CRISPR gene-editing therapies need more diverse DNA to realize their full potential – Vox.com

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

Medicine has entered a new era in which scientists have the tools to change human genetics directly, creating the potential to treat or even permanently cure diseases by editing a few strands of troublesome DNA. And CRISPR, the gene-editing technology whose creators won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020, is the face of this new normal.

CRISPRs novel harnessing of bacterial proteins to target disease-carrying genes has reshaped medical research over the past decade. While gene-editing itself has been around for more than 30 years, scientists can use CRISPR to edit genomes faster, cheaper, and more precisely than they could with previous gene-editing methods.

As a result, investigators have gained far more control over where a gene gets inserted and when it gets turned on. That in turn has opened the door to a new class of better gene therapies treatments that modify or replace peoples genes to stop a disease.

Last December, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first-ever CRISPR-based therapy, designed to treat sickle cell disease. In February, the treatment, called Casgevy, gained approval from the European Commission as well. It joins the dozen or so pre-CRISPR gene therapies that are already available to patients. In early May, the first patients began to receive treatment

But theres a significant impediment to maximizing CRISPRs potential for developing novel therapies: the lack of diversity in genetics research.

For decades, gene therapy has been defined by both its enormous therapeutic potential, and by the limitations imposed by our imprecise knowledge of human genetics. Even as gene-editing methods, including CRISPR, have become more sophisticated over the years, the data in the genetic databases and biobanks that scientists use to find and develop new treatments are still riddled with biases that could exclude communities of color from enjoying the full benefits of innovations like CRISPR. Unless that gap is closed, CRISPRs promise wont be fully fulfilled.

Developing effective gene therapies depends on growing our knowledge of the human genome. Data on genes and their correlation with disease have already changed the way cancer researchers think about how to design drugs, and which patients to match with which drug.

Scientists have long known that certain genetic mutations that disrupt regular cell functions can cause cancer to develop, and they have tailored drugs to neutralize those mutations. Genetic sequencing technology has sped that progress, allowing researchers to analyze the genetics of tumor samples from cancer patients after theyve participated in clinical trials to understand why some individuals respond better than others to a drug.

In a clinical trial of the colorectal cancer drug cetuximab, investigators found retrospectively that tumors with a mutation in the KRAS gene (which helps govern cell growth) did not respond to treatment. As a result, clinicians are now asked to confirm that patients do not have the mutation in the KRAS gene before they prescribe that particular drug. New drugs have been developed to target those mutations in the KRAS gene.

Its a step-by-step process from the discovery of these disease-related genes to the crafting of drugs that neutralize them. With CRISPR now available to them, many researchers believe that they can speed this process up.

The technology is based on and named after a unique feature in the bacterial immune system that the organism uses to defend itself against viruses. CRISPR is found naturally in bacteria: Its short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, and it functions like a mugshot database for bacteria, containing snippets of genetic code from foreign viruses that have tried to invade in the past.

When new infections occur, the bacteria deploys RNA segments that scan for viral DNA that matches the mugshots. Special proteins are then dispatched to chop the virus up and neutralize it.

To develop CRISPR into a biotech platform, this protein-RNA complex was adapted from bacteria and inserted into human and animal cells, where it proved similarly effective at searching for and snipping strands of DNA.

Using CRISPR in humans requires a few adjustments. Scientists have to teach the system to search through human DNA, which means that it will need a different mugshot database than what the bacteria originally needed. Critical to harnessing this natural process is artificial RNA, known as a guide RNA. These guide RNAs are designed to match genes found in humans. In theory, these guide RNAs search for and find a specific DNA sequence associated with a specific disease. The special protein attached to the guide RNA then acts like molecular scissors to cut the problematic gene.

CRISPRs therapeutic potential was evident in the breakthrough sickle cell treatment approved by the FDA late last year. What made sickle cell such an attractive target is not just that it affects around 20 million people or more worldwide, but that it is caused by a mutation in a single gene, which makes it simpler to study than a disease caused by multiple mutations. Sickle cell is one of the most common disorders worldwide that is caused by a mutation in a single gene. It was also the first to be characterized at a genetic level, making it a promising candidate for gene therapy.

In sickle cell disease, a genetic mutation distorts the shape of a persons hemoglobin, which is the protein that helps red blood cells carry and deliver oxygen from the lungs to tissues throughout the body. For people with sickle cell disease, their red blood cells look like sickles instead of the normal discs. As a result, they can get caught in blood vessels, blocking blood flow and causing issues like pain, strokes, infections, and death.

Since the 1990s, clinicians have observed that sickle cell patients with higher levels of fetal hemoglobin tend to live longer. A series of genome-wide association studies from 2008 pointed to the BCL11A gene as a possible target for therapeutics. These association studies establish the relationships between specific genes and diseases, identifying candidates for CRISPR gene editing.

Casgevys new CRISPR-derived treatment targets a gene called BCL11A. Inactivating this gene stops the mutated form of hemoglobin from being made and increases the production of normal non-sickled fetal hemoglobin, which people usually stop making after birth.

Out of the 45 patients who have received Casgevy since the start of the trials, 28 of the 29 eligible patients who have stayed on long enough to have their results analyzed reported that they have been free of severe pain crises. Once the treatment moves out of clinical settings, its exact effects can vary. And if the underlying data set doesnt reflect the diversity of the patient population, the gene therapies derived from them might not work the same for every person.

Sickle cell disease as the first benefactor of CRISPR therapy makes sense because its a relatively simple disorder that has been studied for a long time. The genetic mutation causing it was found in 1956. But ironically, the same population that could benefit most from Casgvey may miss out on the full benefits of future breakthrough treatments.

Scientists developing CRISPR treatments depend on whats known as a reference genome, which is meant to be a composite representation of a normal human genome that can be used to identify genes of interest to target for treating a disease.

However, most of the available reference genomes are representative of white Europeans. Thats a problem because not everybodys DNA is identical: Recent sequencing of African genomes shows that they have 10 percent more DNA than the standard reference genome available to researchers. Researchers have theorized that this is because most modern humans came out of Africa. As populations diverged and reconcentrated, genetic bottlenecks happened, which resulted in a loss of genetic variation compared to the original population.

Most genome-wide association studies are also biased in the same way: They have a lot of data from white people and not a lot from people of color.

So while those studies can help identify genes of importance that could lead to effective treatments for the population whose genes make up the majority of the reference data i.e., white people the same treatments may not work as well for other nonwhite populations.

Broadly, theres been an issue with human genetics research theres been a major under-representation of people of African ancestry, both in the US and elsewhere, said Sarah Tishkoff, professor of genetics and biology at the University of Pennsylvania. Without including these diverse populations, were missing out on that knowledge that could perhaps result in better therapeutics or better diagnostics.

Even in the case of the notorious breast cancer gene BRCA1, where a single gene mutation can have a serious clinical impact and is associated with an increased risk of developing cancer, underlying mutations within the gene tend to differ in people of different ancestries, Tishkoff said.

These differences, whether large or small, can matter. Although the vast majority of human genomes are the same, a small fraction of the letters making up our genes can differ from person to person and from population to population, with potentially significant medical implications. Sometimes during sequencing, genetic variations of unknown significance appear. These variants could be clinically important, but because of the lack of diversity in previous research populations, no one has studied them closely enough to understand their impact.

If all the research is being done in people of predominantly European ancestry, youre only going to find those variants, Tishkoff said.

Those limitations affect scientists up and down the developmental pipeline. For researchers using CRISPR technology in preclinical work, the lack of diversity in the genome databases can make it harder to identify the possible negative effect of such genetic variation on the treatments theyre developing.

Sean Misek, a postdoctoral researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, started developing a project with the goal of investigating the differences in the genetic patterns of tumors from patients of European descent compared to patients of African descent. CRISPR has become a versatile tool. Not only can it be used for treatments, but it can also be used for diagnostics and basic research. He and his colleagues intended to use CRISPR to screen for those differences because it can evaluate the effects of multiple genes at once, as opposed to the traditional method of testing one gene at a time.

We know individuals of different ancestry groups have different overall clinical responses to cancer treatments, Misek said. Individuals of recent African descent, for example, have worse outcomes than individuals of European descent, which is a problem that we were interested in trying to understand more.

What they encountered instead was a roadblock.

When Miseks team tried to design CRISPR guides, they found that their guides matched the genomes in the cells of people with European and East Asian ancestry, whose samples made up most of the reference genome, but not on cells from people of South Asian or African ancestry, who are far less represented in databases. In combination with other data biases in cancer research, the guide RNA mismatch has made it more difficult to investigate the tumor biology of non-European patients.

Genetic variations across ancestry groups not only affect whether CRISPR technology works at all, but they can also lead to unforeseen side effects when the tool makes cuts in places outside of the intended genetic target. Such side effects of off-target gene edits could theoretically include cancer.

A big part of developing CRISPR therapy is trying to figure out if there are off-targets. Where? And if they exist, do they matter? said Daniel Bauer, an attending physician at Dana-Farber/Boston Childrens Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.

To better predict potential off-target edits, Bauer collaborated with Luca Pinello, associate professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who had helped develop a tool called CRISPRme that makes projections based on personal and population-level variations in genetics. To test it, they examined the guide RNA being used for sickle cell disease treatment, and found an off-target edit almost exclusively present in cells donated by a patient of African ancestry.

It is currently unclear if this off-target edit detected by the CRISPRme tool has any negative consequences. When the FDA approved the sickle-cell therapy in December 2023, regulators required a post-marketing study to look into off-target effects. Any off-target edits affecting a persons blood should be easily detected in the blood cells, and drawing blood is easier to do than collecting cells from an internal organ, for example.

The genetic variant where the off-target effect occurred can be found in approximately every 1 in 10 people with African ancestry. The fact that we actually were able to find a donor who carried this variant was kind of luck, Bauer said. If the cells we were using were only of European ancestry, it wouldve been even harder to find.

Most of these [off-target] effects probably wont cause any problems, he said. But I think we also have these great technologies, so thats part of our responsibility to look as carefully as we can.

These issues recur again and again as investigators hunt for novel treatments. Katalin Susztak, professor of medicine and genetics at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks one promising candidate for a future CRISPR therapy is a standout gene for kidney disease: APOL1.

Researchers identified the gene when they looked into kidney disease risk in African Americans. While genome-wide association studies turned up thousands of distinct genes increasing risk for people of European ancestry, in African Americans, this single gene was responsible for 3 to 5 times higher risk of kidney disease in patients, said Susztak.

The APOL1 variant is common among African Americans because it protects people from developing African sleeping sickness, which is spread by the Tsetse fly present across much of the continent. This is similar to the story of the sickle cell mutation, which can protect people from malaria.

The variant is maybe only 5,000 years old, so this variant has not arisen in Europe, Asia, or anywhere else. Just in West Africa, Susztak said. But because of the slave trades, West Africans were brought to the United States, so millions of people in the United States have this variant.

The variant also predisposes people to develop cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and COVID-related disease, which maybe explains why there was an increased incidence of deaths in African Americans during COVID than in Europeans, Susztak said. APOL1 is potentially a very interesting target [for CRISPR] because the disease association is strong.

A CRISPR treatment for kidney disease is currently being investigated, but using the tool comes with complications. Cutting the APOL1 gene would set off an immune response, Susztak noted, so they will have to somehow prevent undesirable side effects, or find a related, but editable gene, like they did with sickle cell.

An alternative RNA-based strategy utilizing CRISPR is also in the works. DNA needs to be transcribed into a messenger RNA sequence first before it can be turned into proteins. Instead of permanently altering the genome, RNA editing alters the sequence of RNAs, which can then change what proteins are produced. The effects are less permanent, however, lasting for a few months instead of forever which can be advantageous for treating temporary medical conditions.

And it may turn out that gene therapy is simply not the right approach to the problem. Sometimes, a more conventional approach still works best. Susztak said that a small molecule drug developed by Vertex which works similarly to most drugs except special classes like gene therapies or biologics to inhibit the function of the APOL1 protein has enjoyed positive results in early clinical trials.

Even with these limitations, more CRISPR treatments are coming down the pike.

As of early last year, more than 200 people have been treated with experimental CRISPR therapies for cancers, blood disorders, infections, and more. In the developmental pipeline is a CRISPR-based therapeutic from Intellia Therapeutics that treats transthyretin amyloidosis, a rare condition affecting the function of the heart tissues and nerves. The drug has performed well in early trials and is now recruiting participants for a Phase III study. Another CRISPR drug from Intellia for hereditary angioedema, a condition that causes severe swelling throughout the body, is slated to enter Phase III later this year.

As the CRISPR boom continues, some research groups are slowly improving the diversity of their genetic sources.

The All of Us program from the National Institutes of Health, which aims to find the biological, environmental, and lifestyle factors that contribute to health, has analyzed 245,000 genomes to date, over 40 percent of which came from participants who were not of European ancestry. They found new genetic markers for diabetes that have never been identified before.

Then theres the Human Pangenome project, which aims to create a reference genome that captures more global diversity. The first draft of its proposal was released last May. Another project called the PAGE study, funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, is working to include more ancestrally diverse populations in genome-wide association studies.

But at the current pace, experts predict that it will take years to reach parity in our genetic databases. And the scientific community must also build trust with the communities its trying to help. The US has a murky history with medical ethics, especially around race. Take the Tuskegee experiment that charted the progression of syphilis in Black American men while hiding the true purpose of the study from the participants and withholding their ability to seek treatment when it became available, or the controversy over Henrietta Lacks cervical cells, which were taken and used in research without her consent. Those are just two prominent historical abuses that have eroded trust between minority communities and the countrys medical system, Tishkoff said. That history has made it more difficult to collect samples from marginalized communities and add them to these critical data sets.

Where the research is being done, where the clinical trials are being held, as well as whos doing the research, can all have an impact on which patients participate. The Human Genetics & Genomics Workforce Survey Report published by the American Society of Human Genetics in 2022 found that 67 percent of the genomic workforce identified as white. Add in the financial burden of developing new treatments when using a reference genome, or a pre-made biobank from past efforts to collect and organize a large volume of biological samples, saves time and costs. In the race to bring CRISPR treatments to market, those shortcuts offered valuable efficiency to drug makers.

What this means is that the first-generation of CRISPR therapeutics might therefore be blunter instruments than they might otherwise be. However, if improvements can be made to make sure the source genomes reflect a wider range of people, Pinello believes that later generations of CRISPR will be more personalized and therefore more effective for more people.

Finding the genes and making drugs that work is, of course, momentous but ultimately, thats only half the battle. The other worry physicians like Susztak have is whether patients will be able to afford and access these innovative treatments.

There is still an overwhelming racial disparity in clinical trial enrollment. Studies have found that people of color are more likely to suffer from chronic illness and underuse medications like insulin compared to their white counterparts. Gene therapies easily rack up price tags in the millions, and insurance companies, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, are still trying to figure out how to pay for them.

Because its the pharmaceutical industry, if they dont turn around profit, if they cannot test the drug, or if people are unwilling to take it, then this inequity is going to be worsened, said Susztak. We are essentially going to be creating something that makes things worse even though we are trying to help.

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CRISPR gene-editing therapies need more diverse DNA to realize their full potential - Vox.com

Cedars-Sinai research shows deep learning model could improve AFib detection – Healthcare IT News

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

A new artificial intelligence approach developed by investigators in Cedars-Sinai's Los Angeles-based Smidt Heart Institute has been shown to detect abnormal heart rhythms associated with atrial fibrillation that might otherwise be unnoticed by physicians.

WHY IT MATTERS Researchers at Smidt Heart Institute say the findings point to the potential for artificial intelligence to be used more widely in cardiac care.

In a recent study, published in npj Digital Medicine, Cedars-Sinai clinicians show how the deep learning model was developed to analyze images from echocardiogram imaging, in which sound waves show the heart's rhythm.

Researchers trained a program to study more than 100,000 echocardiogram videos from patients with atrial fibrillation, they explain. The model distinguished between echocardiograms showing a heart in sinus rhythm normal heartbeats and those showing a heart in an irregular heart rhythm.

The program was able to predict which patients in sinus rhythm had experienced or would develop atrial fibrillation within 90 days, they said, noting that the AI model evaluating the images performed better than estimating risk based on known risk factors.

"We were able to show that a deep learning algorithm we developed could be applied to echocardiograms to identify patients with a hidden abnormal heart rhythm disorder called atrial fibrillation," explained Dr. Neal Yuan, a staff scientist with the Smidt Heart Institute.

"Atrial fibrillation can come and go," he added, "so it might not be present at a doctor's appointment. This AI algorithm identifies patients who might have atrial fibrillation even when it is not present during their echocardiogram study."

THE LARGER TREND The Smidt Heart Institute is the biggest cardiothoracic transplant center in California and the third-largest in the United States.

An estimated 12.1 million people in the United States will have atrial fibrillation in 2030, according to the CDC. During AFib, the heart's upper chambers sometimes beat in sync with the lower chamber and sometimes they do not making the arrhythmia often difficult for clinicians to detect. In some patients, the condition causes no symptoms at all.

Researchers say a machine learning model trained to analyze echo imaging could help clinicians detect early and subtle changes in the hearts of patients with undiagnosed arrhythmias.

Indeed, AI has long shown big promise for early detection of AFib, as evidenced by similar studies at health systems such as Geisinger and Mayo Clinic.

ON THE RECORD "We're encouraged that this technology might pick up a dangerous condition that the human eye would not while looking at echocardiograms," said Dr. David Ouyang, a cardiologist and AI researcher in the Smidt Heart Institute. "It might be used for patients at risk for atrial fibrillation or who are experiencing symptoms associated with the condition."

"The fact that this program predicted which patients had active or hidden atrial fibrillation could have immense clinical applications," added Dr. Christine M. Albert, chair of the Department of Cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute. "Being able to identify patients with hidden atrial fibrillation could allow us to treat them before they experience a serious cardiovascular event."

Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.

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Many governments worldwide failing to protect press freedom – Star Tribune

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

Since its United Nations declaration in 1993, every May 3, World Press Freedom Day, "acts as a reminder to governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom." Unfortunately, many of those same governments are restricting, not respecting, the right to a free press.

In fact, according to Reporters Without Borders, which the same day issued its annual World Press Freedom Index, "Press freedom around the world is being threatened by the very people who should be its guarantors political authorities." As evidence, it reported that of the five indicators it uses to compile its ranking, the political indicator had fallen the most.

"States and other political forces are playing a decreasing role in protecting press freedom," Anne Bocand, the organization's editorial director, stated in the report. "This disempowerment sometimes goes hand in hand with more hostile actions that undermine the role of journalists, or even instrumentalize the media through campaigns of harassment or disinformation."

The report is replete with examples from multiple regions, all of which have resonance anytime, but particularly in an election year or, more precisely, this year of elections, when a record number of people worldwide will vote. And if 2023s plebiscites presage this year, there's trouble ahead: Several elections in Latin America, according to the report, "were won by self-proclaimed predators of press freedom and media plurality, like Javier Milei in Argentina, who shut down the country's biggest news agency in a worrisome symbolic act." Accordingly, Argentina tumbled 26 places to 66th out of 180 nations ranked.

Elections in several African countries were "often accompanied by violence against journalists" in places like Nigeria (112th) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (123rd). In the increasing number of countries governed by military juntas like Niger (down 19 to 80th), Burkina Faso (down 28 to 86th) and Mali (down one to 114th), authorities "continue to tighten their grip on the media and obstruct journalists' work."

It's not just the Global South going south on press freedom. The scourge is seen in places like China (172nd), which along with others "have stepped up their control over social media and the internet, restricting access, blocking accounts, and suppressing messages carrying news and information." China, the world's worst jailer of journalists, "continues to exercise strict control over information channels, implementing censorship and surveillance policies to regulate online content and restrict the spread of information deemed to be sensitive or contrary to the party line."

And it goes beyond Beijing: Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang and other Orwellian, authoritarian capitals cap most press freedoms as well. Worse yet, many repressive regimes are learning from one another, as revealed in "Annals of Autocracy," an extraordinary Washington Post package that won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing on Monday for "a compelling and well-researched series on new technologies and the tactics authoritarian regimes use to repress dissent in the digital age, and how they can be fought."

Another Post opinion contributor, Vladimir Kara-Murza, knows the personal cost of resisting repression: The Russian opposition leader has been poisoned, allegedly by the Kremlin, and more recently sentenced to 25 years for speaking out against the war in Ukraine. His mind isn't imprisoned, however, as evidenced by his winning the Pulitzer in the commentary category "for passionate columns written under great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin's Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country."

International issues increasingly determining domestic politics in America were reflected in rewards for other news organizations, including the New York Times in the investigative reporting category "for a deeply reported series of stories revealing the stunning reach of migrant child labor across the United States and the corporate and governmental failures that perpetuate it." The Times also won in international reporting "for its wide-ranging and revelatory coverage of Hamas' lethal attack in southern Israel on October 7, Israel's intelligence failures and the Israeli military's sweeping, deadly response in Gaza."

That war was also the subject of the Breaking News Photography prize, awarded to Reuters, and a special citation was given to journalists and media workers covering the war. According to Reporters Without Borders, "More than 100 Palestinian reporters have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces, including at least 22 in their line of work."

The World Press Freedom Index warns that "in the absence of regulation, the use of generative AI in the arsenal of disinformation for political purposes is a concern." Even without such high-tech tools, disinformation operations were key to discredit Kyiv and Washington in Russians' eyes, as the Post's "Annals of Autocracy" series showed. Yet Moscow isn't the only offender: In 138 nations, the index indicated, "political actors in their countries were often involved in propaganda or disinformation campaigns."

Ominously, the U.S. isn't immune from these political actors, according to Barbara McQuade, author of "Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America."

McQuade's comments came on Wednesday at an evening event titled "Countering Chaos: Navigating Election Disinformation" organized by the Minnesota Peace Initiative and the Committee on Foreign Relations Minnesota. It was held at Norway House, which was fitting, since Norway was once again the top-ranked country in the World Press Freedom Index, followed by neighboring nations Denmark and Sweden.

A former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and current University of Michigan professor of law who teaches a course in national security, McQuade authoritatively said that "during the years I've been involved in national security, I've seen the greatest threats to our national security evolve, from first Al-Qaeda, and then it was ISIS, and then it was China and Russia and cyber intrusions. And now I think the greatest threat to our national security is disinformation but coming from within our own country."

A "confluence of two events" are "really elevating the problem," McQuade said, naming social media and "our incredibly polarized electorate."

The consequence of this confluence is the "idea that people care more of [their] tribe than they care about the truth I think that is very dangerous to democracy," McQuade said, later adding: "Since World War II, it's been the foreign policy of the United States to lift up democracies around the world because we believe that democracies around the world make us safer. When other countries have democratic forms of government there are fewer wars, there are fewer refugee crises, and we have more and better trade partners. And so, when democracies are failing and backsliding, as we are seeing around the world, that is a threat to our own national security."

A "reminder to governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom" the United Nations' stated purpose of World Press Freedom Day is designed to bolster democracies, which in turn should deliver the benefits McQuade describes. But as Reporters Without Borders documents, states are failing. So the Fourth Estate must not.

Many governments worldwide failing to protect press freedom - Star Tribune

Marshall native, ‘Grandmother of Juneteenth’ gets Presidential Medal of Freedom – Marshall News Messenger

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden on May 3 bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 19 people, including Marshall native and Grandmother of Juneteenth Opal Lee.

Biden said the recipients of the nations highest civilian honor are incredible people whose relentless curiosity, inventiveness, ingenuity and hope have kept faith in a better tomorrow.

The White House said the recipients are exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.

The 10 men and nine women hail from the worlds of politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights and LGBTQ+ advocacy, science and religion. Three medals were awarded posthumously.

Lee, born in Marshall and a 1952 Wiley graduate, led the charge in championing efforts to make Juneteenth nationally recognized as a federal holiday.

The Juneteenth holiday, June 19, marks the day in 1865 when slaves in Texas finally learned that the Civil War had ended and slavery had been abolished. The news, which was delivered in Galveston by Union soldiers, came two and a half years after President Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued in 1862 and became official Jan. 1, 1863.

President Joe Biden signed the holiday into law in 2021.

President Joe Biden hands a pen to Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif, after signing the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, June 17, 2021, in Washington. From left, Lee, Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., Opal Lee, Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., obscured, Vice President Kamala Harris, Clyburn, Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, obscured, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. (Evan Vucci/AP File Photo)

Lee, a great-great-grandmother, decided in 2016 that shed personally trek from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C. to bring attention to the mission. With the support of her church and family, she assembled a team to assist with her walking campaign and launched a change.org petition, soliciting support in her desire to see the national recognition of a day to celebrate Freedom for All.

In her petition, Lee shared that she believed Juneteenth could be a unifier because it recognizes the fact that slaves didnt free themselves but had help from Quakers along the Underground Railroad, abolitionists both Black and white like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison soldiers and many others who gave their lives for the freedom of the enslaved.

The celebration of Juneteenth has always been close to her heart, starting as a child growing up in Marshall, Lee said in an interview with the News Messenger in March 2023.

In Marshall, on Juneteenth, wed go to the county fairground. Oh, it would be full of music and food, there would be ballgames and food, and speeches and food, and food and food and food, she said. But when I came to Fort Worth, people just sort of celebrated in their backyards with their family and their friends.

Lee said the movement to make the observance a national holiday had already begun with the late Rev. Ronald V. Myers Sr., who founded the original National Juneteenth Observance Foundation.

Mind you, Dr. Ronald Myers had been instrumental in having Juneteenth celebrations in 43 states. And I think some of Doc rubbed off on me, she chuckled. He passed on, but I was determined to have Juneteenth a national holiday; and so, I guess I took up the mantle.

And I tell people, anybodys grandma wouldve done it, you know, she said.

... I thought that if a little old lady in tennis shoes was walking from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., thats 1,400 miles, somebody would take notice, she said. And so, to walk two and a half, 2.5 miles each time was to symbolize that the enslaved didnt know they were free for two and a half years.

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Marshall native, 'Grandmother of Juneteenth' gets Presidential Medal of Freedom - Marshall News Messenger

The Price of Freedom: Americas Unjust Cash Bail System – Brown Political Review

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

This piece was produced in part with the financial support of the Stone Inequality Initiative. The Brown Political Review maintains editorial independence over all columns and stories published.

Richard Griffin spent two days in Michigans Wayne County Jail as his family scrambled to find the funds to cover his $850 bail. Arrested for having a handgun in his car and an outstanding warrant due to an unpaid traffic ticket, Griffin quickly found himself embroiled in a troubling situation. While in jail, he missed his first day of work and was unable to warn his employer that he would be absentcausing him to lose his job. On top of this, he had arranged an appointment with a social service agency to seek emergency rental assistance, but his 48 hours of incarceration prevented him from attending it. Without the appointment, he was unable to secure aid and was subsequently evicted. Although Griffin endured a far shorter pretrial detention with a lower bail than most people accused of a crime, the cash bail system still acutely damaged his life. His situation is not unique. Hundreds of thousands of individuals across America are currently awaiting trial behind bars.

It is easy to imagine that justice is a givenan impartial, unyielding concept that a liberal, democratic society will always uphold. For millions like Griffin, however, justice is an unattained ideal. In the United States, those without money are incarcerated while they await trial, whereas those who can post bail await trial freely in the community; Lady Justices scales tip when the wealthy tip her. The structures forged to prevent crime have created an inherently unjust system in which freedom can be boughtif you can afford it. The cash bail system criminalizes poverty, corrupting the fundamental notion of being innocent until proven guilty and necessitating nationwide reform.

Between 1970 and 2015, the number of people incarcerated before being tried increased by 433 percent, largely due to judges relying more heavily on cash bail. When put into context, this figure is even more shocking: Two-thirds of those locked up in Americas local jails have not even been convicted of a crime. In 2015, courts typically set bail at $10,000 for feloniesa staggering number considering the fact that the median annual income for individuals in pretrial detention was $15,109. In 2022, 37 percent of Americans surveyed by the Federal Reserve said they could not afford to fully cover a $400 emergency expense immediately, meaning they would have to borrow money or sell possessions to do so. Some reported they would not be able to afford it at all. Because it is so often imposed on people who cannot pay, bail has become an insurmountable financial burden for countless Americans, threatening to irreparably disrupt their lives.

While the profound impact of spending months or years in pretrial detention is evident, even a brief period of incarceration can wreak havoc on individuals and their families. Spending just one day in jail can diminish a persons employment prospects and heighten the risk that they will lose their job. Research also indicates that spending greater than 23 hours in jail increases a persons chances of rearrest. When faced with these troubling prospects, individuals unable to post bail find themselves caught in a dilemma with no favorable options: borrow money from the predatory bail bonds industry, languish behind bars, or plead guilty. Unfortunately, many choose the last optiondefendants who are incarcerated pretrial are significantly more likely to enter into plea deals. Compared to those who are not detained pretrial, defendants in jail submit guilty pleas almost three times quicker. Poor defendants thus face an uphill battle within a system that is supposed to be impartial and just.

"In the United States, those without money are incarcerated while they await trial, whereas those who can post bail await trial freely in the community; Lady Justices scales tip when the wealthy tip her."

Despite the clear moral impetus, reforming the cash bail system is no politically easy task. Republicans and Democrats alike are wary of being perceived as pro-crime because of the publics heightened fears about rising crime rates; a November Gallup poll revealed that a majority of American adults felt that the criminal justice system was not tough enough. In the 2022 midterm elections, many of the most hotly contested races involved politicians who debated crime policy, with candidates from each party slamming their opponents with soft-on-crime accusations. Republicans have targeted a slate of anti-cash-bail candidates, including Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), accusing them of being soft on crime due to their support for criminal justice reform. On the flip side, Democratic candidates like Oklahomas Joy Hofmeister have criticized Republicans for being ineffective at addressing crime, citing their record of supporting bipartisan clemency initiatives intended to benefit those sitting in prisons.

Whats often overlooked in the political rhetoric against cash bail reform is the nature of the crimes being committed in the first place. Over 95 percent of crime in the United States is nonviolent, indicating that most people who are arrested can safely await trial in their communities rather than in holding cells. Moreover, cash bail reform is not a novel idea. It has been implemented to varying degrees in New York State, Washington, DC, and Illinois. In all of these cases, cash bail reform has led to a decrease in the likelihood of rearrest, proving that public safety concerns are unfounded. In Harris County, Texas, dropping cash bail for those charged with nonviolent offenses led to a 6 percent drop, not increase, in recidivism. Moreover, cash bail reform does not, in reality, decrease the rate at which defendants show up to their trialsnullifying the logical underpinning of cash bail programs. For politicians, resisting cash bail reform is merely a convenient way to appear tough on crime without actually presenting substantive solutions to underlying criminogenic issues. However, reform doesnt have to be uniform. Governments threatened by opponents who stir up fear of societal disorder can start with milder reforms, including reducing cash bail for nonviolent cases or ensuring that defendants have access to counsel before their bail hearings, rather than debating more controversial policies like eliminating bail entirely. States can also opt to try out reforms in specific counties before enacting statewide reformsIllinois, for instance, analyzed cash bail reforms in Cook County before eliminating cash bail statewide. Regardless of the approach, reform is necessary nationwide to ensure that we no longer allow bail to deprive people like Richard Griffin of their jobs, homes, and livelihoods. Your access to justice should never be determined by the thickness of your wallet.

The Price of Freedom: Americas Unjust Cash Bail System - Brown Political Review

Poole Researchers Uncover Tax Costs of Gambling – Poole College of Management

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

SportsHandle, a digital publication that covers legal gambling in the United States, recently highlighted Poole College research on the lose-lose tax proposition facing North Carolina gamblers.

North Carolina doesnt have itemized deductions for gambling, Poole economist Nathan Goldman told SportsHandle. There is a flat tax of 4.5 percent on gambling winnings. As an example, if you bet $22 and won $20, that $20 you just won is being taxed at 4.5%. But if you bet $22 again and lose, you dont get to write off the $22, which means youre down $2 in total, but still have to pay the 4.5%about 90 centsin taxes on the first bet.

Goldman and co-author Christina Lewellen, a fellow Poole associate professor, traced the tax implications to a 2015 state law that eliminated itemized deductions for gambling.

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Poole Researchers Uncover Tax Costs of Gambling - Poole College of Management

Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, agrees to plead guilty to 2 charges in gambling scandal – Yahoo Sports

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

Ippei Mizuhara agreed Wednesday to plead guilty to a pair of charges in connection with the gambling scandal involving Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani.

Mizuhara, who was Ohtanis longtime interpreter, was arrested earlier this spring in a massive and complicated scandal that left him facing up to 30 years in prison. Mizuhara allegedly stole nearly $17 million from Ohtani to cover Mizuhara's illegal gambling losses, which totaled more than $40 million.

Mizuhara agreed to plead guilty to two charges bank fraud and subscribing to a false tax return on Wednesday. The first charge carries a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in federal prison, and the second could add up to three years.

Mizuhara is expected to enter his guilty plea officially next week.

Mizuhara turned himself in to authorities officially last month after he was accused of stealing millions from Ohtani. He allegedly made 19,000 wagers with an alleged illegal bookie between December 2021 and January 2024, which averages out to about 25 bets per day. In total, Mizuhara lost more than $40.5 million.

Mizuhara was Ohtanis financial point person beginning when the star moved to the United States in 2018. Mizuhara reportedly helped Ohtani set up a bank account, and he impersonated Ohtani and later changed information in order to start funneling money from the account. Ohtanis agent reportedly talked to him exclusively through Mizuhara, too.

Mizuhara reportedly transferred weekly $500,000 payments into the account of an associate of Mathew Boyer, who is also under federal investigation. That associate then transferred the money into accounts with Resorts World, a Las Vegas casino, and Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula, California. The scandal is reportedly part of a much larger operation in which 12 people have already been charged and convicted and multiple casinos have paid fines.

The associate in question, according to ESPN, was Ryan Boyajian, who is a cast member of "The Real Housewives of Orange County." Scott Sibella, the former president of Resorts World and MGM Grand, is set to be sentenced in federal court Wednesday in Los Angeles, too, after he pleaded guilty in connection with another sports gambling charge.

Ohtani has denied knowing anything about the scandal and said he learned about it when everyone else did. Major League Baseball has released a statement recognizing that authorities view Ohtani as a victim in all of this. Ohtani, one of the best hitters in baseball so far this season, is continuing to play with the Dodgers in the wake of the scandal.

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Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, agrees to plead guilty to 2 charges in gambling scandal - Yahoo Sports

The End: The Money Picture Changes with Legalized Gambling – Gobbler Country

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

Taking a Quick Side trip on the Money Angle

In the first detail article we took a trip down memory lane and dug though some major court decisions and fan misperceptions to get a look at the landscape of college athletics as they stand in 2024.

Judging from the reaction, its still not gaining a whole lot of traction from the readership as seen in the Facebook numbers. Hopefully, as this series grows a bit, more of the readers will visit the baseline detail article to better understand the current situation.

As the first article was developing, and the money related section was being researched, items kept popping up in the source search that started to refocus some attention regarding an entirely different, but admittedly very old, source of secondary monetary influence on college sports, namely gaming and/or gambling.

Before we get into this, lets make the parameters of the discussion plain. There is no advocacy intent, one way or the other as to gambling, sports betting, or sports gaming (fantasy football, baseball, etc.). The purpose here is to illuminate an economy that has become a major secondary factor in the monetary posture of collegiate athletics. We are here to observe, not judge, and attempt to digest their potential impact on the audience motivations that drive the media revenues. An additional note must be given in full disclosure, several online gaming and gambling sites advertise on SB Nation sites including Gobbler Country and that includes a live link to DraftKings Sports Book. We arent scolds, here. However, it is undeniable that the sports gaming and gambling industry has made a major change in the interest, appeal, and viewership of college sports events.

The influence of money and audience on college sports is obvious, but how does the gambling theme fit in with the remainder of the more direct influences involved? Gambling or Gaming on sports has been around for as long has humans have engaged in competitive events. Bored soldiers would bet on boxing matches, cockroach races, and the like in the field probably far before the Mycenean Greeks formed the army to visit Troy. There would be no surprise generated to realize that the ancient Greeks probably bet on the original Olympic game contests. Even when life was at stake, there is a better than even chance (wink here) that someone was betting on the outcome of the contest.

In some cultures, the wagering was completely legitimate and open. For much of modern (late 19th and all of the 20th centuries) American history its been limited, heavily regulated, or prohibited altogether. Well, at least legal gaming, anyway. Who hasnt put a few bucks on some squares for the World Series, or March Madness (which is actually an oblique reference to the immense sums gambled on the tournament, under the table so to speak)?

Everyday gambling habits on sporting contests have their darker sides, however, bookies and broken knees, illicit favors for illegal gambling debts riddle the past, and provide rich fodder for many a detective novel, or police procedural. Those stories ring true because they are a functional part of human and more recently American cultural interchange.

Well, sports gambling was pretty much entirely a no-go zone at every level until the advent of three things: the Internet, Fantasy Sports, and the Federal Court System. Remember the dodges and semi-sort-of-denials about the most popular fantasy sports setups? Well, most people really dont because basically they werent completely true, and the Supreme Court of the United States made all of that moot anyway. It all changed in a May 2018 instant.

The court ruled in favor of the state of New Jersey and struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. The move effectively legalized betting on all sporting events both amateur and professional. The Act had been a response to the growing trend of Internet gambling, and in particular the wagering on NCAA contests, in particular the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament. ESPN has a pretty good summary of the event in its archives.

As with many court decisions, and frankly almost all of this massive change in the reality and the perception of collegiate athletics, the end result of the outcome has national impact, and virtually no regulation or legislatively derived law behind it. Suddenly, overnight, what was illicit and under the table became licit, and there was a certain understanding that what was under the table was untaxed as well as unregulated as interstate commerce. Teams are even signing deals with legal sports book entities where it is allowed by state law. Inside the Rise of Sports Betting on College Sports (businessofcollegesports.com)

The brutal truth is, for the government, in this case the state of New Jersey, gambling on sporting events was a black market sort of affair. The entire thing was done behind closed doors, or in shady areas in the backs of bars, or off of foreign web sites on the internet. You are supposed to report winnings as other income, even if there were no Form W-2Gs (see: Taxes on Gambling Winnings & Losses: Gambling Taxes Explained | Kiplinger for a good summary of the rules.) But all of us know that no local bookie is going to take your tax information and file a payout report to the IRS. Of course, legal gambling sites, parlors, and the like actually must and do that for the state as well.

However! The federal government has done little to stabilize and standardize the regulatory environment for gambling and gaming. It has remained in state hands and state control with various rules for various jurisdictions. Washington seems to only care about law enforcement when malfeasance is involved, or the limited rules in place are violated. It also only cares that the line on the 1040 form, and the W-2G is filed along with the 24% federal gambling tax paid. It has little interest in the possible and probable influences on the conduct of the sports being wagered upon.

The advent of legalized sports gambling has pulled the hidden issue out from under the table, the nature of being a fan, and in particular a fan of college sports. The reality of collegiate athletics is that there are only a few sports that garner any real fan and betting attention: football and basketball (mostly still mens). These are considered the revenue generating sports and all other collegiate athletics are subsidized by those revenue generating sports.

If you want to get an idea of the scale of the amount of money in the sports gambling industry, take a look at the numbers from CBS on how much How much money is bet on March Madness? The 2024 NCAA tournament is expected to generate billions. - CBS News Now realize thats combined for both mens and womens basketball, but thats a staggering legally gambled $2.7B (Thats B for billion. Folks).

Those revenues depend upon the nature of collegiate fan participation, whether through direct gate attendance, club contributions, and/or advertising viewership and response. Those revenue flows are largely proportionally tied to the size of the interested alumni base, family, and friends. There is an additional regional appeal. As someone once noted in a discussion, [T]he Cornhuskers ARE Nebraskas professional football team. That is a totally accurate evaluation on many fronts. Though there are quite a few Kansas City Chief or Royals fans in mostly Eastern Nebraska, and maybe a few Denver fans in the west, for the most part the Nebraska Cornhuskers serve as the states favored spectator sport team. The same goes for quite a few states including Oklahoma, West Virginia, (even Virginia to a degree), etc. The list gets long, but the point is that the fan bases are niche affairs with local or regional appeal.

Gambling changes that equation. Suddenly a team that might not have much in the way of potential viewer ratings becomes a huge draw because there is some gaming reason altering the viewership and ratings patterns. What happens if the betting action on a Boise State vs. Air Force football game drives the viewership numbers into the stratosphere because of some betting action?

Do the conferences and participating teams get ratings related benefits from the increased viewership? When does that fluidity get accounted for in the re-negotiation of their media rights contracts?

And finally, are fundamentally disinterested gambling observers really fans? And do they or their betting enablers have any influence over the conditions of betting? Do they end up involved in NIL deals with individual players?

If you look at the sports gaming industry from a more high-altitude angle, you begin to see the holes and pitfalls of the rapidly growing phenomenon. College Sports Gambling Data Market Cools as Negotiations Persist (sportico.com) Its an erratic market, and often pinned to seemingly unrelated events, activities, and personalities. It is still largely the wild west with the NCAA scrambling to keep up, the pressures mounting on NIL contracts and involvement, superstar status for various individual athletes. The Caitlin Clarke/Angel Reese effect on womens college basketball cannot be discounted. Personalities can drive interest, which drives potential betting action.

How does a legal gambling environment affect the way players participate in it? How do the Athletic Departments and NCAA handle the pressures, govern the activity, and discipline players for participating? From where does the authority come? Who writes and maintains the regulations? What sort of due process is provided for accusations? Who investigates charges? There are some newish attempts to begin to answer these things, but the entire phenomenon is court created and not legislated. The regulations that come out of the process might end up erased by further individually based court decisions.

The NCAA is beginning to track the issue and has published NCAA releases sports wagering survey data - NCAA.org for interested parties to peruse. Please read it and follow the study link. The results, and this was from mid-2023, are something that can rock folks back on their heels. The main part of the conclusion of the report summary is eyepopping:

Overall, the present survey found that sports wagering is pervasive among 18- to 22-year-olds, with 58% having engaged in at least one sports betting activity.

Sports wagering activity is widespread on college campuses 67% of students living on campus are bettors and tend to bet at a higher frequency. 41% of college students who bet on sports have placed a bet on their schools teams and 35% have used a student bookmaker.

There just are no answers here. That is the hardest part of writing this particular side piece to the money section of the first article. There are only further questions, and more problematic facts begging even more difficult questions.

Next up we get back to the main series with a look at The End: the Svengali Coach, Transfer Portal, and the Effect of Free Agency. There will be another sidebar article that will dive back into the money element as it affects both the Portal and virtual Free Agency and that will be: The End: The Name, Image, and Likeness Fiasco.

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The End: The Money Picture Changes with Legalized Gambling - Gobbler Country

Long (Political) Covid – Kevin D. Williamson – The Dispatch

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

Who were the libertarians? Nowwhen the movement has reached its nadirseems like a good time to consider the question.

I recently received an email from an old friend, an esteemed academic who is foundering miserably in retirement and senescence. Like many men of his kind, he has taken up politics with a social-media-driven religious devotion and, having tried Donald Trump on for size for a few years, has undergone a conversion to the cause of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who, like Donald Trump, has vermin on the brain.

Kennedy is, of course, a charlatan and a huckster, but more to the point here is that he is a left-wing charlatan and huckstera man with a view of government and national life that is something akin to that of Sen. Bernie Sanders or an old-fashioned campus Marxist. My old friend isnot was, but isa doctrinaire libertarian, one of those gentlemen I could go to and commiserate about what a terrible idea the Interstate Highway System was and why we dont really need an FDA. Oh, sure, Bobby is all wrong about the economics and most everything else, hell say, butand Ill bet you know where this is goinghe got it right about COVID-19 and the vaccines. Donald Trump, hell tell you, went along with the worst abuse of American civil liberties since Abraham Lincoln illegally suspended habeas corpus, practically turning these United States into a medical gulag.

Some people would like to forget the COVID era. Some people still can think of little else. The pandemic really was a radicalizing experience for a large number of Americans.

There has, in fact, been a cascade of radicalizing experiences since the end of the 20th century: the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the 2007-08 financial crisis and subsequent bank bailouts, and the COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine controversies chief among them. These events have had parallel, but unequal, effects on the right and the left.

September 11 in many ways brought Fox News to life and gave rise to a new kind of Republican tendency that psychologically conflated national-security projects abroad with culture-war projects at homeas in the matter of the Islamic Cultural Center on Park Place in Lower Manhattanwhile on the left the attack gave rise to an illiterately conspiratorial account of politics (Bush knew! Halliburton!) and a reinvigorated connection with 1960s-style radicalism as the movement protesting the Iraq War looked back to its Vietnam-era precedent. The financial crisis gave rise to the Tea Party movement and its progressive doppelgnger, Occupy Wall Street. The pandemic saw the right adopt a conspiratorial view of vaccines and pharmaceutical companies that once had been mainly a left-wing tendency while the left embraced a Kulturkampf approach toward symbolic public-health measures such as masking and deepened its fondness for expert authoritarianism.

Over the past two decades, the right adopted a more libertarian critique of many institutions and practices and then rallied behind an autocratic would-be caudillo with a distinctly etatist approach to economic policy. The left, meanwhile, has adopted a more radically egalitarian rhetoric even as the Democratic Party got very comfortable with its new role as the party of moneyed professionals and urban elites. Strange times, indeed.

One can see, without much difficulty or strain on the moral imagination, how each of those events would have a radicalizing effect on a certain kind of person. But one can also see that there is a certain kind of personlargely, but not exclusively, Americanslooking for an excuse to become radicalized. Tucker Carlson is one such example, but so is Nigel Farage, those angry Dutch farmers, the people (some of the people) who elected Giorgia Meloni and Javier Milei, etc. The desire to be radicalized is fundamentally a way to emotionally accommodate social alienation. It is the price that has to be paid to indulge hatred.

That distinctive, of-the-moment alienation is, ironically, what we feel when we are all stuck too close together. The modern world is too close and too intimate, and it is, for that reason, full of people who hate their neighbors and require a respectable reason for hating themwhich is why everybody says the people on the other side of whatever issue it is that they are pretending to care about are Nazis. Thats the great lesson the Indiana Jones movies taught us: There isnt anything socially safer than cheering against Nazis, even if you have to find them where there are none.

It is easier to see how this works if you take it out of your own national context. Can you imagine that there were perfectly good reasons for some British people to wish to reestablish their own democratically controlled national sovereignty over British affairs without being superintended by the European Union? Can you imagine that there were other Britons who had perfectly respectable reasons to want to maintain the benefits and privileges associated with living in an EU country? My own sympathies were with the Brexiteers, but there is much that is attractive about being a member of the European Union, and it is not difficult to see why many British people would have preferred to remain so.

There are many Americans who have enough sympathetic imagination to do that, but fewer who can view both sides of the various COVID-19 controversies with similar equanimity. I find myself pulled in different ways, as usual. The anti-vaccine activists are dangerous cranks, and the people who compare the COVID-19 shutdowns to the Soviet gulag are not to be trusted. At the same time, I recently had an appointment with a medical professional who insisted on wearing a mask for the entirety of our conversationwhich happened over Zoom, with each of us in otherwise empty rooms.

Of course I wanted to strangle him a little bitwho wouldnt?

COVID-19 radicalization is something one would expect to see more of among people who already had libertarian inclinations, which includes both the self-conscious libertarians with their Hayek books tucked under their arms and the more traditional Youre not the boss of me! American types. The weird thing is that COVID-19 radicalization has made so many of these libertarians less libertarian rather than more so. They havent moved from Free to Choose to The Machinery of Freedom, from Milton Friedman to David Friedman, from Ayn Rand fantasies to anarcho-capitalist fantasies. No, theyve moved from Reason to Breitbart to Mother Jones circa 1985, keeping the radical urgency but giving up on the part of libertarianism oriented towardwhat was it, again?liberty.

Part of this is our aging population: We have all seen relatives lose their minds to Fox News brain (which is a close relative of Facebook brain and Washington Post comments-section brain). In 1920, only 1 in 20 Americans was 65 or older, while today the figure is 1 in 6. And as our population gets older, our politics is going to get dumber and crazier and crankier and more disconnected from everyday reality.

Maybe I should not be very surprised.

We used to joke that libertarianism was for Republicans who liked weed and porn, or that it is what you get when you slip 5,000 micrograms of LSD into the punch bowl at the Chamber of Commerce. Less jokingly, we would observe that libertarian was an adjective preferred by conservatives who were understandably embarrassed to be associated with the Republican Party. (My first presidential vote was for Andre Marrou of the Libertarian Party over incumbent George H.W. Bush, possibly the most sensible president of my lifetime. But there were reasons to be embarrassed by Republicans even back in the golden days of 1992.) To be a small-l libertarian (as opposed to an activist in the Libertarian Party) was to liberate oneself from having very much dumb political stuff to defend for the sake of party solidarity. And the libertarians had (and have) most of the good ideas, as much as I can appreciate Ramesh Ponnurus wise line about libertarianism being the perfect political philosophy provided you live in a world with no foreign policy or children. But perhaps the libertarians did not take those libertarian ideas as seriously as I had thought they did.

It may be that libertarianism simply was what was politically and socially available for the would-be right-wing radical from (approximately) the 1970s through the turn of the century. If you were right-ish leaning and had a hankering for something radical-feeling, then libertarianism was where it was at. Surely there is something to that. And here it is probably worth bearing in mind that many important and embarrassing links between the mainstream conservative movement and fringe, conspiracy-minded, and antisemitic movements were championed by erstwhile libertarians: Murray Rothbard and his daft effort to recruit David Duke and the radical left into a unified front against the welfare-warfare state; Ron Paul and his bigoted newsletters; Sam Francis and his long journey (but not as long as one might have thought or hoped) from the Heritage Foundation and the Mises Institute to the crackpot-racist lecture circuit.

Maybe libertarianism never was a school of political thought at all.

Schools of political thought are the work of many hands. Political auteurssui generis great-man figurestend to be dictators such as Napoleon Bonaparte or Henry VIII. Politics that take any account of consensus or pluralism tends to be by nature based on coalition-building, and coalition-building politics, in turn, tend toward consensus and pluralism, at least in many cases and to some degree. (Which isnt to say that collective leadership is a guarantee of decent policy: The Soviet Union was already a brutal mess before Joseph Stalin got hold of it.)

Schools of political thought may be the product of a kind of apostolic succession (Socrates begets Plato, Plato begets Aristotle) or, in a more practical configuration, coalitions of contemporariesaligned if not necessarily unanimoussuch as the American founders or the leaders of the French Revolution. American conservativesI mean intellectuals in movement conservatism, not Republican-leaning voters at largelong thought of themselves as being more like the philosophers in succession (National Review still calls its seminar program From Burke to Buckley, Edmund Burke and William F. Buckley Jr. being two points defining a line from which Trump-era conservatism, such as it is, departs at a 45-degree angle) and less like members of a political party. Conservatives thought that conservatism meant adherence to a philosophy (or an ideology, if you arent allergic to the word) rather than loyalty to a coalition.

But as it has turned out, coalitional loyaltyas expressed through prone self-abasement in the Donald Trump cultis the defining characteristic of politically engaged conservatism in our time. Funny how that worked out.

Many conservatives, including a few leading neoconservatives, could never quite come around to the Republican Party even in its pre-Trump incarnation, and a great many held the GOP at arms length. The libertarians had even less to defend in the way of party apparatus: Either they were a small minority tendency within the Republican Party and the wider conservative movement or they were big fish in the minuscule pond that is the Libertarian Party. (David Koch was each of those things at different points in his career.) The libertarians were free to be thinkers rather than party men, caf philosophes rather than street-fighting sans-culottes. And that was fineprovided you didnt feel some deep and abiding need to be relevant.

Radicalism for the sake of radicalism is, of course, the dead opposite of conservatism.

Without going too far into the factional Kremlinology of the American right, the prefix paleo is useful here: Take the paleo-libertarians and the paleo-conservatives back far enough and you are mostly talking about the same people, a motley collection of Taft-ites and Southern agrarians, anti-New Dealers and premature anti-New Dealers, America First-ers, Lindbergh-ites, et al., with Albert Jay Nock representing the better sort and H.L. Mencken and the American Mercury crew the inferior sort. That conjunction gave rise to a style of political rhetoric that was very, very good at providing a little pleasurable frisson to the Chamber of Commerce men. It gave rise to more than that, of course, but that seems to be the part that remains most attractive. It goes nicely with three fingers of 16-year-old Macallan.

The economist Tyler Cowen writes about mood affiliation, which he defines as a logical fallacy in which people are first choosing a mood or attitude, and then finding the disparate views which match to that mood and, to themselves, justifying those views by the mood. An example from Cowen: People who see a lot of net environmental progress (air and water are cleaner, for instance) and thus dismiss or downgrade well-grounded accounts of particular environmental problems. Theres simply an urgent feeling that any pessimistic view needs to be countered. In our catastrophizing time, the urge to counter pessimism is much weaker than the urge to counter optimism. It is remarkable how easily people move from one issue to another, from one position to another, from one school of political thought to another, without ever changing in the slightest the underlying emotional scaffolding of their politics.

The most obvious example of that used to be the Cold War-era left and U.S. foreign policy: It didnt matter what happened, what the issue was, or what the outcome was, as long as you told a story in which the United States ultimately was the villain. Many progressives took a similar attitude toward business: If Americans eat too much sugar, take too many opioids, or take out loans they can never possibly hope to repay, it must be the fault of Big Business, somehow.

On the right, you can see the same thing when it comes to illegal immigrants: Medicare would be fine without the illegals, Social Security would be fine without the illegals, the schools would be fine without the illegals, housing wouldnt be a problem if not for the illegals, etc. (I didnt get a harrumph out of that guy!) Today, the thing that really matters for a certain kind of libertarian-ish crank is that government at many levels was excessively risk-averse and heavy-handed during a worldwide viral epidemic a few years ago. There were things to be learned from the successes and failures of the COVID-19 era. We managed not to learn mucheven with all that time on our hands.

And what we have learned is that Grandpa probably needs some real-life friends who can gently tell him how crazy he sounds when he starts going on about Bobby Kennedy and the vaccines. And maybe to forgo that third glass of wine with dinner and to switch off Fox News from time to time. Writing a vicious obituary of libertarian crank Murray Rothbard not very long after the infamous events in Waco, Texas, William F. Buckley was acid: Yes, Murray Rothbard believed in freedom. And, yes, David Koresh believed in God. True. But what they both really believed in was believing, that beliefs per se could transform a life and give it meaning.

Does belief transform lives? Does it save them? If you are talking about the career of Jesus of Nazareth, then, yes; if you are talking about the career of Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, then, no. I know a few people who still take Osho (the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) very, very seriously. Osho bought a fleet of Rolls Royces with this sort of thing:

The whole of life is dialectical. The logos is dialectical and reason is a process of the same. You can think of it in these terms. Dialectics is heterosexual; reason, rationality, is homosexual. Rationality is homosexual. Thats why homosexuality is growing in the West because the West has accepted Aristotle, reason. Heraclitus is heterosexual. He will include the opposite. If you listen to reason you will be homosexual.

Osho, it bears noting, was not anti-homosexuality, in spite of what you might think from the above. He described homosexuality as pure fun, an alternative to dangerous heterosexuality; his ideal man was a kind of enlightened sensualist he named Zorba the Buddha. Is that sillier than Ayn Rand? More meretricious than Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? It isnt obvious to me that it is. It is the kind of thing that pushes the same buttons and scratches the same itch, albeit for people with a different sensibility and ethos. (Zorba the Buddha is also the name of a very good vegetarian restaurant run by Osho cultists around the corner from the Taj Mahal.)

If you think I have wandered too far afield here, I havent: The point is that it isnt the doctrine that matters to Americansit is how reciting the tenets of the doctrine makes them feel. That is why sentimental Evangelical megachurches succeed where all the enlightened scholarly Catholics and upright rigorous Calvinists and others of that ilk failin marketing, I mean, not in theology. That is why people who are committed free-market men on Monday morning are Trumpist industry-policy men on Wednesday afternoon and howling at the moon with Bobby Kennedy on Friday night.

It is not the case that if you look long into the abyss of American political idealism that the abyss looks into youthere is nothing there to look back, because there is nothing there to see. Only chaos. Typewriters may be a thing of the past, but we still have Facebook and Elon Musks depraved X thing, and here we are, the infinite monkeys trying to work out the Declaration of Independence or Democracy in America or maybe at least a brief poetical account of the life and times and peculiar habits of an old man from Nantucket. Infinite monkeys, monkeying infinitely.

The plague has come and gone, and all we remember is how inconvenient it all was, how it made us feel small and put-upon and bullied. And the people who felt that way werent always wrong to feel that way. It just doesnt matter as much as they think it does. Good stoical republicans dont worry too much about that sort of thing, dont drive themselves bonkers obsessive about about what it all means. Others, lacking the benefit of philosophy, require some fixed point in the universe to orient themselves, and that point invariably takes the form of a man. Bobby Kennedy is a damned peculiar choice for an idol, but these are damned peculiar times, and strange things are afoot at the Chamber of Commerce.

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Long (Political) Covid - Kevin D. Williamson - The Dispatch

The Libertarian Party Crackup – by Tyler Groenendal – The Bulwark

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dook Domini

(Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY, the largest third party in the United States and the self-described party of principle, announced last week that former President Donald Trump will be speaking at its national convention on May 25.

In the announcement, the chair of the Libertarian National Committee, Angela McArdle, bills the move as an incredible opportunity to advance the message of liberty, and to make an impact on the policy positions of a past, and possibly future, president.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has a different take, saying, If Libertarians join me and the Republican Party, where we have many Libertarian views, the election wont even be close. We cannot have another four years of death, destruction, and incompetence. WE WILL WORK TOGETHER AND WIN!

Despite Trumps rhetoric, Trumpism has little in common with libertarianism. His hostility to free trade, support for qualified immunity, continuation of overseas military action and drone strikes, and unilateral banning of bump stocks stand in direct opposition to both libertarian principles and the partys platform.

Trump isnt the only non-Libertarian candidate the party is courting. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at the California Libertarian Partys convention; back in March he wasreportedly even mulling running as a Libertarian following discussions with McArdle and party leadership, although it is unclear if he is still considering that possibility. Like Trump, Kennedy is no libertarian, though he appeals to certain populist and conspiratorial elements within the party.

Despite his lack of libertarian policy beliefs, Trump has a clear incentive to siphon votes away from the eventual Libertariannominee. In the 2020 election, the Libertarian vote share covered the spread between Trump and Biden in several key states, including Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsinall of which broke for Biden. The opportunity to speak at the partys convention provides Trump a prime opportunity to stop a repeat of 2020 in its tracks.

Ostensibly, the opportunity to speak is a neutral one that was offered to all major candidates (including RFK Jr. and President Biden), though the rabid enthusiasm with which activists and party leadership greeted the news of Trumps speech calls this into question. Almost immediately after the announcement, the Libertarian National Committee was selling official t-shirts with a silhouette of Trumps head alongside such libertarian catchphrases as End the Fed and Taxation is Theft. (These products have since been removed from the website.)

As McArdle put it, My loyalty has to be to the Libertarian party . . . but Donald Trump is a much better person and president than Joe Biden. Theres no contest. Her clear admiration for Trump in spite of his platform and his promises to be a Day One dictator signal that the years-long transformation of the Libertarian party is now complete.

IN 2016, THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY was handed a ripe opportunity for unprecedented success. With two widely disliked major-party candidates, many Americans were desperate for a viable alternative. Enter Gary Johnson, former Republican governor of New Mexico turned Libertarian and the 2012 Libertarian presidential nominee. He selected the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, Bill Weld, as his running mate, despite Welds lack of history with the party and concerns from some members about his political beliefs.

Some early polls suggested the campaign was not far from the elusive 5 percent electoral threshold that would trigger automatic ballot access in subsequent elections in many states. But missteps, from Johnson forgetting the name of the Syrian city where a fierce battle was causing mass atrocities (What is Aleppo?) to Welds near-endorsement of Hillary Clinton (Im not sure anyones more qualified to be president of the United States than Hillary Clinton) diminished libertarians enthusiasm for Johnson.

Still, the Johnson/Weld campaign by far was the most successful Libertarian ticket in history, earning 4.5 million votes (3.3 percent of the total votes cast). For the first time since 2000, the ticket was on the ballot in all fifty states. The future of the party looked bright.

LIKE ANY POLITICAL PARTY, the Libertarian party has always been fraught with division. Whether on particular policy issues like abortion and immigration or tactical questions of messaging and political strategy, intraparty conflict has long been the norm.

Broadly speaking, the party can be divided between two branches: pragmatists and radicals. Pragmatists focus on marginal movements toward liberty and winning elections. Radicals yearn for the libertarian revolution, and see the party as a vehicle for promoting libertarianism even to the detriment of the partys electoral chances.

Welds inclusion on the 2016 ticket, and growing internal conflict over strategy, messaging, and culture-war issues related to race and gender, led radical elements within the party to form the Mises Caucus. The caucus sought a more radical realignment of the partys strategy, messaging, and politics, and quickly began growing in numbers, money, and influence.

The caucus is named for Ludwig von Mises, a twentieth-century Austrian economist who is one of the intellectual godfathers of the modern libertarian movement. Though named for Mises, the caucus owes much of its philosophy to Ron Paul, the former Republican congressman and perennial presidential candidate (alternately as a Republican and a Libertarian).

The Mises Caucus spread like wildfire online, through celebritarian Twitter threads and promotion via the extensive network of libertarian podcasts. By the 2022 Libertarian National Convention in Reno, the Mises Caucus was on the verge of taking over the party. Growing grassroots dissatisfaction with party leadership, as well as lingering frustration over what they saw as a lackluster response to pandemic-era policies like lockdowns and mandates for mask-wearing and vaccination, catapulted the Mises Caucus to victory.

McArdle, who was a Mises Caucus board member and was endorsed by the caucus to chair the national committee, summarized the Mises-backed candidates goals: I will move heaven and earth to make this thing functional and not embarrassing for you. We are going to change the country.

In an interview with Reason shortly before she won the chairand indeed the entire slate of Mises-backed candidates won their party leadership electionsMcArdle offered more concrete goals. She was committed to better messaging from the national party, in contrast with controversial and bigoted remarks from some state parties, like the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. She said she would seek to broaden the party to encompass the broader liberty movement, including all those at odds with what several Mises Caucus proponents described as woke and SJW elements in the previous leadership. McArdle also pledged to better manage the partys finances, and to work to grow both membership and donations.

Now, two years later, what has the leadership of the party looked like under the Mises Caucus crew? From messaging to party growth to internal management, the past two years of the Libertarian party have been an unmitigated disaster.

THE FIRST AND MOST OBVIOUS CHANGE that the new crew brought about concerned the partys messaging. For many in the Mises Caucus, the question of whether the partys Twitter account was sufficiently owning the libs was more important than workaday political-organizational concerns like ballot access or running candidates.

Shortly after their victory in Reno, the Mises Caucus removed a longstanding plank of the Libertarian party platform that had said, We condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant. One has to wonder: What kinds of would-be Libertarians were being held back from joining the party by those wordsand, more importantly, why did the Mises Caucus want to court them?

The messaging got worse from there. Since the takeover, the official Libertarian party Twitter account has become a hotbed of conspiracy theories, inflammatory rhetoric, and scorn. State affiliates quickly followed in its wake, with the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire recently tweeting a revised version of the 14 words, a white-supremacist slogan.

The Mises Caucus faithful were thrilled by this change in the partys public stance. Still, beyond this contingent, the party struggled to make inroads to new members.

Contra McArdles stated commitment to the broader liberty movement, the Mises Caucus has always been pugnacious toward its intramural competition. One of their prime longstanding targets is regime libertarians, shorthand for nonprofits like the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation. Those organizations perceived compromise and lack of radicalism, as well as their willingness to accept imperfect and incremental improvements towards libertarian ends, meant they deserved scorn and sanction from the party.

For example, following the publication of a Cato Institute blog post praising the COVID-19 vaccines as a triumph of globalization and international cooperation, McArdle herself wrote that the Cato Institute should be excommunicated from the liberty movement and has nothing to do with our political movement. If one of the major, long-established national centers of libertarian thought and policy wasnt aligned with the new Libertarian party, who is? (Besides, apparently, Donald Trump, who supervised the government-led effort to develop the vaccines in the first place.)

The latent hostility of the partys messaging and open hostility toward libertarians not aligned with the Mises Caucus started to drive away longtime party members. According to data compiled from publicly available information by the Classical Liberal Caucusthe main opposition to the Mises Caucus within the partysustaining memberships (denoting party members who give at least $25 to the cause each year) have significantly declined since the Mises Caucus takeover.

The new leadership has likewise alienated longtime donors, as fundraising more generally has declined alongside membership. The partys financial outlook has become bleak enough that there are plans to cease operations from the partys Alexandria headquarters in order to rent the building out instead.

This chaos has percolated from the national party to the state level, as state parties have disaffiliated (in New Mexico and Virginia), splintered (in Massachusetts and Michigan), or formed new parties outright (Pennsylvanias Keystone Party).

The state parties that remain are growing less enthusiastic about actually electing Libertarian candidates. The Libertarian Party of Colorado announced they would no longer run candidates in races that already have strong liberty minded Republicans in them. Likewise, the Libertarian Party of Montana changed its bylaws to allow endorsements of candidates of any political affiliation. In Arizona, the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in 2022 dropped out to endorse Republican Blake Masters.

The partys response to its own slow-moving collapse has been mixed. Publicly, McArdle is quick to blame previous leadership. In a blithe and low budgetlooking video, she likened the old Libertarian party to a car thats been driven by drunken rats that new leadership needs to fix up before it can run properly again. But never fear, she said: The era of woke regime libertarianism is never coming back.

Privately, things are not looking so good. In a leaked internal memo from 2023, McArdle acknowledged that we are in serious in trouble, no one is coming to save us, and the takeover is turning into a disaster. We need to radically change things if we are going to survive the next year, she writes.

ALL THIS THRASHING FOR RELEVANCE amid internal chaos helps to explain the Libertarian partys embrace of bizarre strategies: Its leadership is desperate, out of ideas, and willing to try anything. Thats how the caucus of principle and radicalism has come to court the likes of cracked Democrat-turned-independent RFK Jr. and former Republican president Trump.

In this, the partys current leadership shows that it is willing to abandon libertarian principles built in the partys platformand to do so for the sake of visibility and influence. Theyre not minor principles, either, but core principles, such as those expressed in the partys positions on free trade and migration (Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders), industrial policy (We oppose all forms of government subsidies and bailouts to business, labor, or any other special interest), and justice (We support the abolition of qualified immunity). What would DJT or RFK Jr. have to say to a gathering of libertarians on those topics?

But in truth, the Mises Caucus abandoning principles for optics is nothing new. At the 2022 convention, Justin Amash (the first Libertarian congressman in the partys history) read a string of quotations at odds with Mises Caucus orthodoxy as part of his speech: Libertarianism is not anarchism, nor has it anything whatsoever to do with anarchism, he said, and Libertarianisms thinking is cosmopolitan and ecumenical.

In response to a chorus of boos, Amash revealed that every quotation he had just read came from Ludwig von Mises himself (although Amash replaced the word liberalism in the original quotations with libertarianism). If the Mises Caucus rejects the words and ideas of its namesake, what parts of the libertarian tradition do they support?

Whoever the eventual Libertarian nominee is this year, that person will struggle to reach the heights of 2016, or even the 1.2 percent attained by the partys 2020 presidential nominee, Jo Jorgensen. Promises that Trumps appearance will lead to valuable media attention, or that Trump will change his platform after hearing Libertarian concerns, are laughable. The only thing that he will take from Libertarians is votes, and he will give nothing in return.

The Mises Caucus, which formed predominantly in online communities with messaging and growth strategies based almost solely on provocative digital engagement, has failed spectacularly at every one of its promises to the Libertarian party since it took over. Their story is one of compromise, not principle; decline, not growth. And at the end of the month, when the Libertarian party all but endorses Trump for president, they will slide further into irrelevance.

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Tyler Groenendal is the manager of foundation relations at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

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The Libertarian Party Crackup - by Tyler Groenendal - The Bulwark

RCB routs Liberty to advance in sectionals | West Virginia High School Sports | wvnews.com – WV News

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Dook Domini

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Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine 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RCB routs Liberty to advance in sectionals | West Virginia High School Sports | wvnews.com - WV News

Planetarium event at Liberty High School provides out-of-this-world lesson for students – WV News

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Dook Domini

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Planetarium event at Liberty High School provides out-of-this-world lesson for students - WV News

US Congress demands answers from Liberty over Andretti block – Racingnews365.com

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Dook Domini

12 members of the United States Congress have written to Formula 1 owner Liberty Media demanding to know why Andretti's entry bid was blocked.

In January, F1, as commercial rights holder rejected Andretti's proposed grand prix entry bid after negotiations after the FIA had deemed the General Motors-partnered bid to meet all technical requirements.

F1 and the 10 teams were concerned about the dilution of the prize pot, with F1 believing that Andretti would not be a "competitive participant" in the championship, and doubted what Andretti could bring to F1.

However, the door was left open for a potential 2028 entry if General Motors could produce a power unit.

Mario Andretti has been on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C for meetings with Republican Congressman John James of Michigan - who is one of 12 signatories - from both parties - to demand answers from Liberty - which it is seeking by May 3rd.

RacingNews365 has reached out to the White House with a request for comment from President Biden.

In the letter addressed to Liberty chief Greg Maffei, the members of Congress "write to express our concerns with apparent anti-competitive actions that could prevent two American companies, Andretti Global and General Motors from producing and competing in Formula 1."

The letter continues that FOM's denial of Andretti's application, for now, could be down to the domination of "European Formula 1 race teams" and that it is "unfair and wrong to attempt to block American companies from joining Formula 1 - which could also violate American anti-trust laws."

The bipartisan members of Congress are seeking answers to three major concerns by Friday from Liberty.

They include "under what authority does FOM proceed to reject admission of Andretti Global" and "what the rationale is for the rejection".

In addition, they are seeking answers as to whether the possible entry of GM into the European market could have been a reason for the denial of the bid, whilst the 1890 Sherman Anti-trust law is mentioned, which bans "unreasonable restraints" on market competition to produce the best outcome for the American consumer."

The 12 members of Congress have asked Liberty how its denial of Andretti's bid "squares with the Sherman Act requirements."

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US Congress demands answers from Liberty over Andretti block - Racingnews365.com

France wants to use Greece’s air defense system for the Olympics, report says – POLITICO Europe

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Dook Domini

If our allies ask for a specific period of time in this case the Olympic Games a specific assistance, which does not in any way affects the country's defense capability, this will be done, but always after coordination and consultation between the two sides, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told reporters during a regular briefing on Thursday. But we are always talking and I make it clear about a limited specific time period.

An official at the French embassy in Athens declined to comment.

This is the first time a report has emerged about France requesting air defense material for the Olympics. Until now, it has been reported that foreign police and military would be present during the Games.

Although not directly linked to Ukraine, the French request is seen as an indirect enticement to Athens to unlock part of its air defense in the general European effort to strengthen Kyiv.

The United States is expected to pressure further pressure Athens in this regard on Friday during a planned teleconference on Ukraines assistance during the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

The Crotale air-defense system in question is French-built and was integrated into the Greek air force in 2003. It has a firing range of 11-20 kilometers and a maximum engagement altitude of 6 km. It is described as ideal for the purpose for which the French want it.

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France wants to use Greece's air defense system for the Olympics, report says - POLITICO Europe

Alex Morgan out injured for San Diego with Olympics looming – ESPN

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Dook Domini

Apr 25, 2024, 05:35 PM ET

San Diego Wave forward Alex Morgan will miss Saturday's National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) match against Bay FC due to an ankle injury, Wave head coach Casey Stoney confirmed on Thursday.

"She's got an ankle injury and she's out for this weekend, and then it'll be week by week from there," Stoney said.

- Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, NWSL more (U.S.)

Morgan was injured in the final minutes of the Wave's 1-0 loss to the Orlando Pride last Friday. She challenged for a loose ball in a goal-mouth scramble and fell awkwardly into the goal before rolling around and grabbing her left ankle. She eventually stood up and limped off the field gingerly.

The injury occurred less than 100 days before the 2024 Olympics. Morgan, who turns 35 prior to the Olympics, is seeking to compete in her fourth Games for the United States women's national team this summer.

Morgan was initially left off the USWNT's Concacaf W Gold Cup roster earlier this year but joined the team as an injury replacement ahead of the tournament.

Since then, she re-emerged as the USWNT's preferred center forward -- the role she has mostly held for over a decade -- starting in each of the last five games as the USWNT won the Gold Cup and the recent SheBelieves Cup. Morgan has scored 123 career goals for the USWNT.

The USWNT next gathers in late May ahead of a pair of June friendly matches against South Korea, which will be the first games in charge for new USWNT head coach Emma Hayes.

Morgan had featured in all four San Diego Wave regular season matches to date this season, tallying one assist. Her lone club tally of 2024 came in the NWSL Challenge Cup on March 15, which the Wave won 1-0 behind that 88th-minute goal.

Morgan has been integral to the Wave since the team launched as an expansion side in 2022. That season was her most productive ever at the club level, with 15 goals and two assists in 17 games. Last year, she tallied seven goals and five assists to help the Wave win the NWSL Shield as the best team in the regular season.

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Alex Morgan out injured for San Diego with Olympics looming - ESPN

Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic – goskagit.com

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Dook Domini

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Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic - goskagit.com

Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic – Idaho Press

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Dook Domini

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Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic - Idaho Press

NATIONAL VIEW: Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus, and it’s back – Odessa American

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Dook Domini

This year is not yet one-third over, yet measles cases in the United States are on track to be the worst since a massive outbreak in 2019. At the same time, anti-vaccine activists are recklessly sowing doubts and encouraging vaccine hesitancy. Parents who leave their children unvaccinated are risking not only their health but also the well-being of those around them.

Measles is one of the most contagious human viruses more so than the coronavirus and is spread through direct or airborne contact when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes. The virus can hang in the air for up to two hours after an infected person has left an area. It can cause serious complications, including pneumonia, encephalitis and death, especially in unvaccinated people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one person infected with measles can infect 9 out of 10 unvaccinated individuals with whom they come in close contact.

But measles can be prevented with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine; two doses are 97 percent effective. When 95 percent or more of a community is vaccinated, herd immunity protects the whole. Unfortunately, vaccination rates are falling. The global vaccine coverage rate of the first dose, at 83 percent, and second dose, at 74 percent, are well under the 95 percent level. Vaccination coverage among U.S. kindergartners has slipped from 95.2 percent during the 2019-2020 school year to 93.1 percent in the 2022-2023 school year, according to the CDC, leaving approximately 250,000 kindergartners at risk each year over the past three years.

The virus is slipping through the gaps. According to the World Health Organization, in 2022, 37 countries experienced large or disruptive measles outbreaks compared with 22 countries in 2021. In the United States, there have been seven outbreaks so far this year, with 121 cases in 18 jurisdictions. Most are children. Many of the outbreaks in the United States appear to have been triggered by international travel or contact with a traveler. Disturbingly, 82 percent of those infected were unvaccinated or their status unknown.

The largest toll has been in Illinois, followed by Florida. But when an outbreak hit the Manatee Bay Elementary School in Broward County in early March, Floridas top public health official, state Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo, did not follow the standard recommendation that parents of unvaccinated children keep them home for 21 days to avoid getting the disease. Instead, Dr. Ladapo said, Florida would be deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance. This means allowing children without protection to go to school. Dr. Ladapos letter was an unnecessarily reckless act of pandering to an anti-vaccine movement with increasing political influence.

Vaccine hesitancy is being encouraged by activists who warn of government coercion, using social media to amplify irresponsible claims. An article published March 20 on the website of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s Childrens Health Defense organization is headlined, Be Very Afraid? CDC, Big Media Drum Up Fear of Deadly Measles Outbreaks. The author, Alan Cassels, claims that the news media is advancing a a fear-mongering narrative, and adds, Those of us born before 1970 with personal experience pretty much all agree that measles is a big meh. We all had it ourselves and so did our brothers, sisters and school friends. We also had chicken pox and mumps and typically got a few days off school. The only side effect of those diseases was that my mom sighed heavily and called work to say she had to stay home to look after a kid with spots.

Today, he adds, Big media and government overhyping the nature of an illness, which history has shown us can be a precursor to some very bad public health policies such as mandatory vaccination programs and other coercive measures.

This is just wrong. The CDC reports that, in the decade before the measles vaccine became available in 1963, the disease killed 400 to 500 people, hospitalized 48,000 and gave 1,000 people encephalitis in the United States every year and that was just among reported cases.

The elimination of measles in the United States in 2000, driven by a safe and effective vaccine, was a major public health success. Although the elimination status still holds, the U.S. situation has deteriorated. The nation has been below 95 percent two-dose coverage for three consecutive years, and 12 states and the District below 90 percent. At the same time, the rest of the world must also strive to boost childhood vaccination rates, which slid backward during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the WHO, low-income countries with the highest risk of death from measles continue to have the lowest vaccination rates, only 66 percent.

The battle against measles requires a big not a meh effort.

The Washington Post

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NATIONAL VIEW: Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus, and it's back - Odessa American

Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus. And it’s back. – Columbia Missourian

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Dook Domini

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Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus. And it's back. - Columbia Missourian

Argentina’s populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born – PinalCentral

Posted on April 16, 2024 by Dook Domini

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Argentina's populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born - PinalCentral

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CRISPR gene-editing therapies need more diverse DNA to realize their full potential – Vox.com

Cedars-Sinai research shows deep learning model could improve AFib detection – Healthcare IT News

Many governments worldwide failing to protect press freedom – Star Tribune

Marshall native, ‘Grandmother of Juneteenth’ gets Presidential Medal of Freedom – Marshall News Messenger

The Price of Freedom: Americas Unjust Cash Bail System – Brown Political Review

Poole Researchers Uncover Tax Costs of Gambling – Poole College of Management

Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, agrees to plead guilty to 2 charges in gambling scandal – Yahoo Sports

The End: The Money Picture Changes with Legalized Gambling – Gobbler Country

Long (Political) Covid – Kevin D. Williamson – The Dispatch

The Libertarian Party Crackup – by Tyler Groenendal – The Bulwark

RCB routs Liberty to advance in sectionals | West Virginia High School Sports | wvnews.com – WV News

Planetarium event at Liberty High School provides out-of-this-world lesson for students – WV News

US Congress demands answers from Liberty over Andretti block – Racingnews365.com

France wants to use Greece’s air defense system for the Olympics, report says – POLITICO Europe

Alex Morgan out injured for San Diego with Olympics looming – ESPN

Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic – goskagit.com

Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic – Idaho Press

NATIONAL VIEW: Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus, and it’s back – Odessa American

Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus. And it’s back. – Columbia Missourian

Argentina’s populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born – PinalCentral