Posts tagged with "The New York Times"

Above, the body mass index has long been criticized as a flawed indicator of health.The body roundness index has been gaining support. (Photo source: Kurhan/stock.adobe.com)

Time to say goodbye to the B.M.I.?

September 6, 2024

Move over, body mass index (BMI). Make room for roundness—to be precise, the body roundness index (BRI), reports The New York Times.

The body mass index is a ratio of height to weight that has long been used as a medical screening tool. It is one of the most widely used health metrics—but also one of the most reviled, because it is used to label people overweight, obese or extremely obese.

The classifications have been questioned by athletes like the American Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher, whose BMI of 30 technically puts her on the cusp of obesity. “But alas,” she said on Instagram, addressing online trolls who tried to shame her about her weight, “I’m going to the Olympics and you’re not.”

Advocates for overweight individuals and people of color note that the formula was developed nearly 200 years ago and based exclusively on data from men—most of them white—and that it was never intended for medical screening.

Even physicians have weighed in on the shortcomings of BMI. The American Medical Association warned last year that BMI is an imperfect metric that doesn’t account for racial, ethnic, age, sex and gender diversity. It can’t differentiate between individuals who carry a lot of muscle and those with fat in all the wrong places.

“Based on BMI, Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was a bodybuilder would have been categorized as obese and needing to lose weight,” said Dr. Wajahat Mehal, director of the Metabolic Health and Weight Loss Program at Yale University.

“But as soon as you measured his waist, you’d see, ‘Oh, it’s 32 inches.’”

So welcome a new metric: the body roundness index. BRI is just what it sounds like—a measure of how round or circlelike you are;  using a formula that takes into account height and waist, but not weight.

It’s a formula that may provide a better estimate of central obesity and abdominal fat, which are closely linked to an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, unlike fat stored on the buttocks and thighs.

A paper published in JAMA Network Open in June was the latest in a string of studies to report that BRI is a promising predictor of mortality. B.R.I. scores generally run from 1 to 15; most people rank between 1 and 10. Among a nationally representative sample of 33,000 Americans, BRI. scores rose between 1999 and 2018, the new study found.

Those with BRI scores of 6.9 and up—indicating the roundest bodies—were at the highest risk of dying from cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses.

Their overall mortality risk was almost 50% greater than those with BRIs of 4.5 to 5.5, which were in the midrange of the sample; while those with B.R.I. scores of 5.46 to 6.9 faced a risk that was 25% higher than those in the midrange.

But those who were least round were also at elevated risk of death: People with BRI scores under 3.41 also faced a mortality risk that was 25% higher than those in the midrange, the study found.

The paper’s authors suggested the lower scores—seen mostly in those 65 and older—might have reflected malnutrition, muscle atrophy, or inactivity.

“BMI cannot distinguish body fat from muscle mass,” Wenquan Niu, who works at the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine at the Capital Institute of Pediatrics in Beijing and was a senior author of the paper, wrote in an email. “For any given BMI, fat distribution, and body composition can vary dramatically.”

Indeed, Dr. Niu wrote, “When BMI is used to frame risk, it often overestimates risk for muscular athletes, whereas it underestimates risk for older persons with muscle mass that’s been replaced by fat.”

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, the ad campaign will drop ads in at least six swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. (Photo source: Erin Schaff for The New York Times)

Climate groups begin $55 million ad campaign for Kamala Harris

August 19, 2024

Several organizations focused on combating climate change joined forces on Monday, August 19, for a $55 million advertising campaign in support of Vice President Kamala Harris—embracing what they describe as the economic upside of the Democratic Party’s environmental efforts, reports The New York Times.

The campaign will include ads in at least six swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It is being run by the L.C.V. Victory Fund, a political arm of the League of Conservation Voters; E.D.F. Action Votes, an affiliate of the Environmental Defense Fund; Climate Power Action, a communications organization; and Future Forward, one of the biggest super PACs in Democratic politics.

“When the choice is so stark between Vice President Harris and Trump, and we know it’s going to be a close election, there was a recognition that we needed to join forces,” Pete Maysmith, the senior vice president of Campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, said in an interview. The coalition, he said, “could put more dollars together jointly to communicate why this is such an important decision from a climate and energy perspective.”

Three of the ads—shared with The New York Times before their release—frame President Joe Biden’s climate policies and Harris’s prospective policies in terms of economic benefits rather than environmental ones, and also touch on economic issues not directly related to the climate.

“The goal of her presidency: strengthen America’s middle class,” the first ad says. “We get there by investing in growing fields like advanced manufacturing and clean energy—good-paying jobs that don’t need a four-year degree. Cap the price of drugs and strengthen Social Security.”

Th second ad focuses on Harris’s time as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general—noting that she led cases against oil companies whose operations polluted communities and against banks that foreclosed on homeowners. “Harris took on the most powerful interests, while Donald Trump has always stood with corporations that rip us off, and he always will,” it says.

The third says Harris knows prices are too high, so she will “triple America’s clean energy production”—saving families money, it says—and “take on big oil companies’ price gouging.”

The messaging is in line with that of the Biden-Harris Administration. Biden enacted the country’s largest investment in climate-change mitigation by signing the Inflation Reduction Act, but he and Harris have often promoted it primarily as a force that is benefiting working-class Americans by pushing companies to create manufacturing and construction jobs for green-energy projects.

“Kamala Harris’s vision is focused on helping working families, from lowering energy bills to creating new jobs in growing industries like clean energy,” Chauncey McLean, the president of the Future Forward PAC, said in a statement. “Donald Trump is focused on helping wealthy corporations like big oil companies make more money.”

Harris’s and Trump’s platforms on climate and environmental issues are starkly different. Ms. Harris supports efforts to increase renewable energy use and lower carbon emissions through tax incentives and federal regulations, while Mr. Trump wants to undo many regulations and has mocked both renewable energy and the facts of climate change.

While polls show that many voters are worried about climate change, they generally rank the economy higher on their list of concerns. Maysmith said he believed a message connecting the two would resonate.

“Clean energy is cheaper energy,” he said. “If she’s looking at how can things be more affordable for voters, this is one way to do that.”

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, more than 12,000 people attended the Harris-Walz event in Las Vegas on Auguust 10, according to the campaign. (Photo source: Erin Schaff for The New York Times)

Trump falsely claims that the crowds seen at Harris rallies are fake

August 12, 2024

Former President Donald Trump has taken his obsession with the large crowds that Vice President Kamala Harris is drawing at her rallies to new heights—falsely declaring in a series of social media posts on Sunday, August 11, that she had used artificial intelligence to create images and videos of fake crowds, reports The New York Times.

The crowds at Harris’s events, including one in Detroit outside an airplane hangar, were witnessed by thousands of people and news outlets—including The New York Times—and the number of attendees claimed by her campaign is in line with what was visible on the ground. Trump falsely wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, that “there was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it.”

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has struggled to find his political footing in the weeks since President Joe Biden decided to step aside and Ms. Harris replaced him atop the Democratic ticket: Trump questioned Harris’s racial identity at a conference for Black journalists, he later attacked Brian Kemp, the popular Republican governor in the key swing state of Georgia, and he has seen new polling that puts him behind Harris in several key states.

The Harris campaign has begun to mock Trump for his frustration over her crowds—one of which, it said, topped 15,000 people at an event in the Phoenix area on Friday, August 9.

“It’s not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything,” Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, Harris’s running mate, said to the crowd, receiving a loud cheer.

In his posts on Sunday, Trump drew parallels between his false claims of fake crowds and his false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people!” Trump wrote. “Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches. This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING – And they’re even worse at the Ballot Box. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”

Harris’s campaign went on Trump’s social network to mock his wild accusations, replying to one of his posts by sharing a video of Air Force Two arriving in Detroit to an enormous crowd and her exiting the plane with Walz.

“In case you forgot @realdonaldtrump: This is what a rally in a swing state looks like,” her campaign wrote.

Trump did not hold any events in a swing state last week. Instead, he held a rally in Montana, where there is a crucial Senate race; and a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.

Trump showed frustration with Harris’s crowds at that event, too, and even boasted about the crowd at his rally in Washington D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded the riot at the Capitol, saying it was larger than the one drawn by Martin Luther King Jr. for his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

“Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me,” Trump claimed.

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, former President Donald-Trump at a rally on July 27 in St. Cloud, Minnesota. (Photo-source: DougMills for The New York Times)

Trump again says that Christians ‘won’t have to vote anymore’ if they vote for him in November

July 31, 2024

Former President Donald Trump, in an interview broadcast on Monday night, July 29, repeated his recent assertion that Christians will never have to vote again if they cast their ballots for him this November, and brushed aside multiple requests to walk back or clarify the statement, reports The New York Times.

Trump said last Friday to a gathering of Christian conservatives: “I love you. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

His interviewer on Monday, Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, noted that Democrats have highlighted that quote as evidence that Trump would end elections, and urged Trump to rebut what she called a “ridiculous” criticism.

But Trump declined to do so, repeating a pattern he frequently employs in which he makes a provocative statement that can be interpreted in varying ways, and makes no attempt to quiet the uproar. This comment was especially striking, given his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his shattering of other Democratic norms.

The exchange began when Ingraham told the former president: “They’re saying that you said to a crowd of Christians that they won’t have to vote in the future.”

Trump started off his response, saying: “Let me say what I mean by that. I had a tremendous crowd, speaking to Christians all in all—I mean, this was a crowd that liked me a lot.”

He added that Catholics are “treated very badly by this administration” and that “they’re like persecuted;” then digressed, saying that Jewish people who voted for Democrats “should have your head examined”—a sentiment he has expressed many times before, drawing criticism of antisemitism. He then reiterated his statement from Friday.

“I said, vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true,” he said. “Because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group. They don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote anymore. I won’t need your vote.”

Ingraham offered him an off-ramp: “You mean you don’t have to vote for you, because you’ll have four years in office.”

Trump then began talking about gun owners not voting, but. Ingraham interrupted him.

“It’s being interpreted, as you are not surprised to hear, by the left as, well, they’re never going to have another election,” she said. “So can you even just respond —”

Trup cut her off, claiming again that Christians “vote in very small percentages,” and digressing into how he would change voting practices.

He then repeated his statement from Friday once more, saying his message had been: “Don’t worry about the future. You have to vote on November 5. After that, you don’t have to worry about voting anymore. I don’t care, because we’re going to fix it. The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore, because frankly we will have such love, if you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s OK.”

Democracy has been a major focus of President Joe Biden’s and now Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, as well as the campaigns of many Democratic candidates down-ballot, and Trump’s comments have bolstered that.

In one more exchange, Ingraham noted that Democrats were arguing that Trump might never leave office if elected again, and prompted, with a laugh, “But you will leave office after four years?”

“Of course. By the way, and I did last time,” Trump said.

He left office in 2021 after his and his allies’ sweeping campaign to overturn the election failed, and after his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to try to stop Congress from certifying the results.

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, former President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris share a moment during an event at the White House in 2022. (Photo source: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

Barack and Michelle Obama endorse Kamala Harris but warn: ‘We’re underdogs’

July 26, 2024

Barack and Michelle Obama have endorsed Kamala Harris for president—saying in a spot released by her campaign early on Friday, July 26, that they “couldn’t be prouder” to help propel her to victory, reports The Daily Beast.

But the former president issued a stark warning that Democrats are “underdogs,” reflecting polling that shows Harris still behind Donald Trump despite President Joe Biden dropping out of the race. Michelle Obama also promised to work to elect “my girl Kamala,” suggesting the former first couple will be a major presence on the campaign trail, a potentially huge boost to the Democrats.

The 55-second ad sees Harris taking a call from the Obamas while seemingly walking backstage at a campaign event. Obama’s distinctive voice breaks in over the phone immediately: “Kamala!”

After Michelle greets her as well, the video cuts to a title card—“The Obamas Call Kamala”—before shifting to show the vice president standing in front of a black SUV. Holding the phone to her ear with the speakerphone button visibly on, Harris says, “It’s good to hear you both.”

“I can’t have this phone call without saying to my girl Kamala: I am proud of you,” Michelle says. “This is going to be historic.”

“We called to say, Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you, and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,” Barack adds.

“Oh my goodness,” Harris responds, grinning. “Michelle, Barack, this means so much to me.”

The vice president goes on to say that she and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are looking forward to “getting out there, being on the road” with the couple.

“But most of all, I just want to tell you that the words you have spoken and the friendship you have given over all these years mean more than I can express, so thank you both,” she says. “It means so much. And, we’re going to have some fun with this too, aren’t we?”

But what Michelle Obama said is likely to give Democrats a significant boost and mark a break from her relationship with the Bidens—which was recently revealed to be frosty because of their estrangement from Hunter Biden’s first wife Kathleen Buhle who was also one of the former first lady’s closest friends. The former first lady is the country’s most popular political figure and the Democrats’ most potent campaigner.

Michelle Obama told Harris, “I just want to reiterate, we’ve got to work now. All of us. It’s time to stop wringing our hands, it’s time to stop complaining. It’s time for us to rally around you, your candidacy. This is not on you, it’s not just on you and Doug, it’s on all of us So, let’s all roll up our sleeves and, and make it happen.”

The official thumbs-up from the former president and former first lady comes a day after NBC News reported, citing four sources familiar with the matter, that an endorsement was imminent.

Some insiders told The New York Times shortly after that Obama was holding back his support to avoid the perception that he was puppet-mastering her anointment. Another explained to NBC that he was trying not to “overshadow” President Joe Biden, who on Wednesday night addressed the nation for the first time since announcing on Sunday he was dropping out of the presidential race.

Research contact: @thedailybeast

Above, the 2025 Sundance Film Festival will be held from January 23 through February 2. (Photo source: Sundance)

Sundance announces six finalists for its new home

July 22, 2024

Sundance—which hosts an annual, influential film festival that has made the organization synonymous with the snowy mountain town of Park City, Utah, for the past 40 years—announced in April that it had begun reviewing whether it should move. The Institute’s current contract with Park City will end after the 2026 event, reports The New York Times.

The timing of the January festival will remain the same no matter where it is held, Sundance says. Among the reasons for the move: The ten-day event often pushes Park City to its limits, with snarled traffic and exorbitant rental prices.

When evaluating the individual locations, Sundance said it focused on logistical concerns, infrastructure issues, a city’s commitment to artistic endeavors, and the venue’s ability to capitalize on its local film community.

The Sundance Institute announced on Friday, July 19, that its search for a home has been narrowed to six finalists: Atlanta; Cincinnati; Boulder, Colorado; Louisville, Kentucky; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and its current locale, Park City, Utah, which would team up with the city down the mountain, Salt Lake City.

“Each of these cities has a vibrant creative ecosystem, either expanding or established, and has enabled creativity to flourish in their cities through their support of the arts,” Eugene Hernandez, Sundance’s Festival director and director of Public Programming, said in a statement.

Sundance, which was founded by Robert Redford in 1981 and moved to Park City in 1985, continues to be the dominant festival for independent films. For the 2024 edition, the festival received a record number of submissions—over 17,000 from 153 countries.

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, President Joe Biden at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., on July 10. (Photo source: Doug Mills for The New York Times)

Biden’s high-stakes moment: Tonight’s NATO news conference

July 11, 2024

President Joe Biden will face a moment of high stakes in his campaign for a second term on Thursday evening, July 11, when he engages with reporters in an unscripted news conference at the end of a three-day NATO summit, reports The New York Times.

.The president’s allies, doubters, and enemies will be watching as he fields questions, looking for any evidence that he loses his train of thought, stumbles over his words or lapses into the blank stare that millions of people saw during a debate with former President Donald J. Trump on June 27.

Biden’s performance could either quiet critics or invite a wave of new calls for him to step aside.

White House officials said on Thursday morning that Biden’s news conference had been moved back an hour and is now scheduled to take place at 6:30 p.m. (ET). A national security official said the delay was because of the president’s full schedule at NATO.

How long Mr. Biden remains at the lectern—and how many questions he is willing to field from the press—will represent another key benchmark in how his performance will be judged. A hasty exit, with journalists calling out after him, could fuel more concerns about Biden’s stamina and capacity to handle tough questioning.

Just the fact that Biden agreed to hold the event speaks to the pressure he is facing to prove his contention that the shaky debate was an anomaly. At this point in his term, Biden has held fewer news conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan. His last solo news conference was eight months ago.

In recent days, he has tried to assure shaken allies that he wants to do more unscripted appearances and interviews, but, beyond an interview with ABC on Friday, he has done little of those in the 14 crucial days since the debate.

The White House is not sharing much about how the president is preparing himself for Thursday’s news conference, which will follow a long day of meetings and be carried live on all the major networks.

But an internal White House planning document contained potential questions that touch on Biden’s age and mental acuity, calls from lawmakers that he should drop out, and his thinking about why he is staying in the race, as well as items on foreign policy related to the summit, according to two people familiar with the document who were not authorized to speak publicly.

In addition, the document contains questions he might be asked about foreign policy and the discussions at the NATO meeting. Current and former aides to Biden said he is typically provided with a document before a news conference that contains a categorized list of tough questions across a range of topics. Biden goes over those questions with aides in the days before he appears before reporters.

During his last solo news conference, after a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China in California last year, he fielded a dozen or so questions and the event lasted roughly 20 minutes.

On Thursday, he will walk out to a press corps that has expressed increasing frustration at what they deem a lack of transparency from the White House. On Monday, the White House press briefing devolved into shouting as the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, repeatedly dodged questions about the president’s health, and why a Parkinson’s doctor had made several visits to the White House.

A tense exchange between Jean-Pierre and the CBS reporter Ed O’Keefe resembled the kind of feisty tête-à-tête that was more common in the Trump Administration, when reporters like CNN’s Jim Acosta repeatedly clashed with the press secretary.

On Thursday, reporters are likely to ask about the steady stream of Democratic lawmakers and donors who have said they do not believe that Mr. Biden can defeat former President Donald J. Trump.

In an interview on MSNBC on Monday morning, July 8, Biden said flatly that “I’m not going to explain any more about what I should or shouldn’t do. I am running. I am running.”

And yet, that declaration is being ignored by some of his most ardent supporters. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested on Wednesday that he could still change his mind, adding that “we’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.”

George Clooney, the actor and big-time Biden donor, called for Biden to step aside in a deeply critical essay on Wednesday in The New York Times.

“We are not going to win in November with this president,” the actor wrote. “This is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”

Biden has also scheduled an interview on Monday, July 15, with the NBC News anchor Lester Holt. The interview, which will be taped in Texas, is set to air on the network in prime time that evening and last no less than 15 minutes.

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, the image of a doctor as it appears in a Holobox. (Photo source: Holoconnects)

Your hologram doctor will see you now

July 4, 2024

A patient walks into a hospital room, sits down and starts talking to a doctor. Only in this case, the doctor is a hologram. It might sound like science fiction, but it is the reality for some patients at Crescent Regional Hospital in Lancaster, Texas, reports The New York Times.

In May, the hospital group began offering patients the ability to see their doctors remotely as a hologram through a partnership with Holoconnects, a digital technology firm based in the Netherlands

Each Holobox—the company’s name for its 440-pound, 7-foot-tall device that displays on a screen a highly realistic, 3-D live video of a person—costs $42,000, with an additional annual service fee of $1,900.

The high-quality image gives the patient the feeling that a doctor is sitting inside the box, when in reality the doctor is miles away looking into cameras and displays showing the patient.

The system enables the patient and doctor to have a telehealth visit in real time that feels more like an in-person conversation. For now, the service is used mostly for pre- and postoperative visits.

Crescent Regional’s executives, who have plans to expand the service to traditional appointments, believe it improves the remote experience for the patient.

Above, a large screen and sophisticated camera allow a doctor to see a patient’s full body remotely. (Photo source: Holoconnects)

“The physicians are able to have a much different impact on the patient,” said Raji Kumar, the managing partner and chief executive of Crescent Regional. “The patients feel like the physician is right there.”

But experts are skeptical about whether a hologram visit is significantly better than 2-D telehealth options like Zoom or FaceTime.

In medicine, technological advancements are judged by their ability to improve access to care, decrease its cost or improve its quality, said Dr. Eric Bressman, an assistant professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I don’t know of any data to support the idea that this would improve the quality of the visit beyond a usual telemedicine visit,” said Dr. Bressman, who has expertise in digital medicine.

Kumar said one of the ways a hologram improves the telehealth experience is the large screen and sophisticated camera, which enable a doctor to see the patient’s full body—which, in turn, is useful to judge characteristics like gait or range of motion.

The camera could be especially useful in a physical therapy setting, said Dr. Chad Ellimoottil, the medical director of Virtual Care for the University of Michigan Health System.

Some of the benefits of the hologram are less tangible but still significantly improve the patient’s experience, said Steve Sterling, the managing director of the North American division of Holoconnects.

“We’re not going to affect patient outcomes,” Sterling said. “But what we are already impacting upon is a sense of engagement between doctors and patients.”

While Mr. Sterling said Crescent Regional is the first hospital application for the Holobox, hospitality services are more commonly using the technology. Twelve hotels have a Holobox and there are plans to install the system in 18 more locations, Sterling said.

Dr. Ellimoottil believes this technology is better suited to a hospitality setting than a medical one. Telehealth allows patients to meet a doctor from home, but patients using the Holobox system would still have to travel to an office.

In addition to concerns about a lack of improvement in the quality and accessibility of care, price is also an issue. For now, $42,000 plus a $1,900 annual fee is not a cost-saving service. But Kumar said she is OK with that.

“It is not a revenue-generation thing,” she said. “It’s more of patient quality, engagement and delivering a better service to the patient. Giving them more comfort.”

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, one post that Trump circulated on Sunday singled out Liz Cheney and called for her to be prosecuted by a type of military court reserved for war criminals. (Photo source: MSNBC)

Trump amplifies calls to jail top elected officials, invokes military tribunals

July 2, 2024

Former President Donald Trump over the weekend escalated his vows to prosecute his political opponents—circulating posts on his social media website invoking “televised military tribunals” and calling for the jailing of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, and former Vice President Mike Pence, among other high-profile politicians, reports The New York Times.

Trump, using his account on Truth Social on Sunday, June 30, promoted two posts from other users of the site that called for the jailing of his perceived political enemies.

One post that he circulated on Sunday singled out Liz Cheney—the former Wyoming congresswoman who is a Republican critic of Trump’s—and called for her to be prosecuted by a type of military court reserved for enemy combatants and war criminals.

“Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is guilty of treason,” the post said. “Retruth if you want televised military tribunals.”

A separate post included photos of 15 former and current elected officials that said, in all-capital letters, “they should be going to jail on Monday; not Steve Bannon!” Those officials included Biden, Harris, Pence, Schumer, and McConnell—the top leaders in the Senate—and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker.

The list in the second post also had members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including Cheney and the former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, another Republican, and the Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Pete Aguilar, Zoe Lofgren; and Bennie Thompson, who chaired the committee.

In a statement, the Trump campaign did not address Trump’s posts, instead repeating allegations of misconduct by members of the committee, saying “Liz Cheney and the sham January 6th committee banned key witnesses, shielded important evidence, and destroyed documents” related to their investigation.

The posts, which were amplified by Trump’s Truth Social account on Sunday afternoon, were still listed on his profile on Monday afternoon.

The Biden campaign denounced the posts in a statement, saying that Trump “is doubling down on threats to our democracy,” adding that “the Supreme Court has now paved the way for him to do exactly what he is saying he will if he wins.”

Cheney responded with her own social media post on Sunday evening, saying “Donald—This is the type of thing that demonstrates yet again that you are not a stable adult—and are not fit for office.”

Trump has repeatedly called for the imprisonment of his political opponents, often singling out members of the January 6 committee. But the two posts that Trump amplified on Sunday particularly stand out.

One proposed jailing an extensive list of high-ranking officials, including Trump’s former vice president, the top Republican in the Senate ,and the current president and vice president. The other invoked the dictatorial imagery of a televised military tribunal, which would strip Cheney of her right to due process similar to the military courts used to prosecute terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, President Biden is embracing arguments about abortion rights that have propelled a number of electoral victories in the past two years. (Photo source: Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Democrats lean on abortion rights message for anniversary of end of Roe

June 25, 2024

Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—unleashing a cascade of state-level abortion bans and prompting angry political backlash—Democrats are marking the anniversary by highlighting the role former President Donald Trump played in ending the constitutional right to an abortion, reports The New York Times.

Through advertising, campaign events and news conferences, Democrats are fanning out across the country, working to remind voters that it was justices nominated by Trump who helped overturn Roe v. Wade.

“Donald Trump is the sole person responsible for this nightmare,” President Biden said on Monday, June 24. “My message to Americans is this: Kamala and I are fighting like hell to get your freedom back.”

The messaging push is unfolding during a tight presidential race, as Biden confronts weak approval ratings and the coalition that propelled his 2020 victory shows signs of fraying.

As they seek to reinvigorate their voters, Democrats are embracing variations of arguments that have fueled other victories in the past two years: that the Republican Party is ever more extreme and infringing, to an extraordinary degree, on some of the most personal healthcare decisions Americans can make.

“Fundamentally on this issue, it’s about freedom,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in an MSNBC interview that is set to run in full on Monday. “Every person of whatever gender should understand that if such a fundamental freedom such as the right to make decisions about your own body can be taken, be aware of what other freedoms may be at stake.”

On Monday, Harris is also expected to speak in College Park, Maryland., and in Phoenix to “remind voters that Donald Trump is responsible for overturning Roe and the chaos that has followed,” and to “highlight the threat a second Trump presidency would pose to reproductive freedom nationwide,” according to the Biden campaign.

Her husband, Doug Emhoff, is headed to Flint and Clawson, Michigan, with a similar message, and top Biden surrogates around the nation are seizing on the issue as they seek to frame the contrast in the election.

“It’ll be a binary choice on who’s going to restrict your rights,” Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, who is the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said in an interview on Sunday, June 23. “This will just be a narrative of their extremism, but this one is baked in because it’s real. It’s not theoretical.”

Trump has said he is “proudly the person responsible” for overturning Roe v. Wade—a line that Democrats are eager to highlight—and has suggested that, if elected, he would allow states to prosecute women who violate abortion restrictions. He also has said that he believes abortion policy should be left to the states—disappointing some on the right.

Democrats successfully deployed messaging around abortion rights in critical races during the 2022 midterm elections a few months after Roe was overturned and in a number of special elections since. Campaigns, including Biden’s, are highlighting women’s personal experiences with abortion bans championed by Republicans.

But in this election, Americans are also weighing a broad range of other considerations, and polls show that on a number of key issues—although not abortion policy—voters saying that Trump would do a better job than Biden.

“Polling has consistently shown Biden and the Democrats already have an issue advantage on abortion, and yet Trump continues to lead in the battleground states,” Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster, said. “They will certainly lean in on abortion, but unless Democrats find a way to puncture Trump’s legacy on the economy, they will continue to struggle.”

Voters are also assessing the personal characteristics of Biden, 81, the oldest American president in history; and of Trump, 78, who is the first American president convicted of a crime.

Many of these issues are likely to come up at their debate on Thursday, June 27—the first of the general-election campaign.

Research contact: @nytimes