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A big lie, an attack on the Capitol — and soon, another indictment

Politico

A big lie, an attack on the Capitol — and soon, another indictment

Kyle Cheney – July 26, 2023

In a more than two-month blitz that ended in violence, Donald Trump lied, cajoled, inveighed and inspired his supporters to challenge the results of an election he lost. Now, special counsel Jack Smith appears on the verge of indicting Trump for those efforts.

Two and a half years have passed since the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Yet investigators are still piecing together the breadth of Trump’s attempt to derail the transfer of power. It wasn’t a singular plan but in fact was many disparate schemes, led by distinct groups of advisers who embraced increasingly fringe strategies and were not always working in harmony.

Each arm of the effort was held together by one core lie with Trump at the center: that the election was stolen. And each tentacle has faced withering scrutiny from Smith’s investigators, who may ask a federal grand jury any day now to approve criminal charges tied to Trump’s election subversion, mere weeks after Smith charged Trump in a separate case for hoarding classified documents.

But if and when Smith brings charges related to Trump’s wide-ranging bid to cling to power, it will fall to the courts and a jury to determine whether Trump’s conduct — no matter the broad powers and immunities of the presidency — crossed the line into criminality.

The exact charges that Smith will seek are unclear, but here’s a look at the extraordinary range of conduct that will figure into them.

The disinformation campaign

Key figures: Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell

Even before votes were cast, Trump began conditioning his supporters to distrust the outcome of the 2020 election, insisting that mail-in voting — which states embraced to contend with Covid-era dangers — would be exploited by Democrats, foreign adversaries and bad actors to steal the election.

Trump rejected advice from his own allies, like campaign manager Bill Stepien and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, to embrace mail-in voting as a way to drive turnout among his supporters. Instead, he set up mail ballots to be a scapegoat for his possible defeat.

In tandem with this effort was Trump’s plan, which he telegraphed to advisers, that he would declare victory on election night — when interim results were likely to be tilted in his favor due to delays in counting mail-in ballots — even though large shifts toward Joe Biden were anticipated as all votes were tallied in the days following the election.

Trump did just that. In the wee hours of the morning on Nov. 4, 2020, at the urging of Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and against the advice of virtually everyone else in his inner circle, Trump declared victory and warned his supporters that Democrats would try to steal the election.

Trump followed his early claim of victory with a weekslong campaign alleging — without evidence — widespread fraud in a handful of states Biden won: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona. He and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits aimed at overturning the results or throwing out millions of votes in areas that favored Biden. Most were summarily dismissed for lacking substance or being filed in untimely ways.

A last-ditch bid to challenge the results, filed by Texas but supported by Trump in a separate legal brief, was turned aside by the Supreme Court.

Despite being rebuffed in the courts, wild conspiracies proliferated in pro-Trump circles. Figures like Sidney Powell, an attorney who represented Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn in criminal matters, promoted the false notion that election machines made by Dominion Voting Systems had been manipulated by foreign governments to tip the election toward Biden.

In the meantime, Trump barraged the airwaves and his supporters’ inboxes with fundraising appeals and ads accusing Democrats of cheating, stuffing his campaign’s coffers even as many of his own advisers privately indicated that he had, in fact, lost the race.

Smith may be eyeing Trump’s fundraising and messaging tactics for potential crimes related to defrauding donors or the public at large.

The Electoral College, Part I: The states

Key figures: Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Brad Raffensperger, John Eastman

As Trump’s efforts flailed in the courts, his allies began eyeing a second target: state legislatures. Although by late November election officials and governors had certified Biden’s victory, Giuliani began promoting the notion that state legislatures could simply override those decisions by citing fraud or “irregularities” that justified a different outcome.

To support this notion, Giuliani and Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis traveled to the states Trump was contesting and convened public hearings with sympathetic GOP legislators to highlight allegations of fraud. They pushed GOP-controlled legislatures to attempt to designate pro-Trump slates of presidential electors to replace or compete with Democratic electors that had been certified by election officials and governors.

Most notably, Trump leaned on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to simply “find” the votes that would put Trump ahead of Biden in the state. A recorded Jan. 2, 2021, phone call captured the lengthy exchange and has become fodder for Smith as well as investigators in Georgia.

Raffensperger balked. So did other state leaders, refusing to appoint their own slates of electors despite Trump’s increasing pressure.

This stage of Trump’s strategy is where John Eastman — a conservative attorney with fringe theories about the Electoral College — began gaining prominence in Trump’s orbit. He participated in Trump’s efforts to lean on state legislatures to act, appearing at public hearings convened by Republican legislators. Ultimately, Eastman would become the driving force behind Trump’s final, desperate bid to stay in power, a plan focused squarely on Jan. 6.

The Electoral College, Part II: The fake electors

Key figures: John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani

When the Electoral College met on Dec. 14, 2020, in 50 state capitals and Washington, D.C., no contested states had designated pro-Trump electors to compete with Biden’s electors. Nevertheless, in seven of those states, dozens of pro-Trump activists convened in state capitals, at the same time as Democratic electors, and cast ballots that they claimed made them legitimate presidential electors.

These “alternative” or “contingent” electors signed certificates claiming to be the states’ duly qualified electors and delivered them to the National Archives and Congress, following a process set out in federal law for actual presidential electors.

Enter Eastman. Emails released by the House select committee on Jan. 6 show that after the Electoral College ballots had been cast, he shifted his focus to legitimizing the uncertified electors.

The conservative attorney, who advised Republican legislators during the contested Bush v. Gore election of 2000, had been advising Trump and his allies since before the 2020 election, joining a working group assembled by attorney Cleta Mitchell to develop a post-election litigation strategy.

Within days of the Nov. 3 election, Mitchell asked Eastman to draw up a plan for state legislatures to appoint pro-Trump electors to supplant those certified by governors. Eastman obliged, and his plan, by late November, had made its way to the Oval Office.

Eastman, who would also author Trump’s Supreme Court brief in the Texas case, spent much of December leaning on state legislators to declare their elections invalid, citing fraud and irregularities, and use that as a pretense to appoint alternate electors. Eastman told allies at the time that without the imprimatur of a state legislature, these “contingent” electors wouldn’t have any legal force.

Mulling the seizure of voting machines

Key figures: Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn

After the Supreme Court refused to consider the Texas election challenge Dec. 11, 2020, Trump saw his options dwindle to an increasingly desperate few.

He had begun mobilizing members of Congress to formally challenge the election results Jan. 6, when the House and Senate were required to meet and count electoral votes. And he still hoped state legislatures would swoop in and send their own electors to Washington. But he also began eyeing a more extreme option.

Powell, Flynn and their allies had been in Trump’s ear about the prospect of invoking presidential authority to seize voting machines in the states he was contesting, using a combination of national security directives to justify the move. Various drafts of an executive order supporting such a move circulated in the White House (some of which were turned over to the Jan. 6 select committee).

The conversation culminated in a Dec. 18 Oval Office meeting with Trump, Flynn, Powell, Giuliani and others. At the meeting, Trump flirted with naming Powell a roving “special counsel” to pursue election-related matters, and Flynn advocated for taking the machines. But White House aides and Giuliani pushed back, and Trump ultimately opted against the move.

Hours later, in the middle of the night, Trump issued his first call to supporters to descend on Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021. “Be there,” he tweeted. “Will be wild.”

Deploying the Justice Department

Key figures: Jeff Rosen, Rich Donoghue, Jeff Clark, Pat Cipollone, Scott Perry

Trump was publicly frustrated that his own Justice Department had openly rejected his claims of widespread election fraud, and when Attorney General Bill Barr resigned in December 2020 — amid open conflict with the president — Trump eyed another mechanism to bolster his bid to remain in power.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA.), who espoused some fringe theories about election fraud, had begun connecting Trump with Jeff Clark, a Justice Department official who was sympathetic to his efforts. Several documented meetings or calls with Trump in late December 2020 and early January 2021 showed Clark had Trump’s ear during this crucial period.

Internally, Clark had been pressing Justice Department leaders to issue a letter to the states Trump was challenging, describing “irregularities” and recommending that their legislatures reconvene to consider whether Trump, rather than Biden, should be declared the winner.

Clark faced sharp pushback from Barr’s successor, acting attorney general Jeff Rosen, and his deputy, Rich Donoghue. But Trump briefly considered outflanking them by naming Clark acting attorney general and giving him the perch to implement the effort. But Trump backed down after a mass resignation threat by Trump Justice Department officials and top White House lawyers, including White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

Records revealed by the Jan. 6 select committee indicate that Trump may have briefly effectuated Clark’s appointment as acting attorney general before rescinding it.

The Electoral College, Part III: Pressuring Pence

Key figures: Mike Pence, John Eastman, Greg Jacob, Ken Chesebro

When all else failed, Trump turned firmly to Jan. 6, 2021, seen by his increasingly fringe group of allies as the ultimate deadline to stop the transfer of power to Biden. Though no states had endorsed alternative slates of electors, Congress was still in receipt of the unofficial slates sent in by pro-Trump activists.

The Jan. 6 session, required by the Constitution as well as an 1887 law known as the Electoral Count Act, has long been a formality, a ceremonial gathering to affirm the certified results of the states. Only a handful of times in American history have challenges been brought — and no challenge to a state’s electoral votes had ever been sustained.

But in Trump’s view, the Jan. 6 session was a last stand of sorts. And he had one final cudgel to attempt to stave off a Biden presidency: his vice president, Mike Pence.

The Constitution requires that the vice president — who doubles as the president of the Senate — preside over the counting of Electoral College ballots. So Trump spent the final weeks of his presidency pressing Pence to assert the power to simply refuse to count Biden’s electoral votes. Pence, Trump argued, could cite the competing slates of electors and declare the results to be in doubt, postponing the count and sending the matter back to the states for consideration.

His contention was backed by a coterie of fringe attorneys who had spent a frantic few weeks fleshing out what they dubbed “The president of the Senate strategy.” Emails obtained by the Jan. 6 select committee show Eastman communicating with lawyers like Giuliani and Ken Chesebro, who attempted to muscle through what they acknowledged was a constitutionally dubious plan.

But Pence resisted. He recognized that taking such steps would require violating provisions of the Electoral Count Act and would be an unprecedented assertion of single-handed authority to determine the outcome of the election.

Trump publicly and privately browbeat Pence to change course, but Pence repeatedly refused. On the morning of Jan. 6, Trump called Pence for one final, angry phone call in which he derided Pence for refusing to bend to his will. It was the last time they would speak that day.

As violence unfolded at the Capitol that afternoon, Eastman and Giuliani continued to press Trump’s allies to stop the election process. Giuliani called Republican members of Congress and asked them to mount continued challenges to the results that might buy more time, and Eastman corresponded with a Pence aide, counsel Greg Jacob, in a final effort to get Pence to delay the electoral vote count.

Jacob pushed back on Eastman, even as he fled from the first wave of rioters. He has since become a key witness in California bar discipline authorities’ bid to strip Eastman of his law license over his Jan. 6-related actions.

The rally

Key figures: Ali Alexander, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon

After Trump told his supporters to “be there” for a “wild” protest in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, a large pro-Trump faction responded. The tweet invigorated groups like Ali Alexander’s “Stop the Steal” organization, which made plans for a rally on Capitol grounds Jan. 6. Women for America First organized a rally near the White House that became Trump’s primary event that day.

The rally was the primary reason tens of thousands of Trump supporters descended on Washington. And Trump’s tweet imploring them to “be there” has figured into dozens of prosecutions stemming from the riot that followed the rally. It was the moment, prosecutors have argued, that extremists like Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes began mobilizing large contingents to descend on Washington. Both have since been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

The far-right conspiracy theorist and broadcaster Alex Jones, who attended the rally, helped lead hundreds of people from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Nearby, at the Willard Hotel, a pro-Trump “war room” was working to manage the ongoing efforts to overturn the election, featuring participation from Steve Bannon, Giuliani and other Trump allies.

Trump used the rally crowd as a means to pressure Congress, telling them that if they didn’t “fight” to stop Biden’s victory they wouldn’t “have a country anymore.” He then pointed them to the Capitol, where he urged them to march “peacefully and patriotically” to reject the election results.

But Trump’s rhetoric was overwhelmingly packed with apocalyptic imagery, which has led at least one federal judge to say he might plausibly be accused of inciting the violence that followed.

The riot

Key figures: Mark Meadows, Mike Pence, Pat Cipollone

After Trump’s rally speech, he retreated to the White House — furious that his Secret Service detail had resisted his desire to go to the Capitol, where violence had begun to break out.

Instead, he withdrew to the Oval Office dining room, where he watched the chaos at the Capitol unfold on TV. While watching, he resisted desperate pleas from allies like McCarthy and other Republicans in Congress, aides, advisers and family members to explicitly tell his supporters to go home. For hours, Trump ignored those appeals while outnumbered police officers were battered and members of Congress — and Pence — evacuated to safety.

While Pence fled, Trump tweeted an attack on his vice president, saying he lacked the courage to stop Biden’s election. That tweet appeared to inflame the crowd; the Jan. 6 committee has shown how the mob intensified in the ensuing moments and many on hand at the Capitol shared it with those around them.

Throughout the day, Trump held court with a long list of advisers, like chief of staff Mark Meadows and Cipollone. Both have become key witnesses in Smith’s probe. Pence has also testified to the special counsel.

When Trump finally did tell supporters to go home, 187 minutes after the first police line was breached, many in the crowd seemed to respond. Videos from the riot show supporters sharing the tweet with one another and heeding his call.

The damage, however, was done. Five people died during or shortly after the attack; hundreds more were injured. In the 30 months since, more than 1,000 rioters have been criminally charged for what they did Jan. 6. Now, Smith’s next moves — and the secret vote of a grand jury that has undoubtedly heard all of the evidence above — will determine whether Trump, and members of his inner circle, will stand trial, too.

Whitmer signs bills impacting Michigan teachers and potentially bringing more to the state

Detroit Free Press

Whitmer signs bills impacting Michigan teachers and potentially bringing more to the state

Clara Hendrickson, Detroit Free Press – July 26, 2023

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a series of bills Wednesday that expand bargaining power for teachers’ unions, make it easier for out-of-state teachers and counselors to move to Michigan and eliminate a restriction on setting teacher pay that only applies to Detroit educators.

“This legislation will build on our efforts to recruit and retain the talented educators that provide Michigan students with a phenomenal education,” Whitmer said in a statement.

The bills aren’t the only changes to education policy the governor has made recently. Earlier this month, she overhauled the state’s education department, announcing the creation of a new one that will consolidate early childhood and higher education programs currently spread across multiple state agencies. Last week, she signed an education budget that will provide free breakfast and lunch to all PreK-12 public school students and expand eligibility to enroll in Michigan’s state-funded preschool program.

Here’s a look at the other changes the bills signed by Whitmer will bring to Michigan’s classrooms.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks at a bill signing ceremony in Suttons Bay on July 20, 2023 before signing the education budget.

Bills eliminate restrictions affecting teacher unions

Whitmer signed House Bill 4354, which eliminates restrictions on teacher’s unions from bargaining with public schools about performance evaluation systems and teacher placements. House Bill 4820 signed by Whitmer also changes how seniority is considered in public schools’ personnel decisions. Currently, length of service generally cannot be factored into those decisions.

Whitmer also signed House Bill 4044, which repeals a ban on public employers paying higher wages and providing more generous benefits after a collective bargaining agreement expires. And Whitmer approved House Bill 4233 which eliminates a prohibition against public school employers from using school resources to help unions collect dues or fees from public school employees. Bill sponsor state Rep. Jaime Churches, D-Wyandotte, touted the legislation for enabling teachers to automatically have their union dues withdrawn from their paychecks.

House Minority Leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, blasted the legislation. “As they hand out favors and power to their union boss allies, Michigan Democrats are continuing to undermine public education and put the needs of students last,” he said in a statement. With the exception of House Bill 4233 which garnered the support of one GOP lawmaker − state Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Waucedah Township − Republicans opposed the package bills.

School funding: Gov. Whitmer signs $24.3 billion Michigan education budget

Detroit teachers compensation

Senate Bill 359 signed by Whitmer eliminates the requirement that compensation for Detroit teachers and administrators be determined primarily on the basis of job performance. Instead, it allows teacher and administrator pay to take into account the number of years spent on the job and advanced degrees held by Detroit Public Schools Community District employees.

The bill has its origins in a 2016 Republican effort aimed at addressing financial challenges facing Detroit’s public school system which created a different process for determining teacher and staff compensation from the rest of the state.

Bill sponsor state Sen. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit, said in a June statement that the ban on considering longevity and advanced degrees to determine Detroit teachers’ compensation was an “unfair prohibition” that has caused teachers to leave the district.

Michigan schools: Gov. Whitmer announces new Michigan education department focusing on early and higher ed

Lure out-of-state teachers and counselors to Michigan

Finally, Whitmer signed Senate Bills 161 and 162 aimed at making it easier for school teachers and counselors to move to Michigan. The pair of bills reduce the barriers both out-of-state teachers and school counselors face to work in Michigan’s schools by easing the state’s teacher and school counselor certification requirements.

Sheryl Kennedy, the legislative liaison for the Michigan Department of Education, said about a quarter of Michigan teachers moved in from out of state and the bills could make Michigan a destination for educators. “Michigan’s kind of really becoming a place where teachers really want to go from other states,” she said during a hearing on the legislation.

A classroom sits empty at the Cesar Chavez Academy High School in Detroit last March after the pandemic hit.

Senate Bill 161 enables those with a teaching credential from a federally recognized Indian tribe or another country to apply to the state superintendent of public instruction to receive a teaching certificate without needing to take teacher certification exams in Michigan. The bill also eases the criteria for those eyeing a move from another state to Michigan to teach. For example, it allows those with a teaching certification from another state, federally recognized Indian tribe or country to be eligible for a Michigan professional education certificate if they have successfully taught for at least three years in their prior jurisdiction.

Senate Bill 162 creates similar pathways for out-of-state school counselors.

“Incandescently stupid”: Former DHS official says he had to “dumb” down classified memos for Trump

Salon

“Incandescently stupid”: Former DHS official says he had to “dumb” down classified memos for Trump

Gabriella Ferrigine – July 26, 2023

Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security under Donald Trump, shared how he often had to oversimply national security reports for the former president.

“This fifty-page memo that we would normally give to any other president about what his options are is something Trump literally can’t read. The man doesn’t read. We’ve gotta boil this down into a one-pager in his voice,” Taylor told podcast host Brett Meiselas on Tuesday. “And so I had to write this incandescently stupid memo called something like, ‘Afghanistan, How to Put America First and Win.’ And then bullet by bullet, I summed up this highly classified memo into Trump’s sort of bombastic language because it was the only way he was gonna understand,” Taylor added. “I mean, I literally said in there, ‘You know, if we leave Afghanistan too fast, the terrorists will call us losers. But if we wanna be seen as winners, we need to make sure the Afghan forces have the strength to push back against these criminals.’ I mean, it was that dumb and that’s how you had to talk to him.”

Excess Deaths Among Republicans Skyrocketed After Covid Vaccine Became Available, Study Finds

Gizmodo

Excess Deaths Among Republicans Skyrocketed After Covid Vaccine Became Available, Study Finds

Nikki Main – July 26, 2023

More Republicans died than Democrats after the Covid vaccine was released

As covid vaccines started to roll out in February 2021, misinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the shot were on the rise—as were the deaths of Republican voters.

A new study from Yale University looked at 538,159 people in Ohio and Florida starting on May 1, 2021, and focused on counties that reported lower vaccination rates. In the first year of the pandemic, the number of covid-related deaths was evenly dispersed among both Democrats and Republicans, but that quickly changed within a month after the vaccine became available to all U.S. adults.

The study found the “excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before,” noting that the death rate for Republican voters was 43% higher than for Democratic voters after the vaccine was widely available. However, the study notes that the data did not include whether the individual was vaccinated or if their deaths were directly linked to covid-19, but researchers looked at the divide in political party-affiliated deaths between January 2018 and December 2021 and compared the pre-pandemic death rate to deaths recorded post-Covid vaccine.

“We’re not saying that if you took someone’s political party affiliation and were to change it from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party that they would be more likely to die from covid-19,” the study’s lead researcher Jacob Wallace told The Wall Street Journal.

This study is not the first to reflect an increase in deaths following the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine, with KFF estimating in April of last year that at least 234,000 Covid deaths recorded between June 2021 and March 2022 could have been prevented if the individuals had received the vaccine. “These findings suggest that differences in vaccination attitudes and reported uptake between Republican and Democratic voters may have been factors in the severity and trajectory of the pandemic in the US,” the study says.

The higher rate of Republican deaths has been widely attributed to misinformation and mistrust in official sources of information surrounding both the vaccine and the pandemic. Liz Hamel, the vice president of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation told NPR in 2021, “An unvaccinated person is three times as likely to lean Republican as they are to lean Democrat.” The NPR analysis found that people in counties that primarily voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election were three times as likely to die from covid-19 compared with those living in counties that leaned toward President Joe Biden.

Despite Wallace and his team’s findings, Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis continues to claim that Florida got it right when it came to its handling of the pandemic and filed a petition to investigate vaccine makers for fraud. He filed the petition to the Florida Supreme Court in December, alleging conspiracies about the scientific evidence that the vaccine is resistant to new variants. “It is impossible to imagine that so many influential individuals came to this view on their own,” he wrote. “Rather, it is likely that individuals and companies with an incentive to do so created these perceptions for financial gain.”

The rise in misinformation about Covid vaccines is still affecting the number of people who believe it is safe, with only 49% of Republicans reporting they are “very” or “somewhat” confident in the vaccine versus 88% of Democrats, according to a March study conducted by Stephen Neely at the University of South Florida.

Speaking on the Yale study, Neely told The Post the findings were important because they shed light on how a response to the Covid vaccine has shaped how the death toll played out. “It’s one of the most telling metrics I’ve seen in how the politicization of the pandemic has played out in the real world,” he said.

Watch Moment Amazon Driver Dives Fully Clothed Into Customer’s Swimming Pool to Cool Off

People

Watch Moment Amazon Driver Dives Fully Clothed Into Customer’s Swimming Pool to Cool Off

Kirsty Hatcher – July 26, 2023

The moment was captured on the Californian homeowner’s CCTV amid the soaring temperatures in the U.S.

Well, that’s one way to cool off!

After making a delivery, an Amazon driver dived fully clothed into a customer’s swimming pool to beat the soaring temperatures.

The driver, who even kept his shoes and cap on, used the customer’s diving board to dive head-first into the pool of the home in Gardena, California.

The moment, which occurred on June 30, was captured on one of the home’s security cameras and has since gone viral.

According to ViralHog, the customer left a note in the delivery instructions that read, “If you want to go for a swim, you are welcome to.”

<p>Mario Fermin via ViralHog</p> Amazon driver dives fully-clothed into customer's pool — Mario Fermin via ViralHogAmazon driver dives fully-clothed into customer’s pool

In the video, the driver is seen leaving the customer’s parcel outside a door in the backyard. He then walks over to the diving board and takes a dip.

Parts of the U.S. have been experiencing a heatwave over the last few weeks. According to Reuters, Death Valley, Phoenix and Las Vegas were among some of the hottest places in the U.S. earlier this month.

And Fourth of July was reported to have been the hottest day ever recorded on Earth — and it broke the record set just one day before.

On that day, the global average temperature hit 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine. It was the hottest day recorded since temperatures began to be documented in 1979 with satellite stock recording — and it’s believed to have been one of the hottest days in at least 125,000 years, according to The Washington Post.

The day before, the global temperature average was 62.62 degrees Fahrenheit, making it until then the hottest day on record. Before that, the last highest recorded temperature average was 62.46 degrees in August 2016, per the Post.

Rising temperatures amid global climate change are “a death sentence for people and ecosystems,” Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, told Bloomberg.

In a tweet, author and climate scientist Bill McGuire also wrote that the record-breaking July 4 heat was “totally unprecedented and terrifying.”

Last week, a 71-year-old man died at a trailhead in Death Valley National Park. Hours before his death, Steve Curry spoke to a reporter about braving the extreme heat.

Curry, who was identified as the victim by the Inyo County Coroner’s Office, spoke to The Los Angeles Times hours before collapsing outside the restroom at the Golden Canyon hiking trail, CW affiliate KTLA-TV, NBC affiliate KNBC-TV and The Independent reported.

That day, temperatures in the park reached 121 degrees.

Nearly 28,000 Iowans have been disenrolled from Medicaid. Here’s why:

The Des Moines Register

Nearly 28,000 Iowans have been disenrolled from Medicaid. Here’s why:

Michaela Ramm, Des Moines Register – July 26, 2023

Nearly 28,000 Iowans have been disenrolled from Medicaid this year as part of Iowa’s redetermination process — a consequence of continuous coverage no longer being guaranteed.

The latest data from the state’s Health and Human Services Department shows 27,744 Iowans were disenrolled from the safety net health insurance program since April, when Iowa began “unwinding” expanded eligibility.

About 30% of those Iowans — 8,401 — were disenrolled for procedural reasons, including failing to return paperwork.

The remaining 19,343 were deemed ineligible for further coverage, state data shows.

Since April, the state has been reviewing the eligibility of 900,000 Iowans who receive Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program) benefits to determine if they still qualify under pre-pandemic regulations.

More: Did you lose your Medicaid coverage? Here’s what you need to know.

Federal health officials and other advocates have raised alarms about the number of people disenrolled for procedural reasons, which refers to those who did not return their paperwork or otherwise failed to complete the renewal process.

They say people may not be aware they’re up for renewal or recently changed addresses and didn’t receive the paperwork.

“What we’re seeing across the country from the first two months is that whilst people have done a lot to prepare, at the same time there are a lot of people losing their coverage,” said Dan Tsai, director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services. “A really high number of folks are losing coverage for what we call procedural reasons.”

State officials managing the redetermination process, however, say the current rate of disenrollment, including procedural drop-offs, was expected. Iowa Medicaid Director Liz Matney said the department’s data show the majority of those kicked off the program have health insurance coverage elsewhere.

“It’s not surprising. If somebody gets renewal paperwork and they say they don’t need Medicaid anymore, why would they submit paperwork?” Matney told the Des Moines Register. “So when the team has been looking at the individuals who are disenrolled for any reason, but particularly for those who are disenrolled for not returning their paperwork, we can tell in our system who has other health insurance.”

That data has not been made publicly available on the state’s dashboard.

Still, officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have called on Iowa and other states to simplify the process. In addition to keeping individuals who qualify on Medicaid, states also need to connect low-income residents with other coverage options, Tsai said.

“We’re looking for states to also do everything in their power, way beyond what the federal minimums are, to try to make it easier for eligible people to keep their coverage,” Tsai told the Register. “If you’re not eligible for Medicaid, we want you on your employer-sponsored coverage. We want you on the ACA plans. We don’t want you uninsured, and that’s the bottom-line focus for us from a federal standpoint.”

More: More than 100k Iowans will lose expanded Medicaid soon. What you need to know:

What is Medicaid redetermination?

Typically, Iowans on Medicaid undergo a redetermination process every year to check their eligibility to see whether they still qualify.

But as part of the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic starting in March 2020, states were required to maintain coverage for individuals on Medicaid, even if they no longer qualified. In exchange, states received enhanced federal funding to manage the health insurance program.

In Iowa, more than 168,000 individuals maintained coverage during the three-year pause on Medicaid redeterminations, state data shows.

That requirement to maintain continuous coverage ended in March 2023, when federal officials ended the national public health emergency.

As a result, the state’s health and human services department is checking the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of Iowans on Medicaid and CHIP, a massive undertaking that must be completed by May of 2024. Matney said state employees are processing close to 70,000 new applications every month, a “huge increase” from the typical redetermination process pre-pandemic.

Early estimates showed about 136,000 Iowans would be disenrolled from Iowa Medicaid, the state’s $7 billion privatized program, by the end of the 12-month unwinding period.

The state agency has worked to automate as much as possible and has launched a public messaging campaign to spread the word to members to turn in their paperwork. The managed care organizations that administer Medicaid benefits also have engaged in direct outreach to members, including knocking on the doors of some members to help them fill out their application, Matney said.

How many Iowans have renewed their coverage?

As of June, 854,791 people were enrolled in Iowa Medicaid and CHIP. That’s 39,053 fewer than in April.https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/14502335/embed

In the first three months of the “unwinding” process, 105,401 enrollees renewed their coverage under the Iowa Medicaid program, according to state data.

Of those, about half — 51,940 — were renewed on an “ex parte basis” or automatically renewed based on information the state has on the enrollee. The remaining 53,461 enrollees who renewed their coverage filled out and returned the redetermination paperwork sent by the state.

Federal officials call on states to do more. What is Iowa saying?

As the redetermination process continues for the next several months, Matney said she expects the number of individuals disenrolled, including for procedural reasons, will level off.

State officials had flagged enrollees who were likely ineligible for continued coverage, and frontloaded their reviews early in the redetermination process. As a result, Matney said, the rate of procedural dropoffs from April through July will be higher than the remaining months of the unwinding process.

Matney said enrollee data shows as much as 85% of individuals disenrolled from Medicaid have insurance elsewhere, such as an employer-sponsored plan. It also shows most of those who were disenrolled are adults.

The remaining portion is likely still eligible for Medicaid, which is why the state implemented a 90-day grace period to allow members to reapply for coverage, even if they missed the deadline, Matney said.

“If they get their paperwork in within that 90 days, we’ll backdate to the date that they last covered, so there’s no gap,” Matney said.

Members will most likely find out they no longer have Medicaid coverage when they pick up prescriptions. Matney said a possible solution could come in the form of partnerships with pharmacies, allowing those providers to complete presumptive eligibility determinations and help members get back on Medicaid quickly.

However, she said many states are finding pharmacies are not signing on to help with that work.

CMS has recently taken steps to address the number of Americans kicked off Medicaid coverage during this process, even pausing redetermination efforts in some states that have violated federal regulations, according to a press briefing from last week. Federal officials did not list the states involved.

Tsai said CMS officials are continuing to call on states, especially those with higher rates of procedural dropoffs, to utilize federal waivers offered by CMS for states’ redetermination efforts. These temporary policy changes are structured to help ease the process for members and ensure the nation’s uninsured rate doesn’t spike.

Among those waivers is extending postpartum coverage for Medicaid recipients to a year, a policy that has not been adopted in Iowa. Currently, the state provides members with 60 days of postpartum coverage.

“Under that, there definitely is more room for Iowa to be able to take up more of those,” Tsai said.

Matney said at this stage in the unwinding process, she doesn’t see any need to use additional policies offered by federal health officials to ease the process.

“We’ve gone through the list and really done the analysis of what we’re already doing versus what would be more administratively complicated,” Matney said. “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze in some such situations, and so right now, we’re still in the same spot. But we’ll be evaluating that, and if we feel additional waivers are important and necessary to help ease the process for ourselves and for Medicaid members and Iowans in general, we’ll certainly pursue that.”

Michaela Ramm covers health care for the Des Moines Register.

What frightens me about the climate crisis is we don’t know how bad things really are

The Guardian – Opinion Climate Crisis

What frightens me about the climate crisis is we don’t know how bad things really are

Roger Harrabin – July 25, 2023

As the barrage of bad news from places like Greece continues, all we can be certain of is there are many surprises lying ahead.

‘What is the use of a net zero policy if it relies in part on planting trees that may crackle in wildfire?’ Firefighters tackle wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes, 25 July 2023. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Over the past few decades, climate scientists have made huge strides in understanding the future climate. But after recent weeks of extreme heat and devastating floods it’s clear that, although climate models have provided good information about overall rising temperatures, they can’t be sure what level of destruction each notch on the thermometer will bring.

Climate modelling is extremely complex, but its fundamentals rely on basic physics – X tonnes of emissions will bring Y increase in temperature, with some error bars. Supercomputers have been able to factor in shifts in land use that will change the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface. Improved temperature records helped verify their findings.

But lately, leading researchers have made a painful confession: even their most sophisticated models can’t yet foresee exactly how Earth systems will respond to those higher temperatures.

The influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says cranking up global temperature by half a degree will bring much more extreme weather, and it can be more often, more intense, or extended in duration – but exactly how much more, it can’t precisely say.

So, for instance, we’ve already had a global temperature rise of about 1.2C: that’s in line with IPCC projections. Yet the panel couldn’t warn us about the appalling heat dome that’s been searing North America. I can’t find heat domes mentioned in the bible of climate change, the IPCC report. This periodic report inevitably lags behind new science and – under pressure from some governments and industries, as well as a desire not to scaremonger – its pronouncements tend to be conservative.

The models also couldn’t warn us accurately about the emergence of the heat trapped deep in the ocean, which soaks up 90% of the world’s excess warmth. In the 35 years I covered the environment for the BBC, I recall speculation that the warmth could stay deep for decades, perhaps centuries – not that some of it would suddenly burst up to the surface off the coast of northern Britain.

Major uncertainties remain, too, over rainfall. Good information about the future of monsoon rain would be a godsend for farmers who rely upon it – not just in India but in southern China. Unfortunately, good information on precipitation is proving a bit tricky to find.

The macro models also failed to project the effect of current elevated temperatures on ice at both poles. The former IPCC chief, Prof Bob Watson, told me: “I am very concerned. None of the observed changes so far (with a 1.2C temperature rise) are surprising. But they are more severe than we predicted 20 years ago, and more severe than the predictions of five years ago. We probably underestimated the consequences.”

This is a massive admission. He added: “Scientists are only now starting to understand the response of large ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica – and it is very disturbing.”

Prof Jane Francis, director of the British Antarctic Survey, told me a few months ago the latest science on ice melt was “truly scary”.

A digital billboard displays temperature in downtown Phoenix. — ‘The US has considered itself less vulnerable. But tell that to people in Phoenix trapped under that heat dome.’ Photograph: Matt York/AP

Watson said at current rates the world would almost certainly exceed the agreed maximum temperature rise of 1.5-2C. We would be lucky to get away with 2.5C, he said. More likely, we’re heading towards 3C.

That number positively frightens many climate scientists. But, as India starts stockpiling rice with a temperature rise of 1.2C, what useful advice can scientists offer for a 3C world? Just how bad will things be by then?

Should holidaymakers avoid buying homes in Greece? China is vulnerable to extremes – how should its economy adapt? The US has considered itself less vulnerable. But tell that to New Yorkers choking on wildfire smoke, or people in Phoenix trapped under that heat dome.

While immediate harm to people grabs the headlines, what’s even more destructive could be the impact of heat and humidity on food production for an expanding population. A global shift towards a plant-based diet could halve the land and water used for agriculture – and halve the carbon emissions – but politicians fear angering voters by recommending a dietary shift.

Facing all this gloom means we need imagineers as well as climatologists. Watson said civilization will still exist in the future, but with much worse living conditions. But what sort of a degraded civilization might that be? By then we may even have triggered some natural tipping points that could result in a massive release of trapped methane in the tundra – let’s hope not.

What we do know is that so far, the effects of heating the climate are sooner and worse than many scientists projected (in public at least). This has policy implications. The world has agreed to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, but the UN secretary general, António Guterres, says rich countries should be aiming to squeeze the timetable to 2040. But what is the use of a net zero policy if it relies in part on planting trees that may shrivel in future drought or crackle in wildfire?

To make matters worse, climate heating is one thing on a list of huge environmental problems – including pollution of the air and water, destruction of wildlife habitats, overfishing, insect population declines, loss of birds, plastic pollution, nitrates, soil loss and more.

Watson says we don’t know how these phenomena will interact with each other, but he urges politicians to err on the side of caution, as the stakes are so very high. Every 0.1C warming matters, scientists say: 1.5C is better than 1.6C. That in turn is less bad than 1.7C.

As the barrage of bad news continues, all we can be certain of is that there are many climate surprises lying ahead of us. Governments, companies and individuals need to urgently squeeze down emissions to insulate ourselves as far as possible from what we may face.

Roger Harrabin is an energy and environment analyst and a former BBC correspondent

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‘I Drank 8 Glasses of Water Instead of Only 3 Every Day for 2 Weeks—Here’s What I Noticed Right Away’

Parade

‘I Drank 8 Glasses of Water Instead of Only 3 Every Day for 2 Weeks—Here’s What I Noticed Right Away’

Beth Ann Mayer – July 25, 2023

The idea of staying hydrated throughout the day is nothing new, and the reminders become more prevalent as the temperatures rise each summer. And have they risen this summer or what? About one-third of Americans were under excessive heat warnings earlier this month. It’s so hot in Europe that they’re naming their latest heat wave after a character in Dante’s Inferno.

I’ve decided to pick this hot-as-hell (literally?) summer to get back into marathon running for the first time since 2018, the year before I got pregnant with my first of two sons. I’ve felt parched (normal) and dizzy (not normal) after running. I’ve also realized I probably finish one 24-ounce water bottle daily.

Part of this is because my second child considers my water bottle a toy (despite all the other real toys he has). So, I generally keep it out of his sight and mind, which means out of my reach. At 17 months, he nurses like a newborn—another reason I need to stay hydrated.

Between the weather and my training regimen, I knew this had to change for my health. So, I committed to drinking more water.

The standard recommendation is to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water daily. The guidance likely stems from a 1945 Food and Nutrition Board recommendation to drink eight glasses of water per day. A few things got lost in the sauce in the decades since. The first was followed by, “Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.” Translation: Fruits and vegetables contain water that counts toward your daily intake. The second: the Nutrition Board advised people to consume 2.5 liters (84.5 ounces) daily, not eight 8-ounce glasses (64 ounces).

In the years since, researchers have debunked this recommendation as a myth. But The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine recommends men drink 125 ounces (3.7 liters) and women drink 91 ounces (2.7 liters), which isn’t all that more than the 1945 recommendation.

I’ve also done numerous interviews with dietitians and doctors since starting my writing career nearly a decade ago. Regarding water, and without fail, multiple health professionals have told me that starting with a goal to drink 64 ounces of water daily is a good baseline.

It’s certainly better than 24 ounces. I had to start somewhere.

Benefits of Drinking Water

Understanding the benefits of upping my water intake only further motivated me. According to the CDC, drinking water helps to:

Maintain a normal body temperature.
Preserve the spine and tissues.
Elimination of waste (peeing, sweat and pooping).
Keep joints lubricated and cushioned.

What I Used

In theory, drinking more water is one of the simplest, lowest-cost ways to enhance your health. You truly don’t need much except access to clean, safe water (sadly, a luxury for some) and something to drink it out of. To help me stay on track, I decided to use a few tools:

My trusty 24-ounce water bottle. I’m a words person, not a numbers person. But 64 divided by 24 is 2.66, meaning just under three full water bottles would get me to 64 ounces.
Waterllama app. This app sends notifications to remind you to drink water and allows you to track consumption. When I was pregnant with my first, I actually tracked water using an app and found it helped me stay on track with nutrition. I figured the notifications would also help me remember to sip, even when juggling work and parenthood.

How It Went

On the first day, I realized how little water I drank. By noon, I had consumed 12 ounces of water. Some may call that a water bottle half full, but it felt half empty to me. I had 12 hours left to drink a whopping 52 ounces of water to meet my goal. I gulped. And gulped. And gulped. I spent the rest of the day feeling like I had a stomach full of water and like I was pregnant again because I needed to pee every five seconds.

There had to be a better way that felt less like a pressure-filled fire drill. I decided to set small goals beginning on day two. I’d aim for 24 ounces by noon, 24 ounces by dinner and 16 ounces between dinner and bed. And, to make it feel like less of a hill to climb, I focused on referring to it as “one water bottle by lunch,” “one water bottle by dinner” and “two-thirds of a water bottle by bed.”

The method worked instantly. I received a notification every two hours to drink water, and I was able to do a quick water bottle check to ensure I was sipping enough. I always was and felt accomplished as I watched my water intake numbers go up in my app.

The biggest challenge on the second day was my three-mile morning run. It was already pushing 80 degrees at 7:30 a.m., and I was dehydrated by the end. On the third day, I consumed 12 ounces an hour before working out. It allowed me to use the facilities pre-workout but have enough left in my tank to complete an even longer run of five miles.

By day five, drinking 64 ounces of water felt way more manageable. I felt better during my workout and more hydrated throughout the day, but I still had dizzy spells and felt rather depleted by dinner.

Cleveland Clinic notes that several factors dictate how much water you should consume daily, including:

Metabolism
Weather
Size
Physical activity
Breastfeeding

The weather is warmer than usual, and my physical activity is higher now because of my training. And, like I said, I’m nursing a toddler.

I decided to focus on drinking at least 64 ounces daily, but not considering that a maximum. Instead, my goal became to drink enough to feel good. On days seven and eight, I drank before I got thirsty and got up to 80 ounces. I felt better. However, during the second week, I realized that between 100 and 110 ounces was more of my sweet spot. I never felt dehydrated or dizzy and could run around and play with my kids. Not surprisingly, I needed more on days I did longer runs.

What I Learned

Because drinking more water is low-cost, it sounds like a super-simple way to boost your health. But it can be challenging, particularly if you’re super focused on your career and tend to put everyone else first (hello, parenthood). That was probably my biggest takeaway, so please be kind to yourself if you struggle to stay hydrated.

My other learnings include:

Eight 8-ounce glasses daily is a baseline. This recommendation—which was never the real recommendation—is a good starting point. However, it may not be your endgame.
Water intake is fluid. No pun intended. However, it’s perfectly normal to need extra water on one day when it’s really hot, or you did a more intense workout than you did on a rest day that you spent mainly in the blissful air conditioning.
Drink when you’re not thirsty. Don’t wait until you’re dehydrated or thirsty to drink—those are late-stage signs you need water, not early ones.
Water is pre-workout fuel. Sipping water about an hour before working out will help you feel more hydrated during your sweat session (minus the urge to pee one mile into a six-mile run).
Stop before bed. Try to limit water intake about an hour before bedtime to reduce the midnight bathroom run (rest is also essential to health). You may need to reduce consumption sooner or later, but I found 60 minutes worked for me.
Apps help. I’ll probably stop tracking now that I’m in a flow with my water intake. I found tracking can aid in accountability but become a bit obsessive for me, but it was an excellent tool to get me started. Play around with it and see if it helps you reach your hydration goals short and long-term.
Water is essential. Though eight glasses daily may be a misnomer, the benefits of staying hydrated can’t be understated. I felt so much better when I woke up in the morning, during workouts and throughout my day because I was more hydrated. I had more energy to chase my kids around and tackle my to-do list.

On the last point, I hesitate to call drinking water “self-care” because it’s something necessary (in the same way showering with the door closed or grocery shopping alone aren’t really “self-care” but get pinned in that way for busy moms).

But it’s also not something to sacrifice to care for your children or get work done. Fill your cups (or water bottles) so you’re not quite literally pouring from an empty one all day.

Next up: This Is How Much Water People 50 and Older Should Drink Every Day, According to a Urologist

How right-wing news powers the ‘gold IRA’ industry

The Washington Post

How right-wing news powers the ‘gold IRA’ industry

Jeremy B. Merrill and Hanna Kozlowska – July 25, 2023

Dedicated viewers of Fox News are likely familiar with Lear Capital, a Los Angeles company that sells gold and silver coins. In recent years, the company’s ads have been a constant presence on Fox airwaves, warning viewers to protect their retirement savings from a looming “pension crisis” and “dollar collapse.”

One such ad caught the attention of Terry White, a disabled retiree from New York. In 2018, White invested $174,000 in the coins, according to a lawsuit by the New York attorney general – only to later learn that Lear charged a 33 percent commission.

Over several transactions, White, 70, lost nearly $80,000, putting an “enormous strain” on his finances, said his wife, Jeanne, who blames Fox for their predicament: “They’re negligent,” she said. A regretful White said he thought Fox “wouldn’t take a commercial like that unless it was legitimate.”

While the legitimacy of the gold retirement investment industry is the subject of numerous lawsuits – including allegations of fraud by federal and state regulators against Lear and other companies – its advertising has become a mainstay of right-wing media. The industry spends millions of dollars a year to reach viewers of Fox, Newsmax and other conservative outlets, according to a Washington Post analysis of ad data and financial records, as well as interviews with industry insiders. Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani have promoted the coins, while ads for Lear’s competitors have appeared on a podcast hosted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Newsmax broadcasts of former president Donald Trump’s political rallies.

An analysis by The Post of political newsletters, social media, podcasts and a national database of television ads collected by the company AdImpact found that pitches to invest in gold coins are a daily presence in media that caters to a right-wing audience and often echo conservative talking points about looming economic and societal collapse. The Post found no similar ads for gold retirement investments in mainstream or left-wing media sources in the databases.

These so-called “gold IRA” companies are not publicly traded, so their revenue, profits and ad budgets largely cannot be determined. Court documents filed by Lear say the company has about $200 million in annual revenue; Dale Whitaker, the former chief financial officer at another company, Augusta Precious Metals, said overall industry revenue likely approaches $1 billion a year.

Over the past decade, more than 30 customers in 20 states have sued a dozen gold IRA companies, including Lear. Federal regulators have sued four companies – two in the past year alone – claiming investors were systematically charged as much as triple the coins’ value.

None of the cases have gone to trial; some are still pending. Of those that have been resolved, most have settled or been sent to arbitration, where outcomes are not made public. The companies have not admitted wrongdoing in any of the cases and say their customers have been adequately informed of the details of their purchases.

Joe Rotunda, enforcement director at the Texas State Securities Board, said the industry is extraordinarily difficult to police because selling gold, even as a retirement investment, is “extremely thinly regulated.”

Experts on commercial speech say Fox and other media outlets have no obligation to spurn advertising from gold IRA companies, despite the allegations. “Courts are very hesitant to impose liability on publishers,” said Harvard law professor Rebecca Tushnet, an expert in First Amendment and advertising law, who said the law is designed primarily to compel truthfulness by advertisers.

Tushnet added that “it might be reasonable, if you found out about the lawsuits, [to] contact the advertiser” and ask questions about the claims before running the ads. But if an advertiser blames their legal troubles on “the woke mob,” she said, “you’re often allowed to believe them.”

Fox News declined to comment. In a statement, Newsmax spokesman Bill Daddi said the network does not see allegations against the gold IRA companies as “a cause to block them from advertising.” Daddi compared them to some major financial firms that have been sued by customers or regulators, and whose ads continue to be accepted by mainstream outlets. For example, Wells Fargo paid $3 billion in 2020 to settle potential charges related to opening fake accounts in customers’ names.

In a statement, Lear Capital spokesperson Tracy Williams defended the company’s operations, saying most of Lear’s customers would have made a profit if they had sold at a recent market high. Williams said that White, the New York retiree, had acknowledged the company’s fee in a recorded call.

Last year, Lear settled New York’s 2021 lawsuit involving White without admitting wrongdoing. However, the company agreed to repay some customers and to disclose its fees more clearly. Lear now gives customers 24 hours to pull out of purchases, Williams said, putting the company at the “vanguard of disclosure … within its industry.”

Lear declined to say how much it spends to advertise on Fox News, but Williams said the network is not Lear’s primary source of customers. Nor is Lear likely to make up a significant share of Fox’s total ad revenue, which exceeds $1 billion a year, according to securities filings.

Fox is a logical place for Lear to advertise because “purchasing physical assets appeals to persons who have concerns regarding … topics often discussed on that platform,” Williams said. She added: “U.S. monetary policy is inseparable from U.S. political dynamics and themes.”

For years, gold IRA industry advertising has echoed accusations against Democratic politicians commonly found in news segments on conservative outlets. The ads tout the coins as a safe haven from economic uncertainty and social upheaval.

Most of the coins are manufactured by the Royal Canadian Mint, which says they’re bullion, a kind of coin whose value is determined by the underlying metal. As such, they meet IRS rules for retirement investments.

Unlike most bullion coins, however, the gold IRA industry’s coins are typically exclusive to the companies who sell them, usually with markups far higher than those charged by mainstream coin retailers, regulators and coin experts say. Alex Reeves, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mint, said the mint has no control “over sales practices further down the chain of distribution.”

“They are priced like collectibles, but collectible coins aren’t typically sold in bulk,” said Everett Millman, a precious metals specialist at coin dealer Gainesville Coins. “If a customer spent the same amount of money on products that are more standard, like [Canadian] Silver Maple Leafs, they would end up with a lot more ounces per dollar.”

With the exclusive coins, Millman said, “They’re simply torching money.”

“No one in their right mind would pay the premiums that these guys are charging,” added Ken Lewis, CEO of online coin dealer Apmex, who reviewed several customer invoices at The Post’s request.

The ads explain none of that. Instead, they focus on news events, such as a spate of recent bank failures and “everything that’s happening in the economy right now … with all the talk of inflation,” Rotunda said.

For example, an email ad for Augusta, sent to a Newsmax mailing list last July, warned that “The Biden administration’s economic policies are ‘declaring war’ on retirement savers.” In December, American Hartford Gold Group sent an email ad with the subject line: “Bill O’Reilly Warns: Retirement Funds at Risk From a Biden Recession.” The email is signed by O’Reilly, who did not respond to a request for comment.

Another ad for Hartford sent to the Newsmax mailing list in March warned of “Biden and Yellen’s Secret Plan to Steal your Hard-Earned Money and Bail Out Their Wall Street Buddies.”

Trump rallies are particularly big events for Hartford. On July 1, Newsmax aired a live broadcast of a Trump speech in Pickens, S.C., on a split screen with an ad for Hartford, which also sends “Trump Rally Special” email ads via Newsmax.

Since October 2020, email newsletters distributed by Newsmax have included more than 1,100 ads for gold IRA companies – nearly a quarter of all Newsmax email ads reviewed by The Post. At $1,000 to $5,000 each, according to Augusta financial records from 2016 reviewed by The Post, the ads likely generate more than $1 million a year in revenue.

Daddi, the Newsmax spokesman, said gold IRA companies represent “a small percentage of the total advertisers on Newsmax across all platforms.”

Some conservative figures offer explicit endorsements. Giuliani has called Hartford “the experts I trust most” on his podcast “Common Sense.” The “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast has featured ads for Hartford for at least a year, and a recent segment touted Augusta, urging listeners “to protect your dollars … with a gold IRA.” Neither Giuliani nor Cruz responded to requests for comment.

Two media dealmakers who have been involved in negotiations between conservative media figures and the gold IRA industry said revenue from the companies can amount to as much as 10 percent of total earnings for some personalities. The dealmakers spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their business relationships; one said the biggest personalities stand to earn millions of dollars a year.

Hartford spokesman Steven Goldberg said it runs ads “where we believe it will create the most value.” Among the company’s chosen venues: a “prophetic” evangelical Christian email newsletter, two right-wing TV channels, and more than a dozen conservative radio shows and podcasts, including Giuliani’s and Cruz’s.

One of Hartford’s ads caught the attention of Ed DeSanto, 65, a semiretired Florida medical coder and an avid right-wing radio fan. He invested a $100,000 lump-sum payout from his pension in a Hartford IRA in 2019.

DeSanto said he doesn’t remember exactly where he heard the Hartford ad, but “if you listen to those radio shows, they play those commercials all the time.” He said he believed he was being careful: He picked Hartford because it scored well in a ranking of gold IRA companies he found online. (Such rankings often include disclosures noting that the authors are paid by the gold IRA companies.)

DeSanto’s $100,000 investment netted him just $53,000 worth of gold and silver, according to a Post analysis of his invoices – meaning the coins had been marked up 92 percent over the value of the metal. DeSanto blames himself.

“I did a little bit of research, but evidently not enough,” DeSanto said. “When I found the invoice, it was a big shock.”

In 2018 and 2019, another retiree, John Mathys of Illinois, claimed a Hartford salesman persuaded him to invest his $569,000 retirement savings by “bombarding him” with calls and emails for months, according to a federal lawsuit Mathys filed against Hartford in 2020. The lawsuit was sent to arbitration. Neither Mathys nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment.

Mathys, who was 83 at the time of the lawsuit, is one of three customers who sued Hartford in the past six years accusing the company of fraud. The other two lawsuits settled.

Hartford declined to comment on any of the cases. “We are fully transparent with our clients about the pricing of the products they purchase and the potential range of markup for those products,” Goldberg said in a statement, adding that the company operates “with a steadfast commitment to doing business legally and ethically.”

“We deny the allegation that we’ve misled or otherwise acted improperly,” Goldberg said.

In February and April, DeSanto sold back some of his gold coins to Hartford. Although gold prices had climbed an average of 32 percent since his 2019 purchase, he lost money on the sales, according to a Post analysis of his invoices.

The gold IRA industry’s ties to right-wing media date to the Great Recession, when the price of gold was rising rapidly and Fox commentator Glenn Beck was one of the most popular hosts on TV. Beck recorded ads for Goldline, a gold dealer that also offered IRAs, and interviewed its CEO on his show.

“We could be facing recession, depression or collapse. Nothing left!” Beck told viewers in 2009, urging them to rely on “God, Gold and Guns.” After segments promoting gold investments, Beck’s show would sometimes cut to commercials featuring gold sellers like Goldline, according to a 2010 congressional report.

The gold companies were loyal advertisers: After Beck claimed in 2009 that President Barack Obama was “racist” and had “a deep-seated hatred for White people or the White culture,” many big advertisers dropped his show. Gold sellers were among the few who stayed on, according to reporting at the time.

Goldline soon came under scrutiny, first in congressional hearings, then by Santa Monica, Calif., prosecutors, who charged the company with misdemeanor grand theft, elder theft and conspiracy in 2011. Though Goldline defended its business practices as fully transparent and never admitted wrongdoing, the company later agreed to pay up to $4.5 million to settle the charges.

Beck faded from prominence after departing Fox News in 2011 to start his own channel. He still endorses Goldline on the company’s website. Neither Beck nor Goldline executives responded to requests for comment.

The controversy sent Goldline employees scrambling for safer harbors. Some got jobs at Merit Financial, according to interviews and public records. Merit, whose offices were just a few blocks from Goldline’s in Santa Monica, also sold coins by phone and ran ads on Fox. (Merit’s former owner declined to comment publicly.)

In 2014, Santa Monica prosecutors accused Merit of “an aggressive, nationwide fraud scheme.” The company denied the allegations but went out of business and settled as the case approached trial.

Several Goldline and Merit salesmen then struck out on their own, founding many of the companies that exist today, according to staff lists and interviews with 21 current and former industry employees.

A former Merit salesman founded Augusta Precious Metals, which has been accused of defrauding its customers by Whitaker, its former CFO. Whitaker filed a whistleblower complaint to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has not taken public action. Augusta has denied the allegations, and CEO Isaac Nuriani said in a statement that Whitaker “never had any visibility into Augusta’s business operations.”

Other former Goldline and Merit employees founded Metals.com, the founders said in depositions. That company recruited customers on Facebook, where it faked an endorsement from Fox News host Sean Hannity, a court filing by Georgia securities regulators alleged.

Facebook data reviewed by The Post shows that many Metals.com ads targeted people 59 or older. One 87-year-old customer received daily phone calls from a Metals.com broker who eventually flew to Alabama for a weekend to meet her, regulators alleged. She ultimately invested nearly $90,000, they said – most of which was lost.

The FBI raided Metals.com in 2020. A judge ordered the company shut down after 31 states and the CFTC filed suit, alleging a $185 million commodities fraud, as well as violations of rules about investment advice. Company founders have denied the allegations, saying their company “strived for transparency” and disclosed that it charged a premium. They have also said in court filings that they are under criminal investigation. Company executives did not respond to requests for comment submitted to their lawyer.

After Metals.com closed, some salesmen went to work at Safeguard Metals, according to one of the salesmen, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. In February 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission, CFTC and 27 states sued that company, too. Safeguard recently settled the SEC’s case without admitting liability; the CFTC’s suit is still pending. Safeguard’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

Lear Capital also hired several salesmen from Goldline’s ranks and bought Merit’s database of customers, according to court records and staff lists submitted to California regulators and obtained by The Post through public records requests. Williams, the Lear spokesperson, said “Merit’s liquidation was an opportunity to acquire a customer and prospect base to service and market to in the future” and that Lear performed background checks on everyone it hired.

Lear recently exited bankruptcy reorganization after resolving investigations from dozens of states. It remains in business.

Hartford’s CEO also worked at both Goldline and Merit before starting that company. Goldberg, the Hartford spokesman, declined to comment when asked whether the company was under investigation by state or federal regulators.

DeSanto said he has complained to both the Florida attorney general and the CFTC about his experience with Hartford. He said he spoke twice with CFTC investigators in 2020, but the agency has not taken public action.

In February, DeSanto also called Hartford to try to sell back his coins. He said he was flabbergasted to learn that the salesman who handled his purchase was still employed there. And he was shocked to find O’Reilly’s photo still featured on the company’s website.

“Everything is the same there,” DeSanto marveled. Of O’Reilly, he added: “I would think, for his reputation, he’d want to get away from a company like them.”

Kozlowska is a freelance writer based in New York. The Washington Post’s Sarah Ellison and Dan Morse contributed reporting. Raz Nakhlawi contributed research.

State grapples with rampant algae that can cause lung infections and neurological disorders: ‘A bullet in the chamber’

TCD

State grapples with rampant algae that can cause lung infections and neurological disorders: ‘A bullet in the chamber’

Stephen Proctor – July 25, 2023

Toxic algae is overtaking the largest freshwater lake in Florida, hampering the summer plans of thousands — and the situation is likely to worsen. While plans are underway to alleviate the problem going forward, some are skeptical.

What’s happening?

Lake Okeechobee in southern Florida is currently half full of bright green toxic algae, which is expected to increase throughout the summer.

“We’re looking at a bullet in the chamber here,” Eve Samples, executive director of the conservation group Friends of the Everglades, told The New York Times of the growing bloom.

A handful of conditions allow the dangerous algae to thrive. According to reporting, the severity of the algal bloom is largely due to our overheating planet, which has caused increased storms and rainfall that have stirred up phosphorus that the algae need to grow. The phosphorous has mostly been sourced by fertilizer runoff from rivers upstream that feed into the lake. Rising levels of carbon dioxide pollution, which the algae need, intensify the problem.

While blooms of algae aren’t uncommon for Florida in the summer months, blooms of this magnitude are, and they seem to be occurring more often.

In 2018, Lake Okeechobee experienced a similar bloom that leaked into surrounding canals and the Caloosahatchee River. That year, toxin-producing algae exploded in both fresh and saltwater ecosystems, leading to former Governor Rick Scott to declare a state of emergency.

Downstream algae outbreaks from Okeechobee’s outflows also significantly impacted coastal communities in 2013, 2016, and 2018, causing beaches to be closed and businesses to shut down. Some residents were evacuated as well.

Why toxic algae is concerning

The Florida Department of Health issued a health alert in June warning the public to exercise caution in and around the area of Lake Okeechobee. Those looking for summer fun in the lake were warned not to swim, wade, ski, or boat where there is a visible bloom. They were also told to keep pets away from the water, and for good reason.

The toxic algae overtaking Lake Okeechobee can cause major health issues for humans and animals, including lung infections, organ damage, and neurological disorders. The algae-contaminated water is so harmful that even boiling it will not eliminate the toxins, according to health officials.

What’s being done about the toxic algae

The Army Corps of Engineers is undertaking a massive project to combat the growing issue of toxic algae affecting not only Lake Okeechobee, but the surrounding area as well.

A 10,500-acre reservoir expected to be completed in 10 years or so will capture at least some of Okeechobee’s toxic outflows. This is in addition to the recently completed 6,500-acre artificial wetland designed to remove nutrient pollution before water flows out into the Everglades.

Some are skeptical, though, of the project’s impact, as the new reservoir will fill to capacity after draining only 6 inches of water from Lake Okeechobee, per The New York Times.

An earlier proposal for a 60,000-acre system was scrapped due to objections from the local agricultural community.