James.galbraith

Enlarge (credit: Arm)

Hey, you! Do you want to control the future of basically every mobile device on Earth, and even some laptops and desktops? Have I got a deal for you! ARM Limited is for sale, the company in charge of the ubiquitous ARM CPU architecture that powers the majority of devices that run on a battery. It will only cost a few tens of billions of dollars. Bloomberg has two reports on the matter, one stating that Nvidia is interested in buying ARM and another saying that Apple isn't.

ARM is currently owned by SoftBank group, a giant Japanese holding company previously featured on Ars for buying Boston Dynamics, buying Sprint, and buying stakes in Uber and GM's Cruise. SoftBank bought ARM for $32 billion in 2016, and since then, ARM has only gotten more powerful. ARM doesn't manufacture chips; instead, it sells IP based on the ARM CPU architecture in the form of its in-house Cortex CPU designs or licenses to design whatever you want using ARM's instruction set.

In 2016, SoftBank described ARM as its prized possession, with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son describing it as “the center of the center of SoftBank.” In the coronavirus era, SoftBank has been hit hard by the tanking valuations of Uber and WeWork, along with the bankruptcy of OneWeb, and now it's willing to sell ARM to raise money.

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Donald Trump has failed his cognitive test. Not the one that involved correctly identifying a group of animals that were the supporting cast of Dumbo, or even in being able to count backward. It’s entirely possible Trump was capable of these tasks, just as he says … although the insistence with which he makes these claims is concerning. With Trump, the more often and more forcefully he says anything, the greater the odds it’s an absolute lie.

But where Trump really failed the test wasn’t in being able to repeat five words in order, or distinguish mammals with trunks from those with humps. Trump has failed his test, because he can’t identify the purpose of the test. Again and again, Trump has indicated he thinks this was a test is meant to measure some positive aspect of his brainpower, when that is absolutely not the case. And in his repeated failures to correctly identify the purpose of the test, Trump displays a fundamental failure—one that may be related to why he was given the test in the first place.

Of course, the superstar moment from Trump’s Wednesday appearance was this …

It’s not just that Trump insists on demonstrating his ability to repeat the list “person, woman, man, camera, TV”; it’s that he explicitly describes this as one of the “difficult” questions from the end of the test. It would be interesting to know what other questions Trump found difficult. Was it drawing a cube? Being able to arrange the numbers on a clock?

The whole point of a cognitive impairment test is that there should be no difficult questions. Yes, the average person may have to think a bit In counting backward by seven or nine, but repeating five words in order is not a challenge. If it seems like one, then that’s already a concern. There is no upside to this test. It either shows nothing, or it shows an issue. It cannot be “aced” because it doesn’t measure skill. It measures loss.

As The Washington Post makes clear, just the fact that Trump has been administered this test—more than once, if he is to be believed—is extremely concerning. The test, “is normally administered only if someone is concerned that they or their loved ones may be experiencing dementia or other cognitive decline.”

The timing of Trump’s claims about taking the exam suggest a connection to his mysterious Saturday night visit to Walter Reed Hospital. it seems altogether likely that some symptoms occurred—a momentary loss of consciousness, a period of aphasia, something—which made White House officials concerned that Trump had suffered some serious event. He was likely given the test to determine any lasting effects of … whatever happened.

But even if Trump is really the Bob Ross of drawing hands on a clock, the way he talks about the test itself shows a fundamental impairment; and one that is not limited to this test. Trump cannot process information that does not square with his initial impression of any circumstance. Whether it’s how Kim Jong Un is a great guy or hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness against COVID-19, once Trump has an idea fixed in his mind he cannot change it. This seems to be the case even when acknowledging new information would benefit Trump. That’s an aspect of cognitive flexibility, an executive function that is not well tested by the type of exam Trump was given.

There are ways to test this function … but they not really necessary. The plodding inflexibility of Trump’s mind is on display every day, and perhaps nowhere more clearly than in the way he cannot stop bragging about this test. By now, surely many people have tried to explain to Trump that the mere fact that he was administered the test is not a good thing. He can’t see past the idea that he got “extra points” for getting his five words in order. 

Now, someone please change the nuclear codes. Because “person, woman, man, camera, TV” is going to be too obvious.

North Dakota Republican leaders are speaking out — after the fact — against a horrific anti-LGBT resolution that’s now part of the party’s 2020 platform.

The resolution opposes nondiscrimination laws that include sexual orientation and gender identity, or “SOGI bills.” While it is mostly devoted to perpetuating the anti-transgender bathroom predator myth, the resolution also accuses LGBT people of “recruiting” minors and “infecting” society with disease.

“SOGI laws empower those practicing LGBT behaviors to assume positions of mentorships of minors often over objections of parents, influencing their emotions and thereby recruiting for their lifestyles,” the resolution states. “Many LGBT practices are unhealthy and dangerous, sometimes endangering or shortening life and sometimes infecting society at large.”

Corby Kemmer, the executive director of the North Dakota GOP, apologized for the resolution, which was one of 53 packaged together that received an up-or-down vote by delegates on mail-in ballots, after the party scrapped its in-person convention due to the COVID-19 crisis.

“The intent of the delegates was to stand up for individual and religious liberties, and, unfortunately, this language falls woefully short of that goal,” Kemmer said, according to the Dickinson Press. “We regret any offense this may have caused, and we will be reconsidering this resolution at a future meeting to bring it more in line with what delegates were attempting to communicate.”

Republican Gov. Doug Burgum took to Facebook to denounce the resolution.

“As I’ve long said, all North Dakotans deserve to be treated equally and live free of discrimination. There’s no place for the hurtful and divisive rhetoric in the NDGOP resolutions,” Burgum wrote. “We can respect one another’s freedoms without disrespecting or discriminating against the LGBT members of our state and our party, whom we support.”

House Minority Leader Josh Boschee, an openly gay Democrat, told the Dickinson Press: “Statements like this by the majority party don’t help when it comes to workforce recruitment or retaining the students we educate for 12-16 years. We see a lot of people leave the state because of bigotry like that. … I thought the Republican Party had come further along than that. This party has a lot of work to do if they want to be a big tent party, regardless of how much power they have in elected office in North Dakota.”

More from Boschee and others via Twitter below.

The post North Dakota GOP Sorry for Platform Accusing LGBT People of ‘Recruiting’ Minors, ‘Infecting’ Society with Disease appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

TWO TOM THE DANCING BUG BOOKS, Tom the Dancing Bug: Into the Trumpverse, and The Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reader, are now available for order. Information about the books, including how to order, and special offers here.

"That fact that Tom the bug can keep dancing in this day and age is a testament to Ruben Bolling’s skills as a cartoonist!" -Seth Meyers

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FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book perhaps some Insta-grams, and even my/our MeWe.

In a new interview with Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel, President Donald Trump provided some additional details about a cognitive test that he recently claimed he aced, much to the surprise of doctors.

The Daily Beast reports: Describing the memory recall portion of the test, Trump said he was asked to repeat the words “person, woman, man, camera, TV,” prompting him to act out the whole thing. “And then, 10 minutes, 15 minutes later, remember the first question, not the first but the tenth question? Give us that again,” Trump said, playing the administrating doctor. “And you go ‘person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ If you get it in order, you get extra points!” Trump claimed the doctors told him that “nobody gets in order” and while it isn’t easy, it “was easy” for him. Adding that the doctors then “go back” to that question “20-25 minutes later,” Trump repeated the phrase before insisting this left the doctors in awe. “They say, ‘That is amazing. How did you do that?” Trump declared. “I do it because I have, like, a good memory. Because I’m cognitively there.”

More from the Washington Post: But medical and public health experts stress that the cognitive exam is not what Trump seems to think it is — an indicator of IQ or a cudgel to be wielded against a political opponent like a debate challenge. Experts say the president’s fixation on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment — or MoCA, as it is sometimes called — is particularly puzzling because the test is normally administered only if someone is concerned that they or their loved ones may be experiencing dementia or other cognitive decline. Getting a perfect score — as Trump has repeatedly claimed he did — merely signifies that the test-taker probably does not have a cognitive impairment as measured by the exam. “It’s not meant to measure IQ or intellectual skill in anyway,” said Ziad Nasreddine, the neurologist who created the test. “If someone performs well, what it means is they can be ruled out for cognitive impairment that comes with diseases like Alzheimer’s, stroke or multiple sclerosis. That’s it.”

By Thursday morning, the hashtag #PersonWomanManCameraTV was trending on Twitter. More below.

Next we’ll hear about how he aced the “very difficult” puzzle pic.twitter.com/QCfXh7EW61

— Lachness Monster (@lachbealady) July 23, 2020

QFolks taking first letter of each to try and make it make Qsense #personwomanmancameratv pic.twitter.com/16Nb8wRxhZ

— Susan Ruth (@SusanRuthism) July 23, 2020

The post ‘Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV’: Twitter Brutally Mocks Trump’s Description of Cognitive Test: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

As even Donald Trump himself warns that the United States’ COVID-19 pandemic is "going to get worse," Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a few questions for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert Redfield. Broadly phrased, the questions boil down to 1.) what are you planning to do about it and 2.) no, really, is the CDC planning to do a damn thing about it?

In a letter to the CDC director, Warren notes that Redfield himself said that widespread mask usage would "bring this epidemic under control," notes that the CDC has significant power to stop interstate pandemic spreads when states screw things up themselves, and therefore "Specifically, I would like you to provide me with information on whether the CDC has considered efforts to implement mask requirements, a limit on gatherings, and other measures that the CDC has recommended to stop the spread of the virus."

Warren, who on Tuesday published her own recommendations for combating the pandemic, wants "information on the CDC's existing legal authorities to implement and enforce public health measures under section 261 of the Public Health Service Act." While Redfield's CDC has issued advisories and guidelines on what actions states should take to curb the pandemic, the CDC and Trump administration have made none of them mandatory. Instead, the administration continues to be more interested in forcing the "mandatory" in-person reopening of schools by threatening to withhold federal funds to any that refuse.

"I would like to know whether the CDC will use its authorities to intervene in instances where state governors or other officials order the removal of restrictions or mask mandates," Warren wrote.

The answer to this is almost assuredly no, for no better reason than Redfield has been ordered to take no action to prevent state reopenings and has already overseen past watering-down of CDC recommendations to avoid angering Donald Trump. But the letter will provide a jumping-off point for Redfield to attempt to explain his actions before the Senate next grills him on our country’s now-runaway pandemic spread.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

Slack—the now-nearly ubiquitous, purple work-chatting platform—has filed a formal complaint alleging that tech titan Microsoft is unlawfully abusing its power to squeeze newer rivals out of the market—almost the exact same accusations Microsoft infamously faced 20 years ago.

San Francisco-based Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission detailing "Microsoft's illegal and anti-competitive practice of abusing its market dominance to extinguish competition in breach of European Union competition law," the company said today.

The complaint centers on Microsoft Teams, the company's chat and video-conference platform. Teams is a competitor product not only to Slack but also to popular conference service Zoom, Google's Meet and chat services, and other video services. Slack alleges that the way Microsoft bundles Teams into its distribution of Office—widely used enterprise software such as Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel—gives Microsoft an unfair advantage against the competition.

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Nearly 20 anonymous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees tell BuzzFeed News that they’re really worried about how the use of state-sanctioned kidnappings and other violent force against protesters in Portland, Oregon, looks for them, with one saying unleashing Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and others on the city “absolutely hurts the reputation of the agency. Most people have no clue what we do, but now they will have this ham-fisted response in their mind as they think about CBP.”

Thanks for speaking up now, I guess. We also can’t help but notice the concerns come as agents are targeting people who aren’t migrants, because CBP has snatched mothers in front of their children before. CBP has tear-gassed other moms at the border. CBP has let migrant kids die on its watch. CBP has shot and killed an unarmed migrant, and then lied about it. If the agency is worried about reputation of all things, it should look in the mirror to see who’s to blame.

One “DHS employee said they’d never seen anything like what's happening in Portland in their many years at the agency,” BuzzFeed News reported. “’We have a lot of work ahead in terms of repairing the public’s trust,’ the employee said.” But to anyone in the public who has been steadily watching and keeping track of the department’s abuses throughout the years, there’s been no trust in the first place. Just look at other recent developments in the past several days. 

Following an internal investigation of a racist and vile Facebook group where members mocked the death of a migrant boy on U.S. watch, only four of the nearly 140 agents investigated for their participation in the group were fired. Heads should have rolled like a bowling alley, but an internal document released by a House committee shows the agency actually shielded some agents from harsher punishment. Unless I missed it, there was no outcry from anonymous DHS employees on that. 

There’s real fears that the state attacks in Portland could become deadly, but CBP has already been deadly. Not only did a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report confirm that CBP disregarded a CDC recommendation to give detained people flu shots following the deaths of children in CBP custody in late 2018, a pediatrician recently told Congress and those children’s parents that they could have been saved.

“Unfortunately, the border patrol agents at the forward operating base where Jakelin was apprehended did not conduct sufficient screening to identify her illness before the first bus left for the border patrol station,” Pediatrician Fiona Danaher wrote to the father of Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal Maquin. “They also did not have adequate training to recognize how sick she was, and they did not call ahead to request that an ambulance meet your bus en route to the border patrol station.” She was only seven.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is no different in its callousness and cruelty. As it threatens to rip more children and parents apart rather than just release them together from migrant family jails hit by COVID-19, private prison executives contracted with ICE to jail immigrants for the federal government claimed to Congress earlier this month that they had no knowledge of guards using violent force against people protesting their ongoing detention amid the pandemic.

“In reality, people at CoreCivic facilities have been pepper-sprayed on at least four occasions,” a Mother Jones report recently said. “At LaSalle, it’s happened on at least five occasions. And at GEO Group detention centers, the total is also at least five. Hundreds of immigrants and asylum seekers have been exposed to pepper spray during those uses of force.” But why should private executives be worried about lying to Congress when unconfirmed DHS Sec. Chad Wolf lied to Congress about his role in family separation and is still somehow in his job?

In second statement to BuzzFeed News about DHS presence in Portland, another anonymous employee commented that they “did not sign up nor was I trained to be a street cop,” adding that “[c]ivil societies have immigration laws that need to be enforced, but that does not mean we should be used as this delusional president’s personal attack dog just because we happen to be available.” But agents have shown themselves to disregard laws and the rights of people they detain when it’s convenient for them.

DHS has gotten away with these abuses for years, often in broad daylight. It’s long past time we say, enough. Defund ICE, defund CBP, hold agents and superiors accountable, and stop the abuses.

Yesterday, a report emerged that Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) a “f**king b**ch” on the steps of the U.S. Capitol following a confrontation about AOC’s recent remarks that poverty and unemployment were behind a recent spike in NYC crime. The incident was confirmed by AOC.

Said Yoho: “I rise today to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York. It is true that we disagree on policies and visions for America, but that does not mean we should be disrespectful. Having been married for 45 years with two daughters, I’m very cognizant of my language. The offensive name-calling words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues, and if they were construed that way, I apologize for the misunderstanding. As my colleagues know, I’m passionate about those affected by poverty. My wife, Carolyn, and I started together at the age of 19 with nothing. We did odd jobs, and we were on food stamps. I know the face of poverty and for a time it was mine. That is why I know people in this country can still, with all its faults, rise up and succeed and not be encouraged to break the law.”

“Apology” was not accepted by AOC.

The post GOP Rep. Ted Yoho Denies Calling AOC a ‘F**king B**ch’ on the U.S. Capitol Steps in ‘Apology’ Over His ‘Abrupt Manner’ — WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Electric utilities’ corruption problem is much bigger than FirstEnergy’s alleged bribery of Larry Householder.

Update, July 23: On Thursday, the day after this article was first published, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called for the repeal of HB 6, the energy bill passed in 2019 now tied to a bribery scandal in the Ohio legislature.

On Tuesday, the news broke that the FBI had arrested Ohio Speaker of the House of Representatives Larry Householder, the architect of HB 6, a law that passed in July 2019. That bill, widely recognized as the worst energy policy in the country, gutted Ohio’s renewables and energy efficiency laws while bailing out several coal and nuclear plants.

As I wrote in my book, Short Circuiting Policy, the law was a multibillion-dollar gift to FirstEnergy, a private electric utility that has resisted climate policy for decades. It turns out it was a gift paid for with $61 million in bribes.

Spending a few million to get more than a billion dollars? Not a bad return on investment.

Unfortunately, this kind of corruption is not an aberration for the electric utility industry. Across the country, most private utilities are resisting the clean energy transition, and many are buying off politicians with campaign contributions to do it. What’s more, the industry celebrates it — the Edison Electric Institute, the national private utility association, gave FirstEnergy an award for its work to pass HB 6.

Corruption like this within the electric utility industry is a barrier to solving the climate crisis. But the way forward is clear: Citizens must demand that politicians stop taking money from these fossil fuel companies and start holding them accountable.

Something is rotten in the state of Ohio

In March 2018, FirstEnergy spun off its debt into FirstEnergy Solutions, a subsidiary that went through bankruptcy. To deal with its financial problems, the company sought billions in subsidies from the Ohio legislature for its ailing coal and nuclear plants. And it had a champion in Speaker Householder, who was there every step of the way, working diligently within the legislature to get FirstEnergy its money.

By July 2019, the legislative session was over and FirstEnergy had not secured its bailout. Householder kept working, calling his colleagues back to the chamber with little notice. With narrow margins, he delivered the votes, and that same day Gov. Mike DeWine signed the FirstEnergy bailout into law.

At the time, many wondered: Why the urgency, Mr. Speaker? Did you really have to call all the legislators back from their vacations to pass this coal bailout? It appears the FBI was wondering the same thing.

It now seems clear that Householder was working directly with FirstEnergy and its affiliated companies. The utility funneled $61 million through an organization called Generation Now, which Householder, his political affiliates, and FirstEnergy lobbyists controlled. Based on its tax status, it was supposed to be a “social welfare” organization, acting in the public interest.

Instead, it is alleged in the FBI affidavit that Generation Now engaged in a conspiracy to financially benefit the utility and its affiliated companies through this dirty energy bailout — and to line Householder’s and his associates’ pockets while they were at it.

The dark money campaign funded political ads, mailers, and lobbying in support of HB 6.

It also put lobbyists across the state on retainer, creating conflicts of interest to tie them up, so they could not work for the clean energy advocates who wanted to stop the bill.

The dirty details in the FBI affidavit

The 82-page, 250 paragraph FBI affidavit — a collage of colorful text messages and political ads — is stunning in its simplicity: This is bribery.

The alleged participants in the scheme even used the term “pay to play” when describing what Householder and his associates were up to, saying that the funding from FirstEnergy for their political aims was “unlimited.”

Before the FBI arrests, many journalists and watchdog groups suspected that Householder was corrupt. He was a controversial choice for speaker — his last time in the role, during the early 2000s, he found himself under federal investigation for money laundering. Householder was only elected speaker last year after a contentious fight. Somehow candidates supporting his leadership found themselves with well-funded campaigns.

We now know, according to the affidavit, that FirstEnergy funneled millions of dollars to 21 candidates who pledged to support Householder’s rise to power. All of these politicians supported Householder’s speakership, and only one voted against the bailout.

Per the FBI, Householder also benefited financially from the arrangement with FirstEnergy. According to the affidavit, at least $300,000 was used to settle a lawsuit against him, more than $100,000 went toward his Florida vacation home, and another $97,000 went directly to his campaign expenses. Householder also received personal favors from FirstEnergy, like a flight to President Trump’s inauguration on a corporate jet.

The corruption allegedly did not end when HB 6 became law. When groups wanted to let the public decide whether to overturn this draconian policy through a petition for a ballot initiative, FirstEnergy wired $38 million in funds to Generation Now. This money funded ads that falsely claimed the Chinese government would use your personal information if you signed the petition. It also paid for bribery, harassment, and even physical assault of people collecting signatures.

It was an anti-democratic dark money campaign, and it worked. Facing this well-funded opposition, the advocates failed to get enough signatures. Ohio voters were never given a chance to overturn the bailout. HB 6 remains law.

Given the investigation is ongoing, FirstEnergy and its affiliated companies are not yet named as defendants — they are referred to only as “Company A” in the affidavit. It’s likely more charges will be coming. In the six-month period leading up the bill’s passage, Householder had 30 phone calls with FirstEnergy’s CEO, Chuck Jones. The coming months will not be good ones for Mr. Jones.

We are only at the beginning of the end of this story. As US Attorney for Ohio’s Southern District David M. DeVillers put it in Tuesday’s press conference, “there are going to be a lot of busy FBI agents here in the Southern District of Ohio.” The same day, FirstEnergy acknowledged that it had received subpoenas. If I were a senior executive for FirstEnergy or its affiliated companies, I would be wondering when my subpoena would be arriving.

It’s not just a nuclear bailout — it’s a utility scheme to stop the clean energy transition

While the FBI has largely framed the policy as a nuclear bailout, that is a narrow view of Ohio’s terrible energy law. This bill also saved three large coal plants from closing.

It’s clear that FirstEnergy Solutions (now called Energy Harbor) used part of its nuclear bailout funds to save the Sammis coal plant that was scheduled to close. The law was written explicitly so that the utility would never have to open up its books to legislators. And the amounts the utility said it required to keep its nuclear plants open fluctuated continuously.

A few days after Gov. DeWine signed the law, a FirstEnergy Solutions spokesperson said they would no longer have to close the Sammis coal plant. This wasn’t surprising since the FirstEnergy Solutions CEO, John Judge, had previously said securing HB 6’s passage would allow them to invest $40 million to $50 million to keep this coal plant open. It seems that through some creative accounting, part of the nuclear bailout ended up funding a coal plant.

The law also contained funding for several other coal plants that FirstEnergy Solutions has an ownership stake in — the so-called OVEC plants. Based on bankruptcy filings, I estimate that the OVEC coal bailout was worth $1.7 billion just for Ohio’s two big utilities, including FirstEnergy Solutions.

If HB 6 remains law, a lot more money will be spent bailing out these dirty coal plants than the state’s ailing nuclear fleet.

The law also gutted the state’s clean energy laws, which had been in place for more than a decade. The energy efficiency policy alone had saved ratepayers over $5 billion, yet the legislature rolled it back. The popular renewable energy goals, which Gov. John Kasich had already undermined, were eliminated in HB 6.

No matter how you slice it, this law cost Ohioans billions of dollars. And since these are monopoly utilities we’re talking about, if folks want to stop funding FirstEnergy’s corrupt activities by simply paying the monthly electricity bills, they can’t. There is no choice.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

A pattern of utility corruption

The Ohio case, while extreme, is not an aberration. Corrupt electric utilities using ratepayer funds to roll back climate policy is not limited to Ohio. As I described in Short Circuiting Policy, it is an unfortunately common pattern.

Last week, the Illinois utility ComEd — whose parent company is Exelon — admitted to engaging in bribery and agreed to pay a $200 million fine. It’s very likely that another speaker, Michael Madigan, is involved in that case — the Illinois governor has already called on him to resign.

In Arizona, which I examine in my book, the FBI similarly launched an investigation into an elected official over its ties to a private electric utility, Arizona Public Service. As we now know, Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Gary Pierce met privately with then-Arizona Public Service CEO Don Brandt numerous times. The utility also funneled over $700,000 through a dark money group to Pierce’s son’s failed bid for secretary of state.

Arizona Public Service also secretly spent tens of millions on campaigns to elect its own regulators in order to secure favorable decisions, including clean energy rollbacks and generous rate hikes. In 2018 alone, it spent upward of $40 million to successfully block a clean energy ballot initiative. The new CEO, Jeff Guldner, played a key role in directing the utility’s dark political spending.

And this isn’t a new strategy. Throughout the 1990s, electric utilities including FirstEnergy and Arizona Public Service were key funders of climate denial.

Virginia provides one hopeful counterexample, which shows us one solution to the problem of corrupt electric utilities. In 2017, grassroots activists started a campaign to push politicians to pledge not to accept money from electric utilities, most prominently Dominion. This electric utility has an atrocious track record of ripping off customers, polluting the climate, and perpetuating environmental racism.

By the 2019 election, Virginia state candidates refusing Dominion money won nearly 50 seats. Shortly thereafter, the legislature passed a landmark law requiring 100 percent clean electricity. Once the Virginia politicians stopped taking money from the electric utility, they could finally pass climate legislation.

The dogged folks at the Energy and Policy Institute — a utility watchdog that has turned up real-time facts in most of these cases — paint a clear picture for those paying attention: Most electric utilities are resisting the clean energy transition and using corruption to do it.

We must change this pattern. Politicians must pledge to stop taking money from electric utilities and the fossil fuel industry. Instead, they should change the law, disallowing ratepayer funds to be used for political work.

It’s time to repeal Ohio’s corrupt law

Now that it’s clear that Ohio’s draconian energy policy was passed based on bribery and corruption, legislators should act immediately to repeal the law.

While Gov. Mike DeWine has called for Householder’s resignation, he has not called for the repeal of the corrupt coal bailout. That’s perhaps not surprising, since DeWine has himself taken money from FirstEnergy. DeWine’s staff even made plans to fly legislators on a taxpayer-funded plane to make Householder’s last-minute vote for the bailout. The day after DeWine signed the law, he attended a Trump fundraiser hosted by coal baron Bob Murray. He seems quite cozy with the fossil fuel industry.

If DeWine is not in bed with FirstEnergy, then he should be calling for HB 6 to be reversed immediately. This law was passed by corrupt politicians. The effort to overturn it by popular will was thwarted by a corrupt utility. If DeWine can’t see this invalidates Ohio’s energy law, then perhaps he has a bigger problem.

We cannot allow utility corruption to continue to stall clean energy progress. This FBI affidavit is a wake-up call to all politicians: Stop taking electric utilities’ money.

Leah C. Stokes is an assistant professor at the University of California Santa Barbara. Her book, Short Circuiting Policy, examines the case of Ohio’s coal bailout and other examples of utility corruption. Find her on Twitter @leahstokes.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the first name of Michael Madigan.

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No, media circuses do not count. Not until someone is juggling on top of a bear.

As it turns out, the badge-free, unidentified men in gas masks prowling Portland’s streets and dragging people into unmarked vans aren’t arresting people at random. They’re arresting people who might do something wrong. In the future. At least, that’s the story that came from never confirmed by the Senate or even actually nominated Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf. In an interview on Fox News, Wolf complained: “Because we don't have that local support, that local law enforcement support, we are having to go out and proactively arrest individuals, and we need to do that because we need to hold them accountable.” Individuals are being “proactively” arrested, to hold them accountable, for … future crimes.

Considering that Wolf has previously pushed a list of spray painting incidents as the sole justification for invading a city over objections of both the mayor and governor, claimed that his goon squad was “assaulted by lasers” wielded by “violent criminals,” and posted an image of someone with a small cut on their ankle as an example of the violence of protesters right after his crew had been filmed gassing and beating a group of concerned local moms, the idea that he might defend his operation by invoking a claim of doing pre-crime isn’t all that surprising. But there’s another phrase that works in place of arresting someone “proactively.” It’s called “without cause.”

Actually, it’s wrong to call what Wolf’s team is doing in Portland arresting anyone. Arrest is a legal process, bound by requirements imposed by decades of court rulings and laws. What’s going on in Portland isn’t arrest. It’s just illegal detention. Extraordinary rendition. Plain old kidnapping.

Many of these people aren’t being charged, or informed of their rights, or offered legal counsel. They’re just being taken, held, then let go … eventually. As ABC News reports, a small number have been charged. Which definitely pleases Donald Trump. “They grab them,” said Trump. “A lot of people in jail." Despite different numbers thrown around by Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there appear to be 18 people who have actually been charged. 15 are facing misdemeanor charges. The assault charges include the use of “laser pointers” and a woman who pushed back using a “flimsy plastic shield.”  

The one serious case of assault seems to involve a mentally-impaired homeless man who defended himself against the DHS forces with a hammer. He is literally the only person being held in jail, no matter how many times Trump claims there are “a lot of people.”

Donald Trump’s secret police are attacking people because they provided medical assistance.

At Tuesday night’s coronavirus press briefing, Donald Trump was thrown a question about Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s “recruiter” who was arrested last week and charged with conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse and traffic minors.

Asked about Maxwell, Trump replied, “I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her numerous times over the years especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach but I wish her well, whatever it is.”

CNN’s Dana Bash said Trump was sending her a signal: “It was stunning, especially since as president of the United States, the answer should have been, ‘I’m not going to comment, it’s an ongoing federal investigation.’ But this is a classic Trump M.O.. That turn of phrase, ‘I wish her well,’ is the same kind of turn of phrase that he used for people like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort and others who he later, you know, gave help to, but it seemed at the time was trying to send a signal to. And that’s how I took it. That he wanted to use the opportunity to, you know, get it out into the ether that, you know, he’s on her side.”

Said Morning Joe‘s Mika Brzezinski: “I know that there’s no proven connection in any way, but we’ve shown on this show video of Donald Trump dancing with Jeffrey Epstein and a bunch of girls dancing around him, and he wishes her well. I’m extremely uncomfortable with what I just heard, and I think everybody should be, and the questions in this case need to be asked and asked and asked until they are answered, and I just think it’s very strange that the president would make a comment like that in a case like this.”

Others had similar responses:

The post ‘I Wish Her Well’ — Was Trump ‘Sending a Signal’ to Accused Pedophile Sex Trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell? — WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

The U.S. ordered China to close its consulate in Houston within 72 hours, a directive that prompted people to begin burning documents in the building’s courtyard. The move was called “unprecedented escalation” in bad relations between the U.S. and China by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin. China has said it will retaliate.

Bloomberg reports: “The U.S. government gave China three days to close its consulate in America’s fourth-most populous city in an ‘unprecedented escalation,’ Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing Wednesday in Beijing. China planned to ‘react with firm countermeasures’ if the Trump administration didn’t ‘revoke this erroneous decision,’ Wang said.”

Click2Houston reports: “The U.S. said in a brief statement that the consulate was ordered closed ‘to protect American intellectual property and American’s private information.’ It did not provide any details. ‘The United States will not tolerate the PRC’s violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC’s unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior,’ the statement from State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said.”

Bloomberg adds: “On Tuesday, the Justice Department accused two Chinese hackers of working for Beijing to steal or try to steal terabytes of data, including coronavirus research, from Western companies in 11 nations.”

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It’s a direct attack on the 14th Amendment.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution provides that “representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.”

This text is unambiguous. With a narrow exception for some Native Americans, all persons within the United States must be counted in the decennial census. And all persons must be counted when representation is allocated to states in the House of Representatives.

Nevertheless, on Tuesday, President Trump released an extraordinary memorandum suggesting that he gets to decide who counts as a “person” — and that undocumented immigrants do not qualify.

The memo concerns who should be counted when representatives are allocated to states following the 2020 census. Trump claims that “for the purpose of the reapportionment of Representatives following the 2020 census, it is the policy of the United States to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status.” Thus, if Trump’s view were to prevail — a view that is at odds with the explicit text of the Constitution — undocumented immigrants would not be counted.

The implications of this unconstitutional policy are significant. An estimated 10.6 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, but they are not distributed evenly among the states. Nearly 20 percent live in California. If Trump succeeds in effectively voiding a provision of the 14th Amendment, the nation’s largest blue state could potentially lose as many as three House seats.

Trump’s memorandum rests on the thinnest legal justification

Trump cites a handful of sources to justify his attempt to neutralize a constitutional requirement, including a federal statute providing that “the President shall transmit to the Congress a statement showing the whole number of persons in each State” after the census is completed, and a Supreme Court decision indicating that this statute gives the president some discretionary authority over how the census is conducted.

Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992), Trump’s memorandum argues that “Congress has provided that it is ‘the President’s personal transmittal of the report to Congress’ that ‘settles the apportionment’ of Representatives among the States, and the President’s discretion to settle the apportionment is more than ‘ceremonial or ministerial’ and is essential ‘to the integrity of the process.’”

Trump is correct that Franklin reads federal law to give the president some authority over how the census is conducted. The president’s “duties” with respect to the census, according to Franklin, “are not merely ceremonial or ministerial.” Instead, the president may exercise “his accustomed supervisory powers over his executive officers” who conduct the census.

But the fact that Trump has some discretionary authority over census officials does not mean that he is free to violate the Constitution. Even if federal law did give Trump the power to ignore the 14th Amendment, that law would be unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, without citing any legal authority whatsoever, Trump’s memorandum claims that he should be allowed to determine what the 14th Amendment means.

“Although the Constitution requires the ‘persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed,’ to be enumerated in the census,” Trump claims, “that requirement has never been understood to include in the apportionment base every individual physically present within a State’s boundaries at the time of the census.”

As Trump correctly notes, there are many people who may be present in the United States — tourists visiting from other nations, foreign diplomats, businesspeople, for example — who are not counted in the decennial census. “The term “persons in each State” has been interpreted to mean that only the ‘inhabitants’ of each State should be included,” Trump argues, and “determining which persons should be considered ‘inhabitants’ for the purpose of apportionment requires the exercise of judgment.”

But Trump claims that he is the one who gets to make this “exercise of judgment,” and that his judgment is effectively unlimited. Again, Trump cites no legal authority for the proposition that he can make this judgment, or for the proposition that an undocumented person who resides permanently within a state is not an “inhabitant” of that state.

As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel with the American Immigration Council, told me, “the average undocumented immigrant has been present in the United States for more than 15 years, according to Pew Research.” It is, to say the least, an unusual reading of the word “inhabitant” to suggest that someone who has resided so long in one place is akin to a tourist.

The Constitution itself does not consider immigration status when determining who counts as a “person” for purposes of the 14th Amendment. According to Reichlin-Melnick, “the Supreme Court has made it clear that the term ‘persons’ in the 14th Amendment is not limited by citizenship status” for more than a century.

The idea of an unlawfully present immigrant, moreover, simply did not exist when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. The first US law that sought to exclude some noncitizens from the United States was the Page Act of 1875, a racist law that sought to exclude Chinese women.

The concept of an undocumented immigrant arose out of similar efforts to exclude Chinese nationals. According to Margaret Hu, an immigration law professor at Washington and Lee Law School, America created its first “document-based immigration system” as part of a broad effort to exclude Chinese persons from this country.

But these racist policies did not become law until years after the 14th Amendment was ratified. And if Trump actually had the power to determine who counts as a person under the amendment, the implications of that power would be breathtaking. By this logic, Trump could potentially decree that younger voters, or Democrats, or anyone who has previously attended an Obama rally is not a “person” for purposes of allocating House representation.

After all, there’s as much language in the Constitution supporting the proposition that Obama supporters are not “persons” as there is language suggesting that undocumented immigrants do not count.

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As Daily Kos previously covered, a small number of churches in California are fighting back against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent shutdown order as the state experiences a fresh surge in coronavirus cases. The latest order directs some counties to shutter malls, nail salons, gyms, and houses of worship. As covered Monday, some California churches are continuing to hold indoor services in spite of the new guideline. A federal lawsuit has even been filed.

The latest news, as reported by The Sacramento Bee, is that Destiny Christian Church, a nonprofit, in Rocklin, California, received a federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan of between $350,000 and $1 million in April, according to records. (Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan.)

What makes this notable? After all, we know that a number of religious organizations actually received more than $7 billion in PPP loans overall. This figure includes more than 9,000 Catholic churches (out of the 12,000 that applied), as well as megachurches with more than 10,000 constituents a piece. 

The Bee reports, according to the PPP database, the church requested the federal loan to cover payroll for 140 employees, and that it’s listed as awarded on April 8, which, for perspective, is just several days after the first loans from the CARES Act were available. 

In addition to defying state orders, Pastor Greg Fairrington of Destiny, gave a Sunday sermon this weekend in which he brought up the “benevolent” government; or rather, a lack thereof. “If you think the government is going to be benevolent to the church, if you believe that, you just haven’t studied history,” the pastor asserted, as reported by the Bee, adding, “because once your rights are taken from you, they’re never giving them back.”

As for Sunday’s services, Fairrington told local outlet KTXL Fox 40 he held three services on Sunday, each with 375 people inside at one time. According to Fairrington, the church can hold 1,500, but they reduced the capacity to allow for social distancing. The church also appears to offer online services on its website.

Mind you, according to Newsom’s recent order, indoor worship services are supposed to be entirely suspended in select counties as virus numbers surge in some counties. Fairrington posted a Facebook video on July 13 (the day of Newsom’s order), where he stated: “We are not shutting down the church. We will be having church on Sundays.” He added: “My mandate, as a pastor, is to obey the word of God,” and that, “we are not gonna allow a government to use data that is not supported, factually, to shut the church down.” 

The Bee reports it received a statement from a church spokesperson on behalf of Fairrington, saying Destiny applied for a PPP loan “to protect our employees, who provide critical care and support to the community.” Then: “The Sacramento Bee’s pursuit of this article, and the reality that it’s written 3 divisive stories in less than 10 days, suggests that it’s [sic] desired outcome is to vilify a religious establishment that only seeks to do good in its region.”

Speaking to KTXL, Fairrington argued: “Church is essential.” For many people, that certainly may feel true, which is why it’s so encouraging to see many religious leaders turn to 100% virtual services amid the global health crisis.  

Calls for justice erupted and continue nationwide following the brutal murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis. Amid these protests against racial injustice and police brutality, incidents of reported violence perpetrated by police officers continues to surface on social media. Various city police departments have been depicted violently attacking protesters, bystanders, and even reporters. In Chicago, activists are calling for an officer to be fired after he punched a young woman in the face, resulting in her tooth falling out, NBC News reported.

The incident took place in Grant Park on Friday, where protesters came into contact with officers near the park’s Christopher Columbus statue. Witnesses reported that protesters trying to take down the statue were pepper-sprayed and beaten with wooden batons by the police. Footage also showed protesters being thrown to the ground and pushed off bikes by officers. At least 12 people were arrested and 18 officers were injured after protesters attacked police with rocks, police told CNN.

According to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, several complaints were filed against police officers, including one in which 18-year-old Miracle Boyd said an officer knocked out her front tooth while she was recording the arrest of another protester. "The police officer came up to me, and he smacked the phone out of my hand, and it hit me in the mouth," Boyd said. The officer has not yet been identified.

Boyd told BuzzFeed News that she was leaving to go home when she heard fireworks. She began recording a Facebook livestream and headed in that direction, where she saw people being abused by the police. "They were beating a white woman with a baton," Boyd said. "They were macing everyone. I was trying to get footage of the police viciously attacking on people." In Boyd’s livestream, an officer can be seen knocking her phone out of her hand as she records. The same officer was caught punching Boyd in the face in a video shared on Twitter by social activist group GoodKids MadCity. The group also shared a photo in which Boyd is depicted bleeding from the mouth with missing and broken teeth.

"I felt that my tooth was gone and I felt like I was going fucking crazy," she said, especially because she was already conscious that she had a gap between her two front teeth. "This happened in like five minutes — from me saying I'm leaving to me getting my teeth knocked out." While some commented on the video accusing Boyd of “being the aggressor” because she was yelling, she told BuzzFeed News she “never once swung at a police officer [or] threw anything at a police officer."

As Boyd’s image went viral, activists and local leaders spoke up to condemn the actions of the police department. The condemnations included one from Illinois Sen. Robert Peters, who said his office offered Boyd an internship last week because of her community activism. "[An] 18-year-old who fights every day for gun violence prevention, who fights for a safe community, and what did she face? Abuse," Peters said, according to NBC News.

In a statement to the press on Saturday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot condemned the protesters who allegedly attacked police officers before adding that reports have been made of officers using excessive force, which is “also unacceptable.” Lightfoot said: “Unfortunately, last night, a portion of the protesters turned violent. A number of individuals came with frozen water bottles, rocks, bottles, cans and other gear to throw at officers. People in the crowd also threw fireworks and other incendiary devices at police, causing injury in several cases. These violent acts are unacceptable and put everyone at risk.” She added that her administration is looking into controversial monuments and will release details of a plan in the near future.

According to NBC News, local officials expressed criticism of the mayor’s response. Ald. Jeanette Taylor of the city's 20th Ward said: "We cannot continue to fund people who kill us. We just cannot. We’re so interested in protecting a dead statue that we don’t protect the 34 people who got shot over the weekend?”

A GoFundMe made in support of paying Boyd’s medical expenses has raised more than $80,000 so far. The young activist told BuzzFeed News that while she is grateful for the support, the overall focus should be elsewhere. "I don't want this to be about me because this is a fight we're all fighting and I'm not doing this alone," she said. "There is seriously things wrong within the Black and brown community that needs to change and I'm going to do everything in power to make sure my people are good."

The Chicago Police Department told BuzzFeed News they will be conducting an investigation into the incident, claiming that the department “strives to treat all individuals our officers encounter with respect” and does not “tolerate misconduct.”

The House Oversight Committee has released an internal document showing that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) negotiated deals to lessen the severity of punishment against agents who were part of a racist and vile Facebook group where members mocked the death of a teenaged boy in the agency’s custody last year.

Following an internal investigation of the “I’m 10-15” Facebook group, only four of nearly 140 agents were fired, we found out last week. But this internal document indicates that other agents also faced serious discipline but were instead shielded: “In one case, an employee who was recommended for removal had their penalty reduced to a seven-day suspension,” chair Carolyn Maloney said in a statement.

Heads should have rolled over the fact that nearly 140 CBP agents were a part of this vile group, where members also shared a doctored photo depicting the sexual assault of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by Donald Trump. In another attack on Ocasio-Cortez and colleague Veronica Escobar as they were to visit border facilities as part of their oversight responsibilities, another member, “apparently a patrol supervisor, wrote, ‘Fuck the hoes,’” ProPublica reported.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the internal investigation into the Facebook group eventually grew to nearly 140 employees before they were whittled down to just four firings. Agents clearly got away with it—and they had help from the inside. Maloney’s statement said that redactions to the internal document are blocking the committee from even knowing the names of the agents who were shielded and the supervisor who shielded them.

“CBP continues to obstruct the committee’s investigation by refusing to lift redactions, hiding names and roles of CBP employees as well as employee conduct, which is preventing the committee from determining whether the specific employees who made these threatening and repugnant posts continue to work for CBP in positions of power over immigrants and children,” Rep. Maloney said.

Following the report of the four firings last week, Rep. Escobar tweeted that she never got investigation results from CBP even though she was personally targeted by its agents. “The posts shouldn't have just triggered firings but also an investigation into why other members never reported it,” she continued, calling Facebook “a cesspool.”

But so is CBP. As migrant kids died under the agency’s watch for the first time in a decade, the Government Accountability Office found CBP violated the law by using emergency humanitarian funding to pay for a canine program and dirt bikes. And now the agency is helping impeached president Donald Trump carry out his authoritarian agenda in Portland. Congress, defund this agency’s abuses already.

The label on a Trump post about voting doesn’t actually fact-check misleading claims.

On Tuesday, Facebook finally labeled President Trump’s misleading posts about voting — but it’s not the fact-check that people have been asking for.

Instead, the social media platform is enforcing a new policy to add a link to official voting information any time a Facebook user — whether an everyday user or a prominent politician — posts anything about voting in the US. Democratic party leaders, including a Biden campaign spokesperson, have sharply criticized the move, arguing that it’s too little, too late.

That’s because Facebook is adding the label to posts about voting regardless of whether they share accurate or inaccurate information. It added a similar link to voting information to some of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s recent posts, including one that said, “We have to vote Donald Trump out this November.”

The Trump post Facebook labeled on Tuesday makes an unsubstantiated claim that mail-in voting will lead to a “corrupt” and “rigged” election. The label underneath Trump’s post doesn’t comment on the content at all and instead links out to instructions on how voters can register to vote by mail.

Facebook’s new voting post policy is a part of its broader effort, first announced in June, to inform US voters about the upcoming presidential election. The new policies came amid widespread criticism that Facebook isn’t doing enough to stop the dissemination of voter misinformation by President Trump — particularly after Twitter for the first time labeled a previous Trump tweet about mail-in voting as containing “potentially misleading” information in May.

Biden campaign spokesperson Bill Russo called Facebook’s policy an “absolute, abject failure” in a tweet on Tuesday morning, in one of two tweets criticizing Facebook’s implementation of the new labeling policy.

Russo did not return Recode’s request for further comment on the matter; another spokesperson for the Biden campaign, Mike Gwin, declined Recode’s request for comment.

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone declined to comment to Recode about Democratic party leaders’ concerns about the labeling but noted that the recent labeling was part of Facebook’s voter information plans announced last month.

Several other Democratic party leaders also weighed in on Twitter, arguing it was unfair for Facebook to label Biden in the same manner as Trump. They said Biden’s post simply shared his opinion about whom to vote for while Trump’s post was denying the legitimacy of the US election process.

One Democratic operative who spoke with Recode on the condition of anonymity called Facebook’s labeling of Trump’s posts “laughably inadequate.”

“They [Facebook] are essentially just putting a link in the post for Trump and not in any way saying the content of the information might be wrong or not widely trusted information,” said the Democratize operative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they don’t have clearance to speak with the press. “You’re letting the president of the US go on your platform and say something that’s not correct about mail-in voting.”

In response to Facebook’s labeling of Trump’s posts, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, Samantha Zager, shared the following statement with Recode:

“The President was absolutely correct. Universal vote by mail is ripe for fraud and would lead to a corrupt election. The same label has been applied to posts on Joe Biden’s page.”

Trump’s claims that voting by mail in the US will lead to fraud are unsubstantiated and widely disputed by leading political science and election integrity experts.

Aside from the labeling, Facebook has been pushing to register 4 million of its US users to vote — something Zuckerberg has previously framed as a better way for his company to support democracy than by policing what politicians can say on the platform.

In recent days, Zuckerberg has also publicly denied being overly sympathetic to Trump and unwilling to moderate the president’s Facebook posts. The tech CEO has also more publicly criticized Trump than he has in the past, speaking against his immigration policies and his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But Facebook’s refusal to take a stand of any kind regarding the accuracy of Trump’s posts, and its continued insistence that it’s a neutral platform, suggest it hasn’t learned much since 2016. (Back then, Zuckerberg said shortly after the election that it was “crazy” to suggest that Facebook had influenced its outcome — a statement he later apologized for.) What has changed since the last US presidential election is the expectations that the public and politicians have for the platform — and for some, its new policies aren’t cutting it.

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Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.

Monday, top Democratic lawmakers asked FBI director Christopher Wray to provide classified briefings to Congress on an unspecified but "ongoing" "concerted foreign information campaign" targeting Congress with the aim of disrupting the 2020 presidential elections.

Reporters have now been able to get a bit more information on what those lawmakers have been getting at: Both Politico and The New York Times are reporting that the classified addendum to the letter touches on Sen. Ron Johnson's would-be investigation of Hunter Biden, which has been the pipeline through which Trump "personal lawyer" Rudy Giuliani has been funneling known-false information from his network of Ukrainian criminals and disinformation brokers. Specifically, notes the Times, Sen. Ron Johnson has been relying heavily on a Ukrainian figure thought by the FBI to be a "conduit" for Russian disinformation.

None of this information is new. Johnson's eagerness to solicit testimony from ex-Ukrainian official Andrii Telizhenko was the subject of public alarm and a previous intelligence community warning. Johnson has been dismissive of complaints about his reliance on known dodgy sources, though he was pressured into giving up on the idea of taking Telizhenko's testimony directly.

Reading between the lines here, then, at least one part of Democratic lawmakers’ concerns appear to be that Sen. Johnson is using his committee and "Biden" investigations to legitimize foreign disinformation operations targeting Biden in the 2020 election—or, rather, that at least one foreign disinformation campaign is targeting Johnson, using his eagerness to boost Trump's election chances to dispense election disinformation directly from the mouths of Republican senators.

There are a few things to know here. Most importantly, Johnson cannot claim gullibility in stovepiping foreign disinformation here. After a specific intelligence community warning and after mountains of public reports on the sketchiness of Giuliani's Ukrainian associates, many of whom are pro-Russian Ukrainians forced from their positions by the public and new government, and their debunked claims against their enemies. Johnson has continued to "investigate" information that has already been discredited, and it is clearly intended, like "Benghazi," as means of influencing upcoming elections. Ron Johnson knows precisely what he is doing and who he is dealing with.

So the question is not whether Russian and other foreign disinformation campaigns are targeting Johnson, but the extent to which Johnson is co-conspiring with those brokers to craft and release election-bending smears cooperatively. In his defense, Sen. Ron Johnson is widely regarded as one of the dullest senators in the institution, if not the most dull, and so there is the slightest possibility he does not see himself as coordinating with the disinformation campaign—or, more accurately, does not connect the dots as to what that coordination means, when tied to foreign disinformation sources.

Johnson has long been a puzzle, and that is putting it mildly. He was one of a collection of hard-right Republican lawmakers who inexplicably traveled to Moscow for the Fourth of July, in 2018, and who came back claiming that the Russian hacking and disinformation campaigns in the 2016 presidential elections were being blown "way out of proportion."

There's no particular reason to believe Johnson is not stovepiping foreign disinformation willingly. That was the very premise of Rudy Giuliani's "legal" help to Trump's electoral needs. Johnson was also vociferous in defending Trump when Trump extorted the Ukrainian government by withholding military aid until that government agreed to give a public announcement supporting that disinformation, leading to Trump's impeachment.

What Democrats are not publicly saying, but should, is that Johnson is not acting as target of a foreign disinformation effort, but a co-conspirator. He is a full ally of the Trump-Giuliani-Ukraine-Russia disinformation campaign.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) took a private dispute with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) public on Tuesday, demanding that Cheney step down as GOP conference chair because of her opposition to Donald Trump.

Tweeted Gaetz: “Liz Cheney has worked behind the scenes (and now in public) against Donald Trump and his agenda. House Republicans deserve better as our Conference Chair. Liz Cheney should step down or be removed. #MAGA.”

Sources told Politico reporter Melanie Zanona earlier in the day that a House GOP Conference meeting got heated as several members including Reps. Chip Roy, Louie Gohmert, Thomas Massie, Andy Biggs, and Jim Jordan launched criticisms of Cheney for opposing Trump and backing Dr. Anthony Fauci.

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There are over 300,000 viruses that infect mammals, but there are only seven coronaviruses that infect humans. Four of these, known by the less-than-alternative labels 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1 produce generally mild illnesses and are responsible for about 15% of what people refer to as the “common cold.” Exposure to these viruses generates a mild and rapidly falling immune response, meaning that people can be infected again by the same coronavirus in a matter of a few months.

Of the remaining human coronaviruses, two are SARS-CoV and MERS-COV, which generate extremely serious illness with a high rate of fatalities. And then there is SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the disease COVID-19. From the beginning, there have been worries that this virus might combine the worst of other coronaviruses: highly infectious, deadly, and not generating a lasting immune response. That nightmare scenario has had researchers, and a lot of nonresearchers, holding their breath for months. Well … breathe. COVID-19 is a rat bastard of a disease, but the latest indications are that it’s not going to turn into an endlessly spinning cycle of disaster. We really can put this thing behind us.

The fact that some coronaviruses do not create a lasting immune response has been a shadow over the COVID-19 pandemic from the beginning, and there have certainly been a series of reports that have made that shadow seem darker.

Early on, officials in Hubei Province indicated that as much as 15% of patients were testing positive for COVID-19 a second time after having a negative result. These numbers were seriously alarming, especially as this 15% rate of secondary infection happened in a very brief period. However, it’s almost certain that these results were more related to testing errors in China’s early antibody-based testing. No other country has reproduced these results, or anything like them.

However, as researchers began looking into the immune response generated by COVID-19, it became clear that in many cases patients with the mild or asymptomatic cases had relatively low levels of antibodies when compared with patients—especially older patients—who had gone through more severe cases. And follow-up studies indicated that the level of antibodies for all cases dropped off 15%-40% over a period of just two or three months, meaning that some of those mild cases dropped to the point where they no longer tested positive. Antibodies are far from the only measure of immune response, but this did increase the worries that immunity to COVID-19 might be weak and fleeting.

However, a paper that reached preprint last week provides some reassuring information right in the title: “SARS-CoV-2 infection induces robust, neutralizing antibody responses that are stable for at least three months.” This study, based on a large database of nearly 20,000 patients treated at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital, showed that the “vast majority” or patients with mild or moderate COVID-19 still had strong antibody responses to the viral spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 three months later. The expectation of the authors is that at least 90% of all patients are immune to reinfection for at least three months.

This is absolutely not the last word on this subject. For one thing, this paper is still undergoing peer review. For another, the number of anecdotal cases of someone testing positive, then negative, then positive again indicates that, at the very least, some people experience a resurgence of the virus, if not a true second infection, within a short period. It still seems entirely possible that people who tested positive on a PCR swab test but had a very mild immune response might be susceptible to a second infection within a short period.

All of this makes it more important that any potential COVID-19 vaccine produce an immune response robust enough to avoid any concerns about rapid drop off. And there’s good news on that front as well. Phase 2 results of the Oxford vaccine have been published in The Lancet, and they’re as good—and maybe even better—than anyone had hoped. In earlier animal testing, the Oxford vaccine had produced a less robust antibody response than either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, and actually a lower level than found by patients experiencing a moderate case of COVID-19. However, the actual vaccine in actual patients worked better. 

As with the Moderna vaccine, the Oxford vaccine involves two shots given 28 days apart. And just as with the Moderna results released earlier this month, a number of the Oxford patients experienced relatively mild side effects (fever, chills, muscle aches, headaches) similar to the experience of patients receiving a flu vaccine. Unlike the Moderna trial where one person developed a serious fever, there were no strong side effects. After the first shot, 91% of patients had a measurable neutralizing antibody response against SARS-CoV-2. After a second shot, that number was 100%. The rate of the response was in the mid-range of levels seen in convalescent plasma—which is lower than the response seen in the Moderna phase 1 numbers, but there’s no indication that the Oxford numbers aren’t sufficient.

Full development of a response in all patients took until about 14 days following the booster shot—so even when the vaccine is available, everyone may face something of a maddening six weeks between visiting the doctor and feeling fairly safe from COVID-19. However, some people in the U.K. may get to start that countdown surprisingly soon as the Phase 3 studies could be done in September if everything goes well. It’s entirely possible that some healthcare workers could be getting their initial injection around Halloween.

Overall, the results from vaccine tests have been good, and the latest studies on lasting immunity to COVID-19 look good. Everything indicates that this nightmare does have an end. 

Enlarge / Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs are here—but they don't look like the follow-up breakthrough many readers have been hoping for. (credit: AMD)

This morning, AMD announced the next big thing for its Ryzen desktop CPU line—the Ryzen 4000 series, slated to arrive in Q3 2020.

Those of you who have been waiting breathlessly for Zen 3 architecture will need to keep waiting—Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs are still built on 7nm, Zen 2 architecture. There also don't appear to be any performance recordbreakers in Ryzen 4000's desktop lineup: the highest-end SKU announced is the 65W 8 core / 16 thread Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G.

Instead, AMD is taking solid aim at rival Intel's chokehold on the office PC market. Every single one of the 18 new processor SKUs announced features integrated Radeon graphics—and nine of the 18 are "GE" suffix CPUs, meaning only 35W TDP. Both of these features are highly desirable in either home-office or business environments—Radeon integrated graphics are good enough for anything short of high-end content creation or gaming, and lower TDP means lower power bills and lower cooling bills as well in hotter climates.

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Impeached president Donald Trump, loser of the 2016 popular vote, has issued a formal veto threat of the National Defense Authorization bill if it includes a provision requiring that all military installations carrying the names of Confederate generals be renamed. In other words, Trump is threatening the livelihoods of currently serving troops in order to protect the memory of dead traitors who fought to destroy the United States. There's nothing this man won't do to prove his racist, white supremacist red, including trying to incite a new civil war by sending federal troops to occupy the nation's cities.

The White House calls the renaming provision "part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the Nation those who do no meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct." The thing is, treason has always been treason. It was treason in 1865, it's treason now. Then it devolves into some serious bullshit, suggesting that "loud voices in America" will use this provision. They are "demanding the destruction or renaming of monuments and memorials to former Presidents," part of a "new left-wing cultural revolution." Stephen Miller wrote this one, you can tell.

The Senate adopted the amendment, offered by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in committee on a voice vote, which meant no one in the Republican-majority committee had a problem with it. The Department of Defense itself says, basically, "good idea." Retired military leaders agreed.

The current head of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, called for the base renaming in the strongest terms. "[T]hose officers turned their back on their oath," he said of the Confederate generals whose names are still on the bases. "It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the US Constitution." Treason.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said a few weeks ago that the Senate could override a veto, and that's probably still true. No Republican senator is going to want to be accused of depriving the troops of their pay in the middle of a global pandemic and three months ahead of a general election.

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Technically, the kids in the comic will outlast everyone who reads it.