Oliver Contreras/AP

On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a moratorium on federal executions and ordered a review of the government’s execution protocols. The move from the Department of Justice comes after the Trump administration carried out an execution spree that lasted into the final days of his presidency. “The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States, but is also treated fairly and humanely,” Garland said in a statement. “That obligation has special force in capital cases.”

The moratorium is welcomed, but anti-death penalty advocates wonder what purpose it actually serves. The Biden administration has not scheduled any federal death row inmates for executions and has pledged to not do so. The DOJ order also doesn’t commute any death sentences nor does it bar federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty. “A moratorium on federal executions is one step in the right direction, but it is not enough,” Ruth Friedman, a federal defender, and director of the Federal Capital Habeas Project, said in a statement. 

If the new moratorium seems like a repetition of the past, that’s because in many ways it is. In 2014, former president Barack Obama ordered a review of the government’s death penalty execution protocol in the wake of a botched execution in Oklahoma, in which Clayton Lockett struggled violently on the gurney before his execution was halted. He subsequently died an hour after the procedure began. But because the Obama administration didn’t take any additional steps to end capital punishment, Trump was free to execute a record 13 federal inmates.

As I wrote previously, Joe Biden became the first president to publicly oppose the death penalty: 

In its criminal justice platform, the Biden campaign pledged to abolish the death penalty at the federal level and incentivize states to follow suit. In the past, candidates avoided taking this stance on capital punishment out of fear of appearing weak on crime and soft on criminals.

But after assuming the presidency in January, Biden was slow to follow through on his pledge. In fact, last month, the DOJ urged the US Supreme Court to reinstate the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston marathon bomber whose sentence was overturned by a circuit court last year. The push to re-sentence Tsarnaev to death ran counter to Biden’s anti-death penalty stance and his assurance that he would end capital punishment at the federal level. However, Tsarnaev’s case is still pending in the Supreme Court, as the moratorium only halts executions and no other parts of the death penalty.

Meanwhile, following Garland’s announcement, advocates are urging Biden to go further. “We know the federal death penalty system is marred by racial bias, arbitrariness, over-reaching, and grievous mistakes by defense lawyers and prosecutors that make it broken beyond repair,” Marcus said. If Biden doesn’t commute the sentences of the 46 remaining death row inmates “this moratorium will just leave these intractable issues unremedied and pave the way for another unconscionable bloodbath like we saw last year.”

Mother Jones screenshot

“Welcome to GETTR and start a new journey!” So reads an introductory message on the home page of Gettr, a right-wing social media app recently launched by a team led by Jason Miller, an ex-spokesperson of former president Donald Trump.

That “new journey,” thanks to spam comments left en masse below the message, involves encountering things like anime porn and repeated copies of an image depicting Hillary Clinton’s head photoshopped onto another woman’s nude body.

Major social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and its image-sharing subsidiary platform Instagram, have automated filters that root out and remove or censor nude images. At the moment, the Trump-linked social media app apparently has nothing of the kind.

While Gettr frames itself as an anti-censorship platform—in its terms of service, Gettr notes “hold[ing] freedom of speech” is a “core value”—the company reserves the right to “address content that comes to our attention that we believe is … pornographic” alongside material that may be “offensive, obscene, lewd, lavicious, filthy… violent, harassing, threatening, abusive, illegal, or otherwise objectionable or inappropriate.”

The app was quietly launched in June, according to Politico, but received a rush of attention on Thursday after the publication broke a story on its ties to Miller.

The website joins a crowded and growing pool of right-wing social media sites that aim to be places of refuge for users who fled online venues that took steps to stem racist speech. As an example, Gab’s CEO has actively courted well-known antisemites to come to his platform, while maintaining a strong anti-pornography line.

So, if you want a conservative platform and the ability to post uncensored hentai, for now, Gettr might be the website for you.

Marcus Ingram/Getty Images

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones was granted tenure by the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill Board of Trustees on Wednesday evening, the latest twist in a monthslong saga that has led to bitter debates about the influence of big donors on hiring decisions, the increasingly partisan boards that govern public universities, and the conservative freakout over critical race theory.

It is still not clear, however, whether Hannah-Jones will join the faculty at UNC–Chapel Hill, where she received a master’s degree in 2003. Her start date was originally set to be Thursday; in a statement released Wednesday, Hannah-Jones said, “These last weeks have been very challenging and difficult and I need to take some time to process all that has occurred and determine what is the best way forward.”

On Thursday morning, the journalism school dean, Susan King, told me that Hannah-Jones hadn’t indicated to her whether she’d decided to accept the teaching position, and that she deserved some time to let everything sink in. “Nikole Hannah-Jones isn’t just a great journalist—she’s a once-in-a-generation journalist,” King said.

In late April, the journalism school announced that the creator of the New York Times‘ award-winning and controversial 1619 Project would become the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, noting that Knight chair professorships “are designed to bring top professionals to classrooms to teach and mentor students.” Hannah-Jones, the winner of a MacArthur “genius grant” in 2017, had become increasingly involved with the school in recent years, culminating in her induction into the NC Media & Journalism Hall of Fame earlier that month.

But almost immediately, the announcement faced stiff criticism from conservative groups, with former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, now the president of the Young America’s Foundation, calling the appointment “shameful.” And when Hannah-Jones’ appointment came up for review in May before the Board of Trustees, it chose not to make a tenure decision—leaving the journalism school to offer Hannah-Jones a five-year fixed-term position with the opportunity for a future tenure review. “It’s disappointing, it’s not what we wanted, and I am afraid it will have a chilling effect,” King told NC Policy Watch at the time.

According to the Washington Post, it was unclear how much conservative complaints about the 1619 Project affected the board’s choice to punt on Hannah-Jones’ tenure decision. The chair of the board, Richard Y. Stevens, said in May that it wasn’t out of the ordinary for trustees to scrutinize “candidates that don’t come from a traditional academic-type background,” even though the journalism school’s two previous Knight chairs, both of whom were white and didn’t come from traditional academic backgrounds, had had no problems receiving tenure. Four of the board’s 13 members are appointed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and another eight by the UNC system Board of Governors, an overwhelmingly conservative body that includes GOP megadonor Art Pope. (The final trustee is the UNC–Chapel Hill student body president.)

But an investigation by The Assembly‘s John Drescher uncovered emails sent by Walter Hussman Jr.—the publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and a UNC–Chapel Hill alum, whose $25 million donation in 2019 got his name on the school and his journalistic core values posted in the building’s foyer—to university leaders about his specific concerns with the 1619 Project. As Drescher reported:

“I worry about the controversy of tying the UNC journalism school to the 1619 project,” Hussman wrote in a late December email to King, copying in [Chancellor Kevin] Guskiewicz and [Vice Chancellor for University Development David] Routh. “I find myself more in agreement with Pulitzer prize winning historians like James McPherson and Gordon Wood than I do Nikole Hannah-Jones. 

“These historians appear to me to be pushing to find the true historical facts. Based on her own words, many will conclude she is trying to push an agenda, and they will assume she is manipulating historical facts to support it. If asked about it, I will have to be honest in saying I agree with the historians.” 

The Hussman emails added a new layer to an already complicated and ugly situation. And in a subsequent interview, the millionaire donor—whose career, as Slate‘s Julia Craven points out, isn’t exactly a lesson in playing it down the middle—poured fuel on the fire, saying, “If she’s in favor of [the core principles of journalism], maybe we could work together. But if she’s opposed to them, I’m going to wonder why did she want to go to work at a journalism school where she’s opposed to the core values of the school.” Journalism faculty were quick to push back in the name of academic freedom. (Hussman has denied trying to affect the hiring process, saying in an interview, “I haven’t said to Susan King, ‘Do not hire Nikole Hannah-Jones.’ I never said that. I never said, ‘If you hire Nikole Hannah-Jones it could affect our commitment to the university or our donation.’ I never said that.”)

Last week, Hannah-Jones’ legal team notified the university that she would not teach at the school without tenure, citing the Hussman emails and interviews as reasons for the decision. “Since signing the fixed-term contract,” her lawyers wrote, “Ms. Hannah-Jones has come to learn that political interference and influence from a powerful donor contributed to the Board of Trustees’ failure to consider her tenure application. In light of this information, Ms. Hannah-Jones cannot trust that the University would consider her tenure application in good faith during the period of the fixed-term contract.”

Students, alumni, celebrities, and faculty—including professors at other institutions across the country—have rallied in recent weeks in support of Hannah-Jones. Her drawn-out battle, though, has led a significant number of Black professors at UNC–Chapel Hill to consider leaving the school, with some of them noting their residual anger and frustration over the way the administration and the UNC system botched the removal of the Confederate statue known as Silent Sam. Lisa Jones, a Black professor heavily recruited by the university’s chemistry department, withdrew her candidacy to join the faculty, writing, “I cannot see myself accepting a position at a university where this decision stands.”

In the end, Hannah-Jones and her supporters won out. At the same time, the reputational damage done to the university by the trustees’ machinations, Hussman’s meddling, and the administration’s relative silence will be felt for years. But it doesn’t seem like the Board of Governors is all that concerned: Just last week, it declined to reappoint law professor Eric Muller to the UNC Press board, even while green-lighting his two colleagues up for reappointment. Sources told NC Policy Watch that Muller was singled out for his public statements on the school’s handling of the Silent Sam fiasco and broader issues regarding UNC–Chapel Hill’s failure to properly reckon with its racial history.

As one member of the Board of Governors said, “They’re standing in the way of the system and how it usually works.”

This story has been updated.

Note: Ian Gordon is a graduate of the UNC–Chapel Hill journalism school and a former member of its alumni board.

Omar Marques/AP

On Wednesday, a federal financial regulator announced the largest financial penalty it’s ever levied—a roughly $70 million settlement—against the trading app Robinhood.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said that it had found “widespread and significant harm suffered by customers” of Robinhood, thanks to “false and misleading” information provided by the app about customer cash balances and the risks associated with trading volatile financial instruments called options. FINRA also said that millions of Robinhood customers had suffered losses during outages of the app in early March 2020 that prevented customers from capitalizing on historic stock market gains. Robinhood agreed to the fine without admitting to or denying FINRA’s findings. The company agreed to pay $12.6 million of the overall $70 million fine to harmed investors as restitution.

FINRA specifically called out Robinhood for displaying inaccurate cash balances for more than 4 million of its customers. The app, the regulator found, displayed “buying power” on accounts that was often inflated, either showing numbers that were too high or displaying exaggerated negative balances.

The findings specifically cite the case of “Customer A,” who was erroneously shown a negative cash balance of $730,165.72. The customer that this is referring to is almost certainly Alex Kearns, a 20-year-old college sophomore who took his own life this past June after seeing this negative balance and thinking he’d lost this sum on a trade, and whose case I profiled in a feature for Mother Jones’ July/August issue.

In that story, I dug into the claim that Robinhood is designed to be misleading for its users in order to spur more trading. More frequent trading is financially beneficial for both Robinhood and the high-frequency trading firms that it partners with to execute the trades of its users. As I explained:

From founding, [Robinhood’s] business model was dependent on customers trading frequently, allowing the company the chance to earn a different kind of commission—known as PFOF, or “payment for order flow”—from every transaction. The payments are essentially a finder’s fee given to Robinhood by so-called market makers, the Wall Street firms who make money executing individual investors’ trades. Since launch, Robinhood has enthusiastically embraced PFOF, arranging favorable rates that eclipsed other brokerages’, making it the company’s single largest source of revenue. The money flows evoke a key lesson of the digital age: If something is free, then you’re not the customer—you’re the product being sold.

FINRA’s findings on Wednesday about Robinhood’s inaccurate displays of negative cash balances reflected something that I heard from several experts I spoke to in the course of my reporting, who pointed to the way that Robinhood displays losses as one of the elements of the app’s presentation that lead users to execute more trades:

Years of research in behavioral science have shown that people who see losses are motivated to chase them, notes Schüll, like roulette players doubling down after a bad spin. She calls it “the chasing effect, where you want to gamble more on other stocks to make that up, to race to get it back.”

And investors who trade more usually do far worse than those who take a set-it-and-forget-it approach. By building in behavioral cues aimed at getting people to trade more heavily, Robinhood is ultimately encouraging users to act against their own financial interests by making frequent trades—while PFOF and its related profits pile up for the app and its superrich collaborators.

Robinhood has faced added scrutiny in the last year, first as it attracted millions of new investors during the pandemic, and later when it froze trading on shares of GameStop, a brick-and-mortar video game store, just as crowds of investors were driving up its price by more than 1,700 percent this past January. Two federal agencies and a congressional committee have launched probes into Robinhood’s decision to freeze trading.

FINRA’s fine is not the first for Robinhood. The trading app was fined $1.25 million by FINRA in 2019 for violations of the duty of “best execution”—rules that require brokerages to obtain the best possible share prices for their customers. The Securities and Exchange Commission fined Robinhood $65 million for similar best-execution violations in December 2020.

Robinhood is expected to go public sometime this summer, at a valuation of more than $30 billion. The paperwork that Robinhood filed in order to offer shares in the company is expected to become public later this week, according to the New York Times. That paperwork is likely to shed light on previously unknown elements of the business, from historical financial statements to early investors.

Organizers erect a "51" sign during a rally for DC statehood before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs holds a hearing on the issue on June 22, 2021. Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP

Inspired by the Freedom Rides 60 years ago, civil rights advocates mobilized in Washington, DC, on Saturday against the backdrop of the US Capitol for the first-ever national rally in support of DC statehood.

Holding signs that said “Protect our freedom to vote” and “DC statehood is racial justice,” civil rights activists linked the push for DC statehood to a broader effort to counter voter suppression, calling on the Senate to protect voting rights and pass the For the People Act, a sweeping democracy protection bill that offers support for DC statehood, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which does not address statehood but would restore provisions of the VRA that were gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013.

“The suppression of Black votes is white supremacist violence,” Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush said to the crowd. Despite having more people than Wyoming and Vermont, states that are almost entirely white, the diverse population of Washington, DC, which is nearly half Black, has no voting representation in Congress. That lack of representation skews power in the Senate toward whiter and more rural states, making it easier for Republicans to block bills that would protect the rights of voters of color.

The rally was the culmination of a nine-city bus tour by the civil rights group Black Voters Matter, which retraced the steps of the Freedom Riders in 1961 who were viciously attacked by white mobs when they sought to desegregate interstate bus travel. “Just like the Freedom Riders in 1961, we are at a crisis moment for our democracy,” said Janai Nelson, associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

In April, the House passed legislation for the second time to make DC the country’s 51st state, but like other voting rights bills, it has stalled in the Senate. (The Senate held its first hearing on DC statehood recently.) Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) says he does not support the bill, but even if every Democrat did, they would still need to abolish the 60-vote requirement to pass it.

Democrats could abolish the filibuster with just 51 votes—another strong argument for why they should want DC to become a state.

Stefani Reynolds/Zuma

Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in New York due to his “demonstrably false and misleading” statements about the 2020 presidential election.

A New York appellate court’s decision to temporarily disbar Giuliani is a remarkable fall from grace for the man once heralded as “America’s Mayor.” In a 33-page ruling, the court found that Giuliani violated the Rules of Professional Conduct by repeatedly lying in his allegations of voter fraud.

“These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent’s narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client,” the decision reads. “We conclude that respondent’s conduct immediately threatens the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law.”

While Giuliani will have the opportunity to fight the suspension, the court wrote that “the uncontroverted misconduct in itself will likely result in substantial permanent sanctions at the conclusion of these disciplinary proceedings.”

Giuliani’s lawyers said in a statement that they were disappointed with the decision and that they were confident their client would be reinstated as a lawyer. “This is unprecedented as we believe that our client does not pose a present danger to the public interest,” they wrote.

Either way, as Congress still mulls action after the failure to enact a bipartisan commission to examine the causes of the January 6 riot on the Capitol, Giuliani’s suspension from practicing law could be as close as the United States gets to justice for the Trump administration’s incitement of violence and undermining of faith in the election system.

Be sure to check out Giuliani’s son’s poorly composed video rant responding to this perceived injustice:

Earlier this hour, 5 Leftist judges decided to suspend my father @rudygiuliani’s law license. Here is my statement: pic.twitter.com/A3O0buL6LG

— Andrew H. Giuliani (@AndrewHGiuliani) June 24, 2021

This post’s headline has been updated to clarify that Giuliani’s suspension is temporary.

The panic over critical race theory—the shorthand boogeyman conservatives have weaponized to vilify schools that examine the role of institutional racism in the United States—has seen its fair share of absurdity in recent months, particularly as Republican lawmakers across the country push bills effectively banning discussions of race in classrooms.

But after Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the joints chiefs of staff, defended the study of critical race theory before Congress this week, a new and especially wild argument against CRT appears to have emerged. Speaking on Newsmax, contributor Dick Morris started with the usual GOP talking points falsely accusing CRT of attempting to teach children that all white people are racist. But then Morris offered what he, rather mildly, described as a “unique thought” on the debate.

Newsmax's Dick Morris suggests Critical Race Theory may "reinforce the Oedipal notion all kids have of wanting to kill their father and marry their mother" pic.twitter.com/pVRWJFAS68

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) June 24, 2021

“What does this do to the children?” he asked. “What does this do to a kid? A quarter of all Black marriages are intermarriage, racially. So what does that do to a Black boy whose mother is Black and his father is white? What does he think? ‘My father exploited my mother and that’s how he got successful?’ Does this reinforce the Oedipal notion that all kids have wanting to kill their father and marry their mother?”

The suggestion that by studying the role of racism in today’s society, a child could develop sexual desires for the opposite-sex parent, then fuel thoughts of murder against the other parent is, as Morris put it, unique. Still, it would be far from surprising if Morris’ psychoanalytical approach takes hold among conservatives always looking to advance this nonexistent culture war. 

In any event, if you’re looking for a palate cleanser after that Morris absurdity, I recommend you watch, if you haven’t already, what Milley had to say about CRT. Be sure to catch Matt Gaetz’s response in there too.

“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white,” Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said while testifying before Congress, pushing back on accusations from a Republican congressman that the military was becoming too “woke.” https://t.co/ix4dKxrC2d pic.twitter.com/HkFVB7d6Ur

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 24, 2021

Susan Walsh/AP

Addressing the nation Wednesday afternoon, President Biden unveiled a multifaceted plan to curb gun violence, following a 30 percent increase in homicide rates in 2020. Biden promised to crack down on firearms dealers, expand community-based programs, and work to provide jobs and housing for formerly incarcerated people.

Despite the announcement’s progressive tilt, the announcement makes clear that Biden wants to increase funds for the police.

To “help address violent crime,” the plan notes, the Treasury Department allows for the $350 billion in state and local funding in the American Rescue Plan to be used on cops. Local officials can hire more police officers, prosecute gun crime, and invest in technology that aids in policing. A fact sheet for Biden’s violence reduction plan states that “this strategy will use the Rescue Plan’s historic funding levels and clear guidance to help state, local, territorial, and tribal governments get the money they need to put more police officers on the beat.”

“This is not a time to turn our backs on law enforcement or our communities,” Biden said in his presser.

This approach concerns some activists. While many praise the community-based aspects of Biden’s plan, they worry that adding “more police officers on the beat” could result in disproportionate arrests in communities of color. The rise in mass incarceration was directly tied to tough-on-crime policies, which were often framed as a solution to rising violence.

“We have concerns about elements of the plan that could very well lead to the further criminalization of communities of color,” Udi Ofer, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Justice Division, said in a statement. Ofer lauds Biden’s emphasis on funding community programs to address the root causes of gun violence, but he points out that government efforts targeting drug and weapons traffickers often result in the overpolicing of low-income communities of color. Take, for example, Washington, DC, where a 2019 plan to crack down on gun violence was selectively enforced in three predominantly Black neighborhoods, rather than citywide.

As my colleague Samantha Michaels wrote last year, increased policing isn’t the only way to effectively crack down on gun violence. Oakland has seen success in reducing shootings through a program, Operation Ceasefire, that identifies those most at risk of committing violent crimes and offering them “access to housing, jobs, medical care, and life coaches, plus a monthly stipend if they accomplish goals like signing up for health insurance, opening a savings account, and staying in touch with probation officers.”

“Moments like these have fueled our nation’s mass incarceration crisis,” Ofer writes. “This time around, we should be guided by evidence of what works, and not let the politics of fear drive our nation’s criminal justice policies.”

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the amount of funding available. It is $350 billion, not $350 million.

India Walton Campaign

In what’s shaping up to be a stunning upset, India Walton, a socialist candidate running her first political campaign in Buffalo, New York, appears set to defeat four-term incumbent Byron Brown in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Walton has a lead of 1,507 votes.

The 38-year-old progressive challenger is now on track to become the city’s first female mayor and the country’s only socialist mayor of a major US city.

As my colleague Andrea Guzman wrote ahead of the race, Walton, who counts Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush as a role mode, is a lifelong Buffalo resident, a former nurse, and the founding executive director of a local land trust: 

In her first 100 days, Walton has promised to sign a tenant’s bill of rights that would install a tenant advocate and institute rent control. She wants to remove police from responding to most mental health calls. She plans to declare Buffalo a sanctuary city. She would be the first woman to be Buffalo’s mayor. While there are other radical mayors in the United States, Walton would be the only socialist mayor in a major city.

Walton was spotted celebrating as her campaign declared victory late Tuesday. “I won! Mommy, I’m the mayor of Buffalo!” she told her mother in a conversation captured on video and posted to Twitter. On social media, notable progressives including Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York City socialist, congratulated Walton on her likely win.

Video @TheBuffaloNews

India Walton leaves Poize Nightclub on Niagara Street to call her mom telling her she won mayoral democratic primary in Buffalo pic.twitter.com/tVNsy2mDe2

— Robert Kirkham (@RobertKirkhamBN) June 23, 2021

.@Indiawaltonbflo became a mother at 14 years old. She earned her GED while pregnant w/ twins.

She graduated, became a registered nurse, & then a representative in her union, 1199SEIU. Then directed a Community Land Trust.

Tonight it seems Buffalo may be making her Mayor. 💙 https://t.co/SlKY0fXKF5

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 23, 2021

This is the old man who had his head cracked open by Buffalo cops last year https://t.co/7UjPwPRfM5

— pipe hitter (@lib_crusher) June 23, 2021

Brown, who refused even to debate Walton ahead of Tuesday’s election, has yet to concede. For more on the country’s (likely) next socialist mayor, be sure to read Andrea’s insightful piece here.

Protesters remember the 500,000 death from Covid-19 in Brazil.Isabela Dias

On the day Brazil recorded its 500,000th death from COVID-19, thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest the government’s disastrous response to the pandemic. This is the second round of large nationwide demonstrations in 20 days calling for the impeachment of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and for better vaccine rollout. Protests organized by grassroots movements, political parties, and unions are scheduled to take place in at least 400 cities across the country. 

In Rio de Janeiro, it was hard to spot a single protester not wearing a mask. The crowd gathered next to a monument remembering the anti-slavery resistance leader Zumbi dos Palmares and marched along one of the main avenues of Rio’s historic Downtown neighborhood all the way to the Candelaria Church, the site of a 1993 massacre of children by the police. Mothers and fathers with their children joined the chorus of “Bolsonaro genocide.” An estimated 70,000 people attended the protest in Rio on Saturday.

A group of vaccinated octogenarians who fought against the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s once again hit the streets in the name of democracy. Student leaders held black and white pictures with the faces of people who disappeared during those years of repression. Bolsonaro, a former army captain who has appointed several military officers to key positions in his government, has repeatedly glorified the dictatorship and praised a notorious torturer from that era. Protesters also remembered Marielle Franco, a Black councilwoman and human rights activist from Rio de Janeiro whose murder in 2018 remains unsolved, and voiced support for former President Lula in a potential run for the presidency in 2022. 

Several demonstrators carried handwritten signs blaming Bolsonaro for the half million deaths. Since the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, he has called the coronavirus a “little flu,” ignored public health measures, promoted disproven treatments, and turned down early vaccine deals. “If the people are protesting amidst a pandemic it’s because the government is more dangerous than the virus,” read one of the signs. One mother wrote: “I’m vaccinated, I don’t want to bury my children.” So far, less than 12 percent of Brazil’s population has been fully vaccinated.

Milady Bonfim de Jesus, 63, said she campaigned hard against Bolsonaro during the 2018 elections and is concerned about the president’s efforts to discredit Brazil’s electronic voting system, which she helped develop as an IT analyst at the Federal Data Processing Service (SERPRO), ahead of next year’s vote. Bonfim de Jesus has received only her first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine. “I’m scared of the virus, but I’m here,” she said. “What about the 500,000 people who died? I’ve lost friends and neighbors of 30 years. If there are other protests, I’ll be back.” 

Holding a sign with the words “impeachment or death,” the teacher Helena Hawad, 58, described feeling angry, tired, sad, and fearful. “There’s too much symbolic violence,” she said. “It’s unbearable. We can’t wait any longer. It’s too dangerous.” 

Doug Mills/New York Times/Getty

Congress gave George W. Bush approval to invade Iraq in 2002 and, for the better part of two decades, lawmakers have shown little interest in repealing it, even as presidents from both parties widen the scope of that approval far beyond Iraq’s borders. Presidents now regularly initiate conflict without congressional approval and legislation like the 2002 AUMF—or “authorization for use of military force”—is a major reason why. 

But Democrats in Congress hope to put the genie back in the bottle. The House voted Thursday 268-161 to repeal the 2002 declaration, sending the matter to the Senate, where it faces its best chance of success in years. All but one Democrat supported the measure, and 49 Republicans voted in favor.

“Congress has for so long failed to do its most basic functions of oversight and responsibility in exercising its war powers,” says Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War, an advocacy group that supports the repeal effort. “Anytime it’s doing something in that vein, it should be commended.”

Lawmakers like Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) have long pushed to roll back the president’s war powers, but rarely have these efforts gathered much support in Congress. Part of the problem was the tendency for presidents from both parties to lean on the legislation as an ostensible legal justification for initiating conflict in the Middle East. 

The United States declared the Iraq War over in 2011, but the AUMF lived on, serving as a legal rationale for Barack Obama’s campaign against the Islamic State and Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate a top Iranian general. Trump’s presidency lit a fire under Democrats, who voted twice to repeal the 2002 AUMF in the House, but those measures failed to clear the Republican-controlled Senate. 

This year, Lee and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) spearheaded a parallel effort to finally put the 2002 AUMF to bed. Its chances of passing the 50-50 Senate are not extraordinary, but House Democrats are confident enough in its success that, for the first time, they are unveiling the declaration as a standalone bill, instead of an amendment to the annual defense policy bill.

“In Washington, the 2002 AUMF has become somewhat of a zombie—an authorization that has long outlived its purpose yet still lurks among U.S. laws and poses a danger to the country’s interests,” Lee and Kaine wrote in a joint op-ed for Foreign Policy. “We owe it to U.S. troops to ensure military action is in the national interest before Congress continues to send them into harm’s way using outdated justification.”

One element working in favor of the repeal effort is—surprisingly—the Biden administration. A White House statement said the repeal “would likely have minimal impact on current military operations,” a statement that gives Senate Democrats room to support the bill while also indicating the volume of options available to a modern president to conduct war without oversight.

Another benefit: the bill’s potential to attract Republican support. It’s already been approved by 49 House Republicans, and in the Senate Kaine’s effort is supported by Republicans such as Todd Young (Ind.), Chuck Grassley (Ia.), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Mike Lee (Utah). Conservative groups like the Koch Brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity have rallied their political network to the cause alongside left-leaning groups like Win Without War. 

A successful repeal would signal a bipartisan commitment to reining in presidential war powers, but the effect would still be mostly symbolic. When Biden ordered airstrikes on an Iran-backed militia in Syria, the White House justified his actions as an extension of his constitutional authority as commander in chief. He didn’t feel the need to reference a congressional authorization, but if he did, he could just have easily leaned on the 2001 AUMF, which the Trump administration believed would justify an attack against Iran, despite the legislation referring obliquely to al-Qaeda and Taliban.

Presidents have a menu of options to pursue conflicts abroad without running it by Congress first. But even if this repeal effort won’t substantively change that state of affairs, it is—as Miles put it—a “no brainer” first step. 

Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden at their vice presidential debate in 2012. David Goldman/AP

In 2011, Ayn Rand acolyte, amateur weightlifter, and then House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan proposed cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. One year later, former Bain Capital CEO Mitt Romney pledged to do the same while running for president—and then picked Ryan as his running mate. Nearly a decade and one massive Trump tax cut later, President Joe Biden wants to raise corporate taxes from 21 percent to 28 percent.

The problem is that moderate Democrats have another number in mind: 25 percent.

The 25 percenters include the usual suspects of moderate Democrats—Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—plus Sens. Mark Warner and Jon Tester. And the president appears ready to go along with them, saying last month that he’d take a corporate tax rate as low as 25 percent. It’s a victory for a Romney-Ryan agenda that should have been further discredited by yet another decade of exploding inequality. 

In 2017, I covered the tax bill that Republicans pushed through Congress without any Democratic support. Trump’s bill reduced the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, while doing almost nothing to make up for the lost revenue by closing loopholes. Republicans also let many business owners deduct 20 percent of their business income when they pay individual taxes instead of corporate taxes. More than 60 percent of the benefits of the so-called pass through deduction will go to those in the top 1 percent, according to the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Only 4 percent will end up in the pockets of the bottom-two thirds of Americans. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation projected that the corporate tax cuts plus the pass-through deduction will cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years. 

On the individual side, the law was loaded up with handouts to the ultra-rich like a provision that doubled the estate tax exemption level from $11 million per couple to $22.4 million per couple. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the end result is that the law will give people in the top 1 percent a $61,090 tax cut in 2025, which works out to a 2.9 percent increase in after-tax income. Average Americans can expect to get $910, a 1.3 percent income boost. 

After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act became law, the Congressional Budget Office projected that it would cost $1.9 trillion over ten years—even more than the $1.5 trillion anticipated while the bill was being debated. The full cost will likely be even higher. In a shrewd piece of legislative maneuvering, Republicans made the corporate tax cuts permanent but allowed the individual cuts to expire after 2025. Congress will face tremendous pressure to renew them since not doing so will be framed as a Democratic tax hike.

The budget the White House unveiled last month leaves much of the Republican tax cut intact for now. It doesn’t touch the estate tax change or the pass-through deduction, opting instead to let them expire after 2025. Biden did call for making it harder for companies to shelter profits in tax havens and raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, the same rate Barack Obama proposed during the 2012 campaign as part of a plan that would have also closed corporate tax loopholes. Those and other corporate tax changes Biden is proposing would raise more than $2 trillion over 10 years, according to the White House budget. 

There are many reasons for pushing corporate taxes back up. First, the costs will be disproportionately borne by wealthy Americans who’ve seen their wealth skyrocket during the pandemic. Meanwhile, corporate profits are at record highs and still climbing. The many loopholes companies use to avoid paying today’s already low rate is a whole other issue. 

But even Biden’s modest bump is aspirational. Before the White House budget was released, Manchin said he and other moderate Democrats feel “very strongly” about making sure the corporate tax rate doesn’t go above 25 percent. Biden, who has no Democratic votes to spare in the Senate, has now said he’s willing to accept that level. 

It gives us what we’ve got today. Historically low corporate taxes make it easier for companies to book record profits. Then much of those profits are passed on to the top 1 percent of Americans through increased stock values and dividends. As ProPublica revealed last week, the Bezoes and Musks of the world manage to pay almost no taxes on their windfalls. 

Faced with this reality, moderate Democrats have decided the corporate tax rate should stay where Republicans wanted it a decade ago. Congratulations Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. You might have lost the White House, but you won the ideological battle.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday October 23, 2019 Washington, D.C. Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press

In April, the civil rights group Muslim Advocates sued Facebook and four of its top executives for failing to implement the company’s pledge to remove hate groups from the platform. Now, Facebook is looking to get the case tossed out, with its team of superstar lawyers making boundary-testing legal arguments about the breadth of the social media company’s legal immunity.

The allegation against Facebook is essentially fraud. In 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress that “if there’s a group that—their primary purpose or—or a large part of what they do is spreading hate, we will ban them from the platform.” Not long before, Muslim Advocates had sent the company a list of 26 anti-Muslim groups on Facebook. As Zuckerberg made his promise, 23 remained active. Specifically, the group argues that Zuckerberg and other executives deceived Congress under oath by claiming the company removes hate groups from the platform when they learn about them.

Here’s the crux of the case, as Mother Jones reported in April:

In a complaint filed in DC Superior Court with the civil rights firm Gupta Wessler, Muslim Advocates lays out numerous instances where Facebook was alerted to anti-Muslim content that violates the platform’s rules but failed to remove it. The complaint contrasts these incidents with statements from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top officials promising—including in sworn testimony to Congress—that when Facebook becomes aware of content that violates its policies, it takes it down… 

That gulf between promises and practices, the suit alleges, is illegal under the District of Columbia’s expansive consumer protection statute. “Facebook’s executives might believe that they are legally entitled to operate a social media platform that acts as a cesspool for hate,” the complaint states. “But what its executives certainly cannot do is misrepresent to Congress, national civil rights leaders, and its users in the District of Columbia that Facebook does, in fact, remove or take down content that violates its own standards and policies while routinely refusing to do so. Facebook has no free license to make false or deceptive statements.” 

Facebook denies any wrongdoing and is asking the court to toss out the case. Representing the tech company are two giants of the legal world. The lead counsel is Donald Verrilli, the former US Solicitor General under President Barack Obama, whose clever arguments before the Supreme Court saved the Affordable Care Act. After serving at the “mountaintop” of American law, he joined a law firm that often represents Facebook. 

Also representing Facebook is former prosecutor Jonathan Kravis, who recently made headlines for his successful prosecution of Donald Trump ally Roger Stone. Kravis resigned from the Justice Department after then–Attorney General William Barr undercut career prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation for Stone. Trump later pardoned Stone.

Defending Facebook, Verrilli and Kravis have brought a possibly winning but definitely awkward argument to the fore. It hinges on a broad interpretation of the hotly debated Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This section of the 1996 law—which members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are currently interested in revising—protects internet companies from liability for third-party content published on their websites. Verrilli and Kravis argue that because Muslim Advocates’s claim involves Facebook’s handling of third-party content, the company is immune. 

“Plaintiff attempts to avoid the CDA by asserting misrepresentation claims based on statements that Plaintiff alleges are false and misleading because of Facebook’s purported failure to ‘remove hateful and harmful content’ from its platform,” Verrilli, Kravis, and a third attorney write in their motion to dismiss. “Courts have consistently rejected such artful pleading where, as here, plaintiff’s theory of liability turns on decisions by the defendant regarding third-party content, and therefore treats the defendant as the publisher of that content.” 

Essentially, Facebook is arguing that it can’t be held liable in court for misrepresenting to Congress how it handles third-party content. This is an inopportune argument to make when both Republicans and Democrats want to reform Section 230 and rein in the power of Big Tech. Just this week, the Senate confirmed Lina Khan, a progressive critic of big tech, to the Federal Trade Commission on a broad bipartisan vote. If Verrilli and Kravis are right that Congress created a law that allows internet companies to misrepresent themselves to lawmakers, then they might be more inclined to change the law.

This argument is particularly notable coming from Kravis. In 2019, he secured Stone’s conviction for lying to Congress. Now, he’s arguing that, under certain circumstances, his new client can get away with just that.

Ocean City Boardwalk in 2020Caroline Brehman/Congressional Quarterly/Zuma

This weekend, police officers enforcing a vaping ban violently arrested four Black teens in Ocean City, Maryland. 

Police tackled and repeatedly kneed a 19-year-old on Saturday while arresting him for “failure to provide necessary identification” after allegedly vaping tobacco on the Ocean City boardwalk. Video shows police yelling at the man to “stop resisting” even as he lay restrained on the ground by at least two other officers. Police then arrested two other teens for disorderly conduct and one for “standing on private property next to two ‘no trespassing signs.'”

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Videos of the police tasing and kicking the teens have gone viral on social media, leaving many to ask whether the use of force was an appropriate response to one person’s alleged vaping. Ocean City cops defended their actions in a press release, saying, “Our officers are permitted to use force, per their training, to overcome exhibited resistance.”

In May, the Ocean City Council banned smoking and vaping marijuana products in public places, in addition to its existing ban on tobacco use. Ocean City has billed itself as a “family-friendly resort town”—this is another way of saying that Ocean City is 95 percent white—and has taken to passing ordinances against things like vaping to uphold its self-image, as if vaping were more of a civic blight than cops manhandling teenagers. The city is home to many restrictive ordinances, including a ban on skateboarding, cycling, or rollerskating on the boardwalk outside of specific time slots in the summer.

When the city first put in place smoking restrictions on the boardwalk in 2015, the city manager said that police wouldn’t “haul people off to jail for smoking on the Boardwalk.” It seems times have changed.

Michael Brochstein/Zuma

Who needs student loan forgiveness when you can have your payments deferred for one year, with no decrease in total debt, so long as you’ve survived a terrorist attack?

Today, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) reintroduced legislation, called the Terrorism Survivors Student Loan Deferment Act, which would do just that. He said in a press release, “Giving survivors some time to regroup by delaying their student loan payments is just commonsense.” It’s also the bare minimum.

As my colleague Hannah Levintova wrote yesterday, canceling student debt is one broad policy that won’t disproportionately benefit wealthy households. Just the opposite: The authors of a new study “found that at each proposed level of cancellation—$10,000, $50,000, or the $75,000 proposed last year by the Roosevelt Institute—those with the least net worth would see the biggest benefit.”

In case you were wondering, per the proposed legislation, “a victim of a terrorist attack is an individual who is designated as a victim of a terrorist attack by the head of the Federal agency that is handling the investigation of the attack.”

The FBI defines terrorism as “violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.” In other words, if you survived a bombing or a mass shooting perpetrated by someone with no particular motive, well, tough luck.

Caroline Brehman/Congressional Quarterly/Zuma

Any armchair environmental scientist will tell you that the most crucial thing we humans can do to stave off the destruction of the planet is to stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But that hasn’t stopped people from hatching harebrained and entirely unfeasible schemes to reverse the damage we’ve done.

Some say we should set up machines to suck carbon dioxide out of the air, a technology that is still in its infancy, and currently too expensive to be feasible on a large scale, among other drawbacks. Maybe, others suggest, we should undertake massive geoengineering projects, like spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere to block sunlight.

Or maybe, as Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) suggests, we should simply alter the Earth’s orbit.

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on Tuesday, Gohmert asked a National Forest Service representative, “Is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit or the Earth’s orbit around the sun?” He added, “Obviously, that would have profound effects on our climate.”

Jennifer Eberlien, the Forest Service’s bewildered associate deputy chief, replied, “I would have to follow up with you on that one, Mr. Gohmert.”

A real question from @replouiegohmert: “Is there anything that the [US] can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit or the Earth’s orbit around the sun” to fix climate change?

A US Forest Service representative: “I would have to follow up with you on that one, Mr. Gohmert.” pic.twitter.com/46ZVw2vCIW

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) June 9, 2021

A 2001 article in The Guardian actually discusses the concept of harnessing the gravitational energy of an asteroid or comet to push the Earth a little farther a way from the sun. But there’s a reason this idea has rarely been discussed in the past 20 years: Any minor misstep by NASA—which, uh, never makes mistakes—could send the comet or asteroid hurtling into our planet. In a thorough analysis of the prospect, The Conversation suggests that it would be easier to colonize Mars.

Or we could just stop burning fossil fuels.

Ardavan Roozbeh/ZUMA

Two Senate committees have released their long-awaited, bipartisan report investigating the January 6 attack on Congress by Trump supporters over the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The report, as expected, includes a list of recommendations for boosting security and intelligence-sharing practices after the insurrection at the Capitol more than five months ago. It also reveals that federal agencies had intelligence about plans to attack the Capitol and their “potential for violence” well in advance of January 6.

“According to information provided to the Committees, officers received little-to-no communication from senior officers during the attack,” the review read, adding that, “For hours the screams on the radio were horrific, the sights were unimaginable, and there was a complete loss of control…For hours NO Chief or above took command and control.”

It’s important to note that the investigations by the Senate Rules committee and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee are different, and much more limited in scope, than the proposed independent bipartisan 1/6 commission that Mitch McConnell and fellow Senate Republicans filibustered last month.

While we comb through the key takeaways from today’s report, you can take a look at the full findings below:

Protesters march from New York City to Washington DC, to the US Supreme Court.Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty

In a unanimous decision on Monday, the Supreme Court eliminated one of the few paths to a green card for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status who entered the United States unlawfully. TPS offers humanitarian relief against deportation and provides work authorization for about 400,000 citizens from 12 designated countries—including Haiti, El Salvador, Venezuela, and Burma—that have been impacted by extraordinary circumstances such as armed conflicts or environmental disasters.

In Sanchez v. Mayorkas, the justices upheld the decision from a lower court regarding two El Salvadoran nationals, Jose Sanchez and his wife Sonia Gonzalez, who came to the United States in the late 1990s. They have held TPS status since 2001, when the US government included the country in the program following a series of catastrophic earthquakes, and they have a US citizen son. But when they applied for a green card in 2014 that would have granted them permanent residency, it was denied based on their unlawful entry. “Because a grant of TPS does not come with a ticket of admission,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote, “it does not eliminate the disqualifying effect of an unlawful entry.” 

The decision came as blow to immigrant rights activists and attorneys who say tens of thousands of people who have lived and worked in the United States for decades now will be left in limbo. Immigrants with TPS who entered legally on a student or tourist visa, for instance, are still eligible to apply for a green card in the United States if they have a qualifying sponsor like a family member or an employer. 

Before today, TPS holders in the 6th, 8th, and 9th circuits could more easily adjust to green cards if they had a sponsor, because those circuits counted a grant of TPS as an "admission." Now, all TPS holders are in the same situation, with more barriers to green cards. https://t.co/7boqHxEx3f

— Julia Gelatt (@J_Gelatt) June 7, 2021

Today’s SCOTUS decision on TPS – which blocks easy access to legal status – is just another reason why local communities need to fund deportation defense and end ICE detainers if they want to protect their immigrant neighbors.

— Michael Kagan (@MichaelGKagan) June 7, 2021

The decision attempted to resolve a disparity within the various circuits of the US Court of Appeals. When Sanchez challenged the denial of their petition for a green card, a District Court in New Jersey sided with them and found that TPS recipients should be considered as having been “inspected and admitted” lawfully into the country. But the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the favorable decision holding that “a grant of TPS does not constitute an ‘admission’ into the United States.” It further stated that “as its name suggests, this protection is meant to be temporary.” But up until now, TPS holders in states like Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, and California, among others under the jurisdiction of the 6th, 8th, and 9th circuits, have been considered to be eligible for permanent residency from within the United States without having to apply for re-entry through consular processing abroad—even though they may have entered unlawfully. 

As Justice Kanagan noted in the opinion, legislation pending in Congress could resolve the issue for the TPS holders who were affected by this decision. Under the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021, non-citizens with TPS or those who are eligible for it on or after September 2017 and meet certain requirements would be allowed to apply for a green card. The standalone bill passed the House in March, but faces an uphill battle in the Senate. 

“Although this is a huge blow for one of the only available avenues for our families to adjust their status, this will not deter our struggle for obtaining green cards for all TPS holders,” Claudia Lainez, a TPS holder from El Salvador and regional organizer for the National TPS Alliance said in a statement. “This news only emphasizes the fact that Congress must act now to guarantee permanent protections and for President Biden to expand the TPS status to everyone who deserves it.” 

Another big loss at #SCOTUS this morning on immigration. 9-0, just like last week's decision. This morning the case is Sanchez v. Mayorkas, involving the ability of SOME TPS holders to adjust status to lawful permanent residents. Opinion is here: https://t.co/Ytg6oDW9w7 1/5

— Karen Tumlin (@KarenTumlin) June 7, 2021

SOPAImages/Getty

When the White House tweeted last night about their “first-ever social media briefing” between Press Secretary Jen Psaki and 11 “internet stars,” the internet wrote back a resounding “who dis?”

What happens when Jen Psaki and internet stars get together? We'll find out tomorrow.

Join the first-ever social media briefing tomorrow. Tune in as Jen answers questions about jobs, the economy, and more. Watch here or at https://t.co/bZzjPZkF4G. pic.twitter.com/CFKRHZG5GJ

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 4, 2021

I, a reporter and youth, decided to investigate who I am being told is influencing me.

It was an expedition into the unknown. Apart from the Property Brothers—whose faces I recognize solely because my parents love to watch couples bicker over houses until their eyes glaze over—I couldn’t name a single creator.

I used advanced research tools (reading, Google) to produce this list:

• Benito Skinner (comedian, influencer)
• Brittany Xavier (fashion blogger, influencer)
• Hannah Bronfman (wellness entrepreneur, influencer)
• Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin (co-founded The Home Edit, a home and design site, influencer)
• Curly Velasquez (Buzzfeed creator, influencer)
• Drew and Jonathan Scott (Property Brothers, liked by my parents, influencer)
• Amelie Zilber (TikToker, influencer)
• Jordan Stratton (of fatherhood blog The Dad, influencer)
• Chriselle Lim (stylist, influencer)

There’s more. Skinner, known as Benny Drama, produces satirical videos notably of Kim Kardashian. Stratton who Psaki calls “a member of the dad community” runs lifestyle site, for dads. Zilber a Georgetown freshman, has 2.3 million Instagram followers and is a UNICEF Young Ambassador. Nice. Good for them. But I don’t know these people.

While waiting for the briefing on “jobs and the economy” to begin, I wondered to myself about which millennially-minded person within the Biden administration cobbled together this disparate group and what they might be able to illuminate about the country’s future. I, a millennial sun, Gen Z rising, am clearly not the target audience. Who is this for then?

Over the course of the nearly one hour briefing, Psaki hosted a Q&A style discussion with the creators who asked about how Biden plans to help working families, students, Dreamers, and lower-income Americans. Psaki, who wellness entrepreneur Hannah Bronfman called a “boss lady,” answered each question by directing the creators to the President’s American Families Plan. Building on the American Rescue Plan, the AFP is Biden’s proposal to support families and students by making two years of community college free, ensuring universal pre-K education, and boosting paid family leave among other investments.

Of course, it wasn’t just a proposal pitch; it was a chance for Psaki to show a little humor, proposing that we “bring back capes” and that she’s a “candy spirit animal.” During the briefing we learned that Jonathan Scott, one half of the Property Brothers known for dating Zooey Deschanel, believes himself to be the more attractive of the twins.

At worst a bit of cringe, the briefing signals a larger shift within the Biden administration to invest in engagement with younger, online focused audiences about the President’s plans—even if that has nothing to do with what my hyper online peers engage with. But then again, I don’t know anyone besides myself tasked with this blog post, who willingly tuned in.

The truth is that internet stars are just stars, full stop. Perhaps in the past, when the internet was for the select few (geeks) a million followers would mean something. But the divide is over. If you’re big, you’re big. The appeal of the summit is less about the internet as a demographic and more about trying to get into all the tiny crevices of fame possible.

In late May, Biden appeared alongside Dr. Anthony Fauci to dispel COVID-19 vaccine rumors in a similar way, hoping on a show with YouTubers like beauty influencer Jackie Aina and Coyote Peterson, one of the hosts of Brave Wilderness and a wildlife educator who is known for willingly getting stung and bitten by poisonous species.

It reminded me of the Obama era. He hosted similar briefings throughout his presidency with YouTubers (whose names I recognize) like Tyler Oakley and Hannah Hart. Two days after giving his 2015 State of the Union address, Obama met with four YouTubers to discuss free education, cancer research funding, and net neutrality. At the end of the interview, Steve Grove the director of Google News Lab thanked Obama, “We hope your successor follows in your footsteps and goes straight to the American people.”

We all know how the other path ended: Trump’s vitriolic Social Media Summit featuring QAnoners and conservative influencers roving the halls of the White House.

It’s kind of nice to return to this soft cringe.

President Donald Trump gives a final wave as he boards Marine One before departing the White House for the last time on January 20. Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Donald Trump will not be making a triumphant return to Facebook and Instagram anytime soon. Facebook announced Friday that Trump’s ban will last until at least January 2023. At that point, the company says, it will reassess whether to let the former president back onto its platform.

The social media giant blocked Trump from posting to Facebook and Instagram indefinitely on January 7, after he used the platform to incite the January 6 US Capitol insurrection. It then referred that decision to its new Oversight Board, a panel of independent human rights experts, to decide Trump’s fate on the platform. But last month, the Oversight Board tossed the decision back to Facebook. 

“At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president for global affairs, wrote in announcing the company’s decision. “We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest. If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded.”

Pushing Trump’s possible return to January 2023 means that the former president will not be able to post to Facebook or Instagram during the 2022 midterm election cycle, likely blunting his ability to influence those elections.