Group items tagged

As Professor Peter Steinberger details in a 2011 piece for Reed magazine, “What Hum 110 Is All About,” the course is intended to train students whose “primary goal” is “to engage in original, open-ended, critical inquiry.”

But for RAR, Hum 110 is all about oppression. “We believe that the first lesson that freshmen should learn about Hum 110 is that it perpetuates white supremacy—by centering ‘whiteness’ as the only required class at Reed,” according to a RAR statement delivered to all new freshmen

The texts that make up the Hum 110 syllabus—from the ancient Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Egypt regions—are “Eurocentric,” “Caucasoid,” and thus “oppressive,” RAR leaders have stated. Hum 110 “feels like a cruel test for students of color,” one leader remarked on public radio. “It traumatized my peers.”

Reed is home to the most liberal student body of any college, according to The Princeton Review. It’s also ranked the second most-studious—a rigor inculcated in Hum 110.

A major crisis for Reed College started when RAR put those core qualities—social justice and academic study—on a collision course.

Beginning on boycott day, RAR protested every single Hum lecture that school year.

A Hum protest is visually striking: Up to several dozen RAR supporters position themselves alongside the professor and quietly hold signs reading “We demand space for students of color,” “We cannot be erased,” “Fuck Hum 110,” “Stop silencing black and brown voices; the rest of society is already standing on their necks,” and so on. The signs are often accompanied by photos of black Americans killed by police.

One of the first Hum professors to request that RAR not occupy the classroom was Lucía Martínez Valdivia, who said her preexisting PTSD would make it difficult to face protesters. In an open letter, RAR offered sympathy to Martínez Valdivia but then accused her of being anti-black, discriminating against those with disabilities, and engaging in gaslighting—without specifying those charges. When someone asked for specifics, a RAR leader replied, “Asking for people to display their trauma so that you feel sufficiently satisfied is a form of violence.”

But another RAR member did offer a specific via Facebook: “The​ ​appropriation​ ​of​ ​AAVE [African American Vernacular English]​ ​on​ ​her​ ​shirt​ ​during​ ​lecture:​ ​‘Poetry​ ​is​ ​lit’ ​is​ ​a​ ​form​ ​of​ ​anti-blackness.”

During Martínez Valdivia’s lecture on Sappho, protesters sat together in the seats wearing all black; they confronted her after class, with at least one of them yelling at the professor about her past trauma, bringing her to tears. “I am intimidated by these students,” Martínez Valdivia later wrote, noting she is “scared to teach courses on race, gender, or sexuality, or even texts that bring these issues up in any way—and I am a gay mixed-race woman.” Such fear, she revealed in an op-ed for The Washington Post, prompted some of her colleagues— “including people of color, immigrants, and those without tenure”—to avoid lecturing altogether.

what about the majority of students not in RAR? I spoke with a few dozen of them to get an understanding of what campus was like last year, and a clear pattern emerged: intimidation, stigma, and silence when it came to discussing Hum 110, or racial politics in general.

Raphael, the founder of the Political Dissidents Club, warned incoming students over Facebook that “Reed’s culture can be stifling/suffocating and narrow minded.”

The most popular public forum at Reed is Facebook, where social tribes coalesce and where the most emotive and partisan views get the most attention. “Facebook conversations at Reed bring out the extreme aspects of political discourse on campus,” said Yuta, a sophomore who recently co-founded a student group, The Thinkery, “dedicated to critical and open discussion.”

In mid-April, when students were studying for finals, a RAR leader grew frustrated that more supporters weren’t showing up to protest Hum 110. In a post viewable only to Reed students, the leader let loose: To all the white & able(mentally/physically) who don’t come to sit-ins(ever, anymore, rarely): all i got is shade for you. [... If] you ain’t with me, then I will accept that you are against me. There’s 6 hums left, I best be seein all u phony ass white allies show-up. […] How you gonna be makin all ur white supremacy messes & not help clean-up your own community by coming and sitting for a frickin hour & still claim that you ain’t a laughin at a lynchin kinda white.

Nonwhite students weren’t spared; a group of them agreed to “like” Patrick’s comment in a show of support. A RAR member demanded those “non-black pocs [people of color]” explain themselves, calling them “anti-black pos [pieces of shit].”

As tensions continued to mount, one student decided to create an online forum to debate Hum 110. Laura, a U.S. Army veteran who served twice in Afghanistan, named the Facebook page “Reed Discusses Hum 110.” But it seemed like people didn’t want to engage publicly:

Another student wrote to Laura in a private message, “I'm coming into this as a ‘POC’ but I disagree with everything [RAR has been] saying for a long time [and] it feels as if it isn't safe for anyone to express anything that goes against what they're saying.”

Laura could relate—her father “immigrated from Syria and was brown”—so she stood in front of Hum 110 just before class to distribute an anonymous survey to gauge opinions about the protests, an implicit rebuke to RAR. Laura, who lives in the neighboring city of Beaverton, said she saw this move as risky. “I would’ve rethought what I did had I lived on campus,” she said.

If Facebook is no place to debate Hum 110, what about the printed page? Not so much: During the entire 2016–17 school year, not a single op-ed or even a quote critical of RAR’s methods—let alone goals—was published in the student newspaper, according to a review of archived issues. The only thing that comes close?

The student magazine, The Grail, did publish a fair amount of dissent over RAR—but almost all anonymously

This school year, students are ditching anonymity and standing up to RAR in public—and almost all of them are freshmen of color

The pushback from freshmen first came over Facebook. “To interrupt a lecture in a classroom setting is in serious violation of academic freedom and is just unthoughtful and wrong,” wrote a student from China named Sicheng, who distributed a letter of dissent against RAR. Another student, Isabel, ridiculed the group for its “unsolicited emotional theater.

I met the student who shot the video. A sophomore from India, he serves as a mentor for international students. (He asked not to be identified by name.) “A lot of them told me how disappointed they were—that they traveled such a long distance to come to this school, and worked so hard to get to this school, and their first lecture was canceled,” he said. He also recalled the mood last year for many students of color like himself: “There was very much a standard opinion you had to have [about RAR], otherwise people would look at you funny, and some people would say stuff to you—a lot of people were called ‘race traitors.

Another student from India, Jagannath, responded to the canceled lecture by organizing a freshmen-only meeting on the quad. “For us to rise out of this culture of private concerns, hatred, and fear, we need to find a way to think, speak, and act together,” he wrote in a mass email. Jagannath told me that upperclassmen warned him he was “very crazy” to hold a public meeting, but it was a huge success; about 150 freshmen showed up, and by all accounts, their debate over Hum 110 was civil and constructive. In the absence of Facebook and protest signs, the freshmen were taking back their class.

In the intervening year, the Reed administration had met many of RAR’s demands, including new hires in the Office of Inclusive Community, fast-tracking the reevaluation of the Hum 110 syllabus that traditionally happens every 10 years, and arranging a long series of “6 by 6 meetings”—six RAR students and six Hum professors—to solicit ideas for that syllabus. (Those meetings ended when RAR members stopped coming; they complained of being “forced to sit in hours of fruitless meetings listening to full-grown adults cry about Aristotle.”)

the more accommodation that’s been made, the more disruptive the protests have become—and the more heightened the rhetoric. “Black lives matter” was the common chant at last year’s boycott. This year’s? “No cops, no KKK, no racist U.S.A.” RAR increasingly claims those cops will be unleashed on them—or, in their words, Hum professors are “entertaining threatening violence on our bodies.”

Rollo later told me that RAR “had a beautiful opportunity to address police violence” but squandered it with extreme rhetoric. “Identity politics is divisive,” he insisted. As far as Hum 110, “I like to do my own interpreting,” and he resents RAR “playing the race card on ancient Egyptian culture.

Reed is just one college—and a small one at that. But the freshman revolt against RAR could be a blueprint for other campuses. If the “most liberal student body” in the country can reject divisive racial rhetoric and come together to debate a diversity of views, others could follow.

Conley acknowledged that his evasive answers "came off that we were trying to hide something" but said that "wasn't necessarily true,"

Conley acknowledged that the President has experienced "two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation"

When asked if they had dropped below 90, he replied, "We don't have any recordings here of that." Pressed again on whether they had dropped below 90, Conley said the President's blood oxygen levels didn't get down into "the low 80s."

"There's some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern," Conley said, not explaining whether they were expected findings in a normal patient or a Covid-19 patient.

Some seven months into a pandemic that has killed more than 209,000 Americans, the nation is now facing a grave governing crisis with its commander in chief hospitalized

Conley failed to answer basic questions about the President's condition and admitted that he had omitted those alarming drops in the President's oxygen levels during a news conference Saturday because he wanted to "reflect the upbeat attitude"

"made substantial progress" since his diagnosis but "is not yet out of the woods."

Speaking from a White House that already has a huge credibility problem with the public, Meadows' statement capped a 24-hour period that served as a master class in opacity and contradiction that raised major questions about the President's health

Trump has been watching and critiquing coverage of his hospitalization from the presidential suite at Walter Reed

It "seems highly likely this originated at the SCOTUS announcement last week," a senior administration official told CNN's Jake Tapper of the outbreak among GOP officials. "It may have come from the Hill. The next major concern will be securing Capitol Hill and protecting lawmakers," the official added.

The President's construct crumbled Friday when he was airlifted to Walter Reed after contracting the virus,

The White House seemed to be continuing to downplay concerns about the severity of the virus Saturday morning when the President's physician, Navy Cmdr. Dr. Sean Conley, gave a news conference at Walter Reed where he described the President as upbeat and feeling good, without revealing any of the alarming developments with his oxygen levels the day before.

Many of the Trump aides or contacts who have recently tested positive for Covid-19 attended the White House festivities honoring Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on September 26, in the Rose Garden.

Those people told CNN that Trump seemed particularly upset when he saw a quote saying he was displaying "concerning" symptoms on Friday

The President said he was "starting to feel good" and that he was receiving therapeutics he said are like "miracles coming down from God."

"I had to be out front and this is America, this is the United States, this is the greatest country in the world, this is the most powerful country in the world," Trump continued in the video. "I can't be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe, and just say, hey whatever happens, happens. I can't do that."

The President tweeted that he had tested positive for coronavirus around 1 a.m. ET Friday, hours after attending a Thursday night fundraiser in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he met with a small group of donors indoors with no masks, before addressing a larger crowd outdoors. Trump got his first positive coronavirus test result Thursday after returning from that trip, a White House official said Saturday evening.

He declined to say whether medical tests had revealed any damage to the President's lungs.

Conley said Trump had been fever-free for 24 hours and had experienced an "extremely mild cough," nasal congestion and fatigue.

"The President's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We are still not on a clear path to a full recovery," the source later identified as Meadows told pool reporters.

Once Trump was at Walter Reed, doctors initiated the antiviral drug remdesivir. He is receiving a five-day course of the drug, which has been shown to shorten recovery time for some coronavirus patients.

In that election, awful as the choices were, it was necessary to support Edwards. Bumper stickers read “Vote For The Crook: It’s Important.”

Reed used this example to show why voting for Clinton was so necessary in a race against Donald Trump, regardless of Clinton’s long record of terrible policies. “Vote for the lying neoliberal warmonger,” Reed said. “It’s important.”

He, and many other famous leftists like Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West, are saying the same thing this time around. “An anti-fascist vote for Biden is in no way an affirmation of Neoliberal politics,” West commented.

Some people on the left find this argument very difficult to stomach, though. In a recent conversation on the Bad Faith podcast, Briahna Joy Gray and Virgil Texas debated Chomsky about his stance.

In response to the “vote Biden to stop Trump” argument, they and others ask questions like the following:  But if we are willing to vote for the Democrat no matter how awful they are, what incentive will the Democratic party have to ever get better? How are we ever going to get better candidates if we don’t have some standards? Is there really no one we wouldn’t support, if they were the “lesser evil”?

while they are important, they can also seem strange if we examine how they would sound in other contexts. After all, think back to David Duke in 1991. Or the German election of 1932. Would it have seemed reasonable, faced with a Klan governorship, to ask: “But if I vote for Edwards, won’t I be incentivizing corruption? Isn’t the lesser evil still evil? Shouldn’t I demand Edwards stop being corrupt before I give him my vote?”

It’s also a mistake to think that the decision about whether or not to vote for Democrats in a general election can operate as an effective form of political pressure on Democrats. The mainstream Democratic Party does not see losing elections as a sign that it needs to do more to excite its left flank. John Kerry did not look at the 2000 election and think “My God, I need to work hard to appeal to Nader voters.”

The answers to these questions are: (1) maybe, but it doesn’t matter in the situation we’re currently in (2) yes (3) no, because if he declines to stop being corrupt, you’re still going to have to give him your vote, because the alternative is putting a Klansman in office, and “do unlikely thing X or I will help white supremacists win, or at least not work to stop them” is an insane threat to make.

The easy way to avoid being troubled by having to vote for people you loathe is to give less importance to the act of voting itself. Don’t treat voting as an expression of your deepest and truest values

Don’t let the decision about who to vote for be an agonizing moral question. Just look at the question of which outcome out of the ones available would be marginally more favorable, and vote to bring about that outcome

if faced with two bad candidates, forget for the moment about the virtues of the candidates themselves and look only at the consequences for the issues you care about.

Voting can have immensely important consequences—the narrow 2000 election put a warmongering lunatic in power and resulted in a colossal amount of unnecessary human suffering.

The mainstream (I would call it “propagandistic”) view of political participation is that you participate in politics through voting. But instead, we’re better off thinking of voting as a harm-reduction chore we have to do every few years.

(Reed compares it to cleaning the toilet—not pleasant but if you don’t hold your nose and get on with it the long-term consequences will be unbearable.) Most of our political energy should be focused elsewhere. 

Reed used an illuminating comparison to explain why it was so important in 2016 to vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. In the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial primary, the Republican candidate was former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. The Democratic candidate was the infamously corrupt Edwin Edwards, who would ultimately end his career in prison on charges of racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud, and wire fraud. It’s hard to imagine anyone you could possibly trust less in public office than Edwin Edwards… except David Duke.

it overemphasizes the role of “deciding who to vote for in the general election” as a tool of politics. One way to get better Democrats in general elections is to run better candidates and win primaries. Another would be to build an actually powerful left with the ability to coordinate mass direct action and shape the political landscape

the general election vote itself is not how we effectively exercise pressure, in part because it would be unconscionable to actually go through with anything that made Donald Trump’s win more probable. The threat not to vote for Biden is either an empty one (a bluff) or an indefensible one (because it’s threatening to set the world on fire).

The conversation between Chomsky, Gray, and Texas frustrated everyone involved, as these conversations often do. Essentially, for most of the hour, Gray and Texas asked variations of the same question, and Chomsky offered variations of the same answer. They appeared to think he was ignoring the question and he appeared to think they were ignoring the answer.

The question that is on the ballot on November third,” as Chomsky said, is the reelection of Donald Trump. It is a simple up or down: do we want Trump to remain or do we want to get rid of him? If we do not vote for Biden, we are increasing Trump’s chances of winning. Saying that we will “withhold our vote” if Biden does not become more progressive, Chomsky says, amounts to saying “if you don’t put Medicare For All on your platform, I’m going to vote for Trump… If I don’t get what I want, I’m going to help the worst possible candidate into office—I think that’s crazy.” 

In fact, because Trump’s reelection would mean “total cataclysm” for the climate, “all these other issues don’t arise” unless we defeat him. Chomsky emphasizes preventing the most catastrophic consequences of climate change as the central issue, and says that the difference between Trump and Biden on climate—one denies it outright and wants to destroy all progress made so far in slowing emissions, the other has an inadequate climate plan that aims for net-zero emissions by 2050—is significant enough to make electing Biden extremely important.

This does not mean voting for Biden is a vote to solve the climate crisis; it means without Biden in office, there is no chance of solving the crisis.

TEXAS: If these capitalist institutions result in recurring ecological crisis, and existential ones, as they do, then isn’t the real fight against those institutions instead of a reform that maybe gets us over the hump in 30 years

CHOMSKY: Think for a second. Think about time scales. We have maybe a decade or two to deal with the environmental crisis. Is there the remotest chance that within a decade or two we’ll overthrow capitalism? It’s not even a dream, okay? So the point that you’re raising is basically irrelevant. Of course let’s work to try to overthrow capitalism. It’s not going to happen *snaps fingers* like that. There’s a lot of work involved. Meanwhile we have an imminent question: are we going to preserve the possibility for organized human society to survive?

The important point here is that the question is not whether we attack capitalist institutions “instead of” reforms. The reforms are necessary in the short term; you fight like hell to force the ruling elite to stop destroying the earth as best you can even as you pursue larger long-term structural goals.

Gray and Texas note to Chomsky that for people who are struggling in their daily lives, climate may seem a somewhat abstract issue, and it may be hard to motivate them to get to the polls when the issue is something so detached from their daily reality. Chomsky replied that “as an activist, it is your job to make them care.”

Some have pointed out a tension in Chomsky’s position: on the one hand, he consistently describes voting as a relatively trivial act that we should not think too much about or spend much time on. On the other hand, he says the stakes of elections are incredibly high and that the future of “organized human life” and the fate of one’s grandchildren could depend on the outcome of the 2020 election.

There’s no explicit contradiction between those two positions: voting can be extremely consequential, and it can be necessary to do it, but it can still be done (relatively) briefly and without much agonizing and deliberation.

However, if the presidential election is so consequential, can we be justified in spending only the time on it that it takes to vote? Surely if we believe Trump imperils the future of Earth, we should not just be voting for Biden, but be phone-banking and knocking doors for him. Well, I actually think it might well be true that we should be doing that, reluctant as I am to admit it.

I actually asked Chomsky about this, and he said that he does believe it’s important to persuade as many people as possible, which is why at the age of 91 he is spending his time and energy trying to convince people to “vote against Trump” instead of sitting by a pool and hanging out with his grandkids

one thing is evident: if we want to look toward electoral strategies for change, it had better be mass-based oppositional models like the Bernie campaign, not third-party protest candidacies or the threat of nonvoting

The question of how to win power does not have easy answers. What to do from now until November 3rd is, however, easy; what to do afterwards is much, much more complicated no matter who wins. But political activism is not an untested endeavor. We can study how social movements set goals and win them.

Noam Chomsky’s view of electoral politics is, I believe, a sensible one. In fact, it’s not his; as he says, it’s the “traditional left view,” just one that we’ve lost clarity on

People mistakenly assume that by saying “vote against Trump,” Chomsky is putting too much stock in the power of voting and is insufficiently cynical about the Democratic Party. In fact, it’s completely the opposite: he puts very little stock in voting and is perhaps even more cynical about the Democrats than his critics, which is why he doesn’t think it’s surprising or interesting that Biden is offering the left almost nothing and the party is treating voters with contempt.

The main drawback — the 14th Amendment's lack of a removal clause — could be remedied through well-deserved impeachment, though Trump's departure in a week will make this issue moot.

Invoking the 14th Amendment could well garner more Republican support. On Monday evening, GOP Rep. Tom Reed of New York published an op-ed in The New York Times making his case for avoiding impeachment. "Work with us on constitutionally viable alternatives," Reed pleaded. Those include "censure, criminal proceedings, and actions under the 14th Amendment."

Realistically, pursuing this path would also rule out an already unlikely impeachment conviction in the Senate, yet with Democrats moving forward on the early stages of impeachment, leadership might be uninterested in shifting approaches.

"The language in Section Three applies to anybody who has made an oath to the Constitution and then violates that oath," Eric Foner, a Civil War historian and Columbia University professor emeritus, told The Washington Post. "It's pretty simple."

The case for applying the language to Trump may also be clearer than that of impeachment, because the 14th Amendment's permanent ban on future public service emphasizes for all future generations the severity of Trump's treachery and doesn't require the Senate to take a separate vote, as during the impeachment process.

That's not to say there won't be challenges to invoking the 14th Amendment. Any effort to hold Trump accountable is likely to face strong Republican opposition, though the extremity of Trump's conduct seems to be fracturing party loyalties.

But there's an underlying point that should be carefully considered: The 14th Amendment was crafted in times of division not entirely unlike our own.

It can be dispiriting to see that the threat of violent antidemocratic terrorism is as real in our enlightened modernity as it was in the wake of the Civil War.

Some Republicans, particularly those who were always critical of Mr. Trump, are adamant that his exile will reveal him to be more of a spent force than a power broker. The president’s political legacy, they say, is one of defeat and division.

“Trump is a political David Koresh,” said Billy Piper, a former chief of staff to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, referring to the cult leader who died with his followers during an F.B.I. siege in Waco, Texas. “He sees the end coming and wants to burn it all down and take as many with him as possible.”

Representative Tom Reed of New York, who has emerged as a leader of more moderate Republicans in the House, said Thursday that the party needed to begin “not worrying about base politics as much, and standing up to that base.” He argued that Republicans should pursue compromise legislation with Mr. Biden on issues like climate change, and forecast that a sizable number of Republicans would take that path.

If that means standing up to the base in order to achieve something, they’ll do it,” Mr. Reed predicted.

Mr. Reed warned his party that the Democrats would depict the G.O.P. as a dangerous party in 2022 if they did not rebut that charge.

“They’re going to, obviously, paint us with the backdrop of yesterday,” he said, alluding to the mob violence.

Ms. Kim, who is one of a cohort of Republican female and minority candidates who helped the party cut deeply into the Democratic majority in the last election, acknowledged that she would most likely face “some blowback from the base” for voting to certify Mr. Biden’s election. But she said that should not be a primary consideration as Republicans emerge from the Trump era.

American adults say they're drinking 14% more often during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report in the journal JAMA Network Open. The increase in frequency of drinking for women was more pronounced, up 17% compared to last year.

Stores sold 54% more alcohol in late March compared the year prior, according to Nielsen.

"Alcohol compromises the body's immune system and increases the risk of adverse health outcomes," the WHO stated. "Therefore, people should minimize their alcohol consumption at any time, and particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic."

Two weeks after the killing of George Floyd, crowds inspired by Black Lives Matter protests in America marched to the statue of a slave trader named Edward Colston in the center of the English port city of Bristol. They wrapped ropes around the neck of the bronze effigy, pulled it to the pavement, rolled and dragged it through the streets, and then pushed it into the harbor.

Colston was Bristol's biggest philanthropist. His name adorned the city's concert hall, an office tower, as well as schools and streets. The plaque beneath the statue, which was erected in 1895, called him "one of the most virtuous and wise sons" of Bristol. What it failed to mention – and what angered the protesters – is that Colston made much of his fortune with the Royal African Company, which shipped tens of thousands of enslaved people across the Atlantic to work on plantations during Colston's tenure. An estimated one in five people died during the crossing.

A reader poll in the Bristol Post found about 60% of respondents backed protesters pulling down the statue, while around 40% thought it shouldn't have been toppled.

Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees, who has lived in Washington and Philadelphia, has had his own unnerving experiences with American police. He said he was flabbergasted when a cop in the U.S. once threatened to arrest him for jaywalking

After that, Rees says, he changed the way he dealt with police in the U.S. When asking for directions in New York City one day, he made sure to speak as he took care to approach an officer from the front.

Some white residents were doubly angry. They were still mad that the Colston statue had been pulled down illegally and that another statue had gone up without government authorization or public input.

"I think it's beautiful," Aidid said. "It stands for so much that Bristol has needed. When I walked past here today, I finally felt like it's not a direct insult to my humanity, to my life."

The next morning, government workers unbolted the statue and took it down, leaving the pedestal empty, once again.

In July, a London sculptor had his own statue hoisted up on the pedestal. It depicted a Black female protester holding her fist up in a Black power salute.

“For every death, there’s about 21 other infections,” she said modeling showed. So most of Philadelphia’s 50,000 people probably were infected. “They were either lucky that they didn’t develop disease or had mild disease compared to those that were unlucky and died.”Yellow fever is one of more than 200 known human viruses, according to the National Institutes of Health. They include those that cause HIV/AIDS, Ebola, polio, smallpox, measles, mumps, rabies, the common cold and now the novel coronavirus.

In the late 1800s, scientists were just starting to realize that strange microbes smaller than bacteria were causing disorders in plants and animals. Bacteria, which had been discovered in the 1670s, had been associated with human illnesses such as typhoid fever, cholera and tuberculosis.

U.S. Army physician Walter Reed reported in 1900 that the leading suspect bacteria was not found in the blood of fever cases he studied in Cuba.There was an alien “parasite” at work, he believed.“At the time they didn’t even call it a virus,” Staples said. “They didn’t know really what a virus was.”

In 1900, Reed set up what he called an “experimental sanitary station” in Cuba, where yellow fever was prevalent. He named it Camp Lazear, for Jesse W. Lazear, a medical colleague who had died of the fever that year.

After extensive testing on volunteer patients who were infected, Reed confirmed that mosquitoes were the carrier and eliminated bacteria as a cause.

The yellow fever virus was isolated in 1927, and scientists soon came up with an effective vaccine, called 17D, a weakened form of the virus itself. It’s still in use, and a recent scholarly paper called it “one of the most outstanding human vaccines ever developed.”

But in Philadelphia in 1793, the only remedy would be something that killed mosquitoes.

This debate doesn't have much to do with the merits of torture as an intelligence-gathering mechanism: The evidence that torture doesn't work is overwhelming. Rather, the debate among four leading Republicans over the practice is all about politics, both inside the Republican Party and more broadly.

Cruz, for example, has said that waterboarding does not constitute torture, but also that he would not "bring it back in any sort of widespread use" and has co-sponsored legislation limiting its use.

Well, under the definition of torture, no, it's not. Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems, so under the definition of torture, it is not. It is enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.

international law, under both the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions, considers waterboarding a form of torture and thus illegal.

A January 2005 Gallup poll found that 82 percent of Americans believed "strapping prisoners on boards and forcing their heads underwater until they think they are drowning" was an immoral interrogation tactic.

In 2007, 40 percent of Americans favored waterboarding suspected terrorists in a CNN poll, while 58 percent opposed. By 2014, 49 percent told CBS that they believed waterboarding could be at least sometimes justified, while only 36 percent said it never could be.

Today, 73 percent of Republicans support torturing suspected terrorists, according to Pew.

Any Republican who took a strong stance against waterboarding or other torture techniques could be pegged as weak on terrorism — a damning charge in a Republican primary that's been preoccupied with ISIS.

Reminder: Torture is morally abhorrent and also doesn't work

Some proponents will claim that while morally regrettable, torture is nonetheless necessary to keep us safe. But the best evidence suggests that it this is a false choice: Waterboarding, and other forms of torture, does not work.

In most cases, torture is used by authoritarian states to force false confessions

The evidence that torture did not aid the hunt for Osama bin Laden is particularly compelling.

In other words, some GOP candidates' pro-torture sentiment isn't just a relic of Bush-era partisan debates — it's also totally out of whack with everything we know about the practice of torture today.

In an email Friday, Ms. Gordon-Reed said she had been influenced by her scholarship on Hemings. “This is my life’s work,” she said. “I sincerely believe that we owe it to the enslaved to work through those feelings and think of ways to carry their stories forward. And we should do that in a way that shows the inherently entwined nature of the good and bad of our past, using written text and symbols like the sheaves and, even, buildings like Monticello.”

Some colleagues, including people of color, immigrants and those without tenure, found it impossible to work under these conditions. The signs intimidated faculty into silence, just as intended, and these silenced professors’ lectures were quietly replaced by talks from people willing and able to carry on teaching in the face of these demonstrations.

I think obscuring these acts of silencing was a mistake that resulted in an escalation of the protesters’ tactics.

This academic year, the first lecture was to be a panel introduction of the course: Along with two colleagues, I was going to offer my thoughts on the course, the study of the humanities and the importance of students’ knowing the history of the education they were beginning.

We introduced ourselves and took our seats. But as we were about to begin, the protesters seized our microphones, stood in front of us and shut down the lecture.

Congress now has a month to pass the bill. In July, it will go to committee, where Senators Reed and Inhofe’s influence leaves the legislation’s solutions vulnerable to being watered down or minimized.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was forced into quarantine after being exposed to someone who had tested positive for the coronavirus after hosting a string of large, indoor holiday parties at the State Department and attending a private party Saturday to watch the annual Army-Navy football game

The president, who recovered from his own bout with the virus after being treated with experimental drugs at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, is described by aides and allies as preoccupied with the election results he still refuses to accept, and has shown no interest in participating in any kind of public health message.

Instead, Mr. Trump has been focused on his efforts to overturn the election results and consumed by his anger at Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, who this week finally congratulated Mr. Biden on his victory and said that “the Electoral College has spoken.”

After months of positioning himself in opposition to public health experts, people familiar with his thinking said, Mr. Trump feels on some level as if he does not want to be seen as caving in the end to the advice of the same people he has disparaged.

As Mr. Trump hesitates, lawmakers and Supreme Court justices are expected to begin receiving vaccines in the coming days, though the doses will be limited.

Notably absent from any planned public proceedings is President Trump, who has said relatively little about the vaccine that may be seen as a singular achievement and has made it clear that he is not scheduled to take it himself.

“The question is why don’t they do it together, six feet apart? It would be really powerful for the president, who has gotten exceptional treatment, to say that even in spite of getting the best care, it’s important that I get this vaccine.”

Mr. Trump’s decision, so far, to not get vaccinated, Dr. Gupta said, risked undermining any confidence that Mr. Pence might instill among skeptics who take their cues from the president alone.

“giving false reassurances to the American people that the vaccine is here and vigilance is no longer required.”

White House officials have said Mr. Trump does not need to get vaccinated because he still has the protective effects of the monoclonal antibody cocktail that was used to treat him for the virus in October. But Dr. Gupta said that was a misinterpretation of the results and that there was “no scientific reason not to get vaccinated.”

Mr. Trump said on Sunday that he would delay a plan for senior White House staff members to receive the coronavirus vaccine in the coming days

Doctors from Walter Reed this week set up vaccine stations inside the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. There, they began vaccinating staff considered critical to the functioning of government: That included Secret Service members, some medical staff and some other support staff who work near Mr. Trump.

“His priority is frontline workers, those in long-term care facilities, and he wants to make sure that the vulnerable get access first,” Ms. McEnany said this week. When it came to staff working in the West Wing, she added, “it will be a very limited group of people who have access to it, initially.”

Mr. Pence, people familiar with his thinking said, was concerned about the optics of jumping the line, when he wanted the administration to receive credit for the distribution of an effective vaccine to frontline medical workers without any distractions.

All of this demonstrates how difficult it is to run as a Republican incumbent almost anywhere in 2020. Strategists who spoke to CNN worry that Trump has become a liability for Republicans needing to expand their coalition beyond the President's core base of supporters.

"Republican candidates need something more like Romney in '12 and less like McCain in '08," said Liam Donovan, a GOP strategist in Washington.

That one-two punch could knock the GOP out of power in Washington-- and it's what has strategists hoping the President's reelection team can successfully transform the race to a choice between Trump and an unpalatable Biden.

"This is the one thing he (Trump) cannot change the subject on," said a Republican strategist. "This is not a political opponent, this is not going way and he has never had to deal with something like this."

Trump overall has a 45% approval rating. While only 42% approve of how he's handled the pandemic, 50% still said they approve of Trump's handling of the economy.

"The economic message resonates strongly, particularly in a time like this," said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. "President Trump is clearly the one to restore us to that position. He did it once, he will do it again."

"Absent some sort of V-shaped recovery many people think he is dead in the water," said the Republican strategist.

Trump has solidified his position within the party. That has made it harder for Republicans in Congress to distance themselves from him without antagonizing his base. That, say Republican operatives, risks keeping away voters who may consider the GOP but don't like the President.

"It's a very, very tough environment. If you have a college degree and you live in suburbia, you don't want to vote for us,

The task requires Senate candidates to make appeals to suburban voters who flipped to Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections as a reaction against Trump.

Scott Reed, the political director at the US Chamber of Commerce and a veteran of Republican campaigns, said that a presidential reelection campaign is "always" a referendum on the incumbent and his party.

Congress, he noted is, having a relative boom in popularity -- 31% support in the latest Gallup poll, the highest in over a decade -- thanks in part to the passage of economic relief.

The line aims to combat the most consistent line of criticism from Democrats -- that Collins has voted in line with the Trump administration on everything from judicial appointments to health care to the President's acquittal on impeachment -- without having to disavow Trump himself.

"The truth is despite being massively outspent by liberal dark money groups, Republicans are still well-positioned to hold the Senate majority in the fall," said Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

"When he does it right three days in a row, it really bumps his numbers," said Reed. "We need command performance on message discipline."

“It will lead to more casual behavior, which will lead to more transmission of the virus, which will lead to more illness, and more illness will lead to more deaths,” Dr. Schaffner said.

“We understand the economic issues, we understand the consequences of shutdown,” said Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious disease physician at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. “But there has to be a coordinated response so it doesn’t have to dominate our lives.”

And unlike average Americans, many of whom were unable to get tested for the virus or who got care in hospitals overwhelmed by patients sick with Covid, Mr. Trump has had a full team of specialists devoted to his needs at the Walter Reed medical center. His home, the White House, has a medical unit that his physician, Dr. Sean P. Conley, said on Monday was “staffed 24/7.”

“You’d think with him contracting it, he’d gain a little empathy, and a little knowledge, but apparently not,” Ms. English said. “He’s still downplaying it, and saying ‘don’t let it dominate your life.’ It dominates my life. Every minute of my life is dominated by it.”

President Trump returned to the White House on Monday night, staging a defiant, made-for-television moment in which he ripped off his face mask and then urged the nation to put aside the risks of the deadly coronavirus that has swept through his own staff and sent him to the hospital for three days.

Trump climbed into a hermetically sealed, armored Chevy Suburban with at least two Secret Service agents so the president could wave to supporters outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he was hospitalized from Friday to Monday.

Medical experts said the move put agents at risk.

“It’s a historic, big deal,” said Robert McNally, an energy adviser to President George W. Bush. “This will reshape not only commercial relationships but political and geopolitical ones as well.”E.U. officials have yet to release all the details of their effort to squelch Russian oil exports but have said those policies will go into effect over months. That is meant to give Europeans time to prepare, but it will also give Russia and its partners time to devise workarounds. Who will adapt

Russian natural gas for some time, possibly years. That could preserve some of Mr. Putin’s leverage, especially if gas demand spikes during a cold winter. European leaders have fewer alternatives to Russian gas because the world’s other major suppliers of that fuel — the United States, Australia and Qatar — can’t quickly expand exports substantially.Russia also has other cards to play, which could undermine the effectiveness of the European embargo.

Another hope of Western leaders is that their moves will reduce Russia’s position in the global energy industry. The idea is that despite its efforts to find new buyers in China, India and elsewhere, Russia will export less oil overall. As a result, Russian producers will need to shut wells, which they will not be able to easily restart because of the difficulties of drilling and producing oil in inhospitable Arctic fields.

“Why wait six months?” asked David Goldwyn, a top State Department energy official in the Obama administration. “As the sanctions are configured now, all that will happen is you will see more Russian crude and product flow to other destinations,” he said. But he added, “It’s a necessary first step.”

In addition, Germany and Poland have pledged to stop importing oil from Russia by pipeline, which means Europeans could reduce Russian imports by 3.3 million barrels a day by the end of the year.And the union has said European companies will no longer be allowed to insure tankers carrying Russian oil anywhere. That ban will also be phased in over several months. Because many of the world’s largest insurers are based in Europe, that move could significantly raise the cost of shipping Russian energy, though insurers in China, India and Russia itself might now pick up some of that business.Before the invasion of Ukraine, roughly half of Russia’s oil exports went to Europe, representing $10 billion in transactions a month. Sales of Russian oil to E.U. members have declined somewhat in the last few months, and those to the United States and Britain have been eliminated.

India is getting about 600,000 barrels a day from Russia, up from 90,000 a day last year, when Russia was a relatively minor supplier. It is now India’s second-biggest supplier after Iraq.But India could find it difficult to keep buying from Russia if the European Union’s restrictions on European companies insuring Russian oil shipments raise costs too much.“India is a winner,” said Helima Croft, RBC’s head of commodity strategy, “as long as they are not hit with secondary sanctions.”