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Why BA.5 became the dominant COVID variant

Never say the pandemic hasn’t been educational, as COVID-19 has certainly given all of us a crash course in evolution. Charles Darwin’s notion of the survival of the fittest, one of the tenets of his theory of evolution, epitomizes the manner in which subsequent mutations of the virus that are better-suited to spread have outcompeted each other — typically eradicating earlier, less-fit virus variants in the process. Indeed, from the primordial alpha variant to the delta variant to omicron, new variants emerge when unique mutations make a strain either more contagious, or more capable of evading immunity from previous infections and vaccines.

RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2 are always mutating; every replication in a hosts’ cells creates a moment for a chance mutation to emerge. While viruses are technically not alive, it is their nature to mutate and evolve as they infect hosts’ cells and replicate. Indeed, this is how they survive.

In most cases, mutations are harmful to the virus’ ability to reproduce, and thus often eliminated in the process of natural selection. However, if a mutation has a competitive advantage — like increased transmissibility — that mutation can outcompete a previous variant. Indeed, that is what has been driving the mutations we’ve seen evolve over time.

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In early July, federal officials announced that BA.5 became the most dominant strain in the U.S., meaning that it makes up a majority of the infections. This came nearly four months after BA.2 was named the most dominant strain. Both are subvariants of the omicron variant.

According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), BA.5 is now responsible for nearly 87 percent of COVID-19 infections in the U.S.

“The omicron sub-variant BA.5 is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen.”

But the latest variant to take hold across the world is — according to some infectious disease experts — the most concerning one yet.

“The omicron sub-variant BA.5 is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen,” Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, wrote in late June. “It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility, well beyond Omicron (BA.1) and other Omicron family variants that we’ve seen (including BA.1.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, and BA.4).”

But just how much more transmissible is BA.5 than previous subvariants — some of which were also dubbed the most transmissible and/or concerning variants at the time?

One method for determining transmissibility involves calculating the average number of additional people infected by an already-infected person. For the original strain of COVID-19, researchers estimated that for each person who got infected with COVID-19, it would spread to about two to three more people. This number is what scientists call the R-naught [R0] value of a virus.

For the delta variant, which became the most dominant variant in late 2021, it had an R-naught of about 7. The omicron variants are even more transmissible than delta. The first version of omicron was estimated to have a R-naught value of 9.5, meaning one infected person would, in an uncontrolled situation, spread it to an average of 9.5 others. 

Scientists are still debating exactly how much more contagious BA.5 is than its predecessors. One Australian researcher believes that each person who got BA.5 could spread it to 18 others, but other researchers have disagreed with that claim.

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In Topol’s article, he explains that BA.5 has become the dominant strain not merely because of its high transmissibility, but because of its ability to evade immunity, too, .

“You can see that the antigenic distance from BA.1 to BA.2 is far greater than the ancestral strain to Delta or Beta or Gamma,” Topol explained, pointing to an antigenic map of the subvariant. Antigenic distance refers to how different a variants’ genetics are compared to its peers; because of the way the immune system works, a strain that was genetically distant (compared to a strain that someone previously contracted or was vaccinated against) would be better at evading immunity. 

“This is the basis for the immune escape of BA.5 — our relatively poor recognition of and response to the spike protein,” Topol continued. Spike proteins comprise little points that stick out of the side of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in artistic depictions, and such proteins are crucial to the virus’ ability to enter human cells. Hence, BA.5’s mutation in its viral spike protein has strengthened its ability to latch onto host cells and evade some immune responses.

Unfortunately, researchers are confident that re-infections with BA.5 are likely even if you’ve been infected with previous omicron subvariant BA.1 or BA.2, as explained by a study published in the journal Cell. 

Back in mid-July, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said BA.5 is both the “most contagious” and “most immune evasive variant we’ve seen” in an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell.

Unfortunately, researchers are confident that re-infections with BA.5 are likely even if you’ve been infected with previous omicron subvariant BA.1 or BA.2, as explained by a study published in the journal Cell. A separate study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that existing immunity against COVID-19 has a harder time defeating BA.5 compared to early omicron subvariants. As Salon previously reported, this means re-infections are likely.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), studies suggest that reinfection with the same virus variant as the first infection — or, reinfection with a different variant — are both possible. Reinfections can happen within a mere 90 days of the initial infection. A specific report that identified 10 people who got reinfected found that they occurred between 23 to 87 days after initial infection.

But experts widely agree that despite the virus mutating to evade immunity, that doesn’t mean you aren’t building some immunity through infection or vaccination. In other words, researchers believe that previous infections or vaccinations among patients means that many cases have remained relatively mild.

The second major question around BA.5 involves how severe it is. Different variants and subvariants seem to cause different degrees of disease severity — and even different symptoms. So does BA.5 cause more severe disease, especially in those who haven’t been vaccinated?

Currently, there is no evidence to suggest BA.5 is causing more severe disease due to its mutations. However, hospitalization numbers have increased in the past few months. Yet experts don’t believe that rise is a result of the variant itself, but rather the rise in infections which will inevitably lead to more hospitalizations, as reported by NBC News.

Experts also caution that vaccination provides protection, especially against severe disease and hospitalization. As NPR reported, unvaccinated people are five times more likely to get infected and 7.5 times more likely to be hospitalized than those who are vaccinated.

“Let me make a clear, clear point here that’s a little tough to hear: Whether you’ve been vaccinated, whether you’ve been previously infected, whether you’ve been previously infected and vaccinated, you have very little protection against BA.5 in terms of getting infected or having mild to moderate infection,” Dr. Gregory Poland, head of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group said. “You have good protection against dying, being hospitalized or ending up on a ventilator.”

As Salon previously reported, omicron-targeted boosters could be here as soon as this fall. But will they come too late, after another variant has already emerged? It’s too early to tell.

L.J. Tan, chief strategy officer for the Immunization Action Coalition, previously told Salon that it is “unlikely” that in the fall there will be another variant that is so dramatically different that potential new boosters wouldn’t make some sort of an impact.

“I don’t think that it’s going to drift so much that a vaccine that contains either of those existing omicron epitopes is going to not work,” Tan said. The word “epitope” means the substance that the immune system recognizes and protects against. “So for that reason, I don’t think that we’re going to get this horrible strain that’s going to evade everybody’s vaccine response, and that’s just because of the way the virus evolves,” Tan continued.

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From the counterculture to pop culture, how pot brownies came to reign as “the OG edible”

The drinks at Chicago’s Wake-N-Bakery can be prepared in four styles: the “keep it basic,” the “f**k it,” the “hell yeah” and the “double f**k it.” Each selection represents a hemp-derived THC dosage, ranging from 30 to 120 milligrams.

From Pink Crush Kush lattes to scoops of edible cookie dough, this cannabis café offers a variety of ways to get customers baked. Amid the neon-colored infused lemonades and “Fruity AF” Rice Krispies treats, a seemingly simple dessert stands out in the pastry display case. It’s not a basic brownie, but rather “the OG edible.” 

As medicinal and recreational cannabis legalization continues to spread across the country, the market for unique edibles has grown along with it. Consumers can purchase THC-infused versions of their favorite junk foods, such as Flamin’ Hot Cheetos knock-offs, as well as gourmet options like single-varietal dark chocolate bars made with cabernet sea salt and premium full-spectrum cannabis. 

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But even in the non-stoner segments of mainstream American culture, the pot brownie is regarded as something singular. It’s an elemental recipe in cannabis cookery, a pop culture obsession, plus a symbol of the covert activism that helped kickstart the proliferation of the range of edibles sold today. 

In 1954, Alice B. Toklas’ eponymous cookbook was published in the U.S., save for one recipe. Nearly a decade later, in an interview with Pacifica Radio, Toklas recounted how Harper’s had excluded the instructions for making Moroccan hashish fudge. “The recipe was innocently included without my realizing that the hashish was the accented part of the recipe,” she said. “I was shocked to find that America wouldn’t accept it because it was too dangerous.”

In reality, Toklas’ hashish fudge wasn’t so much fudge as it was a DIY-version of spiced candy. The recipe, which had been given to Toklas by the avant-garde artist Brion Gysin, contained no chocolate. Instead, it began with a punchy mix of black peppercorn, nutmeg, cinnamon and coriander. It read as follows:

These should all be pulverised in a mortar. About a handful each of stoned dates, dried figs, shelled almonds and peanuts: chop these and mix them together. A bunch of Cannabis sativa can be pulverised. This along with the spices should be dusted over the mixed fruit and nuts, kneaded together. About a cup of sugar dissolved in a big pat of butter. Rolled into a cake and cut into pieces or made into balls about the size of a walnut. 

“It should be eaten with care,” Toklas cautioned. “Two pieces are quite sufficient . . . Euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic reveries and extensions of one’s personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected.” 

When Toklas’ cookbook was rereleased in the early 1960s, the recipe returned to the page. It was acclaimed by members of the burgeoning counterculture movement who had begun to experiment with the recipe until the Moroccan fudge was quickly Americanized into a fudge brownie. 

The pot brownie made its big picture debut in the 1968 madcap film “I Love You, Alice B. Toklas,” which stars Peter Sellers as Harold Fine, a restless attorney who is lured into the counterculture (and away from the altar where he is set to marry his secretary-turned-fiancée) by a young hippie named Nancy, played by Leigh Taylor-Young.

After spending a wild night together, Nancy makes Harold a batch of pot brownies, though she neglects to tell him about the “secret ingredient.” Harold unknowingly serves them to his family and fiancée, prompting an evening of laughter, some light paranoia and a trip that sends Harold’s life barreling in a whole new direction. The trailer for the film even teases audiences with a recipe. 

“Hi there, swinging homemakers, this is your kitchen guru,” a voice announces. “Loop on your love beads, and we’ll pass on a few hints from the grooviest cookbook ever. First, pick around in the shelves there until you find something with a picture on it.” 

The camera pans to show a box emblazoned with the words “Fudge Brownie.” 

“Now, pour it in the pot,” the narrator says, emphasizing the word “pot.” “Any old pot will do. Lay on an egg and a little ‘moo.’ Now comes the magic moment. Stop and think, ‘Have we got a secret ingredient?’ Oh, have we got a secret ingredient.”

Next, Taylor-Young, as Nancy, sprinkles the contents of a spice container into the batter, much like a cook would add oregano to a pot of pasta sauce. 

The dessert, the narrator promised, could add a “psychedelic aspect to any occasion.”

The dessert, the narrator promises, could add a “psychedelic aspect to any occasion.” Even still, when pot brownies appear in film and TV, they tend to tee up a now-cliché plot: an uptight or otherwise socially inhibited houseguest or partygoer accidentally indulges, leading them to become more loose and carefree. This inevitably changes their life, at least in some small way, even if it’s only in how they’re perceived by others.

“Barney Miller,” Degrassi,” “Eurotrip,” “Frasier,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “Shameless,” “That 70’s Show,” “This is 40” and “Yerba Buena” — to name only some of the many examples — all contain variations of that narrative formula. 

Pot brownies (and this trope) hit the small screen in a particularly memorable way when home audiences were introduced to Christopher Lloyd as Jim Ignatowski in “Taxi.” As Marc Freeman wrote in The Hollywood Reporter, “Television had never seen a stoned ’60s relic like Jim before.” The character was a street minister who tended to space out, ostensibly because of his heavy drug use.

Viewers would eventually learn that Ignatowski had been something of a genius earlier in life. He was attending Harvard when a fellow student offered him some of her “funny brownies,” and his life forever changed following that fateful first bite. It was as if his brain was broken, and he went from writing term papers analyzing Plutarch’s “Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans” to finger-painting. “The typewriter seemed so impersonal,” he explained. 

This episode, a two-parter called “The Road Not Taken,” was critically lauded. It aired in 1982, only a few months before pot brownies would be in the headlines again, albeit it for a very different reason. That December, Mary Jane Rathbun, perhaps better known as Brownie Mary, was arrested for the second time in as many years. 

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According to the New York Times bestseller “Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide,” Rathbun had already been arrested once after San Francisco police got wind of her side business of selling edibles out of her kitchen. At 57, “she already had a sweet, elderly appearance and reporters thrilled at the idea of a grass-slinging granny . . . Her arrest made national headlines.” 

Instead of sending Rathbun to jail, a judge sentenced her to community service at San Francisco General Hospital, where she saw the early ravages of the AIDS epidemic with her own eyes. Prior to being arrested anew in 1982, Rathbun had begun baking hundreds of pot brownies a day for AIDS patients, whom she referred to as her “kids,” to aid with appetite maintenance and pain management. 

Though Rathbun would go on to be instrumental in advocating for the passage of Proposition 215, which made California the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, she never did reveal her brownie recipe. “When and if they legalize it, I’ll sell my brownie recipe to Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines,” she once told a reporter. “Take the profits and buy an old Victorian for my kids with AIDS.” 

While Rathbun’s own recipe died with her in 1999, the pot brownie has managed to have tremendous cultural staying power. Christina Wong, the founder of the culinary cannabis brand Fruit + Flower, believes there are several reasons for this phenomenon. First, even for the most novice of home bakers, brownies are relatively simple to make.

“You have to remember, for the longest time, there were no real ‘instructions,'” Wong told Salon Food in a phone interview. “The brownies became part of oral history, they were passed down . . . Brownies are accessible. Even if you mess them up, they still taste good. It’s hard to see any flaws.” 

“The brownies became part of oral history, they were passed down.”

To that end, Wong said, the popularity of pot brownies can also at least be partially attributed to chocolate’s ability to disguise the flavor of strong cannabis. 

“In the past, you had people taking higher doses for medical reasons, which can result in a powerful, strong flavor,” Wong said. “Chocolate is really good for masking some of that weedy taste.” 

The idea that one could totally hide cannabis in brownies, which was depicted in both “I Love You, Alice B. Toklas” and “Taxi,” continued to prove to be a popular device for film and TV directors, despite the work of activists like Rathbun to more publicly demystify the potential health benefits of cannabis. 

However, according to Wong, there’s a growing movement within the cannabis edibles community to find more inventive ways to cook with cannabis that doesn’t involve completely masking its flavor. “I love a good pot brownie,” Wong said with a laugh. “But we can sometimes do better.” 

Wong started with cannabis-infused chocolate chip cookies a few years ago. Since then, she’s expanded her culinary horizons with infused deviled eggs, cannabis leaf-pressed pasta and an award-winning pineapple meringue tart. 

“Why would you want to cover the flavor of something so beautiful, wonderful and delicious?”

“It’s funny, someone else had recently asked me the best way — or like tips and tricks — for covering up the flavor of weed,” Wong said. “But why would you want to cover the flavor of something so beautiful, wonderful and delicious?” 

Edible makers are increasingly looking for ways to accentuate the various notes of different types of cannabis, a process that Wong refers to as “strain pairing.” Evidence of this can be seen on unscripted cooking competitions like “Bong Appétit” and “Chopped 420,” as well as at cannabis supper clubs in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Portland.

It’s also apparent at places like Wake-N-Bakery, where customers can order a “Double Dream Mocha, f**k it-strength, with oat milk” or a THC-infused raspberry white chocolate scone. The choices are seemingly endless, and it’s all thanks — at least in part — to the humble pot brownie. 

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100% a cannibal? New Armie Hammer documentary explores allegations of abuse – watch the trailer

An upcoming tell-all docuseries is placing the spotlight on Armie Hammer, the disgraced “Call Me by Your Name” star, and investigating the personal influences that may have contributed to his notorious downfall.  

The three-part series, called “House of Hammer,” specifically explores the troubling abuse allegations made against Hammer along with the equally troubling history of abuse within his family dynasty. In a gut-wrenching trailer, released on Wednesday, two of Hammer’s victims — ex-girlfriend Courtney Vucekovich and artist Julia Morrison — reveal the texts and DMs exchanged with Hammer, in which he explicitly described his sexual fantasies of bondage, cannibalism and rape.

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“I have a fantasy about having someone prove their love and devotion and tying them up in a public place at night and making their body free use,” reads one of Hammer’s messages.

In a separate audio message, Hammer is heard saying, “My bet was going to involve showing up at your place and completely tying you up and incapacitating you and then being able to do whatever I wanted to in every single hole in your body until I was done with it.”

Hammer’s most disturbing messages include a text, in which he confesses to being “100% a cannibal,” along with a handwritten note sent to one of his victims, in which he writes, “I am going to bite the f**k out of you.”

The trailer also features Hammer’s aunt, Casey Hammer, who states, “I’m about to reveal the dark, twisted secrets of the Hammer family.”

Hammer’s burgeoning acting career came to a sudden end last year when he was dropped from multiple projects and under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for sexual assault. Just this past July, tabloid photos and social media posts showed Hammer dressed in uniform and working at a hotel resort in the Cayman Islands. Although members of the hotel’s staff claimed they were just rumors, the photos and Hammer’s newfound job as a timeshare salesman were proven true by Variety in a July 13 report.

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Per a recent press release, “House of Hammer” will “shine a light on a depraved pattern of abuse that extends far beyond the accusations brought against the disgraced actor” and “weaves together a chilling story of the dysfunction and wickedness that grow behind decades of power and money.”

“House of Hammer” will be available to stream on Discovery+ on Friday, Sept. 2. Watch the full trailer below, via YouTube:

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Why every small home should have an empty space

No Space Too Small is a column by Laura Fenton that celebrates the idea that you can live well in a small home. Each month, Laura will share her practical findings from years of observing how people live in tight spaces, and her own everyday experiences of living small — from the hunt for the perfect tiny desk to how to manage clutter.

At just 690 square feet, my apartment is relatively small, but it dates back to the 1940s, when apartments were laid out with grander proportions. Once a one-bedroom, we converted it to what New York City real estate brokers call a “junior two-bedroom.” Even though we altered the intended floor plan, there are a few other vintage elements to our home’s design that help make our space work, including our entryway.

Measuring 8 feet by 10 feet, our entryway is as large as our second bedroom, and while some people might not consider this a proper room, it takes up a relatively large amount of our square footage. However, it is a relatively empty room. In the space, we have a sideboard and mirror and a bench. The walls are adorned with mirrors and art, which make it feel decorated and inhabited, but it’s the most empty room in our home. As a result, visitors love to speculate about how we could make better use of the space.

Friends and family suggest we could build bookcases, use it as a new location for our dining table, add a desk, or, heck, even install a Murphy bed for visitors — I’ve heard it all! And while the idea of a wall of custom bookcases is appealing, it’s just not in the budget (I settled for IKEA in the “dining room” instead). Besides, I’m in no rush to “make the most” of this room. In fact, its emptiness is the key to making the rest of our small space work. Here’s why.

Our foyer flexes to serve many purposes, including a staging zone for my photographer husband’s photo equipment before jobs (and also for packed bags before trips), a makeshift shipping center when my books have come out, costume-making central come Halloween, and parking for strollers, scooters, and other vehicles at different stages of my kid’s life (right now we’ve got a scooter and a skateboard).

Having a space at the ready for these events that occur relatively frequently is a lifesaver. It also keeps the rest of the apartment from descending into chaos: It means I can say yes to the garbage-truck costume assembled from three large boxes or the hand-me-down skateboard without thinking twice.

I’m not the only one luxuriating in my empty space: My friend Shira Gill, the author of Minimalista, once described the empty shelf in her home as a “luxury,” and I immediately longed for my own empty shelf. Shira keeps one shelf perennially empty in order to house items that temporarily need a home.

Likewise, when I was reporting a story about how professional organizers organize their own homes, Monica Leed, the founder of Simply Spaced, told me that the secret to her tidy home office is a large basket that she leaves empty on a low shelf, so she can tidy up quickly. (It also comes in handy for stashing packages she hasn’t opened or returned yet.) Shira also keeps an empty basket in her entrance, which she calls her “outbox;” permanently placed in her entryway; it’s a way station for anything on its way out the door (library books, packages, borrowed items to be returned).

Even if you can’t spare most of a room like I have, think about where you might be able to create your own flex space: Could you create an empty shelf, cabinet, or drawer, like Shira? Or maybe just a single empty basket that you can fill in a pinch, like Monica has? We’re often encouraged to declutter to remove the excess, but I think there’s some value in going further, to leave a little blank space on our bookcases and in our closets. Empty space buys our future selves room to breath and grow.

If you’ve got a home that still has some empty space, resist the feeling that you should fill it with something. Instead, try relishing in the possibility of what you might fill it with someday!

“Daily Show” airs devastating superclip of Fox News’ flip-flop on FBI probes of politicians

As Republicans erupt over the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, some Democrats have taken to social media to point out the GOP’s hypocrisy.

Back in 2016 when former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was alleged to have used a private email server for communication with her State Department staff, Republicans applauded then-FBI director James Comey for doing everything in his power to investigate. Now, the FBI is investigating Trump. 

Soon after the FBI searched his property, Trump issued a statement where he called the investigation a “weaponization of the justice system.”

“Hillary Clinton was allowed to delete and acid wash 33,000 emails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress,” Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Absolutely nothing has happened to hold her accountable.”

The investigation into Clinton’s email server found that of the thousands of emails reviewed, 113 contained classified information, and three of them had the official classification market. The FBI concluded that while Clinton had acted with extreme carelessness, it was not her intention to break the law and no charges were filed.

But Comey then publicly reopened the case 12 days before the election, a decision of his that some studies suggest cost Clinton the biggest price of them all: the presidency.

Now, Republicans are acting at odds with their own outrage over Clinton’s emails and the FBI’s decision to investigate further.

A video, which was first published by Trevor Noah’s “The Daily Show,” calls out Republicans for being hypocrites. The video shows clips of prominent Republicans applauding the FBI for investigating Clinton next to footage of the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. The tweet has more than 50k likes.

“The FBI stepping forward at this moment has demonstrated real integrity.” former Vice President Mike Pence said.

Fox News hosts Harris Faulkner and Sean Hannity both piled onto Clinton at the time.

“I mean common, are we supposed to believe that after all this time that she just didn’t know what the rules were,” Faulkner said.

“Multiple felonies that we are talking about here.” Hannity added.

But now that the roles are reversed Republicans cannot seem to fathom that the FBI is acting without political motivation. Cries of “defund the FBI” are circulating among the GOP.

After Trump was elected to office, he signed a law that strengthened the penalty for the unauthorized removal and handling of classified documents, making the act a felony offense.

What is vasculitis and who gets it? Ashton Kutcher’s condition, explained

“That ’70s Show” and “Two-and-a-Half Men” star Ashton Kutcher opened up on Monday about his struggles with vasculitis, a rare condition of the blood vessels that can be debilitating to sufferers. In Kutcher’s case, he explained to adventurer Bear Grylls in the National Geographic program “Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge” that he feared he would permanently lose his sight, hearing and ability to walk. 

“You don’t really appreciate it until it’s gone, until you go, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be able to see again. I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to hear again, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to walk again,’ ” Kutcher explained. “I’m lucky to be alive.”

Kutcher temporarily lost his sight and hearing because of his condition, he told Grylls.

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Vasculitis is an inflammation of the blood vessels caused by the walls of those vessels thickening to an unhealthy degree. In serious cases, vasculitis can cause severe organ damage, both short-term and long-term in nature. There are many different types of vasculitis that go by different names, including Behcet’s disease, Henoch-Schonlein purpura, Churg-Strauss syndrome, Buerger’s disease, Cryoglobulinemia, Takayasu’s arteritis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, Kawasaki disease and giant cell arteritis.

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Common vasculitis symptoms include headaches, fever, fatigue, weight loss and general aches and pains. While it is unclear how exactly Kutcher’s vasculitis impaired his vision and hearing, at least one type of vasculitis, giant cell arteritis, can sometimes cause temporary or permanent blindness. Vasculitis can also cause eye symptoms such as red eyes, itching and burning. Ear-related vasculitis symptoms include ringing in the ears, dizziness and deafness.

Doctors remain unclear about what causes vasculitis, although they know at least certain types are tied to genetics. Depending on the type of vasculitis in question, factors from age and drug use to underlying infections and family history can all play a role in determining an individual’s susceptibility.

Yet being diagnosed with vasculitis is not a death sentence — or even, necessarily, a guarantee that one will suffer indefinitely.

“If you are diagnosed with vasculitis, medicine can help improve your symptoms and help you avoid flares and complications,” explains the NIH. “If vasculitis responds to treatment, it can go into remission, a period of time when the disease is not active.”

In serious cases, vasculitis can cause severe organ damage, both short-term and long-term in nature.

Ashton Kutcher opening up about his struggle with vasculitis continues a 2022 trend of celebrities coming forward about their struggles with little-known diseases. In March, “Die Hard” and “The Sixth Sense” actor Bruce Willis revealed that he had been diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that impacts a patient’s ability to speak, write and read. Aphasia can be caused by strokes, head injuries, tumors and other neurological ailments. Willis said that he is retiring at least for the time being.

In June, pop star Justin Bieber announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder called Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which is caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox. When it destroys nerves in the face and ears after staying dormant in the body, it can cause facial paralysis — as happened with Bieber, who says that he cannot move his right nostril or smile on the right side of his face. Bieber said that he will not be performing shows in the foreseeable future because he is not physically capable of doing so.

Last month Brad Pitt, an actor from movies like “Fight Club” and “Troy,” said that while he has not been officially diagnosed, he believes that he has prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder that causes face blindness. Although it is widely assumed to be rare, doctors have started to move toward the conclusion that it is more common than generally realized. In Pitt’s case, he said that the condition has led to social misunderstandings.

“So many people hate me because they think I’m disrespecting them,” Pitt previously told Esquire in 2013. “You get this thing, like, ‘You’re being egotistical. You’re being conceited.’ But it’s a mystery to me, man. I can’t grasp a face and yet I come from such a design/aesthetic point of view.”

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“Mistrust and paranoia”: Knives out in TrumpWorld as allies hunt aide who “flipped” before FBI raid

On Monday, August 8, right-wing media and MAGA Republicans exploded in a fit of rage after the FBI conducted a search of former President Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago in South Florida. The search pertained to Trump’s handling of White House documents; under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, presidential records are publicly owned after a president leaves office.

Trump is known for demanding total, unquestioning loyalty from everyone from Republican politicians to business associates. And according to Axios reporter Mike Allen, the Mar-a-Lago search has made the atmosphere of “mistrust and paranoia” in Trumpworld even worse.

In an article published by Axios on August 10, Allen reports, “Trumpworld is abuzz with speculation about which close aide or aides has ‘flipped’ and provided additional sensitive information to the FBI about what former President Trump was keeping at Mar-a-Lago, sources tell Axios…. Trump’s orbit is always an environment rife with mistrust and paranoia. Now, that’s intensified.”

Allen notes that the “focal point” of the FBI’s August 8 search was “the Mar-a-Lago basement.” Trump attorney Christina Bobb told the Washington Post that during the spring, Trump’s lawyers spoke to the U.S. Department of Justice about the documents being stored at Mar-a-Lago.

The Axios reporter explains, “Bobb said Trump’s legal team searched through two to three dozen boxes in a basement storage area, hunting for documents that could be considered presidential records, and turned over several items. Bobb told the Post that in June, Trump lawyers showed DOJ investigators the boxes, and they looked through the material. She said the investigators didn’t think the storage unit was properly secured. So, Trump officials added a lock.”

Allen continues, “FBI agents broke through that lock during the search, Bobb said. The FBI removed about a dozen boxes that had been stored in the basement storage area, she said.”

FBI’s Trump raid inadvertently revealed Mike Lee’s secret personal Twitter account and it’s a doozy

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is the more Donald Trump-like of the two senators in the state, the other being Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. But it’s Lee who is up for reelection this year against former Republican Evan McMullin, who previously ran for president in Utah to try and deny Trump the electoral votes in 2016.

Behind the scenes, however, Lee has been using an unofficial Twitter account that has gone unnoticed by the public, but appears to have been promoted by some far-right activists. The Star Tribune outed the senator with details on some of his more catty tweets.

It was something noticed after Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort was searched by the FBI for classified information. Lee’s social media accounts were dead silent. Noting that it’s rare for a politician to be quiet about anything unless they’re pleading their Fifth Amendment rights, reporters started searching.

“Lee’s personal Facebook page links to a Twitter thread from a Twitter account — ‘Based Mike Lee‘ — that was created in July,” the report said. “The account, full of attempted snark and sarcasm, at one point had a profile picture of a young Mike Lee with digital sunglasses superimposed on his face — a reference to the ‘Deal with it’ meme that was popular in the early 2010s. A source close to Lee says the account is Lee’s personal Twitter which he manages by himself.”

So, it appears Lee has made a statement about the search warrant, through his private Twitter account. He asked if the attorney general personally approved the search warrant and then rants about Hillary Clinton, protests at the homes of the Supreme Court justices and Hunter Biden.

In a fundraising email sent by Lee’s reelection campaign, he uses a lot of the same language that appeared in the Twitter thread and calls on his followers to “Hold Merrick Garland Accountable” with a photo of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). About 12 hours after the email was sent, the photo was changed to Merrick Garland. The page doesn’t allow users to hold Garland accountable, it simply serves as a way for Lee to get email addresses so he can raise money.

Other tweets from the Based Mike Lee account appear to promote himself in unique verbiage.

Another pokes at his opponent, who asked about Lee’s coordination with Trump during the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.

This Texas law could shield Alex Jones from paying most of the $50 million defamation judgement

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A Texas jury has awarded a nearly $50 million judgment in a defamation trial against extremist talk show host Alex Jones for claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. He was sued by the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the tragedy.

The question is, will Texas law spare the Infowars host and his company Free Speech Systems tens of millions under a 19-year-old statute limiting the amount that a jury can make a plaintiff pay?

The answer is likely to be decided during the appeals process, but if the statutory limit is applied by the courts to Jones’ case, he could be forced to pay less than $5 million in total damages, legal experts say.

What was the Jones judgment? 

On Aug. 4, a Texas jury in Austin awarded Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis $4.1 million in compensatory damages for the mental anguish and reputation damage inflicted on them by Jones’ crusade to prove the massacre a hoax. Their son, Jesse Lewis, was fatally shot during the Sandy Hook massacre. The jury did not award any money to compensate for financial losses the couple may have suffered as a result of Jones’ statements.

A day later, the same jury hit Jones with another $45.2 million in punitive damages — which exist for the purposes of punishing the defendant, rather than compensating the victims.

The parents’ lawsuit had asked for $150 million in compensatory damages and additional punitive damages.

Jones’ attorneys have said they plan to appeal both damage awards.

What does the law say about punitive damages?

In a civil lawsuit, there are two types of damages: compensatory and punitive.

Compensatory damages are a combination of awards for economic losses as well as noneconomic losses, which include the impacts on the plaintiff’s reputation and their emotional, physical or mental health.

Punitive damages, though also paid to the plaintiff, are there to punish and deter the defendant.

A Texas jury can choose any dollar amount to award when it comes to punitive damages, but the civil statute does limit the amount in punitive damages the defendant may ultimately be forced to pay.

The law guiding punitive damages allows plaintiffs to collect up to twice what was awarded in economic compensatory damages — plus the same amount as was awarded in noneconomic compensatory damages, with the latter limited to $750,000.

In Jones’ case, Jesse Lewis’ parents were awarded $4.1 million in compensatory damages, but none of that has been specified as economic damages.

That means Jones’ punitive damages, which amounted to $45.2 million, could be limited to $750,000 if courts decide that the cap does apply. Add that to the $4.1 million, and the parents could wind up collecting just $4.85 million in total — less than 10% of what the jury awarded them last week.

Texas juries are not allowed to be told about the cap on punitive damages, so jurors may hand down a verdict much higher than the cap, not knowing the plaintiff may never see that total amount.

Exactly how much in punitive damages a defendant ends up paying — including whether the cap applies at all — is something typically decided by judges in the appeals process.

Are there exceptions?

The law allows for an exception to the cap if the actions that triggered the lawsuit are one of a list of felonies, known as “cap busters,” that include murder, kidnapping, forgery, some types of fraud and other — mostly violent — crimes.

The attorney representing Jesse Lewis’ parents, Mark Bankston, told reporters before the $45.2 million in punitive damages was awarded that the Texas Supreme Court could remove the cap “on a case-by-case basis” but declined to say how that might happen in this case.

There is no lifetime limit on the amount of punitive damages a defendant can be forced to pay if they are sued several times. Jones faces more lawsuits by parents of Sandy Hook victims, and each of them will have their own judgments that may or may not be subject to the limits.

Why were the limits created? 

The cap on punitive damage awards traces back to a 2003 measure, House Bill 4, a massive overhaul of the state’s civil litigation laws that the bill’s author said was intended to fight frivolous or abusive lawsuits.

“The problem that existed at the time was that there were a lot of lawsuits of questionable merit being brought where huge punitive damages were being threatened,” said former state Rep. Joe Nixon, a Houston lawyer who authored the sweeping changes to Texas lawsuits in 2003.

Without limits on punitive damages, Nixon said, defendants in lawsuits were exposed to potentially unfair judgments — the threat of which would often push defendants into high-dollar settlements in order to avoid the potential for financial ruin.

Opponents argued that Nixon’s measure gave a pass to extremely wealthy companies that were bad actors.

The bill was one of the biggest pieces of legislation to be passed by the new GOP majority in the Texas House that year, the first time Republicans had controlled the Texas Legislature in 130 years.

Lawsuit limitations, known by supporters as tort reform, had been blocked for years by the previous Democratic majority, so the passage of HB 4 was considered an enormous victory for conservatives. It was also a major part of the agenda of then-House Speaker Tom Craddick, who was in his first term in that role at the time and who laid intense pressure on his leadership team to make it law.

It passed largely along partisan lines.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/08/alex-jones-verdict-damages/.

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Facebook turned over messages between teen and her mom to help police prosecute her for abortion

Motherboard revealed that Facebook turned over data to police so that they could prosecute a teenager for seeking an abortion.

In states around the country, abortion has been banned, but in a few states, legislatures passed bills that allowed vigilantes to track down people who had abortions. What is problematic in this case, is that the incident happened in a state where abortion isn’t illegal. However, it happened later in the pregnancy, which is against Nebraska’s cut-off date.

At the same time, the abortion wasn’t a procedure, it was a pharmaceutical abortion, meaning the teen and her mother legally purchased the medicine for the abortion and used them. Nothing illegal took place, but Facebook turned over the information nonetheless.

“According to court records, Celeste Burgess, 17, and her mother, Jessica Burgess, bought medication called Pregnot designed to end pregnancy,” the report explained. “Pregnot is a kit of mifepristone and misoprostol, which is often used to safely end pregnancy in the first trimester. In this case, Burgess was 28 weeks pregnant, which is later in pregnancy than mifepristone and misoprostol are recommended for use. It’s also later than Nebraska’s 20-week abortion ban (abortion at 28 weeks is legal in about half the country; Nebraska’s abortion laws have not changed Roe v. Wade was overturned).”

The teen is being charged as an adult with a felony “removing/concealing/abandoning dead human body” and two misdemeanors, concealing the death of a person and false reporting. Her mother is being charged with five felonies.

While some details were reported by the Lincoln Journal-Star and Forbes, Motherboard published the search warrant and court documents, showing they organized the burial of the fetus on Facebook DM.

All of it happened prior to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

An autopsy shows that the fetus was stillborn but the final autopsy wouldn’t make any conclusions.

“An exact cause [of death] was unknown, but the lungs didn’t indicate they’d ever contained any air.” A final autopsy report “stated the cause of death was undetermined. The findings were consistent with the fetus being stillborn but the placement of the fetus into a plastic bag raise the possibility of asphyxia due to suffocation.”

Facebook always complies with subpoenas, as do most other tech companies.

You can view the full court documents here.

Read the full report at Motherboard.

The furor over the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, explained: Trump’s base loves his narcissism

The day after Donald Trump dramatically declared he was the “persecuted” victim of an “FBI raid,” a debate erupted over how big a deal this really is. As Trump fundraised off his imaginary victimhood, some folks (including myself, full disclosure) assumed this must be important, for the FBI to go to all this trouble. Other folks insisted Trump is just stubbornly clinging to otherwise irrelevant classified documents, and that the “raid” was closer to the government coming to fetch an overdue library book. 

Late Tuesday, reports from both the Washington Post and the New York Times pointed to the latter theory, with the Times noting that the “agents carried out the search in a relatively low-key manner,” even avoiding wearing their FBI jackets. If that turns out to be true, then the situation is disappointing, but somehow even more sinister. It would suggest Trump is hanging onto these documents for the same reason a serial killer keeps jewelry from his victims, as a trophy to caress whenever he wishes to reminisce over his destructive power and gloat about how he got away with it all.

“Mr. Trump would wave things like the North Korean leader’s letters at people, as if they were collectors’ items he was showing off,” the New York Times reported.

Related

Cries of “civil war” reach fever pitch after FBI search of Mar-a-Lago

If this really is about document retrieval, it also heightens the absurdity of Trump’s outsized reaction — including calling himself “the most persecuted person in the history of our country” — and the alarming effect it’s having on both the GOP establishment and his followers. Most Republicans have fallen in line with Trump’s victim narrative, vowing revenge on Attorney General Merrick Garland and threatening to “defund” the FBI in retaliation. Trump’s followers, meanwhile, are taking his tantrum as the “go” sign to escalate the domestic terrorism, calling for “civil war” and telling each other to “lock and load.” Steve Bannon went on Infowars to declare that the FBI is trying to “assassinate” Trump. A Fox News guest declared the document retrieval is “a declaration of war against the American public.”

All of the violent rhetoric and defenses of Trumpian criminality are bad no matter what, but it’s especially bizarre if it’s all in service of Trump boring his guests at Mar-a-Lago by showing off letters from Kim Jung-un. As Paul Waldman of the Washington Post points out, however, it’s part of a larger Trump-driven mission — which has been wholly adopted by the larger Republican Party — to collapse any distinction between the party’s political agenda, the goals of far-right extremists and Trump’s impulses. 

Republican America is trapped in an endless whirlwind of nebulous rage over its own perceived victimization.

“Trump’s personal narrative of oppression,” Waldman writes, has been fully embraced by GOP the even though it has nothing to do with “the lives of the Americans whose votes Trump might soon be seeking again.”

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Waldman’s right. “Bring back Trump so he can keep his mementos!” is not a compelling campaign slogan to swing voters. But what’s weird is how compelling it truly is to the GOP base. Fox News isn’t going all out with the fake Trump victimization storyline for the hell of it. The social media reaction from the right does, indeed, suggest that the GOP base really does thrill for a fight over Trump’s “right” to flout every single law, big or small. To understand why, it helps to understand how much modern politics, especially for Republicans, is about symbolism and identity.

There was much online mockery of the GOP House Judiciary tweeting, “If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you.” A lot of people pointed out that the FBI wouldn’t hesitate to show up at any of our houses, if we had, like Trump, stolen classified documents. But that’s not really what any of this is about. Trump has, with his relentless whining, managed to turn himself into a larger symbol of right-wing America’s own complaints about what they perceive as unfair attacks on their own unearned privileges over those they consider un-Americans. 

Related

Trump, Alex Jones and Steve Bannon: GOP goons follow a familiar playbook when accountability knocks

It’s swiftly becoming the most famous blog comment of all time, from Frank Wilhoit, a composer and commenter at the blog Crooked Timber: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

Or, as one of the January 6 insurrectionists whined: “They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.”

As policy researcher Will Stancil noted Tuesday on Twitter: 

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Trump’s whining is received by his base on this symbolic level. His tantrum over being asked to obey record-keeping laws resonates with his followers because of its resemblance to their personal grievances like being asked not to use the n-word around the grandkids or being told by H.R. to stop ogling the secretary’s legs. It’s not unlike having your niece make a face at Thanksgiving when you go off on another rant about “globalists” and the “abortion industry” or having people unfollow you on Facebook when you post yet another unhinged meme about the “invasion” at the border. Trump devotees keenly feel the slights against their “right” to be racist, sexist louts — that’s what all the “cancel culture” whining is about — and Trump has channeled that larger and inchoate cloud of entitled whining into his own set of often idiosyncratic bellyaches. 

Trump has channeled that larger and inchoate cloud of entitled whining into his own set of often idiosyncratic bellyaches.

We see a similar situation with the obsessive right-wing anger at Christine Blasey Ford for accusing Justice Brett Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her in high school. The extremely personal anger from MAGA America isn’t because they know what it’s like to be questioned in a Supreme Court confirmation hearing about their past transgressions. What they did relate to was this fear that they — or their husbands or their sons — could face very real consequences for sexual violence that, in the past, had been swept under the rug. Or, even more abstractly, they’re angry that the presumption of male supremacy is under threat. And a lot of men don’t want to give that up because they rely on it for everything from getting out of doing dishes to getting paid more at work. 

Related

“Gestapo tactics”: Greene, Boebert worry after FBI seizes phone of GOP congressman linked to Big Lie

Liberals engage in a similar, if far more pro-social, tendency to project their own concerns onto the lives of public figures. People thrill to see the rise of figures like President Barack Obama, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren because their success gives life to the aspirations of marginalized people. Hell, there’s even a pop culture component, where celebrity gossip (such as the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp trial) becomes important because the details reflect the concerns of ordinary people. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with this. These kinds of stories help define and shape our culture, which very much impacts how regular people experience their own lives. 

Where things get toxic, however, is in the right’s anger about diversity in politics or celebrities speaking out about issues like racism or gendered violence. Conservatives resent what it means for their own lives, and how these national stories contribute to pressures they don’t like, like having to show respect to women and people of color in their own neighborhoods and workplaces. That kind of resentment can be channeled into avenues that make emotional, if not logical sense. We saw this in the furor over masking and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, which became touchstones for a generalized right-wing rejection of having to show any concern or care for others in their community.

Donald Trump gets this more than anyone. No, it doesn’t make sense that people who are aggrieved over increasing race and gender equality would connect their anger to Trump’s tantrum over having to hand over some stolen documents. But it doesn’t need to make sense. Republican America is trapped in an endless whirlwind of nebulous rage over its own perceived victimization, which needs neither evidence nor logic to sustain it. Unfortunately, as January 6 showed, that disconnect from all rationality makes them even more dangerous. 

Ilhan Omar barely fends off primary challenger boosted by right-wing PAC money and “nasty attacks”

U.S Rep. Ilhan Omar on Tuesday narrowly fended off a Democratic primary challenger whose campaign was bankrolled in part by a GOP operative, corporate lobbyists, and prominent Minnesota businessmen.

Omar, a stalwart progressive who has been a frequent target of racist right-wing attacks and death threats, prevailed by fewer than 3,000 votes, a far closer contest than her 2020 primary. Her opponent, former Minneapolis City Council Member Don Samuels, conceded the race.

“Tonight’s victory is a testament to how much our district believes in the collective values we are fighting for and how much they’re willing to do to help us overcome defeat,” Omar, the whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said late Tuesday after the race was called in her favor. “This win is for them and everyone who still believes that regression will not be the legacy of the Fifth.”

Omar, who has also repeatedly been thrown under the bus by the Democratic establishment, overcame a torrent of outside opposition spending, including from a newly created super PAC financed with donations from Kelly Doran—a Minnesota businessman and commercial real estate developer with a history of donating to Republicans—and Vance Opperman, the head of a private investment firm.

The Drain the DC Swamp PAC, a far-right outfit aligned with former President Donald Trump and GOP election-deniers, also spent against Omar in the primary for Minnesota’s solidly blue Fifth Congressional District.

The Intercept reported earlier this year that Samuels, who was previously elected to the Minneapolis school board with the support of right-wing privatization advocates, attended an April fundraiser “headlined by developers, lobbyists, and business leaders, including at least one Republican operative and donor, Andy Brehm; Jonathan Weinhagen, the president and CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce; Steve Cramer, the president and CEO of the MPLS Downtown Council, an organization of more than 450 Minneapolis businesses; a former U.S. ambassador to Morocco; and a former City Council president.”

Jeremy Slevin, Omar’s senior communications director, noted on Twitter earlier this month that “close to 40%” of Samuel’s campaign donations “were more than $200 in the first quarter of 2022 (notably they did not disclose the percentage in the second quarter).”

“This is extraordinarily high,” Slevin wrote. “By comparison, 99% of Ilhan Omar’s donors were less than $200 in the same time period.”

In a statement late Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said that “llhan Omar has faced some of the ugliest attacks of any elected official and had hundreds of thousands of dollars spent against her.”

“Despite this, she won her primary once again,” said Sanders. “Like Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush, these progressive champions have shown that they persevere and deliver for their constituents despite the well-funded, nasty attacks upon them.”

“The mob takes the 5th”: Trump pleads the 5th in NY probe after claiming only guilty people do that

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he refused to answer questions while appearing in a New York attorney general’s civil probe into alleged fraud at the Trump Organization.

According to a statement posted to his social media site, Trump asserted his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination when speaking under oath.

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?’ Now I know the answer to that question,” Trump said in the statement.

“I declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution,” Trump added.

He went on to repeat claims of a “witch hunt” and spent several paragraphs issuing an attack against the attorney general, Letitia James, who, he said, is only attacking him because of politics.

Trump is being investigated over allegations that he artificially inflated the size and value of his properties, which resulted in the value of properties being greater than the actual value when applying for additional capital or bank loans.

When he applied for tax breaks, documents obtained by reporter David Fahrenthold showed that he deflated the size of properties and buildings from the bank loans. At the same time, many members of Trump’s staff were given gifts like cars, and homes in Trump Tower or family members were hired or given perks.

“You see the mob takes the Fifth,” he once said publicly. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

Trump pushes conspiracy theory about FBI agents “planting” evidence in Truth Social meltdown

President Donald Trump and his lawyers pushed a conspiracy theory that FBI agents may have “planted” incriminating evidence while executing a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

FBI agents on Monday executed a warrant at Trump’s Palm Beach home, meaning that a judge found enough probable cause to approve the search. Agents investigating presidential documents that Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago, including classified materials, removed 12 boxes of items from Mar-a-Lago after Trump turned over 15 boxes of materials to the National Archives earlier this year, according to the Washington Post. Trump attorney Christina Bobb told the outlet that the search warrant indicated that the FBI is investigating possible violations of the Presidential Records Act and laws related to the handling of classified material. Trump has thus far refused to release his copy of the search warrant even though it could provide transparency on what agents were searching for.

Bobb said that she was not allowed to observe the search, as is common during such FBI operations. But Trump and his lawyers have seized on that fact to push a conspiracy theory that the FBI may have “planted” something without providing any evidence to support their claims.

“The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said on his Twitter knockoff Truth Social. “Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting.’ Why did they STRONGLY insist on having nobody watching them, everybody out? Obama and Clinton were never ‘raided,’ despite big disputes!”

Related

“This is their message”: Trump and GOP immediately rush to fundraise off FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago

Bobb, a former TV host at the right-wing outlet OAN who joined Trump’s legal team, made a similar claim on Monday, citing only the fact that she was not allowed to observe the search.

“There is no security that something wasn’t planted,” Bobb said in an interview, adding, “I’m not saying that’s what they did.”

“At this point, I don’t necessarily think that they would even go to the extent of trying to plant information, I think they just make stuff up and come up with whatever they want and that’s the way that they will have to proceed in order to actually try to indict the president because they don’t have anything,” she said.

Fellow Trump attorney Alina Habba told Fox News that she was also “concerned that they may have planted something. You know, at this point, who knows? I don’t trust the government and that’s a very frightening thing as an American.”

Trump’s right-wing allies have parroted this evidence-free claim to their followers.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., cited his distrust of the government to suggest that the FBI “may put something” in the boxes they removed from Mar-a-Lago to “entrap” Trump.

“I think there is an extremely high probability that the FBI planted ‘evidence’ against President Trump,” tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. “Otherwise WHY would they NOT allow his attorneys or anyone watch them while they conducted their unprecedented raid? They know the consequences of an empty handed power move.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and Trump ally Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, both discussed their belief that the FBI may have “planted evidence” on Kirk’s show Monday.

Trump’s defenders on Fox News have also echoed the claim.

“They could have easily negotiated the return of documents like that without guns and warrants. What the FBI is probably doing is planting evidence,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said without any evidence. “We also have a hunch they doctored evidence to get the warrant.”

Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt suggested that FBI agents may have dumped “backpacks” full of incriminating evidence at Mar-a-Lago.

“His lawyer said they brought in backpacks, what was in those backpacks?” Earhardt said. “Did they bring those in to fill them up or did they have something in there?”

Agents raided Mar-a-Lago because they believed Trump did not turn over all classified information he had taken to his home, according to The Wall Street Journal. Trump’s lawyers had been in discussions with federal officials about the records for months. Trump attorneys in June showed investigators a basement room where boxes of materials were being stored. The Justice Department directed Trump’s team to secure the room, prompting them to add a padlock to the door. It’s unclear what triggered Monday’s raid.

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Legal experts pushed back on the claims. Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig called the idea that FBI agents “may” have planted evidence “ridiculous.”

“How would anybody even know at this point?” he questioned. “If you’re going to fabricate some accusation, at least wait until you might plausibly have a basis for it.”

Former federal prosecutor Richard Signorelli condemned Trump’s attorneys for pushing the claim.

“These are baseless lies but unfortunately will be believed by deranged, ignorant MAGA cult members,” he tweeted.

Defense attorney Ken White noted that forbidding anyone from observing their searches is standard practice.

“Law enforcement does not let anyone, including lawyers, observe what they’re doing during searches,” he wrote. “They typically remove everyone from the searched area. This has always been the case. This is the latest ‘it’s an outrage when the typical happens to me.'”

Former federal prosecutor Michael Stern suggested that TrumpWorld is trotting out the claim because the FBI may have found damaging evidence at his home.

“I have written hundreds of search warrants. Lawyers and people whose homes are being searched are routinely not present during the search,” he wrote. “That Trump is now talking about ‘planted’ evidence means he knows there is something damning they found.”

Read more

about the FBI raid

This DIY toaster strudel with a super-flaky crust and jammy filling is the stuff of childhood dreams

My childhood memories of toaster strudel still haunt me. I coveted this treat from the freezer section FIERCELY, and the nostalgia has fueled a deep dive into making my very own. This version is filled with jam, and you could use any flavor you like; just be sure it’s fairly smooth. If it’s noticeably chunky, blend it up in a food processor or blender to smooth it out. If you want to imitate the packaged stuff, skip the optional folds I recommend in step 4 — but if you’re as big a fan of flakes as I am, the end result is delightfully worth it. — Erin Jeanne McDowell

Watch this recipe

Jammy “Toaster Strudel”
Yields
6 pastries
Prep Time
2 hours
Cook Time
40 minutes

Ingredients

Dough

  • 3 cups (360 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon (4 grams) fine sea salt
  • 12 tablespoons (170 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 1 large (56 grams) egg, cold
  • 1 large (21 grams) egg yolk, cold
  • 1/4 cups (60 grams) ice water, plus more as needed

Filling, Frying, and Finishing

  • 1 large (35 grams) egg white
  • 1 (13-ounce / 370-gram) jar of jam or preserves
  • neutral oil (such as vegetable or canola), for panfrying
  • 1 cup (113 grams) confectioners’ sugar
  • 3 tablespoons (45 grams) heavy cream, plus more as needed
  • 1/2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

Directions

  1. Make the dough: In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the flour and salt to combine. Break up the butter into the food processor and pulse until the butter is very finely incorporated, looking like tiny flecks or pearls amid the flour.
  2. Add the egg, egg yolk, and water and pulse until the mixture comes together into a fairly smooth dough. If needed, add more water 1 teaspoon (5 grams) at a time until the dough comes together. 
  3. Divide the dough into two even pieces (about 330 grams each). Form each into a rectangle 1 inch thick, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (or up to 48 hours). After chilling, you can move immediately to step 5. For flakier dough, proceed with step 4.
  4. (Optional step for extra flakiness!) Working with one piece of dough at a time on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/2 inch thick. Fold the dough into quarters, then immediately roll out again to 1/2 inch thick. Fold again into quarters. If desired, you can repeat this process a second time for even more flakiness. Then rewrap the dough and refrigerate for at least 2 hours (or up to 24 hours). Repeat with the second piece of dough. 
  5. To roll out the dough, work with one piece of dough at a time. Roll out the dough into a rectangle 1/8 inch thick (it should be about 12 x 14 inches). Trim the rectangle of dough to 10 1/2 x 12 inches.
  6. Use a paring knife to gently score the dough in half (do not cut through the dough, just leave a light indentation), dividing it into two 6-inch-wide segments. Then, use the paring knife again to gently mark the dough into three even portions on the lower 6 inches of the dough (each should be about 3 1/2 inches wide). 
  7. Lightly whisk the egg white with 1 tablespoon of water to combine. Spoon about 1 1/2 tablespoons of jam into the center of each pastry, leaving the outer 1/2 inch uncovered all the way around.
  8. Brush the egg white mixture evenly around the uncovered outer edges of the pastry. Then gently fold the excess pastry dough in half over the filling. Lay it down slowly, ideally not allowing any air pockets to form. Firmly press the dough together around the edges of the filling with your fingers to seal well.
  9. Use a pastry wheel to cut the pastries into three even pieces and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Crimp with the tines of a fork all the way around. 
  10. Freeze until firm, at least 1 hour (to freeze longer, transfer once firm to an airtight container or freezer bag; freeze for up to 1 month). Heat the oven to 375°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  11. Panfry the pastries: In a large skillet, heat 1/2 inch of neutral oil over medium heat until the corner of a frozen pastry sizzles when you add it to the oil. Fry the pastries two or three at a time (don’t overcrowd the pan) until the surface is evenly golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Adjust the heat as needed to brown the pastries slowly and evenly. 
  12. Turn the pastry over and cook on the other side until golden brown. Use a large spatula (I like a flexible fish spatula) to gently transfer the fried pastries to the prepared baking sheet. Continue to fry the remaining pastries, placing them evenly on the baking sheet once they are browned.
  13. Transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake until the pastry is fully baked through, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool at least 10 minutes on the baking sheet before serving warm. 
  14. While the pastries cool, make the icing: In a medium bowl, whisk the confectioners’ sugar, cream, and vanilla to make a thick icing. Add more cream as needed to make the icing easily pipable or spreadable.
  15. When ready to serve, pipe or spread icing onto the surface of the pastry. Serve immediately.
 

“Gestapo tactics”: Greene, Boebert worry after FBI seizes phone of GOP congressman linked to Big Lie

The FBI on Tuesday seized Rep. Scott Perry’s, R-Pa., cell phone, the congressman told Fox News.

Perry, the chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said he was traveling with his family when he was approached by three FBI agents who “seized my cell phone.”

“They made no attempt to contact my lawyer, who would have made arrangements for them to have my phone if that was their wish. I’m outraged — though not surprised — that the FBI under the direction of Merrick Garland’s DOJ, would seize the phone of a sitting Member of Congress,” Perry said in a statement. “My phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends. None of this is the government’s business.”

The search warrant for Perry’s phone was served one day after FBI agents raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, reportedly to seize 12 more boxes of potentially classified information that he had taken with him from the White House.

Perry said that “as with President Trump last night, DOJ chose this unnecessary and aggressive action instead of simply contacting my attorneys. These kinds of banana republic tactics should concern every Citizen.”

Related

“Defund the FBI!”: Republicans’ pro-police rhetoric goes out the window after feds raid Trump

It’s unclear why Perry’s phone was seized but the House Jan. 6 committee extensively detailed his role in Trump’s efforts to overturn his election. Perry was repeatedly in communication with the Trump White House in the days leading up to the Capitol riot and connected Trump with former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer who sought to hijack the DOJ to advance Trump’s Big Lie. Investigators marched Clark out of his home in his pajamas to search his house last month. The DOJ also seized phones from attorney John Eastman, the brains behind Trump’s failed Jan. 6 plot to steal the election, and Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, who played a role in the Trump campaign’s “fake elector” plot.

Perry has refused to testify before the Jan. 6 committee despite being subpoenaed. The panel has received testimony that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows burned papers after meeting Perry in the White House. Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in June detailed his efforts after Jan. 6 to seek a pardon from Trump for his role in attempting to overturn the election. Perry denied that he “ever sought” a presidential pardon.

The phone seizure alarmed other Trump allies in Congress that have been linked to his efforts to overturn his election loss.

“This is America, and these Gestapo tactics are not welcome,” tweeted Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. “There will be a reckoning.”

“The FBI has gone rogue and is doing the dirty work of a communist regime. Who is giving these orders?” wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

“Our country is becoming unrecognizable,” lamented Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. “The FBI,  the Regime they take marching orders from, are the enemy of the American People. They must be stopped. DEFUND THE FBI.”

There is no evidence that President Joe Biden or the White House had anything to do with the seizure and the White House on Tuesday said that Biden was unaware of the Mar-a-Lago raid until Trump announced it.

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Legal experts say that in both cases, the FBI would have had to convince a judge that a crime likely occurred in order to obtain a search warrant.

“The FBI would have needed a search warrant to seize Congressman Perry’s phone,” tweeted Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor. “That means a judge found that there was good reason to believe a crime was committed and that evidence of that crime was located on his phone.”

The search warrant reviewed by CNN showed that Perry’s phone was taken to the same forensic lab to be imaged as the phones taken from Clark and Eastman. Investigators will have to obtain a second search warrant to access the contents of the phone because Perry’s legislative business and other messages are protected. Perry’s phone has since been returned.

Despite the report, Greene wrote on Twitter that she “tried calling the FBI” on Perry’s phone to “ask them why they confiscated a sitting Member of Congress’s personal cellphone.”

“It rang twice and went to voicemail,” Greene wrote.

The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger pointed out that “Perry got his phone back” on Tuesday afternoon: “Sounds like someone’s ducking MTG’s calls.”

Read more

about Perry and Jan. 6

In exchange for climate legislation, Joe Manchin was promised a pipeline. Will he get it?

When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin announced the surprising rebirth of a deal to pass sweeping climate legislation last week, reporters could at first only speculate about what exactly it took to secure Manchin’s support.

A few days later, those questions were answered, at least partially: In exchange for a bill that is projected to reduce the country’s overall carbon emissions by roughly 41 percent compared to their 2005 high by the end of the decade, Manchin appears to have secured Democratic leadership’s support for a separate legislative effort containing a number of fossil fuel industry wishlist items. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fueling gas price increases, Manchin seems intent on removing bottlenecks in domestic fuel production.

A one-page summary of the hypothetical legislation obtained by the Washington Post includes provisions that cap permitting timelines for major energy projects at two years, require the president to maintain a list of 25 “high priority energy infrastructure projects,” and speed up Clean Water Act certifications. The “high priority” projects are to be selected based on their ability to reduce energy costs for consumers, promote international energy trade, and cut carbon emissions. The proposed reforms to the water quality certifications, which are often sought by pipeline companies, could make it more difficult to block such projects.

While many of these permitting reforms stand to benefit both fossil fuel producers and clean energy providers, one provision stood out for its clear benefit to a group of oil and gas companies. The summary includes a requirement to “complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline,” a 303-mile pipeline that delivers natural gas from northwestern West Virginia — Manchin’s home state — to southern Virginia.

The controversial pipeline, which has been partially constructed and is slated to carry 2 billion cubic feet of fracked gas per day, has been stymied by federal court rulings. Earlier this year, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals revoked permits granted by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service, requiring those agencies to reevaluate the pipeline’s environmental impact. Several other lawsuits are currently pending. The pipeline is a key priority for Manchin, who has said that the United States’ “dependence on foreign energy and supply chains from countries who hate America represents a clear and present danger and it must end.”

But whether Congressional intervention can help the pipeline cross the finish line is unclear. The one-page summary requires “relevant agencies to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation of the Mountain Valley pipeline” and “give the D.C. Circuit jurisdiction over any further litigation.” (A change in venue may help the pipeline developers who have been repeatedly rebuffed in the Fourth Circuit court.) 

The full legislative text has not yet been released, but environmental law experts Grist spoke to said that, based on the summary, it didn’t appear that Manchin is proposing that Congress take the most sure-fire step to ease the way for the pipeline: exempting it from environmental laws. The lawsuits and the Fourth Circuit rulings have been based on arguments about the pipeline’s failure to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act among other laws. If Mountain Valley was suddenly exempt from those rules, its opponents would have far fewer avenues to stop it.

“From what I’m seeing, they still need to show they comply with the law even if the summary language is that it should be approved,” said Jared Margolis, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity who has been involved in litigation efforts challenging the pipeline’s permits. “There’s nothing in this language that suggests to me that that Congress is directing the courts to rule in Mountain Valley’s favor in ongoing litigation.”

Congress writes laws and therefore has the authority to carve out exceptions for even the most sweeping legislation. For instance, in 2011 Congress delisted gray wolves as an endangered species, even though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is typically responsible for adding and removing animals from the endangered species list. 

“Congress could, in theory, enact legislation that exempts the Mountain Valley project from the National Environmental Policy Act and/or other environmental laws,” said Romany M. Webb, a senior fellow and associate research scholar at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, in an email. In the past, Webb said Congress has sidestepped the National Environmental Policy Act by declaring a specific action “non-discretionary” or not a “major federal action significantly affecting the environment,” which is the trigger for applying the law.

But the summary of the hypothetical Schumer-Manchin legislation doesn’t indicate such an approach. Instead it directs federal agencies to move quickly to permit the pipeline, which implies that agencies will still need to follow processes mandated under environmental laws. The Fish and Wildlife Service, for instance, is currently reevaluating the impact of the pipeline on two endangered species of fish after the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a key permit earlier this year. The new legislation could direct the agency to speed up the review, but ultimately findings from the environmental analysis that the Service conducts are not under Congress’ control. 

“It’s this weird in-between where they’re saying, ‘approve it,’ but they’re not exempting the [pipeline from] laws that still need to be followed,” said Margolis. 

If federal agencies feel they are being pressured by Congress to rush the approval process, it could ironically further jeopardize the pipeline’s permitting prospects by leading to errors and resulting in more legal challenges, according to environmental attorneys.  

“We think it would be unwise and unfair to create special exceptions to critical environmental protections,” said Ben Luckett, a senior attorney with the Appalachian Mountain Advocates, a group that has sued the federal government over its permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The legislation also gives the D.C. Court of Appeals jurisdiction over future legal challenges. That may be because the pipeline has been dealt repeated blows in the Fourth Circuit. Aside from overturning key permits from the Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the Forest Service, the court has denied the pipeline operators’ request to assign a new three-judge panel to reconsider its permits. The legislative effort to turn jurisdiction over to the D.C. Circuit, which has a reputation for siding with federal agencies, may be one way for the pipeline developers to be heard in a more favorable venue.

The pipeline still has several other hurdles to overcome. In June, developers asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees permitting for interstate pipelines, to move its deadline to complete the pipeline from 2022 to 2026. They cited delays due to lawsuits and outstanding permits. The request has not yet been approved by the Commission. Lawsuits over state environmental permits from West Virginia and Virginia are also still ongoing. 

News that the pipeline may be approved by Congress in exchange for climate legislation was met with apprehension from local activists who have been fighting to block the pipeline for years. 

“Here in Appalachia, we refuse to be sacrificed for political gain or used as concessions to the fossil fuel industry in this so-called deal,” said Grace Tuttle of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition, a group opposed to the pipeline, in a press release.

What was the FBI looking for in Mar-a-Lago?

The big question after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago is what could they have been searching for? To get a search warrant — any search warrant — several conditions must be met. 

(1) Someone must be under investigation for committing a crime. In this case, that someone is clearly Donald J. Trump, former president. He is what they call the “target” of the investigation. 

(2) The search warrant must be signed by a federal prosecutor, and it must be accompanied by an affidavit listing why there is probable cause that a crime has been committed and that the premises are likely to be the place where evidence of the crime may be found. The affidavit must also provide a detailed list of what the prosecutors expect to find at the location. 

(3)  There must be a place for the materials removed from the search location to go. The FBI doesn’t just conduct a search and then take the materials they seize back to FBI headquarters. The materials seized are part of a prosecution and may be used in a grand jury proceeding to get an indictment against the target of the prosecution, and the materials may end up as evidence in federal court if the target is charged and tried. Thus, on the day of the search begins a lengthy “chain of custody” of the materials seized from the property belonging to the target of the investigation. At every step of the process, the materials are bagged or boxed, sealed and signed for by officials from the office of the prosecutor who requested the warrant and authorized the search. In this case, that is the Washington office of the Department of Justice where a U.S. Attorney handles all prosecutions that originate within the District of Columbia. The materials will go to him or her, and from there to the grand jury in Washington that has been reported to be in the process of conducting a criminal investigation of the efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Related

Trump, Alex Jones and Steve Bannon: GOP goons follow a familiar playbook when accountability knocks

The big questions are these: What could those materials consist of? And what crime or crimes is Trump suspected of committing? There was a lot of speculation Monday night about violations of the Presidential Records Act and another federal statute which forbids removing official documents and materials and/or damaging them or distributing them to unauthorized persons. This is the federal law that was quoted all over the place because it contains the clause that any federal official found guilty of violating that law can be barred from holding federal office again. 

That would be an outcome fondly wished for by Democrats and others who oppose Donald Trump and never want to see him near the Oval Office again. 

What is the thing that Trump has always valued most in his life?

But I think the reason for the search of Trump’s home may be even more serious than merely removing government documents. We’ve all read the stories reported in February of this year that some of the materials in the famous 15 boxes removed by Trump from the White House were classified and were so sensitive they could not even be described by the National Archives, which was seeking the return of the boxes and their contents. But I wonder, what could Donald Trump have kept that was written down? He has always been reported to be so allergic to written records that he never uses emails or text messages and famously never even orders people to do something for him, and certainly not by written order. According to Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, people working for Trump are expected to figure out what he wants and do it without being told.

So, what kinds of documents could Trump want to take with him from the White House, at the risk of violating several federal statutes? What is the thing that Trump has always valued most in his life?

The answer is money, and the documents associated with getting or being paid money are usually contracts. Trump could have removed from the White House contracts he concocted while he was serving as president that would provide him money after he left office.

The other sorts of documents which might be valuable enough to be worth real money would be secrets regarding foreign nations that might be willing to pay money to learn what those secrets are. These may be the documents said to have been marked “Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information,” or “TS/SCI.”  This is a level of security used to protect national security secrets, data and even technology which could affect national security if they fall into the wrong hands. 

This is also the kind of information that is sought by foreign spies and paid for by foreign governments to American citizens who sell it to them. This is called espionage, and I think it may be possible that the FBI was looking for materials that are valuable as intelligence sought by foreign powers hostile to the United States.

It seems unlikely that the Department of Justice would search the home of a former president, something that has never been done in the nation’s history, unless they are involved in an investigation of a very, very serious crime, such as walking away with secrets that are known to be sought by hostile foreign actors, not merely walking away with documents that don’t belong to you. It’s possible the DOJ may be investigating Trump not only for violating the Presidential Records Act, but for violating the Espionage Act. 

It seems unlikely that the Department of Justice would search the home of a former president unless they are involved in an investigation of a very, very serious crime.

The DOJ prosecuted Sandy Berger, the former National Security Advisor to President Bill Clinton, for removing classified documents from the National Archives and taking them home with him. He was charged with taking classified, original intelligence documents on terrorism that had not been copied or inventoried. He was also charged with lying to FBI agents when questioned about the removal of the documents. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal of classified material, was fined $50,000, given two years probation and 100 hours of community service and stripped of his security clearance for three years. He later voluntarily relinquished his law license rather than face a bar association hearing after his guilty plea.

But Donald Trump is not Sandy Berger. He’s not a former national security adviser with access to the nation’s secrets. He is the former president who was in charge of the government which created secrets. He was the top official charged with keeping the nation’s secrets.

The National Archives was said to have been in negotiations with Trump for months about returning the 15 boxes taken from the White House. After the boxes were finally returned, it was reported that the National Archives had found that certain documents were missing from the materials Trump returned to the Archives. After receiving the boxes from the former president, the National Archives turned its investigation over to the Department of Justice.

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That’s where we are now. Either the National Archives had an inventory of what was supposed to be in the 15 boxes so they could identify the missing materials, or someone close to Trump talked to the Archives and/or the FBI about which materials were not returned to the Archives by Trump.

Whatever the case, the missing materials were apparently sensitive enough that the FBI not only did a physical search of Mar-a-Lago, agents broke into the safe in Trump’s office. In other words, the FBI damaged part of the former president’s home in its search for the missing materials they were looking for. 

The nature of those materials could well  be revealed with Trump being charged with a federal crime by the Department of Justice. The DOJ has doubtlessly ensured that the nature of the materials will be shocking enough to justify not only the search of Trump’s home, but the charges they file against him.

Stay tuned. There is more to come.

Read more

about the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago

Kansas voters used democracy to stop right wing extremists — but GOP fascism is still on the rise

Last Tuesday, democracy literally won in Kansas when voters overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to their state constitution that would have taken away women’s reproductive rights and freedoms.

This was the first public vote of its kind in the aftermath of the decision by the right-wing extremist justices on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. In one of the best recent examples of democracy and collective action in America, the people of Kansas voted to protect the civil and human rights and freedoms of not just women – but by implication, all people.  

Fascism and other forms of authoritarianism seek to control the whole person and limit bodily autonomy and freedom. In that way, limiting women’s reproductive rights and freedoms is part of a much larger strategy to end America’s multiracial pluralistic democracy. Ultimately, women’s rights are human rights, and when women are not allowed to be full and equal members of society the rights of all people are imperiled.

The decision by the people of Kansas to protect a woman’s right to an abortion is also a very important lesson in how democracy is not some abstract idea. It is something that real people do, practice, and live.

At the Huffington Post, Alanna Vagianos highlights how:

But before the landslide win and talks of national political landscapes, it was mostly ordinary people like Janelle Bogart who were doing the real work. Bogart, a pro-choice organizer with a day job in sales, let HuffPost tag along as she canvassed houses in 103-degree heat in a Wichita suburb a week before the election…

Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, the pro-choice collective that recruited canvassers like Bogart, accomplished what many believed was impossible: A win on abortion rights in a red state after the fall of Roe…

Bogart, the local organizer, appropriately spent election night collecting ballot boxes from polling places. When she finished, she brought pizza to a polling spot where people had been waiting in line to vote for nearly three hours. The 37-year-old said she became emotional when the overwhelming number of pro-choice votes were reported.

“We had a lot of women who put their lives on hold for the campaigning and the marches and the canvassing. With everything that was against us: They tried to put it on a primary ballot, they were spreading lies about what the amendment meant, they were very heavily funded by all the church groups,” Bogart said through tears.

“It feels good. It feels like we’re unfuckable with. Don’t try to come after us because we will organize and get things done.”

In an opinion essay at the New York Times, Sarah Smarsh offered this profile of democracy in action in Kansas:

Lines of Kansas voters, resolute in the August sun and 100-degree heat, stretched beyond the doors of polling sites and wrapped around buildings on Tuesday to cast ballots in a primary election. A few suffered heat exhaustion. Firefighters passed out bottles of water.

When polls closed at 7 p.m. Central time, many were still in line and legally entitled to get their turn. The Wichita Eagle reported that one Wichita woman cast the final vote at her polling site at 9:45 p.m. after waiting in line for nearly three hours. Poll workers, understaffed amid the likely record turnout, worked brutally long hours for democracy…

But Kansans didn’t do it alone. Support — donations, text messages of solidarity, a letter of encouragement from Gloria Steinem — came from far and wide, boosting the resources and morale of a place often stereotyped as a conservative monolith and presumed a pointless investment for Democratic campaigns.

The vote to protect women’s reproductive rights and freedoms in Kansas was also the result of highly effective messaging.

At the Washington Monthly, Bill Scher explains how:

Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, the group that led the campaign to defeat the constitutional amendment intended to permit abortion bans, developed a messaging strategy that resonated across the political spectrum and eschewed purity tests.

“We definitely used messaging strategies that would work regardless of party affiliation,” Jae Gray, a field organizer for the group, told The Washington Post. The results validated the strategy, with the anti-abortion constitutional amendment losing by some 160,000 votes, even while Republican primary voters outnumbered Democrats by about 187,000.

Was the messaging what sealed the deal in Kansas? Trying to parse out which factors mattered in any election is always an inexact science, even more so in a down-ballot campaign that attracted minimal polling. But one on-the-ground reporter, Gabriella Borter of Reuters, tweeted, “Several Kansans I met while door knocking w/ the campaigns said they were personally uncomfortable with/opposed to abortion but didn’t like the idea of their daughter/sister/friend not being able to get one safely if needed. The ‘vote no’ messaging about gov’t mandates resonated.”

This campaign was engineered to connect with Kansans of many backgrounds, particularly potential swing voters who could be susceptible to disingenuous messages from the anti-abortion camp. The driving force behind word choices was not satisfying squabbling factions in Washington, D.C.

The Republican fascists have been routing the Democratic Party and other pro-democracy Americans since at least Jan. 6 and Donald Trump’s coup attempt.

Democrats and other pro-democracy Americans must win many more victories after Kansas to keep their momentum because they are quickly running out of time. As the truism goes, both in sports and war, the other team definitely has a say in the outcome.

To that point, the Republican fascists and their Christian theocratic enforcers will do anything to win.

Related

What happened in Kansas: Americans know that rights are not just suggestions

This will include illegal and unethical behavior to advance their revolutionary struggle to remake American society by returning it to the Gilded Age (if not before). This new-old America will be a society where women, Black and brown people, gays and lesbians, the poor, the working class, disabled people, and other marginalized groups will be treated as second-class citizens under the law as compared to rich white “Christian” men.

As part of their war against American democracy, the Republican fascists and their forces will also use public office and other trusted positions of power to subvert real democracy and to rule through the tyranny of the minority. The Republican fascists will respect “democratic” outcomes when they win and use the Big Lie and other fantasies and conspiracy theories to reject the results of elections when they lose. This strategy will fully undermine the American people’s faith in the legitimacy of the country’s democracy and government, which is central to the Republican fascists’ overall strategy.

While democracy was winning in Kansas, in other states across the country fascism and authoritarianism were on the march.

In Arizona, Republican primary voters chose supporters of the Jan. 6 coup and the Big Lie — Kari Lake, Abraham Hamadeh and Mark Finchem —to be their nominees for governor, attor­ney general and secret­ary of state, respectively. Doug Mastriano, a supporter of the Big Lie with ties to right-wing Christian extremists, also won the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Pennsylvania. These states will play a key role in the Republican Party’s plans to subvert and steal future presidential elections.

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As the battle for democracy escalates across the country, it remains critically important to not confuse the symptoms and the disease: Trumpism and the larger neofascist movement are the result of much deeper systemic, cultural and institutional problems in American society.

Some of these problems include white supremacy, racism, nativism, hostile sexism, misogyny, extreme wealth and income inequality, a culture of violence and cruelty and spectacle, anti-intellectualism, loneliness and social alienation, future shock, social dominance behavior, a corporate news media that prioritizes profits over truth-telling and being unapologetic advocates of democracy, a broken public school system, widespread mental pathology and other anti-social and anti-human behavior, religious extremism, a hollowed out social safety net, ailing social democracy, gangster capitalism, and many other crises including global climate disaster.

Most importantly, on a fundamental level, today’s Republican Party and larger “conservative” movement does not believe in democracy if it means that Black and brown people and other marginalized groups have the same say in society as white people.

Moreover, public opinion polls and other research have shown that many white Americans – especially Republicans and Trump followers – support authoritarianism and ending democracy if it means that “people like them” are not the dominant and most powerful group in American society.

When the Republican fascists and other members of the white right and “conservative” movement declare their love for King Trump or some other tyrant it is not hyperbole. These are deeply held beliefs.

These authoritarian and fascist desires are especially powerful among white right-wing Christian evangelicals who want to end secular multiracial society.

In such a political worldview, women’s reproductive rights and freedoms must be extinguished because sexual freedom is deemed to be a threat to their theocratic authoritarian view of society.

In an essay here at Salon, Amanda Marcotte explains more:

The romanticization of female death and pain is part of the larger right-wing Christian view of womanhood. Baked into their ideology is that women are put on Earth to suffer and sacrifice. Women exist only to serve the desires of others. Women shouldn’t have wants and needs outside of self-sacrifice, which is why anti-choicers tend to insist that women should be glad to die in childbirth or happy to give birth to a rapist’s child.

In a recent essay that merits being quoted at length, Umair Haque details how Christian nationalism is at its core a violent authoritarian anti-woman ideology:

In other words, this is a thinly, barely veiled form of fascism. It’s often called Christofascism, which may be a more accurate descriptor of it altogether. The central idea is that only some are fully deserving of personhood, and personhood yields power over the rest, because the pure and true are superhuman, while the rest are subhuman, undeserving, unworthy. Of what? Of everything that the true and pure decide. As we’ll see shortly, everything from basic freedoms to a modern society altogether. Ultimately, fascism in all its forms is about the pure and true having the power of life and death over the impure and faithless.

As we’re going to see, that is exactly what this movement wants for America — and to reduce Western democracy too, as well.

Haque continues:

Where else have we seen movements like this? In the Islamic world, of course. And the best analog for this movement and what it hopes to do modern democracies is the Taliban and ISIS. No, I’m not kidding, and I don’t think I’m really exaggerating, either. This is America’s Taliban — and it’s baying for blood, lusting for power.

Let’s take a simple parallel. The Taliban doesn’t let women have rights. What just happened in America? Women don’t have basic rights anymore. When Roe ended, it took with it women’s rights of movement, expression, association, privacy, speech, and more — all the basics. Women can now be hunted and jailed for “attempting to leave the state” for the wrong reasons, which means of course that their communications can be monitored, because how else would you know, which means that their rights to travel, speak, associate freely are gone. And it’s not just women — people of any kind can be punished for “aiding and abetting” women.

The results might be different, in ways — and on the surface, no, American women aren’t wearing veils. Yet. But the principle? And the politics? It’s exactly the same…

All that should sound a little, well, fascist to you. Because here it is. The separation of a society into people and subhumans, the former having the power of life and death over the latter. Any vaguely thoughtful person should be able to see with utterly chilling clarity how the end of Roe is all these things: a giant leap towards theocracy, executed for reasons of religion, which gives the faithful and true the power of life and death over a social group that they regard as impure and faithless. Women.

Democrats, progressives, liberals and others who believe in pluralist secular democracy must accept the reality that such irrational and fantastical beliefs cannot be debated or otherwise compromised with as part of “normal politics”. Christian fascists — like authoritarians more generally — must be totally defeated. Seeking consensus or otherwise negotiating with them is actually a form of surrender.

As the saying goes, “If your vote didn’t matter, they wouldn’t fight so hard to block it”.

That is true. However, voting by itself will not save American democracy and women’s civil and human rights or those of the American people more broadly. This is especially true when the Republican fascists and the larger white right and their movement have total disregard and disdain for real democracy.

As seen with the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, the LGBTQ rights movement, the labor movement and other freedom struggles, winning and protecting a true “we the people” democracy demands vigilance and a long-term commitment to such values across all areas of life.

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about anti-abortion Republicans

A never-before FBI raid on a former president who is like no other

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” Donald Trump raged Monday evening after FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida and broke open a safe, apparently looking for documents that Trump illegally took from the White House.  

To set the record straight. Trump is no longer president of the United States. He’s a normal citizen. He may believe he’s still president because he never conceded the 2020 election, but he lost that election. As a result, he is subject to the same search-and-seizure provisions, under court supervision, as is anyone else.

Trump may be correct that no former president has ever before been subject to an FBI search, but, then again, nothing like Trump has ever before happened to the United States. No former president has ever attempted a coup to remain in office.

Trump claims that the search of Mar-a-Lago was intended to stop him from running for president in 2024.

There is no way the search could stop him from running, unless, perhaps, the search turns up even more evidence that he participated in an “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States—in which case, pursuant to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress might move to disqualify him from running. But it’s far from clear that even such a congressional resolution would trigger Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

On the other hand, if a grand jury determines that Trump broke the law and decides to indict him, the Justice Department could take him to court, where a jury could decide he is guilty. The court conceivably could send him to prison. This would make it difficult, although not impossible, for him to run for or be re-elected president.

We don’t know yet what the FBI agents who searched Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago were looking for, but in January, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago that National Archives officials said should have been turned over when Trump left the White House. Evidently, more boxes were missing.

We also know that a federal grand jury in Washington has been gathering information about efforts by Trump, along with his lawyers and enablers, to try to use fake electors to block Joe Biden from formally becoming president after the 2020 election. As part of that investigation, authorities have begun examining Trump’s actions, seeking to discover what instructions he gave to subordinates, according to people familiar with the investigation.

In Monday night’s statement, Trump claimed that “such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.” If he was referring to the assault he instigated on January 6, 2021, against the United States Capitol, he is partly correct. Had that assault been successful, the United States could indeed have become a broken, Third-World country.

The search of his home, however, was done with a warrant and approved by a court. It occurred under the law.

But America might still become a broken, Third-World country, due to Trump’s and other Republicans’ continuing efforts to sow doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election. During a speech on Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Trump reiterated his claim that the 2020 election “was rigged and stolen and now our country is being systematically destroyed,” despite the fact that sixty federal judges, some appointed by Trump, concluded that the election was not rigged and stolen and that Trump’s own Department of Justice came to the same conclusion. Trump, however, has systematically tried to destroy our country.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban spoke at that same conference last Saturday. Orban has turned Hungary into a Third-World autocracy. This is what Trump wants for the United States. He and his Republican enablers are still at it.

We have only one bulwark against this menace. It is called the rule of law. Finally, it seems, on the basis of the search of Mar-a-Lago, that bulwark is being utilized.

The January 6 hearings were spectacular TV — but will they have any consequences for Trump?

There have now been nine televised hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. The main purpose of these hearings has been to publicly present evidence of former President Donald Trump’s culpability for the January 6 riot.

The mostly Democratic congressional committee, assisted by two of Trump’s fiercest Republican opponents, has made the hearings into a compellingly produced TV spectacle. The hearings drew an average of 13.1 million viewers across multiple networks, which is slightly more than the average viewership of the 2021 Major League Baseball World Series.

Surveys suggest this audience, like the committee itself, is overwhelmingly Democratic. They may have already been convinced of Trump’s responsibility for the January 6 riot, but 64% of Democrats say they have learned new information about the attacks from the hearings.

Some of the evidence presented in the hearings has been spectacular. Multiple video depositions from Trump allies and even family members showed how they tried to convince him the election was lost. This did not stop him from pressuring officials to overturn election results and trying to enact a bizarre and illegal plan to stall the vote count.

When Vice President Mike Pence refused Trump’s demands to halt the vote certification, rioters stormed the Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. They apparently believed Trump’s claims that day that Pence had the power to reject electoral college votes but “didn’t have the courage” to do it.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that, when Trump heard the “Hang Mike Pence” chant, he told aides that the vice president “deserves it“. Pence’s secret service staff were so worried by the mob incursion that some of them made goodbye calls to family members.

For more than three hours, Trump watched the riot unfold on Fox News while doing nothing to stop it. Trump made a video the next day to condemn violence, but refused to say “the election is over“.

Is there enough evidence to indict Trump?

Many Democrats argue the evidence against Trump is now so damning that the Justice Department should charge him with obstruction of justice and official proceedings, criminally defrauding the United States, and possibly seditious conspiracy.

While there are reports the Justice Department is investigating Trump, and that Trump’s lawyers are preparing defences against criminal charges, it is far from certain he will be charged. Apart from the difficulty of proving the case to a jury, Attorney-General Merrick Garland may be concerned that prosecuting the de facto leader of the Republican Party would politicise the Justice Department – in the same way Trump himself often did during his presidency.

But even if Trump again escapes legal consequences for his actions, he may still face political consequences. More independent voters than ever now hold him responsible for the January 6 riot. And members of Trump’s own party are weighing his viability.

Congressional Republicans have mostly boycotted the January 6 hearings and tried to cast doubt on their legitimacy. The majority of Republican voters remain convinced Trump did nothing wrong on January 6. This is bolstered by a widespread belief that Democrats stole the 2020 election, which would mean the January 6 rioters were not insurgents but patriots trying to protect their country.

But there are signs a constant focus on the 2020 election and its aftermath is hurting Trump with Republicans. Two recent polls have suggested about a third of Republicans don’t want Trump to run again in 2024. These are significant increases on previous polls.

A New York Times/Siena College poll of Republicans in July found only 49% would support Trump if the presidential primary were held now. He is still far ahead of his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is on 25%.

But Trump no longer commands the large majorities he used to have in these polls. DeSantis increasingly seems like a viable right-wing alternative to Trump, and two July polls have shown him ahead of Trump in their shared home state of Florida.

Politically, Trump may be a spent force

Trump has not been fading gradually since he left office. His standing with Republicans actually increased throughout 2021, leading many to worry that he would pay no penalty for his attempts to undermine democracy. In 2021, Trump loyalists seized hundreds of offices in state Republican organisations, creating the appearance of an “iron grip” on the party.

But there have been signs in 2022 that grip is not as strong as it looked. While many Republican candidates have sought Trump’s endorsement by declaring he won the 2020 election, Trump-backed candidates have had mixed fortunes in the Republican primaries.

Democrats have been so confident of the unelectability of some of these candidates they have actively supported them against stronger Republican moderates.

Before the January 6 hearings began, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger both won massive Republican primary victories, despite earning Trump’s continuing wrath for refusing to overturn the 2020 election result in their state.

Significantly, Trump also seems to be losing some of his most valuable media supporters in the wake of the January 6 hearings. The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post and Wall Street Journal both editorialised against Trump after the last televised hearing. The Post declared him “unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again”, and the Journal praised Mike Pence, a likely 2024 rival.

In late July, Murdoch’s Fox News opted to show a Pence speech live rather than a much anticipated Trump speech, continuing a recent pattern of ignoring Trump and giving airtime to his competitors.

As much as Republicans have derided the January 6 hearings, they are a reminder that nothing can unite and mobilise Democrats like Trump. Democrats and many others detested him as president; his attempts to overturn the 2020 election mean there is no chance they will develop nostalgia or even indifference towards him.

Joe Biden’s approval ratings are currently so low that even large numbers of Democrats are saying he also shouldn’t run again in 2024.

But they would still turn out to vote against Trump, as would a small but significant chunk of Americans who usually vote Republican, because they see him as a threat to democracy itself. This may be a factor in the electoral calculations of many Republicans who continue to appreciate Trump, but would prefer a different candidate.

Trump is not helping his own cause by insisting that Republicans should still be fighting to overturn the 2020 election result. As recently as July, Trump contacted the speaker of Wisconsin’s State Assembly, demanding he “take back” the state’s 2020 electoral votes after a court decision restricting absentee ballot boxes.

In Trump’s mind, this should be a central issue for Republicans, and it is the main subject of most of his speeches. Trump has made his endorsements contingent on it.

In March this year Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks, a loyal ally who had spoken alongside Trump at the January 6 rally, told Republicans they should move on from 2020 and look ahead to the 2022 and 2024 elections. Trump responded by accusing Brooks of going “woke” and rescinding his endorsement. Brooks subsequently lost his primary race.

Trump would still be the heavy favourite if Republican primaries were held tomorrow. And he may announce his candidacy far sooner than anyone else, in the belief this will help shelter him from prosecution for his role in the January 6 riots. But the January 6 hearings, and continuing Republican unease about Trump’s endless relitigation of 2020, have increased the chances he will face a genuinely competitive primary race in 2024. His opponents would not be “never-Trump” pariahs, but Trump supporters who believe they can carry his agenda further than he can.

 

David Smith, Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

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

“I already bought my ammo”: MAGA extremists call for violence after FBI raids Trump

The far-right in the United States responded ominously to the FBI’s Monday night search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida mansion, with Republican lawmakers and television personalities baselessly accusing the Biden administration of weaponizing the Justice Department and popular as well as anonymous social media users beating the drums of a civil war.

“Lock and load,” says the top comment related to the Mar-a-Lago search on patriots.win—a pro-Trump comment forum that emerged after Reddit banned the r/The_Donald group of nearly 800,000 for repeatedly posting racist and misogynistic content in violation of its rules against harassment and targeting.

When one user asks, “Are we not in a cold civil war at this point?” another suggests that violence is imminent, with “authentic pain” coming soon.

According to NBC News reporter Ben Collins, the content shared on pro-Trump forums Monday night was arguably even more violent than what was posted in the lead-up to the deadly January 6, 2021 attack.

As he did before last year’s insurrection at the Capitol, Trump only has “to ask us,” notes one commenter. Another writes: “None of this demonstrating in the snow shit. Summertime was made for killing fields.”

It wasn’t just anonymous posters threatening to mow down their perceived political enemies. For instance, highly influential reactionary Steven Crowder tweeted, “Tomorrow is war,” followed less than 12 hours later by, “Today is war.” The NRA also leapt at the opportunity to boost gun sales.

Fox News hosts and guests, meanwhile, quickly disparaged the Mar-a-Lago search as a “partisan witch hunt,” “dark day for our republic,” “preemptive coup,” “Third World bullshit,” and the work of the “Gestapo” and “Stasi,” as documented by Media Matters for America.

It wasn’t just anonymous posters threatening to mow down their perceived political enemies. For instance, highly influential reactionary Steven Crowder tweeted, “Tomorrow is war,” followed less than 12 hours later by, “Today is war.” The NRA also leapt at the opportunity to boost gun sales.

Fox News hosts and guests, meanwhile, quickly disparaged the Mar-a-Lago search as a “partisan witch hunt,” “dark day for our republic,” “preemptive coup,” “Third World bullshit,” and the work of the “Gestapo” and “Stasi,” as documented by Media Matters for America.

The right-wing outrage machine was adopting talking points that Trump laid out in a statement portraying himself as the victim of “prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the justice system, and an attack by radical left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for president.”

“Such an assault could only take place in broken, third world countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those countries, corrupt at a level not seen before,” said Trump. “The lawlessness, political persecution, and witch hunt must be exposed and stopped.”

As The Washington Post reported Tuesday:

We don’t yet know much about what was in the search warrant used to raid Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago on Monday. We do know that the raid concerned the removal of classified documents from the White House and that, according to Trump, agents raided his safe.

But we also quickly found out that a lot of influential people are rather uninterested in any of that, reflexively shouting “witch hunt” and baselessly blaming President [Joe] Biden for the raid in a way that bodes very poorly for whatever comes next in this process. Trump has marshaled his army of supporters to declare, in knee-jerk fashion, any legal scrutiny of him a deep-state operation.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., endorsed Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that the Biden White House is “using government power to persecute political opponents,” calling it “something we have seen many times” from authoritarian regimes in impoverished nations “but never before in America.” The House Judiciary Committee’s Republicans, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, echoed that message.

During an appearance on Fox News, Jordan demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray—a Trump appointee—answer the GOP’s questions about Monday night’s search at Mar-a-Lago.

As Media Matters senior fellow Matthew Gertz explained, the Justice Department is not yet able to provide details given the ongoing nature of investigations into Trump’s attempt to overthrow the U.S. government and other possible crimes, so the ex-president and his allies are “filling that vacuum” with baseless allegations of political malfeasance.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement that “when Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned,” telling Garland: “Preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”

Despite the fact that Garland hasn’t yet publicly responded to the GOP’s planned inquiry, McCarthy concluded that “the Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization” while Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel declared that “Democrats continually weaponize the bureaucracy against Republicans.”

As the Post noted: “That’s a lot of firm conclusions based on not much at all. But it’s the fruit of years of Trump claiming persecution.”

The newspaper continued:

This investigation hardly comes out of nowhere: Trump’s handling of government documents has long been a focal point. The Washington Post reported as far back as February on Trump’s “relentless document destruction habits.” A couple of days later, the National Archives confirmed that it had retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago—including records marked as “classified” and even “top secret”—that should have been turned over, and then asked the Justice Department to investigate, which it clearly has.

The question from there is whether this is a matter that merits a search warrant. That the Justice Department would go this route would seem to suggest it sees something potentially incriminating beyond merely shoddy record-keeping and document retention. The department knows this decision will be harshly scrutinized; going down this path only for its destination to be a minor finding, ending in a slap on the wrist, isn’t worth the blowback it’ll get from 40% to 45% of the country.

Ironically, the Post added, Trump’s supporters were “once quite consumed with the import of document security by would-be presidential candidates—and quite happy to promote the idea that their preferred candidate ought to ‘lock’ such an opponent ‘up.'”

Trump relentlessly attacked his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton over her private email server during the 2016 presidential campaign. Right-wing media outlets and members of Congress who condemned Clinton had much less to say when it was revealed that Trump unlawfully took documents to Mar-a-Lago.

Trump also tried to use his power as president to harm his political rivals, repeatedly asking Ukraine’s president to investigate Hunter Biden. And although Clinton’s home wasn’t searched, the FBI did conduct a public probe of her use of a private email server in 2016—possibly contributing to her failure to win the White House that year.

Expert: Here’s how the FBI knew what to search for at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

The FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, on Aug. 8, 2022, has sparked a vigorous outcry from Trump and his allies. The details of the search are not clear, but reporting by The New York Times confirms that the search was “at least in part” for presidential records that Trump had taken from the White House and which were being sought by the National Archives and Records Administration. We asked Shannon Bow O’Brien, a scholar of the presidency at the University of Texas, Austin College of Liberal Arts, to discuss the history, law and customs associated with presidential archives.

How do the archivists actually know what’s missing? Isn’t that hard to figure out?

The archivists probably have a really keen idea of what is and what isn’t missing, based upon things that they’ve gotten out of other offices, like the vice president’s office and things that got deposited from the secretary of state, for example. There are a lot of papers that are referenced and cross-referenced, multiple copies or multiple things going in and out of offices.

One scholar did a study of the presidents’ annual Christmas speech at the Ellipse in Washington. He looked at how the speeches – from the Roosevelt administration to the present – developed, and it was kind of a ring-around-the-rosy inside the West Wing and within the departments – what went in, what went out, what went in, what went out. Who won and who didn’t win. Everybody left their marks on the speeches. All of those changes and requests appear in documents, and if part of the conversation is missing from the National Archives, it’s obvious.

We know from other presidents’ records that really comprehensive records are kept via daily manifests of what the presidents are doing. And while I am not a historian, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the other departments and agencies likewise have daily manifests of their top officials. So if they know that someone at an agency sent something over to the White House that was this or that, and it came back from the White House with this or that, then there should be a document somewhere that’s got something from the White House on it – and if you’re missing that, that’s a problem.

Will the public find out what was in these documents, given that they are classified?

We’ll be lucky to know if, and when, the documents get declassified. We might get some hints of what is there if Trump does get indicted for a crime related to removing the documents or based on something found in them. We’ll possibly find out what grade of classification the documents had – they get different levels based on the level of seriousness.

What’s the law that governs what happens to a president’s documents?

It’s the Presidential Records Act. It came about originally because these guys, the presidents, were just kind of doing whatever the heck they wanted with their records. Hoover donates his; FDR doesn’t.

The act, first passed in 1978, says administrations have to retain “any documentary materials relating to the political activities of the President or members of the President’s staff, but only if such activities relate to or have a direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.”

An administration is allowed to exclude personal records that are purely private or don’t have an effect on the duties of a president. All public events are included, such as quick comments on the South Lawn, short exchanges with reporters and all public speeches, radio addresses and even public telephone calls to astronauts in space. Diaries and journals are off limits, but any papers to carry out the job are public records.

Have there been other controversies over presidential records?

There’s one that poses an essential question: What value can you place on history? In 1998, the Nixon estate felt his records had a monetary value of over US$200 million and sued the government, which had seized the records, for what they believed their value amounted to.

There’s a two-decade background to the case. After he left the presidency, Nixon brokered a deal with the General Services Administration about the retention of his records, but when knowledge of it became public, there was considerable outcry. A large amount of material was to be withheld from public view, and there was concern the depth of Nixon’s true involvement in Watergate would be obscured.

Congress responded and in 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act to specifically apply to Nixon’s presidential materials. It gave the archivists the power to seize materials from Nixon’s time in the White House and return those deemed private.

Nixon immediately sued over who possessed his records. While he had already been pardoned when it was enacted, Nixon was concerned about his reputation and legacy. He wanted control over what the public saw about his time in office. One of the major issues in front of the court involved the disposition of documents he believed were private. Given the scandal associated with his resignation, should these documents be inspected by archivists for veracity?

More important, did the government have the right to seize presidential documents?

In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court rejected all of Nixon’s arguments. They said his privacy rights were still intact because the archivists were not making things immediately public but inspecting them and retaining public items while returning family ones. The court noted the “unblemished record of the archivists for discretion.”

In 2000, the lawsuit was settled over the Nixon records, with the bulk of the settlement money going to pay attorney fees. Some observers were unhappy, because these documents should have already been considered public, but the decision was likely made to finally close this chapter on American history. In 2007, the Nixon library in California became public and integrated into National Archives.

 

This story includes parts of an article originally published on Feb. 11, 2022.

Shannon Bow O’Brien, Associate Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts

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

Could a polio epidemic really happen again? Outbreaks in New York state raise alarm

During the mid-twentieth century, the polio epidemic was so severe in the United States that tens of thousands of people were crippled by it every year. Once virologist Dr. Jonas Salk created a successful vaccine in 1955, however, those numbers began to plummet. Since 1979, there has not been a single case of wild poliovirus that has originated in the United States. (Some wild poliovirus cases have been brought to the United States from other countries.) Even today, polio cases of any kind in this country are strikingly rare.

Yet a new crop of polio cases in New York state suggests that polio outbreaks are no longer as rare as they once were in the United States. 

A federal team of scientists has been sent to New York by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate what appears to be a string of polio cases in the state. It began in Rockland County, where a once-healthy young adult saw their legs become paralyzed after developing the first case of polio seen here in almost a decade. That patient is believed to have received polio from an oral vaccine, the type of which are not administered in the United States any longer but are still used outside the country. The oral vaccine uses a live weakened version of the poliovirus.

Related

What the polio case in New York tells us about the end of polio

News of a polio outbreak in the United States is unprecedented given the near-eradicated state of the disease. Polio vaccines are a standard complement of vaccines issued in the American health care system; most children in the U.S. are given four vaccines for polio between birth and age 6, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC states that “Almost all children (99 out of 100)” who are given these recommended vaccines will be protected from the polio virus.

Since the outbreak in New York state, experts have also tested wastewater in New York’s Rockland County and its neighbor, Orange County. To their consternation, the scientists found three wastewater samples that tested positive for polio — as well as four others that were genetically linked to the previously confirmed case. Because a majority of people with polio do not develop any symptoms and many polio patients merely develop flu-like symptoms rather than paralysis, this suggests that there could be other infected individuals who simply do not know that they are infected.

Given how uncommon polio is nowadays, the polio outbreak in New York comes off as particularly foreboding. Indeed, the flurry of anti-vaccination conspiracy theories that were prominent in the past two decades have spurred millions of Americans to avoid vaccinating their children or selves due to misinformation. The specter of vaccine misinformation looms over any outbreak of a near-eradicated disease. 

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Yet given how prominent polio vaccination is, could an epidemic really spread beyond a small region such as these two New York counties? Notably, polio vaccination rates in Rockland and Orange County are 60.34% and 58.68%, respectively. That ranks them at the very bottom: among New York’s 62 counties, only one, Yates County, had a lower polio vaccination rate. 

In other words, the polio outbreak very well could be related to anti-vaccination attitudes in rural Rockland County. Indeed, in addition to the possibility that the Rockland County patient contracted polio because he took an oral vaccine, Rockland County has a large Hasidic Jewish community that has sometimes harbored anti-vaccination sentiments. As The Times of Israel writes, a “fierce backlash against vaccination” exists in certain Orthodox communities, “fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and following a measles outbreak in Rockland County in 2018 and 2019 that was centered in the area’s Haredi Orthodox population.”

“The risk of polio spread is limited to those who have not received the polio vaccine,” Dr. Russell Medford, Chairman of the Center for Global Health Innovation, told Salon by email. “According to the CDC, in the US, almost 93% of children are vaccinated by age [two].”

Back in 2018 and 2019, a group of Hasidic Rabbis in that county experienced a measles outbreak linked to anti-vaccine tendencies in their community that precluded herd immunity; measles is preventable through vaccines. Rockland County’s political leadership alluded to this last month.

“Our people defeated measles, and I’m sure we’ll eliminate the latest health concern as well,” County Executive Ed Daly told a news conference on July 21.

If you are concerned that these polio outbreaks could lead to a larger pandemic, health experts assure that if you received your polio vaccine in the United States, you’re almost certainly safe.

“The risk of polio spread is limited to those who have not received the polio vaccine,” Dr. Russell Medford, Chairman of the Center for Global Health Innovation, told Salon by email. “According to the CDC, in the US, almost 93% of children are vaccinated by age [two].”

Dr. Al Sommer, dean emeritus and professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, expressed a similar view.

“It can certainly spread – infecting someone without causing illness, but being excreted by them and therefore ‘passed along,'” Sommer told Salon by email. “But it would be rare for anyone vaccinated to become clinically affected even if they encountered the virus.”

It is also worth noting that the polio vaccine is considered to confer durable immunity, meaning that it lasts for a long time with just the initial inoculation. This puts them in contrast with COVID-19 vaccines, which are still overwhelmingly effective but require more regular shots to keep up with new strains. This type of immunity is called transient immunity; influenza is an example of another virus for which infection or vaccination only confers transient, or short-term, immunity. 

As Dr. Monica Gandhi, infectious disease doctor and professor of medicine at the University of California–San Francisco told Salon, there are two types of poliovirus vaccines, both of which work very well and provide durable immunity. “Both types of vaccine confer long-lasting immunity against the development of disease,” Gandhi said.

That said, as Sommer noted, there is still reason for some caution.

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“There can always be an outbreak if the virus is prevalent within a largely unvaccinated community,” Sommer explained. “But, since most Americans have been fully vaccinated in the past, it has little chance of getting beyond the unvaccinated community or causing anything like COVID in the US. Given the nature of the polio virus (and its several variants), and the efficacy of polio vaccine (live and killed versions), we should not expect any epidemic or pandemic remotely like the COVID pandemic.”

“Based on earlier polio outbreaks, New Yorkers should know that for every one case of paralytic polio observed, there may be hundreds of other people infected.”

If another large outbreak did occur, it could be devastating. During the mid-20th century polio outbreak in the United States, tens of thousands of people were paralyzed until Dr. Jonas Salk released his polio vaccine in 1955. Even after that, however, those thousands of people lived with the ramifications of the disease for the rest of their lives — and helped pioneer the disability rights movement in the process.

This lingering memory perhaps explains why public health officials are also warning of the potential for a larger epidemic.

“Based on earlier polio outbreaks, New Yorkers should know that for every one case of paralytic polio observed, there may be hundreds of other people infected,” State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett explained in a statement.

Bassett added, “Coupled with the latest wastewater findings, the Department is treating the single case of polio as just the tip of the iceberg of much greater potential spread. As we learn more, what we do know is clear: the danger of polio is present in New York today.”

The CDC reassured the public that it is doing its best to stay on top of the potential pandemic.

“CDC continues to collaborate with the New York State Department of Health to investigate their recent polio case, including ongoing testing of wastewater samples to monitor for poliovirus and deploying a small team to New York to assist on the ground with the investigation and vaccination efforts,” a CDC spokesperson told reporters on Sunday.

It is noteworthy that the sample from the infected Rockland County patient shows genetic similarity to samples found in wastewater in Jerusalem and London, Israeli and British cities respectively. This hints that the poliovirus in question did not originate in the United States, although it is not certain.

The news also raises awareness of one of the common criticisms made about the Albert Sabin vaccine, which, though usually effective, can in rare cases produce a virus that mutates, regains its virulence and cause symptomatic polio infections. Most of the world’s current polio cases were caused by this vaccine, and in particular by a process which leads to the virus mutating into its more dangerous form while passing through a patient’s gut.

This type of poliovirus, known as Type 2, paralyzes as few as 1 in 1,000 of the people who get it. Many others will only display symptoms like diarrhea and a runny nose and conclude that they are sick with something more innocuous.

Read more

on polio