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Sols 3020-3021: Saying Goodbye to the Fractured Intermediate Unit NASA’s Mars Exploration Program – NASA Mars Exploration

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), on Jan. 31, 2021. This image is upside-down because of the orientation of MAHLI when it was taken. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Download image

Today were doing another touch-and-go, fitting in a little bit of everything. And while we are planning for tomorrow on Mars, the science team is also busily analyzing the results of the triboelectric experiment that Curiosity did over the weekend (see the sol 3017 blog for details), looking at the images like the upside-down MALHI (shown), which are both beautiful and important for science. The image is upside-down because of the orientation of MAHLI when it was taken the arm was extended almost straight up, like a periscope, to get the desired angle of view; and to point back toward the sands from that position, the MAHLI camera needed to be upside-down.

First up in the plan is contact science with MAHLI and APXS on a bedrock target named Lunas, as part of our regular tracking of bedrock composition and changes. The target was a little tough to pick in order to avoid some discolored areas and the veins and try to get a good representation of the bedrock itself.

After we stow the arm, the rover will take several targeted science observations, including a ChemCam RMI mosaic of the sulfate unit and a large Mastcam mosaic of the contact with the sulfate unit. We are also doing some environment observations, including a crater rim extinction and a long dust devil movie.

The drive in todays plan is aiming to park us just before we transition out of the fractured intermediate unit (and before we enter the fractured rubbly unit). Once we get back into the rubbly unit, the driving will get a little bit tougher for the Rover Planners, because there are a lot more small and medium sized rocks that well need to avoid to minimize wheel wear. But, for this short drive of about 25 meters, the terrain is flat and clear of major hazards. The plan is to park where we can do one last contact science observation of this unit before leaving it behind. We are taking advantage of the short distance of the drive and the arm will be unstowed at the parking location. Well be taking extra workspace and drive direction imaging at this location as our last look at the unit.

On the second sol of the plan, we have more of our standard environmental observations, including another dust devil movie and a suprahorizon movie with navcam in the morning, and a long Mastcam sky survey and solar tau in the afternoon. Were also throwing in a late-afternoon Navcam optics monitoring activity to help us track the dust on the cameras.

NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars in 18 days – Big Think

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

It can be hard to conceptualize the total damage caused by Alzheimer's. The neurodegenerative disease is a leading cause of death in the U.S., killing more than 100,000 people each year. And as Alzheimer's progresses in the brain it not only erodes memory but also causes troubling symptoms like agitation, paranoia, and aggression.

These burdens fall not only on patients but also on their loved ones, doctors, and caregivers. Economically, the cost of caring for Alzheimer's patients hit an estimated $305 billion in 2020, according to a report from the Alzheimer's Association. And that figure doesn't include an estimated $244 billion in unpaid caregiving provided by family and friends.

The number of Alzheimer's patients in the U.S. is expected to double by 2050, affecting about 14 million people. That's one reason why hospitals and health professionals are already working to bolster how they care for the elderly and Alzheimer's patients. It takes 15 years to develop new treatments, so today's research needs adequate funding.

"Caring for our older adults is a big responsibility, one that we take great pride in," said Michael Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell Health. "Our aging population will face health issues, including and especially Alzheimer's, that will require the right care at the right time. That's why we have increased our services, including at Glen Cove Hospital, and research at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research."

... the real suffering comes from the changes that happen in the personality...

What causes Alzheimers disease?

While the costs of Alzheimer's are clear, its exact causes remain frustratingly mysterious. Currently, there's no cure for the disease, nor treatments that stop its progression.

"Alzheimer's is this brain problem, and everyone sort of knows what's probably causing the problem, but nobody's been able to do anything about it," said Dr. Jeremy Koppel, a geriatric psychiatrist and co-director of the Litwin-Zucker Alzheimer Research Center.

But in recent decades, researchers have zeroed in on likely contributors to the disease. The brains of Alzheimer's patients reliably show two abnormalities: build-ups of proteins called abnormal tau and beta-amyloid. As these proteins accumulate in the brain, they disrupt healthy communication between neurons. Over time, neurons get injured and die, and brain tissue shrinks.

Still, it's unclear exactly how these proteins, or other factors such as inflammation, may drive Alzheimer's.

"We are dealing with very complicated components," said Dr. Philippe Marambaud, a professor at the Feinstein Institutes and co-director of the Litwin-Zucker Alzheimer Research Center. "The actual culprit is not clearly defined. We know there are three possible culprits [tau, beta-amyloid, inflammation]. They're working in concert, or maybe in isolation. We don't know precisely."

Many Alzheimer's researchers have spent years developing therapies that target beta-amyloid, which can accumulate to form plaques in the brain. The Alzheimer's Association writes:

"According to the amyloid hypothesis, these stages of beta-amyloid aggregation disrupt cell-to-cell communication and activate immune cells. These immune cells trigger inflammation. Ultimately, the brain cells are destroyed."

Unfortunately, clinical trials of therapies that target beta-amyloid haven't been effective in treating Alzheimer's.

In brains with Alzheimer's disease, tau proteins lose their structure and form neurofibrillary tangles that block communication between synapses.

Credit: Adobe Stock

Currently, Feinstein Institutes researchers are conducting promising ongoing clinical trials with anti-tau antibodies, some of which are in phase III trials under the Food and Drug Administration. Patients receive these therapies intravenously over several hours and would undergo multiple rounds of treatment. It's similar to chemotherapy.

In the short term, it's more likely that anti-tau therapies would help to stabilize Alzheimer's, not cure it.

"Just stabilization of the disease's progression will save a huge societal, but also financial, burden," Dr. Marambaud said. "As research progresses, we would improve upon these stabilization approaches to make them more and more efficacious."

Even if anti-tau therapies don't prove to be the holy grail of Alzheimer's treatments, they could potentially alleviate severe behavioral symptoms of the disease, and potentially illuminate some of the mechanisms behind psychosis.

Credit: Getty Images

The future of Alzheimers treatments

Dr. Marambaud said the long-term goal of anti-tau immunotherapies is to prevent Alzheimer's. But that's currently impossible because scientists lack the biomarkers and diagnostic tools needed to detect the disease before cognitive symptoms appear. It could take decades before prevention becomes possible, if it ever does.

In the short term, stabilizing Alzheimer's is a more realistic goal.

"Our hope is that the treatments will be aggressive enough so that we can at least stabilize the disease in patients identified to be already affected by dementia, with cognitive tests that can be done by the clinicians," Dr. Marambaud said. "And even better, maybe reduce the cognitive impairments."

Dr. Marambaud said he encourages the public not to lose faith.

"Be patient. It's a very complicated disease," he said. "A lot of labs are really committed to making a difference. Congress has also realized that this is a huge priority. In the past five years, [National Institutes of Health] funding has increased tremendously. So the scientific field is working very hard. The politicians are behind us in funding this research. And it's a complicated disease. But we will make a difference in the years to come."

In the meantime, the Alzheimer's Association notes that physical activity and a healthy diet can reduce the chances of developing Alzheimer's, though more large-scale studies are needed to better understand how these factors interact with the disease.

"Many of these lifestyle changes have been shown to lower the risk of other diseases, like heart disease and diabetes, which have been linked to Alzheimer's," the association wrote. "With few drawbacks and plenty of known benefits, healthy lifestyle choices can improve your health and possibly protect your brain."

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NASA's Perseverance rover lands on Mars in 18 days - Big Think

The Unusual Rocket Thruster That Will Send Humans to Mars – Popular Mechanics

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

A Department of Energy (DoE) physicist has a new nuclear fusion rocket concept that uses magnetic fields to make thrust. Its a far-out idea that could carry astronauts to Mars.

You like nuclear. So do we. Let's nerd out over nuclear together.

The mechanism is already at play in Earths nuclear fusion reactors, as well as the solar flares of the sun. Could we really use linking and unlinking magnetic fields to make the long trip to the red planet?

The device would apply magnetic fields to cause particles of plasma, electrically charged gas also known as the fourth state of matter, to shoot out the back of a rocket and, because of the conservation of momentum, propel the craft forward, DoEs Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) said in a statement.

Think of a person sitting in a wheelie office chair holding a huge Roman candle. When you light the firework, the chair is propelled by the outpouring of directional energy.

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Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi first thought of the idea after hearing of the speeds that particles reach inside PPPLs national Spherical Torus Experiment, a tokamak reactor. During its operation, this tokamak produces magnetic bubbles called plasmoids that move at around 20 kilometers per second, which seemed to me a lot like thrust, she said in the statement. Her thruster basically works as a tokamak with one side cut out to release energy.

Fatima Ebrahimi/PPPL/arXiv

Fusion reactor experiments are popular on Earth as the next generation of nuclear energy technology, but none has created more power than it uses ... yet. Spaceflight is a popular additional use case for plasma fusion ideas because fusion technology can, hypothetically, stay pretty lightweight while generating a ton of thrust. High-temperature elements in plasma form are confined and selectively released to propel a spacecraft.

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Ebrahimis device has three key differences from other designs in the mix, PPPL says. First, it uses electromagnets to adjust the thrust, like a magnetic gas pedal that astronauts could use to increase or decrease velocity. Second, this design uses both traditional plasma and an additional material called plasmoidsthese greatly increase the thrust potential.

And finally, Ebrahimis device design is flexible to work with any gaseous element, meaning both lighter, smaller atoms of gas and bigger, heavier ones. This gives spacefaring groups the option to choose different kinds of burns for longer or shorter flights, for example.

[C]omputer simulations performed on PPPL computers [...] showed that the new plasma thruster concept can generate exhaust with velocities of hundreds of kilometers per second, 10 times faster than those of other thrusters, PPPL says. That means the thruster could shorten the longest flight times by a factor of 10, bringing many more destinations into our field of feasibility.

This would also help to address a major factor that stands between humans and longer spaceflights: the cosmic radiation that will permeate almost any spacecraft. The faster we can travel in the dangerous radiation of space, the less astronauts will be exposed. Faster travel will reduce other, less tangible human costs, like the psychological and physical toll of long stays in interplanetary space.

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The Unusual Rocket Thruster That Will Send Humans to Mars - Popular Mechanics

How Elon Musk And A Mission To Mars Might Boost Internet Speeds In The Rural Midwest | netnebraska.org – NET Nebraska

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

A new convoy of low-flying satellites could beam high-speed internet to the rural Midwest later this year as a test run for launching broadband to Mars.

Joey Bahr walks out to the front of his yard along a blacktop county road. He stops in a ditch and points to an orange-and-black sign that marks a buried fiber-optic cable. But for Bahr, the cable running beneath his feet is off-limits. Its owned by a neighboring internet service provider and is merely passing through on its way to a nearby town.

Its just maddening, Bahr said. Were at the end of the line basically.

Joey Bahr stands near a sign marking the buried cable that he can't tap into for his home internet, even though it travels through his property. (Photo by David Condos, Kansas News Service)

Bahrs story illustrates just how out-of-reach broadband remains for tens of millions of people in rural America.Nearly 10% of Nebraska households roughly 78,000 still dont have access to high-speed internet. Yet the promise of a future with broadband for all those in the rural Midwest, no matter how remote, might rest in the wide-open skies over the Bahrs home and a plan to send Wi-Fi to a future Mars colony.

Beaming the internet down from satellites might leapfrog the logistical and financial barriers that leave so many rural homes and those just outside the city limits on the wrong side of the digital divide. But to do that, the next generation of satellite internet service will need to be better than the space-based stuff thats been around for a while.

Existing satellite internet is better than nothing, said Daniel Andresen, a computer science professor at Kansas State University, but thats about all you can say about it.

He said customers often have to deal with web pages that load slowly due to bottlenecked bandwidth and video calls that appear choppy because of high latency, or lag times. They sometimes lose service completely if there is rain or snow.

Andresen said Kansans who live in towns even very small towns can generally skip satellite internet and connect their homes with fiber, cable or DSL.

But if somebody wants to live ... two miles outside of town, Andresen said, good luck getting any of the above.

The basic problem is that its not usually worth it to internet providers to string broadband lines out to places where people dont live close to each other. Each mile of fiber costs more than $27,000 to install. That might pay off in Wichita, which has 2,300 potential users per square mile, but not so much in Great Bends Barton County, with only 31 people per square mile.

Andresen says that leaves rural Kansans behind, especially as the pandemic moves so much of Americans personal and professional lives online.

Joey Bahr holds a map that shows how close his home is (represented by a blue dot) to a neighboring internet service area that offers cable broadband. (Photo by David Condos, Kansas News Service)

It used to be that, Internet access is kind of nice, but you go into town once a week and use the librarys and its fine, Andresen said. Now, its vital.

New 5G cellular technology might improve wireless internet speeds for some rural homes, but Andresen said its only likely to help someone who already has good 4G coverage. The high-frequency wavelengths that enable 5Gs fast speeds dont travel as far as 4G waves. And a tree or hill in the wrong place could block the signal.

5G could turn kind-of-haves into haves, but wont turn have-nots into haves, Andresen said. You end up with a situation where good connectivity tends to be pretty much no matter how much money youre willing to fling at it unavailable.

But the richest man on the planet, Elon Musk, has a plan to send humans to Mars. And almost accidentally, that plan might just open the door to getting a better YouTube feed to the ranches and farms of Kansas.

For Elon Musks aerospace endeavor, SpaceX, the Starlink project is part fundraiser, part test run. The company needs money from internet customers to fund its ambitions in the heavens, like space tourism and colonizing the red planet. SpaceX also wants to deliver high-speed internet to those future Martians who, like the people of rural Kansas, will be spread across a sparsely populated landscape.

Unlike traditional satellites that sit roughly 22,000 miles out into space, Starlink satellites beam data from a mere 340 miles above the Earth. Theoretically, these low-Earth orbit satellites could provide even better speeds than wired internet because light travels 50% faster through the vacuum of space than it does through the glass of fiber-optic cables.

So far, SpaceX has launched about 1,000 satellites floating above a thin strip of the U.S.- Canadian border. Kansans should be able to try Starlink for themselves later this year when SpaceX activates another belt of satellites over the Midwest.

But travel three states to the north of here, and that internet future already exists.

The speeds and the latency theyre advertising appear to be holding true, said North Dakota Chief Technology Officer Duane Schell. So, yeah, theres a lot of excitement about it.

Schell is talking with SpaceX about testing Starlink in state parks and wildlife management areas in North Dakota, where Starlink satellites already cover most of the state. But he also sees it as a way to shore up the future of the states rural economy, from telecommuting to high-tech farming.

Without that broadband, Schell said, youre simply not going to be able to compete.

Starlink isnt alone on the mission to bring satellite broadband to remote places like western Kansas. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos hired a former SpaceX executive to lead his companys satellite internet venture, Project Kuiper. HughesNet, already a major satellite internet provider in rural America, partnered with OneWeb to power a network of 650 satellites by the end of this year.

Derek Smashey, a financial analyst with Scout Investments in Kansas City, said satellite internet could eventually serve 15-20% of the population. So, Starlinks $99 monthly fees could cover the projects estimated $10 billion price tag.

It looks to us like that could be a $20 billion-plus dollar market just in the United States alone, Smashey said. I wouldnt want to bet against people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

Eventually, SpaceX plans to build a constellation of Starlink satellites that deliver broadband not only to rural America, but also to arctic research stations, tanker ships at sea and other remote locations around the globe. The company has federal approval to launch 12,000 satellites and has already filed paperwork for 30,000 more 10 times the number in the sky now.

But that worries some people who like the sky the way it is.

The thought of having to see the stars through a grid of crawling satellites, thats pretty horrifying to me, said Samantha Lawler, an astronomy professor at the University of Regina in Canada. This isnt like light pollution from a city where you can go camping in the mountains and see the stars perfectly. ... It will be everywhere.

Lawler lives on a farm in rural Saskatchewan, where shes teaching classes via video using a home hotspot similar to what Joey Bahr uses in Kansas. But shes afraid that advancing our connection to the internet could come at the expense of losing our connection to the stars.

An image from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory showing at least 19 streaks that astronomers quickly surmised were Starlink satellites. (Photo credit CTIO/NOIRLAB/NSF/AURA/DECAM DELVE SURVEY)

Humans have looked up at the stars since the dawn of humanity, Lawler said. Thats just sucha huge part of being human that we are very much in danger of losing.

In Barton County, Kansas, Joey Bahr said living in a place where his three sons can gaze up at the night sky was one of the reasons he and his wife, Anita, moved out here seven years ago. But living here means they have to connect to the internet through a cell tower a few miles away and try to stay under their data cap of 15 gigabytes per month.

It would take about six of those gigabytes to stream a single two-hour HD movie. If they go over that limit, he said their internet speeds can slow down to 600 kilobytes per second roughly 2% of the minimum speed in the federal definition of broadband.

The family reached a breaking point when their son tested positive for COVID-19 in the fall. Bahr and his wife suddenly needed to work from home, and their son used an iPad from school to keep up with his lessons. They decided to spend $200 on a second mobile hotspot just to get through the four-week quarantine.

Its a beautiful place. I love it, Bahr said of their property. Unfortunately, we are in kind of aninternet no-mans-land right now.

David Condos covers western Kansas for High Plains Public Radio and the Kansas News Service. You can follow him on Twitter @davidcondos..The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. For more stories from the Kansas News Service, visitksnewsservice.org.

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How Elon Musk And A Mission To Mars Might Boost Internet Speeds In The Rural Midwest | netnebraska.org - NET Nebraska

UAE Mars Mission: Why study the Red Planet? – Gulf News

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

UAE Mars Mission Image Credit:

Dubai: Aside from the UAEs Hope Probe, two more Mars missions are expected to rendezvous with the Red Planet this month.

Hope Probe, the first Arab interplanetary mission, will be the first to reach Mars on February 9 at 7.42pm (UAE time), to be followed by Chinas Tianwen-1 dual orbiter-rover on February 10, while Perseverance rover by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) will make a landing attempt in an area on Mars on February 18.

All three Mars missions were launched in July last year and each has its own mission to explore the Red Planet.

But why do we need to study our neighbouring planet Mars?

Other than our own Earth, Mars is the most explored planet in our solar system. Several missions have been sent to Mars and humans have been looking for answers to these fundamental questions: Did Mars once have life on it? What is the climate history of Mars? How did Mars evolve from its original state? Should Mars be the next destination for humans?

As a planetary orbiter, Hope Probe is expected to collect more than one terabyte (1,000GB) of new data, which will be shared with more than 200 academic and scientific institutions around the world for free. Hope Probe, with its three scientific instruments, will map a complete portrait of the Martian atmosphere and evaluate its seasonal and daily changes.

By studying the connection between current Martian weather and the ancient climate of the Red Planet, scientists will have deeper insights into the past and future of the Earth as well as the potential for human settlement on Mars and other planetary objects.

Scientists will understand the weather and learn how Mars lost some of its atmosphere over billions of years of its planetary history. Substantial geophysical evidence suggests that Mars was once a much warmer and more humid world, with a lot of liquid water on its surface that could have been optimal for some form of life to evolve.

Comparing Mars with Earth weather

But before talking about colonising the Red Planet and considering it for human habitat, there is an immediate reason for exploring Mars and that is to have a more comprehensive understanding of Earths weather.

In a recent interview with Gulf News, Maryam Yousuf, Hope Probe Science data analyst, said: Our goal is to study the diurnal (daily) data and investigate the atmosphere of Mars, which has never been done before. Studying Mars atmosphere will help us understand the atmosphere of other planets and provide a more comprehensive understanding of Earths weather.

Having day-to-night coverage of Mars atmosphere will give us advantage of knowing what happened to Mars ancient wet environment which has now become dry. We will also observe Mars weather phenomena, including its massive dust storms and compare these with dust storms here on Earth, Yousuf explained.

She added the data that will be collected by Hope Probe will provide scientists a deeper understanding of climate dynamics and also shed light on how energy and particles, like oxygen and hydrogen, have moved through the atmosphere and escaped Mars. This can be applied to understand the future of Earth.

Evidence oflife on Mars?

In a forum late last year organised by the Sharjah Research Technology and Innovation Park (SRTI Park), where NASA scientists and UAE engineers discussed why and how humans can get to Mars, Dr James Green, chief scientist at NASA, said the various Mars missions would look for evidence of past life on Mars.

He noted Mars has water in underground aquifers and frozen glaciers. It used to be a blue planet (like Earth) and its water may be down to only 13 per cent of what it used to have, but it is a wonderful resource to explore the planet, he added.

Green also explained one promising indication of life on Mars is that every summer, the planet gets grassy and the amount of methane gas present at the surface increases dramatically. The Curiosity Rover on Mars also detected molecular oxygen, which increases each spring and summer by up to 30 per cent before dropping again in the fall. That tells us life may be underground during the summer the soils heat and therefore loosen up such that the methane can leak out. We have all kinds of circumstantial observations that perhaps Mars has microbial life too, he continued.

Inspiring the youth

For the Emirati engineers, scientists and analysts who are part of the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM), reaching Mars is about moving and inspiring the youth. Omran Sharaf, EMM Project Director, said the space project is not just about reaching Mars theres much more to it. Hope Probes success will create a disruptive change and a positive impact at home that will inspire not just the Emirati but the entire Arab youth.

During a press conference at Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) one week before Hope Probes expected meet-up with Mars, Sharaf said Hope Probe will not only make history as the first Arab interplanetary mission to reach Mars, the spacecraft will also be a showcase of the growing UAE space programme and Emirati design and engineering.

He noted the system, design and programme for Hope Probes deep space operation are all Emirati-made, in line with the directive from the UAE leadership to build and not to buy.

Global cooperation

Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technology and Chair of the UAE Space Agency, said in previous interviews Hope Probe mission has not only spurred a burgeoning scientific awakening in the UAE, it has also demonstrated the countrys commitment to global cooperation on space exploration.

She said: The UAE Mars mission opens new scientific horizons and turns the UAE into a knowledge-exporting country instead of an importer of knowledge, sharing with the world for the first time, unprecedented data that will be captured by Hope Probe.

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UAE Mars Mission: Why study the Red Planet? - Gulf News

Mars Aims to Empower Women With #HereToBeHeard Project – Philanthropy Women

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

Mars, Inc. has launched #HereToBeHeard, a campaign to raise the voices of women and advance gender equality in businesses and the workplace.

As part of the companysFull Potentialplatform for action on gender equity in its workplaces, sourcing communities, and the marketplace, #HereToBeHeard asks women everywhere: What needs to change so more women can reach their full potential? The responses will inform the concrete actions Mars will take both within its value chain and in broader society to close the gender opportunity gap.

Victoria Mars, Mars Board Member and ambassador of Mars Full Potential program:Women have played a powerful role in our history and leadership at Mars. But we have more to do. Were striving to empower more women within our workplace, and across our extended value chain.

The magnitude and urgency of gender inequality in society demands more action. If global business doesnt listen and step up now, then when? Business can have an outsized impact on driving change at scale. At Mars were seizing this opportunity to expand the conversation and drive action. The #HereToBeHeard movement is about ensuring that all womens voices have a chance to be heard and translating what we hear into impact plans that advance gender equality.

To kick off the conversation, Emmy award-winning actress and hostTamera Mowry-Housleyjoins a roster of inspiring women influencers includingPoppy Jamie,HaniSidow,Helen Wu&KellieGerardiwho will lend their experiences and invite women to share their voices and vision at beheard.mars.com.

Emmyaward-winningactress and hostTamera Mowry-Housley:Its unacceptable that so many women continue to face disproportionate barriers and roadblocks at work, at home and in their daily lives. If were really going to ensure every woman reaches her full potential, we have to consider the diversity of our backgrounds, our talents and our experiences. All our voices deserve to be heard.

I think its brave for a major corporation like Mars to say weve not done enough and that its time to listen up. Thats why Im excited to help Mars elevate the voices of many of the women who go unheard.

Currently, women make up 51 percent of the worlds population and could contribute$28 trillionto the global GDP, and yet so often their voicesgounheard. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, the United Nations estimatedit would take more than a century to close the gender opportunity gap. Now, the pandemic has set progress for gender equality back by 25 years. Its impact has been particularlydevastatingfor women in minority groups who for far too long have been overlooked in the conversation.

The initial phase of #HeretoBeHeard, where womens voices will be collected, will run through March; after which the submissions will be analyzed by the Oxford Future of Marketing Initiative (FOMI) atOxford UniversitysSad Business School. The results will be shared with the world in a study byOxfordthis summer and will inform the action plans of Mars Full Potential platform, including policies Mars can implement and advocate for in its commitment to unlock opportunities for women.

Launched last year, the Full Potential program aims to drive gender equality for all through a range of actions. By putting inclusivity and diversity at the heart of its efforts, Mars has:

We want to hear your voice. Visit beheard.mars.com to learn more, complete the short survey and continue the conversation with #HereToBeHeard.

The #HereToBeHeard Hub can also be found in the following translations:

#HereToBeHeard Quotes for Attribution

CEO of CARE,Michelle Nunn:In our work with Mars in the cocoa-growing communities in Cte dIvoire andGhana, we see first-hand how the voices of women are suppressed. Many face poor access to education, a lack of opportunity to gain dignified work and in some cases violence. At CARE we strongly believe that women should be given the simple right to voice their opinion on how to make the world a better place. That is why we are very proud to lend our voice to Mars #HereToBeHeard campaign.

Madeline Di Nonno, Chief Executive Officer of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media:We are proud tosupport #HereToBeHeard, an important global campaign which aims to give women and girls the opportunity to have their say. #SeeitBeit!

ProfessorAndrew Stephen, Associate Dean of Research, LOral Professor of Marketing and Director of FOMI at Oxford Sad: Were delighted to welcome Mars to the Oxford Future of Marketing Initiative, and thrilled to be working with them on #HereToBeHeard. The work will help to address elements of gender inequality in business and will inform tools and actions to help address these imbalances. We hope that these findings will become part of a meaningful and evergreen resource for the public and other communities in business and beyond.

ABOUT #HERETOBEHEARD#HereToBeHeard is a global campaign from Mars, Incorporated which drives change on gender inequality, in support of Goal Five of the UNs Sustainable Development Goals. It is part of Full Potential, Mars platform for action on gender which aims to empower women and close the gender gap in the places we work, the communities where we source our ingredients and in the way we create our advertising. For more information on the Full Potential platform and the #HereToBeHeard survey, visit beheard.mars.com andmars.com

For more information about Mars, please visitwww.mars.com. Join us onFacebook,Twitter,LinkedIn,InstagramandYouTube.

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Mars’ Gale Crater 3 billion years ago resembled Iceland in terrain, temperature: study – Firstpost

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

FP TrendingFeb 03, 2021 19:11:24 IST

Rocks from the Gale Crater in Mars havegiven researchers a glimpse into whatthe region was like more than 3 billion years ago, and a new study suggests seasons in the crater must have been like those in Iceland today. A team of Rice University scientists compared data of the Gale Crater collected by the Curiosity rover with places on Earth with similar geologic formations. They made sure that these regions have experienced weathering in different climates. The comparison study found that Icelands terrain and temperature was the closest match to that of ancient Mars.

According to a statementfromRice University, temperature had the biggest impact on how rocks formed on the neighbouring planet all those years ago. Sediments were deposited by ancient Martian streams in the crater and these sediments weathered by climate over time. Now, Icelands basaltic terrain and cool weather where temperatures do not go above 38 degree Fahrenheit (3.3 degrees Celsius) is quite a reflection of the Martian phenomenon.

The landing site for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was chosen for giving the mission access to examine the lower layers of a mountain inside Gale Crater. Image: NASA

The study was published in the journal JGR Planets and uses data from varying terrains on Earth like in Iceland, Idaho and other regions. While data collected from the NASA Curiosity rover was able to answer details about the chemical and physical states of mudstones formed in an ancient lake in Mars, it was not enough to suggest the possible climate conditions when the sediment eroded upstream. It is known that the crater housed a lake, but it is not known whether the planet was home to mostly rivers and lakes or snow and glaciers.

Michael Thorpe, who was part of study,explained that sedimentary rocks in Gale Crater suggest the actual climate was somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. The ancient climate was likely frigid but also appears to have supported liquid water in lakes for extended periods of time.

The researchers also said that similar techniques of comparing Mars samples with present day Earth can help us find a lot more and this can be done with the findings of Perseverance.

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Mars' Gale Crater 3 billion years ago resembled Iceland in terrain, temperature: study - Firstpost

UAEs Hope Probe at most critical phase ahead of landing on Mars – Khaleej Times

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

As the countdown beigns for the first-ever Arab interplanetary mission to enter into the Red Planet's orbit, Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) said today that Hope Probe is now in its most critical stage as the spacecraft is set to enter into Mars orbit on February 9 at 7.42 pm UAE time.

Also read: UAE's Hope probe to reach Mars orbit in less than 2 weeks

At an MBRSC briefing on Tuesday, Omran Sharaf, Project Director of Emirates Mars Mission, said the Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) is at a critical stage when the Hope Probe will have to slowdown sufficiently to enter into Mars orbit. As it approaches the orbit, the spacecraft will use its thrusters to reduce its speed.

"Precision is fundamental to success to avoid, God Forbid, Hope Probe crashing on Mars or missing its orbit and getting lost in deep space," he added.

"The design, system and software that will be used for the MOI are all Emirati-made. This is in line with the directive from the UAE leadership to build and not to buy," he added.

The Hope probes complex maneuver on February 9 will be the most critical part of the mission that will see the spacecraft rapidly reducing its speed from 121,000km/h to 18,000km/h to enter Mars orbit.

Upon arriving to Mars, after travelling 493 million km, in a seven-month journey since its launch on July 20, 2020 from Tanegashima Island in Japan, the probe will provide the first-ever complete picture of the Martian atmosphere.

The unmanned spacecraft will explore the climactic dynamics of the Red Planet in daily and seasonal timescales for a full Martian year (687 earth days), an endeavour that has never been pursued by any previous mission.

UAEs Hope Probe at most critical phase ahead of landing on Mars - Khaleej Times

Elon Musk reveals ambitious plans to get humans to Mars seven years ahead of NASA – Republic World

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on February 1 revealed an ambitious plan to get humans on Mars by 2026, which is seven years before US space agency NASA aims to land astronauts on the Red planet. While speaking on the audio-only social media app Clubhouse, Musk said that his goal was to establish a self-sustaining Martian civilisation. For the first time, he mentioned a time-line and said that he will get humans on the Red Planet in five and a half years.

Musks deadline seems little ambitious as there is a long way to go. SpaceX is still working to finalise the prototypes, with a second high-altitude test flight due soon. Even NASA aims to get first humans on the Red Planet in 2033. It is also worth mentioning that it currently takes at least six months to get to Mars, however, Musk believes that could be down to as little as a month, with flights operating every two years.

READ:Price Of Bitcoin Jumps Again As Elon Musk Says The Cryptocurrency Is A 'good Thing'

While speaking on Clubhouse, the SpaceX CEO went on to say that over time one can make Mars Earth-like by transforming the planet by warming it up. He said that the first colony will be a tiny, dangerous, frontier-like environment as they begin to establish propellant manufacturing, food production and power plants. He said that there are a number of technological advances that need to be made between now and 2026 before humans can travel to Mars on Starship.

Further, when asked if he would allow his children to go to the Red planet on a future rocket trip, Musk said, if were talking about the third or fourth set of landings on Mars Id be ok with that. He added that so far none of them are jumping to go to Mars.

READ:Elon Musk's 'Cyborg Monkey' Triggers Memes, Netizens Say 'Planets Of Apes Has Begun'

Meanwhile, the latest 'SN9' Starship prototype is due to undergo a high altitude test flight in the coming days - similar to the test in December that ended in an explosion. The scientists are going to check how this prototype performs. SpaceX is aiming to launch the SN9 at the speed of 15 km, which is much higher than the speed used by any rocketto date. The previousthree engine prototypes named Star hopper, SN5,SN6 attained a minimum altitude of 500 during the test flight. The test flights were conducted in the past year. Elon Musk wants to use his SpaceX mission to help humanity and also plans to create a "Colony of Humans" on Mars.

Back in November, the tech mogul had even said that he wants to make his own laws on the Red planet. Musk said that once SpaceX reachesMars,it will colonize the planet as there are no universal laws on the planet. All Martian settlement will be dealt with using "self-governing principles, Musk said in a document that lists Terms of Service of its Starlink internet project, declaring himself the governing entity in space. Further, the rocket company's satellite-based internet service, Starlink suggests that it will not recognize the land-based international law that governs Earth on the red planet.

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READ:Elon Musk Claims He Has 'a Monkey With Brain Implant To Play Video Games'

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Elon Musk reveals ambitious plans to get humans to Mars seven years ahead of NASA - Republic World

Elon Musk Shares Plan of Getting Humans to Mars By 2026. That’s 7 Years Ahead of NASA – News18

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

Elon Musk has mentioned his plans of taking humans to Mars for a while - and he finally has a timeline for it.

Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla boss, appeared on the exclusive audio-only Clubhouse app Sunday night, joining The Good Time Show to talk all things Mars, memes and monkeys playing video-games in their heads.

About Mars specifically, for the first time ever, Musk has mentioned a time-line to get humans on the red planet. "Five and a half years," Musk told hosts Sriram Krishnan and Aarthi Ramamurthy at the beginning of the show, reports CNET.

While that's not a hard deadline. Musk listed a number of caveats -- there's a raft of technological advances that must be made in the intervening years.

"The important thing is that we establish Mars as a self-sustaining civilization," he said.

The strange thing is the deadline may be a little ambitious, as even USA's leading space agency, NASA, had a much more different date, one which is seven years after Musk's time. The Perseverance uncrewed rover will arrive later this month to take rock samples and search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet - but the first humans aren't due to arrive on a NASA funded rocket until at least 2033.

That will be part of the Artemis - to the Moon and Mars - mission that will first see a sustainable presence established on the lunar surface.

Musk also answered other questions about Mars. 'Over time you can make Mars Earth like by terraforming the planet by warming it up,' said Musk.

When asked if he would allow his children to go to Mars on a future rocket trip he said 'if we're talking about the third or fourth set of landings on Mars I'd be ok with that,' adding that 'so far none of them are jumping to go to Mars'.

This isn't the first time Musk has spoken about civilization on Mars. A report in November last year found that SpaceX will not be recognising any international law on Mars and will instead follow a set of self-governing principles that will be laid down during the Martian settlement.

Elon Musk appears to have very subtly slipped in a clause into the terms of agreement of Starlink satellite broadband services that SpaceX will make its own set of rules on Mars.

The Starlink terms of agreement reads: For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship, or other colonisation spacecraft, the parties recognise Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.

Maybe with its own laws, Musk wanted to beat NASA at reaching the red planet from the start. If that's the case, he's right about his time: getting there much ahead of NASA.

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Elon Musk Shares Plan of Getting Humans to Mars By 2026. That's 7 Years Ahead of NASA - News18

As Pa. budget shows, the governor is from Venus, the Legislature is from Mars – PennLive

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

Gov. Tom Wolf picked the big lumber off his policy bat rack Wednesday, unveiling a $37.8 billion state budget proposal that calls for the kind of sweeping change that he started his tenure in office with six years ago.

Wolf proposed a major tax reform that also - and unfortunately for the governor and his allies - can be accurately described by his Republican critics as the single-biggest income tax increase ever seen in Pennsylvania, even though it would only ask the top one-third of state wage earners to pay more, according to the administrations numbers.

He has proposed a transformative increase in funding to Pennsylvanias public schools, boosting the main budget line for state aid that districts can use to support their basic education programs by $1.35 million, with a major shift in the formula that drives out those dollars to one that puts schools on more equitable footing.

He proposed a quick-turnaround, $3 billion investment in a variety of economic development programs designed to help Pennsylvania build back better, as President Joe Biden might say, from the pandemic-fueled recession; this one funded by a new severance tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas production.

You have to admire the guys ability to go into the policy laboratory and come up with ambitious ideas. But you might also wonder about his ability to read the political tea leaves in Harrisburg.

Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf delivered his ambitious $37.8 billion state budget proposal that did not draw many fans in the Republican majorities in the Legislature.Feb. 3, 2021Screenshot from Commonwealth Media Services video

Wolf, on this day, certainly rallied the spirits of his fellow Democrats, who felt like their policy requests were heard. They are convinced in the rightness of Wolfs plan, and now must hope they and Wolf can figure out a way to sell this as a tax cut wrapped in a $3 billion tax increase.

Theres no wrong time to do the right thing, said House Minority Whip Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia. Members are going to have to go back to their districts and say where they are on one of the largest tax cuts for working Pennsylvanians.

The cut Harris refers to is embedded within the increase proposed in the personal income tax rate, from 3.07 percent now, to 4.49 percent as of July 21. Because of a dramatic expansion of the states tax forgiveness program that exempts some income from lower-wage workers, the administration says about 40 percent of all filers will see a cut in what they owe.

It [the tax cuts and school funding gains] shouldnt be the fine print, agreed Senate Democratic floor leader Jay Costa of Allegheny County. It should be discussed as part of a solution to a crisis that were dealing with in our schools - the funding - but also our structural deficit that we have.

Wolfs budget would have been pitch perfect were he delivering it in Albany, N.Y., Trenton, N.J., Hartford, Conn, or some of those other Eastern state capitals where the Democratic Party controls both the governors office and the Legislature. This, though, is Pennsylvania, where no Democratic governor has had even one chamber of the Legislature in his corner since 2010. Does someone need to tell Tom?

We found lots of volunteers at the state Capitol Wednesday.

The bottom line is were in the middle of a pandemic, said Rep. Stan Saylor, R-Red Lion and the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. And hes proposing a tax increase to implement this thing right now. He didnt do it before the pandemic. But all of sudden when everybodys suffering, he wants to increase taxes to do this. I just find it an absurd time to be doing this.

You know, look, I know hes a liberal governor and everything else, Saylor continued. But come on, you have to have compassion for the people of this commonwealth.

The Republicans did their part to make clear that everyone knew that after all the tax shifting is done, an individual making more than $49,000 a year will see a tax increase, as will the parents in a family of four making $84,000 a year. Not to mention all of the small businesses across the state who are taxed through the personal income tax structure.

The big box stores do not care about increases to the personal income tax, added Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre County. The mom-and-pop stores will bear the brunt of this proposal. Small employers and middle-class families are what drives economic recoveries. Governor Wolf has put yet another target on their backs.

What about all that the educational funding? In the schools community, they see the governors plan as something that could really lift quality of programming and instruction across the state.

But Corman raised another priority altogether.

Where [Wolfs] proposal on education to me lacked was giving parents options to find the best educational environment for their children, which is the most important thing in education, Corman said. We are going to be looking at ways to develop opportunities for parents, no matter where they are on the income ladder, to find an educational environment best fitting their children... not just trying to find more money for schools.

And spiking the severance tax has become a point of pride for many legislative Republicans through the Wolf years.

The balance of power in Harrisburg - after all that political drama of 2020 - hasnt really changed.

So what happened to that governor who trimmed his policy sails for the last four years, and seemed content to focus on areas where he could find common cause with the Republicans: public pension reforms, legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes, or permitting wine and beer sales in groceries?

Daniel Mallinson, a professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg, suggested there may be a method to Wolfs 2021 madness, despite the hard nos hes hearing at the start. Its sort of the ask for full loaf, so you might be able to at least get enough bread to make a sandwich approach.

Both sides agree theres going to be a multi-billion dollar deficit [because of the hit the recession has put on tax collections], Mallinson said, so theres a window here where Governor Wolf can put out some of these bigger ideas he has and see if he can get any traction on any of them with the General Assembly.

It may end up that the governor might not get everything he wants. But hes going to use whatever leverage he can ... to try to pull Republicans away from where they are. That may bring up the palatability for things like marijuana [legalization] and severance tax, Mallinson said.

One great big wild card lurking in the shadows of everyones position - and one that could really stand this entire budget cycle on its head - is the possibility that the new Biden Administration may deliver on a large package of fiscal relief to state and local governments.

Such relief is a foundation piece of the aid package that Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress want to deliver, and it could bring billions of dollars to Pennsylvania, tax-free.

Time will tell how that works out.

But in the meantime, Wolf seemed to signal Tuesday that he wants to strive to be a little bit more than that manager / governor of the past several years.

The new 2021-22 legislative session marks the final half of Wolfs second and last term in office. Muhlenberg College political science professor Chris Borick said the last two years of a governors administration are tough because people are starting to look past you.

You layer that in with the challenge of crisis governing which has taken a toll on his standing. Hes had to make a lot of unpopular choices. Those choices have led to increased battles with the Legislature and diminished public standing. You bring all those things together and you think: OK what moves are available to him? One is to think big and come out and look for something thats impactful. Thats probably part of this, Borick said.

Wolf took advantage of the unique format of a video address Tuesday that was aimed, this year, as much at Pennsylvania voters and taxpayers as it was lawmakers, to appeal to Pennsylvanians to raise their voices and call your representatives if they agree their family would be better off in a Pennsylvania with fairer taxes and better schools.

I know that folks on the other side of the aisle are going to point to this budget and tell you all the things it does wrong or all of the things they dont like, Wolf said Tuesday. But you know what? Were not in the chamber today... So Im not talking to them. Im talking to you.

Public crusades on tax increases are hard to win in Pennsylvania.

If Wolf is to have any chance, Borick said its going to hinge on his ability to sell residents on the good that this plan could do for their school districts, which will see some of the biggest education subsidy increases in history, and could in turn, lower property taxes as well as possibly their personal income tax bills.

Given the proposed income levels where the personal income tax forgiveness and reduction are set, he pointed out some of the benefactors of the tax shift could include folks living in rural areas where lots of the Republican legislators are from. While the folks with higher incomes live in parts of the state that tend to vote much more Democratic will be the ones to bear the impact of the tax increase but see benefit from increased state subsidies for schools.

Id be shocked if thats not a big messaging point coming out of the governors office as they are pushing for it, Borick said.

But Republicans have their counter-argument all set.

Tax increases are not the answer. They never have been, said House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre County. As you look out throughout history, no one has ever been able to tax themselves to prosperity.

Our caucus is about jobs, jobs and more jobs because we know and weve seen that a robust economy - like we had 10, 12 months ago - allows people to do the American dream. Go to work, earn a paycheck and be proudly able to go home and take care of their families, not just wait for other government dollars.

Charles Thompson may be reached at cthompson@pennlive.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ChasThompson1. Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.

As Pa. budget shows, the governor is from Venus, the Legislature is from Mars - PennLive

Car size Perseverance Rover to land on Mars soon, to start Red Planet exploration – Republic World

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

NASAhas been sending land rovers for nearly a decade on Mars to find more details about this red planet. The latest addition is the Perseverance, which will land on Mars on February 18. According to an article published on space.com, this land rover was launched by NASA by using the Atlas V Rocket on July 30, 2020. This land rover is a crucial part of the ambitious Mars 2020 mission, which is costing $2.7 billion.

Also read:'Brilliant Curtains Of Light': NASA Shares Pic Of Jupiter's Northern And Southern Auroras

According to space.com, the perseverance mars rover at present has a mission cycle of one Martian year, which is equivalent to 687 Earth days. It is 10 ten feet long, 7 feet tall, and 9 feet wide rover, which is nearly the size of a regular size car. The perseverance rover weighs 1050 kilograms and is weighed less than a regular car.

Also read:NASA Astronauts 'celebrate America' From ISS On Biden-Harris Inauguration Day

This Mars rover looks familiar as it is based on the design of the earlier Mars land rover named the Curiosity. The new rover comes with the framework based on this old model, and scientists at the Mars science laboratory used the old technology alongside new ones to create this new rover.

Also read:NASA DeclaresInsight mole Probe Defunct After It Fails To Burrow Mars 'deep Enough'

NASA released an official statement in 2017 regarding this land rover launched on Mars. Jim Watzin, who is the Director of the Mars Exploration Programme, said that reusing old hardware and models often helps NASA to minimize the chances of a failed mission and also cuts down the cost. Just like the Curiosity Land Rover, Perseverance also has six wheels, one robotic arm, and one hand alongside multiple cameras, machines, and a drill to collect rock samples from the surface of Mars.

It also has some advanced machines since it is ground-penetrating radar. It will dig holes on the Martian surface and will study and sample the rock layers, ice layers, and water layers up to 10 meters deep from the surface.

Also read:'Like Sands Through The Hourglass': NASA's Curiosity Rover Completes 3,000 Days On Mars

The mission of this new land rover is different than its predecessors. Its main mission is to find ifthere is anykind of life on Mars. It will try to find biosignatures on Mars from its past. TheX-ray spectrometer and the ultraviolet laser will aid this rover to find any traces of the erstwhile life forms living on Mars.

Also read:Did NASA Find New Planet? An Abandoned Gas-giant Planet With 3 Star System

Science.com quoted George Tahru, who is the executive head of the Perseverance mission, as saying, "Our next instruments will build on the success of MSL, which was a proving ground for new technology.". He also said that this mission would make it easy for the upcoming missions on Mars to find life on Earth.

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Car size Perseverance Rover to land on Mars soon, to start Red Planet exploration - Republic World

SIGNALS OF BEDLAM Brings Prog Metal Madness to Mars in "Red Sunflower" Music Video – Metal Injection

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

New York City quartet Signals of Bedlam have been pumping out hypnotic progressive/alt rock gems for roughly a decade. Comprised of vocalist Cero Cartera, bassist Chika Obiora, guitarist Tom Hoy, and drummer Rich Abidor, the quartet were drawn together by their affinity for noise (as Hoy puts it) and impeccable ability to marry aggressive theatrics with contemplative transitions. That blend of dexterity and passion resulted in two stellar LPs: 2013s No Gods, No Monsters and 2016s Escaping Velocity.

On February 26th, Signals of Bedlam are set to outdo themselves once again when their follow-up full-length, Liars Intuition, is unleashed. Luckily, fans wont have to wait until then to hear (and see) new material, as Signals of Bedlam have revealed the music video for the LPs fourth track, Red Sunflower. Unsurprisingly, its an awesome preview of what to expect.

The band describes the track as a group favorite and the most collectively challenging to realize. Cartera elaborates:

Each of us has a unique take on art, politics, religion, etc., and this has been an integral part of our creative process. We debate, deconstruct, challenge, and fight to the death (metaphorically) because we often have conflicting opinions. However, those conflicts have given us some of our favorite songs. Here, we have the story of a journey to find, at great personal risk, what was once easily within reach. Its a reflection of the behavior that led to this state.

Without a doubt, "Red Sunflower" sees them firing on all cylinders, with dynamic rhythms, multilayered destructive guitarwork, and powerfully emotive vocals colliding into an irresistible fusion reminiscent of Leprous, Caligulas Horse, System of a Down, and Haken.

The video was done in collaboration with Long Island director Tom Flynn, whos previously worked with Lamb of God, Moontooth, and Covet (among others). Theyd planned to film it last spring, but as youd guess, COVID-19 got in the way; fortunately, they were able to get it all done within the subsequent few months, with the help of Amazon for the props and wardrobe. Set around a future Earth on which humanity has ravaged its resourcesas Cartera explainsit looks like a more narrative-focused continuation of their last Liars Intuition video, Pendulum in Swing (also directed by Flynn). Specifically, its depiction of scientists doing agricultural experimentations in forests and deserts on Marshence the red sunflowersis ripe with psychedelic oddities. In fact, it resembles the trippy look of recent Nicholas Cage movies Mandy and Color Out of Space, so its visuals match the alluring vibrancy of the music.

As for Liars Intuition (which sees the return of producer Frank Mitaritonna), Signals in Bedlam see it as a return to familiar territory thats also a bold step forward, into darker and moodier territory. Cartera also reveals that it was written in a time when truths that were once considered immutable, like equality and justice, suddenly came into question. On the surface, it looks like a natural result of opposing forces clashing, but when you peel back the layers, you start to see that this collective confusion, The Great Confounding, is the product of deliberate deception. Hoy adds that they spent at least a year of twice-weekly sessions to create it, resulting in the first record that . . . we wrote fully collaboratively.

Let us know what you think of Red Sunflower in the comments section below, and be sure to pre-save the single now for when it releases this Friday! Of course, you can also preorder Liars Intuition here.

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SIGNALS OF BEDLAM Brings Prog Metal Madness to Mars in "Red Sunflower" Music Video - Metal Injection

They took Donald Trump to task. Now they’re ready to reshape the justice department – The Guardian

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

On her last day at the justice department in 2017, Vanita Gupta considered taking a picture as she left the agencys headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. But she decided against it. Gupta, the outgoing head of the departments civil rights division, once described as the crown jewel of the agency, didnt really want to remember the moment, she told a reporter who was shadowing her for the day.

Jeff Sessions, then the incoming attorney general, was poised to unwind much of the painstaking progress Gupta, 46, and her colleagues had spent the previous four years building. It was no secret that Sessions opposed the kind of court agreements the justice department used to fix unconstitutional policing policies across the country (dangerous and an exercise of raw power in Sessions eyes). Nor were there any illusions that Sessions would try very hard to enforce the Voting Rights Act, already on its last legs after the supreme court gutted a key provision in 2013 (Sessions described the landmark civil rights law as intrusive).

Many of those concerns came to pass. Trumps justice department not only did little to enforce some of the countrys most powerful civil rights protections for minority groups, but in several cases it opposed them. It filed almost no voting rights cases and defended restrictive voting laws, tried to undermine the census, challenged affirmative action policies, sought to roll back protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, and limited the use of consent decrees to curb illegal policing practices. Gupta took a job as the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of civil rights groups across the country, where she became one of the leading figures pushing back on the Trump administration.

Joining Gupta in that effort was Kristen Clarke, a 47-year-old former justice department lawyer who leads the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, founded in 1963 to help attorneys in private practice enforce civil rights. As her group filed voting rights and anti-discrimination lawsuits across the country over the last few years, Clarke spent hours nearly every election day briefing journalists on reports of incoming voting problems. Reports of long lines, voting machine malfunctions, translator issues no problem was too small. The monitoring sent a message that civil rights groups would move swiftly against any whiff of voter suppression.

Now, after years of leading the fight for civil rights from outside the justice department, both women are poised to return to its top levels, where they can deploy the unmatchable resources of the federal government. Last month, Joe Biden tapped Gupta to serve as his associate attorney general, the No 3 official at the department, and Clarke to lead the civil rights division. If confirmed by the Senate, Gupta would be the first woman of color to be the associate attorney general; Clarke would be the first Black woman in her role.

They are both independently legit civil rights champions with a long deep history, said Justin Levitt, who worked with Gupta at the justice department and knows both women well. Theyre going to make a really spectacular, really powerful team.

Picking two career civil rights lawyers for two of the top positions at the justice department sends an unmistakable signal that civil rights enforcement will be a top priority for the agency over the next four years. Civil rights leaders said they could not remember a prior administration in which two of the departments highest positions were filled by civil rights attorneys, especially two such as Clarke and Gupta.

Its going to be really important and energizing and exciting to be able to be in conversation and discussion with people who understand the departments role in civil rights enforcement, said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), who has worked closely with both women. But its also going to be exciting, and as a matter of resources, to have the department actually do civil rights enforcement.

Born to Jamaican immigrant parents, Clarke grew up in Brooklyn and attended the Choate Rosemary Hall boarding school as an alumna of Prep for Prep, a program that places talented students of color from modest backgrounds in elite private schools.

Its a dichotomy that I think about all the time: what does it mean to be without access to opportunity and to be given a shot? she told ABC News in January.

At Choate, she joined the wrestling team the only girl to do so. The boys on the Choate team accepted me, while the boys on the opposing team sometimes chuckled, she said in 2017. It was empowering having this unintended opportunity to challenge gender stereotypes about what girls were supposed to do.

One year in high school, Clarke and about a half dozen of her classmates piled into a van and drove to see a court hearing in Sheff v ONeill, a landmark school desegregation case. It was a moment in which the seeds of interest in civil rights lawyering were planted and it sparked a deep curiosity about the power of lawyers as agents of social change. It nagged at me from the very moment that I left Choate until the moment I started law school, she said in 2017.

That curiosity stuck with Clarke through college at Harvard and law school at Columbia. As a young lawyer, she joined the justice department, where she worked on prosecuting police misconduct, brutality and hate crimes, as well as on voting rights issues. She went on to work at the LDF the same civil rights group that helped file the ONeill case before leading the civil rights bureau in the New York attorney generals office. She took over the Lawyers Committee in 2016.

Shes dedicated to the cause of equal justice and racial justice and voting. Shes unrelenting in terms of her sticking to the task, said Ezra Rosenberg, co-director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers Committee.

As a lawyer, Clarke is fearless and thinks outside the box, Ifill said. When the Proud Boys, a far-right group, vandalized a historically Black church in Washington DC last year, Clarke and the Lawyers Committee sued them for damages. And in 2017, when Trump launched a White House panel to investigate supposed voter fraud, Clarke quickly began pushing her organization to find ways to challenge it, said Jon Greenbaum, the groups chief counsel.

The Lawyers Committee wound up being one of the first groups to challenge the commission. Relying on a little-known statute, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the group forced the White House to produce records showing conservative commissioners on the panel were communicating privately. It was a critical piece of evidence that suggested the panel was not operating transparently, enraging fellow commissioners, and proved to be one of the threads that helped bring down the commission.

During the Trump administration, the civil rights division also played a key role in trying to get a citizenship question added to the 2020 census. At the Lawyers Committee, Clarke pushed to aggressively challenge Trumps efforts to undermine the 2020 census in court. One of the suits blocked the administration from ending the census early and probably helped thwart an effort to have the Census Bureau compile citizenship data.

Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, a civil rights group, also said it would be significant to have a Black woman like Clarke leading the civil rights division for the first time (there is already a bubbling conservative effort to try to sink her nomination).

Its important that we dont just say the word intersectionality Kristen is not going to have to read about it in a textbook. Shes not going to have to be given a long fact sheet, he said.

Gupta arrived at a moment of intense scrutiny in the fall of 2014. Two months before she started, Darren Wilson, a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, had killed Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager. There was widespread public outcry after a local grand jury declined to bring charges against Wilson, escalating pressure on the justice department to bring federal charges against him.

But there is a high bar for federal civil rights charges and an FBI investigation found little evidence to bring them against Wilson, putting Gupta and other DoJ officials in the difficult spot of having to choose whether to bring a potentially weak case. Ultimately, the department chose not to bring federal charges against Wilson, instead releasing a searing report about unconstitutional police practices and securing a consent decree to reform the Ferguson police department. It was a move that did not produce a sexy headline or satiate public outrage, but one that would lead to institutional change.

It took not a small amount of courage, Levitt said. The departments response to Ferguson for Vanita was among the best examples that I can give of how rigorous and how sort of do the right thing regardless of the political context. The Obama justice department would enter 15 consent decrees with police departments across the country, including major ones Gupta oversaw in Baltimore and Chicago.

Guptas difficult decision in Ferguson came after more than nearly a decade of civil rights work. Born in Philadelphia to immigrants from India, Gupta spoke during her nomination announcement about eating in a McDonalds with her family when she was four and being harassed by skinheads at the next table who shouted ethnic slurs and threw food at them.

That feeling never left me. Of what it means to be made to feel unsafe because of who you are, she said.

She went to college at Yale and then graduated from New York University School of Law before taking her job at LDF. She later took a job at the ACLU, where she stayed focused on criminal justice issues, starting the organizations smart justice initiative, focused on mass incarceration.

Shes a tremendous lawyer, a tremendous advocate and shes clear about having a racial justice lens when reviewing policy, said the Rev William Barber, a well-known North Carolina civil rights leader.

In 2003, as a young lawyer at LDF and fresh out of law school, she earned national attention for her work overturning convictions in Tulia, Texas, where dozens of people were arrested in a sting operation based on unreliable testimony from an undercover officer. She collected so many documents she had to buy a new suitcase to bring them all back from a visit to the city, she said in an NYU alumni interview.

Im definitely a magnet for the kinds of situations where youre not in a comfortable setting, a new setting, she told the New York Times in 2003, and youre trying to understand what the problem is and trying to solve it. (The same Times story noted there was speculation even then that Gupta, 28 at the time, could end up on the US supreme court.)

Gupta has used examples from her own life to advocate for criminal justice reform. In a 2013 op-ed arguing that the American criminal justice system was too focused on the wrong things, she wrote that her own grandmother had been murdered when she was 18 during a robbery in India.

The killing remains unsolved, and the anguish it caused my family will never fade away, she wrote. But in America, our criminal justice system has too often focused on vengeance and punishment (and racial suspicion) rather than on crime prevention, restitution for victims and the social and economic reintegration of released prisoners into our communities so that they do not turn to crime again.

Gupta has developed a reputation as someone who can find common ground across the political spectrum. At the ACLU, for example, she worked with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group known for pushing a conservative agenda, on criminal justice issues, even over progressive objections. Vanita smiled and listened and said, I understand your concerns, but never wavered, Anthony Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, said in 2015. The conservative activist Grover Norquist and the former NRA president David Keene have been among her supporters.

She has this thing, this secret magic that allows her to talk to almost anyone, to gain their confidence, Ifill said. She just has this incredible ability and engenders the trust because she is a straight shooter. Its not manipulative or tactical. She just is very solutions-oriented while holding her ground for what is right.

Even though civil rights groups will have allies in two top justice department positions, they do not expect change overnight. The department is careful and deliberate in the matters it chooses to get involved in, part of the reason it has so much authority in court. Greenbaum, the Lawyers Committee attorney, said that redirecting the agencys vast bureaucracy can be a bit like turning around an aircraft carrier. Clarke, Gupta and the rest of the department will also face a federal judiciary dramatically reshaped by Trump that may be increasingly hostile to civil rights issues.

Advocates pointed to voting rights and policing as two areas where they expected a significant change in enforcement priorities. This year will also be the first time US states redraw district lines without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act a process likely to be closely watched by Clarke and voting section lawyers to ensure it is free of racial discrimination.

The first thing is to untangle and undo the kinds of efforts that the Trump administration engaged in that were anti-civil rights efforts, Ifill said. Then Vanita and Kristen have to take stock, they have to staff up, they have to take stock of what has happened in the building, they have to set a progressive agenda.

We dont just want restoration to the Obama years without a recognition of how much has changed. Things that may have felt like big steps in the Obama years, the country has moved as a result of so much new information, said Robinson. New data and the changing sentiment around criminal justice and policing what does it mean to truly hold police departments accountable?

It will also be an adjustment for civil rights groups, who will turn to lobbying the same people they fought with for four years to make systemic changes.

After Biden announced Guptas nomination last month, Robinson said, he had texted her with a note of congratulations and an eye towards the future. I hope you will remember fondly working closely with me and my warm smile and dimples when I am pushing back on and pushing hard on things we need to do, he wrote in the message.

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They took Donald Trump to task. Now they're ready to reshape the justice department - The Guardian

The US media organisations loyal to Donald Trump could struggle to find the same oxygen under President Joe Biden – ABC News

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

A pillow company CEO who has advised former US president Donald Trump has been cut off during an interview with one of the most Trump-friendly media networks in America.

A rowdy on-air argument ensued after Mike Lindell of MyPillow kept repeating baseless claims related to voting machines, leading the host of the segment to walk off the set.

It happened during a segment meant to discuss Mr Lindell being banned from social media platforms for expressing those exact same views.

Who would have thought he'd bring them up on air?

Newsmax, a minor cable news channel, which has risen to prominence after becoming more pro-Trump than Fox News, was suddenly faced with a very predictable predicament.

In a world that is post-Trump, post-inauguration of President Joe Biden and post-Capitol riots, how do Trump-aligned media networks like Newsmax deal with the stories they once gave air time to?

At two of America's fringe news organisations, Newsmax and One America News Network, covering a Biden presidency presents a huge challenge, when at times they promoted an alternate reality.

But the 'MAGA'-aligned cable news upstarts will be keen to find a way to continue the spectacular growth in audience and influence they've seen in the past 12 months.

In March last year, there was an extraordinary question asked to then-president Trump in the White House Press Briefing room:

"Is it alarming that major media players, just to oppose you, are siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels, and they work right here out of the White House with direct access to you and your team?"

This question, asked by a journalist holding a legitimate press pass, brought a smile to the face of Mr Trump.

It was not, however, a surprise to him, given the source: Chanel Rion, White House correspondent for OAN.

At the time she was building a reputation for taking Trump's side on every issue, and providing the President with opportunities to sound off at his political enemies while he was meant to be answering questions.

At a subsequent briefing she asked Mr Trump this question:

"Two-thousand, four-hundred and five Americans have died from coronavirus in the last 60 days. Meanwhile, you have 2,369 children who are killed by their mothers through elective abortions each day. That's 16-and-a-half thousand children killed every week... Do you agree with states who are placing coronavirus victims above elective abortions?"

It was the first time many Americans had heard of OAN, which launched in 2013.

Despite its low budget, it had distinguished itself by amplifying every pro-Trump conspiracy theory it could find.

Subscribe to Matt Bevan's ABC News podcast about how Donald Trump changed the United States and the world.

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Mr Trump assisted their reach by amplifying their stories on Twitter at any opportunity.

He also took a particular interest in Newsmax, which despite a history of being a reputable news network had become known as a landing ground for news personalities unable to find work at Fox.

By 2020, they were running shows by ex-Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and ex-ABC News America political editor Mark Halperin, who were both exiled due to sexual misconduct scandals.

They were also the home of Spicer & Co, hosted by the bumbling former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer.

As the 2020 election approached, Mr Trump began tweeting regularly that his followers should abandon Fox News for Newsmax and OAN, who up until this point had mainly found audiences on YouTube.

It wasn't particularly effective.

Fox News has an average primetime audience of 3.6 million Americans, meanwhile Newsmax was struggling to break 100,000 viewers (OAN has said it can't afford to sign up to get viewership data from TV ratings companies).

Though their content leaned further to the right than Fox News, they struggled to differentiate themselves enough to gain an audience.

While Fox News remained tethered in some sense to the reality that Joe Biden had defeated President Trump, OAN and Newsmax attached themselves to the conspiracy theory spread by Mr Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, that the election had been stolen by massive fraud.

Newsmax's top host, Greg Kelly, reached an audience of more than a million in his primetime slot, briefly out-rating Fox News.

OAN claimed to have seen a 40 per cent rise in viewership following the election.

It wasn't confined to traditional linear television though.

Their web content reached an even larger audience, posted on outlets like YouTube and Facebook and shared farther and wider than ever before.

Their reach became so significant that YouTube decided to censor some of their reports, arguing that they were spreading dangerous misinformation.

While the frenzy of post-election conspiracy theories seems to have cooled, bringing down their audience penetration with it, they successfully announced themselves as the home of unabashedly pro-Trump news content.

For years there has been speculation about whether a post-presidency Donald Trump may seek to gain a more permanent foothold in news media.

With his significant following across America, a Trump-branded TV network has been discussed, with the idea floated of a takeover or partnership between Mr Trump and either OAN or Newsmax.

Robert Herring Sr, the owner of OAN, denied the Trump family had been in talks with him about a partnership or acquisition.

Chris Ruddy, the owner of Newsmax, said that he has not closed the door on such a possibility.

But Mr Trump may be more interested in going it alone, reportedly suggesting that a Trump-branded subscription streaming service may be the best way of capitalising on his enormous national support.

Since leaving office, Mr Trump has been uncharacteristically quiet.

Despite his permanent ban from Twitter, he still has the option of calling friends at Fox, OAN or Newsmax to give his perspective on politics yet he has largely resisted flooding the airwaves just yet.

OAN and Newsmax may or may not be looking to do a deal with Mr Trump to give them exclusive access to his thoughts, feelings and supporters, but they are almost certainly hoping that he will break his silence soon.

They need something to talk about.

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The US media organisations loyal to Donald Trump could struggle to find the same oxygen under President Joe Biden - ABC News

The GOP Might Still Be Trumps Party. But That Doesnt Mean Theres Room For Him. – FiveThirtyEight

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump crossed lines that no other president has come close to. And if there was ever any doubt, the final months of his presidency put that to rest.

From the moment President Biden was declared the winner, Trump refused to accept the results of the election, repeatedly dismissing them as rigged or fraudulent, even going so far as to pressure Republican officials, like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to overturn them. This culminated in the events of Jan 6. At a rally that day, Trump told his supporters that the election was being stolen and said, Now, it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, were going to walk down, and Ill be there with you, were going to walk down, were going to walk down. A few hours later, some of those supporters stormed the Capitol, threatening officials and destroying property. They also disrupted the certification of the Electoral College vote, usually a ceremonial affair. Five people died.

Nevertheless, Trump still commands considerable loyalty within the Republican Party. Only 10 of 211 Republicans in the House voted to impeach him over what happened at the Capitol, and even though Trump is now facing a second impeachment trial, a procedural vote forced by Senate Republicans in late January indicates that there will not be enough votes to convict him.

This lack of a clean break among Republicans with Trump despite being the only president to be impeached twice raises an important question about the future of the GOP: To what extent does it remain Trumps party?

Given the ways in which Trump defied the norms of the presidency, it can be hard to compare his track record to other presidents. However, its still worth looking at the role that former presidents have traditionally played in their party once theyve left the White House, and how Trump does and does not fit into that mold.

Arguably no president in the modern era has left office with quite as much baggage as Trump, perhaps aside from former President Richard Nixon, who resigned from office rather than face his own impeachment. But even Nixon was able to partially rehabilitate his image post-presidency, eventually establishing himself as a foreign-policy expert whose advice was sought behind the scenes by other leaders.

Other presidents who have left the White House with a bit less baggage, like George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, have also had some success continuing to wield influence in their respective parties. Bush left with record-low approval ratings amid an economic crisis, while Clinton departed with high approval ratings but also with the scandal of impeachment. But since leaving office, both have engaged in humanitarian activities, attempting to burnish their respective reputations (perhaps with mixed success). To be sure, other voices have emerged that have led and defined their parties, but neither man has disappeared entirely from the limelight, with both Bushs brother and Clintons wife later seeking the presidency. A career in politics is one possible avenue for some of Trumps children, with rumors already swirling.

And some former presidents have had a lot of success in establishing themselves as major players in their parties. After his second term ended in 1989, Ronald Reagan remained an iconic figure among Republicans. And in the 2020 election, the Democratic Party at times seemed more and more like Barack Obamas party than Bidens. Obama reportedly played a pretty significant behind-the-scenes role in the primary and was a central figure at the Democratic National Convention. Part of this was because his former vice president won the nomination. But Biden also explicitly campaigned on the accomplishments of the Obama-Biden administration and chose a running mate who also reflects the image of a diverse, pragmatic Obama-style Democratic Party.

Whats difficult to say with Trump, however, is the extent to which future generations of Republicans will want to claim his mantle. On the one hand, its not actually clear that Trump had a winning electoral formula. In 2016, he built a coalition of more traditional Republican voters as well as white voters without college degrees, and that coalition was adequate for an Electoral College victory. But even growing that voter base in 2020 wasnt enough to win reelection. When you combine this with the Republican Partys losses in 2018 and its narrow loss of Senate control in the Georgia run-off elections in January, there are some reasons to believe that the Trump brand hasnt been entirely good for Republican political fortunes. In fact, a number of reports suggest that congressional Republicans, as well as party donors, blame Trump for the partys losses in Georgia.

The thing is, Trump does represent an idea that has appealed to some of his partys voters: politics based on grievance, especially when linked to white identity. Trump has emerged as a powerful leader to this movement, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, that the media and tech companies seek to silence voices on the right, and that institutions no longer work for ordinary (read: white) Americans. And while many establishment GOP members dont agree with some of Trumps more extreme words and actions, they have continued to defend him, or, at the very least, not really distance themselves from him. The upcoming impeachment trial and the fact that most GOP senators are likely to vote against his conviction speak to a long pattern left over from when Trump was still in office: criticize Trumps actions, but ultimately dont disavow him.

But while the party has maintained its steady, if uncomfortable, pattern of loyalty to Trump, the sheer number of ambitious politicians seeking to succeed Trump may leave little room for him in the party. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn have already proven, for instance, that they can grab headlines with their extreme views and actions without Trump. (And as with Trump, the media coverage is not overwhelmingly positive, and they have drawn some criticism from within their own party.) Of course, there is still a key difference between them and Trump in terms of power and influence: A group of representatives can make up a faction of a party, but only the president serves as the partys mouthpiece.

There is another reason, though, to think that there might not be room for Trump in the Republican Party moving forward. Political science research has found that Republicans are actually quite successful in building a farm team in state and Congressional elections (compared to Democrats, who often struggle in this regard). This means that Republicans might not really struggle to find a replacement for Trump. Its not hard to imagine, for instance, that there will one day be other ambitious Republicans say, Sen. Josh Hawley or former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley seeking higher office while claiming that they are the real heir to Trumps legacy, even if they represent marked differences in style or approach. In fact, there are a number of signs that the party is already headed in this direction, trending away from more establishment GOP types and toward more Trump-style figures.

Yes, this speaks to Trumps continued influence on the party, but it also doesnt necessarily leave that much room for him. Its hard for a former president to both represent an idea and be involved in the daily politics of the party.

After the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, it seemed like some establishment GOP leaders were ready to make a break from the 45th president. But its telling that mainstream Republicans are still mostly reluctant to publicly criticize Trump or his actions leading up to that day. It may also be indicative of how the ideas Trump represents took hold before he was elected. His presidency gave new power to the anti-establishment wing of the party, even though the former president didnt create this faction. Right now, the GOP looks much more like Trumps party than that of any moderate or establishment GOP alternative. It may be up to other politicians not Trump to determine exactly what that means.

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The GOP Might Still Be Trumps Party. But That Doesnt Mean Theres Room For Him. - FiveThirtyEight

When will we hear from Donald Trump again? – Yahoo News

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

Millions of Americans 88.7 million of them, to be precise have been waking up for the last three weeks with an unfamiliar sense of emptiness. Reaching for their phones for their accustomed fix of outrage and bemusement, an erratically capitalized, eccentrically punctuated guide to the obsessions and grievances that would drive the days news cycle, they are forced to acknowledge that the once unthinkable has occurred: @RealDonaldTrump is really gone for good from Twitter.

And not just Twitter: The man whose office refers to him as 45th President Donald J. Trump has been almost entirely silent in public since Jan. 20, when he became what the rest of the country knows as former President Trump. No raucous rallies featuring two-minute hates against the media. No impromptu tarmac question-and-answer sessions with reporters. No rambling phone chats with Fox News hosts, the ones that sometimes went on so long the interviewers had to gently cut him off by reminding him of how busy he must be. Even the 2024 campaign that he was widely expected to launch on Jan. 21 hasnt gotten off the ground, except for the part that involves raising money.

The once ubiquitous Trump has been plotting out his political future, Politico wrote not long after he went into his Florida exile. But without a social media loudspeaker through which to tease his plans, few know what to expect next, including his own former aides.

One person who has heard from Trump is the QAnon congresswoman, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who bragged about receiving a GREAT call from Trump on Saturday, as she faced calls for her resignation or removal from Congress in light of conspiratorial and anti-Semitic rantings that keep coming to light. She didnt specify what was great about the call, and Trump hasnt commented publicly.

The obvious explanation for Trumps unaccustomed reticence is that he is busy preparing his defense for his upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate. Part of his preparations involved replacing one set of lawyers over the weekend with new ones, including a former Pennsylvania district attorney best known for declining to prosecute actor Bill Cosby over allegations he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman, allegations that resurfaced years later and resulted in Cosbys conviction.

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Consistent with his refusal to concede defeat, Trump reportedly wants to base his defense on his own bogus claims that he actually won reelection, rather than the procedural argument that his impeachment was mooted when he left office. That is a claim that 45 Republican senators have already signaled they accept, which would give him an automatic acquittal. The case that the election was stolen from him by Democrats was raised in dozens of lawsuits filed by his campaign and other Republican officials in November and December and has been uniformly rejected in the courts. He will almost certainly be acquitted anyway it takes 67 senators for a conviction but for Trumps lawyers to try to make the case could just as easily call attention to how flimsy it was in the first place.

But theres not much evidence of activity on that front. Where are the investigators fanning out across the country looking for the legendary hordes of deceased citizens who cast votes on Nov. 3? The subpoenas for the Dominion voting machines that in Trumps fantasies were rigged against him? (His bulldog defender, Rudy Giuliani, has been sued for defamation by Dominion for an eye-catching $1.3 billion, which might largely have foreclosed that line of inquiry.) Indeed, Trumps insistent claim that the election was stolen from him which his supporters took as signifying license to steal it back by invading the Capitol is central to the case against him. Raising it as a defense runs the paradoxical risk of making the accusation seem more credible.

Another possible explanation for Trumps silence is that he is, belatedly, discovering the virtues of discretion particularly now that he no longer enjoys the immunities and perks of office, such as having the Department of Justice to do his bidding. The writer E. Jean Carroll, who claims Trump raped her in a New York department store dressing room years ago, is suing him for defamation because in denying her accusation he called her a liar. Under Attorney General William Barr, the Department of Justice undertook to defend the suit, but the Biden administration might not be so compliant.

Or maybe its just that Trump hasnt yet found a form of expression as convenient and congenial as Twitter. It is no exaggeration that Trumps political career owes as much to Twitter as to The Apprentice. He understood, better than any other political figure, that he could use that platform to reach voters directly, without the expense of buying TV commercials or the inconvenience of media fact-checkers or the awkward constraints of grammar or logic. It was a venue for him to feed his insatiable desire for approval (Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow - if so, will he become my new best friend? he tweeted on June 18, 2013) and to boast about his television ratings, approval ratings, IQ, money, golf game (Just won The Club Championship at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach) and even his hair (retweeting a fan who wrote that his hair is magnificent. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)

But above all, Twitters staccato, telegraphic style is the perfect medium for Trumps preferred form of discourse, the insult that gains force by sheer repetition, rather than, say, plausibility. Trump gleefully pursued grudges and resentments against enemies including Barack Obama, who was the subject of fully 1,686 of his posts nearly one out of 30 as recently as Dec. 30; Hillary Clinton (887, of which 366 refer to her as Crooked Hillary); Rosie ODonnell (66); and Fox News (348, which sequentially chart his delight at being interviewed on air, appreciation for their obsequious coverage and, more recently, outrage toward anchors he considered insufficiently fawning). The New York Times has compiled a comprehensive list of the hundreds of people, organizations, places and ideas Trump insulted on Twitter from when he declared his candidacy, in 2015, through Jan. 19, 2021, running alphabetically from ABC News (knowingly have a sick and biased AGENDA) through Kim Jong-un (I would NEVER call him short and fat), to media proprietor Mort Zuckerman (a dopey clown). You cant put out a press release under the letterhead of 45th President Trump just to insult Whoopi Goldberg (never had what it took), or maybe you can, but it lacks the emotional satisfaction of sending out a tweet and watching the likes and retweets pile up by the thousands.

In fact, as with so many things about Trump, an explanation rooted in the mans personality may be the simplest and closest to the truth, the implicit point of Mary Trumps biography of her estranged uncle, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man. Mary Trump, a mental health professional herself, describes the 45th president as unstable, cruel, vain, greedy and as numerous armchair psychologists have discerned narcissistic, a personality type that reacts with rage and/or hurt withdrawal to any form of rejection. And what could be a greater rejection than losing a presidential election?

Author Laurence Leamer, a Palm Beach resident who wrote the 2019 book Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trumps Presidential Palace, told the Associated Press that Trumps interest since leaving Washington is having sycophants stroke his ego.

He goes through his days and people tell him hes fantastic, hes great, hes unbelievable thats what he wants, Leamer said.

Its worth remembering that during the campaign Trump promised that if he lost, youll never see me again. Not many people believed him, but maybe we should have taken him at his word.

____

Tom Brady dodges question about getting pass for supporting Trump because he is white – USA TODAY

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports' Nancy Armour asks Tom Brady if he thinks Black athletes have an equal amount of leeway when broaching political and controversial topics as white athletes do. USA TODAY

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady evaded a question about whether he's gotten a pass from criticism forsporting a Donald Trump hat in his locker in 2015 because he is white.

In a Jan. 26segment on Fox Sports, analyst Shannon Sharpe was critical of Brady's brief support of Trump. The six-time Super Bowl champion later backpedaled on his support of Trump, dismissing any political-oriented questions during the former president's campaign trail and presidency over the last four years. But Sharpe said Brady was given a pass as a white athlete that a Black athlete like LeBron James wouldn't have gotten.

"Lets just say for sake of argument, LeBron James says my friend is Minister (Louis) Farrakhan," Sharpe said, referring to the controversial Nation of Islam leader."How would America react? Blacks have always had to be very, very quiet about who our friends are. ...LeBron James can never say, a prominent black athlete can never say, Minister Farrakhan is just my friend. Theyd try to cancel anybody with the just mere mention of Mister Farrakhans name. Because we like Tom Brady."

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady playing against the Kansas City Chiefs in November.(Photo: Kim Klement, USA TODAY Sports)

Brady, in response to a question by USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on a Super Bowl news conference Monday, dodged a direct answer.

"I'm not sure how to respond to hypothetical like that," Brady said over Zoomduring Super Bowl media availability. "I hope everyone canwe're in this position like I am to, again, try to be the best I can be every day as an athlete, as a player, as a person in my community, for my team and so forth, so yeah, I'm not sure what else."

In Sharpe's initial comments on Fox Sports, he said: "I understood what Tom was for a very, very long time. He put that hat in there for a reason. 'Letting you know that I support my friend, Donald Trump, and no matter what he says, I support him.' ... If we like somebody, were more forgiving of their actions. Were more forgiving of their words, their deeds. If we dont like you, we will go to heaven and earth, well go back 15 years."

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Tom Brady dodges question about getting pass for supporting Trump because he is white - USA TODAY

GOP states weigh limits on how race and slavery are taught – Associated Press

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) Complaining about what he called indoctrination in schools, former President Donald Trump created a commission that promoted patriotic education and played down Americas role in slavery. But though hes out of the White House and the commission has disbanded, the cause hasnt died. Lawmakers in Republican states are now pressing for similar action.

Proposals in Arkansas, Iowa and Mississippi would prohibit schools from using a New York Times project that focused on slaverys legacy. Georgia colleges and universities have been quizzed about whether theyre teaching about white privilege or oppression. And GOP governors are backing overhauls of civic education that mirror Trumps abandoned initiatives.

Republicans behind the latest moves say theyre countering left-wing attempts in K-12 schools and higher education to indoctrinate rather than teach students. Teachers, civil rights leaders and policymakers are fighting back, saying students will suffer if states brush over crucial parts of the nations history.

The idea of simply saying youre not going to use certain materials because you dont like what theyre going to say without input from professionals makes no sense, said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association.

Statehouse fights over whats taught in public schools are nothing new. Arkansas lost a court battle over a 1981 law that required the teaching of creationism in its classrooms, and in recent years conservatives have waged battles over how evolution, climate change and other topics are taught. But the latest efforts show just how much Trumps rhetoric on race continues to resonate in the mostly rural and white states he won.

The proposals primarily target The New York Times 1619 Project, which examined slavery and its consequences as the central thread of U.S. history. The project was published in 2019, the 400th anniversary of the first arrival of African slaves. The project was also turned into a popular podcast and materials were developed for schools to use.

A measure pending in Arkansas Legislature criticizes the project as a racially divisive and revisionist account of history that threatens the integrity of the Union by denying the true principles on which it was founded.

Republican Rep. Mark Lowery, who sponsored the measure, called slavery a dark stain, but said the project minimizes the Founding Fathers and cited criticism from some historians about parts of it.

It should not be taught as history, he said.

Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas has also been a frequent critic of the project.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the lead essay in the project, called it a work of journalism that wasnt intended to replace whats being taught in schools. Born and raised in Iowa, one of the states looking to prohibit the projects use, Hannah-Jones said its clear the project is being used to whip up political fears.

Its one thing to not like a particular piece of journalism, its another thing to seek to prohibit its teaching, she said.

The Pulitzer Center, which partnered with the Times to develop 1619 Project lesson plans, said its heard from more than 3,800 K-12 teachers and nearly 1,000 college educators who planned to use them. Of those, only about two dozen were from Arkansas.

Jonathan Rogers, a journalism teacher at Iowa City High School, said hes used the projects podcast in his classes.

(Students) definitely responded to thinking about using different sources or alternative storytelling, Rogers said. Also, just hearing Black voices is so important when were talking about diversity and perspectives, whether its historical events or current events.

Other measures would go even further than targeting the 1619 Project, including a broader bill Lowery said hes reworking that currently calls for banning courses that promote social justice for one racial group. In Oklahoma, one bill would allow teachers to be fired for teaching that the U.S. is fundamentally racist, or other topics deemed divisive.

Critics say that, besides eating away at local control, the proposals show an unwillingness to address the countrys shortcomings as well as its successes.

This country does have a history that we have to reckon with and that sometimes our education system glosses over, said Rep. Emily Virgin, the top Democrat in the Oklahoma House.

After taking office, President Joe Biden revoked the report submitted by the commission Trump formed in response to the 1619 Project. Widely mocked by historians as political propaganda, Trumps 1776 Commission glorified the countrys founders and played down the role of slavery.

American parents are not going to accept indoctrination in our schools, cancel culture at work, or the repression of traditional faith, culture and values in the public square, Trump said when he announced the panel last year.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a close ally of Trumps, last month proposed $900,000 to ramp up her states civics curriculum to emphasize the U.S. as the most unique nation in the history of the world. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves is proposing a $3 million Patriotic Education Fund to combat what he called revisionist history.

Across the country, young children have suffered from indoctrination in far-left socialist teachings that emphasize Americas shortcomings over the exceptional achievements of this country, Reeves said when he announced it.

In Texas, where academics have long clashed with the states GOP-controlled education board on controversies that include lessons exploring the influence Moses had on the Founding Fathers, Gov. Greg Abbott last week told lawmakers that students must learn what it means to be an American and what it means to be a Texan. But Abbott hasnt elaborated on what changes he may seek.

Its unclear how far these proposals will go, even in solidly red states. Two Mississippi Senate committees ignored, and killed, the 1619 Project ban.

In Arkansas, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson has said he believes such issues are usually better addressed locally. Hes asked the states top education official to work on alternative legislation that would allow parents to challenge instructional material at the local level.

The proposed limits especially strike a nerve in Arkansas, where divides over race remain more than six decades after the 1957 integration of Little Rock Central High School. Until 2018, the state commemorated Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lees birthday on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr.

One member of the Legislative Black Caucus said she was worried about the proposals effect on the states image.

It will have an economic impact because it will seem as if this state is running from its own history, said Democratic Sen. Linda Chesterfield, a Black retired history teacher.

___

Associated Press writers Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City, Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Stephen Groves in Pierre, South Dakota, Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report

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GOP states weigh limits on how race and slavery are taught - Associated Press

Rocky River Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez gets flak for voting to impeach President Donald Trump but doesn – cleveland.com

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Danzig

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rocky River Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez was walking to his Capitol Hill office from the House of Representatives floor when the commotion began on Jan. 6.

Rioters were storming the U.S. Capitol. Everyone had to shelter in place. He barricaded himself in his office with staffers, and watched the chaos unfold on television and social media. He changed from his suit to workout gear, in case he needed to make a run for it. He called contacts in the administration of outgoing President Donald Trump in an effort to secure aid for overwhelmed Capitol Police officers.

As the rampage persisted, Gonzalez was appalled when Trump posted a Twitter statement that aggravated tensions by attacking Vice President Mike Pence based on what Gonzalez calls a perverted reading of the Constitution. Trumps posting said Pence didnt have the courage to reject the electoral votes that Congress was tallying to formalize Joe Bidens victory over Trump. Rioters at the Capitol chanted Hang Mike Pence throughout the disturbance, even though Pence lacked authority to do Trumps bidding and courts throughout the nation rejected Trumps claims that Bidens win was fraudulent.

I like to think that no matter who is the perpetrator, whether its a foreign actor or domestic actor, if somebody is attacking the United States Congress, the President of the United States will step up and do everything to stop it and stop it immediately, Gonzalez said. Instead, we saw what amounted to escalation, indifference for a period of time and then a sort of ham-handed attempt at calming the situation that didnt happen until hours into the insurrection.

A week later, Gonzalez was among 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Trump on an incitement of insurrection charge for his role in provoking the mob that attacked Congress and caused five deaths, including that of a Capitol Police officer. Since then, some Trump loyalists have turned their fury on Gonzalez and other Republicans who backed impeachment. Gonzalez has increased security for himself and his family due to threats.

Its concerning, but were managing it, says Gonzalez, who declined to further discuss the threats.

In an interview with cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer, Gonzalez talked about the riot and its aftermath, the impeachment vote, his political future and the future of the Trump and the Republican Party.

Pushback, praise on impeachment vote

Among those who have conveyed their displeasure with Gonzalez vote is Trump himself. Gonzalez says Trump - whose policies he supported in 88.6% of votes during his first congressional term - indirectly let him know hes unhappy. He says Republican leaders in Ohio also conveyed their vexation to him in different ways.

Members of his party in the House of Representatives havent tried to sanction him the way theyre trying to oust House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming from her leadership post for backing impeachment. Gonzalez calls the effort to sanction Cheney silly and petty, since Republican leaders told their members to vote their conscience on impeachment, and thats what he and Cheney did.

He says a handful of his GOP colleagues in Congress told them they would have liked to vote to impeach Trump, but their districts wouldnt allow it.

I dont know if my district will allow it for me, but I think were supposed to be here to do what we think is right, says Gonzalez. And your commitment to your oath should be far stronger than your commitment to your job.

Among constituents in Gonzalez current V-shaped district that includes parts of Cuyahoga, Medina, Summit, Portage and Stark counties and all of Wayne County, Gonzalez says theres a faction that enthusiastically agrees with his stance. A a second group disagrees with his vote but understands why he did it, and a third group is furious with him. Gonzalez says hes been trying to explain his vote to as many people as he can, and will have a tele-townhall on Thursday where he can communicate his reasoning to thousands of constituents and hear their concerns.

One of the things thats become obvious to me is, no matter where you are on it, theres a lot of emotion around the vote, says Gonzalez. And theres a lot of emotion around changes that were seeing in the country. One of my goals is to provide as many forums as possible for voters to engage with me and engage with each other, so that we can hear where the community is on on this issue. Were going to keep doing that across the district, as long as it takes. And I think that ultimately will be healthy, because people have a lot to get off their chests right now. And Im hearing it day to day in our conversations.

What the political future holds

Gonzalez did not face a primary contest in 2020 and won the general election with 63.2 percent of the vote. He thinks theres a good chance hell face a primary challenge in 2022 but believes it wont materialize until after the states congressional maps are redrawn and his districts geography is reset. He won the 2018 general election with 56.7 percent of the vote after winning 53 percent in a three way Republican primary with former state legislator Christina Hagan and physician Michael Grusenmeyer. Hagan, who lost a 2020 bid for Congress against Democrat Tim Ryan in a neighboring district, says she wont rule out a rematch with Gonzalez in 2022.

I dont live my life in fear of primaries, says Gonzalez, who had $564,935 left in his campaign account at the end of 2020, after raising $2,393,597 and spending $1,895,208 on his reelection. I didnt do it for the first two years, and Im not going to do it for the next two years.

Gonzalez says its very, very, very unlikely that hell pursue the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by Republican Rob Portmans decision to not seek re-election next year, but he doesnt want to disqualify the possibility. He said some people are urging him to run, and others say hed be a fool to do so. He says he hopes whoever gets the seat can be as effective on behalf of Ohio as Rob Portman was.

I never close the door on anything, says Gonzalez, who was a wide receiver for Ohio State University and the Indianapolis Colts before he entered politics. When coaches are having a good season, the media will ask about rumors theyre taking a job with the Miami Dolphins. Theyll say absolutely not, and then three weeks later they take the Miami Dolphins job. That looks silly, so Im not going to play those games. You never say no. Thats my answer.

Rejecting extremism

Gonzalez says he expects Trump will try to stay engaged in Republican politics for as long as he can, but he cant predict Trumps role or whether hell seek the White House again. Gonzalez does not think it would be a good idea for Trump to start a third political party, as Trump has discussed. Gonzalez thinks it would be a better idea for the Republican Party to retain Trumps successful policies but make sure that some of these extremist fringe movements that have attached themselves to the GOP umbrella know that there is no home in this party for anti-Semitism or extremism or political violence or QAnon conspiracy theories.

I think we all have a responsibility in elected office for when we see it, to call it out for what it is, says Gonzalez, adding that Democrats also have their fringe adherents in the Antifa movement.

He says he is still reviewing past behavior by his newly elected Republican colleague from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom Democrats have suggested should be expelled from Congress or removed from her assignment on the House Education and Labor Committee after making controversial statements that include espousing conspiracy theories and contending that several school shootings were hoaxes.

If youre advocating for political violence against anybody, if youre harassing teenagers and telling them that they werent involved in a shooting or that it was a false flag, this is just disgusting behavior, frankly, and it is nothing I want to associate myself with, says Gonzalez. And I hope others feel the same way.

Because Greenes constituents were aware of her views before she was elected, Gonzalez says he does not think she should be ejected from Congress but said removing her from committees should be looked at because participation on congressional committees is an honor that you earn.

The Republican agenda

Gonzalez argues that Trumps stances on issues like trade, taxes, energy independence and foreign policy were spot on for Ohio, which is why the states voters supported him by eight percentage points in the 2016 and 2018 presidential elections. He says the Republican Party needs to retain the goodness associated with these policies and what they represented for Ohio, which was a strong, robust economy and get rid of some of the more extremist rhetoric and behavior that attached itself, wrongly I would argue, to this movement and make sure that were very clear that things like political violence, and the mobs and the insurrections and some of these conspiracy theories just have no place in conservatism.

He said the Republican Party in Ohio is controlled by voters, rather than Trump, and is as strong as it has ever been. Republicans hold nearly all Ohios statewide elected offices, and Gonzalez says he doesnt know of any QAnon or militia believers among Ohio Republicans in the state party or in elected office.

You see a lot of good, honest people who are doing a great job, and are representing traditional conservative Republican values, says Gonzalez.

During his initial two years in Congress, Gonzalez passed legislation including a bill that blocks national cemeteries from banning battlefield cross memorials, another to help the government fight realistic-looking fraudulent videos and photographs called deepfakes that could be used for scams, to sow public discord and endanger national security, and several bills that target misbehavior by China such as intellectual property theft. Over the next two years, he says hell focus on efforts to defeat the coronavirus and reduce prescription drug costs.

Currently, the United States subsidizes drug prices all around the rest of the world, Gonzalez says. Drug companies do the overwhelming majority of their research and development here, funded by the taxpayer. We get the drugs developed and then they sell them overseas at a fraction of the cost that they sell them here in the U.S.. Thats not fair.

He thinks it will be difficult for Republicans to pursue their agenda with Democrats controlling the White House and Congress for the next two years, and says Republicans will need to win back suburban voters by letting them know what we stand for, who we are, what we believe and what we reject.

He feels that ultimately, history will harshly judge those who supported rejecting the electoral votes of states that Trump contested on Jan. 6, because the point of doing so was to overturn a presidential election.

I hope we can all, over time, come to understand how dangerous it truly was, says Gonzalez. Theres a lot of people who are just never going to agree with the impeachment vote. But my hope is that over time, we will all look and say, You know what? The vice president cant pick the president. The Congress cant pick the president. The people in the states pick the president, and thats how it works in the United States. And the peaceful transition of power isnt some quaint idea thats nice to have. It is actually essential to a functioning democracy. Thats what I hope, more than anything else, that people think about these last three weeks.

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Rocky River Republican Anthony Gonzalez votes to impeach President Donald Trump

House votes to impeach President Trump after last weeks U.S. Capitol riot, with all Ohio Democrats and one Ohio Republican in the majority

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Rocky River Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez gets flak for voting to impeach President Donald Trump but doesn - cleveland.com

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