AP

For nearly a year, Gavin Newsom, the California governor who swears he has “subzero interest” in running for president, has asked to debate Ron DeSantis. Finally, the struggling Republican presidential candidate has accepted.

“Absolutely, I’m game,” DeSantis told Sean Hannity on Thursday. “Let’s get this done. Just tell me when and where.”

Newsom, through a spokesperson, responded, “Nov. 8 or 10,” before quickly returning to a fighting performance: “DeSantis should put up or shut up. Anything else is just games.”

No one wants this debate. Well, except for Dan Rather, but he said that a year ago. Now, it’s even less needed.

One man is a stand-in for the party’s steady autocratic drift and represents a clear extension of Trump-era policies; the other is the product of hair gel, Resistance Twitter (at best), and a demonstrated inability to sit still. Both share a common affliction: a white-hot ambition that compels them to force their personalities onto civilians now left wondering why we’d want to watch a man whose presidential campaign is in freefall argue on stage with a man who literally has to explain his actions in an email titled, “I am writing today to explain why I am debating Ron DeSantis.” (The same email included Newsom’s claim that he is selfless, a mere servant of Joe Biden seeking to defend the president’s agenda.) Each has an unmistakable thirst for the White House, and for very different reasons, neither is likely to get there, at least in 2024. 

It’s far from coincidence that DeSantis has surrendered to Newsom’s taunting as his presidential campaign is very publicly collapsing. And with Donald Trump essentially ignoring his calls to debate, DeSantis isn’t left with many options. Yet one has to wonder how the image of DeSantis debating a man who is neither Trump nor Biden helps him here. I imagine it’ll only add to his awkward, rizz-less reputation. As for Newsom, it looks like he’s really leaning into that refusal to sit still. 

Matias J. Ocner/TNS/Zuma

For the third time this year, former President Trump has been indicted, this time on federal charges related to his attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. He faces three different conspiracy counts. And he didn’t act alone.

Prosecutors say that Trump worked with at least six co-conspirators, five of whom are attorneys. My colleague Dan Friedman pieced together the presumptive identities of the lawyers based on information in the charging documents. The alleged co-conspirators include “Kraken” lawyer Sidney Powell, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, and Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference host Rudy Giuliani.

And yet, somehow, Giuliani’s attempts to subvert American democracy may not be the most damning thing he’s in the news for this week. Transcripts of Giuliani’s private comments have come to light as part of a lawsuit from a woman accusing the Trump lawyer of rape and sexual abuse. They include him making lewd comments about the size of Jewish men’s genitalia and telling a woman he wants to “claim” her breasts.

Some of the comments seem too absurd to be true. They’re real. At one point, he says that Jews need to “get over” Passover. “OK, the Red Sea parted,” he says. “Big deal. Not the first time that happened.” At another point, Giuliani calls Matt Damon a homophobic slur and then launches into song: “Matt Damon is also 5’2. Eyes are blue. Coochie-coochie-coochie-coo.”

“It’s disappointing to see some so-called ‘journalists’ stoop so low with these smears and attacks against a man who has dedicated his life to serving others,” a spokesperson for the former mayor told Rolling Stone. “Mayor Giuliani cleaned up the streets of New York City, took down the Mafia and comforted the nation following September 11th.”

But you know the old question. What have you done for me lately?

This article first appeared in the Mother Jones Daily, our newsletter that cuts through the noise to help you make sense of the most important stories of the day. Sign up for free here!

Sue Ogrocki/ AP

On Tuesday, the credit agency Fitch Ratings downgraded its debt rating for the United States from the highest AAA rating to AA+.

The demotion, as some economists including Paul Krugman have argued, is strange and ultimately a bit meaningless. But the apparent reasons behind the decision are worth reviewing. Here’s Richard Francis, Fitch’s senior director, telling Reuters: 

“It was something that we highlighted because it just is a reflection of the deterioration in governance, it’s one of many,” he said.

“You have the debt ceiling, you have Jan. 6. Clearly, if you look at polarization with both parties … the Democrats have gone further left and Republicans further right, so the middle is kind of falling apart basically,” Francis said, adding “we don’t fault one party or the other for the fiscal situation.”

Francis may believe he sounds fair, even smart with that analysis. But lumping debt ceiling negotiations—in which Biden successfully averted a government default—with a violent attack on the US Capitol as examples of politicization feels unserious, an entry into the absurd whataboutism of these times. Economists and White House officials have since responded with disappointment.

“Arbitrary and based on outdated data.” is how US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen put it. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the move “defies reality,” claiming in a statement that President Joe Biden has delivered “the strongest recovery of any major economy in the world.” 

“It’s clear that extremism by Republican officials—from cheerleading default, to undermining governance and democracy, to seeking to extend deficit-busting tax giveaways for the wealthy and corporations—is a continued threat to our economy,” she added.

On the same day that Fitch downgraded its US rating, Donald Trump was handed his third indictment of the year for his starring role on January 6. 

Mother Jones; Chip Somodevilla/Getty

For the third time this year, former President Trump has been indicted. Potentially the most serious case, this federal indictment deals with Trump’s alleged role in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The four new charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison if convicted.

“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to stay in power,” prosecutors wrote in the charging document. “So for more than two months following Election Day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

Read the charges here:

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Touring Yellowstone on an e-bike seems preferable to using a car. But can e-bikes actually hurt the environments they allow us to explore?

In 2019, near the end of the Trump administration, then–Interior Secretary David Bernhardt instructed national parks to allow e-bikes wherever traditional bikes were allowed. The nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) sued, arguing that NPS needed to undertake an environmental assessment before it finalized its e-bike policy, and a US district judge agreed. In June of this year, the NPS finally came out with its assessment, and it has people on both sides of the debate riled up.

The gist of the assessment is that riding an e-bike on a trail isn’t much more harmful to soil, vegetation, and wildlife than hiking, horseback riding, or traditional bicycle riding. National cycling advocacy group People for Bikes agrees.

But PEER, the organization that brought the lawsuit, has found fault with the NPS’s assessment. PEER says that the NPS has not adequately addressed the potential for e-bikes to disturb wildlife and that the vehicles create conflicts between e-bike riders and other people on the trail.

Balancing climate goals and local conservation can be complex. As we’ve written before, e-bikes, and subsidies to purchase them, could limit car dependence—an important step for staving off climate change. But local environments, especially in national parks, need to be protected, too. We’ve written before about idiots who deface our most precious wilderness areas, and the NPS assessment raises the question of whether to rank e-bike riders among them.

You can read the full review here.

John Arthur Brown/Zuma

After weeks of intense negotiations and practice picket lines, the Teamsters union has reached a preliminary five-year contract agreement with UPS, averting a potentially economically devastating work stoppage at the world’s largest package courier company.

The tentative contract includes wage increases, the end of mandatory overtime on drivers’ days off, and the elimination of a two-tier wage system that had certain part-time employees making much less than full-timers doing the same work. The contract raises all workers’ wages by $2.75 per hour in 2023 and by $7.50 over the next five years.

Both the union and the company seem pleased with the outcome. “The overwhelmingly lucrative contract raises wages for all workers, creates more full–time jobs, and includes dozens of workplace protections and improvements,” the Teamsters said in a statement.

“Together we reached a win-win-win agreement on the issues that are important to Teamsters leadership, our employees and to UPS and our customers,” UPS CEO Carol Tomé said in a statement. “This agreement continues to reward UPS’s full- and part-time employees with industry-leading pay and benefits while retaining the flexibility we need to stay competitive, serve our customers and keep our business strong.”

The union will begin voting on the contract on August 3.

Israelis march to Jerusalem in protest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned overhaul of the judicial system.Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

Tens of thousands of Israelis marched into Jerusalem on Saturday, completing a four-day hike from Tel Aviv to the ancient capital city to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s renewed effort to increase his control over Israel’s Supreme Court.

The demonstrators assembled around the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, ahead of a vote scheduled for Monday on a bill from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government that would strip the Supreme Court of its power to declare government decisions “unreasonable.” That is one of few checks on Israeli prime ministers in a country without a written constitution or bill of rights. 

💥Entering Jerusalem pic.twitter.com/mjNg6YuEr0

— Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 (@NTarnopolsky) July 22, 2023

Protesters also gathered in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and elsewhere in Israel to try to head off the judicial takeover. Israeli military reservists, including hundreds of pilots, have pledged to suspend their volunteer service if Netanyahu moves ahead with his power grab. Israeli health care workers also have begun striking.

Tel Aviv now! Pro-democracy protest in Israel. pic.twitter.com/DPmPvYxTqA

— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) July 15, 2023

President Joe Biden has warned Netanyahu against ramming through his proposal, through emissaries and recent remarks to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, warning it will damage US support for Israel. 

Tuesday night ~100 people left Tel Aviv & started marching to Jerusalem in protest at Netanyahu govt’s judicial overhaul. It’s now 10s of thousands. They’ll arrive in Jlem this eve & their plan is to stay there thru Monday, protesting, a la Tahrir Sq pic.twitter.com/C3QzUIppIu

— Neri Zilber (@NeriZilber) July 22, 2023

Netanyahu previously delayed his overhaul efforts in March in the face of massive protests. But he renewed his efforts, and vowed Thursday to press ahead despite the protests and polls showing two-thirds of Israelis want him to leave the courts alone.

Though the size of Saturday’s protest was not immediately clear, the protest have been massive relevant to Israel’s population of barely 9 million. More than 20 percent of Israelis have reportedly taken part in protests. As a percentage of population, that’s more than double the top estimates of the 15 to 26 million Americans who took part in Black Lives Matters protests, estimated to be largest in US history.

Donald Trump speaking in West Palm Beach Florida on July 15.Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/Zuma

Donald Trump’s daunting court schedule just a little bit lighter. Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer turned antagonist, settled a lawsuit accusing the Trump Organization of reneging on promises to pay legal bills that Cohen incurred working as a fixer for Trump.

Lawyers for Cohen and Trump disclosed the settlement at a hearing in a New York state court in Manhattan on Friday, averting a trial that was set to start Monday. The terms of the deal are not public. Both sides said in the statements only that the suit “has been resolved in a manner satisfactory to all parties.”

But Trump, of course, still faces a slew of legal issues, including trials where he will have to show up in person. Here is a rundown:

• A lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James accusing Trump of “staggering fraud” by misrepresenting the value of his assets is set to go to trial in Manhattan on October 2.
• A new trial on allegations that Trump defamed writer E. Jean Carroll—including in statements he made after a jury found he had sexually assaulted and defaming Carroll—is set for January 15. (In a July 19 ruling, US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Trump lawyers’ request for a new trial based on their contention that the jury did not find that Trump raped Carroll, under New York’s definition. “The jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that,” Kaplan wrote.)
• Also in January, Trump, his company, and three of his children are set to face trial in a lawsuit alleging they fraudulently enticed investments in sham business ventures.

Trump won’t have to attend those civil matters. And he probably won’t, since they will conflict with vital early GOP primaries. So far, Trump is not scheduled to have any legal action on Tuesday, March 5, or Super Tuesday, when 15 presidential primaries may well determine if Trump will be the GOP nominee in 2024.

If Trump wins, he will probably have to leave the campaign trail in late March. His New York trial, scheduled on charges that he falsified business records, is set for March 25 and expected to last several weeks. That case results from Trump’s alleged hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. Cohen has said he arranged the payments to stop Daniels from going public just before the 2016  election with her claim she had sex with Trump in 2006. The former fixer is expected to testify against Trump.

On Friday, US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon scheduled for May 2024 Trump’s trial on 37 counts related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents he removed from the White House. Cannon rejected Justice Department efforts to try Trump in December and also Trump’s request to put off the trial until after Election Day. Cannon may yet delay the trial, which is slated to take at least two weeks.

Last week, Trump disclosed that he had received a target letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith suggesting the former president will likely be indicted for actions that were part of his effort to subvert his 2020 election defeat. According to the New York Times, Smith’s letter indicated Trump may be charged with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, conspiring to defraud the government, and violating a civil rights law enacted to outlaw efforts to conspire to deprive anyone “the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” If Trump is charged, prosecutors will surely seek a trial before the 2024 election, but it remains to be seen if they will succeed.

Trump’s lawyers have also said that they expect the former president to be hit with criminal charges, along with former advisers, in a case by prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, which includes Atlanta. Fulton Country District Attorney Fani Willis is reportedly preparing charges under a state racketeering statute that take aim at Trump’s effort to interfere with Georgia’s vote count in the 2020 election. The charges are expected to reference the infamous recorded call in which Trump urged to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, to “find” 11,780 votes, the precise number Trump needed to overcome Joe Biden’s margin in the state. 

Trump denies all the accusations against him. He has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the criminal charges he faces result from a conspiracy orchestrated by Biden to hinder Trump’s presidential campaign.

Micheal Greene with Roger Stone on January 5 near the US Supreme Court.Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call/AP

A man designated by the head of the Oath Keepers militia group as their leader of operations on January 6 will avoid prison for his alleged role in the attack on Congress that day.

US District Judge Amit Mehta on Friday sentenced Michael Greene to two years of probation and 60 hours of community service. Mehta rejected federal prosecutors’ request that Greene face a year of incarceration following his conviction for a misdemeanor trespassing offense.

Greene initially appeared in federal indictments of Oath Keepers involved in January 6 as “Person Ten,” an unindicted co-conspirator who prosecutors said Oath Keepers’ founder, Stewart Rhodes, had named as the far-right group’s leader of operations that day. Greene was not accused of entering the Capitol himself.

Greene’s light sentence marks one of a few recent defeats for the Justice Department in January 6 prosecutions. Earlier this month, Mehta, in a bench trial, acquitted James Beeks, a Oath Keeper known for his work as a Broadway actor—which included starring in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar—of conspiracy charges. Federal prosecutors have convicted more than 1,000 people of taking part in the insurrection, and around 30 members of extremist groups involved in the attack have received prison sentences. Rhodes was sentenced in May to an 18-year term following his conviction for seditious conspiracy.

Mother Jones first identified Greene as Person Ten. In interviews then, and statements since, including testimony during his trial, Greene maintained that he went to Washington as a paid security employee, contracted to help the Oath Keepers’ provide security for speakers at pro-Trump rallies on January 5 and 6, among them Roger Stone, the longtime Donald Trump adviser.

Greene, an Iraq War veteran and security contractor, who has said he worked for the Oath Keepers only as “a job” and does not vote, was unusual in the Oath Keepers, an organization made up mostly of far-right ideologues who worked as volunteers. Greene was also one of a few Black people in the largely white organization. Rhodes previously boasted of Greene’s role with the group to rebut allegations of racism.

Prosecutors have argued that Greene knew of Oath Keepers’ plans on January 6. They have cited phone records that showed Rhodes and another senior Oath Keeper, Kelly Meggs, had a joint call just before Meggs led a group of Oath Keepers into the Capitol. And Greene later texted a friend: “We’re storming the Capitol.” In their sentencing memo, prosecutors said Greene should be viewed as part of Oath Keepers’ conspiracy. Greene “summoned his co-conspirators to the Capitol and greenlighted their participation in the attack,” the memo said.

But Greene consistently denied instructing or even knowing that Oath Keepers supposedly under his command entered the Capitol. The ones who did, he told me, “did that shit on their own.” 

Mehta said Friday that prosecutors’ evidence against Greene was “far too circumstantial” to warrant a prison time. “The jury did not find Mr. Greene guilty of the most serious offenses with which he was charged,” Mehta said. “That was their verdict, and we have to respect that, just as we ask the public to accept the guilty verdicts of others.”

“I was paid to do a job,” Greene told reporters outside the courthouse Friday. “I came to do a job and I went home.”

A protester holds a QAnon sign during a 2020 demonstration against Washington state's stay-home order.Elaine Thompson/AP

It’s been a great week for the summer’s surprise box office hit, Sound of Freedom. The independent, faith-based film finished No. 2 at the box office last weekend behind the latest Mission: Impossible movie, on its way to passing $100 million in revenues since its July 4 opening.

Based on “real events,” the conservative-political thriller follows Passion of the Christ star Jim Caviezel as Tim Ballard, a former federal agent who embarks on a mission to rescue victims of child sex trafficking in Colombia. The film has especially resonated with conservative audiences, thanks in part to rave reviews from right-wing influencers as well as Angel Studios’ unconventional “pay it forward” plan, where people can buy a ticket for complete strangers to watch the film for free. According to IndieWire, on its opening weekend, $2.6 million of the film’s $14 million came from people buying “Pay it Forward” tickets.

Meanwhile, Sound of Freedom has been criticized for its “glamorized depiction” of human trafficking and its connections to the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose supporters have argued that Sound of Freedom exposes the “truth” about child sex trafficking. Despite the film itself making no direct mention of QAnon—or its claim that former President Donald Trump has been waging war against a secret cabal of satanic pedophiles and sex traffickers (i.e., Democrats) who control world governments, major corporations, and the media—it’s been embraced by Q supporters and by those involved in its production.

Caviezel has promoted these conspiracy theories for years now, speaking at a QAnon convention in 2021 and saying on Steve Bannon’s podcast before the movie’s release that “There is a big storm coming”—a not-so-subtle reference to the day Q followers believed the Trump administration would lead a mass arrest and execution of members of the supposed global cabal and usher in a new golden age. (The real-life Tim Ballard, the founder and former CEO of Operation Underground Railroad, has also promoted QAnon theories in the past, and reporters have called into question his work at O.U.R. and whether the events in the movie actually happened.)

Passion of the Christ, and Person of Interest star, Jim Caviezel — at a QAnon convention doing very normal, sane things.pic.twitter.com/lgxH8K24KD

— chris evans (@chris_notcapn) October 26, 2021

And speaking of Trump, Sound of Freedom scored its biggest victory of the week on Wednesday night when the former president hosted a private screening of the film at his New Jersey club. Afterward, he took the time to thank Caviezel, Eduardo Verastegui, and Ballard for making the movie, calling the film “something very special” and an “incredible inspiration.”

BREAKING: President Trump congratulates Jim Caviezel, Eduardo Verastegui, and Tim Ballard for making Sound of Freedom pic.twitter.com/mVZscLTBFd

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) July 20, 2023

Despite the film’s box office bonanza, conspiracy theorists continue theorizing: Fans have asserted a conspiracy that movie theater giant AMC is actively trying to keep people from watching the movie by turning off the air conditioning—a victim narrative propelled by the belief that a nebulous “they” don’t want “us” to know about the “truth” about child sex trafficking (or at least QAnon’s notion of it).

🤔Movie theaters around the country are reportedly TURNING THE AC OFF for Sound of Freedom showings pic.twitter.com/bqaQixCp90

— Truthseeker (@Xx17965797N) July 13, 2023

J. Scott Applewhite/ AP

Three months after Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y) was indicted on 13 criminal counts, House Democrats plan to introduce legislation to formally censure the scandal-ridden New York Republican on Monday.

The measure, which follows an unsuccessful effort to expel Santos, is unlikely to pass the GOP-majority House. But a censure would force individual Republicans to go on the record with their stances on Santos and add yet another stain to the congressman’s stain-filled, brief political career.  

Shortly after getting elected to the House in November, Santos came under fire for a long list of lies he told about his life, including his educational background and job experience, as well as attracting allegations of financial fraud. Some of Santos’ alleged campaign donors, as my colleague Noah Lanard reported, don’t even seem to exist. The real possibility of jail time is now on the table after he was indicted on 13 felony counts for charges related to wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements to Congress.

Santos made headlines once again last week after a recently filed campaign finance report revealed that some of his donors appear to include supporters of Miles Guo, the exiled Chinese billionaire and Steve Bannon associate. Here’s a snippet from our scoop:

Of about 50 total contributors, the document listed about three dozen contributors spread across the country who mostly have Chinese names and who had each maxed out to Santos by donating $3,300, the legal maximum for the primary election. Together, this group pumped roughly $130,000 into Santos’ political bank account. This was hardly a coincidence. This band of financial backers appear to include supporters of Miles Guo, the exiled Chinese billionaire and Steve Bannon associate who was arrested in March for allegedly running a $1 billion fraud scheme.

This roster of donors represents almost all of the money Santos pulled in in the second quarter of this year. 

I am introducing a resolution to publicly censure George Santos for defrauding the people of the United States.

I have a message to House Republicans who, for too long, have been protecting Mr. Santos, who has disgraced the United States Congress.

Stop treating Mr. Santos as… pic.twitter.com/ZOjQhv6hrr

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) July 17, 2023

Josh Reynolds/AP

The conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer, and longshot Democratic presidential nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed at an Upper East Side press event this week that COVID-19 may be a genetically engineered bioweapon that was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, reports the New York Post.

The same press dinner had already gone viral for a flatulence-punctuated argument between two attendees about climate change. (“It seems fitting that it landed during an event intended to raise Kennedy’s stature with the media,” my colleague Inae Oh wryly noted.)

At the event, Kennedy reportedly said, “COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately.” He added, “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

VIDEO:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims coronavirus was an "ethnically targeted" bioweapon designed to be more deadly for caucasians and blacks — and spare Jews and Chinese https://t.co/xfAdovs0sY pic.twitter.com/og4xHdKs7x

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) July 15, 2023

There is, of course, no evidence to support RFK Jr’s claims about COVID-19, but they do touch on well-worn antisemitic tropes. As the Post notes, a 2020 study by psychologists at Oxford University study found that 20 percent of British adults agreed with the statement, “Jews have created the virus to collapse the economy for financial gain.”

It’s tricky to know if, and how, to cover the Kennedy candidacy, my colleague David Corn recently wrote in his newsletter. “Obviously, Bobby Jr. is exploiting—and abusing—his DNA. He certainly knows that anything Kennedy has long been catnip for the media and the public.” Corn even warned, before news of his fundraiser comments broke, that the candidate will no doubt “make common cause with antisemites and extremists to get attention.”

He added, “Robert Kennedy once said of Lyndon Johnson, ‘He tells so many lies that he convinces himself after a while that he’s telling the truth. He just doesn’t recognize truth or falsehood.’ It is disturbing that this observation can be applied to his son.”

Josh Reynolds/AP

In the three months since announcing his bid to become the next president of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has largely stayed in his lane of conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine nonsense. But we have also seen some stranger moments, including a video of a shirtless Kennedy working out in jeans and a belt that activated a certain segment of very online bros.

Yet even for a political era defined by demented characters and strange shit, nothing could have prepared me for this story in the New York Post:

The headline is not hyperbole. In fact, it manages to undersell the sheer chaos that erupted Tuesday night at an event showcasing Kennedy, where “two boisterous old men” barreled into a shouting match over climate change. Things like “the climate hoax” and “miserable slob” were reportedly shouted when suddenly one of the men, a columnist called Doug Dechert, pierced the night with an extended fart. “I’m farting!” he declared.

Was this a stunt? No, Dechert later told the Post: “I apologize for using my flatulence as a medium of public commentary in your presence.”

Kennedy reportedly remained stoic during the fracas, which might be the first time I can admit to admiring the guy. As for the stunning weaponization of flatulence—a tactic made famous by lefty organizer Saul Alinsky—it seems fitting that it landed during an event intended to raise Kennedy’s stature with the media.

Almost exactly a year ago, when NASA released the first photos from the James Webb Space Telescope, President Biden declared in a speech, “These images are going to remind the world that America can do big things, and then remind the American people, especially our children, that there’s nothing beyond our capacity.”

I agree with the sentiment. There are very few things about which Americans can agree, but we all live under the same moon and stars; it’s genuinely wonderful that scientific resources have been devoted to exploring the far reaches of the universe and expanding humanity’s understanding of the cosmos. I recalled Biden’s remarks again this week upon marveling at the newly released image of the birth of stars in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex:

The image was released to celebrate one year since scientists began collecting data from the telescope. The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is one of the closest star-forming regions to our solar system, about 400 light-years away. Per NASA:

The darkest areas are the densest, where thick dust cocoons still-forming protostars. Huge bipolar jets of molecular hydrogen, represented in red, dominate the image, appearing horizontally across the upper third and vertically on the right. These occur when a star first bursts through its natal envelope of cosmic dust, shooting out a pair of opposing jets into space like a newborn first stretching her arms out into the world.

Pretty neat.

But as with everything else in America, there is a more depressing element at play. The images were made possible by the Department of Defense’s procurement of beryllium and its continued promotion of the military-industrial complex. Still, looking at this image almost makes me forget that I no longer have the constitutional right to an abortion. No one has ever accused the United States of being bad at marketing.

Toby Talbot/AP

A Wisconsin 16-year-old died this month from injuries sustained from an “industrial accident” while working on a sawmill, in a startling reminder of the rise of child labor in dangerous occupations throughout the country. Officials announced today they are investigating. A cause of death has not been released.

Department of Labor statistics show a steady uptick in child labor violations in recent years, with the number of minors employed in violation of child labor laws up 37 percent in 2022 from the year prior. Many of the children who are working in the most dangerous jobs, like construction, are unaccompanied migrant children who are often in debt to the people who smuggled them into the country.

When child labor abuse makes headlines, the companies responsible receive the financial equivalent of a slap on the wrist. One of the largest food sanitation companies in the US was fined $1.5 million earlier this year for employing more than 100 children to clean meat-cutting equipment with caustic chemicals. The fine, which amounted to $15,138 per illegally employed child, was the maximum allowed under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Critics called it “woefully insufficient.”

But instead of suggesting solutions like raising fines for companies that illegally employ children, Republicans in various state legislatures have recently proposed laws to loosen child labor restrictions. The bills range from seemingly innocuous (like allowing teens as young as 14 to serve alcohol in restaurants) to downright alarming (like letting kids of that age work in industrial laundries and meat coolers).

Proponents of these bills tout the merits of hard work, but child labor restrictions aren’t about taking away kids’ summer jobs at the car wash and the ice cream parlor; they’re about preventing children from doing dangerous work that will lead them to the morgue instead of the mall.

A UPS delivery driver sits in traffic while driving through Times Square. A UPS strike on August 1 is likely after negotiations fell apart on July 5. Anthony Behar/AP

The largest American labor strike in over 60 years looks increasingly likely: Early this morning, negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters broke down, according to a press release from the union. 

In June, about 97 percent of the UPS rank-and-file voted to authorize a strike if the contract negotiations did not result in a new agreement. Their current contract expires on July 31. If negotiations aren’t revived, a massive action is set for August—340,000 UPS drivers, loaders, and package handlers will take to the streets.  

On June 28, Teamsters president Sean O’Brien said that UPS had two days to provide a “last, best, final offer.” On July 1, the union set a new July 5 deadline for an agreement so that union members would have sufficient time to review it before a vote. But after a weekend of “marathon” negotiations, the UPS Teamsters National Negotiating Committee unanimously rejected the shipping company’s “unacceptable” final offer.

The Teamsters had already made significant progress in the negotiations, as my colleagues Noah Lanard and Abigail Weinberg reported. They had won tentative wage increases, air conditioning in trucks, and an end to the much-maligned two-tiered driver system, where workers in the same position receive different wages based on when they were hired. 

Still, the union says it’s not enough for a company that earned a record revenue of $100 billion in 2022. Since the beginning of the pandemic, annual revenue for UPS has increased by 11 percent each year. According to the Teamsters, UPS CEO Carol Tomé earns more in a day than the average UPS worker earns in an entire year. 

The last UPS strike was in 1997 when 185,000 workers took to the streets for 15 days. A key plank of O’Brien’s election in 2021 was his vocal opposition to the current UPS contract negotiated by previous President James Hoffa in 2018. “If this company wants to negotiate a contract for 1997 working conditions, they’re going to get 1997 consequences. #GetFckingReal,” tweeted O’Brien.

“The union has a responsibility to remain at the table,” UPS said in a statement. “Refusing to negotiate, especially when the finish line is in sight, creates significant unease among employees and customers and threatens to disrupt the U.S. economy.”

It is true that the strike will have a dramatic impact on the nation’s economy. But disrupting the economy is, of course, the precise purpose of a work stoppage. For workers, withholding labor is the main way to wield power and leverage over their bosses. While the union brass negotiated this weekend, UPS rank-and-file workers began to practice picketing.

Teamsters Local 174 practice picketing in front of the UPS district manager’s office 💪😜 pic.twitter.com/mTwnHcBkA3

— Barnes & Noble copy of the Beatles “1” on vinyl (@flieldy) July 3, 2023

With UPS negotiators walking out of negotiations after promising a tentative agreement that meets the needs of and rewards hardworking UPS Teamsters, I'd say today is an excellent day to show UPS what kind of power we have with our solidarity. #StrikeReady pic.twitter.com/Ka5gdrDcLq

— Rank and Filer (@TheArchenteron) July 5, 2023

David McNew/Getty

How did you spend your Fourth of July? I spent a considerable amount of time in the ocean, floating above the hum of anxieties, both personal and existential, that typically soundtrack my days.

But outside the cocoon of cool waves, those gentle swells that numb the pain of existence, the earth around me apparently experienced its hottest day on record—or at least in 125,000 years, scientists at the University of Maine report.

That’s alarming stuff. Indeed, it prompted me to briefly pause a beat longer, a sure sign that I’ve encountered news to consider beyond mindless scrolling. But in an era defined by the same red-blinking stories that flow with eye-glazing repetition, all of them signaling our unrelenting climate emergency, how does the hottest day in human-record keeping hit you? Is it more or less troubling than the apocalyptic smoke we choked on the other week? Does our new normal of sweltering heat feel as dumb as the toxic fireworks we set off to celebrate patriotism? What about the hundreds of tons of toxins we release amid heat waves?

My dread is struggling to contemplate these questions. But I do look forward to my next torpefying ocean hang.

Travis Long/The News & Observer/AP, File

North Carolina, once an “abortion destination” for women throughout the South, will prohibit abortion after 12 weeks’ gestation starting July 1.

On Thursday, a federal judge allowed most of the law to go into effect as the court considers the measure. The ruling did temporarily block a provision requiring abortion doctors to document the existence of a pregnancy in a patient’s medical records.

In May, a Republican supermajority in the North Carolina General Assembly overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the 12-week abortion ban. A lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic prompted the state to pass a bipartisan amendment to the bill clarifying that medication abortions are legal up to 12 weeks.

The law still requires people in North Carolina to visit a clinic in-person 72 hours before receiving abortion care, even for medication abortions. The two in-person visits and the waiting period will likely present a huge impediment to those traveling from other Southern states for abortions, effectively ending North Carolina’s status as an abortion haven, against the wishes of Cooper and his constituents.

Mother Jones illustration; Psychedelic Science 2023

Perhaps it was foolish of me to assume that Aaron Rodgers’ keynote talk at last week’s Psychedelic Science 2023 conference in Denver—titled “How Psychedelics Can Unlock Elite Performance”—would touch on any actual neurological mechanisms at play. I had guessed that it might delve into the complex, controversial, but real science of how psychedelics can help athletes, both during their careers and, maybe more importantly, after.

What I heard instead was an hourlong paean to the healing power of ayahuasca, moderated by supplement brand founder Aubrey Marcus and delivered to a half-full auditorium that cheered when Rodgers said that his psychedelic journeys allowed him to unlock his purpose. Psychedelics might actually have the power to help athletes heal, both physically and mentally. But Rodgers, a four-time NFL MVP, focused more on the ways that this “medicine” allowed him to love himself than on how it actually works.

The conversation danced around Rodgers’ rejection of an actual, scientifically-backed form of medicine: vaccines. At one point, Marcus praised Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Democratic presidential candidate and promoter of the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. “I just see someone who’s sharing the truth from his heart,” Marcus said, “like a real guy, like a real dad, real guy, a real person who’s sharing from his heart.” (A man sitting behind me said, “Fuck that,” and walked out of the auditorium.) 

Later, Rodgers, who reportedly has refused to be vaccinated for Covid, explained that psychedelics allowed him to stand up to the critical voice in his head, which said things like, “You’re not good enough. You’re not gonna win this game. Nobody likes you. You’re a crazy anti-vaxxer.” Here, the audience laughed.

In the hands of a more critical moderator, Rodgers might have been able to offer real insight into the links between psychedelics and athletic performance. Instead, he and Marcus sang the praises of drugs that very little scientific evidence actually supports, while flirting with some very unscientific ideas about vaccines.

The conference, hosted by the nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, aimed to legitimize scientific inquiry into psychedelics and hosted some serious talks about placebo-controlled trials of the use of such drugs to treat various mental illnesses. But I wasn’t the only person unnerved by the conference’s decision to mix publicity and science. “Any kind of overselling is not good for science because science should be accurate rather than pushing things,” historian of science Nicolas Langlitz told the Associated Press. “It’s a tradeoff. (The conference) generates interest, it generates ultimately more research, even though the research might be skewed toward positive results.”

Psychedelics will likely have a place in medicine going forward, and in sports medicine specifically. It’s certainly worth taking seriously anything that can help athletes battered by injury. And maybe it’s even performance-boosting. Despite some journalists’ skepticism, Dock Ellis famously claimed that he was tripping on LSD when he pitched a no-hitter in 1970. (“Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire,” he recalled.)

But Aaron Rodgers and anti-vaccine chatter don’t help. “I would just try to keep my mind open to the possibility that in retrospect we will tell a very different story from the one that the protagonists of psychedelic therapies are currently predicting,” Langlitz told AP.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the use of race in college admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, dealing a potentially lethal blow to affirmative action programs in colleges throughout the country. 

The decision, which civil rights groups say effectively bans affirmative action, a policy widely viewed as an “irreplaceable tool” to improve higher education, will have enormous consequences all but certain to reverse progress in the United States. Look no further than the dissenting opinions of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who blasted the majority’s decision for showcasing a “let-them-eat-cake obliviousness” that would ultimately deliver a “tragedy for us all.”

We’ve combed through the most searing lines below:

• “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.” —Jackson

• “The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society.” —Sotomayor

• “Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal. What was true in the 1860s, and again in 1954, is true today: Equality requires acknowledgment of inequality.” —Sotomayor

• “No one benefits from ignorance. Although formal racelinked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better.” —Jackson

• “This contention blinks both history and reality in ways too numerous to count. But the response is simple: Our country has never been colorblind. Given the lengthy history of state-sponsored race-based preferences in America, to say that anyone is now victimized if a college considers whether that legacy of discrimination has unequally advantaged its applicants fails to acknowledge the well-documented ‘intergenerational transmission of inequality’ that still plagues our citizenry.” —Jackson

• “In so holding, the Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.” —Sotomayor

• “The Court has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom (a particularly awkward place to land, in light of the history the majority opts to ignore).” —Jackson

• “The only way out of this morass—for all of us—is to stare at racial disparity unblinkingly, and then do what evidence and experts tell us is required to level the playing field and march forward together, collectively striving to achieve true equality for all Americans.” —Jackson

• “Entrenched racial inequality remains a reality today. That is true for society writ large and, more specifically, for Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC), two institutions with a long history of racial exclusion.” —Sotomayor