A neuroscientist explains why stupidity is an existential threat to America

Bobby Azarian, Raw Story
February 20, 2023

WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert (R-CO) walks to the House Chamber during the third day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 05, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

It may sound like an insensitive statement, but the cold hard truth is that there are a lot of stupid people in the world, and their stupidity presents a constant danger to others. Some of these people are in positions of power, and some of them have been elected to run our country. A far greater number of them do not have positions of power, but they still have the power to vote, and the power to spread their ideas. We may have heard of “collective intelligence,” but there is also “collective stupidity,” and it is a force with equal influence on the world. It would not be a stretch to say that at this point in time, stupidity presents an existential threat to America because, in some circles, it is being celebrated.

Although the term "stupidity" may seem derogatory or insulting, it is actually a scientific concept that refers to a specific type of cognitive failure. It is important to realize that stupidity is not simply a lack of intelligence or knowledge, but rather a failure to use one's cognitive abilities effectively. This means that you can be “smart” while having a low IQ, or no expertise in anything. It is often said that “you can’t fix stupid,” but that is not exactly true. By becoming aware of the limitations of our natural intelligence or our ignorance, we can adjust our reasoning, behavior, and decision-making to account for our intellectual shortcomings.

To demonstrate that stupidity does not mean having a low IQ, consider the case of Richard Branson, the billionaire CEO of Virgin Airlines, who is one of the world’s most successful businessmen. Branson has said that he was seen as the dumbest person in school, and has admitted to having dyslexia, a learning disability that affects one’s ability to read and correctly interpret written language. But it wasn’t just reading comprehension that was the problem — “Math just didn’t make sense to me,” Branson has said. “I would certainly have failed an IQ test.”

So, what is responsible for his enormous success, both financially and in terms of being a prolific innovator? Branson attributes his success to surrounding himself with highly knowledgeable and extremely competent people. Branson’s smarts come from his ability to recognize his own limitations, and to know when to defer to others on topics or tasks where he lacks sufficient knowledge or skill.
The video player is currently playing an ad.

RELATED: Greene blasted for 'parroting Kremlin talking points' after Biden visits Kyiv

This means you don’t have to be traditionally intelligent or particularly knowledgeable to be successful in life, make good decisions, have good judgment, and be a positive influence on the world. Stupidity is a consequence of a failure to be aware of one’s own limitations, and this type of cognitive failure has a scientific name: the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a well-known psychological phenomenon that describes the tendency for individuals to overestimate their level of intelligence, knowledge, or competence in a particular area. They may also simultaneously misjudge the intelligence, expertise, or competence of others. In other words, they are ignorant of their own ignorance. The effect has been widely written about, and investigated empirically, with hundreds of studies published in peer-reviewed journals confirming and analyzing the phenomenon, particularly in relation to the dangers it poses in certain contexts.

It is easy to think of examples in which failing to recognize one’s own ignorance can become dangerous. Take for example when people with no medical training try to provide medical advice. It doesn’t take much Internet searching to find some nutritionist from the “alternative medicine” world who is claiming that some herbal ingredient has the power to cure cancer. Some of these people are scam artists, but many of them truly believe that they have a superior understanding of health and physiology. There are many people who trust these self-proclaimed experts, and there is no doubt that some have paid their lives for it.

What’s particularly disturbing about the Dunning-Kruger effect is that people are attracted to confident leaders, so politicians are incentivized to be overconfident in their beliefs and opinions, and to overstate their expertise. For example, Donald Trump — despite not having any real understanding of what causes cancer — suggested that the noise from wind turbines is causing cancer (a claim that is not supported by any empirical studies). It is well documented that on topics ranging from pandemics to climate change, Trump routinely dismissed the opinions of the professionals who have dedicated their lives to understanding those phenomena, because he thought that he knew better. It’s bad enough that politicians like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene don’t recognize their own ignorance and fail to exercise the appropriate amount of caution when making claims that can affect public health and safety — but what is really disturbing is that they are being celebrated for their over-confidence (i.e., stupidity).

It is less surprising that politicians who regularly exhibit the Dunning-Kruger effect are being elected to office when one realizes that they are being voted in by people who also display the Dunning-Kruger effect. A 2008 study by the political scientist Ian Anson surveyed over 2000 Americans in an attempt to see whether or not the effect was playing a role in one’s ability to overestimate their political knowledge. The results clearly showed that the people who scored lowest on political knowledge were the very same people who were the most likely to overestimate their performance. While this is shocking, it also makes perfect sense: the less we know about something, the less of an ability we have to assess how much we don’t know. It is only when we try to become an expert on some complex topic that we truly realize how complicated it is, and how much more there is to learn about it.

This new theory of stupidity I have proposed here — that stupidity is not a lack of intelligence or knowledge, but a lack of awareness of the limits of one’s intelligence or knowledge — is more important right now than ever before, and I’ll tell you why. The same study by Anson mentioned above showed that when cues were given to make the participants “engage in partisan thought,” the Dunning-Kruger effect became more pronounced. In other words, if someone is reminded of the Republican-Democrat divide, they become even more overconfident in their uninformed positions. This finding suggests that in today’s unprecedently divided political climate, we are all more likely to have an inflated sense of confidence in our unsupported beliefs. What’s more, those who actually have the greatest ignorance will assume they have the least!

What we are dealing with here is an epidemic of stupidity that will only get worse as divisions continue to increase. This should motivate all of us to do what we can to ease the political division. When we can clearly see the social factors that are causing people to become increasingly stupid, our anger and hatred toward them should dissipate. We do not have much control over our level of intelligence or ignorance, or our ignorance of our ignorance.

But this does not mean that we should accept stupidity as the result of deterministic forces that are beyond our control. After gaining a deeper awareness of our own cognitive limitations and limited knowledge base, we should do what we can to instill this higher awareness in others. We must not just educate the public and our youth; we must teach them to become aware of their own ignorance, and give them the skills they need to search for more knowledge, and to detect when they or others are overestimating their knowledge or competency.

We have good reason to be optimistic that this is possible. A 2009 study showed that incompetent students increased their ability to estimate their class rank after being tutored in the skills they lacked. This suggests that we can learn a type of “meta-awareness” that gives us the power to more accurately assess ourselves and our own limitations. Once we can do that, then we can know when we need to do more research on a given topic, or to defer to experts. We can also get better at distinguishing between true experts and those who only claim to be experts (but are really just demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect).

We are all victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect to some degree. An inability to accurately assess our own competency and wisdom is something we see in both liberals and conservatives. While being more educated typically decreases our Dunning-Kruger tendencies, it does not eliminate them entirely. That takes constant cognitive effort in the form of self-awareness, continual curiosity, and a healthy amount of skepticism. By cultivating this type of awareness in ourselves, and making an effort to spread it to others, we can fight back against the stupidity crisis that threatens our nation.

Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist and the author of the new book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity. He is also a blogger for Psychology Today and the creator of the Substack Road to Omega. Follow him @BobbyAzarian.

Double whammy: Top Kansas Republican wants to roll back food tax relief to afford flat tax plan

Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector
February 20, 2023

Senate President Ty Masterson appears Jan. 20, 2023, before the Senate tax committee to urge lawmakers to support plans to limit tax relief on food to “healthy” items in order to afford a lower income tax rate. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)


TOPEKA — Senate President Ty Masterson’s “broader picture” for tax policy changes came into focus Monday with a plan that involves rolling back tax relief on food so the state can afford to cut income taxes for the highest wage earners.

The Senate tax committee passed a flat tax plan that would lower the income tax rate for all wage brackets to 4.75% at an estimated cost of about $566 million in the next calendar year. The impact on state revenue would be lessened by applying the sales tax on food to just “healthy” items.

Masterson appeared before the committee to promote the two pieces of legislation.

“Is this meant to only help those less fortunate? I think the answer is no,” Masterson said. “They’re to be helped, but it’s to help all Kansans, not just those less fortunate, because the structure’s there. The best thing for them is a job. We can’t keep on the train of buying economic development. You have to put a tax structure in place where those jobs remain. And so that helps everybody.”
The video player is currently playing an ad.

He praised Gov. Laura Kelly for effectively using her “axe the tax” line during last year’s gubernatorial campaign, where she touted passage of legislation to gradually eliminate the 6.5% state sales tax on food. But he urged lawmakers to consider the “broader picture.”

Masterson’s proposal would repeal the gradual elimination of state sales tax on food, which would reduce annual revenues by about $450 million when fully implemented on Jan. 1, 2025. Instead, Senate Bill 248 would exempt select food items from both state and local sales tax, reducing state revenues by about $284 million in the next fiscal year.

The goal, Masterson said, is not to incentivize healthy food choices. The plan is to afford tax cuts elsewhere, he said.

“You can do things in an overall package, like take tax off Social Security, and if you’re truly interested in helping those in their golden years, you want to look at stuff like that,” Masterson said. “The other thing we need to do is look at the structure that we’re under. The states that are doing the best are the zero income tax states. And this is not even an attempt to get there. The second tier are those with the single rate flat tax. So the structure is actually the most important thing to get to. And this would allow you to get to a structure with a lower rate.”

Opponents of the “healthy foods” legislation include grocers and family advocates who say the change would be confusing, difficult to implement, and reduce revenue for local governments. They also raised concerns about which items qualify as “healthy.”

The list of healthy items is based on foods that qualify for the federal Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. The legislation specifies fruits and vegetables; meat, poultry and fish; eggs, milk, cheese and yogurt; infant formula; whole wheat or whole grain bread; corn or flour tortillas; pasta; brown rice, bulgur, oatmeal and whole grain barley; breakfast cereals; beans and nuts; and peanut butter.

Jami Reever, executive director of Kansas Appleseed, said one in four Kansas kids lives in a household that cannot afford to eat nutritious meals.

Additionally, Reever said, one in six Kansans lives in a food desert, which means they don’t have access to a grocery store. Those who get their food from a convenience store, for example, might have to choose white rice over brown rice because that is what is available.

“Families have to make really tough choices every single day about what they feed their families,” Reever said. “I think it’s better that kids go to bed with a full tummy than with no food at all. And I’m worried that by just adding on to the food bill, they’ll have to make some really impossible choices.”


Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican who chairs the tax committee, took issue with mailers sent by Kansas Appleseed that urged support for eliminating the sales tax on food. Tyson’s complaint: The sales tax reduction passed last year applied to “groceries,” not “food.”

Tyson: “Your fliers were absolutely misleading, then, because you said remove it on food.”

Reever: “We called it the food sales tax.”

Tyson: “Yeah, which is misleading.”

Reever: “I thank you for pointing that out.”

The committee concluded the hearing on the sales tax bill in the morning, then met again over the lunch hour to consider other proposals. They included Senate Bill 169, an alternative to the Kansas Chamber’s proposed flat tax plan.

Under current law, the income tax rate is 3.1% for income under $15,000, 5.25% for income between $15,000 and $30,000, and 5.7% for income above $30,000. The dollar amounts are doubled for couples filing jointly.

SB 169 would eliminate the income tax for those earning less than $5,225 annually and apply a 4.75% rate to all others.

Critics of the flat tax compare it to former Gov. Sam Brownback’s “tax experiment” because it involves a dramatic sudden reduction in state revenue and disproportionately favors the highest wage earners.

“For the life of me, I don’t understand why the committee is going down this path,” said Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City. “We tried something very similar with the Brownback tax experiment. My concern is not only is it a more aggressive tax, once again, it’s really effectively reducing the tax rate for the wealthiest Kansans. The second thing is that we simply can’t afford this.”

Sen. Virgil Peck, R-Havana, said he wanted to “make sure it’s on the record” that the flat tax is different from legislation passed in 2012, which cut the rate for top earners and eliminated the income tax for businesses.

Peck said he supported the 2012 plan and believes it would have worked if the Legislature had controlled spending.

“That’s ancient history — or at least history, not ancient,” Peck said. “And so I just thought that I would mention that this is not the Brownback tax plan. This is the Legislature’s attempt to do some things to make our state more competitive for our workers, for bringing business and citizens to our state.”

The committee passed the flat tax bill on a party line vote, sending it to the full Senate for consideration.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

S.Korean court recognises spousal insurance coverage for same-sex couple

While South Korea does not recognise same-sex marriages, gay relationships are not criminalised. — Reuters pic

Tuesday, 21 Feb 2023

SEOUL, Feb 21 — A South Korean court on Tuesday recognised spousal coverage by state health insurance for a same-sex couple, overturning a lower court’s ruling that denied the benefits.

The Seoul High Court’s ruling is the court’s “first recognition of the legal status of a same-sex couple,” said lawyer Ryu Min-hee, part of a team of lawyers that represented the plaintiff.

South Korea does not legally recognise same-sex marriage.

The plaintiff, So Sung-wook, filed a suit against the National Health Insurance Service in 2021 after the state health insurer denied spousal benefits to him despite granting such rights to other common law couples.

A lower court had said a same-sex union cannot be considered a common law marriage under current law and ruled in favour of the insurer.

According to Ryu, the appellate court said the spousal coverage system under the state health insurance scheme was not just for families as defined by law, and not granting the rights to people in same-sex relationships was discrimination.

Protecting the rights of minorities is the “biggest responsibility” of the court as the “last bastion” of human rights, the court added.

The National Health Insurance Service said it will appeal the ruling.

“This is an important decision that moves South Korea closer to achieving marriage equality,” Amnesty International’s East Asia researcher Boram Jang said.

“There is still a long way to go to end discrimination against the LGBTI community, but this ruling offers hope that prejudice can be overcome.” — Reuters

THE CARL SCHMITT REFORM

Israeli government advances controversial judicial reforms

Plan would give Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition more power over who becomes a judge

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a vote on the plan to overhaul Israel's legal system. Reuters

The National
Feb 20, 2023

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government voted to move on a plan to overhaul the country’s legal system on Tuesday.

The vote sparked protests in Israel and calls for calm from the US and other nations.

It gave initial approval to a plan that would give Mr Netanyahu’s coalition more power over who becomes a judge.

It is part of a broader package of changes that seeks to weaken the country’s Supreme Court and transfer more power to the ruling coalition.

READ MORE
Israel's Netanyahu calls for calm amid opposition to judicial reforms

"A great night and a great day," Mr Netanyahu tweeted after the preliminary vote.

He won 64 of the Knesset's 120 seats, making it likely his two revisions on the agenda, the other limiting the Supreme Court's ability to strike down legislation, will be ratified.

Polls have shown most Israelis want the reforms slowed to allow dialogue, or put off completely, Reuters reported.

The vote on part of the legislation is the first of three readings required for parliamentary approval, a process that is expected to take months.


The opposition, including tens of thousands of protesters in front of the Knesset in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv, saw Monday’s vote as the coalition’s determination to barrel ahead.

“We are fighting for our children’s future, for our country’s future. We don’t intend to give up,” said opposition leader Yair Lapid.


After the shekel fell 1 per cent weaker versus the dollar, many economists and leaders of high-tech and banking have warned of investor and capital flight from Israel.

But Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni, the head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, said: "There is no link between the justice system reforms and any blow to Israel's economy. Any attempt at linkage is politicised."

Opposition politicians protested against Mr Gafni's statement, calling the committee "a circus".

Updated: February 21, 2023

The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal W (routledge.com)

https://aeon.co/essays/carl-schmitts-legal-theory-legitimises-the-rule-of-the-strongman

Carl Schmitt's legal theory legitimises the rule of the strongman - Aeon 

Jun 12, 2020 ... Within that tradition, one thinker stands out: the conservative German constitutional lawyer and political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888-1985).

https://theconversation.com/carl-schmitt-nazi-era-philosopher-who-wrote-blueprint-for-new-authoritarianism-59835

Carl Schmitt: Nazi-era philosopher who wrote blueprint for New ... 

May 25, 2016 ... Carl Schmitt, a brilliant jurist and political philosopher, both predicted the collapse of the Weimar Republic, and was – for a short time – a ...

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262192446/political-theology

Political Theology - MIT Press 

Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought. Political Theology. Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. by Carl Schmitt. Translated by George Schwab.

Tens of thousands in Israel rally against 'dictator's bill' as lawmakers vote on judicial overhaul

Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams
February 20, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu GALI TIBBON POOL:AFP:File

Tens of thousands of people opposed to the far-right Israeli government's proposed judicial overhaul once again hit the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Monday, where they implored lawmakers to vote against the measures during the afternoon's first reading.

"On the morning of the vote, small groups of protesters sat down outside the front doors of some coalition lawmakers' homes in a bid to block them from leaving for parliament. They were removed by the police," The New York Timesreported. After blocking highways to Jerusalem, protesters gathered outside parliament, where doctors "set up a mock triage station for 'casualties of the judicial reform.'"

Despite weeks of massive demonstrations, members of the Israeli Knesset are expected to pass the legislation, which is supported by right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his close ally, Justice Minister Yariv Levin.

If that happens, the Supreme Court's ability to overrule parliament would be weakened, as a simple 61-vote majority could override the court's decisions; the Supreme Court's ability to review and strike down attempts to change Israel's 13 quasi-constitutional "Basic Laws" would be abolished; and the ruling coalition would gain control of the Judicial Appointments Commission, a panel tasked with picking new judges.

The legislation must be approved three times to become law, with Monday afternoon's vote marking the first step in the process. Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a largely ceremonial figure, and opposition leader Yair Lapid have pleaded for Netanyahu's government to delay the legislation, to no avail.

On the eve of the initial vote, Levin said, "We won't stop the legislation now, but there is more than enough time until the second and third readings to hold an earnest and real dialogue and to reach understandings."

But as the Times noted, "critics have dismissed the government's position as disingenuous, arguing that once the bills have passed a first vote, only cosmetic changes will be possible."

Organizers, for their part, said Monday that "with the passage of the dictator's bill, the protests will intensify," according toi24 News.

Opponents "say the proposed overhaul would place unchecked power in the hands of the government, remove protections afforded to individuals and minorities, and deepen divisions in an already fractured society," the Times reported. They also worry that "Netanyahu, who is standing trial on corruption charges, could use the changes to extricate himself from his legal troubles."

In addition, Al Jazeerareported, opponents fear that "Netanyahu's nationalist allies want to weaken the Supreme Court to establish more settlements on land the Palestinians seek for a state. But settlements, which are considered illegal under international laws, have continued under successive Israeli governments. Nearly 600,000-750,000 Israelis now live in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem."

Last week, Netanyahu's administration granted retroactive "legalization" to nine such settlements, and the prime minister has also intensified deadly raids, killing at least 50 Palestinians in occupied territories so far this year.

A right-wing neutering of the Supreme Court could exacerbate Israel's regime of violent dispossession and ethnic cleansing.

But the weekslong demonstrations against the proposed judicial overhaul "include very few Palestinians," Jewish Currents editorPeter Beinart observed Sunday in a Times op-ed titled "You Can't Save Democracy in a Jewish State."

"In fact, Palestinian politicians have criticized them for having, in the words of former Knesset member Sami Abu Shehadeh, 'nothing to do with the main problem in the region—justice and equality for all the people living here,'" Beinart wrote.

"The reason is that the movement against Mr. Netanyahu is not like the pro-democracy opposition movements in Turkey, India, or Brazil—or the movement against Trumpism in the United States," he added. "It's not a movement for equal rights. It's a movement to preserve the political system that existed before Mr. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition took power, which was not, for Palestinians, a genuine liberal democracy in the first place. It's a movement to save liberal democracy for Jews."

For Palestinians, Israel is not a democracy but rather an apartheid state, an assessment shared by numerous human rights groups around the world. The Israeli government has enacted discriminatory laws against Palestinians and colonized their land for decades, including under Lapid.

According to Beinart: "The principle that Mr. Netanyahu's liberal Zionist critics say he threatens—a Jewish and democratic state—is in reality a contradiction. Democracy means government by the people. Jewish statehood means government by Jews. In a country where Jews comprise only half of the people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the second imperative devours the first."

"Ultimately, a movement premised on ethnocracy cannot successfully defend the rule of law," he added. "Only a movement for equality can."

Tomato shortage hits British supermarkets after poor weather across Europe and Africa

21 February 2023, 

Cold weather is Spain has affected crop availability, Tesco has said. Picture: Social media/Getty

 

By Kieran Kelly@kellyjourno

Supermarkets across Britain have been hit with a shortage of tomatoes after a wave of bad weather across Europe and Africa disrupted supply chains.

Growers and suppliers in Morocco have had to contend with cold temperatures, heavy rain, flooding and cancelled ferries over the past three to four weeks.

Production problems in Morocco began in January with unusually cold night-time temperatures that affected tomato ripening.

Shoppers across the country have taken to social media to point out the lack of tomatoes at their local stores.

UK importers have become increasingly reliant on Morocco due to Brexit, which has affected with other tomato-producing European nations.

Spain remains a primary source of tomatoes for the UK, which has also been affected by colder weather in recent weeks.

Read More: Extinction Rebellion stunt targets London Fashion Week red carpet and 'world's biggest plastic polluter' Coca-Cola

Read more: Junior doctors overwhelmingly vote to stage mass 72-hour strike next month

Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, said: "Difficult weather conditions in the south of Europe and northern Africa have disrupted harvest for some fruit and vegetables including tomatoes.

"However, supermarkets are adept at managing supply chain issues and are working with farmers to ensure that customers are able to access a wide range of fresh produce."

A spokesperson for the British Tomato Growers Association (BTGA) said recent shortages are “predominantly a consequence of the lack of imported product”.

“The British tomato season will soon begin and we expect significant volumes of British tomatoes on shelves by the end of March and into April 2023," they added.

Howard Schultz declined Bernie Sanders’ request to testify before Congress

By Dayun Park
Updated 4:55 PM EST, Wed February 15, 2023

CNN —

Howard Schultz has declined Bernie Sanders’ request to testify before Congress.

In a refusal relatively rare on Capitol Hill, Starbucks Chief Executive Schultz turned the Vermont senior senator down Tuesday when asked to appear and testify about the coffee giant’s compliance with federal labor laws.

Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, along with 10 other members of it, asked Schultz last week to attend a public hearing on March 9 and answer questions on the company’s history of suppressing union-organization efforts.

In the invitation, Sanders said that Starbucks (SBUX) “has fought their workers every step of the way, including refusing to bargain a first contract in good faith, delay tactics, and a significant escalation in union busting.”

Starbucks has faced a labor battle since a Buffalo store became the first to unionize in 2021. While Starbucks Workers United has sought better pay and benefits, the company has apparently put efforts into retaliating against workers who tried to unionize.

The National Labor Relations Board regional offices have issued 76 complaints against Starbucks alleging illegal layoffs, closing stores and threatening to withhold pay hikes and benefits, mostly filed since 2021.

About 100 Starbucks stores across the U.S staged a three-day strike in December, following a one-day strike in November, to protest unfair labor practices. So far, Starbucks has not negotiated a contract with any of the stores that voted to unionize.

Schultz, an interim CEO, rejoined Starbucks in April 2022 after two previous multi-year stints at the company. He plans to step down in April and therefore cannot join the hearing as he is in “fully transition” model, according to Starbucks general counsel Zabrina Jenkins.

“Given the timing of the transition, his relinquishment of any operating role in the company going forward, and what we understand to be the subject of the hearing, we believe another senior leader with ongoing responsibilities is best suited to address these matters,” the general counsel’s statement said.

Starbucks announced that its chief public affairs officer and executive vice president AJ Jones II, will attend instead. Jones is a former senior aide to Democratic Representative James Clyburn.

“It is unfortunate that Howard Schultz, the architect of Starbucks’ unprecedented union-busting campaign, is refusing to take accountability for his actions and is instead sending a subordinate in his place. One of the main reasons Starbucks workers organized is to hold billionaire executives, like Schultz, accountable for their actions,” Starbucks Workers United said in a statement to CNN.

Said Sanders in his statement, “Apparently, it is easier for Mr. Schultz to fire workers who are exercising their constitutional right to form unions… than to answer questions from elected officials. I intend to hold Mr. Schultz and Starbucks accountable for their unacceptable behavior and look forward to seeing him before our committee.”

Last week, Sanders told The Associated Press that he would consider using the committee’s subpoena power if Schultz declined his invitation. Sander’s office didn’t respond to CNN’s inquiries regarding that possibility.

A total of 338 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since 2021, 282 have been certified across 36 states and 56 didn’t get certified. An additional three elections are currently in progress.

Starbucks said to CNN: “At those stores where our partners have chosen to petition for union representation, we have fully honored the process laid out by the NLRB and have worked to ensure that partners can trust the process is fair, their voice is heard, and that the outcome is accurate.”

George Santos & Marjorie Taylor Greene cosponsor federal book ban bill

The Trump supporters have cosponsored a bill that could be used to ban books by LGBTQ+ authors in schools.

By Alex Bollinger

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. George SantosPhoto: Screenshot

Out Rep. George Santos (R-NY) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are cosponsoring a bill that could restrict students’ access to books that discuss LGBTQ+ themes.

Santos is one of 11 out LGBTQ+ members of the House of Representatives and the only one advancing an anti-LGBTQ+ equality agenda. The other 10 LGBTQ+ House members are Democrats.

The bill, H.R. 863, was filed last week by Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL), who said that it will “end the sexualization of children in schools.”

The full text of the bill has not been uploaded to the Congressional database and Mills hasn’t posted it to his website yet, but its description says its purpose is “to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit a publishing house from knowingly furnishing sexually explicit material to a school or an educational agency, to prohibit Federal funds from being provided to a school that obtains or an educational agency that distributes sexually explicit material, and for other purposes.”

Schools are not distributing pornography to students and publishers are not selling porn magazines to schools to stock in their libraries. The mention of “sexually explicit material” likely refers to books that discuss LGBTQ+ people. Many on the right refer to any discussion of LGBTQ+ people in the presence of children as the “sexualization of children.”

The bill also dovetails with right-wing fear about “pornography” in schools. Many right-wing activists over the past several years have called any book that discusses sexuality at all “pornography,” including books that discuss non-heterosexual family structures. The language has been used to raise the stakes as conservative parents try to get books by LGBTQ+ authors banned from school districts.

For example, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) shared a fake news article that claimed the left wants to be “teaching pornography” to children in schools. When called out, he said, “It could easily have been real.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) sent a letter in late 2021 to a board saying that “a growing number of parents of Texas students” are “rightfully angry” about kids being “exposed to pornography” in school, just a month after a Texas Republican state lawmaker issued a list of 850 books he demanded school districts investigate. The list included books like And Tango Makes Three, which is about a baby penguin raised by two penguin dads, and Being Jazz, about the life of trans television personality Jazz Jennings.

The extreme rhetoric resulted in the police being called on the Republican Massachusetts secretary of state candidate Rayla Campbell last year. Campbell waved a book by an asexual and non-binary author that she claimed was “child pornography” and said that it should be banned from schools. Since she effectively admitted to being in possession of child pornography, someone called the police. An officer looked through the book and determined that it was not child pornography and she was not arrested.

“The battlefield for the future of our society is being fought within the classrooms of American schools,” Mills said in a statement about H.R. 863. “This bill targets the Left’s efforts to sexualize children in schools across the U.S.”

“From school board meetings to new representation in local, state, and federal levels, Americans are waking up to the grim reality of woke indoctrination guised as a normal education. No more.”

Only seven of Mills’s colleagues have cosponsored the bill so far, including Santos and Greene.

Despite being gay and having a background in drag performance, Santos campaigned on an anti-LGBTQ+ platform. In one media appearance before he was elected, he decried same-sex couples raising children.

“The family unit has been under attack for decades, decades!” Santos said on John Stubbins’s conservative Indivisible show. “In different ways, right? The flavor of the decade is same-sex couples. ‘Oh, that’s so OK!’ Look, to each their own, I don’t have anything against that but they’re teaching in school how kids that, you know, you don’t need a mommy and a daddy, you can have two mommies, you can have two daddies. I think that’s a little much for kids, right?”

“And when we have instability in the family unit, you wreak havoc,” he continued. “One parent can’t parent two kids as well as two parents, and there’s always that feminine touch to boys from the mother and that masculine touch to boys from the father, same thing goes for the daughters, and it creates equilibrium and balance.”

Santos was also a supporter of Donald Trump, who banned transgender people from serving openly in the military, fought for religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws so that religious health care providers and businesses could refuse LGBTQ+ patients and customers, and opposed the Equality Act, which would have banned anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination at the federal level in a number of areas.



Santos and Greene have not released statements about H.R. 863.

Drag bans could result in arrests at Pride parades

If a drag queen (or trans person) lip syncs to a song while riding a float, they would be in violation of the proposed laws.

By Sarah Prager Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Photo: Shutterstock


Laws banning drag performances have been introduced in legislative sessions in at least 14 states this year, and their potential effects are much more far-reaching than entertaining shows.

An alarming number of anti-LGBTQ+ (particularly anti-transgender) bills continue to be introduced; the ACLU is tracking 278 of them across 33 states. While many target bathrooms, IDs, books, healthcare, education, and sports, a newer trend this year is attempting to ban drag.

Republican state legislators in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia have all introduced various bills on this theme.

Sybastian Smith, Director of Organizing for the National Center for Transgender Equality, says there are about 32 bills that seek to ban drag shows currently in state legislatures.

“Five of these bills have specified that exposure to the LGBTQ+ community is child abuse, most of these bills ban minors and ban drag performers from public spaces,” Smith told LGBTQ Nation. “In fact, about six of these bills have defined drag performers as people who dressed and expressed differently from their ‘biological sex’ or ‘gender identity,’ and we have concerns that this also applies to everyday transgender people.”

Like other anti-transgender bills that seek to ban gender-affirming health care or access to public accommodations, these bills are part of a nationwide effort to legislate trans people out of existence, transgender rights advocates say.

“These bills are framed as an attack against drag performers, but it actually seeks to criminalize the very existence of transgender people by labeling gender expression and gender-affirming clothing as ‘drag,’” Smith says.

Zooey Zephyr, who took office last month as the first and only transgender woman in the Montana House of Representatives, agrees.

“These bills are designed both to ostracize and shun LGBTQ people and trans people specifically from the public and also to embolden the people who harbor anger and hatred towards trans people,” she told LGBTQ Nation. “It is clear based on the similar bills we’re seeing across the country, based on the comments of Republican presidential hopefuls for 2024 that anti-trans rhetoric is becoming a core part of the far right.”

House Bill 359 in Montana would ban minors from attending drag shows, ban drag performances from public libraries and schools, and ban minors from entering any business that provides a drag show (labeling any such business a “sexually oriented business”). A drag performance is defined in the bill as “a performance in which a performer exhibits a gender identity that is different than the performer’s gender assigned at birth using clothing, makeup, or other physical markers and sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs for entertainment to appeal to a prurient interest.”

Zephyr is concerned that this wording could apply broadly not only to drag performers but to any transgender person in certain situations, such as a transgender parent singing to their child, a transgender actor in a local theater troupe, or even a transgender child dancing. The broad potential interpretations leave many hypotheticals to the imagination, such as if high school productions of Hairspray or As You Like It would ever be allowed again.

The Montana bill targets minors’ access to drag specifically, as do many other states’ bills that classify drag as an adult-only activity.

Drag queen story hours have become a popular way to share children’s books with LGBTQ+ content outside a school setting, where such books have become increasingly banned. After books with life-saving representation have been pulled from library and school shelves, it has been dangerous to even attend drag storytimes to access them. GLAAD reported at least 141 anti-drag protests, attacks, or significant threats in 2022, including drag story hours, brunches, and bingo events. The attacks included multiple incidents of armed Neo-Nazis disrupting or protesting drag events, including those with children present.

Now several states want to criminalize those events altogether, but this isn’t the first time in U.S. history this has happened.

“These attacks are not new,” Smith says. “Historically, we have seen extremists use harmful rhetoric like this for decades.” He points to anti-crossdressing laws in the 19th and 20th centuries that were one element of anti-LGBTQ+ persecution that protestors at the Stonewall Inn fought back against. Police routinely used these laws as excuses to harass and arrest LGBTQ+ people when they had no other charges they could use, such as catching someone in the act of sodomy.

Today, Smith, Zephyr, and others are concerned that anti-drag laws will be used to target transgender people who are not drag performers, just like the laws repealed decades ago.

The most broadly written bills, like Tennessee’s House Bill 9 and North Dakota’s House Bill 1333, ban drag from being performed on any public property, which would mean drag would not be permitted at Pride events. It could also theoretically mean that a transgender person dressing in clothing matching their gender identity but not their sex assigned at birth could be arrested if they did anything constituting a performance, such as lip-syncing to a song they were listening to.

In Tennessee and North Dakota, a first offense carries a penalty of up to nearly one year in prison, a fine of $2,500 to $3,000, or both. A second offense would be a felony and could carry a penalty of up to five to six years in prison and additional fines.

Drag performers, transgender people, loved ones of transgender people, activists, and others have been speaking out in opposition to these bills at hearings across the country. Zephyr urges others to raise their voices against these bills, a task that falls to the grassroots since there are no federal protections.

“These attacks are going to continue to escalate until we as a community—as trans people, as legislators, our friends, families, and neighbors who love and care about us—stand up and say that these policies need to stop, that trans people belong.”

ON THE RIGHT
GOP Primary Voters Want Presidential Candidates to Embrace Culture War Issues, Poll Finds

Florida governor Ron DeSantis speaks during a rally in Hialeah, Fla., November 7, 2022. 

(Marco Bello/Reuters)

By ARI BLAFF
National Review

A new poll of Republican primary voters found that the vast majority want the party’s presidential candidates to lean into culture war issues, especially when it comes to education and health care.

The survey, commissioned by the conservative, pro-family American Principles Project, found that 93 percent of the 1,000 Republican primary voters surveyed want presidential candidates to prioritize parental rights and school curriculum transparency.

There was also significant GOP voter enthusiasm for candidates who back federal laws banning permanent sex-changing medical procedures for minors (76 percent), prohibiting biological males from competing in girls’ sports (69 percent), and requiring age-verification measures for pornographic websites to protect kids (86 percent), according to the poll conducted by OnMessage Inc. between January 30 and February 5.

“GOP leaders and candidates should take from this poll one important lesson: voters expect them to fight wokeness,” Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, said in a prepared statement released with the poll.

“Support for policies protecting families from gender ideology is off the charts, with the majority of the base showing a strong preference for tackling these issues,” he said. “Meanwhile, approval of Republican establishment priorities was much more muted, with most of those surveyed even agreeing that GOP elected officials have given up too much ground in the culture war.”

The poll shows the enthusiasm Republican primary voters have for many culture-war issues. It also found that those voters expressed less interest in more “establishment-preferred issues” like reforming Social Security and Medicare (64 percent), passing a pathway to citizenship for illegal migrants (59 percent), and providing funding and military aid to Ukraine (47 percent).

According to the poll, a majority of voters who consider themselves somewhat or very conservative said they would prefer a presidential candidate who prioritizes combatting the Left’s social agenda, whereas 61 percent of moderates said they would prefer a candidate who prioritizes the more establishment issues.

In the poll, Florida governor Ron DeSantis edged out former president Donald Trump by 15 percentage points (53 percent to 38 percent) in a hypothetical head-to-head Republican showdown. But in a hypothetical field of 14 candidates, Trump led with 34 percent support, while DeSantis was just behind with 33.5 percent.

Trans activist injects testosterone in front of board at hearing to protest trans health care ban

He then shouted, "Trans liberation today, tomorrow, and forever."

By Molly Sprayregen 

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Photo: Screenshot

A trans activist has gone viral for injecting his weekly hormone shot in front of the Florida Board of Medicine and the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine while testifying against a ban on gender-affirming care for youth.

Twenty-five-year-old Lindsey Spero told the board that for months trans people have “stood before you, put their hearts on full display, and vulnerably pleaded with you to listen to our stories and perspectives.”

“The American Academy of Pediatrics has condemned your actions and our federal government has spoken out against the actions you seek to take regarding the necessary health care for trans youth,” he continued.

“I could stand here and tell you about the times I attempted to end my life because I didn’t have access to gender-affirming care, but I know, I know you don’t care. I see you sneering at us while we come here and talk to you. Instead, I’m going to take the rest of my time to demonstrate the sacred and weekly ritual of my shot in front of you in this body. My medication is lifesaving… Your denial of my need for this medication doesn’t make my existence as a trans person any less real.”

At that, Spero took out their needle and injected the shot into their stomach. A trans flag draped around them like a cape, they pumped their fist into the air and shouted, “Trans liberation today, tomorrow, and forever!” while many members of the crowd cheered and gave them a standing ovation.



Spero told Buzzfeed News he was forced to undergo conversion therapy as a kid and was kicked out of his home at 18 due to his gender identity. He said he decided to do his injection in front of the board after speaking with queer elders and deciding it was time decision-makers actually saw what gender-affirming care looks like.

“It’s crazy how many people have never seen it before,” he said. “The medical board has quite literally heard from everyone — from parents, youth, they’ve summoned medical professionals. It seems like they are past the point of being reasoned with, so I felt like action would be a strong show of resistance.”

In the moment, Spero said he “felt anger and this kind of holy rage that comes from knowing that you have no choice but to fight and that your fight is justified.”

“My hands stopped shaking and my voice became steady. I was able to slow down and look into each of their eyes. I could see the fear in their eyes and I could see in that moment how unsure they were of themselves.”

Despite the overwhelming testimony against banning gender-affirming care for trans youth, the boards voted to do so anyway and included a ban on trans youth participating in studies through state universities.