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The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump kicked off on Tuesday with a powerful, unflinching video montage chronicling the events leading up to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack—and the harrowing violence that ensued once pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the Capitol building.
The video, presented by Democrats’ lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin as a straight, “just the facts” play-by-play of the deadly event, was immediately damning, even for those well-acquainted with the most familiar images from the murderous attack. It also included Trump’s remarks encouraging his supporters to take matters into their own hands while he repeated his false claims that the election had been stolen from him. “We love you,” Trump is seen telling the insurrectionists in a video just two hours after the attack. “You’re very special.”
“You ask what a high crime and misdemeanor is under our Constitution?” Raskin said once the video ended. “That’s a high crime and misdemeanor. If that’s not an impeachable offense, then there’s no such thing.”
Jazmine Sullivan performs the national anthem prior to Sunday's Super Bowl. Ben Liebenberg/AP
“Gotta stop getting fucked up. What did I have in my cup? I don’t know where I woke up. I keep on pressing my luck.”
Those are the opening lines of Heaux Tales, the newest LP from Jazmine Sullivan. The track is called “Bodies,” and in it the singer addresses herself like someone evaluating a hangover in the mirror. “Bitch, get it together, bitch,” she sings. “You don’t know who you went home with.” She is chiding herself, but there is also a touch of celebration in the way her voice jumps when she sings of “piling on bodies on bodies on bodies.”
Heaux Tales is an honest, prismatic evaluation of what it means to be a hoe. Sullivan’s subject is the promiscuity myth that all women know but Black women know better than anyone. The album is about the sex, but it’s also about the emotions that surround it—regret, lust, shame, satisfaction—and about the women who bear them, then get labeled hoes for their troubles. These are usually Black women, and like the narrator of “Bodies” they are full of contradictory feelings, alternately resisting the designation and celebrating it on their own terms.
Obviously, “Heaux” is not a misspelling. Sullivan is imploring Black women to reanimate the concept of the hoe, not reclaim it. With Heaux Tales, she is stripping the word “hoe” from its usual context and reshaping it to fit the perspective of a Black woman, the woman who feels like there was never any other option than to be a hoe. Stereotyped as Jezebels, mistresses, and—a personal favorite—”pass-arounds,” Black women have long been stamped with a scarlet “h” for “hoe”; the specific slurs may change from generation to generation, but the intent is always the same—to justify the sexual abuse of Black women by suggesting they are willing, even eager participants, and to relegate women who dare to be unabashed in their sexual experiences to the underbelly of society. A “hoe” is something a white patriarchal society says you are; a “heau” is a label you can embrace. The word is Frenchified, refined, divorced from its sullied connotations and infused with a Black woman’s sense of herself.
Heaux Tales is indeed an album by, for, and about Black women, from the R&B notes Sullivan hits to themes such as ascending from poverty. After “Bodies,” Antoinette Henry has the first of six “tales.” These are spoken-word interludes by women in Sullivan’s life that tackle an aspect of hoedom. Each is followed by an R&B interpretation of the same topic. Sullivan, who sang the national anthem before Sunday’s Super Bowl, explores plenty of things anyone can relate to, but there is no taking this album from the mouth and perspective of a Black woman. She discusses gendered double standards and the need for women to claim their own vaginas, a truly radical idea for plenty of women, as Antoinette emphasizes when she says: “And really it’s our fault. We’re out here telling them that the pussy is theirs, when in reality—it’s ours.” Sullivan follows it with the uptempo, groovy, and slightly dancey “Pick Up Your Feelings,” a call for womento guard their emotions, and to dismiss men who play with them, and even be as unconcerned as men in their pursuits.
“Put It Down” and “On It” are the sort of classic, explicitly sexy ballads one can always expect from an R&B album, but they follow Ari Lennox’s riveting tale about being “dickmatized,” which explores the utterly ridiculous—and embarrassingly true—notion that a woman would put up with almost anything for the right type of pleasurable experience. “I was damn near willing to let him just talk to me crazy. Like, yes, daddy, yes, okay,” she says. “Like, I was literally willing to ruin my career. Um, if this ever came out, who it was, you would be like, ‘Bitch, do you know what Google says?'”
Been there, done that. This is a moment for all women who have dealt with a terrible man, which is to say the average woman. She knows that the pickings of worthy men are slim. When it comes to sex, women just do not need or care to be the moral epicenters of the world. “That dick spoke life into me,” she goes on. “Invigoration, blessings, soul, turmoil. But, heaven, Jesus, Allah, sorry. Please, God, understand. This is just my truth.” Ari is making a confession, but not as a penitent. And she leaves a couple questions unasked: Why should she be judged for sleeping with an apparently terrible man? Why not judge the man for being terrible? As Antoinette states earlier, “We are sexual beings, too.”
The album works from themes surrounding sexuality that have been explored by other Black women. Years ago there was Lil Kim, announcing on Hard Core, “I used to be scared of the dick, now I throw lips to the shit,” knocking down the wall that stopped Black women from openly and explicitly expressing their sexuality, and then there was Beyoncé, unashamedly telling the listener what she finds pleasurable (“Rocket,” “Blow”). SZA, in 2017’s “Doves in the Wind,” told men they “do not deserve pussy.” And now here is Sullivan, describing sex in the blunt transactional terms that are always available to men but typically denied to women, particularly Black women.
“Bitch, every time you sleep with—even if you married—you have tricked in your fuckin’ marriage,” Donna declares in another tale. “You fuckin’ your husband, so you can get what the fuck you want!”
Let the church reluctantly say, “Amen.”
A hoe wants something in return; so does the average woman who enters a marriage. The former transaction is demonized; the latter is a sacrament. Heaux Tales isn’t interested in exposing the hypocrisy so much as showing how the social order needs its demons—marriage isn’t marriage without hoes to give it meaning.
Heaux Tales is deeply unsentimental about sex, but that does not mean it is callous, as “Rashida’s Tale” and “Lost One” demonstrate. The two tracks are the emotional crux of the album. Rashida regales the listener with the story of how she hurt someone she loved (notably, another woman) by cheating on her, describing the flood of emotions that came with the betrayal. It hurts to hurt people. It especially hurts to hurt a person you love, and it hurts when you find yourself pleading: “Just hear me out before you let it go. There is one thing I need for you to know. Just don’t have too much fun without me.”
What does it mean to hurt someone else? Why do things that have no good consequences? Why do we self-destruct and self-sabotage? Why do we act without thinking? Sullivan is digging deep into her emotional intelligence as she comes out with uncomfortable answers, as therapy often produces. “I know I’m a selfish bitch, but I want you to know I’ve been working on it,” she sings. The album is a kind of therapy for people who intimately know the love-and-sex hustle and who feel its social burdens in everything they do. It is for the women who alternate between vulnerable introspection and brassy self-assertion on any given day.
“Money makes me cum,” Precious says in her tale, describing her attraction when she sees “a man thriving, out here hustling….I’m not dealing with anyone who does not have money, because I know my worth.” Sullivan keeps pressing on this idea in “The Other Side,” telling the story of the Black woman’s hustle and what a woman might do to have a better life. “I’ma move to Atlanta,” she sings. “Ima find me a rapper. He gon’ buy me a booty.”
She is describing heauxing for what it is: work. Society presents such an avenue as one of the few viable options for a better life yet denigrates those who choose to take it. Sullivan’s album is a declaration of owning that choice and all the feelings that come with it.
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021.Al Drago - Pool Via CNP via ZUMA
To avoid conviction at former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, Trump’s lawyers will argue that the impeachment itself is unconstitutional. But one scholar whose work they are relying on to make that claim has weighed in to say the lawyers “misrepresent what I wrote quite badly.”
In a brief written for the Senate and submitted Monday, they argue that because Trump is no longer in office, he can no longer be impeached. For Republicans hoping to acquit Trump, letting him off on a technicality without focusing on the horrific events of January 6 has obvious appeal. But the notion that Trump cannot be convicted once out of office is a minority view among constitutional scholars—and it is not the view of Brian Kalt, one scholar Trump’s lawyers repeatedly cited. An impeachment expert, Kalt wrote a 2001 article that endorsed the constitutionality of a so-called “late impeachment.” But he is used again and again in Trump’s brief to argue the opposite.
One odd thing they do is cite me citing other sources instead of just citing those sources (e.g., p.17 & n.47). Another more problematic thing: they suggest that I was endorsing an argument when what I actually did was note that argument–and reject it (e.g., p.21 n.57).
Again, my article presented all of the evidence I found on both sides, so there was lots for them to use fairly. They didn't have to be disingenuous and misleading like this.
The House managers' brief cited my article a lot too and, to their credit, did so honestly.
There isn’t much to do on a Saturday night these days. So last night I found myself down a YouTube rabbit hole, learning about the history of the US Capitol building. I stumbled across a video published by the Architect of the Capitol, the federal agency responsible for maintaining the entire US Capitol Complex. It’s the sort of timpani-laced propaganda flick that practically bleeds cheese. But instead of finding my eyes rolling, I found them, I hate to admit it, misty? I’m not the only one. As YouTube commenter “BN” notes, “This hits different in 2021.” Sure does, BN. Another commenter, four weeks ago: “Made my eyes water considering what just happened a few days ago.”
The video is about the $59.5 million restoration of the Capitol’s dome that began in 2013, and was completed in November 2016—and the loving craftsmanship applied to every detail, overlaid with some heavy-handed patriotism and bipartisan bonhomie from a cast of top leaders. Put aside the nostalgia for a time of party unity that never actually existed, and focus on the preservation science, the moments of real archeology (analyzing paint layers!), and notes of genuine can-do pride from the expert workers. (The Architect of the Capitol’s blog also provides this compelling and detailed account of how they cleaned up and repaired widespread damage after the January 6 insurrection. It’s a great read.)
Remarking on the vastness of the restoration project, and the dome’s sheer heft, one conservator notes in the film, “What we’re trying to preserve here is the solidness of our country.” Good to ponder, before a week in which we will be inundated by images of the Capitol under attack, during Trump’s second impeachment trial.
(Am I being too sentimental? Happy to field your cynicism in the comments.)
We’re now in the phase of the pandemic when painful anniversaries start arriving. The first known case in the US. The first travel bans. Soon, we’ll mark a year since the first coronavirus death in the US. But I think about today, a year ago, often—a moment that strikes me as especially important to recall, for all the lies that have flooded our lives ever since.
We didn’t know about this until much later, in September, but on February 7, 2020, two days after Trump was acquitted in his first impeachment trial, the president spoke candidly to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. Trump admitted, in a taped, private phone call, that the new coronavirus was “deadly stuff”, and something to be worried about. “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” he said. “It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”
Publicly, of course, Trump was in full denial mode, squandering critical time as the virus raged, undetected, across the country. The federal response was in disarray—if one existed at all. But just three days later, at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump said, “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
Over the next six months, Woodward taped more than four hours of interviews with the president. “I wanted to always play it down,” the he told Woodward in March, the same day he aggressively promoted the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure. “I still like playing it down.” And as the death toll surged, that never changed. It was his deadly strategy from the start.
For the ultimate timeline of Trump’s coronavirus denial, delusions, and golf trips, head to our project, “Superspreader in Chief”.
Video
Related: Trump’s First 100 Days of Deadly Coronavirus Denial
Gaetz gazes at McCarthy on the House floorJim Lo Scalzo/AP
Now that former President Donald Trump has lost his gigantic megaphone, some members of the Republican Party have stepped in to compensate for his absence and are showering us with levels of absurdity unprecedented in the modern era. The party has abandoned all of the conventional trappings of governing and legislating and instead has opted to become the 24/7 comedy channel, as they go to great lengths to defend the most extreme members of their caucus. But let’s not be distracted by the hilarity of some of their antics. In doing that, we could also end up ignoring the inherent danger of one of the two major political parties being completely unserious.
But first, let’s recap some of the fun over the last few days, actions that have really brought into sharp relief just how much of a farce they’ve become. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) famous for wearing a gas mask on the House floor to mock the coronavirus pandemic, tweeted about his shock at the newest horrors from the Democratic Party on Thursday.
I proposed that we begin each meeting of the House Judiciary Committee by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Wow, why do the Democrats hate America so much? Clearly, Gaetz says the pledge every chance he gets! Sure, having to drop what you’re doing—eating a meal, holding a conversation—in order to recite the pledge can be pretty difficult, but it’s the price one must pay to prove ones patriotism.
Fetishizing the Pledge has been a long cherished GOP indoor sport, so his tweet alone should come as no surprise. It’s also minor league when it comes to this Republican’s shenanigans. Last week, Gaetz flew to Wyoming to troll Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) because his colleague voted to impeach Trump. On Friday, after Greene’s press conference about how she had been stripped of her committee roles, Gaetz went on Fox News to praise her performance, saying he “almost had to smoke a cigarette afterwards.” Sir, please, this is a family show.
Matt Gaetz on Marjorie Taylor Greene's press conference: "That was so good I almost had to smoke a cigarette afterwards." pic.twitter.com/btVwLFf4eJ
Despite formidable competition, the real superstar of ridiculousness, however, has to be Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who was stripped of her committee roles after the House voted to punish her for advocating for, among other things, the execution of her Democratic colleagues. Among the litany of bizarre conspiracies Greene promoted, one of them had to do with the September 11 attacks. On the House floor, Greene was forced to accept reality about the events of that day.
“I also want to tell you that 9/11 absolutely happened,” @mtgreenee says.
Who among us hasn’t had to stand up in front of our colleagues and declare that yes, the terrorist attacks absolutely happened? In 2018, Greene made a video in which she acknowledged 9/11 had happened, but she claimed a plane did not crash into the Pentagon. That’s what makes her comments so remarkable now; 9/11 truthers don’t dabble in the idea that the attacks never happened. Their belief is that the attacks were a false flag event, planned by someone on the inside designed to make the public believe it was a terrorist attack. Greene’s overdue acknowledgement that 9/11 happened doesn’t actually do anything to make her beliefs, like say mass school shootings are also a false flag event, remotely acceptable.
Ever loyal, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) offered this defense of Greene: “Everyone has done things they wish they didn’t do.” For once, I must acknowledge that he’s absolutely correct. Last summer, for example, I overwatered my tomato plants and ruined an entire harvest. Greene wants to execute her political opponents. We all make mistakes!
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) defends Marjorie Taylor Greene: “Everyone has done things they wish they didn’t do.” pic.twitter.com/drrDQleby7
But while Jordan offered one asinine defense, one Republican said he had not even heard of the Greene saga. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) declined to comment on his colleague in the House who had been dominating the headlines for the last week. Why? Well, because he has been unable to read the news on account of the weather.
GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville says he doesn't know anything about Marjorie Taylor Greene because the bad weather has prevented him from reading the news https://t.co/N6KyG5uUHI
Considering that Tuberville couldn’t correctly name the three branches of government, believed that World War II was fought to defeat communism, and suggested “moving” Inauguration Day until the pandemic was under control, I actually believe that this response was not a dodge. His was a sincere response from someone who has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s just not very bright.
No need for Tuberville to worry about figuring out this confusing Greene business. For that unenviable job we have House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who took it upon himself to clear up some of the other comments she’s made in the past. In 2018, Greene claimed that the California wildfires were started by a Jewish space laser. On its face, this is absurd. (Everyone knows that all the world’s religions have agreed to share the space lasers used for setting wildfires.) However, McCarthy assuaged any fears one might have about a sitting member of Congress believing in a blatantly anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. “She said she knew nothing about lasers,” he said solemnly.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy defends Marjorie Taylor Greene:
"Denouncing Q-on, I don't know if I say it right, I don't even know what it is– any from the shootings, she said she knew nothing about lasers" pic.twitter.com/R49WoE9TvL
Greene’s never heard of the lasers? Well then, case closed.
Of course, laughing at the absurdity will only get us so far. (Adolf Hitler’s silly mustache was mocked as well.) And in the end, it’s likely that the Republicans will end up having the last laugh, as they so often do. Their insistence on responding to every societal ill—the pandemic, wealth inequality, systemic racism, climate change—with nothing but nonstop absurdity could eventually get me, and you, dear reader, killed. And when that happens, they’ll show up for my funeral packed in a small car, unmasked faces covered with colorful paint, and rubber red noses. Put it on my gravestone: Here lies Nathalie Baptiste, beloved daughter, wife, and friend—murdered by a bunch of clowns.
A woman wearing a mask takes part in a vigil outside Queensboro Correctional Facility on April 23, 2020Johannes Eisele/Getty
A new poll indicates widespread public support for releasing some prisoners early to slow the spread of COVID-19, which has rapidly spread throughprisons and jails, killing incarcerated people at twice the rate of people outside.
The poll, conducted by Data For Progress, a progressive think tank, and The Appeal, a policy research outlet, and published today, was based on an online survey of more than 1,110 likely voters. Most said they supported releasing elderly people, people charged with low-level offenses or with less than six months remaining on their sentences, and people with medical conditions that put them at higher risk of complications from COVID. Nearly two-thirds of respondents, including more than half of Republicans, believe the police should be booking fewer people into jails.
The results line up with those of similarpolls from last spring that found widespread support for early releases as a way of controlling the spread of the coronavirus and limiting its impact on people in federal and state custody.
Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to oppose early release for people in prisons and jails. Just 37 percent of Republicans supported releasing prisoners who do not pose a threat to public safety and have medical conditions like cancer or lung disease.
The poll results point to strong public support for releasing elderly prisoners, who have extremely low recidivism rates. Sixty-three percent of respondents approved of releasing them if they did not pose a serious risk to public safety—including half of Republicans. Governors in several states, including Michigan and Maryland, have taken executive actions to prioritize older prisoners for release.
White people were significantly more likely to oppose releasing people from prison as a public health measure compared to Black and Latino respondents. Nearly 70 percent of Black and Latino voters supported releasing people with low-level offenses, versus 56 percent of white respondents. While 61 percent of Black and Latino voters said people within six months of completing their sentences should be released, 54 percent of white voters answered the same way.
The onset of the pandemic did more to quickly reduce the US prison and jail population than any other development in recent history. Nationally, the prison and jail population fell 14 percent between 2019 and mid-2020—from 2.1 million to 1.8 million incarcerated people, according to a recent report from the Vera Institute of Justice. The decline in prison population appears to be mainly the result of fewer people being sent to prison, rather than early releases, according to an analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative. The dramatic drop in jail populations in the first half of 2020 was the result of releasing pretrial detainees and booking far fewer people in the first place.
According to the poll, measures like issuing tickets and summons rather than arresting and booking people into jail are supported by nearly two-thirds of voters, including a majority of Republicans.
Since the middle of 2020, jail populations have been rising again—the result of a complicated mix of factors including court delays, a pause on transfers of sentenced people from jails to prisons, and a backlog of people facing felony charges who were not deemed eligible for pretrial release. Some police departments have already abandoned the alternatives to jailing people that they adopted at the beginning of the pandemic. As early as last May, Philadelphia police resumed arresting people for nonviolent property crimes, rolling back a policy of briefly detaining and fingerprinting suspects before releasing them until charges could be filed later.
More than 1.8 million people remain locked up in the United States. More than 570,000 incarcerated people and prison and jail staff have tested positive for COVID-19, by the New York Times’ count. At least 2,500 have been killed by the virus.
Earlier this week, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota asked epidemiologist Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, the co-chair of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, about the “South African variant” of the coronavirus and whether it was any deadlier. He took a deep breath and explained that early evidence doesn’t suggest that the variant causes more serious instances of the disease, but only that this mutation spreads faster than others. He also pointed out that calling the strain the “South African variant” was not appropriate. Even though it was first identified in the country, it might not even have originated there. “It’s better just to call it by its name: 501Y.V2,” Karim said, adding that 501Y.V2 now is present in as many as 31 countries, including the United States.
Camerota acknowledged that talking about the South African variant—or the Brazilian or the UK variant, for that matter—to refer to the still little-understood but worrying mutations of the virus may be more convenient for the media and the public. “I don’t mean to disparage South Africa, but it’s just a handy shorthand,” she said. But health experts and genetic sequencing researchers have a number of concerns about how geographical associations are not only inaccurate but canpotentiallystigmatizecertain countries and populations. Donald Trump appeared to do so deliberately by constantly referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus,” a description that incited some racist demonstrations.
One researcher recently described the current naming system as a “bloody mess.”
“It’s too confusing with these variant names,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 technical lead, according to Politico. “I am on record multiple times to say we need to fix this because it’s too hard to communicate all these numbers.”
‼️ WHO's Maria Van Kerkhove and Mike Ryan are asking people to stop referring to the Covid variants by the country they were identified in.
It creates a negative stigma when these countries should be celebrated for identifying these concerning mutations.
The WHO’s official guidelines for naming new infectious diseases, which don’t cover variants, discourage the mentions of geographic locations, people’s names, and cultural references.
Epidemiologists have started adopting unusual “nicknames” for certain mutations. The UK seems to be the place where the “Pooh” mutation was identified but it shares “Nelly” with Brazil and South Africa.
Now the SARS-CoV-2 variants that were first identified in the UK (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B.1.351), and Brazil (P.1) have been found in the US, a couple of thoughts (i.e., speculation…) on what happens next, as I been getting many questions about transmission and immunity. 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/2VZzGx19li
Critics of the location-informed nomenclature also argue it could potentially discourage countries conducting genetic sequencing from notifying the broader international public health community of the discovery of a new variant. “The last thing we want to do is dissuade any particular place from reporting they’ve got a new concerning variant—in fact, we want to do the opposite,” Oliver Pybus, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford, toldNature. As a leader in viral sequencing, the UK is naturally more likely to find new variants than other countries, experts say.
In recent weeks, the detection of variants in Brazil, South Africa, and the UK has led to the imposition of travel bans. Dr. Tulio de Oliveira, the bioinformatician who spearheaded the discovery of the variant in South Africa, said countries are “being sanctioned because they were transparent about the results of their genomic surveillance.”
You don't find what you don't seek — that's the American situation with #COVID19 mutant viruses in a nutshell. The good folks @GISAID have a variants tracker, and as this table shows the UK mass genomic screening effort has found 36,658 VUIs (Variant Under Investigation)… MORE pic.twitter.com/pnOBhQhGPg
So what are the options to reverse this trend? The WHO is reportedly conferring with other agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health on how to implement a common nomenclature for the variants. The goal is to avoid “geopolitical issues” while also finding a way to simplify the otherwise technical terminology based on genetic sequence.
As a Brazilian, I may be taking this a bit personally. I’m the first to admit that my country, which has struggled to contain soaring infection rates from the start, is in trouble. And there are plenty of candidates who can share the blame. But language matters. In looking at all the alarming headlines about a “Brazilian variant” arriving in Minnesota or the Bay Area, like some sort of terrifying alien invader, I can’t help but think that we Brazilians don’t pose a danger to others any more than we do to ourselves. And let’s face it, we didn’t ask for some new variant either.
Forget the United States Constitution. Former President Trump blatantly violated the constitution of the Screen Actors Guild, and the union’s disciplinary committee won’t have that.
The union wrote in a press release last month that a disciplinary committee would hear charges regarding “Trump’s role in inciting the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, and in sustaining a reckless campaign of misinformation aimed at discrediting and ultimately threatening the safety of journalists, many of whom are SAG-AFTRA members.” If Trump were found guilty, he’d face the most severe consequence possible: expulsion.
Trump may not have been willing to resign from the presidency, but the Screen Actors Guild? Pfft. In his words: “Who cares!” In a letter released today, Trump, still referring to himself as the president, declared that he no longer wished to be associated with the union—but not before bragging about his performances in Home Alone 2 and Zoolander.
INBOX: Ex-Pres. Trump resigns from @sagaftra union as it prepped disciplinary action against him. Says in letter“I’m very proud of my work on movies such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and television shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air…” pic.twitter.com/GN2cDxryZo
Trump isn’t the first president to be a member of the guild. Former President Ronald Reagan served seven terms as its president and even managed to negotiate a residual payment system for actors. Too bad not all actors-turned-presidents could rely on the lasting respect of Hollywood.
Lead Impeachment Manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sent a letter to former President Trump Thursday asking that he testify under oath at his Senate impeachment trial next week.
“Presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton both provided testimony while in office—and the Supreme Court held just last year that you were not immune from legal process while serving as President—so there is no doubt that you can testify in these proceedings,” Raskin wrote. “Indeed, whereas a sitting President might raise concerns about distraction from their official duties, that concern is obviously inapplicable here.”
Whether Trump will comply with Raskin’s demand remains to be seen.
Good morning, I have the pleasure of informing you that Dr. Joe Park—a frontline worker, former Bachelorette contestant, and “the purest soul ever“—is now delivering public service announcements about the COVID vaccine.
The 36-year-old anesthesiologist, who is also a COVID survivor, has busted myths, explained scientific concepts, and even shared footage of himself getting both doses of the Pfizer vaccine with his 75,000-plus Instagram followers. In one seven-and-a-half minute video titled, “COVID Vaccine: What You Need to Know,” Park explains that “yes, the vaccine is safe.” “Make no mistake,” he concludes, “This is a huge step forward. And us getting vaccinated could mean restaurants reopen, travel becomes normal again, and we can start getting back to the life that we once knew.”
I mean, are you shocked? This is the self-described “lover, not a fighter,” whose idea of “smack-talking” ahead of a boxing match included telling a fellow contestant, “you’re a really nice guy!” and who, went sent home by bachelorette Tayshia Adams on episode 7, told her, “You’ve got awesome guys here, so you can’t go wrong.” #JusticeforJoe.
Here are some of Park’s videos from the last month or so:
Check out this Newsmax appearance with Mike Lindell, the appendage to insurrection-era Donald Trump and CEO of MyPillow, posted by Media Matters’ Lis Power:
In a Newsmax segment about "social media censorship" against the MyPillow Guy, Pillow Guy continued to spread false conspiracies about voting machines, leading the anchor to interrupt him, read a disclaimer, try to get the producers to get him off the air, and storm off the set pic.twitter.com/QMzOosVSD1
Lindell was invited to discuss “cancel culture” (after his personal account and the MyPillow account were banned for spreading lies about the election). Instead, Lindell started rehashing the same debunked claims of voter fraud that got him kicked off Twitter—only to get kicked off Newsmax, too.
Anchor Bob Sellers did everything he could to shut him down, including interrupting him, asking producers to get him off the air, and, finally, leaving the set altogether.
The wealth tax lives. On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D- Mass.) said her “first order of business” in the Senate would be to introduce legislation to follow through on her signature campaign promise: a 2 percent tax on fortunes above $50 million. “It is time to make the ultra-rich pay their fair share,” she said.
The tax would, estimates indicate, only hit 75,000 households. With it, “we could provide universal child care and universal preschool and raise the wages of every child care worker and preschool teacher in America,” Warren said on MSNBC. “We could put money into K-12. We could make post-high school education—two-year-college, four-year-college, technical school—tuition free.”
My first order of business on the @SenateFinance Committee – the committee that leads tax and revenue policy in the Senate – will be to introduce legislation for a #WealthTax on fortunes above $50 million. It is time to make the ultra-rich pay their fair share. pic.twitter.com/IccP6do57y
Warren, who will join the Senate Finance Committee, did not introduce any specific legislation, but it will likely reflect the much-debatedpolicy she touted on the campaign trail. The wealth tax takes a snapshot of assets—including homes and overseas holdings—to levy a tax (with the IRS taking the lead on assessing net worth), according to Warren’s memo. It only affects wealth above the $50 million threshold. If an individual held assets at $60 million, it would only tax 2 percent of $10 million. Warren’s plan also calls for beefing up the IRS to ward off tax evasion.
Think of it this way: Even if Jeff Bezos isn’t making an income as Amazon’s CEO, he’d still have to pay a tax on his roughly $200 billion fortune. One of the authors of Warren’s tax plan, Gabriel Zucman, noted another coincidence:
Remember when one of the main arguments some people made against a wealth tax was, "oh, but Jeff Bezos would work less hard"?https://t.co/8hRO6lAip6
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a raw and emotional Instagram Live broadcast on Monday, revealed that she is a survivor of sexual assault and condemned Republicans pushing her to move on from the Capitol attack as employing the same “tactics of abusers.”
“I’m a survivor of sexual assault—and I haven’t told many people that in my life,” the New York congresswoman said, speaking to an audience of about 150,000 viewers. “But when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other.”
“So whether you had a neglectful parent, or whether you had someone who was verbally abusive to you, whether you are a survivor of abuse, whether you experience any sort of trauma in your life small to large, these episodes can compound on one another.”
Ocasio-Cortez also shared more harrowing details from inside the January 6 insurrection, recalling that she was forced to hide in her office bathroom while a man screamed outside, “Where is she? Where is she?”
“This is the moment where I thought everything was over,” she continued. “I thought I was going to die.” The voice turned out to belong to a Capitol police officer, who she says he looked at her with “a tremendous amount of anger and hostility.” Shortly after, Ocasio-Cortez and a staffer ran to another building and hid with Rep. Katie Porter.
Porter recounted her time with Ocasio-Cortez that day to MSNBC on Monday. “The thing that will always stay with me,” she said, “the two memories especially as a mom I think that were just really powerful for me was when I said, “Don’t worry, I’m a mom, I’m calm, I’ve got everything here that we need’…And she said, ‘I just hope I get to be a mom, I hope I don’t die today.'”
“The second thing is that she was wearing heels—I was wearing flats,” Porter continued. “I remember her saying to me, ‘I knew I shouldn’t have worn heels. How am I going to run?’ And we went and found her a pair of sneakers to wear from one of my staffers so that she could run if she literally needed to run for her life.”
Katie Porter recounts how she and AOC hid in her office during the Jan. 6 insurrectionist riot.
"I'm a mom. I'm calm. I have everything we need. We can live for like a month in this office. And she said, 'I hope I get to be a mom, I hope I don’t die today.'" pic.twitter.com/efa6ASPOGf
Ocasio-Cortez’s extraordinarily candid story comes as Republicans in recent weeks have attempted to minimize the murderous January 6 attack, urging Democrats to “move on” in the interest of so-called unity. “I mean at some point, give [Trump] a break,” Nikki Haley told Laura Ingraham last week. “I mean, move on if you truly are about moving on.” Sen. Ted Cruz, who played a starring role in pushing Trump’s demands to overturn the election, came under fire after attempting to strike a conciliatory chord with Ocasio-Cortez on social media over GameStop stocks.
“You almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out,” Ocasio-Cortez responded. “Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign.”
A new budget resolution introduced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) instructs congressional committees to establish a dedicated grant program for independent restaurants. The funding would provide much-needed stopgap funding for the restaurant industry, which has been among the hardest-hit industries during the pandemic.
The details have not yet been made public, but Schumer’s office told me that the resolution will request $25 billion for the restaurant industry. The proposal follows the contours of legislation proposed by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) that sought to establish a $120 billion grant fund for independent restaurants. Though the amount in the congressional budget resolution falls far short of that, the creation of a dedicated grant fund means it can likely be replenished in the future, just as the Paycheck Protection Program was throughout 2020.
The restaurant relief fund is a line item in a $1.9 trillion budget proposal Pelosi and Schumer introduced on Monday in an effort to get Biden’s proposed pandemic relief package through Congress. But the grant program goes beyond what the White House floated, which proposed $15 billion in “flexible, equitably distributed grants” to help small businesses hit hard by the pandemic, but did not specify how much of that funding would be allocated to restaurants. The Independent Restaurant Coalition, a grassroots group formed by chefs and independent restauranteurs last spring, met with several White House officials to advocate for targeted restaurant relief, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
Other industries have received targeted federal relief since the pandemic took hold. The first COVID relief package Congress passed in March dedicated nearly $50 billion in funding to help airlines to avoid mass layoffs. In December, Congress passed another $900 billion emergency stopgap bill included the Save Our Stages Act, a grant program for live venues that had been forced to close. But the restaurant industry did not receive dedicated funding, even though few sectors have suffered as much during the pandemic as much as it has after if was among the first forced to shutter under public health regulations, with indoor dining still limited in many parts of the country. A December survey found that nearly one-fifth of all restaurants have permanently closed as a result of the pandemic. A December Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found that roughly 2.3 million fewer people work in the food and beverage service industry than at the same time last year. Independent restaurants have sought some relief through the Paycheck Protection Program, but struggled to access the funds ahead of big chains.
The resolution is the first step in the budget reconciliation process, which allows for certain tax- and spending-related legislation to pass with a simple majority of 51 votes. If all Senate Democrats can sign on, the bill would pass both chambers of Congress and head to Biden’s desk for a signature. Pelosi and Schumer filed the resolution moments before President Biden met with Republican senators to discuss their counterproposal on COVID relief, which does not include industry-specific funding for restaurants.
On Monday, top Democrats in the Senate said they would put forward a plan “in the early part of this year” to reform federal cannabis laws. “Ending federal marijuana prohibition,” Senators Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) wrote, “is necessary.” Following in the footsteps of many states, Democrats are going to push to finally end cannabis prohibition at the federal level.
The language of the proposed legislation has not been finalized, but the senators promised to release a discussion draft soon. They made clear, too, that the end to marijuana prohibition is “not enough”—legislation would need to address previous wrongs.
“As states continue to legalize marijuana, we must also enact measures that will lift up people who were unfairly targeted in the War on Drugs,” the senators wrote. “We are committed to working together to put forward and advance comprehensive cannabis reform legislation that will not only turn the page on this sad chapter in American history, but also undo the devastating consequences of these discriminatory policies.”
In December, the House voted to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. The gesture was largely symbolic given the bill’s dim prospects in the then-Republican-controlled Senate.
While the path forward for federal cannabis legalization remains unclear, states continue taking it upon themselves to institute reforms Today, Kansas’ Democratic Governor Laura Kelly proposed that the state legalize medical marijuana to pay for Medicaid expansion. Virginia’s state legislature is also racing to approve a legalization plan before the state’s crossover deadline on Friday.
The COVID-19 outbreak at California’s San Quentin State Prison last summer was a catastrophe of epic proportions. Twenty-eight people serving prison sentences and one correctional officer died. Nearly two in three prisoners tested positive over three months; many were transferred out for treatment, straining San Francisco Bay Area hospitals. “It’s like a horror movie,” one San Quentin prisoner told me at the time.
Now California’s Office of the Inspector General is out with a scathing new report that lays the blame for the outbreak squarely at the feet of the state corrections department and its health care division. The report confirms the findings of an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle that attributed the outbreak to officials’ decision to bring in people with outdated coronavirus tests from the COVID-stricken California Institution for Men to San Quentin at the end of May. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and its health care division “caused a public health disaster” when they transferred these prisoners “without taking proper safeguards,” including ignoring concerns from health care staff, the OIG wrote in a letter to the speaker of the state Assembly.
Strikingly, alongside its other findings, the OIG created a time lapse to visualize data on just how rapidly the coronavirus spread from cell to cell and building to building inside the San Quentin complex.
We created a time lapse showing how quickly the virus spread at San Quentin State Prison between June 1, 2020 and August 31, 2020, after patients from CIM arrived at the prison. 28 incarcerated persons and 1 staff member died during this 3-month period. 2/3 pic.twitter.com/4tYI2SACvA
— Office of the Inspector General (@CaliforniaOIG) February 1, 2021
That map perfectly illustrates what experts have been saying for nearly a year about rapid coronavirus transmission behind bars, where people with high rates of preexisting conditions and limited access to health care are confined in crowded spaces, sometimes without basic sanitary supplies. In San Quentin, the OIG concluded, the coronavirus spread so quickly because the prison did not quickly test, isolate, or trace the contacts of infected prisoners; because of the prison’s use of open-barred cells; and because staff were allowed to work different shifts throughout the facility.
As of the end of 2020, 130 incarcerated people and 11 staff members in the California prison system had died from COVID.
Day laborers and their supporters participate in a "Caravan for Essential and Excluded Workers'' in April in Los Angeles. They were calling on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to ensure that COVID-related emergency financial aid from the federal CARES Act reached day laborers, undocumented workers, and their families.ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
A group of 100 members of Congress just sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi requesting that the next COVID-19 recovery package include a pathway to citizenship for immigrant essential workers. Those workers “have been, and will continue to be key to the health and safety of all Americans during the pandemic, and will be critical for the economic recovery of the country,” they wrote in the letter.
Immigrant essential workers have risked their lives so all Americans could overcome this pandemic — and they should be included in our nation’s economic recovery.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is leading the push to give legal status to an estimated 5 million essential workers who are undocumented or who have only temporary protections from deportation. An estimated 200,000 DACA recipients—immigrants without permanent legal status who were brought to the United States as children—and about 130,000 Temporary Protected Status holders have been working essential jobs during the pandemic.
“The inclusion of these protections is not just a necessity for economic recovery, it is an issue of economic and racial justice for communities that have been the most vulnerable to the crisis and left out in previous relief packages,” the letter says.
President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress are pushing for a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, and immigrant rights groups have been putting pressure on Congress to provide assistance and protection for immigrant workers and their families. Hispanic Caucus Chair Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) has been leading the effort.
Essential workers, including undocumented immigrants, have risked their lives to keep America fed, healthy, and moving forward.
They don't run America, but they make America run.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) rocks out on the harmonica at a Senate Christmas event in 2020, with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on piano.Michael Brochstein/Zuma
Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator from Virginia and 2016 vice presidential candidate, is back in the spotlight this week for his plans to file a censure resolution that could prevent former President Trump from holding federal office ever again.
That got me thinking, does he still carry all those harmonicas in his briefcase?
It turns out that he does—in his backpack, not a briefcase, his communications director corrected me. He has one in each of the main keys, from A to G, plus an E sharp.
Since the Senate is unlikely to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection, Kaine is writing a resolution that takes language from the 14th Amendment as a workaround to ensure that Trump can’t be reelected in 2024. (The resolution’s prospects in the divided Senate remain unclear.) And, being Tim Kaine, he’ll do all this with a backpack full of harmonicas.
Baratunde Thurston and Bill Kristol appear on The 11th Hour With Brian Williams on MSNBC.The 11th Hour With Brian Williams/MSNBC
Video mix-up or intentional gag? MSNBC’s 11th Hour host Brian Williams announced last night that the station would be airing exclusive video from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Thursday meeting with former President Trump. But what rolled instead was a famous scene from Jerry Maguire.
“You complete me,” Tom Cruise says. Renee Zellweger’s character responds, “You had me at hello.”
Brian Williams plays the Jerry Maguire Movie Clip when trying to show the Trump and McCarthy meeting. pic.twitter.com/xRIBWYMQ4f
“Obviously we have rolled the wrong clip,” Williams deadpanned, while his guests, Baratunde Thurston and Bill Kristol, each cracked a smile. “We were sold a bill of goods here. I thought this was going to be of the McCarthy and Trump meeting, and someone’s gonna be of course in big trouble.”
As far as I can tell, no such video of McCarthy and Trump actually exists. Thurston followed up on the segment with a statement from the “Office of the Not-President” lauding the joke:
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