Pastor Mock: In 2024, democracy is on the ballot, choose the democracy candidate – Biden
Charles Mock – January 17, 2024
According to The Washington Post, and I quote, “A Post-University of Maryland poll published this week shows a sizable share of Americans accept lies about the 2020 election and the insurrection that followed on Jan. 6, 2021. Only 62 percent say Joe Biden‘s victory was legitimate, down from 69 percent two years ago, and far lower than after the contested 2000 election. One-third of U.S. adults say they believe there’s ‘solid evidence’ of ‘widespread voter fraud’ in the 2020 election. Regarding Jan. 6 itself, 28 percent say former president Donald Trump bears no responsibility, 21 percent say the people who stormed the Capitol were ‘mostly peaceful’ and 25 percent say the FBI probably or definitely instigated the attack.”
With each presidential election, comes opportunities to vote for the person whose policies best represent the best values, principles, processes and practices of a constitutional democracy. If we are not careful as citizens, we will be voting for a person’s policies rather than voting for democracy.
Democracy is far more important than the policies that constitute it. It is not policies that sustain democracy. It is democracy that sustain policies.
If we do not like a president whose personal policies are pro-abortion, pro-same-sex marriage, pro-transgender, etc., we can always use our vote to vote him or her out of office because the power of democracy rests on the freedom to vote and freedom of choice.
It has become obvious there is no pure democracy. Democracy is always an experimental work in progress. Some decades require much more work than others. For example, we read of present egregious challenges such as growing disparities of wealth and autocratic tendencies within our democracy. These autocratic tendencies are driven by multinational corporations that continue placing democracy at risk.
Insurrections loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. The Department of Justice is prosecuting those who violently stormed the Capitol.
If we want to kill the democracy that makes autocratic, financially oppressive mega-corporations normalize greed, all we have to do is change our form of government from a democracy to pure dictatorship or a king-centered monarchy. In dictatorships the dictator determines the means of corporate capitalism. I pray we choose otherwise.
In a real sense, democracy is being voted for or against in 2024. We cannot afford to vote for candidates based on three or four particular policies we might find immoral. We must vote for candidates who will be governed by a constitution that upholds and sustains democracy as the chosen form of governance. For better or for worse, democracy is still the best form of governance. I have heard it said and believe it true that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest.
Without democracy there’s no genuine freedom to vote or freedom to choose.
Choose today which government you will serve. As for me and my house, I choose democracy. The Rev. Dr. Charles Mock is the interim pastor at Second Baptist Church in Erie.
These voters will pick the next president. They’re frightened about American democracy.
Zach Montellaro – January 17, 2024
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 12: Members of the U.S. National Guard arrive at the U.S. Capitol on January 12, 2021 in Washington, DC. The Pentagon is deploying as many as 15,000 National Guard troops to protect President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, amid fears of new violence. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
NAZARETH, Pennsylvania — Earlier this month, 15 voters in this closely contested area of Pennsylvania convened to discuss the state of American democracy.
To say they were discouraged as the 2024 election gets underway would be an understatement.
Three years after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, half of the voters in the focus group immediately started nodding when asked about the possibility of violence around the election.
Sitting around folding tables in an arts center just off of the small town’s Rockwell-esque Main Street, the voters painted a bleak picture over the next hour: A largely negative view on everything from trusting that their votes and their neighbors’ votes will be fairly counted, the speed it takes to get results and that those results will be accepted by the losers.
“I almost feel numb to it,” Jackie, a younger voter in the focus group, said of the violence on Jan. 6. “We’re going to have another election, could that happen again? I probably won’t even react the same, because I’m like ‘this is what happens.’ … Something’s probably going to happen.”
The focus group was brought together by Keep Our Republic, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that seeks to educate the public about strengthening the democratic system. It was convened in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, a swing county in one of the most important swing states in the nation.
The participants’ pessimism encapsulates one of the most pressing challenges in American politics right now — the loss of public trust in democracy itself and the electoral infrastructure that supports it. It is a problem that stretches far beyond just Nazareth; a Gallup poll released the day after the focus group found that a record low 28 percent of American adults are satisfied with the way democracy is working in this country.
Their distrust comes at a moment of intense polarization in America — and after former President Donald Trump has spread constant lies about the security of American elections in the three years since the Capitol riot.
“Everybody agreed on one thing: That there’s a very good chance there’s gonna be violence in the next election,” said former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), who sits on the state advisory board of Keep Our Republic. “There’s a heightened sense of, or concern about, civil disorder in the next election.”
The voters in the focus group are, in a literal sense, the mythological “Main Street” swing voters that politicians talk about in their stump speeches. Christopher Borick, a pollster and professor at nearby Muhlenberg College, selected them from his neighbors who lived on or near the town’s Main Street.
The group was overwhelmingly white, like both the town of Nazareth and Northampton County more broadly, but was otherwise emblematic of the voters who will decide 2024. They were all registered voters — and those who said how they voted in 2020 during the focus group seemed evenly divided between Trump and President Joe Biden.
Borick asked them to participate because he never saw a political sign pop up on their front lawns. POLITICO observed the focus group under the condition that voters would be identified by their first names only.
The focus group came just a day before Biden gave a speech near Valley Forge, about an hour’s drive away, on the state of the country’s democracy. There, the president cast the 2024 election as a referendum that will decide “whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause.”
But the focus group made clear that much of the distrust in the democratic system is rooted in the broader political polarization of the moment.
Borick often tried to steer the conversation away from the politics of the 2024 election to the mechanics of it, but participants consistently returned to their displeasure in another Biden-Trump rematch.
Almost to a person there was a wariness — and in some cases an outright distrust— of the democratic process in the county. Two voters, distinctly in the minority, repeated conspiracy theories popularized by Trump about mail ballots being used to steal the election from him. And roughly a third of participants said they believed unregistered people were casting ballots.
But more broadly, the participants were confused by the process, with complaints especially about the time it takes to know the winner. Pennsylvania did not allow for election officials to pre-process mail ballots in 2020 — a significant cause of the state’s elongated vote count — and is now an outlier state that hasn’t updated its laws to allow for it in 2024.
“America’s Got Talent can tally 50 million votes in 15 minutes,” Mike, a middle-aged engineer, joked during the focus group. “How can we not elect officials effectively, and not feel confident? Across the board, I don’t feel a lot of confidence here that all of our votes are getting counted properly.”
Northampton voters’ suspicions are fueled by a string of recent election administration failures. In recent municipal elections, election machines have faltered twice: In 2019, initial vote totals showed a candidate who would go on to narrowly win their contest only initially get less than 200 votes across some 55,000 ballots. And just last year, the printout of a person’s ballot would in some cases display the wrong selection on judicial retention elections.
In both cases, election officials stressed that the final outcomes were correct. A paper trail backup was used to count the votes in 2019, and election officials said last year’s erroneous printouts were due to human error when programming the machines and that they were able to correctly tally the final count as voters intended.
“If they tell me they’re working, I am hoping they’re working,” Jimmy, another participant in the group, said of the voting machines. “I try to be optimistic.”
But election officials and groups like Keep Our Republic face a tough climb ahead, even in counties that did not have demonstrable problems like Northampton did.
Keep Our Republic’s theory is that the group can reverse — or at least slow — the declining trust in the democratic process by working with local leaders in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The group has hosted legal education classes for attorneys in Pennsylvania about the state’s election laws, and meetings with local election officials and their community in Wisconsin. The goal of the group, in the words of the group’s executive director Ari Mittleman, is to educate the local “chattering class” — local attorneys, community leaders and regular voters.
“If you look at the climate, I think we should assume that it’s going to be incredibly, incredibly tumultuous,” Mittleman said in an interview over a plate of pierogi and beer at a local brewery. “All we can do is put up speed bumps. And our hypothesis is … who is turned to in these communities in purple America, in these three states? It’s not the president. It’s not the politicians.”
The hope, he said, is that instead of turning to national pundits or politicians, voters turn inward to their community with questions. The theory is that another parent on a child’s Little League team or a church elder would be a more effective messenger about the democratic process than a prominent politician or expert parachuting into the community. And when there are questions over things like election litigation, or problems that do occur, community leaders would be inherently more trustworthy.
“I’ll be the first to say, it’s a total hypothesis that might be proven wrong. People might tune into national news, talking heads and experts who’ve never been to Northampton County or Kent County, Michigan, or whatever,” Mittleman said. “But I have a feeling they’re going to go and say to people in their community, ‘What’s this all about?’”
Opinion: George Washington’s Farewell Address provides stark warning for Americans Today
Jeff Frenkiewich – January 17, 2024
On September 19, 1796, George Washington published his Farewell Address. In it, America’s “founding father” announced his retirement and explained his reasons for not seeking a third term as president. Nervous about the upcoming election that threatened to tear apart the country he loved, Washington also offered his fellow citizens, “some sentiments which are the result of much reflection.” With New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary less than a week away, and a divisive general election later this year, we would be wise to consider George Washington’s advice, as it is just as relevant today as it was 228 years ago.
Washington’s America, much like today, was a nation divided by regional differences and sectional interests. Our first president could have predicted a time when politicians openly call for a “national divorce” based on regional differences, and state legislatures would feel empowered to debate the idea of secession.
Rebutting those who look to divide America, Washington argues that a unified country brings us, “greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value!” He states, “your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.”
Washington acknowledges that regional differences exist between the North and South, East and West, but he is urging us to consider that the whole is greater than the sum of our parts; a break up of our union will only damage the liberty and prosperity that we have worked so hard to secure.
Washington is not shy in identifying the cause of animosity between regions of the United States – political parties. Washington states, “One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts.” Foreshadowing a media saturated with disinformation, Washington says, “You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart burnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.” Again, our unity provides us strength, and only those who wish to weaken the United States look to exploit the perceived differences amongst our people.
For Washington, the end result of political parties stoking regional divisions is despotism – a dictatorship. He states, “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty… It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.” In this election cycle, we have one candidate who actively created jealousies and false alarms when he tried to overturn the last presidential election with lies. He kindled animosity urging his followers to march on the Capitol as lawmakers were certifying that election, and he fomented an insurrection, watching idle as his followers attempted to overthrow our democracy. That same candidate, when asked if he would be a dictator if elected president, replied, “No, no, no, other than day one.” Most recently, this candidate endorsed the claim that a president, “could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.” We must take these threats to our democracy seriously.
In his Farewell Address, a letter that runs just over 6,000 words, George Washington uses the pronouns “you” or “your” 75 times (he used “yourselves” twice). Washington is speaking directly to us, the American people, making clear that despite the cult of personality that surrounded him, he was only one of many responsible for the nation’s welfare; it is “We the People” who are the stewards of our republic.
Washington knew that we would be challenged in preserving our Union; he knew that sectional divisions would promote a spirit of party and that these factions would produce a want-to-be despot surrounded by his own cult of personality. We the people are the only guards against such a dictatorship; we must heed Washington’s warning and do everything we can to preserve our union. We must protect our democracy from those who wish to put their own self-interests above the interests of our Union. Please vote in this upcoming election.
Jeff Frenkiewich teaches social studies at Milford Middle School and he is an adjunct professor of education at the University of New Hampshire. (The views expressed here represent those of the author, not Milford School District or UNH.)
Trump posts all-caps rant telling people they ‘JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH’ presidents who ‘CROSS THE LINE’
Grace Eliza Goodwin – January 18, 2024
Donald Trump said people “JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH” presidents who “CROSS THE LINE.”
He posted the lengthy all-caps rant on Truth Social early Thursday morning.
A DC appeals court is weighing whether Trump should have criminal immunity.
Donald Trump is once again claiming that presidents should have total immunity from any crimes they commit while in office — this time, with an all-caps rant posted to Truth Social.
And he says that people need to just accept it.
“A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY, WITHOUT WHICH IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION,” Trump wrote on his social-media platform in the early hours of Thursday morning. “ANY MISTAKE, EVEN IF WELL INTENDED, WOULD BE MET WITH ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT TERM END.
“EVEN EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’ MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD,” he continued.
Trump’s lawyers argue that unless Congress had already impeached and convicted him of a crime, then he is immune.
Trump’s lawyers previously argued the opposite in his 2021 impeachment case, saying that a former president should answer to the courts, not to Congress.
“A president of the United States must have full immunity, without which it would be impossible for him/her to properly function,” Trump said in a lengthy post on Truth Social in all caps. “Any mistake, even if well intended, would be met with almost certain indictment by the opposing party at term end. Even events that ‘cross the line’ must fall under total immunity, or it will be years of trauma trying to determine good from bad.”
“Sometimes you just have to live with ‘great but slightly imperfect,'” Trump added. “All presidents must have complete & total presidential immunity, or the authority & decisiveness of a president of the United States will be stripped & gone forever. Hopefully this will be an easy decision. God bless the Supreme Court!”
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is expected to soon issue a ruling in the case brought by Trump in his effort to dismiss the federal election interference case against him. He has claimed that he should be immune from prosecution because his efforts to overturn the 2020 election fell within his official duties as president.
The court could issue a ruling that decisively resolves the immunity question, thereby allowing the election interference trial, scheduled to begin March 4, to move forward.
The judges could also issue a narrower ruling that could leave some issues unresolved. The court could also simply rule that Trump had no right to bring an appeal at this stage of the litigation.
The former president has argued that his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and his involvement with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection were part of his presidential responsibilities. He has said that he was investigating election fraud as president at the time even though there was no evidence of widespread fraud.
Trump’s Truth Social post came after he sat in a New York courtroom Wednesday in a trial to determine damages in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him.
Taxes are the only way to get rid of excess money? “We ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” reads an open letter to the world leaders assembled in Davos, Switzerland, penned by 250 millionaires and billionaires who seem to be gluttons for punishment.
“We’d be proud to pay more,” declares their website, which is thusly named. “This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.” Signatories include Disney and Rockefeller heiresses, as well as actor Brian Cox.
Currently, nobody is forcing them to keep their earnings. They have full freedom to do whatever they’d like with their money—including giving it away to charity or coordinating with other similarly rich people to pool money together to tackle specific issues that might be too large for just one billionaire to handle.
“Inequality has reached a tipping point, and its cost to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk is severe—and growing every day,” reads the letter, which in no way substantiates how “inequality” has reached this “tipping point” or what exactly happens if inequality continues to grow. (Absolute wealth is infrequently mentioned in these types of calls to action. It’s always relative wealth, which allows signatories to ignore the vast standard-of-living gains that have been made over the last century.)
“If our elected officials refuse to address this concentration of money and power, the consequences will be dire,” warned Cox.
Speaking of concentrations of power: The impetus for the open letter is the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos, which is happening now and drawing leaders from across the globe—frequently arriving on their private jets. (“Private jet emissions quadrupled during Davos 2022,” reads a Guardian headline from last year, which put the total number of private jet flights at 1,040. Fascinating that those who are so concerned with climate change still feel comfortable flying private.)
The bright spot, amid the calls for coercive wealth redistribution, was undoubtedly the speech given by newly elected Argentine President Javier Milei, who is so full of fiery takes that he might just singe your eyebrows off.
“Today I am here to tell you that the Western world is in danger, and it’s in danger because those who are supposed to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism, and thereby to poverty,” said Milei. “Unfortunately, in recent decades, motivated by some well-meaning individuals willing to help others, and others motivated by the desire to belong to a privileged class, the main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism.”
But Argentina knows firsthand, he warned, just how bad of an economic situation can arise from state intervention: “We are here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world, rather they are the root cause.”
“Today’s states don’t need to directly control the means of production to control every aspect of the life of individuals,” he continued. “With tools like printing money, debt, subsidies, control of the interest rate, price controls, and regulations to correct the so-called market failures, they can control the lives and fates of millions of individuals.”
And, later on: “They say that capitalism is evil because it’s individualistic and that collectivism is good because it’s altruistic, of course with the money of others.”
You couldn’t engineer a better response to the taxation-hungry billionaires mentioned above if you tried. People are always free to give their own money away, but it takes a special breed to favor coercion.
“Do not be intimidated either by the political caste nor by parasites who live off the state. Do not surrender yourself to a political class that only wants to perpetuate itself in power and keep their privileges,” Milei added, closing with a forceful defense of value creators: “You [entrepreneurs] are social benefactors, you are heroes, you are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we have ever seen. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral.”
After all, “the state is not the solution, the state is the problem itself.”
It’s about time someone went into the lion’s den and forcefully defended free market capitalism.
Oh, and Milei? He flew commercial, saving taxpayers an estimated $392,000.
Hundreds of millionaires, billionaires urge politicians at Davos to tax their wealth
Darryl Coote – January 17, 2024
Actor Simon Pegg is among the millionaires urging world leaders congregating in Switzerland for The World Economic Forum to tax their wealth, warning of rising economic inequality. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI
Jan. 17 (UPI) — Nearly 270 millionaires and billionaires urged world leaders congregating in Switzerland for The World Economic Forum on Wednesday to tax their wealth, warning that if their elected representatives don’t address the drastic rise in economic inequality, the consequences will be “catastrophic.”
“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” the letter signed by 268 millionaires and billionaires from 17 countries and published Wednesday.
“This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”
The World Economic Forum is being held this week through Friday and will be attended by political leaders as well the world’s rich and powerful in the Swiss resort town of Davos where they will discuss global, regional and industry goals.
In their letter to the congregated world leaders, the hundreds of rich signatories said they are surprised their previous calls to be tax have yet to be heeded, stating they are not seeking drastic changes, only financial policies that will prevent society from further degradation.
Actor Brian Cox, who famously plays a wealthy media mogul in “Succession,” is among the real-life millionaires urging world leaders congregating in Switzerland for The World Economic Forum to tax their wealth amid rising economic inequality. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI
“Inequality has reached a tipping point, and its cost to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk is severe — and growing every day. In short, we need action now,” the letter states, adding that philanthropy and one-off donations will not fix the issue.
“Not only do we want to be taxed more but we believe we must be taxed more. We would be proud to live in countries where this is expected, and proud of elected leaders who build better futures.”
The letter’s signatories include filmmaker and Disney heir Abigail Disney, actors Simon Pegg and Brian Cox and Valerie Rockefeller of the U.S. Rockefeller family.
“We need our governments and our leaders to lead. And so we come to you again with the urgent request that you act — unilaterally at the national level, and together on the international stage,” they said.
The letter comes as a new poll published Wednesday shows that 74% of wealthy people support higher taxes on their fortunes, while 75% support the introduction of a 2% tax on billionaires, as proposed by the European Union Tax Observatory.
The poll by Survation on behalf of the nonpartisan Patriotic Millionaires surveyed more than 2,300 people from G20 countries who hold more than $1 million in investable assets, excluding their homes, making them the richest 5% of society.
A majority of respondents at 58% said they also supported the introduction of a 2% wealth tax for people with more than $10 million.
“Throughout history, pitchforks were the inevitable consequence of extreme discontent, but today, the masses are turning to populism, which is on the rise throughout the world,” Disney said in a statement.
“We already know the solution to protect our institutions and stabilize our country: it’s taxing extreme wealth. What we lack is the political fortitude to do it. Even millionaires and billionaires like me are saying it’s time. The elites gathering in Davos must take this crisis seriously.”
The World Economic Forum kicked off Monday, which is when Oxfam published its Inequality Inc. report that warned inequality has worsened since 2020, with the world’s richest five men seeing their fortunes double while the planet’s poorest 60% became poorer.
Cancer incidence rising among adults under 50, new report says, leaving doctors searching for answers
Jacqueline Howard, CNN – January 17, 2024
Josh Herting was on a business trip in Vermont when he received a phone call from his doctor that would change his life. On that cold winter day — a decade ago this week — his doctor told him that he had colon cancer.
After hanging up the phone, Herting wanted to keep working.
“I was very focused on work, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to finish this work trip, and then I’ll be home,’ ” he said. “I didn’t understand the seriousness of it.”
But moments later, he picked up the phone again and called his girlfriend, Amber. When he told her the news, she said it was time to come home.
Herting drove five hours to Boston. He arrived home at 2 o’clock in the morning and had medical appointments beginning six hours later.
“I was 34 years old, in what I would consider incredible health. I worked out five to six days a week, very low body fat, ate really healthy, and was in no pain or anything, but I noticed some clotted blood in my stool on a few different occasions,” said Herting, who is now 44 and married to Amber. He added that his father was diagnosed with stage I colon cancer in his early 50s but said he had no other known family history of the disease.
Herting’s journey of battling early-onset cancer is an experience shared by a growing proportion of young adults.
Cancer patients are “increasingly shifting from older to middle-aged individuals,” according to a report released Wednesday by the American Cancer Society.
Among adults 65 and older, adults 50 to 64 and those younger than 50, “people aged younger than 50 years were the only one of these three age groups to experience an increase in overall cancer incidence” from 1995 to 2020, says the report, which was published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
Even though the overall US population is aging, “we’re seeing a movement of cancer diagnosis into younger folks, despite the fact that there are more people that are in the older populations,” said Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer for the American Cancer Society.
“So cancer diagnoses are shifting earlier,” he said. “There’s something going on here.”
Herting’s diagnosis came after a gastroenterologist recommended that he get a colonoscopy due to the blood in his stool.
Herting had surgery, about a week and a half after his diagnosis, to remove the tumor and a foot of his colon. After the surgery and further testing, he said, his medical team at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute estimated that the cancer had been in his system for about eight years and was stage IIIA. Stage III colon cancers are likely to have spread to nearby lymph nodes, but they have not yet spread to other parts of the body, according to the American Cancer Society.
Herting then had chemotherapy, and after five years of monitoring his recovery with CAT scans and blood work, his team declared him cancer-free. Amber remained by his side during his cancer treatments.
Josh Herting says he hopes cancer screenings are less intrusive by the time his children are grown. – Courtesy Josh Herting
“But you’re never the same person,” Herting said of his cancer journey. He still has some fatigue and numbness in his fingertips and toes from chemotherapy, and he gets colonoscopies every three years – unless his doctor says otherwise – to make sure the cancer has not returned.
“Colonoscopies – I’ve had way more than I’d like to admit – they’re not fun. But at the same time, colon cancer and chemotherapy are a million times worse,” Herting said.
“There’s this stigma about colonoscopy. For people that have never had cancer, it’s kind of this taboo topic, and you’ve got to go through this process to prep for it, and that’s not fun,” he said. “But I can tell you firsthand, it is definitely worth doing.”
Among adults younger than 50, colorectal cancer has become the leading cause of cancer death in men and the second-leading cause in women, behind breast cancer, the new report says. In the late 1990s, it ranked fourth in both men and women younger than 50.
“It’s just different now than it used to be,” Dahut said. “This young adult trend is the thing that has me scratching my head the most.”
‘A call to arms’
Even though the rising cancer incidence among younger adults has been “poorly understood” and raises more questions than answers, Dr. Scott Kopetz says he has seen the trend firsthand at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
“In our clinical practice, we’re seeing patients presenting younger and presenting before ages of screening for many cancers, so it’s certainly a continued concerning trend in the field,” said Kopetz, an associate vice president for translational integration and a professor of gastrointestinal medical oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
“When one looks at the totality of the data, it really is a call to arms to really better understand the changing epidemiology of cancer,” Kopetz said.
“Colorectal is the most prominent one, but we’re also seeing that in cancers that don’t have as clear-cut screening guidelines – so things like pancreas, gastric cancer – are also seeing trends towards earlier ages,” he said. “Pancreas cancer, and to some extent gastric cancer as well, are ones that we just don’t have good screening methodologies currently, but we’re seeing a lot of the same trends occurring.”
Kopetz worries that the rising incidence of cancer in young adults will grow into a rising incidence of cancer in older age.
“There’s a concern that, as the population ages, that what is currently an increase in young-onset disease will turn into increases in mid-onset and late-onset disease as well. So if the epidemiology of this is changing, this could be the beginning of a wave of increased cancers that may persist or may continue to increase over the next decades,” he said.
The new American Cancer Society report projects that there will be about 2 million new cancer cases in the United States this year, equivalent to more than 5,000 diagnoses each day. It’s also projected that there will be about 600,000 cancer deaths in 2024.
“This is a call to better understand what’s driving these increases,” Kopetz said. “And a call also to accelerate efforts for early detection approaches that may provide screening for multiple different tumor types.”
Herting, who now has a 7-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter, hopes that when his children are young adults, screening for cancers will be less intrusive, especially for colorectal cancer.
“I hope for the future that it’s made to be less invasive,” Herting said. “If we could find a way to make it less invasive, more and more people would be willing to do it, and most likely insurance might be more apt to cover it for more people.”
Other data has showed that the share of colorectal cancer diagnoses among adults younger than 55 in the US has been rising since the 1990s. Signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer include changes in bowel habits, rectal bleeding or blood in the stool, cramping or abdominal pain, weakness and fatigue, and unexplained weight loss.
A report released last year by the American Cancer Society showed that the proportion of colorectal cancer cases among adults younger than 55 increased from 11% in 1995 to 20% in 2019. Yet the factors driving that rise remain a mystery.
Some of the things known to raise anyone’s risk of colorectal cancer are having a family history of the disease, having a certain genetic mutation, drinking too much alcohol, smoking cigarettes or having obesity.
“People point to exercise, diet, types of food,” Dahut said, but there’s probably more than just one cause — and sometimes, younger people diagnosed with early-onset colorectal cancer are otherwise healthy, with a history of working out and eating healthy diets, and don’t have a family history or genetic mutations.
Some scientists have been looking into whether a woman’s obesity during pregnancy may be associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer in her offspring and whether that association could contribute to increasing incidence rates in younger adults — but more research is needed.
“The continuous sharp increase in colorectal cancer in younger Americans is alarming,” Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president of surveillance and health equity science at the American Cancer Society and senior author of the new report, said in a news release.
“We need to halt and reverse this trend by increasing uptake of screening, including awareness of non-invasive stool tests with follow-up care, in people 45-49 years. Up to one-third of people diagnosed before 50 have a family history or genetic predisposition and should begin screening before age 45 years,” Jemal said. “We also need to increase investment to elucidate the underlying reasons for the rising incidence to uncover additional preventive measures.”
Cases climb as deaths decline
Overall, the number of people dying from cancer in the United States continues to decline, but the incidence rates for several types of cancer — including breast, prostate, uterine corpus, pancreas, oropharynx, liver in women, kidney, melanoma, and colorectal and cervical in young adults — remain on the rise, according to the new American Cancer Society report.
Cancer deaths continued to fall in the United States through 2021, leading to an overall drop of 33% since 1991, the report says, largely due to fewer people smoking, more people detecting cancer early and major improvements in treatments for cancer, such as immunotherapies and targeted therapies.
“We’re encouraged by the steady drop in cancer mortality as a result of less smoking, earlier detection for some cancers, and improved treatment,” Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the report, said in a news release. “But as a nation, we’ve dropped the ball on cancer prevention as incidence continues to increase for many common cancers — like breast, prostate, and endometrial, as well as colorectal and cervical cancers in some young adults.”
The report adds that “progress is lagging in cancer prevention,” as six of the top 10 cancers in the United States have had increases in incidence.
The cancers with red bars are increasing. – American Cancer Society
Among the top 10 cancers, based on cases projected in 2024, those that are increasing are breast, prostate, melanoma of the skin, kidney and renal, uterine corpus and pancreas.
The new report says that incidence rates increased from 2015 through 2019 by about 1% each year for breast, pancreas and uterine cancers and by up to 3% annually for prostate, liver in women, kidney and HPV-associated oral cancers and melanoma. Incidence rates also increased up to 2% annually for cervical cancers in ages 30 to 44 and colorectal cancers in adults younger than 55, according to the report.
The report also highlights that racial disparities in cancer incidence and deaths continue, as people of color still face increased risks, and the report says this has “hampered” progress.
“Progress is also hampered by wide persistent cancer disparities; compared to White people, mortality rates are two‐fold higher for prostate, stomach and uterine corpus cancers in Black people and for liver, stomach, and kidney cancers in Native American people,” according to the report. “Continued national progress will require increased investment in cancer prevention and access to equitable treatment, especially among American Indian and Alaska Native and Black individuals.”
Colon cancer is killing more younger men and women than ever, new report finds
Erika Edwards and Jessica Herzberg – January 17, 2024
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Colorectal cancer is the deadliest cancer for men under age 50 — and the second deadliest cancer among women in the same age group, behind breast cancer.
The incidence of colon cancer has been rising for at least the last two decades, when it was the fourth-leading cause of cancer death for both men and women under 50.
Among men and women of all ages, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death. Prostate cancer is second for men, and breast cancer is second for women. Colorectal cancer is third, overall, for both sexes.
The diagnosis of late-stage colorectal cancer was a shock to Sierra Fuller, 33. (Courtesy Sierra Fuller )
Cancer is traditionally a disease among the elderly, although the percentage of new cases found in people 65 and older has fallen from 61% in 1995 to 58%. The decrease, attributed mainly to drops in prostate and smoking-related cancers, has occurred even though the proportion of people in that age group has grown from 13% to 17% in the general population.
In contrast, new diagnoses among adults ages 50 to 64 have increased since 1995, from 25% to 30%.
Rates of breast and endometrial cancer, as well as mouth and throat disease, have been on the rise. The report did not break down those diagnoses by age.
The findings reflect what cancer doctors have observed for years.
“For a couple of decades now, we have been noticing that the patients coming into our clinic seem to be younger and younger,” said Dr. Kimmie Ng, the director of the Young Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “What this report now cements for us is that these trends are real.” Ng was not involved with the new report.
Dr. William Dahut, the chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society, said younger people tend to be diagnosed at later stages, when the cancer is more aggressive.
“So it’s not only having a colorectal cancer — it’s colorectal cancer that’s more difficult to treat, which is why we’re seeing these changes in mortality,” Dahut said.
The diagnosis of late-stage colorectal cancer was a shock to Sierra Fuller, 33, of Acton, Massachusetts, just outside Boston.
It was around Christmas 2021 when Fuller noticed blood in her stool when she went to the bathroom. With no family history of colon cancer, she figured the problem was most likely an annoying hemorrhoid.
Weeks later, the blood deposits worsened, and she started having abdominal pain.
Sierra Fuller and her husband. (Courtesy Sierra Fuller)
“It was a month from when I got the symptoms to when I sought help, and I realize that I was pushing it,” she said. Tests revealed she had stage 3b colorectal cancer. That usually means the cancer has started to spread through the colon and possibly to nearby lymph nodes, but not any farther, according to the American Cancer Society.
It was a blow to Fuller and her husband, who had just started talking about whether to try for a baby. They decided to freeze embryos before Fuller’s treatment protocol, which would include radiation, chemotherapy and surgery.
It is an example of how cancer uniquely affects young patients.
Sierra Fuller. (Courtesy Sierra Fuller)
“People younger than 65 are less likely to have health insurance and more likely to be juggling family and careers,” Dahut said in a news release announcing the new report. “Also, men and women diagnosed younger have a longer life expectancy in which to suffer treatment-related side effects, such as second cancers.”
Just over a year later, Fuller is cancer-free but must get regular scans and blood tests. She said that she feels good but that she is “always going to have that worry” that her cancer will return.
“If I have to go through this again, whatever that looks like, I’ll cross that bridge if it comes,” Fuller said.
Why is cancer rising in younger people?
Doctors do not know why cancer, especially colorectal cancer, is becoming more common in younger adults. Some hypothesize that increasing obesity rates, sedentary behavior and unhealthy diets could be playing roles.
“But honestly, the patients we’re seeing in clinic often do not fit that profile,” said Dr. Kimmie Ng, the director of the Young Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “A lot of them are triathletes and marathon runners. I mean, super healthy people.”
Ng suspects something in the environment may be behind the rise.
“What we suspect may be happening is that whatever combination of environmental factors is responsible for this, that it’s likely changing our microbiomes or our immune systems, leading us to become more susceptible to these cancers at a younger age,” Ng said.
How to protect against colorectal cancer
Colonoscopy screening is generally recommended starting at age 45. People with family histories of the illness may need to begin screening earlier.
A person whose parent was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 50, for example, would need to start screening at age 40, Dahut said.
However, only about a third of people diagnosed with colon cancer have some kind of family history or predisposition to the cancer.
Maintaining a healthy body weight and minimizing red meat in the diet may help reduce risk, Ng said.
Signs that could signal a problem, Ng said, include blood in the stool, abdominal pain, unintentional weight loss and changes in bowel habits.
“If it’s getting worse, if it’s not going away, you know, that’s when somebody really needs to start paying attention and talk to their primary care doctor about what’s happening,” she said.
MSNBC’s decision not to air Trump’s Iowa victory speech live ignites right-wing firestorm
Christopher Wiggins – January 17, 2024
Crybaby Donald J Trump Sane Person Rachel Maddow
Conservatives are seething online after discovering that MSNBC chose to protect its viewers from former President Donald Trump’s penchant for lying in front of cameras when the network did not broadcast his victory speech after Trump won the Iowa caucuses on Monday. Rachel Maddow announced the decision during MSNBC’s special broadcast covering the vote results.
Maddow explained the rationale behind this editorial choice.
“We will let you know if there’s any news made in that speech if there’s anything noteworthy, something substantive and important,” Maddow said. “There is a reason that we and other news organizations have generally stopped giving an unfiltered live platform to remarks by former President Trump. It is not out of spite. It is not a decision that we relish. It is a decision that we regularly revisit, and honestly, earnestly, it is not an easy decision. But there is a cost to us as a news organization of knowingly broadcasting untrue things that is a fundamental truth of our business and who we are.”
MSNBC ‘s decision was met with sharp criticism from right-wing influencers and commentators. One conservative influencer expressed their displeasure on X, formerly Twitter, remarking, “WOW—Rachel Maddow admits on air that they’ve decided to censor the leading Republican candidate’s victory speech and will decide what they want the public to know later. This why no one trusts the media—their tactics are exactly like 1984.”
Mercedes Schlapp, a well-known figure in conservative circles, joined in the criticism. She accused Maddow of engaging in “Marxist propaganda” by choosing not to broadcast Trump’s speech live, accusing the anchor of censoring a political candidate.
The situation highlights the ongoing challenges media outlets face in maintaining journalistic standards while addressing the diverse expectations of a politically polarized audience at a time when one candidate has proven himself to be a serial liar.
According to the Washington Post, Trump told more than 30,000 lies while in office. He has told countless more since he left office in 2021.
In contrast to MSNBC’s decision, CNN did carry Trump’s speech live for a time but chose to cut the speech short and return to analysis.
Trump solidified his position as the GOP frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, with his rivals coming in far behind. The caucuses, which saw the lowest turnout in a quarter-century, delivered Trump a roughly 30-point win, surpassing the previous record for a contested Iowa Republican caucus, the Associated Press reports.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished a distant second ahead of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. While Trump’s victory strengthens his grip on the GOP nomination, DeSantis and Haley face an uphill battle to become his strongest challengers.
During the evening’s coverage, CNN anchor Jake Tapper highlighted a striking entrance poll in Iowa, which found that a majority of Republicans did not believe that President Biden had been legitimately elected, Forbesreports. Tapper noted that while this belief was false, it demonstrated the extent to which Trump had reshaped the Republican Party and convinced Republicans of his ideology, “even when empirically false.”
The Iowa results set the stage for the upcoming New Hampshire primary, where a shrinking field will compete to gain momentum in the race for the Republican nomination.
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