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From fringe to the forefront: an extremist takeover of the GOP

Extremism isn’t unique to America; virtually every developed democratic country in the world has an extremist element or party that has metastasized over the past decade. However, the United States is relatively unique in this way: Extremists now lead one of just two major political parties in this country. 

Over a decade ago, extremists were on the fringe of the Republican Party. Today, MAGA Republicans have taken over their party and are pushing an agenda that would dismantle America, stripping away rights and freedoms that have held core to the American identity for decades and even centuries. 

In 2010, with the emergence of the Tea Party movement, fringe GOP Senate candidates like Sharron Angle of Nevada, Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Ken Buck of Colorado emerged as lightning rods within their own party, upsetting establishment candidates. Angle wanted to shutter the Education Department and wipe out Social Security, describing the latter as a symptom of the nation’s “wicked ways.” while O’Donnell and Buck staunchly opposed abortion — even in cases of rape and incest. 

Fast forward to now, and what was fringe just over a decade ago is at the forefront of the Republican Party. It reflects the distinction between a 2010 Tea Party incursion into the Republican Party by a few extreme individuals and the 2022 all-out MAGA takeover of today.

The current MAGA-policy agenda is centered around once-fringe beliefs. The head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) put out a plan that proposes ending all federal funding for public education and sunsetting Social Security and Medicare every five years. Not only has Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) called a national ban on abortion “possible” but nearly half his caucus and more than 75 percent of House Republicans already support an abortion ban with no exceptions. 

But there are two issues that truly capture just how radical the Republican Party has become. First, MAGA Republicans have a shameless willingness to fabricate and propagate lies to challenge legitimate elections. At least 120 Republican primary candidates this cycle are endorsing the Big Lie. It is likely that the only future elections that MAGA Republicans will deem legitimate are the ones that they win. 

The second, and even more terrifying, shift is that political violence is now openly promoted by MAGA Republicans and acquiesced to by Republican leaders. As a recent Center for American Progress (CAP) Action analysis showed, nearly 100 Republican candidates have run political ads this cycle brandishing, shooting or displaying firearms, and more than a quarter of those explicitly threatened a group of Americans or the government itself. Even the horrific violence of the insurrection on Jan. 6, in which more than 150 law enforcement officers were injured, maimed, or killed has done nothing to temper MAGA Republicans’ push for violence.  

In Missouri, the front-runner in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate released an ad explicitly inviting his supporters to “Join MAGA” in killing RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). Rather than denounce the ad or make it clear that the National Republican Senatorial Committee would never support a candidate promoting political violence against anyone, Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), the chair of the committee, stated “I think it’s up to the voters in Missouri,” underscoring that Republican leadership is comfortable with overt threats of political violence. 

That is why this midterm election promises to be different than all the punditry today would suggest. In 2010, Democrats narrowly retained control of the Senate because Americans rejected the fringe Republicans nominated in key races. This cycle, Democrats need to make clear that they aren’t just running against extreme individuals, but that MAGA extremism has taken over the Republican Party. In every election, voters face the same stark choice they did in the 2020 presidential race. 

The 81 million Americans who rejected MAGA extremism in that election need to understand that our fundamental rights and freedoms, and everything about the American way of life, are still on the line this November.

Navin Nayak is the president and executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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VMAs add 'Best Metaverse Performance' category

The MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) are entering the metaverse.

The music channel’s long-running awards show announced Tuesday that it’s introducing a new category this year: “Best Metaverse Performance.”

Nominees include Ariana Grande, BLACKPINK, BTS, Justin Bieber, Charli XCX and Twenty One Pilots, who all performed at various virtual events.

The move to introduce a metaverse category came after MTV noticed artists were increasingly starting to interact in virtual spaces.

“We saw the opportunity to highlight and honor some of the best, most impactful executions of this — and celebrate artists who have found creative ways to use these spaces — which led to the addition of ‘Best Metaverse Performance’ category this year,” a MTV spokesperson told ITK.

The metaverse-themed nominees aren’t the only new additions to this year’s VMAs — a “Best Longform Video” category has also been created. The network opened up nominations in 22 gender-neutral categories to voting from fans on Tuesday.

The MTV VMAs are poised to air live from New Jersey’s Prudential Center on August 28.

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Instagram CEO responds to Kardashians' criticism of app

Instragram CEO Adam Mosseri rebuffed criticism Tuesday that the social media platform was rapidly changing to become more like TikTok, telling users that while photo-sharing will always be an integral part of the app, “more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time.”

After big-name celebrities like Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian criticized Instagram for evolving into a TikTok-like service, Mosseri uploaded a video on Twitter to inform users on why he believes the changes were necessary.

“We’re going to continue to support photos, it’s part of our heritage. You know I love photos, I know a lot of you out there love photos too,” Mosseri said. “That said, I need to be honest — I do believe more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time.”

“We see this even if you change nothing. We see this even if you just look at chronological feed,” he added. “We’re going to have to lean into that shift while continuing to support photos.”

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, has been pushing for more video-focused content after the rise of TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance. TikTok has dominated much of social media since its inception in 2016.

During a staff conference with Meta employees in February, Zuckerberg pushed for an increased focus on video content, citing an “unprecedented level of competition,” Bloomberg reported at the time.

Instagram has copied the playbook of other social media apps before, implementing the Stories feature to mimic the idea of Snapchat, an app that allows you to post videos and pictures that disappear after 24 hours.

The new focus on Reels, which are short video clips that were first introduced to Instagram in 2020, have become a lightning rod of criticism for many of the app’s users.

Both Jenner and Kardashian, who frequently use Instagram, have backed a petition calling for the social media app to “Make Instagram Instagram Again,” and to “stop trying to be TikTok.”

The petition, launched by a celebrity photographer who says the focus on Reels and videos are taking away from photo-content creators who rely on the app, now has more than 157,000 signatures on Change.org.

“There’s no need to overcomplicate things, we just want to see when our friends post, the beauty of Instagram was that it was INSTAntaneous,” the petition reads. “Back in the dawn of the app we were all living in the moment, seeing our best moments in real time.”

Mosseri on Tuesday addressed other issues, including “recommendations,” or posts that feed into user’s feeds from accounts they do not follow. He said those recommendations can be snoozed, but the algorithm was intended to boost smaller content creators.

The Instagram CEO argued that while changes were necessary, Instagram will still be Instagram.

“A number of things about Instagram are going to stay the same,” he said. “But we’re going to need to evolve because the world is changing quickly and we have to change along with it.”

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GOP lawmaker attends gay son’s wedding after voting against marriage equality

Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) attended his son’s same-sex wedding on Friday, days after he voted against a bill that would codify a right to same-sex marriage into federal law. 

Thompson joined 156 other House Republicans last week in voting against the Respect for Marriage Act, which would protect the right to both same-sex marriage and interracial marriage. 

The legislation passed the House with all Democrats and 47 Republicans voting in favor. The bill now heads to the Senate, where its future is uncertain. 

Maddison Stone, Thompson’s press secretary, confirmed in a statement to The Hill that Thompson and his wife attended their son’s wedding on Friday. 

“Congressman and Mrs. Thompson were thrilled to attend and celebrate their son’s marriage on Friday night as he began this new chapter in his life,” Stone said. “The Thompsons are very happy to welcome their new son-in-law into their family.” 

Thompson’s office criticized the legislation offered by Democrats as a stunt aimed for the midterms.

“The bill was nothing more than an election-year messaging stunt for Democrats in Congress who have failed to address historic inflation and out of control prices at gas pumps and grocery stores,” Stone said in a statement last week.

Forty-seven House GOP lawmakers did vote for the measure, which Democrats said was necessary given a concurrent opinion from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the decision overturning the Roe v. Wade decision. In the opinion, Thomas that the court should review other cases decided on similar legal reasoning, including Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that legalized same-sex marriage nationally. 

Justice Samuel Alito said in the majority opinion overturning Roe that the court’s ruling should not be construed as having implications for other issues, but Thomas’ opinion raised alarms among Democrats. 

A handful of Senate Republicans have declared their support for the bill, while multiple other GOP members have said they will oppose it. If all Democrats vote for the bill, it will need at least 10 Republican votes in favor to overcome a filibuster.

BuzzFeed News released an audio recording and transcript on Tuesday of a speech Thompson gave at the wedding of his sone. He said in the speech that parents hope from the birth of their children that they are healthy and safe, that they find opportunity and inspiration and that they find their “one true love” when they get older. 

“We love it when they find their one true love, especially when they become a part of our families then,” he said. “That’s what we’re rooting for.” 

He said having a new son enter his family has been a “really good experience.” 

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NASA director says Russian counterparts have not officially backed out of ISS

NASA says it has not received official word from Russia on plans to stop working on the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024.

The newly appointed head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, made headlines Tuesday when he told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the agency would cease operations on the ISS after 2024.

NASA’s Robyn Gatens, who leads the agency’s ISS operations, told Reuters she “just saw that” on Tuesday morning and that there was “nothing official yet” to confirm Roscosmos was pulling out.

Gatens, speaking at a conference in Washington, D.C., told the news outlet that international agreements required Russia to notify them of any such decision.

The previous head of Russia’s space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, said in May that Russia would pull out from the ISS in response to international sanctions placed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

In December, NASA announced plans to extend operations for the orbiting space science laboratory through at least 2030, along with partners including Russia.

“As more and more nations are active in space, it’s more important than ever that the United States continues to lead the world in growing international alliances and modeling rules and norms for the peaceful and responsible use of space,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the time.

The ISS, first initiated in 1998, is a joint operation from Russia, the U.S., Europe, Japan and Canada. Russia is a crucial partner because it supplies thrusters that keep the space station above a certain altitude, while the U.S. gives the ISS power through a grid.

Tensions between Russia and the U.S. have escalated after Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine in late February.

The U.S. has ramped up military support as the war drags on, recently sending more than a More than five months later, the two countries are still locked in a deadly war, with the U.S. heavily backing Ukraine financially.

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Alyssa Farah Griffin to replace Meghan McCain on The View: reports

Former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin will replace Meghan McCain as a permanent host of ABC’s “The View,” according to multiple reports.

Griffin has periodically served as a co-host on the show since leaving Trump’s White House. She also has served as a contributor to CNN and has written a book about her experience working for the former president.

When contacted by The Hill for comment on reports from Variety, People magazine and the Daily Mail suggesting Griffin had been hired as a permanent host on “The View,” a spokesperson for ABC said, “We do not have a co-host announcement to make at this time. Stay tuned.”

McCain left the show last year, blaming a “toxic” work environment and what she described as overwhelming hostility from co-hosts.

Griffin has faced criticism from both the right and the left for the media opportunities she has pursued since leaving the Trump administration.

She forcefully pushed back on a National Review article suggesting she has changed her political positions to gain public notoriety.

The Daily Beast reported Monday night that some of Griffin’s colleagues and at least one guest on “The View” have complained about sharing television time with her. Comedian Wanda Sykes backed out of an appearance on “The View” after learning that Griffin was co-hosting, the outlet reported.

Griffin has been sharply critical of Trump since leaving his administration, saying earlier this month that she helped put Cassidy Hutchinson, a personal friend and top aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, in touch with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Griffin appeared as a guest host on “The View” on Tuesday and said it was “astounding” so many Republicans voted against the marriage equality bill recently passed in the House.

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Why some Supreme Court justices are supremely unpopular

Most people who pay attention to approval ratings are aware that the Supreme Court’s ratings plummeted to unprecedented lows even before the landmark decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Unlike presidents, however, on whom pollsters have been collecting popularity figures since the Truman era, individual Supreme Court justices, who never face the electorate, have been spared such ratings of their favorability — until recently.

Traditionally, Americans have tended to pay little attention to specific members of the nation’s highest tribunal. One poll from the 1990s found that more Americans could name Hollywood’s
“Three Stooges” than could cite even one member of the Supreme Court. At the same time, the most recognized justice was its first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor; yet less than 40 percent of those polled could name her. More Americans could identify the judge who served on TV’s “The People’s Court” than could identify a justice on the Supreme Court.

Perhaps it was better to remain under the radar than to experience Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s  rating in a March 2022 Marquette University Law School poll that found him to be the most unpopular of the court’s current members, with only 21 percent viewing him favorably. Undoubtedly, his controversial nomination four years ago — during which he responded angrily to charges of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse while a teenager, and uttered the unforgettable declaration, “I like beer!” — has not faded from Americans’ memories.

What causes Supreme Court justices to become lightning rods for public opinion, whether displayed in polls or other forms of expressed displeasure with their job performance?

In the modern era, starting with the New Deal Court, appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt, four types of events can lead to justices’ unpopularity: controversy surrounding their nominations; contentious judicial decisions rendered once on the bench; financial misdeeds; or questionable professional ethics, especially involving recusal choices.

Controversial nominations: Sen. Hugo L. Black had been confirmed as FDR’s first Supreme Court appointment in 1937 when news broke that he had once been a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his home state of Alabama. Wags observed that Black was exchanging his white robe for a black one in his move from the Senate across the street to the court’s new building. He went on the radio to explain his history and eventually became one of the staunchest civil libertarians on the Supreme Court.

On the other hand, sex scandals that envelope a nomination fight seem harder to overcome, as indicated by Kavanaugh’s and Justice Clarence Thomas’s ongoing unpopularity, 30 years after Anita Hill accused the latter of sexual harassment when they worked together before his nomination to the Supreme Court in 1991.

Contentious judicial decisions: Sometimes justices experience a smooth road to appointments but rile the public through their decisions. “Impeach Earl Warren” billboards sprouted throughout the South after the chief justice led a liberal revolution to bolster civil and criminal rights.

Justice William Brennan told me in a 1985 interview that his fellow Catholics knew that he attended Mass every Saturday evening at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in downtown Washington and protested there each week his vote to approve a federal right to abortion in 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision. “They have a right to free speech,” the justice told me as he smiled with a characteristically leprechaunish wink.

His colleague, Justice Harry Blackmun, took the public opposition to his writing the pro-abortion decision with less sanguinity. Just as Kavanaugh has had to face the arrest of a would-be assassin near his Maryland home, Blackmun’s apartment in Northern Virginia took incoming gunfire from an assailant in 1985. He told my fellow Supreme Court fellows a decade later, after he had retired from the bench, that he still received hate mail from Right to Life Americans who disagreed with his abortion decision. When I examined his papers at the Library of Congress in 2005, I discovered those missives that cursed him with “the most painful death from cancer,” for his perceived sin.

Financial misdeeds: President Lyndon Johnson’s attempted promotion of his friend Justice Abe Fortas to chief justice, replacing the retiring Earl Warren in 1968, was filibustered by conservative Democrats and Republicans who despised Fortas’s part in the Warren Court revolution and cited his ongoing association with LBJ. The GOP hoped that Richard Nixon would win that year’s presidential election and give him the chance to place a conservative in the court’s center chair. They got their wish when Nixon appointed Warren Burger to chief justice in 1969. Conservatives forced Fortas off the bench the same year when news broke that he had improperly accepted an annual retainer from a convicted financier.

Professional ethics: Justice Antonin Scalia skated through his 1986 nomination, after Justice William Rehnquist’s promotion by President Ronald Reagan to chief justice had drawn all the fire from Democrats that year over charges of racism. Once on the court, Scalia applied his conservative jurisprudence and refused to recuse himself in a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney, despite Scalia’s record of duck hunting with the Veep. A bête noire to liberals, Scalia’s lying in repose at the court after his sudden death in 2016 drew hundreds of admirers who waited hours in the February cold to pass by his coffin.

Thomas, unlike his colleague Kavanaugh, who eschews public comments about his 2018 nomination controversy, continues to speak publicly about how unfairly he believes he was treated in the Anita Hill controversy. In addition, Thomas refused to recuse himself in the 2022 case involving former President Trump’s communications about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, despite the fact that his wife, Ginni, was a close ally of the 45th president.

The social media era, and 24/7 partisan coverage of Supreme Court controversies, have led to scathing attacks on justices, along with satirical depictions of them, that can spread much farther than editorial cartoons of previous controversies in the court’s history. The first episode of Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” after the overturning of Roe mocked the majority’s justices in an animated feature that referred to Kavanaugh’s beer-swilling. Colbert’s monologue that night portrayed the Dobbs v. Jackson opinion’s author, Justice Samuel Alito, naked, except for a pixelated fig leaf.

Sometimes public rejection of justices follows them to their graves. As Justice Brennan’s coffin was rolled up the aisle of St. Mathew’s at his 1997 funeral, attendees could hear anti-abortion protestors denouncing him from the street. Brennan would have been pleased that they were still exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech for which he had fought so hard as, in their minds, a supremely unpopular justice.

Barbara A. Perry is Presidential Studies director and Gerald L. Baliles Professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. She was the 1994-95 Supreme Court Fellow. Follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA.

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Smoking linked to severe COVID-19 complications, study finds

Patients who reported smoking or vaping prior to COVID-19 hospitalization were more likely to experience severe complications, including death, than non-smokers, according to a new study.  

“In general, people who smoke or vape tend to have a higher prevalence of other health conditions and risk factors that could play a role in how they are impacted by COVID-19,” the study’s senior author Aruni Bhatnagar said in a news release. 

“However, the robust and significant increase in the risk of severe COVID-19 seen in our study, independent of medical history and medication use and particularly among young individuals, underscores the urgent need for extensive public health interventions such as anti-smoking campaigns and increased access to cessation therapy, especially in the age of COVID,” Bhatnagar added.  

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For the study, researchers used data on U.S. adults from 107 hospitals across the country who were hospitalized with COVID-19 between January 2020 and March 2021 from the American Heart Association’s COVID-19 CVD Registry. The study’s findings were independent of age, sex, race or medical history. 

Smoking status, which did not distinguish between vaping and traditional cigarettes, was self-reported. The researcher’s final analysis of more than 4,000 people consisted of a 1 t0 2 ratio of people who smoked and those who did not. 

Researchers found that people who reported smoking were 45 percent more likely to die and 39 percent more likely to be put on ventilators when compared to nonsmokers. Further, smoking was linked to greater risk factor for death in people between 18 t0 59 years of age and those who were white or obese.  

More than 160 hospitals provided data on more than 79,000 patient records between 2020 and June 2022 for the AHA’s registry.      

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Shopify to cut 10 percent of its workforce by end of day

Shopify announced on Tuesday it would be laying off 10 percent of its workforce by the end of the day, as the company says its “bet didn’t pay off” in its projections following the pandemic. 

Tobias Lütke, the CEO of Shopify, sent out a company-wide memo saying jobs would have to be cut in recruiting, support and sales roles. Other positions that seem like duplicates or not directly involved in sales enough will also be in jeopardy. 

Shopify saw a huge boost in sales at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many stores shut down and people moved online for their shopping needs. Lütke said the company had to determine if this spike would just last during the pandemic or continue over time. 

“We bet that the channel mix – the share of dollars that travel through ecommerce rather than physical retail – would permanently leap ahead by 5 or even 10 years. We couldn’t know for sure at the time, but we knew that if there was a chance that this was true, we would have to expand the company to match,” he said. 

“It’s now clear that bet didn’t pay off. What we see now is the mix reverting to roughly where pre-Covid data would have suggested it should be at this point,” he added. 

Shopify will be offering what it described as a “generous severance package” to employees who are laid off, with 16 weeks of severance pay and extra weeks for every year an employee worked at the company. 

The company will extend medical benefits, remove any equity cliff, provide outplacement services, allow employees to keep home office furniture provided by the company and give a kickstart allowance for the former employees to buy themselves new laptops. 

After the announcement of the layoffs, Bloomberg reported that Shopify shares decreased by 17 percent. 

“Ultimately, placing this bet was my call to make and I got this wrong. Now, we have to adjust. As a consequence, we have to say goodbye to some of you today and I’m deeply sorry for that,” Lütke said.

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More than 175 environmental groups urge Buttigieg to reinstate emission regulation rule on state departments

More than 175 environmental organizations sent a letter Tuesday to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urging him to reinstate a federal rule that requires state and city transportation departments to measure and set standards for their greenhouse gas emissions.

The letter, signed by national groups such as Sierra Club, US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) and Transportation for America, thanked the Biden administration for taking the first step toward implementation of the emission rule but, urged them to adopt it as quickly as possible.

“The transportation sector is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United
States,” the letter reads. “The addition of the greenhouse gas measure to the Department’s existing performance measurement framework will shine needed light on the climate impacts of these investments and lead to more informed decision-making.”

Buttigieg earlier this month proposed the reinstatement of the emission draft rule to require city and state transportation departments that use National Highway Systems or receive federal grants to set carbon emission reduction targets.

The state and city departments would be required to report to the federal government at least twice a year on the progress of meeting those emission targets. The rule would give some flexibility to state and city governments, allowing them to set their own goals as needed.

The rule would build on existing regulations that require those institutions to track air pollutants amid a broader push to curb greenhouse gases.

The news comes as a heatwave engulfed much of the U.S. over the weekend, with some cities on the east coast setting temperature records. Soaring and extreme temperatures are the result of climate change as the globe heats up because of greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere.

Tuesday’s letter, led by the National Campaign for Transit Justice, comes after centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) opposed spending legislation from backed by President Biden that would include $555 billion to address climate change.

Manchin objected to the package citing inflation concerns in a 50-50 Senate, where every Democrat would need to support the bill for it to pass by a process known as budget reconciliation.

Following the news from Manchin, the president labeled climate change an emergency last week, but stopped short of declaring a state of emergency over the issue.

“The climate crisis is not coming; it is here now,” the organizations wrote in the letter. “And given that urgency, we ask for your support in quickly finalizing this rule to meet the moment of crisis we are in.”

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