1448: French Rats

The 1970s brought a wave of leaks. First, Justice Douglas in June 1972 wrote a memo to his colleagues about Roe v. Wade. Somehow, it reached the Washington Post, which published a story about the memo and the Court’s inner deliberations.

Link

Dear AC,

This is a trial balloon (think about the age-old electoral strategy of "rile up the base", about something that the outraged complainers actually never want to end, hence they can always use that issue).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/02/roe-v-wade-abortion-supreme-court-draft-opinion

(Hannity 4:32 video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c12GHlTMaIg

Speaking as a Constitutional scholar, former law professor, professor of Constitutional law (civil rights and civil liberties) there is NO way that outcome of Roe v Wade (abortion is legal, and cannot be criminalized) can be radically changed or altered as to obliterate the liberty of a woman to control the pregnancy prior to "viability".

The REAL grounds for Roe v Wade (later modified in Casey v Planned Parenthood) is Griswold v Connecticut (1965).

In Griswold, the question was could the state prevent MARRIED women from using contraceptives.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1964/496

Remember, until even the 1970s, in some parts of the United States, sex outside of marriage was a crime.

Loving v Virginia (1969) was NOT a case of wrongful marriage - between the wrong kind of people (White man and Black woman). Loving was about a Virginia law that punished non-martial intercourse with a prison term of up to 25 years! Under the Virginia law, if a couple were not legally married, they were subject to the crime of non-martial sex. And of course, not until 2003, was consensual, homosexuality between adults given absolute protection, Lawrence and Gardner v Texas).

The purpose of Connecticut's "contraceptive" laws (passed in 1879) was to deter unmarried people from having sex. Furthermore, the law comported to Puritanical notions of sex only for the purpose of pro-creation.

So, although the language of Griswold (right to privacy) was silly, the decision in Lawrence v Texas, grounded in LIBERTY - the new key phrase of American jurisprudence - should govern the legal issues in re a criminal law against terminating a pregnancy.

There are three stages of pregnancy that American law considers.

(A) pre-fertilization; and pre-implantation;

(B) post-implantation yet pre-viability; and

(C) post-viability, pre-partum

In one sense, the only level of legislative control would be over doctors - third parties.

(A) We all know that women can take ANY pills and or use devices to prevent conception.

(B) And even if the SURGERY called abortion would be outlawed, the freedom to terminate a pregnancy, up to "viability" is absolute (Plan B pills).

(C) Post viability (meaning a fetus that is viable with extreme medical assistance - in an incubator with an undeveloped liver, bladder, and lungs), as a matter of liberty, women can control their bodies - sans medical device. For example, one could take Black cohosh or drink castor oil to induce labor.

Lastly, there will always be the grounds for any medical team or physician to claim that the pregnancy puts the life of the woman in danger. A common problem is called "placenta previa".

With such a condition, the life of the woman is in extreme danger, and emergency c-section or induced labor is required to end the pregnancy, this is, everything short of abortion. But when the fetus is not viable, there is no need to perform the c-section, and the drug-induced dilation of the cervix is a relative trauma to the woman as well. Meaning that abortion would be the safest and least invasive option.

Ultimately, I see that the only thing that any legislatures could do would be to create "abortion panels" - teams of medical ethicists who would approve the conditions for a medical termination. And given that the real market is for fetus organ harvesting ... I guess we know which side will win.

That is my analysis.

Best

JCJ

Many EU countries have completely or partially refused to buy Russian oil. That would be all right, but a mysterious "unknown" buyer has entered the scene, buying it up in record volumes all month long.

Russian tankers leave Ust-Luga and Primorsk, with no definite destination, for an unknown destination. Along the way, the ships meet with other tankers, shipping them oil, which they dilute with the oil they are already transporting. This is how Europe technically buys the "Latvian blend.

Western financialized world will collide with BRICS/eastern nations who will bring commodities back front and center. A level playing field.

Yen will collapse, then Euro, then USD. I wonder if we could see a collapse of the EU ad a result…remember, the ECB is a member central bank…

Look to Russia to fully back the Ruble in early July and bring plenty of fireworks. GCR will defeat Great Reset.

Deutschebank collapse. HSBC to sell European branches to Lloyds of London. Barclays on verge of collapse as well. Turmoil in Europe soon!

Countries already have asset backed currencies on deck- all part of a larger plan. A percentage of the sovereign debt for those in agreement will be paid down according to their SDRs. This will be done to promote buy-in for asset backed digital currencies. Fiat left standing out in the cold!

Gold moved out of NYC to other locations- too much target chatter apparently, don’t want a repeat of 9/11.

Satellite data show that global warming started to run out of steam two decades ago, but the U.K. Met Office’s record of surface temperature from 1975 was boosted by 14% at the end of 2020. At the same time, the period between 1880-1975 was cooled. The move accentuates the rise in the global temperature recorded in the 1980s and 1990s that forms the basis of much of the current hysteria about the so-called climate emergency.

The disclosure of the apparent warming and cooling is contained in the latest State of the Climate report from Emeritus Professor Ole Humlum of the University of Oslo, and published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Professor Humlum says the post-1975 warming is about +0.1°C and the pre-1975 cooling about -0.1°C. The version-change to the fifth HadCRUT Met Office database “conveys the impression of a somewhat more rapid global temperature increase following the relatively cold period terminating around 1975”. When the Met Office first announced the change in December 2020, it admitted to 0.16°C extra warming, although it didn’t give specifics about cooling and warming either side of the 1975 mark.

Link

Dear AC,

Today we received two food orders - that we placed with online shopping websites (think phone Apps) - last week.

Delivery trucks are coming into the city and the local ebike delivery guys are also working. (I am not sure about restaurants, but they are probably open for ebike courier deliveries).

Our local international market (French bread and cheeses; Italian meats & gnocchi; Australian beef and dairy; Greek olives etc) was able to send us groceries.

We also received another box of food and supplies from the government: toilet paper; garlic; flour; sugar; four apples; 1 liter of milk; and two more cucumbers).

Added together, this means that the government will not let regular people leave their neighborhoods and compounds for at least 4-7 more days; but for people with enough money, private suppliers will be able sell food and alcohol, and amenities.

I note that class dimension because for the common person of Shanghai, they are really hurting. They have had no salary or work for 6-8 weeks. And no means to buy food - especially as prices rise. For example, milk has doubled, bottled water is up 20%. And appreciate, Shanghai has millions of migrant workers - cooks, massage therapists, factory workers, hotel staff, etc., - who are from cities that are 2-5 hours away by high-speed train. In Shanghai, they live in tiny apartments (or employee dorms) and send money home - for their children and parents. But they have not been able to leave Shanghai.

What I bought today from the International store cost about 800 RMB (121 USD). This is about a 30% rise in grocery prices. But now given that we still have over 80 eggs, lots of bread, meats, and apples, we are good for at least two weeks.

In other areas of price changes, taxi service is available to the airport - but the price has jumped 20X - now it would cost us 4,000 RMB (600 USD), whereas it would usually be 200 RMB (about 30 USD). And plane tickets to the US or Europe are well over 1,500 USD one way. Back in 2018, it was 300-400 USD.

So we cannot leave China for a while.

Cheers

JCJ

I have a feeling that part of the narrative was to divert from 80,000 pages Pfizer dropped showing 12% effectiveness in first week and 1% after

Adam/John

I’ve been listening with interest the discussions about transitioning on NA. Quick story.

When my son was 13, he decided that he was really a girl. He was deeply depressed and he asked my wife and I to help him transition. Our first reaction was that he needed therapy. I did some research and found a therapist that supposedly specialized in these cases. We set up an appointment. She took him into her office and I was told she needed to talk with him privately. Less than hour later, I was brought into her office where she announced that he was, indeed, a girl. She handed me a card for a Doctor who would prescribe testosterone blockers. She said she would call ahead to set up an appointment. I was told “because of his age, it’s imperative we get him on medication right away”. This whole conversation took place in front of him. Rather than try and determine if it was truly gender dysphoria or if there might be something else going on, in less than an hour she had determined he was transgender . I’ve never been so angry.

Of course, I threw the card away and sought another opinion. He went through a year of therapy with another Psychologist. I was brought in to the Psychologist’s office where my son told me he had been confused, depressed and, in his 13 year old mind, he thought his life would’ve been better if he were a girl. Confused, depressed and 13. He’s now 24, has a girlfriend. A couple of years ago he thanked me for not following through with the first Therapists advise.

I’m sure everyone’s experience might be different, but it truly makes my blood boil when I hear some of these stories.

Sir Reginald Van Gleason

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Archived Version

Thu, 05 May 2022 17:12

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vantage Market Research published a report, titled, "Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Product & Service (qPCR Products & Services, dPCR Products & Services), by Application (qPCR Applications, dPCR Applications), by End User (qPCR End User, dPCR End User), by Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa) - Global Industry Assessment (2016 - 2021) & Forecast (2022 - 2028)". According to the report, the global Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) industry generated $ 5,341.60Million in 2021, and is anticipated to generate $ 8,860.22 Million by 2028, witnessing a CAGR of 8.80% from 2022 to 2028.

Synopsis:

The rising incidents of genetic disorders, target infectious disease, and increasing use of biomarker profiling for the disease diagnostics, and the successful completion of the Human Genome Project are the major factors driving the growth of Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market during the forecast period. The rising technological advancements in PCR technologies, growing investments, funds, and grants are expected to increase the demand for Digital PCR (dPCR) in the upcoming years. Growth in the occurrence of target diseases globally attached with the verified efficiency of Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market analysis in the diagnosis and the valuation of disease-causing microbes, which will drive the utilization of clinical diagnostic tests including Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market analysis which is expected to contribute to the growth of the market during the forecast period. The growing market penetration in the emerging countries and shifting of consumers' opinions from plant-delivered drugs to the genome-based drugs is projected to boost the market growth during the forecast period. Moreover, the transition of the plant to genome-based drug discovery is expected to offer the opportunity for the growth of digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market in the upcoming years. Besides, the technical limitations related to PCR and the increased cost of PCR devices are projected to hinder the growth of the Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market during the forecast period.

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According to our primary respondents' research, the Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of roughly 8.80% during the forecast period.The Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) market was estimated to be worth roughly USD 5,341.60 Million in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 8,860.22 Million by 2028; based on primary research.On the basis of region, North America is projected to dominate the worldwide Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) market.List of Prominent Players in the Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market:

Thermo Fisher Scientific (US)Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. (US)and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. (Switzerland)Abbott Laboratories (US)Agilent Technologies (US)Analytik Jena AG (Switzerland)Becton Dikinson and Company (US)bioM(C)rieux SA (France)Danaher Corporation (US)Eppendorf (Germany)Fluidigm Corporation (US)Merck KGaA (Germany)QIAGEN N.V. (Netherlands)Takara Bio (Japan)Meridian Bioscience (US)Promega Corporation (US)Enzo Life Sciences, Inc. (US)Bioneer (South Korea)ELITech Group (France)Quidel Corporation (US)Purchase This Premium Report Now @ https://www.vantagemarketresearch.com/buy-now/digital-pcr-dpcr-and-realtime-pcr-qpcr-market-1370/0

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Drivers:

The development of portable, compact, and lab-on-chip PCR devices and the current technological integration with the PCR processes are the major factors driving the growth of the Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market during the forecast period. The growing investments and availability of funds for PCR-based research and the rising incidents of target infectious diseases are driving the growth of the global Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market.

Challenges:

The high equipment costs, especially that of dPCR, and the occurrence of technical limitations of PCR are the major factors hindering the growth of the global Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market during the forecast period.

Regional Trends:

North America is projected to acquire the largest market share during the forecast period. The growth in the North American Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market is mainly attributed to the increasing adoption of advanced and original genomic analysis products including innovative Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market products. The growth in the availability of Research and Development fundings for genomic research connected with the robust research infrastructure available in the region is increasing the growth of the Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market in North America. North America is growing due to the early commercialization of Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market products as compared with the other regions. The North American region including Canada and United Kingdom is projected to be the largest market owing to the increased funding for Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market technologies.

Asia Pacific region is projected to grow at the highest CAGR owing to rapidly developing economies, rise in the government support for life science research, growth in the aging population connected with the growth in the incidence of genetic diseases, growing research, and the clinical trial out-sourcing from the region which is expected to increase the demand of Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market in the Asia Pacific region.

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Recent Developments:

In 2020, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc received US FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) for SARS-CoV-2 multiplex real-time PCR test.In 2020, Roche Diagnostics acquired FDA 510k clearance for the Cobas BKV test.The report on the Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market highlights:

Assessment of the marketPremium InsightsCompetitive LandscapeCOVID Impact AnalysisHistoric Data, Estimates, and ForecastCompany ProfilesGlobal and Regional DynamicsBrowse market data Tables and Figures spread through Pages and in-depth TOC on "Digital Pcr (Dpcr) And Qpcr Market by Product (instruments, consumables, services) by Application (clinical diagnostic, research, forensic) by end-user (clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, clinical research organization, academic research institutes) , by Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa): Global Market Assessment, 2021 '' 2028" View detailed Research Report here '' https://www.vantagemarketresearch.com/press-release/digital-pcr-dpcr-and-qpcr-market-326160

Key questions answered in the report:

Which regional market will show the highest and rapid growth?Which are the top five players of the Digital Pcr (Dpcr) And Qpcr Market?How will the Digital Pcr (Dpcr) And Qpcr Market change in the upcoming six years?Which application and product will take a lion's share of the Digital Pcr (Dpcr) And Qpcr Market?What is the Digital Pcr (Dpcr) And Qpcr market drivers and restrictions?What will be the CAGR and size of the Digital Pcr (Dpcr) And Qpcr Market throughout the forecast period? This market titled ''Digital PCR (dPCR) and Real-time PCR (qPCR) Market'' will cover exclusive information in terms of Geographic Segmentation, Forecast, Regional Analysis, Key Market Trends, and various others as mentioned below:

ParameterDetailsMarket Size in 2021USD 5,341.60 MillionProjected Market Size in 2028USD 8,860.22 MillionCAGR Growth RateCAGR of 8.80% From 2022 '' 2028 Market Size Provided for Years2016-2028Base Year2021Historic Years2016-2020Forecast Years2022-2028Segments Covered Product & Service qPCR Products & ServicesdPCR Products & Services Application qPCR ApplicationsdPCR Applications End User qPCR End UserdPCR End User Region & Counties Covered North America U.S.CanadaMexico Europe U.KFranceGermanyItalySpainRest Of Europe Asia Pacific ChinaJapanIndiaSouth KoreaSouth East AsiaRest Of Asia Pacific Latin America BrazilArgentinaRest Of Latin America Middle East & Africa GCC CountriesSouth AfricaRest Of Middle East & Africa Companies Covered Thermo Fisher Scientific (US)Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. (US)and F. Hoffmann-La RocheLtd. (Switzerland)Abbott Laboratories (US)Agilent Technologies (US)Analytik Jena AG (Switzerland)Becton Dikinson and Company (US)bioM(C)rieux SA (France)Danaher Corporation (US)Eppendorf (Germany)Fluidigm Corporation (US)Merck KGaA (Germany)QIAGEN N.V. (Netherlands)Takara Bio (Japan)Meridian Bioscience (US)Promega Corporation (US)Enzo Life Sciences, Inc. (US)Bioneer (South Korea)ELITech Group (France)Quidel Corporation (US) Report CoverageMarket growth drivers, restraints, opportunities, Porter's five forces analysis, PEST analysis, value chain analysis, regulatory landscape, technology landscape, patent analysis, market attractiveness analysis by segments and North America, company market share analysis, and COVID-19 impact analysisCustomization of the Report:

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Archived Version

Thu, 05 May 2022 17:10

12:15 AM IST, 03 May 20227:13 AM IST, 03 May 202212:15 AM IST, 03 May 20227:13 AM IST, 03 May 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook is pulling out of podcasts and plans to remove them altogether from the social-media service starting June 3.

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook is pulling out of podcasts and plans to remove them altogether from the social-media service starting June 3.

Part of Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook will stop letting people add podcasts to the service starting this week, according to a note sent to partners. It will discontinue both its short-form audio product Soundbites and remove its central audio hub.

Facebook announced various audio efforts last April during a hot market for podcasting and audio in general. But the company's interest has waned, Bloomberg News reported last month, and it's now focused on other initiatives, disappointing some providers.

''We're constantly evaluating the features we offer so we can focus on the most meaningful experiences,'' a Meta spokesperson said an email. The person added that they didn't have a specific date on when Soundbites and the audio hub would shut down but it will be in the ''coming weeks.''

In the note to partners, Facebook said it doesn't plan to alert users to the fact that podcasts will no longer be available, leaving it up to the publishers to decide how they want to disclose that information. Live Audio Rooms will be integrated into Facebook Live, meaning users can choose to go live with just audio or audio and video.

The podcast market has grown crowded in recent years. Spotify Technology SA has both licensed hit shows and acquired companies. Amazon.com Inc. purchased the podcast network Wondery and also a hosting platform. The live audio platform Clubhouse was valued at about $4 billion last year and every tech company wanted to copy its product.

That made Facebook's entrance look inevitable, but only a year later the platform and its parent company Meta are heading in a different direction.

The company changed its name to Meta to emphasize its interest in building the metaverse and is also now pushing users toward short-form videos called Reels to compete with TikTok.

Meta said in its earnings report last week that Reels now make up more than 20% of the time spent on Instagram. Though the stock tumbled in February, it rebounded after financial results came out.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 05 May 2022 17:02

By Laurence PeterBBC News

Image source, Reuters

Image caption, Ukraine's MiG-29s are not as advanced as some of Russia's fighters

Ukraine's fighter pilots are vastly outnumbered by the Russians, and have become legendary - thanks in part to the story of an alleged flying ace called the "Ghost of Kyiv".

This hero is said to have downed as many as 40 enemy planes - an incredible feat in an arena where Russia controls the skies.

But now the Ukraine Air Force Command has warned on Facebook that the "Ghost of Kyiv is a superhero-legend whose character was created by Ukrainians!".

"We ask the Ukrainian community not to neglect the basic rules of information hygiene," the message said, urging people to "check the sources of information, before spreading it".

Earlier reports had named the ace as Major Stepan Tarabalka, 29. The authorities confirmed that he was killed in combat on 13 March and honoured with a Hero of Ukraine medal posthumously.

Now, the air force stresses that "Tarabalka is not 'Ghost of Kiev', and he did not hit 40 planes".

It describes the "Ghost of Kyiv" as "a collective image of pilots of the Air Force's 40th tactical aviation brigade, who defend the sky over the capital", rather than a single man's combat record.

For weeks, Ukrainians did not have a name to go with the "Ghost of Kyiv" - but that did not stop the story going viral on social media.

It was used as a marketing brand by a Ukrainian model aircraft manufacturer, while Ukrainian Iryna Kostyrenko showed off a military badge inspired by the legend.

And the defence ministry tweeted a video celebrating Tarabalka's heroism.

🕯13 беÑезня 2022 Ñоку Ðід час ÐовітÑяноÐ"о бою з ÐеÑеважаючими сиÐ>>ами 🇷🇺 заÐ"аÑбників ÐіÑов у небо>> Ð¼Ð°Ð¹Ð¾Ñ ÐтеÐан ÐаÑабаÐ>>ка.'°ðŸŽ–За захист ÐовітÑяноÐ"о ÐÑостоÑу, добÐ>>есть і відваÐ"у майоÑу ÐтеÐану ÐаÑабаÐ>>ці ÐÑисвоÑ--но звання Ð'еÑой УкÑаїни>> (ÐосмеÑтно). pic.twitter.com/otjqT32ZP4

'-- Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) March 25, 2022 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. View original tweet on TwitterMilitary experts told the BBC they doubted that one pilot could have downed as many as 40 Russian planes.

Ukrainian military historian Mikhail Zhirohov described the Ghost of Kyiv story as "propaganda for raising morale". Speaking to the BBC from Chernihiv, he said that early on in the war the Russians dominated Ukrainian airspace, so a Ukrainian pilot "could only shoot down two or three".

"It's essential to have this propaganda, because our armed forces are smaller, and many think we can't be equal to them [the Russians]. We need this in wartime," he said.

The fact that Ukrainian pilots are still denying Russia total mastery of the skies, flying inferior, older Russian-designed MiG-29s, inspired this modern legend.

With all its military might, Russia has had more than two months to knock out Ukraine's air defences - and failed.

The Ukrainian authorities fuelled the Ghost of Kyiv legend just days into the war.

The Ukraine Security Service (SBU) showed a fighter pilot on the Telegram messaging service, with a caption calling the "Ghost of Kyiv" an "angel" for downing 10 Russian planes. But it did not name the "angel", and media reports later said the photo used was an old one.

Image source, SBU

Image caption, On 27 February Ukraine called the "Ghost of Kyiv" an "angel" for downing 10 Russian planes

A Ukrainian military expert who requested anonymity told the BBC the Ghost of Kyiv story "has helped to raise morale at a time when people need simple stories".

Ukraine's morale has also been boosted by the Moskva story.

First, Ukrainian border guards defied the Russian missile cruiser with a rude gesture, commemorated with a popular postage stamp. Then Ukraine allegedly sank it - the pride of Russia's Black Sea Fleet - with two Neptune missiles. Russia admitted there was a fire on board, and that the ship sank, but made no mention of a missile attack.

Heroic fighter pilots have entered the national mythology of other countries too. The UK celebrates the brave Royal Air Force pilots who outwitted the mighty Nazi Luftwaffe in the 1940 Battle of Britain.

And Russia itself glorifies the sacrifices of its World War Two pilots, who were outgunned by the Germans. Some deliberately crashed into enemy planes after running out of bullets.

Legends like the Ghost of Kyiv are not surprising when there are such contrasting figures given for Russian and Ukrainian losses: there is plenty of room for embellishment.

On 30 April, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said that in the war so far Russia had lost 190 planes and 155 helicopters.

But independent military analysts Oryx reckon the Russian losses to be 26 planes and 39 helicopters, as well as 48 drones (UAVs).

Both Russia and Ukraine are very secretive about their own losses. Counting is difficult, because aircraft often crash in Russian-held territory, and some manage to land in Russia.

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption, Portable anti-aircraft missiles are a key part of defending the skies

Experts agree that in most cases Russian aircraft were downed with surface-to-air missiles, especially man-portable air defence systems (Manpads).

Justin Crump of the security consultancy Sybilline says the Ghost of Kyiv legend is important because in our social media age "people need myths, heroes and legends, to provide cohesion and meaning".

War in Ukraine: More coverage

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Archived Version

Thu, 05 May 2022 17:01

A person familiar with the court's deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices '-- Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett '-- had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.

The three Democratic-appointed justices '-- Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan '-- are working on one or more dissents, according to the person. How Chief Justice John Roberts will ultimately vote, and whether he will join an already written opinion or draft his own, is unclear.

The document, labeled as a first draft of the majority opinion, includes a notation that it was circulated among the justices on Feb. 10. If the Alito draft is adopted, it would rule in favor of Mississippi in the closely watched case over that state's attempt to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

On Tuesday, after this article was published, Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the draft opinion and said he was ordering an investigation into the disclosure.

''To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way,'' Roberts pledged in a written statement. ''This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.''

Roberts also stressed that the draft opinion ''does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.'' The court spokesperson had declined comment pre-publication.

POLITICO received a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court's proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document. The draft opinion runs 98 pages, including a 31-page appendix of historical state abortion laws. The document is replete with citations to previous court decisions, books and other authorities, and includes 118 footnotes. The appearances and timing of this draft are consistent with court practice.

The disclosure of Alito's draft majority opinion '-- a rare breach of Supreme Court secrecy and tradition around its deliberations '-- comes as all sides in the abortion debate are girding for the ruling. Speculation about the looming decision has been intense since the December oral arguments indicated a majority was inclined to support the Mississippi law.

Under long-standing court procedures, justices hold preliminary votes on cases shortly after argument and assign a member of the majority to write a draft of the court's opinion. The draft is often amended in consultation with other justices, and in some cases the justices change their votes altogether, creating the possibility that the current alignment on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization could change.

The chief justice typically assigns majority opinions when he is in the majority. When he is not, that decision is typically made by the most senior justice in the majority.

'Exceptionally weak'A George W. Bush appointee who joined the court in 2006, Alito argues that the 1973 abortion rights ruling was an ill-conceived and deeply flawed decision that invented a right mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and unwisely sought to wrench the contentious issue away from the political branches of government.

Alito's draft ruling would overturn a decision by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that found the Mississippi law ran afoul of Supreme Court precedent by seeking to effectively ban abortions before viability.

Roe's ''survey of history ranged from the constitutionally irrelevant to the plainly incorrect,'' Alito continues, adding that its reasoning was ''exceptionally weak,'' and that the original decision has had ''damaging consequences.''

''The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation's history and traditions,'' Alito writes.

Alito approvingly quotes a broad range of critics of the Roe decision. He also points to liberal icons such as the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, who at certain points in their careers took issue with the reasoning in Roe or its impact on the political process.

Alito's skewering of Roe and the endorsement of at least four other justices for that unsparing critique is also a measure of the court's rightward turn in recent decades. Roe was decided 7-2 in 1973, with five Republican appointees joining two justices nominated by Democratic presidents.

The overturning of Roe would almost immediately lead to stricter limits on abortion access in large swaths of the South and Midwest, with about half of the states set to immediately impose broad abortion bans. Any state could still legally allow the procedure.

''The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion,'' the draft concludes. ''Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.''

The draft contains the type of caustic rhetorical flourishes Alito is known for and that has caused Roberts, his fellow Bush appointee, some discomfort in the past.

At times, Alito's draft opinion takes an almost mocking tone as it skewers the majority opinion in Roe, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, a Richard Nixon appointee who died in 1999.

''Roe expressed the 'feel[ing]' that the Fourteenth Amendment was the provision that did the work, but its message seemed to be that the abortion right could be found somewhere in the Constitution and that specifying its exact location was not of paramount importance,'' Alito writes.

Alito declares that one of the central tenets of Roe, the ''viability'' distinction between fetuses not capable of living outside the womb and those which can, ''makes no sense.''

In several passages, he describes doctors and nurses who terminate pregnancies as ''abortionists.''

When Roberts voted with liberal jurists in 2020 to block a Louisiana law imposing heavier regulations on abortion clinics, his solo concurrence used the more neutral term ''abortion providers.'' In contrast, Justice Clarence Thomas used the word ''abortionist'' 25 times in a solo dissent in the same case.

Alito's use of the phrase ''egregiously wrong'' to describe Roe echoes language Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart used in December in defending his state's ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The phrase was also contained in an opinion Kavanaugh wrote as part of a 2020 ruling that jury convictions in criminal cases must be unanimous.

In that opinion, Kavanaugh labeled two well-known Supreme Court decisions ''egregiously wrong when decided'': the 1944 ruling upholding the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II, Korematsu v. United States, and the 1896 decision that blessed racial segregation under the rubric of ''separate but equal,'' Plessy v. Ferguson.

The high court has never formally overturned Korematsu, but did repudiate the decision in a 2018 ruling by Roberts that upheld then-President Donald Trump's travel ban policy.

The legacy of Plessy v. FergusonPlessy remained the law of the land for nearly six decades until the court overturned it with the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling in 1954.

Quoting Kavanaugh, Alito writes of Plessy: ''It was 'egregiously wrong,' on the day it was decided.''

Alito's draft opinion includes, in small type, a list of about two pages' worth of decisions in which the justices overruled prior precedents '-- in many instances reaching results praised by liberals.

The implication that allowing states to outlaw abortion is on par with ending legal racial segregation has been hotly disputed. But the comparison underscores the conservative justices' belief that Roe is so flawed that the justices should disregard their usual hesitations about overturning precedent and wholeheartedly renounce it.

Alito's draft opinion ventures even further into this racially sensitive territory by observing in a footnote that some early proponents of abortion rights also had unsavory views in favor of eugenics.

''Some such supporters have been motivated by a desire to suppress the size of the African American population,'' Alito writes. ''It is beyond dispute that Roe has had that demographic effect. A highly disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are black.''

Alito writes that by raising the point he isn't casting aspersions on anyone. ''For our part, we do not question the motives of either those who have supported and those who have opposed laws restricting abortion,'' he writes.

Alito also addresses concern about the impact the decision could have on public discourse. ''We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public's reaction to our work,'' Alito writes. ''We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today's decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision.''

In the main opinion in the 1992 Casey decision, Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and Davis Souter warned that the court would pay a ''terrible price'' for overruling Roe, despite criticism of the decision from some in the public and the legal community.

''While it has engendered disapproval, it has not been unworkable,'' the three justices wrote then. ''An entire generation has come of age free to assume Roe's concept of liberty in defining the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions; no erosion of principle going to liberty or personal autonomy has left Roe's central holding a doctrinal remnant.''

When Dobbs was argued in December, Roberts seemed out of sync with the other conservative justices, as he has been in a number of cases including one challenging the Affordable Care Act.

At the argument session last fall, Roberts seemed to be searching for a way to uphold Mississippi's 15-week ban without completely abandoning the Roe framework.

''Viability, it seems to me, doesn't have anything to do with choice. But, if it really is an issue about choice, why is 15 weeks not enough time?'' Roberts asked during the arguments. ''The thing that is at issue before us today is 15 weeks.''

Nods to conservative colleaguesWhile Alito's draft opinion doesn't cater much to Roberts' views, portions of it seem intended to address the specific interests of other justices. One passage argues that social attitudes toward out-of-wedlock pregnancies ''have changed drastically'' since the 1970s and that increased demand for adoption makes abortion less necessary.

Those points dovetail with issues that Barrett '-- a Trump appointee and the court's newest member '-- raised at the December arguments. She suggested laws allowing people to surrender newborn babies on a no-questions-asked basis mean carrying a pregnancy to term doesn't oblige one to engage in child rearing.

''Why don't the safe haven laws take care of that problem?'' asked Barrett, who adopted two of her seven children.

Much of Alito's draft is devoted to arguing that widespread criminalization of abortion during the 19th and early 20th century belies the notion that a right to abortion is implied in the Constitution.

The conservative justice attached to his draft a 31-page appendix listing laws passed to criminalize abortion during that period. Alito claims ''an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment'...from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.''

''Until the latter part of the 20th century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Zero. None. No state constitutional provision had recognized such a right,'' Alito adds.

Alito's draft argues that rights protected by the Constitution but not explicitly mentioned in it '-- so-called unenumerated rights '-- must be strongly rooted in U.S. history and tradition. That form of analysis seems at odds with several of the court's recent decisions, including many of its rulings backing gay rights.

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Thu, 05 May 2022 16:44

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- In a week that ERCOT, the state's energy regulator, warns of peak demand this weekend as temperatures rise, ABC13 learned extreme heat and cold are not the only threats to the production and delivery of energy. The Department of Energy, the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the National Security Agency have issued an alert and advisory of an advanced persistent threat to the energy sector.

SEE RELATED STORY: ERCOT positioning for potential record demand as Texas temperatures expected to soar this weekend

It was in May 2021 that hackers shut down the Colonial Pipeline, a gas conduit between southeast Texas and the East Coast. For six days, hackers stopped movement of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. They demanded a ransom, which the company paid to regain control of its systems.

SEE RELATED STORY: Colonial Pipeline temporarily shuts down 2 fuel lines as Hurricane Ida makes landfallRamanan Krishnamoorti, the chief energy officer at the University of Houston, said the threats run throughout the energy industry.

"When you saw the Colonial Pipeline, that incident is such a stark reminder of what can happen with the cyber attack," said Krishnamoorti. "Your weakest link is somebody's thumb drive that they put into a local computer that then starts to lead to this entire cyber attack."

Colman Ryan calls the threat "cyber warfare."

Ryan is a forensic investigator in Houston who helps companies identify their weaknesses and fortify their systems against everything from attacks from foreign actors to email phishing. He demonstrated how simple it is to learn enough information about a company to probe its systems and look for weak points using strings of automated queries.

"It's public. There's no way to stop these queries," Ryan said. "These electricity generation companies, they don't all have the same level of security."

ABC13 also reached out to Matt Morris, the managing director for 1898 Security and Risk Consulting. Morris explained hackers are always looking for the weakest point anywhere they can find it.

"This gives a pretty wide range of targets to a would-be adversary who is looking to disrupt, deny, or even take out aspects of the power or the energy system," Morris said.

Another expert paints an equally grim picture, despite real efforts at every level to fend off would-be hackers. Chris Bronk, who wrote a book on cyber security threats, frequently advises the government and the military.

Bronk said there is a constant vigilance among energy providers to stay ahead of the hackers, the greatest threats coming from Russia and Russian affiliated groups. Unlike a conventional attack, which could also easily disrupt reliable energy, it's a hack that could instantly shift supply in the wrong direction.

"It's a patchwork quilt of a lot of different utilities, big and small," Bronk said of the grid. "This system, when it is knocked out of equilibrium makes a lot of pain every place. It is, you know, the thing that makes everything work."

It is an around-the-clock fight across an entire spectrum of industry to keep the very real threats at bay, the power on, and the fuel moving. As the threat unfolds, University of Houston announced that on Monday, May 2, it would join a U.S. Department of Defense consortium to launch a virtual institute which plans to recruit and train the next generation to combat cyber warfare, including cyber espionage and attacks on the electromagnetic spectrum.

For updates on this story, follow Tom Abrahams on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Copyright (C) 2022 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.

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Thu, 05 May 2022 16:08

Citigroup said it had identified the cause of the flash crash and corrected the error "within minutes."

Jim Dyson | Getty Images News | Getty Images

A so-called flash crash in European markets on Monday prompted several indexes to tumble sharply, sparking alarm among investors on a day when trading was thin due to public holidays around the world.

Trading was temporarily halted in several markets just before 9 a.m. London time on Monday after some European stocks abruptly turned lower.

Nordic stocks were hit the hardest, with Sweden's Stockholm OMX 30 share index falling by as much as 8% at one point, before paring much of those losses to close the session down 1.9%.

Other European markets also plummeted for a brief period.

U.S. banking giant Citigroup on Monday took responsibility for the flash crash.

"On Monday, one of our traders made an error when inputting a transaction. Within minutes, we identified the error and corrected it," a spokesperson for Citi told CNBC.

European markets closed Monday's session sharply lower as investors reacted to the flash crash and digested weak economic data out of China and Germany.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 traded marginally lower Tuesday afternoon as market participants monitored key interest rate decisions worldwide.

What is a flash crash?A flash crash refers to an extremely sharp fall in the price of an asset followed by a swift recovery within the same day.

They typically take place over a few minutes and are often caused by a trading mistake or a so-called fat finger error '-- when someone presses the wrong computer key to input data.

High-frequency trading firms have been blamed for a number of flash crashes over recent years.

In January 2020, high-frequency futures trader Navinder Singh Sarao was sentenced to one year of home detention for helping to trigger a brief $1 trillion stock market crash a decade earlier.

Sarao was charged by the U.S. Justice Department, accused of wire fraud, commodities fraud and manipulation, as well as a count of "spoofing" '-- when a trader places thousands of buy offers with the intent of immediately canceling or changing them before execution.

The fabrication of sudden market activity created a momentum in price that Sarao was able to profit from.

The U.S. made the practice of "spoofing" a crime in 2010 in an effort to tighten regulations following the 2008 financial crisis.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that several markets were halted at 9 a.m. London time on Monday.

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Thu, 05 May 2022 15:58

Stand-up comedian Dave Chappelle was attacked Tuesday night by an audience member during a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

A male suspect jumped on stage and onto Chappelle as he was about to exit, police said. Security officers intervened at that time to detain the suspect.

The suspect, identified by police as Isaiah Lee, 23, was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon. He suffered "superficial injuries" while being detained, according to law enforcement. He has been taken to a hospital for the injuries and to be evaluated.

The LAPD said the man was armed with a replica gun that ejects a knife blade when discharged. It wasn't immediately clear what the suspect's motive was.

Chappelle was not injured as a result of the attack, LAPD said.

Kevin Mazur | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Chappelle, who was performing as part of the Netflix Is A Joke festival, was not injured in the attack, the LAPD said.

Netflix didn't immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

The incident appeared to align with fears in the comedy world that Will Smith's Oscars attack on Chris Rock, who joined Chappelle onstage after Tuesday's incident, could lead to similar assaults. Smith was banned from the Academy Awards for 10 years over his onstage assault of Rock, but Rock didn't press charges.

Rock appeared alongside Chappelle shortly after the incident, according to footage circulating on social media. He was seen taking a microphone from Chappelle to quip, "Was that Will Smith?"

Chappelle recently struck a new deal with Netflix to produce more comedy specials after recent controversies. The 48-year-old comedian faced sharp criticism and protests last year when his routine in the Netflix special "The Closer" was accused of being transphobic.

In October, hundreds of people protested outside Netflix's headquarters, calling on the streaming giant "to avoid future instances of platforming transphobia and hate speech." Chappelle said in his Netflix special that LGBT people were "too sensitive" and that "gender is a fact." He has since hit back at those he claims are trying to "cancel" him.

British comedian Jimmy Carr also performed at Tuesday's event. Carr sparked outrage earlier this year after comments about the Gypsy, Roma and Traveler communities in his Netflix special, "His Dark Material."

"The Hollywood Bowl show with the legendary Dave Chappelle was crazy," Carr said via Twitter. "Just happy everyone's ok."

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Thu, 05 May 2022 15:57

Pavlo Gonchar | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Elon Musk has said that businesses and governments may soon need to pay a "slight cost" to use Twitter just weeks after announcing he plans to buy the social media platform for $44 billion.

The tech billionaire, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, added in a post late Tuesday that the platform will continue to be free for "casual users."

It's unclear how much Musk would like to charge businesses and governments, or whether certain groups such as non-profits and journalists would be exempt from any imposed fees.

Twitter declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.

Over the years, Twitter has failed to make anywhere near as much money as other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Musk, who has 90.7 million Twitter followers, previously said he wants to "make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features."

Twitter is already experimenting with a paid-for subscription service called Twitter Blue in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand that offers additional features.

The premium offering, which costs $2.99 a month in the U.S., gives users access to features such as undoing tweets and bookmarking tweets. Musk said last month he wants to cut the price of Twitter Blue and make changes to the service including introducing a ban on ads.

Elsewhere, Musk has also said all of Twitter's direct messages should be end-to-end encrypted so no one can spy on or hack a user's messages.

At the annual Met Gala on Monday, Musk said Twitter also needs to get rid of the bots and trolls and scams that exist on the platform.

"We don't want people getting tricked out of their money and that kind of thing," he said.

IPO plans?Twitter is currently listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York but Musk hopes to take it private.

However, Musk has told investors that he may choose to return Twitter to the public stock market in as little as three years, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal Monday that cites people familiar with the matter.

Assuming the acquisition deal closes and Musk takes ownership of Twitter, the company will be controlled by the world's richest person and someone who's been a heavy critic of the platform while using it in legally contentious ways, mostly through sensitive posts about Tesla.

Though Musk has indicated that his primary interest in Twitter has to do with what he views as the company's censorship of free speech, Musk critics are concerned that the billionaire's control over the platform will result in the silencing of their voices and others with whom he may disagree, given that he's often blocked critics from his personal account.

At the TED2022 conference in Vancouver last month, Musk shared how he would like to see the platform change under his ownership.

"I think it's very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech," he said at the time, acknowledging that some content moderation would be needed to deal with explicit calls to violence and ensure the service complied with the laws in the country in which it operates.

He also said he generally would prefer "time-outs" to permanent bans, which could suggest a path for former President Donald Trump to rejoin the platform under Musk's control. Twitter banned Trump from the platform following his tweets around the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, citing "the risk of further incitement of violence."

'-- Additional reporting by CNBC's Lauren Feiner.

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Thu, 05 May 2022 15:43

Company, which faces scrutiny over stimulant-prescription practices, will continue to prescribe other controlled substances

Updated May 4, 2022 5:38 pm ETCerebral Inc. executives told its clinicians that the company will pause prescribing controlled substances such as Adderall to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in new patients beginning Monday, the company said.

Cerebral's co-founder and chief executive, Kyle Robertson, made the announcement in an email sent to staff on Wednesday, adding that the company will continue to treat existing ADHD patients.

''I...

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Cerebral Inc. executives told its clinicians that the company will pause prescribing controlled substances such as Adderall to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in new patients beginning Monday, the company said.

Cerebral's co-founder and chief executive, Kyle Robertson, made the announcement in an email sent to staff on Wednesday, adding that the company will continue to treat existing ADHD patients.

''I think the decision to pause controlled medications for ADHD is largely so that we can focus on providing the highest quality of care for all of our patients who have anxiety, who have depression, who have all these different conditions given the noise and the challenges associated with providing care for ADHD,'' Mr. Robertson said in an interview.

In a separate memo email sent to clinicians, Chief Medical Officer David Mou wrote that the company would continue to prescribe controlled substances for other conditions. Other controlled substances the company prescribes include benzodiazepines to treat anxiety. It will also continue to treat existing ADHD patients with stimulants, Dr. Mou wrote in the message, which was seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Cerebral and other telehealth startups that prescribe stimulants for ADHD have begun to face scrutiny over prescribing practices for the medicine. Cerebral's preferred pharmacy partner stopped filling prescriptions for stimulants, a former executive filed a lawsuit alleging the company put growth before patient safety and the Journal reported that some pharmacies had blocked or delayed prescriptions over concerns that the company was writing too many stimulant prescriptions. The Journal also reported that some of the company's nurse practitioners said they felt pressure to prescribe stimulants.

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Cerebral has said prescription delays occurred because of confusion around telehealth policies, and that it doesn't pressure its clinicians to prescribe stimulants. It also said the allegations in the employee lawsuit were false and that it would vigorously defend itself.

Adderall and other stimulants are a primary treatment for ADHD and can provide substantial benefits to people who are properly diagnosed with the condition, psychiatrists say.

Due to the public-health emergency presented by Covid-19, the U.S. relaxed rules in March 2020 that had previously required at least one in-person visit for prescribing stimulants, classified as a schedule 2 controlled substance by the federal government because of their potential for abuse. Telehealth providers are now allowed to do so, including after 30-minute visits with nurse practitioners. If the federal government decides that the emergency is over, the loosening of those rules would be reversed.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kan.), a physician, said it is time to end the emergency and stop telemedicine providers from prescribing schedule 2 controlled substances such as Adderall and other stimulants. ''What this reminds me of is another potential for an opioid epidemic,'' he said in an interview.

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In his note, Mr. Robertson cited ''an influx of feedback from the market.'' He also wrote that the company recognizes ''mistakes'' that it has made with respect to its advertising on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook and that the company formed a clinical review committee in response.

The company's decision comes after its preferred pharmacy, Truepill Inc., said it would stop filling stimulant prescriptions such as Adderall.

The Journal reported last week that some of the nation's largest pharmacies had blocked or delayed prescriptions over the past year from clinicians working for telehealth startups seeking to treat ADHD with stimulants. In certain cases, the pharmacies have expressed concerns that Cerebral clinicians were writing too many prescriptions for Adderall and other stimulants, according to people familiar with the issue.

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Cerebral said at the time that its prescriptions had been temporarily delayed by pharmacies because of ''confusion around today's telehealth policies.''

In his note, Dr. Mou cited ''feedback from the press'' related to the company's ADHD treatment, calling it a distraction.

In March, the Journal reported that some nurse practitioners at Cerebral said they felt pressured to prescribe stimulants such as Adderall and said the company's 30-minute evaluations aren't long enough to properly diagnose ADHD.

''We do not pressure our clinicians and have not disciplined, reprimanded or dismissed a clinician for not prescribing medications,'' Cerebral said in a written statement. ''We have a multistep approach to assessing our clients and provide our clinicians with the support to make the best decisions on behalf of their patients.''

Cerebral's former vice president in charge of product and engineering,

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Matthew Truebe, alleged in a labor lawsuit filed last week that Mr. Robertson directed Cerebral employees to track the extent to which

patient retention correlated with stimulant prescriptions.

''When Cerebral determined that patients who were prescribed stimulants were more likely to remain Cerebral customers, the CEO directed Cerebral employees find ways to prescribe stimulants to more ADHD patients to increase retention,'' the lawsuit said.

Mr. Truebe alleged in the lawsuit that he was fired in part because of his attempts to raise concerns with management about its prescription practices. Cerebral ''consistently and at times egregiously put profits and growth before patient safety,'' the lawsuit said.

Cerebral said in a written statement that ''the allegations in the complaint are not true, and the company denies them in all respects. We plan to vigorously defend ourselves against these false and unfounded allegations.''

Write to Rolfe Winkler at rolfe.winkler@wsj.com

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Thu, 05 May 2022 15:30

Donation appears to be second largest ever given to an academic institution, according to Chronicle of Higher Education

Venture capitalist John Doerr and his wife, Ann Doerr, are giving Stanford University $1.1 billion to launch a new school focused on tackling challenges of climate change and sustainability issues.

The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability will launch this fall and be the university's first new school in 70 years.

Mr. Doerr said in an...

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Venture capitalist John Doerr and his wife, Ann Doerr, are giving Stanford University $1.1 billion to launch a new school focused on tackling challenges of climate change and sustainability issues.

The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability will launch this fall and be the university's first new school in 70 years.

Mr. Doerr said in an interview the donation was a family decision made with his wife and their daughters, Mary and Esther. ''We talked about this at dinner and both Mary and Esther were wildly enthusiastic about it, and angry that we haven't made more progress against the problem,'' the legendary Silicon Valley investor said about the environmental challenges facing the planet.

The gift is the largest in the university's history, and appears to be the second largest one-time gift ever made to a university, behind Michael Bloomberg's $1.8 billion gift to his alma mater Johns Hopkins University, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education's list of donations.

Mr. Doerr, an engineer by profession and later, a venture capitalist and chairman of Kleiner Perkins, made his fortune as one of the first institutional investors in Google and Amazon , among other successful business ventures, during the dot-com era. The Doerrs are part of the Giving Pledge, founded by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett, which encourages the world's richest individuals and couples to give more than half of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes, either during their lifetime or in their wills.

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''As parents, seeing what's going on in California'--we've got the fires'--seeing floods in the Midwest, we're seeing droughts in Africa, we just can't sit back,'' Ms. Doerr said Wednesday.

Mr. Doerr, who has long had a connection to Stanford, said he has been interested in the Palo Alto, Calif., university's work on sustainability and climate change. He called to learn more about their efforts. ''I was impressed by the urgency that they were bringing and the scale of their ambition,'' he said.

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said the new school will have a three-part structure. It will include traditional academic departments such as natural sciences, engineering and social sciences, as well as building on their interdisciplinary institutes. ''The third and most important part, in some ways, is the accelerator that we added to that structure to enable our faculty to go from idea to impact much more seamlessly, much more effectively, much more efficiently,'' Mr. Tessier-Lavigne said.

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The accelerator will also support interdisciplinary policy design and engagement with governments and nonprofits.

''To address this massive global challenge of sustainability, you've got to start acting now,'' said Arun Majumdar, inaugural dean of the Doerr School. ''I think this time scale of what we need is being mapped into the organization structure.''

The school plans on having eight areas of scholarship that Stanford hopes to be the ''most crucial for advancing long-term prosperity of the planet,'' according to the school's announcement. Those areas are: climate change, Earth and planetary sciences, energy technology, sustainable cities, the natural environment, food and water security, human society and behavior, and human health and the environment.

The academic departments will start with about 90 existing faculty from the university and add an additional 60 faculty over 10 years.

''We're going to see the pace of innovation accelerate because the need is there,'' Mr. Doerr said. ''There's no plan B. We've got to get this planet, this set of sustainability challenges, addressed in our lifetime.''

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Write to Talal Ansari at talal.ansari@wsj.com

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Thu, 05 May 2022 14:17

Some of the most high-profile liberal figures have joined together to encourage advertisers to boycott Twitter if Elon Musk brings in his promised policy of unfettered 'free speech.'

Twenty six NGOs and advocacy groups signed a letter expressing concern about the world's richest man's plan.

Musk himself responded to the letter asking who funded them: the answer being an assortment of 'dark money groups' like George Soros's Open Society Foundation; NGOs founded by former Clinton and Obama administration staffers; wealthy Democrat donors and their family foundations; labor unions; and the governments of European nations.

'Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem and be a direct threat to public safety, especially among those already most vulnerable and marginalized,' they wrote.

They warned that advertising on Twitter would see their company 'risks association with a platform amplifying hate, extremism, health misinformation, and conspiracy theorists.'

The authors continued: 'Under Musk's management, Twitter risks becoming a cesspool of misinformation, with your brand attached, polluting our information ecosystem in a time where trust in institutions and news media is already at an all-time low.

'Your ad dollars can either fund Musk's vanity project or hold him to account. We call on you to demand Musk uphold these basic standards of community trust and safety, and to pull your advertising spending from Twitter if they are not.'

Elon Musk, pictured on Monday night at the Met Gala with his mother Maye, on Tuesday questioned who was funding the groups which signed a letter criticizing him

The 26 signatories to the letter warning advertisers off Twitter1. Access Now

2. Accountable Tech

3. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation

4. Center for Countering Digital Hate

5. Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC)

6. Face the Music Collective

7. Fair Vote UK

8. Free Press

9. Friends of the Earth

10. Gender Equity Policy Institute

11. GLAAD

12. Global Project Against Hate and Extremism

13. Indivisible Northern Nevada

14. Kairos

15. Media Matters for America

16. MediaJustice

17. NARAL Pro-Choice America

18. National Hispanic Media Coalition

19. Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

20. Reproaction

21. Stop Online Violence Against Women Inc

22. The Sparrow Project

23. UltraViolet

24. Union of Concerned Scientists

25. V-Day/One Billion Rising

26. Women's March

Musk, in response to the letter, tweeted: 'Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let's investigate '...'

Piqued by the critique, he added: 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant.'

The letter signed by the 26 groups was sent on headed paper bearing the logos of Accountable Tech, Media Matters for America, and Ultraviolet.

ACCOUNTABLE TECH - NICOLE GILL, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Accountable Tech is a Washington DC-based group led by Nicole Gill, a political campaigner and founder of the 2017 Tax March, and Jesse Lehrich, a former foreign policy spokesman for Hillary Clinton's campaign and the nephew of David Axelrod, former senior adviser to Barack Obama.

'Social media giants are eroding our consensus reality and pushing democracy to the brink,' they state on their website.

'Accountable Tech is fighting back.'

Founded in May 2020, the group is a 501(c)(4), which means it does not have to disclose its donor list, and it does not say on the website who funds it.

MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA - DAVID BROCK, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN

Media Matters for America was begun in May 2004 by David Brock - a former conservative journalist who turned liberal, and in 2017 was described by Politico as the 'Democrats' attack dog'.

'The Clinton enforcer, who raised tens of millions of dollars and created a far-reaching web of outside groups to push her presidential candidacy, is now training his sights on Trump,' they wrote at the time.

'Brock is rallying Democratic megadonors behind his cause and while he can be controversial at times, few bet against his efforts. His tentacles are far-reaching, including his media monitoring nonprofit Media Matters and the opposition research super PAC American Bridge.'

Media Matters for America says it is 'dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.'

David Brock, founder of Media Matters for America, was described by Politico as 'Democrats' attack dog' (left) and Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech. Both groups signed the letter warning advertisers against continuing to advertise on Twitter

According to Influence Watch, the group was founded with about $2 million in donations from prominent liberal donors, such as Susie Tompkins Buell, the 78-year-old co-founder of clothing brands Esprit and The North Face; Leo Hindery, 74, a private equity investor specializing in media; and James Hormel, who died in August aged 88.

Hormel was heir to a meatpacking fortune, and the first openly gay man to represent the United States as an ambassador - to Luxembourg, from 1997. He also co-founded in 1981 the Human Rights Campaign - the nation's preeminent gay rights group.

Media Matters is funded by a coalition of donors, including the National Education Association - America's largest union, representing teachers and other school staff - and several Jewish groups, such as the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston and Community Foundation of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego.

ULTRAVIOLET - NITA CHAUDHARY, CO-FOUNDER, AND SHAUNNA THOMAS, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

UltraViolet is the newest of the trio, founded in 2012.

'UltraViolet is a powerful and rapidly growing community of people mobilized to fight sexism and create a more inclusive world that accurately represents all women, from politics and government to media and pop culture,' they state on their website.

'We founded UltraViolet on the principle that with a combination of organizing, technology, creative campaigning, and people power, we can win. Ultraviolet leads creative, breakthrough campaigns that have won victories from politics to culture.'

The group is also backed by several unions - among them the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and the American Federation of Teachers.

Musk is famously anti-union, and has been excluded from White House electric vehicle manufacturing events due to the fact that Tesla's workforce is not unionized.

UltraViolet is backed by numerous family foundations, including that founded by Warren Buffet's son Peter, NoVo Foundation.

NoVo works to help marginalized and oppressed groups in society.

It is also supported by one of the many Pritzker family's foundations, Libra.

The Chicago-based billionaires are members of one of America's richest families who made their money largely through the Hyatt hotel chain.

Nicholas Pritzker, 76, and his wife Susan founded the Libra Foundation in 2002, and the organization now 'supports frontline organizations building a world where communities of color thrive.'

Hillary Clinton is pictured in conversation with Susie Tompkins Buell in March 2017. Tompkins Buell's foundation donates to multiple progressive causes, with a focus on women's rights and the environment

FAIR VOTE UK - KYLE TAYLOR, FOUNDER

Not all of the 26 groups that signed the letter are U.S. based.

Fair Vote UK, a British group that works to 'tackle the issue of data misuse, voter manipulation and lack of transparency in elections', is among the signatories.

A small-scale group, they declare all donations over £500 ($624), and only confirm five such donations on their site.

CENTER FOR COUNTERING DIGITAL HATE - IMRAN AHMED, FOUNDER AND CEO

Another British-based signatory was the Center for Countering Digital Hate, led by a former advisor to senior figures in the Labour Party, Imran Ahmed.

The group has expanded to have an office in Washington DC, but their work is largely British.

'The Center is best known for working with Rachel Riley to remove controversial far-right commentator Katie Hopkins from Twitter and conspiracy theorist David Icke from Facebook and Youtube,' according to Influence Watch.

George Soros, the founder and chair of Open Society Foundation, is pictured in June 2004. Soros, now 91, heads a foundation that since 1979 has donated more the $12 billion to progressive causes

Soros is pictured in September 2006 in Washington DC

ACCESS NOW - BRETT SOLOMON, CAMERAN ASHRAF, SINA RABBANI AND KIM PHAM, CO-FOUNDERS

European governments are strongly involved in backing another of the signatories - Access Now.

Begun during the 2009 Iranian election, as an activist group to organize and protest election fraud and report on human rights abuses, the group is now global with offices worldwide.

Their largest donor, according to their latest report, is the Swedish government's development agency, Sida, followed by Soros' Open Society Foundations.

The governments of Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands have contributed large amounts, as well as Canada's government.

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Thu, 05 May 2022 14:06

With the Supreme Court poised to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, an anarchist collective that makes DIY medicine has released detailed instructions for making abortion pills. The group has previously released instructions for making a DIY Epipen and for making daraprim, the pill that made ''pharma bro'' Martin Shkreli infamous.

The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective first demonstrated how to make misoprostol tablets, which are used to induce an abortion, at the Please Try This at Home conference in Pittsburgh in 2019. Last year, after Texas passed a near total abortion ban, Mixael Laufer, who runs the collective, published a 17-minute video explaining how to make the pills at home.

''The first thing to mention is this has been put together with a little bit of haste,'' Laufer says. ''There's been a great deal of panic because the Republic of Texas has gotten up to some shenanigans to benefit people who are in power and to keep a bunch of other people powerless.''

Laufer repeatedly shared the video again Monday night after a leaked court decision showed that the Supreme Court is planning to overturn Roe v. Wade, which would automatically trigger total abortion bans in nearly half of U.S. states. When a Twitter user asked if there was a writeup of their "hypothetical" abortion pill manufacturing process, Laufer responded with a link to the video.

"Not hypothetical at all. Go forth and rock it," Laufer tweeted.

In the video, Laufer explains that, besides being used to medically induce abortions, misoprostol is also used to treat ulcers in horses. This makes misoprostol powder relatively easy to acquire from veterinary sources. (This is reminiscent of ivermectin, which is used to control parasites in horses but also became a favored'--but ineffective'--COVID treatment among conspiracy theorists. Ivermectin's use in horses made it easier for humans to get without a prescription.)

Laufer explains in the video how to dose misoprostol and how to press it into pills using a scale, corn syrup, powdered sugar, a spray bottle, and a pollen press. They explain that a three-dose regimen of misoprostol is 85 percent effective in inducing abortion. If taken with mifepristone, another abortion pill, that rate rises to 95 percent effectiveness, though raw mifepristone is harder to source.

Motherboard cannot speak to the safety of making your own pills, and the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective has been criticized by some in the pharmaceutical and medical establishment who think that making DIY medicine isn't safe under any circumstances. In a progressive, just world, abortions would be free and safely administrated by medical professionals. But we have seen time and time again that attacks on abortion access lead to less safe abortion alternatives performed by a patient themselves or without medical supervision. If Roe is overturned, we are going to see more people seeking DIY abortion methods, which will include making their own abortion pills. Laufer says they hope that people who make the abortion pill are doing so proactively and as a precaution, and not under emergency circumstances.

The video is likely to help at least some people seeking abortions, though Laufer says that, in an emergency, people should seek out help from established health organizations that have for years been seeking to expand abortion access.

The fact that he had to make the video at all speaks to the horrifying nature of the world we're finding ourselves in, and the potential lengths women might need to go to to have an abortion in a world without the protections of Roe v. Wade. Endless research has shown that whether it is legal or not, women will still have abortions, and that, if it is illegal, those abortions will be much more dangerous. A recent study suggested that an abortion ban would lead to 21 percent increase in pregnancy-related deaths, and a 33 percent increase in pregnancy-related deaths among Black women.

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Thu, 05 May 2022 13:38

Republicans spent decades building the right-wing judicial machinery that enabled this week's devastating Supreme Court draft decision that when made official would overturn nearly 50 years of abortion rights in America. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a single Republican lawmaker eager to celebrate what by any measure is a generational victory for anti-abortion rights conservatives.

Instead, Washington's political media is abuzz with the race to uncover who leaked the court's draft plan. And no one is more outraged than Senate Republicans, who lined up on Tuesday to condemn the leak as a dangerous attack on democracy itself.

''By every indication, this was yet another escalation in the radical left's ongoing campaign to bully and intimidate federal judges and substitute mob rule for the rule of law,'' Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement'--without offering even a hint of evidence to support his incendiary claims.

''It is a sad day for the Supreme Court and a dangerous day for the Rule of Law,'' said Sen. Lindsey Graham in a statement, adding, ''the radical Left is hell-bent on reshaping institutions that have stood in the way of the outcomes they desire.''

During a Fox Business appearance on Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz mused about a ''left-wing law clerk'' responsible for the leak'--a character Cruz made up out of thin air because we have no idea who leaked the draft'--that will be ''prosecuted and [serve] real jail time.''

This is the same Cruz who publicly apologized for calling the Jan. 6 insurrection a ''terrorist attack'' after Trumpist standard-bearers Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz accused him of disloyalty to the MAGA movement. And that's the point.

A mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 after the Republican president perpetuating the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen told them to ''fight like hell.'' And then 147 congressional Republicans still voted to oppose certifying the election's results that very night. A few weeks later, 43 Republican senators voted to acquit Trump at his second impeachment'--including McConnell, who said Trump was ''practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of [Jan. 6],'' which he also called ''terrorism.''

''The GOP's moral outrage over the Supreme Court leak isn't just cynical, it's factually inaccurate'--because there are no known facts to work with!''

Republican efforts to muddy the waters around the violent Jan. 6 attack began even as the insurrection was unfolding, with text message evidence outlining how prominent Fox News personalities'--including Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham'--sent increasingly panicked text messages to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, while publicly downplaying an active attempt by the far right to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power. But unlike the chaos of Jan. 6, the Republican messaging machine was well-prepared to use this week's Supreme Court leak to whitewash their own well-documented history of cheerleading the collapse of American institutions.

But all that's ancient history, even if the Jan. 6 Committee is nowhere near done with its work. Republicans don't want to talk about it anymore. They need a distraction.

And so, voil , GOP Outrage Theater has a new uber-villain: ''the Leaker.''

But the GOP's moral outrage over the Supreme Court leak isn't just cynical, it's factually inaccurate'--because there are no known facts to work with!

As it stands, Republicans are effectively rewriting history, while pinning blame for the Supreme Court leak on an unnamed and possibly nonexistent agent of the shadowy ''radical left.'' Unfortunately for the news-consuming public, Beltway media outlets like Axios and Politico largely allowed McConnell to skirt tough questions about what the Supreme Court's decision actually means. In place of a serious grilling, Republicans were left free to weave their narrative without interruption from facts and reality.

McConnell's attempt to equate the draft leak with an attack on democracy didn't originate from the Minority Leader's office. McConnell and other GOP lawmakers are pulling their language directly from the far-right goons who have made a career out of minimizing the damage of Republican extremism.

A day before McConnell spoke, the conservative Daily Wire's Matt Walsh tweeted that the Supreme Court leak was ''an attack on our system 100,000,000 times more serious than the Capitol riot,'' urging his audience to ''never listen'' to Democrats concerned about ''saving democracy.'' The Daily Wire's resident celebrity pundit Ben Shapiro went further, speculating that the leak was ''designed to create threat to the life and limb of any justice who signs onto the majority opinion.''

By comparison, Shapiro wasn't nearly as worried about the actual violence that took place on Jan. 6, describing Democrats' outrage over the attack as a ''game,'' while hand-waving away the severity of that day with the glib remark, ''Politics is always politics. Always.''

In the ''law-and-order'' GOP, a leak of a SCOTUS draft decision is an assault on the fabric of America, but an actual attack on the federal government is recast by the Republican National Committee as the ''legitimate political discourse'' of justifiably angry conservative voters.

It's no mistake that Republicans are demanding jail for a leaker they imagine is a Democrat. With the House Jan. 6 Committee gearing up for blockbuster public hearings this June, the GOP desperately needs to convince Americans that what happened on Jan. 6 wasn't that bad'--and if it was, meh, because Democrats attack democracy, too. Since there's no actual evidence to support their delusions, McConnell and Republicans are more than happy to make up a liberal villain in hopes of confusing Americans, and masking their own terrible legacy of antidemocratic misconduct.

Republicans will flex their considerable media machinery to keep the story of ''the Leaker'' in the headlines'--both as a dodge to avoid discussing the Supreme Court's apparent intent to overturn a ruling that 54 percent of Americans support, and as a way to weaken any efforts to hold the GOP accountable for its actions (and inactions) on Jan. 6.

For the sake of our democracy, both the media and Democrats must proactively push back against these cynical lies before they become another super-effective weapon in Republicans' misinformation arsenal. They can start by breaking the leadership taboo on using the word abortion, which President Joe Biden studiously avoided saying during a press gaggle on Tuesday morning.

Unless Democrats can find their voice and break the Republican-promoted myth that talking about abortion is political suicide, the GOP will once again enjoy unchallenged messaging control during a critical time for women's rights.

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Archived Version

Thu, 05 May 2022 13:23

There is an endlessly repeated witticism by the poet Anatole France that 'the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.' What France certainly did not foresee is that an entire country '' and an ostentatiously progressive one at that '' has decided to take his sarcasm at face value and to its natural conclusion.

Since last year, Canadian law, in all its majesty, has allowed both the rich as well as the poor to kill themselves if they are too poor to continue living with dignity. In fact, the ever-generous Canadian state will even pay for their deaths. What it will not do is spend money to allow them to live instead of killing themselves.

As with most slippery slopes, it all began with a strongly worded denial that it exists. In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada reversed 22 years of its own jurisprudence by striking down the country's ban on assisted suicide as unconstitutional, blithely dismissingfears that the ruling would 'initiate a descent down a slippery slope into homicide' against the vulnerable as founded on 'anecdotal examples'. The next year, Parliament duly enacted legislationallowing euthanasia, but only for those who suffer from a terminal illness whose natural death was 'reasonably foreseeable'.

It only took five years for the proverbial slope to come into view, when the Canadian parliament enacted Bill C-7, a sweeping euthanasia law which repealed the 'reasonably foreseeable' requirement '' and the requirement that the condition should be 'terminal'. Now, as long as someone is suffering from an illness or disability which 'cannot be relieved under conditions that you consider acceptable', they can take advantage of what is now known euphemistically as 'medical assistance in dying' (MAID for short) for free.

Soon enough, Canadians from across the country discovered that although they would otherwise prefer to live, they were too poor to improve their conditions to a degree which was acceptable.

Not coincidentally, Canada has some of the lowestsocial care spending of any industrialised country, palliative care is only accessible to a minority, and waiting times in the public healthcare sector can be unbearable, to the point where the same Supreme Court which legalised euthanasia declared those waiting times to be a violation of the right to life back in 2005.

Many in the healthcare sector came to the same conclusion. Even before Bill C-7 was enacted, reports of abuse were rife. A man with a neurodegenerative disease testified to Parliament that nurses and a medical ethicist at a hospital tried to coerce him into killing himself by threatening to bankrupt him with extra costs or by kicking him out of the hospital, and by withholding water from him for 20 days. Virtually every disability rights group in the country opposed the new law. To no effect: for once, the government found it convenient to ignore these otherwise impeccably progressive groups.

Since then, things have only gotten worse. A woman in Ontario was forced into euthanasia because her housing benefits did not allow her to get better housing which didn't aggravate her crippling allergies. Another disabled woman applied to die because she 'simply cannot afford to keep on living'. Another sought euthanasia becauseCovid-related debt left her unable to pay for the treatment which kept her chronic pain bearable '' under the present government, disabled Canadians got $600in additional financial assistance during Covid; university students got $5,000.

When the family of a 35-year-old disabled man who resorted to euthanasia arrived at the care home where he lived, they encountered 'urine on the floor'... spots where there was feces on the floor'... spots where your feet were just sticking. Like, if you stood at his bedside and when you went to walk away, your foot was literally stuck.' According to the Canadian government, the assisted suicide law is about 'prioritis[ing] the individual autonomy of Canadians'; one may wonder how much autonomy a disabled man lying in his own filth had in weighing death over life.

Despite the Canadian government's insistence that assisted suicide is all about individual autonomy, it has also kept an eye on its fiscal advantages. Even before Bill C-7 entered into force, the country's Parliamentary Budget Officer published a reportabout the cost savings it would create: whereas the old MAID regime saved $86.9 million per year '' a 'net cost reduction', in the sterile words of the report '' Bill C-7 would create additional net savings of $62 million per year. Healthcare, particular for those suffering from chronic conditions, is expensive; but assisted suicide only costs the taxpayer $2,327 per 'case'. And, of course, those who have to rely wholly on government-provided Medicare pose a far greater burden on the exchequer than those who have savings or private insurance.

And yet Canada's lavishly subsidisedmedia, with some honourable exceptions, has expressed remarkably little curiosity about the open social murder of citizens in one of the world's wealthiest countries. Perhaps, like many doctors, journalists are afraid of being accused of being 'unprogressive' for questioning the new culture of death, a fatal accusation in polite circles. Canada's public broadcaster, which in 2020 reassured Canadians that there was 'no link between poverty, choosing medically assisted death', has had little to say about any of the subsequent developments.

Next year, the floodgates will open even further when those suffering from mental illness '' another disproportionately poor group '' become eligible for assisted suicide, although enthusiastic doctors and nurses have already pre-emptedthe law. There is already talkof allowing 'mature minors' access to euthanasia too '' just think of the lifetime savings. But remember, slippery slopes are always a fallacy.

Despite the government's insistence that assisted suicide is about individual autonomy, it has also kept an eye on the fiscal advantages

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Thu, 05 May 2022 03:17

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The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

September 15, 2015

''Adopting the insights of behavioral science will help bring our government into the 21st century in a wide range of ways - from delivering services more efficiently and effectively; to accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy; to helping workers find better jobs, gain access to educational opportunity, and lead longer, healthier lives."

'-- President Barack Obama

Today the White House will announce new actions to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of Federal programs by leveraging research insights about how people participate in, engage with, and respond to programs. Announcements include: an Executive Order, new guidance to Federal agencies to make government forms simpler and easier, and a report from the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team.

The report features the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team's first year of projects, which have made government programs easier to access and more user-friendly, and have boosted program efficiency and integrity. As a result of these projects, more Servicemembers are saving for retirement, more students are going to college, more Veterans are accessing their benefits, more farmers are obtaining credit, and more families are gaining healthcare coverage.

The Federal Government administers a wide array of programs on behalf of the American people, such as financial aid to assist with college access and workplace savings plans to promote retirement security. Americans are best served when these programs are easy to access and when program choices and information are presented clearly. When programs are designed without these considerations in mind, Americans can incur real consequences. One behavioral science study found, for example, that a complex application process for college financial aid not only decreased applications for aid, but also led some students to delay or forgo going to college altogether.

Behavioral science insights'--research insights about how people make decisions'--not only identify aspects of programs that can act as barriers to engagement, but also provide policymakers with insight into how those barriers can be removed through commonsense steps, such as simplifying communications and making choices more clear. That same study on financial aid found that streamlining the process of applying'--by providing families with assistance and enabling families to automatically fill parts of the application using information from their tax return'--increased the rates of both aid applications and college enrollment.

When these insights are used to improve government, the returns can be significant. For instance, the Federal Government applied behavioral science insights to simplify the process of applying for Federal student aid and has made college more accessible to millions of American families. Similarly, the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which codified the practice of automatically enrolling workers into retirement savings plans, is based on behavioral economics research showing that switching from an opt-in to an opt-out enrollment system dramatically increases participation rates. Since the implementation of this policy, automatic enrollment and automatic escalation have led to billions of dollars in additional savings by Americans.

More Details on Today's Announcements

Today, President Obama signed an Executive Order that directs Federal agencies to use behavioral science insights to better serve the American people. The Executive Order directs Federal agencies to identify programs in which applying behavioral science insights can yield substantial improvements; develop strategies for applying behavioral science insights to programs, and, where possible, for rigorously testing and evaluating the impact of these insights; recruit behavioral science experts to join the Federal Government; and strengthen agency relationships with the research community.

The Executive Order directs Federal agencies to take action in four areas in which prior research and practice indicate that behavioral science insights can play an especially strong role in program outcomes:

Streamlining access to programs: Agencies should look for opportunities to help qualifying individuals, families, and businesses access programs and benefits by streamlining processes that may otherwise limit participation.Improving the presentation of information: Agencies should look for opportunities to improve how the government presents information to consumers, borrowers, and program beneficiaries by giving greater consideration to ways in which information format, timing, and medium can affect understanding.Structuring choices carefully: Where programs and policies offer choices, agencies should carefully consider how the presentation and structure of those choices, including default settings and the number and arrangement of options, can empower participants to make the best choices for themselves and their families.Considering a full range of incentives: Where policies create incentives to take specific actions, such as saving for retirement, agencies should consider how the frequency, presentation, and labeling of benefits, tax credits, and other incentives can more effectively and efficiently promote those actions, with a specific focus on opportunities to use nonfinancial incentives.The Executive Order also formally establishes the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST), a group of experts in applied behavioral science that translates findings and methods from the social and behavioral sciences into improvements in Federal policies and programs for the benefit of the American people. The SBST is chaired by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and represents a dozen member agencies across the Federal Government, as well as offices within the Executive Office of the President. SBST also receives critical support from the General Services Administration. The Executive Order charges SBST with providing advice and policy guidance to Federal agencies in support of the order.

To assist with implementation of the Executive Order, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) and OSTP are issuing guidance on how agencies can use behavioral science insights to make Federal forms simpler and easier for the American people to complete. The guidance document suggests ways agencies can prioritize modifications to forms that substantially impact the public and agency operations. SBST will support these efforts by providing examples of behavioral science insights that agencies can use to improve Federal forms, working directly with agencies on form redesign, and facilitating interactions between agencies and research experts who can assist in the review and drafting of improved forms.

In addition to these Federal actions, universities, non-profits, and researchers are announcing expanded efforts to work together to use insights from the social and behavioral sciences to improve programs.

Releasing Results from the First Year of Social andBehavioral Sciences Team Projects

Today, the Administration is releasing the first Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) Annual Report, which contains the results from SBST's initial portfolio of projects with Federal agencies. SBST projects have already resulted in substantive reforms to Federal programs that serve over one million people. The results, summarized below, demonstrate the power of behavioral science insights in improving program outcomes.

Promoting Retirement Security

A single email that highlighted the three steps needed to enroll in a workplace savings plan, and conveyed the potential value of making even small contributions, nearly doubled the rate at which Servicemembers signed up. To promote participation in the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), a retirement savings plan for Federal employees, SBST and the Department of Defense (DOD) launched an email campaign that sent approximately 720,000 non-enrolled Servicemembers one of nine email variants that notified recipients of the opportunity to participate in the TSP. Compared to no message (the business as usual practice), the most effective message nearly doubled the rate at which Servicemembers signed up for TSP. Emails informed by behavioral science insights led to roughly 4,930 new enrollments and $1.3 million in additional savings in just the first month after the emails were sent. DOD is now scaling up this intervention by sending periodic emails to Servicemembers about the benefits of TSP.Asking Servicemembers at a military base to make a decision about whether to enroll in a workplace savings plan led to a significant increase in enrollments. To further promote saving, SBST and DOD prompted Servicemembers, during an orientation briefing upon their arrival after transferring to a new military base, to make a ''Yes'' or ''No'' choice about whether to contribute to TSP. Of those not already enrolled, 8.7 percent of Servicemembers signed up for TSP during the pilot, versus 2.9 percent on average at three comparison bases, and 4.3 percent during a comparison time period at the pilot base. Based on the success of this pilot, DOD is committing to applying insights from the pilot to bases and installations with higher troop concentrations.A reminder message with clear and concise instructions for how to re-enroll increased Servicemember re-enrollments in a workplace savings plan by 22 percent. To assist nearly 140,000 Servicemembers who were required to re-enroll in their Roth TSP in order to continue making contributions, SBST and DOD redesigned an email that alerted Servicemembers of the requirement to re-enroll. The redesigned email led 22 percent more Servicemembers to re-enroll in TSP within a week'--3,770 more re-enrollments than among those sent a standard message. Based on this result, DOD immediately scaled up the successful messaging in subsequent outreach reminding Servicemembers to re-enroll in TSP.Improving College Access and Affordability

Sending eight text-message reminders led to a nearly 9 percent increase in college enrollment among low-income students. To help students enroll in college, SBST and the Department of Education's office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) provided technical expertise to researchers and the nonprofit uAspire on messages notifying college-accepted high-school graduates of required pre-matriculation tasks for their respective colleges. A series of eight text messages to low-income students reminding them to complete these tasks led to a 5.7 percentage-point increase in college enrollment (from 66.4 percent to 72.1 percent), representing 8.6 percent more low-income students going to college.Reminder emails to Federal student-loan borrowers who missed their first payment led to a 29 percent increase in the number of borrowers making a payment. To help Federal student-loan borrowers stay on top of their payments, SBST and FSA sent a reminder email to over 100,000 borrowers who had missed their first payments. The reminder email led to a 29 percent increase in the fraction of borrowers making a payment in the first week after it was sent, from 2.7 to 3.5 percent.Sending a low-cost, timely notice to borrowers about alternative repayment plans led to a four-fold increase in applications to these plans. To increase awareness of income-driven repayment (IDR) plans among student-loan borrowers, SBST and FSA sent an informational email about IDR plans to over 800,000 borrowers who had fallen behind on their payments. The low-cost, timely message led to a fourfold increase in applications for IDR plans, with 4,327 applications for IDR made within 20 days of the email being sent.Improving Economic Opportunity

Highlighting to Veterans that they earned an education and career-counseling benefit led nearly 9 percent more Veterans to access the application for that benefit. To increase Veteran uptake of education and career-counseling benefits, SBST and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) sent notices informing Veterans of their benefits and the steps needed to apply. Relative to simply notifying them of their eligibility, highlighting to Veterans that they had earned the benefit led nearly 9 percent more Veterans to access the application for the benefit.Personalized letters to farmers that included a tailored set of action steps to apply for a loan increased the number of farmers obtaining a loan by 22 percent. To improve economic outcomes for small-scale and specialized farmers, SBST and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) collaborated on a campaign to increase knowledge and utilization of loan options. Farmers who were sent a personalized letter with a customized set of action steps for applying for a microloan were 22 percent more likely to obtain a loan, representing an increase from 0.09 to 0.11 percent.Helping Families Get Health Coverage and Stay Healthier

Sending reminder letters to individuals who had started to apply for health insurance led to 13 percent more completed applications. To assist individuals and families with obtaining health insurance, SBST and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent one of eight behaviorally designed letter variants to each of more than 700,000 individuals who had already begun the health insurance enrollment process but had not yet completed an application. Those sent the most effective version of the letter were 13.2 percent more likely to enroll in health insurance than those sent no letter, with enrollment rates of 4.56 and 4.03 percent, respectively.Improving Government Program Integrity and Compliance

Asking vendors to confirm the accuracy of self-reported sales figures led to an additional $1.59 million in fees collected by the government in a single quarter. To improve the accuracy of sales figures self-reported by government vendors, SBST and the General Services Administration (GSA) redesigned an online data-entry form to include a signature box at the top of the page in which the user was asked to confirm the accuracy of self-reported sales. Because vendors pay the government a small fee based on those sales reports, this change led to an additional $1.59 million in fees collected within a single quarter. Based on this result, GSA is permanently changing the form to incorporate a signature box.Simplifying a debt-collection letter had no effect on overall payment rates, but led to a 45 percent increase in the use of online payments. To increase debt recovery from individuals with outstanding non-tax debt, SBST worked with the Department of the Treasury's Debt Management Service (DMS) to simplify a collection letter. No difference in payment rates was observed, but changes such as shortening the web address for making an online payment led 45 percent more individuals to pay online, representing an increase from 1.5 to 2.2 percent. DMS has now permanently shortened the web link in the collection letter.Sending medical providers a letter illustrating their unusually high drug prescribing rates in comparison with their peers had no measurable impact on prescription rates. As part of on-going efforts to reduce inappropriate prescribing of controlled substances, SBST and HHS's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent providers with unusually high billing patterns a letter comparing their prescribing rates with the prescribing rates of their peers, as well as educational information about proper prescribing practices. No measurable impact was seen on prescription rates. The null result has prompted further exploration into the design and timing of the communications, and new approaches are now being piloted.Facilitating Cost-Effective Government Program Operations

Sending letters that included a personal appointment time to dial in to a call center and discuss transferring securities accounts to an online platform led to 23 percent higher call-in rates. To determine if letters could encourage security holders to transfer accounts to an online platform, SBST collaborated with the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Fiscal Service to design outreach to accountholders. Letters that included a personal appointment time with a call center led to 23 percent higher call-in rates than standard letters, representing an increase from 10.6 to 13.0 percent, respectively. Account conversion rates remained low for both groups, however. Based in part on this result there are no further mailings planned.Introducing a prompt to Federal employees when the employees submitted a single-sided print job increased double-sided printing by 5.8 percentage points. To encourage double-sided printing, SBST and USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) created a dialog box that asked employees to change their default printer setting to double-sided after employees had initiated a single-sided print job. This prompt increased the likelihood of double-sided printing by 5.8 percentage points, from a baseline of 46 percent. Based on this finding, ERS plans to change the default setting of all printers to double-sided. New Social and Behavioral Science Team Projects and Actions

Being Announced by the Administration

More than 20 new projects are planned for the second year of SBST. Brief descriptions of these projects are included below.

Improving Retirement Security

The Department of Defense's Defense Finance and Accounting Services (DFAS) and SBST will identify effective strategies for helping 2.5 million retired Servicemembers access their retirement account statements online. DFAS and SBST will send communications to retired Servicemembers, encouraging them to reactivate an online account so that they can easily access their retirement account statements and better manage their finances.The Financial Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC), which includes the Departments of the Treasury (Treasury) and Labor (DOL), as well as other agencies, will collaborate on a demonstration project to encourage civilian Federal employees to save more through their Thrift Savings Plans (TSPs). Many Federal employees are currently contributing below the rate at which they can maximize their employer match. FLEC will send communications to encourage employees who are participating in TSPs to increase their savings.Treasury and SBST will work to increase savings contributions of new Treasury employees in the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Orientation materials in 2016 will encourage new employees to consider increasing contribution rates in TSP to maximize their employer match, and to review the funds to which they will allocate their contributions.The Social Security Administration (SSA) and SBST will explore project opportunities to help the public with making informed decisions about when to claim their Social Security retirement benefits.Expanding Access to Higher Education

The Department of Education (ED) and SBST will collaborate to identify the most innovative and effective strategies for communicating with millions of student loan borrowers. This collaboration will include a series of pilots to ensure that borrowers know about their repayment options and are able to successfully repay their loans. Pilots will include an email campaign to make sure that borrowers in income-driven repayment plans are aware of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. ED will work with SBST as part of ED's ongoing efforts to make information about college financial aid more widely available to students and families. This collaboration will aim to more effectively connect younger students and their families with information about the availability of Federal financial aid for college earlier on, in order to assist with financial planning for higher education and to promote college access.Improving Economic Opportunity

The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and SBST will collaborate to help ensure that children retain access to nutritionally balanced, low-cost, or free lunches. This pilot will test new strategies for improving outcomes in the annual process of verifying student eligibility for low-cost or free meals under the National School Lunch Program, which serves 30 million low-income students every year. The pilot is designed to strengthen the integrity of the process while reducing barriers to access for eligible children.DOL, SBST, and State Unemployment Insurance Agencies will collaborate to provide unemployed workers with enhanced job-search support. State Unemployment Insurance Agencies in Colorado, Indiana, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Utah have committed to developing new approaches within their unemployment insurance programs in order to help claimants return to work.The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy (MC&FP) and SBST will collaborate to help over 100,000 military spouses access the My Career Advancement Account scholarship. This benefit can help military spouses obtain professional licensing, certification, training, and associate degrees that can lead to employment in promising sectors and ease the challenges of relocating.Improving Health Outcomes

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and SBST are announcing a multi-year collaboration to embed behavioral science insights and rigorous evaluation in priority country programs to end preventable child and maternal deaths. In one example, SBST and USAID are collaborating with the USAID Mozambique mission to send text reminders and educational messages to patients co-infected with TB and HIV in order to boost patient attendance at doctors' appointments and adherence to treatment regimens.MC&FP, Warrior Care Policy (WCP), and SBST will collaborate to support family members and others caring for wounded, ill, or injured Servicemembers. The purpose of the project is to increase awareness and utilization of peer forums established to give caregivers the opportunity to share information and resources with one another while providing and receiving social support. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and SBST will work together to increase the number of patients who enroll in ''Blue Button,'' the patient portal of the VHA electronic healthcare record (EHR) system. Informational outreach will help enable Veterans to access their health information on demand and manage their healthcare more effectively.The Defense Health Agency (DHA) and SBST will collaborate on a suite of projects to improve Servicemember health outcomes. These projects include a pilot to increase beneficiary utilization of online secure messaging with the beneficiary's healthcare team, and a pilot to increase rates of preventive measures such as mammograms and colon-cancer screenings.MC&FP and SBST will work to encourage Servicemembers, their families, and survivors to better utilize the military OneSource eNewsletter, website, and call center, which provide information and resources related to health and finances.HHS and SBST will conduct further analysis of the impact of sending flu-shot reminders to 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries during the 2014 flu season. The mailers included a tear-off calendar reminder and appointment-planning template.The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) and SBST will work to increase uptake of patient engagement tools such as patient portals and secure messaging. The goal of this effort is to increase the number of patients who use online portals to view, download, and transmit their health records and communicate online with their clinicians.Addressing Energy- and Environment-Related Challenges

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and SBST will work to increase uptake of insurance in flood-prone areas under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), in order to reduce the risk of detrimental flood impacts. Outreach materials will be redesigned to present information more clearly.The General Services Administration (GSA) and SBST will work to increase the energy efficiency of government buildings, reduce building-related energy expenses, and increase employee health and well-being. This series of pilots will focus on sustainability approaches, including increasing access to daylight within work spaces and aligning facilities-management practices with people's needs.GSA and SBST will work to improve uptake of renewable fuels in the government fleet. This pilot will better deliver information to drivers about optimal fuel use to meet the high sustainability standards set by Executive Order 13693, Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade.The Department of Energy (DOE) and SBST will provide tailored reports on home energy usage to help families save money on their energy bills and purchase more energy-efficient appliances. DOE and SBST will test the impact of making various types of information'--such as the Home Energy Score and recommendations for home energy improvements'--more available to home buyers and home sellers.Improving Government Program Integrity and Compliance

GSA and SBST will send tailored alerts for government surplus goods to over 40,000 registered bidders to help match potential bidders and items for sale on gsaauctions.gov. Better connecting public demand for unused government goods and improving the functionality of the auction process benefits the Federal government (sellers) and American public (buyers) alike. SSA and SBST are sending recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) information about reporting requirements. This pilot is sending program recipients communications to clarify reporting requirements in order to increase accurate reporting and reduce payment errors.The National Science Foundation (NSF) will connect SBST to cutting-edge scientific expertise in the social and behavioral sciences. NSF, which supports basic research in science and engineering, will connect its network and vast knowledge base to SBST. NSF's commitment ensures that SBST will be able to leverage the latest findings from social and behavioral science in order to translate these findings into improvements for Americans.The U.S. Census Bureau and SBST will work to improve the Bureau's communication and increase engagement with the American Community Survey. This pilot will update outreach materials so that they are clearer and help people follow through on completing the questionnaire.Supporting Commitments

The Behavioral Science & Policy Association (BSPA) is launching a ''Behavioral Science and Policy Series'' to identify promising avenues for applying behavioral science to public policy at the Federal level in order to improve Americans' lives. Through this series, by September 2016, working groups will deliver white papers that propose particular applications of behavioral science that can be applied, tested, and implemented at the Federal level in the near term. Research centers and organizations that have committed to participating and contributing to the Series include:The Brookings InstitutionCarnegie Mellon University's Center for Behavioral Decision ResearchDuke University's Behavioral Science & Policy CenterHarvard University's Behavioral Insights Groupideas42MIT's J-PAL North America at MITThe Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy at Princeton UniversityStanford University's Longevity Center and Institute for Research in Social ScienceUniversity of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public PolicyUniversity of California, Los Angeles' Interdisciplinary Group in Behavioral Decision MakingUniversity of California, San Diego's Rady School of ManagementThe University of Chicago Booth School's Center for Decision ResearchThe University of Colorado Boulder's Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision MakingThe University of Iowa's Tippie College of BusinessThe University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public PolicyThe University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of PennsylvaniaThe University of Southern California's Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesThe University of Toronto's Rotman School of ManagementYale University's Center for Customer Insights

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Thu, 05 May 2022 03:16

More From Forbes Dec 1, 2021, 12:38pm EST

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Let's Have That Much Needed Debate About The World Trade OrganizationMay 6, 2020, 02:23pm EDT

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Thu, 05 May 2022 02:42

Alejandro Mayorkas was sworn in as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security by President Biden on February 2, 2021.

Mayorkas is the first Latino and immigrant confirmed to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security. He has led a distinguished 30-year career as a law enforcement official and a nationally-recognized lawyer in the private sector. Mayorkas served as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2016, and as the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from 2009 to 2013. During his tenure at DHS, he led the development and implementation of DACA, negotiated cybersecurity and homeland security agreements with foreign governments, led the Department's response to Ebola and Zika, helped build and administer the Blue Campaign to combat human trafficking, and developed an emergency relief program for orphaned youth following the tragic January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Mayorkas also created the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate to better ensure the integrity of the legal immigration system.

Mayorkas began his government service in the Department of Justice, where he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California, specializing in the prosecution of white collar crime. After nearly nine years as a federal prosecutor, he became the youngest United States Attorney in the nation, overseeing prosecutions of national significance, including the investigation and prosecution of financial fraud, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, public corruption, violent crime, cybercrime, environmental crime, international money laundering, and securities fraud.

Mayorkas received his bachelor's degree with distinction from the University of California at Berkeley and a law degree from Loyola Law School.

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Thu, 05 May 2022 02:14

Author, television correspondent, Activist

Elie Mystal is the justice correspondent at The Nation, where he writes about the courts, the criminal justice system and politics.[1]

Mystal is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Mystal is the author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution, which is intended to be a "easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights Republicans are trying to take away, and how to stop them."[2] Mystal's book, which was published by The New Press in March 2022, became a New York Times best-seller that same month.[3]

According to Salon.com, Mystal believes the United States Constitution is "actually trash."[4][5]

Personal [ edit ] Elie Mystal is the son of late Elie Mystal Senior, Suffolk Legislature's first elected African-American[6]

Activism [ edit ] Ellie Mystal has been outspoken on a variety of issues including Civil Rights, Abortion, and the Constitution[7]

Works [ edit ] Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution, (ISBN 1620976900)The New Press: 2022.

References [ edit ]

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Thu, 05 May 2022 00:55

NegusWhoRead

Wypipologist is based on wypipo, a Black slang term for ''white people'' (particularly those perceived to be racist, unaware of their own privilege, or engaging in cultural appropriation) based on a Black colloquial pronunciation of the phrase. Wypipo is especially found on social media, such as Black Twitter, and is recorded as early as 2016.

Added to wypipo is the suffix -ologist, signifying someone with expert knowledge of a particular domain of study, usually a kind of science (think biologist). A wypipologist, then, ''studies'' wypipology '-- the science of white people, as it were, or white, mainstream culture.

Why does Donald Trump keep coming for black folks?

We consulted resident our wypipologist, @MichaelHarriot, to take a look at Trump's tweets about black people, by the numbers. pic.twitter.com/xwweIInigj

'-- The Root (@TheRoot) August 25, 2018

The term wypipologist appears to have been coined by journalist and commentator Michael Harriot, a major contributor to the Black-geared website The Root in early 2017. In his bio for the site, Harriot describes himself as a ''world-renowned wypipologist.''

Harriot often uses wypipologist in his irreverent coverage of white people and their sometimes-ridiculous or racist behaviors, ranging from the humorous (making acoustic versions of rap songs) to the harmful (calling cops on Black people for being, well, Black).

From Harriot, the term has spread and a few other media personalities began cheekily calling themselves wypipologists.

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Thu, 05 May 2022 00:55

After five years at The Root, Michael Harriot says goodbye.

It's time to have a conversation about the culture that increasingly rejects the value of education, civility and'...

History is filled with examples of how language is repurposed for the advancement of whiteness.

Anti-woke activists have come together to create The University of Austin, a white tears-based institution dedicated'...

Aaron Rodgers is just the latest celebrity to accuse an invisible group of 'canceling' him'--and now it's time to'...

The political stunt aimed at Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin exposes the differences in how white'...

Polls show the former NFL star is ahead of the pack of candidates vying to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.

Each Friday, we clap back at readers' emails, DMs, tweets and messages. We do it because we care.

Dave Chappelle's defiant defense of his Netflix special shows why cancel culture is actually a good thing.

In her appearance on The View, Condoleezza Rice argued that teaching kids about racism and inequality would make'...

Prosecutors dropped charges against a trio accused of a multi-state heist that involved a Confederate monument,'...

The two legendary rappers faced off in a Verzuz battle that could only be described as "for the culture."

The retired four-star general and first African American to serve as secretary of state, served his country as a'...

Each Friday, we clap back at readers' emails, DMs, tweets and messages. We do it because we care.

ESPN Insider Adam Schefter's email sparked a debate about journalism, but no one has mentioned how owners,'...

Before emails revealed Jon Gruden's racism, his friends emphatically declared that he didn't have a racist bone in'...

A dispute over two opposing plans for first-time homebuyers shows how colorblind policies ignore racial disparities'...

Please don't believe the insidiously mindless narrative that protesters should remain civil and respect Kyrsten'...

The scandal surrounding Ozy Media is a story about capitalism, racial equity and what people really mean when they'...

Each Friday, we clap back at readers' emails, DMs, tweets and messages. We do it because we care.

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Wed, 04 May 2022 15:04

Some of the most high-profile liberal figures have joined together to encourage advertisers to boycott Twitter if Elon Musk brings in his promised policy of unfettered 'free speech.'

Twenty six NGOs and advocacy groups signed a letter expressing concern about the world's richest man's plan.

Musk himself responded to the letter asking who funded them: the answer being an assortment of 'dark money groups' like George Soros's Open Society Foundation; NGOs founded by former Clinton and Obama administration staffers; wealthy Democrat donors and their family foundations; labor unions; and the governments of European nations.

'Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem and be a direct threat to public safety, especially among those already most vulnerable and marginalized,' they wrote.

They warned that advertising on Twitter would see their company 'risks association with a platform amplifying hate, extremism, health misinformation, and conspiracy theorists.'

The authors continued: 'Under Musk's management, Twitter risks becoming a cesspool of misinformation, with your brand attached, polluting our information ecosystem in a time where trust in institutions and news media is already at an all-time low.

'Your ad dollars can either fund Musk's vanity project or hold him to account. We call on you to demand Musk uphold these basic standards of community trust and safety, and to pull your advertising spending from Twitter if they are not.'

Elon Musk, pictured on Monday night at the Met Gala with his mother Maye, on Tuesday questioned who was funding the groups which signed a letter criticizing him

The 26 signatories to the letter warning advertisers off Twitter1. Access Now

2. Accountable Tech

3. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation

4. Center for Countering Digital Hate

5. Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC)

6. Face the Music Collective

7. Fair Vote UK

8. Free Press

9. Friends of the Earth

10. Gender Equity Policy Institute

11. GLAAD

12. Global Project Against Hate and Extremism

13. Indivisible Northern Nevada

14. Kairos

15. Media Matters for America

16. MediaJustice

17. NARAL Pro-Choice America

18. National Hispanic Media Coalition

19. Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

20. Reproaction

21. Stop Online Violence Against Women Inc

22. The Sparrow Project

23. UltraViolet

24. Union of Concerned Scientists

25. V-Day/One Billion Rising

26. Women's March

Musk, in response to the letter, tweeted: 'Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let's investigate '...'

Piqued by the critique, he added: 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant.'

The letter signed by the 26 groups was sent on headed paper bearing the logos of Accountable Tech, Media Matters for America, and Ultraviolet.

ACCOUNTABLE TECH - NICOLE GILL, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Accountable Tech is a Washington DC-based group led by Nicole Gill, a political campaigner and founder of the 2017 Tax March, and Jesse Lehrich, a former foreign policy spokesman for Hillary Clinton's campaign and the nephew of David Axelrod, former senior adviser to Barack Obama.

'Social media giants are eroding our consensus reality and pushing democracy to the brink,' they state on their website.

'Accountable Tech is fighting back.'

Founded in May 2020, the group is a 501(c)(4), which means it does not have to disclose its donor list, and it does not say on the website who funds it.

MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA - DAVID BROCK, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN

Media Matters for America was begun in May 2004 by David Brock - a former conservative journalist who turned liberal, and in 2017 was described by Politico as the 'Democrats' attack dog'.

'The Clinton enforcer, who raised tens of millions of dollars and created a far-reaching web of outside groups to push her presidential candidacy, is now training his sights on Trump,' they wrote at the time.

'Brock is rallying Democratic megadonors behind his cause and while he can be controversial at times, few bet against his efforts. His tentacles are far-reaching, including his media monitoring nonprofit Media Matters and the opposition research super PAC American Bridge.'

Media Matters for America says it is 'dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.'

David Brock, founder of Media Matters for America, was described by Politico as 'Democrats' attack dog' (left) and Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech. Both groups signed the letter warning advertisers against continuing to advertise on Twitter

According to Influence Watch, the group was founded with about $2 million in donations from prominent liberal donors, such as Susie Tompkins Buell, the 78-year-old co-founder of clothing brands Esprit and The North Face; Leo Hindery, 74, a private equity investor specializing in media; and James Hormel, who died in August aged 88.

Hormel was heir to a meatpacking fortune, and the first openly gay man to represent the United States as an ambassador - to Luxembourg, from 1997. He also co-founded in 1981 the Human Rights Campaign - the nation's preeminent gay rights group.

Media Matters is funded by a coalition of donors, including the National Education Association - America's largest union, representing teachers and other school staff - and several Jewish groups, such as the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston and Community Foundation of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego.

ULTRAVIOLET - NITA CHAUDHARY, CO-FOUNDER, AND SHAUNNA THOMAS, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

UltraViolet is the newest of the trio, founded in 2012.

'UltraViolet is a powerful and rapidly growing community of people mobilized to fight sexism and create a more inclusive world that accurately represents all women, from politics and government to media and pop culture,' they state on their website.

'We founded UltraViolet on the principle that with a combination of organizing, technology, creative campaigning, and people power, we can win. Ultraviolet leads creative, breakthrough campaigns that have won victories from politics to culture.'

The group is also backed by several unions - among them the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and the American Federation of Teachers.

Musk is famously anti-union, and has been excluded from White House electric vehicle manufacturing events due to the fact that Tesla's workforce is not unionized.

UltraViolet is backed by numerous family foundations, including that founded by Warren Buffet's son Peter, NoVo Foundation.

NoVo works to help marginalized and oppressed groups in society.

It is also supported by one of the many Pritzker family's foundations, Libra.

The Chicago-based billionaires are members of one of America's richest families who made their money largely through the Hyatt hotel chain.

Nicholas Pritzker, 76, and his wife Susan founded the Libra Foundation in 2002, and the organization now 'supports frontline organizations building a world where communities of color thrive.'

Hillary Clinton is pictured in conversation with Susie Tompkins Buell in March 2017. Tompkins Buell's foundation donates to multiple progressive causes, with a focus on women's rights and the environment

FAIR VOTE UK - KYLE TAYLOR, FOUNDER

Not all of the 26 groups that signed the letter are U.S. based.

Fair Vote UK, a British group that works to 'tackle the issue of data misuse, voter manipulation and lack of transparency in elections', is among the signatories.

A small-scale group, they declare all donations over £500 ($624), and only confirm five such donations on their site.

CENTER FOR COUNTERING DIGITAL HATE - IMRAN AHMED, FOUNDER AND CEO

Another British-based signatory was the Center for Countering Digital Hate, led by a former advisor to senior figures in the Labour Party, Imran Ahmed.

The group has expanded to have an office in Washington DC, but their work is largely British.

'The Center is best known for working with Rachel Riley to remove controversial far-right commentator Katie Hopkins from Twitter and conspiracy theorist David Icke from Facebook and Youtube,' according to Influence Watch.

George Soros, the founder and chair of Open Society Foundation, is pictured in June 2004. Soros, now 91, heads a foundation that since 1979 has donated more the $12 billion to progressive causes

Soros is pictured in September 2006 in Washington DC

ACCESS NOW - BRETT SOLOMON, CAMERAN ASHRAF, SINA RABBANI AND KIM PHAM, CO-FOUNDERS

European governments are strongly involved in backing another of the signatories - Access Now.

Begun during the 2009 Iranian election, as an activist group to organize and protest election fraud and report on human rights abuses, the group is now global with offices worldwide.

Their largest donor, according to their latest report, is the Swedish government's development agency, Sida, followed by Soros' Open Society Foundations.

The governments of Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands have contributed large amounts, as well as Canada's government.

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Wed, 04 May 2022 12:43

Associated Press/Patrick SemanskyVice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Emily's List National Conference and Gala, Tuesday, May 3, 2022, in Washington.

Vice President Harris assailed Republicans seeking to restrict access to abortion and declared women's rights under attack during a forceful speech at an EMILY's List conference Tuesday evening.

Speaking just 24 hours after a draft opinion leaked suggesting the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the landmark abortion ruling in Roe v. Wade, Harris issued a call to action for voters to elect more pro-abortion rights Democrats to Congress and push back against efforts to restrict access to the procedure.

''Roe v. Wade in its power has protected a woman's right, her right to make decisions about her own body for nearly half a century,'' Harris told the crowd at a hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. ''If the court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will be a direct assault on freedom, on the fundamental right to self-determination to which all Americans are entitled.''

''Those Republicans leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women,'' she continued. ''How dare they? How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body? How dare they? How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?''

The speech was significant for two reasons: Not only did it represent Harris's first extensive public comments on the Supreme Court bombshell, but it was also her first public appearance since ending her COVID-19 quarantine. Harris tested positive for the virus last week and tested negative six days later, on Monday.

Harris, who is the first female vice president, underscored the work of EMILY's List, a political organization dedicated to electing female pro-abortion rights lawmakers, and described the battle for women's rights as immediate and pressing.

''There is nothing hypothetical about this moment,'' Harris told her audience.

''We must link arms in this fight. I invite all people to join us. If you stand for freedom, for self-determination, for the right to privacy, if you stand for these principles, stand with us,'' she said before concluding her remarks. ''Women's issues are America's issues, and democracies '-- democracies cannot be strong if the rights of women are under attack.''

Politico on Monday evening reported on the leaked draft opinion of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito striking down the 1973 decision in Roe, which recognized a woman's right to an abortion as constitutionally protected.

The story sent shockwaves through Washington, both for the gravity of the expected opinion of the conservative majority and the leak itself, which is highly rare for the court.

On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts said the court would investigate the leak. The court confirmed the authenticity of the document but also said the opinion was not final.

Harris is among a slew of Democrats who have rebuked the draft opinion as an assault on women's reproductive freedoms. President Biden told reporters that the opinion was ''radical'' and warned it could endanger other rights.

2 in 3 voters support term limits for Supreme Court justices: surveyThe Hill's Morning Report '-- Roe, Ohio primary dominateThe White House says it is studying possible responses to a Supreme Court ruling striking down Roe as well as other GOP-led restrictive state abortion laws, but the administration's authority is limited.

Abortion advocates estimate that about half of U.S. states could move to enact abortion restrictions if Roe is overturned. An analysis by the Guttmacher Institute found that 13 states have in place ''trigger laws'' in which near or total bans on abortion would take effect in the event the 1973 decision is overturned.

Some Democrats are renewing a push to codify Roe into federal law, though Democrats do not currently have the votes in the Senate to pass such a law.

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Wed, 04 May 2022 12:42

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama released a statement on Tuesday in response to news that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade .

In a draft majority opinion leaked to Politico on Monday night, Justice Samuel Alito writes that ''Roe was egregiously wrong from the start'' and ''we hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled.'' According to Politico, the draft is ''a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision '-- Planned Parenthood v. Casey '-- that largely maintained the right.''

Barack and Michelle Obama released a statement on Tuesday condemning the Supreme Court's tentative decision.

''Today, millions of Americans woke up fearing that their essential freedoms under the Constitution were at risk,'' the couple said. ''If the Supreme Court ultimately decides to overturn the landmark case of Roe v. Wade , then it will not only reverse nearly 50 years of precedent '-- it will relegate the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues.''

Obama releases a 719 word statement reacting to the leak of the draft court opinion on Roe v. Wade pic.twitter.com/1jfbLrLG3Y

'-- Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) May 3, 2022

The statement claims that ''few, if any, women make the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually'' and pushes the initial reasoning for Roe '-- that the Fourteenth Amendment ''requires all of us to enjoy a sphere of our lives that isn't subject to meddling from the state.''

In the Obamas' view, this includes ''who we sleep with, who we marry, whether or not to use contraception, and whether or not to bear children.''

During his tenure in the White House, Obama was an ardent supporter of abortion. In the first days of his presidency, Obama revoked the Mexico City Policy '-- which forbids the United States from funding abortion overseas '-- to ''restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development.''

''The consequences of this decision would be a blow not just to women, but to all of us who believe that in a free society, there are limits to how much the government can encroach on our personal lives,'' the Obamas' statement continued. ''Instead, as we've already begun to see in states with restrictive abortion laws, those women with means would travel to states where abortion remains legal and safe. Meanwhile, those without enough money or access to transportation or ability to take off from school or work would face the same circumstances most women faced before Roe .''

''We ask you to think about the college student waking up after her date forced her into unprotected sex,'' the statement added. ''Think about the couple that tried to have children for years, who are without any options when faced with the tragic reality of an unviable pregnancy. Think of any of the hundreds of thousands of women each year who deserve the dignity and freedom of making a decision that is right for their bodies and their circumstances.''

The Obamas' statement concluded by calling Americans to protest, vote, volunteer, and urge Congress to codify Roe '-- a move that aligns with President Joe Biden's platform and calls made by several leading Democratic lawmakers.

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Tue, 03 May 2022 14:16

Satellite data show that global warming started to run out of steam two decades ago, but the U.K. Met Office's record of surface temperature from 1975 was boosted by 14% at the end of 2020. At the same time, the period between 1880-1975 was cooled. The move accentuates the rise in the global temperature recorded in the 1980s and 1990s that forms the basis of much of the current hysteria about the so-called climate emergency.

The disclosure of the apparent warming and cooling is contained in the latest State of the Climate report from Emeritus Professor Ole Humlum of the University of Oslo, and published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Professor Humlum says the post-1975 warming is about +0.1°C and the pre-1975 cooling about -0.1°C. The version-change to the fifth HadCRUT Met Office database ''conveys the impression of a somewhat more rapid global temperature increase following the relatively cold period terminating around 1975''. When the Met Office first announced the change in December 2020, it admitted to 0.16°C extra warming, although it didn't give specifics about cooling and warming either side of the 1975 mark.

Professor Humlum also draws attention to significant retrospective changes in the American GISS surface temperature record. The graph below shows the effect of the changes made since May 2008 on the monthly temperature record, with increases in red and decreases in blue. As with HadCRUT, the changes warm the early part of the record, cool the period from 1900 to 1970, and heat up the later recordings.

Humlum notes that the changes in annual values are often quite substantial, ranging from about +0.15°C to ''0.15°C. He goes on to note that the temperature difference between 1915 and 2000 increased from 0.45°C to 0.67°C. ''This represents an increase of about 49% over this period, meaning that about half of the apparent global temperature increase from January 1910 to January 2000 is due to administrative adjustments to the original data made since May 2008,'' he writes.

Recent boosts to global temperatures databases are of course very helpful to activists in the media and politics keen to report 'record' warm years at a time when accurate satellite data reveal a pause of 88 months (and counting). In addition, work continues across a number of fronts to promote the climate emergency agenda, including extreme weather events.

Last week, the BBC reported that southern African storms were fuelled by climate change. According to the BBC, the results of a study from the World Weather Attribution group show that damage inflicted by storms in the region was exacerbated by global warming. According to the press release, the group used ''computer simulations'' to arrive at its findings. The BBC ran the scare story, without a byline, despite noting that ''the precise contribution of climate change to the event could not be quantified, due to the absence of comprehensive historical records of rainfall in the region''.

In fact, attributing single episodes of bad weather to long-term changes in the climate is highly unscientific, since it is just an opinion. In 2014, Associate Professor Jennifer Fitchett from the University of the Witwatersrand published a paper in which she said she found ''no statistically significant trends in the frequency of tropical cyclone landfalls over Madagascar and Mozambique over the past six decades''. Furthermore, much of the perceived changes in storm numbers could be attributed to recent improvements in storm detection methods.

Professor Humlum's excellent and measured climate report provides further context in which to evaluate the constant media scare stories about hurricane and cyclones.

The above graphs plot accumulated cyclone energy (ACE), as used by the U.S.-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Humlum notes that ACE gives a measure of the damage potential of an individual storm or a season. If climate change is affecting the southern hemisphere, and causing more severe problems in southern Africa, the trend does not yet appear to have shown up in the actual data. Overall, Humlum notes, ''existing records do not suggest any abnormal cyclone activity in recent years''.

Another fashionable scare story is the loss of snow, particularly in the Alps, a favoured winter holiday destination of many Guardian, BBC and Extinction Rebellion supporters. In 2017, the Guardian reported that according to ''experts'' Alpine ski resorts could lose up to 70% of their snow cover by 2100. Last year, Justin Rowlatt reported on Panorama that snowy U.K. winters could become a thing of the past.

Back on Planet Reality, the thin blue lines above, show weekly northern hemisphere snow data, while the thicker blue line shows a 53 week average. There is practically no change going back 50 years

Humlum concluded: ''A year ago, I warned that there was great risk in using computer modelling and immature science to make extraordinary claims. The empirical observations I have reviewed show very gentle warming and no evidence of a climate crisis.''

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic's Environment Editor

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Tue, 03 May 2022 10:45

WASHINGTON '-- At the center of today's most heated immigration debate is a decades-old health statute dusted off by the Trump administration that is reshaping U.S. policy at the border.

Citing the threat of COVID-19, the U.S. government has over the last year and a half carried out nearly 1.3 million expulsions of migrants at the border without offering them the opportunity to request asylum or other humanitarian protections. That policy '-- known as Title 42 for the section of the health statute where it originated '-- has been met with legal and political challenges, but it remains on the books.

And it's one of the main reasons that border crossings are up. According to CBP data released in October, there were 1.7 million people detained at the Southwest border during fiscal year 2021, which ended Sept. 30. This year marked the largest annual total for apprehensions in Border Patrol history. That's in part because the nature of the rapid Title 42 expulsions make it easier for people to try to immediately cross again.

Here's why Title 42 matters, and what you need to know.

What is Title 42?Title 42 is a public health and welfare statute enacted in 1944 that gave the U.S. surgeon general the authority '-- later transferred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention '-- to determine whether communicable disease in a foreign country poses a serious danger of spreading in the U.S., either by people or property entering the country.

If the CDC finds that a disease does pose a threat, it can, with approval from the president, temporarily prohibit them from entering the country to avert danger.

That's just what it did at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, amid surging deaths from disease, the Trump administration put forward a novel interpretation of Title 42: U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents could immediately remove anyone entering the country without authorization to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. This new interpretation of policy closed the border to nonessential travel in the ''interest of public health.''

But it also superseded all other U.S. laws, including statutes that grant migrants the right to seek asylum; prevent the persecuted from being returned to countries where they would face threats, harm or torture; and protect unaccompanied children vulnerable to being trafficked.

Before the Trump administration, migrants who made it to the U.S. and sought asylum or other humanitarian protections were detained or released into the country pending a final immigration court decision, which could take years amid a growing backlog of cases.

Under Title 42, migrants do not even receive a formal order of deportation. Instead, agents take migrants' biometric information and perform a cursory health check for COVID-19 symptoms '-- a process that can take roughly 90 minutes '-- before returning them to Mexico (if they are from Mexico or Central America). If they are from anywhere else, they are typically flown back there.

How did we get here? The Title 42 policy appears to have been first applied by the CDC under pressure from former Vice President Mike Pence, and from Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide who long sought to restrict immigration. Experts at the CDC objected, saying the policy would do little to stanch the spread of the coronavirus and that it could not be justified in the name of public health. Pence ordered the CDC's director to use the agency's emergency powers to effectively seal the U.S. borders anyway.

Advocacy groups including the ACLU last year sued the Trump administration over its use of Title 42. When President Biden began his term in January, the new administration continued the policy, saying it is ''necessary to limit the spread of the coronavirus.''

After 16,000 children who were traveling without a parent had been expelled from the U.S. under Title 42, the Biden administration exempted unaccompanied minors from the policy. Parents traveling with their children and single adults are still officially blocked from entering the country or are quickly expelled. But children traveling with extended family members, such as grandparents, are not considered family units, meaning they can be separated at the border with the children labeled as unaccompanied minors and allowed to enter.

Advocates expected the president to rescind the order over the summer, as COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. But then the Delta variant hit.

What's the controversy?Legal experts say Title 42 is one of the most controversial and restrictive immigration policies ever enacted. When the Trump administration implemented Title 42, lawmakers including then-Sen. Kamala Harris called it an unconstitutional ''executive power grab.'' Immigrant advocates broadly expected Biden to do away with enforcement of the measure when he took office.

Public health experts say people who refuse to get vaccinated '-- not migrants '-- are driving the increase of infections in the U.S. Last month, former CDC officials wrote a letter to the Biden administration condemning the current policy as ''scientifically baseless and politically motivated.'' They said that measures including masking, social distancing, quarantine and vaccination effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said Oct. 3 on CNN that immigrants are ''absolutely not'' a driving force of COVID-19. Asked about Title 42, Fauci said, ''My feeling has always been that focusing on immigrants, expelling them ... is not the solution to an outbreak.''

The Department of Homeland Security announced that some restrictions on non-essential travel at land ports of entry will be lifted in November, allowing vaccinated people to enter the U.S. from Canada and Mexico. Asked how officials could justify continuing Title 42 while ending restrictions at ports of entry, a senior Biden administration official said that two different populations are at issue '-- those entering with prior authorization and those entering without.

The administration continues to maintain that the Title 42 restrictions protect the migrants themselves, the DHS workforce and local communities.

How is Title 42 different from 'Remain in Mexico'?Sometimes the Title 42 policy is confused with another Trump administration policy known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, more commonly referred to as ''Remain in Mexico.'' Under that 2019 policy, U.S. immigration officers direct migrants from countries other than Mexico to stay there while their cases weave through the immigration court system.

The program has resulted in thousands of migrants living in squalid tent encampments on the Mexican side of the border in some of the world's most dangerous cities. But it still gives migrants the chance to apply for asylum, albeit from outside the U.S.

Title 42 prevents them from seeking humanitarian protections at all.

Border authorities under the Trump administration largely stopped using Migrant Protection program at the beginning of the pandemic in favor of Title 42, and Biden officially ended the policy soon after taking office. But a federal court in Texas ruled that he must restart it. The Supreme Court later upheld that decision.

DHS said in September that it is still committed to ending the policy in a manner that addresses the court's concerns. In the meantime, officials are preparing to reimplement the policy in mid-November as long as the Mexican government agrees to once again accept asylum seekers with pending cases.

How is Title 42 working?Among more than 1.7 million people detained by CBP at the Southwest border during fiscal year 2021, 61% were expelled under Title 42, according to CBP data released Friday. But those rapid expulsions caused a significant increase in repeated crossing attempts by migrants returned to Mexico, inflating the number of individuals encountered. In recent months, including September, upwards of a quarter of the arrests were by people who had previously been turned back within the same year.

While migrants can't seek asylum under Title 42, they can still be screened under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Just 272, or 8%, passed their initial screenings. These screenings, in which migrants must prove that they are likely to be tortured if they are expelled, are more difficult to pass than traditional asylum interviews.

Federal officials rely on Mexico to receive migrants expelled from the U.S. under Title 42 who are from Central America, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Many migrants who are refused by Mexico and cannot be immediately expelled are held in detention while they await a longer deportation process.

Early this year, the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, started refusing to accept families with young children. Since then, CBP has transferred some migrants to other Mexican border cities. But most families encountered near there are now sent to U.S. detention centers or released in Texas. Thousands of others have been flown to southern Mexico and then expelled by the Mexican government to Guatemala or Honduras.

Where does the legal battle stand? The CDC issued an order in August keeping Title 42 in place. Early this month the agency completed another assessment and determined it continues to be necessary.

Last month, in response to the ACLU's lawsuit, a U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C., found that migrant families subjected to Title 42 ''face real threats of violence and persecution'' and are deprived of statutory rights to seek protection in the U.S. The judge also found that, while Title 42 grants the government the authority to turn away people seeking to enter the country, it does not permit expulsions of people already on U.S. soil.

Justice Department lawyers argued in a court filing afterward that halting Title 42 would require the government to detain people for immigration processing ''in facilities that are not equipped for physical distancing, quarantine, or isolation at the best of times, and that are now substantially over their COVID-restricted capacity.'' A federal appellate court later temporarily granted the Biden administration permission to continue the use of Title 42 to quickly expel migrants with children stopped along the U.S. border.

Former CDC officials say that most asylum seekers don't have to be held in detention for health reasons, and that transferring detainees between facilities, as is often done before deporting them, increases the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

The nonprofit group Human Rights First has tracked at least 7,647 kidnappings, rapes and other attacks on people expelled or blocked at the U.S.-Mexico border since Biden took office, including multiple children raped at tent encampments in Tijuana and Reynosa, in the Rio Grande Valley.

Though it's still early, the September order by the appellate court offers an indication of how it could ultimately rule. If the Biden administration wins its appeal, it could continue to use Title 42 for immigration enforcement. But even if it loses, the administration could still appeal to the Supreme Court, where a conservative majority might be inclined to side with federal officials.

The CDC's next 60-day assessment of the policy is Dec. 2.

Times staff writer Molly O'Toole contributed to this report.

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Mon, 02 May 2022 13:20

For the last two days I've felt an uneasy sense of grief, or of a heavy pressure on my heart. At first I could not figure out the cause of it.

Nothing unusual was wrong in my personal life. My loved ones were safe and well, thank God. The battle for liberty was ongoing, as it has been for over two years, but I was used to the rigors and stresses of that. What was the matter?

I was just driving with Brian over Taconic foothills, and through the vast early-Spring expanses of the beautiful Hudson Valley. The sun was shining. Daffodils, creamy-white and bright yellow, displayed their trumpets shyly in shadowy recesses under old ash trees with wide-spreading boughs. The lighter-yellow forsythia dotted the roadsides in a riot of buzzy color.

We'd just been talking to a realtor acquaintance who described how the area had changed when the city people fled their Brooklyn apartments at the start of the pandemic, to sit out the crisis in the gracious, creaky old farmhouses that they could purchase for a relative song.

We'd driven through reopened businesses flush with newly transplanted money. An old railroad car diner had been revamped and now offered curated organic-beef hash, and tasty, if ironic, egg creams.

We drove past little 1960s ranch houses with some land around them, now being redone with costly cedar shingles and white trim, for the farmhouse look that the ex-Brooklynites liked. Sotheby's signs were out on the lawns already, in preparation for the lucrative flipping.

On driveway after driveway of the ex-Brooklynites, of the former weekend people '-- (and I confess that I too was once a weekend person, but something has happened to me in the last two years that has changed me even more than my change of home address) there were now Ukrainian flags. Not American flags. No one cared or even asked about the town halls being closed for the past two years. Tyranny overseas was more pressing than the rights that had been suspended just up the road.

Otherwise most things were almost back to normal! Almost pre-2020 normal!

The masks had recently come off. Hudson, New York, and Great Barrington, Massachusetts, the two cities nearest us, and also, by chance, both left-leaning, had also been two of the maskiest and most coercive of places when it came to pandemic policies and pandemic cultures. Now businesses were being allowed to reopen.

(I'd been fired from my Great Barrington synagogue because I'd dared to invite people over to my house at the depth of the pandemic '-- if they had wanted, as adults, affirmatively, to join me '-- to watch the Zoom Friday Evening Shabbat service together. Shocking behavior on my part, I know.)

As if a switch had been flicked, now the cruel moral judgments, the two-tier society, the mandates, the coercions, the nasty looks, the desperate masked children with their laboring breath, the loneliness, the desolate centrally-planned economies '-- had evaporated and were no more.

A memo from a political consultancy had gone out to the DNC, warning about how these policies spelled defeat in the midterms, and Pouf! '-- a whole retinue of ''mandates'' messaged as if they had been matters of life and death, a raft of Board of Health demands, a plethora of social strictures, and baroque instructions on how and when to discriminate against one's fellow Americans '-- vanished, like the smoke from an unwelcome cigarette on a breezy veranda. An MSNBC commentator said, in a logical non sequitur, that now that vaccines were available for kids, in-person office life would resume.

Overnight, a new concern, a new moral signifier, was presented, wholly formed: and it involved a conflict area half a world away. Now, war is always bad and invasions are always cruel; but I could not help noticing that there are wars, refugees, invasions and conflict areas around the world, and that only this one '-- this one one '-- demanded the attentions of my irksomely cultish and uncritical former tribe. I could not help noticing that the dozens of devastated conflict areas and war zones being totally ignored by the ex-Brooklynites '-- from Ethiopia, where there have been 50,000 deaths since September, to Sri Lanka, with its catastrophic food shortages, to Mexico's drug war, which has led to 300,000 deaths, to Afghanistan, where women are being rounded up and people are being shot in the street '-- do not involve white people who look like the ex-Brooklynites; and for various other reasons, are not attracting a lot of television cameras.

You'd think the ex-Brooklynites, with their expensive educations, would bear those complexities in mind.

But no; the ex-Brooklynites are so easily led, when it comes to anyone invoking their particular moral high ground.

When they are directed to pay attention to one conflict out of dozens, and ignore the rest, no matter how dire the rest may be, they do so. Just like, when they were instructed to present their bodies uncritically to an untried MRNA injection and to offer up the bodies of their minor children, they did so. When they were asked to shun and to discriminate against their blameless neighbors, they did so.

So the great apparatus of messaging about COVID was switched off, almost overnight, as the politics clearly soured and as Republicans consolidated an increasingly popular, multiracially inclusive, transpartisan-ly appealing freedom message; and the comms apparatus simply replaced the COVID drama with a new, equally gripping European-conflict drama.

These dramas are real, of course, but there are also highly messaged; a fact about politics that adults such as these are, would do well to understand at last.

But '-- when politics required it '-- Look over there!

So now '-- as I was driving through the sunny valley that looked and felt like it was becoming America again, with freedom coursing through the towns and rural areas like blood slowly returning to a limb that had been asleep '-- I started to realize what my sense of sorrow really was.

People who had joined school boards that had masked ten year olds '-- their lives were back to normal! People who had told family members that they were unwelcome at Thanksgiving dinner '-- their lives were back to normal!

Huzzah.

On MSNBC that morning, Dr Anthony Fauci, that entangled mass of compromised spiritual matter, who had presided over the intentional wastelands of the pandemic; who had for two years delivered in his nasal Brooklyn cadences its lie-based soundbites with their dearth of scientific studies, that wrecked livelihoods, destroyed kids' educations, and that drove whole communities into destitution '-- had declared, as if he were God Himself, that the pandemic was over.

Well '-- okay then!

I realized as we drove that my grief was not actually grief. As any pop psychologist will tell you, just beneath depression is rage.

I realized '-- I was furious.

Brian and I had been fighting, side by side, relentlessly, for over two years, in a bitter, exhausting war to return America to '-- simply to normal; to its historic status as a great, free society, in which people could enjoy their Constitutional liberties.

We were part of a loose community '--a movement, say '-- of people braver and more dedicated than we; we were part of what you might call a liberty movement. But these heroes and heroines alongside whom we fought, were all pitiably few in number. There were maybe hundreds; maybe a few thousand. Many more perhaps were in sympathy with us, but our energies were still spread very thin. As I have written before, these heroes and heroines risked medical licenses, risked livelihoods. They were smeared and mocked by their peers. They were stripped of credentials. They staked their savings and lost them as they had their incomes taken away.

But they burned, as the rebels in 1775 had burned, to defend our way of life and our institutions. They would not let the dream of America die.

They were the miserably few real doctors and real reporters, real activists and real lawyers. They were the truck drivers; they were teachers and cops and firefighters.

They were patriots.

They did not have easy lives.

You know who had easier lives over the past two years? The damn quislings.

The people who stayed at the cocktail parties and who mocked the unvaccinated. The doctors who were silent about vaccine harms when teens presented with heart damage, because they might lose their licenses if they breathed a word of what they knew. The ex-Brooklynites who were supposed to be journalists but who smeared and attacked the medical freedom movement instead of reporting on Pfizer's internal documents showing massive undisclosed medical catastrophes, in what is turning out to be one of the great corporate coverups of our generation.

I realized the source of my rage: the labor and nightmares and isolation and persecution and money worries and '-- well '-- awful battles waged by us few hundreds, few thousands, had helped these quislings and collaborators have back what '-- what we had wanted them to have back; indeed, what we had wanted us all to have back; our America.

The fight was not over '-- it would not be over til open-ended emergency law was made impossible by new legislation, and until every last criminal was charged and tried; but hey, the folks who had gone along with it all, they were getting their America back, in many ways.

I thought of the Biblical phrase '--that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.

But I wanted '-- justice.

I wanted, I blurted out to Brian, some kind of closure. Some kind of Nuremberg Trials, of course. Some kind of Truth and Reconciliation Commission '-- the South African kind, not the CCP kind. I wanted people to face what they had been, what they had done.

''It's like the partisans after the end of the war '-- or the revolutionaries after the fall of the Bastille; I want to shave people's heads and march them through the town square,'' I said to Brian, uncharitably.

I am not proud of that '-- but there is a reason societies display their collaborators and quislings and traitors. There is a reason treason is a capital offense. There is a reason fraud and coercion, battery and child abuse, unlawful detainment and theft and child endangerment, all of which crimes were committed against us ''in the pandemic'', are criminal offenses.

To be healing, there has to be justice.

To have a free society we have to have a history, and in this major historical moment, we had a massive betrayal of the social contract '-- a betrayal committed by millions. The social contract cannot be re-knit without public accountability, trials, confrontations, and even condemnation.

Let the school board members who masked the children be sued in civil court. Let them do community service in bright orange vests and pick up garbage along the sides of the roads.

Let the members of the Boards of Health who shut down their neighbors' businesses for no reason, face civil charges. Let their names be published in the newspapers.

Let the ones who shunned the unvaccinated and disinvited them from their galas and dinner parties, experience for themselves what that feels like and face the fact that they were hateful and engaged in hate.

Let the deans who took millions of dollars from nonprofits to adopt policies to mandate vaccines for healthy young college students '-- vaccines that disrupted the cycles and damaged the hearts of perfectly healthy young women and men in their charge '-- face trials for racketeering and reckless endangerment and coercion. Let the Pharma executives and the heads of the FDA be tried for fraud and battery. Let the trials begin.

For people to be part of a healthy society they need to face themselves; and these quislings and collaborators should confront what they did. If they committed crimes, they should be tried and convicted.

Will I let it go? Will I forget? Will I forgive? On another morning, maybe, I pray that I will.

But not yet. Not this morning.

Amos [KJV 5:24] promised: ''Let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.'' Jesus said, Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace but a sword [NKJV: Matthew 10:34-39].

Maybe they meant that there are times to make amends, but there are other times to overturn the tables of the corrupt.

I am angry that beautiful America is mostly back, mostly free again, overnight, just because a shameless creature who should never have had the power to suspend our liberties in the first place - said so; just because the whiny-voiced evildoers of the last two years, now that evidence of their fraud and coercion emerges irrevocably to light, want to tiptoe away from the scenes of their massive crimes.

I say: Not so fast.

Freedom is not free, as many veterans have said, and I never really understood what that meant except superficially.

But you don't get freedom back so easily if you yourself committed massive crimes.

Freedom is not free. You don't get to take away the freedom of others and enjoy it, without penalty, for yourselves.

The people you harmed, the parents of the children you harmed - they are coming. Not violently; not vengefully; but with the righteous sword of justice; with the law in hand.

Don't rest too easy, leaders who did wrong, in this bright American sunlight. You don't get America back as if nothing happened.

The Statue of Liberty holds up a torch. Crimes must be illuminated.

You cannot yet know that it's really over '-- just because you said so.

You can't know yet that you will never be unmasked; never revealed to all, in the bright sun of the town square.

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Malcolm Nance, MSNBC'S former military and counter-terrorism expert, is always fighting someone.

As a personal and professional acquaintance of Nance, I wasn't the least bit surprised when the literary agent to whom I had introduced him a few months ago, interrogated me about whether I knew that Nance had joined the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine in March.

''I had no idea,'' I replied, extremely unshocked. ''But it sounds exactly like something Nance would do. It's the most Malcolm thing ever.''

Whether jousting with his conservative critics on social media or battling the trend toward authoritarianism that has invaded American politics, Nance has spent most of his life defending the values he endorses. He participated in US combat operations, taught Survival, Evasion, Resistance (Sere) and created advanced programs for the US military. His 20 years of experience in intelligence, counter-terrorism and cryptology as a chief petty officer in the United States navy made him one of the most sought-after intelligence experts in the media. Although his books Defeating Isis and The Plot to Hack America presaged Putin's invasion of American elections and Ukraine, Nance is not a war correspondent or a pundit.

When I interviewed him about his recent decision to take up arms in Ukraine, the telephone conversation was typical of our many conversations.

First, let me ask you, as a journalist, not as a friend: what the hell, Malcolm?

Well, what made me decide to do this was a couple of things. But the precipitating event of course, was the invasion of Ukraine. I spent a month in Ukraine, driving around, mapping out the Russian order of battle, driving up and down the highways and analyzing where the invasion routes would come and go. So I knew the country backward and forwards by the time of the invasion. In fact, on the day of the invasion, just by happenstance, I got on the last Lufthansa flight out of the country. A couple of hours later they had leveled the airport.

Plus, I'm a widower, which means I understand grief, which is a powerful motivator in this instance. It was the thought of all of the grief this country was taking in that invasion. And I just thought, this is, this was completely uncalled for, this is insanity. To think that I could go to bed and wake up, and these women would just be massive piles of dead bodies and body armor, it just upset me.

So how did you make this happen? Did you just show up with a gun and say: ''I'm here to help?''

[Laughing] Ukraine announced that there was an international force on February 27 and I started looking into it on February 28 '... I called the Ukrainian embassy in Washington and I said: 'Hey, I want an appointment.' They were a little slow, so I just went down there and put in my application. The guy asked if I had combat experience and I said 'Yep.' Then he looked at my application and said, 'You're on the team.'

How long has it been since you were in a combat zone?

When was the last thing I did, when did I go to Iraq? I moved back to the States in 2016. So 2015, so seven years. When you guys go: 'Oh yeah. That's what Malcolm would do,' you have to understand that Malcolm maintains his weapons proficiency all the time. I'm a collector of firearms and, because I was an intelligence contractor, I just have it in my mind to maintain my proficiency. I'm that kind of guy.

Despite the fact that Russian television put my name, face and everything I say on television (except the part about mass murdering civilians) and called me a ''soldier of fortune'', this ain't about money. We get paid $600 a month. But I believe in the defense of democracy. Even though my rightwing critics don't believe me or the lies they tell, I actually believe in the things that I espouse on television.

One of the criticisms leveled against you is that you are willing to fight for an army that has been accused of mistreating people of African descent and serving an international training ground for white supremacists.

The Ukrainian army is 250,000 people who are mostly white and mostly male. You know where I can actually show you more Nazis? Aside from the US army, that is? Russia's Wagner Group is filled with Nazis. The leader of their group of mercenaries has all sorts of Nazi tattoos all over his body. Look, this is a country of 42 million Caucasians, so, statistically, the US probably has a bigger Nazi contingent. I traveled around this country with Terrell Starr and the Afro-Ukrainian community here and I've seen fewer Nazis than I've seen in America.

Quick aside on that, I always mention that Eugene Bullard was the first Black pilot to fly in the first world war. But he flew with the Lafayette Flying Corps for France because, as an African American, he wasn't allowed to fly in his country. In the end, 269 Americans flew in that squadron. He was the only Black pilot. From 1914 to 1917, he was a French legionnaire fighting in Verdun and was wounded three times. So there is a tradition of African Americans fighting in defense of democracy. I'm sure we could find some in the Spanish civil war, but Hemingway didn't write about that. African Americans have always fought for the freedom of others, even when they didn't have it themselves.

But I know there is a lot of criticism. And to be honest, what upsets them the most is that I'm Black. It's not about how we view the rest of the world. It's about how we view ourselves in that world '' as free people. And that's what upsets them the most. People have a problem with believing African Americans have ideals and that we stand for what we believe. When you compare the percentage of African Americans in the country to the percentage in the armed forces, we fight disproportionately for the country.

So when you wake up in the morning, what happens?

Well, it depends on where I am and what I'm doing. I get up at 4am because I like to be up early. There's a routine depending on where you are. I get up at four and what I do is I read, I read the news. I try to feel the battlefront based on Ukrainian news and reporting. And then I look at expert analysis from the previous night in the west. If we have PT, we do PT [physical training]. No matter where I am, no matter what I'm doing, I constantly check my gear. If I'm in a safe house on a press junket, like I am now, I go over all of my gear. I reorganize my pack. I assume that I will have to take everything, get up and run with it or move to a forward location.

Right now, part of my duty is to the press. They were well aware that I was a high-level asset. So, instead of putting me out on the line, I'm in a safe house talking to people like you.

For people who are totally ignorant of how the military works, is this legion part of the Ukrainian army of people who are not Ukrainian citizens? Or is it a legion organized outside of the Ukrainian military?

What happened here early on is when Zelenskiy made this call, they started forming TDUs '' territorial defense units. TDUs were really just men in your neighborhood who, under the state of emergency, had to enlist and register as part of a territory. It's like every neighborhood in Chicago organizing a military unit in expectation of an invasion.

The difference is, the International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine is a branch of the Ukrainian army. We are an organized combat element with contracts signed by the Ukrainian army. We are paid by the Ukrainian army and get a Geneva convention ID card. So if a brigade has five battalions and they are on the line and they need more enforcement, they will get a legion unit to give them more manpower. But the legion operates almost exclusively in English, although there's a French squad that generally operates in French, and some Japanese and Koreans also.

What do you think your ultimate value is here?

My ultimate value is that I have experience at this. Now, look, I'm not an infantry guy. But despite what critics on Twitter who watch Rambo may think, combat isn't about being a murdering, Seal Team Six assassin; it's mainly about precision, accurate fire, selective fire, keeping people calm, getting on the line and moving forward. For almost 15 of my 20 years, my middle name was, 'I need a Black guy who speaks Arabic'. When I was at NSA, I was being loaned out everywhere, so I've seen a lot and conducted missions behind or near enemy lines. If I was a white guy, I would be a hero. But with some people, it's just as simple as: 'You are Black; you can't have done anything exceptional in your life, nothing.' They can't imagine that I'm here for altruistic reasons.

And this might explain why Eugene Bullard was in the French Foreign Legion and not the US army. There are a lot of African Americans and young Americans who have been in the military who are gonna see this and are gonna be inspired: this is essentially the French Foreign Legion, and it will be part of the pantheon of the defense of democracy in the defense of Ukraine '... My dad was one of the first Black master chiefs in the navy. This is just who I am. I'm African American, but by God, I'm American.

Michael Harriot is a writer and author of the upcoming book Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America

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Thu, 05 May 2022 16:55

E A : '...@adamcurry'(C) #RoevsWade https://t.co/0DARAMHhvV

Tue May 03 16:54:46 +0000 2022

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Thu, 05 May 2022 16:53

LifeNews.com : Joe Biden: "I'm not prepared to leave" abortion "to the whims of the public at the moment."Biden doesn't want Ame'... https://t.co/FKpLU3ylx9

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Thu May 05 16:14:37 +0000 2022

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Thu, 05 May 2022 16:51

Willy Lowry : A visibly shaken and angry Senator Elizabeth Warren just spoke in-front of #SCOTUS. @TheNationalNews https://t.co/KzQ2Z0Lg3b

Tue May 03 15:51:58 +0000 2022

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Ø"جه : @willy_lowry @TheNationalNews Karen government edition

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Thu May 05 16:18:07 +0000 2022

Gman : @willy_lowry @TheNationalNews A visibly shacken Warren ðŸ‚ðŸ‚🂠dude , NOBODY believes this woman !

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(((Ze'ev Mishpacha))) 🇺🇸🇵🇱🇮🇪🇮🇱 : @willy_lowry @TheNationalNews Performative fauxrage. She went right back to tweeting about student loans

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The King : @willy_lowry @TheNationalNews Emotionally unstable.

Thu May 05 15:45:55 +0000 2022

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Thu May 05 15:41:23 +0000 2022

خاÙد : @willy_lowry @TheNationalNews هكذا هم مدعي اÙديمÙقراطيØ(C) من اÙحزب اÙديمÙقراطي ÙايحترمÙن اÙا رغباتهم ÙاهÙاØ...هم ÙمصاÙحه'... https://t.co/AHyTbiqHxl

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Thu May 05 15:38:47 +0000 2022

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United Nations announces Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum and UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres have signed an agreement to 'accelerate' Agenda 2030

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Thu, 05 May 2022 16:17

Viva Frei : ''Never let a crisis go to waste''. She actually said the quiet part out loud. https://t.co/twCSDt9WGe

Mon May 02 20:23:29 +0000 2022

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Thu, 05 May 2022 16:15

Glenn Greenwald : Rich white woman @MollyJongFast - who won the birth lottery by being born to rich famous white parents who raised h'... https://t.co/0fRDz6CzBF

Mon May 02 17:32:34 +0000 2022

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Thu, 05 May 2022 15:54

MILWAUKEE '-- After a draft opinion was leaked suggesting that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, health professional have expressed concern on the disproportional impact the decision could have on birthing people of color.

Shantell Riley is a registered nurse in the Milwaukee area and works with the African American Breastfeeding Network. She also had an abortion in her early 20's.

"There's this awareness of what you're doing, what's happening. You're saying, 'This is the best choice to make because my choices and decisions not only impact me, but will also impact this child that I will bring into this world.' And I knew that's something I wasn't ready to do."

Riley said she made the decision to get an abortion based on her financial situation, her mental and emotional preparedness, and her relationship status at the time.

"To make that choice myself, based upon my individual circumstances, my individual situation and knowing what was best for me," Riley said.

From her experience as a health care professional, she knows the impact of not having that choice can disproportionately affect women of color.

"We already have this disparity as is and you're increasing the risk for us," Riley said about the potential for Roe v. Wade to be overturned.

The University of California San Francisco Medical Center's Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health has studied the barriers to accessing and the impact of being denied an abortion.

"We know from pre-Roe years that women of color have disproportionate access to safe medical care," said Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, an Associate Professor with the University of California San Francisco's Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health.

She said if the Roe v. Wade draft decision becomes final, we would likely see more people seeking out unsafe methods of abortion.

"We have evidence that in the face of greater barriers, people are more likely to resort to harmful means to end their pregnancies," Upadhyay said.

Ultimately, Upadhyay explains women of color would carry the greatest burden of more restrictive abortion laws.

WATCH: Dr. Ushma Upadhyay joins TMJ4 News to talk about where women will turn if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

Roe v. Wade: Local doctor weighs in on where women will turn

A separate study from Duke University shows that a total abortion ban would result in a 21% increase in overall pregnancy related deaths, but would increase by 33% for Black birthing people.

"We know that about 60% of people accessing abortion care are people of color, and we also know that people of color live in states that tend to be more restrictive," Upadhyay said. "We are expecting these restriction to disproportionately impact people of color that need access to abortion care. We know people who are forced to carry to term face significant disparities in health care, in maternity care. We know that maternal morbidity rates are much (higher) among Black and Brown women. So, we have a lot to be concerned about."

Riley says because of the choice she made to get an abortion in her 20's, she's been better able to care for the kids she has now and hopes the access she had remains available and safe for others.

"I was able to become a registered nurse and that would have not been as easy," Riley said. "It's kind of hard to even think what my life would've been like if I didn't have access."

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Thu, 05 May 2022 15:36

Wall Street Insider Ed Dowd BANNED from Twitter for Reposting Interview on Vaccine Pregnancy DangersMay 3, 2022 ' by DailyClout

Wall Street Insider Ed Dowd banned from Twitter for reposting DailyClout's Interview on Vaccine Pregnancy Dangers.Big Tech are still censoring information about serious adverse reactions to Covid Vaccines in Pregnant and Breastfeeding Mothers.

Dr Naomi Wolf revealed the shocking results DailyClout's research team found in an exclusive interview with Steve Bannon.

Watch what Twitter doesn't want you to know here:

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Thu, 05 May 2022 13:36

Zeke Gonzalez : Highlighting @AnaKasparian voicing all of our anger at the ENTIRE system we currently have in America 🧂👑ðŸ--¥ðŸ‘ #tytlive https://t.co/hx8dSkvHHy

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Thu, 05 May 2022 13:11

Maze : Nina Jankowicz - "Democracy isn't possible without authoritative sources of information." https://t.co/tKRNhuxFQF

Sun May 01 18:04:28 +0000 2022

Ian : @mazemoore Regardless if you are left or right, if you have any integrity this Disinformation Governance Board needs to be dissolve.

Thu May 05 13:11:01 +0000 2022

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Tue, 03 May 2022 14:08

News By Randy DeSoto April 27, 2022 at 2:32pm Filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza has released details about where his highly anticipated documentary film ''2,000 Mules'' can be viewed.

The movie is showing in theaters across the nation on Monday, May 2, and Wednesday, May 4. There will be a virtual premiere online on Saturday, May 7, at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

The ''2,000 Mules'' website shows the times and locations by state.

D'Souza tweeted that the virtual premiere will include a Q&A after the film ends.

For the same price as a movie ticket you can watch ''2000 Mules'' at home. Sign up for our Virtual Premiere on Sat. May 7. It includes the screening of the movie with a live Q & A to follow. This event is limited to 250,000 people & tickets are going fast! https://t.co/GXmj2z4z0k pic.twitter.com/yewGoPwoDV

'-- Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) April 27, 2022

D'Souza also dropped a new trailer over the weekend.

''2,000 Mules'' is about an allegedly illegal ballot-harvesting scheme conducted in five key swing states during the 2020 election, including Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

These are all states that former President Donald Trump won in 2016, but flipped to Democrat President Joe Biden in 2020.

Are you interested in seeing the film '2,000 Mules'?

Yes: 99% (2274 Votes)

No: 1% (23 Votes)

The vote integrity group True the Vote worked with D'Souza on ''2,000 Mules.''

A mule is a term used in the movie for those who repeatedly picked up batches of ballots and placed them in drop boxes.

In the new trailer, True the Vote's Greg Phillips says, ''We identified in Atlanta 242 mules that went to an average of 24 drop boxes. In Philadelphia alone we've identified over 1,100 mules.''

He also said that True the Vote has four million minutes of surveillance video from around the country allegedly showing mules in action during the 2020 election.

New York Post columnist Miranda Devine has seen the documentary. She wrote that it provides ''the most compelling evidence to date'' of a systematic scheme to subvert the electoral process.

''Using cellphone geotracking and surveillance video, it shows a network of 'mules' in battleground states busily collecting ballots from get-out-the-vote NGOs and stuffing them, a few at a time, into multiple drop boxes in the dead of night,'' she explained.

A mule is anyone who went to drop boxes 10 times or more during the 2020 general election.

''For each of the 2,000 mules the average number of drop box visits was 38, with an average five ballots deposited per visit. That's 380,000 suspect votes.''

In an interview with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk earlier this month, Phillips and True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht went into detail about how they gathered and used the cell phone data to identify mules.

They explained that all cellphones have unique device information that pings off cellphone towers, showing where the cellphone has been down to an 18-inch diameter. This technology is used by thousands of phone apps, such as those for weather and navigation.

Law enforcement employs this technology all the time. The FBI, in fact, used it to pinpoint protesters who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The New York Times reported that it paid for cell data to track down those who were present at the Capitol that day.

True the Vote was able to mine data from the months leading up to the 2020 election to identify the 2,000 most prolific ''mules.''

The mules followed a pattern of repeatedly going to drop box locations and back to offices of non-governmental organizations during the election in places like Atlanta, Philadelphia and Yuma, Arizona.

''We were able to identify those organizations, those stash houses,'' Phillips said.

Stacy Abrams' Georgia group, ''Fair Fight Action'' is an example of an NGO where the pattern showed up, according to Devine.

This is what stuffing the ballot box looks like pic.twitter.com/okpcKa9O4c

'-- Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) April 11, 2022

Philadelphia was the worst of the places tracked where alleged illegal ballot-harvesting occurred, according to Phillips. He said 1,155 people there met their definition of a mule.

''In Philadelphia, we had some people, quite a few people, who went over 100 times to the drop boxes. But they were also going to the organizations,'' Phillips said.

Engelbrecht said the average number of trips per mule in Yuma County was 31.

To guard against accidentally picking up people who happened to pass by drop box locations regularly, True the Vote bought cellphone data for September, October and November, showing before, during and after election season.

Only those whose cell phones showed them at drop boxes when voting was occurring were included in True the Vote's data.

''Pings don't lie,'' Engelbrecht said.

According to Devine, D'Souza breaks down the numbers in ''2,000 Mules'' concluding that the number of ballots harvested in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania '-- assuming they were for Biden '-- would have changed the outcome in the three states, and therefore, the winner of the 2020 presidential race.

Trump's Electoral College votes would have been 279 to Biden's 259, D'Souza says.

Trump congratulated the filmmaker and True the Vote for the upcoming premiere of ''2,000 Mules'' in a statement released Tuesday.

NEW!

President Donald J. Trump:

''An incredible new film by Dinesh D'Souza exposes massive and determinative ballot harvesting in the 2020 Election. Congratulations to Dinesh, Catherine Englebrecht, and all of the incredible Patriots at True the Vote who worked so hard'... pic.twitter.com/FSgd7Aeumh

'-- Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) April 26, 2022

''An incredible new film by Dinesh D'Souza exposes massive and determinative ballot harvesting in the 2020 election,'' Trump said.

D'Souza concludes the ''2,000 Mules'' trailer, arguing, ''Without free and fair elections, we are not a democracy, we are a criminal cartel masquerading as a democracy.''

SummaryMore Biographical Information Recent Posts ContactRandy DeSoto has written more than 2,000 articles for The Western Journal since he joined the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths" and screenwriter of the political documentary "I Want Your Money."

Randy DeSoto is the senior staff writer for The Western Journal. He wrote and was the assistant producer of the documentary film "I Want Your Money" about the perils of Big Government, comparing the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Randy is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths," which addresses how leaders have appealed to beliefs found in the Declaration of Independence at defining moments in our nation's history. He has been published in several political sites and newspapers. Randy graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a BS in political science and Regent University School of Law with a juris doctorate.

Birthplace

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Nationality

American

Honors/Awards

Graduated dean's list from West Point

Education

United States Military Academy at West Point, Regent University School of Law

Books Written

We Hold These Truths

Professional Memberships

Virginia and Pennsylvania state bars

Location

Phoenix, Arizona

Languages Spoken

English

Topics of Expertise

Politics, Entertainment, Faith

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Tue, 03 May 2022 14:03

| May 02, 2022 10:00 PM

| Updated May 03, 2022, 02:36 AM

T he reporter who broke the story about a majority draft opinion signaling that the Supreme Court is ready to overturn abortion rights enshrined in the Constitution since Roe v. Wade appeared within minutes on TV to discuss the monumental leak Monday night.

Josh Gerstein, a senior legal affairs reporter for Politico, said he is confident in his sourcing and the authenticity of the document for the report. He shares a byline with national security reporter Alexander Ward.

"We're very confident in the authenticity of this draft majority opinion, both in the way that we obtained it and other information that we got that supports its authenticity and makes us believe it is genuine," Gerstein told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. "It is not a final opinion. It was a draft opinion circulated in the court as a first draft by Justice Alito."

LEAKED DRAFT OPINION SIGNALS SUPREME COURT OVERTURNING ROE V. WADE

The draft opinion says it was circulated Feb. 10. The report noted that "it is possible there has been changes since then, but it is our best understanding of where the court stood at that time, which is about two and a half months after arguments in this pivotal Mississippi abortion case."

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all voted with Alito to overturn the ruling, the report said, citing someone who was familiar with the court's deliberations. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, all appointed during Democratic administrations, dissented. Chief Justice John Roberts has not yet voted. The votes remain the same, according to the source.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Gerstein said he believes the source and who voted with Alito because he could hear the echoes of the other justices in the report.

The Monday night leak attracted immediate backlash from supporters of widespread access to abortion. A Washington Examiner reporter saw barricades that had been set up outside the Supreme Court on Monday evening ahead of demonstrations from both protesters and counterprotesters.

The court's ruling will not become law until it is published, which will likely occur within the next two months.

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Jonathan Peters : The 1970s brought a wave of leaks. First, Justice Douglas in June 1972 wrote a memo to his colleagues about Roe v.'... https://t.co/jKZjr0Ybxv

Tue May 03 02:04:59 +0000 2022

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Tue, 03 May 2022 12:45

October 15, 2020 2020-10-16T13:20:09-04:00 https://images.c-span.org/Files/f09/20201015142321014_hd.jpg The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a virtual hearing on stopping the spread of misinformation online. Experts in social media, national security, and intelligence testified to the rise of disinformation campaigns and those supported by foreign actors, such as Russia and China. They also spoke about the responsibility of media platforms, the role the federal government should play, and the prevalence of conspiracy groups, such as QAnon, and how they use misinformation to manipulate and distort the truth.The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a virtual hearing on stopping the spread of misinformation online. Experts in'... read more

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a virtual hearing on stopping the spread of misinformation online. Experts in social media, national security, and intelligence testified to the rise of disinformation campaigns and those supported by foreign actors, such as Russia and China. They also spoke about the responsibility of media platforms, the role the federal government should play, and the prevalence of conspiracy groups, such as QAnon, and how they use misinformation to manipulate and distort the truth. close

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Archived Version

Tue, 03 May 2022 12:41

After days of controversy swirled around the Biden administration's new "Disinformation Governance Board" headed up by certified left-winger Nina Jankowicz, Jen Psaki tried again on Monday to squash criticism of the DHS official's qualifications to decide what The Truth(TM) is and is not.

Explaining that Jankowicz "has extensive experience and has done extensive work addressing disinformation," Psaki listed off the Minister of Truth's supposed qualifications that included testifying before Congress and "in Europe."

PSAKI: Biden's DHS Disinformation Czar "has extensive experience and has done extensive work addressing disinformation. She has testified before Congress, testified in Europe. She has done, worked closely with the Ukrainians and has unique expertise..." pic.twitter.com/BfVjCi6VPR

'-- Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 2, 2022The attempt to normalize Jankowicz and reassure critics that the head of the new disinformation bureau was well-qualified ignores the fact that her work, ideology, and attitude toward expression '-- true or otherwise '-- is already well-known.

As Townhall reported earlier on Monday, Jankowicz's book on being a woman online argued that censorship is owed to anyone who criticizes those who identify as women, because legitimate dissent '-- apparently reduced to mean tweets in Jankowicz's mind '-- are some sort of existential threat to the existence of women. That attitude, presumably, will now translate into policies that treat criticism of the approved Democrat narrative or its favored class as a threat to American democracy.

It's also noteworthy that Psaki cited Jankowicz's working "closely with the Ukrainians," because, as Christina Pushaw noted in her public service-reading of her book, Jankowicz did not view Ukraine favorably at the time:

(I did enjoy reading that Nina Jankowicz considers the Ukrainian government ''highly traditional and misogynistic'''... I'm sure this is wrong speak now!) pic.twitter.com/o12vKCRgJd

'-- Christina Pushaw ?? ???? (@ChristinaPushaw) May 2, 2022Jankowicz's stated opinion of Ukraine's government '-- which runs opposite the Democrats' apparently newfound love for Ukraine '-- would indeed be considered disfavored speech.

Psaki also claimed that the Biden administration's Ministry of Truth would be totally "apolitical" which, if anyone believes her, there's a bridge in Brooklyn they should take a look at...

PSAKI: The DHS Disinformation Governance Board "will operate in a nonpartisan and apolitical manner." pic.twitter.com/igaNLtifb1

'-- Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 2, 2022A significant and recent portion of Jankowicz's career, in terms of disinformation, has involved propagating false claims in a way that benefitted Democrats and punished Republicans. As Townhall reported, she was a big fan of the false narrative started by former national security officials that asserted Hunter Biden's laptop from hell was merely Russian disinformation. This was, of course, not the case. The New York Times and Washington Post have both confirmed the veracity and contents of Hunter Biden's laptop.

Like several other unforced errors, the Biden administration's rollout of its disinformation board has not gone well and there are myriad examples of Jankowicz being an unserious partisan agent of the left's mission to make free speech free for only those who follow the current but ever-changing Democrat orthodoxy.

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Archived Version

Tue, 03 May 2022 10:44

MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes warned Monday that overturning Roe v. Wade will lead to ''South America style'' abortion bans.

Politico obtained a purported majority opinion draft of the Supreme Court showing that the court is poised to overturn the 1973 landmark decision Roe v. Wade which legalizes abortions in all states up to the point of fetal viability'--24-28 weeks gestation. Justice Samuel Alito, who is reportedly the author of the majority opinion, called Roe ''egregiously wrong from the start.''

Maddow and MSNBC host Chris Hayes called the apparent decision ''emotional'' and warned of Republican lawmakers' push for a nationwide abortion ban.

''It's sort of a resting moment because the code of omert around that institution is so strong and so powerful that the substance that is being leaked here and then the communicative signaling happening in the fact of the leak is almost sort of emotional at some deep level because of it signifies,'' Hayes said.

''Republicans in Washington have been debating and planning on proposing a nationwide abortion ban, a six-week abortion ban which is effectively a complete ban on abortion in the United States,'' Maddow added. ''And if the ultimate ruling of the Court is going to look anything like this and we're going into a midterm season where the Republicans are poised to take the House and the Senate, then President Biden is still President Biden and he''ll presumably veto such a measure.''

''But in the event that we had a Republican president in 2024, that's where we'd be. We'd be at a South America style, nationwide abortion ban in America,'' she continued.

Hayes pointed to ''trigger laws'' that would effectively and instantly ban abortion once Roe is overturned. Maddow then said abortions have become increasingly restrictive in states across the nation. (RELATED: 'Texas Taliban': Abortion Law Is As Bad As Literal Terrorists, According To Liberal Activists)

''Until very recently, there was a taboo on saying that a woman or even a child who was raped or who was the victim of incest, at least they wouldn't be forced by the government to give birth against their will, to carry that pregnancy to term and give birth against their will. That increasingly, including girls that are pregnant as a result of rape or incest, those exceptions are disappearing one by one with each passing week every time a Republican legislature takes up this issue.''

Hayes pointed to Oklahoma where Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt passed legislation banning all abortions except in the case of preserving the health of the mother, and Texas where abortions are banned after six weeks of gestation. The host said the Court's apparent decision is not unexpected, but to have a released draft is ''shocking.''

''It is shocking,'' Maddow replied. ''As you said and as we started discussing here, it's shocking both in substance and it's also shocking in what it means about the Court and what it means about the stakes here that someone was willing to do this. It is just a remarkable thing.''

The Court's decision has not been finalized and it still bears the possibility of changing, Politico reported. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined Alito in the majority opinion. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayer and Elena Kagan dissented.

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Archived Version

Tue, 03 May 2022 10:37

Zachary Petrizzo : Things are growing increasingly tense outside of the Supreme Court tonight. https://t.co/od6OZkkz4o

Tue May 03 03:09:30 +0000 2022

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Tue May 03 10:36:06 +0000 2022

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Tue May 03 10:33:12 +0000 2022

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Tue May 03 10:31:00 +0000 2022

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Tue May 03 10:30:42 +0000 2022

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Tue May 03 10:29:02 +0000 2022

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Tue May 03 10:29:01 +0000 2022