Sunday Gazette Mail January 16, 2022
What’s Wrong With You Joe Manchin ?
Psst: You really want to know why Manchin and Sinema came out against voting rights?
Robert Reich January 21, 2022
What can possibly explain Manchin’s and Sinema’s votes against voting rights this week? Why did they create a false narrative that the legislation had to be “bipartisan” when everyone — themselves included — knew bipartisanship was impossible? Why did they say they couldn’t support changing the filibuster rules when only last month they voted for an exception to the filibuster that allowed debt ceiling legislation to pass with only Democratic votes? Why did they co-sponsor voting rights legislation and then vote to kill the very same legislation? Why did Manchin vote for the “talking filibuster” in 2011 yet vote against it now?
I’ve suggested that the answer to all these questions could be found in the giant wads of corporate cash flowing into their campaign coffers. But as I’ve watched the two senators closely and spoken about them with members of Congress as well as Hill staff, I’ve come to the conclusion this isn’t it – or at least not all of it.
The corporate money explanation leaves out the single biggest factor affecting almost all national politicians I’ve dealt with: Big egos. Manchin’s and Sinema’s are now among the biggest.
Before February of last year, almost no one outside West Virginia had ever heard of Joe Manchin, and almost no one outside of Arizona (and probably few within the state) had ever heard of Kyrsten Sinema. Now, they’re notorious. They’re Washington celebrities. Their photos grace every major news outlet in America.
This sort of attention is addictive. Once it seeps into the bloodstream, it becomes an all-consuming force. I’ve known politicians who have become permanently and irrevocably intoxicated by it.
I’m not talking simply about power, although that’s certainly part of it. I’m talking about narcissism – the primal force driving so much of modern America, but whose essence is concentrated in certain places such as Wall Street, Hollywood, and the United States Senate.
Once addicted, the pathologically narcissistic politician can become petty in the extreme, taking every slight as a deep personal insult. I’m told that Manchin asked Biden’s staff not to blame him for the delay of “Build Back Better,” and was then infuriated when Biden suggested Manchin bore some of the responsibility. “You want to understand why Manchin stabbed Biden in the back on voting rights?” one House member told me this week. “It’s because he’s so pissed off at Ron Klain [Biden’s chief of staff].” I’m also told that if Biden wants to restart negotiations with Manchin on “Build Back Better,” he’s got to rename the package because Manchin is so angry he won’t vote for anything going by that name.
Paradoxically, a large enough slight played out on the national stage can also enthrall a pathologically narcissistic politician. Several people on the Hill who have watched Sinema at close range since she became a senator tell me she relished all the negative attention she got when she gave her very theatrical thumbs down to increasing the minimum wage, and since then has thrilled at her burgeoning role as a spoiler.
The Senate is not the world’s greatest deliberative body, but it is the world’s greatest stew of egos battling for attention. Every senator believes he or she has what it takes to be president. Most believe they’re far more competent than whoever occupies the Oval Office. Yet out of one hundred senators, only a handful are chosen for interviews on the Sunday talk shows, only one or two are lampooned on SNL, and very few get a realistic shot at the presidency. The result is intense competition for national attention.
Again and again, I’ve watched worthy legislation sink because particular senators didn’t feel they were getting enough credit, or enough personal attention from a president, or insufficient press attention, or unwanted press attention, or that another senator (sometimes from the same party) was getting too much attention.
Barack Obama didn’t enjoy glad-handing senators, even though he got to the presidency through that august body — which proved a huge handicap when it came to legislating. Bill Clinton would talk to senators (or, for that matter, to almost anyone else) all the time, but Clinton had too much confidence in his own charm to give individual senators the ego boosts they wanted — thereby rubbing the most narcissistic of them the wrong way (Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey voted against Clinton’s healthcare plan because he wanted more attention; New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was lukewarm on it because he felt he wasn’t adequately consulted).
Some senators get so whacky in the national limelight that they can’t function without it. Trump had that effect on Republicans. Before Trump, Lindsay Graham was almost a normal human being. Then Trump directed a huge amp of national attention Graham’s way — transmogrifying Graham into a bizarro creature who’d say anything Trump wanted in order to keep the attention coming.
Not all senators are egomaniacs, of course. I had the good fortune to work closely with the late Paul Wellstone, who was always eager to give others credit while being the first to take any blame. I know several now serving who have their egos firmly in check — including Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. Most of the rest lie on an ego spectrum ranging from inflated to pathological.
Manchin and Sinema are near the extreme. As I said, neither had much national attention prior to the last February. But once they got a taste of the national spotlight, they couldn’t let go. They must have figured that the only way they could keep the spotlight focused on themselves was by threatening to do what they finally did this week — shafting American democracy.
Republicans in 7 states submitted documents falsely certifying the election for Trump.
Insider
Republicans in 7 states submitted documents falsely certifying the election for Trump. Most State Attorneys General are investigating if it constitutes fraud.
Sarah Al-Arshani January 21, 2022
- A watchdog group found Republicans in 7 states tried to falsely certify the election in favor of Donald Trump.
- Groups in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin forged documents.
- Attorneys General in three of those states told Insider how they’re dealing with it.
Some Attorneys General in states where illegitimate electors tried to falsify documents saying Donald Trump won the majority of votes are investigating and considering charges.
Republican supporters of Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin submitted documents to Congress falsely claiming Trump won the states after the majority of votes actually went to Joe Biden, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight in March 2021.
American Oversight requested all 2020 certificates of electoral votes that weren’t already published in the 2020 Electoral College Results.
“The coordinated, multi-state effort to cast doubt on the 2020 election and undermine the electoral vote process tragically led to the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in which a pro-Trump mob stormed the building and sought to physically block the congressional certification of each state’s real Electoral College votes,” American Oversight said of its findings.
Insider reached out to Attorneys General in each of the states seeking comment on the findings. In Nevada, Attorney General Aaron Ford said his office can’t “confirm or deny the existence of an investigation,” but said the report is on “our radar, and we take seriously any efforts to rob Nevadans of their votes.”
“There has been a sustained effort to invalidate the 2020 election and to downplay the shocking actions that took place afterward. My office cannot and will not accept any efforts to overturn a free and fair election. Voting rights are fundamental to our democratic republic, and we will continue to protect them,” Ford said in a statement.
New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas told Insider the incident is being reviewed.
“Election laws are the foundation of our democracy and must be respected. While review under state law is ongoing, we have referred this matter to the appropriate federal law enforcement authorities and will provide any assistance they deem necessary,” Balderas said.
In a statement to Insider, Pennsylvania Attorney General Joshua Shapiro’s office said while the “rhetoric and policy were intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy” after review, they don’t “believe the incident meets the legal standards for forgery.”
“Pennsylvania Republicans made no secret during the 2020 election certification process that they planned to nominate their own slate of electors and submit their own ballots to perpetuate the Big Lie,” the office said. “These “fake ballots” included a conditional clause that they were only to be used if a court overturned the results in Pennsylvania — which did not happen.”
Attorneys General in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Assistant District Attorney Matthew Westphal said he’d consulted Attorney General Josh Kaul over whether or not to investigate the 10 Republicans who illegitimately certified the vote for Trump.
Westphal said Kaul’s office or federal prosecutors should handle an investigation. The Journal reported that Kaul previously said the matter should be investigated at the federal level.
In Michigan, Attorney General Dana Nessel told MSNBC: “Under state law, I think clearly you have forgery of a public record, which is a 14-year offense, and election law forgery, which is a five-year offense.”
American Oversight’s findings come before reports in September 2021 that attorney John Eastman had written a six-page memo that was presented to Trump’s legal team just days before the Capitol riot detailing a plan for overturning the 2020 election. That memo included reference to the forged certificates.
On Thursday, CNN and The Washington Post reported members of Trump’s inner circle, including Rudy Giuliani, coordinated the illegitimate elector scheme.
Giuliani has already been subpoenaed by the select House committee investigating the January 6 riot. The select committee is also looking deeper into the illegitimate elector scheme and the role Trump and his affiliates played in it, Politico reported.
“We want to look at the fraudulent activity that was contained in the preparation of these fake Electoral College certificates,” Rep. Jamie Raskin told Politico. “And then we want to look to see to what extent this was part of a comprehensive plan to overthrow the 2020 election.”
Column: Kevin McCarthy is a spineless noodle who nonetheless owes us the truth
Los Angeles Times – Opinion
Column: Kevin McCarthy is a spineless noodle who nonetheless owes us the truth
By Robin Abcarian January 16, 2022
Now that Devin Nunes has slunk off to the Trump-a-verse, is there anyone in Washington who is as transparently cynical, cowardly and dishonest as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the Republican shape-shifter from Central California?
Here is a man who blamed then-President Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection … before changing his mind.
A man who was for a bipartisan investigation of the horrible events of that day … before he was against it.
A man who said he was willing to testify before an investigative committee about his conversations with Trump on that terrible day … before he decided not to.
On Thursday, CNN’s Don Lemon described “the duality of Kevin McCarthy — that’s a kind way of putting it.”
And now, because McCarthy is desperately trying to stay on Trump’s right side and become House speaker, McCarthy is threatening to retaliate against House Democrats for pursuing the crucial Jan. 6 investigation, for doing their jobs.
If Republicans do retake the House in November and McCarthy ascends to the top post, he said last week that he would strip Democratic Reps. Adam B. Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar of their committee assignments.
Why?
Because he would rather retaliate than legislate.
Because Democrats stripped two far-right conspiracy-addled GOP representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, of their committee assignments for truly despicable behavior.
It wasn’t just Democrats who were repulsed; 11 Republicans joined House Democrats in February to punish Greene for, among other things, supporting violent threats against Democrats. Two Republicans joined Democrats in November in censuring Gosar for promulgating a video depicting him murdering Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) by plunging a sword into her neck.
And, of course, in July, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat two of McCarthy’s five picks for the House Jan. 6 committee. She accepted three Republicans and nixed two, the unbearable Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana.
McCarthy, it should be noted, then picked up his marbles and went home. He withdrew from the process entirely and refused to appoint any of his members. In response, Pelosi invited onto the committee two Republicans who have not been cowed by Trump, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
Pelosi, by the way, was not just within her rights as speaker to refuse to seat Jordan and Banks. She essentially had no choice.
Jordan and Banks have both demonstrated zero interest in sussing out the truth about Jan. 6. Both were vocal critics of the committee’s very existence. Nominating them in the first place was simply further proof of McCarthy’s bad faith, fealty to Trump and obstructionism.
Jordan beclowned himself every time he opened his mouth during the House Intelligence Committee’s hearings on the first Trump impeachment. For his performance, Trump awarded him the Medal of Freedom.
But more important, Jordan has no business on the committee because he is a material witness to the events of Jan. 6. And so, for that matter, is McCarthy. Both have refused the committee’s invitation to testify, speciously claiming they have no relevant information to share — as if it’s up to them to make that judgment — that the investigation is an exercise in Democratic partisanship and serves no legitimate legislative purpose.
Contrast that to the House Republicans’ Benghazi hearings spectacle. Recall that McCarthy infamously admitted on national television that they were nothing more than political theater designed to dirty up Hillary Clinton. “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” he told Sean Hannity. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”
The refusal of McCarthy and Jordan to cooperate puts committee members in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to issue subpoenas to their own colleagues.
“I wish that he were a brave and honorable man,” Cheney said ruefully of McCarthy last week in an interview with CNN. “He’s clearly trying to cover up what happened. He has an obligation to come forward and we’ll get to the truth.”
At her weekly news conference, Pelosi said McCarthy “has an obligation, as we seek the truth, to help with that.”
Schiff, who used to be friendly with McCarthy, did not mince words: “By his own admission, Kevin McCarthy is a key witness to the events of January 6 and Trump’s response to the violence,” he said by email Friday. “Nevertheless, it should come as no surprise that McCarthy is refusing to cooperate with the Select Committee’s investigation, because McCarthy always puts Donald Trump’s interests ahead of the country. And from the very beginning, Trump and McCarthy have vigorously opposed any effort at accountability.”
Thankfully, the truth about Jan. 6 is already emerging in ways that are beyond the control of Trump lackeys like McCarthy and Jordan.
On Thursday, the Justice Department announced that 11 people, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, had been arrested and charged with “seditious conspiracy” in connection with the plot to invade the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying President Biden’s victory.
Contrary to sweeping Republican efforts to downplay the attempted coup, this was not a spontaneous act by dupes who let Trump goad them into criminal behavior.
According to the federal grand jury indictment, the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia group that recruited former and current military and law enforcement personnel, conspired to violently thwart the peaceful transfer of power.
The defendants, according to the Justice Department, organized into “teams that were prepared and willing to use force and to transport firearms and ammunition into Washington, D.C.”
The indictment quoted many of the Oath Keepers’ internal communications, many about weapons being stashed just outside Washington. “It will be a bloody and desperate fight,” wrote Rhodes in one. “We are going to have a fight. That can’t be avoided.”
There is no question now, a year later, that anti-democratic conspirators armed to the teeth were prepared to do violence to overturn the results of a fair and fraud-free election.
The fact that they failed does not make the attempt any less grave.
McCarthy needs to tell Americans what he knew, when he knew it and exactly what Trump told him on Jan. 6.
Otherwise, he has made himself into a confederate of the insurrectionists and fools who, as Biden so memorably put it, held a dagger to the throat of our democracy that day.
Abcarian: The brazen, mind-boggling Republican revisionism regarding Jan. 6? It never ends. January 5, 2022
Abcarian: A warning from Adam Schiff: Trump’s assault on democracy is far from over. October 10, 2021
Letters to the Editor: Kevin McCarthy is the stuff dictatorships are made of
Los Angeles Times
Letters to the Editor: Kevin McCarthy is the stuff dictatorships are made of
January 21, 2022
To the editor: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), about whom columnist Robin Abcarian writes so tellingly, is a poster boy for the first law of dictatorial government.
That law is that the first loyalty is not to good government, to a constitution or to the people, but rather to the “dear leader” — in this case former President Trump. It is now evident that not just McCarthy but also the entire Republican Party has adopted this practice and is no longer a political party in the American tradition.
We should understand these facts if we are to save our democracy come voting time.
Thomas Alden, Palm Desert-
..
To the editor: McCarthy will never be speaker of the House. He committed the cardinal sin of speaking against the former Oval Office occupant and then sought atonement.
The problem is that the former occupant has a long memory and never forgives a slight. Indeed, he obsesses about how he can get revenge.
If — and here I don’t concede anything — the party out of power is restored in 2022, look for Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the current House minority whip, to get the blessing. He lurks in the corners like a reptile waiting to strike its oblivious prey.
McCarthy, with his blind ambition, doesn’t see the danger.
Melissa Verdugo, Rancho Palos Verdes
..
To the editor: My thanks to Abcarian for calling out McCarthy as a spineless liar. But what’s the point? You can’t shame someone who has no sense of shame.
He and a majority of his Republican colleagues have embraced former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway’s world of “alternative facts.” They are making voting harder for people they don’t like, and making sure the votes are counted by people they do like.
I believe American democracy is in for a rough patch.
Bart Braverman, Indio
Joe Biden is not failing or flailing
CNN
Joe Biden is not failing or flailing
By Kirsten Powers, CNN Senior Political Analyst January 21, 2022
Kirsten Powers is a CNN senior political analyst and NYT bestselling author of “Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts.” The views expressed in this commentary are her own.
(CNN)Here’s an apparently unpopular opinion: Joe Biden is not failing or flailing. His presidency is not in peril. It’s hard to see this through the blizzard of over-the-top headlines such as, “Biden Can Still Rescue His Presidency,” “How the Biden Administration Lost Its Way” and “Biden’s Epic Failures.”
Kirsten Powers: Everyone needs to take a breath: It’s been one year. These headlines could just as easily read, “Joe Biden Fails to Fix Every Problem in the World in 365 days.”
What drives much of the “presidency in peril” coverage is Biden’s approval ratings. CNN’s poll of polls, released Thursday, found that 41% of Americans approve of the way Joe Biden is handling his job while 54% disapprove.
Low approval ratings are used as a proxy by various political and ideological factions to argue that the president needs to do more of what they want and if he doesn’t, he won’t get reelected. (Spoiler alert: nobody will cast their vote in three years based on how they feel today about Biden). Progressives argue ratings are low because Biden is not progressive enough and moderates and “Never Trump” Republicans argue it’s because Biden is too liberal. It’s become conventional wisdom in the media that Biden’s approval ratings started dropping because of how he handled the Afghanistan withdrawal. But Gallup’s senior editor Jeff Jones told Politico in November that his declining poll numbers began before that, during the Delta Covid-19 variant surge. The fact is, approval ratings are most closely tied to how people feel about their day-to-day lives. Americans are understandably fatigued as we enter the third year of the pandemic and, until the US gets back to some semblance of normal, we should expect Biden’s approval ratings to reflect that frustration. Moreover, gas prices are high and research has shown that presidential approval ratings often track with gas prices, even though the president’s power over these prices is limited. The economic news is mostly good for Biden — unemployment is down and wages are up — but inflation is high and rising. Taken together, this means the day-to-day life of many Americans feels really hard.
What Trump’s loss at the Supreme Court means for the future of democracy
It doesn’t help that the media reinforce the idea that Biden is somehow failing because he hasn’t solved issues that have bedeviled his predecessors over longer periods of time. The New York Times dinged Biden this week, noting that, “The president has not yet succeeded in meeting his own goals for combating climate change,…[hasn’t] delivered on his broader promise for a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented Americans” and has failed “on the central promise he made during the 2020 campaign — to ‘shut down’ the pandemic…”This is bananas, but it’s a fairly typical roundup of the disconnected-from-reality analysis of Biden’s first year.No president has been able to achieve a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, including presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who were not able to accomplish immigration reform over an eight-year period each. Biden should not be expected to do what they couldn’t, in a single year, in the middle of a global pandemic.Speaking of the pandemic, it’s hard to shut it down when conservative leaders across the country are committed to making sure that doesn’t happen. Biden, for his part, signed into law the historic $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to ensure broad distribution of vaccines. But he can’t force people to get vaccinated. He did issue vaccination and testing mandates for businesses, but those were rebuked by the Supreme Court. He also isn’t responsible for conservative disinformation and efforts to thwart measures to protect people from Covid by Republican elected officials, which is the primary reason the US is still struggling with the virus in a way that some other industrialized countries aren’t.
Bernie Sanders: The time for Senate talk is over. We need to vote
What about Biden’s alleged lack of success in solving the climate change issue in a single year? Biden has taken many steps that are within his authority on climate change such as rejoining the Paris climate accord, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and undoing many Trump-era anti-climate executive orders. He has pushed climate priorities in his Build Back Better bill which anyone who is sentient knows hasn’t passed because Biden enjoys the slimmest of majorities in the Senate and he couldn’t win over Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. There is also the fact that Republicans have zero interest in this bill. Republican obstructionism is not Biden’s fault. Biden is not a magician; he is president. He can’t shout “abracadabra” and produce 50 Democratic senators who will support every element of his agenda. There aren’t 10 GOP senators to pull out of a hat to back common sense and patriotic priorities like protecting voting rights. “But he didn’t end the filibuster for voting rights,” is the complaint. Right, because he doesn’t have the votes.
This doesn’t mean that Biden couldn’t have done some things better in his first year. The administration was caught flat-footed by the Omicron variant and failed to deliver on promises to make testing easier and more available to Americans. Biden should have called Sen. Manchin’s bluff on Build Back Better a long time ago and struck a deal if there was one to be had (which is debatable). If Manchin wouldn’t strike a deal, Biden should have moved on to something more achievable like breaking the bill into smaller parts (something he said in his press conference this week he is open to doing).Get our free weekly newsletter
Ultimately, we need to remember that Biden entered the White House during one of the most difficult periods this country has ever faced. “The worst pandemic in 100 years. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” he said during his campaign. “The most compelling call for racial justice since the 60’s. And the undeniable realities and accelerating threats of climate change.” We can now add to that list an attack on democracy by one of the two major political parties. It seems that whatever Biden’s flaws, the country is in a better place than it was when he took office, something that was not a given considering the challenges he was up against. Like all presidents, he is clearly absorbing the lessons of the first year and recalibrating for the next.
Opinion: What authoritarianism would look like in America
The Des Moines Register
Opinion: What authoritarianism would look like in America
Jim Chrisinger January 9, 2022
Donald Trump and Republicans are shoving America toward authoritarianism. That’s why many of us are shouting about a threat to democracy.
Many Americans don’t fear a potential slide into authoritarianism because they have no basis for doing so. Our oceans and hegemony have coddled us; we take democracy for granted. But democracy and the rule of law are not the normal state of governments, certainly not historically.
Authoritarianism wouldn’t happen overnight, but authoritarian regimes have shown us a road map. Here’s a picture of what it would look like here.
If Trump and his enablers get their way, how you experience your life would depend on whether you identified — and were identified — as a Trump Republican.
Identified as a Trump Republican by your bumper sticker, you would be more likely to get a warning instead of speeding ticket. You would gain the inside track for government jobs, grants, and needed permits. Decisions about government benefits, like unemployment and disability, would be more likely to go your way. Your children would be more likely to win scholarships and admission to their chosen schools. You would get more favorable loan and mortgage treatment and better access to scarce goods, the best tickets.
More: Foreign correspondent: I smugly thought American democracy worked as it is supposed to
Regulations would be interpreted in your favor, or maybe just ignored. You could rely on the criminal justice and judicial systems to go easy on you, if not help you out.
If, instead, you were perceived as a Democrat, or just an insufficiently Trump Republican, you would experience the reverse of what’s above. Tax auditors would focus on you. You would be more likely to be hassled by police, even jailed if you were too troublesome. Nasty graffiti might appear on your business or home. You would be accused of being un-American, a traitor. You would learn to keep your head down and be careful about what you said to whom.
Science would be interpreted or even suppressed to suit Trump Republican needs. History would be whitewashed to celebrate the regime and its version of events. School curricula and texts would similarly conform.
LBGTQ folks would closet themselves again. Fewer women would lead in government, business, or society. People who want to marginalize and discriminate against people of color, non-Christians, and immigrants would find cover to do so. Abortion and birth control would be illegal. Public education would wither as religious schools claimed more and more public funding. Air and water quality would suffer. Climate change would go unaddressed. The military could be used to put down dissent.
Again, not all of this would happen instantly, and we can’t predict how far the Trump Republicans would go. But this is the path that they are on.
So if you are a Trump Republican, perhaps all this sounds great. Finally, justice for my many grievances. Maybe that’s the country in which you want to live.
I hope and pray that the great majority of Americans will reject it.
Jim Chrisinger is a retired public servant living in Ankeny. He worked for both Republican and Democratic officials at multiple levels of government.
Coronavirus FAQ: What’s the risk of catching omicron outdoors?
NPR
Coronavirus FAQ: What’s the risk of catching omicron outdoors?
Sheila Mulrooney January 21, 2022
This German snowman wears a protective mask over its banana nose and mouth, but experts say the risk of catching COVID outdoors is slim.Peter Kneffel
Studies conducted prior to omicron show that being outside greatly reduces your risk of infection with the coronavirus. One review of studies concluded that the odds of indoor transmission is almost 19 times higher than outdoor transmission. And in a study of 64 college football games during the 2020 season involving 1,190 athletes, researchers at Texas A&M University found zero spread of COVID during game play based on three postgame PCR tests over the course of a week — likely because of the outdoor setting and short duration of close contact, experts say. (Of course, football games have been postponed this season because of COVID outbreaks, but the study’s authors believe that players were more likely spreading it in locker rooms and other shared indoor spaces.)
Outdoor airflow has done a good job dispersing pathogens.Article continues after sponsor message
But does omicron play by the same rules?
“From a virus standpoint, there’s no indication that omicron is behaving differently [in outdoor settings],” says Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease professor at the University of Michigan who co-authored an editorial on the research on football teams.
“That doesn’t mean [transmission is] impossible if you’re packed together in a place that’s only sort of open air and if people are sharing food or kissing or drinking. But if it’s a casual interaction outside, even if it’s relatively crowded, I’m comfortable not having a mask on. And at this stage of the pandemic, we have to find ways to do things that are meaningful to us. It’s nice to see people’s expressions and feel a sense of normalcy.”
And playing outdoors, Malani notes, is great for kids — building snow structures and sledding in parts of the country that are now shivering in winter temperatures.
Of course, omicron is the most transmissible variant yet. That, combined with the sheer volume of cases, could mean that there could be more cases of outdoor transmission, says Dr. Jill Weatherhead, assistant professor of adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine. So some people may want to mask up in certain outdoor situations. But that shouldn’t cause you to lose sight of the advantages of socializing outdoors, she adds.
“Being outdoors continues to provide another layer of protection because of the ventilation,” Weatherhead explains. (The other layers are vaccination, masks and physical distancing.)
“So the safest place you can be [with other people] is still going to be outdoors,” she says.
If your own risk tolerance is low, certain outdoor situations could call for masking up. Earlier studies showed that the fewer cases of outdoor transmission almost always occurred during prolonged, close contact. For example, talking face-to-face with someone who is unmasked and very, very close to you is risky no matter where you are, especially if it’s for a prolonged period of time.
“It can happen outside,” says Dr. Don Milton, an infectious disease aerobiologist at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.
Still, he says, you have to be close to the infected person or downwind of them. “That gentle breeze outdoors is generally safer” than indoors, he says. “The air movement [outdoors] is more random and the virus won’t build up.”
And yes, that holds true for omicron, he believes. Although it makes sense that people would worry about getting a more contagious variant outdoors, it’s likely that the current surge in cases doesn’t have anything to do with outdoor spread.
Preliminary research, including a small study by Milton’s lab, suggests that people infected with omicron don’t breathe out higher viral loads than people infected with delta. And people who are vaccinated likely carry less infectious virus particles than people who are not.
So if you find yourself worrying about not being able to distance yourself in a crowded outdoor situation with people of unknown vaccination status, slip a mask on.
Just keep in mind that risk is a continuum.
“Slipping on the ice or getting in an accident on the way [to an outdoor rendezvous] is probably more likely than getting COVID outside,” Malani says.
However, if you live in a cold locale as she does, you may want to leave your mask on for warmth. Not only does it keep your cheeks warm, but who wants to take their gloves off to fuss with a mask in sub-freezing temps?
Sheila Mulrooney Eldred is a freelance health journalist in Minneapolis. She has written about COVID-19 for many publications, including The New York Times, Kaiser Health News, Medscape and The Washington Post.
Intel is building “the largest silicone manufacturing location on the planet” in Ohio, spending at least $20 billion
Cheddar Gadgets January 21, 2022
Intel is investing $20 billion in a new computer chip facility in Ohio, amid a global shortage of microprocessors used in everything from phones and cars to video games. The 1,000-acre location will initially host to two chip factories, and is expected to create 3,000 company jobs and 7,000 construction jobs. Additionally, the factories will support tens of thousands of additional jobs for suppliers and partners, the company and local and state officials announced Friday. Construction is reportedly due to kick off this year, with the site becoming operational in 2025. In an interview with Time, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said the company expects the site to become “the largest silicon manufacturing location on the planet,” adding that it could eventually expand to 2,000 acres with eight fabs. The news comes as the demand for computer chips continues to grow.
Billionaire Mark Cuban Opens Online Pharmacy To Provide Affordable Generic Drugs
Forbes – Business
Billionaire Mark Cuban Opens Online Pharmacy To Provide Affordable Generic Drugs
Lisa Kim, Forbes Staff Jauuary 20, 2022
TOPLINE
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban launched an online pharmacy Thursday that offers more than 100 generic drugs at an affordable price with a goal of being “radically transparent” in its price negotiations with drug companies.
KEY FACTS
The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company (MCCPDC) is a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler and purchases drugs directly from manufacturers, bypassing middlemen to lower the price of more than 100 medications, it said in a statement.
For example, the leukemia drug imatinib is priced at $47 a month on MCCPDC compared to the $9,657 retail price.
The online pharmacy’s prices for generics factor in a 15% margin on top of actual manufacturer prices and a $3 pharmacist fee, the statement said.
The markup on generics average “at least” 100%, the MCCPDC said, while the Wall Street Journal reports in some cases it exceeds 1,000%.
The company doesn’t process insurance claims and requires customers to pay for their medications out of pocket, noting its drugs cost less than most insurance plans’ deductible and copay requirements.
Customers have to request a new prescription from their provider to place an order for medications on the MCCPDC website.
KEY BACKGROUND
MCCPDC CEO Alex Oshmyansky reached out to Cuban with an idea for a low-cost generic drug company in a cold email. It was launched in January last year. They were motivated in part by “Pharma Bro” Martin Shrkeli’s outrage-producing price hike of the lifesaving drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per tablet while Shrkeli was CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. Cuban told Forbes last year the pricing for generic drugs was “ridiculous.” He said he decided to put his name on the company to “show capitalism can be compassionate and to send the message I am all in.” It’s not clear how much he had invested in the company.
TANGENT
The company aims to complete the construction of an $11 million pharmaceutical factory in Dallas that spans roughly 22,000 square feet by the end of this year.
BIG NUMBER
$4.5 billion. That’s how much Forbes estimates Cuban, the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, is worth, as of Thursday.
FURTHER READING
Mark Cuban’s Online Pharmacy Opens (NBC5)
Billionaire Mark Cuban Wants To Lower Drug Prices With Generics Startup (Forbes)