Monday, July 25, 2022

And another day of losing optimism about America’s future, term limits for SCOTUS justices, the abortion ban rooted in the “Great Replacement” theory, rushing to get sterilized, TX teacher shortages, and the 50th anniversary on exposing the Tuskegee Experiment comes to a close:

“Some of the Germans who voted for the Nazi Party in 1932 no doubt understood that this might be the last meaningful free election for some time, but most did not...No doubt the Russians who voted in 1990 did not think this would be the last free election in their country’s history, which (thus far) it has been. Any election can be the last, or at least the last in the lifetime of the person casting the vote.” -- Timothy Snyder

Deaths

US: 1,052,467 (+471)

World: 6,404,837 (+1706)

Cases

US: 92,339,925 (+145,033)

World: 575,879,848 (+734,947)

I used to be optimistic about America’s future. Not anymore. These are the kinds of human rights violations we would be protesting if they occurred in other countries. That they are happening in the United States is an ominous sign of what lies ahead, because other countries in recent years that have taken away abortion rights — Poland and Nicaragua — have also taken away political rights. We already live in a “backsliding” democracy, where voting rights are being restricted and freedom is under siege. The most severe threat comes from an increasingly authoritarian Republican Party whose maximum leader is an unindicted and unrepentant coup plotter. Despite the yeoman work of the Jan. 6 committee, former president Donald Trump remains the leading contender for the 2024 GOP nomination — and on the current trajectory he could defeat President Biden, whose unpopularity continues to plumb new depths. We need to be clear about what another Trump term would mean: It could be the death knell for our democracy...As political scientist Brian Klaas just wrote in the Atlantic, given that the GOP has become “authoritarian to its core,” there are two main ways to save America: Either reform the Republican Party or ensure that it never wields power again. But a MAGA-fied GOP is likely to gain control of at least one chamber of Congress in the fall and could win complete power in 2024. We seem to be sleepwalking to disaster. If we don’t wake up in time, we could lose our democracy. Just because we’ve avoided a breakdown in the past doesn’t mean we will stave it off in the future. -- This is from a former Republican. The current Republicans are fascists. Say it. Say the fucking word: fascists. They don’t believe in democracy. History has shown the horrors that await us if this current Republican Party gains power. Yes, it certainly can happen here. It’s currently in motion.

2 in 3 in US favor term limits for justices. The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 67% of Americans support a proposal to set a specific number of years that justices serve instead of life terms, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans. Views are similar about a requirement that justices retire by a specific age…The court, which is now taking a summer break, will return to hearing cases in October with diminished confidence among Americans. Now 43% say they have hardly any confidence in the court, up from 27% three months ago.

How The Fight To Ban Abortion Is Rooted In The ‘Great Replacement’ Theory. The movement to end legal abortion has a long, racist history, and like the great replacement theory, it has roots in a similar fear that white people are going to be outnumbered by people believed to hold a lower standing in society. Those anxieties used to be centered primarily around various groups of European immigrants and newly emancipated slaves, but now they’re focused on non-white Americans who, as a group, are on track to numerically outpace non-Hispanic white Americans by 2045, according to U.S. Census projections. It’s been decades since the anti-abortion movement first gained traction — and the movement has changed in certain ways — but this fundamental fear has never left, as demonstrated by attacks on people of color, such as the shooter in Buffalo, New York, who expressed concern about the declining birth rates of white people. That’s because the anti-abortion movement, at its core, has always been about upholding white supremacy…These old fears have risen to the fore again in part because the country is experiencing a demographic change similar to what we saw at the turn of the last century. For instance, the U.S. birth rate has been declining, although this has more to do with women having greater access to contraception, education and career opportunities than it has to do with abortion rates. But immigration levels are also high, almost as high as they were at the turn of the 20th century, again spawning a fear that white Americans will be displaced in an increasingly multiracial nation…But logic is not the point in many of the mainstream racist arguments around restricting abortion access. “They tried to twist themselves into logical scientific explanations for all of these things. But they basically had to just make stuff up to justify what they wanted, which is for women — especially women of color — to not have any rights,” said Thompson, the historian. According to Nicola Beisel, a professor emerita at Northwestern University who studies cultural sociology, sex and gender, women’s ability to have children is treated as a resource instead of a matter of bodily autonomy or a right, which is why opposing abortion is part of the bigger conversation about who is having children. “If women’s reproductive capacity is a resource, the question is, who’s going to get to use it? And for whom?” This is why anti-abortion activists pressed until Roe was overturned, and they likely won’t stop there. It’s clear that the people who want to criminalize abortion also want to limit access to contraception, DiBranco said. “So it’s a part of a political project and a cultural project around controlling women’s autonomy, and in some cases, managing demographic change through that.”

Lawyers preparing for abortion prosecutions warn about health care, data privacy. While people consider deleting period tracking apps and worry about interstate travel restrictions, most pregnancy-related criminalizations start in a much simpler way: with a report from a health care provider.

Some people in the US are rushing to get sterilized after the Roe v. Wade ruling. Since the Supreme Court ruled that Americans no longer have a federal constitutional right to an abortion, several gynecologists tell CNN they've seen an increase in people requesting tubal ligation -- a surgical procedure more commonly known as having one's tubes tied. The decision to get sterilized can raise personal and ethical questions, and for some people, it's not an easy one. But women, non-binary and transgender people who have made up their minds not to have children say it's a choice they want to feel free to pursue without pushback...Sterilization is a common form of contraception among married couples, but only about 4% of women in their 20s get their tubes tied, the CDC says. Women who were young when they were sterilized reported higher rates of regret. Because of that, doctors sometimes turn down young people seeking sterilization. DeAndra Childress, 33, told CNN she has tried several times to get her tubes tied. But she said four different doctors refused to perform the procedure on the grounds that she may regret the decision later in life. "I was told I was too young, no kids, not married, may get married later, and I should wait til I have a husband," she said. "All methods to control my body. It infuriates me."

Coachella’s Parent Company Is Donating Major Cash to a Political Organization Pushing Anti-Abortion Agenda. Several days later, on June 29, according to a filing submitted to the IRS in July, the Anschutz Corporation — a massive holding company that famously owns the live music giant AEG Presents, the parent company of several major festivals, including Coachella — made a donation of $75,000 to RAGA. The money from Anschutz Corporation comes as RAGA gears up for election season with the aim of installing Attorneys General who will enforce and champion anti-abortion laws in key states where abortion rights remain in limbo, such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Ohio, and Florida…It is notable that the revenues will be used to support anti-choice efforts driven by ticket sales to concerts and festivals headlined by major artists who have been fiercely critical of conservative attacks on reproductive rights.

It’s not just COVID-19: Why Texas faces a teacher shortage. Texas schools have long had too few teachers. The pandemic made the situation worse — but issues like low pay, poor benefits and polarizing statewide politics all have an impact, too…To top it all off, Texas ranks as one of the worst states for teacher retirement. Retired Texas teachers have not received a cost-of-living raise since 2004, and it’s getting worse as inflation rises. The combined effect of all of the above is that educators are leaving the field in droves. Most of them are new, early-career teachers.

GOP lawmaker attended gay son's wedding 3 days after voting against same-sex marriage. The gay son of Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., got married on Friday. A few days earlier, his father voted against the Respect for Marriage Act.

Temperatures could hit triple digits in the Pacific Northwest; severe storms threaten the Northeast. While the heat will drop in some areas, the South and the Pacific Northwest will continue to see extreme temperatures above 90 for much of the week.

What happens if the world gets too hot for animals to survive? The last time climate was as warm as it will be in the next 50 to 100 years was 3 million years ago…There are temperature ceilings that humans and mammals (and many other animals) cannot survive, if breached. What those limits are, and what happens when they are crossed, will have profound implications for agriculture and biodiversity in a warming world…There is a real danger that in the near future, temperatures and corresponding humidity will increase to such a degree that wet-bulb levels extend beyond the range seen for at least 3 million years, or perhaps 15 million years…The bad news is, as previously mentioned, the 35 degree Celsius wet-bulb is an upper limit for mammals, not a lower survivability limit, meaning that in reality the limit may be reached sooner, with less global warming.

US to plant 1 billion trees as climate change kills forests. The Biden administration on Monday said the government will plant more than one billion trees across millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands in the U.S. West, as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation’s forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of climate change.

Myanmar junta's execution of four democracy activists condemned by UN. Sentenced to death in closed-door trials in January and April, the four men had been accused of helping insurgents to fight the army that seized power in a coup on February 1 last year, and unleashed a bloody crackdown which has resulted in multiple rights abuses.

Rents spike as big-pocketed investors buy mobile home parks. Residents, about half of whom are seniors or disabled people on fixed incomes, put up with the first two increases. They hoped the latest owner, Cook Properties, would address the bourbon-colored drinking water, sewage bubbling into their bathtubs and the pothole-filled roads...The plight of residents at Ridgeview is playing out nationwide as institutional investors, led by private equity firms and real estate investment trusts and sometimes funded by pension funds, swoop in to buy mobile home parks. Critics contend mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are fueling the problem by backing a growing number of investor loans.

AP exposes the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The 50th Anniversary. Today, the effects of the study still linger — it is often blamed for the unwillingness of some African Americans to participate in medical research. In observance of the 50th anniversary of Heller’s groundbreaking investigation, the AP is republishing the original report and a recent interview with her and others on how the story came together.

RIP Paul Sorvino. He was 83.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.