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The surprising personal and cultural reasons for his “X” affection and rebranding of Twitter.
“X” is geeky. That’s because in 1637 when René Descartes wrote a treatise on geometry, he decided to use x, y, and z for variables, but his printer, setting the type, kept running out of “Y”s and “Z”s but not “X”s, because you don’t use “X” in French very often, so he used, mostly, “X”s. X, the variable, the unknown, the mysterious. In 1895, when the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovered a new kind of radiation, and he didn’t know what it was, he called it an X ray.
“X” is mathematical and “X” is scientific. Beginning in the nineteen-thirties, as I recounted in a five-part BBC Radio 4/Pushkin podcast series called “Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket,” Musk’s grandfather became a leader of the Technocracy movement. They called themselves Technocrats and they believed that only engineers and scientists could save the world from a looming catastrophe. As one pamphlet explained, “What Technocracy, Inc., is chiefly engaged in now is the organization of an army of trained men and women in the United States and Canada who, when the present interference controls break down and the intricate machinery of production and distribution is in danger of stopping, will be able to prevent that catastrophe before it is too late.” Technocrats objected to politicians and economists, democracy, and socialism. They wanted an end to all banks. In the future that Technocrats including Musk’s grandfather were planning for, “There will be no place for Politics or Politicians, Finance or Financiers, Rackets or Racketeers.” There would also be no place for personal names. One technocrat, for instance, renamed himself 1x1809x56. Musk named one of his sons X Æ A-12—X, for short. (In 1950, two years after South Africa announced its policy of apartheid, Musk’s Technocrat grandfather, who had been briefly jailed for his political views, left Canada for Pretoria, where Musk grew up.)
“X” is also sci-fi. It got that way in the nineteen-fifties, in radio plays such as “Dimension X,” and movies such as “The Strange World of Planet X”—whose trailer warned, “Be prepared for a fantastic adventure into the future, a monstrous world of terror and chaos!” “X” meant extraterrestrial, and “X” meant extreme, and “X” meant X-rated, a rating invented by the British Board of Film Classification in 1951.
You’ve got your X-Men, your X-Files, your Xbox, “X” marking the beginning of the reign inaugurated by “Revenge of the Nerds.” By the nineteen-nineties, the man-boys of Silicon Valley were all very into the letter “X.” Musk co-founded X.com and SpaceX. Google opened an R. … D. division whose aim was “to solve some of the world’s hardest problems.” It was called . . . X.
Those X-men liked the idea that they were solving what they came to call “X-risks”: existential risks, risks of human extinction. This is how Musk came to see himself, too. As I argued in “The Evening Rocket,” they got this idea from science fiction, from some very old science fiction. They would save the planet from existential risks, found extraterrestrial civilizations, by way of extreme capitalism. X, x, x, x. Musk’s X.com, an early online bank, merged with Peter Thiel’s Confinity, which owned PayPal, but Musk bought back the domain name in 2017. When you clicked on it, you got a white screen with a tiny letter “x.” A promise. He used that money to start SpaceX—“X,” for exploration.
But why name a baby X? “Once upon a time, a Baby named X was born.” So begins a piece of feminist science fiction published in Ms. magazine in 1972, in its first regular issue. “This Baby was named X so that nobody could tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Its parents could tell, of course, but they couldn’t tell anybody else. They couldn’t even tell Baby X—at least not until much, much later. You see, it was all part of a very important Secret Scientific Xperiment known officially as Project Baby X.”
The story was written by Lois Gould, a novelist and mother of two sons, who was also an executive editor of Ladies’ Home Journal and a columnist for the Times, where she wrote the “Hers” column. In the story, the parents abide by the terms of the experiment. “ ‘It’s an X,’ was absolutely all they would say. And that made the friends and relatives very angry.”
But it wasn’t just a story. Three years later, in 1975, the feminist thought experiment led to an actual scientific experiment, whose results were published in a journal article that was also called “Baby X.” The baby’s gender was withheld from the subjects of the experiment. “Although the story was science fiction fantasy, the question of how adults would actually respond to a child in the absence of such information appeared to merit investigation,” the investigators explained. They brought in forty-two volunteers and put them in a lab with a baby. “Those in the Male and Female conditions were told that there was a three-month-old baby boy or baby girl . . . to play with, while those in the Neutral condition were told there was a three-month-old baby with no mention of its sex or name.”
What can this story possibly have to do with Elon Musk? Musk met Claire Boucher, the musician known as Grimes, in 2018. She’d studied neuroscience at McGill. She’s a feminist and, like Musk, she’s an avid science-fiction fan. (The New Yorker once called her a “mad pop scientist.”) She’s the kind of person who pretty plausibly would have read the story of X in college, either the feminist fable, or the actual experiment, or both. Also, in 2011, when Grimes was at McGill, there’d been a lot of coverage of a family in Canada practicing gender-neutral parenting. “There’s a couple in Toronto that is creating quite a stir right now,” one television news station reported,”because they’re raising their baby what they’re calling gender-free.”
Announcing their baby’s birth, Musk said it was a boy, but Grimes told fans, “I don’t want to gender them in case that’s not how they feel in their life.” They named that baby X, and their second baby Y.
X, Musk promises, will be the “everything app.” X is the Technocrats’ dream deferred, a way to engineer society, the economy, and politics. Extreme capitalism—Muskism—as the answer to existential risk. With any luck, it will be a disaster.
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The Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, July 27, 2023. (photo: CNN)
ALSO SEE: With Trump Newly Indicted, Here's What to Know About the Documents Case and What's Next
In a written statement, the Fulton County Sheriff’s office says that it is “proactively coordinating with local, state and federal agencies to enhance security during high profile legal proceedings at the Fulton County Courthouse. Some of the measures we are deploying, such as barriers that will limit parking near the courthouse, will be obvious to the public. For security reasons, other measures being deployed will not be as obvious.”
Charging decisions are expected to be made in the sprawling investigation next month.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is spearheading the investigation, announced remote workdays for staff in August and asked judges to reduce in-person hearings, likely out of security concerns.
Willis previously alerted local police that possible charges could be announced between July 11 and September 1.
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, who oversees security at the Superior Court, sent teams to New York and Miami to study the security protocols for Trump’s two previous arraignments this year, CNN has reported.
Willis’ investigation includes solicitation of election fraud, making false statements to state and local government bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of an oath of office and involvement in election-related threats.
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A local reacts as the flames burn trees in Gennadi village on the Greek island of Rhodes on Tuesday. (photo: AP)
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at the climate crisis as temperature records continue to be shattered across the globe. On Thursday, the World Meteorological Organization announced July is on pace to be the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. Here in the United States, 170 million people are under heat alert. On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said the world has entered the age of “global boiling.”
SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: For vast parts of North America, Asia, Africa and Europe, it’s a cruel summer. For the entire planet, it is a disaster. And for scientists, it is unequivocal: Humans are to blame. All this is entirely consistent with predictions and repeated warnings. The only surprise is the speed of the change.
Climate change is here, it is terrifying, and it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived. The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable.
Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy. No more excuses. No more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that. It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the very worst of climate change, but only with dramatic, immediate climate action.
AMY GOODMAN: Here in the United States, President Biden unveiled new measures Thursday to combat the crisis but resisted calls to declare a climate emergency.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of climate change anymore. There used to be a time, when I first got here, a lot of people said, “Oh, it’s not a problem.” Well, I don’t know anybody — well, I shouldn’t say that — I don’t know anybody who honestly believes climate change is not a serious problem.
Just take a look at the historic floods in Vermont and California earlier this year; droughts and hurricanes that are growing more frequent and intense; wildfires spreading a smoky haze for thousands of miles, worsening air quality. And record temperatures — and I mean record — are now affecting more than 100 million Americans.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by two guests. Dharna Noor is fossil fuels and climate reporter at The Guardian. Her recent piece, “Biden announces new measures to protect Americans from extreme heat.” Her new investigation, “'Project 2025': plan to dismantle US climate policy for next Republican president.” We’re also joined by David Wallace-Wells, writer for New York Times Opinion and columnist for The New York Times Magazine, who’s been writing about climate change, how it’s accelerating. His latest piece is headlined “A Grim Climate Lesson from the Canadian Wildfires.” He’s also author of the book The Uninhabitable Earth.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! David, let’s begin with you. If you can respond to what President Biden announced yesterday, and does it go far enough?
DAVID WALLACE-WELLS: I think the short answer is, no, it doesn’t go far enough. We’re talking about a really dramatic summer here in the United States. I think many Americans are living with some amount of climate fear, 170 million Americans under extreme heat advisories. And what the president offered was a pretty meek rhetorical gesture mixed with some very small policy gestures. I’m glad that he’s speaking about climate as opposed to being silent, as he has been for a long time, but, to my mind, he is not meeting the American public where they are at all.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Dharna Noor, your response? You wrote a whole piece on this.
DHARNA NOOR: I would have to agree. I agree with David that I think most of what we saw was rhetorical gesture from the Biden administration. I did speak with experts who described some of the steps that he took as positive, you know, for instance, rolling out new funding to help cities plant trees to make sure that people can have shade in extreme heat, making sure that cities can fund cooling centers, improving weather forecasting. But as you mentioned earlier, Amy, what Biden did not mention at all was the term “fossil fuels.” He didn’t really say anything about the need to end the fossil fuel economy. He certainly did not declare a climate emergency, which is something that activists have been pushing him to do for years at this point and could unlock a number of powers to help him take on the crisis without congressional approval. And so I think that what we saw from Biden was, you know, really awareness raising and some kind of modest policies, but nothing that takes on the scale of the crisis that we’re seeing right now.
AMY GOODMAN: He also ordered the Department of Labor to put a hazard alert for outdoor workplaces. Dharna, can you talk more about this and the other measures around workplaces? Could he also mandate paid water breaks and workplace protection gears, like canopies of shade, fans, mist machines, etc.?
DHARNA NOOR: The heat hazard alert that Biden issued yesterday was interesting. In one sense, it was unprecedented. It was the first heat hazard alert that will go out to employers across the nation, sort of reminding them of the rights that workers have on the job and the ways to best protect workers from extreme heat.
But I think what it really also made many experts think about is the fact that his Department of Labor is still working right now to craft a heat standard that would do much more to protect workers. Last year, the Department of Labor said that they were working on one of these standards. Officials have been talking about it for something like 50 years. And that would drastically expand, you know, the ability for the government to do things like recommend or even mandate water breaks or shade breaks and things like this. But that process could take years to complete, and so I think that what we saw, again, was an attempt to use the powers that already exist. But I think what experts would say is that we really need to expand those powers in a huge way.
AMY GOODMAN: David Wallace-Wells, we recently interviewed a TV meteorologist in Iowa who just quit, because as he reported the connection between weather — which is what so many people tune in to on radio and television, just to find out what the weather is, but when he made that connection between weather and climate change, he got death threats. You are constantly talking about the connection between weather, climate change, and your most recent piece is about the Canadian wildfires and how they connect to all this. Can you explain?
DAVID WALLACE-WELLS: Well, global heating produces much more intense fire conditions. In Canada, it’s produced a totally unprecedented fire season. We’ve already seen more than 25 million acres burned in Canada, which is two-and-a-half times the size of the largest American wildfire season in modern history, that those fires are still burning. They are still burning out of control. And to some extent, this is actually by design. Canada is so large that firefighters can’t possibly suppress those fires when they begin. It’s understood to be better forest management now, better fire policy, to let fires burn so that forests can regenerate on their own. But when you’re dealing with fire conditions like climate change has created, that means some unbelievably large and intense fires, producing huge amounts of carbon emissions, in this case probably more carbon this year than Canada will produce from all of its other industrial and economic activities combined, and also the smoke that we’re so familiar with in the U.S., and which is not just bothering cities in Canada and the U.S. but even across the Atlantic in Europe.
Now, I think when most people see the news, see news events about — you know, news coverage of heat waves or wildfires, I don’t think it’s that hard for them to make the connection to climate change these days. I think the jumps that are a little bit harder and would be a little bit more helpful for more people to make is the jump from climate change to the question of climate action, why we’re not doing more, and who is standing in the way. So, when I see — you know, when I see news coverage of extreme heat, you know, extreme heat warnings, I don’t worry too much that we don’t put the word “climate change” in those headlines. I think most people understand that. What I think fewer people understand is why we’re not doing more to protect ourselves against this really quite dramatic threat, which is coming at us, as you say, considerably faster than we anticipated even just a few years ago.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what those kind of measures would look like. Again, as you say, you talk about not only wildfires across Canada, as well as Greece, Algeria and dozens of other places around the world.
DAVID WALLACE-WELLS: Well, I mean, the short answer is, to limit all of these impacts, we need to reduce carbon emissions very rapidly. And while we have had an incredibly impressive renewable rollout over the last couple of years, all of the graphs are pointing way up. The next decade looks much more promising for renewable energy than most advocates even believed was possible just a few years ago. Nevertheless, they’ve barely dented, if they’ve dented at all, the emissions that we’re producing from fossil fuel generation. So we haven’t actually reduced the share of global power production that comes from fossil fuels from this remarkable renewable rollout. We’re just using those renewables to add to our power capacity.
And that’s really, you know, the change that we need to make. We need to be producing so much renewables now that we can actually draw down fossil fuels, and draw them down relatively rapidly, rather than simply using them to supplement our consumption patterns and power production. And unfortunately, we haven’t really seen a sign of that. At best, it looks like we’re going to be looking at sort of a plateau for emissions over the rest of this decade. And we know from all of the scientific warnings that that’s simply inadequate if we have any hope of meeting some of our more ambitious climate targets.
AMY GOODMAN: In a moment, David, I want to ask you about what would be the most effective legislation in the United States to deal with climate change. But, Dharna Noor, I wanted to first go to your piece. If you can explain what Project 2025 is and what you found in your investigation?
DHARNA NOOR: Absolutely. So, Project 2025 is, essentially, a group of dozens of right-wing organizations. We’re talking about think tanks, publications and the like. And it was convened by the Heritage Foundation, which is, I think, in the climate world, very well known for promoting climate denial for decades, and for even longer promoting this sort of anti-regulatory stance. So, these groups came together in an attempt, essentially, to advise whoever the next president is, if that person is a Republican, so any Republican who takes office in next year’s presidential election.
This is the second time that the Heritage Foundation has led the creation of a sort of transition plan aimed at a Republican president. In the early ’80s, we saw the Heritage Foundation create one of these plans, that actually went on to have a huge influence on the Reagan administration and was framed as a sort of way of taking on the out-of-control regulatory state.
And in this particular iteration, there’s a lot of focus in their new transition plan on unmaking environmental regulations. I’m happy to talk more about this, but there’s a number of previous Trump appointees who have written, essentially, proposals to undo the many powers of the federal administration, from the EPA to the Department of the Interior, all in an attempt to sort of lessen the federal authority to regulate fossil fuels and, essentially, to boost those polluting industries.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting. Polls show now that Biden and Trump, even though he was indicted again yesterday, are neck and neck in the polls for president. You talk about the Department of the Interior part of the plan, in this 2025 plan, being written by William Perry Pendley. You note he controversially led the Bureau of Land Management under President Trump and worked to eliminate drilling regulations. Talk more specifically, and name names.
DHARNA NOOR: Absolutely. So, as you mentioned, William Perry Pendley very controversially led the Bureau of Land Management under President Trump, controversially because he was actually never confirmed by the Senate. This was the case for a number of Trump appointees. And he also was known, before he had a role in the Trump administration, for writing this book called Sagebrush Rebel, that was really in praise of Ronald Reagan, of Ronald Reagan’s anti-regulatory sort of agenda. It’s, I think, unsurprising to see his name in a sort of proposal that’s aimed at, you know, ending the ability for federal regulations to have any real impact on the environment.
Previous reporting from E…E News, from Scott Waldman there, found that Mandy Gunasekara had written another chapter focused on remaking the EPA, really focused on shrinking its authority both by laying off staff, by cutting budgets, with an especially big focus on sort of cutting environmental programs, like environmental justice programming and public outreach programming.
Another name that was in the proposal was Bernard McNamee, who wrote a chapter on the Department of Energy, again sort of in an attempt to say we should shrink the authority of the Department of Energy. He previously served as an adviser to Ted Cruz. And before that, he led this far-right organization called the Texas Public Policy Institute — or, Texas Public Policy Foundation, rather, that really aims to undo environmental regulation and fight renewable energy at the state level.
And so, we’re really seeing, I think, a who’s who of the far right in this attempt to, you know, not only sort of be in the next president’s ear if they’re a Republican, but also, you know, sort of recommend personnel and say, “Hey, here’s who you should staff up with.”
AMY GOODMAN: What role does billionaire Charles Koch play in this project, Dharna?
DHARNA NOOR: So, the Heritage Foundation, who, again, are the far-right foundation that sort of convened this group, Project 2025, has historically had ties, financial ties, to the Koch brothers, who are, of course, billionaires who made their fortune in fossil fuels and related industries. The Heritage Foundation is also a member of the State Policy Network, which is a sort of coalition of these extreme right-wing groups that have targeted regulation, especially climate-focused regulation, in states for many years. And I think, you know, I would just say, I guess, it’s no surprise that an organization with ties to people who have made such a great fortune in the industries that must be regulated in order to take on the climate crisis, you know, have historically been tied to a group that is trying to push that agenda to the presidential level.
AMY GOODMAN: As we begin to wrap up, I wanted to ask David Wallace-Wells to respond to what Dharna is describing right now, and also talk about what needs exactly to be done. I mean, we’re speaking today, the day after the Supreme Court has just OK’d, cleared the way for construction of the contested Mountain Valley Pipeline to resume, lifting a halt on a section of the project that had been issued by a lower court earlier this month after a challenge by environmental groups.
DAVID WALLACE-WELLS: Yeah, I think we’re in a situation as a country now where we’re pursuing what used to be called an all-of-the-above energy strategy. And that’s pretty catastrophic for our climate goals, which means, in general, I would say, at this point, the Republican Party across the country is mostly standing down in resistance to renewable energy. The Project 2025 memo is really concerning, but when I look across the political landscape, I see there was basically no campaigning against the IRA in the midterm elections anywhere. And in Texas, where there was an effort to kneecap renewable power a few months ago, ultimately that failed, because even conservative Republicans in Texas understood that doing so would raise energy bills for consumers there. Nevertheless, we’re also moving forward with a lot of new fossil fuel infrastructure. And we’re sort of — you know, that’s the path we’re following: We’re kind of doing both at once.
So, in the big picture, I think what we need to do is find a way to accelerate the good stuff and draw down the bad stuff. And functionally, for me, what that means is finding a way to ease the rollout of renewable power, build more transmission lines so that we can expand our grid and accommodate much more renewable electricity over the next few years, without at the same time giving benefits to new infrastructure on the dirty side. And unfortunately, to this point, most of the so-called permitting reform proposals that we’ve heard have been balanced in precisely that way. They do make some accommodation or allow for some acceleration of renewable buildout, but they also allow for a lot more dirty energy construction. And we just can’t have that if we are hoping to hit the targets that are not just set by the scientific community, but the somewhat less ambitious ones that have been embraced by the Biden administration.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, David Wallace-Wells, I mean, the phraseology of the U.N. secretary-general, Guterres, talking about “global boiling,” taking on the fossil fuel industry, seems to fly in the face of what’s happening with the U.N. climate summit, the one that’s coming up in UAE. In January, the UAE confirmed that Sultan Al Jaber had been appointed the president of COP28. He is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the biggest oil producer in the United Arab Emirates, the 12th largest in the world. Your final thoughts on this?
DAVID WALLACE-WELLS: Well, just as context, I think it’s important for people to understand the U.S. is actually the world’s largest producer of oil and the world’s largest producer of gas. So, when we point our finger around the world and shake our hand at other people’s bad action, we should remind ourselves how poorly we’re doing.
But, in general, Guterres has taken a really unusual turn as secretary-general. He has made himself, you know, a climate-forward, climate-first rhetorical world leader, operating somewhat independently from the other structures of the U.N., including the COP process. He’s made himself the rhetorical leader on climate anywhere in the world, and it actually is a kind of a shaming contrast to compare the language that he uses to the language that leaders like, you know, Joe Biden here, but leaders all around the world have used, much more muted rhetoric. And I think while some of his language is a little overheated, at least for my taste, I do think it’s quite striking how few other figures of political prominence anywhere around the globe are speaking in these urgent terms.
And it’s a reminder of how far the world is from really reckoning with the state of the climate crisis in the near future that we’re now rushing headlong into. We need more people feeling the urgency that the secretary-general feels, and giving voice to it, so that, you know, the everyday Americans, everyday people all around the world understand that their leaders see the existential saga we’re living through in the same terms that they do, and are at least trying to move the ball forward, as opposed to letting things stay as they are, which is not an acceptable state.
AMY GOODMAN: David Wallace-Wells, we want to thank you for being with us, New York Times opinion writer, columnist for The New York Times Magazine, and Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter for The Guardian. We’ll link to both of your recent articles at democracynow.org.
Coming up, Texas Congressmember Greg Casar will be with us. He just had an eight-our thirst strike on Tuesday on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to highlight the need for a federal workplace heat standard, as his state outlaws water breaks for people who work outside. Back in 30 seconds.
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A rally outside the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison on April 2 before the 2023 state supreme court election. (photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
The state’s high court could also toss out a Republican gerrymander, with the potential to net Democrats more seats in the U.S. House.
Janet Protasiewicz will begin her 10-year term on the court Tuesday, replacing a retiring conservative judge and giving liberals a 4-3 majority on the court for the first time in over a decade. The April victory by Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County judge, was a national story, and the election shattered the previous U.S. record for spending in a court race.
The result was also notable because in a battleground state where many top races are decided narrowly, Protasiewicz won comfortably, defeating her conservative opponent, Daniel Kelly, by 11 points.
A 19th century abortion ban
When Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022, an 1849 law banning abortion went into effect in Wisconsin. As reproductive rights advocates have noted, the ban dates to a time when the state did not allow women to vote.
While the law does not punish anyone seeking an abortion, it makes it a felony to perform one unless the procedure is required to save a patient’s life. A doctor prosecuted under the law would face up to six years in prison.
Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, has called for special legislative sessions to reverse the ban, but Republicans controlling the Legislature rebuffed him. Last month, every GOP member in both the state Assembly and Senate voted against repealing it. Evers, who was first elected in 2018, has vetoed multiple abortion restrictions passed by the Republican Legislature during his tenure.
Protasiewicz focused on the issue from the moment her campaign began, saying in her first television ads that she “believes in our freedom to make our own decisions when it comes to abortion.”
Supporters of allowing access to abortion won another victory earlier this month when a Dane County circuit judge, Diane Schlipper, allowed a lawsuit by the Democratic state attorney general, Josh Kaul, against the nearly two-century-old ban to continue, after a Republican county prosecutor attempted to have the suit dismissed.
Confusing the issue in the state further, Schlipper in her ruling said the pre-Civil War law does not in fact ban “consensual medical abortions” in the state and would apply only to residents who attacked a pregnant person.
“There is no such thing as an '1849 Abortion Ban' in Wisconsin,” wrote Schlipper.
Schlipper is set to make a formal decision on the case in the coming months, after which it is likely to make its way to the new 4-3 court. If the law is overturned, Wisconsin will return to the 20-week ban on abortions that was in place in the state before the reversal of Roe.
Under the previous law, only physicians (rather than other medical personnel) were allowed to perform abortions, and the state also required parental consent or notice for minors and a counseling session at least 24 hours before the procedure.
Abortion rights supporters in other Midwestern states have used different tactics in an attempt to roll back post-Roe restrictions. In Michigan last year, voters passed a ballot initiative establishing a constitutional right to abortion, in addition to giving Democrats a state government trifecta — the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the Legislature — for the first time in decades.
In Ohio, where Republicans have total control of the state government, abortion advocates are hoping to pass a similar constitutional protection via ballot measure in November. A recent poll found 58% support for the measure among Ohioians.
New maps could help Democrats win more races
Another issue that is likely to eventually make its way to the court is the state’s partisan gerrymander, which has given the GOP an advantage in holding onto the state Legislature, as well as helping Republicans win races for the U.S. House. Wisconsin has one of the nation’s most extreme gerrymanders, allowing state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to serve as what Politico has called a “shadow governor,” even though Evers has won two straight terms as governor.
Last year, the court’s conservative majority at the time approved maps drawn by the Legislature, after a ruling against the governor's proposed map came down from the U.S. Supreme Court. The maps that were rejected would have slightly improved Democratic chances and would have created two more majority-Black districts in Milwaukee.
During the campaign, Protasiwiecz described the current maps as “rigged.”
"They do not reflect people in this state,” she said in January. “I don't think you could sell any reasonable person that the maps are fair. I can't tell you what I would do on a particular case, but I can tell you my values, and the maps are wrong."
Should new congressional maps be issued, they could aid Democrats by shifting the current makeup of the U.S. House, where Republicans hold a slim majority. Currently, the Wisconsin delegation includes six Republicans and two Democrats.
In addition to the gerrymander, the court could potentially take another look at a 2022 decision by the conservative majority that restricted the use of drop boxes for ballots. For years, advocates have been critical of Wisconsin Republicans for voting restrictions they have instituted.
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Another group of asylum-seeking migrants arrived in Los Angeles from Texas. (photo: Fox News)
The bus arrived at Union Station shortly before 9 a.m., according to the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. Onboard were 23 adults and 13 children ranging in ages from 2 to 17 years old, the nonprofit said in a statement.
"In addition to receiving urgent humanitarian support services, such as food, water, clothing, hygiene kits, and legal immigration guidance, this group of asylum seekers will be connected with loved ones, family members, or sponsors in the region," CHIRLA said.
A spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement that the city "has continued to work with City Departments, the County, and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year.
"As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan," said Zach Seidl, a deputy mayor of communications.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been orchestrating the sending of migrants from Brownsville, Texas, to California, claiming the state's border region is overwhelmed by immigrants crossing the Mexican border. Although the bus that arrived Thursday was believed to be from Brownsville, whether Abbott's office was involved in sending it was not immediately confirmed.
"Texas' small border towns remain overwhelmed and overrun by the thousands of people illegally crossing into Texas from Mexico because of President Biden's refusal to secure the border," Abbott said in a statement after the first bus arrived in Los Angeles in June. "Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status. Our border communities are on the front lines of President Biden's border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much-needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border."
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Lt. Gen. Johnathan Braga, U.S. Army Special Operations commander, meets with Brig. Gen. Moussa Barmou, Niger Special Operations Forces commander, at Air Base 101, in Niger, on June 12, 2023. (photo: Staff Sgt. Amy Younger/US Air Force)
Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, who trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, helped oust Niger’s democratically elected president.
“We have had a very long relationship with the United States,” Barmou said in 2021. “Being able to work together in this capacity is very good for Niger.” Just last month, Barmou met with Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, the head of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, at Air Base 201, a drone base in the Nigerian city of Agadez that serves as the lynchpin of an archipelago of U.S. outposts in West Africa.
On Wednesday, Barmou, who trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, and the National Defense University in Washington, joined a junta that ousted Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s democratically elected president, according to Nigerien sources and a U.S. government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Barmou did not return phone calls and text messages from The Intercept.
A U.S. official tracking the coup, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed Barmou’s relationship with the U.S. military and said he was probably not alone. “I’m sure we will find out that others have been partners, have been involved in U.S. engagements,” he said of other members of the junta, noting that U.S. government agencies were looking into the matter.
U.S.-trained officers have conducted in at least six coups in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali since 2012. They have also been involved in recent takeovers in Gambia (2014), Guinea (2021), Mauritania (2008), and Niger (2023).
“We train to standards — the laws of war and democratic standards,” said the U.S. official. “These are foreign military personnel. We can’t control what they do. We have no way to stop them.”
Members of Niger’s Presidential Guard surrounded the president’s palace in Niamey on Wednesday and took Bazoum hostage. Bazoum and his family were “doing well,” the Nigerien presidency said on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Later, the account repeated what Bazoum had posted on his personal page: “The hard-won achievements will be safeguarded. All Nigeriens who love democracy and freedom will see to it.” Neither account has posted anything further in the last 12 hours.
Calling themselves the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, Barmou and eight other high-ranking officers delivered a statement on Nigerien state television shortly after detaining Bazoum. The “defense and security forces” had “decided to put an end to the regime … due to the deteriorating security situation and bad governance,” according to their spokesperson.
Since 2012, U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $500 million in Niger, making it one of the largest security assistance programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Across the continent, the State Department counted just nine terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2003, compared with 2,737 last year in Burkina Faso, Mali, and western Niger alone, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a U.S. Defense Department research institution.
U.S. troops train, advise, and assist their Nigerien counterparts and have fought and even died there. Over the last decade, the number of U.S. military personnel deployed to Niger has jumped from just 100 to 1,016. Niger has also seen a proliferation of U.S. outposts.
Barmou and Braga met last month to “discuss anti-terrorism policy and tactics throughout the region,” according to a military news release. The Pentagon says that the U.S. partnership with Niger’s army, especially its commandos, is key to countering militants.
Defense Department agencies partner with the Nigerien Army and Special Operators to fight violent extremism throughout Northwest Africa, but experts say the overwhelming focus on counterterrorism is part of the problem.
“The major issues fueling conflict in Niger and the Sahel are not military in nature — they stem from people’s frustration with poverty, the legacy of colonialism, elite corruption, and political and ethnic tensions and injustices. Yet rather than address these issues, the U.S. government has prioritized sending weapons and funding and training the region’s militaries to wage their own wars on terror,” said Stephanie Savell, co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, and an expert on U.S. military efforts in West Africa. “One of the hugely negative consequences has been to empower the region’s security forces at the expense of other government institutions, and this is surely one factor in the slate of coups we’ve seen in Niger, Burkina Faso, and elsewhere in recent years.”
The Nigerien Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. The U.S. State Department also did not reply to The Intercept’s requests for information prior to publication.
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The Grassy Narrows First Nations Reserve has been plagued by the neurotoxin for over 50 years after a pulp and paper company dumped 10 tonnes of mercury into the Wabigoon River. (photo: Randy Risling/Toronto Star)
"Our way of life has been totally destroyed.”
The study analyzed data from 162 children and 80 mothers, parsing data on mercury levels in umbilical cords and hair, as well as from surveys on fish consumption and mental health. Researchers concluded that three generations of mercury exposure are linked to today’s youth attempted suicide rates.
Donna Mergler, professor emerita at the University of Quebec in Montreal and lead author of the study, said she and her co-authors found that women from Grassy Narrows who ate a lot of fish during pregnancy were more likely to have children with both emotional and behavioral problems.
“It’s like a cascade of effects from the grandparents down to the children,” Mergler said.
Attempted suicide rates are three times higher among Grassy Narrows First Nation members than other First Nation communities in Canada. Suicide rates for First Nation members in Canada are higher than rates for non-Indigenous people as a whole.
In the 1960s and ’70s, the Reed Paper mill dumped nearly 10 tons of mercury into the river the Grassy Narrows First Nation relies on for fish, according to a 2016 report from Canadian broadcaster CBC, which described the pollution as one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters. The study is the latest in a decades-long effort by the community to grapple with ongoing consequences of industrial pollution on their food.
“We’re very saddened by the report, but it’s also confirmed what we’ve been fearing all along, the impacts of mercury on our people,” Grassy Narrows First Nation Chief Rudy Turtle said at a recent press conference. “The impacts of mercury have been very devastating in terms of our economy. Our way of life has been totally destroyed.”
High mercury exposure has long been associated with brain damage and other neurological problems. In the United States, pregnant women are discouraged from eating high-mercury fish to protect their fetuses. The bigger the fish, the more likely they’ll have lots of mercury as the substance bioaccumulates.
In 2016, the Toronto Star reported that mercury levels in walleye fish in Clay Lake were 90 times higher than the recommended levels of daily intake for pregnant women set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Grassy Narrows First Nation members have traditionally fished from the lake and the river it feeds into, with many working as fishing guides for tourists prior to the discovery of the mercury pollution.
Sarah Rothenberg, an associate professor at Oregon State University’s College of Public Health and Human Sciences, wrote in Environmental Health Perspectives that Mergler’s study is rare in examining the link between mercury exposure and children’s mental health, but said Grassy Narrows is far from the only community facing such challenges.
Communities living in the Arctic and communities exposed to artisanal and small-scale gold mining may be experiencing mercury exposure, and the potential for similar effects there warrants further investigation, she said.
Mergler said the study lends scientific evidence to Grassy Narrows’ calls for adequate health care, compensation and a ban on mining and forestry in their territorial lands. In 2020, the federal government promised funds to build a mercury care home but that hasn’t yet materialized.
Chief Turtle from Grassy Narrows said after the discovery of high mercury levels in the area, commercial fishing companies and lodges closed, spiking unemployment. Still, as per their traditions, his community continues to fish the area for subsistence.
“It’s just not the same prior to mercury being dumped into our river,” he said.
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