Jewish senators are getting nervous

The Hill reports:

Jewish senators alarmed by Alito’s pro-Christian agenda

Jewish Democratic senators are alarmed by conservative Justice Samuel Alito’s sympathy for basing government on Christian principles — something he expressed at a Supreme Court gala when he endorsed the idea of returning the nation to a place of “godliness.”

Democratic senators, including several Jewish lawmakers, fear Alito’s majority opinions in several high-profile cases, such as the Dobbs decision, which overturned the right to abortion, were driven by his religious views.

And they are not buying Alito’s claim that he had nothing to do with and couldn’t prevent the flying of an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a symbol of the Christian nationalist movement, at his New Jersey beach house.

Senate Democrats say members of the Supreme Court have a right to religious freedom but warn that when they try to impose their religious views on others, it crosses a line.

A Jewish Democratic senator who requested anonymity to comment on Alito said he is pushing a sectarian religious agenda on the court.

“I don’t think there’s really any doubt. I don’t think Alito and [conservative Justice Clarence] Thomas are being shy. They have a view of the world, and they’re trying to establish an official religion, and a specific denomination,” the lawmaker said.

One has to wonder if Christian Democratic senators are alarmed about radical authoritarian Christian nationalism (CN), if they are part of the CN movement, or if they don't care about anything other than re-election. If they are alarmed, they are not vocal about it as far as I can tell. The Democratic Party is pathetic. 

Improvement in diagnosing depression; Global cooling biomolecule discovery

Researchers at Stanford have published a study that has (1) uncovered six different types of depression, and (2) found that some of the different types respond to standard anti-depression treatments better than others:

A Stanford Medicine study reveals six subtypes of depression, identified through brain imaging and machine learning. These subtypes exhibit unique brain activity patterns, helping predict which patients will benefit from specific antidepressants or behavioral therapies. This approach aims to personalize and improve depression treatment efficacy.

Better methods for matching patients with treatments are desperately needed, said the study’s senior author, Leanne Williams, PhD, the Vincent V.C. Woo Professor, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and the director of Stanford Medicine’s Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness.

Brain imaging combined with a type of AI called machine learning can reveal subtypes of depression and anxiety. The study, to be published today (June 17) in the journal Nature Medicine, sorts depression into six biological subtypes, or “biotypes,” and identifies treatments that are more likely or less likely to work for three of these subtypes.

Around 30% of people with depression have what’s known as treatment-resistant depression, meaning multiple kinds of medication or therapy have failed to improve their symptoms. And for up to two-thirds of people with depression, treatment fails to fully reverse their symptoms to healthy levels.

That’s in part because there’s no good way to know which antidepressant or type of therapy could help a given patient. Medications are prescribed through a trial-and-error method, so it can take months or years to land on a drug that works — if it ever happens. And spending so long trying treatment after treatment, only to experience no relief, can worsen depression symptoms.

“To our knowledge, this is the first time we’ve been able to demonstrate that depression can be explained by different disruptions to the functioning of the brain,” Williams said. “In essence, it’s a demonstration of a personalized medicine approach for mental health based on objective measures of brain function.”

Given how primitive and ineffective depression treatments generally are, this seems like an important and promising avenue of research to pursue further. For new patients who present with depression, an initial brain scan could point to treatments that have a better chance of offering some relief sooner. This research starts to debunk the idea of one size fits all, trial and error for treating depression. I hope this pans out and turns out to be the start of a major advance in treating depression.  

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STD reports about ocean a climate-cooling compound that some ocean algae make:

Global Cooling Breakthrough: Scientists Discover 

Ocean Algae’s Crucial Climate Impact

Researchers have identified Pelagophyceae algae as significant producers of DMSP, a compound crucial for climate regulation. This discovery suggests higher than expected levels of DMSP and its byproduct DMS, impacting global climate cooling.

The researchers identified the bloom-forming Pelagophyceae algae as potentially abundant and important producers of a compound called dimethylsulfoniopropionate, or DMSP.

Co-lead author Professor Jonathan Todd, of UEA’s School of Biological Sciences, said: “The Pelagophyceae are amongst the most abundant algae on Earth, yet they were not previously known as important producers of DMSP.

“This discovery is exciting because DMSP is an abundant antistress compound, food source for other microorganisms, and major source of climate-cooling gases.”

Every year, billions of tonnes of DMSP are produced in the Earth’s oceans by marine microorganisms, helping them to survive by protecting against various stresses like changes in salinity, cold, high pressure, and oxidative stress.

Importantly, DMSP is the main source of a climate active gas called dimethylsulfide (DMS), which is known as the smell of the seaside.

When DMS is released into the atmosphere, DMS oxidation products help form clouds that reflect sunlight away from the Earth, effectively cooling the planet.

This natural process is essential for regulating the Earth’s climate and is also hugely important for the global sulfur cycle, representing the main route by which sulfur from the oceans is returned to land.

Interesting. The smell of the ocean comes from DMS. 

If more DMSP and DMS can be coaxed out of the oceans, this might turn out to be an important bit of knowledge for dealing with global warming.

News: Christians against CN make a noise; FA resource page on CN; A MSM criticism

Newsweek reports that some real Christians are starting to get vexed with faux Christian theocrats (Christian nationalists) stinking up the church and giving their religion a bad name:

Thousands Sign Christian Petition Demanding 

Samuel Alito Resign: 'Unfit'

A petition created by Faithful America is nearing its goal of signatures on Sunday as they demand Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to resign amid his recent controversies.

In its petition from Wednesday, with a goal of 15,000 signatures, Faithful America, an organization of Christians supporting social justice causes while opposing "Christian nationalism," is demanding the conservative justice resign after he was heard in a secret recording agreeing that the United States should return "to a place of godliness" as well as for two flags that were previously flown outside the justice's home.

"You are unfit to serve on our nation's highest court, and we demand that you immediately resign...This man is far from impartial and cannot remain a justice on our nation's highest court. As a grassroots movement of Christians, let's join together to demand that Justice Alito immediately resign," the petition states.

You can sign the petition here. They are going to need a heck of a lot more than 15,000 signatures.

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The Faithful America website has a really great page devoted to describing and fighting against CN (Christian nationalism). Here are two snippets of info:

What is Christian nationalism, and why is it a threat?

As defined by multiple sociologists and academic researchers, Christian nationalism is a political ideology and cultural framework that claims America was founded to be a "Christian nation" where Christians should receive special legal treatment not available to non-Christians. This merges the previously separate Christian and American identities, proclaiming that the only true Americans are the country's Christians (and a specific subset of conservative Christians, at that). This means that Christian nationalism is antisemitic and Islamophobic, and poses a threat to the religious freedom of America's Jews, Muslims, Indigenous peoples, mainline Protestant Christians, and more.

Is Christian nationalism Christian?

No, Christian nationalism is a political ideology and a form of nationalism, not a religion or a form of Christianity. It directly contradicts the Gospel in multiple ways, and is therefore considered by many Christian leaders to be a heresy. While Jesus taught love, peace, and truth, Christian nationalism leads to hatred, political violence, and QAnon misinformation. While Jesus resisted the devil's temptations of authority in the wilderness, Christian nationalism seeks to seize power for its followers at all costs. And while Christianity is a 2,000-year-old global tradition that transcends all borders, Christian nationalism seeks to merge faith with a single, 247-year-old, pluralistic nation.

Woof! Those Christians are getting to be a feisty lot!

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From the Milquetoast MSM Files: 

A retired federal judge says Judge Cannon 

appears to show 'favoritism' toward Trump

Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, continues to make decisions that puzzle many legal observers.

Last month, Cannon delayed the start of the trial indefinitely. She's taken months to make routine procedural decisions.

Retired judge Shira Scheindlin: The main thing that stood out to me is how she has constantly caused delay in the case instead of moving it forward. She's done that in, I would say, two ways. One is her inability to rule in an efficient manner. She holds onto motions. She keeps them pending. She can't seem to decide things. Most experienced judges, which of course I considered myself after 27 years, try to know which motions really require further consideration and argument and which, you know, instinctively you could say frankly, one word: denied. And you can rule from the bench.

The second thing that stands out to me is what appears to me to be her dislike of the government and her favoritism toward the defense. I'm not saying that that's going to, in the end, determine how she rules on everything, but she seems to have a visceral dislike of Jack Smith and his team. She's constantly criticizing them. She's constantly being sharp and sarcastic with them, and she almost never treats the defense that way.

Appears to show favoritism? Legal observers are puzzled? For real? Geez, what planet are we on here?

If something walks, talks, looks, smells and acts like a judge showing blatant favoritism to a party in a trial in their courtroom, it is the judge showing blatant favoritism. What planet do the elites in the MSM live on? It sure isn't Earth.

Q1: What the hell is wrong with the MSM, e.g., is it corrupted, co-opted, inept, biased, clueless, and/or something else? (this dreary news reporting is from NPR) 

Q2: Do you believe the following sentiment is mostly true, false or ambiguous?

(FWIW, I believe it is usually mostly true 

and in the case of DJT, completely true)

Thinking about DJT; Dem messaging; Misc.

Lately the news has been pretty much the same. Trump lies. Trump slanders. Trump is corrupt. Trump hates the rule of law applied to himself. Trump hates democracy, but lies about it. Trump has dementia, but Biden is old. Trump says something outrageous and the MSM gives him free air time and support by reporting his nonsense. Trump etc. 

It does not seem worth it to post about it much any more. By now, either people see the gravity and depth of America’s very real, very corrupt, authoritarian radical right anti-democracy threat or they don’t or can’t. Either they can see the rise of kleptocratic plutocracy, Christian fundamentalist theocracy and Trump-style autocracy or they cannot or will not. People know Trump or they do not.

Maybe a lot of Americans knowingly support the fall of their democracy, rule of law and civil liberties. I bet that very few of them would say that, maybe ~2%, while vehemently asserting (i) they are doing the opposite of what they are doing, while (ii) the Dems are doing mostly the opposite of what they are doing.

These are strange, unpleasant days. Like the very real reality of Trump, the very real power of decades of radical right dark free speech, planning and quiet, focused work against democracy and civil liberties cannot be denied. American authoritarianism has crystallized around its leader. He means to use all of his power and cause as much damage to democracy pro-public interest government as he possibly can, while serving himself and elites as much as possible with government on serving them.

To some non-trivial extent, the leadership of the Democratic Party does not appear to fully understand what America faces from the authoritarian radical right. That seems to be especially true of Joe Biden. But maybe his milquetoast style of politics masks a deeper understanding of the threat than his behavior conveys. Regardless of what he might know, we are stuck with Joe and his rather inept, probably partly subverted center to center-right Democratic Party.

Among the polling intelligentsia, there is a bit of evidence of a recent shift of sentiment away from the election being a coin toss to Trump probably being the winner if the election were to be held today. This far out, it is not clear whether that means anything or not. That may be just a minority view. Maybe it could vanish in the wake of a gigantic October surprise like Trump dropping dead from old age.

Q: Is it more useful than not to keep posting bad stuff that we already know about Trump?

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Vox reports about a common complaint about weak or ineffective Democratic Party messaging:

Biden’s overlooked campaign to protect Americans from Big Business

Many Americans are focused on inflation, but from Big Tech to junk fees, Biden is advancing a pro-consumer agenda

Through his executive authority, Biden has taken steps to combat “junk fees” — hidden fees that make everything from airline bookings to concert tickets more expensive than their sticker price, but also just feel like shady corporate attempts to get the better of consumers. He has also required companies to provide more transparency in their pricing.

His administration has also tackled monopolies like it’s the Roosevelt era, filing a flurry of sweeping lawsuits against major companies, including four Big Tech companies, on the grounds that they are harming competition in their industries and, therefore, American consumers.

Though those lawsuits have yet to be decided, they have already put companies on watch and, if successful, could create new legal precedents that would protect consumers well after Biden leaves office.  

In both its use of executive action and litigation, the Biden administration has been “more aggressive on antitrust than any previous administration in at least the last 50 to 75 years,” said Andre Delattre, who directs national campaign programs at the Public Interest Network, a public interest advocacy group.

It is fair to say that if Trump is put back in power and he moves to implement Project 2025 with authoritarian radical right Republicans in control of the US Senate, everything Biden has done will be attacked and reversed as much as possible, as fast as possible.

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Trump threatens to cut US aid to Ukraine quickly if reelected -- Ukraine’s allies are scrambling to secure long-term aid for Kyiv amid fears about a second Trump term -- Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday blasted the scale of U.S. support for Ukraine and said that if he is reelected in November he would immediately “have that settled.”

There, that foreign policy issue is settled.

Trump challenges Biden to a cognitive test but confuses the name of the doctor who tested him -- Donald Trump has suggested President Joe Biden “should have to take a cognitive test,” only to confuse who administered the test to him in the next sentence

Lara Trump is building an army of ‘100,000 poll watchers and over 500 lawyers’ to ‘deploy’ across America in November -- These volunteers will have three missions: Watch people vote, watch people count votes, and sue anybody who gets in the way. “I believe if we have a free, fair and transparent election that there’s no question we’ll all be going to bed early on November 5,” she said. Following her remarks — which were full of militaristic language such as “deploy” and “battleground” — the assembled volunteers (around 75 in total) began “training” as potential poll watchers. The press was not allowed to view the training, The Post’s request to view training materials was declined.

Actually, those poll watchers have a fourth mission: Intimidate as many Democratic voters as possible. Notice the secrecy? The radical right has always worked in as much secrecy as possible. It has lied as much as possible about its agenda and tactics, e.g., FTZWS (flood the zone with shit).

Neo-Nazi who protested drag shows has been arrested on child porn charges -- The Nationalist Social Club-131, a neo-Nazi group, is known for harassing drag queen story hours and calling queens “pedo scum.” Now one of its members has been charged with possessing child pornography. The Nationalist Social Club-131, a neo-Nazi group, is known for harassing drag queen story hours and calling queens “pedo scum.” Now one of its members has been charged with possessing child pornography.

Some of those Trump supporters are feisty little stinkers. Hypocrites too! 🤨

Bannon vows Trump’s opponents will be prosecuted in a second term -- Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of Donald Trump, vowed investigations and prosecutions of those who have probed the former president and his political allies, declaring at a conservative gathering Saturday that Inauguration Day in 2025 will be “accountability day.” “You are going to be investigated, prosecuted and incarcerated,” he said. “This has nothing to do with retribution. It has nothing to do with revenge. Because retribution and revenge might be another order of magnitude. This has to do with justice.” Bannon was referring to recent comments by Trump vowing to be his supporters’ “retribution” and saying that “sometimes revenge can be justified.”

Geez, all of that sounds like it has everything to do with retribution and revenge and little or nothing to do with justice. Whatever, that is just standard authoritarian radical right messaging.

New history book chronicles the overturning of Roe: (Interview with the authors)

The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America, by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, is the first major history that describes and analyzes the forces and events that led to the reversal of Roe. Though it provides the back-story and context of the anti-abortion movement from the 1970s to present, its main focus is on the way in which a  coalition of Christian lawyers, activists, and politicians methodically took down Roe while appearing to "fly beneath the radar of the Democrats" during the last decade or so. (Dems need a radar upgrade fast, as they've been asleep at the switch far too long on this and several other issues where the Right think strategically and play the long term game). While I have not yet read the book, interviews and reviews suggest that it frames the current state of play on this issue accurately and skillfully,  as we head to the polls in a few months. Much of the history may be familiar, but perhaps it is worth pulling various strands of the past and present together, to get a glimpse of where we are, how we got here, and where we may be going in the near and medium term future.

This interview with the authors is taken from The Bulwark podcast.  

Elizabeth Dias is National Religion Correspondent for NYT

Lisa Lerer is National Political Correspondent for NYT

Capitalism as usual: Profit above truth, human health and the environment

A long, detailed ProPublica article reports about a common occurrence among huge corporations, namely enforced secrecy to defend profits at the expense of the public interest:

How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals 

She Found in Human Blood Were Safe

Decades ago, Kris Hansen showed 3M that its PFAS chemicals were in people’s bodies. Her bosses halted her work. As the EPA now forces the removal of the chemicals from drinking water, she wrestles with the secrets that 3M kept from her and the world

Kris Hansen had worked as a chemist at the 3M Corporation for about a year when her boss, an affable senior scientist named Jim Johnson, gave her a strange assignment. 3M had invented Scotch Tape and Post-­it notes; it sold everything from sandpaper to kitchen sponges. But on this day, in 1997, Johnson wanted Hansen to test human blood for chemical contamination.

Several of 3M’s most successful products contained man-made compounds called fluorochemicals. In a spray called Scotchgard, fluorochemicals protected leather and fabric from stains. In a coating known as Scotchban, they prevented food packaging from getting soggy. In a soapy foam used by firefighters, they helped extinguish jet-fuel fires. Johnson explained to Hansen that one of the company’s fluorochemicals, PFOS — short for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid — often found its way into the bodies of 3M factory workers. Although he said that they were unharmed, he had recently hired an outside lab to measure the levels in their blood. The lab had just reported something odd, however. For the sake of comparison, it had tested blood samples from the American Red Cross, which came from the general population and should have been free of fluorochemicals. Instead, it kept finding a contaminant in the blood.

Kris Hanson

Long story short, Hansen repeated her results, then applied a more accurate measurement method and got the same results over and over. Everyone had PFOS in their blood. Hanson told her boss Johnson about the finding and his response was “this changes everything.” Johnson then walked into his office, closed the door and said nothing else the rest of the day. Later that same day, Johnson’s boss Dale Bacon came to Hanson and told her her results were wrong. Hanson then got more blood from more sources and tested them. All had PFOS contamination. While Hanson was doing her repeat testing, Johnson announced that he would be taking early retirement. He packed up his office and left.

The most reliable way to gauge the safety of chemicals is to study them over time, in animals and, if possible, humans. ProPublica reported that Hansen didn’t know that 3M scientists had already conducted animal studies in the 1970s and found evidence of PFOS toxicity in rats. A 1979 3M internal report in 1979 concluded that PFOS was “certainly more toxic than anticipated.” Explicit warnings about PFOS toxicity from an outside expert were omitted from internal company documents.

One 3M manager told Hanson that her equipment might be contaminated, so she cleaned everything, repeated the experiments and got the same results. 3M was looking for ways to discredit Hanson and her data. ProPublica described the extremes to which 3M as going to kill the results:

Sometimes Hansen doubted herself. She was 28 and had only recently earned her Ph.D. But she continued her experiments, if only to respond to the questions of her managers. 3M bought three additional mass spectrometers, which each cost more than a car, and Hansen used them to test more blood samples. In late 1997, her new boss, Bacon, even had her fly out to the company that manufactured the machines, so that she could repeat her tests there. She studied the blood of hundreds of people from more than a dozen blood banks in various states. Each sample contained PFOS. The chemical seemed to be everywhere.  

After Hansen started her PFOS research, her relationships with some colleagues seemed to deteriorate. One afternoon in 1998, a trim 3M epidemiologist named Geary Olsen arrived with several vials of blood and asked her to test them. The next morning, she read the results to him and several colleagues — positive for PFOS. As Hansen remembers it, Olsen looked triumphant. “Those samples came from my horse,” he said — and his horse certainly wasn’t eating at McDonald’s or trotting on Scotchgarded carpets. Hansen felt that he was trying to humiliate her. (Olsen did not respond to requests for comment.) What Hansen wanted to know was how PFOS was making its way into animals.  

Hansen’s team found it in Swedish blood samples from 1957 and 1971. After that, her lab analyzed blood that had been collected before 3M created PFOS. It tested negative. Apparently, fluorochemicals had entered human blood after the company started selling products that contained them. They had leached out of 3M’s sprays, coatings and factories — and into all of us.  

Even as Hansen was being sidelined, the results of her research were quietly making their way into the files of the Environmental Protection Agency. Since the ’70s, federal law has required that companies tell the EPA about any evidence indicating that a company’s products present “a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment.” In May 1998, 3M officials notified the agency, without informing Hansen, that the company had measured PFOS in blood samples from around the U.S. — a clear reference to Hansen’s work. It did not mention its animal research from the ’70s, and it said that the chemical caused “no adverse effects” at the levels the company had measured in its workers. A year later, 3M sent the EPA another letter, again without telling Hansen. This time, it informed the agency about the 14 other fluorochemicals, several of them made by 3M, that Hansen’s team had detected in human blood. The company reiterated that it did not believe that its products presented a substantial risk to human health.  

In 2022, 3M said that it would stop making PFAS and would “work to discontinue the use of PFAS across its product portfolio,” by the end of 2025 — a pledge that it called “another example of how we are positioning 3M for continued sustainable growth.” But it acknowledged that more than 16,000 of its products still contained PFAS. Direct sales of the chemicals were generating $1.3 billion annually. 3M’s regulatory filings also allow for the possibility that a full phaseout won’t happen — for example, if 3M fails to find substitutes. “We are continuing to make progress on our announcement to exit PFAS manufacturing,” 3M’s spokesperson told me [ProPublica reporter Sharon Lerner]. The company and its scientists have not admitted wrong­doing or faced criminal liability for producing forever chemicals or for concealing their harms.

This reporting personally resonates quite a lot. A company I worked for in the 1980s had two different well-known consumer products tested for one form of toxicity, one each from two major corporations. One was mildly toxic but a common food ingredient and the other was horrendously toxic. After receiving their toxicity reports, lawyers for the two corporations wrote a letter to our CEO, (i) reminding him of the secrecy agreement the testing was done under, and (ii) threatening to ruin him and the company if the toxicity data was ever leaked to the public. 

The foot-dragging, downplaying bad data and denying responsibility in pursuit of profit is standard corporate tactics. That is the rule, not the exception. Exxon-Mobil and oil companies do it about global warming. Cigarette companies still do it about lung cancer. All or nearly all big corporations do it about whatever they make money from doing. Profit is always privatized and trickled up to the elites, while harm and damage to humans and the environment are socialized and offloaded from corporate responsibility as much as possible. And, much is possible with America’s corrupt pay-to-play, two-party political system.  

From this story, one can easily see why the authoritarian radical right Republican Party Project 2025 plans to get rid of the EPA and environmental protection regulations. 1970s federal law had required that companies tell the EPA about any evidence indicating that a company’s products present “a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment.” By getting rid of laws like that, corporations can legally keep their dirty laundry hidden. That is how plutocracy works. That is the core morality of capitalism.

I do not know if the toxicity data my old company generated was ever reported to the EPA. Given the moral mindset of capitalism, that data may have never been reported.