Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 886

Ted Cruz has a very real birther problem: The law is not settled — but the history is

The uproar Donald Trump caused by stirring the pot over the eligibility of Canadian-born Ted Cruz to serve as president awakened constitutional scholars. With or without biases, a good many of them have suggested that the historical record is not on Cruz’s side. By the nature of the news cycle, one thing or another will remove this new “birther” controversy from public view; it really shouldn’t go away, however, because the issues are broader than what the commentators are addressing. Most who have studied the question at hand focus on the “original intent” of the founding generation. The most obvious problem concerns the meaning of “natural born” as written into the Constitution, and whether Cruz’s birth in Calgary disqualifies him. But two equally salient issues have been ignored. The first is that Cruz’s claim to natural-born status is based on his mother, because his Cuban-born father did become a Canadian citizen, and was only naturalized as an American citizen in 2005. Rafael Cruz came to the United States on a student visa, and kept his Cuban citizenship until he became a Canadian citizen. It is a historical fact (and a fact of law) that mothers did not possess the same right fathers did to grant their children American citizenship when the child was born outside of the United States. This is important. The second underlying point commentators have ignored is the deeply troubling legacy of American democracy in allowing discrimination against a sizeable number of its “natural born” citizens––obviously we’re talking here about African-Americans––while making exceptions for a few whose claim is tenuous at best. Many students of the Constitution misunderstand why “natural born” was added to the qualification for president. The legal historian Mary Brigid McManamon recently argued in the Washington Post that the term was derived from the common law notion of being born on the “soil” of the national domain. In the 1780s, “natural born” was a measure of political affection and political loyalty, which only proceeded from a person’s giving tangible evidence of having a genuine commitment to the “soil” and manners of the nation. The phrase, therefore, involved potent sentiment. To say that “natural born citizen” is settled law is nothing more than a rhetorical ploy. It is not surprising that legal experts Neal Katyal and Paul Clement of Georgetown took to the Harvard Law Review to argue the opposite side from Harvard’s Lawrence Tribe on Cruz’s eligibility, because the same argument has haunted past scholars. In 1988, long before the Cruz question arose, Jill Pryor wrote in the Yale Law Journal (scrupulously documented) that the question of whether a person born abroad of one American and one alien parent “qualifies as natural born” remains unresolved. The meaning of citizenship has changed over the course of American history, and yet the Supreme Court has never made a specific ruling on this part of Article II of the Constitution. Most recently, in Salon, Harvard legal scholar Einer Elhauge makes a strong case against Cruz’s eligibility; but even he does not go far enough to clarify the questionable status of a mother’s right to pass on her citizenship to her children. As groups within the United States have been alternately granted rights and divested of rights, there has never been a uniform definition of what constitutes a natural born citizen. In June 1775, the Continental Congress passed a resolution declaring that all living within the United Colonies, under the protection of its laws, were now members of a new government. Here, the measure of civic belonging was residence, and the purpose of the law was to force a divided population to lean to the rebellious Patriots. Because the act was considered an insufficient test, George Washington, commander of Continental forces, and other military and state officials, demanded that Americans swear allegiance by taking a loyalty oath. By war’s end, Americans who remained loyal to Great Britain (perhaps 20 percent of the population) were prosecuted as traitors; some were executed, and many had their property confiscated. Citizenship, then, was both voluntary and coerced. Beyond this legacy, “natural born” reflected another important feature we forget: Patriots had to construct a new identity to justify revolution, to define themselves as other than British. In 1774, Thomas Jefferson published "Summary View of the Rights of British America," in which he argued that Americans had fought and spilled their own blood to secure the American continent. They were people of a distinct lineage––which he repeated in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence. He insisted that repeated wrongs inflicted by the British government offered ample evidence that America’s colonists were no longer brethren of the same blood separated by an ocean. Now they owed their identity to an inbred allegiance on blood-soaked soil. Thus, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in 1787, they did not qualify “natural born citizen” merely to protect the presidency from foreign intrigue. Clearly, they felt that “natural born” meant being born within the boundaries of states but also possessing a deep love of soil and manners unique to the United States. This is why the framers made an allowance for anyone naturalized at the time of the Constitution’s drafting. A naturalized foreigner acquired full citizenship and could stand for president based on having supported the Revolution––why Caribbean-born Alexander Hamilton could have run. He had displayed ardor and allegiance during the war. “Natural born” was added because it insured an unwavering identification, presumably ingrained from birth. But allegiance is an unstable concept. In the 1790s, George Washington’s Federalist Party wanted to amend the Constitution. Several New England states called for adding the “natural born” restriction to the office of vice president. A concerned citizen wrote in a newspaper in 1798: “Would to heaven, that the same check was provided by the constitution, in every department of government, as is in the election of President; which is, that none but natural born citizens are eligible to be elected.” Fears about the French Revolution and “Jacobin” journalists (foreign-born) who spread dangerous ideas led Congress to change naturalization laws, extending the period of residency from two to five, and then to 14 years. In the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the president suddenly obtained authority to deport any alien who criticized the president or the government. When a modified Naturalization Act passed in 1802, and returned the residency requirement to five years, a foreign-born resident still had to declare his intention to become a citizen three years before he officially applied. He had to display his allegiance, his affections; he had to find patrons, witnesses who swore to his worthiness. So, if we are talking about “original intent,” let us not guess at, but factually encounter, the founders’ world. It is just as obvious that women, historically, have not been treated as co-equal citizens. In the 1805 Massachusetts Supreme Court case of Martin v. Commonwealth, the Court declared that the wife of a Loyalist had no civic identity whatsoever. She had no power to own property, to choose an allegiance, to make meaningful political decisions about herself or her children. New Jersey was the only state that allowed property-owning women the right to vote (from 1776 to 1807), a right that was taken away. Here’s why that precedent matters. In 1855, Congress passed another important law, declaring that any foreign-born woman who married a U.S. citizen automatically became a naturalized citizen, and that any children born outside the country to a male citizen was a U.S. citizen. More critically, in the Expatriation Act of 1907, women who were U.S. citizens and married foreigners, by consequence of having done so, lost their right to citizenship! The Cable Act of 1922 again allowed for American women who married “aliens ineligible to citizenship” to lose their citizenship. This punitive law was not repealed until 1934. As late as 1961, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1802 Naturalization Act only made a child born abroad a citizen if the father was a citizen. So the idea that a mother had the same right as a father did to grant citizenship to her child is simply not true. The citizenship of Ted Cruz’s Delaware-born mother means less than the candidate wants to believe. Women did not acquire the vote until 1919. They were routinely compared to children, lacking the maturity and autonomy to be independent citizens. The 14th Amendment (1868) did grant citizenship to all residents born within the United States; but the 15th Amendment explicitly excluded women from the right to vote by adding the word “male.” Women did not have equal custodial rights over their own children until the 20th century. By law, a wife was expected to set up residency with her husband, and to follow him. Women were not constitutionally guaranteed the equal right to serve on juries in all fifty states until 1975. At the time of the Constitution, then, what mattered was whether the father was a citizen. The New York jurist Chancellor James Kent was the foremost authority of his day: in his 1826 "Commentaries on American Law," he argued that both the father and mother had to be citizens for the child to be natural born. The historian James Kettner, a modern expert on citizenship, is now deceased, so he can’t be charged with political bias in his statement that the Constitution spoke unequivocally: Persons naturalized before the Constitution’s ratification were eligible for office on the same terms as native Americans; but “persons adopted [into the country] thereafter were permanently barred from the presidency–­–the only explicit constitutional limitation on their potential rights.” That the framers made this their sole exclusion indicates that it was an important provision. American citizenship, in general, albeit inconsistently, relied on two basic rules: one was jus joli, that citizenship came from being born within the territorial boundaries of the nation or a state; the other was jus sanguinis, of blood, as passed from parent to child. In our history, these rules have been withheld from certain classes: African Americans were not guaranteed civic status under jus joli until 1868; mothers were explicitly denied the right to grant their children citizenship under jus sanguinis from 1855 until 1940. What’s more, American law did not endorse dual citizenship until recently. This is why the 1855 statute cited above automatically made into U.S. citizens foreign-born women who married U.S. citizens––citizenship earned through the fact of marriage. Yet foreign-born men who married U.S.-born women were not, on that basis, granted citizenship. Men had to be naturalized, prove their residency, and over time demonstrate eligibility for citizenship. This is the history. This is the dilemma the lawyer and presidential hopeful Rafael “Ted” Cruz faces. The American founders clearly intended “natural born” to mean born within the United States; and they only granted the exception to citizens naturalized at the time of the Constitution’s framing, because these men could be presumed to have proven their loyalty by consciously choosing to side with the Patriot cause in 1775-1783. The wording of Article II on presidential qualifications explicitly divides the population into two eligible groups: those natural born and those naturalized before 1787. Only members of the Revolutionary generation, risking all (their lives and property) were eligible for the highest executive office. Women were looked upon differently: under the law, a woman born in the United States could be executed for treason; but citizenship rights were denied insofar as her attachment to the Union was compromised by her marital status if the loyalty of her husband was in some way suspect. Needless to say, no woman of that era held elective office. To be sure, the current debate over Sen. Cruz is at once political and constitutional. But in light of the above, the fact that it is his mother, not his father, who is American-born strikes an inescapable historical chord. Nor should it be omitted that the “birthers” who attacked President Obama’s eligibility were keen on believing that his mother’s nationality carried less weight than his father’s African blood and Kenyan birth. John McCain’s standing rested on a different set of facts. He was born on a military base outside the United States, and both of his parents were U.S. citizens. There was little argument. The real source of the current angst dates to 2004, with the abortive effort to eliminate the “natural born” requirement so that the Austrian native Arnold Schwarzenegger could run for president. At the time, prominent legal scholars supported such a reform, and many pointed out that a change in the law would allow foreign-born children adopted by American citizens to be eligible too. Another related issue is the anti-Mexican campaign, revived in the 1990s, and waged against female immigrants and their “anchor babies,” seemingly undeserving of birthright citizenship. Once again, women’s status and women’s allegiance was the focus of attack. During the current campaign, Donald Trump unabashedly declared that he supported amending the Fourteenth Amendment along these lines. So, the overlapping debates show how arbitrary such distinctions are. Why should a natural born citizen with a foreign (Mexican-born) mother be barred from birthright citizenship, while Ted Cruz’s claim to natural born citizenship (and eligibility for the presidency) is through his natural born mother? And why should a foreign-born baby adopted and raised by American citizens be seen as less of a loyal citizen or potential president than a Ted Cruz? No matter what legal pundits or scholars with a political agenda say, the law is not settled. The question of national inheritance persists. What is settled among historians, however, is that the founders did restrict the presidency to natural born citizens alone. In their parlance, American identity was rooted in an allegiance to the soil that came from a prolonged residency and manners instilled from birth; if born outside the United States, status and eligibility came from a patrilineal inheritance passed from a loyal father to his legitimate child. Even under current law, the right of a child to inherit citizenship from one parent cannot be passed onto his or her descendants. It is a right contingent on the child returning and claiming that right by resettling in the U.S. Ted Cruz’s status is further complicated by his dual citizenship. He acquired Canadian citizenship at birth, and only recently renounced it. Can a person be “natural born” in two nations? Which “natural born” identity trumps the other? Cruz’s claim to being a “natural born” U.S. citizen is a legal fiction, of course, because his real identity as a child was a mixture of a Cuban-born naturalized Canadian father and an American mother. He remained a natural born Canadian even after he moved to the United States, and he only substantiated his claim to American status when he took legal steps to declare his citizenship--for example, when he acquired a passport and voted. He became an American citizen retroactively; his actions did not erase the equally powerful presumptive claim of his Canadian nationality. If Cruz’s parents had remained in Canada, and his mother had become a Canadian citizen, Ted Cruz no doubt would have become a Canadian citizen. All of this matters right now because the Republican presidential candidates seem so intent on opening the door to some immigrants and excluding others. It is plain to all that the path to citizenship is neither equal nor fair. The path to the presidency is neither equal nor fair either. Both paths are political. Cruz’s campaign in the heartland centers on the claim of being “one of us.” That is indeed the issue. A sizable portion of Americans no longer care whether the president is professionally qualified, has adequate leadership experience, foreign policy credentials, or understands the laws of the land. Amid candidates’ bombast and the day-to-day efforts to make news “by any means necessary,” we find one front-runner who gained national attention on the basis of a canned reality TV show. Cruz made his name by grandstanding in Congress in an attempt to shut down the federal government, a move that cost taxpayers millions. He made headlines with a childish, self-serving filibuster, unproductively reading aloud from Dr. Seuss. Forget “New York values.” What are his values? To whom does he feel loyalty? In 1776, Pennsylvanians were asked to take an oath to “vote only for such persons as I do esteem of fidelity and knowledge, worthy and capable of executing the trust reposed on them.” Fidelity. Serving honorably. Maybe that’s the lesson from the founders we should take at this moment in our history. Nothing is of more gravity than taking the oath of office as President of the United States. Campaigning for president should be as serious. It is tempting to find on the side of the partisans, who would prefer to let the Constitution eliminate Ted Cruz from contention altogether. But the truth is, there is no settled law, one way or the other.The uproar Donald Trump caused by stirring the pot over the eligibility of Canadian-born Ted Cruz to serve as president awakened constitutional scholars. With or without biases, a good many of them have suggested that the historical record is not on Cruz’s side. By the nature of the news cycle, one thing or another will remove this new “birther” controversy from public view; it really shouldn’t go away, however, because the issues are broader than what the commentators are addressing. Most who have studied the question at hand focus on the “original intent” of the founding generation. The most obvious problem concerns the meaning of “natural born” as written into the Constitution, and whether Cruz’s birth in Calgary disqualifies him. But two equally salient issues have been ignored. The first is that Cruz’s claim to natural-born status is based on his mother, because his Cuban-born father did become a Canadian citizen, and was only naturalized as an American citizen in 2005. Rafael Cruz came to the United States on a student visa, and kept his Cuban citizenship until he became a Canadian citizen. It is a historical fact (and a fact of law) that mothers did not possess the same right fathers did to grant their children American citizenship when the child was born outside of the United States. This is important. The second underlying point commentators have ignored is the deeply troubling legacy of American democracy in allowing discrimination against a sizeable number of its “natural born” citizens––obviously we’re talking here about African-Americans––while making exceptions for a few whose claim is tenuous at best. Many students of the Constitution misunderstand why “natural born” was added to the qualification for president. The legal historian Mary Brigid McManamon recently argued in the Washington Post that the term was derived from the common law notion of being born on the “soil” of the national domain. In the 1780s, “natural born” was a measure of political affection and political loyalty, which only proceeded from a person’s giving tangible evidence of having a genuine commitment to the “soil” and manners of the nation. The phrase, therefore, involved potent sentiment. To say that “natural born citizen” is settled law is nothing more than a rhetorical ploy. It is not surprising that legal experts Neal Katyal and Paul Clement of Georgetown took to the Harvard Law Review to argue the opposite side from Harvard’s Lawrence Tribe on Cruz’s eligibility, because the same argument has haunted past scholars. In 1988, long before the Cruz question arose, Jill Pryor wrote in the Yale Law Journal (scrupulously documented) that the question of whether a person born abroad of one American and one alien parent “qualifies as natural born” remains unresolved. The meaning of citizenship has changed over the course of American history, and yet the Supreme Court has never made a specific ruling on this part of Article II of the Constitution. Most recently, in Salon, Harvard legal scholar Einer Elhauge makes a strong case against Cruz’s eligibility; but even he does not go far enough to clarify the questionable status of a mother’s right to pass on her citizenship to her children. As groups within the United States have been alternately granted rights and divested of rights, there has never been a uniform definition of what constitutes a natural born citizen. In June 1775, the Continental Congress passed a resolution declaring that all living within the United Colonies, under the protection of its laws, were now members of a new government. Here, the measure of civic belonging was residence, and the purpose of the law was to force a divided population to lean to the rebellious Patriots. Because the act was considered an insufficient test, George Washington, commander of Continental forces, and other military and state officials, demanded that Americans swear allegiance by taking a loyalty oath. By war’s end, Americans who remained loyal to Great Britain (perhaps 20 percent of the population) were prosecuted as traitors; some were executed, and many had their property confiscated. Citizenship, then, was both voluntary and coerced. Beyond this legacy, “natural born” reflected another important feature we forget: Patriots had to construct a new identity to justify revolution, to define themselves as other than British. In 1774, Thomas Jefferson published "Summary View of the Rights of British America," in which he argued that Americans had fought and spilled their own blood to secure the American continent. They were people of a distinct lineage––which he repeated in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence. He insisted that repeated wrongs inflicted by the British government offered ample evidence that America’s colonists were no longer brethren of the same blood separated by an ocean. Now they owed their identity to an inbred allegiance on blood-soaked soil. Thus, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in 1787, they did not qualify “natural born citizen” merely to protect the presidency from foreign intrigue. Clearly, they felt that “natural born” meant being born within the boundaries of states but also possessing a deep love of soil and manners unique to the United States. This is why the framers made an allowance for anyone naturalized at the time of the Constitution’s drafting. A naturalized foreigner acquired full citizenship and could stand for president based on having supported the Revolution––why Caribbean-born Alexander Hamilton could have run. He had displayed ardor and allegiance during the war. “Natural born” was added because it insured an unwavering identification, presumably ingrained from birth. But allegiance is an unstable concept. In the 1790s, George Washington’s Federalist Party wanted to amend the Constitution. Several New England states called for adding the “natural born” restriction to the office of vice president. A concerned citizen wrote in a newspaper in 1798: “Would to heaven, that the same check was provided by the constitution, in every department of government, as is in the election of President; which is, that none but natural born citizens are eligible to be elected.” Fears about the French Revolution and “Jacobin” journalists (foreign-born) who spread dangerous ideas led Congress to change naturalization laws, extending the period of residency from two to five, and then to 14 years. In the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the president suddenly obtained authority to deport any alien who criticized the president or the government. When a modified Naturalization Act passed in 1802, and returned the residency requirement to five years, a foreign-born resident still had to declare his intention to become a citizen three years before he officially applied. He had to display his allegiance, his affections; he had to find patrons, witnesses who swore to his worthiness. So, if we are talking about “original intent,” let us not guess at, but factually encounter, the founders’ world. It is just as obvious that women, historically, have not been treated as co-equal citizens. In the 1805 Massachusetts Supreme Court case of Martin v. Commonwealth, the Court declared that the wife of a Loyalist had no civic identity whatsoever. She had no power to own property, to choose an allegiance, to make meaningful political decisions about herself or her children. New Jersey was the only state that allowed property-owning women the right to vote (from 1776 to 1807), a right that was taken away. Here’s why that precedent matters. In 1855, Congress passed another important law, declaring that any foreign-born woman who married a U.S. citizen automatically became a naturalized citizen, and that any children born outside the country to a male citizen was a U.S. citizen. More critically, in the Expatriation Act of 1907, women who were U.S. citizens and married foreigners, by consequence of having done so, lost their right to citizenship! The Cable Act of 1922 again allowed for American women who married “aliens ineligible to citizenship” to lose their citizenship. This punitive law was not repealed until 1934. As late as 1961, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1802 Naturalization Act only made a child born abroad a citizen if the father was a citizen. So the idea that a mother had the same right as a father did to grant citizenship to her child is simply not true. The citizenship of Ted Cruz’s Delaware-born mother means less than the candidate wants to believe. Women did not acquire the vote until 1919. They were routinely compared to children, lacking the maturity and autonomy to be independent citizens. The 14th Amendment (1868) did grant citizenship to all residents born within the United States; but the 15th Amendment explicitly excluded women from the right to vote by adding the word “male.” Women did not have equal custodial rights over their own children until the 20th century. By law, a wife was expected to set up residency with her husband, and to follow him. Women were not constitutionally guaranteed the equal right to serve on juries in all fifty states until 1975. At the time of the Constitution, then, what mattered was whether the father was a citizen. The New York jurist Chancellor James Kent was the foremost authority of his day: in his 1826 "Commentaries on American Law," he argued that both the father and mother had to be citizens for the child to be natural born. The historian James Kettner, a modern expert on citizenship, is now deceased, so he can’t be charged with political bias in his statement that the Constitution spoke unequivocally: Persons naturalized before the Constitution’s ratification were eligible for office on the same terms as native Americans; but “persons adopted [into the country] thereafter were permanently barred from the presidency–­–the only explicit constitutional limitation on their potential rights.” That the framers made this their sole exclusion indicates that it was an important provision. American citizenship, in general, albeit inconsistently, relied on two basic rules: one was jus joli, that citizenship came from being born within the territorial boundaries of the nation or a state; the other was jus sanguinis, of blood, as passed from parent to child. In our history, these rules have been withheld from certain classes: African Americans were not guaranteed civic status under jus joli until 1868; mothers were explicitly denied the right to grant their children citizenship under jus sanguinis from 1855 until 1940. What’s more, American law did not endorse dual citizenship until recently. This is why the 1855 statute cited above automatically made into U.S. citizens foreign-born women who married U.S. citizens––citizenship earned through the fact of marriage. Yet foreign-born men who married U.S.-born women were not, on that basis, granted citizenship. Men had to be naturalized, prove their residency, and over time demonstrate eligibility for citizenship. This is the history. This is the dilemma the lawyer and presidential hopeful Rafael “Ted” Cruz faces. The American founders clearly intended “natural born” to mean born within the United States; and they only granted the exception to citizens naturalized at the time of the Constitution’s framing, because these men could be presumed to have proven their loyalty by consciously choosing to side with the Patriot cause in 1775-1783. The wording of Article II on presidential qualifications explicitly divides the population into two eligible groups: those natural born and those naturalized before 1787. Only members of the Revolutionary generation, risking all (their lives and property) were eligible for the highest executive office. Women were looked upon differently: under the law, a woman born in the United States could be executed for treason; but citizenship rights were denied insofar as her attachment to the Union was compromised by her marital status if the loyalty of her husband was in some way suspect. Needless to say, no woman of that era held elective office. To be sure, the current debate over Sen. Cruz is at once political and constitutional. But in light of the above, the fact that it is his mother, not his father, who is American-born strikes an inescapable historical chord. Nor should it be omitted that the “birthers” who attacked President Obama’s eligibility were keen on believing that his mother’s nationality carried less weight than his father’s African blood and Kenyan birth. John McCain’s standing rested on a different set of facts. He was born on a military base outside the United States, and both of his parents were U.S. citizens. There was little argument. The real source of the current angst dates to 2004, with the abortive effort to eliminate the “natural born” requirement so that the Austrian native Arnold Schwarzenegger could run for president. At the time, prominent legal scholars supported such a reform, and many pointed out that a change in the law would allow foreign-born children adopted by American citizens to be eligible too. Another related issue is the anti-Mexican campaign, revived in the 1990s, and waged against female immigrants and their “anchor babies,” seemingly undeserving of birthright citizenship. Once again, women’s status and women’s allegiance was the focus of attack. During the current campaign, Donald Trump unabashedly declared that he supported amending the Fourteenth Amendment along these lines. So, the overlapping debates show how arbitrary such distinctions are. Why should a natural born citizen with a foreign (Mexican-born) mother be barred from birthright citizenship, while Ted Cruz’s claim to natural born citizenship (and eligibility for the presidency) is through his natural born mother? And why should a foreign-born baby adopted and raised by American citizens be seen as less of a loyal citizen or potential president than a Ted Cruz? No matter what legal pundits or scholars with a political agenda say, the law is not settled. The question of national inheritance persists. What is settled among historians, however, is that the founders did restrict the presidency to natural born citizens alone. In their parlance, American identity was rooted in an allegiance to the soil that came from a prolonged residency and manners instilled from birth; if born outside the United States, status and eligibility came from a patrilineal inheritance passed from a loyal father to his legitimate child. Even under current law, the right of a child to inherit citizenship from one parent cannot be passed onto his or her descendants. It is a right contingent on the child returning and claiming that right by resettling in the U.S. Ted Cruz’s status is further complicated by his dual citizenship. He acquired Canadian citizenship at birth, and only recently renounced it. Can a person be “natural born” in two nations? Which “natural born” identity trumps the other? Cruz’s claim to being a “natural born” U.S. citizen is a legal fiction, of course, because his real identity as a child was a mixture of a Cuban-born naturalized Canadian father and an American mother. He remained a natural born Canadian even after he moved to the United States, and he only substantiated his claim to American status when he took legal steps to declare his citizenship--for example, when he acquired a passport and voted. He became an American citizen retroactively; his actions did not erase the equally powerful presumptive claim of his Canadian nationality. If Cruz’s parents had remained in Canada, and his mother had become a Canadian citizen, Ted Cruz no doubt would have become a Canadian citizen. All of this matters right now because the Republican presidential candidates seem so intent on opening the door to some immigrants and excluding others. It is plain to all that the path to citizenship is neither equal nor fair. The path to the presidency is neither equal nor fair either. Both paths are political. Cruz’s campaign in the heartland centers on the claim of being “one of us.” That is indeed the issue. A sizable portion of Americans no longer care whether the president is professionally qualified, has adequate leadership experience, foreign policy credentials, or understands the laws of the land. Amid candidates’ bombast and the day-to-day efforts to make news “by any means necessary,” we find one front-runner who gained national attention on the basis of a canned reality TV show. Cruz made his name by grandstanding in Congress in an attempt to shut down the federal government, a move that cost taxpayers millions. He made headlines with a childish, self-serving filibuster, unproductively reading aloud from Dr. Seuss. Forget “New York values.” What are his values? To whom does he feel loyalty? In 1776, Pennsylvanians were asked to take an oath to “vote only for such persons as I do esteem of fidelity and knowledge, worthy and capable of executing the trust reposed on them.” Fidelity. Serving honorably. Maybe that’s the lesson from the founders we should take at this moment in our history. Nothing is of more gravity than taking the oath of office as President of the United States. Campaigning for president should be as serious. It is tempting to find on the side of the partisans, who would prefer to let the Constitution eliminate Ted Cruz from contention altogether. But the truth is, there is no settled law, one way or the other.

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Don’t let Obama off the hook: Anti-immigrant hysteria isn’t just a Republican problem

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court said that it would consider a legal challenge to President Obama’s executive action on immigration. A little over a year ago, the President ordered the creation of two programs -- Deferred Action for Children Arrivals, or DACA, and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA. These programs would allow undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children or are the parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents to apply for a program that would spare them from being deported and provide work permits. Up to 5 million undocumented immigrants could be eligible for the reprieve as a result of DACA and DAPA. Almost immediately after the president’s announcement, the attorney general of Texas, Republican Ken Paxton, led a coalition of 26 states in filing suit against the president. Meanwhile, many immigrant-rights activists have hailed these executive actions as a crucial step in making the American immigration system more just. In his Oval Office address announcing the executive actions, the president told millions of undocumented immigrants, “You can come out of the shadows.” The news of the Supreme Court’s intent to take up this case comes at a time when the Obama administration has ramped up an aggressive deportation operation. First reported by the Washington Post. at the end of last year, the recent raids conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency mark “the first large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central America.” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said of the raids, “This is consistent with the kinds of priorities that the President himself has talked about; that our enforcement efforts need to be focused on deporting felons, not families, and with a particular focus on individuals who have only recently crossed the border.” These policies are earning President Obama the dubious recognition of “Deporter-in-Chief.” To make the case, over 150 organizations signed a letter in which they charge the Obama administration for causing a “state of fear” among immigrant communities.  The letter says that, “Raids would convey the message that these families are a threat to border security, when the reality is that most are asylum seekers in need of humanitarian protection.” Ana Milena Ribero, a scholar at the University of Arizona calls this phenomenon “brownwashing.” Milena Ribero describes it as “the rhetorical strategy of saturating the political and commercial discourse with support for a popular social cause (e.g. gay rights) while maintaining practices and policies antithetical to the supposedly supported cause.” Parallel to what LGBTQ activists and scholars have termed “pinkwashing,” this concept describes the nature of the contradiction that would enable the Obama Administration to, on one hand, seek amnesty for children and parents, but on the other, to conduct ruthless raids under cover of night that split apart immigrant families and leave entire communities devastated in their wake. Importantly, this contradiction is not lost on Latino communities in the U.S, especially since the numbers tell a troubling story: Since coming to office in 2009, the Obama Administration has deported more than 2.5 million people— a 23 percent increase from the George W. Bush presidency. Even more remarkably, according to a report from Department of Homeland Security, this administration is now on pace to deport more people than the sum of all 19 presidents who governed the United States from 1892-2000. While, administration officials claim that their strategy of raids and deportations is meant to deter undocumented immigrants from crossing the border, due to an increase in violence and instability in much of Central America, the number of children and families crossing the border has risen in the past few months. These families are desperate for reprieve from the poverty and danger in their home countries, a situation that is arguably the direct result of U.S. policies in the region. While such “free-trade” policies are often touted as important for the the American economy, several reports have documented that this system of trade has undermined democracy in Central America, resulting in corruption and volatile economies and communities. In an election year, these policies are worrying many Democrats seeking office. A group of 140 House Democrats sent a letter to President Obama demanding that he halt the raid operations.  All three major candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, including Hillary Clinton, have denounced the raids. Senator Bernie Sanders forcefully denounced the raids, sending the President a letter saying, “Raids are not the answer,” and adding “I urge you to immediately cease these raids and not deport families back to countries where a death sentence awaits." Secretary Clinton, speaking through a spokesperson in late December said, that she has "real concerns" about the crackdown and that "it is critical that everyone has a full and fair hearing, and that our country provides refuge to those that need it." Clearly, the immigration will be a campaign issue for Democrats and Republicans alike. With the Supreme Court’s ruling on DACA and DAPA expected in June, as the primaries come to a close, it will surely open up a national conversation on immigration. The Court’s ruling will indeed be a referendum on the Obama Administration’s executive actions, but notably, it will also open up a national conversation about the administration’s broader, more complicated legacy, on immigration.On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court said that it would consider a legal challenge to President Obama’s executive action on immigration. A little over a year ago, the President ordered the creation of two programs -- Deferred Action for Children Arrivals, or DACA, and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA. These programs would allow undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children or are the parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents to apply for a program that would spare them from being deported and provide work permits. Up to 5 million undocumented immigrants could be eligible for the reprieve as a result of DACA and DAPA. Almost immediately after the president’s announcement, the attorney general of Texas, Republican Ken Paxton, led a coalition of 26 states in filing suit against the president. Meanwhile, many immigrant-rights activists have hailed these executive actions as a crucial step in making the American immigration system more just. In his Oval Office address announcing the executive actions, the president told millions of undocumented immigrants, “You can come out of the shadows.” The news of the Supreme Court’s intent to take up this case comes at a time when the Obama administration has ramped up an aggressive deportation operation. First reported by the Washington Post. at the end of last year, the recent raids conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency mark “the first large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central America.” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said of the raids, “This is consistent with the kinds of priorities that the President himself has talked about; that our enforcement efforts need to be focused on deporting felons, not families, and with a particular focus on individuals who have only recently crossed the border.” These policies are earning President Obama the dubious recognition of “Deporter-in-Chief.” To make the case, over 150 organizations signed a letter in which they charge the Obama administration for causing a “state of fear” among immigrant communities.  The letter says that, “Raids would convey the message that these families are a threat to border security, when the reality is that most are asylum seekers in need of humanitarian protection.” Ana Milena Ribero, a scholar at the University of Arizona calls this phenomenon “brownwashing.” Milena Ribero describes it as “the rhetorical strategy of saturating the political and commercial discourse with support for a popular social cause (e.g. gay rights) while maintaining practices and policies antithetical to the supposedly supported cause.” Parallel to what LGBTQ activists and scholars have termed “pinkwashing,” this concept describes the nature of the contradiction that would enable the Obama Administration to, on one hand, seek amnesty for children and parents, but on the other, to conduct ruthless raids under cover of night that split apart immigrant families and leave entire communities devastated in their wake. Importantly, this contradiction is not lost on Latino communities in the U.S, especially since the numbers tell a troubling story: Since coming to office in 2009, the Obama Administration has deported more than 2.5 million people— a 23 percent increase from the George W. Bush presidency. Even more remarkably, according to a report from Department of Homeland Security, this administration is now on pace to deport more people than the sum of all 19 presidents who governed the United States from 1892-2000. While, administration officials claim that their strategy of raids and deportations is meant to deter undocumented immigrants from crossing the border, due to an increase in violence and instability in much of Central America, the number of children and families crossing the border has risen in the past few months. These families are desperate for reprieve from the poverty and danger in their home countries, a situation that is arguably the direct result of U.S. policies in the region. While such “free-trade” policies are often touted as important for the the American economy, several reports have documented that this system of trade has undermined democracy in Central America, resulting in corruption and volatile economies and communities. In an election year, these policies are worrying many Democrats seeking office. A group of 140 House Democrats sent a letter to President Obama demanding that he halt the raid operations.  All three major candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, including Hillary Clinton, have denounced the raids. Senator Bernie Sanders forcefully denounced the raids, sending the President a letter saying, “Raids are not the answer,” and adding “I urge you to immediately cease these raids and not deport families back to countries where a death sentence awaits." Secretary Clinton, speaking through a spokesperson in late December said, that she has "real concerns" about the crackdown and that "it is critical that everyone has a full and fair hearing, and that our country provides refuge to those that need it." Clearly, the immigration will be a campaign issue for Democrats and Republicans alike. With the Supreme Court’s ruling on DACA and DAPA expected in June, as the primaries come to a close, it will surely open up a national conversation on immigration. The Court’s ruling will indeed be a referendum on the Obama Administration’s executive actions, but notably, it will also open up a national conversation about the administration’s broader, more complicated legacy, on immigration.

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4 commonly prescribed drugs that may be more dangerous than Big Pharma is telling you

They are so common no one thinks twice about them: drug ads that tell you about a disease you might have, a pill that could treat it, and tell you to "ask your doctor" if the pill is right for you. Until 1997, such direct-to-consumer ads did not exist because without a doctor’s recommendation, how could people know if the medication was appropriate or safe? The only thing people knew about drugs and drug risks was from ads they peeked at in medical journals at the doctor's office. But after the ads started in 1997, the allergy pill Claritin became a household word, along with Xenical, Meridia, Propecia, Paxil, Prozac, Vioxx, Viagra, Singulair, Nasonex, Allegra, Flonase and of course Lipitor—and Big Pharma became a Wall Street darling. Now the American Medical Association is taking a second look at DTC advertising. In November, doctors at the AMA's Interim Meeting sought a policy to address one of its biggest problems: the growing proliferation of ads "driving demand for expensive treatments despite the clinical effectiveness of less costly alternatives." Billions are spent advertising expensive new drugs that are not clearly better than existing ones, says the AMA. The Kaiser Family Foundation agrees, and says exorbitantly priced drugs—like $1000-a-pill hepatitis C drugs and recently approved PCSK9-inhibiting cholesterol drugs—are the "public’s top health care priority." The new cholesterol drug will cost an estimated $14,000 a year. Looting tax dollars and raising health premiums is only one result of DTC advertising. To sell drugs, the ads raise awareness of conditions people never worried about before and probably don't have. Some conditions are so rare the ads appear to be selling the disease itself. How many people, for example, suffer from "Non-24," a condition that mostly affects blind people yet is currently advertised on TV? How many people suffer from "exocrine pancreatic insufficiency" and need to ask their doctor about their "poop" as other ads currently suggest? Nor are the drugs even clearly safe. Many of the aggressively advertised drugs have risks that have surfaced after their ad campaigns expire. (Others like Vioxx, Bextra, Baycol, Trovan, Meridia, Seldane, Hismanal and Darvon were removed from the market altogether.) Here are some heavily advertised drugs that are not necessarily safe. 1. GERD Meds Few had heard of the condition gastroesophageal reflux disease before DTC advertising. While a small percentage of the population may have GERD, the condition is widely believed to have been pushed to sell proton pump inhibitors (PPI) like Nexium. In many cases "GERD" is really heartburn and can be treated with Tums or Rolaids, say critics. GERD has made a lot of money. The "Purple Pill," Nexium, made almost $5 billion in the U.S. in one year and the class of PPIs made $13.6 billion, translating into 119 million prescriptions. But safety questions have followed. In 2012, the FDA warned that PPIs are linked to Clostridium Difficile or C. Dif, a sometimes deadly intestinal infection that is becoming increasingly drug resistant. In 2013, medical literature linked PPIs to fractures, calcium and magnesium deficiencies, community-acquired pneumonia and vitamin B-12 deficiencies. Other research suggests PPIs might cause blood vessels to constrict and cardiovascular risks, and this month, research says PPIs may be linked to increased risk for chronic kidney disease. 2. Lipitor If DTC advertising was the medium that made Big Pharma a Wall Street darling, statins like Lipitor were the drug class. In 2005 statins earned $18.7 billion in the United States and Pfizer’s Lipitor became the best-selling drug in the world. Patients loved statins because they could ignore diet and exercise advice and still, apparently, reduce heart attack risks; their body would "forgive" the bacon cheeseburger. But not all medical voices agreed. Some wondered why the nation spent approximately $20 billion a year on cholesterol-lowering drugs instead of effective, less dangerous and less expensive lifestyle and diet changes. Others questioned the value of statins themselves. High cholesterol, which statins treat, is a "relatively weak risk factor for developing atherosclerosis," Barbara Roberts, an associate clinical professor of medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University told me. "Big Pharma has consistently exaggerated the benefits of statins and some physicians used scare tactics so that patients are afraid that if they go off the statins, they will have a heart attack." Though many doctors have "swallowed the Kool-Aid," says Dr. Roberts, who is the author of The Truth about Statins, "diabetes and smoking are far more potent when it comes to increasing risk." In 2012, the FDA floated new risks to the entire statin class, adding warnings to their labels about memory impairment, diabetes, liver injury and muscle damage. Memory problems had always been suspected with statins, but after Lipitor's patent ran out, they were confirmed. 3. Crestor Statins were given a big boost by Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who presented the results of a study on the statin Crestor, funded by its manufacturer AstraZeneca, in 2009. Even though Ridker was co-inventor of a related patent and stood to profit from sales, and study authors listed 131 financial ties to Big Pharma, the media were wowed. Headlines screamed “AstraZeneca's Crestor cuts death, heart attack," and "Crestor study seen changing preventive treatment!" Ka-ching. But doctors posting online comments in the New England Journal of Medicine were not convinced, especially since the study was stopped early because, said AstraZeneca, of its clearly positive results. "It is well established that RCTs [randomized controlled trials] stopped early overestimate benefits significantly," wrote a physician from Rochester, MN. "It is shocking that this trial was terminated 50% through, based on a small absolute benefit, with real questions about long-term risk," said a poster from LSU Law Center. During Crestor-mania, few remembered that the FDA's own David Graham had named the drug among the top five most dangerous in Capitol Hill testimony. Public Citizen, the national watchdog group, had petitioned for the drug’s withdrawal and research in the journal Circulation found Crestor "was significantly more likely to be associated with the composite end point of rhabdomyolysis, proteinuria, nephropathy, or renal failure," than related drugs. 4. Vytorin Vytorin was heavily advertised as treating both genetic and dietary sources of cholesterol and combined the statin drug Zocor with the anti-hyperlipidemic drug Zetia. The problem was, it was marketed before a study confirmed its effectiveness and when the study was published it found Vytorin had no effect on the buildup of plaque in the arteries. Oops. Like other expensive and popular drugs, the issue wasn't just that Vytorin worked no better than a much cheaper drug. Its makers, Merck and Schering-Plough, also admitted "theoretical" safety concerns about liver damage. In 2014, American Journal of Cardiology authors reported an unexpected increase in cancer incidence and mortality in subjects possibly linked to ezetimibe, one of the Vytorin ingredients. Vytorin well demonstrates the AMA's current concerns about profiteering. The state of New York paid $21 million for Vytorin in two years out of its Medicaid dollars—a likely worthless drug. "Drug companies are on notice that concealing critical information about life-saving prescription drugs, profiting at the expense of patients' health, and wasting taxpayer dollars, is simply unacceptable," said then New York Attorney Andrew Cuomo, now governor. Vytorin was such a scam, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked the General Accounting Office to investigate why the FDA would approve a drug to reduce artery-clogging plaque that didn't reduce artery-clogging plaque. Former Congressmen Bart Stupak (D-MI) and John Dingell (D-MI) asked why Schering-Plough executive VP Carrie Smith Cox unloaded $28 million in stock when she knew the study failed before the public did. "Many consumers may not have taken Vytorin had they been aware of the study results," said Rep. Stupak during hearings. He might have added "had they not seen DTC advertising." They are so common no one thinks twice about them: drug ads that tell you about a disease you might have, a pill that could treat it, and tell you to "ask your doctor" if the pill is right for you. Until 1997, such direct-to-consumer ads did not exist because without a doctor’s recommendation, how could people know if the medication was appropriate or safe? The only thing people knew about drugs and drug risks was from ads they peeked at in medical journals at the doctor's office. But after the ads started in 1997, the allergy pill Claritin became a household word, along with Xenical, Meridia, Propecia, Paxil, Prozac, Vioxx, Viagra, Singulair, Nasonex, Allegra, Flonase and of course Lipitor—and Big Pharma became a Wall Street darling. Now the American Medical Association is taking a second look at DTC advertising. In November, doctors at the AMA's Interim Meeting sought a policy to address one of its biggest problems: the growing proliferation of ads "driving demand for expensive treatments despite the clinical effectiveness of less costly alternatives." Billions are spent advertising expensive new drugs that are not clearly better than existing ones, says the AMA. The Kaiser Family Foundation agrees, and says exorbitantly priced drugs—like $1000-a-pill hepatitis C drugs and recently approved PCSK9-inhibiting cholesterol drugs—are the "public’s top health care priority." The new cholesterol drug will cost an estimated $14,000 a year. Looting tax dollars and raising health premiums is only one result of DTC advertising. To sell drugs, the ads raise awareness of conditions people never worried about before and probably don't have. Some conditions are so rare the ads appear to be selling the disease itself. How many people, for example, suffer from "Non-24," a condition that mostly affects blind people yet is currently advertised on TV? How many people suffer from "exocrine pancreatic insufficiency" and need to ask their doctor about their "poop" as other ads currently suggest? Nor are the drugs even clearly safe. Many of the aggressively advertised drugs have risks that have surfaced after their ad campaigns expire. (Others like Vioxx, Bextra, Baycol, Trovan, Meridia, Seldane, Hismanal and Darvon were removed from the market altogether.) Here are some heavily advertised drugs that are not necessarily safe. 1. GERD Meds Few had heard of the condition gastroesophageal reflux disease before DTC advertising. While a small percentage of the population may have GERD, the condition is widely believed to have been pushed to sell proton pump inhibitors (PPI) like Nexium. In many cases "GERD" is really heartburn and can be treated with Tums or Rolaids, say critics. GERD has made a lot of money. The "Purple Pill," Nexium, made almost $5 billion in the U.S. in one year and the class of PPIs made $13.6 billion, translating into 119 million prescriptions. But safety questions have followed. In 2012, the FDA warned that PPIs are linked to Clostridium Difficile or C. Dif, a sometimes deadly intestinal infection that is becoming increasingly drug resistant. In 2013, medical literature linked PPIs to fractures, calcium and magnesium deficiencies, community-acquired pneumonia and vitamin B-12 deficiencies. Other research suggests PPIs might cause blood vessels to constrict and cardiovascular risks, and this month, research says PPIs may be linked to increased risk for chronic kidney disease. 2. Lipitor If DTC advertising was the medium that made Big Pharma a Wall Street darling, statins like Lipitor were the drug class. In 2005 statins earned $18.7 billion in the United States and Pfizer’s Lipitor became the best-selling drug in the world. Patients loved statins because they could ignore diet and exercise advice and still, apparently, reduce heart attack risks; their body would "forgive" the bacon cheeseburger. But not all medical voices agreed. Some wondered why the nation spent approximately $20 billion a year on cholesterol-lowering drugs instead of effective, less dangerous and less expensive lifestyle and diet changes. Others questioned the value of statins themselves. High cholesterol, which statins treat, is a "relatively weak risk factor for developing atherosclerosis," Barbara Roberts, an associate clinical professor of medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University told me. "Big Pharma has consistently exaggerated the benefits of statins and some physicians used scare tactics so that patients are afraid that if they go off the statins, they will have a heart attack." Though many doctors have "swallowed the Kool-Aid," says Dr. Roberts, who is the author of The Truth about Statins, "diabetes and smoking are far more potent when it comes to increasing risk." In 2012, the FDA floated new risks to the entire statin class, adding warnings to their labels about memory impairment, diabetes, liver injury and muscle damage. Memory problems had always been suspected with statins, but after Lipitor's patent ran out, they were confirmed. 3. Crestor Statins were given a big boost by Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who presented the results of a study on the statin Crestor, funded by its manufacturer AstraZeneca, in 2009. Even though Ridker was co-inventor of a related patent and stood to profit from sales, and study authors listed 131 financial ties to Big Pharma, the media were wowed. Headlines screamed “AstraZeneca's Crestor cuts death, heart attack," and "Crestor study seen changing preventive treatment!" Ka-ching. But doctors posting online comments in the New England Journal of Medicine were not convinced, especially since the study was stopped early because, said AstraZeneca, of its clearly positive results. "It is well established that RCTs [randomized controlled trials] stopped early overestimate benefits significantly," wrote a physician from Rochester, MN. "It is shocking that this trial was terminated 50% through, based on a small absolute benefit, with real questions about long-term risk," said a poster from LSU Law Center. During Crestor-mania, few remembered that the FDA's own David Graham had named the drug among the top five most dangerous in Capitol Hill testimony. Public Citizen, the national watchdog group, had petitioned for the drug’s withdrawal and research in the journal Circulation found Crestor "was significantly more likely to be associated with the composite end point of rhabdomyolysis, proteinuria, nephropathy, or renal failure," than related drugs. 4. Vytorin Vytorin was heavily advertised as treating both genetic and dietary sources of cholesterol and combined the statin drug Zocor with the anti-hyperlipidemic drug Zetia. The problem was, it was marketed before a study confirmed its effectiveness and when the study was published it found Vytorin had no effect on the buildup of plaque in the arteries. Oops. Like other expensive and popular drugs, the issue wasn't just that Vytorin worked no better than a much cheaper drug. Its makers, Merck and Schering-Plough, also admitted "theoretical" safety concerns about liver damage. In 2014, American Journal of Cardiology authors reported an unexpected increase in cancer incidence and mortality in subjects possibly linked to ezetimibe, one of the Vytorin ingredients. Vytorin well demonstrates the AMA's current concerns about profiteering. The state of New York paid $21 million for Vytorin in two years out of its Medicaid dollars—a likely worthless drug. "Drug companies are on notice that concealing critical information about life-saving prescription drugs, profiting at the expense of patients' health, and wasting taxpayer dollars, is simply unacceptable," said then New York Attorney Andrew Cuomo, now governor. Vytorin was such a scam, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked the General Accounting Office to investigate why the FDA would approve a drug to reduce artery-clogging plaque that didn't reduce artery-clogging plaque. Former Congressmen Bart Stupak (D-MI) and John Dingell (D-MI) asked why Schering-Plough executive VP Carrie Smith Cox unloaded $28 million in stock when she knew the study failed before the public did. "Many consumers may not have taken Vytorin had they been aware of the study results," said Rep. Stupak during hearings. He might have added "had they not seen DTC advertising."

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Hillary is no lock in Nevada either: Bernie threatens to steal another key primary

Hillary Clinton’s road to the Democratic presidential nomination just got rockier. If Clinton loses the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary as many are predicting—due to Bernie Sanders’ surging supporters in Iowa and rising poll numbers in New Hampshire—then the nation’s third Democratic contest, in Nevada, becomes even more critical to show she is back on her feet. But news from Nevada, the third state to vote and the West’s first state to hold a presidential nominating event, are showing the odds are not stacking up in her favor, even though she had a 20-point lead in Christmas polling. One of Nevada’s biggest and most politically active unions, Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union Local 226, has opted not to make an endorsement in the party’s 2016 caucuses on February 20. In a statement issued late Wednesday, union leaders said they would focus on mobilizing members for the November election instead. "In Nevada specifically, the Culinary Union is going to spend the next six months building our strength for the general election," said D. Taylor, President of UNITE HERE, and Geoconda Arguello-Kline, Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Union, in a joint statement. "We will register 10,000 more of our union members to vote. In addition, we will remove the barriers for 2,500 of our members to become citizens and register to vote this year." "We will work with our entire membership to be ready to mobilize in November," the statement continued. "No organization in Nevada represents more Latinos or more African Americans, and as we did in 2008 and 2012, we will turn out tens of thousands of people to vote." The union officials also said that it was too early in the process to take sides with candidates. "During this preparation phase, we will not be endorsing in the Presidential Primary," they said. "Any local endorsing in the primary will be weighing the candidates’ positions on the key economic justice issues for our union: Supporting the right to organize unions, committing to comprehensive immigration reform, and fighting for good healthcare for all." No matter how you parse it, this is not what the 2016 Clinton campaign wanted to hear, which is perhaps why it has dispatched former President Bill Clinton to Nevada for events on Thursday. The non-endorsement is not exactly a surprise, given a long history of frayed relations between the Clintons, the Nevada Democratic Party and Culinary union members dating to 2008, when the union endorsed Barack Obama before the primary. “Indeed, the ’08 hangover, when the Culinary embraced Barack Obama and the Clintons went ballistic (Bill even called then-MGM Chairman Kirk Kerkorian to complain about casino caucus sites), appears not to have healed,” wroteRalston Reports. “There is bad blood there, made worse by Clinton beating the Culinary in the caucus (but then losing the delegate fight).” Actually, it was worse than that. In 2008, the Democratic Party created special caucus sites at major Las Vegas casinos so workers could break and participate. The party was so pro-Clinton, however, that this reporter and longtime voting rights attorney Tova Wang witnessed party officials trying to block some casino workers from attending: they said the casino sites were reserved for people who were working that day, not for people who had taken the day off to caucus. That was the most overt polling place voter suppression incident Alternet witnessed in 2008. The pro-Hillary chicanery didn’t stop there. When the party announced the results of the 2008 caucus, it declared Clinton the winner—which the national media duly reported—based on the number of people voting for her in caucus sessions. But that was a ruse, because that’s not how Nevada chooses its Democratic Convention delegates. It awards more delegates to lower-population rural areas and fewer delegates to higher-population urban areas, a formula that Obama used to his advantage. Ralston said “the union still has troops to make the difference down the road, and its leaders may think there is no upside in endorsing now.” In fact, the statement issued late Wednesday by the union's leaders made essentially that same point. "UNITE HERE International Union takes very seriously our commitment to be active participants in the 2016 Presidential election," it said. "We will deliver our strongholds to a candidate who stands against hostile and divisive racist attacks and stands for economic, racial and social justice." Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s Nevada worries don’t end with the big union’s non-endorsement. She may have been leading Sanders by more than 20 points in Christmas week polling, but the campaign said to be nervous about Nevada’s same-day voter registration, which could let Sanders supporters swamp the caucuses. On the other hand, the Sanders campaign will have to be watching how the pro-Clinton state party conducts itself. No matter who gets the winning headline after Feb. 20's caucuses, the state’s delegate allocation process moves ahead to county-level meetings in April and a state convention in May where votes are taken before finally awarding its national convention delegates. Hillary Clinton’s road to the Democratic presidential nomination just got rockier. If Clinton loses the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary as many are predicting—due to Bernie Sanders’ surging supporters in Iowa and rising poll numbers in New Hampshire—then the nation’s third Democratic contest, in Nevada, becomes even more critical to show she is back on her feet. But news from Nevada, the third state to vote and the West’s first state to hold a presidential nominating event, are showing the odds are not stacking up in her favor, even though she had a 20-point lead in Christmas polling. One of Nevada’s biggest and most politically active unions, Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union Local 226, has opted not to make an endorsement in the party’s 2016 caucuses on February 20. In a statement issued late Wednesday, union leaders said they would focus on mobilizing members for the November election instead. "In Nevada specifically, the Culinary Union is going to spend the next six months building our strength for the general election," said D. Taylor, President of UNITE HERE, and Geoconda Arguello-Kline, Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Union, in a joint statement. "We will register 10,000 more of our union members to vote. In addition, we will remove the barriers for 2,500 of our members to become citizens and register to vote this year." "We will work with our entire membership to be ready to mobilize in November," the statement continued. "No organization in Nevada represents more Latinos or more African Americans, and as we did in 2008 and 2012, we will turn out tens of thousands of people to vote." The union officials also said that it was too early in the process to take sides with candidates. "During this preparation phase, we will not be endorsing in the Presidential Primary," they said. "Any local endorsing in the primary will be weighing the candidates’ positions on the key economic justice issues for our union: Supporting the right to organize unions, committing to comprehensive immigration reform, and fighting for good healthcare for all." No matter how you parse it, this is not what the 2016 Clinton campaign wanted to hear, which is perhaps why it has dispatched former President Bill Clinton to Nevada for events on Thursday. The non-endorsement is not exactly a surprise, given a long history of frayed relations between the Clintons, the Nevada Democratic Party and Culinary union members dating to 2008, when the union endorsed Barack Obama before the primary. “Indeed, the ’08 hangover, when the Culinary embraced Barack Obama and the Clintons went ballistic (Bill even called then-MGM Chairman Kirk Kerkorian to complain about casino caucus sites), appears not to have healed,” wroteRalston Reports. “There is bad blood there, made worse by Clinton beating the Culinary in the caucus (but then losing the delegate fight).” Actually, it was worse than that. In 2008, the Democratic Party created special caucus sites at major Las Vegas casinos so workers could break and participate. The party was so pro-Clinton, however, that this reporter and longtime voting rights attorney Tova Wang witnessed party officials trying to block some casino workers from attending: they said the casino sites were reserved for people who were working that day, not for people who had taken the day off to caucus. That was the most overt polling place voter suppression incident Alternet witnessed in 2008. The pro-Hillary chicanery didn’t stop there. When the party announced the results of the 2008 caucus, it declared Clinton the winner—which the national media duly reported—based on the number of people voting for her in caucus sessions. But that was a ruse, because that’s not how Nevada chooses its Democratic Convention delegates. It awards more delegates to lower-population rural areas and fewer delegates to higher-population urban areas, a formula that Obama used to his advantage. Ralston said “the union still has troops to make the difference down the road, and its leaders may think there is no upside in endorsing now.” In fact, the statement issued late Wednesday by the union's leaders made essentially that same point. "UNITE HERE International Union takes very seriously our commitment to be active participants in the 2016 Presidential election," it said. "We will deliver our strongholds to a candidate who stands against hostile and divisive racist attacks and stands for economic, racial and social justice." Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s Nevada worries don’t end with the big union’s non-endorsement. She may have been leading Sanders by more than 20 points in Christmas week polling, but the campaign said to be nervous about Nevada’s same-day voter registration, which could let Sanders supporters swamp the caucuses. On the other hand, the Sanders campaign will have to be watching how the pro-Clinton state party conducts itself. No matter who gets the winning headline after Feb. 20's caucuses, the state’s delegate allocation process moves ahead to county-level meetings in April and a state convention in May where votes are taken before finally awarding its national convention delegates. Hillary Clinton’s road to the Democratic presidential nomination just got rockier. If Clinton loses the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary as many are predicting—due to Bernie Sanders’ surging supporters in Iowa and rising poll numbers in New Hampshire—then the nation’s third Democratic contest, in Nevada, becomes even more critical to show she is back on her feet. But news from Nevada, the third state to vote and the West’s first state to hold a presidential nominating event, are showing the odds are not stacking up in her favor, even though she had a 20-point lead in Christmas polling. One of Nevada’s biggest and most politically active unions, Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union Local 226, has opted not to make an endorsement in the party’s 2016 caucuses on February 20. In a statement issued late Wednesday, union leaders said they would focus on mobilizing members for the November election instead. "In Nevada specifically, the Culinary Union is going to spend the next six months building our strength for the general election," said D. Taylor, President of UNITE HERE, and Geoconda Arguello-Kline, Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Union, in a joint statement. "We will register 10,000 more of our union members to vote. In addition, we will remove the barriers for 2,500 of our members to become citizens and register to vote this year." "We will work with our entire membership to be ready to mobilize in November," the statement continued. "No organization in Nevada represents more Latinos or more African Americans, and as we did in 2008 and 2012, we will turn out tens of thousands of people to vote." The union officials also said that it was too early in the process to take sides with candidates. "During this preparation phase, we will not be endorsing in the Presidential Primary," they said. "Any local endorsing in the primary will be weighing the candidates’ positions on the key economic justice issues for our union: Supporting the right to organize unions, committing to comprehensive immigration reform, and fighting for good healthcare for all." No matter how you parse it, this is not what the 2016 Clinton campaign wanted to hear, which is perhaps why it has dispatched former President Bill Clinton to Nevada for events on Thursday. The non-endorsement is not exactly a surprise, given a long history of frayed relations between the Clintons, the Nevada Democratic Party and Culinary union members dating to 2008, when the union endorsed Barack Obama before the primary. “Indeed, the ’08 hangover, when the Culinary embraced Barack Obama and the Clintons went ballistic (Bill even called then-MGM Chairman Kirk Kerkorian to complain about casino caucus sites), appears not to have healed,” wroteRalston Reports. “There is bad blood there, made worse by Clinton beating the Culinary in the caucus (but then losing the delegate fight).” Actually, it was worse than that. In 2008, the Democratic Party created special caucus sites at major Las Vegas casinos so workers could break and participate. The party was so pro-Clinton, however, that this reporter and longtime voting rights attorney Tova Wang witnessed party officials trying to block some casino workers from attending: they said the casino sites were reserved for people who were working that day, not for people who had taken the day off to caucus. That was the most overt polling place voter suppression incident Alternet witnessed in 2008. The pro-Hillary chicanery didn’t stop there. When the party announced the results of the 2008 caucus, it declared Clinton the winner—which the national media duly reported—based on the number of people voting for her in caucus sessions. But that was a ruse, because that’s not how Nevada chooses its Democratic Convention delegates. It awards more delegates to lower-population rural areas and fewer delegates to higher-population urban areas, a formula that Obama used to his advantage. Ralston said “the union still has troops to make the difference down the road, and its leaders may think there is no upside in endorsing now.” In fact, the statement issued late Wednesday by the union's leaders made essentially that same point. "UNITE HERE International Union takes very seriously our commitment to be active participants in the 2016 Presidential election," it said. "We will deliver our strongholds to a candidate who stands against hostile and divisive racist attacks and stands for economic, racial and social justice." Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s Nevada worries don’t end with the big union’s non-endorsement. She may have been leading Sanders by more than 20 points in Christmas week polling, but the campaign said to be nervous about Nevada’s same-day voter registration, which could let Sanders supporters swamp the caucuses. On the other hand, the Sanders campaign will have to be watching how the pro-Clinton state party conducts itself. No matter who gets the winning headline after Feb. 20's caucuses, the state’s delegate allocation process moves ahead to county-level meetings in April and a state convention in May where votes are taken before finally awarding its national convention delegates.

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Go away, Michael Bloomberg: The billionaire plutocrat has nothing to offer American voters

Apparently former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is thinking of running for president as a third-party candidate. The New York Times reports that Bloomberg commissioned a private poll to see how he would fare if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton and the Republicans nominate Donald Trump, which seems likely (though not certain) at this point. Although Bloomberg hasn’t released the poll’s results – either because they weren’t favorable or were so promising that he’s waiting for the perfect moment, depending on how you look at it – there is an inarguable logic to him waging a third-party candidacy in 2016. Regardless of one’s own partisan and ideological inclinations, it’s hard to deny that both Clinton and Trump are incredibly polarizing to the general electorate. Indeed, even the candidates most likely to stage an upset – i.e., Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side and Ted Cruz among the Republicans – are equally divisive and controversial. In such an election, Bloomberg could cast himself as a nonpartisan centrist, a man who has always supported gay rights, fights for a woman’s right to choose and for stricter gun control measures, and yet simultaneously wants to deregulate big businesses, slash taxes, and strengthen America’s military. While it’s unlikely that Bloomberg could appeal to all segments of the voting public, he seems primed to position himself as a palatable moderate in a race in which both parties nominate candidates who are reviled by large sections of the country. The question is whether he would actually make a good president if elected. The answer, unequivocally, is no. We can start with Bloomberg’s out-of-touch attitude toward the American working class. “In Bloomberg’s 12 years in office, his personal fortune increased sevenfold, from $4.5 to $32 billion, while 46 percent of the city’s residents now live in or near poverty,” writes Steven Wishnia of Talking Points Memo. “If Manhattan were an independent nation, its income inequality would rank with South Africa’s and Namibia’s.” In the waning years of his mayoralty, Bloomberg fought against a living wage law that would have required employers receiving at least $1 million in city aid to pay their workers either $10 an hour with benefits or $11.50 without. He also exacerbated law enforcement mistreatment of racial minorities by appointing Ray Kelly as Police Commissioner, who proceeded to implement a “stop and frisk” policy that disproportionately targeted non-whites for searching and oversaw widespread surveillance of the city’s Muslim community. Finally, there is Bloomberg’s clear disdain for following the rules that apply to non-billionaires, as evidenced by his successful effort to have the city council temporarily suspend term limits so he could serve an extra four years. On a deeper level, though, Bloomberg’s problem isn’t merely being insufficiently sympathetic to low-income and non-white Americans. It is that, as a third-party presidential candidate, he would automatically assume the symbolic role of national iconoclast. For 163 years, every single one of America’s presidents has hailed from either the Democratic or Republican parties; before 1853, we still chose our presidents from one of two major parties, albeit with some differences from the ones known today (i.e., we had Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, National Republicans, and Whigs). By virtue of attempting to buck that precedent, Bloomberg would seemingly be a man willing to fight the status quo. Yet as his ideology makes clear, he is a candidate of the status quo. Aside from his unwillingness to commit to either of America’s major parties, there is nothing even remotely anti-establishment about the man. Say what you will about Trump and Cruz, but both of them are openly disliked by large segments of the Republican Party establishment. Similarly, say what you will about Clinton and Sanders, but both of them support economic and social policies that fight against the wealthy interest groups that have dominated our nation for so long. A Bloomberg third-party campaign, by contrast, would be the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothes. Even his ideological message is an inversion of American norms; third-party candidates have, traditionally, represented ideas perceived as too extreme for the major parties. Bloomberg, on the other hand, would be a self-declared moderate denouncing the perceived extremism to his left and right from the major parties. In short, if Bloomberg emerges as a viable third-party alternative in the 2016 presidential election, his candidacy will severely distort our collective understanding of the political world we inhabit today. There are real problems that need to be addressed – income inequality, racial and sexual discrimination, an entire generation cast adrift by an economy that seems to have no use for them – and they require a serious candidate who is willing to openly and aggressively confront them. In Bloomberg, we would have a champion of the status quo who presents himself as a bold game-changer. Frankly, if our next president needs to be an agent of the same, I’d at least prefer it that he present himself as such. Apparently former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is thinking of running for president as a third-party candidate. The New York Times reports that Bloomberg commissioned a private poll to see how he would fare if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton and the Republicans nominate Donald Trump, which seems likely (though not certain) at this point. Although Bloomberg hasn’t released the poll’s results – either because they weren’t favorable or were so promising that he’s waiting for the perfect moment, depending on how you look at it – there is an inarguable logic to him waging a third-party candidacy in 2016. Regardless of one’s own partisan and ideological inclinations, it’s hard to deny that both Clinton and Trump are incredibly polarizing to the general electorate. Indeed, even the candidates most likely to stage an upset – i.e., Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side and Ted Cruz among the Republicans – are equally divisive and controversial. In such an election, Bloomberg could cast himself as a nonpartisan centrist, a man who has always supported gay rights, fights for a woman’s right to choose and for stricter gun control measures, and yet simultaneously wants to deregulate big businesses, slash taxes, and strengthen America’s military. While it’s unlikely that Bloomberg could appeal to all segments of the voting public, he seems primed to position himself as a palatable moderate in a race in which both parties nominate candidates who are reviled by large sections of the country. The question is whether he would actually make a good president if elected. The answer, unequivocally, is no. We can start with Bloomberg’s out-of-touch attitude toward the American working class. “In Bloomberg’s 12 years in office, his personal fortune increased sevenfold, from $4.5 to $32 billion, while 46 percent of the city’s residents now live in or near poverty,” writes Steven Wishnia of Talking Points Memo. “If Manhattan were an independent nation, its income inequality would rank with South Africa’s and Namibia’s.” In the waning years of his mayoralty, Bloomberg fought against a living wage law that would have required employers receiving at least $1 million in city aid to pay their workers either $10 an hour with benefits or $11.50 without. He also exacerbated law enforcement mistreatment of racial minorities by appointing Ray Kelly as Police Commissioner, who proceeded to implement a “stop and frisk” policy that disproportionately targeted non-whites for searching and oversaw widespread surveillance of the city’s Muslim community. Finally, there is Bloomberg’s clear disdain for following the rules that apply to non-billionaires, as evidenced by his successful effort to have the city council temporarily suspend term limits so he could serve an extra four years. On a deeper level, though, Bloomberg’s problem isn’t merely being insufficiently sympathetic to low-income and non-white Americans. It is that, as a third-party presidential candidate, he would automatically assume the symbolic role of national iconoclast. For 163 years, every single one of America’s presidents has hailed from either the Democratic or Republican parties; before 1853, we still chose our presidents from one of two major parties, albeit with some differences from the ones known today (i.e., we had Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, National Republicans, and Whigs). By virtue of attempting to buck that precedent, Bloomberg would seemingly be a man willing to fight the status quo. Yet as his ideology makes clear, he is a candidate of the status quo. Aside from his unwillingness to commit to either of America’s major parties, there is nothing even remotely anti-establishment about the man. Say what you will about Trump and Cruz, but both of them are openly disliked by large segments of the Republican Party establishment. Similarly, say what you will about Clinton and Sanders, but both of them support economic and social policies that fight against the wealthy interest groups that have dominated our nation for so long. A Bloomberg third-party campaign, by contrast, would be the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothes. Even his ideological message is an inversion of American norms; third-party candidates have, traditionally, represented ideas perceived as too extreme for the major parties. Bloomberg, on the other hand, would be a self-declared moderate denouncing the perceived extremism to his left and right from the major parties. In short, if Bloomberg emerges as a viable third-party alternative in the 2016 presidential election, his candidacy will severely distort our collective understanding of the political world we inhabit today. There are real problems that need to be addressed – income inequality, racial and sexual discrimination, an entire generation cast adrift by an economy that seems to have no use for them – and they require a serious candidate who is willing to openly and aggressively confront them. In Bloomberg, we would have a champion of the status quo who presents himself as a bold game-changer. Frankly, if our next president needs to be an agent of the same, I’d at least prefer it that he present himself as such.

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Wal-Mart’s winter to forget: The retailer’s reputation takes another massive hit

Walmart just announced that it’s closing 269 stores globally, including 154 in the United States. This means 10,000 workers will be laid off. Jess Levin, communications director for Making Change at Walmart, released a statement on the news:

“Walmart is a company that, time and again, will say one thing and then do the opposite. Public relations matters more to them than their customers, the community, or their employees. While it pretends to value its employees, the reality is, for Walmart, its workers are disposable. Sadly, these latest store closings could very well be just the beginning. This sends a chilling message to the company’s hard-working employees that they could be next – and with no one standing up for them, that is no doubt the reality.”

This is certainly not the only chilling message Walmart has sent to its employees this season. At the end of November, Bloomberg published a blockbuster story by Susan Berfield and Josh Eidelson detailing how the company spied on its workers with help from arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. The incredible article relies on internal documents that reveal the company was concerned about growing $15 minimum wage protests, particularly the Black Friday actions that took place in 2012 and 2013. Walmart developed a “Delta” emergency response team when it first heard about the protests in 2012. The piece explains how the company zeroed in on the worker organization OUR Walmart:

During that time, about 100 workers were actively involved in recruiting for OUR Walmart, but employees (or associates, as they’re called at Walmart) across the company were watched; the briefest conversations were reported to the “home office,” as Walmart calls its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.

With some assistance from LM [Lockheed Martin] we have created the attached map to track the caravan movements and approximate participants,” Kris Russell, a risk program senior manager, wrote to colleagues on May 30.

The FBI was apparently brought in when the company became aware that Occupy activists were connected to the labor actions. Berfield writes:

A Delta team began operations. When global security heard that members of the Occupy movement might join the protests at corporate headquarters, they began working with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The documents from the NLRB hearing don’t provide any details about the collaboration or indicate whether it was unusual for Walmart to bring in the FBI. The bureau had worked with local police forces across the country as they dealt with Occupy protesters.

Brian Nick, a spokesman for the company, told Berfield that Walmart wasn’t very concerned about labor organizing. “The unions who spend a lot of time attacking Walmart make a lot of false claims, but the reality is that Walmart makes decisions based on the best interests of our company, our associates and our customers,” said Nick. “We’re proud of the wages and benefits package we offer.” Read the entire piece at Bloomberg. Its revelations are important to keep in mind as more information comes out about the layoffs. Walmart just announced that it’s closing 269 stores globally, including 154 in the United States. This means 10,000 workers will be laid off. Jess Levin, communications director for Making Change at Walmart, released a statement on the news:

“Walmart is a company that, time and again, will say one thing and then do the opposite. Public relations matters more to them than their customers, the community, or their employees. While it pretends to value its employees, the reality is, for Walmart, its workers are disposable. Sadly, these latest store closings could very well be just the beginning. This sends a chilling message to the company’s hard-working employees that they could be next – and with no one standing up for them, that is no doubt the reality.”

This is certainly not the only chilling message Walmart has sent to its employees this season. At the end of November, Bloomberg published a blockbuster story by Susan Berfield and Josh Eidelson detailing how the company spied on its workers with help from arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. The incredible article relies on internal documents that reveal the company was concerned about growing $15 minimum wage protests, particularly the Black Friday actions that took place in 2012 and 2013. Walmart developed a “Delta” emergency response team when it first heard about the protests in 2012. The piece explains how the company zeroed in on the worker organization OUR Walmart:

During that time, about 100 workers were actively involved in recruiting for OUR Walmart, but employees (or associates, as they’re called at Walmart) across the company were watched; the briefest conversations were reported to the “home office,” as Walmart calls its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.

With some assistance from LM [Lockheed Martin] we have created the attached map to track the caravan movements and approximate participants,” Kris Russell, a risk program senior manager, wrote to colleagues on May 30.

The FBI was apparently brought in when the company became aware that Occupy activists were connected to the labor actions. Berfield writes:

A Delta team began operations. When global security heard that members of the Occupy movement might join the protests at corporate headquarters, they began working with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The documents from the NLRB hearing don’t provide any details about the collaboration or indicate whether it was unusual for Walmart to bring in the FBI. The bureau had worked with local police forces across the country as they dealt with Occupy protesters.

Brian Nick, a spokesman for the company, told Berfield that Walmart wasn’t very concerned about labor organizing. “The unions who spend a lot of time attacking Walmart make a lot of false claims, but the reality is that Walmart makes decisions based on the best interests of our company, our associates and our customers,” said Nick. “We’re proud of the wages and benefits package we offer.” Read the entire piece at Bloomberg. Its revelations are important to keep in mind as more information comes out about the layoffs.

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Luke Skywalker, Dumbledore and the problem with secretly-queer heroes: “As LGBT as you want them to be” isn’t enough

Could Luke Skywalker be bisexual? According to actor Mark Hamill, the character’s queerness is in the eye of the beholder. On Twitter, Hamill responded to a fan’s inquiry about Skywalker’s sexuality. “His sexuality is never addressed in the films,” the 64-year-old actor wrote. “Luke is whatever the audience wants him to be, so you can decide for yourself.” This is far from the first time that someone has suggested the protagonist of the original “Star Wars” trilogy might not be straight. As Slate’s David Plotz wrote back in 2000, Luke Skywalker’s sexuality has been a staple of fan-fiction for decades, which even imagines a romance between the young Jedi and Han Solo. These interpretations show that, to a certain extent, Hamill has a point—characters like Luke Skywalker belong to the fans, who can shape them into their own fantasies for the character. This is especially true when Skywalker himself is presented as something of an Everyman, a character who offers a mirror in which viewers can see themselves reflected. Hamill’s take has been warmly received on the Internet, and while I appreciate his openness to a queer reading of the character, I don’t think arguing Luke Skywalker can stand in for all identities and sexualities is as progressive as it sounds. In general, I have a huge problem with this gentle retconning of iconic characters—with stars and creators suggesting that they were either gay the whole time (à la “The Sixth Sense”) or that our faves are as LGBT as we want them to be. At its worst, this argument serves as a way to not do the real work of inclusion (e.g., creating characters that are overtly queer) by claiming your work was always diverse. The most famous example of this is J.K. Rowling—who announced that Albus Dumbledore, the wise headmaster from the “Harry Potter” book series, was gay while promoting “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” According to Rowling, Dumbledore had fallen for a rival wizard, Gellert Grindelwald, although the romance wasn’t meant to be. But despite outing Dumbledore during her book tour, there was nary a mention of it in print. While fans had long speculated about his sexuality, you could read all six of the novels Dumbledore is featured in without even the faintest inkling that he’s anything but heterosexual. That’s also the case with Johnny Depp, who told the Guardian last November that “all of his characters are gay.” In an earlier interview with U.K.’s Metro, the actor explained, “I’m very happy to explore all possibilities of a character and really, you know, dive into the role.” For starters, that statement raises a red flag because it’s empirically not true. In “Black Mass”—the movie Depp was promoting when he made those comments—he plays the Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, who was married to Lindsey Cyr for 12 years. His “Transcendence” character, Will Caster, is married to a woman (played by the luminous Rebecca Hall, no less). In “The Corpse Bride,” the fact that his stop-motion-animated character isn’t gay is even in the title. You can argue that all of these characters are bisexual or queer or pansexual or anything you like, and that’s precisely the problem: By leaving it open to interpretation, we’re allowed to read them as anything we want. Sure, Johnny Depp might intend his characters in “The Rum Diary” and “Public Enemies” to be gay (given the fact that they’re Hunter S. Thompson and John Dillinger, that’s kind of dubious), but I could just as easily interpret them as straight. (I could also interpret them as a giant chicken wearing a human costume.) When your character’s sexuality has to be implied through vague subtext, it serves to make queer visibility all but invisible. Thus, Depp’s Everyqueer argument doesn’t quite work. In The Mary Sue, Carolyn Cox (who praises Hamill’s remarks) writes: “If a character is straight, that’s almost always made explicit, but LGBTQ+ fans hoping to see themselves in media are asked to be happy with representation that isn’t even subtext. It’s one of the many double standards of heteronormativity.” Thus, television and film characters—from Jack Bauer (“24”) to Stringer Bell (“The Wire”)—are generally regarded as straight until proven homosexual. There’s a reason for that: In media, straight white men are always treated as the automatic default. When Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” debuted to deafening acclaim last year (it’s the only movie to score a perfect 100 on Metacritic), critics noted that its universality was part of its power, the fact that Mason’s white, middle-class upbringing is allowed to stand in for all of ours. “The profuse pleasures of Boyhood spring not from amazement but from recognition—from saying, Yes, that’s true, and that feels right, or that’s how it was for me, too,” wrote the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane. But if Mason were queer or even black—like the characters in the similarly themed “American Promise”—his story wouldn’t be allowed to speak for everyone. That’s not just a matter of societal bias but studio will. Actors like Mark Hamill might be cool with a queer reading of Skywalker, but studios tend to be less cool about an actual LGBT character at the center of the story—representing the universal struggle. In 2013, “The Amazing Spider-Man” star Andrew Garfield asked why the titular webslinger couldn’t be bisexual: “What if MJ is a dude?” That’s a good question. The easy answer is that MJ could very well be, but Spider-Man creator Stan Lee won’t allow it. In a series of emails that leaked to Gawker last lear, Lee mandated that Spidey should always be “Caucasian and heterosexual.” In the case of Spider-Man, the idea is that audiences can continue to project themselves onto the person inside that mask—but only as long as the screen stays “blank.” But the issue that these “blank slate” characters are anything but: The idea of the Straight White Everyman is underwritten with decades of excluding marginalized voices. These populations who are told—time and again—that it’s OK their stories aren’t actually represented on-screen because there’s someone to stand in for them. For every sympathetic actor like Garfield or Mark Hamill, there are dozens of film executives behind them working to maintain the hetero status quo. Instead of allowing Straight White Everyman to represent LGBT voices, the “Star Wars” series shows why actually writing explicitly queer characters is so important. As Eli Keel argues for Salon, having a gay protagonist in the most famous film series in history might “save lives.” In response to widespread speculation that fighter pilot Poe Dameron (who appears in “The Force Awakens”) might be gay, Keel writes:

“LGBT+ representation in ‘Star Wars’ would be a huge victory for the continued fight for freedom and acceptance that still faces so many people. LGBT+ teens still have a much higher rate of suicide and depression. A gay character in the biggest franchise in the universe, one linked to so many childhoods and formative to what kids think of as right and wrong, wouldn’t quite be the same as blowing up a Death Star, but it would be close.”

Poe Dameron will prove an interesting test case for the “Star Wars” films—because the series has yet to actually confirm his sexual orientation. Thus far, all we have to go on are lip bites, suggestive glances and an ambiguous statement from Oscar Isaac (who plays Poe) on “Ellen.” Episodes VIII and IX could very well go the way of Luke Skywalker and insist that his blank slate sexuality belongs to everyone, but just once, I don’t want to have to share an Everyman protagonist or make do with a retconned gay wizard. I want a character that’s explicitly written with my community in mind and writers who have the courage to integrate it into the story line—not dump the news during a press conference. If Poe Dameron turns out not to be gay, do me a favor, Oscar Isaac: Don’t tell me “Star Wars” didn’t address it. We address that question every single time we don’t allow our characters to utter the two simple words that queer audiences have been waiting for generations to hear.Could Luke Skywalker be bisexual? According to actor Mark Hamill, the character’s queerness is in the eye of the beholder. On Twitter, Hamill responded to a fan’s inquiry about Skywalker’s sexuality. “His sexuality is never addressed in the films,” the 64-year-old actor wrote. “Luke is whatever the audience wants him to be, so you can decide for yourself.” This is far from the first time that someone has suggested the protagonist of the original “Star Wars” trilogy might not be straight. As Slate’s David Plotz wrote back in 2000, Luke Skywalker’s sexuality has been a staple of fan-fiction for decades, which even imagines a romance between the young Jedi and Han Solo. These interpretations show that, to a certain extent, Hamill has a point—characters like Luke Skywalker belong to the fans, who can shape them into their own fantasies for the character. This is especially true when Skywalker himself is presented as something of an Everyman, a character who offers a mirror in which viewers can see themselves reflected. Hamill’s take has been warmly received on the Internet, and while I appreciate his openness to a queer reading of the character, I don’t think arguing Luke Skywalker can stand in for all identities and sexualities is as progressive as it sounds. In general, I have a huge problem with this gentle retconning of iconic characters—with stars and creators suggesting that they were either gay the whole time (à la “The Sixth Sense”) or that our faves are as LGBT as we want them to be. At its worst, this argument serves as a way to not do the real work of inclusion (e.g., creating characters that are overtly queer) by claiming your work was always diverse. The most famous example of this is J.K. Rowling—who announced that Albus Dumbledore, the wise headmaster from the “Harry Potter” book series, was gay while promoting “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” According to Rowling, Dumbledore had fallen for a rival wizard, Gellert Grindelwald, although the romance wasn’t meant to be. But despite outing Dumbledore during her book tour, there was nary a mention of it in print. While fans had long speculated about his sexuality, you could read all six of the novels Dumbledore is featured in without even the faintest inkling that he’s anything but heterosexual. That’s also the case with Johnny Depp, who told the Guardian last November that “all of his characters are gay.” In an earlier interview with U.K.’s Metro, the actor explained, “I’m very happy to explore all possibilities of a character and really, you know, dive into the role.” For starters, that statement raises a red flag because it’s empirically not true. In “Black Mass”—the movie Depp was promoting when he made those comments—he plays the Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, who was married to Lindsey Cyr for 12 years. His “Transcendence” character, Will Caster, is married to a woman (played by the luminous Rebecca Hall, no less). In “The Corpse Bride,” the fact that his stop-motion-animated character isn’t gay is even in the title. You can argue that all of these characters are bisexual or queer or pansexual or anything you like, and that’s precisely the problem: By leaving it open to interpretation, we’re allowed to read them as anything we want. Sure, Johnny Depp might intend his characters in “The Rum Diary” and “Public Enemies” to be gay (given the fact that they’re Hunter S. Thompson and John Dillinger, that’s kind of dubious), but I could just as easily interpret them as straight. (I could also interpret them as a giant chicken wearing a human costume.) When your character’s sexuality has to be implied through vague subtext, it serves to make queer visibility all but invisible. Thus, Depp’s Everyqueer argument doesn’t quite work. In The Mary Sue, Carolyn Cox (who praises Hamill’s remarks) writes: “If a character is straight, that’s almost always made explicit, but LGBTQ+ fans hoping to see themselves in media are asked to be happy with representation that isn’t even subtext. It’s one of the many double standards of heteronormativity.” Thus, television and film characters—from Jack Bauer (“24”) to Stringer Bell (“The Wire”)—are generally regarded as straight until proven homosexual. There’s a reason for that: In media, straight white men are always treated as the automatic default. When Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” debuted to deafening acclaim last year (it’s the only movie to score a perfect 100 on Metacritic), critics noted that its universality was part of its power, the fact that Mason’s white, middle-class upbringing is allowed to stand in for all of ours. “The profuse pleasures of Boyhood spring not from amazement but from recognition—from saying, Yes, that’s true, and that feels right, or that’s how it was for me, too,” wrote the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane. But if Mason were queer or even black—like the characters in the similarly themed “American Promise”—his story wouldn’t be allowed to speak for everyone. That’s not just a matter of societal bias but studio will. Actors like Mark Hamill might be cool with a queer reading of Skywalker, but studios tend to be less cool about an actual LGBT character at the center of the story—representing the universal struggle. In 2013, “The Amazing Spider-Man” star Andrew Garfield asked why the titular webslinger couldn’t be bisexual: “What if MJ is a dude?” That’s a good question. The easy answer is that MJ could very well be, but Spider-Man creator Stan Lee won’t allow it. In a series of emails that leaked to Gawker last lear, Lee mandated that Spidey should always be “Caucasian and heterosexual.” In the case of Spider-Man, the idea is that audiences can continue to project themselves onto the person inside that mask—but only as long as the screen stays “blank.” But the issue that these “blank slate” characters are anything but: The idea of the Straight White Everyman is underwritten with decades of excluding marginalized voices. These populations who are told—time and again—that it’s OK their stories aren’t actually represented on-screen because there’s someone to stand in for them. For every sympathetic actor like Garfield or Mark Hamill, there are dozens of film executives behind them working to maintain the hetero status quo. Instead of allowing Straight White Everyman to represent LGBT voices, the “Star Wars” series shows why actually writing explicitly queer characters is so important. As Eli Keel argues for Salon, having a gay protagonist in the most famous film series in history might “save lives.” In response to widespread speculation that fighter pilot Poe Dameron (who appears in “The Force Awakens”) might be gay, Keel writes:

“LGBT+ representation in ‘Star Wars’ would be a huge victory for the continued fight for freedom and acceptance that still faces so many people. LGBT+ teens still have a much higher rate of suicide and depression. A gay character in the biggest franchise in the universe, one linked to so many childhoods and formative to what kids think of as right and wrong, wouldn’t quite be the same as blowing up a Death Star, but it would be close.”

Poe Dameron will prove an interesting test case for the “Star Wars” films—because the series has yet to actually confirm his sexual orientation. Thus far, all we have to go on are lip bites, suggestive glances and an ambiguous statement from Oscar Isaac (who plays Poe) on “Ellen.” Episodes VIII and IX could very well go the way of Luke Skywalker and insist that his blank slate sexuality belongs to everyone, but just once, I don’t want to have to share an Everyman protagonist or make do with a retconned gay wizard. I want a character that’s explicitly written with my community in mind and writers who have the courage to integrate it into the story line—not dump the news during a press conference. If Poe Dameron turns out not to be gay, do me a favor, Oscar Isaac: Don’t tell me “Star Wars” didn’t address it. We address that question every single time we don’t allow our characters to utter the two simple words that queer audiences have been waiting for generations to hear.

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Sarah Palin’s feel-bad politics: The dark allure of right-wing nihilism, self-pity and curdled nostalgia for a once-“great” America

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” sang Simon & Garfunkel in February of 1968, a year of innocence and chaos. “Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” If that line is difficult to parse several generations later — as in, who the hell is Joe DiMaggio? — it confused people back then too. Songwriter Paul Simon was tweaking the nostalgic yearning for a vanished America found among people slightly older than himself, but at least as he explained it 30 years after the fact, the song also shares in that sadness. In a New York Times Op-Ed after DiMaggio’s death in 1999, Simon wrote that in an era of political discord (meaning the Bill Clinton presidency and the Lewinsky scandal), “we grieve for Joe DiMaggio and mourn the loss of his grace and dignity, his fierce sense of privacy, his fidelity to the memory of his wife and the power of his silence.” That yearning for an imaginary or idealized past is found throughout American culture and American politics. It showed up this week, with Whitmanesque poetic fervor, in the widely celebrated speech delivered by Sarah Palin in Ames, Iowa, where she endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. (I owe the Whitman reference to my Salon colleague Amanda Marcotte, who may have written the best of all the Palin exegeses thus far.) If Palin’s glorious paean to the “right-wingin’, bitter-clingin’, proud clingers of our guns, our God and our religions and our Constitution” was a gift to legions of late-night comedy hosts, it was also an enlistment in a lengthy American rhetorical tradition. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” as the most famous ending in American literature puts it. Quite likely Sarah Palin was assigned to read that book, at some point in her peripatetic college career. If she never got around to it she is not alone, but she received the gist of Nick Carraway’s American epiphany because no American can entirely avoid it. Similarly, it does not seem likely that Palin has any clear idea who Joe DiMaggio was, or why he played an important symbolic role in a folk-rock hit released just before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. DiMaggio was born in California and played baseball in New York City, two places that from Palin’s point of view seem only marginally American. She might be perplexed to learn that the parents of this supposed American hero were immigrants who spoke little English and were classified as “enemy aliens” — potential terrorists, as we might say today — during World War II. (They were prohibited from traveling more than five miles from home, and Giuseppe DiMaggio’s fishing boat was confiscated by the government.) All Palin would need to know about Simon & Garfunkel is that another of the duo’s ‘60s hits, “America,” showed up in a Bernie Sanders campaign ad this week. (Which may tell us more than we wanted to know about the Bern’s degree of pop-culture savvy.) It’s not a tribute to right-wingin’, bitter-clingin’ America, not a celebration of the “Reaganesque power that comes from strength.” How dare those hippies, in fact, use that proper noun? It’s not theirs! But the ache and loss expressed in Simon’s “Mrs. Robinson,” and in “America” too, is closely akin to the spirit Palin was trying to conjure in her torrent of psychotronic free association on Wednesday. Except that it’s all gone sour: The paradoxical longing for what cannot be recaptured, expressed so beautifully by Simon and by Scott Fitzgerald (and before them by Marcel Proust, for that matter) has turned from sadness to bitterness and anger. As Marcotte argues, there is an almost literary artfulness at work within Palin’s apparently unhinged rambling, especially in the way she evades the traditional responsibility of a political speech (that is, to make some sort of argument and offer points to support it) and goes for pure emotion. But the only emotions available, it seems, are those of uncontained negativity: “Anger is turned into hate is turned into more anger, until it spins off, completely unmoored from any considerations like ‘why’ or ‘how.’” Instead of the dignity and silence of Joe DiMaggio, or the stoicism of John Wayne, we get only endless complaining and empty, childish, unfulfillable promises — the boastful bloviation of Trump and the “post-argument” imagistic slam poetry of Palin. The American right has reached a rococo, self-devouring period, almost an ironic period. It has become exactly what it has long accused the left of being, not entirely without justification: a bunch of whiners and perennial victims who never shut up about how much they have suffered at the hands of evil but nebulous enemies. Much as the contemporary Republican Party claims to venerate Ronald Reagan, this represents a dramatic turnabout from the era of Reagan’s ascension, which was built on invariably sunny and upbeat political rhetoric and dedicated to at least the appearance of inclusivity. (Of course Reagan’s policies, which I hated so much at the time, look almost moderate today as well.) Well, it ain’t morning in America anymore, folks. It’s the dark night of the soul; it’s fear and trembling and sickness unto death. Those GOP candidates who began the 2016 campaign with some semblance of an optimistic message — Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee and about half of the software package that comprises Jeb Bush — have gotten swamped beneath the unrelenting meanness and hostility of Trump and Ted Cruz. I was going to say that the Palin-Trump contingent does not blame Society or the Establishment or Racism for their ills and afflictions, after the fashion of a stereotypical liberal. But in fact they do exactly that, with some minor differences in nomenclature. Of course it’s disgraceful that in the immediate aftermath of her Trump speech Palin tried to spin the news about her son Track’s arrest on domestic violence charges into an attack on President Obama. But we should be aware of the potential hypocrisy in our response: If I were to suggest that Track Palin may have suffered psychological damage in an unnecessary and destructive war, and that we should not withhold our compassion from his family just because his mom is a right-wing icon, many people in the Salon readership would nod respectfully. Sarah’s argument skips over all of that and goes for a literal bogeyman: Track had a difficult homecoming from Iraq because he had a commander-in-chief who wasn’t quite American enough, if you know what I mean and I think you do. Amid the pathological context of American politics in 2016, it’s not surprising to learn that middle-aged white people are dying at a disproportionate and alarming rate in our country, and largely of preventable causes like lung cancer or heart disease or suicide. They hate so many things, including themselves, that it’s difficult to go on living. Thanks, Obama! The Palin-Trump demographic feels bad about itself and about America pretty much all the time, and its so-called political movement amounts to little more than a celebration of feeling bad, a collective agreement that once upon a time things were great and now they’re irredeemably screwed up. From the beginning of the Trump campaign, I have suspected that his supporters were not actually dumb enough to believe that he or any other president could really build an impregnable wall along the Mexican border, or bar all Muslims from entering the country. Those are nihilistic fantasies emerging from the depths of the white American Id, a desire to inflict the pain of alcoholism and obesity and hypertension, along with the paradoxical anguish of a sense of entitlement coupled with relentless downward mobility, on as much of the outside world as possible. On a larger scale, it’s also possible that the right-wing, pseudo-populist rejection of science and reason and logic is less a matter of not believing that industrial development is destroying the planet, or that unfettered capitalism and the gruesome American diet are literally killing us, than of not caring. It’s a dangerous and in many ways heartbreaking dilemma, and in the end I don’t want to be snarky about it. Many people in our country responded to a promise of permanent prosperity in a great land that was loved and envied around the world. Instead, things kept getting worse and their fellow citizens inexplicably elected a Muslim usurper not once but twice, and the only part of the promise that was kept was the cheap 30-pack at the mini-mart and the wings at TGI Fridays. The squirmish with the American Id has been lost; all that’s left is the politics of feeling bad, the nearness of death, the promise that #NoLivesMatter.

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On life, death and love, Savages offer no easy answers: “To keep the ambiguity and the tension has been an intention”

In 2013, the post-punk group Savages emerged from London with a fully formed debut LP, "Silence Yourself," whose forceful feminist bent was a revelation. The quartet—vocalist/lyricist Jehnny Beth, guitarist Gemma Thompson, bassist Ayse Hassan and drummer Fay Milton—used scabrous guitars, a foundation-shaking rhythm section and Beth's precise, majestic howls as conduits for lyrics that embraced desire, spoke out in favor of contradictions and imperfections, and eschewed conventions.  Savages' second album, "Adore Life," is no less uncompromising, but it is more methodical, its aggression sculpted into blasts of noise and turbulence. There are many reasons for this evolution, although Beth cites the recording process—each band member recorded her individual part separately—and the mixing job done by Anders Trentemøller as two of the main ones. Standouts include the bruised death-disco of "Surrender," the snarling, Patti Smith-caliber punk "T.I.W.Y.G." and the moody "Mechanics," a song steeped in cinematic atmosphere and Beth's measured, confident declarations of sexual power and self-confidence: "When I take a man/At my command/My love will stand/The test of time." Yet lyrically, "Adore Life" poses no easy answers—"Is it a demon or an angel holding us when in love?" the song "When In Love" ponders at one point—but produces plenty of questions, which Beth views as a sign that Savages have hit on unique ways to address "subject matters like love or death, or the idea of living life in general," she says. "To keep the ambiguity and the tension has been an intention." Beth called Salon from Paris, where she discussed the impact of a live audience on the evolution of Savages' music, working with Anders Trentemøller, and finding new ways to reconcile their complex themes and music on "Adore Life." When you were writing the songs on "Adore Life," were there any particular inspirations or influences from which you were drawing? Inspirations—yes, of course, there were so many. [Laughs.] It’s funny how it works, because sometimes things that are not necessarily coming from music can influence you, in different ways. The first thing I would say was coming from the crowd, our crowd, our audience. When we went on tour for "Silence Yourself," and we toured all around the world, [the] attitude of our audience [changed]—the shows became warmer and warmer. And we would receive so much affection, so much love from our crowd, that it was impossible to ignore. [Laughs.] That definitely changed us. It had an impact on the band, and that somehow was the trigger for the second record. It made us more aware of our responsibility, in a way. Once you have people listening to you, you want to give back. So I'd say that was the first influence on writing the second record. Then it makes so much sense why you had a New York residency in early 2015, to work on the songs you had written and see the reaction you would get. How did that further shape everything? The natural habitat for Savages is onstage. There’s something that we still can’t explain that makes us click together. We’ve all worked on new songs with the observation of a crowd. Three months after we formed, we played our first show and had an audience from then on. You can see very early versions of "Shut Up" online [that] are very different from how the song ends up to be, because we've never been shy about… We know that trying a song live is going to help shape it, because the urgency that you feel at that point helps you make decisions. The adrenaline that you feel as well, it fuels the sound, and pronounces the shape of the song, and the intention. Every song has a different meaning and a different mood, and it’s important to see how that meaning and mood echoes or interacts with the context of a club show, for example, like we did in New York. You know when you watch a film on your own? And then you watch it again with a friend? Some passages might feel different—you would have a different perspective because there’s someone else in the room, watching with you. It’s like that almost. How complexity informs all of our experiences, and it’s never an either/or proposition or a black and white proposition—that's what stood out to me when reading the mission statement and lyrics for "Adore Life." There are a lot of lyrical questions on the record as well. It was very provocative, and there's a lot to dig into. Was that an intentional thing? How did that kind of evolve?  If you don’t mind me asking, in what way did you think it was provocative? When you hear a record and the artist is asking questions, rather than sort of giving you the obvious, "Here’s how things are," as a listener, it makes me start to question things. The line in "Adore," "Is it human to adore life?" that really stopped me. It’s so poignant, but yet it’s weighed down by guilt at the same time. There’s a lot of depth and nuance when you have a record that has a lot of questions to it. It’s interesting [to hear] you saying that. I’ve been traveling to different countries to meet journalists and talk about the record. It’s been an intense, interesting, tiring experience, all at the same time. There was one journalist, particularly, who sat down—and I was doing an interview with Ayse Hassan, the bassist—and he sat down and said, “I heard the new record, but I don’t have any questions for you.” And we were like, “OK…” He said, “I don’t have any questions, I only have wonder.” Wow. Yeah, there was silence in the room. [Laughs.] What I’ve noticed is that the record raises questions, and it has somehow, from what I’ve gathered from the past few weeks, because it’s the first time I hear what people think about the record… The record, it’s almost like people almost want to shake it to see if they could have more meaning out of it. And, in a way, when I met these people, when I met the journalists, every time they would leave the room, I felt they left with more inspirational ideas rather than answers. It's a great surprise. I agree with you, it has this kind of questioning nature, which I’m glad for. We’ve always been interested in ways to try to find a contrast with the music in parallel with the message. In our work on writing the record, we’ve always been careful to never lose sight of what the song is saying, and how the music could say stuff the lyrics are not saying, for example. Or how one could complement each other, because some of the lyrics—although, as you've said, they're quite complex—but some of the lyrics are quite hopeful and positive. Although I agree they’re really tainted as well, they're really charged with opposites. If we’re talking about love, we're talking about fear or, you know, abandon and all these things. But sometimes, when you have very hopeful lyrics, how do you make the music display that and make it Savages as well? To keep the ambiguity and the tension has been an intention, so I’m glad that it shows up. On "Adore Life," everything from the vocals to the individual instruments is so crisp in the mix. Everything is very meticulous—not that the last record wasn’t, but there’s something about the sonics and the timbre of this record that really stood out to me when I listened to it. Yes, and that was very conscious. We worked with Johnny Hostile again on the production for this record, and this time he was totally on his own as a producer. The nature of the band—we’ve traveled around the world and we’ve learned to work together better, and we’ve learned to trust each other and love each other. Creating that family when you're touring, it really creates strong bonds. Johnny Hostile knows us really well, so he has real insight like nobody else has had into the psychology of the band. The inspiration that each of us has as artists, he has a real understanding of that. The decision to record separately—the first record was recorded live, everybody in the same room. And this record we did more of the, not traditional, but…We'd record a rough version of the track and where we would record drums separately, bass separately. And there was even a whole week of the recording that was completely dedicated to guitar. And even some days, me, Fay [Milton, drummer] and Ayse would not necessarily turn up on the day of guitar, because we would come the next day and be very surprised, overwhelmed and happy to hear what was done. There was trust and [guitarist Gemma Thompson] could be in the studio with Johnny Hostile and Richard Woodcraft, who was the sound engineer on the record. And just record songs on her guitar, and explore her ideas. And it was a conscious decision for… Johnny had decided to give room for each of us to explore. Everything is very well worked, and you should have time to go deeper into ideas. And that goes back to the watching movies with yourself vs. watching movies with a crowd thing. It’s interesting to hear you describe it like that: I’ve talked to musicians in the past, about when they do things separately. People always have a different perspective on why things are done individually. We realised that the band Savages is a sum of four very strong individuals, that each individual is a part of the whole. And that needs expression. [Laughs.] In terms of the technical aspects of things, the first record was really harsh-sounding, it was very abrupt. This one we wanted to have loads of space for the bass, so that we could hear more of what was happening in the low end, and create a wider spectrum. That’s probably why you were saying you can really hear everything. And Anders Trentemøller mixed it too. Talk about an artist who's ridiculously amazing! Exactly. Anders, we admire his work, and he was a fan of Savages as well. The idea came because Johnny Hostile and Trentemøller are friends, became friends when they met nearly a year ago. Anders invited Johnny Hostile to support him on his European tour, and they became really close friends. So, when we were thinking of mixers, Johnny instantly suggested Anders, which was—to be honest—a bit of a shock, I'll admit. [Laughs.] In the sense of, "Wow, OK." It seemed a very out of the box [suggestion], something we thought was really out there. But it was the first time Anders mixed somebody else’s record, and it was very modestly approached. He was very open to suggestions and very open-minded to what we wanted to do. The first thing he tried was "I Need Something New." That song had roots in improvisation, is that correct? It was a text I started to say onstage, in between songs, and at the time to shake things up a bit. Surprise [the rest of the band]. Because I’d never tell them when I’ll do it, or how I’ll do it. And then, because of the element of surprise, you want to join in, so Gemma started making guitar, and drums came in and then we started improvising on the song live, and then we finished writing it. Speaking of stage: I was impressed a few months ago when I read this story about how you guys went really out of your way so that a fan at a San Francisco show who used a wheelchair had accessible seats and a view at your show. I have a disability myself, and it meant so much to me to see a band take a stand like that. Venue accessibility is really an issue that people are passionate about in the U.K., but the U.S. is still kind of on an upswing. When it happened, we didn’t notice because we were onstage. What happened is, our producer, Johnny Hostile, was in the audience and saw this guy leaving the room after two songs. And, after thinking he might not like the show, then he realized, "Oh, of course he’s leaving, because he can’t see." And so he caught up with him in the street, and told him he could find him a really good spot near the stage, so he managed to convince him to come back in and see the show. I think I wasn't aware of that situation in America, and definitely we'll try to impose that position for the venues we’re going to go to [this] year. I think we're going to be writing a note to promoters and tell them that we wish that they are mindful of creating access for people who have a disability. It just happened to us and we witnessed it. And it was a reaction to that, really. Of course, everybody should be able to go to the show. And music is such a powerful experience, especially live. Being able to experience that and immerse yourself in it is a gift. And access to all, it seems like a simple thing, but more bands need to take a stand. We’ll try to live up to it and carry on imposing that rule, as much as we can.In 2013, the post-punk group Savages emerged from London with a fully formed debut LP, "Silence Yourself," whose forceful feminist bent was a revelation. The quartet—vocalist/lyricist Jehnny Beth, guitarist Gemma Thompson, bassist Ayse Hassan and drummer Fay Milton—used scabrous guitars, a foundation-shaking rhythm section and Beth's precise, majestic howls as conduits for lyrics that embraced desire, spoke out in favor of contradictions and imperfections, and eschewed conventions.  Savages' second album, "Adore Life," is no less uncompromising, but it is more methodical, its aggression sculpted into blasts of noise and turbulence. There are many reasons for this evolution, although Beth cites the recording process—each band member recorded her individual part separately—and the mixing job done by Anders Trentemøller as two of the main ones. Standouts include the bruised death-disco of "Surrender," the snarling, Patti Smith-caliber punk "T.I.W.Y.G." and the moody "Mechanics," a song steeped in cinematic atmosphere and Beth's measured, confident declarations of sexual power and self-confidence: "When I take a man/At my command/My love will stand/The test of time." Yet lyrically, "Adore Life" poses no easy answers—"Is it a demon or an angel holding us when in love?" the song "When In Love" ponders at one point—but produces plenty of questions, which Beth views as a sign that Savages have hit on unique ways to address "subject matters like love or death, or the idea of living life in general," she says. "To keep the ambiguity and the tension has been an intention." Beth called Salon from Paris, where she discussed the impact of a live audience on the evolution of Savages' music, working with Anders Trentemøller, and finding new ways to reconcile their complex themes and music on "Adore Life." When you were writing the songs on "Adore Life," were there any particular inspirations or influences from which you were drawing? Inspirations—yes, of course, there were so many. [Laughs.] It’s funny how it works, because sometimes things that are not necessarily coming from music can influence you, in different ways. The first thing I would say was coming from the crowd, our crowd, our audience. When we went on tour for "Silence Yourself," and we toured all around the world, [the] attitude of our audience [changed]—the shows became warmer and warmer. And we would receive so much affection, so much love from our crowd, that it was impossible to ignore. [Laughs.] That definitely changed us. It had an impact on the band, and that somehow was the trigger for the second record. It made us more aware of our responsibility, in a way. Once you have people listening to you, you want to give back. So I'd say that was the first influence on writing the second record. Then it makes so much sense why you had a New York residency in early 2015, to work on the songs you had written and see the reaction you would get. How did that further shape everything? The natural habitat for Savages is onstage. There’s something that we still can’t explain that makes us click together. We’ve all worked on new songs with the observation of a crowd. Three months after we formed, we played our first show and had an audience from then on. You can see very early versions of "Shut Up" online [that] are very different from how the song ends up to be, because we've never been shy about… We know that trying a song live is going to help shape it, because the urgency that you feel at that point helps you make decisions. The adrenaline that you feel as well, it fuels the sound, and pronounces the shape of the song, and the intention. Every song has a different meaning and a different mood, and it’s important to see how that meaning and mood echoes or interacts with the context of a club show, for example, like we did in New York. You know when you watch a film on your own? And then you watch it again with a friend? Some passages might feel different—you would have a different perspective because there’s someone else in the room, watching with you. It’s like that almost. How complexity informs all of our experiences, and it’s never an either/or proposition or a black and white proposition—that's what stood out to me when reading the mission statement and lyrics for "Adore Life." There are a lot of lyrical questions on the record as well. It was very provocative, and there's a lot to dig into. Was that an intentional thing? How did that kind of evolve?  If you don’t mind me asking, in what way did you think it was provocative? When you hear a record and the artist is asking questions, rather than sort of giving you the obvious, "Here’s how things are," as a listener, it makes me start to question things. The line in "Adore," "Is it human to adore life?" that really stopped me. It’s so poignant, but yet it’s weighed down by guilt at the same time. There’s a lot of depth and nuance when you have a record that has a lot of questions to it. It’s interesting [to hear] you saying that. I’ve been traveling to different countries to meet journalists and talk about the record. It’s been an intense, interesting, tiring experience, all at the same time. There was one journalist, particularly, who sat down—and I was doing an interview with Ayse Hassan, the bassist—and he sat down and said, “I heard the new record, but I don’t have any questions for you.” And we were like, “OK…” He said, “I don’t have any questions, I only have wonder.” Wow. Yeah, there was silence in the room. [Laughs.] What I’ve noticed is that the record raises questions, and it has somehow, from what I’ve gathered from the past few weeks, because it’s the first time I hear what people think about the record… The record, it’s almost like people almost want to shake it to see if they could have more meaning out of it. And, in a way, when I met these people, when I met the journalists, every time they would leave the room, I felt they left with more inspirational ideas rather than answers. It's a great surprise. I agree with you, it has this kind of questioning nature, which I’m glad for. We’ve always been interested in ways to try to find a contrast with the music in parallel with the message. In our work on writing the record, we’ve always been careful to never lose sight of what the song is saying, and how the music could say stuff the lyrics are not saying, for example. Or how one could complement each other, because some of the lyrics—although, as you've said, they're quite complex—but some of the lyrics are quite hopeful and positive. Although I agree they’re really tainted as well, they're really charged with opposites. If we’re talking about love, we're talking about fear or, you know, abandon and all these things. But sometimes, when you have very hopeful lyrics, how do you make the music display that and make it Savages as well? To keep the ambiguity and the tension has been an intention, so I’m glad that it shows up. On "Adore Life," everything from the vocals to the individual instruments is so crisp in the mix. Everything is very meticulous—not that the last record wasn’t, but there’s something about the sonics and the timbre of this record that really stood out to me when I listened to it. Yes, and that was very conscious. We worked with Johnny Hostile again on the production for this record, and this time he was totally on his own as a producer. The nature of the band—we’ve traveled around the world and we’ve learned to work together better, and we’ve learned to trust each other and love each other. Creating that family when you're touring, it really creates strong bonds. Johnny Hostile knows us really well, so he has real insight like nobody else has had into the psychology of the band. The inspiration that each of us has as artists, he has a real understanding of that. The decision to record separately—the first record was recorded live, everybody in the same room. And this record we did more of the, not traditional, but…We'd record a rough version of the track and where we would record drums separately, bass separately. And there was even a whole week of the recording that was completely dedicated to guitar. And even some days, me, Fay [Milton, drummer] and Ayse would not necessarily turn up on the day of guitar, because we would come the next day and be very surprised, overwhelmed and happy to hear what was done. There was trust and [guitarist Gemma Thompson] could be in the studio with Johnny Hostile and Richard Woodcraft, who was the sound engineer on the record. And just record songs on her guitar, and explore her ideas. And it was a conscious decision for… Johnny had decided to give room for each of us to explore. Everything is very well worked, and you should have time to go deeper into ideas. And that goes back to the watching movies with yourself vs. watching movies with a crowd thing. It’s interesting to hear you describe it like that: I’ve talked to musicians in the past, about when they do things separately. People always have a different perspective on why things are done individually. We realised that the band Savages is a sum of four very strong individuals, that each individual is a part of the whole. And that needs expression. [Laughs.] In terms of the technical aspects of things, the first record was really harsh-sounding, it was very abrupt. This one we wanted to have loads of space for the bass, so that we could hear more of what was happening in the low end, and create a wider spectrum. That’s probably why you were saying you can really hear everything. And Anders Trentemøller mixed it too. Talk about an artist who's ridiculously amazing! Exactly. Anders, we admire his work, and he was a fan of Savages as well. The idea came because Johnny Hostile and Trentemøller are friends, became friends when they met nearly a year ago. Anders invited Johnny Hostile to support him on his European tour, and they became really close friends. So, when we were thinking of mixers, Johnny instantly suggested Anders, which was—to be honest—a bit of a shock, I'll admit. [Laughs.] In the sense of, "Wow, OK." It seemed a very out of the box [suggestion], something we thought was really out there. But it was the first time Anders mixed somebody else’s record, and it was very modestly approached. He was very open to suggestions and very open-minded to what we wanted to do. The first thing he tried was "I Need Something New." That song had roots in improvisation, is that correct? It was a text I started to say onstage, in between songs, and at the time to shake things up a bit. Surprise [the rest of the band]. Because I’d never tell them when I’ll do it, or how I’ll do it. And then, because of the element of surprise, you want to join in, so Gemma started making guitar, and drums came in and then we started improvising on the song live, and then we finished writing it. Speaking of stage: I was impressed a few months ago when I read this story about how you guys went really out of your way so that a fan at a San Francisco show who used a wheelchair had accessible seats and a view at your show. I have a disability myself, and it meant so much to me to see a band take a stand like that. Venue accessibility is really an issue that people are passionate about in the U.K., but the U.S. is still kind of on an upswing. When it happened, we didn’t notice because we were onstage. What happened is, our producer, Johnny Hostile, was in the audience and saw this guy leaving the room after two songs. And, after thinking he might not like the show, then he realized, "Oh, of course he’s leaving, because he can’t see." And so he caught up with him in the street, and told him he could find him a really good spot near the stage, so he managed to convince him to come back in and see the show. I think I wasn't aware of that situation in America, and definitely we'll try to impose that position for the venues we’re going to go to [this] year. I think we're going to be writing a note to promoters and tell them that we wish that they are mindful of creating access for people who have a disability. It just happened to us and we witnessed it. And it was a reaction to that, really. Of course, everybody should be able to go to the show. And music is such a powerful experience, especially live. Being able to experience that and immerse yourself in it is a gift. And access to all, it seems like a simple thing, but more bands need to take a stand. We’ll try to live up to it and carry on imposing that rule, as much as we can.

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You can do better, New York: 7 ways the Empire State’s medical marijuana program falls short

New York's long-delayed medical marijuana program finally rolled out this month, not with a bang, but with a whimper. What looks to be the country's tightest medical marijuana program has an extremely limited number of producers and retailers, a tiny number of eligible patients, a dearth of doctors, and forbids both smoking marijuana and using edibles. For patients and advocates, the very limited arrival of medical marijuana in the Empire State is not the end point they hoped to achieve. Now, instead of resting on their laurels, they will have to continue to fight to make the program one that actually serves the needs of New Yorkers. "It's a start," said the Drug Policy Alliance's Julie Netherland, until recently the deputy director of the group's New York Policy Office, where she was deeply involved in massaging the law through the legislature and past a reluctant governor. "It's the first time New Yorkers can legally purchase medical marijuana, and it’s the result of the hard work of thousands of patients and family members across New York." But, she was quick to grant, the program has some serious issues, immediate ones in the way the program has been rolled out and longer-term ones with the statute itself. Here are seven ways New York's medical marijuana program falls short: 1. Not Enough Access to Doctors Under the law, before doctors can recommend medical marijuana to patients, they must complete a $249 four-hour course on the drug and then register with the Health Department. As of January 12, only 226 physicians had done so. Unlike neighboring New Jersey, the Health Department maintains no public registry of doctors certified to recommend medical marijuana, making it that much more difficult for potential patients to find doctors who might certify them to purchase it. So far, only 166 patients have been certified by the department to buy medical marijuana. "This is the number one complaint of patients," said Netherland, sketching out an almost Kafkaesque process. "The Health Department is telling me if I'm a patient, I should go see my doctor and see if he participates in the program and if not, to encourage him to register," she said. "If the doctors says he's not going to register, then I'm supposed to ask him for a referral, but the doctor isn't going to know about any list of certified doctors to refer me to, and then it's incumbent on me to tell him. It's just another set of hoops for patients to jump through." At least the Health Department has now agreed to make the list of certified physicians available to patients. 2. Not Enough Dispensaries In a state of 20 million, only eight dispensaries opened January 7, and only another dozen are envisioned under the  June 2014 medical marijuana law. Weedmaps lists only three for New York City—one each in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens. By way of comparison, Los Angeles had 135 permitted dispensaries and probably three times as many actually operating. New York is not only heavily populated, it's big. With only 20 dispensaries, large geographical swathes of the state will remain without access. Long Island, for instance, will have two dispensaries, but right now, it's a two-hour drive into the city. “I’m disappointed that only eight dispensaries will open by the deadline,” said Missy Miller from Atlantic Beach. “There are none opening on Long Island, which leaves my son Oliver, who suffers from life-threatening seizures, out of luck. This only highlights concerns we have had all along that the state has licensed way too few producers and dispensaries to serve a state as populous and geographically large as New York." 3. No Personal Cultivation Unlike the majority of medical marijuana states, patients can't just grow their own. That means they are dependent on the dispensary system, with all its limitations. 4. Access Is Limited to Specified Qualifying Medical Conditions The state law only allows medical marijuana for a list of specified medical conditions, including cancer, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and chronic pain. The law allows the Commissioner of Health to add other diseases and conditions, but just last week, he refused to add PTSD, Alzheimer's, muscular dystrophy, dystonia, rheumatoid arthritis. "We're hearing every day from patients with all kinds of conditions," said Netherland. "The commissioner was directed by law to consider those five additional conditions, but he declined to add any. That was a huge blow to patients across the state hoping he would do the right thing. Half the medical marijuana states include PTSD; we thought there was strong scientific evidence to include it." 5. Limitations on Forms of Ingestion The law bans the sale of smokeable marijuana. New York joins Minnesota as the only two medical marijuana states that ban smoking; 21 others do not. The state will only allow oils and capsules that can be administered orally, and liquid forms of marijuana may also be vaporized. "The law prohibits any smoking, but regulations prohibit any access to the whole plant," said Netherland. "That means all the products will be extracts, oils, or tinctures. This is also an issue for a lot of our patients. 6. Limitations on Strains The law only provides for five producers, and each producer can only grow five strains. "We know there are dozens and dozens of therapeutic strains," said Netherland. "We'd like to have the flexibility to match symptoms with strains. One of the issues is that all of the products have to be approved by the Health Department." 7. No Provisions for Access for Limited Income Patients Advocates sought unsuccessfully to get provisions to ensure access for low income patients. Medical marijuana is not covered by insurance, and could run between $200 and $1,300 a month, depending on the product and the condition. Now it will be up to the charitable instincts of dispensaries. "We had encouraged the state to create incentive programs for producers to have programs for low income access, and we also encouraged the state to set up a program itself. It chose to do neither," Netherland said. "Now, patients are basically waiting to see if dispensaries will step up. "There's lots of room for improvement," she said. "We anticipated a lot of these problems when the law was passed, and we're looking at going back to the legislature. We'll be back in Albany in the coming months talking about the need to expand the program and make it work from the patient's standpoint." It looks like there's plenty of work to be done. Phillip Smith is editor of the AlterNet Drug Reporter and author of the Drug War Chronicle.

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