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Hunger in South Africa: Study shows 1 in 5 are at risk

Everyone is vulnerable in some way, whether it’s to natural disasters, chronic diseases or hunger. But some are more at risk than others because of what they are exposed to socially, economically and environmentally. This phenomenon is known as social vulnerability. It refers to the attributes of society that make people and places susceptible to natural disasters, adverse health outcomes and social inequalities.

In terms of income distribution, South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world. The impact of COVID-19 on the economy has worsened this inequality and increased social vulnerability among poor people. Poverty is inherently associated with food insecurity — a state in which socially vulnerable people can’t get enough nutritious and safe food.

Although these social inequalities are well documented in South Africa, not enough is known about the link between social vulnerability and food insecurity for the country as a whole.

Previous studies that investigated the relationship between social vulnerability and food insecurity have been limited to certain places, such as the poor and rural Eastern Cape province or the crowded urban area of Soweto. A better understanding of social inequalities at a national level might help the government provide social relief where it’s needed most.

With this in mind, we conducted a nationally representative survey of the prevalence of social vulnerability in the country. We looked at a range of socio-economic, demographic and geographical variables to see who is socially vulnerable. We also investigated the associations between social vulnerability and household food insecurity.

Questions about food

We conducted our study in October 2021 with 3,402 individuals we recruited across the nine provinces of the country. We used a statistical technique to transform the sample of 3,402 into a nationally representative sample of 39.6 million people, aged 18 years and older.

We measured social vulnerability using a social vulnerability index tool developed by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which we adapted for South Africa.

We also used a modified version of the Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project questionnaire  to quantify food insecurity.

All the respondents were asked:

  • Does your household ever run out of money to buy food?

  • Do you ever cut the size of meals or skip meals because there is not enough money for food?  

  • Do you or any of your children ever go to bed hungry because there is not enough money to buy food?

Vulnerable and food insecure

The study showed high levels of social vulnerability in the country linked to food insecurity. Over 20.6% of the South Africans in our sample were socially vulnerable, and 20.4% food insecure. This amounts to about 7.8 million people out of our sample of 39.6 million people.

We also found that the most vulnerable groups in the country were Africans — as opposed to white people or people of Asian or mixed descent.

Also most vulnerable were:

  • females

  • people living in rural areas

  • those with low socio-economic status

  • people without high school certificates

  • adults older than 45.

These findings are not surprising, given that these groups are known to have higher levels of poverty. But the findings are still important because they paint a troubling picture in which social inequality remains a major and persisting national challenge. It needs urgent and efficient solutions.

Addressing social inequalities

The government uses various initiatives to address social inequalities in the country to good effect. These include public education and health services, school feeding schemes and the tax exemption of staple foods such as brown bread and rice.

Social grants are the largest source of support for many vulnerable groups. They are the government’s primary response to poverty, food insecurity and inequality.

The well-established grants system reaches 18.4 million beneficiaries (about 31% of the population).  

Despite such efforts, social inequalities have consistently remained high. They are also unlikely to be eradicated with the current social initiatives because of several complex factors. These include the fact that social grants are unable to keep up with inflation in food prices.

Another problem is that recipients use the funds for many non-food necessities – such as clothing and transport costs. Other contributing factors are the gaps in the formulation and implementation of policies to address food insecurity.

There’s also a lack of collaboration from different stakeholders in the food system. For example, policymakers often view food insecurity as a rural issue. So, a majority of initiatives to address the problem focus on solutions related to food production. Yet, urban areas are also vulnerable to food insecurity as they depend more on the cash economy than rural areas.

In view of our findings, government and other stakeholders need to implement creative and targeted social strategies to reduce and eliminate food insecurity in highly vulnerable groups. Improving the economy and education system should be the main areas of focus in addressing social inequalities in the country.

Asanda Mtintsilana, Postdoctoral researcher, University of the Witwatersrand

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

This classic 1930s diner is free to a good owner — if you can move it

Calling all foodies and HGTV enthusiasts! If you’ve ever dreamt of remodeling a retro diner, we’ve got the perfect listing just for you!

Earlier this month, Cheap Old Houses, the popular show on HGTV and discovery+, listed “a castle-shaped 1930s-era portable metal diner” that’s located in Douglass, Kansas — and which was once home to a Wichita burger stand — that has been hidden on a rural property in Butler County for decades. The building flaunts a white exterior and cracked tile interiors, both on the walls and the floors. It is currently on sale for free if it’s moved to a separate location and restored. 

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Per an Instagram posting, the building was constructed by Ablah Hotel Supply, a former supply company based in Old Town Wichita, Kansas, sometime between 1934 and 1935. The company was founded by two first-generation Lebanese Americans — brothers Harvey and Frank Ablah — and “served as a hotspot that provided supplies like chairs and fry stations for numerous restaurants,” according to history site and guide Clio.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CoIDIycuBvX/?hl=en

“Additionally, this company came up with the classic American ‘Valentine Diner,’ a small, boxed metal diner design,” the site added. “These diners could be easily moved with trucks, had curbside services, and contained a small counter with stools inside for customers.”

Historical diner experts claimed the building was most likely either the former Little Palace Lunch No. 1 or the Continental Grill No. 2 — two of many small box diners based in East Douglass.        

“This is the only definite Ablah Hotel Supply castle-shaped diner survivor and is in remarkable shape,” the post continued. “It’s an important building both from an architectural and a roadside Americana standpoint.”

The building itself is steel framed with rivets and approximately 20′ x 20′. It was originally moved to its current location via crane. Although the building is free, significant expenses are necessary to move and renovate it.   

The Instagram post also includes additional contact information for those who are interested in acquiring, moving, and restoring the building. 

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Cheap Old Houses was created by Elizabeth and Ethan Finkelstein, who tour old homes across the United States that are available for under $150,000. Initially an Instagram account, Cheap Old Houses later became a 10-episode series airing on HGTV and streaming on discovery+ on Aug. 9, 2021.

“The series is inspired by the Finkelstein’s uber popular Instagram feed, which racks up millions of views with images of surprising property bargains that are architecturally intact and available for under $150,000,” per the account’s website. “In each episode, cameras will follow the couple as they tour low-priced older houses across America and ultimately choose which ones to feature on their famous site.”

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Fox insiders admit even Fox viewers don’t trust Fox

Recently released internal Fox communications don’t just reveal the company’s willingness to amplify lies its leaders knew were toxic to American democracy, the emails and texts also reveal that Fox’s viewers are just like most people – even they don’t trust Fox.

Real trust would have meant that Fox viewers would accept as true what the network told them. But as Fox found out – and admitted internally – that wasn’t the case.

When Fox told its own viewers something unpleasant, Fox viewers didn’t believe it. When Donald Trump’s surrogates said something, Fox viewers believed that, instead; they didn’t believe Fox.

And Fox’s own leaders admitted it. In fact, as their internal communications show, Fox leaders understood that viewers didn’t go to Fox for hard facts, they went to be spoon-fed.

“The network is being rejected,” Sean Hannity texted Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham after the network accurately informed its viewers that Joe Biden had won Arizona and, then, the 2020 presidential race.

And when Executive Chair Rupert Murdoch suggested coordinating a message by Fox’s primetime lineup that Joe Biden won, CEO Suzanne Scott tacitly acknowledged the reality that Fox’s viewers might not trust them.

“I told Rupert that privately [the anchors] are all there [but] we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers,” Scott wrote in an email.

These and other communications were revealed in last week’s legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems, which obtained the Fox communications as part of a lawsuit against the network.

While most coverage of the filing has appropriately emphasized Fox’s revenue-driven push to tell its audience what it wanted to hear, the admission that its audience doesn’t trust Fox enough to accept uncomfortable truths reveals a stark vulnerability for the network and for the right-wing media ecosystem generally.

Even Trump’s team didn’t trust Fox. It’s not unusual for campaigns to complain when an outlet calls a race, but when the outlet is trusted, the campaign is more likely to ask what the outlet knows that the campaign doesn’t.

But the Trump campaign apparently didn’t trust Fox enough to ask about the basis for calling Arizona. They just texted Fox Washington Bureau Chief Bill Sammon: “WAY too soon to be calling Arizona.”

Conservatives generally shared that mistrust. “Lots of conservative criticism of the AZ call,” Fox Corporation Senior Vice President Raj Shah, a former deputy press secretary for Trump, emailed Scott less than an hour after it happened. Conservatives weren’t asking the reason for the call, they immediately assumed Fox got it wrong. Or, possibly, felt that Fox shouldn’t have said it precisely because it was true.

Even on air, Fox implied to its own viewers that they shouldn’t believe what they were hearing on Fox. “You keep telling our viewers that millions of votes were changed by the software,” Carlson told then-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell weeks after the election. “I hope you will prove that very soon,” he added, acknowledging to his viewers that he’d been sharing unfounded allegations.

The underlying message was that, while evidence was worth hoping for, it wasn’t required by Fox’s viewers. Or, therefore, by Fox.

So it didn’t matter that Fox had evidence backing their Arizona call. Fox’s audience didn’t want the truth because that wasn’t why they watched Fox. So when Fox in rare moments abandoned what did matter to its audience, the viewers rebelled.

“Our viewers are also chanting ‘Fox News sucks’,” one internal email said. “Holy cow, our audience is mad at the network,” said another.

Ultimately, viewers believed Fox’s conspiracy-spouting guests over the actual hosts, whenever those hosts tiptoed toward the fact that Biden won fairly.

When then-host Lou Dobbs put Powell on the air on election night, she floated a theory about a CIA supercomputer and vote-changing software. Fox’s viewers understood that it was Powell, not Fox, who was doing the work and was to be trusted. Dobbs was just the platform. “Sydney [sic] Powell just broke the story on Dobbs,” a viewer emailed Fox’s Bret Baier.

Referring to the false narrative coming from Powell and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Carlson said that Fox’s “viewers are good people and they believe it.” And they did, trusting Trump’s unfounded claims more than the public admonitions by Carlson and others to be skeptical.

“We cannot smirk at our viewers any longer,” Scott, the CEO, said. The reason: Fox had failed to convince its viewers. They trusted Trump and his proxies more than Fox.

So Fox executives blamed the very people they were choosing to put on the air. “[T]hose clowns put us [in] an awkward place,” Fox Senior Vice President of Primetime Programming and Analytics Ron Mitchell wrote.

Typically, journalists leap at the chance to reveal deceptions by powerful people. That proved “awkward” at Fox because the audience trusted the clowns more than the ringmaster.

And it’s not uncommon for viewership to drop off after an election. But Fox’s audience disappeared while a battle raged over the outcome – ostensibly a huge ratings opportunity.

But it wasn’t the prospect of a Trump loss that was demoralizing Fox viewers to the point of turning off their TVs. It was Fox breaking the covenant. As Fox Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications Irena Briganti wrote, “our viewers left this week after AZ.”

As Carlson told Scott, “I’ve never seen a reaction like this, to any media company.”

The reaction was unique because Fox, for the moment, was unique. And that was evident in the network’s attempt to recover.

Traditionally, when a media outlet makes a false claim or screws up a story, the redemption process includes a show of transparency about what happened; an admission of error. Layoffs or suspensions might be part of it. That didn’t happen at Fox, because screwing up the story wasn’t the problem; getting it right was.

While Fox’s higher-ups rhetorically framed the issue as one of trust, their actions revealed a deeper understanding of the bond with their audience. Fox had to reclaim its status as a source not of truth, but of comfort.

“It’s a question of trust,” Scott said. But her remedy wasn’t the usual media prescription for a loss of trust, it was a placebo: “[T]he AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.”

Murdoch agreed, saying, “needs constant rebuilding without any missteps.”

In the portion of his email disclosed in the filing, Murdoch doesn’t identify what would constitute a misstep, but it’s implied.

Typically, a misstep might involve getting something wrong or covering up the circumstances of the original error. But Fox had gotten it right with Arizona. Getting it right was what repelled Fox’s audience. A misstep would be to get it right again.

So, sure enough, Fox took steps to compensate for the fact that its audience either didn’t trust them, or didn’t care whether the network told the truth. If Fox’s on-air people slipped and shared inconvenient facts, Fox executives – or other on-air personalities – noticed.

When Fox’s Neil Cavuto cut away from then-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany making baseless election-fraud allegations, Cavuto told his viewers, “unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance [sic] continue to show you this.”

That, apparently, was a misstep. The branding team operated by Raj Shah, Trump’s former deputy press secretary, notified top corporate leadership of the “Brand Threat” that Cavuto’s editorial judgment represented.

Cavuto’s statements were a threat to the brand because the brand wasn’t based on the “details” Cavuto demanded, but on viewers hearing what they wanted – in this case, McEnany’s unfounded claims.

Carlson, too, stood vigil against more “missteps.” When Fox correspondent Jacqui Heinrich tweeted an accurate fact-check of a Trump claim, Carlson told Hannity: “Please get her fired.”

Neither Carlson nor Hannity in the disclosed communications raise concerns about Heinrich’s integrity or accuracy. The issue was that Fox couldn’t convince its viewers she was right.

As Scott, the CEO, later relayed, Hannity complained about potential viewer blowback to Heinrich. “Sean texted me,” Scott wrote, “…[he] doesn’t understand how this is allowed to happen from anyone in news. [Heinrich] has serious nerve doing this and if this gets picked up, viewers are going to be further disgusted.”

In other words, Fox’s viewers wouldn’t believe or care that Heinrich got it right. That wasn’t why Fox viewers were there.

Another misstep came when Fox’s Kristen Fisher fact-checked Powell and Giuliani. Fisher’s boss, Bryan Boughton, wasn’t happy about it. Had Fisher gotten it wrong? No; her misstep, too, was getting it right.

Fisher later wrote that Boughton “emphasized that higher-ups at Fox News were also unhappy with it.” And the remedy wasn’t better journalism. Fisher wrote that Boughton told her she “needed to do a better job of…–this is a quote–’respecting our audience.'”

“Respecting the audience” recurs in the Fox communications as a euphemism for telling the audience what they wanted to hear. Hannity explicitly says that respect wouldn’t require honesty: “Respecting this audience whether we agree or not is critical,” he writes.

Producer Justin Wells made the same point in somewhat less refined terms. He wrote, “We can’t make people think we’ve turned against Trump. Yet also call out the bullshit. You and I see through it. But we have to reassure some in the audience.”

Why? Because reassurance was why they watched.

Ironically, other news outlets often benefit when something bad happens – because viewers want to know the facts about it. But not at Fox. As Maria Bartiromo said about her viewers, “It’s easier to get good ratings when you are giving your audience something they want to hear.”

And Bartiromo agreed when her producer said, “[O]ur audience doesn’t want to hear about a peaceful transition.”

Ultimately, a Fox rival arose that understood all this, with fewer journalistic conceits than even Fox had. And the Fox reaction to Newsmax further established the irrelevance of “trust” in the relationship that Fox had with its viewers.

Lauren Petterson, the president of Fox Business, warned that Newsmax executives “definitely have a strategy across all shows to try to target and steal our viewers.”

If trust had actually been the issue, the Newsmax strategy would have been to strive for factual accuracy, journalistic integrity, and well-crafted reporting on complex and challenging truths. That was not the case – and Fox knew it.

Newsmax posed a threat not because of superior reporting, but because it was now offering Fox viewers what they wanted from Fox.

As Fox executive David Clark recognized about Newsmax, “their hosts were extremely one sided, ignored the facts, they did not seem to care about telling the truth.” To Fox viewers, that was a feature, not a bug – a feature they demanded uninterrupted by any of the “missteps” that managed to slip through at Fox.

Mitchell, the senior vice president of primetime programming and analytics, was even more explicit about what the exodus to Newsmax implied about what viewers had once sought from Fox. And it wasn’t fair and balanced journalism.

“[T]he lack of any meaningful editorial guidance may be a positive for [Newsmax] at least in the short term,” Mitchell wrote, implying that the minimal editorial guidance at Fox was a bug, not a feature.

In fact, Mitchell acknowledged about Newsmax’s unsupported claims, “This type of conspiratorial reporting might be exactly what the disgruntled FNC viewer is looking for.”

He was right. An analysis by Mitchell showed viewers changing channels specifically to watch Powell, the Trump lawyer, on Newsmax. Hannity brought Powell back on.

What Fox leaders didn’t seem to recognize was that they were now having the same experience the “lamestream” media did when Fox first came for their audiences. Viewers didn’t leave to get superior journalism. They wanted an alternative to journalism.

As FNC President Jay Wallace observed, Newsmax “truly is an alternative universe.” He was right. And it was exactly what other media executives had said for years about Fox.

Fox, of course, has succeeded in winning its viewers back. The only difference is that now Fox has been revealed as admitting that its viewers come to Fox not for the truth, but to escape it.

“Cruelty”: New Biden rule denounced as “Trump’s asylum ban under a different name”

The Biden administration on Tuesday proposed a rule that immigrant rights groups, civil liberties organizations, and some Democratic lawmakers condemned as an illegal attack on asylum-seekers that resembles an inhumane policy pursued by former President Donald Trump.

The new rule, unveiled by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, would assume that “certain noncitizens who enter the United States without documents sufficient for lawful admission are ineligible for asylum.”

“The proposed rule would encourage migrants to avail themselves of lawful, safe, and orderly pathways into the United States, or otherwise to seek asylum or other protection in countries through which they travel,” the administration’s summary of the rule states, outlining conditions that broadly mirror a Trump-era “transit ban” that was ultimately blocked in federal court.

Those who don’t meet the more strict asylum eligibility requirements under the proposal would be subject to quick deportation.

Biden administration officials said they expect the rule to take effect in May after a 30-day public comment period and once a Trump-era mass expulsion policy known as Title 42 is terminated. (GOP-led states are trying to keep Title 42 in place.)

Advocacy groups, including the ACLU, signaled that they’re prepared to take legal action to ensure the Biden policy suffers the same fate as Trump’s “transit ban.”

“Congress designed our asylum laws to ensure that everyone escaping persecution has a chance to seek safety in the U.S., regardless of how they must flee danger or enter the country. This asylum ban is, at its core, Trump’s asylum ban under a different name,” said Anu Joshi, deputy director of the National Political Advocacy Department at the ACLU.

“It will leave the most vulnerable people in much the same position as Trump’s policy did—at risk and unfairly denied the protection of asylum for reasons that have nothing to do with their need for refuge,” Joshi added. “We can’t overstate the human suffering that will result.”

Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center, toldNBC News that if the Biden administration’s rule “does what we expect it to do—unlawfully deprive access to asylum based on the manner of entry and/or transit route—it would be invalid like the similar Trump administration rules that were found unlawful by federal courts.”

The proposed rule was expected after the Biden administration announced a significant expansion of Title 42 last month, even as it claimed to be preparing for the policy’s end. Part of those preparations, administration officials said at the time, was rulemaking on the asylum process.

Douglas Rivlin, director of communication for America’s Voice, said Tuesday that it is “hard to reconcile” Biden’s campaign pledge to “turn the page on the cruelty and chaos of the Trump era” with the new asylum rule.

“Just because this news had been anticipated doesn’t make it any less devastating,” Rivlin said. “We should be finding ways to fix and fully resource our asylum process, not devising ways to prevent people seeking safety from accessing the asylum process under our laws.”

Biden is also facing backlash from members of his own party over the rule, which Rep. Chuy García, D-Ill., slammed as a “re-implementation of the Trump-era policy that will ban people from requesting asylum, worsen conditions at the border, and return vulnerable people back to danger.”

Andrea Flores, a former White House official, lamented Tuesday that “rather than make progress on addressing regional mass migration, the Biden administration has resurrected a transit ban that normalizes the white nationalist belief that asylum-seekers from certain countries are less deserving of humanitarian protections.”

“For an administration that strives to uphold racial equity,” Flores added, “it is deeply disheartening to watch them normalize the dehumanizing narrative that Black and brown migrants at the southern border deserve to be punished for seeking out a legal pathway that Congress provided for them.”

“Prosecutor’s nightmare”: Legal experts worry grand jury forewoman’s media tour may help Trump

Legal experts raised concerns after the forewoman of the Georgia special grand jury that investigated former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss gave multiple media interviews revealing details about the probe.

Forewoman Emily Kohrs told The New York Times that the special grand jury recommended multiple indictments in the investigation.

“It is not a short list,” she said, adding that “you’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science.”

In an interview with the Associated Press, Kohrs revealed details about witness testimony, including witnesses that received “immunity deals.”

Kohrs revealed that the grand jury heard calls Trump made that have not been made public in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“It is amazing how many hours of footage you can find of that man on the phone,” she said.

When a reporter told her that Trump claimed “total exoneration” by the grand jury, Kohrs burst out laughing and rolled her eyes.

“Did he really say that?” she asked. “Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s phenomenal. I love it.”

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“It’s not a short list”: Forewoman says Georgia grand jury recommended numerous indictments

Kohrs also appeared on TV, telling NBC News that the special grand jury recommended more than a dozen indictments.

“There are certainly names that you will recognize, yes. There are names also you might not recognize,” she told the outlet.

In an interview with CNN, Kohrs urged Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to take “decisive action” in the case.

“Personally, I hope to see her take almost any kind of decisive action, to actually do something,” Kohrs said. “There are too many times in recent history that seem to me like someone has gotten called out for something that people had a problem with, and nothing ever happens.”

Georgia law bans grand jurors from discussing deliberations but not other parts of the case, including the redacted special grand jury report released by the court earlier this month.

But former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti warned that it is “still a very bad idea” for Kohrs to disclose the details in the media and “may carry legal risk for her.” He added that Kohrs’ media appearances “will likely provide Trump and others with arguments to challenge the indictments.”

“Yes, she *can* reveal this but she seriously needs to stop. Enough with this. The report is still sealed. The DA is still making a decision,” tweeted attorney Bradley Moss, adding that Kohrs’ statements may be “tainting the trial jury pool” and could aid Trump’s “efforts to move the case out of Fulton County.”

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Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig said on CNN that Kohrs’ media interviews were a “horrible idea” and predicted that “prosecutors are wincing” watching her comments.

“It’s a prosecutor’s nightmare,” he said. “Mark my words, Donald Trump’s team is going to make a motion if there’s an indictment to dismiss that indictment base on grand jury impropriety. She’s not supposed to be talking about anything, really. But she’s really not supposed to be talking about the deliberations. She’s talking about what specific witnesses they saw, what the grand jury thought of them. She says some of them we found credible, some we found funny. I don’t know why that’s relevant, but she’s been saying we found this guy funny or interesting. I think she’s potentially crossing a line here. It’s gonna be a real problem for prosecutors.”

Conservative attorney George Conway, a frequent Trump critic, agreed that Kohrs’ interviews were “not helpful” but predicted that they would not have a material effect on the case.

“The evidence is the evidence,” he told MSNBC. “This isn’t even the grand jury that is going to pass on the indictments. This is just, this was a grand jury designed to prepare a report.”

The special grand jury does not have indictment powers. Instead, Willis can take their recommendations and present the evidence to another grand jury that will then vote on indictments.

“I don’t think there’s any argument that the defendants have that they were prejudiced by this interview,” Conway said. “She didn’t release that much information. The fact of the matter is most of the evidence, 99% of the evidence we know about… There’s going to be no argument that the jury, the ultimate of decider of fact, is prejudiced in any way. Just no. There’s just nothing. It’s not going to help the defendants any.”

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about the Georgia grand jury probe

Kevin McCarthy offers his first sacrifice to the MAGA cult

Last week, America received proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Fox News is a dishonest institution that spread Donald Trump’s Big Lie knowing full well that he did not win the election. In a court filing from the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Machines against the company, it was revealed that all of the top brass and their stars were fully aware that the election had not been stolen yet remained terrified of losing their deluded audience (which they had been instrumental in brainwashing) so they parrotted Trump’s bogus claims. In this specific case, they spread the falsehood that the Dominion machines were rigged for the Republicans. As Dominion argued in the filing:

“Not a single Fox witness testified that they believe any of the allegations about Dominion are true. Indeed, Fox witness after Fox witness declined to assert the allegations’ truth or actually stated they do not believe them, and Fox witnesses repeatedly testified that they have not seen credible evidence to support them.”

And they had the receipts. The emails from the likes of owner Rupert Murdoch, and stars such as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson are unequivocal proof that these people are all liars. For their part, Fox News dismissed Dominion’s findings as “a lot of noise and confusion.” 

After what we learned about the Fox News host, how in the world can Kevin McCarthy justify handing over such sensitive information to Tucker Carlson?

In the wake of the network’s call on election night giving the Arizona electoral votes to Joe Biden, which was true, their audience, under instructions from Donald Trump, left the network in droves for the competition, Newsmax and OAN. The executives and the stars were terrified that the stock price was being negatively impacted by their decision to tell the truth. As Salon’s Igor Derysh reported, Carlson was so distraught when a reporter on the network reported that election security officials stated there was no evidence that the voting machines had been compromised that he texted Hannity:

Please get her fired. Seriously… What the fuck? I’m actually shocked… It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”

This filing was a shocking set of documents that, in a normal, healthy democracy, would finish Fox News as a credible media company to the remainder of society that didn’t already know it wasn’t. But America is not a normal, healthy democracy and it could not be clearer that it isn’t by the fact that just days after that stunning revelation, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that he saw fit to give unfettered access to 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6 insurrection to none other than Tucker Carlson.

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Fox News texts reveal the truth: The Big Lie was a con — that the viewers were in on

It’s almost as if McCarthy was playing some kind of elaborate practical joke. After what we learned about the Fox News host, how in the world can McCarthy justify handing over such sensitive information to Tucker Carlson?

Without a second thought for the security of the institution or the safety of his fellow officials, McCarthy’s decided that MAGA love is all that matters.

These tapes have been closely guarded by the Capitol Police ever since the event and have been turned over to the January 6 Committee and Justice Department prosecutors, as well as defense lawyers, but no one in the media has been given access — until now: 

The committee asked for permission from U.S. Capitol police before they used any of the footage in public hearings, these people said, as they did not want to publicly disclose the location of security cameras in the building. The committee cut and minimized use of the footage accordingly, these people added.

According to Politico’s Kyle Cheney, “Tucker Carlson doesn’t “have” any Jan. 6 footage. He hasn’t “obtained” it. His people are viewing it on a terminal in the Capitol and it’s unclear when he’ll get permission to air any of it, let alone lots of it.” If Cheney is right, worries about the footage getting into terrorist or extremist hands for nefarious purposes (if you don’t count Carlson) may just be overblown. On the other hand, Carlson did say he would have “unfettered” access so who knows?

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The real problem is that this release could compromise some of the ongoing criminal trials. Carlson will almost certainly try to create a counternarrative of January 6, which won’t be hard to do since most of his audience probably never even saw the hearings or read anything about what actually happened. Instead, they’ve been fed a steady stream of lies, particularly from Carlson, since that fateful day. 

Calson’s most well-known bit of slickly produced propaganda on the subject is his “documentary” called “Patriot Purge.” In it, Carlson suggests that January 6 attack was actually a plot by Antifa, the FBI and other members of the “deep state” working in concert as a false flag operation to make Trump look bad. Fox News commentators Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg resigned in protest over it but it did Carlson no harm. He’s never been more popular.

He declared the January 6 Committee investigation a lie and, with characteristic unctuous sanctimony, told Axios that “if there was ever a question that’s in the public’s interest to know, it’s what actually happened on January 6. By definition, this video will reveal it.” He went on to say: “It’s impossible for me to understand why any honest person would be bothered by that.” I’m not sure that honest people are bothered so much by the video being released to the public as they are bothered that it’s being released to a proven liar and propagandist, like Tucker Carlson, who will likely dole out the tidbits he thinks will twist what happened into a believable alternative theory of what we all saw with our own eyes that day. If anyone’s up for the challenge, it’s him.

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“Wrong and honestly evil”: Even Republicans are trashing MTG’s “treasonous” call for secession

The truth is that the calls to release the footage have been out there almost since the day it happened, led by none other than Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. In June of 2021, the Republican sent a wild letter to top government officials demanding the release of the footage (among other things) in order to assist what she calls “political prisoners” who were arrested for sedition conspiracy. This has been one of her hobby horses ever since and she’s been joined by such luminaries as Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Az., and Matt Gaetz, R-Fl., who made it clear that this was a condition of voting for McCarthy for Speaker of the House.

So this was another total capitulation to the far-right extremists in the party for Kevin McCarthy. He just took it to a whole other level by releasing it exclusively to Fox News and specifically to Tucker Carlson.

No other speaker in history would have done something so blatantly partisan as that with something so sensitive. Without a second thought for the security of the institution or the safety of his fellow officials, McCarthy’s decided that MAGA love is all that matters. But he must know that they will never really love him. He’s just their submissive servant and they will make him demonstrate that every day he holds the office. It would be uncomfortable to watch his ritual humiliation if he weren’t so very eager to let them do it. 

How to read a dog like a book

Growing up with dogs, I often found myself wondering what was going on in the minds of my canine companions. I am hardly alone in this sentiment: There is a reason why the world is transfixed by Bunny, a labradoodle who can “talk” using buttons — and similarly, why humans are overjoyed when dogs seem to sing along with them or cry tears of joy when they return home. Even though dogs and humans have been best friends for millennia and share a deep evolutionary bond, the two species are nevertheless forever separated by the fact that dogs cannot speak human languages and humans cannot speak dog language.

“I frequently tell owners it is no different than the Taylor Swift song. A dog is releasing the tension they have just experienced ‘shake it off.. shake it off.'”

Or can we?

Experts who study dog cognition and behavior say that dogs’ minds are not black boxes, as one might think of them as. Indeed, humans actually can learn how to “speak” in the way that dogs do. That, in turn, means “reading” a dog’s body as if the different parts were words in a sentence to be deconstructed.

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“Folks that interact with dogs have to practice reading the whole dog quickly — including the ears, tail, eyes, body posture, and body tension,” Erica Feuerbacher, an associate professor at the School of Animal Sciences at Virginia Tech, tells Salon. Among other things, humans must learn to disregard the conventional wisdom that one can focus primarily on a dog’s wagging (or not wagging) tail.

“We often hear the advice to look at the dog’s tail, but dogs wag for a variety of reasons,” Feuerbacher explained. “Instead, I try to get a whole picture of the dog. This takes practice observing dogs and seeing what behaviors precede others.”

Molly Sumridge, an anthrozoologist who studies primitive dogs and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Exeter, provided more clarification on the accurate context through which humans can analyze a dog’s “expressions” vis-a-vis their tail.

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“Our dogs will often tell us what they are comfortable with if we let them choose, rather than forcing them into interactions.”

“It is a huge misconception that a tail wag means friendly. In reality, it just means strong emotions, good or bad,” Sumridge wrote to Salon. If a dog is happy, it will wiggle its butt along with the tail; but if the butt does not also wiggle, be careful. “If the wag includes a wiggle, we’re friends. If not, give space,” Sumridge advised.

Instead of focusing on just one part like the tail, Feuerbacher advises dog owners to think of what the entire body says about a dog’s attitude. If it “points like an arrow at something,” that offers a clue regarding its thoughts. Moreover, if the dog is leaning forward towards the object of its interest, it is likely to bark, lunge, growl or otherwise indicate negative emotions. A dog’s hostility may be further revealed if it freezes or stiffens. This provides owners with an opportunity to step in and avoid a serious problem.

“Try to interrupt its focus and move it further away from whatever its staring at until it can relax,” Feuerbacher suggests, adding that this must be done in a “very cautious” way. “Alternatively, if it’s frightened, it might be cowering back, with its ears pulled back, tail tucked, and trying to move away. This can also lead to growling or fear-related aggression. In this case, I’d also try to move the dog further away from whatever is frightening it.”

Just as stiff body language that points at an object indicates negative emotions, “a dog that has loose, bouncy movement is likely one that is feeling relaxed and not worried by what’s going on in its environment,” Feuerbacher added.

Indeed, when dogs are feeling positive emotions and want to let humans know that they are unconcerned, they will do a little shake.

“They shake their body off as if wet — which means they are calming down and releasing stress,” Sumridge told Salon. “I frequently tell owners it is no different than the Taylor Swift song. A dog is releasing the tension they have just experienced ‘shake it off.. shake it off.'”

“Looking away, even briefly, in dogs means ‘no thank you,’ or ‘I’m done,'” Sumridge explained.

Finally, experts say it is important for dog owners to cut their dog slack. If a human wishes to communicate with a dog, the key element is recognizing the dog as an autonomous being. Dogs have a tremendous sense of their own agency, and just as humans resent being pulled and prodded, so too will dogs. As such, if a human wants to communicate with a dog, it has to try to respect the dog’s wishes.

“Giving dogs choice is a great way of asking them what they want and what they are feeling,” Feuerbacher points out. “Rather than reaching out and approach a dog, I let the dog tell me if it wants interaction — does it approach me? Does it solicit interaction? If I pet it for 10 seconds, I’ll stop and see what the dog does. If it walks away, I know it wasn’t as enjoyable for it. If it stays or even nuzzles me for more, I know to keep petting.”

Feuerbacher referred to these exchanges as “consent tests,” ways of ensuring that a human and dog are mutually bonding rather than having a human force its will on the dog. After all, because humans traditionally dominate dogs, sometimes dogs feel as if they have no choice but to accept an interaction rather than sincerely seeking it out. This escalates the risk that a dog might eventually conclude it has to be aggressive in order to escape, much to the human’s consternation and dismay.

“Our dogs will often tell us what they are comfortable with if we let them choose, rather than forcing them into interactions,” Feuerbacher pointed out. “When folks ask to meet my German shepherd, I tell them they can pet him if he approaches them. If he doesn’t then he’s not in the mood that day and hopefully we’ll meet again when he is wanting social interaction.”

Sumridge furthered this observation with direct visual advice.

“Looking away, even briefly, in dogs means ‘no thank you,’ or ‘I’m done,'” Sumridge explained. “When I see a dog do this, I think to myself that the dog is saying ‘PASS!'”

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After staying away during pandemic, doctors return to lobby Congress

Dr. Timothy McAvoy, an internist from Waukesha, Wisconsin, held his infant granddaughter Tuesday while standing in the Longworth House Office Building, waiting to talk to a congressional aide about increasing Medicare pay for doctors.

Facing a highly partisan Congress where Republicans have vowed to cut federal spending, McAvoy hoped his Midwestern charm, along with a dose of supporting data, would sway members to remember physicians’ cause.

“‘Wisconsin nice’ is a real thing,” said McAvoy, who graduated from medical school in 1973. “Whether it will translate to the votes we need, we will have to see.”

McAvoy was one of about 350 physicians who came to Capitol Hill this week to lobby Congress on behalf of the American Medical Association. Although they left their white coats at home, they were still there as doctors. Their goal was to build support for the organization’s “Recovery Plan for America’s Physicians” — a wish list that includes a pay raise, relief from insurance company prior-authorization demands, and more federally funded residency slots to train more physicians.

The campaign motto packs a pat on the back for these medical professionals: “You took care of the nation. It’s time for the nation to take care of you.”

The AMA represents about 250,000 doctors, roughly a quarter of the U.S. physician workforce. And sending its members in droves to Washington to make their case is nothing new. But this was the first organized group effort in more than three years, because of the covid-19 pandemic.

In that time, many congressional offices have been claimed by new members with different legislative aides. As a result, physicians say, they need to spend in-person time teaching them about the complexities of Medicare payment rules and other topics important to the practice of medicine.

While the AMA has a full staff of lobbyists in Washington, association officials say their best weapon is often doctors themselves, who wrestle with insurance company red tape and bureaucratic reimbursement rules every day. “There is nothing quite like telling members of Congress how things work in their district,” said Dr. Jack Resneck Jr., AMA president and a dermatologist at the University of California-San Francisco.

Before they met with House and Senate members and their aides, AMA staffers briefed the doctors at a downtown hotel on how to deliver their message for maximum effect. The main lesson: Show how these changes will help their patients, not just their business practices.

Detail how patients are facing delays getting drugs and services because insurer approval is required first. Mention they know of doctors retiring early, selling their practices to hospitals or private equity firms, and how this makes it difficult for patients to find a doctor. “We have the policy and data, but it’s these stories that will stick in their heads,” an official AMA lobbyist told them.

They also were advised to listen and seek common ground with members of Congress.

“When you go up on the Hill, let those congresspeople know how much you care about your patients and want to keep doing your job,” an AMA staffer said, sounding almost like a coach outlining how a strategy should work on game day. “Let them know how we care about our patients and want to improve the health of the nation.”

But it was also a pitch about money, coming from some of the country’s well-above-average income earners. (A government estimate for the category “physicians and surgeons” set the median 2021 annual income at $208,000.) Tell Congress that with higher payments from Medicare they could deliver better care and service to patients, the doctors were urged. “No one wants a system that is not fiscally stable, and no one wants to see doctors busy filling out paperwork to fight denials from insurers,” one AMA staffer said.

They were also told to remind Congress that Medicare payments to doctors do not include an automatic adjuster for inflation, even though hospitals and nursing homes get that. “Medicare beneficiaries are at real risk of not getting care,” Resneck said.

While Medicare payments are still a vital issue for many doctors, most physicians today work as employees of hospitals, insurers, and other corporate entities and often are paid a salary rather than a fee for each patient service.

AMA lobbyists cautioned them that asking for higher pay has met pushback in recent years. That’s largely because the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which advises Congress, has repeatedly said Medicare rates were high enough and there was no sign Medicare patients were having widespread trouble finding doctors.

Indeed, in its latest report, in March 2022, MedPAC wrote: “The Commission’s analyses suggest that Medicare’s aggregate payments for clinician services are adequate.” At their January meeting, however, MedPAC members signaled a change in this position by approving recommendations to link physicians’ payments to 50% of the Medicare Economic Index, which is a measure of  practice cost inflation.   

In the 2022 report, MedPAC also noted that during the pandemic Congress provided tens of billions of dollars in relief funds to clinicians, and predicted demand for their services would reach or exceed pre-pandemic levels by 2023.

Dr. Tosha Wetterneck, an internist from Madison, Wisconsin, who joined McAvoy in Tuesday’s meeting, said after a session with Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher’s legislative aide that she felt satisfied he had heard their message about needing help to keep physician offices open and fully staffed. She stressed that doctors need more money to pay nurses, medical assistants, and receptionists when they are being lured away with higher pay from other employers.

“It’s not a one-time thing,” she said about this week’s lobbying. “It’s about forming relationships. We are in it for the long term.”

Wetterneck said the aide told her group Gallagher supports changes to insurer prior-authorization rules. Asked whether he would support higher payments to doctors, she said: “Everyone supports us trying to keep the lights on, but it all depends on how the sausage gets made.”

The aide told the doctors about Gallagher’s bill to stop anti-competitive tactics that would limit employers’ use of noncompete clauses in contracts, which the physicians said would help them when they change companies, Wetterneck said.

Over two days, the Wisconsin physicians met with nine members of Congress from their state, though it was mostly aides in the House, as the lower chamber was on recess.

They met Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the most conservative members of Congress, who often rails against increased government intervention and spending.

Wetterneck said Johnson spent nearly an hour with them, during which he explained that he wanted doctors to be the trusted profession again rather than be crushed by rules and red tape. The senator told them he understands that physician practices need money to pay staff members and care for patients. But that doesn’t guarantee he will vote for an increase, she said.

Dr. Melissa Garretson, a Fort Worth, Texas, pediatric emergency medicine specialist, clutched a Diet Coke as she left a House cafeteria and headed to her fifth of eight meetings in the House and Senate.

She said the payment issue resonated with members of Congress, particularly when the message focused on helping doctors keep practices open in rural Texas.

She was ready with a story from just last week: An insurer refused to cover a liquid medication for her 4-year-old patient and would pay only for a pill too big for the child to swallow. “Prior authorization is a roadblock to patient care,” she said.

While treating emergency patients is her job, she sees lobbying Congress as an extension of her role.

“Our patients need the care they need when they need it, and to not advocate that is not to do my job as a doctor,” Garretson said as she walked into a Texas House member’s office.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

California requires hospitals to turn to a patient’s next of kin, closing a longtime loophole

About four years ago, Dr. Gene Dorio sat on the ethics committee of a Southern California hospital whose administrators insisted they could decide whether to disconnect a ventilator from an unconscious patient — even though the man’s wife and adult children wanted to continue life support.

The problem, Dorio told California lawmakers last year, was the hospital had the right to override the family’s wishes because the patient had not completed an advance directive or designated a power of attorney. The hospital chose to listen to the family, but under state law, his family’s wishes held no weight.

That’s no longer the case. As of Jan. 1, California joined 45 other states and the District of Columbia with next-of-kin laws that designate a surrogate to make decisions on a patient’s behalf — even if that person wasn’t specifically authorized by the patient before the medical situation arose. The list includes spouses or domestic partners, siblings, adult children and grandchildren, parents, and an adult relative or close friend — in many cases, the people who brought in the patient for care in the first place.

“Hospitals and HMOs could usurp the rights of the families to make critical medical decisions under the law that was in place at the time — including decisions on pulling the plug,” Dorio, a geriatrics specialist in Santa Clarita and member of the California Senior Legislature, told KHN. “We knew we needed a law like most other states have.”

According to data analyzed by Penn Medicine researchers, only about a third of U.S. adults have either an advance directive, with which they detail instructions about medical care, or a medical power of attorney, which authorizes someone else to make those decisions.

The idea behind the next-of-kin law, proponents say, is to empower representatives to advocate for patients rather than allow a hospital to make medical decisions, which can be influenced by cost, bed space, or insurance pressures.

“This law takes the pressure off the hospitals, who are being asked to render care, save lives, deal with Medicare, deal with insurance — any number of things all at once,” said Michele Mann, a Valencia, California, attorney who specializes in estate planning, including advance directives.

Patient medical rights have evolved through the years, but it is something of a mystery why the state took so long to put a next-of-kin statute on the books. When the California Senior Legislature, which sponsors and lobbies for laws aimed at helping the state’s older population, approached the state’s Office of the Legislative Counsel for help with the bill, Dorio said, some staff attorneys expressed surprise that such a law wasn’t already in place.

Patients without an advance directive or power of attorney have long been able to designate a surrogate, even if it’s simply by verbally declaring so while at the hospital – but that relies upon the patient being conscious.

If patients arrive at a hospital or medical center incapacitated or later become so, providers must make a good-faith effort to find a person authorized to make medical decisions, according to a California statute in effect since 2005. The steps include going through the patient’s belongings and reaching out to anyone the hospital “reasonably believes has the authority” to make decisions via directive or power of attorney. The hospital must show it has contacted the secretary of state to ask whether the patient had an advance directive.

With the new law in place, health care providers still must check for a patient’s advance directive or power of attorney. But once officials have determined that none exists, they can turn to the next-of-kin list, all of whom are legally authorized to speak for the patient.

“It’s groundbreaking,” said Mann, who makes decisions for her sister, a patient with multiple sclerosis in a long-term care facility. “With the next-of-kin list, often the person who brought the patient in is a family member or close friend with a clear understanding of the patient’s wishes. In those cases, the hospital’s search is over — a legally authorized representative is standing there.”

AB 2338, introduced by Assembly member Mike Gipson, added a section to the probate code, and it resembles the way most states handle the division of a person’s assets after death. When people in California die without a will, their assets and property are distributed in a fixed, descending order of priority: spouse first, then children, parents, siblings, etc. Now, a person’s medical decisions will be decided in the same way — but not necessarily in the same order.

California gives hospitals and health care providers the discretion to decide which family member or close friend can make medical decisions — a provision inserted into the bill after the influential California Hospital Association and other medical groups opposed a set hierarchy.

Some experts question how effective the new law will be, since hospitals retain the power to pick the patient’s representative, especially if there are conflicting opinions among family members.

“Although I have no reason to believe they would abuse the power, the hospitals get to decide who would be a good decision-maker,” said Alexander Capron, a medical law and ethics expert and professor emeritus at the University of Southern California.

Lois Richardson, a vice president and legal counsel for the hospital association, said a strict order of surrogates often doesn’t reflect what a patient would want. “The concern has always been that having a strict statutory hierarchy, in many, many cases, does not reflect real family relationships,” Richardson said.

The hospital lobby dropped its opposition after Gipson agreed to give the industry flexibility, and the measure passed through the legislature with virtually no opposition.

Ideally, people should have an advance directive to ensure their wishes are followed, Gipson said. But for seniors, those who live alone, and anyone without a stated directive, the law opens the field of people who may be able to advocate on their behalf — including a close friend who might just as well be family.

“At least this way, you have someone who knows what you want making those decisions,” Gipson said, “rather than leaving it up to a hospital.”

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

Mike Pence wags the dog: His attempt to avoid testifying is constitutional nonsense

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s faulty reasoning for resisting Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena has found its way to Pence’s conservative defenders, perhaps with some guidance from his political advisers. Regrettably, he and they misconceive the application of the U.S. Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause to a criminal investigation and have the constitutional tail wagging the dog.

The “tail” is slim legal grist misused to conceal Pence’s crucial testimony from a grand jury. The dog that flailing tail is trying to shake is the grand jury’s search for truth about a self-serving president’s apparent attempt to overturn the election and thus the Constitution.

Pence’s evidence goes straight to the heart of a crime against democracy that nearly succeeded. The truth he now seeks to hide is a truth he once embraced — that no republic can tolerate a rejected head of state’s effort to overthrow it by sabotaging the constitutional process that certifies his defeat and loss of power. 

Today, in a complete reversal of principle, the only thing Mike Pence is standing up for is his own presidential aspirations. He fears offending the MAGA base by testifying against Trump. It is sadly Shakespearean when a man who courageously helped preserve and defend the Constitution allows personal ambition and fake legalism to lure him into a legacy-destroying fall.

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The speech or debate clause provides that “Senators and representatives … shall not be questioned in any other Place” than Congress about “any Speech or Debate in either House.” Unfortunately for Pence’s claim, the Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that the clause does not “immunize a Senator or aide from testifying at trials or grand jury proceedings involving third-party crimes where the questions do not require testimony about or impugn a legislative act.” That is exactly the sort of testimony that Smith and his grand jury seek.

Imagine this scenario: Suppose that before the Trump second impeachment vote in February 2021, Sen. Susan Collins had received a phone call threatening her family’s safety if she voted to convict Trump. Say she reported it to the FBI, the assailant was caught and, for whatever unlikely reason, Collins didn’t want to testify against him. Although the call clearly related to a legislative matter — how she would vote — there is no conceivable way that the speech or debate clause would immunize her from testifying.

Jack Smith wants to know what Trump said to Pence when no one else was in the room. Is there any imaginable universe in which the former president, bent as he was on carrying out a scheme to overturn the people’s will, did not say something corrupt as he sought Pence’s help to carry out that unlawful scheme?

Suppose, for example, that Trump said, “Look, Mike, it doesn’t matter who won on Nov. 8. We have alternate electors in seven states who will cast votes for us. Just say there is a dispute, and we are going to pause the congressional certification for 10 days to resolve it. I’ll support you for president in 2024.”

It is well within the realm of possibility that Trump added that he couldn’t protect Pence from MAGA supporters if Pence resisted.

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Any such statements would provide potentially powerful evidence of a criminal state of mind. So could statements that Trump may have made in other meetings where he and Pence were alone or where Pence was present in a larger group. Pence may also have witnessed statements made to Trump in such meetings about the lack of evidence of any widespread fraud, which would be important to prove Trump’s criminal knowledge in firing up the Jan. 6 mob on false pretenses.

On Thursday, retired federal Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig, the conservative judicial icon who advised Pence before Jan. 6, set out in a remarkable series of tweets why neither Smith nor any court should accept Pence’s faulty arguments. The judge explained that in presiding over the joint session of Congress where the election is certified, a vice president “constitutionally serv[es] independently of the United States Senate and House of Representatives” in “ceremonial” and “ministerial” roles. The roles are unique and belong neither to the executive nor to the Congress.  

Jack Smith wants to know what Donald Trump said to Mike Pence when no one else was in the room. Is there any imaginable universe where that wasn’t something corrupt?

Judge Luttig went on to say that while the legal question is unsettled, there are very “few circumstances in which there would be constitutionally legitimate need, reasons, and justification for [the speech or debate] privileges and protections” to apply to a vice president presiding over the certification. Those circumstances could include protection from questions about why Pence acted as he did and what investigations Pence conducted to play his proper role.

In other words, there might be topics on which the speech or debate clause could protect Pence from being questioned, much as it protects a senator, an aide or even a congressional administrator. But such hypothetical topics are only a distraction, and one which Pence’s PR campaign appears designed to exploit in an effort to mislead the public.

Smith won’t be asking Pence about how he performed his role in presiding over the joint session on Jan. 6, 2021, but about whether or how a third party — Donald Trump, for instance — solicited a lawless act by Pence. This is exactly the point on which Judge Luttig closes: Whatever “the privileges and protections enjoyed by a Vice President …  those privileges and protections would yield to the demands of the criminal process.”

The Supreme Court made that clear in another 1972 case where the court rejected Maryland Sen. Daniel C. Brewster’s claim for legislative immunity from prosecution for taking an alleged bribe. Given that ruling, it cannot possibly be that the speech or debate clause protects Pence from being questioned about an apparent attempt to overthrow the government by the investigation’s target. 

Pence knows that in November, the Supreme Court denied Sen. Lindsey Graham’s speech-and-debate claim that he did not have to testify before a Georgia grand jury. He appeared and answered questions. While courts reiterated that he could refuse to answer and come back to a judge if the prosecutor asked questions intruding upon his legislative prerogative, he never did that, apparently because no such questions were asked.

Mike Pence could do voluntarily what Lindsey Graham was eventually ordered to do — testify, while reserving his rights to object to particular questions. For constitutional purposes, that would be the dog wagging the tail.

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GOP attacks on Biden’s Ukraine visit are worse than partisanship — they really want Russia to win

To most people, both at home and abroad, the purpose of President Joe Biden’s recent trip to Ukraine is not mysterious: The United States would like the nation to prevail in its war against Russia’s invading army, and this show of support is valuable for moralizing Ukraine’s supporters while demoralizing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Far-right Republicans, on the other hand, tied themselves into knots in trying to diss Biden without coming right out and saying they want Ukraine to lose. 

Some, like the American Nazi supporters of WWII, tried to package their stance as mere isolationism. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, for instance, exploited the Ohio train wreck catastrophe to argue “Biden is ditching America for Ukraine.” Others, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, went full incoherence, raving, “[I]t’s becoming more like a U.S.- China war through the Ukraine — Russia war.” And some went for puerile race-baiting, such as Rep. Greg Murphy yelling about “the war zone [Biden] created at our southern border.” (In reality, the refugee crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border was created by Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies that Biden has been prevented from fixing by the GOP-controlled Supreme Court.) 

There’s a deeper reason why so many Republicans are going out of their way to undermine American support for Ukraine.

Perhaps the biggest show of pretzel logic came courtesy of Florida’s GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who tried to leverage the past year’s successes against Russia as evidence that the U.S. should drop the support for Ukraine. “I think they’ve shown themselves to be a third-rate military power,” he said of Russia on Fox News, as if that justified rolling over and letting Putin take Ukraine. 

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There’s a temptation to see this rhetoric as mindless partisanship, as nothing more than a reflexive right-wing tendency to dismiss everything Biden says or does as wrong. That’s certainly how former GOP congressman and current MSNBC host Joe Scarborough reacted, arguing, “They hate the American president so much that they’re willing to provide aid and comfort to the Russian cause.”

But the “Morning Joe” host has it backward.

Sure, these people would oppose puppies and rainbows if Biden said he liked those things, but there’s a deeper reason why so many Republicans are going out of their way to undermine American support for Ukraine. It’s because they agree with Putin’s anti-democracy cause and share his hopes that defeating Ukraine will demoralize pro-democracy forces around the world. 

Putin is a living reminder of the dangers of putting a nation’s fate in the hands of a power-mad sociopath — and how it can come back to haunt even his supporters.

So it’s probably a good thing that so few MAGA Republicans — including Trump himself — feel comfortable expressing direct support for Putin and direct opposition to Ukraine. It means it’s still taboo, even in the GOP ranks, to be proudly fascist, much less openly supportive of war crimes. The pretense that MAGA Republicans believe in democracy is still being maintained, even as it’s obvious that they would prefer to get to the part of the story where president-for-life Donald Trump cancels all future elections. 

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Indeed, I’m sure many of them don’t exactly love Putin. He is increasingly unhinged and shows contempt for the lives of his own people, which is bad messaging for the authoritarian cause. The underlying premise of MAGA Republicanism is that abandoning democracy in favor of a Trumpian autocracy will be beneficial for their tribe of white conservative Christians, even as it crushes everyone else under the boot. Putin, however, is a living reminder of the dangers of putting a nation’s fates in the hands of a power-mad sociopath — and how it can come back to haunt even his supporters. That’s why the MAGA media prefers to prop up Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán as their authoritarian role model. That way they can pretend it’s just about limiting immigration and destroying higher education while ignoring the parts involving child murder and genocide. 

But as DeSantis’ dissembling shows, the Trumpist Republicans are now in a rhetorical tough spot, even within their own party. Major GOP leaders like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have not only openly supported Ukraine, but have called on the U.S. to spend even more on military aid to the country. It’s not because they have some great love of democracy. It’s because Putin’s aggression is destabilizing the very world order that made them rich and powerful. They may not love power-sharing with Democrats, but they fear more what unleashing someone like Putin even further would do to their own political futures. 

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That’s where the GOP establishment differs from isolationist anti-Ukraine Republicans, who also happen to be the ones who make the most excuses for the January 6 insurrection. For the hardcore MAGA Republicans, this fight is ideological. They’re not worried about global stability, so much as advancing the anti-democratic cause. I suspect most of them dislike Ukraine for the same reason the country’s independence got under Putin’s skin: Because its existence cuts across their cynical arguments against democracy.

Like Putin, the MAGA movement knows better than to argue against democracy on moral grounds. Instead, the argument is one grounded in performative cynicism. “Gosh, democracy sounds nice on paper,” goes the reasoning, “but, in practice, it just can’t work.” Opponents of democracy will portray democracies as hopelessly corrupt or pathetically weak. That’s why, for instance, they are so dependent on the Big Lie, which has become an all-purpose tool to portray democracy in a bad light. It’s also why Trumpists will toggle back and forth between portraying Biden as an evil mastermind who stole the election, and then arguing the man is too sleepy to handle basic leadership duties. It may be contradictory and nonsensical, but it’s about framing authoritarianism as a necessary evil, and democracy as a pipe dream. 

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“Incredibly insulting”: Republicans attack Joe Biden over surprise Ukraine visit

If Ukraine wins this, though, it undermines this nihilistic view and gives democracy proponents worldwide a shot of morale. So even if MAGA Republicans were indifferent to the nation prior to this invasion, now that it’s become an international symbol, they are rooting for Ukraine’s failure. Indeed, Fox News isn’t even trying to make its anti-Ukraine rhetoric make sense. Tucker Carlson had Tara Reade — whose only claim to fame is a sexual assault allegation against Biden that was shown to strongly conflict with real world, and even basic geographic, evidence — to unspool wild conspiracy theories on Putin’s behalf. 

Reade is not a foreign policy expert or expert on anything, really. But she was willing to spew gibberish to undermine the Ukranian cause, and that’s all that matters to the unsubtle fascist propagandists at Fox News. The kitchen sink approach to the anti-Ukraine rhetoric really gives the game away. There’s no principled, much less coherent, rationale. They’re just throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It’s the rhetorical strategy of people who know they can’t offer their real reasoning, so instead they flood the zone with noise to confuse people about what it is we’re even trying to talk about here. 

The reason MAGA Republicans won’t say what they’re actually thinking is because they want the U.S. to pull support from Ukraine. They want Ukraine to lose. And they want Ukraine to lose because a Ukrainian success would be a boost to democratic sentiment worldwide. That would harm the war on democracy the Trumpists are waging at home. It’s really no more complicated than that, no matter how many random talking points they generate by the hour. 

The science behind why conservatives are so easily triggered

Across the right-wing propaganda and disinformation echo chamber, or perhaps even in person, you have likely encountered the following phrase: “I drink liberal tears.” 

Those four words and their many variations are not harmless or empty. It’s not just a joke or forced type of humor by self-styled “edge lords” and other right-wing disruptors and provocateurs. “I drink liberal tears” is an embodiment of a political worldview that is fascist, authoritarian and anti-human.

That phrase reflects a type of collective antisocial behavior that psychologists have described as “the dark triad” (Machiavellianism; narcissism; psychopathy). We see this with the cruel behavior of mocking newly elected Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania because he suffered a stroke, making fun of President Biden’s public love for his son who is struggling with drug addiction, dismissing the pain and suffering experienced by mass shooting victims and their families, and minimizing the human tragedy caused by the COVID pandemic.

Such antisocial and cruel behavior is not simple “trolling” or other such diminutive catch-all statements. It is something far worse and much more dangerous: psychological warfare.

The lie that conservatives are more “rational” than liberals is a way of naturalizing fascism and other forms of authoritarianism.

At Vice, Jacob Siegel explained how information warfare via memes is designed to wear down the opposition and to encourage collective action by the global right and other neofascists and their collective forces in pursuit of their destructive project.:

We’ve just witnessed a successful meme insurgency in America. Donald Trump’s campaign was founded as an oppositional movement—against the Republican establishment, Democrats, the media, and “political correctness.” It used memes successfully precisely because, as an opposition, it benefited by increasing disorder. Every meme about “Sick Hillary,” “cucks,” or “draining the swamp” chipped away at the wall built around institutional authority.

Trump’s win shocked the world, but if we all read alt-right power broker Jeff Giesea’s paper about memetic warfare in 2015, we might have seen it coming.

“For many of us in the social media world, it seems obvious that more aggressive communication tactics and broader warfare through trolling and memes is a necessary, inexpensive, and easy way to help destroy the appeal and morale of our common enemies,” he said.

In all, “liberal tears” are an intimidation and bullying tactic intended to break democratic norms and institutions around compromise, dialogue, reality, and what constitutes a humane society.

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Republican identity politics: Authoritarianism — not individualism — is central to GOP

New research by Minyoung Choi, Melissa M. Karnaze, Heather C. Lench, and Linda J. Levine which appears in the journal Motivation and Emotion highlights the larger dynamics at work with how conservatives and liberals have divergent views and understandings of rationality and emotions. These differences are at the heart of America’s democracy crisis and an ascendant neofascist movement that has embraced violence and other forms of extremism and illiberal behavior and policies. PsyPost summarizes the new research article “Do liberals value emotion more than conservatives? Political partisanship and Lay beliefs about the functionality of emotion” as follows:

A series of three studies has found that political liberals tend to see emotions as more functional than more conservative people. This comes in spite of the fact that more liberal participants reported less emotional well-being….

Over the past few decades, society in the United States has become more polarized. Liberals and conservatives have come to report more animosity towards the other group than warmth for their own group. Both studies and casual observations indicate that at least some of this polarization might come from the way they see and evaluate the importance of emotions.

The commonly endorsed stereotypes about the two political orientations also revolve around their attitude towards the importance of emotions. According to these stereotypes, liberals are seen as “bleeding-hearts,” emphasizing the importance of emotions, while conservatives are seen as cold, emphasizing a lower value assigned to emotions.

Conservative memes expressing scorn for liberal emotions such as “Facts don’t care about your feelings” and “America runs on liberal tears” also emphasize this difference. The authors of the new research see this contrast between the two political orientations as differences in their beliefs about how functional emotions are.

PsyPost concludes:

The researchers then used the data to estimate “progressivism”.

“We defined progressivism as the extent to which each participant prioritized the ‘individuating’ moral foundations of Care and Fairness more than the ‘socially binding’ moral foundations of Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity when judging actions to be right or wrong,” they explained. Further analyses showed that the link between liberalism and viewing emotions as functional was largely explained by liberal participants’ greater endorsement of individualizing than social binding values.

“Our findings suggest though that liberals view emotion as a feature of rationality while conservatives view it as a bug. Across three studies, liberals viewed emotion as more functional than conservatives – that is, as a healthy source of information about the self that provides direction in life rather than as a weakness and a waste of time,” the study authors concluded.

Of course, conservatives are not more “rational” than liberals. The evidence actually suggests the opposite, that conservatives may in fact be more “emotional” in their decision-making approach to political and other social matters. Neuroscientists, social psychologists, and other researchers have shown that the brains of conservative authoritarians are more sensitive to fear and threat than are the brains of liberals.

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As compared to liberals, conservatives also have the following traits:

  • An intolerance for ambiguity and rejection of complexity.
  • A tendency to fixate more on unpleasant objects and thoughts (negativity bias).

Conservatives are also driven by death anxieties and existential fears about safety from some type of other. In addition, conservatives have a social dominance orientation to their behavior which translates into a desire for fixed and rigid social hierarchies and in-group and out-group arrangements in society. They reject democracy for that reason and are subsequently attracted to strongman leaders and autocratic regimes because they incorrectly believe that they are simple, orderly and efficient. 

Researchers have shown that the brains of conservative authoritarians are more sensitive to fear and threat than are the brains of liberals.

Conservatism is a type of motivated social cognition. Sexism and racism are key elements of that decision-making process and are reflected in how conservatives view the relationship between emotions and government. Mediated by a belief in “traditional gender roles,” conservatives tend to stereotype women as being “overly emotional.” This translates into a rejection of governmental policies and leaders that are deemed to be “feminine” because they are seen as modeling traits of care and concern and empathy.

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UFOs and CRT: Republicans are in a constant state of panic about the “other”

Whiteness and masculinity are social constructs. Historically and through to the present, the intersection of those identities (“white masculinity”) has created a social fiction and lie where in America and across the West white men are seen through the white racial frame as being inherently somehow more rational, reasonable, and intellectual than Black and brown people (especially women of color). The implication of this lie and social fiction is that, both implicitly and explicitly, Black and brown people are deemed to be not fit for full and equal citizenship in the polity. Trump’s coup attempt, the attack on the Capitol, the Big Lie and its underlying belief that the votes of Black and brown people (and by implication multiracial democracy) are somehow fraudulent and illegitimate as compared to the votes cast by white Republicans, Trumpists, and “conservatives” is an example of those sexist and white supremacist values at work.

Ultimately, “I drink liberal tears” and the types of politics and values it represents and encourages is fundamentally a claim about power and authority. Conservatives do not believe in real freedom or democracy. Those who disagree with them are to be silenced if not crushed outright. The lie that conservatives are more “rational” than liberals is a way of naturalizing fascism and other forms of authoritarianism. In the end, there is nothing to debate or discuss — which is one of the defining features of a healthy democracy — because “conservatives” and fascists and other authoritarians imagine themselves as homo superior and all other people are inferior and therefore need to be dominated and subjugated.

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Black holes may be quietly generating the force that is tearing the universe apart, experts say

Ever since our universe exploded into being some 13.8 billion years ago, it has continued to expand. Stars and galaxies are continually moving apart — so fast that even if you were to take off from Earth at the speed of light, you’d never reach about 94 percent of galaxies, even after traveling for billions of years.

“We’re really saying two things at once: that there’s evidence the typical black hole solutions don’t work for you on a long, long timescale, and we have the first proposed astrophysical source for dark energy.”

We know relatively little about this strange expanding force behind our ballooning universe, but we know that it’s speeding up. Because energy is conserved in our universe, that means that if something is spreading out, there has to be some kind of energy behind it; hence, astronomers call this phenomenon “dark energy.” Like dark matter, it is “dark” in the sense that its provenance is mysterious: we don’t know what either is precisely, but both act as variables that help explain models of our universe.

All of this can be somewhat confusing, but essentially, many different cosmologists throughout history have come up with various theories to explain what we observe looking out into space. The universe’s origin is pretty well understood: there is evidence for the events of the Big Bang theory, all the way back to the first milliseconds that the universe existed. 

However, so far, it doesn’t explain everything. Some things are still a mystery, but to complete the picture (and make certain math equations work), we use concepts like dark energy to make the whole thing fit. It can be quite frustrating, even for cosmologists, to have a big unknown stuck in the middle of our equations, but physicists are getting closer and closer to resolving these uncertainties.

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Two huge black holes are on the verge of colliding. When they do, the explosion will be incalculable

A pair of recently published papers, one in The Astrophysical Journal and the other in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, provides some of the best evidence for what dark energy could be. The answer might lie in the core of black holes.

Astrophysicists Duncan Farrah and Kevin Croker, both at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, led this research, in association with researchers and institutions across nine countries. By scanning through existing datasets spanning 9 billion years, they found the first observational evidence for dark energy. If this new data can be supported, it would help us better understand some of the fundamental properties of the universe and could redefine our understanding of what a black hole even is.

Black holes are singularities, meaning points that effectively have no size, but huge masses and infinite density, and which are defined by the fact that nothing, not even light, can escape once they cross a certain radius around the black hole. There seems to be no upper limit to their size either, with supermassive black holes scaling as large as a billion times our own Sun. Most (but not all) black holes form from the corpses of stars that burn out, explode and collapse in on themselves. When they collide, they create massive gravitational waves of energy, which we’ve only recently been able to start detecting using a pair of facilities that make up the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) experiment. That gravitational wave observatory observes huge astronomy events in the universe by observing how they warp how gravity moves through space time; typically, gravitational wave observatories only detect the biggest stellar explosions and mergers. 

“When LIGO heard the first pair of black holes merge in late 2015, everything changed,” Croker said in a statement. “The signal was in excellent agreement with predictions on paper, but extending those predictions to millions, or billions of years? Matching that model of black holes to our expanding universe? It wasn’t at all clear how to do that.”

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The first paper addresses some of the ways that black holes form and accumulate mass, by looking at elliptical galaxies at different stages of evolution. Elliptical galaxies are the most common in our universe, but are some of the oldest and most massive galaxies. They can tell us a lot about what the early universe was like. This research revealed that either observational data of black holes is more riddled with errors than previously thought, or some unknown mechanism is causing supermassive black holes to grow.

The second paper builds on this research and found that mid-sized black holes are growing at the same rate as the universe is expanding. This implies black holes are somehow contributing their own energy to the universe. Even more remarkably, this energy seems to be responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe attributed to dark energy— and hence, could explain what dark energy is.

“This is the first observational paper where we’re not adding anything new to the universe as a source for dark energy: black holes in Einstein’s theory of gravity are the dark energy.”

Coming up with a nifty explanation for dark energy is one thing — and astronomers have been generating such theories for about a century — but this paper provides the first ever observational evidence. That is, evidence that can be measured and (importantly) tested, rather than just existing as an abstract theoretical “maybe.”

“We’re really saying two things at once: that there’s evidence the typical black hole solutions don’t work for you on a long, long timescale, and we have the first proposed astrophysical source for dark energy,” Farrah, the lead author of both papers, said in the same statement. “What that means, though, is not that other people haven’t proposed sources for dark energy, but this is the first observational paper where we’re not adding anything new to the universe as a source for dark energy: black holes in Einstein’s theory of gravity are the dark energy.”

To back up these observations, the researchers plugged their data into numerous models and found consistency. To further confirm this, additional testing is needed, including better measurements of black holes merging and looking for signatures in the Cosmic Microwave Background, the “fossil radiation” that is left over from the Big Bang.

“This measurement, explaining why the universe is accelerating now, gives a beautiful glimpse into the real strength of Einstein’s gravity,” Croker said. “A chorus of tiny voices spread throughout the universe can work together to steer the entire cosmos. How cool is that?”

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Alarm after GOP “funneled” Jan. 6 video to “unrepentant manipulator and liar” Tucker Carlson

Watchdogs on Monday slammed Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to hand 41,000 hours of surveillance footage of the January 6 attack to far-right Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has repeatedly used his massive platform to peddle disinformation, spew bigotry, and cast doubt on the severity of the 2021 insurrection.

“McCarthy giving exclusive access to many hours of January 6 Capitol security footage to Tucker Carlson, who has consistently downplayed the insurrection, is irresponsible and shows McCarthy’s lack of regard for protecting democracy,” Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote of the Republican leader’s decision, which was first reported by Axios.

Carlson, who in 2020 pushed for the firing of a Fox News reporter who fact-checked former President Donald Trump’s election lies, has vocally demanded the public release of the security footage. But McCarthy granting the right-wing host and his team exclusive access to the trove has raised questions over how much of the video will actually reach the public—and how it will be edited and framed.

“Funneling footage of a domestic riot to only one member of an extremist media organization is not releasing the footage to ‘the public,'” The New Republic‘s Prem Thakker wrote Monday in response to Rep. Lauren Boebert’s, R-Colo., celebration of the move.

“Perhaps the move is an attempt to dilute the reality of how violent the riot was: just present thousands of hours of inaction or argue that the larger majority of protesters were simply expressing their First Amendment right to free speech,” Thakker suggested. “Maybe Carlson will spend dedicated segments railing against the Capitol police, trying out ways to blame those defending the Capitol and divert blame away from the people attacking it.”

Axios reported Monday that “Carlson TV producers were on Capitol Hill last week to begin digging through the trove, which includes multiple camera angles from all over Capitol grounds. Excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks.”

“Carlson has repeatedly questioned official accounts of 1/6, downplaying the insurrection as ‘vandalism,'” Axios noted. “Carlson last yearcalled the attack an “outbreak of mob violence, a forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards.”

Judd Legum, the author of the Popular Information newsletter, argued that “the only reason to give the footage exclusively to Tucker is McCarthy knows the footage will only reinforce the GOP’s preferred narrative if it is selectively released by an unrepentant manipulator and liar.”

Florida to stop asking high school athletes about their menstrual cycles — but many states still do

Concerns are being raised across the U.S. about whether schools have a right to compel female athletes to provide information about their menstrual cycles.

The Florida High School Athletic Association Board of Directors rejected a proposal in February 2023 that would have required high school girls to answer four questions about their menstrual cycles in order to play on school sports teams. The questions had previously been optional.

The four questions were: Have you had a menstrual cycle? How old were you when you had your first menstrual period? When was your most recent menstrual period? How many periods have you had in the past 12 months?

The answers, along with the rest of students’ medical history, would have been entered into an online platform and stored on a third-party database called Aktivate. School personnel would have had access to this information.

While Florida decided to scrap the questions from their student forms, many states currently ask similar questions of their female athletes prior to participation in their sport.

As researchers who are experts in Title IX, sports and health care equity, and constitutional law, we have identified three reasons why schools and states tracking female athletes’ menstrual history may conflict with federal laws.

1. It may violate federal anti-discrimination law

Title IX, a federal policy passed in 1972, prohibits federally funded schools from discriminating against students based on sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. The goal of the policy is to end sex discrimination, sex-based harassment and sexual violence in education.

While Title IX applies to all school settings, it is often most associated with athletics.

Requiring female student-athletes to submit menstrual cycle data to their schools could be a form of sex discrimination and therefore violate Title IX. The reason it is potentially discriminatory is because girls are the only students at risk of being denied the opportunity to play sports if they choose not to provide schools with details about their menstrual cycles.

In a 2020 Harvard Journal of Law and Gender study, three scholars argue that schools should create educational settings free of “unnecessary anxiety about the biological process of menstruation.”

“Because menstruation is a biological process linked to female sex,” they write, “educational deprivations connected with schools’ treatment of menstruation should be understood as a violation of Title IX’s core proposition.”

Screenshot of a medical form with questions about menstrual history

Questions about students’ menstrual history were removed from the Florida High School Athletic Association’s physical evaluation form. Florida High School Athletic Association

2. It threatens constitutional rights

Tracking female athletes’ menstrual history may be downright unconstitutional.

Forcing only females to disclose private medical information may violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits sex-based discrimination.

Also, 11 states have a “right to privacy” written into their state constitutions. For example, the Florida Constitution states that “all natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights,” including “the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life.”

While other states do not explicitly provide a right to privacy in their constitutions, legal precedent has determined that this right is implicit in the U.S. Constitution.

And finally, federal laws that protect medical and educational records do not have standards for maintaining medical records that are shared with schools and stored on third-party databases. This lack of precedent may result in privacy breaches.

3. It could be used against transgender students

The recent passage of several anti-LGBTQ+ policies in Florida made the Florida High School Athletic Association’s attempts to track and digitally store menstrual data particularly worrisome to trans rights advocates.

In June 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill prohibiting trans girls from playing on girls athletic teams.

In March 2022, DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education bill, better known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. It prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in K-3 public school classrooms.

And just one week after the proposed mandate was struck down, a Florida House committee advanced a bill that would place the Governor’s office in control of the Florida High School Athletic Association.

As more states try to ban trans youth from receiving gender-affirming medical care – including hormone therapy, surgical procedures and other treatments – menstrual tracking in athletes could serve as another mechanism to harm and criminalize transgender youth.

Tracking menstrual cycles could “out” trans youth if they are required to disclose information about their menstrual cycle – whether that is the presence or absence of a cycle. If a school is responsible for outing trans kids, they violate both constitutional rights and Title IX policy, and they risk endangering the outed students’ welfare.

Protecting period privacy

While the proposed Florida mandate was rejected, we have found that most states do in fact collect data on high school athletes’ menstrual cycles.

Based on our collection of sports pre-participation forms, only four states – Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York and Oklahoma – as well as Washington, D.C., do not currently ask any questions about menstrual history on the sport pre-participation medical forms provided by their state athletic association.

Following the vote on the Florida proposal, three House Democrats introduced legislation called the Privacy in Education Regarding Individuals’ Own Data Act, or PERIOD Act. It would prohibit schools from collecting menstrual information altogether.

If this legislation is adopted, the estimated 3 million American high school girls who play sports in a state that still asks about menstrual history will no longer have to share this information.

 

Lindsey Darvin, Assistant Professor of Sport Management, Syracuse University; David Schultz, Professor of Political Science, Hamline University , and Tia Spagnuolo, Doctoral Student in Community Research and Action, Binghamton University, State University of New York

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

Investigation shows rail giant donated to Ohio GOP governor a month before toxic crash

An investigation published Monday revealed that just weeks before a Norfolk Southern-owned train overloaded with hazardous materials derailed and caused a toxic chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio, the rail giant donated $10,000—the maximum amount allowed—to help fund the inauguration of the state’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.

According to WSYX, the Columbus-based news outlet that conducted the investigation, “This contribution, which is part of $29,000 the Virginia-based corporation has contributed to DeWine’s political funds since he first ran for governor in 2018, is merely one piece of an extensive, ongoing effort to influence statewide officials and Ohio lawmakers.”

“In all, the railway company has contributed about $98,000 during the past six years to Ohio statewide and legislative candidates, according to data from the secretary of state,” WSYX reported. “Virtually all went to Republicans, although Norfolk Southern hedged its support for DeWine in 2018 with a $3,000 check to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray.”

In addition to shelling out loads of campaign cash, Norfolk Southern has also extensively lobbied DeWine, statewide officials, and Ohio lawmakers.

Quarterly reports disclosing the company’s lobbying activities show that DeWine and other statewide officials were targeted 39 times over the past six years, while Ohio lawmakers were targeted 167 times during the same time period.

“Most of the disclosed attempts to influence Ohio leaders came on generic rail or transportation issues,” WSYX reported. “Some efforts, however, were devoted to defeating legislation that would have established tougher safety standards for rail yards and train operations.”

River Valley Organizing, a local progressive group, declared on social media that “this is what we’re up against.”

Norfolk Southern’s successful bid to thwart at least one Ohio bill aimed at improving railroad safety—explained in depth by the local news outlet—mirrors the company’s triumphant campaign to weaken federal regulations.

Before dozens of its train cars careened off the tracks and burst into flames in East Palestine on February 3—leading to the discharge of vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals—Norfolk Southern “helped kill a federal safety rule aimed at upgrading the rail industry’s Civil War-era braking systems,” The Lever reported earlier this month.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has been criticized by progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers for his lackluster response to the crisis in East Palestine, sent a letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw on Sunday stating that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the cause of the derailment and that the Federal Railroad Administration is examining whether safety violations occurred and intends to hold Norfolk Southern accountable if they did.

Buttigieg insisted that the company “demonstrate unequivocal support” for the poor rural town’s roughly 4,700 residents as well as the populations of surrounding areas potentially affected by air and groundwater contamination.

“Norfolk Southern must live up to its commitment to make residents whole—and must also live up to its obligation to do whatever it takes to stop putting communities such as East Palestine at risk,” the transportation secretary wrote. “This is the right time for Norfolk Southern to take a leadership position within the rail industry, shifting to a posture that focuses on supporting, not thwarting, efforts to raise the standard of U.S. rail safety regulation.”

As The Associated Pressreported Monday:

Buttigieg also said that Norfolk Southern and other rail companies “spent millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose commonsense safety regulations, stopping some entirely and reducing the scope of others.” He said the effort undermined rules on brake requirements and delayed the phase-in for more durable rail cars to transport hazardous material to 2029, instead of the “originally envisioned date of 2025.”

The transportation secretary said the results of the investigation are not yet known, but “we do know that these steps that Norfolk Southern and its peers lobbied against were intended to improve rail safety and to help keep Americans safe.”

Nevertheless, as The Lever reported earlier this month, Buttigieg is actively considering an industry-backed proposal to further erode federal oversight of train braking systems.

The outlet has published an open letter urging Buttigieg “to rectify the multiple regulatory failures that preceded this horrific situation,” including by exercising his authority to reinstate the rail safety rules rescinded by the Trump administration at the behest of industry lobbyists.

The full environmental and public health consequences of the ongoing East Palestine disaster are still coming into view, as residents question the validity of initial water testing paid for by Norfolk Southern.

Despite state officials’ claims that air and water in the area remain safe, thousands of fish have died in polluted local waterways and people in the vicinity of the derailment have reported headaches, eye irritation, and other symptoms.

Just days after his company skipped a town hall meeting, Shaw visited East Palestine on Saturday and said that “we are here and will stay here for as long as it takes to ensure your safety.”

Norfolk Southern, which reported record-breaking operating revenues of $12.7 billion in 2022, originally offered to donate just $25,000 to help affected residents—an amount equivalent to about $5 per person—but recently announced the creation of a $1 million charitable fund instead.

Lawmakers in Ohio “are now scrambling to make sure the railroad is held accountable,” WSYX reported. “The House Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to hear ‘informal testimony’ Wednesday from Karen Huey, assistant director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, and John Esterly, chairman of the Ohio State Legislative Board with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.”

In Washington, U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., on Friday requested information regarding the handling of hazardous materials from the CEOs of several large rail corporations, including Norfolk Southern.

“Over the past five years, the Class I railroads have cut their workforce by nearly one-third, shuttered railyards where railcars are traditionally inspected, and are running longer and heavier trains,” Cantwell wrote. “Thousands of trains carrying hazardous materials, like the one that derailed in Ohio, travel through communities throughout the nation each day.”

Notably, Norfolk Southern announced a $10 billion stock buyback program last March. The company has routinely raised its dividend, rewarding shareholders while refusing to invest in safety upgrades or basic benefits such as paid sick leave.

Just days after he sent co-authored letters raising safety and health concerns to the NTSB and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said during a Sunday appearance on CNN‘s “State of the Union” that Norfolk Southern is responsible for the East Palestine disaster, which he characterized as another chapter in “the same old story.”

“Corporations do stock buybacks, they do big dividend checks, they lay off workers,” said Brown. “Thousands of workers have been laid off from Norfolk Southern. Then they don’t invest in safety rules and safety regulation, and this kind of thing happens. That’s why people in East Palestine are so upset.”

“They know that corporate lobbyists have had far too much influence in our government and they see this as the result,” Brown continued. “These things are happening because these railroads are simply not investing the way they should in car safety and in the rail lines themselves.”

“Something’s wrong with corporate America and something’s wrong with Congress and administrations listening too much to corporate lobbyists,” he added. “And that’s got to change.”

Another Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials crashed last week near Detroit, Michigan. Like Brown, union leaders and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have attributed the recent derailments to Wall Street-backed policies that prioritize profits over safety.

As David Sirota, Rebecca Burns, Julia Rock, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook of The Lever pointed out in a recent New York Times opinion piece, the U.S. is home to more than 1,000 train derailments per year and has seen a 36% increase in hazardous materials violations committed by rail carriers in the past five years.

The rail industry “tolerates too many preventable derailments and fights too many safety regulations,” the journalists wrote. “The federal government must move quickly to improve rail safety overall.”

An inter-union alliance of U.S. rail workers, meanwhile, has called on organized labor to back the nationalization of the country’s railroad system, arguing that “our nation can no longer afford private ownership of the railroads; the general welfare demands that they be brought under public ownership.”

“Censoring dissent”: Florida GOP wants to make it easier for officials like DeSantis to sue critics

A Florida House Republican introduced legislation Monday that would make it easier for state officials—such as censorship-happy Gov. Ron DeSantis—to sue for defamation, a measure that critics decried as a blatant attack on the freedom of the press and free expression with potentially sweeping implications.

Filed by Florida state Rep. Alex Andrade (R-2), H.B. 951 laments that the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan has “foreclosed many meritorious defamation claims to the detriment of citizens of all walks of life” by placing such claims under the purview of the federal government and establishing a high standard of proof.

As the Oyez Project summarizes, the high court held in the 1964 decision that “to sustain a claim of defamation or libel, the First Amendment requires that the plaintiff show that the defendant knew that a statement was false or was reckless in deciding to publish the information without investigating whether it was accurate.”

Following the introduction of Andrade’s bill, Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer, told the outlet Law & Crime that “it’s black-letter law that a state cannot constitutionally provide less protection in libel litigation than the First Amendment requires.”

“This text does just that, obviously intentionally,” said Abrams. “If Governor DeSantis, a Harvard Law graduate, thinks the statute is constitutional, he’s forgotten what he was taught. If he’s looking for a way to offer the Supreme Court a case in which it might reconsider settled law, who knows. But what’s clear is that it is today and tomorrow facially at odds with the First Amendment.”

The new bill was filed two weeks after DeSantis, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, held a roundtable purportedly aimed at spotlighting the “defamation practices” of legacy media outlets. While DeSantis has framed his campaign against defamation as an attempt to empower “everyday citizens” against false attacks, free speech advocates warned that, in reality, the governor and his right-wing allies in the Legislature are looking to silence criticism of elected officials like themselves.

“DeSantis continues to make clear his disdain for freedom of speech and the press and to prioritize censoring dissent over governing,” said Seth Stern, director of Advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and a First Amendment lawyer.

Andrade’s bill, Stern argued, “would do nothing for ordinary Floridians but would allow government officials and celebrities to harass and even bankrupt their critics with expensive litigation.”

“It would stifle investigative reporting by presuming any statements attributed to anonymous sources to be false despite that (or, given DeSantis’ ambitions, maybe because) confidential sources have literally brought down presidents in this country,” Stern added. “The Florida legislature should reject this political stunt and Floridians should not tolerate their governor’s experiments in authoritarianism in their name and at their expense. The U.S. Congress should safeguard the First Amendment by codifying Sullivan and ensuring that the press and public are protected from politically-motivated defamation lawsuits.”

The Florida House measure, just the latest broadside against free expression by the state GOP, specifically urges the U.S. Supreme Court to “reassess” Sullivan, an effort that media lawyer Matthew Schafer described as “part of the right’s world war on individual rights, equality, and democracy.” (The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the 1964 ruling last year.)

“Unsurprisingly, it’s peddled as a bill to protect the little guy,” Schafer noted. “Nothing is further from the truth. It’s a gift to the ruling class.”

Andrade’s bill, which resembles a proposal drafted by DeSantis’ administration last year, outlines specific restrictions on who can and cannot be considered a “public figure” entitled to pursue defamation claims under the legislation.

The measure states that a person does not qualify as a public figure if their “fame or notoriety arises solely from” defending themselves against an accusation; “granting an interview on a specific topic”; “public employment, other than elected office or appointment by an elected official”; or “a video, an image, or a statement uploaded on the Internet that has reached a broad audience.”

In a column last week, The Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple cautioned that DeSantis’ attempts to target Sullivan could pose “a far greater threat to U.S. media” than former President Donald Trump’s ultimately empty pledge to “open up” libel laws.

During his roundtable event earlier this month, “DeSantis, an ace practitioner of GOP media-bashing rhetoric, showed why some critics view him as a more dangerous embodiment of Trump’s two-bit authoritarianism,” Wemple wrote.

J.K. Rowling dismisses her transphobic legacy: “I’ll be dead”

For some “Harry Potter” fans, their love of the franchise is over, tarnished by its creator’s very public stance against trans rights. But as J.K. Rowling, the author of the boy magician books, said in a recent podcast, she’s not concerned.

On the podcast “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling,” Rowling said that fans “could not have misunderstood me more profoundly” when they expressed concerns that her legacy as a writer is “ruined.”

As reported by Variety, Rowling said in the first episode of the podcast, “I do not walk around my house, thinking about my legacy. You know, what a pompous way to live your life walking around thinking, ‘What will my legacy be?’ Whatever, I’ll be dead.” 

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Daniel Radcliffe is no Voldemort: “Harry Potter” actor assures that Rowling doesn’t speak for him

Hosted by Megan Phelps-Roper, who spent over 25 years in her grandfather Fred Phelps’ extremist Westboro Baptist Church (which Rowling once criticized), “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” is produced by the Bari Weiss-founded media company Free Press. Variety writes that the podcast “attempts to draw parallels between attacks on Rowling by far-right Christian groups over the Harry Potter books — as somehow harmfully promoting witchcraft — and more recent furor over Rowling’s statements about trans people. Phelps-Roper is looking for commonality between the intolerant right-wingers who wanted to ban and burn the Harry Potter books and trans activists who have threatened Rowling.”

The podcast includes interviews with Rowling conducted at her home castle in Edinburgh. It comes on the heels of a New York Times opinion column by former Books Review editor Pamela Paul headlined “In Defense of J. K. Rowling,” and in the recent aftermath of a letter signed by thousands of Times contributors protesting the paper’s coverage of trans people. 

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As NME reports, on the podcast Rowling “defended her right to espouse her views on various subjects. She said: ‘I never set out to upset anyone. However, I was not uncomfortable with getting off my pedestal.'” The writer who once, as Variety wrote, “suggested that trans women ‘retain male patterns of criminality,’ which makes them likelier than cisgender women to physically or sexually assault someone in a women’s locker room or shelter,” also said on the podcast, “I care about now. I care about the living.”

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about J. K. Rowling

“It’s not a short list”: Forewoman says Georgia grand jury recommended numerous indictments

The Georgia special grand jury that investigated former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss in the state recommended multiple indictments, a jury forewoman told The New York Times on Tuesday.

Forewoman Emily Kohrs did not say which people the grand jury recommended for indictment but told the outlet that “it is not a short list.”

Kohrs told the Times that the grand jury appended eight pages of legal code “that we cited at various points in the report.”

The judge overseeing the case last week released redacted portions of the grand jury’s report but seven sections that were redacted relate to the indictment recommendations, according to the report.

Asked whether the grand jury recommended indicting Trump himself, Kohrs gave a “cryptic” answer, according to the Times’ Danny Hakim.

“You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science,” she said, adding “you won’t be too surprised.”

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“He’s gonna get indicted”: Experts expect “criminal charges” after Georgia grand jury release

The investigation into Trump’s efforts was launched by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after the release of the recording of the infamous phone call on which the former president urged Georgia Secretary Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss.

“We definitely started with the first phone call, the call to Secretary Raffensperger that was so publicized,” Kohrs told the Times.

“I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it is not going to be some giant plot twist,” she added. “You probably have a fair idea of what may be in there. I’m trying very hard to say that delicately.”

Special grand juries in the state do not have indictment powers, leaving the decision on whether to bring charges to Willis.

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The special grand jury heard from 75 witnesses, including top Trump allies, and recommended perjury charges against “one or more witnesses,” according to the redacted grand jury report released last week. Kohrs told the Associated Press that the grand jury wanted to hear from Trump himself but did not expect he would offer any meaningful testimony.

“Trump was not a battle we picked to fight,” she told the outlet.

Kohrs described other witnesses that appeared before the panel, including former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who she told the AP was “much more forthcoming than her old boss, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who fought Willis’ subpoena, “politely answered” questions during his appearance, she told the AP. And former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani “invoked privilege to avoid answering many questions,” according to the report.

“At least one person who resisted answering questions became much more cooperative when prosecutors offered him immunity in front of the jurors, Kohrs said,” according to the report. “Other witnesses came in with immunity deals already in place.”

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about the Georgia grand jury probe

A crusty, comforting loaf of rustic bread in just one hour — really

I didn’t want to get my heart broken again. I’ve been hurt too many times by bread. I’ve been hurt by starters that would never become sufficiently foamy, by doughs that sullenly refused to rise, by boules that baked into oversized hockey pucks.

As far as I’m concerned, one of the better things about our later pandemic era has been that it’s become acceptable to go back to ignoring sourdough. Like everybody, I tried. And what I learned is that there is literally no way I can cultivate a jar of gray gloop with more nurturing attention than I’ve given most of my relationships. 

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The best garlic bread has a secret ingredient and takes 10 minutes

Yet I can’t deny that there is an unmatched domestic pride that comes from presenting a fresh, crusty loaf of bread to the table, or that there are few better smells in the world than the wafting aroma of a beautiful loaf in the oven. 

At my most ambitious I can be an occasional and okay bread baker, pulling off soft, buttery sandwich loaves, or making Jim Lahey’s idiot-proof no-knead bread when I manage the math of a project that requires at least one day’s notice to pull off. But the main emotion of bread baking for me has always been a kind of suffocated, Ibsen drama-level panic. How can I live my life when I have this yeasty dough to watch over? What about my dreams, when I have this miche to feed? In an efficiency-obsessed world, the prospect of investing my time and energy into something that might temperamentally react to a kitchen that’s too cold or water that’s too warm is pretty anxiety-inducing. 

So what if we drastically slashed the whole housebound, waiting-around aspect of the experience? What if we amped up the recipe to all but guarantee a respectable rise? What if we baked a true blue loaf of crusty bread in about the time it takes to make the rest of dinner? Then it wouldn’t be stressful. It wouldn’t be scary. It’d be cool.

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“If you’re a baker you should be instantly suspicious;” Kitchn writer Faith Durand admits in her recipe for “No-Time Bread,” acknowledging that “Time is what generally makes bread good. We can’t promise the incredible slow-rise flavor of no-knead bread here, but you can indeed trick yeast into a fast rise that gives a different but still delicious homemade loaf.” When I first read the recipe, I was cautiously hopeful — a splash of balsamic vinegar and two quick rounds in the microwave seemed to offer the accelerated gist of a more leisurely offering, kind of like when you listen to a podcast on 1.5x speed.

I decided to improve my odds even further here, using rapid-rise yeast and swapping out water with a hoppy pale ale. I also used all-purpose flour instead of Durand’s recommended bread flour, because I don’t bake bread enough to have bread flour and maybe you don’t either. In about an hour, I had a burnished loaf of chewy, crusty homemade bread and I could give the rest of the day over to my other passions. I’m honestly still a little in shock that this works and works so well. The most exquisite of comfort foods, without any fear of failure? This may just be the bread to make a bread baker out of even the most commitment-phobic among us.

* * *

Inspired by Faith Durand for The Kitchn and Kitchen Konfidence

One hour rustic bread
Yields
 1 loaf
Prep Time
 25 minutes
Cook Time
 35 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 packages of rapid rise dry yeast (4 1/2 teaspoons)
  • 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups of your favorite pale ale
  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons sea salt
  • 3/4 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar

Directions

  1. Place the yeast, sugar, and beer in a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, and stir.

  2. Remove all the racks the oven but one and make sure that one is in the center. Preheat to 450 degrees. Place a Dutch oven in the oven. (I used my 6-quart one here.)

  3. To the yeast mixture, add the flour, salt and the vinegar. If you have a dough hook, knead on low speed for about 10 minutes. If you don’t have a mixer, you can knead the dough by hand for several minutes. The dough should hold together, and look wet and springy but not too sticky. 
  4. Lightly oil a microwave-safe bowl. Put the dough in the bowl and coat it in the oil. Cover the bowl with a very wet kitchen towel. Then cover everything  with a dry kitchen towel. Microwave on high for 25 seconds.
  5. Let the dough rest in the microwave for 5 minutes. Microwave on high again another 25 seconds. Remove from the microwave and let rest 10 minutes.
  6. Carefully remove the Dutch oven from the oven and gently drop the dough into it. Slash the top a few times with a knife or kitchen scissors.
  7. Put the lid on and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake about  5 minutes more, until the top looks crusty and golden. Top with a sprinkling of herbs if you like, and serve with your best butter.

Cook’s Notes

This would be so good with herbs, grated cheese, or garlic baked in.

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of our favorite breads

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“Traveling bombs”: Ohio disaster shows how both parties enable 21st-century rail robber barons

In the two weeks since the Norfolk Southern rail disaster, which resulted in the release of a vast quantity of vinyl chloride and other highly toxic chemicals into the air and water in the borderlands of Ohio and Pennsylvania, elected officials from both parties have blasted the Norfolk Southern railroad.

They are certainly a worthy target.

Norfolk Southern, as one of just seven Class One railroads, down from close to 50 in the 1980s, reportedly increased its payout to its shareholders by some 4,500 percent while it cut its railroad workforce by a third before the Ohio catastrophe. This was achieved by slashing costs, successfully resisting regulation, and deploying more costly technology as the rail carrier made their trains longer, heavier, and much more profitable.

Yet, America’s elected leadership from both political parties don’t have clean hands either.

As the toxic cloud heads east, across North America, with the jet stream generating anxiety and possible contamination along the way, we need to look at how the rail monopoly got a stranglehold on the Congress, the executive branch and federal regulators.

As Lever journalists David Sirota, Rebecca Burns, Julia Rock, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook observed in a recent New York Times op-ed, while the “precise cause of the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine is still under investigation… we know it occurred in an industry that tolerates too many preventable derailments and fights too many safety regulations.”

The Lever team’s op-Ed continues, “During the Obama and Trump administrations, the rail industry successfully lobbied against stricter rules for trains carrying flammable chemicals, and against more advanced brakes that experts and the rail industry itself have said could lessen the severity of derailments.”

But the corrosion of our politics by corporate interests extends into our state capitals like Trenton where lawmakers have been unable to move a commonsense rail safety bill for over a decade.

Consider that it was over a decade on November 30, 2012, that a southbound Consolidated Rail Corporation freight train derailed in Paulsboro, in Gloucester County, adjacent to the Delaware River.

Four rail cars fell into the Mantua Creek, after the freight train passed over a moveable rail bridge that had not been properly secured. One tank car was breached, releasing approximately 23,000 gallons of vinyl chloride. Local, state, and federal emergency personnel responded on scene. A voluntary evacuation zone was established for the area, and nearby schools were ordered to immediately take shelter and seal off their buildings.

“Eyewitnesses reported a vapor cloud engulfed the scene immediately following the accident,” the National Transportation Safety Board reported. “On the day of the accident, 28 area residents sought medical attention for possible vinyl chloride exposure. The train crew and numerous emergency responders were also exposed to vinyl chloride. Equipment damage estimates were $451,000. The emergency response and remediation costs totaled about $30 million.”

The NTSB probe flagged multiple gaps and lapses in training, compliance as well as incident management that contributed to derailment and a botched response. The safety agency found there was no “comprehensive safety management program that would have identified and mitigated the risks associated with the continued operation of the bridge despite multiple bridge malfunctions of increasing frequency.”

The NTSB analysis continued. “Contributing to the consequences of the accident was the failure of the incident commander to implement established hazardous materials response protocols for worker protection and community exposure to the vinyl chloride release.”

June 6, 2013, the Quebec village of Lac-Mégantec was incinerated and dozens of its residents killed when a driverless freight train with over 70 tanker cars loaded with oil from North Dakota derailed and crashed.

Jeff Tittel was the executive director of the Sierra Club of New Jersey at the time. He recalls that the Paulsboro derailment and Lac-Mégantec helped to validate concerns being raised by environmental groups as the U.S. embraced fracking as rail and pipelines became a focal point.

“With New Jersey being the corridor state that it is, we have these trains coming through all the time to our refineries and chemical plants,” Tittel told InsiderNJ.  “We started twelve years ago with the Bakken oil trains coming into New Jersey to Conoco Phillips and Conoco had expanded their bays to allow for that transfer—there was the Pilgrim Pipeline which would bring Bakken crude down from Albany with the barges coming down the Hudson, so the transshipment of highly flammable chemicals and hydrocarbons was a big issue and then we had the big Paulsboro derailment.”

Working with then Senate Majority Leader Lorretta Weinberg, environmentalists supported a comprehensive rail safety bill that addressed the long list of gaps and vulnerabilities that investigators had flagged after Paulsboro.

“What came out of Paulsboro was a train safety bill that had four pieces to it: the notification of emergency services when these trains are coming in; a response plan in case there is a spill or accident with a hazmat clean-up plan and liability insurance; track inspections and more safety monitoring in terms of the trains coming; and a public notice component.”

Tittel points out that as in the East Palestine, Ohio Norfolk Southern wreck, where the local first responders on the scene were overwhelmingly volunteers, “80 percent of the fire departments in New Jersey are volunteer especially when you get into small towns in rural areas in South Jersey.”

According to the US Fire Service 2021 National Needs Assessment, volunteer firefighters in towns the size of East Palestine are in short supply with an average of 6.7 firefighters available on weekdays, compared to 11.4 on the weekend.

And as it turns out, they are not that well-equipped.

When it comes to providing a Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus [SCBA] for firefighters, the US Fire Service reports, “more than half (53 percent) of all fire departments cannot equip everyone with SCBA. Departments protecting under 9,999 people have the highest rates of unmet need for SCBA equipment.”

“The whole idea is we wanted training and mitigation, hazard, and cleanup plans to all be in place in case of a spill,” Tittel said adding that the proposed package borrowed from a similar measure that was enacted in California that included a fee assessed on the hazardous cargo

“The fee on the trans-shipment would have been used to pay for all these programs—upgrades of equipment and fixing the rail lines and it had survived a federal court challenge and that was the first thing they stripped out of the bill,” Tittel said.

Gov. Christie vetoed the bill and Gov. Murphy’s press office did not respond to a query about the latest version of the legislation.

“Christie’s veto of this bill is unconscionable, reckless, and dangerous,” wrote Sierra Club’s Tittel wrote after Christie vetoed the bill. “He seems to care more about oil companies than the safety of the people of New Jersey. The bill was a compromise that everyone worked on and an important step in the right direction to deal with these dangerous bomb trains.”

“Believe me, no one is more frustrated than I am,” said Weinberg in response to a query from InsiderNJ about the status of her legislation after the East Palestine disaster. “Watching NJ transit reform being undone, lack of urgency about train, safety, and a few things left out of the sexual harassment legislation – just to name a few.”

Last year, a few months after Weinberg retired from the state senate, she wrote an op-ed for NJ.com warned that “unbeknownst to most New Jerseyans, trains hauling highly volatile crude oil go rumbling through New Jersey neighborhoods at all hours of the day including densely populated Newark and Jersey City.”

Weinberg continued. “How destructive can these traveling “bombs” be? Just look at the 2013 derailment of a 72-car oil train carrying Bakken crude, the same type of oil being transported through New Jersey communities, that occurred in the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic. It caused a major disaster with a massive explosion and fire that killed 47 people and destroyed approximately 40 buildings.

“Given the population density of our state, the deadly hazards of Bakken crude oil shipments are of particular concern to residents of New Jersey, as thousands of these rail cars now pass through our communities every week, including heavily populated areas like Essex, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Somerset, Middlesex, and Union counties.

Weinberg reminded readers that the “the vapors from a spill, even without a fire or explosion, pose a serious health risk, including exposure to cancer-causing benzene; toluene, which has been linked to nerve damage; and hydrocarbons that have been linked to lung damage.”

While the former Senate Majority Leader expressed regret, she “couldn’t get the Bill across ac the finish line in my time, I’ve never stopped advocating for action, and I am proud to see the new representatives in my district also take up the mantle.”

Right now, it’s our volunteer first responders and the residents of our corridor communities that are most vulnerable to an event that could cast a lifelong shadow over their health as dark as the one cast over tens of thousands of 9/11 WTC responders and survivors who were told by the US EPA the downtown air was “safe to breathe.”

The record is clear, if and when there’s another East Palestine or even a Paulsboro, there needs to not only be accountability for the railroads but for the elected officials who continue to enable them.

The Ukraine war and ICBMs: An accidental launch that could end the world is closer than ever

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, media coverage of the war hasn’t included even the slightest mention of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Yet the war has boosted the chances that ICBMs will set off a global holocaust. Four hundred of them — always on hair-trigger alert — are fully armed with nuclear warheads in underground silos scattered across Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming, while Russia deploys about 300 of its own. Former Defense Secretary William Perry has called ICBMs “some of the most dangerous weapons in the world,” warning that “they could even trigger an accidental nuclear war.”

Now, with sky-high tensions between the world’s two nuclear superpowers, the chances of ICBMs starting a nuclear conflagration have increased as American and Russian forces face off in close proximity. Mistaking a false alarm for a nuclear-missile attack becomes more likely amid the stress, fatigue and paranoia that come with protracted warfare and maneuvers.

Because they’re uniquely vulnerable as land-based strategic weapons, with the military precept of “use them or lose them,” ICBMs are set to launch on warning. So, as Perry explained, “If our sensors indicate that enemy missiles are en route to the United States, the president would have to consider launching ICBMs before the enemy missiles could destroy them. Once they are launched, they cannot be recalled. The president would have less than 30 minutes to make that terrible decision.”

But rather than openly discuss — and help to reduce — such dangers, U.S. mass media and officials downplay or deny them with silence. The best scientific research tells us that a nuclear war would result in “nuclear winter,” causing the deaths of about 99 percent of the planet’s human population. While the Ukraine war is heightening the odds that such an unfathomable catastrophe will occur, laptop warriors and mainstream pundits keep voicing enthusiasm for continuing the war indefinitely, with a blank check for U.S. weapons and other shipments to Ukraine that have already topped $110 billion.

Related

The Doomsday Clock is an imperfect metaphor — but the existential danger is all too real

Meanwhile, any message in favor of moving toward real diplomacy and de-escalation to end the horrendous conflict in Ukraine is apt to be attacked as capitulation, while the realities of nuclear war and its consequences are papered over with denial. It was, at most, a one-day news story last month when — calling this “a time of unprecedented danger” and “the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been” — the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that its “Doomsday Clock” had moved even closer to apocalyptic midnight: just 90 seconds away, compared to five minutes a decade ago.

A vital way to reduce the chances of nuclear annihilation would be for the United States to dismantle its entire ICBM force. Former ICBM launch officer Bruce G. Blair and Gen. James E. Cartwright, a former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote: “By scrapping the vulnerable land-based missile force, any need for launching on warning disappears.” Objections to the United States shutting down ICBMs on its own (whether or not reciprocated by Russia or China) are akin to insisting that someone standing knee-deep in a pool of gasoline must not unilaterally stop lighting matches.

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What is at stake? In an interview after publication of his landmark 2017 book “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner,” Daniel Ellsberg explained that nuclear war “would loft into the stratosphere many millions of tons of soot and black smoke from the burning cities. It wouldn’t be rained out in the stratosphere. It would go around the globe very quickly and reduce sunlight by as much as 70 percent, causing temperatures like that of the Little Ice Age, killing harvests worldwide and starving to death nearly everyone on Earth. It probably wouldn’t cause extinction. We’re so adaptable. Maybe 1 percent of our current population of 7.4 billion could survive, but 98 or 99 percent would not.”

However, to Ukraine war enthusiasts proliferating in U.S. media, such talk is notably unhelpful, if not perniciously helpful to Russia. They have no use for, and seem to prefer silence from, experts who can explain “how a nuclear war would kill you and almost everyone else.” The frequent insinuation is that calls for reducing the chances of nuclear war, while pursuing vigorous diplomacy to end the Ukraine war, are coming from wimps and scaredy-cats who serve Vladimir Putin’s interests.

To the war enthusiasts in U.S. media, calls for reducing the chances of nuclear war and pursuing vigorous diplomacy are coming from wimps who serve Putin’s interests.

One corporate-media favorite, Timothy Snyder, churns out bellicose bravado under the guise of solidarity with the Ukrainian people, issuing declarations such as his recent claim that “the most important thing to say about nuclear war” is that “it’s not happening.” Which just goes to show that a prominent Ivy League historian can be as dangerously blinkered as anyone else.

Cheering and bankrolling war from afar is easy enough — in the words of Andrew Bacevich, “our treasure, someone else’s blood.” We can feel righteous about providing rhetorical and tangible support for the killing and dying.

Writing in the New York Times on Sunday, liberal columnist Nicholas Kristof called for NATO to further escalate the Ukraine war. Although he noted the existence of “legitimate concerns that if Putin is backed into a corner, he could lash out at NATO territory or use tactical nuclear weapons,” Kristof quickly added reassurance: “But most analysts think it is unlikely that Putin would use tactical nuclear weapons.”

Get it? “Most” analysts think it’s “unlikely” — so go ahead and roll the dice. Don’t be too concerned about pushing the planet into nuclear war. Don’t be one of the nervous nellies just because escalating warfare will increase the chances of a nuclear conflagration.

To be clear: There is no valid excuse for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its horrific ongoing war on that country. At the same time, continually pouring in vast quantities of higher and higher tech weaponry qualifies as what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” During his Nobel Peace Prize speech, King declared: “I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.”

In the coming days, reaching a crescendo Friday on the first anniversary of the Ukraine invasion, media assessments of the war will intensify. Upcoming protests and other actions in dozens of U.S. cities – many calling for genuine diplomacy to “stop the killing” and “avert nuclear war” — are unlikely to get much ink, pixels or airtime. But without real diplomacy, the future offers ongoing slaughter and escalating risks of nuclear annihilation.

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from Norman Solomon on peace, war and politics

Settling with Kushner Companies was hard. Getting money to former tenants may be harder

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A decade ago, Jasmine Cox was living with her young son in the Cove Village rental complex in Essex, Maryland, just east of Baltimore, when she started experiencing a plague of problems. The bedroom ceiling started leaking one day, then maggots started coming out of the living room carpet, and then raw sewage started flowing out of the kitchen sink, she said. She stopped cooking to keep food away from the sink. With so much black mold around, her son started needing an inhaler. When she moved out soon afterward, the landlord, Westminster Management, sent her a $600 invoice for a new carpet and other repairs.

The experience haunted her for years. So she was hit with a welter of emotions when she recently received a letter at her new home from the Maryland attorney general, alerting her that she could apply for restitution from Westminster, the property management arm of Kushner Companies, the family real estate company of Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a former senior adviser to the president. She has started going through old SD cards and photo-storage apps to find pictures of the apartment woes to submit with the claims form that accompanied the letter. “We were living in a biohazard,” she said. “I’m just glad something has come about to compensate people, to clear things up.”

The letter and claims form are part of a massive, highly unusual effort on the part of the attorney general’s office: trying to alert some 30,000 people who lived in Westminster Management’s 17 Baltimore-area complexes during the past decade that they may be eligible for restitution. In 2017, the office launched an investigation of the company following a report co-published by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine on the company’s aggressive pursuit of current and former tenants over allegations of unpaid rent and poor upkeep of many of the units, which New Jersey-based Kushner Companies started buying in 2012 and has mostly sold off in recent years.

Last September, the office’s Consumer Protection Division announced a settlement with Westminster: a $3.25 million fine and the promise of uncapped restitution to tenants of the complexes who could show that they had suffered serious maintenance troubles that Westminster was slow to address. Under the settlement, Westminster would also automatically reimburse tenants and former tenants for excessive fees they had been charged over the years in addition to their rent.

Now comes the hardest part: finding the tens of thousands of people who resided at the Westminster Management properties to let them know about their chance at restitution, a task made all the more challenging by the high levels of transience at the complexes. Just 8,700 of the 30,000 people who were mailed claims forms by a claims administrator since mid-December are still living at the complexes.

“Some people won’t be reachable,” acknowledged then-Attorney General Brian Frosh in an interview with The Baltimore Banner when the settlement was announced in September. “Some people will say, ‘Oh my God, I can’t take days off work again to go do this, I mean what am I going to get out of it?'” He guessed that fewer than half of eligible tenants will participate in the process.

By the end of January, 281 claims had been filed. “It’s a little lower than we expected,” said Attorney General Anthony Brown, who took office last month.

The attorney general’s office is contacting tenants to confirm that they’ve received the claims form, according to spokesperson Aleithea Warmack. Any money left over from the initial $800,000 slice of the settlement set aside for tenant restitution will go to a fund to pay for attorneys for people facing eviction, according to recent legislation. If the restitution exceeds $800,000, the company will have to pay that amount on top of the $3.25 million penalty.

Among those the state and Westminster have so far failed to reach is Andre Willingham, a longtime resident of Dutch Village, a complex on the northern edge of Baltimore. The 58-year-old, who is on disability from injuries sustained from years working as a restaurant cook, has lived at the complex with his family for nine years, but he said he had not received anything in the mail.

If he had received it, he said, he would have filed a claim, listing the problems he experienced in the family’s two-bedroom unit, for which they pay $1,100 in rent: rodents, a broken toilet, no heat. But he worried about the fact that he did not have documentation of the problems. “It’s a sad thing they’re just coming out with it,” he said.

Separate from the restitution process for maintenance problems, which requires submitting a claim by Dec. 19, many tenants will be receiving reimbursements for fees they were improperly charged by Westminster. This will not require them to send in claims forms; the company is required to compile a list of eligible tenants by May and send them payments by August.

Those claims alone will likely total several hundred thousand or even a million dollars, Brown estimated. The attorney general’s office will follow up in early 2024 to confirm that payments were successfully deposited or, if not, to make sure former tenants who are owed money are located. Current and former tenants will also have a second opportunity to seek damages for the improper fees in a class-action lawsuit that won a successful appeal last month.

The claims process for maintenance-related issues is somewhat more cumbersome — and the first stage relies on Westminster. The company will make an initial determination of how much compensation claimants are owed. If the tenants are not satisfied, they can elect to have their case heard in court or remotely by retired state Judge Nathan Braverman, who was retained by the attorney general’s office as a special master in the cases, according to Brown. “The rules of evidence are relaxed,” Brown said, adding, “You don’t have to prove any amount of damages — it’s presumed that you suffered damages.”

It’s an approach that he believes his office is the first in the country to implement. “We really think that it’s novel, and we think it can be an effective way to really get recovery for these aggrieved renters.”

But how many current and former tenants will actually take advantage of this process remains an open question, and one that will have a big impact on how much money Westminster is actually required to pay out.

For one tenant, the process has so far proved disappointing. Bonita Barrett, a retired grocery worker, contended for years with a slew of maintenance problems in her unit at Dutch Village, including leaks, mold, and a lack of heat. She was excited to receive the letter and claims form, and checked off most of the 10 upkeep problems listed as eligible for compensation before mailing it off. “They was thieves,” she said. “I hope we get what we deserve.”

But last week, Barrett got a call from a New Jersey number in response to her claims form. The woman on the line told her that she was eligible for $200 in compensation, which Barrett found insultingly inadequate for everything she had dealt with over the years. “$200? That’s nothing compared to what I went through,” she said. “You’re just going to offer us something to say you’re doing something. They’re just trying to give us the cheapest amount they can.” (In response to questions, Kushner Companies Chief Operating Officer Peter Febo wrote: “Westminster takes the Consent Order seriously and continues to comply with it in all respects. The mechanics and details of the claims process were agreed to between the Consumer Protection Division and Westminster.”)

Barrett said the woman told her that she could not qualify for a larger sum because she did not have evidence of the extent of the problems; the woman noted that Westminster’s records showed 16 completed work orders for her unit. But, Barrett said, that didn’t address how long it often took to complete that work.

On the call, the Westminster representative told Barrett that if she was unsatisfied with the $200 settlement, she could appeal to the special master. But that struck Barrett as unappealing. Wasn’t the purpose of this extended process to keep tenants from having to fight Kushner Companies again? The attorney general’s office had designed the appeal process to be as consumer-friendly as possible, but that’s not the impression she got from the call.

“She said you can go to court, but how long would that take? That could take as long as they did here,” she said. “It took them long enough to get to where we are now.”

George Santos admits he lied to be “accepted” by Republicans: “I got away with it” before

Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., admitted in an interview on Monday that he has been a “terrible liar” but said he pushed falsehoods about his past to be “accepted” by the Republican Party.

Santos in a lengthy interview with host Piers Morgan acknowledged that he made up key parts of his biography ahead of his 2022 election win.

“I was a Wall Street superstar, I was this, my family were this, and it was all untrue,” Morgan said. “I don’t characterize these as mistakes. I think they’re part of your process of, cathartic process of redemption if you’d like. It’s gotta start from ‘I’ve been a terrible liar,’ I mean, would you be prepared to say that?”

“Well, I’ve been a terrible liar on those subjects,” Santos replied, before claiming that his intention was not to deceive people but simply to be accepted by the local GOP.

“What I tried to convey to the American people is I made mistakes of allowing the pressures of what I thought needed to be done in order to — this, this wasn’t about tricking anybody… This was about getting accepted by the party here locally,” he said.

Morgan rejected Santos’ explanation, rebutting that the “whole thing was about tricking people.”

Morgan pressed Santos on why he thought he could blatantly lie and “think no one would find out.”

“Well, I’ll humor you this. I ran in 2020 for the same exact seat for Congress and I got away with it then,” Santos said.

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“Fine,” Morgan said. “Well that’s honest, stupid. So you thought, actually, that they’re not gonna find out?”

“No, I didn’t think so,” Santos replied. “But to that effect, it’s embarrassing, it’s humbling to have to admit your faults as a human being.”

Santos ran for the House seat in New York’s 3rd Congressional District in 2020 but lost by double digits to then-Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y. But Santos won his race by about eight points in November after Suozzi opted for a failed gubernatorial bid instead.

Despite acknowledging some of his lies, Santos continued to dodge responsibility during the interview.

The congressman admitted that he lied about graduating Baruch College in Manhattan, calling it a “very stupid decision” but insisting he lied because of “expectation on society” and “pressure.” And when Morgan pressed Santos about a claim on his resume that he also received a Master’s degree in business from New York University with a GMAT score of 710, Santos contended that the document did not come from him.

“The reality is I don’t know where that GMAT comes from. I never put that out on my website or my bio,” Santos said, claiming that the resume was “never furnished or supplied by me.”

“I didn’t supply it and nobody associated with me supplied it. That came from the GOP, and I’m still trying to understand where that came from,” he added.

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Santos during another part of the interview denied that he ever said he was Jewish, claiming that he repeated a “party-favorite joke” that he was “Jew-ish.”

And he insisted that his claim that his mother was in the World Trade Center on 9/11 was true, even though records suggest she was not even in New York at the time.

“That’s true,” Santos said of his claim. “I won’t debate my mother’s life as she passed in [2016] and it’s quite insensitive to try to rehash my mother’s legacy.”

Morgan confronted Santos for appearing to admit to “certain big lies” while denying “other big lies.”

“Because you’ve claimed on campaign bios you went to this school and this volleyball team and achieved this degree, big Wall Street big hitter, and all these things turned out not to be true,” Morgan said. “So when you now look me in the eye and say well actually, no, this is true, I don’t know what to believe.”

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Santos responded that he believes he will still be able to repair his credibility.

“No, I understand, and look, that’s a position I’ve put myself in, right,” he said. “My credibility is what I’m gonna have a hard time and a long road to recover, and I stand clear and I stand certain that I’ll be able to do that.”

But he acknowledged that he is bothered by the backlash from his own party, whose members have increasingly called for him to resign.

“It’s uncomfortable,” he said. “I can’t stand it and a lot of people think I love it, I just can’t stand it… you need to learn how to deal with it and that’s what I’m doing.”

Watch the full interview below:

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