Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Zuma

Facebook intends to reverse the policy that exempts politicians from content moderation on its platform, the Verge reports. The social media giant’s decision comes weeks after its oversight board criticized the lack of standards guiding the company’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump.

Facebook has avoided moderating the speech of elected officials, it argues, because their public statements are inherently newsworthy. The policy was criticized as giving politicians carte blanche to sow disinformation, especially in the wake of Trump’s false claims of election fraud and his alleged incitement of the January 6 MAGA mob in the nation’s Capitol.

The new policy still won’t subject politicians’ posts to fact-check reviews, the Verge reports, but it will allow moderators to enforce Facebook’s rules against behavior such as bullying. Exactly how this will work in practice remains to be seen.

Texans protest a restrictive abortion bill outside the State Capitol in Austin on May 29.Bob Daemmrich/Zuma

Paxton Smith, the valedictorian of Lake Highlands High School in Dallas, scrapped her planned speech this weekend to give an impromptu address about the necessity of women’s autonomy over their own bodies.

Smith criticized the six-week abortion ban that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law last month. The law, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest, is subject to litigation and likely will not take effect as written. Still, it’s part of a worrisome trend of states chipping away at abortion rights in attempts to challenge Roe v. Wade.

“Before [women] have the chance to decide if they are emotionally, physically, and financially stable enough to carry out a full-term pregnancy—before they have the chance to decide if they can take on the responsibility of bringing another human being into the world—that decision is made for them by a stranger,” Smith said. “I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail, I am terrified that if I am raped, then my hopes and aspirations and dreams and efforts for my future will no longer matter.”

“I cannot give up this platform to promote complacency and peace when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights,” she said, to cheers and applause, “a war on the rights of your mothers, a war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your daughters. We cannot stay silent.”

Watch the video.

Donald Trump waves goodbye to his website.Orit Ben-Ezzer/ZUMA Wire

Last month, former President Donald Trump, who has been banned from both Twitter and Facebook, announced a major breakthrough in his fight against impulse control—a new website that could be continually updated throughout the day with short posts with his thoughts on the news. Many people at the time said this was “actually just a website” or, more specifically, “a blog” and not, in fact, a visionary disruption of internet publishing. But now they can no longer say either of those things, because www.DonaldJTrump.com/Desk is defunct.

Per CNBC:

The page, “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” has been scrubbed from Trump’s website and “will not be returning,” his senior aide Jason Miller told CNBC.

“It was just auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on,” Miller said in email correspondence.

I wouldn’t trust Miller to tell me what day of the week it was, so I had to see it with my own eyes. But I checked and it’s true—the innovative micro-blogging platform Donald-J-Trump-forward-slash-Desk is now gone. It’s been replaced by a signup form to receive updates from Trump’s political action committee.

The through line of Donald Trump’s politics was pettiness and cruelty to those that he and his supporters considered insufficiently American. But the through line of Trump’s professional life is that he prefers the illusion of substance to the real thing. As a developer, many his signature properties were other people’s buildings. He was the winner of fictitious awards and the preservationist of a fictitious battle. His “university” was sued for fraud. He rode into office on the strength of his reputation as a businessman, even though it was mainly just a part he played on a slickly produced TV show. His net worth was reportedly smoke and mirrors. In office, he held elaborate signing ceremonies for meaningless orders and claimed others’ successes as his own. Of course the innovative new communications platform was just a blog, and of course the blog was hardly even that—it wouldn’t really be a Trump product if it were anything else.

And of course Miller’s public line was eventually undercut by something perhaps a bit more real: Trump had ditched the website, a source told the Washington Post, because so many people had made fun of it and no one read it.

Yonatan Sindel/Pool via AP

After more than 12 consecutive years as prime minister, it looks like Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure as the head of Israel’s government may finally be coming to an end. On Sunday, Naftali Bennett announced that his right-wing Yamina Party would break ranks with Netanyahu’s Likud Party and would instead attempt to form a coalition government consisting of an array of parties from the political center, right, and left. And, for the first time in history, the government would likely be propped up by support from a party, Ra’am, that largely represents Arab citizens of Israel. If the effort is successful—it could still be scuttled by defections from a handful of members of Israel’s parliament—it would be nothing short of a political earthquake.

Netanyahu was first elected in 1996, not long after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist. He was defeated in 1999, then returned to office a decade later. Since then, he has led the Israeli government through six elections, three wars in Gaza, and his own ongoing corruption trial. He has engaged in anti-Arab rhetoric, allied himself with overtly racist extremists, vocally opposed Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, and forged close ties with Donald Trump.

The news comes barely a week after Netanyahu agreed to a cease fire with Hamas following the most recent war. As the Washington Post explains:

Their announcement follows the 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip this month, which some analysts speculated would help bolster the embattled Netanyahu. At the outset of the fighting, Bennett, a former Netanyahu protege who had been poised to join a unity government with Lapid, said the military operation, which killed more than 250 Palestinians and 12 Israelis, had ended his interest in joining with the anti-Netanyahu coalition, which has the support of left-leaning and Arab parties.

But after an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire took hold May 21, criticism of Netanyahu surged again. Some 47 percent of Israelis said they opposed the cease-fire and 67 percent said they expected another round of fighting with Hamas within the next three years, according to opinion polls published last week by Israel’s Channel 12.

Netanyahu’s rivals said the operation lacked a coherent or long-term strategy and that Netanyahu’s failure to stop Hamas rocket fire from raining down on Israel or secure the remains of Israeli soldiers was further proof of his need to leave office.

“With the best intelligence and air force in the world, Netanyahu managed to extract from Hamas an ‘unconditional cease-fire.’ Embarrassing,” tweeted Gideon Saar, another former Netanyahu protege now with the change coalition.

If Netanyahu’s opponents do manage to oust him later this week, Bennett would likely serve as prime minister for two years, after which he would be succeeded by Yair Lapid, a centrist. What exactly all this means for the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is unclear. Bennett is a former leader of Israel’s settler movement who opposes Palestinian statehood. On Sunday, he promised that the new government would be “more right-wing” than Netanyahu’s.

Bennett: “This will not be a government that will return parts of the Land of Israel. It will be a government that will be capable of embarking on a war if necessary. There’s a well-oiled machine that is spreading lies in the heart of the public. Don’t be afraid of them.”

— Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר (@AnshelPfeffer) May 30, 2021

Justin Lemus, 15, posed for a photo with his vaccination sticker after being inoculated with the first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the Mount Sinai South Nassau Vaxmobile parked at the De La Salle School, Friday, May 14, 2021, in Freeport, N.Y. Mary Altaffer/AP

After vaccination rates declined earlier this month, the United States’ campaign to get every American inoculated against COVID-19 got a much needed boost from the youths.

According to the New York Times, 2.5 million children aged 12 to 15 have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine and 23 percent of kids aged 12 to 17 have received at least one dose. Earlier this month public health experts began fretting about declining vaccine rates as most of the adults who wanted a vaccine were able to access one. Now the concern is about how to get the message to anti-vaxxers and how to reached historically underserved communities.

Vaccine rates began to climb again after Pfizer authorized children ages 12 and up to receive the shot and parents, eager for their children to enjoy some semblance of a summer vacation, quickly signed them up for their shots. Of course, some of that cohort have parents who have refused vaccination themselves and will not sign their kids up. However, other children are helping their peers navigate the waters of wanting to be vaccinated but unable to do so because of their parents’ misguided beliefs, by arming them with scientific and factual information to help sway their parents. Arin Parsa, the 13-year-old founder of Teens for Vaccines told NBC News that the group has been “in the trenches helping many teens who face vaccine-hesitancy as well as extreme anti-vax views in their families.”

As a former teenager, I fully understand the importance of summer: Hanging out with your pals in an empty parking lot, endlessly annoying your family by blasting music from your bedroom, and that feeling you get when you’re developing a new crush. It’s unlikely that the pervasive misinformation about vaccines will go away anytime soon, and with thousands of new infections and hundreds of death each day, we’re not out of the woods yet, but the increase in vaccines among children is still great news. Get your kids vaccinated and let them have a magical summer. They deserve it. 

Texas Gov. Greg AbbottBob Daemmrich/ZUMA

The absurdity of the Republican Party’s culture wars has reached new heights. A slew of GOP-led state legislatures are enacting new laws that ban teaching “critical race theory” an academic framework that has become the latest conservative boogeyman.

Do you want to learn about racism, discrimination and privilege? Well, Republicans are trying to make it really hard to do so with a slew of bills designed to muzzle educators. In Texas, House Bill 3979 would limit how teachers talk about current events and historic racism in their classrooms. It also bans schools from teaching the 1619 Project, a New York Times endeavor which investigates US history starting with the year the first slaves were brought to what would become the United States. After some political maneuvering, the controversial bill appears to be headed to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. 

But in Oklahoma, where a critical race theory ban has  taken place, the effects have already been chilling. Melissa Smith, an adjunct professor at Oklahoma City Community College, recently learned her race and ethnicity course had been “paused” for the summer. “Our history of the United States is uncomfortable and it should make us uncomfortable and we should grow from that,” Smith said in an interview with the Washington Post. But the community college has stated that since the new law “essentially revokes any ability to teach critical race theory, including discussions of white privilege” Smith’s curriculum would need substantial changes. 

Other Republican-run states like Tennessee and Idaho have enacted similar bans. The rush to ban schools from teaching students about the realities and horrors of how race functions in this country is a response to the major upheaval of last year. Not only did the murder of George Floyd spur massive racial justice protests across the street, Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. These events were helped, in part, by a new understanding of racism and white supremacy in America, the very ideas the Republican Party is trying to ban. The GOP is handling defeat not by moderating its views or crafting concrete policy—instead, the so-called party of freedom is trying to silence speech. 

Michael Wade/Icon SMI/ZUMA

Southwest Airlines announced it would not resume alcohol service on its flights. The airline had stopped serving alcohol during the beginning of the pandemic, but was set to rescind that policy next month—until a passenger assaulted a flight attendant last week. The incident was just the latest in a disturbing rise of unruly and dangerous passengers on planes.

According to the Port of San Diego Harbor police, a woman was arrested on felony assault charges after striking a flight attendant. “The passenger repeatedly ignored standard inflight instructions (tray table in upright position, seat belt, etc.) and became verbally and physically abusive upon landing,” a Southwest Airlines spokesperson said in a statement. The suspect has been banned from the airlines. Sonya Lacore, the airline’s head of in-flight operations, decided “based on the rise in passenger disruptions in flight, I’ve made the decision to re-evaluate the restart of alcohol service on board.”

Southwest isn’t the only airline experiencing a rise in horrible customers. The Federal Aviation Administration announced that since January 1, the agency has received 2,500 reports of “unruly behavior” with 1,900 of those being passengers refusing to comply with the federal mask mandate. In a January incident, a passenger on an unidentified airline shoved a flight attendant who was walking down the aircraft’s aisle to ensure each passenger was complying with the mask mandate. The FAA has announced penalties as high as $15,000 for disruptive customers.

As vaccine rates climb and local governments lift restrictions, more people are traveling. But that also means more people are engaging in troubling behavior. “We’ve never before seen aggression and violence on our planes like we have in the past five months,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said in a statement. “The constant combative attitude over wearing masks is exhausting and sometimes horrific for the people who have been on the front lines of this pandemic for over a year.” 

It’s exhilarating to see public life resume in a quasi-normal way, after a year of being unable to see our family and friends. But in a classic case of This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, some people are choosing to treat the return to widespread travel as a chance to act like utter jerks. The coronavirus restrictions were tough, but at least it forced many of the nation’s assholes to stay home. 

Chris Kleponis/Pool/CNP/Zuma

President Biden just took a major stand for abortion rights. His new budget proposal, released today, excludes the Hyde Amendment—a 1976 provision that bans federal funding for abortions and forces women on Medicaid to pay for most abortions out of pocket.

As my colleague Becca Andrews wrote in March:

[The ban on using federal funds for abortion care], known as the Hyde Amendment, was passed by Congress in 1976 as an amendment to the federal budget. Thanks to Hyde, Medicaid health insurance can’t cover abortions—except in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment—forcing low-income women to pay for abortions out of pocket. The amendment was the first major blow to abortion rights after Roe because it essentially cut off access to those who had always struggled to get care before the procedure was legalized.

While Biden’s proposal is a largely symbolic measure unlikely to pass the evenly divided Senate, it marks a huge shift in the president’s thinking on abortion. Biden voted for the Hyde Amendment as a senator 1976. He even opposed exceptions for rape, incest, and life endangerment. Now, he’s making a statement about all women’s rights to access affordable abortions, including the low-income women of color who bear the brunt of the Hyde Amendment.

Still, as Becca explains, low Medicaid reimbursement rates have made it costlier for providers to administer care even in situations where the Hyde Amendment doesn’t apply. Read her deep dive on the Hyde Amendment here.

Brian Cahn/ZUMA

The walls appear to be increasingly closing in on Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican reportedly under investigation for possibly having sex with a minor, with two key witnesses—his former confidante Joel Greenberg who last week pleaded guilty to sex trafficking a minor and ex-girlfriend—now said to be cooperating with the feds. But while most would keep a low profile under such a legally dangerous scenario, Gaetz, a professional troll and perhaps the Trumpiest member of Congress, continues to run in the opposite direction of reason.

During a stop on his “America First” tour with Marjorie Taylor Greene Thursday, Gaetz told a crowd of supporters that he believes Americans have “an obligation to use” the Second Amendment, particularly in the fight against so-called “cancel culture” in Silicon Valley.

“The internet’s hall monitors out in Silicon Valley, they think they can suppress us, discourage us,” Gaetz told attendees at a rally in Dalton, Georgia. “Well, you know what? Silicon Valley can’t cancel this movement, or this rally, or this congressman. We have the Second Amendment in this country and I think we have an obligation to use it.” He went on to suggest that the Second Amendment intended for people to have the ability to form an “armed rebellion against the government” when necessary. 

As Gaetz railed against cancel culture, a Democratic candidate for Congress tweeted that he had been kicked out of the event after being deemed a “threat.”

Matt Gaetz says the 2nd amendment is about “maintaining within the citizenry the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government” pic.twitter.com/MNATrjBrhr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 27, 2021

Gaetz’s inflammatory remarks on gun rights and armed rebellion come nearly five months after the January 6 Capitol insurrection, as well as current Republican efforts, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to squash bipartisan hopes for a commission into the deadly riot. Combine that with the steady embrace of Trump’s lies about the election, and you’ve got a pretty good snapshot of where the party is at these days.

As for Gaetz, his latest outburst should gel well with his apparent ambitions to run for president in 2024, should his idol decline.

Women leave a gathering area for rail yard workers and family members after a gunman killed eight people at a union meeting.Noah Berger/AP

In a press conference responding to the shooting deaths of eight people in a San Jose rail yard this afternoon, California Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed his weariness at the frequency of mass shootings, asking, “What the hell is going on in the United States of America?”

“There’s a numbness I imagine some of us are feeling about this, because there’s a sameness to this,” he said. “It just feels like this happens over and over and over again. Rise and repeat, rinse and repeat.”

President Biden has ordered the flag to be lowered to half staff for the fifth time since he took office. “There are at least eight families who will never be whole again,” Biden wrote in a statement. “There are children, parents, and spouses who are waiting to hear whether someone they love is ever going to come home. There are union brothers and sisters—good, honest, hardworking people—who are mourning their own.”

The San Jose gunman killed eight people before turning the gun on himself. He set his own house on fire before beginning shooting at a Valley Transportation Authority union meeting, authorities said. They believe there are still explosive devices inside the VTA building.

“What the hell is wrong with us?” Newsom asked, “And when are we going to come to grips with this? When are we going to put down our arms, literally and figuratively?”

Watch the video below:

.@GavinNewsom, on Wednesday's mass shooting in San Jose: "There's a numbness I imagine some of us are feeling about this because there's a sameness…It just feels like this happens over and over and over again. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat." pic.twitter.com/OKXycz9Bpn

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) May 26, 2021

National Guard troops walking in the US Capitol in April.Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via AP Images

More than 2,000 National Guard troops are packing up and leaving the Capitol Sunday, more than four months after a mob of angry Trump supporters stormed the building in a deadly attack on January 6. 

Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who led a review of US capitol security following the riot, said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation that while the grounds around the Capitol will no longer have National Guard troops, there will continue to be restrictions to movement in the area as Capitol Police resources remain strained. When Honoré was asked if this was the right time to send the troops home, he responded: “Well I’ll tell you what, if it’s not, they’ve hit that magic date and they’re going home.” He added, “The Capitol is secure, based on the mission that the Capitol Police have now, which is secure the Capitol.”

Reuters reports that at one point, there were about 5,200 National Guard troops at the Capitol, and their time there had already been extended once, from March to May 23. Since that extension, the Department of Defense reportedly did not request for the National Guard to continue its mission at the Capitol. 

The troops’ departure comes as Congress decides whether or not to establish a 9/11-style commission to investigate the insurrection. Earlier this week, despite opposition from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), 35 Republicans joined all House Democrats and voted for the measure. As my colleague Abigail Weinberg reports:

The fate of the bill in the Senate, where it needs 10 Republican supporters to pass, is unclear. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he would vote against the bill, but the substantial number of Republicans who sided with Democrats in the House suggests that perhaps a few Senate Republicans may be willing to break ranks.

Still, the many Republicans’ unwillingness to open a probe into the events of January 6 has exasperated some Democrats. During a debate on the House floor this afternoon, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) lost his temper with his colleagues across the aisle. “We had people scaling the Capitol, hitting the Capitol Police with lead pipes across the head, and we can’t get bipartisanship,” he said, adding that ignoring January 6 was “a slap in the face to every rank-and-file cop in the United States.” 

While the GOP would like to forget the attack on January 6 ever happened, the Department of Justice is moving forward with its massive investigation into the insurrectionists. My colleagues at Mother Jones have assembled and analyzed a database of more than 450 defendants charged to date and found that “at least 81 people are accused of assaulting police at the Capitol that day. The defendants allegedly used an array of weapons, from flag poles and fire extinguishers to their own fists. Many of the attacks were captured in video footage that circulated widely on social media.”

This, of course, is in line another comment from Honoré on Sunday, reflecting on the “dangerous, violent mob” that came to the Capitol that day:

Some GOP lawmakers have sought to downplay the severity of January 6 in the months since the attack.

Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré (Ret.) says there should be no mistaking what Capitol Police faced that day: a “dangerous, violent mob that fought them — tried to kill them.” pic.twitter.com/XCdcMzfLWh

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 23, 2021

Children hold signs in support of renewing Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Central America and Haiti, in Miami in November 2017.AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

Haitian immigrants currently living in the United States will be able to request temporary relief from deportation after the Biden administration moved this weekend to designate Haiti for the special permit, known as Temporary Protected Status or TPS. 

“Haiti is currently experiencing serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources, which are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement Saturday. “After careful consideration, we determined that we must do what we can to support Haitian nationals in the United States until conditions in Haiti improve so they may safely return home.” 

More than 350,000 people in the United States from 10 countries have TPS, a program in which the US government offers relief to immigrants from certain countries who fled civil war, environmental disaster, or an epidemic to live and work here legally for 18 months. Since TPS is renewable, tens of thousands of people from El Salvador, Nepal, Sudan, and Nicaragua have planted roots and raised families here over the last three decades. The US first granted TPS status to Haitian nationals in 2010, following a massive earthquake in the country.

After Trump took office, his administration worked to end TPS, but after court challenges the administration had to extend protections for the majority of TPS holders, including Haitians. During this period of legal limbo, my colleague Nathalie Baptiste visited Orlando’s Haitian community to understand how it was coping with the uncertainty. “I’m an immigrant. I am a mother. I am a wife and I’m a cousin. I’m a neighbor. And I’m a good person,” one TPS holder told Nathalie. “Immigrants? We are educated, we come here, and we learn a second language. What other people cannot do, we do it.”

Immigrant advocates and refugee organizations had recently been pushing for action from the Biden administration, as the Haiti designation was set to expire in October 2021. The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants said the October deadline left “Haitian nationals residing here in the untenable situation of returning to a country sliding into collapse.”  

“Decades of political instability, corruption, lawlessness, civil unrest and protracted violence have driven Haiti to the bring of collapse,” USCRI said in a statement. “Although more than ten years after the earthquake killed a quarter of a million people and displaced another five million, the situation in Haiti has not measurably improved—in many ways, it has worsened.” 

The new 18-month designation for Haiti will be available to Haitian nationals and “individuals without nationality who last resided in Haiti” who were already in the United States as of May 21, 2021, and who meet the program’s eligibility requirements. “Those who attempt to travel to the United States after this announcement will not be eligible for TPS and may be repatriated,” according to the DHS announcement. This could provide new protections for about 100,000 Haitians, on top of the more than 50,000 who already have TPS, according to immigrant rights groups. 

“We are overjoyed at the news that 150,000 Haitians will get protection and be able to breathe a sigh of relief as they continue their lives in the United States without the fear of being torn from their loved ones and deported,” said Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. “As we say in kreyol — anpil men, chay pa lou — many hands make the work light, and we will continue our work alongside our partners until other majority-Black countries, including Cameroon, Somalia, Sudan, Mauritania, Bahamas and St. Vincent, receive the same TPS protection.” 

The administration also extended TPS protections for Venezuelans back in March.

May 21, 2021. Student nurse Dario Gomez, center, disinfects a chair after administering the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to a patient at Providence Edwards Lifesciences vaccination site in Santa Ana, Calif. U.S.AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

More good vaccine news is here: According to new data, the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has “high levels of effectiveness” against the highly transmissible variant found in India. The data, from Public Health England, an agency in the UK department of health, studied Pfizer’s efficacy after two doses and found it was 88 percent effective in preventing symptomatic cases of the B.1.617.2 variant. 

Researchers found that the Pfizer shot is also highly effective against B.117, the variant first found in the UK, preventing 93 percent of symptomatic cases. And as with other variants, “even higher levels of effectiveness are expected against hospitalisation and death” after the second dose, according to the UK officials. Researchers also studied the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has been used widely in the UK but has not yet been approved in the US; data shows it was was 60 percent effective against the B.1.617.2 variant, and 66 percent effective against B.117.

While the number of coronavirus cases and deaths have dropped in the United States as more people get vaccinated, the pandemic is not over yet. Other countries across the world are seeing the opposite trajectory, with more deaths and more confirmed cases. As Saturday’s announcement confirmed the efficacy of the vaccines against new variants, we passed the 165 million mark of coronavirus cases worldwide. Data from Johns Hopkins University shows that globally almost 3.5 million people have died from the virus. 

Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang holds press conference outside of Tweed Courthouse on May 11, 2021.Lev Radin/Pacific Press via ZUMA

A new ad supporting former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang in the New York City mayoral race comes with an interesting disclosure at the end: The top three spenders responsible for the ad are all Republican megadonors. 

Quite the paid-for disclaimer on the first Andrew Yang super PAC. Three Republican megadonors:

Jeff Yass
Kenneth Griffin
Daniel Loeb pic.twitter.com/SQX4IU2NjT

— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) May 21, 2021

GOP support for Yang, who is running in the city’s Democratic primary, is showing up in donations to super PACs, which can accept unlimited amounts of cash. Jeff Yass, a libertarian billionaire and longtime supporter of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), is the first name listed on the pro-Yang ad from a super PAC called Comeback PAC. “Andrew has a lot of libertarian leanings,” Yass—who has bankrolled numerous Republicans—told Politico recently. “He is not quite a libertarian, to say the least, but he has those leanings.”

As I wrote earlier this week, Yang is viewed suspiciously by many New York progressives, who see him as a corporate-style Democrat with libertarian tendencies. Yang’s centrist leanings are most apparent in his views on business and economics, and his campaign is being guided by a consulting and lobbying firm that has run campaigns to stop tax hikes on the wealthy. 

Two other major GOP donors round out the list on the super PAC’s ad disclosure. Kenneth Griffin has spent millions in recent years to elect national Republicans. Daniel Loeb has supported Republicans, as well as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a moderate Democrat. 

Griffin and Loeb, both hedge fund managers, have hedged their bets in the mayor’s race by also donating a combined $2 million to a super PAC supporting Eric Adams, another moderate candidate who recently overtook Yang in some polls.

These three aren’t the only big-money donors jumping into the Democratic primary. Republican donor and oil magnate John Hess has donated $1 million to support Ray McGuire, a Wall Street executive who is seen as another centrist in the field. George Soros dropped $500,000 to support progressive Maya Wiley. And unions have likewise opened their pocketbooks to support progressives who are currently trailing Yang and Adams. Shaun Donovan, former HUD secretary under President Barack Obama, has benefited from nearly $7 million in outside spending from his father, Michael Donovan. 

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, one of the first Republican governors to announce he was cutting off pandemic-era unemployment insurance.Rogelio V. Solis/AP

Republican governors’ newest form of economic stimulus is anti-stimulus: cutting off $300 in additional weekly unemployment insurance money to push people back into the labor market. 

There are a few problems with this approach. First, there’s no compelling evidence that unemployment insurance is responsible for the isolated labor shortages in some low-wage industries like food service. Second, governors are hurting their own economies by turning down billions of dollars in free federal funds. Third, it makes no sense to cut off money to everyone in every industry just because some restaurants are struggling to attract people with low wages.

Then there’s racial inequality it will exacerbate. Following a pandemic that disproportionately hurt people of color by just about every metric, Republican governors have come up with a policy that tries to return to normal by further disadvantaging people of color. Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation, got at this in a post in which he showed that two-thirds of Mississippi’s unemployment insurance recipients are Black, even though fewer than 40 percent of people in the state are Black. Nevertheless, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves was one of the first to announce that he was ending the supplemental insurance early.

In at least 20 of the 22 GOP-led states that are rejecting the federal unemployment money, Black people were likelier than the state’s overall population to be receiving unemployment insurance in March, the most recent month included in the Department of Labor’s data. (One of the two potential exceptions is Ohio, where the data show that Black workers account for 13.1 percent of the population but 12.1 percent of people receiving unemployment insurance. The race of nearly a third of Ohio’s unemployment recipients, however, is listed as unknown. As a result, the percentage of Ohioans receiving unemployment who are Black is almost certainly higher than 12.1 percent.) The same issue exists to varying degrees for all of the states listed below. Whatever disparity you see in the graph is likely even more severe in reality. 

These numbers are not surprising given that Black workers suffered a disproportionate share of job losses during the pandemic. There are other disparate impacts as well. In Alaska, for example, more than a quarter of people relying on unemployment are Native Americans, compared to 15 percent of the state’s overall population. Native Americans in Montana are also more likely to be receiving unemployment insurance.

This is what people mean by systemic racism. Following centuries of oppression, Black workers ended up concentrated in low-wage industries. When the pandemic hit, those industries were the first ones to lay people off. Then, once employers needed workers for cheap labor again, Republican governors started saying they’d get rid of the extra unemployment money that lets people to look for better jobs or take care of loved ones. In theory, it’s race blind. In practice, it’s yet another inequity.

Melina Mara/Pool/CNP/Zuma

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is set to introduce a resolution condemning the United States’ sale of $735 million in weapons to Israel, according to a draft obtained by multiple news outlets.

The resolution, along with a similar push in the House, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), signals a significant departure among progressives from President Joe Biden’s stance toward Israel. Amid a crisis that has killed nearly 20 times more Palestinians than Israelis, Biden has said he supports “Israel’s right to defend itself” and joked about running over a reporter if she asked about Israel.

Sanders’ resolution aims to halt the Biden administration’s planned sale of Joint Direct Attack Munitions. Sanders, who is Jewish and once lived on a kibbutz in Israel, has openly criticized the United States’ funding of Israel’s arsenal. His resolution would need a simple majority to pass in the Senate, but, if vetoed by Biden, it would need to pass with a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate to take effect.

vgajic/Getty

If you thought the mask culture wars couldn’t get any more absurd (remember the unmasked white woman who went on a tirade about her alleged breathing problems at a California grocery store?) you were sadly mistaken. As more people get vaccinated and states begin lifting public health restrictions, anti-maskers and others desperate for attention have found a new way to be outraged and offended. Still emboldened from the glory days of rejecting masks as a form of loyalty to their leader, then president Donald Trump, or burning them at protests, or concocting lies about their efficacy, now they’re firing up the outrage machine simply because they saw a person with their face covered.

Although millions of people are vaccinated and the Centers for Disease Control recently issued new mask guidance, there are still plenty of reasons to continue wearing a mask. Maybe you or a loved one are unvaccinated for a medical reason. Perhaps you enjoyed not having the common cold in the last year, or the business where you’re shopping requires one. Or maybe you just enjoy provoking unhinged tweets from conservatives! Take Daily Wire writer and commentator Matt Walsh who is still reeling from witnessing the horrors of people wearing whatever they want. 

Wearing a mask when it is not medically necessary is grotesque and unhuman, an attack on society itself. It feeds paranoia and fear. You are treating air like it is toxic and other humans like they are nothing but vessels of disease. It is disgraceful, arrogant, and offensive.

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) May 16, 2021

“It is disgraceful, arrogant, and offensive.” The same people who insisted it was their constitutional right to not wear a mask and spread coronavirus to every grocery store employee are now grabbing their smelling salts at the thought of some people exercising their right to cover their face whenever they want.

Walsh is not alone. Author and commentator J.D. Vance couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a group of people in a row boat wearing masks. Never mind the fact that he didn’t know anything about the rowers, he automatically concluded that they were “insane.” 

I’m in DC today and just saw a group of girls on the Potomac rowing—outside in the sunshine—all of them with masks on. Just totally insane.

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) May 18, 2021

And of course, one can always count on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to exaggerate and amplify what’s triggering conservatives these days. Earlier this week, the conservative television host described mask-wearing as a new “mental health crisis.” In an opinion piece for Fox News, Carlson, in his identity as a mental health specialist, wrote, “It’s a neurosis, just like obsessive hand-washing. But it appears to be spreading fast, like its own virus.” He also asked: “What do we do with people who refuse to shed their mask?” Carlson could start with minding his own business. Hundreds of people are still dying from coronavirus every day, and tens of thousands more are still getting infected. The question he should be asking is how does the US plan on increasing vaccine rates so those numbers come down.

Since the pandemic began, all we heard from those on the right was that it was their god-given right to enjoy indoor dining, shop without a mask, and eat dry turkey at Thanksgiving with 30 of their closest family and friends. But now, someone choosing to wear a piece of cloth on their face for however long they would like constitutes a “crisis.” Why aren’t those so-called freedoms and right to self-determination that they moaned about for months on end ever extended to anyone outside of their right-wing bubble?

Once again, the conservative narrative reveals itself to be a nothing but contradictions and lies. They didn’t have to listen to the CDC when the agency was advising mask-wearing, but now that the federal government has revised its policy, it’s abhorrent that those people are ignoring the science. But in fact, what it really reveals is that the anti-maskers and their cronies never really cared about freedom, they only cared about control. 

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A measure to establish a 9/11-style commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol passed in the House Wednesday evening with bipartisan support.

Despite opposition to the proposal from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), 35 Republicans joined with all Democrats in supporting the measure, which would create a bipartisan 10-person panel with subpoena power to investigate the factors leading up to the attempted insurrection.

The fate of the bill in the Senate, where it needs 10 Republican supporters to pass, is unclear. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he would vote against the bill, but the substantial number of Republicans who sided with Democrats in the House suggests that perhaps a few Senate Republicans may be willing to break ranks.

Still, the many Republicans’ unwillingness to open a probe into the events of January 6 has exasperated some Democrats. During a debate on the House floor this afternoon, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) lost his temper with his colleagues across the aisle. “We had people scaling the Capitol, hitting the Capitol Police with lead pipes across the head, and we can’t get bipartisanship,” he said, adding that ignoring January 6 was “a slap in the face to every rank-and-file cop in the United States.”

“We need two political parties in this country that are both living in reality,” he said, “and you ain’t one of them.”

.@RepTimRyan has had it with Republican opposition to a January 6th commission: “We need two political parties in this country that are both living in reality, and you ain’t one of them.” pic.twitter.com/C4aiA5E7z4

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) May 19, 2021

Nurses affiliated with the National Nurses United union read the names of registered nurses who died during the coronavirus pandemic while demonstrating in Washington, DC.Win McNamee/Getty

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced earlier this week that fully vaccinated people can socialize indoors without a mask, prompting many states and businesses to update their coronavirus safety guidelines. The CDC still calls for masks to be worn in schools, buses, trains, and other crowded indoor settings, yet its lifting of more onerous requirements signals a return to relative normalcy after more than a year. But not everyone is celebrating.

National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the United States, blasted the CDC guidance in a Friday statement, saying its members were “extremely disappointed” by the decision.

“This newest CDC guidance is not based on science, does not protect public health, and threatens the lives of patients, nurses, and other frontline workers across the country,” NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo said. “Now is not the time to relax protective measures, and we are outraged that the CDC has done just that while we are still in the midst of the deadliest pandemic in a century.”

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the CDC director, said the agency updated its guidance after new studies emerged that show vaccines have been successful at preventing transmission of the virus and protecting against known coronavirus variants. Since mid-April, new cases of COVID-19 have been on a steady decline nationally and the rate of virus-related deaths has plunged as more Americans get vaccinated. 

The nurses’ union, in its statement, says there are still several unanswered questions about the vaccines, including “how well vaccines prevent transmission of the virus” and “how long protection from vaccines will last.” The union also raised concerns about the spread of “deadlier” variants of the virus. 

The recent studies highlighted by the CDC show that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been effective against several variants of the virus and that vaccinated people bear little risk of spreading the disease.

Yet frontline workers—like nurses, grocery clerks, janitors, and restaurant servers—won’t have a guarantee that everyone they’re interacting with is indeed vaccinated, the nurses’ union statement points out, leading to heightened risk in the work place. “There has been so much inequity in the vaccine rollout and racial inequity in who is a frontline worker put most at risk by this guidance,” NNU President Zenei Triunfo-Cortez said. “The impact of the CDC’s guidance update will be felt disproportionately by workers of color and their families and communities.”

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(Some) sense of normality is finally, officially here: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that people who are fully vaccinated can go most places, both inside and outside, without a mask—and they can stop social distancing, too. The CDC still said that local guidelines are the ones to follow, but, yes, if you’re vaccinated, this is a big deal.

“We’ve got to liberalize the restrictions so people can feel like they’re getting back to some normalcy,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told the New York Times. “Pulling back restrictions on indoor masks is an important step in the right direction.”

About 58 percent of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and deaths have dropped since the rollout of the vaccines began earlier this year. And while herd immunity likely isn’t coming, as my colleague Jackie Flynn Mogensen explained earlier this week, that doesn’t equate to us being doomed. “What experts tell me is that herd immunity, in the case of COVID, is really just a concept—not a singular goal,” Jackie wrote. “It’s not the end-all, be-all, a return to normalcy is not out of the question, and yes, there are many reasons to be hopeful.”

Without herd immunity, announcements like this will shape the process of easing back into things and adapting for the long haul of COVID as part of our lives. Restrictions and rules will change. There will be a balancing act of deciding how to act—both from government officials and personally. There will even likely be an uneasy, terrifying way in which we should ask if mass death is again being potentially ignored for a return to normal. There aren’t easy answers.

So, what this means for your next trip to the grocery store is, for now, unclear. The CDC declined yet to clarify how the new guidance may affect businesses. And certainly some people are going to keep wearing masks because they like them. Other people will feel this is, in the word of two Republican senators, “freedom.”