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Feminismos para Construir un Futuro
Centro Joaquín Roncal, sábado, 10 de enero, 11:30 CET
El 9 y 10 de enero se realizarán en la Fundación Caja Inmaculada las jornadas “Feminismo para construir un futuro”, un espacio de reflexión para empezar a construir juntas el camino hacia el 8M.
Agenda del sábado 10:
11:30 Resistencias frente al colonialismo, el imperialismo y la ola reaccionaria; presentado por Chaimaa Boukharsa de Afrocolectiva, Leila de Alkarama, y Julia Cámara.
17:00 Sostener la vida como horizonde de lucha; presentado por Edith Espinola de Regularización YA, Carolina García de la asociación de Trabajadoras del Hogar y Cuidados de Zaragoza, y Bertha Massiel Sánchez.
18:45 ¿Hacia dónde avanzar? Movilizar la esperanza, repensar la lucha feminista; presentado por Silvia Agüero (activista feminista antirracista gitana), Justa Montero de Feministas en Acción, e Ira Hybris.
Y para finalizar una fiestecilla en La Causa (C/ Universidad 3) a las 21:00
https://zgz.convoca.la/event/feminismos-para-construir-un-futuro
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DATE: May 24, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Declining trust in doctors is widening the health gap between conservative and liberal Americans
A recent study published in Nature Human Behaviour suggests that conservative Americans have experienced worse health outcomes and higher mortality rates than their liberal counterparts over the past decade. The research provides evidence that this widening health gap stems from demographic shifts within political coalitions and a growing distrust in medical professionals among right-leaning individuals. These changing attitudes toward seeking and following medical advice tend to leave conservative individuals more vulnerable to preventable health risks.
Scientists Elizabeth Elder and Neil A. O’Brian conducted the study to better understand how political beliefs might act as a social determinant of health. Past studies on this topic often relied on county-level geographic data or self-reported health surveys. These older methods often produced mixed findings because self-reported health can be subjective and county-level averages do not always reflect individual behaviors.
To resolve these contradictory findings, Elder and O’Brian sought to link individual political orientations directly to verified medical data and death records. The researchers also wanted to understand how the relationship between political ideology and physical health has changed since the early 2010s. Medical issues have become highly politicized in recent years, prompting the scientists to investigate whether this polarization affects real-world health outcomes.
“During COVID, I watched how people’s political identity became a powerful predictor of how they engaged with the public health officials and its impact on health outcomes related to COVID,” said O’Brian, an assistant professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “I started wondering, though, if polarization around trust in public health officials (like Anthony Fauci) or distrust in vaccines, spread beyond COVID-related matters to trust one’s personal doctor and whether they thought medicines to treat chronic disease were safe and effective.”
To answer these questions, the scientists analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. This long-term research project tracked a nationally representative group of individuals who were adolescents in the 1990s. The researchers focused on data collected during three specific time periods: 2001, 2008 to 2009, and 2016 to 2018.
This unique dataset includes both the participants’ self-reported political ideology and in-home medical measurements taken by trained professionals. The medical data included body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol, inflammation, and blood glucose levels. The authors combined these five measurements to create a comorbidity index, which is a single score that indicates how many different medical conditions or health risks a person has at the same time.
The sample sizes for these survey periods were very large, with over 11,000 to 13,000 respondents providing political ideology data in each of the three examined waves. The researchers also checked the participants’ vital status against the National Death Index, a database administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This database allowed them to see not only who had passed away by the year 2022 but also the underlying cause of death.
During the 2008 to 2009 period, the scientists found no significant differences in the physical health of liberal and conservative participants. By the 2016 to 2018 survey, the medical data showed a noticeable shift. The respondents who identified as the most conservative recorded the highest comorbidity scores, indicating they were the least healthy group.
The researchers tracked individuals who changed their political beliefs over time to see what might be driving this shift. They found that people who were less healthy in 2008 tended to adopt more conservative political views by 2016. At the same time, the liberal coalition gained an advantage in socioeconomic factors like income and education, which tend to be associated with better overall health.
The mortality data provided evidence of a similar timeline. In the early 2000s, liberals died at rates similar to or slightly higher than conservatives. By the period between 2020 and 2022, this pattern had reversed entirely. The most conservative respondents were significantly more likely to die than the most liberal respondents.
This elevated death rate was primarily driven by internal causes, such as heart disease and cancer, rather than external causes like car accidents. The authors noted that this difference in mortality was not entirely due to coronavirus infections. Even when the scientists removed deaths directly caused by the virus from their calculations, conservative participants still experienced higher mortality rates.
This mortality difference is quite large when compared to other known health risks. “The mortality rate for internally caused deaths between very liberal and very conservative in the pandemic era (in our paper defined as 2020-22) is about two-thirds the gap between people making over $100,000 and those making less than $30,000 a year,” O’Brian explained. He noted that income is often thought of as a powerful social determinant of health. “That’s a pretty substantive gap,” he said.
Since demographic changes and the recent pandemic could not fully explain the widening health gap, Elder and O’Brian conducted a second study. They wanted to test whether right-leaning individuals were simply engaging less with the healthcare system today. In the spring of 2024, the scientists surveyed 21,751 adults living in the United States using an online panel platform.
This large survey asked participants about their recent visits to primary care providers and emergency room doctors. The questionnaire asked how much they trusted these medical professionals and whether they followed their clinical advice. The scientists measured political beliefs using self-reported ideology, political party identification, and the participant’s choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in recent elections.
The survey results indicated that conservative Americans, particularly those who identify as Republicans or Trump voters, express significantly less trust in their primary care doctors. These right-leaning respondents reported that they were less likely to follow the medical advice given by their primary care providers. They also reported lower levels of trust in emergency room doctors compared to left-leaning respondents.
The researchers also presented participants with a hypothetical scenario involving sudden chest pain. The right-leaning respondents indicated they would be less likely to schedule a doctor’s appointment if they experienced this alarming symptom. This suggests a broader hesitation to seek medical care for issues completely unrelated to the recent pandemic.
Additionally, the scientists looked at a subgroup of respondents who reported having chronic illnesses like high blood pressure, heart disease, or diabetes. This subgroup made up about 38 percent of the total survey sample. The researchers asked these individuals if they believed their prescribed daily medications were safe and effective using a specialized questionnaire.
The questionnaire asked participants to agree or disagree with statements like whether their lives would be impossible without their medications or if they worried about long-term side effects. Right-leaning respondents with chronic illnesses were more skeptical of their prescription medications than left-leaning individuals with similar health conditions. This political divide in the consumption of medical care may sustain or deepen the health divide that has emerged in recent decades.
“People’s political affiliation has become a strong predictor of whether people visit, trust and adhere to their doctor’s advice,” O’Brian said. “This persists even after accounting for factors that correlate with political identity and health, like rurality, income or education.”
O’Brian pointed out that this polarization in trust and engagement with the medical system came at an unfortunate time, as a health gap was already emerging between the left and right on the eve of the pandemic. “This means that those on the right, who entered the pandemic era with some of the worst health outcomes, are now reporting they are less likely to see their primary care provider, trust them, or believe medicines to treat chronic disease are safe and effective,” he added. “This has the potential to make those health outcomes worse.”
While these findings are detailed, the authors note several limitations and potential misinterpretations. The data describes observed associations rather than direct cause and effect. It is not entirely certain that a person’s political beliefs directly cause them to distrust doctors or experience worse physical health. Other unmeasured social or cultural factors could be influencing both a person’s political ideology and their healthcare behaviors at the exact same time.
The long-term medical data also focused on a specific cohort of Americans born between 1976 and 1982. “The health data are from one cohort in one period, so it’s still an open question of whether this generalizes to other cohorts or whether it will persist,” O’Brian said. “That said, ecological studies over the 2010s have found similar gaps emerging between ‘red’ and ‘blue’ areas of the country.”
Future research should aim to determine whether this partisan gap in medical trust is indeed a causal factor in declining physical health. Scientists might also look into exactly when this political divide in medical trust began to emerge. Understanding these mechanisms will be highly important for public health officials who are trying to reach populations that have grown skeptical of modern medical institutions.
“Looking at trust in doctors and health outcomes along political lines is just one way to think about engagement with healthcare, and an increasingly important one,” O’Brian noted. “But health and creating access and trust in the health system is a multi-dimensional problem and other work can and does look at other social cleavages in health and engagement.”
The study, “The political polarization of health outcomes in the USA,” was authored by Elizabeth Elder and Neil A. O’Brian.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PoliticalHealthDivide #TrustInDoctors #HealthInequality #ConservativeHealthGap #LiberalHealthAdvantage #MedicalTrustPolarization #PublicHealthPolicy #HealthOutcomesUSA #PoliticalIdeologyAndHealth #VaccineVaccineDoubt #HealthDisparities #RedBlueHealth Gap
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Igino Giordani promuove anche il neonato partito clandestino della Democrazia Cristiana
Nel 1943, per non cedere ad un atteggiamento diffuso di “cristiano in pensione”, Igino Giordani, messa al riparo la famiglia a Capranica Prenestina, mantiene la sua residenza per lo più a Roma, dove in settembre assiste all’entrata dei tedeschi. <204 A trattenerlo nella capitale è il desiderio di proseguire la militanza antifascista. Comincia infatti «un intenso periodo di attività clandestina nei locali della parrocchia del Cristo Re, per invito di padre Zambetti, il quale si preoccupava di formare nuovi dirigenti cattolici, che potessero entrare in campo politico con la fine della guerra». <205 In particolare, Giordani offre il suo contributo tenendo dei corsi di formazione negli incontri del “Martedì culturale” che vedono riuniti personaggi come Spataro, La Pira, Petrilli, e molti giovani, contattati tramite circolari distribuite segretamente. I suoi interventi sono incentrati sulla dottrina sociale della Chiesa, cui si dedica con proficua dedizione. Infatti, in quegli anni vedono la luce “Le Encicliche sociali dei Papi. Da Pio IX a Pio XII” (1942), e i quattro volumi poi riuniti col titolo “Messaggio sociale del cristianesimo” (1935-1947). <206
#1943 #1944 #antifascismo #AzioneCattolica #CarlaPagliarulo #cattolico #clandestino #DC #don #fascisti #giornali #GiuseppeDeLuca #guerra #IginoGiordani #integralismo #LaPira #LuigiSturzo #maggio #monsignor #Montini #partigiani #partito #Petrilli #PieroBargellini #quotidiani #settembre #tedeschi
Attraverso questi e altri incarichi, ad esempio quello di relatore ai convegni dei laureati cattolici, <207 Giordani dà un contributo notevole alla formazione della futura classe intellettuale dell’Italia post-fascista. <208 Aderisce e promuove anche il neonato partito clandestino della Democrazia Cristiana, <209 anche se guarda con preoccupazione tanto a un partito unico di cattolici quanto alla scelta di inserire nel nome del partito l’attributo di cristiano. Monsignor Montini lo dissuade da queste perplessità. <210 L’amicizia con il futuro Paolo VI risale ai primi anni Trenta ed è documentata da diverse lettere, biglietti e cartoline, in gran parte di natura personale e dal tono semplice
e familiare. <211 Il rapporto di stima reciproca e stretta collaborazione si approfondisce ulteriormente nel 1944, quando Giordani accetta la proposta di dirigere «Il Quotidiano», il nuovo giornale dell’A.C.I. [Azione Cattolica]. Grazie all’interessamento di Montini, ottiene per diversi mesi l’aspettativa dal lavoro alla Biblioteca Vaticana, per potersi dedicare all’attività giornalistica: «Tornare all’apostolato diretto, alla lotta di idee, era quello che più desideravo, sicché accettai [l’incarico] con entusiasmo e smobilitai il mio cervello di bibliotecario per attrezzarlo da giornalista». <212 Prima ancora di assumerne la direzione (nel maggio del 1944), Giordani partecipa alle riunioni indette dall’A.C. per decidere le sorti de «L’Avvenire», che sarebbe stato sostituito da «Il Quotidiano». <213 Si espone in prima persona contro chi afferma che una nuova testata possa risultare d’intralcio a «Il Popolo» e a «L’Osservatore Romano»; redige una nota intitolata “Per un quotidiano nazionale d’Azione Cattolica”, per delinearne l’opera di «pacificazione e ricostruzione», di «recupero dalla distruzione di ideologie e di conflitti», di «conquista dei cittadini alla Chiesa e trasmissione del pensiero cristiano alla società». <214 Nella stessa nota, Giordani ribadisce un concetto ricorrente in molti suoi scritti: la necessità di un cristianesimo “integrale”. Con l’esortazione a «vivere integralmente la vita soprannaturale», Giordani – nota Casella – palesa definitivamente i suoi intenti: egli parla non «in quanto cattolico», cioè come esponente significativo del mondo cattolico, ma «da cattolico», da semplice cristiano che si rivolge ad altri cristiani. <215 Il suo “integralismo” non mira affatto a una riduzione del potere politico-religioso nelle mani della Chiesa, al contrario egli lotta per la distinzione dei due poteri, e al tempo stesso per il riconoscimento della superiore importanza dei valori morali, validi tanto nel campo spirituale che nel temporale.
Sinteticamente si può dire che «Il Quotidiano» di Giordani si propone di aiutare “l’uomo contemporaneo” a prendere coscienza della sua dignità di figlio di Dio e di promuovere la sua partecipazione attiva nel processo di ricostruzione del Paese. Per far questo, l’accento è costantemente posto sulla necessità di un recupero spirituale e morale dell’uomo: «la moralizzazione della vita privata e pubblica» è, infatti, «al centro degli scritti politici di Giordani fin dai giorni del P.P.I.», <216 quindi di ‘Rivolta cattolica’, degli articoli apparsi su «Parte Guelfa» e su «Il Popolo» di Donati.
Il 17 settembre, Giordani annuncia a don Luigi Sturzo l’inizio della sua nuova missione giornalistica: “Come io sia pervenuto alla direzione di esso Dio solo lo sa. Io bramavo tornare alla politica: tutti questi anni avevo tenuto viva una fiammella coi miei scritti. Ma uomini ed eventi mi hanno spinto qui: e forse anche da qui del bene si può fare”. <217 Sturzo gli risponde qualche tempo dopo, il 21 dicembre, per spronarlo in questo incarico: “penso che fa opera utilissima fra i cattolici, abituandoli a pensare da cattolici, da italiani e da democratici. […] Il Signore esige che coloro che difendono i principi lo facciano non solo con convinzione, ma col sacrificio dei loro interessi, sia personali che collettivi”. <218
Proprio per discutere le posizioni del giornale, il direttore chiede un’udienza privata con Pio XII. <219 Dal “Diario inglese” si conosce la data, 9 novembre 1944, e il clima familiare del colloquio. D’altra parte Giordani ha già avuto vari incontri personali col pontefice, che l’anno seguente lo riceve insieme a tutto il personale del giornale: in tutto un centinaio di persone, compresi alcuni familiari. <220 In una lettera a don Giuseppe De Luca <221 del successivo 5 ottobre, <222 Giordani racconta dell’incoraggiamento ricevuto dal santo Padre a proseguire nell’opera «di formazione politica al di sopra e al di fuori dei partiti, per inserire in essi il fermento del Vangelo. Esso vuole elevare la massa a popolo e il popolo a Chiesa, con un’opera di moralizzazione assidua». <223 Inizia in questo periodo la collaborazione di Piero Bargellini al giornale. <224
[NOTE]
204 A seguito dell’armistizio di Cassibile (3 settembre 1943), con cui il governo Badoglio dichiara la resa degli Alleati. Giordani ricorda l’invasione tedesca in GIORDANI, Memorie, cit., p. 102.
205 GIORDANO, L’impegno politico, cit., p. 115.
206 Ibid., pp. 115-16. I due lavori di Giordani, cui si fa riferimento, sono i già citati: I. GIORDANI, Le Encicliche sociali dei Papi. Da Pio IX a Pio XII, Studium, Roma, 19564 [1942] e ID., Il messaggio sociale del cristianesimo, Città Nuova, Roma 20019 [1958].
207 G. SPATARO, I democratici cristiani dalla dittatura alla Repubblica, Mondadori, Milano 1968, p. 330.
208 R. MORO, La formazione della classe dirigente cattolica (1929-1937), Il Mulino, Bologna 1979, p. 82.
209 SPATARO, I democratici cristiani, cit., p. 359.
210 GIORDANI, Memorie, cit., pp. 103-104. Giovanni Battista Montini (1897-1978), aderisce alla F.U.C.I. nel 1919, ordinato sacerdote nel 1920, studia come diplomatico per la Segreteria di Stato della Santa Sede. Nel 1923 papa Pio XI lo invia come nunzio a Varsavia, ma rientra dopo pochi mesi per collaborare alla Segreteria di Stato; nel 1937 viene nominato sostituto e lavora al fianco del Segretario di Stato Eugenio Pacelli. Nel 1939, alla morte di Pio XI, il cardinale Pacelli diviene papa Pio XII. Montini, nominato pro-segretario di Stato nel 1944, si adopera all’assistenza dei rifugiati, specialmente ebrei. Arcivescovo di Milano dal 1954. Diviene papa nel 1963 col nome di Paolo VI. La bibliografia su di lui è abbondante, dunque si preferisce indicare all’occorrenza i volumi consultati.
211 La corrispondenza è conservata in AIG I, 4.2 e comprende sia le lettere del periodo in cui Montini lavora presso la Segreteria di Stato Vaticano, sia quelle da arcivescovo di Milano, sia infine quelle degli anni del pontificato. Per maggiori informazioni si rimanda al Cap. II.VI, n. 476.
212 GIORDANI, Memorie, cit., p. 104.
213 «L’Avvenire» a partire dal 1933 è l’edizione romana de «L’Avvenire d’Italia», ma alla vigilia della liberazione di Roma, per le sue compromissioni con il fascismo, deve – secondo alcuni, tra cui Vittorino Veronese, Giulio Andreotti e lo stesso Giordani – essere sostituito da una nuova testata. Cfr. su questo tema: M. CASELLA, «Il Quotidiano» diretto da Igino Giordani (1944-1946), in SORGI, Politica e morale, cit., pp. 287-316: 287-88.
214 Per un’accurata documentazione sulla nascita e lo sviluppo de «Il Quotidiano» e per il contributo fondamentale ad esso offerto da Giordani, cfr. GIORDANO, L’impegno politico, cit., pp. 125-46 e CASELLA, «Il Quotidiano», cit., pp. 287-316. La nota programmatica è proposta in forma integrale in M. CASELLA, L’Azione cattolica alla caduta del Fascismo. Attività e progetti per il dopoguerra (1942-1945), Studium, Roma 1984, pp. 167-68.
215 CASELLA, «Il Quotidiano», cit., pp. 287-316: 295.
216 Ibid., p. 298.
217 Lettera di Giordani a Sturzo, 17 settembre 1944: AIG I, 16.3, 36, poi in GIORDANI – STURZO, Un ponte, cit., p. 103. Si aggiunge un dato di carattere interessante: molte lettere di Sturzo a Giordani vengono pubblicate da quest’ultimo su «Il Quotidiano».
218 Lettera di Sturzo a Giordani, 21 dicembre 1944: AIG I, 16.1, 19. Poi in volume: GIORDANI – STURZO, Un ponte, cit., pp. 104-105.
219 Per comprendere il clima di tensione e le polemiche sorte intorno a «Il Quotidiano» e al suo direttore in quei primi mesi, è stato utile analizzare un promemoria datato 5 settembre, dello stesso Giordani. Egli difende la sua testata da cinque principali accuse: di lasciar trasparire tendenze di sinistra; di non rispecchiare la serenità di un giornale cattolico; di essere diretto da un repubblicano; di nuocere la campagna politica della DC e di non giovare alla formazione e alla rappresentanza dei cattolici. E conclude: «Nel nostro lavoro occorre slancio, e questo è possibile solo se la fiducia dei superiori ci spalleggia. Per essa si è fatto un giornale, giudicato da molti il migliore della Capitale […], iniziando con una povertà di mezzi che era vera indigenza: in redazione […] si è tentato di farci finire togliendoci la corrente elettrica» (Promemoria dattiloscritto di Giordani, 5 settembre 1944, in AIG I, 22a.5.2, 1).
220 Dal Diario inglese risultano sicure le date del 4 aprile 1939, dell’8 luglio 1940, e del 5 ottobre 1941. Infine, l’udienza con tutti i collaboratori de «Il Quotidiano» risale al 12 agosto 1945.
221 Giuseppe De Luca (1898-1962), sacerdote romano dal 1921, cappellano a San Pietro in Vincoli fino al 1948. È noto per la sua attività di letterato, editore e attento filologo. Sulla sua figura si vedano: AA.VV., Don Giuseppe De Luca. Ricordi e testimonianze, a c. di M. PICCHI, Morcelliana, Brescia 1963; AA.VV., Don Giuseppe De Luca et l’abbé Henri Bremond (1929-1933). «De L’Histoire littéraire du sentiment réligieux en France» à l’ «Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà» d’aprés des documents inédits, a c. di H. BERNARD MAÎTRE – R. GUARNIERI, Roma 1963; C. DIONISOTTI, Ricordo di don Giuseppe De Luca, in «Italia medievale e umanistica», IV (1961), pp. 327-39; I. COLOSIO, Don Giuseppe De Luca storico della spiritualità, Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, Firenze 1962; G. ANTONIAZZI, Don Giuseppe De Luca e una nuova scienza. La storia della pietà, «Studi cattolici», XII (1968), pp. 606-17; D. CANTIMORI, In ricordo di don Giuseppe De Luca, in Storici e storia, Einaudi, Torino 1971, pp. 386-96; R. GUARNIERI, Don Giuseppe De Luca tra cronaca e storia (1898-1962), in AA. VV., Modernismo, fascismo, comunismo, a c. di G. ROSSINI, Il Mulino, Bologna 1972, pp. 249-362; L. MANGONI, Aspetti della cultura cattolica sotto il fascismo: la rivista «Il Frontespizio», ibid., pp. 363-417; R. DE FELICE, Alcune lettere di mons. Giuseppe De Luca a Giuseppe Bottai, ibid., pp. 419-51; La storia della pietà: fonti e metodi di ricerca, Seminario di studio all’Istituto per le ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa (Vicenza, 31 maggio – 2 giugno 1976), con la partecipazione di M. VOVELLE, A. ZAMBARBIERI, L. BILLANOVICH, F. SALIMBENI, P. PAMPALONI, A. TURCHINI, A. GAMBASIN, G. DE ROSA; Bremond-De Luca, «Ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa», XXVIII (1985), con interventi di G. CRACCO, G. DE ROSA, E. GOICHOT, L. MANGONI, M. PICCHI, E. POULAT, T. TESSITORE, L. BILLANOVICH; R. GUARNIERI, De Luca Giuseppe, in Dizionario Storico del Movimento Cattolico in Italia (1860-1995), vol. II, I protagonisti, cit., pp. 171-78; V. LEMBO, Don Giuseppe De Luca a vent’anni dalla morte, Meridionale, Villa San Giovanni 1985; L. MANGONI, In partibus infidelium. Don Giuseppe De Luca: il mondo cattolico e la cultura italiana del Novecento, Einaudi, Torino 1989; G. DE ROSA, De Luca Giuseppe, in DBI, vol. XXXVIII, 1990, cit., pp. 353-59 [consultabile al sito internet: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giuseppe-de-luca_ (Dizionario-Biografico) / (ult. cons: 15-04-12)]; AA.VV., Don Giuseppe De Luca e la cultura italiana del Novecento, Atti del Convegno di studio nel centenario della nascita (Roma, 22-24 ottobre 1998), a c. di P. VIAN, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma 2001.
222 In merito al rapporto con Giordani, si sa che dal 1925 i due collaborano al «Davide», il periodico di Giuseppe Gorgerino, molto vicino a Gobetti. De Luca, poi, conosce l’esperienza di «Parte Guelfa» e, pur non partecipando, la commenta con Papini. Frequenta la Biblioteca Vaticana negli anni in cui Giordani vi è impiegato; e con questi collabora alla terza pagina de «Il Popolo» di Sturzo. Al 1930 risale la prima lettera tra i due: il carteggio, di cui già si è citato qualche pezzo, non è voluminoso (24 lettere di Giordani e 6 di De Luca), ma offre informazioni rilevanti, soprattutto in merito ad amicizie comuni, ad esempio con Bargellini per «Il Frontespizio» e con Minelli per la Morcelliana; e per collaborazioni condivise, tra cui si ricorda quelle per «L’Avvenire d’Italia» e per «L’Osservatore Romano» (De Luca vi scrive in qualità di archivista della Congregazione per la Chiesa Orientale). Nel 1942, il lucano dà vita alla casa editrice Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, quindi il carteggio tende a diradarsi, anche se Giordani non cessa di invitare l’amico a comporre articoli per le imprese che via via dirige. L’ultima lettera dell’editore romano è del settembre 1961, poco prima della morte. In essa egli riconosce la differenza tra la scrittura di Giordani, tutta apostolato, e la sua, un calvario da cui non ha tratto gioie. Sul profondo rapporto che lega Giordani a De Luca, si veda: MANGONI, In partibus infidelium, cit., ad passim. La corrispondenza intercorsa col sacerdote è descritta, anche con numerose citazioni, da CASELLA, Cultura politica e socialità, cit., pp. 67-70 e integralmente pubblicata da DE MARCO, Igino Giordani e don Giuseppe De Luca, in SORGI, Politica e morale, cit., pp. 125-41. De Marco ha il merito di ricostruire con efficacia la relazione tra i due, che egli vorrebbe far risalire al 1925 e che termina a causa della morte prematura del sacerdote nel 1962.
223 Lettera di Giordani a De Luca, 5 ottobre 1945: AIG I, 44.3, 27. Poi, in volume: SORGI, Politica e morale, cit., pp. 156-57.
224 Piero Bargellini (1897-1980), scrittore e politico fiorentino. Inizia la sua carriera come maestro di scuola, avendo l’abilitazione magistrale. Mentre svolge l’attività didattica, fonda nel 1929 «Il Frontespizio», rivista di cultura cattolica e apologetica. Quindi, necessitando di buone penne, scrive la sua prima lettera a Giordani, per invitarlo a collaborare (lettera del 1 novembre 1929, in AIG I, 43.1, 3). Di qui nasce un intenso scambio di collaborazioni, per cui Bargellini ricambia con articoli per «Fides», prima, e per «Il Quotidiano», poi. I due non condividono le stesse idee politiche, legandosi Bargellini al fascismo. Ciò nonostante il rispetto reciproco non viene a mancare. La relazione amichevole si rafforza quando, nel dopoguerra, il fiorentino aderisce alla D.C. e affianca La Pira per una riedificazione della sua città, di cui diviene sindaco negli anni Sessanta, trovandosi ad affrontare l’immane catastrofe
dell’alluvione. Il carteggio, che dagli anni Trenta ripercorre la vita dei due uomini di cultura fino alla morte (avvenuta per entrambi nel 1980), è conservato in AIG I, 43.1. Essendo estremamente significativo anche per tratteggiare il profilo di Giordani, viene presentato e commentato in queste pagine (Appendice II). Per notizie biografiche più approfondite su Bargellini si veda: R. BERTACCHINI, “Piero Bargellini”, in DBI, cit., vol. XXXIV, 1988, pp. 252-54 [consultabile all’indirizzo elettronico: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/piero-bargellini_(Dizionario Biografico)/ (ult. cons: 06-05-12)]. Manca, invece, un’opera biografica esaustiva sull’autore. Un profilo essenziale si ricava da: C. FUSERO, Bargellini, Vallecchi, Firenze 1949; offre qualche spunto interessante il libro di P.F. LISTRI, Tutto Bargellini: L’uomo, lo scrittore, il sindaco, Nardini, Firenze 1989, che in appendice riporta la bibliografia completa delle opere di Bargellini. Si veda anche la voce “Bargellini Piero” in Dizionario generale degli autori italiani contemporanei, vol. I, Vallecchi, Firenze 1974; E. BALDUCCI, voce “Bargellini, Piero” in Dizionario della letteratura mondiale del Novecento, Paoline, Roma 1980; e il profilo tracciato da L. BEDESCHI in Dizionario storico del movimento cattolico in Italia (1860-1995), vol. III/1, Le figure rappresentative, cit., pp. 55-56. Molto di lui si conosce dalla pubblicazione delle lettere con Betocchi, Bo, De Luca e Papini.
Carla Pagliarulo, I. Giordani, uomo di lettere e di cultura, e l’ideale di un «cristianesimo integrale»: alcuni carteggi indediti, Tesi di dottorato, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore – Milano, Anno accademico 2011-2012 -
Everyone panic. Or not.A few weeks ago, I moved my desk next to an upstairs window overlooking a Bradford pear tree. For the past 3 weeks, when I sat at the desk during the day, periodically, a flock of about 50 starlings would swoop in and land on the tree, devouring the shriveled fruits up like grapes. Then, in a whoosh, they would be off. Sometimes I would hear them clamor on the roof. This has happened no less than a dozen times. They seemed hungry.
On my way home from work over the past month, I noticed crows arcing across the sky across the interstate from as far as I can see from left to right. This happened for several consecutive days in the same place.
This is the behavior of birds. It seems remarkable but not too unusual.
On December 26, we were on the beach in South Carolina near Charleston. It was snowing. There were starfish embedded in the sand. The south was experiencing record cold. It happens. I felt bad for the alligators in the swamps.
Suddenly, we experience such a Fortean start to 2011! A massive and suspicious bird die-off in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve triggers a wave of mystery, speculation and imaginative explanations fed by more accounts of animal mortality events. The current media sensation of reporting mass mortality events is very interesting in many ways. Shall we count the ways? Yes, we shall, because it’s fun – fun like outrageous speculation about the end of the world! (Well, if you have a hot-air filled balloon of speculative belief about these things, you won’t think this is fun.)
1. Facts are hard to come by
It began with “More than 1000 birds fall dead in Arkansas”. Within days, the reports are up to 5000 birds. It’s been difficult to follow the changing numbers and expert opinions being offered. I wonder if one report just pulls the high value in the range of a previous report. Most people get their info from reporters, not the original sources. Many others rely on what they are told by friends or family and take that as fact. The “facts” quickly grow into tall tales where the fun is in the telling. Some “facts” are not so at all but become more and more real, in a cultural sense, in the retelling.
2. Slow news period. Why not start the year off with a bang?
This story exploded in the first week of the new year. It was EVERYWHERE. (I went to thesaurus.com to look up a word and there was the red-winged blackbird story at the top of the page!) Unexplained mass death is a frightening story. It doesn’t seem natural, it’s not something we see everyday or even hear about often. Finding the ground littered with bird bodies or the shoreline covered with carcasses is disturbing and makes for good visuals. We fear for our own safety. Could what killed them harm me? People want to keep tuning in to see if there are any answers or updates. When the answers trickle in, they aren’t always satisfying…
3. Look for mystery and ye shall find
People suddenly became aware of dead animals, especially multiple deaths. A Kentucky woman spots multiple birds (same red-winged blackbirds) dead around her house, fish and seabirds die in New Zealand, starfish and jellyfish wash up on the South Carolina shores, manatees are found dead with no wounds in Florida, 70 dead bats are discovered dead in Arizona. The apparent cause for all these deaths was reported as weather related. The southern US has experienced record cold in the past few weeks. Wildlife succumbed to the cold. The quoted experts were not that concerned. Birds die from winter stress. Food sources may be scarce, the animals weak and susceptible. Even suspicious animal deaths come to light, grouped with the stories of the mass natural deaths.
So, now all animal deaths show up in the news. It is not unlike a shark attack. If a shark attack occurs near a populated area, especially in the summer, suddenly sharks are spotted everywhere. We seek out information of a particular type and discover more of it. That is not surprising. We engage our selective memory for events and get a clustering effect in time, bombarded with stories of similar nature. But are they really similar?
4. False correlation of events (i.e. It’s all related)
Google has a map of many of the so-called anomalous mass animal deaths. It’s here we notice that the causes of these mass die-offs are not all related in space and time. There are species clusters, not a sudden mortality of everything in the area. People aren’t affected. A trigger for these correlation of events in the public mind was the fish kill that occurred just after the bird incident and also in Arkansas. With the bird deaths fresh in everyone’s mind, along comes another event that could be weaved into a narrative and connections made in our heads without much effort. It unfolded by surprise, like that game where each person adds a little to the story and the next person has to tie it in, the media was adding bits from around the world.
Alex Jones’ Prison Planet blog was a hotbed of activity. They got busy gathering up any possible strange idea, making it sound even more horrific with unsupported claims, and tying it to the bird deaths. I admire their imagination and zeal, that’s about all the good you can say about that. With their paranoia mongering, and suggestions that things are way worse than you are led to believe, their faithful believers are left sorely misinformed and unduly frightened – not a healthy condition for a democratic society. Imagination can take us to dark places.
5. Let’s speculate on cause
The cause of death of the blackbirds in Arkansas is being explained as disorientation exacerbated by fireworks. The red-winged blackbirds roost at night en masse. Yet, this article reports that locals heard booms, possibly from fireworks before the birds fell. I’m not sure what to do with that information. It’s incomplete.
There is also the possibility that the birds were disturbed by strong weather that passed through the area. Once in flight, they ran into object and each other in the dark. Upon examination, the birds were found to have exhibited blunt force trauma. It took NO time at all for the extreme explanations to crop up. People were not buying this fireworks idea. Birds are expert flyers! Why weren’t there bird deaths all over the place that night? Then, when the other stories immediately came to light, such as the massive fish death also in Arkansas and millions of fish dead in the Chesapeake Bay area, people wondered how to explain the other animal deaths? It’s clear that weather events were the cause of many wildlife deaths. And, as described, this was not unprecedented, it has happened in the past.
I liked this interesting twist where weather radar may have captured the huge flock of blackbirds in Arkansas. But, based on comments that appeared on the web in response to the news stories, readers were unwilling to accept mundane, simplistic explanations. Instead of considering that some unusual combination of conditions were causing these events, they jumped right to the sensational.
6. Discard the normal explanations because the supernormal is WAY more fun
This “animals dying all over the place” meme has gone way out of control. I’m having a very hard time keeping up with opinions that went from conspiratorial to batshit insane in very short order.
Here we go…
The first alternate explanation I noted in the news stories and comments was poisoning. Poison was related to the BP oil spill. Or, the government injected gas into the ground. Apparently the dead US Air Force official whose body was recently discovered in the landfill knew about it. It was tied to Iraq. It was secret government testing of eco-weapons.
From the more religiously inclined, these die-off are OBVIOUSLY plagues from the Bible. It is the End Times. The world really is going to end on May 11, 2011. It’s the apocalypse, I mean aflockalypse!
More down to earth but also cause for panic, possibly the New Madrid fault is becoming active again. The animals are experiencing the early effects of the stress buildup. A 7 or 8 or maybe 9 magnitude quake is coming soon. Everyone panic!
Gee, its fun to talk about these wild scenarios. The problem is, there is not a shred of evidence that any of them are true. Commentators are citing other conspiracy theorists or unverified sources, reading between the lines and adding embellishments, linking to past dubious allegations against governmental agencies or referencing concocted reports from potentially fraudulent sources. This is not the way to find answers, it’s just a way to trump up fear and panic.
Frankly, these events are weird but not unheard of. After an event in Louisiana where an estimated 500 red-winged blackbirds fell dead, a “search of USGS [US Geological Survey biology] records shows there have been 16 events in the past 30 years involving blackbirds where at least 1,000 of the birds have died seemingly all at once. “These large events do take place,” [said a USGS spokeman] “It’s not terribly unusual.” The USGS tracks these events (for land and air critters, not fish). Here is actually a “Don’t Panic!” story that explains this.
On Jan 4, hundreds of fish are found dead on New Zealand beaches. The explanation given by an expert was they were starving because of weather conditions or it was an illegal dump of fish or broken net, but an eyewitness didn’t believe this. It seemed too boring an explanation to explain the dramatic sight he witnessed. While, the witness didn’t explain why he thought that cause was wrong, he was CERTAIN that something more deliberate was going on. One can be certain with no evidence if belief is more important than verifiable data. That way of thinking leads you down a blind path.
We want immediate, simple answers to unnerving, strange situations. But figuring out a puzzle takes time and careful collection of measurements to create data points which must be analyzed. Hypotheses must be tested and ruled out. And, worst of all, we might never get a definitive answer. That could be hard to accept for some, so they tie on some emotionally satisfying answer that works for them.
I get angry when off-balance commentators spout nonsensical explanations but that is what the public eats up. I’m not sure why many folks prefer to live in fear and panic instead of telling themselves to calm down and take a rational look. I’m pretty sure that it’s because we humans get a hell of a lot of our information from others, not from doing the work ourselves. Like I said, I was quickly overwhelmed just trying to get a handle on these stories that were coming in fast and furious from all over the world. How do you know what’s true?
Strange days, indeed.
#anecdotes #animals #birdDeaths #conspiracy #disasters #endOfTheWorld #events #evidence #massMortality https://sharonahill.com/?p=601 -
Everyone panic. Or not.A few weeks ago, I moved my desk next to an upstairs window overlooking a Bradford pear tree. For the past 3 weeks, when I sat at the desk during the day, periodically, a flock of about 50 starlings would swoop in and land on the tree, devouring the shriveled fruits up like grapes. Then, in a whoosh, they would be off. Sometimes I would hear them clamor on the roof. This has happened no less than a dozen times. They seemed hungry.
On my way home from work over the past month, I noticed crows arcing across the sky across the interstate from as far as I can see from left to right. This happened for several consecutive days in the same place.
This is the behavior of birds. It seems remarkable but not too unusual.
On December 26, we were on the beach in South Carolina near Charleston. It was snowing. There were starfish embedded in the sand. The south was experiencing record cold. It happens. I felt bad for the alligators in the swamps.
Suddenly, we experience such a Fortean start to 2011! A massive and suspicious bird die-off in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve triggers a wave of mystery, speculation and imaginative explanations fed by more accounts of animal mortality events. The current media sensation of reporting mass mortality events is very interesting in many ways. Shall we count the ways? Yes, we shall, because it’s fun – fun like outrageous speculation about the end of the world! (Well, if you have a hot-air filled balloon of speculative belief about these things, you won’t think this is fun.)
1. Facts are hard to come by
It began with “More than 1000 birds fall dead in Arkansas”. Within days, the reports are up to 5000 birds. It’s been difficult to follow the changing numbers and expert opinions being offered. I wonder if one report just pulls the high value in the range of a previous report. Most people get their info from reporters, not the original sources. Many others rely on what they are told by friends or family and take that as fact. The “facts” quickly grow into tall tales where the fun is in the telling. Some “facts” are not so at all but become more and more real, in a cultural sense, in the retelling.
2. Slow news period. Why not start the year off with a bang?
This story exploded in the first week of the new year. It was EVERYWHERE. (I went to thesaurus.com to look up a word and there was the red-winged blackbird story at the top of the page!) Unexplained mass death is a frightening story. It doesn’t seem natural, it’s not something we see everyday or even hear about often. Finding the ground littered with bird bodies or the shoreline covered with carcasses is disturbing and makes for good visuals. We fear for our own safety. Could what killed them harm me? People want to keep tuning in to see if there are any answers or updates. When the answers trickle in, they aren’t always satisfying…
3. Look for mystery and ye shall find
People suddenly became aware of dead animals, especially multiple deaths. A Kentucky woman spots multiple birds (same red-winged blackbirds) dead around her house, fish and seabirds die in New Zealand, starfish and jellyfish wash up on the South Carolina shores, manatees are found dead with no wounds in Florida, 70 dead bats are discovered dead in Arizona. The apparent cause for all these deaths was reported as weather related. The southern US has experienced record cold in the past few weeks. Wildlife succumbed to the cold. The quoted experts were not that concerned. Birds die from winter stress. Food sources may be scarce, the animals weak and susceptible. Even suspicious animal deaths come to light, grouped with the stories of the mass natural deaths.
So, now all animal deaths show up in the news. It is not unlike a shark attack. If a shark attack occurs near a populated area, especially in the summer, suddenly sharks are spotted everywhere. We seek out information of a particular type and discover more of it. That is not surprising. We engage our selective memory for events and get a clustering effect in time, bombarded with stories of similar nature. But are they really similar?
4. False correlation of events (i.e. It’s all related)
Google has a map of many of the so-called anomalous mass animal deaths. It’s here we notice that the causes of these mass die-offs are not all related in space and time. There are species clusters, not a sudden mortality of everything in the area. People aren’t affected. A trigger for these correlation of events in the public mind was the fish kill that occurred just after the bird incident and also in Arkansas. With the bird deaths fresh in everyone’s mind, along comes another event that could be weaved into a narrative and connections made in our heads without much effort. It unfolded by surprise, like that game where each person adds a little to the story and the next person has to tie it in, the media was adding bits from around the world.
Alex Jones’ Prison Planet blog was a hotbed of activity. They got busy gathering up any possible strange idea, making it sound even more horrific with unsupported claims, and tying it to the bird deaths. I admire their imagination and zeal, that’s about all the good you can say about that. With their paranoia mongering, and suggestions that things are way worse than you are led to believe, their faithful believers are left sorely misinformed and unduly frightened – not a healthy condition for a democratic society. Imagination can take us to dark places.
5. Let’s speculate on cause
The cause of death of the blackbirds in Arkansas is being explained as disorientation exacerbated by fireworks. The red-winged blackbirds roost at night en masse. Yet, this article reports that locals heard booms, possibly from fireworks before the birds fell. I’m not sure what to do with that information. It’s incomplete.
There is also the possibility that the birds were disturbed by strong weather that passed through the area. Once in flight, they ran into object and each other in the dark. Upon examination, the birds were found to have exhibited blunt force trauma. It took NO time at all for the extreme explanations to crop up. People were not buying this fireworks idea. Birds are expert flyers! Why weren’t there bird deaths all over the place that night? Then, when the other stories immediately came to light, such as the massive fish death also in Arkansas and millions of fish dead in the Chesapeake Bay area, people wondered how to explain the other animal deaths? It’s clear that weather events were the cause of many wildlife deaths. And, as described, this was not unprecedented, it has happened in the past.
I liked this interesting twist where weather radar may have captured the huge flock of blackbirds in Arkansas. But, based on comments that appeared on the web in response to the news stories, readers were unwilling to accept mundane, simplistic explanations. Instead of considering that some unusual combination of conditions were causing these events, they jumped right to the sensational.
6. Discard the normal explanations because the supernormal is WAY more fun
This “animals dying all over the place” meme has gone way out of control. I’m having a very hard time keeping up with opinions that went from conspiratorial to batshit insane in very short order.
Here we go…
The first alternate explanation I noted in the news stories and comments was poisoning. Poison was related to the BP oil spill. Or, the government injected gas into the ground. Apparently the dead US Air Force official whose body was recently discovered in the landfill knew about it. It was tied to Iraq. It was secret government testing of eco-weapons.
From the more religiously inclined, these die-off are OBVIOUSLY plagues from the Bible. It is the End Times. The world really is going to end on May 11, 2011. It’s the apocalypse, I mean aflockalypse!
More down to earth but also cause for panic, possibly the New Madrid fault is becoming active again. The animals are experiencing the early effects of the stress buildup. A 7 or 8 or maybe 9 magnitude quake is coming soon. Everyone panic!
Gee, its fun to talk about these wild scenarios. The problem is, there is not a shred of evidence that any of them are true. Commentators are citing other conspiracy theorists or unverified sources, reading between the lines and adding embellishments, linking to past dubious allegations against governmental agencies or referencing concocted reports from potentially fraudulent sources. This is not the way to find answers, it’s just a way to trump up fear and panic.
Frankly, these events are weird but not unheard of. After an event in Louisiana where an estimated 500 red-winged blackbirds fell dead, a “search of USGS [US Geological Survey biology] records shows there have been 16 events in the past 30 years involving blackbirds where at least 1,000 of the birds have died seemingly all at once. “These large events do take place,” [said a USGS spokeman] “It’s not terribly unusual.” The USGS tracks these events (for land and air critters, not fish). Here is actually a “Don’t Panic!” story that explains this.
On Jan 4, hundreds of fish are found dead on New Zealand beaches. The explanation given by an expert was they were starving because of weather conditions or it was an illegal dump of fish or broken net, but an eyewitness didn’t believe this. It seemed too boring an explanation to explain the dramatic sight he witnessed. While, the witness didn’t explain why he thought that cause was wrong, he was CERTAIN that something more deliberate was going on. One can be certain with no evidence if belief is more important than verifiable data. That way of thinking leads you down a blind path.
We want immediate, simple answers to unnerving, strange situations. But figuring out a puzzle takes time and careful collection of measurements to create data points which must be analyzed. Hypotheses must be tested and ruled out. And, worst of all, we might never get a definitive answer. That could be hard to accept for some, so they tie on some emotionally satisfying answer that works for them.
I get angry when off-balance commentators spout nonsensical explanations but that is what the public eats up. I’m not sure why many folks prefer to live in fear and panic instead of telling themselves to calm down and take a rational look. I’m pretty sure that it’s because we humans get a hell of a lot of our information from others, not from doing the work ourselves. Like I said, I was quickly overwhelmed just trying to get a handle on these stories that were coming in fast and furious from all over the world. How do you know what’s true?
Strange days, indeed.
#anecdotes #animals #birdDeaths #conspiracy #disasters #endOfTheWorld #events #evidence #massMortality https://sharonahill.com/?p=601 -
Everyone panic. Or not.A few weeks ago, I moved my desk next to an upstairs window overlooking a Bradford pear tree. For the past 3 weeks, when I sat at the desk during the day, periodically, a flock of about 50 starlings would swoop in and land on the tree, devouring the shriveled fruits up like grapes. Then, in a whoosh, they would be off. Sometimes I would hear them clamor on the roof. This has happened no less than a dozen times. They seemed hungry.
On my way home from work over the past month, I noticed crows arcing across the sky across the interstate from as far as I can see from left to right. This happened for several consecutive days in the same place.
This is the behavior of birds. It seems remarkable but not too unusual.
On December 26, we were on the beach in South Carolina near Charleston. It was snowing. There were starfish embedded in the sand. The south was experiencing record cold. It happens. I felt bad for the alligators in the swamps.
Suddenly, we experience such a Fortean start to 2011! A massive and suspicious bird die-off in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve triggers a wave of mystery, speculation and imaginative explanations fed by more accounts of animal mortality events. The current media sensation of reporting mass mortality events is very interesting in many ways. Shall we count the ways? Yes, we shall, because it’s fun – fun like outrageous speculation about the end of the world! (Well, if you have a hot-air filled balloon of speculative belief about these things, you won’t think this is fun.)
1. Facts are hard to come by
It began with “More than 1000 birds fall dead in Arkansas”. Within days, the reports are up to 5000 birds. It’s been difficult to follow the changing numbers and expert opinions being offered. I wonder if one report just pulls the high value in the range of a previous report. Most people get their info from reporters, not the original sources. Many others rely on what they are told by friends or family and take that as fact. The “facts” quickly grow into tall tales where the fun is in the telling. Some “facts” are not so at all but become more and more real, in a cultural sense, in the retelling.
2. Slow news period. Why not start the year off with a bang?
This story exploded in the first week of the new year. It was EVERYWHERE. (I went to thesaurus.com to look up a word and there was the red-winged blackbird story at the top of the page!) Unexplained mass death is a frightening story. It doesn’t seem natural, it’s not something we see everyday or even hear about often. Finding the ground littered with bird bodies or the shoreline covered with carcasses is disturbing and makes for good visuals. We fear for our own safety. Could what killed them harm me? People want to keep tuning in to see if there are any answers or updates. When the answers trickle in, they aren’t always satisfying…
3. Look for mystery and ye shall find
People suddenly became aware of dead animals, especially multiple deaths. A Kentucky woman spots multiple birds (same red-winged blackbirds) dead around her house, fish and seabirds die in New Zealand, starfish and jellyfish wash up on the South Carolina shores, manatees are found dead with no wounds in Florida, 70 dead bats are discovered dead in Arizona. The apparent cause for all these deaths was reported as weather related. The southern US has experienced record cold in the past few weeks. Wildlife succumbed to the cold. The quoted experts were not that concerned. Birds die from winter stress. Food sources may be scarce, the animals weak and susceptible. Even suspicious animal deaths come to light, grouped with the stories of the mass natural deaths.
So, now all animal deaths show up in the news. It is not unlike a shark attack. If a shark attack occurs near a populated area, especially in the summer, suddenly sharks are spotted everywhere. We seek out information of a particular type and discover more of it. That is not surprising. We engage our selective memory for events and get a clustering effect in time, bombarded with stories of similar nature. But are they really similar?
4. False correlation of events (i.e. It’s all related)
Google has a map of many of the so-called anomalous mass animal deaths. It’s here we notice that the causes of these mass die-offs are not all related in space and time. There are species clusters, not a sudden mortality of everything in the area. People aren’t affected. A trigger for these correlation of events in the public mind was the fish kill that occurred just after the bird incident and also in Arkansas. With the bird deaths fresh in everyone’s mind, along comes another event that could be weaved into a narrative and connections made in our heads without much effort. It unfolded by surprise, like that game where each person adds a little to the story and the next person has to tie it in, the media was adding bits from around the world.
Alex Jones’ Prison Planet blog was a hotbed of activity. They got busy gathering up any possible strange idea, making it sound even more horrific with unsupported claims, and tying it to the bird deaths. I admire their imagination and zeal, that’s about all the good you can say about that. With their paranoia mongering, and suggestions that things are way worse than you are led to believe, their faithful believers are left sorely misinformed and unduly frightened – not a healthy condition for a democratic society. Imagination can take us to dark places.
5. Let’s speculate on cause
The cause of death of the blackbirds in Arkansas is being explained as disorientation exacerbated by fireworks. The red-winged blackbirds roost at night en masse. Yet, this article reports that locals heard booms, possibly from fireworks before the birds fell. I’m not sure what to do with that information. It’s incomplete.
There is also the possibility that the birds were disturbed by strong weather that passed through the area. Once in flight, they ran into object and each other in the dark. Upon examination, the birds were found to have exhibited blunt force trauma. It took NO time at all for the extreme explanations to crop up. People were not buying this fireworks idea. Birds are expert flyers! Why weren’t there bird deaths all over the place that night? Then, when the other stories immediately came to light, such as the massive fish death also in Arkansas and millions of fish dead in the Chesapeake Bay area, people wondered how to explain the other animal deaths? It’s clear that weather events were the cause of many wildlife deaths. And, as described, this was not unprecedented, it has happened in the past.
I liked this interesting twist where weather radar may have captured the huge flock of blackbirds in Arkansas. But, based on comments that appeared on the web in response to the news stories, readers were unwilling to accept mundane, simplistic explanations. Instead of considering that some unusual combination of conditions were causing these events, they jumped right to the sensational.
6. Discard the normal explanations because the supernormal is WAY more fun
This “animals dying all over the place” meme has gone way out of control. I’m having a very hard time keeping up with opinions that went from conspiratorial to batshit insane in very short order.
Here we go…
The first alternate explanation I noted in the news stories and comments was poisoning. Poison was related to the BP oil spill. Or, the government injected gas into the ground. Apparently the dead US Air Force official whose body was recently discovered in the landfill knew about it. It was tied to Iraq. It was secret government testing of eco-weapons.
From the more religiously inclined, these die-off are OBVIOUSLY plagues from the Bible. It is the End Times. The world really is going to end on May 11, 2011. It’s the apocalypse, I mean aflockalypse!
More down to earth but also cause for panic, possibly the New Madrid fault is becoming active again. The animals are experiencing the early effects of the stress buildup. A 7 or 8 or maybe 9 magnitude quake is coming soon. Everyone panic!
Gee, its fun to talk about these wild scenarios. The problem is, there is not a shred of evidence that any of them are true. Commentators are citing other conspiracy theorists or unverified sources, reading between the lines and adding embellishments, linking to past dubious allegations against governmental agencies or referencing concocted reports from potentially fraudulent sources. This is not the way to find answers, it’s just a way to trump up fear and panic.
Frankly, these events are weird but not unheard of. After an event in Louisiana where an estimated 500 red-winged blackbirds fell dead, a “search of USGS [US Geological Survey biology] records shows there have been 16 events in the past 30 years involving blackbirds where at least 1,000 of the birds have died seemingly all at once. “These large events do take place,” [said a USGS spokeman] “It’s not terribly unusual.” The USGS tracks these events (for land and air critters, not fish). Here is actually a “Don’t Panic!” story that explains this.
On Jan 4, hundreds of fish are found dead on New Zealand beaches. The explanation given by an expert was they were starving because of weather conditions or it was an illegal dump of fish or broken net, but an eyewitness didn’t believe this. It seemed too boring an explanation to explain the dramatic sight he witnessed. While, the witness didn’t explain why he thought that cause was wrong, he was CERTAIN that something more deliberate was going on. One can be certain with no evidence if belief is more important than verifiable data. That way of thinking leads you down a blind path.
We want immediate, simple answers to unnerving, strange situations. But figuring out a puzzle takes time and careful collection of measurements to create data points which must be analyzed. Hypotheses must be tested and ruled out. And, worst of all, we might never get a definitive answer. That could be hard to accept for some, so they tie on some emotionally satisfying answer that works for them.
I get angry when off-balance commentators spout nonsensical explanations but that is what the public eats up. I’m not sure why many folks prefer to live in fear and panic instead of telling themselves to calm down and take a rational look. I’m pretty sure that it’s because we humans get a hell of a lot of our information from others, not from doing the work ourselves. Like I said, I was quickly overwhelmed just trying to get a handle on these stories that were coming in fast and furious from all over the world. How do you know what’s true?
Strange days, indeed.
#anecdotes #animals #birdDeaths #conspiracy #disasters #endOfTheWorld #events #evidence #massMortality https://sharonahill.com/?p=601 -
Everyone panic. Or not.
A few weeks ago, I moved my desk next to an upstairs window overlooking a Bradford pear tree. For the past 3 weeks, when I sat at the desk during the day, periodically, a flock of about 50 starlings would swoop in and land on the tree, devouring the shriveled fruits up like grapes. Then, in a whoosh, they would be off. Sometimes I would hear them clamor on the roof. This has happened no less than a dozen times. They seemed hungry.
On my way home from work over the past month, I noticed crows arcing across the sky across the interstate from as far as I can see from left to right. This happened for several consecutive days in the same place.
This is the behavior of birds. It seems remarkable but not too unusual.
On December 26, we were on the beach in South Carolina near Charleston. It was snowing. There were starfish embedded in the sand. The south was experiencing record cold. It happens. I felt bad for the alligators in the swamps.
Suddenly, we experience such a Fortean start to 2011! A massive and suspicious bird die-off in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve triggers a wave of mystery, speculation and imaginative explanations fed by more accounts of animal mortality events. The current media sensation of reporting mass mortality events is very interesting in many ways. Shall we count the ways? Yes, we shall, because it’s fun – fun like outrageous speculation about the end of the world! (Well, if you have a hot-air filled balloon of speculative belief about these things, you won’t think this is fun.)
1. Facts are hard to come by
It began with “More than 1000 birds fall dead in Arkansas”. Within days, the reports are up to 5000 birds. It’s been difficult to follow the changing numbers and expert opinions being offered. I wonder if one report just pulls the high value in the range of a previous report. Most people get their info from reporters, not the original sources. Many others rely on what they are told by friends or family and take that as fact. The “facts” quickly grow into tall tales where the fun is in the telling. Some “facts” are not so at all but become more and more real, in a cultural sense, in the retelling.
2. Slow news period. Why not start the year off with a bang?
This story exploded in the first week of the new year. It was EVERYWHERE. (I went to thesaurus.com to look up a word and there was the red-winged blackbird story at the top of the page!) Unexplained mass death is a frightening story. It doesn’t seem natural, it’s not something we see everyday or even hear about often. Finding the ground littered with bird bodies or the shoreline covered with carcasses is disturbing and makes for good visuals. We fear for our own safety. Could what killed them harm me? People want to keep tuning in to see if there are any answers or updates. When the answers trickle in, they aren’t always satisfying…
3. Look for mystery and ye shall find
People suddenly became aware of dead animals, especially multiple deaths. A Kentucky woman spots multiple birds (same red-winged blackbirds) dead around her house, fish and seabirds die in New Zealand, starfish and jellyfish wash up on the South Carolina shores, manatees are found dead with no wounds in Florida, 70 dead bats are discovered dead in Arizona. The apparent cause for all these deaths was reported as weather related. The southern US has experienced record cold in the past few weeks. Wildlife succumbed to the cold. The quoted experts were not that concerned. Birds die from winter stress. Food sources may be scarce, the animals weak and susceptible. Even suspicious animal deaths come to light, grouped with the stories of the mass natural deaths.
So, now all animal deaths show up in the news. It is not unlike a shark attack. If a shark attack occurs near a populated area, especially in the summer, suddenly sharks are spotted everywhere. We seek out information of a particular type and discover more of it. That is not surprising. We engage our selective memory for events and get a clustering effect in time, bombarded with stories of similar nature. But are they really similar?
4. False correlation of events (i.e. It’s all related)
Google has a map of many of the so-called anomalous mass animal deaths. It’s here we notice that the causes of these mass die-offs are not all related in space and time. There are species clusters, not a sudden mortality of everything in the area. People aren’t affected. A trigger for these correlation of events in the public mind was the fish kill that occurred just after the bird incident and also in Arkansas. With the bird deaths fresh in everyone’s mind, along comes another event that could be weaved into a narrative and connections made in our heads without much effort. It unfolded by surprise, like that game where each person adds a little to the story and the next person has to tie it in, the media was adding bits from around the world.
Alex Jones’ Prison Planet blog was a hotbed of activity. They got busy gathering up any possible strange idea, making it sound even more horrific with unsupported claims, and tying it to the bird deaths. I admire their imagination and zeal, that’s about all the good you can say about that. With their paranoia mongering, and suggestions that things are way worse than you are led to believe, their faithful believers are left sorely misinformed and unduly frightened – not a healthy condition for a democratic society. Imagination can take us to dark places.
5. Let’s speculate on cause
The cause of death of the blackbirds in Arkansas is being explained as disorientation exacerbated by fireworks. The red-winged blackbirds roost at night en masse. Yet, this article reports that locals heard booms, possibly from fireworks before the birds fell. I’m not sure what to do with that information. It’s incomplete.
There is also the possibility that the birds were disturbed by strong weather that passed through the area. Once in flight, they ran into object and each other in the dark. Upon examination, the birds were found to have exhibited blunt force trauma. It took NO time at all for the extreme explanations to crop up. People were not buying this fireworks idea. Birds are expert flyers! Why weren’t there bird deaths all over the place that night? Then, when the other stories immediately came to light, such as the massive fish death also in Arkansas and millions of fish dead in the Chesapeake Bay area, people wondered how to explain the other animal deaths? It’s clear that weather events were the cause of many wildlife deaths. And, as described, this was not unprecedented, it has happened in the past.
I liked this interesting twist where weather radar may have captured the huge flock of blackbirds in Arkansas. But, based on comments that appeared on the web in response to the news stories, readers were unwilling to accept mundane, simplistic explanations. Instead of considering that some unusual combination of conditions were causing these events, they jumped right to the sensational.
6. Discard the normal explanations because the supernormal is WAY more fun
This “animals dying all over the place” meme has gone way out of control. I’m having a very hard time keeping up with opinions that went from conspiratorial to batshit insane in very short order.
Here we go…
The first alternate explanation I noted in the news stories and comments was poisoning. Poison was related to the BP oil spill. Or, the government injected gas into the ground. Apparently the dead US Air Force official whose body was recently discovered in the landfill knew about it. It was tied to Iraq. It was secret government testing of eco-weapons.
From the more religiously inclined, these die-off are OBVIOUSLY plagues from the Bible. It is the End Times. The world really is going to end on May 11, 2011. It’s the apocalypse, I mean aflockalypse!
More down to earth but also cause for panic, possibly the New Madrid fault is becoming active again. The animals are experiencing the early effects of the stress buildup. A 7 or 8 or maybe 9 magnitude quake is coming soon. Everyone panic!
Gee, its fun to talk about these wild scenarios. The problem is, there is not a shred of evidence that any of them are true. Commentators are citing other conspiracy theorists or unverified sources, reading between the lines and adding embellishments, linking to past dubious allegations against governmental agencies or referencing concocted reports from potentially fraudulent sources. This is not the way to find answers, it’s just a way to trump up fear and panic.
Frankly, these events are weird but not unheard of. After an event in Louisiana where an estimated 500 red-winged blackbirds fell dead, a “search of USGS [US Geological Survey biology] records shows there have been 16 events in the past 30 years involving blackbirds where at least 1,000 of the birds have died seemingly all at once. “These large events do take place,” [said a USGS spokeman] “It’s not terribly unusual.” The USGS tracks these events (for land and air critters, not fish). Here is actually a “Don’t Panic!” story that explains this.
On Jan 4, hundreds of fish are found dead on New Zealand beaches. The explanation given by an expert was they were starving because of weather conditions or it was an illegal dump of fish or broken net, but an eyewitness didn’t believe this. It seemed too boring an explanation to explain the dramatic sight he witnessed. While, the witness didn’t explain why he thought that cause was wrong, he was CERTAIN that something more deliberate was going on. One can be certain with no evidence if belief is more important than verifiable data. That way of thinking leads you down a blind path.
We want immediate, simple answers to unnerving, strange situations. But figuring out a puzzle takes time and careful collection of measurements to create data points which must be analyzed. Hypotheses must be tested and ruled out. And, worst of all, we might never get a definitive answer. That could be hard to accept for some, so they tie on some emotionally satisfying answer that works for them.
I get angry when off-balance commentators spout nonsensical explanations but that is what the public eats up. I’m not sure why many folks prefer to live in fear and panic instead of telling themselves to calm down and take a rational look. I’m pretty sure that it’s because we humans get a hell of a lot of our information from others, not from doing the work ourselves. Like I said, I was quickly overwhelmed just trying to get a handle on these stories that were coming in fast and furious from all over the world. How do you know what’s true?
Strange days, indeed.
#anecdotes #animals #birdDeaths #conspiracy #disasters #endOfTheWorld #events #evidence #massMortality
https://sharonahill.com/?p=601
-
Everyone panic. Or not.
A few weeks ago, I moved my desk next to an upstairs window overlooking a Bradford pear tree. For the past 3 weeks, when I sat at the desk during the day, periodically, a flock of about 50 starlings would swoop in and land on the tree, devouring the shriveled fruits up like grapes. Then, in a whoosh, they would be off. Sometimes I would hear them clamor on the roof. This has happened no less than a dozen times. They seemed hungry.
On my way home from work over the past month, I noticed crows arcing across the sky across the interstate from as far as I can see from left to right. This happened for several consecutive days in the same place.
This is the behavior of birds. It seems remarkable but not too unusual.
On December 26, we were on the beach in South Carolina near Charleston. It was snowing. There were starfish embedded in the sand. The south was experiencing record cold. It happens. I felt bad for the alligators in the swamps.
Suddenly, we experience such a Fortean start to 2011! A massive and suspicious bird die-off in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve triggers a wave of mystery, speculation and imaginative explanations fed by more accounts of animal mortality events. The current media sensation of reporting mass mortality events is very interesting in many ways. Shall we count the ways? Yes, we shall, because it’s fun – fun like outrageous speculation about the end of the world! (Well, if you have a hot-air filled balloon of speculative belief about these things, you won’t think this is fun.)
1. Facts are hard to come by
It began with “More than 1000 birds fall dead in Arkansas”. Within days, the reports are up to 5000 birds. It’s been difficult to follow the changing numbers and expert opinions being offered. I wonder if one report just pulls the high value in the range of a previous report. Most people get their info from reporters, not the original sources. Many others rely on what they are told by friends or family and take that as fact. The “facts” quickly grow into tall tales where the fun is in the telling. Some “facts” are not so at all but become more and more real, in a cultural sense, in the retelling.
2. Slow news period. Why not start the year off with a bang?
This story exploded in the first week of the new year. It was EVERYWHERE. (I went to thesaurus.com to look up a word and there was the red-winged blackbird story at the top of the page!) Unexplained mass death is a frightening story. It doesn’t seem natural, it’s not something we see everyday or even hear about often. Finding the ground littered with bird bodies or the shoreline covered with carcasses is disturbing and makes for good visuals. We fear for our own safety. Could what killed them harm me? People want to keep tuning in to see if there are any answers or updates. When the answers trickle in, they aren’t always satisfying…
3. Look for mystery and ye shall find
People suddenly became aware of dead animals, especially multiple deaths. A Kentucky woman spots multiple birds (same red-winged blackbirds) dead around her house, fish and seabirds die in New Zealand, starfish and jellyfish wash up on the South Carolina shores, manatees are found dead with no wounds in Florida, 70 dead bats are discovered dead in Arizona. The apparent cause for all these deaths was reported as weather related. The southern US has experienced record cold in the past few weeks. Wildlife succumbed to the cold. The quoted experts were not that concerned. Birds die from winter stress. Food sources may be scarce, the animals weak and susceptible. Even suspicious animal deaths come to light, grouped with the stories of the mass natural deaths.
So, now all animal deaths show up in the news. It is not unlike a shark attack. If a shark attack occurs near a populated area, especially in the summer, suddenly sharks are spotted everywhere. We seek out information of a particular type and discover more of it. That is not surprising. We engage our selective memory for events and get a clustering effect in time, bombarded with stories of similar nature. But are they really similar?
4. False correlation of events (i.e. It’s all related)
Google has a map of many of the so-called anomalous mass animal deaths. It’s here we notice that the causes of these mass die-offs are not all related in space and time. There are species clusters, not a sudden mortality of everything in the area. People aren’t affected. A trigger for these correlation of events in the public mind was the fish kill that occurred just after the bird incident and also in Arkansas. With the bird deaths fresh in everyone’s mind, along comes another event that could be weaved into a narrative and connections made in our heads without much effort. It unfolded by surprise, like that game where each person adds a little to the story and the next person has to tie it in, the media was adding bits from around the world.
Alex Jones’ Prison Planet blog was a hotbed of activity. They got busy gathering up any possible strange idea, making it sound even more horrific with unsupported claims, and tying it to the bird deaths. I admire their imagination and zeal, that’s about all the good you can say about that. With their paranoia mongering, and suggestions that things are way worse than you are led to believe, their faithful believers are left sorely misinformed and unduly frightened – not a healthy condition for a democratic society. Imagination can take us to dark places.
5. Let’s speculate on cause
The cause of death of the blackbirds in Arkansas is being explained as disorientation exacerbated by fireworks. The red-winged blackbirds roost at night en masse. Yet, this article reports that locals heard booms, possibly from fireworks before the birds fell. I’m not sure what to do with that information. It’s incomplete.
There is also the possibility that the birds were disturbed by strong weather that passed through the area. Once in flight, they ran into object and each other in the dark. Upon examination, the birds were found to have exhibited blunt force trauma. It took NO time at all for the extreme explanations to crop up. People were not buying this fireworks idea. Birds are expert flyers! Why weren’t there bird deaths all over the place that night? Then, when the other stories immediately came to light, such as the massive fish death also in Arkansas and millions of fish dead in the Chesapeake Bay area, people wondered how to explain the other animal deaths? It’s clear that weather events were the cause of many wildlife deaths. And, as described, this was not unprecedented, it has happened in the past.
I liked this interesting twist where weather radar may have captured the huge flock of blackbirds in Arkansas. But, based on comments that appeared on the web in response to the news stories, readers were unwilling to accept mundane, simplistic explanations. Instead of considering that some unusual combination of conditions were causing these events, they jumped right to the sensational.
6. Discard the normal explanations because the supernormal is WAY more fun
This “animals dying all over the place” meme has gone way out of control. I’m having a very hard time keeping up with opinions that went from conspiratorial to batshit insane in very short order.
Here we go…
The first alternate explanation I noted in the news stories and comments was poisoning. Poison was related to the BP oil spill. Or, the government injected gas into the ground. Apparently the dead US Air Force official whose body was recently discovered in the landfill knew about it. It was tied to Iraq. It was secret government testing of eco-weapons.
From the more religiously inclined, these die-off are OBVIOUSLY plagues from the Bible. It is the End Times. The world really is going to end on May 11, 2011. It’s the apocalypse, I mean aflockalypse!
More down to earth but also cause for panic, possibly the New Madrid fault is becoming active again. The animals are experiencing the early effects of the stress buildup. A 7 or 8 or maybe 9 magnitude quake is coming soon. Everyone panic!
Gee, its fun to talk about these wild scenarios. The problem is, there is not a shred of evidence that any of them are true. Commentators are citing other conspiracy theorists or unverified sources, reading between the lines and adding embellishments, linking to past dubious allegations against governmental agencies or referencing concocted reports from potentially fraudulent sources. This is not the way to find answers, it’s just a way to trump up fear and panic.
Frankly, these events are weird but not unheard of. After an event in Louisiana where an estimated 500 red-winged blackbirds fell dead, a “search of USGS [US Geological Survey biology] records shows there have been 16 events in the past 30 years involving blackbirds where at least 1,000 of the birds have died seemingly all at once. “These large events do take place,” [said a USGS spokeman] “It’s not terribly unusual.” The USGS tracks these events (for land and air critters, not fish). Here is actually a “Don’t Panic!” story that explains this.
On Jan 4, hundreds of fish are found dead on New Zealand beaches. The explanation given by an expert was they were starving because of weather conditions or it was an illegal dump of fish or broken net, but an eyewitness didn’t believe this. It seemed too boring an explanation to explain the dramatic sight he witnessed. While, the witness didn’t explain why he thought that cause was wrong, he was CERTAIN that something more deliberate was going on. One can be certain with no evidence if belief is more important than verifiable data. That way of thinking leads you down a blind path.
We want immediate, simple answers to unnerving, strange situations. But figuring out a puzzle takes time and careful collection of measurements to create data points which must be analyzed. Hypotheses must be tested and ruled out. And, worst of all, we might never get a definitive answer. That could be hard to accept for some, so they tie on some emotionally satisfying answer that works for them.
I get angry when off-balance commentators spout nonsensical explanations but that is what the public eats up. I’m not sure why many folks prefer to live in fear and panic instead of telling themselves to calm down and take a rational look. I’m pretty sure that it’s because we humans get a hell of a lot of our information from others, not from doing the work ourselves. Like I said, I was quickly overwhelmed just trying to get a handle on these stories that were coming in fast and furious from all over the world. How do you know what’s true?
Strange days, indeed.
#anecdotes #animals #birdDeaths #conspiracy #disasters #endOfTheWorld #events #evidence #massMortality
https://sharonahill.com/?p=601
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Finally Friday Reads: The Chaos Times
“It’s now safe to go out to dinner in The Nation’s Capital!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The chaos surrounding voting rights continues to play out across many southern states. I’ve shared the craziness going on down here in Lousyana. It seems today’s news on voting rights and gerrymandering shenanigans were handled by Supreme Court judges in Virginia. It’s looking like Orange Caligula and his Republican enablers will be getting the Midterm Election chaos they seek. Our primary election is coming up in 8 days. Our U.S. Congressional representatives are not on the ballot as they should be.
Will the Virginia Supreme Court Decision impact more than just Virginia? That seems to be the question being asked in the national conversation. David A. Lieb and Geoff Mulvihill report the story for the AP. “Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats’ redrawn US House maps, giving Republicans a win.” It’s difficult to believe that so much disruption can happen in modern times.
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.
The court ruled 4-3 that the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.
Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” he wrote.
Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia’s redrawn U.S. House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged the Republicans’ congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year’s midterm elections.
Redistricting could change the House Map. This is the next question the article addresses.
Mid-decade redistricting so far has resulted in 14 more congressional seats that Republicans believe they could win and six more seats that Democrats think they could win, putting the GOP up by eight. But some of those seats could be competitive in the November election, making the results uncertain. Redistricting is still being litigated in several states.
There is a map showing the general changes that have occurred following the Supreme Court decision, which has disrupted the entire concept of gerrymandering and its illegality. The Guardian reports today on the situation in Tennessee, which could eliminate its one black majority Congressional seat. We worry about that here in Louisiana. “Tennessee Republicans redraw maps to erase last Democratic, Black-majority district. Move comes days after supreme court ruling weakened Voting Rights Act protections against racial gerrymandering.” George Chidi has the analysis.
Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.
The district had closely occupied the south-west corner of the state. Now three districts snake out from Memphis’ dense center, with two crossing the Tennessee River to reach Nashville’s suburbs 200 miles away.
“If Republican policies are so great, why are we changing the lines to rig elections?” asked Vincent Dixie, a state representative from Nashville, during debate on Thursday, pleading for Republicans to refrain. “Where is your humanity in this?”
As Democratic lawmakers spoke, the house speaker directed state troopers to remove a section of the audience in the gallery, which had begun shouting.
Justin Jones, a state Democratic representative, described Cameron Sexton, the Tennessee house speaker, as the “grand wizard in chief”, and handed a Republican lawmaker a Confederate flag. Jones offered amendments to the bill, which the speaker ruled had been submitted in an untimely manner. Jones described that as a “Jim Crow process”.
The redistricting comes eight days after the supreme court’s landmark Callais v Landry decision, which invalidated swaths of the Voting Rights Act which had restrained state governments from drawing congressional districts that left Black voters at a political disadvantage.
Despite demands from Donald Trump for conservative states to conduct mid-decade redistricting, Tennessee had refrained from taking action before the court’s ruling. But Sexton said the redraw will “ensure the state’s representation in Washington reflects its conservative values”.
Khaya Himmelman has more information about the Virginia situation in Talking Points Memo. “Virginia State Supreme Court Strikes Down Dem Redistricting Proposal.”
In a major loss for Democrats on Friday, the Virginia state Supreme Court rejected, in a 4-3 decision, the state’s recently approved redistricting proposal, which could have given Democrats four additional congressional seats, improving their chances of taking control of the U.S. House this year.
The proposal, which was introduced as a way to offset the impact of the Trump administration’s mid-cycle gerrymandering blitz, was narrowly approved by voters in a special election earlier this month.
The Supreme Court ruled that the process by which lawmakers moved forward the redistricting proposal violated the state’s constitution.
“In this case, the Commonwealth submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to Virginia voters in an unprecedented manner that violated the intervening-election requirement in Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia,” the state Supreme Court’s majority opinion read.
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” it continued. “For this reason, the congressional district maps issued by this Court in 2021 pursuant to Article II, Section 6-A of the Constitution of Virginia remain the governing maps for the upcoming 2026 congressional elections.”
Election analysts underscored that this is a major victory for Republicans, though the political environment could still be a considerable drag on their midterms changes.
G. Elliott Morris has an analysis up today that breaks down the statistical assumptions the Supreme Court used. This comes from his site Strength in Numbers. “The simple statistical error Republican Supreme Court justices used to gut the VRA. The Court says vote dilution can be proven only after controlling for “controlling” racial polarization rather than partisan polarization. This is a nonsensical and impossible test.” For a kid who hated her algebra classes, I sure live in the realm of statistical and econometric analysis now. It helps to understand the numbers, believe me.
The six Republican-appointed justices on the United States Supreme Court have found a magical solution to political polarization. All you have to do is take a partisan election result and subtract out the effects of party loyalty on the result.
That, more or less, is what the Court wrote when it invalidated the Voting Rights Act last week. In Louisiana v. Callais, decided 6-3 on April 29, 2026, the conservative majority told voting-rights plaintiffs they must now “control for party affiliation” before their evidence of racial bloc voting will count under Section 2.
That sounds like a neutral statistical fix, but in reality, it’s a bad control — an error called “conditioning on a mediator variable“ that would get your paper sent back to you with lots of red ink in statistics 101. The problem is that in modern America, party isn’t a variable that operates independently of race. Rather, political party is largely downstream of one’s race. If you subtract the effects of political party from the analysis of polarization, you are subtracting away the very evidence of polarization you are trying to study!
This is important (not just a piece for nerds) because Republican legislatures are already moving ahead with new partisan and racial gerrymanders based on SCOTUS’s new theory. Tennessee passed a 9-0 GOP map this week that splits Memphis’s majority-Black and solidly Democratic 9th District into three majority-white, Republican-leaning seats. Mississippi’s governor has called a special session for May 20. Louisiana is losing at least one of its majority-Black districts. And Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina could be next. (On this week’s podcast, David and I recap these new gerrymandering efforts that are unfolding with unprecedented haste.)
This week’s Chart of the Week is: a simple table (and one causal diagram) that shows how the Court’s new test makes racial polarization vanish on paper, while it is very much still alive in real life.
This is the decision that will dilute the vote of New Orleans and every black citizen of Louisiana. Again, here’s the link to the Governor’s site announcing the decision to gerrymander the state prior to voting for our Congressional Representatives. “Governor Jeff Landry Suspends Only U.S. House Primary Elections Following Supreme Court Ruling.” My mind boggles every time I read anything on this.
Governor Jeff Landry issued an executive order suspending Louisiana’s closed party primary elections only for offices of U.S. Representative in response to the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais. EO attached.
“The best way to end race-based discrimination is to stop making decisions based on race,” said Governor Jeff Landry. “Here in Louisiana, we’re proud to lead the nation on this charge. Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters. This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map. I would like to thank Attorney General Liz Murrill for her hard work throughout this process”
The ruling issued on April 29 found Louisiana’s current congressional district map, enacted under SB 8 during the 2024 First Extraordinary Session, to be an unconstitutional gerrymander. The decision effectively reinstates a lower court injunction prohibiting the state from conducting congressional elections under the invalidated map.
As a result, the state’s closed party primary elections for U.S. House seats, previously scheduled for May 16, 2026, and the second primary set for June 27, 2026, are suspended. Early voting for the May election was set to begin May 2. Other offices and ballot measures scheduled for May 16 will continue as planned. This suspension will only apply to the U.S. House races.
I do feel like I’ve been disenfranchised. And again, please remember the impact the SAVE Act will have on Women and Transexual individuals. Democracy Docket has this analysis of the Tennessee situation. “‘Jim Crow on steroids’: Tennessee gerrymander included nixing rule that voters must be notified about new districts.” The analysis is provided by Jacob Knutson.
In the aggressive congressional gerrymander they adopted Thursday, Tennessee Republicans also removed a provision in state law requiring the government to alert voters about changes to their designated polling places when electoral lines are redrawn.
Transparency groups and state lawmakers have warned that the change is likely to exacerbate voter confusion caused by state Republicans’ abrupt adoption of new congressional maps just months before the 2026 midterm elections.
One leading democracy advocate called it “Jim Crow on steroids.”
Before Thursday, state law required county election commissions to “immediately” notify voters by mail when their polling place or precinct changed because of redistricting. Among other notices, alerts also had to be published in newspapers. The law was meant to ensure that voters know where to cast their ballots during early voting or on election day.
But in their bill repealing a five-decade prohibition on mid-decade redistricting, Republicans included an amendment that only requires county election commissions to post a notice about redrawn congressional districts on their “official website, if one exists.”
Under the repeal, which is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee (R), the secretary of state also has to publish a notice, but mail and newspaper notices are no longer required to inform voters about changed boundaries.
Deborah Fisher, the executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG), a nonpartisan transparency group, said in a release Thursday that the change was likely meant to reduce costs, though she warned that the voting public will be harmed when it takes effect.
“When polling places or precincts are changed, more effort should be made to reach affected voters, not less,” Fisher said.
Republicans had to repeal the prohibition on mid-decade redistricting before they pushed through their new congressional map, which cracks the state’s only majority-Black district between three separate districts.
Because of the new map, several local voting areas were shifted into new congressional districts. That means polling places likely changed for hundreds of voters across the state.
While debating the map in the Tennessee Senate Thursday, Sen. Heidi Campbell, a Democrat who represents Nashville, accused Republicans of intentionally misleading voters through the notice change.
“We’re not just redrawing the map. We’re making sure people don’t have to be told the map changed,” Campbell said.
Reacting to the notice change Thursday, Norman Ornstein, a prominent political scientist formerly with the American Enterprise Institute, called it “Jim Crow on steroids” in a social media post.
It’s clear to me that we really have something to worry about. We’re busy here in Greater New Orleans with actions. Please consider finding out how you can help our country’s voting system.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
#GerryMandering #JimCrowOnSteroids #Louisiana #LouisianaVCallais #SupremeCourt #Tennesse #Virginia #votingRights -
Finally Friday Reads: The Chaos Times
“It’s now safe to go out to dinner in The Nation’s Capital!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The chaos surrounding voting rights continues to play out across many southern states. I’ve shared the craziness going on down here in Lousyana. Today’s news on voting rights and gerrymandering shenanigans was handled by judges in Virginia’s Supreme Court. It’s looking like Orange Caligula and his Republican enablers will be getting the Midterm Election chaos they seek. Our primary election is coming up in 8 days. Our U.S. Congressional representatives are not on the ballot as they should be.
Will the Virginia Supreme Court Decision impact more than just Virginia? That seems to be the question being asked in the national conversation. David A. Lieb and Geoff Mulvihill report the story for the AP. “Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats’ redrawn US House maps, giving Republicans a win.” It’s difficult to believe that so much disruption can happen in modern times.
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.
The court ruled 4-3 that the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.
Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” he wrote.
Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia’s redrawn U.S. House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged the Republicans’ congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year’s midterm elections.
Redistricting could change the House Map. This is the next question the article addresses.
Mid-decade redistricting so far has resulted in 14 more congressional seats that Republicans believe they could win and six more seats that Democrats think they could win, putting the GOP up by eight. But some of those seats could be competitive in the November election, making the results uncertain. Redistricting is still being litigated in several states.
There is a map showing the general changes that have occurred following the Supreme Court decision, which has disrupted the entire concept of gerrymandering and its illegality. The Guardian reports today on the situation in Tennessee, which could eliminate its one black majority Congressional seat. We worry about that here in Louisiana. “Tennessee Republicans redraw maps to erase last Democratic, Black-majority district. Move comes days after supreme court ruling weakened Voting Rights Act protections against racial gerrymandering.” George Chidi has the analysis.
Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.
The district had closely occupied the south-west corner of the state. Now three districts snake out from Memphis’ dense center, with two crossing the Tennessee River to reach Nashville’s suburbs 200 miles away.
“If Republican policies are so great, why are we changing the lines to rig elections?” asked Vincent Dixie, a state representative from Nashville, during debate on Thursday, pleading for Republicans to refrain. “Where is your humanity in this?”
As Democratic lawmakers spoke, the house speaker directed state troopers to remove a section of the audience in the gallery, which had begun shouting.
Justin Jones, a state Democratic representative, described Cameron Sexton, the Tennessee house speaker, as the “grand wizard in chief”, and handed a Republican lawmaker a Confederate flag. Jones offered amendments to the bill, which the speaker ruled had been submitted in an untimely manner. Jones described that as a “Jim Crow process”.
The redistricting comes eight days after the supreme court’s landmark Callais v Landry decision, which invalidated swaths of the Voting Rights Act which had restrained state governments from drawing congressional districts that left Black voters at a political disadvantage.
Despite demands from Donald Trump for conservative states to conduct mid-decade redistricting, Tennessee had refrained from taking action before the court’s ruling. But Sexton said the redraw will “ensure the state’s representation in Washington reflects its conservative values”.
Khaya Himmelman has more information about the Virginia situation in Talking Points Memo. “Virginia State Supreme Court Strikes Down Dem Redistricting Proposal.”
In a major loss for Democrats on Friday, the Virginia state Supreme Court rejected, in a 4-3 decision, the state’s recently approved redistricting proposal, which could have given Democrats four additional congressional seats, improving their chances of taking control of the U.S. House this year.
The proposal, which was introduced as a way to offset the impact of the Trump administration’s mid-cycle gerrymandering blitz, was narrowly approved by voters in a special election earlier this month.
The Supreme Court ruled that the process by which lawmakers moved forward the redistricting proposal violated the state’s constitution.
“In this case, the Commonwealth submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to Virginia voters in an unprecedented manner that violated the intervening-election requirement in Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia,” the state Supreme Court’s majority opinion read.
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” it continued. “For this reason, the congressional district maps issued by this Court in 2021 pursuant to Article II, Section 6-A of the Constitution of Virginia remain the governing maps for the upcoming 2026 congressional elections.”
Election analysts underscored that this is a major victory for Republicans, though the political environment could still be a considerable drag on their midterms changes.
G. Elliott Morris has an analysis up today that breaks down the statistical assumptions the Supreme Court used. This comes from his site Strength in Numbers. “The simple statistical error Republican Supreme Court justices used to gut the VRA. The Court says vote dilution can be proven only after controlling for “controlling” racial polarization rather than partisan polarization. This is a nonsensical and impossible test.” For a kid who hated her algebra classes, I sure live in the realm of statistical and econometric analysis now. It helps to understand the numbers, believe me.
The six Republican-appointed justices on the United States Supreme Court have found a magical solution to political polarization. All you have to do is take a partisan election result and subtract out the effects of party loyalty on the result.
That, more or less, is what the Court wrote when it invalidated the Voting Rights Act last week. In Louisiana v. Callais, decided 6-3 on April 29, 2026, the conservative majority told voting-rights plaintiffs they must now “control for party affiliation” before their evidence of racial bloc voting will count under Section 2.
That sounds like a neutral statistical fix, but in reality, it’s a bad control — an error called “conditioning on a mediator variable“ that would get your paper sent back to you with lots of red ink in statistics 101. The problem is that in modern America, party isn’t a variable that operates independently of race. Rather, political party is largely downstream of one’s race. If you subtract the effects of political party from the analysis of polarization, you are subtracting away the very evidence of polarization you are trying to study!
This is important (not just a piece for nerds) because Republican legislatures are already moving ahead with new partisan and racial gerrymanders based on SCOTUS’s new theory. Tennessee passed a 9-0 GOP map this week that splits Memphis’s majority-Black and solidly Democratic 9th District into three majority-white, Republican-leaning seats. Mississippi’s governor has called a special session for May 20. Louisiana is losing at least one of its majority-Black districts. And Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina could be next. (On this week’s podcast, David and I recap these new gerrymandering efforts that are unfolding with unprecedented haste.)
This week’s Chart of the Week is: a simple table (and one causal diagram) that shows how the Court’s new test makes racial polarization vanish on paper, while it is very much still alive in real life.
This is the decision that will dilute the vote of New Orleans and every black citizen of Louisiana. Again, here’s the link to the Governor’s site announcing the decision to gerrymander the state prior to voting for our Congressional Representatives. “Governor Jeff Landry Suspends Only U.S. House Primary Elections Following Supreme Court Ruling.” My mind boggles every time I read anything on this.
Governor Jeff Landry issued an executive order suspending Louisiana’s closed party primary elections only for offices of U.S. Representative in response to the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais. EO attached.
“The best way to end race-based discrimination is to stop making decisions based on race,” said Governor Jeff Landry. “Here in Louisiana, we’re proud to lead the nation on this charge. Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters. This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map. I would like to thank Attorney General Liz Murrill for her hard work throughout this process”
The ruling issued on April 29 found Louisiana’s current congressional district map, enacted under SB 8 during the 2024 First Extraordinary Session, to be an unconstitutional gerrymander. The decision effectively reinstates a lower court injunction prohibiting the state from conducting congressional elections under the invalidated map.
As a result, the state’s closed party primary elections for U.S. House seats, previously scheduled for May 16, 2026, and the second primary set for June 27, 2026, are suspended. Early voting for the May election was set to begin May 2. Other offices and ballot measures scheduled for May 16 will continue as planned. This suspension will only apply to the U.S. House races.
I do feel like I’ve been disenfranchised. And again, please remember the impact the SAVE Act will have on Women and Transexual individuals. Democracy Docket has this analysis of the Tennessee situation. “‘Jim Crow on steroids’: Tennessee gerrymander included nixing rule that voters must be notified about new districts.” The analysis is provided by Jacob Knutson.
In the aggressive congressional gerrymander they adopted Thursday, Tennessee Republicans also removed a provision in state law requiring the government to alert voters about changes to their designated polling places when electoral lines are redrawn.
Transparency groups and state lawmakers have warned that the change is likely to exacerbate voter confusion caused by state Republicans’ abrupt adoption of new congressional maps just months before the 2026 midterm elections.
One leading democracy advocate called it “Jim Crow on steroids.”
Before Thursday, state law required county election commissions to “immediately” notify voters by mail when their polling place or precinct changed because of redistricting. Among other notices, alerts also had to be published in newspapers. The law was meant to ensure that voters know where to cast their ballots during early voting or on election day.
But in their bill repealing a five-decade prohibition on mid-decade redistricting, Republicans included an amendment that only requires county election commissions to post a notice about redrawn congressional districts on their “official website, if one exists.”
Under the repeal, which is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee (R), the secretary of state also has to publish a notice, but mail and newspaper notices are no longer required to inform voters about changed boundaries.
Deborah Fisher, the executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG), a nonpartisan transparency group, said in a release Thursday that the change was likely meant to reduce costs, though she warned that the voting public will be harmed when it takes effect.
“When polling places or precincts are changed, more effort should be made to reach affected voters, not less,” Fisher said.
Republicans had to repeal the prohibition on mid-decade redistricting before they pushed through their new congressional map, which cracks the state’s only majority-Black district between three separate districts.
Because of the new map, several local voting areas were shifted into new congressional districts. That means polling places likely changed for hundreds of voters across the state.
While debating the map in the Tennessee Senate Thursday, Sen. Heidi Campbell, a Democrat who represents Nashville, accused Republicans of intentionally misleading voters through the notice change.
“We’re not just redrawing the map. We’re making sure people don’t have to be told the map changed,” Campbell said.
Reacting to the notice change Thursday, Norman Ornstein, a prominent political scientist formerly with the American Enterprise Institute, called it “Jim Crow on steroids” in a social media post.
It’s clear to me that we really have something to worry about. We’re busy here in Greater New Orleans with actions. Please consider how you can help improve our country’s voting system.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #GerryMandering #JimCrowOnSteroids #Louisiana #LouisianaVCallais #SupremeCourt #Tennesse #Virginia #votingRights -
Finally Friday Reads: The Chaos Times
“It’s now safe to go out to dinner in The Nation’s Capital!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The chaos surrounding voting rights continues to play out across many southern states. I’ve shared the craziness going on down here in Lousyana. It seems today’s news on voting rights and gerrymandering shenanigans were handled by Supreme Court judges in Virginia. It’s looking like Orange Caligula and his Republican enablers will be getting the Midterm Election chaos they seek. Our primary election is coming up in 8 days. Our U.S. Congressional representatives are not on the ballot as they should be.
Will the Virginia Supreme Court Decision impact more than just Virginia? That seems to be the question being asked in the national conversation. David A. Lieb and Geoff Mulvihill report the story for the AP. “Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats’ redrawn US House maps, giving Republicans a win.” It’s difficult to believe that so much disruption can happen in modern times.
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.
The court ruled 4-3 that the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.
Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” he wrote.
Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia’s redrawn U.S. House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged the Republicans’ congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year’s midterm elections.
Redistricting could change the House Map. This is the next question the article addresses.
Mid-decade redistricting so far has resulted in 14 more congressional seats that Republicans believe they could win and six more seats that Democrats think they could win, putting the GOP up by eight. But some of those seats could be competitive in the November election, making the results uncertain. Redistricting is still being litigated in several states.
There is a map showing the general changes that have occurred following the Supreme Court decision, which has disrupted the entire concept of gerrymandering and its illegality. The Guardian reports today on the situation in Tennessee, which could eliminate its one black majority Congressional seat. We worry about that here in Louisiana. “Tennessee Republicans redraw maps to erase last Democratic, Black-majority district. Move comes days after supreme court ruling weakened Voting Rights Act protections against racial gerrymandering.” George Chidi has the analysis.
Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.
The district had closely occupied the south-west corner of the state. Now three districts snake out from Memphis’ dense center, with two crossing the Tennessee River to reach Nashville’s suburbs 200 miles away.
“If Republican policies are so great, why are we changing the lines to rig elections?” asked Vincent Dixie, a state representative from Nashville, during debate on Thursday, pleading for Republicans to refrain. “Where is your humanity in this?”
As Democratic lawmakers spoke, the house speaker directed state troopers to remove a section of the audience in the gallery, which had begun shouting.
Justin Jones, a state Democratic representative, described Cameron Sexton, the Tennessee house speaker, as the “grand wizard in chief”, and handed a Republican lawmaker a Confederate flag. Jones offered amendments to the bill, which the speaker ruled had been submitted in an untimely manner. Jones described that as a “Jim Crow process”.
The redistricting comes eight days after the supreme court’s landmark Callais v Landry decision, which invalidated swaths of the Voting Rights Act which had restrained state governments from drawing congressional districts that left Black voters at a political disadvantage.
Despite demands from Donald Trump for conservative states to conduct mid-decade redistricting, Tennessee had refrained from taking action before the court’s ruling. But Sexton said the redraw will “ensure the state’s representation in Washington reflects its conservative values”.
Khaya Himmelman has more information about the Virginia situation in Talking Points Memo. “Virginia State Supreme Court Strikes Down Dem Redistricting Proposal.”
In a major loss for Democrats on Friday, the Virginia state Supreme Court rejected, in a 4-3 decision, the state’s recently approved redistricting proposal, which could have given Democrats four additional congressional seats, improving their chances of taking control of the U.S. House this year.
The proposal, which was introduced as a way to offset the impact of the Trump administration’s mid-cycle gerrymandering blitz, was narrowly approved by voters in a special election earlier this month.
The Supreme Court ruled that the process by which lawmakers moved forward the redistricting proposal violated the state’s constitution.
“In this case, the Commonwealth submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to Virginia voters in an unprecedented manner that violated the intervening-election requirement in Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia,” the state Supreme Court’s majority opinion read.
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” it continued. “For this reason, the congressional district maps issued by this Court in 2021 pursuant to Article II, Section 6-A of the Constitution of Virginia remain the governing maps for the upcoming 2026 congressional elections.”
Election analysts underscored that this is a major victory for Republicans, though the political environment could still be a considerable drag on their midterms changes.
G. Elliott Morris has an analysis up today that breaks down the statistical assumptions the Supreme Court used. This comes from his site Strength in Numbers. “The simple statistical error Republican Supreme Court justices used to gut the VRA. The Court says vote dilution can be proven only after controlling for “controlling” racial polarization rather than partisan polarization. This is a nonsensical and impossible test.” For a kid who hated her algebra classes, I sure live in the realm of statistical and econometric analysis now. It helps to understand the numbers, believe me.
The six Republican-appointed justices on the United States Supreme Court have found a magical solution to political polarization. All you have to do is take a partisan election result and subtract out the effects of party loyalty on the result.
That, more or less, is what the Court wrote when it invalidated the Voting Rights Act last week. In Louisiana v. Callais, decided 6-3 on April 29, 2026, the conservative majority told voting-rights plaintiffs they must now “control for party affiliation” before their evidence of racial bloc voting will count under Section 2.
That sounds like a neutral statistical fix, but in reality, it’s a bad control — an error called “conditioning on a mediator variable“ that would get your paper sent back to you with lots of red ink in statistics 101. The problem is that in modern America, party isn’t a variable that operates independently of race. Rather, political party is largely downstream of one’s race. If you subtract the effects of political party from the analysis of polarization, you are subtracting away the very evidence of polarization you are trying to study!
This is important (not just a piece for nerds) because Republican legislatures are already moving ahead with new partisan and racial gerrymanders based on SCOTUS’s new theory. Tennessee passed a 9-0 GOP map this week that splits Memphis’s majority-Black and solidly Democratic 9th District into three majority-white, Republican-leaning seats. Mississippi’s governor has called a special session for May 20. Louisiana is losing at least one of its majority-Black districts. And Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina could be next. (On this week’s podcast, David and I recap these new gerrymandering efforts that are unfolding with unprecedented haste.)
This week’s Chart of the Week is: a simple table (and one causal diagram) that shows how the Court’s new test makes racial polarization vanish on paper, while it is very much still alive in real life.
This is the decision that will dilute the vote of New Orleans and every black citizen of Louisiana. Again, here’s the link to the Governor’s site announcing the decision to gerrymander the state prior to voting for our Congressional Representatives. “Governor Jeff Landry Suspends Only U.S. House Primary Elections Following Supreme Court Ruling.” My mind boggles every time I read anything on this.
Governor Jeff Landry issued an executive order suspending Louisiana’s closed party primary elections only for offices of U.S. Representative in response to the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais. EO attached.
“The best way to end race-based discrimination is to stop making decisions based on race,” said Governor Jeff Landry. “Here in Louisiana, we’re proud to lead the nation on this charge. Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters. This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map. I would like to thank Attorney General Liz Murrill for her hard work throughout this process”
The ruling issued on April 29 found Louisiana’s current congressional district map, enacted under SB 8 during the 2024 First Extraordinary Session, to be an unconstitutional gerrymander. The decision effectively reinstates a lower court injunction prohibiting the state from conducting congressional elections under the invalidated map.
As a result, the state’s closed party primary elections for U.S. House seats, previously scheduled for May 16, 2026, and the second primary set for June 27, 2026, are suspended. Early voting for the May election was set to begin May 2. Other offices and ballot measures scheduled for May 16 will continue as planned. This suspension will only apply to the U.S. House races.
I do feel like I’ve been disenfranchised. And again, please remember the impact the SAVE Act will have on Women and Transexual individuals. Democracy Docket has this analysis of the Tennessee situation. “‘Jim Crow on steroids’: Tennessee gerrymander included nixing rule that voters must be notified about new districts.” The analysis is provided by Jacob Knutson.
In the aggressive congressional gerrymander they adopted Thursday, Tennessee Republicans also removed a provision in state law requiring the government to alert voters about changes to their designated polling places when electoral lines are redrawn.
Transparency groups and state lawmakers have warned that the change is likely to exacerbate voter confusion caused by state Republicans’ abrupt adoption of new congressional maps just months before the 2026 midterm elections.
One leading democracy advocate called it “Jim Crow on steroids.”
Before Thursday, state law required county election commissions to “immediately” notify voters by mail when their polling place or precinct changed because of redistricting. Among other notices, alerts also had to be published in newspapers. The law was meant to ensure that voters know where to cast their ballots during early voting or on election day.
But in their bill repealing a five-decade prohibition on mid-decade redistricting, Republicans included an amendment that only requires county election commissions to post a notice about redrawn congressional districts on their “official website, if one exists.”
Under the repeal, which is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee (R), the secretary of state also has to publish a notice, but mail and newspaper notices are no longer required to inform voters about changed boundaries.
Deborah Fisher, the executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG), a nonpartisan transparency group, said in a release Thursday that the change was likely meant to reduce costs, though she warned that the voting public will be harmed when it takes effect.
“When polling places or precincts are changed, more effort should be made to reach affected voters, not less,” Fisher said.
Republicans had to repeal the prohibition on mid-decade redistricting before they pushed through their new congressional map, which cracks the state’s only majority-Black district between three separate districts.
Because of the new map, several local voting areas were shifted into new congressional districts. That means polling places likely changed for hundreds of voters across the state.
While debating the map in the Tennessee Senate Thursday, Sen. Heidi Campbell, a Democrat who represents Nashville, accused Republicans of intentionally misleading voters through the notice change.
“We’re not just redrawing the map. We’re making sure people don’t have to be told the map changed,” Campbell said.
Reacting to the notice change Thursday, Norman Ornstein, a prominent political scientist formerly with the American Enterprise Institute, called it “Jim Crow on steroids” in a social media post.
It’s clear to me that we really have something to worry about. We’re busy here in Greater New Orleans with actions. Please consider finding out how you can help our country’s voting system.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
#GerryMandering #JimCrowOnSteroids #Louisiana #LouisianaVCallais #SupremeCourt #Tennesse #Virginia #votingRights -
Finally Friday Reads: The Chaos Times
“It’s now safe to go out to dinner in The Nation’s Capital!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The chaos surrounding voting rights continues to play out across many southern states. I’ve shared the craziness going on down here in Lousyana. Today’s news on voting rights and gerrymandering shenanigans was handled by judges in Virginia’s Supreme Court. It’s looking like Orange Caligula and his Republican enablers will be getting the Midterm Election chaos they seek. Our primary election is coming up in 8 days. Our U.S. Congressional representatives are not on the ballot as they should be.
Will the Virginia Supreme Court Decision impact more than just Virginia? That seems to be the question being asked in the national conversation. David A. Lieb and Geoff Mulvihill report the story for the AP. “Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats’ redrawn US House maps, giving Republicans a win.” It’s difficult to believe that so much disruption can happen in modern times.
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.
The court ruled 4-3 that the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.
Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” he wrote.
Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia’s redrawn U.S. House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged the Republicans’ congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year’s midterm elections.
Redistricting could change the House Map. This is the next question the article addresses.
Mid-decade redistricting so far has resulted in 14 more congressional seats that Republicans believe they could win and six more seats that Democrats think they could win, putting the GOP up by eight. But some of those seats could be competitive in the November election, making the results uncertain. Redistricting is still being litigated in several states.
There is a map showing the general changes that have occurred following the Supreme Court decision, which has disrupted the entire concept of gerrymandering and its illegality. The Guardian reports today on the situation in Tennessee, which could eliminate its one black majority Congressional seat. We worry about that here in Louisiana. “Tennessee Republicans redraw maps to erase last Democratic, Black-majority district. Move comes days after supreme court ruling weakened Voting Rights Act protections against racial gerrymandering.” George Chidi has the analysis.
Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.
The district had closely occupied the south-west corner of the state. Now three districts snake out from Memphis’ dense center, with two crossing the Tennessee River to reach Nashville’s suburbs 200 miles away.
“If Republican policies are so great, why are we changing the lines to rig elections?” asked Vincent Dixie, a state representative from Nashville, during debate on Thursday, pleading for Republicans to refrain. “Where is your humanity in this?”
As Democratic lawmakers spoke, the house speaker directed state troopers to remove a section of the audience in the gallery, which had begun shouting.
Justin Jones, a state Democratic representative, described Cameron Sexton, the Tennessee house speaker, as the “grand wizard in chief”, and handed a Republican lawmaker a Confederate flag. Jones offered amendments to the bill, which the speaker ruled had been submitted in an untimely manner. Jones described that as a “Jim Crow process”.
The redistricting comes eight days after the supreme court’s landmark Callais v Landry decision, which invalidated swaths of the Voting Rights Act which had restrained state governments from drawing congressional districts that left Black voters at a political disadvantage.
Despite demands from Donald Trump for conservative states to conduct mid-decade redistricting, Tennessee had refrained from taking action before the court’s ruling. But Sexton said the redraw will “ensure the state’s representation in Washington reflects its conservative values”.
Khaya Himmelman has more information about the Virginia situation in Talking Points Memo. “Virginia State Supreme Court Strikes Down Dem Redistricting Proposal.”
In a major loss for Democrats on Friday, the Virginia state Supreme Court rejected, in a 4-3 decision, the state’s recently approved redistricting proposal, which could have given Democrats four additional congressional seats, improving their chances of taking control of the U.S. House this year.
The proposal, which was introduced as a way to offset the impact of the Trump administration’s mid-cycle gerrymandering blitz, was narrowly approved by voters in a special election earlier this month.
The Supreme Court ruled that the process by which lawmakers moved forward the redistricting proposal violated the state’s constitution.
“In this case, the Commonwealth submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to Virginia voters in an unprecedented manner that violated the intervening-election requirement in Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia,” the state Supreme Court’s majority opinion read.
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” it continued. “For this reason, the congressional district maps issued by this Court in 2021 pursuant to Article II, Section 6-A of the Constitution of Virginia remain the governing maps for the upcoming 2026 congressional elections.”
Election analysts underscored that this is a major victory for Republicans, though the political environment could still be a considerable drag on their midterms changes.
G. Elliott Morris has an analysis up today that breaks down the statistical assumptions the Supreme Court used. This comes from his site Strength in Numbers. “The simple statistical error Republican Supreme Court justices used to gut the VRA. The Court says vote dilution can be proven only after controlling for “controlling” racial polarization rather than partisan polarization. This is a nonsensical and impossible test.” For a kid who hated her algebra classes, I sure live in the realm of statistical and econometric analysis now. It helps to understand the numbers, believe me.
The six Republican-appointed justices on the United States Supreme Court have found a magical solution to political polarization. All you have to do is take a partisan election result and subtract out the effects of party loyalty on the result.
That, more or less, is what the Court wrote when it invalidated the Voting Rights Act last week. In Louisiana v. Callais, decided 6-3 on April 29, 2026, the conservative majority told voting-rights plaintiffs they must now “control for party affiliation” before their evidence of racial bloc voting will count under Section 2.
That sounds like a neutral statistical fix, but in reality, it’s a bad control — an error called “conditioning on a mediator variable“ that would get your paper sent back to you with lots of red ink in statistics 101. The problem is that in modern America, party isn’t a variable that operates independently of race. Rather, political party is largely downstream of one’s race. If you subtract the effects of political party from the analysis of polarization, you are subtracting away the very evidence of polarization you are trying to study!
This is important (not just a piece for nerds) because Republican legislatures are already moving ahead with new partisan and racial gerrymanders based on SCOTUS’s new theory. Tennessee passed a 9-0 GOP map this week that splits Memphis’s majority-Black and solidly Democratic 9th District into three majority-white, Republican-leaning seats. Mississippi’s governor has called a special session for May 20. Louisiana is losing at least one of its majority-Black districts. And Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina could be next. (On this week’s podcast, David and I recap these new gerrymandering efforts that are unfolding with unprecedented haste.)
This week’s Chart of the Week is: a simple table (and one causal diagram) that shows how the Court’s new test makes racial polarization vanish on paper, while it is very much still alive in real life.
This is the decision that will dilute the vote of New Orleans and every black citizen of Louisiana. Again, here’s the link to the Governor’s site announcing the decision to gerrymander the state prior to voting for our Congressional Representatives. “Governor Jeff Landry Suspends Only U.S. House Primary Elections Following Supreme Court Ruling.” My mind boggles every time I read anything on this.
Governor Jeff Landry issued an executive order suspending Louisiana’s closed party primary elections only for offices of U.S. Representative in response to the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais. EO attached.
“The best way to end race-based discrimination is to stop making decisions based on race,” said Governor Jeff Landry. “Here in Louisiana, we’re proud to lead the nation on this charge. Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters. This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map. I would like to thank Attorney General Liz Murrill for her hard work throughout this process”
The ruling issued on April 29 found Louisiana’s current congressional district map, enacted under SB 8 during the 2024 First Extraordinary Session, to be an unconstitutional gerrymander. The decision effectively reinstates a lower court injunction prohibiting the state from conducting congressional elections under the invalidated map.
As a result, the state’s closed party primary elections for U.S. House seats, previously scheduled for May 16, 2026, and the second primary set for June 27, 2026, are suspended. Early voting for the May election was set to begin May 2. Other offices and ballot measures scheduled for May 16 will continue as planned. This suspension will only apply to the U.S. House races.
I do feel like I’ve been disenfranchised. And again, please remember the impact the SAVE Act will have on Women and Transexual individuals. Democracy Docket has this analysis of the Tennessee situation. “‘Jim Crow on steroids’: Tennessee gerrymander included nixing rule that voters must be notified about new districts.” The analysis is provided by Jacob Knutson.
In the aggressive congressional gerrymander they adopted Thursday, Tennessee Republicans also removed a provision in state law requiring the government to alert voters about changes to their designated polling places when electoral lines are redrawn.
Transparency groups and state lawmakers have warned that the change is likely to exacerbate voter confusion caused by state Republicans’ abrupt adoption of new congressional maps just months before the 2026 midterm elections.
One leading democracy advocate called it “Jim Crow on steroids.”
Before Thursday, state law required county election commissions to “immediately” notify voters by mail when their polling place or precinct changed because of redistricting. Among other notices, alerts also had to be published in newspapers. The law was meant to ensure that voters know where to cast their ballots during early voting or on election day.
But in their bill repealing a five-decade prohibition on mid-decade redistricting, Republicans included an amendment that only requires county election commissions to post a notice about redrawn congressional districts on their “official website, if one exists.”
Under the repeal, which is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee (R), the secretary of state also has to publish a notice, but mail and newspaper notices are no longer required to inform voters about changed boundaries.
Deborah Fisher, the executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG), a nonpartisan transparency group, said in a release Thursday that the change was likely meant to reduce costs, though she warned that the voting public will be harmed when it takes effect.
“When polling places or precincts are changed, more effort should be made to reach affected voters, not less,” Fisher said.
Republicans had to repeal the prohibition on mid-decade redistricting before they pushed through their new congressional map, which cracks the state’s only majority-Black district between three separate districts.
Because of the new map, several local voting areas were shifted into new congressional districts. That means polling places likely changed for hundreds of voters across the state.
While debating the map in the Tennessee Senate Thursday, Sen. Heidi Campbell, a Democrat who represents Nashville, accused Republicans of intentionally misleading voters through the notice change.
“We’re not just redrawing the map. We’re making sure people don’t have to be told the map changed,” Campbell said.
Reacting to the notice change Thursday, Norman Ornstein, a prominent political scientist formerly with the American Enterprise Institute, called it “Jim Crow on steroids” in a social media post.
It’s clear to me that we really have something to worry about. We’re busy here in Greater New Orleans with actions. Please consider how you can help improve our country’s voting system.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #GerryMandering #JimCrowOnSteroids #Louisiana #LouisianaVCallais #SupremeCourt #Tennesse #Virginia #votingRights -
Finally Friday Reads: The Chaos Times
“It’s now safe to go out to dinner in The Nation’s Capital!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The chaos surrounding voting rights continues to play out across many southern states. I’ve shared the craziness going on down here in Lousyana. It seems today’s news on voting rights and gerrymandering shenanigans were handled by Supreme Court judges in Virginia. It’s looking like Orange Caligula and his Republican enablers will be getting the Midterm Election chaos they seek. Our primary election is coming up in 8 days. Our U.S. Congressional representatives are not on the ballot as they should be.
Will the Virginia Supreme Court Decision impact more than just Virginia? That seems to be the question being asked in the national conversation. David A. Lieb and Geoff Mulvihill report the story for the AP. “Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats’ redrawn US House maps, giving Republicans a win.” It’s difficult to believe that so much disruption can happen in modern times.
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.
The court ruled 4-3 that the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.
Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” he wrote.
Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia’s redrawn U.S. House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged the Republicans’ congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year’s midterm elections.
Redistricting could change the House Map. This is the next question the article addresses.
Mid-decade redistricting so far has resulted in 14 more congressional seats that Republicans believe they could win and six more seats that Democrats think they could win, putting the GOP up by eight. But some of those seats could be competitive in the November election, making the results uncertain. Redistricting is still being litigated in several states.
There is a map showing the general changes that have occurred following the Supreme Court decision, which has disrupted the entire concept of gerrymandering and its illegality. The Guardian reports today on the situation in Tennessee, which could eliminate its one black majority Congressional seat. We worry about that here in Louisiana. “Tennessee Republicans redraw maps to erase last Democratic, Black-majority district. Move comes days after supreme court ruling weakened Voting Rights Act protections against racial gerrymandering.” George Chidi has the analysis.
Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.
The district had closely occupied the south-west corner of the state. Now three districts snake out from Memphis’ dense center, with two crossing the Tennessee River to reach Nashville’s suburbs 200 miles away.
“If Republican policies are so great, why are we changing the lines to rig elections?” asked Vincent Dixie, a state representative from Nashville, during debate on Thursday, pleading for Republicans to refrain. “Where is your humanity in this?”
As Democratic lawmakers spoke, the house speaker directed state troopers to remove a section of the audience in the gallery, which had begun shouting.
Justin Jones, a state Democratic representative, described Cameron Sexton, the Tennessee house speaker, as the “grand wizard in chief”, and handed a Republican lawmaker a Confederate flag. Jones offered amendments to the bill, which the speaker ruled had been submitted in an untimely manner. Jones described that as a “Jim Crow process”.
The redistricting comes eight days after the supreme court’s landmark Callais v Landry decision, which invalidated swaths of the Voting Rights Act which had restrained state governments from drawing congressional districts that left Black voters at a political disadvantage.
Despite demands from Donald Trump for conservative states to conduct mid-decade redistricting, Tennessee had refrained from taking action before the court’s ruling. But Sexton said the redraw will “ensure the state’s representation in Washington reflects its conservative values”.
Khaya Himmelman has more information about the Virginia situation in Talking Points Memo. “Virginia State Supreme Court Strikes Down Dem Redistricting Proposal.”
In a major loss for Democrats on Friday, the Virginia state Supreme Court rejected, in a 4-3 decision, the state’s recently approved redistricting proposal, which could have given Democrats four additional congressional seats, improving their chances of taking control of the U.S. House this year.
The proposal, which was introduced as a way to offset the impact of the Trump administration’s mid-cycle gerrymandering blitz, was narrowly approved by voters in a special election earlier this month.
The Supreme Court ruled that the process by which lawmakers moved forward the redistricting proposal violated the state’s constitution.
“In this case, the Commonwealth submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to Virginia voters in an unprecedented manner that violated the intervening-election requirement in Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia,” the state Supreme Court’s majority opinion read.
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” it continued. “For this reason, the congressional district maps issued by this Court in 2021 pursuant to Article II, Section 6-A of the Constitution of Virginia remain the governing maps for the upcoming 2026 congressional elections.”
Election analysts underscored that this is a major victory for Republicans, though the political environment could still be a considerable drag on their midterms changes.
G. Elliott Morris has an analysis up today that breaks down the statistical assumptions the Supreme Court used. This comes from his site Strength in Numbers. “The simple statistical error Republican Supreme Court justices used to gut the VRA. The Court says vote dilution can be proven only after controlling for “controlling” racial polarization rather than partisan polarization. This is a nonsensical and impossible test.” For a kid who hated her algebra classes, I sure live in the realm of statistical and econometric analysis now. It helps to understand the numbers, believe me.
The six Republican-appointed justices on the United States Supreme Court have found a magical solution to political polarization. All you have to do is take a partisan election result and subtract out the effects of party loyalty on the result.
That, more or less, is what the Court wrote when it invalidated the Voting Rights Act last week. In Louisiana v. Callais, decided 6-3 on April 29, 2026, the conservative majority told voting-rights plaintiffs they must now “control for party affiliation” before their evidence of racial bloc voting will count under Section 2.
That sounds like a neutral statistical fix, but in reality, it’s a bad control — an error called “conditioning on a mediator variable“ that would get your paper sent back to you with lots of red ink in statistics 101. The problem is that in modern America, party isn’t a variable that operates independently of race. Rather, political party is largely downstream of one’s race. If you subtract the effects of political party from the analysis of polarization, you are subtracting away the very evidence of polarization you are trying to study!
This is important (not just a piece for nerds) because Republican legislatures are already moving ahead with new partisan and racial gerrymanders based on SCOTUS’s new theory. Tennessee passed a 9-0 GOP map this week that splits Memphis’s majority-Black and solidly Democratic 9th District into three majority-white, Republican-leaning seats. Mississippi’s governor has called a special session for May 20. Louisiana is losing at least one of its majority-Black districts. And Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina could be next. (On this week’s podcast, David and I recap these new gerrymandering efforts that are unfolding with unprecedented haste.)
This week’s Chart of the Week is: a simple table (and one causal diagram) that shows how the Court’s new test makes racial polarization vanish on paper, while it is very much still alive in real life.
This is the decision that will dilute the vote of New Orleans and every black citizen of Louisiana. Again, here’s the link to the Governor’s site announcing the decision to gerrymander the state prior to voting for our Congressional Representatives. “Governor Jeff Landry Suspends Only U.S. House Primary Elections Following Supreme Court Ruling.” My mind boggles every time I read anything on this.
Governor Jeff Landry issued an executive order suspending Louisiana’s closed party primary elections only for offices of U.S. Representative in response to the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais. EO attached.
“The best way to end race-based discrimination is to stop making decisions based on race,” said Governor Jeff Landry. “Here in Louisiana, we’re proud to lead the nation on this charge. Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters. This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map. I would like to thank Attorney General Liz Murrill for her hard work throughout this process”
The ruling issued on April 29 found Louisiana’s current congressional district map, enacted under SB 8 during the 2024 First Extraordinary Session, to be an unconstitutional gerrymander. The decision effectively reinstates a lower court injunction prohibiting the state from conducting congressional elections under the invalidated map.
As a result, the state’s closed party primary elections for U.S. House seats, previously scheduled for May 16, 2026, and the second primary set for June 27, 2026, are suspended. Early voting for the May election was set to begin May 2. Other offices and ballot measures scheduled for May 16 will continue as planned. This suspension will only apply to the U.S. House races.
I do feel like I’ve been disenfranchised. And again, please remember the impact the SAVE Act will have on Women and Transexual individuals. Democracy Docket has this analysis of the Tennessee situation. “‘Jim Crow on steroids’: Tennessee gerrymander included nixing rule that voters must be notified about new districts.” The analysis is provided by Jacob Knutson.
In the aggressive congressional gerrymander they adopted Thursday, Tennessee Republicans also removed a provision in state law requiring the government to alert voters about changes to their designated polling places when electoral lines are redrawn.
Transparency groups and state lawmakers have warned that the change is likely to exacerbate voter confusion caused by state Republicans’ abrupt adoption of new congressional maps just months before the 2026 midterm elections.
One leading democracy advocate called it “Jim Crow on steroids.”
Before Thursday, state law required county election commissions to “immediately” notify voters by mail when their polling place or precinct changed because of redistricting. Among other notices, alerts also had to be published in newspapers. The law was meant to ensure that voters know where to cast their ballots during early voting or on election day.
But in their bill repealing a five-decade prohibition on mid-decade redistricting, Republicans included an amendment that only requires county election commissions to post a notice about redrawn congressional districts on their “official website, if one exists.”
Under the repeal, which is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee (R), the secretary of state also has to publish a notice, but mail and newspaper notices are no longer required to inform voters about changed boundaries.
Deborah Fisher, the executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG), a nonpartisan transparency group, said in a release Thursday that the change was likely meant to reduce costs, though she warned that the voting public will be harmed when it takes effect.
“When polling places or precincts are changed, more effort should be made to reach affected voters, not less,” Fisher said.
Republicans had to repeal the prohibition on mid-decade redistricting before they pushed through their new congressional map, which cracks the state’s only majority-Black district between three separate districts.
Because of the new map, several local voting areas were shifted into new congressional districts. That means polling places likely changed for hundreds of voters across the state.
While debating the map in the Tennessee Senate Thursday, Sen. Heidi Campbell, a Democrat who represents Nashville, accused Republicans of intentionally misleading voters through the notice change.
“We’re not just redrawing the map. We’re making sure people don’t have to be told the map changed,” Campbell said.
Reacting to the notice change Thursday, Norman Ornstein, a prominent political scientist formerly with the American Enterprise Institute, called it “Jim Crow on steroids” in a social media post.
It’s clear to me that we really have something to worry about. We’re busy here in Greater New Orleans with actions. Please consider finding out how you can help our country’s voting system.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
#GerryMandering #JimCrowOnSteroids #Louisiana #LouisianaVCallais #SupremeCourt #Tennesse #Virginia #votingRights -
Im Bayerischen Landtag
Das bayerische Finanzministerium will weiterhin Microsoft-Produkte im Freistaat einsetzen und dafür einen millionenschweren Vertrag verlängern. Die Opposition will eine Abkehr vom Tech-Riesen und fordert „digitale Souveränität“. Doch auch diese Forderung könnte sich als Bumerang erweisen.
Die öffentliche Verwaltung steckt in einem Dilemma: Seit Jahrzehnten nutzen die meisten Behörden Microsoft-Produkte und Alternativen sind offenbar nur schwer vorstellbar. Nirgends zeigt sich das derzeit so deutlich wie in Bayern.
Im Oktober regte sich Kritik (PDF) an den Plänen des bayerischen Finanzministers Albert Füracker (CSU), Microsoft für fünf weitere Jahre in der Landesverwaltung einsetzen zu wollen. Seit 2023 besteht ein sogenannter Handelspartnervertrag zwischen der bayerischen Staatsverwaltung und dem US-Konzern. Er legt die Konditionen fest, zu denen das Bundesland Bürosoftware und Windows-Lizenzen bezieht. Dieses Vertragsverhältnis will Füracker nun verlängern.
Doch es regt sich breiter Widerstand gegen seine Pläne. „Wir reden hier nicht über den Kauf einzelner Excel-Lizenzen, sondern über eine Zementierung unserer kompletten digitalen Infrastruktur auf Jahre hinaus“, sagt Florian von Brunn (SPD) gegenüber netzpolitik.org.
Aber auch in der Landesregierung gibt es deutliche Kritik. Füracker und Digitalminister Fabian Mehring (Freie Wähler) stritten öffentlich um Datenschutz, Abhängigkeit – und um die Frage, ob die US-Regierung über Microsoft auf bayerische Daten zugreifen könnte. Die breite Medienberichterstattung über den Konflikt brachte Markus Söder (CSU) dazu, sich einzuschalten: „Solche Fragen gehören intern besprochen“, mahnte der bayerische Ministerpräsident.
Mit alten Gewohnheiten brechen
Dass die öffentliche Verwaltung auch ohne Microsoft-Produkte arbeiten kann, zeigt das Beispiel Schleswig-Holstein. Das nördliche Bundesland gelang vergangenes Jahr der Umstieg auf einen Open-Source-Arbeitsplatz in der öffentlichen Verwaltung. Das Fazit fällt bisher positiv aus. Seit dem Umstieg habe man bereits rund 15 Millionen Euro an Lizenzkosten eingespart, sagt Digitalisierungsminister Dirk Schrödter auf Anfrage. Dagegen befürchten Fürackers Kritiker, dass der für seine Verhandlungen mit Microsoft einen dreistelligen Millionenbetrag veranschlagt. Auf Anfrage von netzpolitik.org will sich das Ministerium weder zu den Lizenzkosten noch dazu äußern, mit welchen Einsparungen es rechnet.
Auch in Bayern schaut man Richtung Norden. Er stehe im engen Austausch mit der SPD-Fraktion in Kiel, erklärt von Brunn. Er hofft offenbar darauf, dass die positiven Impulse von dort auch im Süden ankommen. „Es entbehrt nicht einer gewissen Ironie, dass die Regierung Söder in Bayern die Zeichen der Zeit nicht erkennt, während der CDU-Kollege Daniel Günther im Norden auf digitale Souveränität setzt.“
Als „Zeichen der Zeit“ sehen derzeit viele die dramatische geopolitische Lage, ausgelöst durch eine erratische Politik der US-Administration unter Präsident Donald Trump.
Trumps langer Arm
Die Auswirkungen zeigt etwa der Fall am Internationalen Strafgerichtshof in Den Haag. Mindestens zwei Richter verloren im Mai vergangenen Jahres jeglichen Zugriff auf digitale Dienste von US-amerikanischen Unternehmen, mutmaßlich infolge ihrer Rechtsprechung. Zu diesen Diensten gehören auch Microsoft-Produkte wie Outlook oder Office.
Seitdem stellen sich Politiker*innen zunehmend die Frage, wie viel Microsoft in der öffentlichen Verwaltung vertretbar ist – zumal diese in der Regel auch mit sensiblen Daten arbeitet. Zwar versichert das bayerische Finanzministerium gegenüber netzpolitik.org, dass die Daten dauerhaft „in mehreren staatseigenen Rechenzentren auf bayerischem Boden gesichert“ seien. Das schließt aber nicht aus, dass US-Behörden auch auf bayerische Verwaltungs- und Bürger:innendaten zugreifen.
Zu diesem Schluss kommt ein Gutachten vom März 2025, das im Auftrag des Bundesinnenministeriums (BMI) erstellt wurde. Demnach erlaube der US-amerikanische Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, kurz CLOUD Act, den dortigen Sicherheitsbehörden weitreichenden Zugriff auf Daten in europäischen Rechenzentren. Auch der Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) lasse einen solchen Datenzugriff zu. Die Gefahr, die von diesen Gesetzen für die Verwaltung ausgeht, diskutierte (PDF) auch der Landtag Baden-Württemberg im Sommer.
„Das hebelt europäisches Recht aus“, so von Brunn. Daher fordere die SPD in Bayern nicht nur „ein sofortiges Moratorium für den Microsoft-Deal“, sondern auch „einen verbindlichen Migrationsplan bis 2030 hin zu Open Source“. Diese Strategie sollte auch vorsehen, technologische Abhängigkeiten von einzelnen Konzernen überhaupt erst zu identifizieren, sagt Benjamin Adjei von den Grünen auf Anfrage. Um die „heimische Digitalwirtschaft“ zu stärken, brauche es außerdem jene finanziellen Mittel, die die bayerische Landesregierung in Lizenzkosten von Microsoft aufwende.
Gefahr „einer schutzlosen Preisgestaltung“
Inzwischen hat sich auch die SPD-Bundestagsfraktion in die Causa Microsoft eingeschaltet. In einem offenen Brief an Füracker positionieren sich deren digitalpolitischer Sprecher, Johannes Schätzl, der Landesvorsitzende der BayernSPD, Sebastian Roloff, und die Vorsitzende der SPD-Landesgruppe Bayern, Carolin Wagner, „gegen die Entscheidung, zentrale staatliche IT-Strukturen langfristig und ohne strategische Alternativenbewertung an einen einzelnen Anbieter zu binden“.
Füracker habe auf das Schreiben bislang nicht reagiert, sagt Carolin Wagner gegenüber netzpolitik.org, „ich bin mir aber sicher, dass er es gelesen hat“. An ihren Forderungen hält sie weiterhin fest: „Wir werden als Bundesrepublik nicht digital souverän, wenn die Bundesländer nicht souverän werden und dafür gilt es jetzt in München die Weichen zu stellen.“ Andernfalls setze Microsofts „monopolistische Stellung“ die öffentliche Verwaltung weiterhin „einer schutzlosen Preisgestaltung“ aus, warnt die SPD-Politikerin.
Souveränität as a service
Von der Forderung nach digitaler Souveränität hält der Politikwissenschaftler Thorsten Thiel von der Universität Erfurt indes wenig. Der Begriff führe viele, teils widersprüchliche Interessen zusammen und verschleiere, worum es im Kern eigentlich gehen sollte: eine öffentliche digitale Infrastruktur, die Politik und Zivilgesellschaft demokratisch gestalten.
Eines der Hauptprobleme sieht er darin, dass die Politik digitale Souveränität bestellt und die Wirtschaft liefert. Amazon, Google und Microsoft bieten inzwischen vermeintlich souveräne Cloud-Lösungen an – ohne dass die darin gespeicherten Daten tatsächlich sicher vor einem Zugriff durch US-Behörden sind. Souveränität sei so längst zu einem Service geworden, den Tech-Konzerne anbieten, sagt Thiel. In der Forschung wird dies als sovereignty-as-a-service bezeichnet.
Gleichzeitig greifen die Unternehmen gezielt in die Debatte darum ein, was digitale Souveränität bedeutet. „Sie eignen sich die Bedeutungen des zivilgesellschaftlichen Konzepts gezielt an und höhlen es aus“, sagt Thiel gegenüber netzpolitik.org. In der Folge entkämen sie auch einer schärferen Kontrolle und Regulierung durch die Politik.
„Wir sollten daher nicht danach fragen, ob das betreffende IT-Produkt nach Standard XY souverän ist“, sagt Thiel. Viel wichtiger sei die Frage, wie sehr wir uns binden, wenn wir eine bestimmte Software in der öffentlichen Verwaltung einsetzen.
Bei den Plänen Fürackers geht es aus Sicht des Politikwissenschaftlers um die Frage, ob in Bayern damit Alternativen verhindert werden. Thiel fordert daher positive Gegenbegriffe wie jenen der Interoperabilität. Der Begriff beschreibt die Fähigkeit verschiedener digitaler Systeme, miteinander zusammenzuspielen und Daten auszutauschen. Proprietäre Software verhindere dies in der Regel.
Esther Menhard ist freie Autorin bei netzpolitik.org. Sie recherchiert zur Digitalisierung der öffentlichen Verwaltung und nimmt dazu gerne Hinweise entgegen. Von Haus aus Philosophin, interessiert sie sich für Datenethik, die Schnittstelle zwischen Wissenschaft und Digitalität, AdTech, Open Access und Open Source. Kontakt: E-Mail (OpenPGP), Mastodon Bluesky. Dieser Beitrag ist eine Übernahme von netzpolitik, gemäss Lizenz Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Über Esther Menhard - netzpolitik:
Martin Böttger ist seit 2014 Herausgeber des Beueler-Extradienst. Sein Lebenslauf findet sich hier...
Sie können dem Autor auch via Fediverse folgen unter: @martin.boettger -
Happy #polarprideday! Here's to all the wonderful polar scientists around the world, and to a more inclusive and diverse future in this important and exciting field of research! Sad not to be joining #polarpride activities in person today (thanks COVID!), but celebrating at home with jammy doughnuts! 😁🌈 #polarpride2022
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Happy #polarprideday! Here's to all the wonderful polar scientists around the world, and to a more inclusive and diverse future in this important and exciting field of research! Sad not to be joining #polarpride activities in person today (thanks COVID!), but celebrating at home with jammy doughnuts! 😁🌈 #polarpride2022
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Happy #polarprideday! Here's to all the wonderful polar scientists around the world, and to a more inclusive and diverse future in this important and exciting field of research! Sad not to be joining #polarpride activities in person today (thanks COVID!), but celebrating at home with jammy doughnuts! 😁🌈 #polarpride2022
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Happy #polarprideday! Here's to all the wonderful polar scientists around the world, and to a more inclusive and diverse future in this important and exciting field of research! Sad not to be joining #polarpride activities in person today (thanks COVID!), but celebrating at home with jammy doughnuts! 😁🌈 #polarpride2022
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Caroline La douce steps into a dark, elegant pop mood with “Walk In My Shoes”, blending neon atmosphere, confidence, and a mysterious visual identity.
Read more: https://www.audiartist.com/caroline-la-douce-walk-in-my-shoes/
Follow @carolineladouce_cld #PopMusic
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Caroline La Douce turns fragile emotion into nocturnal synthwave pop with “Walk in My Shoes”, a song about empathy, distance and what we hide behind the surface. Read & listen: https://www.audiartist.com/caroline-la-douce-walk-in-my-shoes/ #SynthPop #NewMusic
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Caroline Ouellette and Marie-Philip Poulin 2014, 2017 and 2026. #PWHL #Victoire #TeamCanada
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Caroline Ouellette and Marie-Philip Poulin 2014, 2017 and 2026. #PWHL #Victoire #TeamCanada
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Caroline Ouellette and Marie-Philip Poulin 2014, 2017 and 2026. #PWHL #Victoire #TeamCanada
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Caroline Ouellette and Marie-Philip Poulin 2014, 2017 and 2026. #PWHL #Victoire #TeamCanada
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Caroline Ouellette and Marie-Philip Poulin 2014, 2017 and 2026. #PWHL #Victoire #TeamCanada
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Caroline Lossberg
unknown photographer and origin
@[email protected]
#bwphotography #bnw #blackandwhitephotography #blackandwhiteart #blackandwhiteimage #blackandwhitephoto #blackandwhite #ArtAndNudity #ArtisticErotic #ArtisticNSFW #ArtisticNudity -
Caroline Lossberg
unknown photographer and origin
@[email protected]
#bwphotography #bnw #blackandwhitephotography #blackandwhiteart #blackandwhiteimage #blackandwhitephoto #blackandwhite #ArtAndNudity #ArtisticErotic #ArtisticNSFW #ArtisticNudity -
Caroline Rose, Yip yip yow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Gj3maiYT4
