Russia to send Japanese tycoon to ISS in return to space tourism


BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, Dec 6, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Russia on Wednesday will send
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the International Space Station in a
move marking Moscow's return to the now booming space tourism business after
a decade-long break.

One of Japan's richest men, Maezawa, 46, will blast off from the Baikonur
cosmodrome in Kazakhstan accompanied by his assistant Yozo Hirano.

On Sunday morning, their Soyuz spacecraft with a Japanese flag and an "MZ"
logo for Maezawa's name was moved onto the launch pad in unusually wet
weather for Baikonur, an AFP journalist saw.

The mission will end a decade-long pause in Russia's space tourism
programme that has not accepted tourists since Canada's Cirque du Soleil co-
founder Guy Laliberte in 2009.

However, in a historic first, the Russian space agency Roscosmos in October
sent actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko to the ISS to film
scenes for the first movie in orbit in an effort to beat a rival Hollywood
project.

Maezawa's launch comes at a challenging time for Russia as its space
industry struggles to remain relevant and keep up with Western competitors in
the modern space race.

Last year, the US company SpaceX of billionaire Elon Musk ended Russia's
monopoly on manned flights to the ISS after it delivered astronauts to the
orbiting laboratory in its Crew Dragon capsule.

This, however, also freed up seats on Russia's Soyuz rockets that were
previously purchased by NASA allowing Moscow to accept fee-paying tourists
like Maezawa.

Their three-seat Soyuz spacecraft will be piloted by Alexander Misurkin, a
44-year-old Russian cosmonaut who has already been on two missions to the
ISS.

The pair will spend 12 days aboard the space station where they plan to
document their journey for Maezawa's YouTube channel with more than 750,000
subscribers.

The tycoon is the founder of Japan's largest online fashion mall and the
country's 30th richest man, according to Forbes.

"I am almost crying because of my impressions, this is so impressive,"
Maezawa said in late November after arriving at Baikonur for the final days
of preparation.

Maezawa and Hirano have spent the past few months training at Star City, a
town outside Moscow that has prepared generations of Soviet and Russian
cosmonauts.

- 'Hardest training ever' -

Maezawa said that training in the spinning chair "almost feels like
torture".

"It's the hardest training ever done," he tweeted in late November.

So far Russia has sent seven self-funded tourists to space in partnership
with the US-based company Space Adventures. Maezawa and Hirano will be the
first from Japan.

Maezawa's launch comes at the end of a year that became a milestone for
amateur space travel.

In September, SpaceX operated a historic flight taking the first all-
civilian crew on a three-day journey around the Earth's orbit in a mission
called Inspiration4.

Blue Origin, the company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, completed two
missions beyond the Earth's atmosphere. The passengers included 90-year-old
Star Trek star William Shatner and Bezos himself.

Soon after, billionaire Richard Branson travelled aboard his Virgin
Galactic spacecraft that also offered a few minutes of weightlessness before
coming back to Earth.

Those journeys mark the beginning of space opening up for non-professionals
with more launches announced for the future.

In 2023, SpaceX is planning to take eight amateur astronauts around the
moon in a spaceflight that is bankrolled by Maezawa, who will also be
onboard.

Russia has also said it will take more tourists to the ISS on future Soyuz
launches and also plans to offer one of them a spacewalk.

For Russia, retaining its title of a top space nation is a matter of
national pride stemming from its Soviet-era achievements amid rivalry with
the United States.

The Soviets coined a number of firsts in space: the first satellite, first
man in space, first woman in space, first spacewalk, to name just a few.

But in recent years Russia's space programme has suffered setbacks,
including corruption scandals and botched launches, and faced a cut in state
funding.

The industry remains reliant on Soviet-designed technology and while new
projects have been announced, such as a mission to Venus, their timeline and
feasibility remain unclear.

Yusaku Maezawa: Irreverent Billionaire Fascinated By Space

By Kyoko HASEGAWA, Sara HUSSEIN
12/05/21 

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who blasts off for the International Space Station this week, is an irreverent space enthusiast who has made headlines for splashing the cash on modern art.

The 46-year-old tycoon is the founder of Japan's largest online fashion mall and is the country's 30th-richest person, according to business magazine Forbes.

But he is far from the traditional image of a staid Japanese businessman, with more than 10 million people following his Twitter account, its handle a play on his first name: @yousuck2020.

And he's a big spender, particularly when it comes to his twin passions: modern art and space travel.

He hit the headlines in 2017 when he forked out a whopping $110.5 million for Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1982 painting "Untitled", a skull-like head in oil-stick, acrylic and spray paint on a giant canvas.

It was a record price, but Maezawa insists he is just an "ordinary collector" who buys pieces "simply because they are beautiful".

On December 8, Maezawa will become the first space tourist to travel to the ISS with Russia's space agency Roscosmos since Canadian Guy Laliberte, co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, in 2009.

He will be accompanied on the 12-day mission by his assistant Yozo Hirano, a film producer who will be documenting the journey for Maezawa's YouTube channel and its 754,000 subscribers.

How much Maezawa has spent on his upcoming space adventure is unclear, as the price tag has been kept a secret, though similar trips have cost millions of dollars.

But the cost is unlikely to make much of a dent in the $1.9 billion net worth Maezawa is estimated to have accumulated through his firm Zozo, previously known as Start Today, which operates the hugely popular ZOZOTOWN online fashion site.

Maezawa arrived in Kazakhstan for space training in November, and has said he is "not afraid or worried" about the voyage.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will blast off for the ISS as part of a 12-day mission P

hoto: POOL via AFP / SHAMIL ZHUMATOV

He has been soliciting ideas for things he should do in space and asking questions including: "Do you move forward when you fart in space? What happens when you play Pok?mon GO in space?"

In Japan, Maezawa's exploits are often fodder for gossip magazines, with a particular focus on his love life over his space exploits.

The ISS trip won't be Maezawa's last space odyssey, as the businessman has also booked out an entire SpaceX rocket for a trip around the Moon scheduled for 2023 at the earliest.

Maezawa originally said he planned to invite six to eight artists on the trip, asking them to create "masterpieces (that) will inspire the dreamer within all of us".

But in March, he announced he was broadening the search beyond artists, and claims to have received one million applications for eight spots on the rocket made by Elon Musk's firm.

Maezawa has made a habit of holding online competitions, creating a Twitter frenzy in 2020 when he said he would give away $9 million to 1,000 people as a "social experiment".

But he backed out of a separate competition seeking candidates to be his girlfriend... after attracting nearly 30,000 applicants.

As a young man, Maezawa had aspirations in the music world and was a drummer with a band named Switch Style, which made its debut in 2000.

But he came to feel the business world was more creative than music, and has said writing and performing eventually become a frustrating routine.

He began dabbling in business even before the band's debut, and has attributed Zozo's success to the fact he and his staff were "doing what we enjoy".

"Work hard, make people happy, earn money, buy big dreams, visit amazing places, meet people, experience great things, grow as a person, and work again," he wrote in May on his Twitter account, explaining his philosophy.

"The cycle repeats. The cycle of making dreams come true. We can even go to space."

Alberta firehall first in Canada to construct safe surrender box as alternative to baby abandonment


Hope's Cradle like Angel Cradles in Edmonton, Safe Haven Baby Boxes in U.S., but 1st attached to fire station

Sarah Moore · CBC · Posted: Dec 05, 2021 

A plain grey metal door outside the fire station in Strathmore will soon be a safe place for parents to surrender their newborns, says Eric Alexander, shift captain of the Strathmore Fire Department. (Terri Trembath/CBC)

The community fire station in Strathmore, Alta., will soon be the first in Canada to offer a safe place for parents to surrender their newborn babies. 

Hope's Cradle is similar to intiatives like Angel Cradles at two Edmonton hospitals and Safe Haven Baby Boxes in the United States. But Hope's Cradle is the first in Canada to be attached to a fire station.

Shift captain Eric Alexander is happy to see the project close to being fully operational.

"We're really excited to be able to offer this service to our community and the surrounding communities as well," Alexander said. "It's pretty special to be the first one in Canada."

He hopes it catches on across the country.

Partnership with Gems for Gems

Alexander started working on Hope's Cradle after a baby was found dead in a Calgary dumpster on Christmas Eve in 2017.

As a new father, the story stuck in his mind. As a firefighter with a priority of saving lives, he wanted to ensure that doesn't happen again.

• Woman charged in death of baby girl found in Calgary dumpster

"I just couldn't imagine the pain of having to make that decision as a new parent," he said.

While Alexander was working on the project, a Calgary-based charity called Gems for Gems was working on a similar idea.

Four months ago, they partnered to come up with Hope's Cradle and split the $20,000 cost of construction.

"For this first one, we've partnered with Strathmore but we want to partner with several all across Alberta and all across Canada," said Jordan Guildford, CEO and founder of Gems for Gems, a charity that aims to end domestic abuse.

In the U.S., Guildford explained, Save Haven Baby Boxes are used more in rural locations, because people living in cities have the perception that anonymity is higher in rural areas. So they will drive to surrender their newborn.

• Angel cradle at Edmonton hospital may have saved baby's life

Strathmore, a town 50 kilometres east of Calgary, fits the bill, she said.

Gems for Gems is working with partnerships with the Calgary fire department as well, she said.

How Hope's Cradle works

Right now, the spot is a simple, small, square metal door on the outside of the Strathmore fire station. But eventually the door will have a decal clearly marking it as Hope's Cradle, Alexander said.

The door can be opened once. Inside, there is an enclosed, heated bassinet waiting for the baby to be placed in. When the door closes, it locks, and a silent alarm goes off to alert fire department staff.

"We want to ensure that expectant mothers know that their anonymity will be protected and will not be released under any circumstances, as long as the child is surrendered without signs of neglect or abuse," Alexander said.

Unless the child is injured, leaving a baby in a safe place will not result in criminal charges. The goal of the program, he explained, is to provide a safe place for newborns to go to a caring home and get the support they need.

Hope's Cradle has no religious or political affiliation, Guildford said.

No Permit, No Problem: More States Allow Residents to Carry a Hidden Gun

1969

Matt Vasilogambros, Stateline.org
Mon, December 6, 2021

Dec. 6—Six more states no longer require residents to hold a permit to carry a concealed firearm.

Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee, Texas and Utah this year enacted what gun rights advocates often refer to as "constitutional carry" measures. A legislative priority for groups such as the National Rifle Association, 21 states now have such measures in place. Many of these states still have restrictions on possessing firearms in certain government buildings.

More states may be added to that list before the end of this legislative season. The Ohio House last month passed a bill along party lines that would eliminate a requirement for gun owners to take an eight-hour class and undergo a background check to carry a concealed firearm in public. It is now before the state Senate, which also is controlled by Republicans. Wisconsin lawmakers also are debating a permitless carry bill.

Similar bills have passed in one legislative chamber in both Louisiana and South Carolina this year. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether New York's gun permitting system violates the Second Amendment—a case that could gut firearm permit provisions nationwide.

Permitless carry laws eliminate what proponents say is an onerous and time-consuming step for people who want to arm themselves for self-protection. When Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed his state's permitless carry law earlier this year, the Republican tweeted that "it shouldn't be hard for law-abiding Tennesseans to exercise their" Second Amendment rights.

Gun safety advocates and law enforcement agencies argue that having more people with concealed firearms in public places endangers communities and police officers.

"This is a dangerous step for states," said Eugenio Weigend, director of the gun violence prevention program at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. "This could easily raise some confrontations in some places, further escalating violence to reach lethal levels."

The debate over self-defense figured prominently in the recent trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was charged with homicide after he killed two people in the tumultuous aftermath of a police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020. A jury acquitted Rittenhouse last month, finding that his use of deadly force in the chaotic streets was legally justifiable. Prosecutors called him a dangerous vigilante.

In Georgia, Travis McMichael argued he was acting in self-defense when he shot and killed Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed Black man who was jogging in McMichael's neighborhood. McMichael was convicted of murder last month, along with his father and a neighbor. The three men pursued Arbery in a pickup truck.

Wisconsin's permitless carry bill, which received a public hearing in the state Senate in October, also would prohibit local governments from banning weapons on public transportation. It's unclear when the legislation will get a vote, but gun rights advocates are confident it will pass.

Eliminating the permit requirement would be a welcome change for gun owners uneasy about being on a government list, said Nik Clark, president of Wisconsin Carry, a Milwaukee-based gun rights organization. It also would allow people who want a gun for self-protection to acquire one without having to wait through the permitting process, which Clark said is important in cases of domestic abuse or in situations such as the civil unrest of 2020.

"We have a human right to self-defense," Clark said. "To say that you need permission from the government to do that is crazy. It's anti-American."

Gun rights advocates such as Clark have been pushing for a permitless carry law in Wisconsin for more than a decade. It never gained the support of key state legislative leaders or former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who said in 2017 that licenses for concealed firearms were "appropriate."

But pressure continued from advocates. Bolstered by national momentum, this year's bill in Wisconsin has 31 cosponsors, all of whom are Republican. If the bill passes, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would likely veto it, to the relief of gun safety advocates.

"This puts our citizens at higher risk," said Jeri Bonavia, executive director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort Educational Fund, a gun safety group.

1971

Bonavia and researchers at the Center for American Progress found in a September study that since Wisconsin enacted a law in 2011 allowing residents to carry concealed weapons with a permit, gun-related homicides and aggravated assaults have risen. Gun-related homicides and assaults were on the decline in Wisconsin before 2012, but began to shift upward during the implementation of the law, the researchers found.

The gun homicide rate in Wisconsin from 2012 to 2019 was a third higher than it was from 2004 to 2011. The annual average of aggravated assaults with firearms from 2012 to 2019 increased by more than half compared with 2004 to 2011. The increase in gun homicide rates after 2011 did not occur in neighboring states without a concealed carry law.

Last month, the Republican-led Pennsylvania legislature passed a similar permitless carry bill. However, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed the legislation last week.

"Unfortunately, this bill would make gun violence worse and would put law enforcement officers at greater risk of harm," Wolf said in his veto message.

Until 2011, Vermont was the only state that did not require its residents to have a permit to carry concealed weapons. Since then, Republican-led states have steadily dropped permit requirements. In several states, the law applies to residents who are 21 and over, with some exceptions for members of the military who are 18 and over.

These new laws have coincided with measures allowing guns in houses of worship and on school grounds and public transportation.

While Democrats widely reject the permitless carry policy, polling suggests it also lacks widespread support in the GOP. Most of the pressure on lawmakers to pass these bills has come from gun rights lobbyists at the NRA and other groups, Bonavia said.

"These bills are not a result of public demand," she said. "There is not a groundswell of support that we need to carry these guns without any regulations."

Indeed, just over a third of Republicans support allowing people to carry concealed guns without a permit, according to an April survey by the Pew Research Center. (The center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, which funds Stateline.)

Gun safety advocates have called on state lawmakers to restrict gun access, rather than expand it, citing a spike in gun violence and recent school shootings, including one at a Michigan high school last week that left four dead.

While most Americans generally support stricter laws around firearms, that support has waned since it reached its pinnacle in the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018 and the nationwide, student-led protests that followed. According to Gallup polling, support for stricter gun laws declined from 67% in March 2018 to 52% this October.

Gun rights advocates such as Clark argue that the civil unrest that occurred in some places during the mostly peaceful anti-racism protests in summer 2020 demonstrated the importance of allowing Americans to carry concealed firearms without a permit.

"If people need protection quickly," he said, "they don't have time to take a class."

#ABOLISHSECONDAMENDMENT

Texas plumber who found cash in Lakewood wall 'upset' with Joel Osteen: 'Should have heard something'

Emma Colton
Mon, December 6, 2021

The Texas plumber who found cash in a wall in preacher Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church said he’s "upset" that no one from the church has contacted him.

"I wanted to hear [Joel Osteen] say, ‘You know, Justin, what you did was right. We understand what you did and what you could have done,’" the man said after attending a service held by Osteen on Sunday, according to Click 2 Houston. The man has only been identified as Justin.

JOEL OSTEEN’S HOUSTON CHURCH HAD $600K INSIDE WALL FROM 2014 ROBBERY, PLUMBER CLAIMS

"I feel like, at this point, I should have heard something," he said. "I’m just a little upset."

The plumber found the cash in a wall of the church in about 500 envelopes. Houston police said the money is in connection to a 2014 robbery at the church, where $200,000 in cash and $400,000 in checks were stolen from a church safe.

"There was a loose toilet in the wall, and we removed the tile," the plumber said on 100.3 FM’s morning show. "We went to go remove the toilet, and I moved some insulation away and about 500 envelopes fell out of the wall."

The church also released a statement saying police were contacted after the discovery was made.

JOEL OSTEEN ENLISTS KANYE WEST, MARIAH CAREY AND TYLER PERRY FOR EASTER SUNDAY AMID CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

"Recently, while repair work was being done at Lakewood Church, an undisclosed amount of cash and checks were found," the church said. "Lakewood immediately notified the Houston Police Department and is assisting them with their investigation. Lakewood has no further comment at this time."

The discovery, however, has left some parishioners with more questions following the 2014 robbery.

"I was discouraged the first time," longtime parishioner Benito Rodriguez told Click 2 Houston, referring to the 2014 theft. "I was discouraged and now I am more discouraged because they found it. It doesn’t make any sense."

Wings and a prayer: Monarch surge brings hope for butterfly recovery



Francine Kiefer
Mon, December 6, 2021

Naturalist Danielle Bronson is ecstatic. The butterflies are back. Specifically, the Western monarch butterfly – more than 20,000 of them hanging in clusters from branches in elegant eucalyptus trees or fluttering around this conservation grove on the central California coast.

Last year, the count in the Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove totaled only 200, in what is a top overwintering spot for monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains. The entire recorded population numbered less than 2,000 last year – down from millions in the 1980s. Experts feared this year might mark their end. Instead, the butterflies are experiencing a resurgence, though no one knows exactly why or if their upward trajectory will continue.

“I’m thrilled, because having 2,000 as the entire population, it was a blow to the face actually,” says Ms. Bronson. As a schoolgirl, she visited this grove, awed by hundreds of thousands of monarchs so plentiful they covered tree trunks. The sight inspired her to a career with the state park service, where she now works as a park interpreter and educator. “Last year was devastating, but this year I’m very hopeful.”

Ms. Bronson calls monarchs “the Hollywood species,” celebrities in their own right, flitting about in gorgeous orange-and-black gowns designed by Mother Nature. As stars of the pollinator world, they also serve as high-profile messengers about what is happening to this all-important group.

Both Western and Eastern monarchs – indistinguishable in genetic makeup but distinct populations because of their location on either side of the Rockies – have suffered severe declines since the early 1990s. The Eastern monarchs, which migrate to Mexico where they overwinter and mate, have seen their numbers drop by about 70%. The Western population, which migrates from northern states and parts of Canada to the California coast, is much worse off, plunging by 99%. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to add monarchs to the list of endangered species in 2024, says Sarina Jepsen, director of endangered species for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

The society organizes an annual Thanksgiving count of the Western monarch, at about 250 overwintering sites throughout California, Mexico’s Baja California, and a few places in Arizona. Volunteers arrive at first light to count the butterflies in their clusters. Any later, and they risk an overcount as the sun warms up these cold-blooded creatures and they begin to fly about.

These monarchs are a special generation that lives for six to eight months. After overwintering and mating, the females fly off and lay their eggs on milkweed, usually inland, on which the emerging caterpillars feast until they turn into a chrysalis and, finally, butterflies. Those adults typically live for only 30 days, with successive generations traveling on before the fall migration begins again.

This year, the butterflies arrived early. A preliminary tally of the Thanksgiving count finds more than 100,000 Western monarchs, a stunning 4,900% increase over last year. The final result will be announced in January. It’s encouraging, but “not a recovery,” cautions Ms. Jepsen, who cites a tendency of insect populations to bounce around.

“We’re really grateful it didn’t bounce to zero. What it means is we have a little bit of time to work toward recovery, but it doesn’t mean the population has recovered,” she says. As a reference point, a population under 30,000 is considered to have entered the “extinction vortex,” she says.

Many factors contribute to the decline of the monarchs. Overwintering habitat is lost to development. There’s less milkweed – the only food that monarch caterpillars eat – and fewer nectar-producing plants to nourish the butterflies. Pesticides, wildfires, and climate change all play a role, according to the Xerces Society. Because of the many reasons for decline, it’s not possible to pinpoint what’s behind this year’s resurgence. “We really can’t interpret it,” says Ms. Bronson.

But experts do know that restoring habitat and planting nectaring plants and milkweed can help. The massive infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden in November included $10 million to fund pollinating plants along roads and highways. The Monarch Act, sponsored by Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and California Rep. Jimmy Panetta would provide $125 million to save the Western monarch.

Individuals can play a role, says Ms. Bronson, though she explains that the messaging about milkweed is a bit complicated. It should be planted away from overwintering sites – if it’s too close, it will encourage the butterflies to come out of diapause and mate sooner than they should. And the plantings should be native milkweed. Tropical milkweed, often sold by big-box stores, can house a harmful parasite and should not be used, she advises.

The simplest way to help, she says, is to grow nectar-producing plants to give butterflies energy during their journey and while overwintering. “You really can’t go wrong on that one, because you’re not just helping monarchs, you’re helping all pollinators.” The Pismo Beach conservation site, just off of Highway 1, has a nearby garden with coyote bush and senecio, a flowering succulent, to feed the monarchs.

Visitor Suzi Goodwin got the message. A local, she often visits the grove at this time of year, especially if she has company. She is delighted with the noticeable increase in butterflies, and loves the grove for its peaceful feel and scent. She has put in plants friendly to butterflies and bees at her house in Santa Maria, about 20 miles from the grove. “We did our homework before we bought our plants,” says the retiree.

Of course Ms. Bronson hopes the monarch numbers will continue to go up. She wants her 2-year-old son to see what she saw as a little girl. “And not just my kid. I get utter joy when you have school groups coming out here, and the ‘oohs’ and the ‘ahs’ and the ‘wow.’ And the smile that you can see in their eyes. That also brings hope.”

Related stories

‘This isn’t just weeds’: Native gardens are repairing local ecosystems

Do not disturb: In India, traditions and science protect sacred forests

Riding with the wildlife rescuers: No creature too big, small, or wild

‘Creation care’: How churches aim to save a warming planet

Granderson: Where are men on the demolition of abortion rights?

LZ Granderson
Sun, December 5, 2021

Abortion rights advocates demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, when the court heard oral arguments about a Mississippi abortion law and overruling the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

It’s been a while since I took a science class, but from what I can recall, humans do not reproduce asexually. I bring this up because we tend to talk about reproductive rights as if it’s a women's issue.

Sure, if the Supreme Court guts Roe vs. Wade next year, there will be a number of men who will not care. I could not imagine being a father or brother or son and thinking none of this has anything to do with me. But men, including many who called themselves “girldads,” a viral hashtag on social media after Kobe Bryant died, should care that a patriarchal government wants to force their daughter to give birth against her will.

And be not mistaken, at its core, that’s exactly what this debate is about.

Not the morality of abortion, or religion, or state’s rights. No, this is the latest incarnation of government-sanctioned misogyny that was evident in the writing of the Constitution; evident in the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck vs. Bell in which the justices voted 8-1 in favor of forced sterilization; evident in state laws that punished women for seeking contraception until Griswold vs. Connecticut ruled such laws unconstitutional in 1965.

The phrase “pro-life”?

That’s just good PR. We all know in a country where universal healthcare is considered political poison and mass shootings are no longer shocking that being “pro-life” was never really our thing.

During her recent book tour stop in Los Angeles, Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The 1619 Project, said “we have to stop letting the language hide the crime.” As an example she pointed at how the word “plantation” was just a way to rebrand the “slave labor camps” the nation’s wealth was built on.

The most recent example of this linguistic trick is watching elected officials use the word “rioters” to describe armed terrorists who overran Capitol police and sent members of Congress running for their lives. And so it is also true that the phrase “pro-life” distracts us from the fact that the same patriarchal government that once denied women the right to vote or own property wants to force them to give birth against their will. It is a scenario ripped from the pages of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The reversal of a woman’s right to control her body — undergirded by religious fervor — moves the conversation away from routine partisan politics to being Taliban-adjacent.

Political analysts are already calculating how this issue will reshape the 2022 midterm election, which is a bit too cynical for my taste. What’s at stake here is not a policy fight but rather the morality of the republic.

We are on the cusp of trading in American ideals (even if often unfulfilled) for a society that forces rape victims to give birth because of the laws of a government overrepresented by men.

If we do that, the democracy banner we fly — already fraying because Republican members of Congress are pretending that Jan. 6 was nothing more than some rowdy tourists on Capitol Hill — will be left in tatters.

Roe vs. Wade may have become shorthand for abortion, but that Supreme Court decision meant so much more than that. It meant we were becoming a nation that valued women’s lives and their right to participate fully in this society. It signaled progress toward what America could be. Demolishing Roe is a big step back toward what America claims it is not.

@LZGranderson
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Inside Dr. Oz’s Shameless Flip-Flop on Abortion

Roger Sollenberger
Mon, December 6, 2021

Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast/Getty

When the Supreme Court heard arguments last week for a case that could upend abortion rights nationwide, Mehmet Oz—the TV doctor and accused “quack” turned Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania—suggested he was at peace that the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade.

But only two years earlier, Oz characterized efforts to overturn Roe as a misleading and possibly conspiratorial crusade. Not only was Oz supportive of abortion rights, he seemed puzzled that people would spend time fighting abortion rights—going so far as to say that, as a physician, he was “really worried” about the anti-abortion movement and that eliminating Roe would have negative effects on women’s health.

“It’s, as a doctor—just putting my doctor hat on—it’s a big-time concern,” Oz said in the 2019 interview, which aired on the Breakfast Club radio show. “Because I went to medical school in Philadelphia, and I saw women who had coat-hanger events. And I mean really traumatic events that happened when they were younger, before Roe v. Wade. And many of them were harmed for life.”

Oz conceded that abortion “is a hard issue for everybody,” and he said that, on “a personal level,” he disliked abortion and would not want anyone in his family to have one. But he took a common pro-choice position in 2019 that his belief should not be forced onto others. He would not want to “interfere with everyone else’s stuff,” he said, “because it’s hard enough to get into life as it is.”

Oz’s defense of abortion wasn’t just a passing question. He held forth for seven minutes in this 2019 interview about the practice and was highly critical of anti-abortion advocates who argue that life begins at conception. His tone throughout the entire segment on abortion was one of concern that legislators might be passing abortion restrictions, and he seemed to endorse viability—generally thought of as about 24 weeks—as a popular limit for abortion.

“Just being logical about it,” he said, “if you think that the moment of conception you’ve got a life, then why would you even wait six weeks? Right, then an in vitro fertilized egg is still a life.”

Oz also questioned why restricting abortion access was so important to some people.

“There’s so much we gotta do already to take care of each other. To start picking fights on this—I always wonder about it,” he said. “It happens periodically. There are these moral issues that almost on purpose are inflamed.”

And yet, despite his full-throated support for abortion access in 2019, Oz said last week during an interview on WGAL in Lancaster that he was “OK with the Supreme Court making the right decision” on Roe, “based on what they think the Constitution says.”

Earlier that day, the high court heard arguments regarding a challenge to Mississippi’s prohibitive abortion law, with conservative justices signaling they were prepared to scrap Roe entirely.

But in the discussion with the Breakfast Club—hosted by rapper and political pundit “Charlamagne tha God”—Oz devoted several minutes to explaining why the resurgent anti-abortion movement concerned him as a physician, and why Roe was valuable and should not be overturned.

Dr. Oz’s Sick Journey From Political Joke to Senate Candidate

When The Daily Beast called Dr. Oz for comment, he picked up his phone and immediately ended the call. He then did not reply to a text message asking about his remarks in the abortion discussion.

But asked in 2019 about prohibitive laws like the near-total ban Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey had signed earlier that month—a so-called “heartbeat” bill which outlawed abortion in almost every instance starting six weeks after conception—Oz denounced the idea as dangerous, unfair to women, and premised on misleading information.

At one point in the conversation, Oz, who has been vocal about his own Christian faith, also questioned why anti-abortion advocates cared so much in the first place.

“Is this really the way they want to spend their time?” he wondered. “There’s so much we gotta fix in the world.”

While the physician and herbal weight-loss supplement salesman acknowledged that true believers “gotta be heard,” he said “that doesn’t mean that’s what the rule of the land is.”

“If people thought about it and logically work through it, most Americans sort of already agree on what the right answer is”—a position that appears directly at odds with the conservative majority on the Court.

Asked by tha God whether he thought prohibitive anti-abortion laws were “healthy,” Oz replied, “I’m really worried about it,” and invoked his professional experience.

Longtime New Jersey Resident Dr. Oz Announces He’s Running in Pennsylvania’s Senate Race

“I’ve taken care of a lot of women who had issues around childbirth. The problem with the [Alabama] law as it stands now—and I think the law was really only passed to generate a Supreme Court challenge—but most women don’t know they’re pregnant,” he said, taking specific aim at the bad-faith effort to overturn Roe. “It’s two weeks past your last period when you have to decide by,” Oz explained, referencing the six-week line.

Oz, who rose to fame in the 2000s as a regular guest on Oprah Winfrey’s daytime television show, claimed he had guests on his own show “all the time” who did not know they were pregnant even “when they’re delivering.”

“So you’re asking women to decide almost instantaneously if they’re pregnant or not,” Oz said. “And it’s also banned in cases of incest and rape. So I don’t quite get it as a doctor.”

He then went to lengths to dismantle the spurious six-week “heartbeat” talking point.

“There are electrical exchanges at six weeks, but the heart’s not beating,” Oz said.

“If you’re going to define life by a beating heart, then make it a beating heart, not little electrical exchanges in the cell that no one would hear or think about as a heart,” he continued. To do otherwise, he said, misleads the average person into “envisioning a little acorn heart beating in there, and that’s not what’s going on at six weeks.”

The Mississippi law currently before the court is not as extreme as Alabama’s 2019 bill, banning abortions after 15 weeks, not six. But hours ahead of Oz’s interview, the conservative justices signaled they were open to a broad ruling that would legalize six-week bans.

Chief Justice John Roberts was the lone conservative to raise the question of a narrow decision, saying, “The thing that is at issue before us today is 15 weeks.” But Roberts would need to pick off at least two other conservatives, and none appeared eager to join him.

One of those justices, Samuel Alito, mused that “the only real options we have” are to uphold or overturn Roe.

And while Oz now seems fine with a conservative majority overturning Roe, as he faces a GOP primary field of anti-abortion Republicans, Oz was explicitly concerned by that prospect in 2019, and suggested abortion bans could result in a “big sucking sound of businesses leaving” states.

Dr. Oz: World’s Best Snake Oil Salesman

When Breakfast Club co-host Angela Yee expressed concern that if Roe were overturned, abortions would continue, but “in a dangerous way and it could actually kill you,” Oz backed that up with his own medical experience.

The abortion discussion was only one part of a wide-ranging interview on the Breakfast Club. Dr. Oz and the hosts also covered why it’s unsanitary to wash chicken before cooking it (“you spray the salmonella all over the kitchen”), why Americans should consume less meat (“what’s destroying our economy in many ways is the way we eat so much meat”), the medical promise of hallucinogenic drugs (“I don’t have a problem that I think it would help”), environmentally friendly wet wipe alternatives (“I take toilet paper; I spit on it, to moisten it, or use the sink”) and how liberals and conservatives are different “partly for genetic reasons.”

“Liberals primarily view freedom and the right to do what’s important to them as their primary drivers. Conservatives tend to use other factors in addition. For example, you don’t want people pissing in your neighborhood—that’s much more important to conservatives,” Oz explained.

An acclaimed thoracic surgeon and director of integrated medicine at one of the top med schools in the country, Oz long ago morphed into a controversial public figure straddling the worlds of health, media, and politics. He leveraged Oprah’s imprimatur into a multimillion-dollar celebrity doctor brand, racking up accusations of “quackery” along the way—promoting false theories about genetically modified foods and hawking “sham” weight-loss supplements, for which he at one point answered to Congress.

Dr. Oz watches as Oprah Winfrey shaves off the moustache of television personality Dr. Phil in 2010.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters

As the coronavirus pandemic descended last spring, Oz—a regular on Fox News—caught the attention of then-President Donald Trump, who wanted to connect with Oz after watching him speak positively about the unproven COVID treatment hydroxychloroquine.

In an interview two months before the 2016 election, Oz briefly quizzed then-candidate Trump on women’s reproductive health, touching first on birth control and following up with a fleeting discussion about abortion.

“What is your stand on abortion today?” Oz asked.

“I am pro-life,” Trump replied.

Oz had no other follow-ups.

In new poll, young voters say democracy has 'failed'

Dante Chinni

Sun, December 5, 2021

WASHINGTON — Last week, Harvard University's Kennedy School released a poll of young Americans ages 18 to 29 and found a generation of voters that looks a little different from what many people expected.

There was not a lot of youthful optimism in the data, and some findings showed that large divisions in the electorate over the last decade are still part of this generation. But other numbers suggest that this new group of voters may be charting a new course politically.

The best place to start may be the overall mood of the group. The survey shows a pretty sullen collection of Americans, not especially happy with how the country is working or where it is heading.

Only a quarter of those who were polled believe democracy in the U.S. is working as well as it should, and only one-third believe democracy is "healthy" or "somewhat functioning." Considering that this group of people includes the country's next set of leaders, those are somewhat concerning findings.

Yes, younger people tend to see flaws in the status quo and are often the spark behind change, but when more than half of 18- to 29-year-olds believe U.S. democracy is "failed" or "in trouble," it raises questions about how the next generation sees the future.

The poll also shows some divides around different levels of education.

The thought in some communities may be that "everyone goes to college" after high school, but the Kennedy School poll shows that nearly 60 percent of the respondents are not enrolled in college and/or do not have bachelor's degrees. About 1 in 5 are pursuing bachelor's degrees, while 22 percent already have them.

The numbers may have political consequences.

There is a growing partisan education gap in U.S. politics: Those with bachelor's degrees increasingly lean to the political left, and those without them tend to be on the right. It has become one of the dominant trends in political polling over the last decade. And the Kennedy School poll suggests that the ideological split may be carrying through to the younger generation.

Consider attitudes about Joe Biden's presidency.

There is fairly strong support for Biden among those in college or with degrees; his job approval is 54 percent with both groups. Among the non-college group, however, the picture is very different. Biden's approval number is 13 points lower, at 41 percent, with 57 percent disapproving.

On the whole, that might sound like a win for Republicans. The largest segment of this bloc of Americans is the non-college segment, and they are not fans of the Biden White House.

But that is where things start to look different. When you look more closely at the non-college group, respondents are not especially conservative, and they are even less likely to call themselves Republican.

Only a third of the non-college 18- to 29-year-olds say they are “conservative,” and only 22 percent self-identify as Republican. Meanwhile, members of the group are as likely to call themselves “liberal” as “conservative,” and 33 percent self-identify as Democrats, 11 points higher than the GOP number.

In other words, the non-college element of this group is not pro-Biden, but the data show that they are also not pro-GOP. They are more likely to call themselves “independent” and “moderate.”

Beyond questions of political partisanship and ideology, there appear to be areas of generational agreement about pressing issues, including climate change. Across all education levels, there is concern that climate change will affect future decisions, such as where they live and the kind of work they might do.

A majority of young voters in all education groups believe climate change will affect their lives. The numbers are highest among those with degrees — 70 of them percent say climate change will affect their lives directly — but 57 percent of current college students and 51 percent of the non-college group say they will be affected, as well. Across all the educational groups, one-third or fewer said climate change will not have an impact.

In addition, all those subgroups agree that the U.S. is not doing enough to address climate change, and they agree that the climate change challenge is not "hopeless." That suggests support for action on the issue.

There are a lot of unknowns for this next generation of voters. After all, they have come of age in a volatile era (from the turbulent Trump presidency to Covid), and it's not clear how much that has shaped how they see politics and how much their views could change as they grow older.

But even as some of the broader educational divides appear to be taking root with these voters, the data also show some important commonalities. They are disgruntled and dissatisfied, but they also seem to agree on some of the important challenges facing the country.

In a country where division reigns over nearly everything, that is a noteworthy difference.

People in counties that voted Trump more likely to die from Covid – study

Maya Yang
Tue, December 7, 2021

Photograph: Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images

People in counties that voted for Donald Trump are nearly three times more likely to die from Covid-19 than those who live in counties that voted for Joe Biden, according to a new study by National Public Radio.

Related:

Omicron brings fresh concern for US mental health after ‘grim two years’

NPR examined deaths per 100,000 people in about 3,000 counties across the US since May 2021. According to NPR, 1 May was chosen as the start date as it is roughly the time when vaccines became universally available to adults.

The study found that areas that voted for Trump by at least 60% in November 2020 had death rates 2.7 times higher than counties that voted heavily for Biden.

The study also found that counties that voted for Trump by an even higher percentage had lower vaccination rates and higher Covid-19 death rates.

Charles Gaba, an independent analyst who helped review NPR’s methodology, said that in October, the reddest 10th of the country saw death rates six times higher than the bluest 10th.

“Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks,” he said. “It’s back down to 5.5 times higher.”

Hawaii, Nebraska and Alaska were excluded from the study because they either do not report election results by county or do not report county-level vaccine data.

The study only examined the geographic locations of Covid-related deaths. The political views of each person remain unknown. Nevertheless, according to NPR, “the strength of the association, combined with polling information about vaccination, strongly suggests that Republicans are being disproportionately affected”.

People in rural Republican areas, and white Republicans in general, tend to be more resistant to getting vaccinated. According to the latest data from the Kaiser Family Fund, the rate of Republican Covid vaccination has plateaued at 59%, while 91% of Democrats have been vaccinated.

Republicans have been found to be more likely to believe misinformation about Covid and vaccines. According to KFF, 94% of Republicans think one or more false statements about Covid and vaccines might be true, and 46% believe four or more statements might be true. Only 14% of Democrats believe four or more false statements about the virus.

The most widely believed false statement is that the government is exaggerating the number of Covid deaths.

According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 788,000 people have died of Covid in the US.

Numerous Republican governors have dismissed concerns about low vaccination rates and pushed for ending public health measures such as mask wearing and social distancing in favor of reopening businesses.

“We’ve seen lower levels of personal worry among Republicans who remain unvaccinated,” Liz Hamel, vice-president of public opinion and survey research at KFF, told NPR. “That’s a real contrast with what we saw in communities of color, where there was a high level of worry about getting sick.”

A lethal new weapon levels the playing field against the U.S. military

Ken Dilanian
Mon, December 6, 2021, 2:01 PM·9 min read

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah — The killer drone whooshed out of its launch tube, spreading its carbon wings and shooting into the sky.

Flying too fast for the naked eye to track, the battery-powered robot circled the Utah desert, hunting for the target it had been programmed to strike. Moments later, it sailed through the driver’s side window of an empty pickup truck and exploded in a fireball.

“Good hit,” exclaimed an operator from AeroVironment, the company that produces the drone and sells it to the U.S. military.

NBC News traveled to a military testing center for exclusive access to the first public demonstration of the Switchblade 300, a small, low-cost “kamikaze” drone made by AeroVironment, which sources said the U.S. military has used quietly for years in targeted killing operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The demonstration told a story of promise and peril.

Americans have become accustomed to images of Hellfire missiles raining down from Predator and Reaper drones to hit terrorist targets in Pakistan or Yemen. But that was yesterday’s drone war.

A revolution in unmanned aerial vehicles is unfolding, and the U.S. has lost its monopoly on the technology.

IMAGE: An AeroVironment operator prepares to launch the Switchblade drone at Utah’s Dugway Proving Ground. (NBC News)

Some experts believe the spread of the semi-autonomous weapons will change ground warfare as profoundly as the machine gun did.

They can leapfrog traditional defenses to strike infantry troops anywhere on the battlefield, and they cost just $6,000 apiece, compared to $150,000 for the Hellfire missile typically fired by Predator or Reaper drones. That capability could help save the lives of U.S. troops, but it could also put them — and Americans at home — in great danger from terrorists or nation-states that haven’t previously had access to such lethal and affordable technology.

“I think this is going to be the new IED,” or improvised explosive device, said Shaan Shaikh, a missile expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s something that we can see that is going to be a problem, and we have some defenses, but not enough.”

Dubbed kamikaze, suicide or killer drones, these unmanned aircraft don’t fire missiles — they are the missiles. But unlike typical missiles, they can circle above a target, wait for the ideal moment and strike with incredible precision.

The U.S. military couldn’t have fought the way it did in Iraq or Afghanistan if the enemy had had killer drones. The next battlefield opponent is likely to have them. And terrorists will eventually get them, too — a possibility that has homeland security officials scrambling to find a solution, given that there is no surefire defense against them.

“There are over 100 countries and nonstate groups that have drones today, and the technology is widely proliferating,” said Paul Scharre, a former Army Ranger who is a scholar at the Center for a New American Security and the author of “Army of None,” a book about autonomous weapons. “It levels the playing field between the U.S. and terrorist groups or rebel groups in a way that's certainly not good for the United States.”

Today’s small lethal drones are difficult to detect on radar, and they can even be programmed to hit targets without human intervention, based on facial recognition or some other computer wizardry. And while the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security are spending billions of dollars to come up with “counter drone” technology, experts say there is, as yet, no foolproof version of it.
Taken into battle in a backpack

Weighing just 5½ pounds, including its small warhead, the Switchblade can be taken into battle in a backpack and fly up to 7 miles to hit a target. The 300 model is designed to kill individuals, while a larger version, the 600, can destroy armored vehicles. AeroVironment isn’t yet allowed to show the bigger one to the public.

They are called “Switchblade” because their bladelike wings spring out on launch.

“It allows our warfighter to have a battlefield superiority, which our enemies can't see, can't hear, can't tell it's coming, and really precisely achieve a specific mission effect,” said Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment’s Afghan-born CEO.

Nawabi said he has been told that the Taliban and others who have been on the receiving end refer to it as an angry bird or a buzzing bee.

Public procurement data show that the Switchblade 300 costs a small fraction of a Hellfire missile’s price tag, let alone the total cost of keeping Reaper drones in the air, flown by pilots in Nevada.

The Switchblade has a feature that allows the operator to adjust the blast radius, so it can kill the driver of a vehicle but not a passenger, for example. The weapon can be “waved off” up to two seconds before impact, AeroVironment says, in the event of a mistake or a risk to civilians.

That wave-off capability is notable in light of the catastrophe in September when the military killed 10 civilians, seven of them children, in a drone strike in Afghanistan that officials now say was a tragic mistake. A Pentagon review found that the strike team was unaware of the presence of children when it decided to fire. Officials said that a child was observed through a video feed of the target area after the launch but that by then the Hellfire missile couldn’t be recalled.

The Switchblade has cameras that show a target seconds before impact. But for a better view of the battlefield, it’s often used in conjunction with a small surveillance drone.

For the NBC News demonstration, AeroVironment used the Puma, which is launched by hand like a large model airplane and provides high-resolution color imagery of the ground. The images beamed back from the Puma’s cameras made it clear that an operator could see the expression on the face of a target in the seconds before the Switchblade struck.

Portable drones provide air support to small ground force units even when overhead assets — fighter jets, helicopters, larger drones — aren’t available, Scharre said.

“The ability to have something that's small and tube-launched that's in your backpack, that the squad leader has access to, that they don't have to get on the radio and call in close air support ... that is a real game changer from a military capability standpoint,” he said.

It’s a game changer not just for the U.S.

The Switchblade may be the most advanced of the genre, but Russia, China, Israel, Iran and Turkey all have some version of a killer drone. Iranian-backed militias have used small drones in 10 attacks this year on U.S. bases in Iraq, the military says. No U.S. personnel have been hurt or killed, but it is only the beginning.

IMAGE: An AeroVironment operator prepares to launch the Puma surveillance drone. (NBC News)

The tiny country of Azerbaijan used small Turkish-made drones to devastating effect against the Armenian military last year, bringing a decisive end to a stalemate over a disputed enclave that had gone on for years.

Video released by Azerbaijan shows the drones pummeling artillery, tank and troop emplacements surrounded by trenches that offered no protection whatsoever from the fiery death raining down from above.

Russia and Ukraine have used armed drones in fighting over a disputed region, and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels used them to blow up Saudi oil facilities in 2019.

Drones, Scharre and other experts say, may usher in the largest transformation of ground war tactics since the advent of the machine gun at the turn of the 20th century, which quickly put an end to sending large formations of troops marching into gunfire.

Drones “are making the battlefield a much more dangerous place for ground troops,” Scharre said. “Now, hiding behind a wall, hiding in a trench line, is not enough to protect you from the enemy.”

U.S. troops in Iraq are experiencing that danger firsthand. Iranian-backed militias have used small drones in nine attacks on U.S. facilities in Iraq this year, a U.S. military spokesman said. No one has been hurt or killed, but it’s only a matter of time.

A suicide drone attack on an oil tanker linked to an Israeli billionaire killed two crew members off Oman in the Arabian Sea on July 29.

“We have found that every time we come up with some way to defend ourselves against [drones], the technology rapidly advances to the point where it defeats our defensive capabilities,” said Michael Patrick "Mick" Mulroy, a retired Marine and former CIA officer who was deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East from 2017 to 2019.

Mulroy, an ABC News analyst, said that drone defenses include electronic jamming and various methods to shoot them down but that there are technologies and tactics to bypass every possible defense.

IMAGE: AeroVironment CEO Wahid Nawabi and Ken Dilanian at in a demonstration of the Switchblade drone (NBC News)

The military, for example, can sometimes shoot high-powered weapons at incoming drones on a battlefield.

Inside populated areas, however, small, explosives-laden unmanned aerial vehicles pose a more vexing problem.

In a war zone, “you could do more things with electronic warfare ... with using high-powered microwaves that might be very disruptive in a domestic context,” Scharre said. “You could shoot bullets on the sky in a war zone, and you might be less concerned about where they're going land out in the desert than in a major American city.”

Meanwhile, all the barriers put up in cities to keep truck bombs away from buildings are useless against drones.

So far, no terrorist group is known to have used a suicide drone. But experts believe it’s only a matter of time. The Islamic State terrorist group put explosives on hobbyist drones and used them to harass and occasionally injure coalition forces in Iraq and Syria.

The specter of a swarm of explosives-packed drones buzzing toward a crowded U.S. sports arena keeps homeland security officials up at night.

But the government has been slow to react. It was only in 2018 that Congress granted the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies the authority to take down drones deemed to be threats inside the U.S.

Since then, DHS has been contracting with outside companies and testing technologies to defeat the drone threat.

A spokesman declined to comment when asked for an update from DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate on the state of domestic counter-drone programs.

In an article on DHS’ website in July, the agency discusses some of its counter-drone efforts and notes that tests have been conducted. But the article doesn’t say whether the tests showed that any of the technology works consistently.

In 2018, the head of DHS’ intelligence division at the time told Congress that drones posed a major threat.

“Commercially available drones can be employed by terrorists and criminals to deliver explosives or harmful substances, conduct surveillance both domestically and internationally against U.S. citizens, interests and assets,” said the official, David Glawe. “This threat is significant, and it's imminent, and it's upon us.”