How do ants crawl on walls?

When I first started my job as a biologist at the University of South Florida, I drove my Jeep to a grassy field, dug up a mound of fire ants and shoveled it into a 5-gallon bucket. Immediately, thousands of ants swarmed out of the soil and up the walls of the bucket headed for freedom. Luckily I had a lid.

How do ants make climbing walls, ceilings and other surfaces look so easy? I’ve been studying ants for 30 years, and their climbing abilities never cease to amaze me.

Worker ants — who are all female — have an impressive toolbox of claws, spines, hairs and sticky pads on their feet that enable them to scale almost any surface.

Human hands vs. ant feet

To understand ant feet, it helps to compare them with human hands. Your hand has one broad segment, the palm. Sprouting from your palm are four fingers and an opposable thumb. Each finger has three segments, while your thumb has only two segments. A hard nail grows from the tips of your fingers and thumb.

Humans have two hands – ants have six feet. Ant feet are similar to your hands but are more complex, with an additional set of weird-looking parts that enhance them.

Ant feet have five jointed segments, with the end segment sporting a pair of claws. The claws are shaped like a cat’s and can grip irregularities on walls. Each foot segment also has thick and thin spines and hairs that provide additional traction by sticking into microscopic pits on textured surfaces like bark. Claws and spines have the added benefit of protecting ant feet from hot pavement and sharp objects, just as your feet are protected by shoes.

But the feature that truly separates human hands from ant feet are inflatable sticky pads, called arolia.

Sticky feet

Arolia are located between the claws at the tip of every ant foot. These balloonlike pads allow ants to defy gravity and crawl on ceilings or ultrahard surfaces like glass.

When an ant walks up a wall or across a ceiling, gravity causes its claws to swing wide and pull back. At the same time, its leg muscles pump fluids into the pads at the end of its feet, causing them to inflate. This body fluid is called hemolymph, which is a sticky fluid similar to your blood that circulates throughout an ant’s body.

After the hemolymph pumps up the pad, some of it leaks outside the pad, which is how ants can stick to a wall or a ceiling. But when an ant picks up its foot, its leg muscles contract and suck most of the fluid back into the pad and then back up the leg. This way an ant’s blood is reused over and over – pumped from the leg into the pad, then sucked back up the leg – so none is left behind.

Ants are feather-light, so six sticky pads are enough to hold them against the pull of gravity on any surface. In fact, at home in their underground chambers, ants use their sticky pads to sleep on the ceiling. By sleeping on the ceiling, ants avoid the rush-hour traffic of other ants on the chamber floors.

A unique gait

When you walk, your left and right feet alternate so one is on the ground while the other is in the air, moving forward. Ants also alternate their feet, with three on the surface and three in the air at a time.

A computer simulation showing an ant’s special walk. Created by Shihui Guo.

The walking pattern of ants is unique among six-legged insects. In ants, the front and back left feet are on the ground with the middle right foot, while the front and back right feet and the middle left foot are in the air. Then they switch. It’s fun to try to copy this triangular pattern using three fingers on each hand.

The next time you see an ant crawling up a wall, look closely and you might witness some of these fascinating features at work.

Deby Cassill, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology, University of South Florida

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

Can Larry Summers please shut up now? (And his buddy Jason Furman too)

Anyone who’s heard or read any news stories about inflation in the past few months can’t escape the pair of Delphic oracles, Larry Summers and Jason Furman. Summers is the former president of Harvard who once speculated that genetic differences may cause women to have a harder time competing for math and science jobs. Before that, he served as Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary, and after that as director of the National Economic Council under Barack Obama. Furman, a Harvard economics professor, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Obama — after previously serving as Summers’ deputy at the NEC. Both of them have been permanent fixtures on cable news of late as resident doomsayers, acting as a Greek chorus urging the Federal Reserve to keep on raising interest rates, regardless of the impact tighter money will have on jobless rates and American families.

Furman has speculated that Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan should have been smaller, and may have contributed to higher prices. Summers frets about a looming “wage-price spiral” caused by workers gaining some traction in a tight labor market. (Yes, you read that right: He’s concerned that wages may go up.)

Americans are told to make “sacrifices” — but those at the top never have to

To the average American, and certainly to delighted Republican politicians, it seems as if most economists agree on this harsh medicine. But they don’t, and it’s important that other voices get a chance to break through more often. A lot is riding on the theory that Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell seems to be proposing: Just like in the 1980s, high interest rates can break the back of inflation, presumably without tanking the entire economy.

But have we really returned to the 1980s? Is this inflation the same as the inflation of yesteryear, and will it respond to the same harsh medicine?

Have we really returned to the 1980s? Is this inflation the same as the inflation of yesteryear, and will it respond to the same harsh medicine? The truth is, no one really knows.

Ask UC Berkeley professor and former labor secretary Robert Reich, whose progressive views have made him a TikTok star, although he has largely been ignored by legacy media. His “Know the Truth About Inflation” video should get an Emmy. Reich contends that higher prices have not been caused by the modest gains low-wage workers have achieved, nor by the Biden administration’s infusion of cash into the economy to blunt the devastating impact of the pandemic on American families.

He and other progressive policy experts put a large part of the blame on corporate greed, since corporate profits have reached historic highs this year, indicating that the higher prices many businesses have been charging don’t just cover their higher costs, but also fatten their bottom lines..

Furthermore, raising interest rates won’t necessarily work, some more progressive economists say, in part because inflation this time around arose from a unique set of circumstances: a global pandemic triggered huge supply-chain problems, such as a shortage of computer chips for new cars; the war in Ukraine brought on a global energy crisis; climate change and a shortage of fertilizer have wreaked havoc with the food supply.

Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute notes that the U.S. economy is already contracting, with housing starts plummeting, which will cause construction jobs to decline. At the same time, the unusually strong dollar — at or around par with the euro for the first time in years — is reducing demand for U.S. exports. Continuing to raise rates could be “really damaging,” he says.

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Why is the progressive message on the economy not getting through? Partly it’s because journalists are so often slaves to conventional wisdom, and nobody stands for conventional wisdom like the sages at the Federal Reserve and their Harvard supporters. The other problem is that many reporters have no idea what the inflationary spiral was like in the 1980s: It had begun in the 1970s and soared ever higher over several years, with mortgage rates hitting 16% in 1981. They weren’t around to experience how Fed chair Paul Volcker’s tough medicine triggered a crippling recession. There were so many plant closings in Buffalo, New York, where I was a cub reporter at the time, that it essentially became my beat. Indeed, I ended up covering the death of my own newspaper.

Look, the real answer here is that nobody can be quite sure how the economy will behave or how big a problem the current rate of inflation really is. It’s crucial that we hear diverse opinions about what’s going on and how best to attack the problem. Is it Powell’s castor oil therapy or a minimum tax on corporations with billion-dollar profits, a provision that actually made it into the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act? How much are we willing to see unemployment rates rise in order to get inflation below 2% annually? What are the trade-offs, and are they justified?

A lot is riding on our willingness and ability to hear and discuss a diverse range of opinions on both the problem and the solution. We definitely need more than the bromides of Summers and Furman to see us through.

on inflation and the economy

On strike for a better world: Labor conflict is coming — and the ruling class will fight back hard

The ruling oligarchs are terrified that, for tens of millions of people, the economic dislocation caused by inflation, stagnant wages, austerity, the pandemic and the energy crisis is becoming unendurable. They warn, as Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have done, about the potential for social unrest, especially as we head toward winter.

Social unrest is a code word for strikes — the one weapon workers possess that can cripple and destroy the billionaire class’ economic and political power. Strikes are what the global oligarchs fear most. Through the courts and police intervention, they will seek to prevent workers from shutting down the economy. This looming battle is crucial. If we begin to chip away at corporate power through strikes, most of which will probably be wildcat strikes that defy union leadership and anti-union laws, we can begin to regain agency over our lives.

The oligarchs have spent decades abolishing or domesticating unions, turning the few unions that remain — only 10.7 percent of the workforce is unionized — into obsequious junior partners in the capitalist system. As of January 2022, private-sector unionization stood at its lowest point since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. And yet, 48 percent of U.S. workers say they would like to belong to a union.

America’s new class war: Organized labor is back

As a result of crushing conditions workers have been subjected to for years, the nation may be facing its first major rail strike since the 1990s. The transportation industry, of which most rail workers are a part, has a higher than average union density compared to other parts of the private sector. A rail strike could mean a loss in economic output of $2 billion a day, according to a trade group representing railroad companies.

Strikes are what the global oligarchs fear most — they are the one tool that can begin to chip away at corporate power.

It was announced by the Biden White House, which hopes to avoid the optics of forcing striking workers back to the job, that the leaders of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers Transportation Division (SMART-TD) and Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS), among others, reached a tentative agreement with major freight companies, including Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) and Union Pacific. The tentative agreement was made amid intense pressure from the Biden administration.

Union officials stressed that the wording of the agreement is yet to be finalized and workers may not see the details of the agreement for three to four weeks, after which point union rank-and-file members will still have to vote on the proposed settlement.

The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) and The Real News have done detailed reporting on the contract negotiations.

BNSF announced a net income of nearly $6 billion in 2021, up 16 percent from the previous year. Union Pacific reported a net income of $6.5 billion, also up 16 percent from 2020. CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway have also posted large gains.

The economic deregulation of Class 1 rail freight carriers in the 1980s saw the number of freight carriers drop from 40 to seven, a number expected to soon fall to six. The workforce has shrunk from nearly 540,000 in 1980 to some 130,000. Service on the nation’s rail lines, along with working conditions and wages, has declined as Wall Street squeezes the big railroad conglomerates for profits.

It appears that the proposed contract will meet few of the railroad workers’ core demands, including redressing years of declining wages, the need for cost-of-living adjustments to deal with inflation, an end to onerous attendance policies, guaranteed time off and sick days, an end to the massive layoffs that have put tremendous pressure on remaining rail workers and an end to the practice of one-man crews.

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Rail moves roughly two-fifths of long-distance American freight and one-third of exports. It lies at the heart of a complex global supply chain that includes cargo ships, trains and trucks. It is almost certain that the Biden White House would intervene to prevent a nationwide rail strike, which would be a body blow to the nation’s tottering supply chain and shaky economy.

The oligarchs targeted unions after World War II. Through a series of strikes in the 1930s, unions pressured Franklin Delano Roosevelt into passing New Deal legislation. Unions gave workers weekends off, the right to organize and strike, the eight-hour workday, health and pension benefits, safe working conditions, overtime and Social Security.

The red-baiting of the 1930s and 1950s was directed primarily at labor organizers and radical unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), known as Wobblies, or the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). In the crusade against “reds,” the most militant unions and union leaders, some of whom were Communists, were turned into pariahs. A series of anti-labor laws, including the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act and Right-to-Work laws, which outlaw union shops, were put into place.

When the Taft-Hartley Act was passed about a third of the workforce was unionized, with the proportion peaking in 1954 at 34.8 percent. The act was a frontal assault on unions. It prohibits jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes and secondary boycotts, whereby unions strike against employers who continue to do business with a firm that is undergoing a strike. It forbids secondary or common situs picketing, closed shops and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. Union officials are forced by the act to sign non-Communist affidavits or lose their positions. Companies are permitted under the act to require employees to attend anti-union propaganda meetings. The federal government is empowered to obtain legal strikebreaking injunctions if an impending or current strike imperils “national health or safety.”

The act disempowers labor. It legalizes the suspension of civil liberties, including freedom of speech and the right to assembly. U.S. courts, including the Supreme Court, with judges drawn from corporate law firms, have since issued a raft of new anti-union rulings to keep workers in bondage. The right to strike in the U.S. barely exists.

Widespread strikes, a necessity if we are to prevail, will be declared illegal, no matter which party is in the White House. Those who lead strikes will be targeted for arrest, and corporations will attempt to replace workers with scabs. It will be a very, very ugly fight. But it is our only hope.

An interview with Seattle Socialist City Councilmember Kshama Sawant about organizing tactics and the importance of union militancy can be viewed here.

The earlier generation of labor organizers understood that union organizing was about class war. “Big” Bill Haywood told delegates at the founding convention of the IWW in 1905:

Fellow Workers, this is the Continental Congress of the working-class. We are here to confederate the workers of this country into a working-class movement that shall have for its purpose the emancipation of the working-class from the slave bondage of capitalism. The aims and objects of this organization shall be to put the working-class in possession of the economic power, the means of life, in control of the machinery of production and distribution, without regard to capitalist masters.

Let his words be our credo.

After the end of World War II, two generations of workers in the United States were blessed with a period of unprecedented prosperity. Wages for the working class were high. Jobs were stable and came with benefits and health insurance. Unions protected workers from abuse by employers. Taxes on the wealthiest individuals and corporations were as high as 91 percent. The public school system provided a quality education to the poor and the rich. The nation’s infrastructure and technology were cutting edge. Steel workers, auto workers, mill workers, construction workers and truck drivers were part of the middle class.

In 1928, the top 10 percent held 23.9 percent of the nation’s wealth, a percentage that steadily declined until 1973. By the early 1970s the oligarchs’ assault against workers expanded. Wages stagnated. Income inequality grew to monstrous proportions. Tax rates for corporations and the rich were slashed.

Widespread strikes will be declared illegal, no matter which party is in the White House. Those who lead strikes will be arrested; corporations will replace striking workers with scabs. It will be a very ugly fight.

Today, the top 10 percent of the richest people in the United States own almost 70 percent of the country’s total wealth. The top 1 percent control 31 percent of the wealth. The bottom 50 percent of the U.S. population hold 2 percent of all U.S. wealth. Infrastructure is outdated and in disrepair. Public institutions, including schools, public broadcasting, the courts and the postal service are underfunded and degraded.

You can see an interview I did with Louis Hyman, professor of economic history at Cornell University and author of “Temp: The Real Story of What Happened to Your Salary, Benefits and Job Security,” about the decades-long assault on workers here.

The oligarchs, as they did in the 19th century, exploit workers, including child labor, in Dickensian sweatshops in countries such as China, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

You can see my interview with Jenny Chan, who with Mark Selden and Pun Ngai wrote “Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn and the Lives of China’s Workers,” here.

Workers, bereft of union protection and lacking industrial jobs, have been forced into the gig economy, where they have few rights, no job protection and often earn below the minimum wage.

The rise in global food and energy prices, coupled with the weakening of democratic institutions and impoverishment of workers, have become a potent recipe for revolt.

Weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation, decreased by 3.4 percent from August 2021 to August 2022, and real hourly earnings fell by 2.8 percent in the same period. Hourly earnings, adjusted for inflation, have fallen for the past 17 months. The lopsided priorities — billions of dollars in “security assistance” being sent to Ukraine by the Biden administration and other NATO members — predictably saw Russia slash gas supplies to Europe. Russia will not resume the flow until sanctions imposed on the country are lifted. Russia provides 9 percent of EU gas imports, down from 40 percent before the invasion. Big oil, meanwhile, is posting obscene profits as it gouges the public.

The most vulnerable countries — Haiti, Myanmar and Sudan — have descended into chaos under the economic onslaught. Social spending in such countries as Egypt, the Philippines and Zimbabwe have been slashed. Nor are the industrialized nations immune. About 70,000 people in Prague took to the streets on Sept. 4 to protest rising energy prices and call for a withdrawal from the EU and NATO. Industries in Germany, one of the world’s top three exporters, are crippled, paying as much for electricity and natural gas in a single month, post-Russian invasion, as they did for all last year. Protesters from across the political spectrum in Germany have called for regular Monday demonstrations against the rising cost of living. In the U.K., already beset with 10 percent inflation, energy companies are expected to increase their rates by 80 percent in October. Electricity bills in the U.S. have increased 15.8 percent over the past year. Natural gas bills have risen by 33 percent in the U.S. over the past year. Total energy costs in the U.S. have risen by 24 percent in the last 12 months. Consumer staples, the food and items needed for daily survival, have increased by an average of 13.5 percent. This is only the start.

At what point does a beleaguered population living near or below the poverty line rise in protest? This, if history is any guide, is unknown. But that the tinder is there is now undeniable, even to the ruling class.

The United States had the bloodiest labor wars of any industrialized nation. Hundreds of workers were killed. Thousands were wounded. Tens of thousands were blacklisted. Radical union organizers such as Joe Hill were executed on trumped-up murder charges, imprisoned like Eugene V. Debs, or driven, like Haywood, into exile. Militant unions were outlawed. During the Palmer Raids on Nov. 17, 1919, carried out on the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution, more than 10,000 alleged Communists, socialists and anarchists were arrested. Many were held for long periods without trial. Thousands of foreign-born émigrés, such as Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman and Mollie Steimer, were arrested, imprisoned and ultimately deported. Socialist publications, such as Appeal to Reason and The Masses, were shut down.

The U.S. had the bloodiest labor wars of any industrialized nation. Hundreds of workers were killed. Thousands were wounded. Tens of thousands were blacklisted.

The Great Railway Strike of 1922 saw company gun thugs open fire, killing strikers. Pennsylvania Railroad President Samuel Rea alone hired over 16,000 gunmen to break the strike of nearly 20,000 employees at the company’s shops in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the largest in the world. The railroads mounted a massive press campaign to demonize the strikers. They hired thousands of scabs, many of whom were Black workers who were barred by union management from membership. The Supreme Court upheld “yellow dog” contracts that forbade workers from unionizing. The establishment press, along with the Democratic Party, were, as always, full partners in the demonization and defanging of labor. The same year also saw unprecedented railway strikes in Germany and India.

To prevent railroad strikes, which disrupted nationwide commerce in 1877, 1894 and 1922, the federal government passed the Railway Labor Act in 1926 — union members call it “The Railway Anti-Labor Act” — setting out numerous requirements, including the appointment of the Presidential Emergency Board, which Biden set up, before a strike can be called.

Our oligarchs are as vicious and tight-fisted as those of the past. They will fight with everything at their disposal to crush the aspirations of workers.

Alexander Herzen, speaking to a group of anarchists about how to overthrow the czar, reminded his listeners that it was not their job to save a dying system but to replace it: “We are not the doctors. We are the disease.”

All resistance must recognize that the corporate coup-d’état is complete. It is a waste of energy to attempt to reform or appeal to systems of power. We must organize and strike. The oligarchs have no intention of willingly sharing power or wealth. They will revert to the ruthless and murderous tactics of their capitalist forebears. We must revert to the militancy of our own.

about labor and capital in the 2020s

“Fraudulent and discriminatory”: Migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard suing Ron DeSantis

Lawyers representing Venezuelan migrants who were recently flown to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, on orders from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis filed a class action lawsuit Tuesday alleging the Republican governor and his state’s transportation secretary perpetrated a “fraudulent and discriminatory scheme” against them.

The suit, which was filed Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Boston, said the legal asylum-seekers who boarded two flights from Texas to the wealthy island resort were told they would be sent to Boston or Washington, D.C.

The filing further claims that in an effort to mislead the migrants, Florida officials “manufactured” an “official-looking brochure” listing fake benefits. Migrants were also offered incentives such as $10 McDonald’s gift cards if they boarded the flights.

“Lured under false pretenses”: Furious Texas sheriff investigating DeSantis’ Martha’s Vineyard stunt

“These immigrants, who are pursuing the proper channels for lawful immigration status in the United States, experienced cruelty akin to what they fled in their home country,” the lawsuit argues.

“Defendants manipulated them, stripped them of their dignity, deprived them of their liberty, bodily autonomy, due process, and equal protection under law, and impermissibly interfered with the federal government’s exclusive control over immigration in furtherance of an unlawful goal and a personal political agenda,” the document adds.

TODAY, @LCRBOSTON filed a lawsuit, with @ALIANZAAMERICAS as a plaintiff, that seeks to hold @GovRonDeSantis & the State of Florida accountable for deliberately tricking a group of nearly 50 people to board a plane from San Antonio, TX, to Martha’s Vineyard https://t.co/OuS26pn5g9 pic.twitter.com/HbT3LZyiPD

— ALIANZA AMERICAS (@ALIANZAAMERICAS) September 20, 2022

The plaintiffs are asking the court to find Florida’s actions violated their Fourth and 14th Amendment rights, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as state officials “intentionally targeted only individuals who are non-white and born outside the United States.”

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Oscar A. Chacón, executive director of case plaintiff Alianza Americas, said in a statement that “for the governor of Florida to cynically use recently arrived immigrants who have applied for asylum in the U.S. to advance a hate-driven agenda intended to create confusion and rejection throughout the country is not only morally despicable but utterly contrary to the best traditions of humanitarian protection embraced by most Americans.”

“That is why we have taken the step to legally challenge what we view not only as a morally reprehensible action but what we believe is also illegal,” he continued.

“We want to do everything we can to prevent more abuses against newly arrived immigrants,” added Chacón, “especially asylum-seekers who deserve support, protection, and to be recognized for the incredible contributions they make to the U.S., as well as their loved ones in their home countries.”

"We thought that they were going to take us to a shelter and continue with our lives."

The man I've been speaking with sent me the following photos of the brochure.

They match up with @JuddLegum reporting that he obtained from @LCRBOSTON. pic.twitter.com/zfxI7CcV3u

— Emmanuelle Saliba (@_esaliba) September 20, 2022

On Tuesday, Common Dreams reported that Javier Salazar, the sheriff of Bexar County, Texas — the planes to Massachusetts departed from San Antonio, within his jurisdiction — had launched a criminal investigation into the flights.

Last week, seven U.S. lawmakers representing Massachusetts urged the Treasury Department to investigate DeSantis’ apparent abuse of federal COVID relief funds to pay for the flights.

Massachusetts state Rep. Dylan Fernandes, a Democrat who represents Martha’s Vineyard, this week called for a federal human trafficking probe of DeSantis.

DeSantis said last Friday that the recent flights “are just the beginning of efforts” and that he may work with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to arrange future removals. DeSantis insisted last week that the migrants’ relocations were “all voluntary.”

Two other Republican governors — Abbott and Arizona’s Doug Ducey — have sent migrants to Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., and Sacramento. In total, more than 13,000 people have been transported to so-called sanctuary cities since April.

Asked during a Tuesday press conference about reports that DeSantis may send migrants to Delaware, his home state, President Biden said that the Florida governor “should come visit.”

“We have a beautiful shoreline,” the president added.

about DeSantis and Martha’s Vineyard

How Texas’ abortion laws turned a heartbreaking fetal diagnosis into a cross-country journey

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For 24/7 mental health support in English or Spanish, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s free help line at 800-662-4357. You can also reach a trained crisis counselor through the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

The protesters outside the Seattle abortion clinic waved pictures of bloody fetuses, shouting that she was a “baby killer” and begging her to choose life.

Lauren Hall, 27, fought the urge to scream back and tell them just how badly she wished life was a choice she could have made.

She wanted to tell these strangers about the day she ran into her husband’s home office, pants still around her ankles, waving that positive pregnancy test. How they’d told their families, picked out a name, built a crib and bought pink sheets.

She wanted them to experience the agony she felt when she learned that her fetus was developing without a skull or a brain, a condition her doctors told her was “incompatible with life.”

Many of the protesters had traveled to Seattle all the way from Texas, just like Hall had. She wished she could make them answer for the state’s near-total ban on abortions after the overturning of Roe v. Wade just a few weeks prior.

As Hall learned the hard way, the law makes no exception for lethal fetal anomalies. Pregnant people are now required to just wait, endangering their own lives with no hope of ever bringing home a baby. Or, like Hall, they can shell out thousands of dollars to abruptly travel out of state while grieving a lost pregnancy.

Hall managed not to scream any of this at the protesters, instead just silently flipping them off.

Once she made her way through the clinic’s stringent security, the nurses took her into a private room. Hall, raised in a conservative Christian family outside Dallas, felt like she had whiplash from the sudden and tragic events that had brought her to an abortion clinic halfway across the country.

A doctor she had never met entered the room.

“She just put her arms around me and took my hand and she was like, ‘I know you don’t want to be here, but you’re in good hands. We’re going to take care of you, and you’re going to be OK,'” Hall remembers.

After holding it together all morning, Hall burst into tears.

“It was just the most tender moment,” she said. “And it just occurred to me that the people I’ve been told my whole life are going to hell for their actions were the most kind and angelic individuals through this whole thing.”

Joyful beginnings

Growing up outside Dallas, Hall often heard that abortion was murder and, perhaps worse, interfering with God’s plan. But even from a young age, she had a lot of questions about what she saw as a deeply unforgiving idea.

“I would always say, ‘What if it was necessary to save the life of the mother? Or in cases of rape or incest? Or what if the pregnancy wasn’t viable?'” she said. “And that was always the scenario I used to explain what a ban would do, and I never met a self-proclaimed conservative that doesn’t think those exceptions should be in place.”

Hall went on to become a nurse and, together with her husband, created a life in the same town where they both grew up. Frustrated with her experience on hormonal birth control, she and her husband decided it was time for her to get off of it.

“We both have good jobs, we’ve got a house and we were at a place where … if it happens, it happens,” she said. “Took no time at all.”

When she first saw that positive pregnancy test, she panicked — even at 27, she said, her first reaction was that of a 15-year-old, worried about telling her parents. But then an overwhelming sense of calm washed over her.

This was fine. In fact, this was good.

She and her husband immediately jumped into planning mode, scheduling an appointment at one of the only OB-GYN practices in town. She knew the doctors at the practice were both proud members of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, but she waved it off. After all, she didn’t need an abortion — she needed convenient pregnancy care.

After she got through the first trimester, Hall and her husband both heaved a sigh of relief and got to work telling their friends and family. Everyone was thrilled, buying them car seats and baby clothes.

When they learned they were having a girl, Hall and her husband even picked out a name: Amelia.

Hall was in her second trimester when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional protection for abortion and allowing states to set their own laws governing abortion access. In Texas, the second-largest state in the nation, legal abortion immediately ceased to be an option except to save the life of the pregnant patient.

Hall was outraged about the world that her daughter was going to be born into, but she didn’t worry too much about how this would affect her pregnancy.

Almost immediately, though, Texas’ conflicting and confusing laws on abortion started to cause problems for pregnancy care. All of Texas’ abortion laws have exceptions to treat miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, a potentially life-threatening condition in which a fertilized egg grows outside the uterus, as well as to save the life of the pregnant patient.

But pregnancy care isn’t as clear cut as the law makes it out to be, doctors say, and fear of criminal prosecution has led medical professionals to delay or deny care they otherwise would have provided.

Researchers with the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin documented several cases in which doctors waited to treat pregnancy complications until a patient’s health had deteriorated to the point that their life was in danger.

According to a letter from the Texas Medical Association, a physician in Central Texas was instructed not to treat an ectopic pregnancy until it ruptured, which can cause serious medical complications.

Patients experiencing miscarriage have also struggled to get prescriptions filled for misoprostol, which is used both to treat miscarriages and induce abortions.

Earlier this month, Gov. Greg Abbott said there were “some things that we need to work on” to ensure patients can get treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.

“There has been apprehension by doctors about dealing with both of those two issues,” Abbott told Fox 4 News. “I want to see legislation come out that will both do more as well as clarify the ways that we are protecting the life of the mother.”

But he did not address the question of lethal fetal anomalies, which are fatal for the fetus during pregnancy or shortly after birth. Texas’ abortion laws make no exception for these cases, which are not as rare as people would like to imagine, said Dr. John Thoppil, an Austin OB-GYN and president of the Texas Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

“This is already incredibly difficult news that someone receives,” Thoppil said. “But now we’re forcing someone to continue the pregnancy and go through all the risks of a potentially term delivery and all those potential complications for a pregnancy that has no chance of surviving. It just seems cruel and unusual.”

Many of these lethal fetal abnormalities come to light at an anatomy scan performed later in pregnancy. Hall was 18 weeks along when she went in for hers on a Friday afternoon.

“I was so excited for this appointment because it’s so good to see her in there,” she said. “But there was a vibe immediately. I’m a nurse. I knew something was wrong.”

A pregnancy interrupted

Hall’s fetus was diagnosed with anencephaly, a neural tube defect in which the brain, skull and scalp do not develop properly in the womb.

Most of these pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth. Anencephalic babies born alive will likely survive only for hours or days; they will be unconscious, blind, deaf and will not voluntarily respond to touch or sound, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Hall’s maternal-fetal medicine specialist laid out the best-case scenario: If she managed to carry to term and deliver a live baby, with miracles of medicine, science and technology, they might be able to keep her alive for a few weeks, tied to machines and without hope of recovery.

Hall’s entire vision of this pregnancy — giving birth, becoming a mom, watching her daughter grow up — evaporated in an instant. She was bereft, unable to even process the news. Her husband took over, asking the doctor what, if anything, they could do.

Immediately, they sensed hesitation from the doctor. Eventually, she laid out their options: Keep carrying the pregnancy or leave Texas to get an abortion.

“And she said, ‘If you do that, don’t tell anybody why you’re traveling, don’t tell your jobs, don’t tell anyone at the airport,'” Hall remembers. “Which sounds extreme, but Roe had just been overturned. Everyone was so scared.”

Hall and her husband left the specialist’s office in a daze. Once inside the car, they both burst into tears, for their baby and the terrible choices they were now left to navigate.

If she wanted to stay in Texas, Hall’s only choice was to continue with a pregnancy that would not yield a healthy, living baby. But that comes with the same significant risks that accompany a viable pregnancy, said Dr. CeCe Cheng, a high-risk OB-GYN in San Antonio. Cheng did not treat Hall, but has counseled patients facing similar situations.

“All the changes your body faces in pregnancy are going to be very similar, no matter if your fetus is viable or whether the baby won’t survive on the outside,” said Cheng, who is also a fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health. “But it’s not just the physical changes, but the emotional toll of knowing their baby is not going to survive and just waiting for something to happen so they can get the care they need.”

The emotional toll was what worried Hall most of all.

“It was just a matter of time before the baby died, or maybe I’d have to go through the trauma of carrying to term knowing I wasn’t bringing a baby home,” she said. “I couldn’t do that.”

Hall has struggled with depression, and as the weekend wore on, her mental health deteriorated. One of the most painful parts was trying to reach her medical team. Rather than warmth and sympathy, she was met with fear, hesitation and, worst of all, silence.

Her mental health spiraled to the point that she considered checking herself into the hospital. But she was too scared to tell health care providers what was going on for fear that they would know she was considering an abortion.

“I was losing my mind,” Hall said. “I would consider what I experienced that weekend a medical emergency.”

At the same time, she was searching for abortion clinics. She considered Colorado and New Mexico, the nearest states without a total ban, but both states are being inundated with patients from Texas and elsewhere.

Eventually, she found a clinic in Seattle that provides specialty care for patients who have decided to terminate due to lethal fetal abnormalities. She and her husband booked outrageously expensive last-minute flights, got a hotel and, four days after they got the news that upended their world, flew out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Despite the tragedy she was facing, Hall knew she was one of the lucky ones. They had savings to fund this last-minute trip, and because her company is based in Illinois, her insurance covered the procedure.

And surprisingly, both of their families sent money to help pay for the trip, despite their anti-abortion sentiments.

“They were just all shocked, like, ‘Surely, there’s an exception for this,'” Hall said. “It just didn’t occur to them that a ban would include cases like this.”

Many Texans facing this same set of circumstances won’t have the means to leave the state, Thoppil said, contributing to the state’s high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality, particularly among communities of color.

“The women who will be forced to carry these babies are the women with less resources,” he said. “It doesn’t take a huge leap to see that our rates of complications will go up because we have a selection bias on who is going to have to continue more complicated pregnancies.”

Cheng, in San Antonio, said that even as she cautiously points her patients to their options out-of-state, she’s well aware that many of them struggle to even make it to their appointments in-state.

“Many of the patients that we see in my practice already have to drive so far away to get basic prenatal care,” Cheng said. “Sometimes they’re the primary caregiver. They have jobs and multiple children to take care of and they don’t have the finances to take four or five days to go to a different state. … These are the patients that are the most affected.”

Inside the clinic

As a clinic that offers second-trimester abortions, Cedar River Clinic in the Seattle area has always seen a good number of patients from states with more restrictive laws, said clinic communications director Mercedes Sanchez. But those numbers have skyrocketed since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

“Texas is the state we’ve seen the biggest increase from,” Sanchez said. “Starting last September, when the [ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy] went into effect, we started getting calling from Texas and it hasn’t stopped.”

To deal with the increased demand, Cedar River has reopened a previously shuttered location, enhanced its telemedicine services and worked to find ways to help patients pay for travel and procedures.

It’s also had to heighten security — since Roe was overturned, Sanchez said, the clinics have seen more — and more aggressive — protesters, including people from out-of-state like those Hall faced.

After Hall made it through the protesters and the clinic’s security screening, the clinic itself was an oasis, she said. She had to go two days in a row and both times the staff gave her the support, sympathy and care she’d been missing in Texas.

Cedar River offers specialty care for patients facing lethal fetal abnormalities like anencephaly. They have private waiting rooms for these patients and offer grief support, genetic counseling and even bereavement services, including ways to memorialize the lost pregnancy.

“We see patients from many different religions and cultures, and how they grieve is unique to each patient,” Sanchez said. “We do what we can to honor each of those cases.”

Hall declined those services. It was just too hard, as she navigated a complicated mix of relief and grief. Coming back to Texas a few days later only amplified those feelings.

“You have to suddenly leave for a medical procedure, and you don’t know what’s going to happen, so despite everything that made me leave, it was a relief to be back home,” she said. “But I’m still so angry I had to leave.”

It’s been a difficult few weeks since the procedure. The pink-sheeted crib is still set up in the nursery, filled with all the baby supplies they’d bought or been gifted that they now have no use for. They had to call their OB/GYN repeatedly to get the $500 delivery deposit refunded. And they’ve had to navigate complicated politics when sharing their news. More often than not, they just say they lost the baby.

Hall and her husband would like to try again at some point. But first, she’s focused on her mental health and getting through the next few months. The holidays are going to be especially hard.

She was due just a few days before Christmas.

Disclosure: Texas Medical Association and University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/20/texas-abortion-ban-complicated-pregnancy/.

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“Closer than most people realize”: Alarm over GOP plot to “drastically change the Constitution”

Government watchdogs are warning that the Republican takeover of state legislatures in recent years could imminently have major implications for the United States, as a right-wing effort to hold a new constitutional convention appears closer than ever to being realized.

On Monday, former Democratic U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold wrote in an op-ed at The Guardian that Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution allows the document to be amended, either with amendments being proposed by two-thirds of Congress and ratified by three-quarters of the states, or through a method that has never been tested: the establishment of a new constitutional convention.

To hold a new convention, two-thirds of all state legislatures—34 total—must apply to hold the gathering, where lawmakers would have broad freedom to change the Constitution however they saw fit. Three-quarters of states would have to ratify their proposed amendments.

“The right has already packed the Supreme Court and is reaping the rewards, with decisions from Dobbs to Bruen that radically reinterpret the Constitution in defiance of precedent and sound legal reasoning,” wrote Feingold, referencing recent rulings on abortion rights and gun control. “But factions of the right are not satisfied to wait for the court to reinterpret the constitution. Instead, they have set their sights on literally rewriting our foundational document.”

Feingold—now president of the American Constitution Society—is among those warning that a new constitutional convention is “closer to reality than most people realize,” as The New York Times reported earlier this month.

As the Democratic Party expended considerable effort on passing federal legislation during the Obama administration, ACLU communications strategist Rotimi Adeoye wrote at The Daily Beast last month, Republicans focused on taking control at the state and local level, with Democrats losing 13 governorships and 816 legislative seats between 2008 and 2016.

As a result, Republicans now just need control of four more states to reach the threshold needed to call a second constitutional convention.

Feingold noted that if right-wing advocates for a new convention like the Convention of States Project and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) get their way, there would be few limits on how Republicans could change the constitution:

There is nothing in the Constitution about how delegates would be selected, how they would be apportioned, or how amendments would be proposed or agreed to by delegates. And there is little useful historical precedent that lends insight to these important questions. This means that nearly any amendment could be proposed at such a convention, giving delegates enormous power to engage in political and constitutional redrafting.

“The framers left no rules,” wrote Feingold in his new book, The Constitution in Jeopardy. “In this uncertainty lies great danger and, possibly, great power.”

The former Wisconsin senator wrote at The Guardian that Republicans could use a new convention to craft an amendment banning abortion care, strip Americans of voting rights, gut federal anti-poverty programs, and further threaten people’s right to be safe from gun violence by enshrining “their interpretation of the Second Amendment.”

On Sunday, Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn told MSNBC that in the hands of Republicans, a second constitutional convention could “put all of our constitutional rights up for grabs.”

An Article V Convention “could put all of our constitutional rights up for grabs.”

Our president, @KHobertFlynn, outlined the risks of a #ConstitutionConvention with @CapehartJ on @TheSundayShow. Check it out ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/U76dRCrwid

— Common Cause (@CommonCause) September 19, 2022

Feingold noted that a national policy discussion regarding the “founding failures of the Constitution” is warranted.

“That said, any conversation about how to go about amending the Constitution needs to be transparent, inclusive, and informed,” he wrote at The Guardian. “What factions of the right are pursuing is anything but. They are pursuing exclusively partisan outcomes and have sought to keep their efforts opaque. They do not seem interested in a representative, democratic process.”

The Convention of States Project has received millions of dollars from the right-wing Donors Capital Fund and has been endorsed by Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and influential conservative commentators Sean Hannity and Ben Shapiro.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, a strong proponent of a new constitutional convention, recently proposed legislation to direct the National Archives to conduct an official count of all the states that have called for a convention at various times.

“Democrats should take the threat seriously,” Amanda Litman, co-founder of progressive group Run for Something, told The Daily Beast. “Republicans always tell us what they want to do. We should believe them and think broadly and in the long term of where we should be working to stop this from happening.”

With the midterm elections fast approaching, wrote Adeoye, “Democrats must emphasize to voters that Republicans still control most state legislatures, and if they remain in power, they can drastically change the Constitution.”

GOP seizes on Biden’s claim that the ‘pandemic is over’ to demand Medicaid cuts

Congressional Republicans on Monday wasted no time seizing on President Joe Biden’s widely criticized claim that the “pandemic is over” to demand a slew of policy changes with potentially disastrous public health implications, including Medicaid funding cuts that could result in millions losing coverage.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, wrote in a letter to Biden that he “watched with great interest” the “60 Minutes” interview in which the president said that while the United States still has “a problem with Covid,” the pandemic has come to an end.

If that’s the case, the North Carolina Republican asked Biden, “how do you justify spending tens of billions to keep people on Medicaid who would otherwise make too much money to qualify for the program and already have employer-sponsored insurance?”

Burr was referring to a provision of the 2020 CARES Act that gives states a 6.2-percentage-point boost in Medicaid funding for the duration of the federally declared public health emergency, which is currently set to end on October 13.

In exchange for the funding increase, states are barred from dropping people from Medicaid without their consent—a rule that has allowed millions of people across the U.S. to maintain continuous health coverage amid mass layoffs and other pandemic-induced turmoil.

Recent increases in Medicaid coverage helped drive an overall decline in the number of Americans without any health insurance last year.

If the Biden administration were to formally declare an end to the public health emergency—as Burr and other Republicans have made clear they want—the funding boost would end, the continuous coverage requirement would lapse, and around 15 million people could be kicked off Medicaid, including millions of children.

Biden’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) has estimated that nearly half of the 15 million set to lose coverage could be stripped of Medicaid benefits by states despite still being eligible for the program. According to HHS, that’s because of “administrative churning… which can occur if enrollees have difficulty navigating the renewal process, states are unable to contact enrollees due to a change of address, or other administrative hurdles.”

In addition to the pandemic-related Medicaid provisions, Burr also targeted a slew of other measures, including masking and vaccination guidance as well as “policies that prevent manufacturers of Covid-19 countermeasures from selling their products within the commercial market.”

Burr also asked whether the Biden administration plans to “rescind [his] student loan forgiveness decision” given that the legal justification for the move rests on emergency powers.

The president’s comments, which aired Sunday, reportedly caught top members of his administration off guard, particularly given that they came as the White House is pushing Congress to approve billions of dollars in additional funding for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments.

Republicans who have long opposed the Biden administration’s push for more coronavirus funding signaled after the president’s remarks aired Sunday that they intend to block new pandemic money.

“Saying the pandemic is ‘over’ is likely to eliminate the possibility of any additional Covid response funding from Congress (granted, chances were already low),” tweeted Josh Michaud, associate director of global health at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Scientists using dye to study female squirting say that it is mostly — but not entirely — urine

Japanese researchers writing in the International Journal of Urology have made strides in helping settle a long-standing sexological debate: The clear fluid that some people with vaginas have been known to squirt during sexual stimulation is, for the most part, just pee.

This is slightly different than female ejaculation, which some experts have defined as a thick, milky fluid secreted by the female prostate (also known as Skene’s glands), though female ejaculate is a term often used interchangeably for squirting.

To make matters more confusing, for centuries scientists and anyone willing to take a peek down there weren’t 100 percent sure where this fluid was truly coming from. Many people assumed the bladder, but in some experiments capturing and analyzing the liquid (in the name of science, naturally), researchers found prostate specific antigen (PSA), which is only produced by the female prostate. These two glands sit on either side of the urethra, so it makes a little sense why this has been hard to suss out.

However, people have known about squirting since long before Jesus was born. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras and Hippocrates, the “father of medicine,” both inaccurately described female discharges as “semen.”

“The emission of fluid during orgasm in women was described for the first time to the best of our knowledge in the 4th century,” researchers wrote in a 2010 paper titled “The History of Female Ejaculation.” “The classical Taoist text, ‘Secret Instructions Concerning the Jade Chamber,’ provides information concerning the selection of romantic and sexual partners as well as the sexual act itself.”

Can women be saved from bad sex? “Finding your desires is a conscious process,” says author

Squirting eventually became known to Western scientists as well. William Smellie was an 18th Century English obstetrician — who may also have been a murderer, but was known as the “father of British midwifery.” Smellie once wrote of “a fluid ejected from the prostate or analogous glands” in women.

But we’re still learning about this phenomenon, as five researchers from Okayama, Japan recently reported in a paper titled “Enhanced visualization of female squirting.” The paper was novel in its methods for identifying the origin of the mystery fluid.

“Little is known about the composition of this fluid and the mechanism by which the fluid is discharged,” the researchers write, with the detached air of a mechanic’s car repair manual. The study also contains gems like “it is difficult to collect squirted fluid because the direction of squirting is variable.” This was clearly a messy experiment.

The trials began in a very unsexy manner by first inserting a catheter into the participants’ urethras to drain their bladders. Then, saline and indigo carmine (blue food coloring) was flushed back up into the bladder. The dye would become crucial later in the experiment.

Most of the samples also contained prostate-specific antigen, which does not originate in the bladder. That suggests that squirting is not entirely comprised of urine.

Five women participated, with two each in their 30s and 40s, and one in their 50s. Three were able to use their hands alone to squirt, while the other two required penetrative sexual stimulation, in this case from two male partners, to squirt. While their partners were happy to help, researchers tried to make sure the male partners didn’t ejaculate, which would make it less likely they contaminated the result.

In any case, each participant was able to squirt, and in every instance blue dye went everywhere — suggesting the bladder was the origin of much of the secretions. As much of the secretions as possible were collected in sterile cups.

“The discharged fluid was blue in all cases, confirming the bladder as the source,” the researchers concluded. The use of dye helped confirm what other scientists have observed using pelvic ultrasound scans: “squirting is essentially the involuntary emission of urine during sexual activity.”

However, there’s a catch: most of the samples also contained prostate-specific antigen, which does not originate in the bladder. That suggests that squirting is not entirely comprised of urine; moreover, the presence of PSA in the mix makes squirting different from either urinating or female ejaculation.

If you’re truly curious how this experiment was conducted, there is a short video (warning: the video is graphic, even though the presentation is quite detached and clinical) of the sex acts with blue dying gushing everywhere, scored with music to accompany.

The authors emphasized that the subjects were not sex workers (as this may have somehow skewed results) and did not have coital urinary incontinence, in which some women will pee during sex. Coital urinary incontinence is a separate, distinct phenomenon which does not occur during orgasm. In contrast to squirting, generally those who have coital incontinence don’t describe it as an enjoyable experience. To recap: female ejaculation, squirting, urinating and coital urinary incontinence are all separate acts. We haven’t even mentioned the Bartholin’s gland, which secretes mucus for lubricating the vagina.

The authors said it was difficult to find subjects for this study. Studies suggest that percentage of women with the ability to squirt ranges from 10 to 54 percent. Such a range may indicate there’s a lot about female sexual pleasure that science does not yet know.

Males can apparently squirt, too. A 2018 case study of a 25-year-old man, also published in the International Journal of Urology, described a man who ejaculated, then 20 seconds later “squirted” for about a minute. This fluid was analyzed and also confirmed to be mostly urine. The description of the experiment sounds notably uncomfortable, as it involved an ultrasound probe inserted into the man’s rectum used to measure contractions in the bladder.

The female reproductive system may have just gotten a little less mysterious, but there’s a good reason why scientists don’t fully understand this anatomy: Medical sexism. It’s as prominent today as it was in the 17th and 19th centuries when men like Alexander Skene and Caspar Bartholin the Younger were going around naming parts of female anatomy after themselves.

about biology and sex

Don’t use NyQuil to cook “sleepy chicken,” FDA warns home cooks

About a week ago, I learned that the young adults on TikTok had discovered butter crocks, a development that warmed my heart (and prompted me to ask the fine folks over at the Institute of Culinary Education how they prefer to store their good butter). Still basking in the glow of a surprisingly wholesome, dairy-centered internet trend, I sat down at my desk this morning ready to face the day — that is, until I saw a message from my editor that simply read: “NyQuil Chicken is apparently a thing.”

So much of a thing, in fact, that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has had to release a warning urging home cooks not to try their hand at making what some have termed “sleepy chicken,” or chicken that has been marinated, boiled or braised in the popular cold and flu medication.

It’s unclear how exactly this trend started. Some, like the writers at Prevention, point to a 2017 tweet that read: “[I]f she makes you nyquil chicken…. do NOT let her go.” Beneath the tweet was a photo of a chicken breast with an eerie blue-green coating. In the background are two, ostensibly empty, bottles of NyQuil.

Is there cyanide lurking in your summer peaches?

Earlier this year, however, the trend started gaining traction on social media again. Food 52’s Naomi Tomky pointed out in January that it thankfully didn’t appear as though too many folks were actually eating the “sleepy chicken.”

“If you search TikTok with that hashtag, the results include about 10% people horrified at the supposed trend and 90% people showing off their pet chickens taking a nap,” she wrote, ” which is an excellent trend that does deserve the internet’s attention.”

Yet videos of the trend — even if they are mostly jokes — have endured to the point that on Tuesday, the FDA issued a statement highlighting the dangers posed by the cooking process.

“Boiling a medication can make it much more concentrated and change its properties in other ways,” the warning said. “Even if you don’t eat the chicken, inhaling the medication’s vapors while cooking could cause high levels of the drugs to enter your body. It could also hurt your lungs.”

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The warning continued, “Put simply: Someone could take a dangerously high amount of the cough and cold medicine without even realizing it.”

No concrete numbers as to the amount of people who have actually ingested NyQuil chicken exist, though Poison Control toxicologist Dr. Kelly Johnson Arbor wrote for the organization’s blog that “some of the current TikTok videos on this subject have been viewed millions of times.”

The bottom line? Cooking your chicken in NyQuil, even if just for fun, isn’t worth the health risk (or the $8.99 bottle of medicine you don’t need). If you’re looking for a chicken recipe that will liven up dinner without poisoning your family, might I recommend this 3-ingredient marinade instead?

chicken recipes (NyQuil not included)

The queen was apparently a fan of “The Crown.” Where does the Netflix series go from here?

The danger in making your television program about a real person is that life happens. And so does death.

In the aftermath of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing on Sept. 8, mourners wondered about everything from money bearing her image to the royal succession and those corgis. As details of the grand state funeral emerged, so did more questions (though it turns out the dogs will be all right). Perhaps not urgently on the royals’ minds, but on ours: What will happen to “The Crown“?

“The Crown” and Her Majesty’s midlife crisis

Netflix’s popular series dramatizes the life of the queen from her 1947 wedding to the current century. A surprise in the wake of Elizabeth’s death? The queen herself was apparently a fan. So swears George Jobson, “considered one of Britain’s leading royal commentators,” according to Entertainment Weekly, who notes “the Queen had a habit of settling in to watch the Netflix series on Sundays.“

Queen Elizabth II (OLIVIA COLMAN) in “The Crown” (Netflix)This loyal viewership was allegedly in opposition to the wishes of her husband, Prince Philip. As Entertainment Weekly writes, “Philip tried to discourage his wife from watching it because he knew it would irritate her (or maybe he wasn’t a fan of the series’ portrayal of him as a callous, unfaithful spouse who bristled at Elizabeth’s stature in contrast to his own?).”

In a statement about the queen’s death, series creator Peter Morgan said, “‘The Crown‘ is a love letter to her.”

The actor who stepped into that role of “a callous, unfaithful spouse” in his younger years is Matt Smith who, after his charming “Doctor Who” tenure, seems drawn to dastardly guys. On NBC’s “Today,” Smith discussed meeting the queen’s grandson, Prince Harry, who jokingly called him “grandad,” in a reference to the show. Smith also said he had heard — though he did not specify his source — that the queen did watch “The Crown.” Moreover, “she used to watch it on a projector on a Sunday night.”

Harry confirmed his own viewing habits to James Corden of “The Late Late Show,” saying he preferred the TV dramatization to tabloid stories. “I’m way more comfortable with ‘The Crown’ than I am seeing the stories written about my family or my wife or myself . . . They don’t pretend to be news — it’s fictional.”

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Harry described the Netflix show as “loosely based on the truth. Of course, it’s not strictly accurate, but . . . it gives you a rough idea about what that lifestyle, what the pressures of putting duty and service above family and everything else, what can come from that.”

“The Crown” is currently filming its sixth season. As news of the monarch’s death arrived, production halted. This pause wasn’t due to uncertainty over how to proceed following the death of its main subject but rather, as Deadline reports, “a mark of respect.” Filming was stopped not only on the day of the queen’s death but also on the day of her funeral. In a statement about the queen’s death, series creator Peter Morgan said, “‘The Crown‘ is a love letter to her and I’ve nothing to add for now, just silence and respect.”

Princess Diana (EMMA CORRIN) in “The Crown” (Netflix)Season 1 of the show covers the events in the queen’s life up to the end of Winston Churchill’s time as prime minister. Season 2 dramatizes the tenure of two more prime ministers, as well as the birth of the queen’s youngest son Prince Edward. Ending in 1977, the third season closes with the queen’s Silver Jubilee, while the fourth season showcases Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and Emma Corrin as Lady Diana Spencer. Three actors have and will play the queen in “The Crown”: Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton, representing the monarch at various stages in her life.

Margaret Thatcher (GILLIAN ANDERSON) in “The Crown” (Netflix)Season 5 of the show is slated for a November premiere on Netflix, introducing Staunton, the noted British actor and singer who may be familiar to some viewers as Dolores Umbridge from the “Harry Potter” franchise, as the queen in her silver-haired years. The upcoming season will cover Princess Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles, as well as her 1997 death. The sixth season, which paused its production to mark the queen’s passing, will take the monarchy into the 2000s, introducing William and Kate. It remains unclear how far into the queen’s life it will stretch.

On a 2017 Christmas broadcast, the queen seemed to hint at her “The Crown” viewership.

On a 2017 Christmas broadcast, the queen seemed to hint at her “The Crown” viewership, when some onlookers believe she referenced a scene from the show. However, in 2019, her communication secretary wrote a letter to The Guardian that read, in part, “We appreciate that readers of the Guardian may enjoy this fictionalized interpretation of historical events, but they should do so knowing that the royal household is not complicit in interpretations made by the program.”

The queen may never have condoned “The Crown,” but what could she have thought of it? As a source told The Sunday Express in 2017, the queen was apparently introduced to the series by Prince Edward and his wife Sophie, who would often watch a Netflix show while eating casually together, and “she really liked it, although obviously there were some depictions of events that she found too heavily dramatized.”

about the Queen and “The Crown”

Narcissistic presidents get us into longer wars, according to a new study

Although Donald Trump’s soon-to-be impeachment attorney Alan Dershowitz said in 2019 that the then-president would never refuse to step down after losing an election, psychologists and other mental health experts who spoke to Salon prior to the 2020 election repeatedly made the opposite prediction. Because Trump displays a large number of narcissistic traits, they foresaw that he would react to a loss as if it were “psychic death,” as psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee said at the time.

As we all know now, the mental health experts were right.

“Pathological narcissism … means that one is incapable of considering the interests of the nation over one’s self-interest, and will be dangerously violence-prone.”

Now, as Americans sort through the wreckage of the extemporaneous coup attempt that resulted from Trump’s braggadocio, a new study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution (JCR) by researchers from Ohio State University and Ripon College reveals a different way in which presidential narcissism has directly changed the course of history — and cost lives.

The study found that presidents who displayed more pronounced narcissistic traits keep America in wars for longer than their less narcissistic counterparts. Indeed, as Salon learned when reaching out to experts, these presidents may also bring out the narcissistic traits of their own supporters to get them to support said wars.

Losing is “like psychic death for Trump”: Psychologists warn Trump may provoke violence after loss

Led by then-Ohio State political science doctoral student John P. Harden (who now teaches at Ripon), the JCR study reviewed every president from William McKinley (who oversaw America’s rise to superpower status in the late 1890s) to George W. Bush by cross-referencing a wide range of known facts about those presidents’ personalities with a dataset of narcissistic traits. It found that the the eight presidents who were on the more narcissistic end of the spectrum (Lyndon Johnson foremost among them) spent an average of 613 days at war, while the 11 presidents who were on the lower end of the narcissism spectrum (with McKinley as the least narcissistic) only averaged 136 days at war for their terms.

Speaking to Salon by email, Harden noted that the researchers have been criticized for not including either Barack Obama or Donald Trump in their analysis. “It is also notable to me that most people don’t seem to care if [Joe] Biden is in the data,” Harden said. Harden explained that “a pro of this approach is that it minimizes bias.”

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“The study proves for sure that trait-level grandiose narcissism impacts interstate war duration,” Harden told Salon. “While I began supporting the claim that narcissism impacts foreign policy in a prior article, this JCR article goes a bit further in demonstrating narcissism can impact something as overwhelming as war duration.” Although scholars of international relations tend to downplay the role of individual personalities in determining sweeping global events, Harden argued that his research joins a larger field “suggesting that view may be far too simplistic to account for movement in global politics.”

Dr. David Reiss — a psychiatrist and expert in mental fitness evaluations who contributed to the book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President” — told Salon by email that the conclusions make so much sense “they are almost a tautology.” He praised the authors for using biographies and other historical research to analyze presidents in lieu of actual psychological evaluations, which made their conclusions seem reasonable.

“It is not surprising that the behaviors of those who fit those qualifications — exhibited a lack of caring for others, lack of modesty, and lack of straightforwardness, etc. in executing their duties as POTUS” [President of the United States] corresponded with increase lengths of wars, Reiss added. Indeed, “since a POTUS’ entire legacy is going to be very much tied to any war/conflict in which they involve the country, it could be expected that narcissist traits (whether minor or severe) will be amplified in a situation that is recognized as going to directly impact the person’s historical legacy.”

“It follows that to the extent to which Trump supporters invest their own narcissism in Trump’s persona . . . any type of ‘defeat’ or setback will be very poorly tolerated,” Reiss pointed out.

Dr. Bandy X. Lee — a psychiatrist who also co-authored “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” and was one of the first prominent psychiatrists to draw attention to Trump’s narcissistic traits — argued in writing that while narcissism itself is not inherently dangerous among political leaders, “pathological narcissism by definition makes one dangerous and unfit to be in the office of the presidency, not to mention many other, far less consequential positions. It means that one is incapable of considering the interests of the nation over one’s self-interest, and will be dangerously violence-prone. This holds even more true for psychopathy, which may be defined as the extreme end of narcissism.”

Lee added, “I believe that this points to the great importance of basic mental health considerations with regard to our senior national leaders, most importantly the U.S. president. Indeed, mental capacity is commonly assessed and universally required for senior positions in the military and business leadership. The same should apply to the commander-in-chief.”

In addition to being narcissistic themselves, the presidents who commit to longer wars may also get citizens to support those lengthened wars by stimulating their own narcissistic traits.

Dr. Jessica January Behr, a licensed psychologist who practices in New York City, said it would be reasonable to assume that “based on the dataset” that many people who will support these wars “may be motivated at least in part by their own narcissistic traits.”

Behr added: “In addition, identification with the presidents or other leaders in power who support and prolong war, may be narcissism-by proxy or a type of Stockholm syndrome on mass scale.”

“My general inclination is that citizens will support a narcissist because of their overweening confidence, their willingness to simplify complex issues into dubiously simple solutions, and their tendency to report that a war is going well even if it is not.”

Narcissism by proxy refers to a condition in which a person — or a group of people — think and act in ways that benefit a narcissist’s own goals despite not necessarily being narcissists themselves. Often, those affected by narcissism by proxy wind up adapting narcissistic behavior while acting on the narcissist’s behalf. Some psychologists believe that narcissism by proxy explained the cult-like devotion that some of President Trump’s adherents expressed towards him.

Harden offered a somewhat different take on the intersection between a leader’s narcissism and their ability to win support among the masses.

“This is an interesting question,” Harden wrote. “My general inclination is that citizens will support a narcissist because of their overweening confidence, their willingness to simplify complex issues into dubiously simple solutions, and their tendency to report that a war is going well even if it is not. For these reasons, citizens may support war under a narcissist leader largely because they are not fully aware of the costs and consequences.”

Harden concluded, “So, in a way — yes — pro-war sentiment is fueled by a narcissistic leader’s behavior.”

To the extent that Trump’s Big Lie could be described as analogous (at least in the minds of those involved) to a war, the study’s conclusions offer ominous implications about America’s ability to move past Trump’s coup attempt.

“It follows that to the extent to which Trump supporters invest their own narcissism in Trump’s persona, ‘success’ and ‘legacy’ (which Trump actively encourages and strongly triggers others to do), any type of ‘defeat’ or setback will be very poorly tolerated,” Reiss pointed out. “This is likely to lead to a range of dysfunctional acting out behaviors” unless the people acting out someone else’s narcissism develop self-awareness, which rarely happens among narcissists.

about politics and psychology

“A fascist march on the country for 5 years”: How the Proud Boys got away with it for so long

These days, most people — at least who follow the news at all — know who the Proud Boys are. After all, the far-right street gang was at the center of organizing the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, a crime that that many members have been facing serious federal charges for. But it wasn’t long ago that they mainstream media was largely portraying the group as relatively harmless, more like a conservative drinking club than evidence of the resurgence of violent fascism that was inspired by Donald Trump.

Some journalists, however, were always certain that the Proud Boys were not harmless and were trying to raise the alarm early. (Including, ahem, yours truly.) Among those was investigative reporter Andy Campbell of HuffPost. His new book, “We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism,” offers an in-depth look at this group, their ideology, their tactics, and their goals — the kind of coverage that was sorely missing from much of the media in the months leading up to January 6. “We Are Proud Boys” is an essential investigation of a group that has done so much to tear at the fabric of democracy while mostly being ignored by the mainstream press.

Campbell spoke with Salon about his book and how the Proud Boys are a lot savvier than their image would suggest. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

I wanted to kick this off by commiserating with you, because I was writing about the Proud Boys in 2017, 2018, and it was hard to get people to care. I got a lot of [reactions like], “Who cares? You’re being hysterical. None of this matters.” What has your experience been? Has it been hard to get people to take this seriously?

Not only is it hard to get the general public to take it seriously, but it’s hard to get Congress, police, anybody affected by extremism to take this seriously. The first question you always get is like, “Well, how many Proud Boys are there? What are the odds that a Proud Boy’s going to show up and punch me in the face?” The threat of the Proud Boys and the threat of extremism is not necessarily that you are going to get a house call — though that happens, and would happen more if we allow it to. But, really, they are responsible for fomenting this crisis and showing others how to do it, and how to get away with it by creating relationships within the GOP, infiltrating the media and infiltrating the police.

“People need to understand that this is part of a big, big web. It’s only growing more acute.”

People need to understand that this is part of a big, big web. It’s only growing more acute. The extremism crisis doesn’t end after Charlottesville or January 6. That’s just part of this bigger web.

After January 6, the outgoing Department of Homeland Security officials said that they thought the Proud Boys were just a drinking club. Come on, man. They’ve been on a fascist march on the country for five years.

It’s absolutely insane that the government — the investigatory agencies — just aren’t paying attention. We’ve been screaming this from the hilltops for years, and it’s really hard to get people to pay attention until something huge happens.

Well, January 6 was pretty huge, and it’s becoming very clear that the Proud Boys were central to organizing what happened that day. Do you think that’s changed the way that the public, the government, and the media now react to the Proud Boys?

Absolutely. Now we know Enrique Tarrio got that “1776 Returns” document on December 30, well before January 6. It turned the investigation on the head for everybody. There was no smoking gun that this had been planned until that document came out. And so yes, I think it’s changing hearts and minds about the Proud Boys.

But I also think people don’t really know what to do with it still. I mean, certainly the government doesn’t. People are starting to wake up to this crisis, and Congress is just starting to acknowledge it, but we have a long way to go to actually responding to it in any meaningful way.

I have a lot of anger at people in power for ignoring this story. But reading your book, I really saw how Gavin McInnis, the founder of the Proud Boys, and their leadership has been incredibly clever and strategic at simultaneously building up this violent gang while making it difficult for people to cover them as what they are. How do they do that?

The Proud Boys are fantastic at walking the line between extremist gang and legitimate political faction, because they built relationships in the GOP, in the media and in law enforcement to give themselves this air of credibility. They’ve got friends in the GOP. They’ve got friends in the media who are going to defend them and position what they do as protected speech and protected demonstration. They have police in our ranks and claim they are pro-police. Anything that they do now is positioned as protected speech, rather than what they’ve been doing, which is wasting taxpayer dollars and beating the shit out of people for political gains. On top of that, a number of them are running for office. A number of them have tried to take over smaller jurisdictions, and that creates another way for them to escape this idea that they’re a violent gang, rather than a political arm.

They were also adept at using similar tactics to get out of being publicly labeled as racist or white supremacist, or anything of that nature. Can you talk about that a little?

“They are absolutely a gang with white supremacy embedded in their rule set.”

Gavin McInnes has embedded white supremacy into the Proud Boys’ rules. He is supremely racist. Many of his top officers are very, very racist. They have neo-Nazis in their ranks. But they’ve been able to bamboozle the people who would be critical of this by installing people of color in their ranks. Enrique Tarrio is a Cuban American with brown skin and a position as chairman. Just by doing that, the media becomes so bamboozled that they can’t call them racists and white supremacists. They then end up being described on mainstream news as what they want to be described as, which is an all-male fraternal nationalist drinking club. They’ve made it hard to define them in one pull quote. On TV news, it’s hard to offer a succinct description of the Proud Boys.

But they are absolutely a gang with white supremacy embedded in their rule set. Gavin McInnes believes that white men have been the greatest contributors to the world society and that members have to respect that, even though he’ll allow members of color. Like with their crimes, they’ve been very good at running interference when the media comes asking about racism, so they can position themselves as something else entirely.

It’s not just that they bamboozle people and they play these semantic games, either. There’s more direct intimidation. When I was reporting on Gavin, he kept calling me at home. He kept calling my partner on his cell phone.

Like I said — you, the reader, are probably not going to get a house call from the Proud Boys. But they do send people to people’s houses. They sent someone to Vic Berger. He’s a guy who made funny videos online about Gavin McInnis. They sent a Proud Boy to intimidate him and his wife. In my case, Gavin likes to — in fact, he did it just the other day — likes to let me know that he knows who my wife is. He sent a message saying congratulations to us on our pending nuptials, but it was obviously just intimidation.

One of the takeaways here is Gavin’s responsibility. Throughout the Proud Boys’ life, he’s taught them to intimidate and threaten and also craft a narrative around what you’re doing that makes it look like you are not responsible or that you’re acting in self-defense. In Gavin’s case, his threats are always veiled. He acts like, “I’m talking to you, right?” But he also wants you to know, “I’m a gang leader, and I know who you are, and I know where you are, and I’m just going to let you know that.”

Now that the mainstream media is actually paying attention, there’s a lot of focus on white supremacy, but less on the gender issues that, actually, I think attract a lot of people to the Proud Boys. They are obviously a male-only group. If you watch Gavin’s shows, he’s selling this idea that, if they embrace traditional gender roles, it’ll improve their sex lives and their dating game, and they’re just going to be hotter to women. But you report that there are female researchers who have gone undercover to be near the group, and they find that there’s actually not a lot of interest from Proud Boys in dating.

“They’re dudes who don’t know how to converse with women. I think that helps fuel their misogynist rage.”

It turns out that when you never hang out with a group of people as a rule, you don’t know anything about them. With the Proud Boys, they essentially aren’t allowed to be around women. When they do get around women, they just don’t know what to do with themselves, and there’s just no real flirtation. I interviewed a woman who embedded with the women who hang around the Proud Boys. She said they made jokes about women and bragged about how virile they are, but she never actually had to fend off anybody, because they were too awkward. They’re dudes who don’t know how to converse with women. I think that helps fuel their misogynist rage.

I’m glad you mentioned the researchers that I spoke to. One of the most surprising things in my research is how many anti-fascist researchers are women. They put their safety on the line, put their bodies on the line and their mental fortitude on the line to do this research. They do it without any sort of expectation of kudos or thanks, or even identification. They just do it because they see a gap in response to this extremist crisis.

I was glad to see that you mentioned Juliet Jeske in the book. (Side note: Jeske helped Salon heavily, when she was still working anonymously, with researching McInnes.)

Juliet has been doxxed, and harassed after she came out. I absolutely applaud her on that, but a lot of women can’t do that. A lot of women in this space don’t have the support network behind them to do that. I can’t imagine, for example, even me jumping into this world without the promise of HuffPost or Hachette backing me up when they come harassing me. It’s just a really powerful thing, when you start to think about what it takes to jump into this world without a baked-in support network.

Certainly, I know a lot of our readers want to know what ordinary people can do. Our readers are very aware that this is real. I have communicated with a lot of people online who are alarmed by this threat and worried about it not being taken seriously, but they don’t know what to do.

“Engaging in local communities fighting back against fascism is the best way to go.”

A lot of people are going to be in the street throughout the next year and throughout the next three years, because our rights are being taken away as this sort of tidal wave of extremism takes over. Some of the anti-fascists and progressive activists in the street have done it well, which is that they support their local communities when fascists have taken the streets. They’re fighting back in many different ways. Sometimes it’s online. Sometimes it’s providing food or medicine. But engaging in local communities fighting back against fascism is the best way to go.

I don’t recommend necessarily trying to infiltrate the Proud Boys, but engaging in protest movements and getting the word out about the reasons why people are out there is really going to help. It wasn’t law enforcement or government that got all the dossiers together on the January 6 defendants. It was researchers. It wasn’t the government who put together a $25 million successful lawsuit against the architects of Unite the Right.

The best way is to consider the idea that the government and law enforcement aren’t going to be the ones to help. That doesn’t mean that you have to go commit crimes, but engaging in your local community of activism is really important right now. Showing the world that the people who show up to oppose fascism aren’t just the black-clad Molotov-throwing guys that Fox News shows over and over and over again. It’s local community. Showing that lowers the chance that there’s going to be violence because police and fascists don’t want videos of themselves attacking local community members.

From “Black Panther” to “RRR,” the new “Story of Film” honors innovation, influence of global cinema

A decade after his landmark 15-part, 930-minute series, “The Story of Film: An Odyssey,” Mark Cousins returns with “The Story of Film: A New Generation,” to share his passion and observations about innovations in world cinema. The 167-minute documentary looks at some of the most exciting films from the 21st century that pushed boundaries, broke rules, and stretched connections.

“When you see ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,’ or ‘Under the Skin,’ you just know it is innovative.”

Cousins breaks down scenes from popular and obscure films and how they film action, bodies and horror or deal with issues of race and identity, as well as how genres like “slow cinema” or documentary are changing. He also considers technical advancements, from films that were shot on iPhones, like “Tangerine,” as well as those made using VR or motion capture.

“Body Parts” examines the labor of movie nudity – the good, the bad and the merkins

In a recent Zoom interview, Cousins spoke with Salon about “The Story of Film: A New Generation.”

Let’s start with some facts. How many films and hours of cinema did you watch to compile “The Story of Film: A New Generation,” and what was your criteria for the clips you selected?

I go to the cinema all the time. It’s not like I start from scratch and have to research a film like this. I am already seeing stuff. There are some films I hadn’t seen before making “The Story of Film: A New Generation,” Lav Diaz’s film, and some of the Asian stuff that doesn’t come so easily to my local cinema. In addition to daily watching, I probably spent two weeks looking at other films that I knew I needed to see. I don’t have loads of spare time but on a daily basis I see one film a day maybe two, always in the cinema. Most of my movie watching is not for work purposes, it’s for pleasure purposes.

When it comes to criteria, it’s what’s innovative. When you see “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” or “Under the Skin,” you just know it is innovative. I don’t need to write anything down. That’s new and some kind of landmark. Then I scribble. [Cousins display a sheet of all the titles.] It’s an easy way of seeing the steppingstones in the story.

Your documentary showcases fabulous clips, such as people being punished for film piracy from a Ugandan film, “Crazy World,” to a breathtaking action sequence from the fiver-hour “Gangs of Wasseypur.” You also feature an excerpt from “Propaganda” a film that looks like it was from North Korea (and was rumored to be smuggled out) but was really made in New Zealand. How do you find these films, and where can viewers see them?

“All creativity is jumping between unexpected things. Jumping from ‘Joker’ to ‘Frozen’ was unexpected.”

Two of the three you mentioned are on YouTube; “Propaganda” has been for years. I’m a hungry lone wolf always looking for nourishment, so I look on YouTube to look for stuff, and I’m lucky that because of my work I’m connected with film archives around the world. If I ask can I see a film, I get sent a link. “Gangs of Wasseypur” I didn’t see it in the cinema, I bought the Blu-ray. It’s always a question of not relying on what comes to our local theater. We need to support our local theater, but we need to ask what are we not seeing? Why are we not seeing it? And how do we see it?

You open connecting “Joker” and “Frozen,” and include many popular Hollywood films examples, from “Deadpool” and “Black Panther” to “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” You also showcase “PK” which was one of the biggest hits ever in India. I’ve long considered you — and I don’t mean this negatively — an art film snob, with really obscure taste. I was surprised by the nods to blockbusters. Can you discuss why you featured these films?

I am the absolute opposite of an art film snob, whatever that is. I come from a working-class background, and none of my family was educated, so in no way have I ever had an elite taste in cinema — ever. Everything I do is genre-blind. This latest manifestation of “The Story of Film” is the same. I start with the two films you mentioned, “Joker” and “Frozen,” to surprise people. But no way. I’m the opposite of what you just said. People who know me know that I got to popular stuff all the time. Cinema is the art form of the people, and if we think of it as an elite event then we have misunderstood cinema.

When I watch your films, you mention titles I’ve never heard of.

That’s very, very different from an art film snob. A lot of what I talk about is Indian cinema, which is some of the most popular in world, which you mentioned with “PK,” for example. What I often am is more international than other people, not more highbrow.

I wasn’t suggesting you were highbrow or looking down on popular cinema. I think you use popular cinema to make your case — this is innovative in Hollywood, but here is how cinema has been innovative elsewhere that you may not be aware of. You may not be aware of how innovative “Joker” or “Frozen” were, but you have knowledge of obscure films, and your taste can run to the obscure.

What does obscure mean? You are very knowledgeable about cinema, but if you are in Mumbai, or Tehran, or Cairo, my taste isn’t obscure because a lot of what I am talking about is the big popular stuff. It’s obscure from your world and my world, the Anglo-Western world. It looks obscure there, but if you are not in that place, it isn’t.

The first part of the film focuses on comedy, action, musicals, bodies, horror, and slow cinema. How did you select these topics and did you cherry pick the examples to prove your points? In several cases you cite classic films as references for the contemporary ones to illustrate the history and the innovation, as when you link “Holy Motors” and “Under the Skin” to Jean Cocteau’s “Blood of a Poet.”

Usually, I don’t look at the genre. It’s slightly unusual for me to look at things like comedy or action. But I knew I was dealing with a small amount of time here, 10 years, so didn’t want to do chronological thing, so I thought if I look at genre, like action, it will allow me to jump across countries, and nations. You and I know that politics of the last generation have become increasingly nationalistic in America and in Brazil and Hungary, so I wanted explicitly not to look country by country and looking genre by genre gives nice connections between action films or comedy films. That feels quietly daring in the present day.

“A New Generation” was more thematically linked, like your “Women Make Film” project.

“Women” wouldn’t have worked if I had done it chronologically. The story would have been hardly any women, then a few in the ’20s and ’30s and it would have been a too conventional narrative. I wanted to mess around and choose themes that allowed me to jump around. All creativity is jumping between unexpected things. Jumping from “Joker” to “Frozen” was unexpected in “A New Generation,” so I want to be ahead of the audience. I don’t want the audience to know what’s happening next.

“A film like ‘RRR,’ is one of the most technically brilliant films in the history of cinema.”

The second part of the film is more focused on technological innovation, from Tsai Ming-Liang‘s use of VR to the motion capture used in “War for the Planet of the Apes” and the digital retouching of Robert DeNiro in “The Irishman.” What observations do you have about the use of technology in films to both cheat and create “reality?”

With every technology that comes along, often the first use is a regressive use, and a way of recategorizing people. Before cinema, there was the use of airbrushing in the fashion industry to make women looks skinnier. How awful. I could make another film about the terrible things happening in cinema, but that is not what I am doing. I am looking at people who have used technology in a good way. When I make a film, it is going to be six months of my life, minimum, so I prefer to look at people who are using technology in great way, not a terrible way.

The Story of Film: A New Generation (Music Box Films)

I recall seeing the film “Julia and Julia” with Kathleen Turner and Sting in 1987. It was the first film to be released in cinemas that was shot in High Definition. I remember how artificial it looked at the time. It was iconic for the technology, but not for the film.

Again, if you look at the global story you get all this interesting stuff. How have the Iranians used technology to body swerve censorship and all sorts of other things? Or in India, a film like “RRR,” is one of the most technically brilliant films in the history of cinema. We have to be quite humbled, those who speak English, and see how other people are using this stuff in a more imaginative way than we are.

One really great example in your film is “Black Panther,” which you explain is both pre- and post-modern. It’s Afro-futurism and rejects the “victim” narrative of Africa reimagining it as Paradise Lost. Can you talk about how a film like this can change ways of seeing which is your point in highlighting it, and its global influence.

What I love about that film and those filmmakers is that you can tell they looked at actual African films. They looked at Djibril Dop Mambéty, who happens to be tattooed on my arm here [shows tattoo] and those great Senegalese films of ’70s, ’80s, and into the ’90s. What they are doing with “Black Panther” is that there is a heritage and a history and there is a line of visual culture there that was forgotten, and we are now going to re-celebrate it. It was so exciting to see that film, for me. Obviously, I’m a white person, but to see that it was connecting back to African cinema in a fantastic way, that is very valuable. Then you ask how is “Black Panther” itself a springboard for new African American and African creatives? When you see something like that, you think cinema is still alive.

You also focus on identity in contemporary cinema. I love when you link “A Fantastic Woman” about a transwoman in Chile with Ava DuVernay’s documentary “13th,” about Black citizens and the prison system, to show how they both address invisibility, and then add an Indian film “Ship of Theseus,” about death and identity. What can you say about the silver screen being both a mirror reflecting back on us and a lamp illuminating our way?

You’ve said it, in a way. A film like “Ship of Theseus” is brilliant in Indian cinema and widely acclaimed because it is about transitioning. Maybe you, Gary, and I are not what we were 20 years ago or 30 years ago. And “A Fantastic Woman” is explicitly about transition in some way. These films are, yes, they are a mirror, saying, “Here’s where we are,” and “Under the Skin” is a really great example of saying, “What if you peel a layer off yourself? What’s behind it?” So, these films are saying, “Here’s where we are, but it’s not a fixed thing.” It’s going to change and continue to change, and we’ll continue to change as individuals and societies, The societies that make these films, in Latin America and India — look how fast they are changing and look at what challenges they have. Therefore, a film like “A Fantastic Woman” is extremely valuable. It is a public endorsement of change and the flux of human beings.

Your documentary whets my appetite to watch or rewatch almost all of the films you showcase. What films are your personal favorites that folks should seek out?

My advice is if you have an opportunity to see a movie you know nothing about, go for it. And if you are sitting at home, or going to a movie theater, and there are two films and one has a big movie star and you know the genre, and there is another you haven’t heard of, go for the one you haven’t heard of. Chances are you will just slightly extend yourself. I know folks are conservative and want conventional things, but I also think deep down we want the thrill of encountering something new, and that is what cinema can provide easily and affordably. I refer to cinema as the “affordable sublime.” It’s bigger than life and luminous. If you haven’t heard of something, the chances are that it will be better than something you’ve heard of. Don’t play it safe.

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

We all think we know ourselves. But if you go back to the early ’70s, and if you said to people, “Do you want David Bowie, do you want this sort of alien transperson? Nobody would have said yes. Nobody asked for David Bowie, but then he came along and a whole generation fell in love with him. Now lots of people across the spectrum thought he was really great. We don’t know what we want. And I include myself in that. I remember the first time I heard a David Bowie album, and I was properly mind-blown. That is the purpose of art and the purpose of cinema. Yes, we’ll go to the “Black Panther” sequel, but it’s the other stuff that really rejuvenates you.

“The Story of Film: A New Generation” is available on digital Sept. 20. Watch a trailer via YouTube.

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Trump wants to put “children’s book” pushing his election lies in “every school in America”

Former President Donald Trump wants his supporters to teach their children that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against him.

In a new post on Truth Social, Trump encouraged fans to order a new book from aide Kash Patel that uses cartoon illustrations to demonstrate how President Joe Biden “stole” the election from Trump, who lost by more than 7 million votes nationwide and by 74 electoral college votes.

“The great American patriot, Kash Patel, who is defeating the Fake News Media and taking on the corrupt government in the DC swamp, is launching a sequel to his best-selling children’s book—The Plot Against the King: 2,000 Mules!” Trump wrote. “This new book uncovers the story of a Rigged Election. Exclusively launching on Truth Social. This is a must-read for every child in America!”

The book is based on conspiracy theories concocted by pro-Trump pundit Dinesh D’Souza in his widely disparaged movie “2,000 Mules.”

A description of the book on its official website says that “Kash Patel tells the fantastical story of how two inquisitive minds, Dinesh and Debbie, search for the truth and uncover evidence of a terrible scheme to elect Sleepy Joe instead of King Donald on Choosing Day.”

It also contains a blurb from Trump stating that teachers should “put this amazing book in every school in America.”

Trump aides were stunned by his ignorance on key issues: “He knew nothing about so many things”

While promoting their book “The Divider” on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday morning, journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser revealed anecdotes about Donald Trump’s absolute ignorance about world affairs and even geography when he was president that stunned aides.

Speaking with co-host Jonathan Lemire, the two authors were asked about Trump’s issues dealing with former leaders and they revealed a story about the former president offering to give away the West Bank.

“There is so much about his meetings with Putin in Helsinki, his efforts to walk out of NATO,” host Lemire began. “This headline, which took my breath away when I read it over the weekend, that he nearly gave away the West Bank — tell us how that could have happened.”

“We decided to do this book after he left office because there was more to learn,” Baker admitted. “One was the great anecdote where apparently Trump calls up [former Treasury Secretary] Steve Mnuchin at the Davos conference when he’s meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan and put him on the phone, and said, ‘Hey king, I’ve got a great deal for you, I’m going to give you the West Bank.’ And anybody who understands Jordan where the Palestinian population is sort of a restive force in politics there and understands that was not anything King Abdullah wanted.”

“He told an American friend, ‘I nearly had a heart attack, I doubled over, I couldn’t breathe,'” Baker continued. “It went to where Donald Trump’s view of the world is very superficial and transactional — and he is simply going to give the king something the king has no interest in having.”

“It explains a lot about his foreign policy, which was very, very much built on the basis of someone who didn’t spend a single day in office prior to becoming president and he had a lot to learn, ” he elaborated. “He didn’t know the difference between the Baltics and Balkans. One aide was saying he knew nothing about so many things, it was startling to them even after they spent time in his presence.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

“Lured under false pretenses”: Furious Texas sheriff investigating DeSantis’ Martha’s Vineyard stunt

A Texas sheriff on Monday announced a criminal investigation into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis chartering flights to send 48 migrants from San Antonio in Texas’ Bexar County to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts last week, calling his actions “an abuse of human rights.”

Bexar County Javier Salazar said in a news conference on Monday that the migrants were “lured under false pretenses” into staying at a hotel before being flown to Florida and then Martha’s Vineyard. They were handed misleading brochures promising cash assistance, housing, job placement services, and more, according to their lawyers.

Salazar, whose office’s organized crime investigators are looking into the issue, said a recruiter was paid a “bird dog fee” to recruit people to board a plane. The woman, who migrants identified as “Perla”, according to NPR, promised the group they would receive expedited work permits in Boston.

After being flown to the Massachusetts island where the asylum-seekers were taken “for little more than a photo op or a video op,” they were left “unceremoniously stranded,” Salazar said.

“Evil and inhumane”: DeSantis trolls Martha’s Vineyard with planes of migrants — but locals step up

“What infuriates me the most is what we have is 48 people here legally — they have every right to be here and they were preyed upon,” Salazar said. “Lured with promises of a better life and with the knowledge they would cling anything that was offered for a better life and were exploited and hoodwinked to make the trip to Florida for what I believe was political posturing.”

He said it was too early in the investigation to name suspects but added: “Everybody on this call knows who those names are already.”

Salazar’s investigation comes as immigrant rights groups and Democrats have equated DeSantis’ actions to human trafficking for treating migrants like “human cargo” in hopes of scoring political points.

DeSantis said last week that the planes were part of his state’s $12 million program to relocate migrants to a “sanctuary destination.” But Democratic state lawmakers have argued that his actions exceeded the authority granted by the legislature when it approved the program and that DeSantis’ administration violated state law by using taxpayer dollars to fly migrants in Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.

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Senator Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation sent a letter to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Inspector General urging them to review Florida’s apparent misuse of federal pandemic relief funds intended to help communities recover from the pandemic for “an inhumane program to transport newly arrived immigrants”.

No Massachusetts officials were aware of the migrants’ arrival and they were later moved to a military base shelter at Cape Cod, where they are receiving “shelter and humanitarian support,” according to a statement released by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and Lt. Governor Karyn Polito.

“The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) is coordinating efforts among state and local officials to ensure access to food, shelter and essential services for these men, women and children,” the statement said. “Governor Charlie Baker also plans to activate up to 125 members of the Massachusetts National Guard as part of this relief effort.”

MEMA is working with local agencies to ensure the people being housed there also have access to healthcare and legal services.

During his press conference, Salazar said that while the White House has not been in contact with his office, he is open to communicating with them.

“This case would absolutely have to go federal,” he said, “and I would welcome a call from the White House to discuss.”

about DeSantis’ stunt

Fake Trump elector faces criminal probe after CCTV shows her at election office during Jan. 7 breach

CNN has obtained surveillance footage showing a group of Trump allies inside a restricted area of an elections office in Coffee County, Georgia.

As reported on Tuesday morning by Drew Griffin, the footage shows a team of operatives who were working for pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell, as well as Cathy Latham, who served as a fake Georgia elector for the Trump campaign.

Griffin pointed out that this footage was taken on January 7th, 2021 — one day after the deadly Trump-inspired riots at the United States Capitol building that were aimed at stopping Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election.

Latham had previously said she was not personally involved in a breach of the Coffee County elections office, but that claim is undercut by the footage showing her with the Trump operatives in the restricted area.

Griffin then reported that there could be serious legal repercussions for everyone seen inside the restricted area.

“The Georgia Secretary of State’s office calls what happened in Coffee County criminal behavior and a state criminal investigation is underway,” he said.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump and QAnon: Will appeals to extremism backfire in the midterms?

It’s telling how normalized events like this have become; they barely make ripples now in the national news. On Monday, Tucker Carlson of Fox News used his massive cable news audience — an average of over 3 million viewers a night — to spread a QAnon-style conspiracy theory and encourage people to commit violence against teachers and health care providers. Media Matters collected the clip. It’s hard to follow for those who aren’t already well-versed in the right’s mythology accusing LGBTQ people and their allies of “grooming” children to be victims of sexual abuse. But what is undeniable is that Carlson is calling for violent vigilantism in response to his false accusations against doctors and teachers.

Carlson is light on examples of this alleged grooming but heavy on hyperbole and accusations implying that every child who sees a doctor or enters a classroom is in danger of being sexually abused by some liberal cabal. Yes, schools have sex education and children’s hospitals offer affirming care for LGBTQ kids. But the fantasy that Carlson spins out has nothing to do with these banal realities. He claims hospitals are “castrating” children, a claim that has no relationship to painstakingly slow care protocols for gender non-conforming minors, care which is mostly focused on mental health approaches and sometimes hormonal treatment. (Surgery is generally reserved for adults.) We see this in Carlson’s accusation that sex education is offered to puberty-age children in order to sexually stimulate teachers. In reality, such education is important for preventing sexual abuse.

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But what’s especially disconcerting is how Carlson has grown so cavalier about using these conspiracy theories to push violence as a tool against educators and health care workers. During this clip, he calls for “neighborhood dads” to dish out “instant justice” to sex education teachers. He claims doctors and teachers are “weirdos getting creepy with other people’s children” and that they are committing “sex crimes.” He implies doctors are somehow facilitating gender transition for kids without consulting parents. And he flat-out calls it a “moral duty” to “hurt” people who are supposedly doing these things.

Carlson doesn’t say the word “QAnon,” because he’s clever enough to build plausible deniability around his rhetoric. But he appears to be pandering to and legitimizing this conspiracy theory, which holds that Democrats are leading an international cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles. He even baselessly insinuates that President Joe Biden molested his own daughter, and suggests this is why Biden supports trans rights. That rhetoric doesn’t just encourage people to go online to “research” on their own, sending them directly to QAnon. It trains audiences to be more accepting of illogical conspiracy theories by legitimatizing wild leaps of logic.

Trump fully embraces QAnon on Truth Social — hours after obsessed supporter allegedly killed wife

Also, crucially, Carlson is valorizing violence. Ultimately, this is what QAnon and all adjacent “groomer” conspiracy theories are about: Building the cultural architecture to justify political violence. It recasts violence against Democrats and LGBTQ people as “defending children.” And, by running segments like this, Carlson removes the wiggle room to pretend that these outrageous conspiracy theories aren’t inherently violent.

The link between political violence and the QAnon “groomer” talk is also evident in Donald Trump’s escalatingly open dalliance with QAnon. Last week, Trump posted a bit of QAnon fan art showing him in what is supposed to be a majestic pose, sporting a QAnon pin and captioned with QAnon slogans. A few days later, at a rally in Ohio that was supposed to support Republican senatorial candidate J.D. Vance, the Trump team played a tune that was almost identical to a QAnon song as the crowd raised their fingers in the QAnon salute.

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The timing of this more overt QAnon support happens to coincide with Trump’s increasingly open winking at violence. In response to the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago in August, which targeted classified materials Trump is illegal possession of, Trump has made unsubtle threats of violence against law enforcement. He sent a message to the Department of Justice reminding them that his supporters are generating a lot of “heat” but that he could call them off, implying that the price would be the DOJ dropping the investigation. Trump has continued to issue these implied threats through right wing media, assisted by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who offered his own threat disguised as a warning of “riots in the streets” if Trump is indicted.

Trump and Carlson are speaking to two audiences — their own devoted supporters and worried liberals.

As David Graham at the Atlantic argued, “If there was a time when Trump didn’t know how people would respond when he makes these veiled threats, it has passed. He understands now, and does it anyway.” Plausible denials that this rhetoric is anything but purposeful should have dissipated after January 6. Recently, a Trump supporter died in Cincinnati after attacking an FBI office in direct response to Trump’s threatening noises about the raid.

All this led to Biden giving his speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, reminding Americans that “history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy.” Biden’s speech was well received, with 58% of Americans agreeing with him that Trump leads a violent movement that threatens democracy.

Biden’s speech wasn’t “partisan” — it was the plain truth the media is too timid to make clear

Trump’s reaction has clearly not been to scale back but to double down. Carlson’s segment is also emphatic in its endorsement of violence. The overtly violent rhetoric and unsubtle nods to QAnon all point to a strategy of scaring political opponents into backing down, and it’s spreading. Across the country, far-right sheriffs are promising campaigns of intimidation at the polls. Reports show that Republican candidates across the country are flirting with pushing their own Big Lies if they lose their elections, seeding the possibility that they could attempt to rile up their own voters to “do something,” much like Trump incited the January 6 insurrection.

Trump and Carlson are speaking to two audiences — their own devoted supporters and worried liberals who see clips of these messages encouraging violence. But radicalism can also breed backlash. As the largely positive response to Biden’s speech shows, Americans may not be keen on either extremism or political violence. Conspiracy theories like QAnon turn off exponentially more people than they lure in. Far-right bets on the politics of violence and intimidation have not yet proven to be successful in intimidating their opponents. This strategy may even anger more voters, making them more likely to turn out for Democrats in November.

about this topic

“Perfect phone call”: Trump scrambles after Georgia DA floats “prison sentences” in election probe

Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis indicated that as her investigation into voter fraud wraps up, she anticipates criminal charges.

“The allegations are very serious. If indicted and convicted, people are facing prison sentences,” Willis told reporters last week.

Donald Trump responded in a formal statement from his political action committee attacking Willis for “spending almost all of her waking hours” on “attempting to prosecute a very popular president, Donald J Trump.” Trump is no longer president after not being popular enough to be reelected in 2020.

The twice-impeached ex-president claimed that Willis “is basing her potential claims on trying to find a tiny word or phrase (that isn’t there) during an absolutely PERFECT phone call.”

The “perfect call” is a reference to his recorded call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where the 2020 loser demanded he find “11,780 votes.”

It isn’t the first time Trump has used the phrase, however. In 2019, Trump had a call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky after he was elected. Congress had allocated an arms package to be sent to Ukraine, but Trump delayed it. In the call, Trump said he would send it but, “I need you to do me a favor, though.” He went on to demand that Ukraine announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his family, who Trump assumed he would be running against in 2020.

Trump also complained “many lawyers and other officials who were knowingly on the line” had “no problems with the call.” That is not consistent with what the Georgia leaders said publicly and testified to when speaking to the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6.

Read the statement here.

An American in Queen Elizabeth’s funeral queue: Why I went, and what I found there

LONDON — I couldn’t help but think it should have rained yesterday — positively bucketed down, just as it had done at her coronation over 69 years ago in June 1953. The tableau of a sodden funeral procession for Queen Elizabeth II would have made a fitting bookend for her reign. But instead, the skies over London were a stately grey, the color of the Portland stone that clads so many of the city’s buildings, with bits of blue and gentle sunshine sometimes peering through.

Serenity was the mood among the crowds as well, and not just yesterday during the funeral procession. I have been here for the past six days. On Thursday, September 8, when Buckingham Palace released the statement noting that Queen Elizabeth’s doctors were concerned for her health, I read the tea leaves. This was Palace cypher — the modern (yet curiously more oblique) version of the statement released by George V’s doctor, Lord Dawson, in January 1936: “The King’s life is moving peacefully towards its close.” I booked a hotel and later, a flight, determined to be here to bear witness.

7 details you may have missed from Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral

I had always said I would come. Since childhood, I have been riveted by British history, and I wanted to pay tribute to the queen and to mark the passing of an era. After arriving on Wednesday morning and depositing my bags at the hotel, I immediately joined the queue to attend her Lying-in-State. Then a mere two miles long, it would later stretch to Southwark Park, five miles and over a 20-hour wait down the Thames. I made it in early, before the queen had even been moved from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, and I was immediately welcomed into a section diverse in age, gender and ethnicity. A contingent of five Londoners adopted me, and over the course of the eight hours it took us to reach the catafalque, we chatted about our nations’ dual tragedies of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, lamented the recent Dobbs decision, traded bits of English history trivia, and brushed past a smirking Nigel Farage, the former Brexit campaigner, as he reported for GB News.

Inside Westminster Hall, beneath the timbered medieval ceiling where Anne Boleyn dined in 1533 after her coronation at nearby Westminster Abbey, there was a hushed reverence. It was still, despite the two lines of mourners filing past on either side of the catafalque. Atop the coffin, the Imperial State Crown, orb and sceptre sparkled and gleamed. But what has lingered even more for me is the purple skirt of the catafalque, which seemed to glow beneath the floodlights, and the shiver of history that prickled my arms. Back outside, groups that had been chatting for hours maintained the silence from the Hall, lulled into some inner cave of contemplation. Finally, ours resolved to retire to a nearby bar along the Thames.

What causes someone to stand in line for eight hours, or for over 20 hours, as I heard someone say they had, for a person they most likely had never met? We sat at the terrace bar for three hours sharing stories, and I heard how one of my new friends was acting as a stand-in for her elderly mother, who was unable to endure the queue. Another spoke of the need to show up for the queen because she had shown up for her country, even when it was obvious her health was failing.

We Americans have nothing like this, and I often think we are the lesser for it.

I have encountered these dual dimensions of grief, collective and personal, throughout my visit. On Friday, a dear friend and I viewed the floral tributes in Green Park just opposite Buckingham Palace. There, the cards and letters spoke of Queen Elizabeth in personal terms. One tribute noted how Britain had given the writer’s father shelter from Nazi Germany. Another recalled how the queen had “demonstrated to the world…that a woman can achieve whatever she sets her heart and mind to do.” One more spoke of how the monarch had visited her mother’s bedside and took her hand while she was in hospital in Sierra Leone in 1961, and the comfort the visit had brought her.

As we moved about the labyrinth of tributes, we encountered a woman from the north of England. Her neck was covered in gold necklaces — at least a dozen of varying sizes and lengths — and as we chatted with her it became clear that the jewelry was not the only weight she carried. Ever since the queen’s death, she knew she had to be here, she explained. Queen Elizabeth had remained a constant to the country, but also to this woman’s life. As she took in the seemingly endless rows and mounds of bouquets, both store-bought and home-grown — roses, carnations and sunflowers, clutches of rowan and hawthorn berries — hand-drawn and written cards, flags and stuffed corgis and Paddington Bears, she began to realize how her grief was also prompting her to take personal stock. She thought of her mother who, had she been alive, would have insisted on laying flowers alongside her daughter. “It’s the continuity, isn’t it?” she said. “Because when [the queen] died she also took with her everyone I’ve lost.”

We Americans have nothing like this, and I often think we are the lesser for it. Whatever one thinks of the royals or the very notion of monarchy, there is something to be said for having a national symbol that is intended to unite the country and provide continuity and stability. The American presidency, which rests on the principle of the dual executive, the combination of head of state and head of government, has — at least until the attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021 — provided continuity. But it has not always offered stability. How much more stable and less anxious might the national mood have seemed if, during the presidency of Donald Trump, there had been a separate head of state to embody steadiness and constancy, someone who could create a space for respectful dialogue across difference?

The Elizabethan Age of pop culture, from Sex Pistols and “The Crown” to Paddington and beyond

The night before the queen’s funeral, just before 8 pm GMT, I sat in a Bloomsbury pub with a pint and a plate of fish and chips. A typical English pub, it was loud and raucous, and the televisions were tuned to sports channels. The national minute of silence was scheduled to start, and as I checked my watch I wondered what would happen, if and how the tribute would be observed. At two minutes till the hour, as everyone was laughing and talking, the landlord tuned one television to BBC One and switched the others off. “Quiet!” he yelled — in a polite English way, of course — just a few seconds before the anchor announced the moment of silence. The entire room fell quiet, still. People stopped eating. No one touched their pints. Some bowed their heads, while others stared at Big Ben on the screen. For a whole minute, the silence was kept. And when it ended, the pub erupted in cheers.

There are republicans and critics of the monarchy here in Britain, and they can be quite vocal. It’s a valid question — whether a hereditary monarchy should survive in this modern era as we grapple with the legacies of empire and colonialism. Still, surveys taken across decades have consistently shown that here in Britain, those who support abandoning the monarchy make up a small minority, and for these days of national mourning, they have been, with few exceptions, mostly silent in public settings. Whatever their political beliefs, many of them believe the queen deserves honor for her decades of service and longevity. And perhaps they, too, feel on some level a bit like the woman in Green Park or the people in the queue — that it is good and even necessary to take a moment to reflect.

Yesterday, as I stood near the intersection of The Mall and Horse Guards, I saw the coffin of Her Late Majesty The Queen pass, pulled by a team of navy ratings. I saw the new king marching in the street just a few feet away, his florid face a mask of grief and determination. As I lay down last night in Bloomsbury, I kept recalling those images and others: the sound of central London falling silent for two minutes, hundreds of thousands of people reciting the Lord’s Prayer; the steady, haunting cadence of muffled drums, the clop of horses’ hooves on pavement. I thought of my companions in the crowd, the couple who took the train from the Midlands in the wee hours and the pair of women who packed extra packets of crisps to share with total strangers.

I don’t know what it will take for us to return to a place of mutual respect and goodwill. But as I have walked the labyrinth of this city in these historic days of mourning, I have seen those qualities on display in tribute to her, and when she passed by me today, I bowed my head.

about the death of Queen Elizabeth II:

“No one died”: Trump-backed Arizona Republican embraces Sandy Hook and 9/11 truthers

Arizona Republicans have gone total MAGA with their 2022 midterms nominees, choosing far-right conspiracy theorists who include gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem — both of whom are supported by former President Donald Trump, and both of whom have promoted the false and thoroughly debunked claim that the United States’ 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. Finchem’s MAGA supporters include not only Trump, but also, “War Room” host and former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. And according to the Daily Beast’s Sam Brodey, those MAGA Republicans are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the type of conspiracy theorists the Finchem campaign has been associating with.

Finchem’s far-right allies, according to Brodey, have ranged from QAnon supporters to Nicole Nogrady — a 39-year-old photographer, massage therapist and former actress who is big on “truther” conspiracy theories. Nogrady, Brodey reports, recently co-hosted a fundraiser for Arizona State Rep. Finchem in Newport Beach, California, and she is both a Sandy Hook “truther” and a 9/11 “truther.”

“To her social media followers, Nogrady has shared QAnon content and broadcast her support for a number of fringe conspiracy theories,” Brodey reports in an article published on September 20. “Just last week, Nogrady commemorated the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks by claiming on social media that they were staged.”

On the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., Nogrady posted, “The same people who orchestrated the event have been working hard behind the scenes to create their desired ‘One World Gov’t’ and have made us divided more than EVER before.” And she described 9/11 as “the day the Deep State took thousands of lives.”

Nogrady has joined Infowars host Alex Jones in claiming that the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was a “false flag” event and once posted on Facebook that “no one died” in that tragedy. And she said of the Sandy Hook families, “These families are all very much so $et for life both from deep state payouts and all of their Go Fund Me accounts. This is all a game to them and the public are the pawns.”

Brodey reports, “Finchem’s association with Nogrady is just the most recent illustration of his singularly conspiratorial campaign for a powerful office in a key battleground state. The Trump-endorsed state representative, who has a real chance of becoming Arizona’s top election official, is perhaps more personally steeped in the right-wing fever swamps than any other high-profile Republican on the ballot. Last week, The Daily Beast reported that before his August primary, Finchem delivered a speech in which he blamed former Vice President Mike Pence for inciting a ‘coup’ to unseat Donald Trump after January 6 and accused him of being responsible for FBI spying on the ex-president’s campaign in 2016. Finchem was present outside the Capitol after it was breached on January 6, according to video footage.”

According to Brodey, Finchem’s Newport Beach fundraiser also featured QAnon supporters, including conspiracy theorist Jordan Sather. Video of the event posted on Twitter by Media Matters’ Alex Kaplan shows a woman performing a QAnon-themed song that included the QAnon slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.”

Podcast host Travis View, who monitors QAnon, described Finchem as someone who has “zero qualms about associating with people who have some of the most out-there and vile views.”

View told the Beast, “It’s really, really disturbing. We’ve had QAnon candidates before…. It’s rare to see one so open about it.”

“Trump’s team miscalculated”: Experts say Trump’s handpicked special master just called his “bluff”

Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys on Tuesday refused to back up his claims that he “declassified” secret documents found at his Mar-a-Lago resort in response to a request from the special master that they sought.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, last week appointed longtime federal Judge Raymond Dearie as a special master to review some 11,000 documents found at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s team included Dearie on their list of proposed special masters, reportedly because of their belief that he is deeply skeptical of the FBI, but the Justice Department agreed to the choice, citing his “previous federal judicial experience and engagement in relevant areas of law.” Dearie this week offered a proposed draft plan for the review that included a request for Trump’s lawyers to submit any details related to Trump’s repeated claim that he “declassified” the documents before taking them home, according to Politico.

Trump’s lawyers, who have not made a single mention of Trump’s dubious declassification claim in court documents, immediately balked at the special master’s request, writing that the details could be used in a defense against potential future criminal charges.

Trump’s attorneys wrote in a letter to Dearie that it was not the “time and place” for them to turn over the details because it would force Trump to “fully and specifically disclose a defense on the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order.”

Trump team picked special master they think is a “deep skeptic of FBI” due to Russia probe: report

Trump’s team also pushed back on Dearie’s request that they submit their claims related to the search of Mar-a-Lago to Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who has repeatedly been attacked by Trump after signing off on the search warrant.

Trump’s lawyers also took issue with Dearie’s plan to complete the entire “inspection and labeling process” by October 7 after Cannon allocated two months for the review process.

“We respectfully suggest that all of the deadlines can be extended to allow for a more realistic and complete assessment of the areas of disagreement,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

JUST IN: Special Master Dearie has asked Trump's team for declarations about any acftions he's taken to declassify material. Trump's team says i n a filing tonight that it is resisting that request — because it could be a defense to any criminal cahrges. https://t.co/Wrl47hrygS pic.twitter.com/fCeF7PnJKv

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 19, 2022

Legal experts who have cast doubt on the merits of Cannon’s decision to appoint a special master in the case highlighted the different approach Dearie was taking, Politico reported, noting that “Cannon never pushed Trump or his lawyers to take firm positions on whether he had, as president, actually declassified any of the materials he brought to his estate or designated any as his personal property.”

“When push comes to shove, I find it hard to believe that [Trump] will maintain his short term victory with a long term win,” former federal prosecutor David Weinstein told the outlet.

“The special master is calling Trump’s bluff and already they’re objecting,” tweeted national security attorney Bradley Moss.

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The Justice Department last week appealed part of Cannon’s order barring them from continuing the criminal investigation into the documents, rejecting her assertion that Trump’s claims about the documents were legitimate.

“[T]he district court cited portions of Plaintiff’s filings in which he suggested that he could have declassified those documents or purported to designate them as ‘personal’ records … But despite multiple opportunities, Plaintiff has never represented that he in fact took either of those steps—much less supported such a representation with competent evidence,” the DOJ said in filing.

Legal experts hailed Dearie for calling out Trump’s claim.

“Part of the reason Judge Dearie is doing this is I’m sure he saw what order he was given from Judge Cannon. I’m sure he looked at the filing and said ‘enough is enough, I’m not dancing around this,'” Moss told MSNBC. “It’s really simple. Either you’ve got the evidence or you don’t.”

Other legal experts suggested that Trump’s lawyers refused to turn over the details to avoid their own legal trouble.

“Trump’s team is resisting,” wrote Ryan Goodman, a professor at NYU School of Law. “Smells like they want to avoid lying to court.”

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller’s team, agreed that Trump’s lawyers likely “don’t want to lie and be disbarred and subject their client to a criminal false statement charge.”

“Trump team ruing the day it proposed Judge Dearie,” he tweeted.

“I’ve seen enough,” wrote former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. “Trump’s team miscalculated by asking for Judge Dearie to serve as special master.”

about Trump’s legal battle

With polio’s return, here’s what back-to-schoolers need to know

Before polio vaccines became available in the 1950s, people wary of the disabling disease were afraid to allow their children outside, let alone go to school. As polio appears again decades after it was considered eliminated in the U.S., Americans unfamiliar with the dreaded disease need a primer on protecting themselves and their young children — many of whom are emerging from the trauma of the covid-19 pandemic.

What is poliomyelitis?

Polio is short for “poliomyelitis,” a neurological disease caused by a poliovirus infection. Of the three types of wild poliovirus — serotypes 1, 2, and 3 — serotype 1 is the most virulent and the most likely to cause paralysis.

Most people infected with poliovirus don’t get sick and won’t have symptoms. About a quarter of those infected might experience mild symptoms like fatigue, fever, headache, neck stiffness, sore throat, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. So, as with covid-19, people who don’t have symptoms can unknowingly spread it as they interact with others. But in up to 1 in 200 people with a poliovirus infection, the virus may attack the spinal cord and brain. When it infects the spinal cord, people may develop muscle weakness or paralysis, including of the legs, arm, or chest wall. Poliovirus may also infect the brain, leading to difficulty breathing or swallowing.

People can develop post-polio syndrome decades after infection. Symptoms may include muscle pain, weakness, and wasting.

People with poliomyelitis may remain wheelchair-bound or unable to breathe without the help of a ventilator for the rest of their lives.

How does polio spread?

The virus that causes polio spreads through the “oral-fecal route,” which means it enters the body through the mouth by way of the hands, water, food, or other items contaminated with poliovirus-containing feces. Rarely, poliovirus may spread through saliva and upper respiratory droplets. The virus then infects the throat and gastrointestinal tract, spreads to the blood, and invades the nervous system.

How do doctors diagnose polio?

Poliomyelitis is diagnosed through a combination of patient interviews, physical examinations, lab testing, and scans of the spinal cord or brain. Health care providers may send feces, throat swabs, spinal fluid, and other specimens for lab testing. But because polio has been vanishingly rare in the United States for decades, doctors may not consider the diagnosis for patients with symptoms. And tests for suspected polio must be sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since even academic centers no longer perform the tests.

How can poliovirus transmission be prevented?

The CDC recommends that all children be vaccinated against polio at ages 2 months, 4 months, 6 to 18 months, and 4 to 6 years, for a total of four doses. All 50 states and the District of Columbia require that children attending day care or public school be immunized against polio, but some states allow medical, religious, or personal exemptions. The Vaccines for Children program provides polio vaccine free of charge for children who are eligible for Medicaid, uninsured, or underinsured, or who are American Indian or Alaska Native. Most people born in the United States after 1955 likely have been vaccinated for polio. But in some areas the vaccination rates are dangerously low, such as New York’s Rockland County, where it is 60%, and Yates County, where it is 54%, because so many families there claim religious exemptions.

There are two types of polio vaccine: killed, inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) and weakened, live, oral polio vaccine (OPV). IPV is an injectable vaccine. OPV may be given by drops in the mouth or on a sugar cube, so it’s easier to administer. Both vaccines are highly effective against paralytic poliomyelitis, but OPV appears to be more effective in preventing infection and transmission.

Both the wild poliovirus and the live, weakened OPV viruses can cause infection. Because IPV is a killed virus vaccine, it cannot infect or replicate, give rise to vaccine-derived poliovirus, or cause paralytic poliomyelitis disease. The weakened, OPV viruses can mutate and regain their ability to cause paralysis — what’s called vaccine-derived poliomyelitis.

Since 2000, only IPV has been given in the United States. Two doses of IPV are at least 90% effective and three doses of IPV are at least 99% effective in preventing paralytic poliomyelitis disease. The United States stopped using OPV due to a 1-in-2,000 risk of paralysis among unvaccinated persons receiving OPV. Some countries still use OPV.

Vaccination against polio began in 1955 in the United States. Cases of paralytic poliomyelitis disease plummeted from over 15,000 a year in the early 1950s to under 100 in the 1960s and then down to fewer than 10 in the 1970s. Today, poliovirus is most likely to spread where hygiene and sanitation are poor and vaccination rates are low.

Why is polio spreading again?

The World Health Organization declared North and South America polio-free as of 1994, but in June 2022, a young adult living in Rockland County, New York, was diagnosed with serotype 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus. The patient complained of fever, neck stiffness, and leg weakness. The patient had not traveled recently outside the country and was presumably infected in the United States. The CDC has since started to monitor wastewater for poliovirus. Poliovirus genetically linked to the Rockland County case has been detected in wastewater samples from Rockland, Orange, and Sullivan counties, demonstrating community spread as far back as May 2022. Unrelated vaccine-derived poliovirus has also been detected in New York City wastewater.

How do I know if I’ve been vaccinated against polio?

There is no national database of immunization records, but all 50 states and the District of Columbia have immunization information systems with records going as far back as the 1990s. Your state or territorial health department may also have records of your vaccinations. People immunized in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Washington can access their immunization records using the MyIR Mobile app, and those who got vaccines in Idaho, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Utah can do so using the Docket app.

You may also ask your parents, your childhood pediatrician, your current doctor or pharmacist, or the K-12 schools, colleges, or universities you attended if they have records of your vaccinations. Some employers, like health care systems, may also keep records of your vaccinations in their occupational health office.

There is no test to determine if you’re immune to polio.

Do I need a polio vaccine booster if I was fully vaccinated against polio as a child?

All children and unvaccinated adults should complete the CDC-recommended four-dose series of polio vaccinations. You do not need an IPV booster if you received OPV.

Adults who are immunocompromised, traveling to a country where poliovirus is circulating, or at increased risk for exposure to poliovirus on the job, such as some lab workers and health care workers, may get a one-time IPV booster.

How is polio treated?

People with mild poliovirus infection don’t require treatment. Symptoms usually go away on their own within a couple of days.

There is no cure for paralytic poliomyelitis. Treatment focuses on physical and occupational therapy to help patients adapt and regain function.

Why hasn’t poliovirus been eradicated?

Smallpox is the only human virus to have been declared eradicated to date. A disease may be eradicated if it infects only humans, if viral infection induces long-term immunity to reinfection, and if an effective vaccine or other preventive exists. The more infectious a virus, the more difficult it is to eradicate. Viruses that spread asymptomatically are also more difficult to eradicate.

In 1988, the World Health Assembly resolved to eradicate polio by 2000. Violent conflict, the spread of conspiracy theories, vaccine skepticism, inadequate funding and political will, and poor-quality vaccination efforts slowed progress toward eradication, but before the covid pandemic, the world had gotten very close to eradicating polio. During the pandemic, childhood immunizations, including polio vaccinations, dipped in the U.S. and around the world.

To eradicate polio, the world must eradicate all wild polioviruses and vaccine-derived polioviruses. Wild poliovirus serotypes 2 and 3 have been eradicated. Wild poliovirus serotype 1, the most virulent form, remains endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but vaccine-derived polioviruses continue to circulate in some countries in Africa and other parts of the world. A staged approach involving the use of OPV, then a combination of OPV and IPV, and then IPV alone would likely be needed to finally eradicate polio from the planet.

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.

Arizona’s school privatization battle heats up: Will the voters get to decide?

A fight over the future of the most sweeping school voucher program in the country has heated up in Arizona over the last few weeks, as public school advocates race to gather enough signatures to trigger a ballot referendum aimed at overturning a voucher law recently passed by the state’s Republican-dominated legislature. The referendum campaign, which faces a crucial deadline this Friday, has drawn intense opposition from Arizona conservatives. This has included funding for multiple anti-referendum websites, roadside protests starring Republican legislators and, over the last two weeks, conflicts between activists both on social media and in the streets.

At the end of June, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law that immediately created the most expansive school privatization plan in the country, opening up a pre-existing program that gave vouchers to several categories of qualified students to any family in the state. The Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) program was first launched in 2011, ostensibly to help high-needs students whose parents had opted out of public school access specialized educational programs with tuition vouchers for private schools, including religious schools, and other educational expenses. In subsequent years, the program was steadily broadened to include other groups — like students in F-rated schools, in foster care, on Native American reservations or in military families — until this spring, when Arizona legislators responded to Ducey’s request to “expand school choice any way we can” by opening the ESA option to any student in the state.

School’s out forever: Arizona moves “to kill public education” with new universal voucher law

Under the new law, any Arizona parent who opts their children out of public school will receive a debit card with an average balance of just under $7,000, which they can use to spend on almost any educational needs they choose, from private school tuition to homeschooling expenses to buying computers to hiring private teachers for “microschools.” Public education advocates immediately warned that such a huge transfer of public funds to private hands could be the death knell for public schools, which would likely have to make untenable cuts to teaching staff and school programs.

Since applications for ESAs opened in mid-August, the Arizona Department of Education says that close to 10,000 parents have signed up, nearly doubling the roughly 12,000 Arizona students who were already using the program last year. But as of last week, Capitol Media Services reported that 75% of the new applications were for students not currently enrolled in public schools, prompting Arizona superintendent of public instruction Kathy Hoffman to charge that the ESA expansion was becoming “a taxpayer-funded coupon for the wealthy,” effectively subsidizing the cost of private school tuition for parents who could already afford to pay.

From the inception of Arizona’s ESAs, critics have charged that they’re little more than a workaround to funnel public tax dollars to private schools. The idea was born after a court found in 2009 that two earlier Arizona school voucher programs were unconstitutional, violating the state’s prohibition on using public money for private education. In 2011, under the guidance of the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank, the state launched an ingenious alternative: sending state funds directly to parents, who spend the money as they see fit. The ESA option then became a nationwide model, copied in numerous other states and increasingly seen by conservative education reform activists as “the purest form of school choice.” When Ducey signed the universal ESA law in late June, conservatives around the country immediately declared Arizona the new “gold standard” for “school choice” and called on all red-state governors to follow its lead.

To a large extent, history is repeating itself. In 2017, Arizona’s legislature first attempted to open the ESA program to all 1.1 million Arizona students, but a year later the law was overturned after public school advocates launched a citizens’ initiative referendum campaign and put the issue on the general election ballot. Voters rejected the law nearly two to one, with 65% voting against it.

Flash forward to summer 2022, as the new law prompted the launch of a similar referendum campaign, led by the public school advocacy group Save Our Schools Arizona (SOS Arizona). If the group and its allies can gather 118,823 signatures — an amount equivalent to 5% of the gubernatorial vote in 2018 — within 90 days of the law’s passage, the voucher expansion will be enjoined (in other words, put on pause) until the referendum appears on the ballot in 2024.

But the challenge seems greater this time around. The signature threshold is significantly higher than the 76,000 required for the 2018 referendum, and Ducey’s decision to wait 10 days to sign the ESA expansion into law meant the referendum campaign has had only 80 days to gather the required signatures. Recent legislation and trends at the state Supreme Court have also made the process of getting those signatures approved a riskier bet. Once the signatures are turned in on this Friday, they will come under intense scrutiny from groups supporting the ESA expansion, including the Goldwater Institute and the American Federation for Children (AFC), one of Betsy DeVos’ most active “school choice” organizations.

“They’re already signaling massive legal battles,” said SOS Arizona director Beth Lewis, who said that petitions are frequently challenged over not just issues like duplicate signatures but also incomplete addresses for signees and smudged notary markings.

The final weeks of petition gathering have turned openly hostile, as right-wing groups have launched a massive “Decline to Sign” campaign and volunteers say they’ve been surrounded, harassed and followed for blocks on end.

In the meantime, the final weeks of petition gathering have turned hostile, as groups backed by the Goldwater Institute and AFC have launched a massive “Decline to Sign” campaign, holding protests at petition gathering spots, urging supporters to call businesses near petition sites to complain that “this is hurting our children’s education” and videotaping both petition circulators and voters who sign, posting clips of those interactions online. In this atmosphere, petition volunteers say they’ve been surrounded, harassed and followed for blocks on end, while pro-ESA protesters say they’ve been insulted or sworn at by referendum supporters.

While Lewis said there wasn’t “any organized opposition” to the petition process in 2017, this year, “It’s like a war zone at some of these events.”

The pro-ESA protesters also enjoy the support of numerous prominent Republicans. In a late July Facebook video, Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Kari Lake, stood with “Decline to Sign” advocates, directing voters, “Do not sign any petitions right now, especially if they’re from SOS Arizona.” In mid-August, the campaign was featured on Steve Bannon’s podcast, as the former Trump strategist declared that Arizona’s ESA program would “change education throughout the country.”

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This past weekend, four Arizona Republican legislators made appearances at an anti-referendum roadside protest in Tempe, an affluent suburb just outside Phoenix. Among them were state House majority leader Ben Toma, who authored the House version of the ESA bill; state Sen. Wendy Rogers, who drew national condemnation and a legislative censure last spring after addressing a white nationalist conference, where she called for hanging political enemies; and state Sen. Warren Petersen, one of only two other senators to vote against Rogers’ censure and who was himself featured in ads for an affiliated far-right event in April (although he ultimately did not attend).

The Goldwater Institute and American Federation for Children have also funded two websites affiliated with the protest movement. Several weeks ago the former group sent a letter to the Arizona attorney general calling for an investigation into state school district employees who attended the annual law conference of the Arizona School Boards Association, because they claimed the event would include a group that was gathering signatures for the referendum.

In August, the state Supreme Court rejected a citizens’ initiative that would have expanded voting rights and, notably, would have limited the state legislature’s ability to overturn federal election results.

In the years following the decisive 2018 ballot referendum on the previous universal-voucher law, the Republican-dominated legislature has repeatedly attempted to pass new restrictions on the citizens’ initiative process, such as requiring that petition gatherers gain a certain percentage of signatures from each county in the state. While some of those measures have failed, Lewis says the state’s Supreme Court — which was expanded by Gov. Ducey, who has now appointed five of its seven justices — has used numerous justifications to reject referendum measures.

Most recently, in August the court rejected a citizens’ initiative that would have expanded voting rights and limited the state legislature’s ability to overturn federal election results — a notable issue, given the contentious role Arizona played after the 2020 presidential election. (Joe Biden won the state narrowly, and even a Republican-sponsored “audit” failed to find any evidence of fraud.) While backers of the Arizona Free and Fair Elections Act referendum campaign initially turned in double the number of signatures needed, more than half of those signatures were subsequently invalidated by Arizona courts, using what opponents described as opaque “political math.” Ultimately, the state Supreme Court ruled that the petitioners fell about 1,500 signatures short, and the initiative will not be on the general ballot.

“Now that math is legal precedent, which is terrifying, because it doesn’t follow any actual logic,” said Lewis.

Nicky Indicavitch, a mother of five who is SOS Arizona’s statewide outreach director, said that the vitriolic nature of anti-initiative protests had shocked her. “What throws me off about the aggressive nature of the counter-protesters is: This simply puts the issue on the ballot for voters to decide,” she said. “To have such a strong response to the possibility that voters would have a say in something I find shocking. It makes you think that the counter-protesters understand that [the voucher law] is not going to be supported by Arizonans, and they recognize their only opportunity to get rid of this referendum is to stop it from being on the ballot.”

on America’s education wars