If Donald Trump were Black, he’d be in jail already

If Donald Trump were Black, he’d be doing about four in the box by now. If Donald Trump were Black and poor, he’d probably be booked for the rest of his remaining years. But he’s not. Trump is very white, very privileged, and therefore very free.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not an advocate for jail. I strongly believe the system doesn’t work. I’ve had both family members and close friends spend long amounts of time incarcerated — decades, even — and none left felling reformed, refreshed, inspired and ready to contribute to society in the most positive way possible. Some were 100% innocent and lost time. A few others were fortunate enough to change their lives for the better despite the system’s ills. But many of these relatives and friends ended up back behind the wall almost as soon as they made it out, hindered by little to no opportunity. The fact is going to jail is extremely easy in America, a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. It’s so easy to go to jail here — unless you are Donald Trump, of course.

I can’t believe I pay taxes for this

Honestly, I’m at a loss for answers on why Trump has been protected for so long. Is he just lucky? Did the Founding Fathers hide a get out of jail free clause in the Constitution? Is racism or stupidity on the part of the people who operate the criminal justice system to blame, or is it a fear that his hair will incite a prison riot?

We know about Trump’s sexual assault allegations. We know how Trump tried to disrupt the 2020 election to throw the results in his favor. We know about the dozens of FEC complaints lodged against him for campaign finance violations. We know he destroyed presidential records. We know in his January 6 speech he told a mob of angry MAGA protestors to march to the Capitol, and fueled by his words, they beat up police officers and broke into the building in hopes of finding public officials and disrupting the certification of the Electoral College votes. They were looking for the vice president, chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” We know Trump verbally approved of that sentiment. (That’s not conspiracy?)

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” Trump said at a campaign event back in 2016. “It’s, like, incredible.” He should have added, “Not only would I not lose voters, but I probably wouldn’t even be prosecuted.”

I’m a USA-born citizen just like Donald J. Trump; however, it is so easy for me to be arrested, prosecuted and go to jail. I literally just have to go outside and I could be arrested. I remember stopping to see a friend who lived in Perkins Housing Projects in east Baltimore after a basketball game. About 40 of us were laughing and joking and enjoying our day when amped-up police officers pulled up with squad cars and cheese buses, jumped out like cowboys and locked up every Black dude in sight. Our charge was literally being outside while Black.

“You don’t have to lock me up,” I told the cop with a buzz cut as he shoved me into the cheese bus by the back of my neck. “I’m not even from Perkins. I don’t even be around here!”

Jon Bernthal embedded with Baltimore police to play city’s dirtiest cop in HBO’s “We Own This City”

We were arrested and detained over the weekend because the mayor at the time was launching an outdoor festival near the projects and I’m guessing he didn’t want us Black guys scaring away white patrons at the funnel cake booth. This happened in 2005, not 1962. None of us were charged with anything real, and we didn’t have to go to court. But unlike Trump, we all had to sit in a cell. And it was very easy for us to end up there.

As a teen, I saw a guy named Otis clotheslined by a police officer whose forearm knocked him about six feet up in the air before he came crashing down and cracked his back on the curb, just for riding his bike on the sidewalk. Otis didn’t even get a warning, and that was his first and last time in a jail cell.

How are we still being arrested for nothing while people like Trump can get away with anything in front of everybody and brag about it?

Earlier this year, my childhood friend Paul spent a weekend in jail because a disgruntled person he was dating told a commissioner that he was a violent burglar. (I didn’t even know people still use the word burglar.) Paul had been to prison back in the day, but never for anything dealing with theft at all. Normally, your record matters in these kinds of situations, but Paul is Black, so I guess no one bothered to check. Police officers did not catch him on video, did not retrieve any stolen items from his car, on his person or apartment after they checked. Nor did they present any credible evidence against him. But Paul was still arrested. The case has now been thrown out.

How are we still being arrested for nothing while people like Trump can get away with anything in front of everybody and brag about it, then continue to live a sweet and happy life? How?

All of this becomes even more blatant after watching the sentencing of insurrectionist Trump supporter Mark Ponder, who is Black, for his role in January 6. Ponder was the idiot caught on camera striking a Capitol Police officer with a red, white and blue pole. He got 63 months in federal prison. I am not interested in defending Ponder, nor any of the MAGA insurrectionists, but isn’t it strange that out of 850 people arrested, a Black guy gets one of the longest sentences?

Meanwhile, Trump is still free.

Following the revelations of Trump’s role and reaction to the insurrection in the January 6 hearings and other reports makes me feel like Trump will never be held accountable for anything. This is disheartening for several reasons. As a Black man, I obviously know that I live in a different America. Countless life experiences, the police brutality I’ve endured, the history of racists controlling the power structures that make up this country, and the limitless studies on how people who look like me are treated have made me well aware of the ways in which this society functions. I can honestly say that I don’t expect equality. But it’s 2022. How much longer will we struggle to treat Black people fairly, and punish people who clearly deserve it?

Salon commentary on January 6:

The Jan. 6 committee has done its job — time for Merrick Garland to do his

The House Jan. 6 committee’s public hearings have been devastating for Donald Trump. Over the course of six weeks, the committee has presented in damning detail a comprehensive case that Trump and others within his orbit likely violated federal and state laws as they schemed to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, including by knowingly sending a violent mob to the Capitol.

While the committee is still to release its final report and now plans further hearings, it has already provided Attorney General Merrick Garland, as well as state and local prosecutors like Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, with more than enough evidence to initiate criminal probes into the former president and to charge him with multiple crimes.

Jan. 6 hearings: A national civics lesson on the dangers of fascism

Much of the committee’s case was well known even before the hearings began, but much of it was not. We learned that then-Attorney General Bill Barr, Trump campaign chair Bill Stepien and others repeatedly told Trump that he had lost and that the various allegations of fraud were nonsense. We now know that legal adviser John Eastman and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows both knew that the scheme they were pursuing violated the law, with Eastman even requesting a pardon. We know just how close the mob came to Vice President Pence and the real danger to his life and those of his security detail, and that Trump’s allies were in close contact with the extremist groups leading up to and on Jan. 6 who may well have intended to kill the vice president and other leaders.

We know that Trump planned and fully intended to lead his supporters to the Capitol personally, and we know that he reacted furiously when the Secret Service prevented him from doing so. We know that far more of Trump’s supporters than previously thought came to the rally armed, and we know that Trump was made aware of this fact and then dismissed it because, as he said, “They’re not here to hurt me.” We know that instead of calling the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security or Justice Department to summon resources to protect the Capitol on Jan. 6, he called members of Congress instead, encouraging them to continue to obstruct the electoral count. And we now know that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone warned Trump and others that they might face criminal liability as the mob descended on the Capitol.

The evidence is overwhelming. But Trump’s criminal conduct isn’t just in the past. Within the last few weeks, Trump likely engaged in witness tampering when he and his allies attempted to contact multiple witnesses who were cooperating with the House committee to encourage them to “be a team player” and “continue to stay in good graces in Trump World.” These are serious allegations that could result in criminal charges.

Trump is also reportedly contemplating announcing another run for the presidency in the coming months, and more than a hundred candidates who falsely assert that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump will be on the ballot this fall. The chance of a repeat of the Jan. 6 insurrection, or worse, is all too real if Trump and others are not held accountable for their attempts to overturn an election.

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Although the House committee cannot initiate or take on criminal prosecutions, it can refer them to the Department of Justice for investigation. Given the overwhelming evidence that the committee has amassed and shared with the public, it must.

A non-prosecution decision, after months of hearings filled with shocking evidence of criminality, would demonstrate that Donald Trump is above the law — and would be a potentially lethal blow to American democracy.

The failure to prosecute a former political figure who flagrantly violated the law in order to stay in power would only embolden future autocrats to attempt even more audacious schemes, or to plan better so their schemes work next time. Indeed, that’s already happening, as Trump supporters seek to change laws in many states to make it easier for political leaders to override the people’s votes and to put loyalists in place to do it. If the powerful believe they are above the law, they will eventually stop relinquishing power.

A non-prosecution decision now, after months of hearings filled with shocking evidence of criminality, would be the final demonstration that, in fact, Donald Trump is above the law. And it would be a potentially lethal blow to American democracy.

It is hard to think of a moment in our nation’s history when the sitting attorney general has been forced to make such a historically important decision. Attorney General Garland has done much to restore the integrity of the DOJ, but this decision will define his legacy.

The Jan. 6 committee has established, in no uncertain terms, compelling and near-conclusive evidence that President Trump and a raft of co-conspirators committed federal and state crimes. They produced first-hand witness testimony from the most senior members of Trump’s Cabinet and White House, accompanied by documentary video and primary source records, that the co-conspirators corruptly planned and executed a scheme to keep Trump in power. In short, the House select committee did its job. Now it’s time for Garland and the Justice Department to do theirs.

about the Jan. 6 investigation

How the Supreme Court’s “fauxriginalists” are warping the Constitution

Maybe you’ve seen the editorial cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon that depicts Lady Justice being held down and muzzled by well-dressed thugs from the GOP.

It was drawn in response to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, during which Republican senators were working hard to brush away the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford about Kavanaugh’s character (or lack thereof), but the instantly classic cartoon can easily stand apart from the specific circumstances of its creation — Lady Justice being assaulted by white male members of the Republican Party.

In a recent interview with Ezra Klein for his podcast, legal scholar Larry Kramer discusses how liberals, after a series of progressive decisions by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, began to rely too much on the courts and too little on politics, while the right methodically mounted a political counterrevolution, one that included redeployment of the judicial review philosophy known as “originalism.”

Seven days in June: A coup more effective than Donald Trump’s

Constitutional textualists — who formerly claimed to be wedded to the letter of the law — became originalists (or was it the other way around?), delving beneath the text itself for deeper meanings, sometimes in search of the founders’ intent and sometimes to ascertain (as they claimed) how the text would have been understood by reasonable people at the time it was written. People, say, like the town blacksmith or the chandler chasing a chicken in the street, who would likely have given little thought to, say, the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, even in terms of the big issues of their time.

The truth is that so-called modern originalists or textualists, like the late Justice Antonin Scalia or his intellectual heirs Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, also feel free to roam much farther afield than that, seeking justifications for their favored interpretation in English common law and philosophy.

As utilized by the so-called conservatives on the current court, textualism and originalism have become ways to muzzle the voice of the Constitution and keep it from rising from its draped featherbed to address the pressing issues of our own time (when, you know, our beds are often ordered online because we heard about them on a podcast).

But is the use of the term “originalism” by Scalia and his acolytes itself actually disingenuous?

That’s the argument of Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, who suggests that a true originalist approach to interpreting the Constitution would not provide conservative results, because the document is, on the whole, remarkably progressive. Instead, Fernandes says, judicial conservatives distorting the meaning of the Constitution by practicing fauxriginalism:

[P]rogressives have not been fighting originalism; we have been fighting fauxriginalism. Fauxriginalism distorts the meaning of the Constitution, often by focusing selectively on some parts of the document, rather than by looking at the text, history, and values of the whole Constitution. Conservatives like to claim that originalism leads them to conservative results, but that’s because they too often give a cramped meaning to the Constitution’s text and ignore the constitutional history and values that help elucidate what that text means. In truth, conservatives have been a bit like the kid in our grade school class who delivered a book report, but who had only read the first chapters of the book — and didn’t even read them that carefully.

I’m reminded that we used to joke about something we called the “scholarly bluff,” where you regurgitate a quote from a recognizable (but perhaps not too recognizable) name to end an argument. We laughed about it because it was so simple — and so effective. Your quote might not actually support your argument, and you might not even have gotten it right. But people tended to back down in the face of such seeming erudition.

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Given that the overtly anti-federalist Federalist Society was itself disingenuously named, it figures that it would get behind a disingenuous form of originalism. In a recent column for the Nation, Elie Mystal writes that the nature of conservative justices began to change after 1992, when fundamentalist Christians were deeply disappointed by the Planned Parenthood of Southern Pennsylvania v. Casey ruling:

The principal difference between conservative justices then and conservative justices now is that the conservatives of 30 years ago were practical. They didn’t like abortions, but they understood that no society in history had successfully prevented them. They understood that criminalizing doctors who can perform the procedures safely only leads to unsafe, unregulated procedures. They understood that pregnant people will seek control over their own bodies, whether or not the state or the courts or the church acknowledges their bodily autonomy.

But such practical-minded conservative justices were replaced by shameless political ideologues and, more recently, by religious zealots — indoctrinated, vetted and even prepped for perjury by the Federalist Society.

Mystal likens the extremists on the current court to an invasive species that was purposely introduced into a local ecosystem to address some specific problem, but then ran amok. Now that they have thoroughly devoured Roe v. Wade, they’re eager to turn their attention to other prey, such as the separation of church and state. Mystal says affirmative action is next.

The only solution, he writes, is for Democrats to meet the challenge by changing the nature of the court. “After 1992, Republicans engineered a new breed of conservative justice. The rest of us must create a new kind of Supreme Court before it’s too late.”

On Klein’s podcast, Kramer notes a few ways the court could be changed to reduce the effect of the ideology of individual justices. He also asserts that the Constitution is a progressive document, something liberals should be talking up a great deal more in the face of the ever more constrained view from the right.

As used by so-called conservatives, “textualism” and “originalism” are tools to muzzle the Constitution’s true voice, and prevent it from addressing the issues of our time.

How progressive is it really? According to scholar Garry Wills, the Establishment Clause alone was a defining miracle of the U.S. Constitution. As James Madison wrote in his “Memorial and Remonstrance” statement on church and state, disestablishment both protected the free expression of religion and protected all citizens from the use of “Religion as an engine of Civil policy.” In a letter to Madison, Thomas Jefferson argued that as the earth belongs to the living, any constitution (not just ours) was a living document, something that needed to be updated frequently as society evolved.

As for the ideological and religious warriors on the current court (who would make Madison shudder), do yourself a favor and listen to the entire podcast. Two quotes from Kramer stood out for me: “If the founding generation had been originalists, we wouldn’t be here,” and “The only way you can be an originalist is to be a really, really bad historian.”

Unless you believe, that is, that the Constitution is indeed a progressive document and that a truly originalist interpretation demands an expansive view of the founding principles of the framework. As Kramer says, conservatives should never have been allowed to occupy the Constitution and claim it as their totem, the same way they have done for so long with the flag and the concept of patriotism. Supporters of the ongoing Big Lie about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection cannot claim patriotism; those who are fine with the Confederate flag being paraded through the Capitol cannot claim allegiance to our nation’s actual flag.

It’s all been an endless con, since the days of Ronald Reagan, in service to giving more to the wealthy and big corporations while dividing the citizens from one another, mostly over culture-war issues the powerful don’t much care about. (Americans used to be proud to mind their own business.)

Now the idea is to “flood the zone” with nonsense in order to keep the public from noticing our nation’s astonishing levels of income inequality, to dumb children down further, to install permanent minority rule and to shut down the American experiment once and for all.

As both Mystal and Kramer note, we need to work toward a new kind of Supreme Court, one less dominated by political ideology and religious dogma. That won’t be easy, but if we don’t, MacKinnon’s tragic vision of Lady Liberty will be all too accurate — with the dire human costs afflicting many generations to come.

about the Supreme Court’s power grab

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s backing of Christian nationalism goes beyond threatening

Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia set off yet another controversy when, during a Saturday, July 23 interview conducted at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Florida, she proudly described herself as a “Christian nationalist” and urged the Republican Party to openly embrace an ideology of “Christian nationalism.” One of the people who is calling Greene out is Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) and the main organizer for Christians Against Christian Nationalism.

Greene told Taylor Hanson of the right-wing Next News Network, “We need to be the party of nationalism, and I’m a Christian. And I say it proudly: We should be Christian nationalists. When Republicans learn to represent most of the people that vote for them, then we will be the party that continues to grow without having to chase down certain identities or chase down certain segments of people.”

In an op-ed published by CNN’s website on July 28, Tyler lays out some reasons why she finds Greene’s “Christian nationalist” talk incredibly dangerous.

“For years, I have been closely tracking Christian nationalism and sounding the alarm about it,” Hanson explains. “Greene’s recent comments mark an alarming shift in the public conversation about Christian nationalism. Until recently, the public figures who most embrace Christian nationalism in their rhetoric and policies have either denied its existence or claimed that those of us who are calling it out are engaging in name-calling. But Greene is evidently reading from a different script now, explicitly embracing the identity as her own and urging others to join her.”

Tyler continues, “She is not alone in doing so. Greene’s embrace of Christian nationalism follows closely after troubling remarks from Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert: ‘The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church,’ she said at a church two days before her primary election and victory in late June. ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.'”

Tyler describes Christian nationalism as “a political ideology and cultural framework that merges Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s promise of religious freedom.”

“Though not new, Christian nationalism has been exploited in recent years by politicians like former President Donald Trump to further an ‘us vs. them’ mentality and send a message that only Christians can be ‘real’ Americans,” Tyler observes. “Growing support for Christian nationalism comes at a time when the political ideology behind it poses increasingly urgent threats to American democracy and to religious freedom. Perhaps the most chilling example of Christian nationalism came on the most public of world stages, from some Trump supporters during the January 6 insurrection.”

On February 9, BJC published a disturbing report that details the role Christian nationalism played in the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

“I care about dismantling Christian nationalism both because I’m a practicing Christian and because I’m a patriotic American,” Tyler writes. “And no, those identities are not the same. As Christians, we can’t allow Greene, Boebert or Trump to distort our faith without a fight.”

Watch Greene’s July 23 interview with Next News Network below:

Reporter @TaylerUSA and @RepMTG sat down for an exclusive interview.

They talked about God, Child Drag Shows, January 6th, and the lack of courage in the GOP. pic.twitter.com/1apZJOb2cB

— Next News Network 🇺🇲 (@NextNewsNetwork) July 24, 2022

Report highlights predatory evictions during pandemic

Four large corporate landlords filed nearly 15,000 eviction actions in the first 16 months of the pandemic, with some executives and property managers engaging in harassment and deception of their tenants and deliberately inflicting cruelty on people who had been unable to pay their rent.

The U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released a new report Thursday following a yearlong investigation into the eviction practices of Pretium Partners, Invitation Homes, Ventron Management, and the Siegel Group, all of which were thriving financially when the committee began examining its practices.

Pretium was investing in a major expansion when the committee, led by Chair James Clyburn (D-S.C.), launched its investigation in July 2021, while Invitation was reporting record profits and both Siegel and Ventron had received more than $2 million in Paycheck Protection Program funds, which they were not required to pay back.

Despite their financial well-being, publicly available data at the time showed that the four companies had filed a combined 5,413 eviction cases between March 2020 and July 2021—a total that was dwarfed by the number the committee uncovered when it analyzed more than 50,000 pages of documents and held numerous meetings with company representatives.

The committee began its investigation following reports that corporate landlords were not complying with a federal eviction moratorium put in place during the pandemic and with rental assistance programs.

“As countless Americans acted admirably to support their communities during the coronavirus crisis, the four landlord companies investigated by the select subcommittee evicted aggressively to pad their profits,” said Clyburn as the panel revealed that the true number of evictions by the companies was three times higher than previously known.

“While the abusive eviction practices documented in this report would be condemnable under any circumstances, they are unconscionable during a once-in-a-century economic and public health crisis,” Clyburn added. “Rather than working with cost-burdened tenants, abiding by applicable eviction moratoriums, and accepting federal rental assistance, these companies—with properties across 28 states—expedited evictions above all else.”

The report detailed numerous abusive practices by the companies as they sought to force tenants out of their homes during the public health crisis, which sent the unemployment rate skyrocketing in March 2020 and left millions of people struggling to afford rent and other necessities.

The investigation’s findings included:

Executives’ attempts to “bluff” tenants out of their apartments by posting in buildings a court order saying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lacked authority to impose the eviction moratorium, but leaving out the fact that the moratorium was still in effect while the case was appealed;
An executive’s directive that a property manager bring the court order to a tenant “after 5pm” on a Friday “so the courts and constable office are closed and she cannot call to verify anything” and so the company could “see if she vacates over the weekend”;
A property manager’s message to executives that he “love[d] getting to say that this means the eviction may happen sooner than expected and seeing the look on their faces”; and
An executive’s attempt to “get rid of” a tenant whose rent was past due without obtaining an eviction order by ordering a property manager to call Child Protective Services to complain about them—an action that would have violated Texas criminal law prohibiting false child abuse reports.

“In some instances,” said Clyburn, “the select subcommittee found that their abuses may have violated the law.”

Chair @WhipClyburn has referred the report’s findings on Siegel’s abuses to appropriate federal and state government agencies for further investigation and potential enforcement action.https://t.co/ylAAd1ZnpY

— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis (@COVIDOversight) July 28, 2022

The committee called on federal agencies and Congress to require states and localities to provide direct-to-tenant assistance to renters with landlords who refuse to cooperate with rental assistance programs; support state and local rental assistance infrastructure; and prioritize investigating deceptive or abusive business practices used to expedite evictions.

Peter Hepburn, a research fellow with Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, told NPR that the committee’s report likely only reveals the “tip of the iceberg” and that abuses by corporate landlords could be rampant across the country.

“These firms are buying up a lot of housing, and they’re particularly buying up housing in places that have relatively weak tenant protections, places where eviction is easier, faster and cheaper,” Hepburn said. “And I don’t think that that is coincidental.”

Trump Jr. video rants against respecting people with disabilities

Donald Trump, Jr. lashed out a Vice President Kamala Harris in a video released on Thursday.

“Well guys, just when you thought you couldn’t make up the stupidity,” the real estate heir began, “that you couldn’t get any worse, I give you the veep.”

He then played a video of the vice president introducing herself at a roundtable discussion on the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit,” Harris said.

“This pronoun thing is taking up real-time, creating a real drain,” Trump, Jr. said. “And that’s what happens when you’re entire focus is like, diversity, equity, inclusion, and critical race theory rather than like, I don’t know, rather than inflation, rather than jobs, rather than energy criseses (sic).”

“Providing a visual description has become a standard courtesy to assist blind people. But 32 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we’ve reached the point where conservatives not only openly mock people with disabilities but also mock people who acknowledge the existence of people with disabilities,” Garcia explained. “Conservative senators such as Bob Dole and Orrin Hatch and patrician Republicans such as Lowell Weicker and former President George H.W. Bush saw advancing the rights of people with disabilities as the next frontier of freedom, but they’re long gone. Donald Trump, the last Republican president, was perhaps the most actively ableist president of the last 40 years, reportedly going so far as to ask White House staff not to include wounded veterans in military parades because “nobody wants to see that.” Trump also bungled the response to a pandemic that hit people with disabilities even harder, causing an untold number to needlessly die.”

Watch here.

“Jeopardy!” sticks with basic flavors: Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik named co-hosts

Sandwiched between either Ken Jennings or Mayim Bialik as the new permanent host of “Jeopardy!” – which is basically the equivalent of agonizing over whether to put Miracle Whip or mayonnaise on your lunchtime hero – Sony Pictures Television made the safest choice possible.

It’s slathering on both.

“The fact is, we have so many healthy, basic turkey sammies to churn out, and so many plans for the future, that we always knew we would need multiple condiments that taste almost the same, but not quite, to maintain our longstanding flavor profile,” executive producer Michael Davies definitely did not say in a statement posted on Wednesday on the show’s official website.

However, Davies did point out in that release that since September 2021, when Jennings joined Bialik in co-hosting “Jeopardy!,” its year-over-year viewership has climbed substantially. That’s nearly a given. Like any other longstanding institution, Jeopardy!” relies on stability. That’s part of the brand, catering to a devoted audience that views the show as a dependable oasis of intellectual civility.

Jennings, a legendary contestant and official “Jeopardy!” GOAT, provides that. From the moment he stepped in to temporarily fill the void left by the late great Alex Trebek, who died in November 2020, his selection as the show’s permanent host seemed all but inevitable. His seven-week hosting run in the wake of Trebek’s death went well, and he’s a familiar respected presence among longtime viewers.

A new “Jeopardy!” poll asks who should be host. Why are there only two options?

But Jennings also represents the latest in a line of white guys holding court on “Jeopardy!” and other trivia game shows, a streak Trebek himself hoped producers would break. Sony and Davies likely view naming Bialik as the show’s co-host as a sufficient show of progress, since the legend expressed he would like be succeeded by a woman. He also specified he would have liked a person of color to take of his post, naming CNN legal analyst Laura Coates as the person at the top of its list.

Apparently Sony and the executive producers of “Jeopardy!” ignored that as entirely as it pretended that the fan campaign to hire LeVar Burton as its new host didn’t exist. Instead, like that infamous David Brooks brain dump about sandwich elitism, it assumed that its audience would freeze up when confronted by the host equivalents of “soppressata, capocollo and a striata baguette.”

By the time Bialik stepped behind the podium in August of last year, however, the trivia institution was recovering from a highly publicized blunder of its own making.

Following the show’s much-ballyhooed rotation of celebrity hosts who ostensibly were auditioning, it announced its own (and now former) executive producer Mike Richards had scored the job.

Like any other longstanding institution, Jeopardy!” relies on stability.

When the public reacted with about the same level of enthusiasm that greeted McDonald’s introduction of The McHotDog – another real thing you either forgot about or never heard of – Sony had to know it was in an uphill battle.

But even Brooks’ unnamed friend who was intimidated by foreign lunch meat names settled on Mexican food. After feigning an unofficial contest featuring a rotation of celebrity hosts, including Bialik, Sony revealed it was sticking with what it already had in its pantry: a moldy Wonder Bread loaf named Mike Richards, who was already the show’s executive producer.

The producing studio overlooked the stains Richards had on his record, including several gender discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits filed by models who worked for him when he was the executive producer of “The Price Is Right.”

Once his old podcast “The Randumb Show” surfaced and was revealed to be a veritable hoagie of racism, sexism, and antisemitism passing off as jokes, Richards was wiped from the podium and eventually fired from “Jeopardy!”

Fortunately, Bialik was already in place as Richards’ co-host, leaving them to turn to Jennings, long rumored to be the second choice for the job all along. Neither Jennings’ nor Bialik’s public reputations are entirely unblemished, mind you. Jennings has several controversial tweets he’s had to either apologize for or downplay, and Bialik, who has a PhD in neuroscience, has previously expressed doubts about the safety of vaccinations and hormonal birth control.

“We are just so grateful that Mayim and Ken stepped in and stepped up to put the show in a position to succeed. And succeed it has,” Davies said, adding that more than 27 million viewers have been tuning in each week this season.

“We’re the most-watched entertainment show on all of television,” he claimed. “Yes, all of television.”

In September Jennings kicks off the season’s hosting duties, who will also host the show’s first Second Chance competition and another Tournament of Champions featuring past winners Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, Mattea Roach, Ryan Long, and others.

For those craving that tangy zip spiked with a touch of corn syrup, the statement explains, producers are offering bites of Bialik by way of ABC’s “Celebrity Jeopardy!” on primetime. Jennings hosts through December before Bialik takes over Original Flavor “Jeopardy!” in January, after which she’ll host a couple of new tournaments and the “Jeopardy! National College Championship.”

Davies expresses the hope in his statement that Bialik will host “as many weeks as she can manage with her other primetime commitment to ‘Call Me Kat,'” her Fox primetime sitcom.

“We know you value consistency, so we will not flip flop the hosts constantly and will keep you informed about the hosting schedule,” the statement reads.

So rest, “Jeopardy!” bingers. There’s no need to fear that your weeknight brain snack will be changing things up with left-field flavors like aioli or pesto or, heaven forbid, some type of reduction that your snooty pal will try to explain to you, nose upturned

It’s sticking with all-purpose utilitarian sauces, thereby ensuring your favorite quiz show that was once distinguished by a gentleman who was both elegant and pleasing to all palates, will keep sliding through the system in as unchallenging a manner as possible.

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Father of JonBenét Ramsey is pushing for new DNA testing

John Ramsey, father of murdered 6-year-old girl, JonBenét Ramsey, is seeking help from the state of Colorado in order to independently test DNA from the 1996 case, which has not yet been officially classified as a cold case. And if Colorado stands in the way of such testing, Ramsey is threatening legal action.

In anticipation of the possibility that Colorado may ignore his request, Ramsey is readying a petition for his daughter's case DNA to be released by Colorado and, to-date, he's collected over 16,000 signatures, according to a report by Fox News.

In a statement given to Fox News Digital on Wednesday, Ramsey commented on his plans for legal action should Colorado work against him saying "There was a case in Florida that I read about a couple years ago, and the family did exactly that and were successful. The judge said, 'Okay, you guys aren't calling this a cold case, and it's a cold case. Let's turn over the evidence and move on,' . . . "And that's our next step if we don't see any progress."

Gabby Petito's parents are suing the Laundrie family

With no moves made on the case in 25-years, Ramsey hopes that new developments in investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) research can get him closer to one day finding the person, or persons, responsible for the death of his daughter.

"It's had remarkable success," Ramsey said of IGG research in a quote to Fox News. "That's what they should be doing."

There's some back and forth as to the exact moment of JonBenét's murder, as it wasn't reported by her mother, Patsy Ramsey, until the morning of December 26, but the date on her grave lists December 25, 1996 and it's widely believed that she was killed shortly after the family returned home after attending a Christmas party that evening. According to the known timeline of events gathered from police interviews, Mrs. Ramsey woke up on the morning of December 26 and found a two-and-a-half page handwritten ransom note on the interior back stairs of their home asking for $118,000.00 in exchange for their daughter. That requested sum initially caused police to suspect the Ramsey's in the killing of their own daughter as it was the exact amount of Mr. Ramsey's Christmas bonus that year, and the note appeared to be in Mrs. Ramsey's handwriting, but they were both ultimately cleared. Shortly after the note was found, Mrs. Ramsey phoned police and when they arrived the body of JonBenét was found inside of the home.

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Burke Ramsey, JonBenét's older brother, has also been suspected of having something to do with her murder, but he has also been cleared. In 2016 he was interviewed by Dr. Phil and maintained that he didn't kill his sister, and doesn't know who did, although he has theories.

"It was probably some pedophile in the pageant audience," Burke said during his 2016 interview. The image of JonBenét, as most know it, is that of a baby beauty queen, a competitive hobby encouraged by her mother, who died of ovarian cancer in 2006 and was herself a former pageant girl.

Several people have made false confessions to the murder of JonBenét, and in 2006 a man named John M. Karr was arrested, but all leads eventually turned out to be baseless.

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A stronger social safety net could reduce the number of conspiracy theorists, researchers say

When future historians tell the story of the United States in the early twenty-first century, surely they will observe the widening political rift among left and right. Yet they may also come to view the past two decades of American political history as defined by the increasing prevalence of conspiracy theories.

Surely, conspiracy theories aren’t new to human civilization. In fact, they date back to the Ancient Roman era. But what experts widely agree on is that conspiracy theories today are more dangerous and more widespread — in part thanks to their ability to spread online.

‘Q’ delivers first new messages since 2020

Take QAnon, for example, a conspiracy theory based on the idea that a global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles secretly rules the world. QAnon encompasses a great deal of smaller and equally baseless conspiracy theories; one of them, known as #SaveTheChildren, dates back to Pizzagate — a completely false theory that emerged in 2016, claiming that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, her former campaign manager, operated a child sexual abuse ring.

That someone earnestly might believe in such a thing might seem absurd to most people. After all, years since it emerged, there is still no evidence of any child sex-trafficking ring, nor evidence of the other misinformation the conspiracy theory has generated. Yet, as Salon has previously reported, QAnon has ripped apart marriages, families and friendships. And QAnon is merely one recent example of a prominent conspiracy theory, as plenty of others related to vaccines particularly have lingered during the pandemic.

What makes someone susceptible to believing in a conspiracy theory, particularly a patently absurd one like QAnon? It’s a question researchers and psychologists have been earnestly trying to answer.

Now, according to a new paper published in the scientific journal PNAS, one major driver of conspiratorial beliefs may actually be stress.

In the paper, the authors argue that stress amplifies dichotomous thinking, also known as “black-and-white thinking.” Something is either right or wrong; black or white; good or bad, with no room for nuance. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines dichotomous thinking as “the tendency to think in terms of polar opposites — that is, in terms of the best and worst — without accepting the possibilities that lie between these two extremes.” While this kind of thinking is often used to characterize people with depression, the authors suspect it could lead to what drives people in believing in conspiracy theories, too.

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“Stress-boosted dichotomous thinking may thus well be a fundamental driver of belief rigidity,” the authors wrote. “This helps to clarify the importance of empathetic listening and relationships, but the dominant role of stress also fits the observation that conspiracy theories tend to originate in times of uncertainty and crisis — and that the same is true for mental disorders.”

The authors suspect that “dichotomous thinking will be more prevalent in societies where people are stressed and poorly educated.”

“A resulting rise in pathological beliefs, conspiracy thinking, and social prejudices may, in turn, hamper societal thriving, thus implying the potential for a self-reinforcing feedback toward societal failure,” the authors explained.

Chronic stress can affect the body in a variety of ways, and even increase one’s risk for hypertension, heart attack, or stroke. While there are many well-understood physiological effects of stress, the psychological ones are not as well understood. Researchers have suspected that extreme stress can affect one’s mental health, kill brain cells, and affect one’s memory and reactions.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a clinical psychologist and author of “Joy From Fear,” told Salon that when people are under chronic stress, the body tends to go in a “threat response mode.”

“When we’re in a threat response mode, the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that is involved with higher reasoning, is not as active,” Manly said. “So we are far more likely to be susceptible to irrational beliefs, to emotional dysregulation to certain conspiracy theories that, in a non-stressful time, we may be far less likely to entertain.”

Stressors that can determine a person’s resilience can stem from a person’s home environment. While that can be stress related to a partner or children, Manly said, it can also be a consequence of society and the lack of social services affecting the home.

“The home environment itself — and again, that includes everything from mental health status, to finances to health care resources — if we are stressed at home, we are far less likely to be able to sustain the stressors in the outside world,” Manly said.

Rachel Bernstein, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and host of the Indoctrination Podcast, who works with people in cult recovery, told Salon she does believe the stresses of society contribute to conspiratorial thinking.

“Many of the people I speak with who have gotten involved in conspiratorial thinking approach most things the same way, with a need for absolute assurance and for things to be seen as right and wrong, good or bad, for people to be seen as trustworthy or absolutely not,” Bernstein said via email. “There is very little tolerance for things that operate in the gray, yet most things do, so conspiratorial thinkers have a hard time being a part of society for that reason.”

The authors of the PNAS paper suggest an interesting solution: improving basic social services to ease societal stress, which could effectively decrease conspiratorial thinking in society.

Living through political unrest, financial insecurity, and a deadly pandemic has opened the doors for conspiracy theories to serve as a place for people to feel safer and receive definitive explanations to their problems, and the world’s problems.

“Given an assurance of safety through the illusion that you have accessed the answers and the truth has a calming effect, and many people who left those communities said they felt safe for the first time and that the world made sense,” Bernstein said. “And they valued and relied upon the fact that they had a sense of connectedness and community sometimes for the first time in their lives and it was especially important during the physical separation and isolation brought on by the pandemic.”

The authors of the PNAS paper suggest an interesting solution: improving basic social services to ease societal stress, which could effectively decrease conspiratorial thinking in society.

“The evidence we presented suggests that the prevalence of rigid beliefs may perhaps best be mitigated by strengthening educational systems and addressing inequity and the related problems of poverty, conflict, food insecurity, and social cleavage,”the authors state. “Put bluntly, measures such as a universal base income might go a surprisingly long way in reducing the resilience of harmful beliefs.”

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Quentin Tarantino: “The Hunger Games” “ripped off” “Battle Royale”

Watch any movie from Quentin Tarantino, from “Pulp Fiction” to “Kill Bill” to “Inglourious Basterds” and beyond, and it’s clear this guy loves movies. At their heart, his movies are all basically tributes to other movies, and he has very strong opinions about his favorites.

He voiced one of those opinions on a recent episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” when Dana Carvey was filling in as the host. “I’m a big fan of the Japanese movie ‘Battle Royale,’ which is what ‘Hunger Games’ was based on,” Tarantino said. “Well, ‘Hunger Games’ just ripped it off. That would have been awesome to have directed ‘Battle Royale.'”

If you’re unaware, “Battle Royale” is a 2000 movie (based on a 1999 novel by Koushun Takami) about a cruel government that ships a bunch of kids off to an island and forces them to fight until only one remains. It does indeed sound a lot like “The Hunger Games,” the 2008 sci-fi book by Suzanne Collins. Oh sure, there are differences — “Battle Royale” is set in a world that’s a little more recognizably our own, whereas “The Hunger Games” is set in a dystopian future. Plus “Battle Royale” is lot more hardcore when it comes to violence, sex and all that stuff. But the central conceit of “kids fight to the death” is there. It’s also just a pretty cool movie if you haven’t seen it.

Is “The Hunger Games” a ripoff of “Battle Royale”?

So is Tarantino right? Did “The Hunger Games” rip off “Battle Royale”? This is hardly the first time the suggestion has been made, and Collins has maintained that there was no connection. “I had never heard of that book or that author until my book was turned in,” she’s said of the original novel.

I’m inclined to believe her. It’s not hard to imagine two different authors coming up with the idea of a government forcing a bunch of kids to fight each other. It’s disturbing; writers love stuff like that. Still, we may be hearing more about this now that “The Hunger Games” has a prequel movie on the way:

6 removable wallpaper mistakes I’ll never make again

My powder room was begging for an accent wall. I spent hours looking for the perfect removable wallpaper online and landed upon a utterly charming pattern: little owls perched on branches. When the day came to hang the wallpaper, I carefully measured; lined up the patterning; and used one of those wallpaper smoothing tools to get all the bubbles out. It turned out lovely and I went to bed thinking about how beautiful the bathroom looked.

The next morning, I sleepily came downstairs to make breakfast, and realized in horror that the wallpaper had not just fallen right off, it was sticking to itself. Later that day, I managed to repeat the entire process and hung it once again, only to have it fall off hours later. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.

After some research, I realized that the fault didn’t lie with my wallpapering skills. The problem was that I had textured walls in my house, and guess what? Removable wallpaper and textured walls don’t get along.

Since then, I’ve had to ditch my dreams of wallpapered walls, since removable wallpaper pretty much never works on a sand finish. I’ve turned to paint instead, but I still daydream about pretty patterns splashed across them.

While removable wallpaper may not be in the cards for me, others shouldn’t be denied the pure joy of a palmyra leaf-covered wall. Yes, removable wallpaper does require a bit of skill — beyond knowing whether it’ll stick to a textured finish or not — but there are ways to keep frustration at bay.

If you’d like to avoid making mistakes and achieve a smooth, beautiful result with your removable wallpaper, read on for tips from a pro — Elizabeth Rees, founder of beloved wallpaper brand Chasing Paper.

What not to do:

Mistake #1: Skipping samples

If you can source samples of removable wallpaper before ordering it, do it, especially if the wallpaper is on the expensive side.

“While you may love how a pattern or color looks on a screen, it can be difficult to assess how it will look in your space and at different times of day, depending on your lighting,” Rees explains. “We recommend ordering a variety of samples, sticking them on your wall, and seeing how the light reflects and changes throughout the day before making your final order.”

Mistake #2: Trying to wallpaper textured walls

Yes, I wish I would have known this before my removable wallpaper heartbreak. Rees plainly says that textured walls don’t play well with removable wallpaper, adding, “Typically, textured walls make it difficult for peel-and-stick wallpaper to stick properly.”

Mistake #3: Wallpapering a freshly painted wall

“Paint needs time to fully cure, so make sure that your wallpaper installation timeline is at least four weeks after a wall is freshly painted,” Rees advises. “Walls should ideally be primed with a premium eggshell, satin, or semi-gloss paint. Matte finishes can be a bit trickier, as the adhesive can bond and pull off the paint.”

Mistake #4: Not ordering enough

Whether you’re ordering removable or regular wallpaper, Rees can’t emphasize enough how important it is to measure carefully.

“Measure twice, order once!” she says. “We recommend ordering 10-15% in overage. This will come in handy for tricky spots or if you choose a more complicated pattern. If you end up needing more later, the color could arrive slightly off from your original order because it’s not printed in the same batch.”

Mistake #5: Rushing installation

Repeat after me: I will not squeeze in wallpapering when I’m pressed for time. You might want to take advantage of your free hour or two during a busy weekend, but this is not the way to approach removable wallpaper.

Rees says, “The key is to go slowly. Choose one side of the room to begin, and start by peeling off the back of just the top of the panel to make it more manageable. Slowly peel more of the backing off as you go. If you peel too much off initially, the wallpaper may stick together, which can be very frustrating.”

Mistake #6: Overworking the panel

What does this mean exactly? It means that you should be delicate when installing removable wallpaper, taking care not to pull it too hard or be too aggressive with it.

“Go gently with the installation, so as to not overwork the panel. Overpulling can cause the panel to stretch or lose strength in the adhesive backing, so the seam doesn’t adhere properly,” Rees notes.

. . . and the do’s

Rees also shares her do’s when it comes to hanging removable wallpaper. Here’s what she says:

Wipe down the walls at least a few days ahead of time to allow for the walls to be clean and dry.
To make installation a bit easier, mark the walls lightly with a pencil at the bottom where a wallpaper panel will end, to ensure that all the panels are installed evenly. For instance, if you choose to use two-by-four-foot wallpaper panels, take a measuring tape and measure four feet down from the ceiling; mark the wall lightly. Repeat again at the eight-foot mark, and so on.
For any tricky spots, such as light plates or angled walls, use a ruler and an X-Acto knife to cut out the holes or angles.
To finish, smooth out the wallpaper with your hands or with a straight object like a smoothing tool or ruler. If you still have an air bubble, just prick it with a small pin to release the air.

Scientists think COVID-19 originated at a Wuhan “wet market.” Here’s what that means

Last year, Peter Daszak, a member of a World Health Organization (WHO) investigative team that looked into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, told NPR that he believed the outbreak most likely began at a southern Chinese wildlife farm. Now, a recent research article in Science Magazine has confirmed a long-suspected theory — more specifically, that “the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trade in China.” Specifically, researchers show that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China was the “epicenter” of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning where the virus crossed over from animal to human.

Globalization, poverty and the exotic pet trade often send humans to natural places where they have interaction with wildlife that humans might not encounter otherwise, increasing the risk of zoonotic disease — meaning transmitted from animal to human. And curiously, the Huanan market wasn’t the first of its kind to help spur a pandemic.

To more effectively illustrate exactly which types of wet markets pose a threat, Lin suggested people think of them in terms of “a nested progression of risk.”

“The least risky markets are those selling only dead and domesticated animals (very low chance of pandemics emanating from here),” Lin told Salon.

“I was not surprised that COVID-19 originated in an animal market,” Stanley Perlman, MD, Ph.D., a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa told Salon by email. “SARS began in a similar market. Animals carry many viruses that can cross species to infect humans and markets provide an easy way for transmission to occur. The Science study is really elegant and makes a lab leak as the source for the virus much less likely.”

Indeed, Perlman and other researchers typically see markets like these as likely originators of future pandemics that could again encircle the Earth. By their very nature, wet markets in which merchants do not take proper hygiene precautions are tailored to produce zoonotic diseases.

As these types of live-animal markets are uncommon in the United States — depending on how strict your definition is, there are thought to be just a few hundred in the U.S. — it’s natural to ask what these markets are like, just how many of them there are, and if they’re all truly risk sources for zoonotic disease.

Experts with whom Salon spoke emphasized that there is tremendous variation in what wet markets look like, and that by some definitions, even American farmer’s markets would qualify. However, some present a far greater risk of spreading zoonotic disease than others.

President Biden has COVID-19 — but experts say it’s unlikely to be a bad case. Here’s why

Bing Lin, a third-year Ph.D. student under Dr. David Wilcove in the Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy at Princeton University, urged against castigating all wet markets. Many, he says, are safer in terms of the risk for zoonotic disease transmission.

“It’s hard to give a quantitative estimate, but if you’re referring to wet markets as those selling ‘consumption-oriented, perishable goods in a non-supermarket setting,’ they remain the predominant source of food for millions of people in East and Southeast Asia, Africa (more commonly referred to as public markets there), and even in Europe and the US (farmer’s markets),” Lin explained. “Most importantly, wet markets aren’t created equal and are differentiable based on whether live and wild animals are sold alongside produce and dead/domesticated animals.”

“On the other end of the spectrum, there are wet markets selling live and wild animals, which have very high zoonotic transmission risk. But these constitute a vast minority of wet markets.”

To more effectively illustrate exactly which types of wet markets pose a threat, Lin suggested people think of them in terms of “a nested progression of risk.”

“The least risky markets are those selling only dead and domesticated animals (very low chance of pandemics emanating from here),” Lin told Salon. “This is also what most wet markets are like. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are wet markets selling live and wild animals, which have very high zoonotic transmission risk. But these constitute a vast minority of wet markets.”

When it comes to pandemics with a zoonotic origin, Lin observed, scientists and others with an eye toward the public welfare have been issuing warnings for a long time.

“Scientists (e.g., Peter Daszak of the Eco-Health alliance) and prescient members of the public (e.g. Bill Gates and David Quammen) have been predicting a pandemic outbreak for decades,” Lin explained. “SARS in 2003 was a big wake up call for many, so it really was not a surprise. Also, there have been many zoonotic diseases that have arisen from the most dangerous types of wet markets, including severe acute respiratory syndrome [SARS], Ebola Virus Disease, monkeypox, Nipah virus, and now COVID-19.”

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Speaking to NPR last year, Daszak elaborated on exactly what types of wet markets should be avoided — and these are very different from the vast majority of wet markets from which people derive food.

“They take exotic animals, like civets, porcupines, pangolins, raccoon dogs and bamboo rats, and they breed them in captivity,” Daszak, who works for EcoHealth Alliance as a disease ecologist, had explained.

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Those handmade whisk brooms you love? You can DIY them

Can You Dig It is a new monthly series by Kristin Guy in which a real-life garden DIY is tackled with real style. Whether you’ve got an expansive outdoor plot or just a few houseplants, Kristin will inspire you to grow even more with easy-to-tackle projects and horticultural know-how.

Confession time: I love brooms. Specifically, tiny handmade brooms. In fact, if you peeped into my greenhouse, you’d find not one, but four handcrafted brooms hanging on my workbench. There’s something special about the care and detail spent on an object most find utilitarian. I like to think of it as an extension of my horticultural work — a beautiful object that plays an important part of my routine, and turns an ordinary act (in this case, cleaning) into an extraordinary celebration of completion.

Perhaps I just love tools in general. After all, accouterments are the most important part of the creative process . . . right? So, what better way to celebrate these objects than to learn how they are made.

First things first, what are brooms even made from? Turns out “broomcorn” is a thing — in fact, a type of millet (Sorghum bicolor for my fellow latin-loving plant friends). When I first learned that, my nerdy garden brain immediately wanted to figure out how to grow it myself. Side note: You can, and apparently pretty easily. Luckily for us, this ready-to-use material is also widely available at most craft outlets, so there’s no seed-sowing or harvesting required. All it then takes is a quick DIY to turn it into a beautiful, and very useful, garden broom.

For our foray into broom-making, we’re keeping things simple by looking to one of my favorite gardening go-tos for inspiration: the whisk broom. It’s the perfect petite broom to tackle any house-plant potting spills, seed-starting soil drops, or even just to dust corners and cobwebs. Simple yet stylish, I encourage you to make this duster your own by experimenting with different color combinations of twine and bristles. You can make it as minimalist or as eclectic as you want.

Photo by Kristin Guy

Broomcorn’s natural texture also gives you the opportunity to create two looks within one fiber bundle, depending on which end you use for your bristles (one end is straight and tidy while the other is more rustic and raw). For this DIY, we’re making the most of our materials, and whipping up two styles of whisk brooms: one for sweeping away finer material, and the other for heftier tasks. Two brooms for the price of one, you say? Yep — that’s my kind of DIY.

Once you’ve mastered this simple whisk broom, consider learning some more decorative techniques like the Hawk Tail, Hens Wing..or even the Twisted Turkey. I am not making these names up people! There’s an incredible world of fiber arts out there ready for you to discover.

DIY Whisk Broom

Makes: Two 9-Inch Hand Brooms

MATERIALS:

20″ Craft broomcorn (natural and dyed available)
Wax coated hemp twine (swap: nylon twine, coated wire, leather, basket reed)
Scissors
Garden Shears
Large Tapestry Needle
Leather Cord (swap: twine, ribbon, wire)

DIRECTIONS:

Note: Broomcorn is available by the pound, for each of these smaller hand brooms we’re using approx 1/4 pound (one large handful) but you can adjust thickness to suit your needs.

Step 1: Bundle a large handful of broomcorn in your fist, making sure that the flat cut ends are flush.

Step 2: Cut the bundle in half and set aside one portion for your second broom.

Step 3: Holding your 10-inch bundle, create a clove hitch knot to secure twine before winding the handle.

Step 4: Tuck the starting end of your twine inside broomcorn before winding the rest of your twine to keep it from tangling.

Step 5: Wind twine around the broomcorn bunch several times to achieve desired thickness, tightness is key as it can loosen over time. If you think it’s tight enough, go back and make it even tighter (trust me).

Step 6: Thread the end of your twine back through the underside of your wrapped handle, pulling the end all the way to the top, double knotting with your starting end.

Step 7: Tuck knot underneath twine wrapping to further secure in place.

Step 8: If wrapping more than one color for your handle, repeat steps above for each row of colored twine.

Step 9: Once you’ve completed your handle, trim the top of the broom handle with sharp garden shears, and clean up the bottom of the broom to your desired shape using scissors.

Step 10: Repeat steps 1-9 for the second broom, using your other half of the broomcorn bundle.

Step 11: To add a handle for hanging, knot one end of the leather cord and pull through one side of the twine handle weaving.

Step 12: Loop cord to its desired length over the top end of the broom and then thread once more down through the opposite side of the handle wrapping underneath the twine.

Step 13: Secure the end with an additional knot . . . and we’re done!

This post contains products independently chosen (and loved) by Food52 editors and writers. Food52 earns an affiliate commission on qualifying purchases of the products we link to.

Memorize this handy trick to get red wine out of clothes

On a recent Friday night, I ventured to a BYOB restaurant for dinner with a group. After waiting in line for 30 minutes to place our orders, we sat at a picnic table and started to uncork the bottles of wine we’d brought. I was pretty jazzed about my 2017 Les Heretiques, a natural, French Carignan, so I carefully poured healthy servings into flimsy plastic cups and set the open bottle down in the middle of the table. I took a sip and was delighted to find the red table wine was just to my taste — tannic, medium-bodied, and full of dark fruit.

My cup quivered ominously.

Soon after, our plates of jerk chicken, plantains, rice, and beans arrived before us. Just as I finished my first bite, a friend of a friend reached for her own bottle and in the span of a second, collided with my bottle of wine, which knocked over my cup of wine, both of which drenched my food and my outfit. For a moment, I was speechless and distraught by my sudden trifecta of loss. Gone were my wine, my food, and my jeans.

This friend of a friend did help me get a new entrée, though due to dim lighting, no one could tell that my favorite dark grey jeans had acquired a large purple stain. Nor could they detect the significant splatter on my beloved, medium-wash blue jean jacket.

According to California Winery, La Crema, red wine contains chromogens, the primary substance in colorful plants — also responsible for pigments in many natural dyes. Oh, and the tannins in red wine are also used in ink production. Combine red wine (basically a bottle of dye molecules) plus the porous nature of fabric, and your dinner table is poised and waiting to make your prized white shirt an experiment in tie-dye. Sigh.

I anxiously endured the rest of the evening, unable to immediately treat my stained clothing. When I finally got home, I took my mom’s advice and poured my regular detergent on the stains and let it soak in overnight. My mom warned me against trying to rub in the detergent, which she explained might actually remove the color of the jeans themselves. In the morning, I threw the soiled pieces in the washing machine and put on a cool cycle. After a harrowing 50 minutes, I returned to the laundry room to check on my dear items. I breathed a sigh of relief when, after scrutiny, I didn’t detect any remaining stains.

Later that night, I joined a group of friends for a beach bonfire, another BYOB endeavor. Not having sufficiently learned my lesson (and too stubborn to drink white wine, which I like less than red), I brought an organic, Chilean petit verdot. I nearly survived the evening unscathed, but managed to drizzle a few drops onto the ankle of my stonewash jeans before I left.

When I got home, I repeated my routine from the previous night and the next day my jeans exited the washer in pristine condition.

While I’ve had lots of luck with plain detergent, depending on how long the stain has been set, it might have varying degrees of success. Here are some of the more popular solutions to removing red wine stains from around the Internet:

La Crema warns not to rub, wait too long, or apply heat to the red wine stain. Use dry material to draw the stain out (like table salt or baking soda), and follow by applying boiling water and blotting out.
Submerge the wine stain in milk for a few minutes, as it has absorption properties, and rinse the fabric clean with water.
Club soda is the most classic of all methods, which is likely made better by the addition of vinegar to the solution, since both liquids absorb and break up the wine molecules.
“Oxi” variety stain treatments and detergents work especially well on already-dried stains that the above methods might not help. Most of these products contain sodium percarbonate, which when combined with water, breaks down into bubbling hydrogen peroxide. Apply it to the stain, let it sit for 20 minutes to an hour, blot, and rinse clean.
Three-parts hydrogen peroxide and one-part dishwashing liquid are a DIY “oxi” cleaner, just follow the above steps for the store-bought kind.

While I’d like to think I can avoid future red wine spills, I know I’m just one glass away from another stain — but at least now, I know the secret to salvaging my jeans.

Documentary investigation found cancer-linked weedkiller Roundup virtually “everywhere”

Early one winter morning, as Brian Lilla was riding his bike through Napa, California’s hills and meadows, he spotted farmworkers driving ATVs through rows of vines. They hauled huge canisters of the weedkiller Roundup. As the workers sprayed vines, a chemical smell shot through the air.

Having moved to Napa from Oakland nine years ago with his wife to start a family in the seemingly healthy environs of the country, Lilla found himself paying more attention to the use of Roundup after his daughters, now 8 and 5, were born. One day, he recalled, he saw the herbicide sprayed in a vineyard across the street from his daughters’ school.

Meanwhile, the herbicide and its maker, Monsanto, kept making the news.

The active ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate, and glyphosate weedkillers are the most widely used herbicides in the world. In 2015, the World Health Organization released a bombshell report on glyphosate, concluding it is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” By 2018, in the first federal lawsuit against Roundup’s maker, Monsanto (acquired that same year by Bayer AG), a jury awarded a Bay Area groundskeeper who contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma $289 million (reduced by a judge to $78 million). A flood of lawsuits from farmers, farm workers and others followed.

In Children of the Vine, the 54-year-old documentary filmmaker explores the use of glyphosate from the time Roundup hit the market in the 1970s to Monsanto’s creation of “Roundup Ready” genetically modified seeds in the 1990s to its present legal woes and shattered public trust. But even now, with at least 20 countries having banned or limited the use of the herbicide, Lilla was shocked to find out how ubiquitous the chemical is in our daily lives, and how trace amounts of glyphosate appears even in certified organic foods and wine (which by definition are grown without pesticides or herbicides).

The documentary is something of a departure for Lilla, who started making films over 20 years ago on subjects like surfing and skateboarding. His most ambitious project, 2011’s Patagonia Rising, documented a project to build five hydroelectric dams on two of the world’s most pristine rivers. The film’s influence on Chile’s subsequent decision not to build the dams encouraged Lilla to seek out ways his work could make an impact.

Children of the Vine‘ won’t be available to stream, Lilla said, for several months, but will first screen in community and academic settings that allow for discussion. (It most recently aired in Sebastopol, a town in western Sonoma County.)

Lilla discussed what he learned making Children of the Vine and why Bayer’s announcement that it will halt glyphosate sales for home use in 2023 will do little to mitigate its use where it counts most — in agriculture.

The conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Capital & Main: Taking on one of the biggest corporations on the planet about the most widely used agricultural chemical in the world: What was your thinking?

Brian Lilla: I think it’s pretty clear from the film that my motivation is that I have kids. When I learned how toxic wine country is, I needed to know what that means. I didn’t want to leave Napa because I have children. I didn’t want to run away from the problem. No matter where I go, there’s going to be glyphosate in the food. Yes, it blew my mind to find out how much it’s being used in the vineyards. But I want to make it clear that the vineyards are not the villains, nor are farms.

You say in the film that wine grape growers wouldn’t talk on the record.

Napa Valley is a relatively small community so the majority of people who live and work here work in the wine industry. Brand identity is really the economic driver. Here you have these mom-and-pop wineries and no one wants to cast a black eye on them. Wine is a luxury item so reputation is important.

Monsanto wouldn’t talk to you on the record, either.

I reached out to Monsanto’s public relations department. It was very cordial; it wasn’t adversarial at all. I made it clear there are many other documentaries about Monsanto. I told them the story I was telling — how Roundup happened, what the scientists say, how Monsanto launched a P.R. campaign when it found out about the WHO report — and so on. They shot all of these questions back at me — who was I talking to, what are they saying? — and they just kept asking questions. Finally, I called someone and she said Bayer AG was going to stop using the Monsanto brand.

As if the name Monsanto was the problem.

Well, another thing that was interesting. I sent them a link to the film and they sent me an eight-page report refuting everything I say about Roundup, which comes from the scientists and legal evidence.

In the film, you talk to farmers who developed cancer, mention farmworkers as the most vulnerable to the effects of the chemical and highlight the plaintiff who won the landmark case against Monsanto. But what did you find out from growers and other wine people regarding their concerns about using glyphosate?

I think it boils down to economics. What is it going to cost to maintain your weed program with Roundup? And what’s really interesting about that question is what you find when you talk to organic growers. When I talked to Frogs Leap Winery [a Rutherford winery that farmed organically for decades], I found that it doesn’t cost more, isn’t more work. It’s about the same.

Monsanto, now Bayer AG, announced last year that it would be removing Roundup from the shelves for consumer use in 2023. It blames the lawsuits, not the product. Still, it seems like a promising development for those who want to see glyphosate banned entirely.

Bayer keeps making claims about pulling glyphosate-based Roundup off the shelves for consumer use. But that still means glyphosate can be sold to commercial landscapers or lawn companies and to growers. What we don’t know is whether the replacement, glufosinate ammonium, is going to be worse.

Has what you’ve learned about glyphosate changed how you and your family live?

The further I investigated the use of Roundup the more I realized how pervasive it is. Glyphosate is not just in your food. It’s in your drinking water, rivers, school campuses and even our playgrounds. As a family we are much more conscientious about eating organic and avoiding food products that potentially contain high residue levels of glyphosate. We installed a water filtration system. We’re also avoiding playgrounds, parks and schools where we know Roundup is being used. Whatever it takes to keep our children away from being exposed to Roundup, we do it. Also, we make sure our monies don’t go to any medicine or agricultural products produced by Bayer.

What’s your plan for the film?

The immediate plan is our national community screening campaign that informs the debate surrounding Roundup and empowers communities to shift away from toxic farming and advocate for organic land care practices. Community screening opportunities for people to come together and have dialogue with local NGOs and farmers about what viable solutions are available to their region.

The second phase of getting the film out there is to work with politicians who are willing to host screenings in political arenas where decisions are being made about the future of Roundup. We’re already in talks with senators who are interested in screening the film at their state’s capitol.

Our final goal is to broadcast Children of the Vine on a platform such as Netflix or PBS where we can reach broader audiences. When my previous investigative documentary, Patagonia Rising, completed an extensive community screening campaign and was eventually broadcast on Netflix, the film had an impact on a decision to not build five hydroelectric dams in the heart of Patagonia, Chile. Our ultimate goal is to have a similar impact on Roundup being banned in the United States.

The best sandwich is a bacon, peanut butter and tomato sandwich — really

Whenever I think about how I would answer the question, “What’s the best thing you ever ate?” — a query I put to myself quite often — one answer always rises to the top. I was at a wedding on a friend’s family farm. I don’t remember anything else that was served, not even the cake. But I will never get out of my head the homemade bread topped with summer ripe heirloom tomatoes. Good bread and good tomatoes, as far as I’m concerned, are the perfect food. The couldn’t possibly be improved upon. Or could they?

My mind was blown recently when a colleague mentioned the phrase “peanut butter and tomato sandwich” during a meeting. Down a rabbit hole I swiftly went, searching for the origins of this deeply American delicacy, and wondering, how can bacon get involved in this?

On Reddit, I found a delightful photo from a 1970’s cookbook that featured a recipe for a broiled peanut butter and tomato sandwich, shot through with chopped bacon and a pinch of brown sugar. “Try this mixture on the unconverted,” the cookbook urged with missionary zeal. And then peanut butter authority Jif itself came through with a recipe on its site for a “Peanut Butter BLT Sandwich.”

Culling from both sources, I have put together a sandwich that just tastes… happy. It’s salty and sweet and tangy and crunchy. It’s like if a BLT met a PBJ and they had the sweetest baby and then you got to eat that baby, that’s what this tastes like. I consumed one this week in the midst of a particularly rough afternoon, and my mood promptly lifted and I got some good news. I’m not saying it was the sandwich, but, the timeline checks out.

Please don’t use natural peanut butter here, you want something smooth and sweet. And if your lunches are of the takeout variety, this would make an exceptionally good breakfast.

***

Inspired by Smuckers and Reddit’s r/oldrecipes

The BPBT

Yields

1 serving

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

5 minutes

Ingredients

2 slices whole wheat or whole grain white bread
1 tablespoon of butter, for the pan
2 tablespoons of your favorite commercial peanut butter (not natural style)
2 slices of ripe tomato
3 to 4 slices crisp cooked bacon
Salt and pepper, to taste
Optional: pinch of brown sugar

Directions

Spread peanut butter evenly on both slices of your bread.
Add your tomato slices and bacon, and a little salt and pepper, and brown sugar if you wish.
Heat a medium pan over medium heat and melt your butter.
Grill your sandwich on one side for 1 – 2 minutes, then flip gently to toast the other side.
Remove to your place, slice and serve immediately.

Cook’s Notes

Ina Garten’s trick for cooking bacon on a sheet pan makes beautifully sandwich-worthy slices.

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More great ideas for sandwich lovers:

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Jon Stewart rips Republicans for blocking veterans bill to punish Democrats

Republicans are retaliating against a newly-revived Democratic plan to curb climate change by blocking a bill they previously supported that would provide healthcare to veteran victims of burn pits and Agent Orange, a chemical weapon used during the Vietnam War.

This shocking development, which has sparked the ire of progressives and Democrats, spans back to last week when Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. torpedoed a Democratic-led bill – dubbed “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” – that would pour billions into clean energy initiatives aimed at curtailing climate change. Instead, Manchin at the time said he wanted a slimmed-down version of the measure geared more toward lowering the cost of healthcare. “I would not put my staff through this – I would not put myself through this – if I wasn’t sincere about trying to find a pathway forward to do something that’s good for our country,” the centrist Democrat said last week.

Biden finally likely to declare climate emergency in response to “Manchin’s gaslighting”

But on Thursday, Manchin completely reversed course, striking a reconciliation deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that includes $369 billion in climate and clean energy provisions. The unexpected about-face has shocked Democrats and environmental justice advocates alike and could amount to the biggest climate change legislation the nation has ever seen.

Still, climate advocates have argued that the measure is largely inadequate in addressing the full scope of global warming.

“The few details released this evening suggest this deal will prop up fossil fuels and promote the various false climate solutions beloved by industry,” Food & Water Action Executive Director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement. “More subsidies for dirty hydrogen, carbon capture, and nuclear energy are not climate action, they are the opposite.”

John Noël, Senior Climate Campaigner at Greenpeace USA, echoed that the measure “fails to address the out-of-control fossil fuel industry causing the climate crisis.”

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“Millions of people die every year as a result of fossil fuel air pollution, and we cannot afford any fossil fuel expansion if we’re going to avoid a climate catastrophe,” Noël said. “Marketing a 40% reduction in emissions over 8 years while increasing fossil fuel leasing and a handshake deal to streamline permitting for fossil fuel infrastructure does not add up.”

Shortly after Manchin’s reversal, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman reported that Republicans will now whip against a formerly bipartisan bill, dubbed the “CHIPS Act,” meant to boost U.S. manufacturing. This is in addition to the GOP’s newfound opposition to making servicemembers who contracted dozens of medical conditions overseas eligible for healthcare subsidized by Veterans Affairs. Supporters of the measure have argued that the bill is long overdue, as Roll Call reported.

NEWS: House Republican leadership will now whip against the CHIPS+ bill, urging lawmakers to vote against it after the reconciliation deal was announced.

Some Rs are expected to vote yes, but this will be intense pressure on Democrats to carry this package over the finish line.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 28, 2022

On Thursday, Republicans officially delayed the veterans’ bill with a filibuster, arguing that would allow for profligate fiscal spending that contravenes predetermined budget caps. The GOP’s sudden opposition to the law comes after the party widely backed a nearly identical bill that contained a subtle tax provision.

“It’s about Congress hiding behind an important veterans care bill a massive unrelated spending binge,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn.

Tonight, the Senate voted to give us the chance to fix a completely unnecessary budget gimmick in the underlying text of the PACT Act. This gimmick allows $400B in spending completely unrelated to veterans care. pic.twitter.com/TAuE12G8l0

— Pat Toomey (US Sen. ret.) (@SenToomey) July 27, 2022

Take Joe Manchin’s deal: Climate bill may be Democrats’ last chance to bring back young voters

After the vote, liberals and veterans’ advocates immediately condemned congressional Republicans for playing politics at the expense of veterans.

“Congratulations @SenToomey You successfully used the Byzantine Senate rules to keep sick veterans suffering!!!! Kudos!” tweeted comedian Jon Stewart. “I’m sure you’ll celebrate by kicking a dog or punching a baby…or whatever terrible people do for fun!!!!!”

26 Republican villains playing politics at the expense of our nation’s Veterans. Their blood is in your hands. Veterans went to war, they didn’t leave on recess and neither should you. @SenatorYoung @SenatorWicker @CNN @FoxNews @jonstewart #burnpits pic.twitter.com/cOYutdOLGK

— Burnpits360 (@Burnpit360) July 28, 2022

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., likewise called the GOP’s move “an eleventh-hour act of cowardice.”

In an eleventh-hour act of cowardice, Republicans chose today to rob generations of toxic-exposed veterans across this country of the health care and benefits they've earned and so desperately need.

Make no mistake—the American people are sick and tired of these games. pic.twitter.com/w2ZUcGzGpT

— Archive: Senator Jon Tester (@SenatorTester) July 27, 2022

“Republicans chose today to rob generations of toxic-exposed veterans across this country of the health care and benefits they’ve earned and so desperately need,” he tweeted. “Make no mistake—the American people are sick and tired of these games.”

Jared Kushner’s new memoir reveals 2020 election night call with Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch

Although Fox News is facing a major defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems for promoting the false and totally debunked claim that Dominion’s equipment was used to help steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump, some members of Fox News’ hard news division did some accurate reporting on Election Night. Fox News’ decision desk, in fact, accurately called Arizona for now-President Joe Biden on Election Night 2020, and according to former White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner’s new book, “Breaking History: A White House Memoir,” Rupert Murdoch had no doubt that Biden was the legitimate winner in Arizona.

After Fox News called Arizona for Biden, Murdoch, according to the book, told Kushner, “The numbers are ironclad. It’s not even close.” Subsequent vote recounts in Arizona demonstrated that Murdoch, in that case, was absolutely right: Biden, not Trump, was the clear winner in Arizona.

Biden’s victory in Arizona, like his victory in Georgia, was among the bombshells of 2020’s presidential election. For many years, Arizona was a deep red state and was synonymous with the conservative politics of Sen. Barry Goldwater and his successor, Sen. John McCain. But in recent years, Arizona has evolved into a swing state. Both of Arizona’s two U.S. senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, are centrist Democrats, although its term-limited governor, Doug Ducey, is a right-wing Republican.

“Breaking History” has an August 23 release date on Amazon, and previews of Kushner’s book have come from the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly. In an article published by the Times on July 25, Haberman reported that according to the book, Kushner was secretly treated for thyroid cancer in 2019.

Pengelly’s reporting, in an article published by The Guardian on July 28, focuses heavily on what Kushner’s book has to say about Arizona. In “Breaking History,” Kushner says of Biden’s Arizona victory, “The shocking projection brought our momentum to a screeching halt. It instantly changed the mood among our campaign’s leaders, who were scrambling to understand the network’s methodology…. I dialed Rupert Murdoch and asked why Fox News had made the Arizona call before hundreds of thousands of votes were tallied. Rupert said he would look into the issue, and minutes later, he called back.”

During that conversation, Murdoch told Kushner, “Sorry Jared, there is nothing I can do. The Fox News data authority says the numbers are ironclad. He says it won’t be close.'”

Trump was furious when Fox News called Arizona for Biden, and he continues to make the false claim that Arizona was stolen from him through voter fraud — a false claim that former television news anchor and far-right conspiracy theorist Kari Lake, the frontrunner in Arizona’s 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary, has been campaigning on.

Take Joe Manchin’s deal: Climate bill may be Democrats’ last chance to bring back young voters

Long after most Democratic voters and the Beltway press had given up any hope that Senate Democrats would pass any meaningful budget legislation, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., suddenly announced that he had struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The bill, called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, falls short of the ambitions laid out in last year’s Build Back Better Bill, but is nonetheless surprisingly progressive when it comes to climate change.

“The $369 billion climate and tax package forged in a surprise deal by Senate Democrats on Wednesday would be the most ambitious action ever taken by the United States to try to stop the planet from catastrophically overheating,” the New York Times reports. The number is especially surprising, as Democrats on Capitol Hill have been under intense criticism from progressives in recent weeks for paltry spending proposals on climate change, even as the planet endures another summer of record-setting heat.

$840 billion: The military budget passed by the House
$52 billion: The subsidy for semiconductor firms forwarded by the Senate
$37 billion: The White House’s proposed funding for police
$2.3 billion: Biden’s new plan to fight climate change

America’s priorities are backwards.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 26, 2022

The proposed climate spending is 160 times what was initially assumed, which would be a dramatic shift in priorities.

President Joe Biden said that the bill would “improve our energy security and tackle the climate crisis” while also fighting inflation.

However, optimism for the bill’s passing is maximally cautious.

Is the extreme weather of 2022 the climate tipping point for Americans, at long last?

Manchin has repeatedly led Democratic leadership to feel that he’s close to a vote on energy progress, only to yank the rug out at the last minute. Plus, there are concerns that other centrist Democrats, like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona or Bob Menendez of New Jersey, will find some pretext to quash the entire bill. But both Biden and the Democrats facing midterm elections in 100 short days — including Sinema’s fellow Democrat from Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly — better hope that this bill passes and quickly. Because this is their best chance, this close to the election, of regaining some trust with the younger voters that polls show have been turning on Biden in droves over the past year.

If young people simply ignore the 2022 midterms, it will be all too easy for Republicans to win.

Polling overall has been devastating for Biden in recent months. His approval rating is in a steady decline and is at 38.4% right now, which is below even where Donald Trump’s notoriously poor approval ratings generally sat. A new CNN poll shows that 75% of Democratic voters want someone other than Biden to be the nominee in 2024, which is up 11 points over a similar New York Times poll from earlier this month. This souring on Biden is largely being driven by younger voters. As the New York Times polls showed, 94% of Democrats under 30 want someone else as the nominee in 2024.

And it is important to remember that Biden owes his 2020 victory to young voters, who lean more to the left than older generations. While it’s unlikely that many of them will switch to voting for Republicans in the midterms, the larger concern is that disillusionment with Biden and Democrats generally will drive down already paltry youth turnout. If young people simply ignore the 2022 midterms, it will be all too easy for Republicans to win large congressional majorities, as well as gain even more control over state and local government.

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As Geoffrey Skelley at FiveThirtyEight reported Wednesday, while young voters largely cite inflation and the economy as their main frustrations, a deeper analysis suggests that there’s just an overall sense that Biden can’t get anything done on issues that matter to young people. “Harvard’s spring 2022 poll of 18- to 29-year-olds found that 36 percent of the respondents who disapproved of Biden (56 percent overall) said ‘ineffectiveness’ best explained their disapproval,” he writes.

As Christian Paz of Vox wrote earlier this year, young people are experiencing “a growing tide of disillusionment with electoral politics and dissatisfaction with the status quo.”

Passing a major climate bill is one thing that would send a strong signal to young Americans that they haven’t been forsaken and that Democrats are, in fact, trying to make progress on what is increasingly looking like a catastrophic future if things don’t change

There’s a number of issues driving this disenchantment, but it adds up to one larger narrative: Young people worry that older Americans, especially politicians, are too focused on their own comforts and power, and have abandoned their children and grandchildren. It doesn’t help things that Democratic leadership is overall incredibly old, with Biden — who turns 80 in November — being the most prominent example.

The lack of action on climate isn’t helping soothe young people’s fears that their elders don’t care about their futures.

With 100 days to go, Republicans are flatlining — yet somehow still poised to win

There’s little Biden can do by himself to give young people hope right now. (Though forgiving student debt would help tremendously.) But passing a major climate bill is one thing that would send a strong signal to young Americans that they haven’t been forsaken and that Democrats are, in fact, trying to make progress on what is increasingly looking like a catastrophic future if things don’t change. It’s not just the weather, either. The lack of progress on clean energy is contributing to overall inflation woes, because of how much our economic health is pegged to gas prices. That can’t be fixed in the short term, but Democrats creating a path for Americas to pry themselves off of fossil fuel dependence would be a reason for optimism.

There’s every reason to be worried this will fall through.

Manchin and Sinema are notorious for dangling out hope and then yanking it away at the last minute. Biden has been moving toward emergency executive actions on climate in recent days. There’s always a danger this is a feint by Manchin to discourage those executive actions, and that he’ll yank his support for this bill the second Biden agrees not to take those actions.

The bill text has been released and it weighs in at 725 pages. It’s unlikely Manchin’s team put that much work into a bill he isn’t invested in voting for. There’s also reporting suggesting that the secrecy around this bill was an effort to protect it from Republican sabotage. It’s unlikely that Schumer and Manchin would go to such lengths if this bill was vaporware. However, there are also reasons for optimism.

If so, there’s good reason for Democrats to anticipate that the midterms won’t be the bloodbath that current polling suggests it will be. As multiple analysts have noted in recent days, Biden may disappoint Democratic voters, but Republicans are downright loathed. The January 6 committee hearings have been a reminder to the public of how complicit most of the GOP is with Trump and his attempts to gain power illegally. The overturn of Roe v. Wade is angering huge swaths of the public. Both are issues Republicans have trouble running away from.

People may turn out to vote not because they love Democrats, but because they fear Republicans gaining more power. Still, increasing turnout for Democrats depends on pushing back on the malaise spreading throughout their base, especially when it comes to younger voters. A big climate bill investing heavily in the future could be a good start when it comes to reigniting voter enthusiasm in November.

Joe Manchin “publicly played” Mitch McConnell and “tricked” him into giving up all his leverage

On MSNBC Thursday, POLITICO reporter Jonathan Lemire broke down the significance of the massive new health care, energy, and deficit reduction package agreed to by Senate Democratic leadership and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V.

The key point, Lemire stressed, is that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., got tricked into giving up all his leverage.

“Help our viewers make sense,” said anchor Willie Geist. “They get on board 17 Republicans with the big package on CHIPS-Plus, which will help Americans stay competitive against China and make some of those computer chips, the processing chips here in the United States, and then a few hours later, when they hear that Democrats perhaps now are going to push through this massive bill for the Biden administration on reconciliation, they say wait, we don’t like that. We’re going to retaliate by asking Republicans in the House to submarine the CHIPS-Plus bill we just voted to pass in the Senate.”

“It doesn’t happen often, but Mitch McConnell appears to publicly have been played,” said Lemire. “A couple weeks ago Senator Manchin suggested there’s no deal for reconciliation, so McConnell gave the okay for the CHIPS bill. House Republicans said they’d support it, too. The White House has given its blessing, now we see McConnell and other Senate Republicans going across to their colleagues in the House, you have to oppose something you previously just a few days ago were for and also have to explain that vote if this bill goes down, seem to be beneficial to China. It’s a spiteful action. Democrats think they can get through anyway.”

Lemire added that there are still obstacles remaining for the reconciliation itself.

“On the Senate side for the reconciliation package, Senator Sinema has been, shall we say, an enigma to a lot of Democrats and a lot of votes aren’t certain,” said Lemire. “Not only would this give Democrats a huge victory ahead of the midterms and get their priorities in play here before November, Willie, but a big win for President Biden. We have to really think about his first two years in office very differently, a series of substantial achievements.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

What “revelations”? Trump’s Jan. 6 crimes should shock exactly no one

Throughout the Age of Trump, the American mainstream news media has sounded increasingly like a broken record, repeatedly describing Donald Trump’s innumerable misdeeds as “unimaginable” or “unthinkable” or “shocking.” This approach clearly attracts clicks and advertising dollars. By comparison, Joe Biden is boring. His administration has been generally competent and free of scandal. Perversely, that’s one of the main reasons why the mainstream media has turned against him.

With the House Jan. 6 committee hearings, the media circus has played out true to form, adding the term “revelation” to its recirculating vocabulary for describing Donald Trump and his confederates and their documented crimes. In reality, there is nothing truly “shocking” about the descriptions of Trump’s conduct, and the “revelations” emerging from the committee hearings are hardly biblical epiphanies. That conclusion should be obvious for media professionals who are paid to follow public matters. Donald Trump is utterly transparent and predictable — and has unapologetically been that way for all of his public life.

What Cassidy Hutchinson told us — and why we should have known it already

Trump’s presidency, his 2021 coup attempt and the imminent threat of his 2024 presidential campaign have amplified to the extreme everything that’s wrong with him — and, more importantly, with the culture that spawned his fascist movement and political cult.

As president, Trump committed acts of democide that killed at least a million Americans through his negligent, if not criminal, response to the coronavirus pandemic. He repeatedly threatened, well before November 2016, not to accept the outcome of any election where he was not the winner. He has repeatedly demonstrated white supremacist views and fascist tendencies, both in his public policies and in his personal life. Mental health professionals have concluded that he is likely a sociopath if not a psychopath, as well as a malignant narcissist and compulsive liar.

Trump was Impeached twice for a variety of crimes surrounding his attempts to subvert the 2020 election, culminating in acts of de facto treason and seditious conspiracy around the attempted coup of 2021. He conducts himself like a mafia boss, using violence, intimidation, fraud and other antisocial behavior to get and keep power as a way to enriching himself and his inner circle.

At his rallies and other gatherings, Trump continues to incite political violence, and has moved closer to calling for a white-on-Black race war. Given that context, there is nothing truly surprising about Trump’s words or deeds. While Trump is cruel, vicious, scheming and small-minded, in his own twisted way he is an honest and transparent person.

The ringmasters, barkers and star performers of the mainstream news media circus are not actually surprised or shocked by the “revelations” about Trump’s vile behavior, and that is as true now as it was before the House Jan. 6 hearings began. To some degree, the performance of such emotions is seen as expected or obligatory — and it’s a way to lure the public into the tent with the promise of some great reveal.

In my recent conversation with former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, he had this to say about the media circus:

I tend to believe most of them are not shocked or surprised. They’re saying such things for effect and ratings. You are talking about corporate news media. There are things they are going to allow to be said and things that are off limits. The hosts and guests and reporters you are talking about are not dumb people. They’re not shocked by Trump and the Republicans and all the bad things they do.

For prominent media figures to admit that the entire system is in profound crisis, and that Trump is a leading symptom of that crisis, is effectively verboten.

There is a range of reasons why so many members of the mainstream media — the hope-peddlers, happy-pill sellers and professional smart people — obsessively keep repeating that Donald Trump’s crimes are shocking and unbelievable revelations that no one could have imagined. First of all, the major corporate media is part of “the system,” not outside it, and is inevitably aligned with power. For prominent media figures to admit that the system is in profound crisis — as epitomized by the rise of Trump, the tens of millions of people who voted for him and a major political party that has embraced fascism — is effectively verboten.

A central element of maintaining the fiction that American democracy and its institutions are strong is to advance the narrative that Trump and the other Republican-fascists are outliers, who remain “unthinkable” in the world’s greatest democracy.

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There are other institutional and cultural rules at work: A successful career in the mainstream news media requires not getting too far ahead of the target audience and public opinion — as conventional wisdom perceives such things. So being a professional moderate or centrist tends to be a lucrative career track, and feigning shock and surprise in an effort to appear relatable is an important element of that pose. In that context, telling uncomfortable or frightening truths about American society, which of necessity may reflect the complicity of the American people at large, is to invite career suicide.

As a practical matter, one is expected to “read the room” and stay close to the purported views and ideals of the “average” American, rather than telling inconvenient truths at inopportune moments. By implication, the mainstream media is expected to lead the public to the truth gently, as if telling children about death, rather than speaking to them plainly like adults. That kind of mass infantilization is one of the principal ways by which fascism and other authoritarian systems take hold and spread across a society.

There are psychological explanations as well: To pretend that Trump and his cabal, and the larger Republican-fascist movement, is in any way “shocking” or “surprising” is a defensive behavior rooted in fear. In a series of interviews for Salon, I have asked leading psychologists and other mental health professionals about exactly this question: Why are so many Americans, especially members of the media and political classes, in such denial about Donald Trump and the Republican-fascist movement, more than six years after its emergence? Why do they keep pretending to be surprised by the obvious?

In March of this year, Dr. Justin Frank told me this:

They want to stop thinking about it. Those people who email you because they don’t want you to talk about Donald Trump are afraid of confronting their inner self. They do not want to face who they are deep inside. Such people also don’t want to think about the other real nature of America — that we also have fantasies of violence and revenge….

It is a very scary thing to be forced to confront our own violent and destructive impulses. That is especially true in this country, because many Americans don’t want to confront the fact that it is their fellow Americans who are making such threats. It is a deep type of denial and fantasy. That also explains why so many people in the American news media won’t talk about Trump’s threats of violence and killing and destruction. It scares them too, so they normalize or even dismiss the deadly seriousness of his threats.

Dr. Lance Dodes offered these insights in an interview published last month:

Most of us would like to believe that there are benevolent powerful authorities at work in the world, leaders who are loving and kind. In this country, many of us were brought up to believe that the leaders of the country are fine people who are looking out for us. We want to believe it. When a truly evil person came to seize power, the country, the free press, was unable to react appropriately, and we still see people who are “shocked.”

Just over two weeks ago, Dr. Mark Goulston made similar observations:

The reason they’re shocked is because a person cannot be partially sociopathic or narcissistic. It’s a slippery road when you allow sociopaths or narcissists to ride over you unchecked. The denial, and giving such people the benefit of the doubt, just encourages them.

People on the left, the Democrats especially, are also afraid to acknowledge the dark parts of their personalities, such as anger and rage. Such feelings fill them with shame. Therefore, they deny to themselves that Donald Trump and other such sociopaths and narcissists are so dangerous.

After the eighth Jan. 6 committee hearing — apparently the last of this eventful summer — I asked Dr. Frank if he had further thoughts on the continuing narrative about “revelations.” He responded by email:

The media, whether right-wing, conservative or progressive have one psychological characteristic in common: denial. But denial is a complex defense. The right wing fits its most common definition: denial of reality, of facts and even of perception. Fox denies the fact of the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021. It didn’t happen, they say. Conservative mainstream media, like the major TV networks deny the palpable dangers of the coup. They deny the fragility of our own government institutions. The more progressive media (CNN and MSNBC) have changed to some extent because of the hearings. They once denied Trump’s central responsibility for the coup and then denied its destructiveness and that it could still happen in another way — like electing [Ron] DeSantis.

The pretending to be shocked is a pretending to themselves, not simply grandstanding. It feeds their need to deny responsibility. All media, from Fox to MSNBC, is owned by large corporations. They ultimately deaden a fundamental need shared in some degree by all Americans — the need to pursue truth despite a conflicting need to deny it.

Reporters, commentators, pundits, and other people who have a public voice and use words for a living have a great responsibility in a democracy to help the public understand complex matters so they can in turn make responsible decisions about politics and society. Part of this responsibility to speak truth to power requires using the clearest and most precise language.

We should note that the root meaning of “revelation” is to gain information or knowledge through divine or supernatural means. A “revelation” in that sense is supposed to be a great truth that is potentially life-changing or world-changing, as in the Book of Revelation, the hallucinatory final text of the New Testament.

When someone claims that evidence of Trump’s crimes is a “revelation,” that should provoke a moment of critical self-reflection: If this is truly a revelation, how should I change my behavior? What responsibilities follow from this?

When someone claims that public evidence regarding Donald Trump’s crimes and generally evil behavior, or those of his confederates and the larger Republican-fascist movement, is a “revelation,” that should provoke a moment of critical self-reflection: Is this actually a revelation? If it is, have I modified my behavior and expectations accordingly? What follows from this revelation, in terms of my responsibilities to the public?

Responsible citizens who strive to live an ethical and morally grounded life, and who are committed to secular humanism and overall decency, should never stop being outraged at injustice. But to pretend that such injustice, or related crimes against society, are shocking or surprising when they are not is in many ways to do the work of iniquity rather than confronting it.

Perpetual shock and surprise, especially when feigned, can lead to learned helplessness, passivity and surrender when bold proactive actions are required. Saving American democracy from the Republican-fascists and the larger white right, if that is still possible, will require a fearless commitment to clarity, in speech and action, from both the news media and the American people.

on Trump, Biden and the media circus

RNC warns Trump it will stop paying his legal bills if he runs for president

The Republican National Committee has paid nearly $2 million to law firms representing Donald Trump, but now they’re warning the former president that they’ll stop paying his legal bills if he runs for president in 2024, ABC News reports.

An RNC official speaking to ABC News said that the party’s “neutrality policy” prohibits it from taking sides in the presidential primary.

As ABC News points out, this isn’t the first time Trump’s legal bill have been used as leverage against him.

“According to the book ‘Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,’ by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, in the final days of Trump’s presidency, Trump told McDaniel he was leaving the GOP and creating his own political party — only to back down after McDaniel made it clear to Trump that the party would stop paying his legal bills for his post-election challenges and take other steps that would cost him financially,” ABC News reports.

Since October of 2021, the RNC has shelled out at least $1.73 million to three law firms representing Trump.

“I don’t think there’s been any effort” by the RNC to remain neutral, longtime Republican donor and Canary LLC CEO Dan Eberhart told ABC News. “This is a symbiotic relationship.”

“The RNC needs Trump or Trump surrogates or Trump’s likeness to raise money, and Trump wants them to continue paying his bills and be as pro-Trump as possible,” Eberhart said. “So neither is in a hurry to cut the umbilical cord.”

Trump claims he has “absolute immunity” from Jan. 6 lawsuits in new court filing

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers asked a court on Wednesday to rule that he has “absolute immunity” from lawsuits related to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Trump is appealing a February ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that the former president can be sued for damages stemming from the Jan. 6 attack, rejecting Trump’s claim of immunity because his actions that day were “plausibly words of incitement not protected by the First Amendment” or presidential immunity.

Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the ruling, again arguing that Trump has “absolutely presidential immunity.”

“President Trump is shielded by absolute presidential immunity because his statements were on matters of public concern and therefore well within the scope of the robust absolute immunity afforded all presidents,” his lawyers said in a filing first flagged by Politico’s Josh Gerstein.

“No amount of hyperbole about the violence of January 6, 2021, provides a basis for this Court to carve out an exception to the constitutional separation of powers,” the brief added.

Trump faces civil lawsuits from Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., two Capitol Police officers and a group of House Democrats accusing him of inciting the insurrection.

Trump sued by Capitol police for Jan. 6 violence

Trump’s attorneys argued that impeachment is the only means to punish a president for his actions. The House impeached Trump for a second time after the riot but the Senate fell short of the threshold necessary for conviction in a 57-43 vote. The filing described the lawsuits following his impeachment as “harassment.”

“A Democratic-controlled House of Representatives already brought impeachment charges against President Trump for allegedly inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021. Their effort failed, and President Trump was acquitted. These further lawsuits are an attempt to thwart that acquittal, and it is just this type of harassment that presidential immunity is meant to foreclose,” the brief says.

Mehta in his ruling determined that Trump’s false claims about a “stolen” election were not immune on separation of powers grounds.

“The President’s actions here do not relate to his duties of faithfully executing the laws, conducting foreign affairs, commanding the armed forces, or managing the Executive Branch,” he wrote. “They entirely concern his efforts to remain in office for a second term. These are unofficial acts.”

Trump went beyond pressuring election officials and Congress to overturn his election loss, noting that his statements ahead of the riot were “an implicit call for imminent violence or lawlessness.”

“He called for thousands ‘to fight like hell’ immediately before directing an unpermitted march to the Capitol, where the targets of their ire were at work, knowing that militia groups and others among the crowd were prone to violence,” Mehta wrote, adding that Trump’s role “was to encourage the use of force, intimidation or threat to thwart the Certification from proceeding, and organized groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers would carry out the required acts.”

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The filing came as Trump also faces a Department of Justice investigation into his role in the Capitol riot. Prosecutors questioning witnesses before a grand jury have asked about conversations witnesses had with Trump, his lawyers and his inner circle in the lead-up to the riot, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. Prosecutors have asked “hours of detailed questions” about Trump’s meetings around that time, his efforts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election and Trump’s potential role in the fake elector scheme. Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed on Wednesday to hold “all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.”

Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis is also leading a criminal investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his election in the state, including his demand that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” enough votes to reverse his loss.

Trump has told associates that he believes running for president in 2024 will grant him immunity in his legal battles, according to a Rolling Stone report earlier this month.

Trump has “spoken about how when you are the president of the United States, it is tough for politically motivated prosecutors to ‘get to you,” a source who discussed the matter with Trump told the outlet. “He says when [not if] he is president again, a new Republican administration will put a stop to the [Justice Department] investigation that he views as the Biden administration working to hit him with criminal charges — or even put him and his people in prison.”

about Trump’s Jan. 6 legal battles

Forest Service announces emergency plan to save giant sequoias

The U.S. Forest Service will fast-track efforts to protect giant sequoias from wildfires, the agency announced on Friday.

The move allows the Forest Service to immediately thin the forest in and around giant sequoia groves by removing brush and smaller trees and conducting prescribed burns using the agency’s emergency authority.

Over the past two years, massive conflagrations have killed nearly 20 percent of the ancient trees. “Without urgent action, wildfires could eliminate countless more iconic giant sequoias,” Randy Moore, the Forest Service’s chief, said in a news release.

The Forest Service plans to begin clearing brush and smaller trees from 13,000 acres of national forest to protect 12 giant sequoia groves this summer. Using its emergency authority under the National Environmental Policy Act, the agency can start the work without a full environmental review, which can take over a year to complete.

Giant sequoias, a close relative of redwoods, are the largest tree in the world by volume. They can live for more than 3,000 years and are found only on the western slopes of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

The trees are adapted to fire — they have thick, spongy bark that protects them from the flames and the heat actually releases the seeds from their cones, allowing young trees to take root in areas cleared by fires.

But today’s fires are much different from wildfires of the past. Climate change has led to hotter temperatures, severe drought, a year-round fire season, and the proliferation of bark beetles, which have killed millions of drought-weakened trees and allowed them to pile up on the forest floor.

On top of these changes, for more than a century, the policy has been to put out wildfires as quickly as possible, creating unnaturally dense forests and allowing brush and dead wood to accumulate. These factors have combined to enable out-of-control blazes to explode across California in recent years. The bigger, hotter fires are more likely to reach giant sequoias’ crowns, killing them.

Proper management can help. Earlier this month the Washburn Fire menaced Yosemite National Park’s Mariposa Grove, but regular prescribed burns to clear hazardous fuels slowed the inferno enough that firefighters were able to protect the giant sequoias. Ecologists expect all to survive.

The Oak Fire, which started on Friday afternoon, is currently burning southwest of the park in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.