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Is there any way to shift the bizarre Republican conviction that only Trump will save them?

Los Angeles Times – Opinion

Column: Is there any way to shift the bizarre Republican conviction that only Trump will save them?

Jonah Goldberg – August 1, 2023

Former President Donald Trump greets supporters as he arrives at New Orleans International Airport in New Orleans, Tuesday, July 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) — Former President Donald Trump greets supporters as he arrives at New Orleans International Airport on Tuesday. (Gerald Herbert / Associated Press)

“They’re not indicting me, they’re indicting you. I just happen to be standing in the way,” Donald Trump declared (again) in the wake of a new updated federal indictment connected to the classified documents case.

The claim is as effective as it is stupid. The federal government is not, in fact, prosecuting the average Trump supporter for mishandling documents or obstructing justice (save for two Trump aides who allegedly helped him mishandle documents and obstruct justice).

But the idea that Trump is a populist sword-and-shield against the “establishment,” “Deep State,” or “elites” has ensorcelled large swaths of the GOP base, which is at least partly why he’s got a massive lead over his opponents. In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll asking potential Republican primary voters which candidate they would most likely vote for, Trump is at 54%, a 37-point lead over his closest challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Among his core supporters, about 37% of the party according to a breakdown of the poll by the New York Times’ Nate Cohn, literally nobody thinks he committed any crimes and 94% think the party needs to rally around him against these presumably bogus charges.

Cohn notes that no primary candidate with a lead of at least 20 points at this stage of the race has ever failed to get their party’s nomination.

This alone undermines the MAGA base’s argument for supporting Trump. If the Republican establishment forces were as powerful as Trump and his voters think, they’d be able to do something about it. If the Deep State were half as formidable as they think, Trump would never have been president in the first place.

But large segments of the GOP suffer from the delusion that they are victims of the ruling classes and that the woke left is running everything — or will — if Trump doesn’t stop them.

Even in states with Republican governors and legislative supermajorities, like Tennessee, a certain paranoia that the left could take over at any moment dominates politics. As one GOP state legislator recently said on a leaked conference call, “The left wants Tennessee so bad because if they get us, the Southeast falls and it’s ‘game over’ for the republic.”

Of course, if these left-wing overlords were as fearsome as all that, the GOP would not be in total control of the Volunteer State in the first place. Similarly, if the “RINO” establishment were in charge, Trump wouldn’t be the runaway front-runner.

This is the paradox of Republican politics today. The populists run or at least dominate the party but they derive their power and intensity from the bizarre conviction that they’re powerless victims — and that only Trump can save them.

The delusion is vexing but it also points to the only way to prevent Trump from getting the Republican nomination. The last decade has shown that the only kingmakers in American politics are precisely who they’re supposed to be: the voters. In 2008 Hillary Clinton proved that big money and establishment backing weren’t enough in the face of a popular opponent. Jeb Bush proved the same thing in 2016.

Much of the left and right have convinced themselves that American democracy has been hijacked, to one extent or another, by powerful special interests, billionaire donors, the Deep State, hegemonic party establishments and/or the media. And yet, time and again, the string-pullers have proved to be ordinary people.

Trump will be the nominee unless enough Republican voters either change their minds or consolidate around a challenger. And that remains possible.

Cohn is right that it’s unprecedented for a front-runner to lose with such a lead. But Trump is an unprecedented candidate. A former president with multiple criminal indictments despised by a quarter of his party almost as much as he’s loved by a third of it. You could argue he’s running with an incumbent president’s lead, but for an incumbent president, his lead would be disastrously narrow.

Throughout most of 2003, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was seen as the unstoppable, inevitable, Democratic nominee. “Dean has wrapped up the Democratic nomination for president of the United States,” the widely respected analyst Stuart Rothenberg declared (with some minor hedging), in November 2003. By December, Dean was nearly 20 points ahead of his nearest rivals. The next month he was crushed in the Iowa caucuses, as voters started paying attention and changed their minds. Dean didn’t score a single win outside of Vermont.

For those desperate for a Republican nominee other than Trump, hoping voters will change their minds seems scary. But that’s democracy for you.

The Kremlin has pumped so much money into the economy that it’s creating a boom — but this house of cards could topple anytime soon

Insider

The Kremlin has pumped so much money into the economy that it’s creating a boom — but this house of cards could topple anytime soon

Huileng Tan – August 1, 2023

Russia’s wartime economy is thriving, the New York Times reported Monday.
The Kremlin implemented measures to boost military equipment output, benefits, and mortgage subsidies.
These measures have boosted the demand — and prices — for a range of goods and services in Russia.

Nearly 18 months after the Ukraine war started, Russia’s economy appears to be humming along — baffling economists who predicted catastrophic outcomes following sweeping sanctions against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

While some economists have questioned the quality and veracity of Russian data releases, a New York Times report on Monday offered a nuanced picture of the country’s wartime economy and how it’s helping drum up popular support for Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s economic strength so far is due to the Kremlin’s measures — the Times reported that Putin is boosting the production of military equipment and raising pensions, salaries, and other benefits for people who are not well-off. The state is also subsidizing mortgages.

Soldiers fighting the war are also earning far higher salaries than average earnings in poorer regions of Russia, the Times reported. For instance, Russia was offering a minimum of 160,000 rubles, or about $1,740, in monthly wages for contract soldiers last September — three times the national average, Reuters reported at the time.

Large payouts for those who died in the war — for example, a 5 million rubles payout for families of Wagner Group fighters who died in the war — are circulating in the economy.

These measures have boosted the demand — and prices — for a range of products and services in Russia, the Times reported.

Corporate loans have increased 19% in the year to June as investments grew, the Times said, citing the Russian central bank’s figures. Meanwhile, the value of mortgages taken out from Russia’s top 20 banks surged 63% in the first half of the year from a year ago, the Times reported, citing the state-run lender Dom.RF, and the real estate research firm Frank Media.

Russia’s economy is running so hot that its central bank raised interest rates by one percentage point on July 21 — double the 0.5 percentage point analysts polled by Reuters had expected — to tame inflation that hit 3.25% in June from a year ago.

But the boom may not last.

The house of cards could soon crumble

“As an economist, I don’t know how this bubble can be deflated,” Alexandra Prokopenko, a researcher with the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and a former advisor at the Russian central bank, told The Times.

“One day it could all crash like a house of cards,” he added.

Russia’s central bank has also been candid about its gloomy assessments of the economy — which at times were at odds with more bullish statements from the Kremlin. But the institution has come under pressure from Moscow to give a more “upbeat assessment” about the country’s economy, Bloomberg reported in February.

Economy experts, however, are not optimistic about Russia’s economic outlook even as they acknowledge the current robustness of its economy.

In April last year, the Russian central bank’s governor Elvira Nabiullina said the country’s reserves wouldn’t last infinitely. In December, she also expressed concerns about inflation and the tight labor market due to Putin’s military draft. She repeated her concerns about price rises and the labor shortage in her July rate hike announcement.

Ariel Chernyy, an economist at Italian bank UniCredit, forecasts Russia’s GDP to grow by 1% this year — reversing a 2.1% contraction last year, according to a July 6 note seen by Insider.

Chernyy said the country’s economic resilience is due to government spending and the implementation of import-substitution projects that are boosting the domestic industry.

But it “does not mean a higher GDP growth rate that can be sustained in the long term” due to a shrinking labor pool and other issues like inferior import substitutes, he added.

Trump doesn’t care if he destroys the GOP, he’s desperate to stay out of prison: Donald Trump threatens House Republicans to impeach Biden or risk losing their jobs

USA Today

‘Get out’: Donald Trump threatens House Republicans to impeach Biden or risk losing their jobs

Ken Tran, USA TODAY – August 1, 2023

WASHINGTON — House Republicans have been talking a lot about impeaching President Joe Biden over what they allege is his improper involvement in his family’s business dealings.

But with a long to-do list when lawmakers return to Washington after August recess, for now, it’s all talk.

Former President Donald Trump however, is pressuring GOP lawmakers to put action behind their words and begin the impeachment process against Biden − or face electoral consequences.

“Any Republican that doesn’t act on Democratic fraud should be immediately primaried and get out,” Trump told supporters at a campaign rally Saturday in Erie, Pennsylvania. “We got a lot of good, tough Republicans around. People are going to run against them and people are going to win.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has repeatedly dismissed the notion he is facing pressure from the former president to go after Biden, calling an impeachment inquiry an appropriate course of action.

“If (the Biden administration) does not provide the information we need, then we would go to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said at a press conference last week, referencing House Republicans’ various investigations into whether Biden benefitted from Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

‘They’re trying to deflect’: Democrats link GOP push to impeach Biden to Trump indictments

Former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he enters the Erie Insurance Arena for a political rally while campaigning for the GOP nomination in the 2024 election on July 29, 2023 in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Republican lawmaker: Impeachment is walking ‘the plank’

McCarthy and other GOP lawmakers are finding themselves in a political bind over Trump’s comments. House Republicans only have roughly three weeks when they come back to Washington in September to approve must-pass spending bills, and an impeachment inquiry could take up valuable time needed to avoid a government shutdown.

There are also multiple House Republicans representing districts that Biden won in the 2020 presidential election. Proceeding with an impeachment inquiry could put those vulnerable GOP lawmakers in a politically fraught position heading into the 2024 election, something House GOP leaders want to avoid considering their razor-thin five seat majority.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., warned that impeachment could force vulnerable members to “walk the plank.”

“Every time we walk the plank we are putting moderate members, members that won Biden districts, we are putting those seats at risk for 2024. We are putting the majority at risk,” Mace said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., holds a news conference as the House prepares to leave for its August recess, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 27, 2023.

Trump urges GOP lawmakers to fight back for him

Trump’s attempts to pressure House Republicans to impeach Biden comes as he faces a multitude of legal troubles, including a possible indictment for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

In the face of those legal woes, Trump has accused Biden and the Department of Justice of targeting him because he is the current frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. As a result, Trump has implored GOP lawmakers to fight back on his behalf.

“They impeach me, they indict me,” Trump said at his rally in Erie. “And the Republicans just don’t fight the way … they’re supposed to fight.”

GOP leaders are also facing pressure from their right flank in the conference, with members from the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus calling to impeach the president.

“I don’t know how anyone, any objective reasonable person couldn’t come to the conclusion that this appears to be impeachment worthy,” Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., a member of the Freedom Caucus said last week, reiterating unsubstantiated claims that Biden was involved as vice president in his son’s business dealings.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry, R-Pa., left, and Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., clasp hands before denouncing the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process and so-called "woke" spending by Democrats and President Joe Biden, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 25, 2023. — House Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry, R-Pa., left, and Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., clasp hands before denouncing the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process and so-called “woke” spending by Democrats and President Joe Biden, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 25, 2023.

House Republicans walk fine line between investigations and impeachment

Stuck in between the former president’s warnings and the upcoming 2024 elections, GOP lawmakers are struggling between continuing to investigate Biden or swiftly moving to impeach the president.

“We’re working through the process, our constitutional duty to have oversight over the executive branch,” Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., chair of the Republican Study Committee, told reporters last week.

Hern said Republicans are thoroughly investigating whether the president had connections to Hunter Biden’s business dealings and said Democrats “jumped to conclusions” when they impeached Trump.

“The Speaker has said that there may be an impeachment inquiry. That is not impeachment. That is Congress continuing its responsibilities to look into the issues that have been raised,” said Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who represents a district Biden won in 2020.

“It’s just an ability to get more information,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said at a press conference last week, saying an inquiry is “not in of itself an impeachment.”

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., listens as Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, and Rep. Maria Salazar, R-Fla., speak during a press conference on immigration outside the U.S. Capitol Building on May 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.

‘It’s a crisis’: Maternal health care disappears for millions

Politico

‘It’s a crisis’: Maternal health care disappears for millions

Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly – August 1, 2023

Access to maternal health care is evaporating in much of the country, as hospitals close and obstetricians become harder to find for millions of pregnant people.

New data from the nonpartisan health advocacy group March of Dimes shows that the U.S. — which already has the worst maternal mortality rate among developed nations — saw a 4 percent decline in hospitals with labor and delivery services between 2019 and 2020.

But the raw figure masks the inequities playing out across the country, according to the report. Alabama and Wyoming lost nearly one-quarter of their birthing hospitals in that time period, while Idaho, Indiana and West Virginia lost roughly 10 percent.

“It’s a crisis,” said Stacey Brayboy, the senior vice president of public policy and government affairs at March of Dimes. “Women are struggling to access care, and that’s before and during and after their pregnancies, and we’ve seen an increase in terms of maternal and infant deaths.”

Access to care is also likely to worsen in the coming years, according to several public health experts, as obstetrics units struggle to stay financially afloat, more people become uninsured and new anti-abortion laws limit the number of physicians willing to practice in several states.

Nationally, about 5.6 million women live in counties with no access to maternity care, according to March of Dimes. Far more, 32 million, are at risk of poor health outcomes because of a lack of care options nearby. March of Dimes considers more than a third of all U.S. counties maternal care deserts, with no access to reproductive health services. States with large rural populations — Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota — are especially prone to shortages.

The scarcity of maternal health care is particularly acute in areas with higher instances of underlying health problems that are risk factors for maternal mortality — such as hypertension and diabetes — and where states have not expanded Medicaid, leaving hundreds of thousands uninsured.

The declining access to maternal care is one reason maternal mortality rates in the U.S are so high and rising, Brayboy said.

In 2021, roughly 33 people died for every 100,000 live births in the U.S., according to the CDC, up 40 percent from 2020. That’s roughly 10 times the mortality rate of other industrialized nations such as Spain, Germany, Australia or Japan. The maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black people was 69.9, two-and-a-half times the rate of non-Hispanic whites, according to the CDC.

The report relies on data from 2020 and 2021 — before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — and the full impact of state abortion bans on maternal care has yet to be documented. But Tuesday’s report reveals most states that have restricted abortion access since then, or where the procedure remains in limbo pending a court ruling, have seen access to obstetric care decline in recent years.

“Abortion providers, OB-GYNs, nurse practitioners are being pushed out of certain parts of the country that do have these restrictive abortion laws. That’s having a spillover effect for those that want to continue their pregnancies,” said Jamila Taylor, president and CEO of the National WIC Association.

There isn’t, however, a clean red state-blue state divide in the data. A few states with near-total abortion bans saw an improvement in access to birthing hospitals in recent years — including Arkansas, North Dakota and Mississippi — and a few states where abortion remains legal saw access worsen, including California, Maryland, and Washington state.

The situation is particularly dire in Alabama, where the number of hospitals with labor and delivery services decreased by 24 percent between 2019 and 2020, and where many more could soon go out of business. The Alabama Hospital Association warned earlier this year that half of the state’s remaining hospitals are “operating in the red,” and are “likely on a collision course with disaster.”

“Many of them are just teetering on the edge, almost not able to cover payroll,” Farrell Turner, the president of the Alabama Rural Health Association, said in an interview. “There are at least seven more, according to my calculations, that are at very high risk of closing before the year is out.”

One factor fueling the obstetric unit closures across the country is the financial mismatch facing hospitals — maternal care is expensive to provide and reimbursements are low, particularly from Medicaid, which pays for more than 40 percent of births. That’s a particular challenge for rural hospitals, which have a higher proportion of patients on government-run health insurance than their urban counterparts.

March of Dimes found that nearly a third of women in Alabama already have no birthing hospital within a 30-minute drive and for some residents, the nearest hospital is more than 70 minutes away — factors the group said raised the risk for “maternal morbidity and adverse infant outcomes, such as stillbirth and NICU admission.” More than a third of the state is considered a maternal care desert, and more than 18 percent of people giving birth received inadequate prenatal care or none at all.

“People have to drive quite some distance in order to deliver, and to obtain prenatal care leading up to that time,” Turner said. “And many folks either lack transportation or can’t afford the gas to get to the care they need. There are some telehealth options out there, but a lot of people lack access to broadband, so the uptake and implementation has been slow.”

The problem is similar in Wyoming, where five of the state’s 23 counties are maternity care deserts and more than 15 percent of residents have no hospital with labor and delivery services within 30 minutes. The state’s vastness poses particular challenges to accessing care, with people living in counties with the highest travel times spending nearly 90 minutes on average to reach the nearest hospital with obstetric care.

Abortion remains legal in Wyoming because a judge temporarily blocked the state’s new pill ban in June, and the state’s trigger ban remains enjoined. But Dr. Giovannina Anthony, an OB-GYN in Jackson, Wyo., said those laws are already affecting access to maternal health care.

“Abortion bans just create one more deterrent to anyone who might want to practice obstetrics and gynecology in Wyoming,” Anthony said.

Even in North Carolina, which has fewer maternity care deserts than the national average, access to obstetric care is headed in the wrong direction. The number of hospitals with labor and delivery services in the state decreased by 1.9 percent between 2019 and 2020, and the March of Dimes report found that 13.4 percent of people in North Carolina had no birthing hospital within 30 minutes.

“These rural communities where the maternity care deserts are, these individuals tend to be sicker. They can have chronic hypertension. They can have diabetes,” said Karen Sheffield-Abdullah, a certified nurse-midwife who has a doctorate in nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “These are individuals who are coming in with what we call these comorbidities, and yet there aren’t providers for an hour away? Absolutely maternal morbidity and mortality goes up.”

Sheffield-Abdullah said access to maternity care in the state is likely to worsen because of a new law banning abortion after the first trimester.

“If we look at the most recent ban, getting more restrictive in the types of care that we provide to perinatal individuals is not going to improve our outcomes,” she said. “It only makes it more difficult for minoritized populations to get the care that they need.”

Hospitals are also struggling to recruit and retain OB-GYNs and other maternal health providers. Two Idaho hospitals, for example, shut down their labor and delivery services earlier this year, citing staffing woes exacerbated by the state’s near-total abortion ban, which went into effect last summer.

Dr. Stacy Seyb, a maternal fetal medicine specialist who has practiced for 23 years in Idaho, told POLITICO that two of his colleagues have left the state in the last few months, with several more also considering a move, and applications for medical residencies have plummeted.

“It’s hurting our ability to find doctors for a state that’s already severely underserved,” he said of the state’s abortion ban, which threatens medical providers with felony charges if they perform an abortion or help someone obtain one. “It’s hard to take care of patients while looking over your shoulder. So residents and young doctors are saying: ‘Why would I go there and deal with that?’”

Idaho saw a 12.5 percent decrease in the number of birthing hospitals in the state between 2019 and 2020, and nearly 30 percent of the state is considered a maternal health desert, according to March of Dimes. More than 27 percent of counties have both a high rate of chronic health conditions and high rate of preterm births.

Idaho providers fear the situation will further deteriorate now that abortion is banned in the state, but warn the public might remain in the dark because officials dissolved the state’s maternal mortality review committee in July.

“It’s scary for sure,” said Dr. Kylie Cooper, a former leader of the state’s chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists who left Idaho after the abortion ban went into effect. “Most states have the ability to track data and trends for why people are dying in pregnancy and post-partum, but now I don’t know how that will be tracked at all in Idaho.”

Trump indictment: 3 bombshells from the latest charges undercut his ‘rigged’ election claims

Yahoo! News

Trump indictment: 3 bombshells from the latest charges undercut his ‘rigged’ election claims

David Knowles, Senior Editor – August 1, 2023

The 45-page Justice Department indictment of former President Donald Trump released Tuesday contains multiple bombshells, including quotes attributed to him that show he knew his statements about the 2020 election results were false.

Trump and six unnamed co-conspirators were charged by special counsel Jack Smith for their efforts to overturn the election and block the peaceful transfer of power following his loss to Joe Biden. Those efforts came to a head on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump’s supporters descended on Washington and laid siege to the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to block the Electoral College certification of the election.

‘Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me’

On Dec. 27, 2020, Trump called the then-acting Attorney General Jeffery Rosen and the then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue and “raised multiple false claims” about the election, according to the indictment.

“When the Acting Attorney General told the Defendant that the Justice Department could not and would not change the outcome of the election, the Defendant responded, ‘Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,’” the indictment states.

‘You’re too honest’

Vice President Mike Pence finishes the work of the Electoral College after a mob loyal to Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in Washington and disrupted the process. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

According to the indictment, on Jan. 1, 2021, Trump called Pence to berate him for not going along with a plan to have him reject the certification of the Electoral College vote showing Joe Biden had won the election.

“The Vice President responded that he thought there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper,” the indictment states. “In response, the Defendant [Trump] told the Vice President, ‘you’re too honest.’”

‘Beamed down from the mothership’

By that time Trump had been told multiple times that his claims of fraud could not be backed up with actual evidence.

“As early as mid-November, for instance, the Senior Campaign Advisor had informed the Defendant that his claims of a large number of dead voters in Georgia were untrue,” the indictment reads.

In an email, that campaign adviser lamented, “you can see why we’re 0-32 on our [court] cases. I’ll obviously help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.”

While Trump again portrayed the charges against him as part of a series of “un-American witch hunts,” his former vice president issued a strikingly different assessment.

“Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” Pence said in a statement.

CDC issues leprosy warning for people making Florida travel plans

South Florida Sun Sentinel

CDC issues leprosy warning for people making Florida travel plans

Cindy Krischer Goodman, Sun Sentinel – August 1, 2023

Omar Havana/Getty Images North America/TNS

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning that cases of leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, are surging in Florida and should be considered when making travel plans.

The infectious disease primarily affects the skin and nervous system and can be easy to treat if caught early.

Leprosy has been historically uncommon in the United States, but has more than doubled in the South over the last 10 years. In a case report issued Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that Central Florida has accounted for 81% of reported cases in the state and almost one-fifth of reported cases nationwide.

Of the 159 new leprosy cases reported in the United States in 2020, Florida was among the top reporting states with nearly 30 cases. The Florida Department of Health reported 19 cases from July 2022 to July 2023, with one South Florida case in Palm Beach County.

The CDC said if untreated, the disease can progress to paralysis, blindness, the loss of one’s eyebrows, physical disfigurement, and even the crippling of hands and feet. Symptoms include loss of feeling in hands and feet, nasal congestion and possibly dry, stiff, sometimes painful skin.

The warning comes because of what health officials learned when examining patients diagnosed with leprosy.

“Whereas leprosy in the United States previously affected persons who had immigrated from leprosy-endemic areas, about 34% of new case-patients during 2015–2020 appeared to have locally acquired the disease,” the CDC report says. According to the World Health Organization, medical officials report more than 200,000 cases of leprosy every year in more than 120 countries. While the reason behind the rising cases in Florida is unclear, there is some support for the theory that international migration to Central Florida of people with leprosy is fueling the locally-acquired transmission.

“Prolonged person-to-person contact through respiratory droplets is the most widely recognized route of transmission,” the CDC report says.

When contact tracing cases in Central Florida, health officials found no associated risk factors, including travel, zoonotic exposure, occupational association, or personal contacts. “The absence of traditional risk factors in many recent cases of leprosy in Florida, coupled with the high proportion of residents who spend a great deal of time outdoors, supports the investigation into environmental reservoirs as a potential source of transmission,” the report says.

Because Florida, particularly Central Florida, may represent an endemic location for leprosy, the CDC recommends that physicians consider leprosy if patients who recently have traveled Florida show symptoms.

Ron DeSantis’ newest problem: The majority of likely Republican primary voters don’t want a candidate devoted to fighting ‘woke’

Insider

Ron DeSantis’ newest problem: The majority of likely Republican primary voters don’t want a candidate devoted to fighting ‘woke’

Madison Hall – July 31, 2023

GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis keeps hammering the idea that he’s fighting “wokeness.”
Likely Republican voters, however, told the New York Times they’d prefer the government stay away from limiting what corporations can support.
Despite this, DeSantis remains focused on attacking Bud Light for a short-lived and innocuous campaign featuring a transgender woman.

He declared war on “woke” and made fighting “wokeness” one of the central points of his campaign. Now, it’s becoming increasingly evident that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign is in hot water after a majority of likely Republican voters said they want the government to stay away from influencing what corporations can and can’t support.

According to a New York Times poll, which was conducted between July 23-27, 52 percent of Republicans who will likely vote in the GOP primary election said they’d support a candidate who thinks the “government should stay out of deciding what corporations can support” over one promising “to fight corporations that promote ‘woke’ left ideology.”

This isn’t ideal for the DeSantis campaign, whose biggest focus on the campaign trail has been how he plans to combat “wokeness” as president and the extent to which he’s done so in Florida through his “Stop WOKE Act,” which currently cannot be enforced in higher education due to a temporary injunction, along with other initiatives.

As he continues to double and triple-down on his anti-woke schtick, it doesn’t seem like it’s doing him many favors in the race to become the GOP presidential nominee.

According to the same New York Times poll, support to put DeSantis in the Oval Office came in 37 percentage points behind that of former President Donald Trump, who appears to be running off with the nomination as DeSantis and every other GOP candidate has failed to keep up.

But as his presidential campaign falters and likely GOP voters make it clear that fighting “wokeism” isn’t a priority, DeSantis keeps belaboring the point.

Three months after beer company Bud Light ran a short-lived marketing campaign featuring transgender content creator Dylan Mulvaney, the governor of Florida continues to think this is what voters are clamoring for, going as far as threatening Bud Light’s parent company, AB InBev, with legal action for breaching “legal duties owed to its shareholders.”

If DeSantis and his team don’t change their focus, he risks becoming part of the next iteration of presidential candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio who quickly got stuck repeating the same talking point again, and again, and again.

And those campaigns don’t tend to end up in the White House.

Leprosy could become endemic to Florida. Here is what to know.

USA Today

Leprosy could become endemic to Florida. Here is what to know.

Brandon Girod and Kinsey Crowley – July 31, 2023

Rising cases of leprosy in the Southeast U.S. point to the possibility of the disease becoming endemic to the region, and a high concentration of those cases were reported in central Florida.

In a recently published research letter, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that Florida is witnessing an increase in leprosy cases lacking traditional risk factors and recommending that travel to Florida be considered when conducting leprosy contact tracing in any state.

The number of reported leprosy cases across the country has doubled over the past decade, according to the CDC. Citing data from the National Hansen’s Disease Program, the CDC says there were 159 new cases reported in the U.S. in 2020. Nearly 70% of these new cases were reported in Florida, California, Louisiana, Hawaii, New York and Texas.

Leprosy, scientifically known as Hansen’s disease, has never been common in the U.S., with most cases previously involving people who immigrated from leprosy-endemic areas. But the new report shows that about 34% of the reported cases between 2015 and 2020 were locally acquired.

A 54-year-old man in central Florida was diagnosed with lepromatous leprosy in 2022.

About the Florida leprosy outbreak

According to the report, Florida may represent an endemic location for leprosy and recommends that physicians consider leprosy in the appropriate clinical context in patients who have traveled to the area, even in the absence of other risk factors. Here is why:

Florida is among the top reporting states for cases of leprosy.
80% of cases in Florida were in central Florida.
Central Florida alone accounted for nearly 20% of the total number of cases reported nationally.
Several new-case patients in central Florida demonstrated no clear evidence of zoonotic exposure or traditionally known risk factors.

What is leprosy and where did it come from?

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae that primarily affects the skin and peripheral nervous system. It can sometimes infect other parts of the body like the lining in the airway passages of the nose, according to the Florida Department of Health. It has been around for thousands of years, with the earliest known records appearing in China and India around 600 B.C.

Despite its biblical description, the disease is not easily spread and about 95% of people have natural protective immunity, according to the FDOH. Leprosy can be easy to treat, especially if it’s addressed early. However, going without treatment can result in permanent nerve damage.

The Mycobacterium leprae bacteria is slow growing and it can often take years for signs and symptoms to develop following exposure to the bacteria. Once the first sign of infection appears, it can take anywhere between two weeks to months for it to progress.

Can leprosy be cured?

Yes, leprosy is a curable disease. Doctors prescribe antibiotics to patients with leprosy. Patients are typically no longer infectious after a few days of antibiotics, but the treatment lasts between one to two years due to the bacteria’s slow growth.

What are the signs and symptoms of leprosy?

Early signs of leprosy include pale or slightly red areas or rash on the body that is often associated with a loss of sensation in the affected area, according to the FDOH.

Other symptoms include:

Loss of feeling in hands and feet
Dry, stiff and sometimes painful skin in the affected area
Thinning of the eyebrows and eyelashes (if the face is involved)
Nasal congestion is sometimes reported

If the disease goes untreated, weakness in the muscles of the hands and feet can also occur.

Malaria in Florida: Though malaria cases are waning, you should still take precautions, Sarasota County says

How does leprosy get transmitted or contracted?

Leprosy is contagious and can be transmitted by untreated people infected with the disease, however, most people have natural protective immunity. Exposure to people infected with leprosy should still be avoided, especially among family members as protective immunity is genetic.

How leprosy is transmitted isn’t fully known due to how uncommon it is. Scientists do know it’s not spread through casual contact, sexual transmission or from mother to fetus. The prevailing theory is that high levels of the bacteria are developed in a person’s nose and are spread to others not immune through prolonged contact.

The CDC hopes that local physicians can help identify and reduce the spread of the disease through their efforts to report cases and their support in further research to assess routes of transmission.

Can you get leprosy from armadillos?

Yes. A genetic study conducted at the National Hansen’s Disease Program found that armadillos in the southern U.S. develop a high number of M. leprae, that bacteria that causes leprosy. Transmission between animals to humans is low, but the program advises that people still take proper precautions around armadillos.

If you feel better near salt water, you are not making it up. It’s called thalassotherapy.

Insider

If you feel better near salt water, you are not making it up. It’s called thalassotherapy.

Kelly Burch – July 31, 2023

One woman standing on the rock looking out the waves and the sea — Carol Yepes/Getty Images

Some people have said they feel physically better after spending time in salt water.
Being near the sea can have mental health benefits, too, doctors say.
Using salt water for healing is known as thalassotherapy.

When Reina Sultan spent time in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, earlier this summer, she noticed that she felt better than anticipated.

“Has anyone with POTS/hEDS noticed that going in the ocean makes them feel wildly better?,” she wrote on Twitter. “Like i get 2-3 days of feeling like i am not chronically ill when i swim in the ocean and idk if its the salt or the pressure or what but even my joints feel better.”

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (HeDS) are neurological conditions that can cause joint pain, dizziness with movement, and fatigue. The Tweet took off, with many others with chronic illnesses saying that their symptoms feel better for days after they’ve been swimming in salt water.

Doctors say that Sultan is onto something — a phenomenon known as thalassotherapy, or using salt water for healing, that dates all the way back to the ancient Greeks.

Salt water has physical and mental health benefits

Anecdotal stories of feeling better in or near salt water — like Sultan’s experience — are common, says Stewart Parnacott, a personal trainer and nurse practitioner with Baylor College of Medicine.

“There is some scientific basis to support these claims,” Parnacott said.

A 2021 scientific review found evidence that thalassotherapy is associated with improved symptoms in patients. It’s particularly effective for people with certain skin conditions and inflammatory diseases, the review found.

“Saltwater contains various minerals and trace elements such as magnesium, potassium, and calcium, which are believed to have potential health benefits,” Parnacott said. “These minerals may promote relaxation, reduce inflammation, and support skin health when absorbed through the skin during activities like swimming or spending time at the beach.”

Being near the beach can have mental health benefits too

As anyone who enjoys a summer trip to the sea has probably realized, being near the ocean can also benefit mental health, says Dr. Elliot Dinetz, a functional medicine doctor and staff member at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

“On the mental health front, being near the ocean, a phenomenon often referred to as the ‘blue space effect,’ has been linked to reduced stress levels and overall mental well-being,” Dinetz said.

A 2021 study that included more than 16,000 people in 18 countries found that spending time near blue spaces, including lakes, rivers, and oceans, was associated with improved well-being. Ocean sounds, like the crashing of waves, can also promote mental health and relaxation.

For the most benefit, get moving near water

While sitting on the beach or floating can be super relaxing, Dinetz says people often get the most benefit when they move their bodies.

“Activities such as swimming or walking on the beach increase these benefits by improving cardiovascular health and promoting the release of endorphins, the body’s natural mood boosters,” he said.

If you don’t live near an ocean or salt lake, don’t worry, Parnacott says. You can get many of the same benefits from visiting a lake or river — or even a pool in a pinch.

“Bodies of water, whether freshwater or saltwater, have inherent qualities that offer health benefits,” he said.

Low-impact exercises like swimming or water aerobics are beneficial for joint health and cardiovascular fitness, while the buoyancy of water reduces the impact on joints, making it an ideal option for individuals with certain musculoskeletal conditions, he says.

“Both freshwater and saltwater environments can offer unique benefits for physical and mental well-being,” Parnacott said. “Finding balance and taking time to unwind in nature can significantly contribute to a healthier and happier lifestyle.”

Is the Atlantic Ocean current system nearing collapse? Scientists weigh in

CBS News

Is the Atlantic Ocean current system nearing collapse? Scientists weigh in

Li Cohen – July 31, 2023

A study out this week raised a dire warning about the future of the planet and humanity, suggesting a system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean could totally collapse as early as 2025 — a frightening scenario that was the premise for the 2004 film “The Day After Tomorrow.”

But some scientists say that while a collapse is possible, it’s just one of many potential scenarios that could unfold and is unlikely to occur this century.

The study, published in Nature Communications, focuses on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, a system of ocean currents in the Atlantic Ocean. This system is part of a global conveyor belt as it circulates water from north to south in the Atlantic, helping disperse warm waters. This system, along with other ocean currents, is crucial to helping maintain the Earth’s climate — and scientists believe it is being affected by climate change, as melting ice alters the balance in northern waters.

The AMOC “is a major tipping element in the climate system and a future collapse would have severe impacts on the climate in the North Atlantic region,” the study says, adding that there has been other research in recent years indicating that its circulation is weakening.

“We estimate a collapse of the AMOC to occur around mid-century under the current scenario of future [carbon] emissions,” it says.

Peter Ditlevsen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute and the lead author of the study, told CBS News he believes it’s “most likely” the system could collapse in about 30 years, around 2057. In the study, the range for a collapse was estimated to be anywhere between 2025 and 2095.

But, he says, there’s an “uncertainty”: “You cannot be completely sure.”

That’s because measurements of the AMOC only go back 20 years, providing a small amount of data to work into configurations. So his team looked at records of sea surface temperatures and climate model simulations to try to predict the fate of the current system.

The global conveyor belt, shown in part here, circulates cool subsurface water and warm surface water throughout the world / Credit: NOAA

“We know that there’s a tipping point out there in the future. And that when you approach that tipping point, they start to be unstable in a very specific way,” Ditlevsen said.

But Marlos Goes, a scientist at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, said the likelihood of this study’s results coming to fruition within this century “is very small.” Such a timeframe, he said, is just “one scenario … out of hundreds.”

According to state-of-the-art climate models and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group that works to assess the science behind climate change, “it’s not going to collapse in the 21st century at all,” Goes said.

“It may in the following century. It depends on the [emissions] pathways,” he told CBS News. “If the emissions go unabated the way they are going right now … that could be a potential force for this collapse. But the probability of that single scenario that they analyzed in that study is very unlikely.”

What is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation?

The AMOC is a long current cycle in the Atlantic Ocean that transports warm water across the globe. It’s an incredibly slow-moving system that takes roughly 1,000 years to move any given cubic meter of water through its entirety, according to NOAA.

It is part of the global conveyor belt, a system of deep ocean currents driven by temperature, salinity and the wind on the ocean surface. The belt begins where warm water from the Gulf is thrust into a cold atmosphere of the Norwegian Sea. From there, the now much cooler water sinks lower into the ocean and is carried south. The conveyor belt takes that cold water all the way down to Antarctica.

Is the Gulf Stream going to collapse?

The Gulf Stream is a warm ocean current that runs from the coast of Florida and up to North Carolina, where it then diverts and goes across the Atlantic. It’s also part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The latest study makes no mention of the Gulf Stream, specifically, but because it is part of this system, it would be impacted by such a collapse.

However, Goes told CBS News that wouldn’t disappear. The Gulf Stream is primarily driven by wind rather than temperature and salinity, as the AMOC as a whole is, meaning it would still function.

This image by NOAA's Ocean Prediction Center shows the temperature of the Gulf Stream along the U.S. East Coast. / Credit: NOAA Ocean Prediction Center — This image by NOAA’s Ocean Prediction Center shows the temperature of the Gulf Stream along the U.S. East Coast. / Credit: NOAA Ocean Prediction Center

“We would have a Gulf Stream just if we had the wind, if we didn’t have this formation in the North Atlantic,” Goes said. “…So even if the AMOC collapses, we’ll still have a Gulf Stream, but it would be much weaker.”

What would happen if the AMOC shut down?

A collapse of the system was the inspiration for the 2004 disaster film “The Day After Tomorrow.” In the movie, ocean current systems stopped because of global warming, triggering another Ice Age.

But Ditlevsen said, “That’s not gonna happen.” The principle of it, however, is the same, he said.

“You get colder Europe, northern Atlantic region, which is maybe not nice for us living in Scandinavia because it will be more similar to what’s going on in Alaska,” he said.

“But worse is that, the heat that’s not coming here stays in the tropics, heating them even more,” he continued. “The livelihood of people in the tropics can be severely threatened by this. … These are climate changes that are going to happen very fast.”

The AMOC won’t collapse just yet, some say — but it is slowing

Even though Goes says the chances of the AMOC collapsing within the next few decades are low, the current system is at risk. In 2021, another study found that the system is the weakest it’s been in at least 1,600 years. Researchers found that the current has slowed down an “unprecedented” amount — 15% since 1950.

Other research has found that it could be reduced up to 45% within the next 70 years or so.

Goes said that even just a slowdown of the currents, and not a total collapse, could impact people around the world.

“Generally, when the AMOC weakens or collapses, you have a cooling of the North Atlantic because this heat wouldn’t be carried further north, and there’s a warming of the South Atlantic. This would shift the precipitation patterns further south,” he said. “And that could influence all the sub-Sahara, the African and South American continents in the tropical bands. It would have influence on the storms in the North Atlantic, in Europe.”

But it would also release even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The ocean absorbs 90% of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and without the current, the ocean won’t be able to absorb as much, Goes said, a situation that would only add to the already rampant global warming the planet is facing. It would also increase sea levels along the U.S. coast.

Urgent action could stop a slowdown

A drastic change or shutdown of the AMOC wouldn’t necessarily be detectable right away, Goes said. In fact, it could take 40 to 50 years to emerge.

“By the time we detect that, it will be too late,” he said. “We really need to act now. This is one of the tipping points of the world.”

Once a tipping point such as a slowdown or shutdown of the AMOC is passed, it could cause a cascade of impacts that could cause “irreversible and severe changes in the climate system,” according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Even though a full collapse of the AMOC within the next few decades isn’t probable, it is possible, Goes said, and it could come with high risk.

Scientists are continuing to monitor the system to learn what they can about its current state. But to help prevent a continued slowdown or a potential full shutdown, both Goes and Ditlevsen agreed that global emissions must be reduced drastically. Those emissions, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, are trapping heat in the atmosphere and causing sea ice to melt. When that ice melts, it adds fresh water to the AMOC, disrupting the salinity and temperature it relies on to move.

“If we stop our emissions, it will not collapse,” Ditlevsen said. “The disturbing part about this study is that we have to react much faster than we perhaps would like to do. … It’s yet another wake-up call or warning sign that we have to react faster than we do.”