking for recusal and that his trial be transferred outside of left-leaning Washington, D.C.

“THERE IS NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL WITH THE JUDGE ‘ASSIGNED’ TO THE RIDICULOUS FREEDOM OF SPEECH/FAIR ELECTIONS CASE,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS, AND SO DOES SHE! WE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY ASKING FOR RECUSAL OF THIS JUDGE ON VERY POWERFUL GROUNDS, AND LIKEWISE FOR VENUE CHANGE, OUT IF D.C. [sic]”

“Keep talking. You’re begging for the judge to slam you down,” warned national security attorney Bradley Moss.

Keep talking. You’re begging for the judge to slam you down. pic.twitter.com/8AdSXKvj4C

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) August 6, 2023

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Longtime Harvard legal scholar Laurence Tribe tweeted that Trump’s plan appears to be “to gloat if he gets away with trashing witnesses in defiance of the judge’s orders” and “to play victim and make the judge’s life a living hell if she imprisons him to enforce her mandate.”

“She should call the coward’s bluff,” he tweeted.

“Trump is daring Chutkan to enter a gag order,” argued University of Michigan law professor Barb McQuade. “

“With social media post blasting Pence, a witness in the election interference trial, Trump is daring Judge Chutkan to enter a gag order,” she wrote. “If she enters an order, he will cry foul. But, if she declines to do so, Trump will intimidate witnesses with impunity. “

With social media post blasting Pence, a witness in the election interference trial, Trump is daring Judge Chutkan to enter a gag order. If she enters an order, he will cry foul. But, if she declines to do so, Trump will intimidate witnesses with impunity.

— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) August 6, 2023

Prosecutors in Trump’s election case have already asked Chutkan for a protective order, following a threatening statement Trump made on Truth Social last Friday.

“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” he wrote.

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“The order — which is different from a so-called ‘gag order’ — would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith,” The Associated Press noted,

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller’s team, told MSNBC that “any other defendant who did this, who was facing six counts of obstruction of justice… I think would be remanded, meaning would be sent to jail and have to await trial in jail.”

"Just to be clear, any other defendant who did this, who was facing six counts of obstruction of justice… I think would be remanded, meaning would be sent to jail and have to await trial in jail."@AWeissmann_ on Trump's threatening Truth Social post. pic.twitter.com/HIGO8Z7lgc

— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) August 6, 2023

Attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo wrote in an op-ed that over her “three-decade former state prosecutor in New York, I have never seen a defendant treated as leniently as defendant Trump.”

“He has a rap sheet with 3 open felony indictments, 78-charges, in 3 separate jurisdictions,” she wrote. “He has repeatedly threatened prosecutors, judges, and potential witnesses and has his own 757 jumbo jet at the ready to fly anywhere in the world and can abscond at any time. And the nature of his charges are among the most serious there are — he is accused of stealing our nation’s most sensitive secrets, trying to destroy evidence of his crimes, committing fraud in the oval office, and causing a violent insurrection in order to attempt to steal an election he lost, and our democracy. Imagine if he were Black or Muslim. There is no doubt he would be incarcerated pending trial.”

about the Trump indictment

“Criminalizing the Samaritan”: Why cities across the US are making it illegal to feed the homeless

Four days a week, volunteers from Food Not Bombs, an international organization that feeds those experiencing homelessness, serve up meals at the corner of Smith and McKinney streets in downtown Houston near the public library. They’ve kept up this routine for 20 years, but in March something changed.

Police decided to start issuing citations to the group for “violating the city’s Charitable Feeding Ordinance,” an ordinance that has been on the books since 2012, but one which area volunteers say has never really been enforced. It requires both registered and non-registered food service operations to “obtain owner consent before using either public or private property for food service of more than five people.”

US is racing toward a looming “hunger cliff,” food insecurity experts warn

Since the spring, Food Not Bombs has continued their operations as usual, despite both police and the City of Houston demanding they move their set-up to Houston Police Department parking lot west of downtown, the only address that appears to be currently pre-approved for charitable food service events in the city on the city’s website. Now, four times a week, the volunteers have to determine whose turn it is to receive the citation.

Over the last six months, over 40 volunteers were cited and the Houston chapter of Food Not Bombs now owes the city $23,500 in fines. Eight of these cases were dismissed by judges due to insufficient evidence because the charging HPD officers did not show up to court — a ruling that captured national headlines last week —while another volunteer was found not guilty by a jury after they ruled the ordinance was unconstitutional. However, the City of Houston has now indicated they plan on refiling the cases that were dismissed without prejudice.

“The City of Houston intends to vigorously pursue violations of its ordinance relating to feeding of the homeless,” the city’s attorney, Arturo Micnele, wrote in a statement. “It is a health and safety issue for the protection of Houston’s residents. There have been complaints and incidents regarding the congregation of the homeless around the library, even during off hours.”

However, lawyer Paul Kubosh, who represented volunteer Phillip Picone, told KPRC 2 that the city’s law was “absurd.”

“It’s criminalizing the Samaritan for giving,” he said.

This isn’t just a debate happening in Houston. Across the country, an increasing number of cities and municipalities are entertaining the idea of criminalizing feeding the hungry in certain instances, citing concerns over public safety, sanitation and the need to unify charitable efforts. Meanwhile, advocacy groups and religious organizations, as well as concerned citizens, are pushing back on laws they deem to be either unconstitutional or in violation of their personal rights.

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In 2014, as the Associated Press reported, a 90-year-old WWII veteran, known by many in Fort Lauderdale as Chef Arnold, was arrested for serving meals in a public park — something he had been doing for nearly two decades. Three years later, seven people in Tampa were arrested for feeding the homeless without a permit. A year after that, 12 volunteers in El Cajon, California, were charged with misdemeanors for distributing food.

Between 2013 and 2015, 26 cities passed food-sharing bans, according to reports from the National Coalition for the Homeless. Now, food security advocates estimate that there are 70 cities across the country — including Birmingham, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Newark and Salt Lake City — that have enacted food-sharing bans.

“It’s criminalizing the Samaritan for giving.”

Officials from the cities that enforce these bans maintain that it’s in the interest of public safety, for both housed and unhoused citizens. For instance, in Atlanta, after a volunteer was cited for feeding the hungry at a public park near Georgia State University, GSU police Sgt. Joseph Corrigan told local media that their main concerns are food safety, garbage and the human waste left behind when people are fed in a place with no restrooms.

“I salute genuinely the good will and good nature of all these people,” Corrigan said. “There is no bad guy in this.”

However, advocates for those experiencing homelessness push back on this argument, which they claim, in fact, criminalizes homelessness.

“Of course sanitation is important, and of course public health is important,” Maria Foscarinis, the founder and executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP) told Newsweek in 2018. “But these issues can be addressed without banning sharing food with people who are hungry and people who are impoverished.”

Some religious groups have asserted that feeding the hungry is an expression of their faith. Such was the case in a May 2023 incident when the City of Santa Ana threatened Micah’s Way, a California religious nonprofit, with criminal charges for providing food and drink at their resource center. Micah’s Way then sued the city for infringing on the nonprofit’s right to religious exercise, a lawsuit that ultimately saw support from the Justice Department.

“Many faith-based organizations across the country are on the front lines serving the needs of people experiencing homelessness,” Assistant Attorney General Kristin Clark of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “The Justice Department is committed to enforcing federal civil rights laws to ensure that all religious groups can freely exercise their religious beliefs.”

In the case of Food Not Bombs, in 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that — at least when it comes to the group’s Fort Lauderdale chapter — distributing food to the homeless community was an expression of their First Amendment rights.

“[Fort Lauderdale Food Not Bombs] does not serve food as a charity, but rather to communicate its message ‘that [ ] society can end hunger and poverty if we redirect our collective resources from the military and war and that food is a human right, not a privilege, which society has a responsibility to provide for all,’ ” wrote Judge Adalberto Jordan in the federal appellate court opinion. “Providing food in a visible public space, and partaking in meals that are shared with others, is an act of political solidarity meant to convey the organization’s message.”

In Houston, the group plans to petition local leadership as well. According to Houston Public Media, the city’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, is term-limited and exits office next year.

“We have certainly plans to talk to the mayoral candidates Whitmire, Kaplan, Sheila Jackson Lee, about this issue,” civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen told the station. “When you ever pull the populace or there’s any indication from the general populace, it’s overwhelmingly majority is against this law and the unanimous jury verdict is just another example of that.”

about this topic

“Attacking the judge like this is trouble”: Experts warn Trump over demand for judge to “recuse”

Former President Donald Trump declared on Sunday that he will ask for the recusal of the judge overseeing his prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“THERE IS NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL WITH THE JUDGE ‘ASSIGNED’ TO THE RIDICULOUS FREEDOM OF SPEECH/FAIR ELECTIONS CASE,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media platform. “EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS, AND SO DOES SHE! WE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY ASKING FOR RECUSAL OF THIS JUDGE ON VERY POWERFUL GROUNDS, AND LIKEWISE FOR VENUE CHANGE, OUT IF D.C. [sic]”

Last week, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan was randomly assigned to Trump’s case. Chutkan was one of the first federal judges to reject Trump’s claims of executive privilege after he refused to turn over White House communications to members of the House Jan. 6 committee.

“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Chutkan wrote in a November 2021 ruling. “At bottom, this is a dispute between a former and incumbent President. And the Supreme Court has already made clear that in such circumstances, the incumbent’s view is accorded greater weight,” she added.

Experts: Trump lawyer’s “aspirational” defense suggests “they know they’re going to lose at trial”

Appointed to the U.S. bench in 2015 by former President Barack Obama, Chutkan also has handed down the harshest Jan 6 sentences on the D.C. federal court, per the Washington Post.

She has not minced words over her thoughts and feelings regarding the deadly Capitol attacks, observing their fundamental connection to the former president and his rallying rhetoric.

In the sentencing of Jan. 6 defendant Carl Mazzocoo, Chutkan said he “went to the Capitol in support of one man, not in support of our country.” During the December 2021 sentencing of rioter Robert Palmer, she noted his “very good point” that “the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged.”

“I have never heard that”: Experts stunned after judge “admonished” Trump not to commit any crimes

The federal indictment against Trump over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results alleged that six unnamed — and currently uncharged — co-conspirators acted in cahoots with the ex-president to “assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power.”

Legal experts were able to use details provided by special counsel Jack Smith’s team of prosecutors to identify the individuals, who are likely former Trump lawyer and New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, “coup memo” author John Eastman, disgraced attorney Sidney Powell, Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, attorney Kenneth Chesebro, and a still undetermined “political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”

Politico reported that the former president will likely not see much major headway on his demands to oust Chutkan and have his trial take place outside of D.C., noting that requests from “dozens” of other Jan. 6 defendants to transfer their cases to a new location have been denied on the grounds of the intensive “voir dire” jury selection process, which is “intended to weed out jurors who might have an impermissible bias or be unwilling to set aside political views to judge a case based on evidence and facts.” Chutkan, meanwhile, has shown no signs of recusal.

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“Makes perfect sense Trump’s lawyers would move to change venue,” tweeted national security attorney Mark Zaid. “Legit legal move. Jack Ruby asked for same after he killed Oswald in Dallas.”

“But personally attacking [the] Judge like this is trouble,” Zaid added. “His lawyers will need to think long & hard [about] firing this salvo. No turning back.”

Makes perfect sense Trump's lawyers would move to change venue. Legit legal move. Jack Ruby asked for same after he killed Oswald in Dallas.

But personally attacking Judge like this is trouble. His lawyers will need to think long & hard abt firing this salvo. No turning back. pic.twitter.com/gQBsEhQGsT

— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) August 6, 2023

Former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman argued that the change of venue and motion to recuse “are dead losers and will be denied in short order.”

“You have to wonder if part of his strategy is to lose repeatedly [with] crappy motions to try to ground an argument in the public sphere that the court is biased.”

The change of venue & motion to recuse that Lauro says Trump will bring are dead losers and will be denied in short order. You have to wonder if part of his strategy is to lose repeatedly w/ crappy motions to try to ground an argument in the public sphere that the court is biased

— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) August 6, 2023

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Georgia State Law Prof. Anthony Michael Kreis told Newsweek that Trump’s post is a “political argument, not a legal argument.”

“Trump wants a judge of his choosing and jury of his preferred peers when he’s entitled to an impartial jury of his peers and an unbiased judge,” he said. “We have now had hundreds of January 6th defendants tried in Washington, D.C. and by all accounts those defendants have had fair juries. Some defendants even had jurors acquit them. There’s no factual basis to allege that Judge Chutkan can’t discharge her duties fairly, either. It’s a publicity stunt,” he added.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg agreed that the recusal “is not going to happen.”

“This is another delay tactic and a way to further rally his base,” he told the outlet. “Nothing fuels MAGA like grievance and martyrdom.”

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has frequently criticized the Justice Department’s investigations of Trump, also agreed that a “venue change is highly unlikely” just because he is being tried in a “politically disadvantageous district.”

“It is always difficult to prevail on such motions, but this would be a particular stretch of the precedent,” he told Newsweek. “I would bet heavily against it. On recusal, the judge has made some concerning statements but it is highly unlikely that she would consider herself compromised or conflicted out of the case. Appellate courts are equally skeptical about such motions and heavily disfavor compelled recusals. Thus, Trump could not have pulled a less advantageous selection of the district or the judge.”

about the Trump indictment

Experts: Trump lawyer’s “aspirational” defense suggests “they know they’re going to lose at trial”

Former President Donald Trump’s attorney John Lauro on Sunday went on five Sunday morning shows to insist that his client’s Jan. 6 scheme was not a crime because it was merely “aspirational.”

“What President Trump didn’t do is direct Vice President Pence to do anything,” Lauro told CNN. “He asked him in an aspirational way.”

Lauro used a similar line when asked about Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state.

“That wasn’t a threat at all,” Lauro told NBC News. “What he was asking for is for Raffensperger to get to the truth… That was an aspirational ask.”

WATCH: Why did fmr. Pres. Trump threaten Georgia Sec. of State Raffensperger with a criminal charge? @chucktodd asks.

Trump lawyer John Lauro: "That wasn't a threat at all. … He was asking for [him] to get the truth. … That was an aspirational ask." pic.twitter.com/fqAOqlCOda

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 6, 2023

“Sounds like a coup to me”: Experts say Trump lawyer’s statement is “an admission, not a defense”

Lauro went on to claim that Trump never asked Pence to break the law.

“He said the president asked him to violate the Constitution, which is another way of saying he asked him to break the law,” host Chuck Todd noted.

“No, that’s wrong,” Lauro shot back. “A technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law. That’s just plain wrong. And to say that is contrary to decades of legal statute.”

WATCH: Trump attorney John Lauro says Pence “never said” he thought Trump was acting criminally.@chucktodd: “He said the president asked him to violate the Constitution.”

Lauro: “No … a technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law.” pic.twitter.com/feMuDu9N5t

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 6, 2023

Legal expert: Trump lawyer just confirmed “an element of the crime” outside of courthouse

Legal experts were unimpressed with Lauro’s defense strategy.

“If this is the best that Trump has got, he’s in for a legal beatdown by the DOJ,” tweeted MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang.

“If this is their legal defense, hoo boy are they in for a rude awakening,” agreed national security attorney Bradley Moss, suggesting the defense shows “they know they’re going to lose at trial.”

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Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti told CNN that Lauro’s argument is “definitely quite aspirational.”

“You can imagine a fraudster asking a [potential] victim if they’d like to invest in a fraudulent investment,” he said. “The mere fact that it’s a question does not transform that into First Amendment-protected speech. It’s very well-settled by courts that lots of crimes involve talking to people. The fact that you’re doing that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to First Amendment protection.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote that Lauro’s defense “would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.”

“You know who else asks people to commit crimes in an ‘aspirational way’ without ‘directing’ them to? Mob bosses, human traffickers & the heads of organized drug rings,” she added.

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Georgia State University Law Prof. Anthony Michael Kreis took issue with Lauro arguing that a “technical violations of the Constitution is not a violation of the law.”

Section 241, the conspiracy against rights charge that Trump is facing, “is exactly that,” Kreis wrote. “When a person conspires to injure a constitutional right- like the right to vote and have it counted- then a constitutional violation ?? a crime.”

Kreis added that Lauro’s argument is “entirely unconvincing.”

“Section 241 was meant to reinforce the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and due process,” he wrote. “The idea that a president can run roughshod over voters’ ability to cast ballots in a free and fair election as an exercise in vanity in pursuit of power is profoundly wrong.”

about the Trump indictment

Holocaust scholars explain why Trump has ramped up his Nazi-style rhetoric: “Words can kill”

On Thursday, Donald Trump was arraigned in Washington D.C. for alleged crimes in connection to his Jan. 6 coup plot and larger attempt to end multiracial democracy by overturning the 2020 Election. So far, Trump has responded to this third indictment predictably. He has lied, played the victim, and threatened violence and destruction against the MAGA movement’s perceived “enemies” – even House Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

As we have seen repeatedly throughout the last seven years (and beyond), Trump and his allies will also channel antisemitism, racism, and white supremacy in these attacks and other attempts to derail the investigations and criminal trials. On cue, after being indicted by the Department of Justice on Tuesday, Donald Trump issued a statement via his Truth Social disinformation platform where he attacked the prosecutors for being Nazis. Of course, that is a lie:

Why did they wait two and a half years to bring these fake charges, right in the middle of President Trump’s winning campaign for 2024?…. The answer is, election interference! The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.

In essence, Donald Trump is comparing the Holocaust, which is one of the greatest crimes in human history, to his being held accountable in a court of law where he will be allowed a robust defense and his civil and human rights respected. To distort and minimize the realities of the Holocaust is itself an act of antisemitism. That Donald Trump, a man who as president said that the neoNazis who rampaged across Charlottesville in 2017 are “very fine people,” would invoke the Holocaust makes his most recent antisemitic behavior even more disturbing and gross.

Trump freaks out over Pelosi’s “sad puppy” comment, says she will one day “live in hell”

In an attempt to understand resurgent antisemitism and its connections to Trumpism, neofascism and America’s larger democracy crisis, I recently spoke with Holocaust scholars Leonard Grob and John K. Roth. Grob is professor emeritus of philosophy at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Roth is the Edward J. Sexton professor emeritus of philosophy at Claremont McKenna College and the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights (now the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights). Their new book is titled, Warnings: The Holocaust, Ukraine, and Endangered American Democracy.

Given the Age of Trump, American neofascism, and the rise of the global right and other anti-democracy forces, how are you feeling?

Roth: I view the Age of Trump, the rise of the global right and illiberalism, through a Holocaust lens. That perspective shows me three things:

Nothing good should be taken for granted.
Events can very quickly and decisively turn for the worse.
Human beings can be utterly destructive.

I am not surprised that American democracy is endangered by Donald Trump and his MAGA faithful. I am angered and dismayed that so many Americans seem prepared to trash democracy by stupidly following Trump and Trumpism to the bitter end. These moods intensify my commitment to protest against those trends and to resist them, which I do as an eighty-something philosopher who still writes and teaches.

“As a scholar of the Holocaust and a grandson of grandparents murdered by Nazis, echoes of what was resound in my mind. A summons—more felt than thought—counters the temptation to lose hope: I must resist.”

In addition to teaching and writing about the Holocaust, I have spent much of my academic life studying the American Dream. It’s a fraught and ambiguous concept that can obscure the darkness—racism, patriarchy, exceptionalist nationalism, genocidal treatment of Native peoples—but also hold Americans accountable for the ideals and hopes we Americans aspire to when we are at our best. To the extent that American democracy can be pluralistic and inclusive, it is worth saving. As a grandfather, I feel strongly about that.

Grob: At a time when liberal democracy is under attack at home and in many places abroad, despair lurks around the edges of my consciousness. As a scholar of the Holocaust and a grandson of grandparents murdered by Nazis, echoes of what was resound in my mind. A summons—more felt than thought—counters the temptation to lose hope: I must resist.

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I must not wallow in discouragement but rather pick myself up to enter the fray, to work at this inflection point in U.S. history to oppose growing authoritarianism. Action for good repels anguish. I’m moved by the example of Christian rescuers during the Holocaust, those who resisted evil with their lives and the lives of their families at stake. Compared to theirs, my situation is one of safety and privilege. Their example inspires and insists that I must work in their spirit to help preserve our fragile democracy.

For those of us who study right-wing politics, the color line, and related topics the Age of Trump has been very frustrating because what is obvious to us may not be obvious to the general public – as well as the news media and other political elites who should know better. How are you negotiating that?

Roth: Failure of imagination could doom American democracy. Americans tend to be asleep at the switch. We either take democracy for granted or think that losing it wouldn’t matter much. But Americans can scarcely imagine how vicious, divided, corruption-prone, racist, and violent the country will become if Trump and Trumpist Republicanism prevail in the 2024 elections. Justice, freedom of the press, and reliable education will go down. Racism, patriarchy, Christian nationalism, and sexualized persecution of minorities will ascend. Fair and free elections will decline. The rule of law will be jeopardized. Truth itself will be a casualty.

The list goes on. I think of Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s and Putin’s Russia. Versions of their movies run in the United States. If we fail to double down in support of democracy, we invite destruction that too many Americans are apparently at a loss to imagine.

It seems like we in America and the West have forgotten many of the lessons of the near past. At times it feels like we are stuck in a state of organized forgetting with Trumpism and neofascism — and resurgent white supremacy, racism, and antisemitism. To that point, we need to go to the basics. What is antisemitism? How is antisemitism connected to racism and white supremacy?

Roth: Arguably the world’s longest hatred, antisemitism is discrimination and hatred against Jews. But that barely scratches the surface because antisemitism has taken different but related forms over the centuries: religious, political, economic, social, and racial. Jews have been discriminated against, hated, and killed because prejudiced non-Jews believed that Jews belonged to the wrong religion, lacked citizenship qualifications, practiced business improperly, behaved inappropriately, conspired against legitimate authority, or possessed inferior racial characteristics. These forms of antisemitism, especially the racial one, all played key parts in the Holocaust.

“Antisemitism easily befriends and encourages all sorts of us/them and we/they divisions.”

Analyze racism and white supremacy in the United States. Antisemitism will be close by. That’s because antisemitism easily befriends and encourages all sorts of us/them and we/they divisions. The feedback loop of those divisions goes back again and again to suspicions and allegations, discrimination and even violence against Jews. Discrimination breeds discrimination. Hatred spawns hatred. Will the vicious circle be unbroken? The future of democracy in the United States hinges on American answers to that question.

The scourge of antisemitism—never completely tamed—has reared its head with new fervor during and after the Trump presidency. Discrimination and violence toward Jews is not merely one form of bigotry among others. For example, antisemitism roots the white supremacist/Christian nationalist movements that thrive in Trumpism. It’s no accident that white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us” during their torch-lit 2017 march in Charlottesville, Virginia. Versions of that mantra have driven conspiratorial hate groups through the ages.

What were you thinking when you saw the Charlottesville white supremacist mob attack and that “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us” language — and then Trump’s defense of them as “very fine people”? There were Nazis, KKK members, and other racial fascists attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 as part of Trump’s coup attempt.

Roth: In 2017, when Nazi-garbed white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, shouting “Jews will not replace us,” I thought of rallies in Berlin where “Aryan” German supremacists unfurled banners proclaiming that “Jews are our misfortune.”

When I watched Trump’s MAGA insurrectionists attack the US capitol and defraud the American people by attempting to overturn a fair and free presidential election, I saw “Christian” crosses, Nazi symbols, and American flag poles turned into weapons to trammel police. I was outraged but not surprised.

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Americans are reaping what was sowed when Trump became the voice that echoed and amplified the fears and grievances, resentment and vengeance of a segment of White America. Work to heal that rupture must be done, but it starts with ensuring that the Trumpist minority, determined and unrelenting though it may be, does not get more power than it already has. Elections matter.

What is new and old about how today’s right-wing propaganda machine is amplifying and weaponizing antisemitism?

Roth: Until recently, American analysts have been cautious about linking Trumpism and fascism. That’s because Mussolini and Hitler are the emblematic fascists, and their regimes entailed and even required aggressive wars of conquest. Trump and Trumpism don’t seem to fit that profile, at least not yet.

Fascism, however, has many shapes and sizes. When Mussolini coined the term fascism, he adopted the ancient Roman fasces as its symbol—a bundle of rods, with an ax-head, bound together with unifying cords. Fascism bundles ideological ingredients such as: authoritarian, antidemocratic, and supremacist nationalism; xenophobic population and immigration policies; favored economic status for a few, suppressed rights for unions and labor; intentional and intensified political divisiveness; weaponizing courts and police to exact retributive punishment of internal enemies; disrespect for truth; political control of media and schools; religious legitimation.

Trump and MAGA Republicanism bundle such elements in 2020s America. Fascism is alive in the United States. So much so, that it is not hyperbole to say that American fascism’s face is Donald Trump’s. As Charlottesville and the January 6 insurrection testify, American fascism harbors antisemitism, and it can be added that antisemitism in the United States, whenever and wherever it is found, favors fascism. The tropes of antisemitism are both old and renewed as they are recycled and amplified with modern technology and social media.

To that point, today’s right-wing uses rhetorical strategies such as “we are just asking questions” or “playing devil’s advocate” or “debating” or “making jokes and you people are too sensitive” as a way of laundering and mainstreaming white supremacy and other racist and antisemitic messaging.

Grob: Right-wing American extremists claim that sexist, racist, or homophobic statements are just part of the exercise of free speech, statements made in the name of open inquiry. What are often understood as traditional tools of the Socratic philosophic quest—asking uncomfortable questions, provoking interlocutors to rethink what they say, employing irony to unsettle those with fixed ideas—are co-opted by the right and subverted by White nationalists as a cover for hateful messaging.

Those who object to right-wing sophistry and racist tropes are attacked as advocates of “cancel culture” that disrespects freedom of speech and practices censorship. Such strategy allows racialized narratives to masquerade as prods that lead to difficult but important discussions in a genuinely open society. This nonsense obscures the fact that right-wing extremists are determined to restrict freedom of inquiry, ban books they dislike, and control education to fit their ideologies. Preserving democracy requires unmasking and countering these deceptions.

What do we know empirically, the facts and trends, about resurgent antisemitism in the Age of Trump and beyond?

Roth: Polling done by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in the spring of 2023 indicates that antisemitic incidents in the United States are at the highest level since the ADL began tracking them in 1979. More than 3500 such incidents—harassment, assaults, vandalism—took place in 2022, a 36 percent uptick from 2021.

Conspiracy theories are oxygen for MAGA Republicanism. Where conspiracy theories exist, antisemitism is likely to be close by. Looking for someone to blame for things that have gone wrong? Jews—alleged controllers of wealth and media, internationalists more than Americans—often play the part. As Charlottesville shows—”Jews will not replace us”—those Jewish folks really aren’t white either.

An obvious yet critical question: Is antisemitism inherently violent?

Roth: Violence can be hard or soft. Hard violence includes theft and destruction of physical property, bodily harm and murder. Soft violence includes discrimination, inequality, slurs, innuendos, abusive language, and accusations—implicit as well as explicit—of disloyalty or impropriety.

One way or another, antisemitism is always violent. It violates the humanity of Jews. In that process, it also violates an inclusive, pluralistic, rights-based society. Soft violence often leads to hard violence by setting the scene and giving tacit permission for it, while allowing for (im)plausible deniability. (“We deplore what happened at the Tree of Life Synagogue.” One can say that and still harbor antisemitism. Lots of Germans did something like that under the swastika.)

Is Donald Trump an antisemite? What about the MAGA movement and Trumpism? Are they antisemitic political movements and formulations?

Grob and Roth:

Antisemitism infects Donald Trump in ways that make him a transactional, performative-when-advantageous antisemite. What serves his self-interest is good. What doesn’t is bad. His constituents often trade in antisemitic tropes. Trump won’t denounce those who advance them if having dinner with them instead is more to his political advantage. Although Trump touts that his daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are Jews and that he has Jewish grandchildren, Trump deplores the failure of Jews to support him while he has supported Israel. Trump’s pals include antisemitic white supremacists. He attacks influential Jews such as George Soros and Janet Yellen. He depicts American Jews as having dual loyalty, implying that Jews can’t be trusted as true Americans. “Disloyal Jews” are Jews who support Democrats. He’ll portray Hillary Clinton with a Jewish star and stacks of currency in the background.

Trump is not Hitler. He is not a deep-down, true-believer in antisemitism. But he enfolds antisemitism, or at least has no objection to it, when it serves his needs. Ultimately Trump’s narcissism means that he is unable to do anything other than denigrate others who fail to offer obeisance to him. He is unable to empathize with Jewish victims of antisemitism, just as he cannot empathize with the suffering of people of color. Trump only empathizes with Trump. He denies his antisemitism but does little to oppose antisemitism in the United States and does oppose it only when it’s too disadvantageous not to do so.

Again, Trump is not Hitler, but his violent rhetoric echoes Hitler’s. When Trump promises to be his voters’ retribution, his intention to get revenge is ignored at democracy’s peril. Trump said he might terminate the Constitution. He walked back from that, but Americans who care about democracy will take the pronouncement more seriously than the walk-back. Trump’s promise that, if elected in 2024, he will concentrate power in the Oval Office and purge the “deep state” should be believed. Hitler made similar promises. He kept them. There’s no reason to think that Trump and his followers won’t do so if they take power.

Trump’s acolytes increasingly depict him in apocalyptic terms: he is “God’s chosen one” who will ultimately lead his followers to the ultimate victory, a victory depicted in vindictive and destructive terms. That’s Nazi-style rhetoric. Words matter. Words can destroy democracy. Words can kill.

If Donald Trump and his MAGA movement return to the White House, what will that mean for Jewish-Americans?

Grob: If Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, the “othering,” so characteristic of Trump past and present, will continue unabated. He will demonize individuals and groups who fail to serve his current mode of self-aggrandizement.

Jews have always been among the world’s most “othered” people, and Jews are always a problem for Trump. A second Trump presidential term will mean that American Jews have to struggle harder than ever to preserve their unique identity as a people who, following the prophetic tradition, ask challenging questions. In those corners of America where dissent will continue to reside, Jews will likely be there. Under nearly intolerable conditions foisted upon them by a newly-elected Trump administration, many Jews will call and work for justice. Those who follow the prophets will listen to the words of a contemporary prophet, Abraham Joshua Heschel, who implored his people to “pray with their feet,” to take “a leap of action” to counter a newly-installed authoritarian regime. Some misguided Jews will probably support Trump and his authoritarianism, but the vast majority of American Jews oppose American fascism.

Historical specificity is critical in these discussions. What parallels and overlaps do you see between Trumpism and American neofascism and the rise of Nazism and the fall of German democracy in the 1930s?

Roth: As I view current American politics through a Holocaust lens, here’s a partial list of what I see:

Rallies and rhetoric: A Nazi rally and a MAGA rally have similar trappings and tones. Armband swastikas, MAGA hats. Hitler depicting himself as Germany embodied. Trump as “your voice and retribution” and “if they weren’t coming for me, they would be coming for you.”
Attacks on and control of media: Hitler moved early and often against opposition journalists; control and censorship of media followed. Trump’s attack on journalists as “enemies of the people.”
Seizing of control of law enforcement and the judiciary: Hitler moved in these areas as fast as he could. Trump promises to do so, and if not Trump, then other Republicans who have the so-called deep state in their sights. They want to “defund” the FBI and restructure the Department of Justice. Echoes of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Using the institutions of democracy to destroy democracy. Within months of coming to power, the German parliament handed Hitler the “enabling act,” which gave him, “legally,” dictatorial power. There can be little doubt that MAGA Republican control of the US Congress would trend in authoritarian directions.

Of course, Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are not the Nazi Party. But there were many Germans and others who were in great denial about Nazism even as their society succumbed to it. What do you want the American people to learn from those experiences? What is happening around them that they may not understand and/or be in denial about?

Roth: The mantra “our institutions will save us” is naïve bunk. Our institutions may be our undoing. Our institutions are good; we must preserve and sustain them. But they are only as good as the people who lead, inhabit, and serve them. Yes, we are seeing the rule of law at work as various indictments of Trump are released. We want judicial proceedings to be thorough and fair. But the judicial process is slow, slow, slow.

“Speedy trial”—at least in Trump’s cases—is an oxymoron. Trump may not come to trial in time to prevent his nomination and election for a second presidential term. That fact aids and abets a Republican electorate wedded to Trump and a MAGA Republican Party that seems beyond recovery in its obedience to a criminal leader. Yes, Trump must be considered innocent until proved guilty. But that court-of-law standard shouldn’t be the standard that determines how votes are wisely cast. We Americans are one election away from losing the heart and soul of our democracy.

about the GOP’s use of racist tropes

U.S. preterm birth and maternal mortality rates are alarmingly high

Every two minutes, in about the time it takes to read a page of your favorite book or brew a cup of coffee, a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth, according to a February 2023 report from the World Health Organization. The report reflects a shameful reality in which maternal deaths have either increased or plateaued worldwide between 2016 and 2020.

On top of that, of every 10 babies born, one is preterm – and every 40 seconds, one of those babies dies. Globally, preterm birth is the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5, with complications from preterm birth resulting in the death of 1 million children under age 5 each year.

The WHO has designated preterm birth an “urgent public health issue” in recognition of the threat it poses to global health.

Wait, is white noise harmful for sleep now? How these bland vibes can be bad for baby — and you

Those numbers reflect a worldwide problem, but the U.S. in particular has an abysmal record on both preterm births and maternal mortality: Despite significant medical advancements in recent years, the U.S. suffers from the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries globally. And the 2022 March of Dimes Report Card, an evaluation of maternal and infant health, gave the United States an extremely poor “D+” grade. That data also revealed that the national preterm birth rate spiked to 10.5% in 2021, representing a record 15-year high.

We are maternal fetal medicine experts and scholars of women’s health who focus on treatments and programs to help women have better maternal health, especially those that reduce preterm birth.

Our Office of Women’s Health leads the SOS Maternity Network, which stands for the Synergy of Scholars in Maternal and Infant Health Equity, a research alliance of maternal fetal medicine physicians across the state of Michigan.

Maternal and infant death are the worst possible outcomes of pregnancy. These numbers make clear just how crucial it is to change this trajectory and to ensure all Americans have practical access to quality reproductive health care.

Dire state of maternal health care

Tori Bowie, an elite Olympic athlete, tragically lost her life at just age 32 because of complications of pregnancy and childbirth.

Bowie’s story drives home the devastating state of maternal health in the U.S. Maternal mortality is a sad and unexpected ending to the often beautiful journey of pregnancy and childbirth. It means that a baby has to go without its mother’s love, care and comforting touch and at the same time the family has to mourn the sudden loss of their loved one. Unless substantial progress is made for lowering maternal deaths, the lives of over 1 million more women like Bowie could be at risk by the year 2030, if current trends continue.

Unfortunately, the maternal and infant health crises are worsening in the U.S., and this association is far from being an unfortunate coincidence. There is an important link between infant health and maternal health, as they both rely on the accessibility and quality of health care. These U.S. rates have been increasing since 2018, when improved reporting of maternal deaths was adopted.

In 2020, the U.S. maternal mortality rate was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births – nearly three times as high as the country with the next-highest rate of 8.7 deaths per 100,000 live births, France.

The number of women who died within a year after pregnancy more than doubled in the U.S. over the 20-year period of 1999 to 2019. And there are significant racial disparities in this statistic: The highest number of pregnancy-related deaths were recorded among Black women, increasing from 26.7 per 100,000 births to 55.4 per 100,000 during that same time period.

Worse yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined that about 84% of such maternal deaths are preventable.

The U.S. maternal mortality rate for Black women is nearly three times higher than that of white women.

Tragic rates of infant mortality and preterm birth

Notably, in 2020 the U.S. also experienced the highest infant mortality rate of all high-income countries. The U.S infant mortality rate was 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births, in contrast to the 1.6 deaths per 1,000 live births in Norway, the country with the lowest infant mortality rate.

You may have heard the term “preemie” before, perhaps when a loved one delivered a baby more than three weeks before the expected due date. A premature birth is one that occurs before the 37th week of pregnancy. Preterm-related causes are responsible for 35.8% of infant deaths in the U.S.

Preterm babies are often not fully physiologically prepared for delivery, which can result in a range of medical complications. While preterm births lead to rising infant mortality rates, even those who survive can face health problems such as breathing difficulties, problems with feeding, significant developmental delay and more throughout their lives. Preterm birth also presents additional risks for the mother, as women who deliver preterm are at higher risk for cardiovascular complications later in life.

Thus, preterm birth takes a significant toll on families and their communities, with serious ramifications in medical, social, psychological and financial contexts.

Maternal care during pregnancy is key

Maternal care appointments and screenings are essential to prevent prenatal complications and a women’s increased risk for developing long-term complications such as cardiovascular disease. For that reason, patients should secure prenatal care as early as possible in the pregnancy and continue to regularly have prenatal care appointments.

Preterm birth can occur unexpectedly in an otherwise normal-seeming pregnancy. It looks no different from the early signs of a typical labor, except that it occurs before 37 weeks of pregnancy. The symptoms of premature labor can include contractions, unusual vaginal discharge, the feeling of pressure in the pelvic area, low dull backache or cramps in the uterus or abdomen. A person who experiences these symptoms during pregnancy should seek medical attention.

Some people are more predisposed to preterm birth based on individual risk factors like substance use, multiple pregnancy – such as twins – infections, race, a medical history of prior preterm delivery and heightened stress levels. Our research team and others have shown that COVID-19 is a known risk factor for preterm birth.

Be aware of the risk factors for preterm birth.

It’s important to speak with your primary care provider to assess how your current health may affect future pregnancy and whether lifestyle changes – such as adopting a healthy diet and active lifestyle and avoiding smoking and drinking alcohol – can improve your likelihood of a full-term delivery.

Preterm birth prevention

The more that pregnant women take ownership of their health and ask their doctors to perform a simple cervical length screening during their pregnancy, the earlier preterm birth can be detected and prevented and the more lives will be saved.

Evidence has shown that patients with a short cervix face a greater risk of the cervix’s opening too early in pregnancy, resulting in preterm birth and other adverse outcomes. The cervix is the lower section of the uterus, which connects to the vaginal canal. As pregnancy progresses, it stretches, softens and ultimately opens in the process of normal childbirth.

All patients – even those who are seemingly low risk – should ask their doctors to have their cervical length checked by transvaginal ultrasound during pregnancy between 19 and 24 weeks. A short cervical length indicates a high risk of a premature delivery. Luckily, there are treatments available, such as vaginal progesterone, which can prevent preterm birth in women found by ultrasound to have a short cervix. This treatment can reduce the risk of preterm birth by more than 40%.

We are optimistic that with greater awareness of these issues and a shift in the focus to evidence-based practices coupled with increased access to vulnerable populations, the U.S. can begin to give women like Bowie and so many others the health care they and their infants deserve.

This article has been updated to highlight the most recent trends in maternal mortality that were reported on July 3, 2023, and to highlight the stark racial disparities.

Sonia Hassan, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Maternal Fetal Medicine, Wayne State University and Hala Ouweini, Research Associate in Women’s Health, Wayne State University

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

about infant health

Do you have “recycling bias?”

It might be time to throw your preconceptions about recycling in the garbage. A decades-long effort to educate people about recycling has mostly backfired, according to new research.

The study, published last week in Nature Sustainability, found that an overemphasis on recycling has distracted us from better options for preventing waste. In open-ended surveys, Americans overwhelmingly named recycling as the most effective thing they could do to reduce trash in landfills, overlooking more successful strategies — such as generating less waste in the first place.

“Because we have a really hard time imagining what a different, non-disposal-focused system could look like, recycling seems like the best option, right?” said Michaela Barnett, an author of the study and a former civil engineering researcher at the University of Virginia. “And it is better than landfilling, than incinerating, than littering. But people really are defaulting to that over better options, because I think they really don’t see a way out of this system that creates so much trash.”

How to build a zero-waste economy

The study revealed widespread confusion about the relative usefulness of recycling. When asked to rank the Three Rs — “reduce, reuse, recycle” — in order of effectiveness, nearly half of people got the answer wrong. (The phrase is already in the correct order.) They fared better when asked to choose between just two options, waste prevention and recycling, with 80 percent understanding that prevention was more beneficial.

Many people placed plastic bags, disposable coffee cups, and light bulbs into virtual recycling bins — all items that can’t be recycled.

Though Barnett has been “obsessed with trash” her whole life — growing up, she visited recycling centers and made impromptu stops to inspect roadside trash with her mom — she was also once afflicted with “recycling bias,” she says. She attributes the phenomenon to a long-running messaging campaign aimed at getting Americans to take responsibility for their trash. For decades, Keep America Beautiful, a nonprofit backed by corporations including Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, has been running anti-litter and pro-recycling advertisements. The campaign had the effect of shifting the blame for trash pollution to individuals, rather than the companies that designed products to be disposable.

“This has been something that’s really been hammered into us by these corporations for 50 years,” Barnett said. “It’s a very convenient out for them to continue producing and for us to continue consuming without a lot of guilt.”

While Barnett’s study showed that people thought recycling was important, they didn’t necessarily know how to do it correctly. Many people placed plastic bags, disposable coffee cups, and light bulbs into virtual recycling bins — all items that can’t be recycled. It’s not really their fault: Recycling rules are confusing and vary based on where you live. Yogurt containers, for example, aren’t accepted by most municipal recycling programs — and even centers that do take them rarely actually recycle them.

Starting in 1989, oil and gas companies lobbied for state laws mandating that the “chasing arrows” symbol appear on all plastic products, despite serious doubts that the widespread recycling of these products would ever be economically viable. Many items adorned with the chasing arrows can’t be recycled at all. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency recommended that the Federal Trade Commission ditch the logo because it was deceiving consumers.

People might slowly be catching on: Barnett’s study found that Americans weren’t confident the system was working. Less than 10 percent of all plastic produced globally gets recycled; survey respondents thought that the number was closer to 25 percent, correctly reasoning that most of what goes into the blue bin eventually ends up in the landfill.

So how should we think about recycling? For Barnett, it’s a useful tool, but its usefulness has been blown out of proportion. “Recycling is not a scam, but also not a ‘get out of jail free’ card,” she said. “We really need to be a lot more intentional with the goods we consume and the actions we take, while also putting that onus back on the producers for whom it really belongs.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/regulation/recycling-bias-study-waste-prevention/.

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

about waste and recycling

Florida bans AP psychology classes, proving Ron DeSantis wants a return to the pre-Stonewall days

According to the state of Florida, under the guidance of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, 16- and 17-year-old kids aren’t old enough to learn that gender and sexuality have an impact on human development. Well, sort of. Florida has not yet banned school dances, where students frequently bring dates. Students are not yet required to shave their heads and wear nothing but potato sacks to school, to block any display of gender identity. As far as we know, students are still allowed even to say they have a “boyfriend” or “girlfriend.” But, according to Florida law, inside the walls of a high school psychology classroom, acknowledgment that humans have gender and sexuality is strictly forbidden.

In DeSantis’ Florida, AP psychology has been effectively banned in high school, rather than let students learn “how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.” The psychology class was pulled from the state due to a law signed by DeSantis last year which forbids “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Florida Department of Education has effectively banned AP Psychology. What a terrible decision that is 100% politically motivated. pic.twitter.com/HROTUYeW7P

— Rep. Anna V. Eskamani, PhD 🔨 (@AnnaForFlorida) August 3, 2023

“Gender exists, sexual orientation exists,” an exasperated Florida teacher told Local 10 News in Miami.

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The law is being selectively applied, of course. From school proms to gendered pronouns to sex-segregated bathrooms, the DeSantis government has not cracked down on every way that gender or sexuality is acknowledged in the classroom. The reason the AP psychology class has been singled out is because it acknowledges that LGBTQ people exist. Worse for Republicans, the course refuses to stigmatize LGBTQ people as sickos and perverts.

Clearly, sexuality and gender are permitted topics in the classroom — as long as the sexuality is straight and the gender is cis.

When DeSantis first signed the ban on classroom discussion of gender or sexual orientation, critics deemed it the “don’t say gay” law, claiming that it was only queer identities that were actually being banned. DeSantis took offense, and Republicans swung into action, falsely implying that the law was only meant to keep explicit sex talk out of the classroom. But of course, the critics were soon proved right, as book bans came down that were so draconian that teachers were forced to put their entire classroom libraries out of reach of kids. What the hundreds of titles that have been banned have in common is not explicit sexuality. They are books that show LGBTQ people as normal, tell the truth about racism, or portray sexism as an oppressive force in society. Sexy books that are pro-patriarchy, it should be noted, have not been targeted for bans.

This attack on the AP psychology course is more of the same. The letter sent from the Florida Education Board to the College Board, which sets standards for advanced placement courses, cites a ban on “classroom instruction” on “sexual orientation or gender identity.” The board has not made similar moves, however, to censor classroom materials that teach, say, that married straight couples exist. Books are not being banned for saying “man” or “woman” or even “husband” or “wife.” Clearly, sexuality and gender are permitted topics in the classroom — as long as the sexuality is straight and the gender is cis.

Florida Republicans revive deadly “queers recruit” myth with passage of “don’t say gay” bill

As the College Board noted in their response, “The American Psychological Association recently reaffirmed that any course that excludes these topics would violate their guidelines and should not be considered for college credit.” It’s not a great leap to suggest that what DeSantis and his allies object to is that the American Psychological Association (APA) doesn’t just acknowledge the existence of queer sexualities or trans identities, but that they affirm these identities as normal and healthy. The APA’s website notes, “Both heterosexual behavior and homosexual behavior are normal aspects of human sexuality.” The site also argues, “identifying as transgender does not constitute a mental disorder.” It’s not much of a leap to say that these are the ideas that DeSantis and his allies are objecting to, instead of a general opposition to acknowledging that sex and gender are real and influence people’s lives.

“This law is yet another attempt to erase LGBTQ+ people from public view based on biased thinking and irrational fear,” APA CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr. said in a statement.

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It wasn’t always true that the psychological establishment was willing to admit that gender non-conformity and queer sexualities are healthy. It wasn’t until 1973, four years after the famous Stonewall riot that helped kick off the modern gay rights movement, that the American Psychiatric Association stopped classifying “homosexuality” as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Trans people are still often diagnosed with “gender dysphoria,” which many say is unfairly stigmatizing. But there’s been a hesitance to change that, mainly because such a diagnosis can make it easier to get insurance coverage for the recommended treatment, which is gender transition.

By making this move, DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Florida Education Board are attacking the past five decades of the psychological establishment affirming LGBTQ identities as normal and healthy. There’s little doubt Republicans would be fine with allowing high school students to take AP psychology courses if the lessons were from pre-Stonewall days and taught that gay people are “sick.” Doing so would not just be morally reprehensible, but flat-out dishonest. As both the College Board and the APA have repeatedly reiterated, they didn’t just invent “gay is OK!” out of thin air. It’s the conclusion of decades of scientific research that shows, again and again, that the only mental health issues that stem from LGBTQ identities are the undeserved hate they face from society.

The simple reason why Ron DeSantis keeps finding his campaign embroiled in scandal

Of course, DeSantis has made it clear that he is not interested in facts, science, or history. He believes he can and should rewrite reality to conform to his own small-minded bigotries. He wants to believe slavery was a beneficial gift white people gave to Black people, and so now Florida schools are required to teach lies about how it “benefited” Black people to be enslaved. He wants to believe LGBTQ people are “sick” and “groomers,” so he will ban classes that teach the scientific consensus that shows otherwise.

This is bigotry, but also part of a larger war DeSantis is waging on the value of public education itself. Around 30,000 Florida students were scheduled to take the AP psychology course this year, and the vast majority of them were hoping to use it as part of the larger goal to get a college education. Many of them would have been able to use the high school course for college credit, which helps many kids save on tuition and graduate faster. Others were using it to enhance their GPA and resume, to get scholarships or placement in their preferred universities.

But even though DeSantis graduated from Yale and Harvard Law, he takes a dim view of other people trying to avail themselves of the same opportunities for higher education. He’s been waging a full-scale assault on universities in Florida, driving out academic talent and turning the once-beloved New College into a right-wing indoctrination mill. He claims this is about a war on “woke,” which is, at best, a vaguely defined term and usually a racist dog whistle. But the dripping contempt he has for educators shines through in every word he says on this subject. Education is about teaching people to grapple with reality and develop critical thinking, both skills DeSantis loathes. So of course he hates education and is just using these shiny culture war distractions as cover for what is a larger attempt to turn his state into a hotbed of ignorance.

about DeSantis

What climate change deniers get totally wrong about the Little Ice Age

When we typically think of an ice age, the first thing that comes to mind is often prehistoric humans hunting woolly mammoths or battling saber-toothed tigers. Technically, an ice age is a prolonged period of colder climates when polar and mountain ice sheets are unusually extensive across the earth’s surface and on geological timescales, they happen regularly. During the last ice age, some 16,000 ago, Earth’s northern hemisphere was blanketed in ice about two miles thick.

But during the Little Ice Age — a period of regional cooling beginning around 700 years ago, especially in the North Atlantic region — things were a lot less intense. During long stretches of the Little Ice Age, seasonal winters would be unusually cold and the following summers were merely mild instead of hot. And while the recent rash of record-breaking heatwaves might make an ice age sound nice right about now, the period was marked by bitter winters, deadly plagues and brutal famines, including one that killed about 10 percent of Europe’s population. Strangely, this little interval in Earth’s history is often used to deny the realities of climate change.

Ever since the 2000s, climate change deniers have been forcefully peddling their pseudoscience to the political mainstream, an astonishing feat given the irrefutable evidence for ecosystem collapse all around us. Many of these deniers are either motivated by political partisanship or are actually being paid by fossil fuel companies, employing a wide-range of tactics to sow doubt about human-driven global warming.

Ultimately, their goal is to convince the world that humans do not need to stop burning fossil fuels, emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, thereby changing our atmosphere’s composition and unnaturally heating the planet.

In reality, the Little Ice Age actually demonstrates just how fragile the Earth’s climate is.

Climate change deniers often uphold the Little Ice Age, which lasted roughly from the early 14th century through the mid-19th century, as evidence that climatologists are lying. Scientists disagree on the exact length of this event, as well as when its intensity got better or worse, but few dispute that it happened. Yet climate change deniers argue that this proves fluctuations in climate are not caused by humans, as indeed this period predates the industrial revolution.

In reality, the Little Ice Age actually demonstrates just how fragile the Earth’s climate is — and, by extension, just how easily human beings (or anything else) can radically change it. Additionally, it demonstrates how superstition prevailed in that era in ways not intellectually or emotionally dissimilar from the denialism seen today.

Climate change denial hit its stride in the Bush-Cheney era, precipitating today’s climate disaster

“During the onset of the Little Ice Age, intriguing historical records reveal that European populations attributed magical beliefs to weather manipulation,” Francois Lapointe, a postdoctoral associate in the University of Massachusetts’ Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences, told Salon by email. Lapointe added that the written archives reveal that medieval Europeans believed mystical practices controlled the weather, which they noticed was getting colder during their own lifetimes.

“It is noteworthy that periods of intensified volcanic eruptions, which contributed to the cooling during the Little Ice Age, coincided with peaks of persecution against individuals accused of witchcraft,” Lapointe added. “These unfortunate ‘witches’ were often blamed for causing disastrous weather conditions and crop failures. The correlation between increased volcanic activity and the rise in witch persecutions suggests that climate-induced hardships during the Little Ice Age fueled fears and superstitions about supposed weather manipulation.”

From there Lapointe pivoted to the climate change deniers of today, who he argued are “impeding efforts to address this urgent global crisis and inflicting severe consequences on our planet. Climate change denial, perpetuated by certain groups and individuals, fosters doubt and confusion, undermining public understanding and hindering collective action on this critical issue.”

Yet what actually happened during the Little Ice Age? The short answer is that there were a number of complex causes, and as such scientists today do not know for sure. Yet when speaking with Salon, Mark C. Serreze — the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) — offered a fascinating breakdown of the ingredients that led to the lengthy cold weather snap known as the Little Ice Age.

“There is no single reason for it,” Serreze told Salon, adding that this was not a single monolithic era but rather “a long period where there were several cold air cold periods, separated by somewhat warmer intervals.”

Yet despite the lack of any “clear resolution” regarding its exact cause, scientists know some of the various elements that played a role. Among these are solar output.

“We know that when sunspot activity is low, we tend to have less solar radiation coming through, and so that seems to be part of it,” Serreze explained. “But other things were going on as well. There’s very strong evidence that there was an extended period of volcanic activity. And we know that an individual big volcanic eruption — say Mount Pinatubo in 1991 — actually had a signal in global cooling.”

Based on what we know from ice cores and other scientific evidence, we can deduce that there was “an extended period of volcanic activity,” one that — like emitting greenhouse gases from fossil fuels — “put all kinds of stuff up on the stratosphere, stratospheric aerosols and that initiated some cooling.”

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We can deduce that there was “an extended period of volcanic activity,” one that — like emitting greenhouse gases from fossil fuels — “put all kinds of stuff up on the stratosphere…”

Nor were reduced sunspot activity and increased volcanic activity alone in causing the Little Ice Age. In the early 20th century, Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovitch speculated that as Earth’s position relative to the Sun changes, there are long-term and cumulative effects that alter Earth’s climate. This is now known as the Milankovitch Effect.

“What happened is that, if you look back at Earth’s history over the past 2000 years, we were in a period where because of changes in Earth’s tilt, there was an overall global cooling going on,” Serreze observed. “And that turned around right around the mid-to-end of the 19th century to the warming that we see today.”

Yet there is also a fourth factor that Serreze lists in addition to solar activity, volcanic activity and changes in the Earth’s orbital geometry. It all comes down to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC for short. This system of ocean currents — which is also being destabilized by climate change — includes one “belt” of ocean water that flows north and is warm, so that upon reaching the northern Atlantic it cools and evaporates. While that happens, AMOC causes the water in that region to become saltier and therefore both colder and heavier, sinking and flowing south to create a second belt. These two currents are connected by other oceanic features in the Labrador Sea, the Nordic Sea and the Southern Ocean.

In terms of modern climate change, the ongoing concern is that if AMOC slows down too much or stops entirely, temperatures in Europe will plummet to Little Ice Age levels and the number of extreme storms all over the world will increase. As for the Little Ice Age, “there is evidence from ocean cores and things like this that that overturning circulation may have been disrupted somehow so that it wasn’t bringing the warmth into Northern Europe that it normally would.”

Lapointe also added a new interesting hypothesis to understanding what exacerbated the Little Ice Age — namely, that Western colonization of the American continents played a significant role.

The logical fallacy committed by those who sincerely believe that the Little Ice Age disproves climate change is that, because humans were not responsible on that particular occasion, they assume this means they could not be responsible today.

“On a more speculative yet interesting hypothesis is the ‘Great Dying’ of the Americas,” Lapointe argued. “In 1492, Christopher Columbus reached the Americas, initiating a significant period of European exploration and colonization. Over the ensuing decades, Europeans encountered Indigenous American populations, leading to conflicts, violence and the introduction of deadly diseases. Among the most devastating diseases brought by Europeans was smallpox, which resulted in the deaths of millions of Indigenous Americans, causing immeasurable tragedy and loss of life.”

The hypothesis, Lapointe asserted, is that in addition to the horrors of the Western genocide against indigenous peoples, “the colonization process may have had unintended ecological ramifications with potential climate implications. Many Indigenous American communities were skilled farmers who practiced land cultivation and clearance for agricultural purposes. The arrival of European colonists disrupted these established farming practices, leading to depopulation in certain regions.”

Since the forests were left untended, the hypothesis holds that “the reforestation following the decline of Indigenous American populations might have resulted in a temporary drawdown of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The increased forest cover could have absorbed CO2 through photosynthesis, thus contributing to a cooling effect on the planet,” Lapointe said.

If there is one consistent lesson that can be drawn from what science tells humans about the Little Ice Age, it is that the climate is a delicate combination of elements that can be dramatically changed by outside variables. Perhaps the logical fallacy committed by those who sincerely believe that the Little Ice Age disproves climate change is that, because humans were not responsible on that particular occasion, they assume this means they could not be responsible today. Yet that mindset is inherently unscientific, according to anthropologist Brian Fagan, who wrote a 2000 book called “The Little Ice Age” and is professor emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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“Natural climate change has been with us since humans first evolved on earth. It is constant and will continue to challenge us,” Fagan wrote to Salon. “The data that documents this from a wide variety of scientific and historical sources is beyond question. So is the firm scientific evidence for climate change caused by human activity, which is accumulating very rapidly and on a scale that is now beyond question.”

Fagan added, “If you wish to deny that the evidence for this exists, then you are challenging the basic tenets of science — and that is delusional. It’s the same old mix of conspiracy theories, tired, outmoded ideologies and long discredited scientific theories that hold even less water than they did a century ago. We are living in a climatically very different world, manipulated in considerable part by human activity. Climate change denial is delusional with a capital D. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.”

about climate change

Why Donald Trump’s right to a speedy Jan. 6 trial matters

We have all been focusing on the contents of the new special counsel indictment of former president Donald Trump — and rightly so. United States vs. Donald Trump will be the most anticipated trial in this country’s history. But the when is as important as the what. It is essential that this case go to the head of the queue.

Both for our democracy and for the many other cases against the former President—including the criminal ones and the likely coming 14th Amendment challenges to Trump appearing on the ballot should, and in our estimation likely will be, tried first. We believe Judge Tanya Chutkan will order that when she sets a trial day at the first status conference on August 28.

Why does speed matter so much? The American people need to know if one of the likely major party candidates attacked the foundation of our democracy. Although it has long been clear enough that Trump can be convicted for these crimes — as we recently detailed in a Model Prosecution Memo several weeks before the indictment was filed — that is no substitute for a judgment by a jury of Trump’s peers. With Trump being a frontrunner for the presidency, voters deserve to have a verdict about whether he is a democracy criminal to inform their decisions.

But this case is also important due to its impact on other matters. If the prosecution is successful, it will put the winds in the sails of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s cases in Georgia and Michigan, respectively. It would prove some of the same points those prosecutors are raising about fake electors and the rest, demonstrating that these cases are not partisan “witch hunts,” as Trump often claims. Instead, it would conclusively show that there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing for a jury to convict, laying a foundation for convictions in those state matters.

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And it is not just the criminal cases that a conviction would strengthen. For example, there is a very real possibility that a conviction here will support efforts of others to seek disqualification of Trump from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits election to office for anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” 

With Trump being a frontrunner for the presidency, voters deserve to have a verdict about whether he is a democracy criminal to inform their decisions.

The indictment is replete with just such allegations, and a conviction would go a long way to supporting a case for disqualification. Whether through existing mandamus or quo warranto actions, state and federal officials — as well as private citizens — can seek to disqualify a candidate who has engaged in insurrection from holding office. Although Trump was not indicted with insurrection, he was charged in the indictment with conduct prohibited under Section 3: giving aid to those storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

For example, he is alleged to have done so through his tweets that day fanning the flames, such as by targeting the vice president during the violence—and by failing to put out the conflagration. Thus, a jury verdict could be used by those pressing legal action to support the effort to disqualify him from the ballot.

There are therefore many reasons this case should be brought as swiftly as possible. We have handled criminal cases for decades and have had the experience of a so-called rocket docket, cases that can zoom ahead to trial at rapid speed. This one can and should be treated that way.

Prosecutors ask for protective order after Trump makes threatening statement on Truth Social

For starters, there’s special counsel Jack Smith’s statement that he intends to seek a speedy trial. He has backed that up by streamlining the case. It’s just Trump who is charged. There are no named co-defendants.That means a drastic paring down of potential legal battles that could otherwise slow down the case.

Next, the charges are relatively simple. That severely cuts down on pretrial battles. By bringing a relatively simple case theory, that means there is likely to be less discovery (and less feuding over discovery), as well as fewer motions to dismiss and regarding evidentiary and admissibility issues. Notably, pretrial appeals in federal criminal cases are unusual and likely would not be available here — so there’s little risk of a delay on account of an appeal (or appeals) by Trump. In any event, the court likely would not stay the case were Trump to attempt an appeal of the pretrial issues presented here.

It is essential that this case go to the head of the queue.

The charges here are, moreover, garden-variety ones that are used frequently in the federal system. Conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 371) is one of the most commonly charged crimes in the Code book. Obstruction of an official proceeding (18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)) has been used hundreds of times now in prosecutions relating to the Jan. 6 insurrection. And conspiracy against rights (18 U.S.C. § 241) has often been used to prosecute election fraud. So there are no novel legal theories and there is a huge trove of precedent from which to draw that will streamline any motion practice.

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Nor will the likely defenses slow the case down much. Trump’s defense lawyer John Lauro previewed them in a round of cable appearances Tuesday. For example, he claims First Amendment protection for Trump’s alleged misconduct. But the former president can’t assert that the Constitution protects him from allegedly criminal acts any more than a bank robber can claim constitutional protection for saying “stick em up.”

Judge Chutkan will make short work of any pretrial motions based on such defenses, and this case can move more quickly than the Florida documents case. That case is currently set for May 2024 but will be the subject of many motions and evidentiary issues, including how classified documents can be used at a public trial.

Indeed, there already appears to be an early trial date available for the new case before the Florida trial. That is because Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has reserved a trial date in March 2024 and has suggested he may step aside to give his slot to Smith for this matter.

Judge Chutkan will likely be disposed to allow Smith to take Bragg up on that offer. She is already speeding things along, setting an August 28 status conference and announcing that she will set a trial date at that time. Before her appointment, she had decades of experience as a trial attorney and her brisk pace shows it. That experience combined with a tireless work ethic was on full display in her prompt ruling in Trump v. Thompson dealing with some of these same issues — and fast. She has the background and ability to move the case along as briskly as anyone.

Of course, there are no guarantees when it comes to criminal law. So while we cannot be assured of this timing, to us it seems highly likely. That means it’s time for us all to fasten our seatbelts — it’s going to be a speedy ride. 

about the Trump prosecutions

“And Just Like That,” Charlotte reminds us of the longstanding fatphobia in “Sex and the City”

Expecting “And Just Like That…” to model aging gracefully is folly. Expecting the show to considerately explore the insecurities surrounding the maturing female body is – I can’t even finish that sentence. If you’re at all familiar with the various legacies wrought by “Sex and the City,” I shouldn’t need to.

Among that show’s many shortcomings is its casual fatphobia and general body shaming which, in a few memorable cases, was used as that week’s object lesson. In “Sex and the City” Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) are constantly encountering scenarios reminding them of their bodies’ unruliness or unworthiness.

Even Samantha (Kim Cattrall), who announces near the beginning of the show that she’s fine with her body ends up lamenting her slight weight gain later on. There’s a realism to this, especially as women journey farther into middle age and find, as Charlotte does in “A Hundred Years Ago,” that losing weight gets harder as we grow older.

“I mean, in my 30s and 40s, I could drop five pounds like that!” she frustratedly chirps to Anthony (Mario Cantone) in one of their unburdening phone calls. “And now, nothing is working. I hate menopause! It’s the devil.”

We’re with you, sister. Or we would be if the reason for this epiphany weren’t so ludicrous.

“And Just Like That,” out comes Karen

Charlotte is returning to work after years of stay-at-home motherhood and is desperate to make the right impression. She treats herself to a belted dress accurately described as Shirley Temple-meets-not-fully-deprogrammed-Wednesday Addams chic – one that she wears well, but the 20-something boutique clerk makes her question by presenting her with matronly alternatives.

This sets off Charlotte’s fear of irrelevance, specifically as that pertains to the art world where gallery owners tend to hire rail-thin younglings. To psych herself up, Charlotte hangs up a photo of herself when she was in her prime.

Hooray for fat-bottomed girls. This show tells us they exist to make Charlotte and other size 4s and 6s feel better about themselves.

But when she zips herself into the dress, the reminder of her youth has the opposite effect: she grows distressed at her lower abdominal region which, to be clear, is entirely in proportion with her slender frame. Charlotte insists there’s a paunch, but nobody else sees it. Not her children, not Harry (Evan Handler), who reviews the look with a va-va-voom. Charlotte insists it’s all wrong: “The belt is supposed to be down here, but it keeps riding up because of my belly.”

“So lose the belt,” Harry says.

“Everybody keeps saying to lose the belt! But the belt’s the whole thing,” Charlotte insists, adding, “I don’t need to lose the belt, I need to lose the belly.”

Reader, she does not lose the belly because again – it’s not actually there. Instead, she stuffs herself into at least three versions of shapewear before tottering out to gasp farewell to Lilly and Rock in an uncomfortably high register.

Kristin Davis in “And Just Like That” (Max)She makes it down the street to her new gallery, where she’s greeted by her fears, i.e. two gamines in high fashion black, who refer her to their supervisor – a zaftig woman of an unknown double digit size wearing a crop top that exposes her midriff. Charlotte’s new boss looks comfortable in her skin and urges Charlotte to get comfortable.

So a smiling Charlotte excuses herself to the employee restroom where she ditches her triple layers of elastic torture and puts on her belt.

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Progressive, right? Hooray for body-loving fat-bottomed girls. Queen says they make the world go ’round, and this show tells us they exist to make Charlotte and other size 4’s and 6’s feel better about themselves.

Look, I go hard on this show. It’s my job! And if not for this, the episode “A Hundred Years Ago” would have much worth remarking on since it continues the story of Carrie’s reconnection with Aidan (John Corbett) and examines how her rekindling of that flame impacts her new friend and, until Aidan, fellow singleton Seema (Sarita Choudhury) who worries she’s being edged out of Carrie’s life. But that fixes itself, and we discover that Carrie’s having the best orgasms of her life. Good news for her!

Next to that, Charlotte’s pudge paranoia is a thimble of that bone broth she forlornly sucks down in her quick weight-loss quest. That is, until series creator Michael Patrick King, who co-wrote the episode with Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky, decided to go the “fat lady as confidence builder” route. Take it from somebody who knows – this is a tired look.

For a franchise that still hasn’t ameliorated its size diversity shortcomings, it’s also what passes for body positivity.

Among all the original characters, Davis’ has long harbored the most hang-ups about her physique even in her prime. “Oooh, I hate my thighs!” she seethes in Season 1 “Sex and the City” episode “Models and Mortals,” adding, ” I can’t even open a magazine without thinking ‘thighs, thighs, thighs.'”

The “fat lady as confidence builder” is a tired look. For a franchise that still hasn’t ameliorated its size diversity shortcomings, it’s also what passes for body positivity.

That half-hour taps into our love-hate relationship with the fashion industry and the unattainable beauty standards it promotes to “average” women. Except Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte were never average. There were always well-to-do before two of them married into massive wealth, while Miranda made a fine living as a New York lawyer. And they were also unforgiving of fatness. Several episodes were devoted to Miranda’s self-loathing related to her weight gain during pregnancy. Even Carrie took pleasure in finding out that Natasha, the woman Big chose to marry instead of her, used to be chubby.

Charlotte has never been entirely comfortable in her skin, which may inform why she’s so ardently sex-positive with her children. And there’s an intelligence in that rendering, as if she admirably recognizes that she doesn’t want her kids to inherit her bugaboos.

So the sticking point isn’t Charlotte’s insecurity, which is played for laughs by showing the ludicrous extremes to which she’ll subject herself in pursuit of her youthful figure. I mean, who among us hasn’t tortured themselves thusly?

No, what’s problematic is the way that bathroom dash to flush her Spanx transforms the gallery manager into an object to which our sparrow-boned Charlotte can positively compare herself.

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In that subplot’s denouement King and his co-writers may believe they’re giving a nod to the Lizzo revolution when, instead, they’re regressing to the many headlines pleading with well-meaning folk, usually teeny white women, to stop congratulating fat people for their perceived bravery or confidence when all they’re doing is living.

As a series that resumes the stories of three of the most iconic women in pop culture in middle age, one would like to think they’d find more inroads to conversations about how women’s bodies change over time, something not often broached in TV and movies.

Part of that is menopausal weight gain. Charlotte’s right – it sucks! But most of us deal with it and maybe buy new clothes, some with belts we’ll keep or lose. One wishes the writers of “A Hundred Years Ago” had a good sense to bring Charlotte to that conclusion on her own instead of involving a bystander we may never get to know beyond that moment. Then again considering how clumsily this show handles most everything else that falls outside of the original “Sex and the City” perspective, perhaps that’s for the best.

New episodes of “And Just Like That” debut Thursdays on Max.

about “And Just Like That”

Even Republicans like Richard Nixon were once champions of the environment. What happened?

Five days before astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot upon the Moon, the American president who sent him there dispatched his Vice President to go on an important mission of his own. Speaking to the American Medical Association Convention, Spiro Agnew reflected that although America was “capable of catapulting men to the Moon,” the nation was also “in mortal danger of devouring its irreplaceable life-sustaining elements through simultaneous genius and foolishness.”

Even as NASA under the Nixon administration had used the “blessings” of modern technology to forever change history, “the curse of modern society is man’s inability to eliminate — or at least to neutralize — the adverse effects of his own creativity,” Agnew said.

“Carter’s policies, had they continued, would have been bad. But Reagan’s were downright cataclysmic.”

Agnew was referring to environmental pollution, of course. His tone reflected the bipartisan consensus which existed at the time on the need for environmental reform: “We are bringing a national plague upon ourselves. It is the plague of a polluted environment.”

Climate change denial hit its stride in the Bush-Cheney era, precipitating today’s climate disaster

As humanity endures extreme heatwaves, wildfires, massive floods, ecosystem collapse and the other consequences of climate change — which is occurring because of carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels — it is imperative to look back at recent American history and examine how things might have gone differently. At first glance, it is telling that a Republican president like Richard Nixon passed pro-environmental policies at all, given that the modern GOP is staunchly against environmental reforms.

Although Nixon was more liberal on domestic issues than many of his contemporaries were willing to admit, his support of eco-friendly causes had less to do with conviction than with pragmatism. Nixon read the room, so to speak — and, at that point in American history, reading the room meant supporting environmental reform.

Nixon read the room, which meant supporting environmental reform.

“Nixon was and is overrated as an environmental president,” David Helvarg, Executive Director of the conservation activist organization Blue Frontier Campaign, told Salon by email.

Rick Perlstein, an American historian and journalist who has penned acclaimed books on the 1960s and 1970s like “Before the Storm” and “Nixonland,” pointed out to Salon that Nixon worried about running against Democratic Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine in the 1972 presidential election. Polls consistently showed that Muskie would be a tough candidate for Nixon to beat, and because Muskie was the main environmental senator with “a storied career” promoting anti-pollution legislation, being pro-environment could help Nixon co-opt one of Muskie’s signature issues.

Dumped barrels containing hazardous chemicals remain on a 4.5 acre site after the Silresim Chemical Corp. declares bankruptcy, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA, 22nd August 1978. (Barbara Alper/Getty Images)If Muskie was going to garner headlines by quipping to automobile companies that they shouldn’t stay in business if they couldn’t adopt rigid pollution controls, Nixon would do so more substantively by creating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA was far from Nixon’s only landmark environmental policy. He amended the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to strengthen regulators’ ability to clean up the environment; created the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and repeatedly directed federal energies toward controlling air pollution, water pollution and the safe disposal of hazardous waste materials. These were proactive measures that made a real difference in improving the quality of the environment — and these policies channeled an ethos that could have nipped climate change in the bud, assuming it had lasted beyond the 1970s.

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“Yet the science was well-enough known to anticipate that more warming would likely occur given a continuation of fossil fuel burning. And that, of course, is what has happened.”

“Warming had been muted by sulphate aerosol pollution (the same pollution that caused acid rain was also offsetting some of the CO2-driven warming by reflecting sunlight back to space),” Michael E. Mann, a professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, told Salon by email. “Yet the science was well-enough known to anticipate that more warming would likely occur given a continuation of fossil fuel burning. And that, of course, is what has happened.”

Indeed, the Democratic president who followed Nixon and his successor Gerald Ford (a Republican who briefly assumed office after Nixon resigned in disgrace due to the Watergate scandal) was Jimmy Carter, who famously installed solar panels on the White House. Carter intended to signal technology as a solution to a nation in danger of (as Agnew had put it) “devouring its irreplaceable life-sustaining elements through simultaneous genius and foolishness.”

“Jimmy Carter established himself as having environmental concerns and Frank Press from [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] wrote a memo about [the] possibilities of catastrophic climate change to Carter in July 1977,” Kevin E. Trenberth, distinguished scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, wrote to Salon. He added that “Carter’s concerns have proven real and, unfortunately, before their time.”

Trenberth praised Carter for some of his policies including setting up tax credits for home owners for installing solar panels in 1977. The president also passed the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (which doubled the amount of land used for parks and wildlife refuges) and created Superfund, which helped clean up contaminated factory and mining sites.

“I took advantage and had solar panels installed on our house in Boulder,” Trenberth said. “These heated a fluid that took heat into my house and heated water in a huge 200 gallon tank. So our hot water was essentially free from then on.”

Like Mann, Trenberth noted that if the same ethic which led to pro-environmental legislation in the ’70s had lasted, we may quite literally inhabit a different world than the current climate change-ravaged one.

“With the 1976-77 El Niño event, climate change in terms of global temperatures was kicked off. But at the time, this was not that unusual,” Trenberth explained. “Only in retrospect can we now see that it was about 1976 that the climate change signal emerged above the noise of natural variability.”

“With the 1976-77 El Niño event climate change in terms of global temperatures was kicked off. But at the time this was not that unusual.”

Perlstein, for his part, was more critical of Carter. He argued that the president “gets all this credit for this highly symbolic action of putting solar panels on the roof of the White House. But if you actually look at his energy plan … its priority was much more than conservation, but was what I would call ‘economic nationalism.’ Fossil fuels came from these unstable countries in the Middle East, but we have lots of coal here. So he incentivized factories to switch from petroleum fuel power plants to coal.”

Yet despite these less-than-environmentalist actions, Perlstein emphatically stated that Carter’s approach — which at least acknowledged scientific reality, even if it sometimes subordinated that knowledge to political strategizing — was better than what followed.

“Carter’s policies, had they continued, would have been bad,” Perlstein wrote. “But Reagan’s were downright cataclysmic. He and his advisors simply despised the notion of using the power of government to regulate environmental harm.”

The problem, in terms of American history after the 1970s, is that Carter was followed by true believers of a concerted anti-science campaign, one led by the businesses most responsible for polluting: fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, BP and Shell. Carter’s successor, Republican Ronald Reagan, was something that Nixon had not been — overtly hostile to science.

“Corporate America just became more activist, politically, in all sorts of ways, in much more aggressive ways, partially because their profits were falling,” Perlstein explained. This story is discussed in his book “Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980.” Thanks to the rise of Reagan and his right-wing movement, “another thing that changed was an ideological opposition to the very idea of environmentalism.”

Whenever possible, the Reagan administration sided with polluters over environmentalists, and during the 1980s climate change significantly worsened instead of improving. Subsequent presidents embraced Reagan’s conservative philosophy when it came to environmentalism, and by the time Reagan’s fellow Republican George W. Bush was in office, that conservatism seemed to always be accompanied by climate change denialism, as it is today.

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According to Mann, “The fossil fuel industry and the Republican party that has become beholden to them” led the charge in destroying the bipartisan consensus that once existed to clean up pollution, and by extension climate change.

“It wasn’t always that way. George W Bush, as I recount in ‘The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars,’ actually campaigned on climate action and appointed a climate-forward EPA administrator (Christine Todd Whitman). It was only when [Vice President] Dick Cheney took over energy and environmental policy midway through Bush’s first term that the party became a wholly-own subsidiary of polluters, as it is today.”

Mann added — referring to a subsequent historical occasion in which a pro-environmental politician lost to an anti-science one — “If Al Gore’s apparent victory [in the 2000 election] hadn’t been taken away by a Republican-leaning Supreme Court, we would be in a much, much better place today.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Nixon approved the Clean Water Act of 1972. In fact, he vetoed the bill but Congress then overrode the veto and passed it. It also neglected to mention Jimmy Carter’s passage of the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act and the creation of Superfund. The article has been updated.

about climate change

My savory-sweet Cream of Wheat hook-up that will change your breakfast

I feel like my gourmet Cream of Wheat hook-up should force the producers from FX’s “The Bear” to cast me in season 3 as L-Boy’s cousin, a rough-around-the-edges, self-taught culinary genius with the skillset to take Sydney and Carmy to the next level. Well, maybe not, but this quick breakfast or brunch dish is top-tier.

Have you ever heard of a hook-up? And no, I’m talking about dating or anything romantic, really. A hook-up is like the Black people’s version of a casserole.

The Baltimore corner store sandwich that helped me fall in love with breakfast

Admittedly, I never heard of, thought about, or even considered casserole until I made white friends. They grew up on it, talked about it with great nostalgia and looked at me like I had three heads when I would tell them that I never had it. I always shot them the same looks back because, to this day, none of my white friends can accurately define casserole without saying something like, “Well, D, you just throw a whole bunch of stuff in a pan, cover it with cheese and bake it.”

The idea of a casserole never made any sense to me until I compared it with a hook-up, and I know all about hook-ups.

To my knowledge, the term hook-up comes from prison and literally means taking whatever available ingredients you have and hooking something up — like chocolate chip peanut butter oatmeal, baked chicken with a Cinnamon Toast crunch garnish, or pan-fried slices of white bread drenched in butter and glazed with King Syrup, to give you a few examples. Jail is just like living in poverty. You use the tools you have and try to make the best out of it.

That’s where the foundation of my Cream of Wheat hook-up came from, though I wasn’t in poverty or jail at the time of its creation.

It was during the COVID lockdown, at a time when it seemed one of the most dangerous things one could do was take a trip to the market. Grocery store runs required a mask, gloves and a healthy supply of Lysol wipes. My wife and I began relying on Instacart, but workers were few and far between, and sometimes it was impossible to get a delivery. On one of those more difficult days, I went to the kitchen thinking of making eggs, Beyond Meat sausage and cheddar grits, a meal I had been eating religiously for breakfast and lunch. So, I wasn’t surprised when I reached the kitchen and discovered that the grits were gone, the Beyond Meat box was empty and there was no cheddar.

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Instacart was backed up that day, worse than usual, and I knew I would have to wait 1,000 years before I could get a delivery. So, I started digging around in the kitchen and saw that we had plenty of Cream of Wheat, agave nectar, some turkey bacon that was frozen into sodium-heavy popsicles and shaved parmesan cheese, one of my favorites — definitely enough to hook something up.

I popped the turkey bacon in the sink and ran some water over it before going into the living room and seeing, once again, if I could get lucky with Whole Foods or Instacart delivery, but I didn’t. But, by the time I realized there would be no delivery until tomorrow, I was already back in the kitchen, peeling the newly-thawed turkey bacon out of the pack and popping them into my small bacon pan. While my strips fried, I boiled enough water for two servings of Cream of Wheat and whipped it up with a teaspoon of old-school butter. Meanwhile, I cracked three eggs, removed two of the yolks because I’m fake healthy, and poured the rest into my trusty nonstick omelet pan.

As the eggs began to form, I dusted them with curry powder, pepper and salt, and then sprinkled a healthy amount of shaved parmesan in the center before folding it into a “D” shape. Now time to plate. Place your Cream of Wheat into a bowl and sweeten it with agave nectar (or whatever kind of sweetener you have on hand). Sit your pretty, folded and spiced egg on the Cream of Wheat, and then stick your bacon in the dish next to the egg. It looks good when the strips hang out of the bowl a little.

There’s your Cream of Wheat hook-up — it’s sweet, it’s savory, it’s delicious.

about this topic

Fur farms are breeding grounds for disease and a public health threat. It’s time to shut them down

In early August 2023, Finland’s food authority ordered three of the nation’s fur farms to slaughter 50,000 of their animals. The purpose was not to create new fur coats, but to stop a virus: the H5N1 influenza strain, also known as “bird flu,” which had been detected on those farms. Because Finland and Norway are already facing an H5N1 outbreak, their governments are being especially cautious, aware that fur farms — in particular, mink farms — are notoriously potent incubators for dangerous diseases.

In a worst case scenario, H5N1 or another virus could mutate in a mink and infect a human — and this is why many experts believe fur-producing facilities such as mink farms should be abolished.

According to Dr. James Keen, an expert on zoonotic diseases who studied outbreaks as a senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the threat posed by facilities like mink farms is simply too grave.

“Mink fur farming (as well as raccoon dog and fox fur farming) should be banned for both humane and zoonotic disease risk reasons.”

“There is a valid reason to be concerned about bird flu H5N1 creating a mutant viral strain with pandemic potential in people,” Keen told Salon by email. “Farmed mink in both Spain and Finland have now been shown to become infected with bird flu H5N1. More fur-farmed mink outbreaks will surely follow. Mink fur farming (as well as raccoon dog and fox fur farming) should be banned for both humane and zoonotic disease risk reasons.”

Zombie mink, infected escapees, and COVID outbreaks: How mink farms became a political flash point

Keen noted how farmed mink tend to fare very poorly, fighting each other and engaging in acts of cannibalism and self-mutilation due to the intense stress of living in cramped, densely populated conditions.

“You cannot separate the inhumane conditions of factory fur-farmed mink from their susceptibility and propensity to acquire and spread infectious diseases to other mink, wild animals, or people,” Keen said. “Mink are not just more susceptible to COVID-19 and bird flu H5N1 on a molecular level, they also get sick more than other animals because of their high density, high-stress farm environments to which they are genetically, behaviorally, and physiologically maladapted.”

“Mink fur farming (as well as raccoon dog and fox fur farming) should be banned for both humane and zoonotic disease risk reasons.”

It is easy to find anecdotes supporting Keen’s observation about cruelty on mink farms. Speaking to Salon in 2021 about his experiences growing up on a mink farm, Scott Beckstead — who is now director of campaigns for animal wellness action at the Center for a Humane Economy — recalled one mink with a beautiful bluish coat that literally died from terror.

“The foreman pulled out this sapphire female, and she struggled and she screamed,” Beckstead told Salon, describing an incident that occurred in one of the last years that he visited his grandfather’s southern Idaho mink farm. “Then she went limp. She literally died. There is no doubt that she was terrified. She had watched what was happening to the mink next to her. I think, honestly, the only explanation is that she died of sheer terror.”

Even without the horrid living conditions weakening their bodies and minds, however, farmed mink would still be unusually disease prone because of what Keen earlier described at the molecular level.

“Mink are highly susceptible to respiratory viruses, which we know pass back and forth between mink and the humans working at fur farms,” Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, wrote to Salon. “The crowded conditions they exist in at fur farms, and the close contact and handling that are part and parcel of these operations are ideal for disease transmission.”

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“Mink are highly susceptible to respiratory viruses, which we know pass back and forth between mink and the humans working at fur farms.”

Keen broke down the exact science of why mink are so disease-prone. From an evolutionary standpoint, mink in the wild “are solitary carnivores. Carnivores have an inherent susceptibility to becoming infected with, but not clear, bacterial and viral infections, making them pathogen carriers.” Carnivorous mammals like mink have inherent deficiencies in their immune systems that allow them to carry zoonotic diseases (those that spread between humans and animals) for long periods of time without killing them.

“These parasites and pathogens can then be transmitted to other susceptible animals and people,” Keen pointed out. “Keeping large numbers of farmed carnivores crowded together on industrial ‘farms’ creates perfect conditions for the pathogens to be carried, to amplify their numbers, and, perhaps most importantly, to mutate into more dangerous variants.”

Keen also broke down how some nations have been far better than others in addressing the public health crisis posed by the ongoing existence of mink farms.

“As far as I can tell, there have been two types of responses to COVID-19 outbreaks and zoonotic risk in fur-farmed mink,” Keen observed, including “vigorous serious” responses such as those “in Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Spain and most EU countries where there has been mandatory testing, active surveillance and monitoring of mink and mink farmers, including euthanasia of infected herds and temporary or permanent shutdown of the farmed mink with farmer compensation.”

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Yet if the Finnish government’s recent actions are any indication, there may be more of a public push to finally shut them down. Certainly there is major action occurring in the United States on that front. For example, the Center for Biological Diversity is pushing for legislation such as the Mink VIRUS Act, a piece of legislation the environmental group says is slowly gaining momentum. The bill would prohibit farming mink for their fur and compensate the farmers for their lost livelihoods.

about mink farms

I tried TikTok’s viral feta fried eggs recipe — and it’s now my go-to comfort meal

There’s no denying the fact that eggs are incredibly versatile. You can scramble them. You can poach them. You can hard-boil them, even turn them into an omelet. And now, thanks to a viral TikTok recipe, you can fry them alongside crumbled feta cheese.

Picture this: a runny egg yolk at the center of crisp, bits of feta that’s seasoned with salt, pepper and a generous drizzle of chili oil. If your mouth is watering from that description alone, well then you can thank recipe developer Grace Elkus, who posted a video of herself making these marvelous eggs from start to finish.

Elkus told Delish that her recipe was inspired by the crispy potato, egg, and cheese tacos from Ali Slagle’s I Dream of Dinner. Slagle’s recipe combines warm, fried cheddar with eggs, which got Elkus thinking about what other cheese pairings would work well with eggs. Feta, of course, was the most obvious choice. The salty, peppery and slightly tangy flavors of the Greek cheese is enough to elevate eggs from meh to stellar.

Turkish eggs are the most garlicky, buttery way possible to start the day

“I always have it on hand, it’s packed with salty, tangy flavor, and you don’t have to break out the cheese grater,” Elkus said. “Just crumble it directly into the pan!”

Shortly after its debut, the feta egg recipe garnered more than 32 million views across Instagram and TikTok. It’s no surprise why, considering that the recipe is easy to follow, it calls for a short and simple list of ingredients and is ready in less than 10 minutes. It’s also quite astounding because who knew feta could even melt and crisp up like that!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cu77Y8hsJIx/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading

“A feta fried egg is exactly what it sounds like: an egg fried atop crumbly feta cheese,” Elkus wrote in her blog. “As the egg cooks, the feta melts and crisps, resulting in a tangy, salty, crispy-edged egg that will ruin you for all other preparations.”

The original recipe calls for one large egg, full-fat feta cheese, freshly ground black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes. But it can also be changed to include whatever toppings and seasonings your heart desires! If you’re craving more spice, add in chili crisp. If you’re craving your own rendition of green-eggs-and-ham, add in some pesto.

“My friends used zhoug sauce in place of pesto and loved it,” Elkus said. “I’d also be interested to see if you could crisp some kale in the skillet at the same time.”

The key to making excellent feta eggs is a good quality nonstick skillet — “as long as it’s truly nonstick and the coating hasn’t worn off,” Elkus specified. A well-seasoned cast iron skillet also works, but be sure to drizzle in extra olive-oil before you prepare your eggs.

Elkus also recommended using a block of full-fat feta packed in brine, “which melts readily, tastes more complex, and lasts longer than other kinds.” The next best option is a block of full-fat feta wrapped in plastic. However, pre-crumbled feta or fat-free varieties, which are lacking on the flavor front and are unable to melt well, won’t yield the best results.

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After rewatching Elkus’ TikTok and marveling at pictures of her recipe, I decided to try my hand at making the feta eggs for breakfast. I didn’t have a nonstick skillet or cast iron pan at home, so I used my hand-dandy fry pan, making sure to heat it up and generously coat it in olive oil. I used Belfiore Cheese’s Feta Cheese In Brine and seasoned my eggs and cheese with black pepper, red pepper flakes and a pinch of garlic and onion powder. Per Elkus’ instructions, I made sure to cook my eggs and cheese over medium-low heat. And because I love a good runny yolk, I only cooked the egg until the white was set and the surrounding cheese achieved a golden brown hue.

Elkus enjoyed her egg with avocado in a charred tortilla, but I chose to eat mine with avocado on sourdough instead. Alongside my morning coffee, this was a hearty and satisfying breakfast.

“Enjoy it at 9 a.m. or 9 p.m., in front of the TV or around the dinner table. There’s no wrong way to do it,” Elkus said. Now that I think about it, a feta egg in a bacon baguette sandwich sounds like a mighty delicious lunch . . .

about eggs:

Trump freaks out over Pelosi’s “sad puppy” comment, says she will one day “live in hell”

In response to comments made by Nancy Pelosi during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on Friday, in which she compared Trump’s lack of bravado during his arraignment on Thursday to that of a “sad puppy,” the former president is lashing out in signature style.

In a rant posted to Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said, “I purposely didn’t comment on Nancy Pelosi’s very weird story concerning her husband, but now I can because she said something about me, with glee, that was really quite vicious. ‘I saw a scared puppy,’ she said, as she watched me on television, like millions of others, that didn’t see that. I wasn’t ‘scared.’ Nevertheless, how mean a thing to say! She is a Wicked Witch whose husbands journey from hell starts and finishes with her. She is a sick & demented psycho who will someday live in HELL!”

After sentencing Pelosi to hell, he then pivoted to an all-caps freakout about not being able to get a fair trial for his many criminal charges writing, “NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL, OR EVEN CLOSE TO A FAIR TRIAL, IN WASHINGTON, D.C. THERE ARE MANY REASONS FOR THIS, BUT JUST ONE IS THAT I AM CALLING FOR A FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF THIS FILTHY AND CRIME RIDDEN EMBARRASSMENT TO OUR NATION, WHERE MURDERS HAVE JUST SHATTERED THE ALL TIME RECORD, OTHER VIOLENT CRIMES HAVE NEVER NEEN [sic] WORSE, AND TOURISTS HAVE FLED. THE FEDERAL TAKEOVER IS VERY UNPOPULAR WITH POTENTIAL AREA JURORS, BUT NECESSARY FOR SAFETY, GREATNESS, & FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE!”