Stacey Dash is very sorry for supporting former President Donald Trump, she says, joining a number of Trump supporters who recently denounced the former president following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The former Clueless actress-turned-Republican talking head made a public apology during an interview with Daily Mail TV on Wednesday, during which she said that she had “lived her life being angry” but “that’s not who Stacey is now.”

In the interview, Dash explained that her opinions were “arrogant and prideful and angry,” adding that she is no longer that person. Instead, “Stacey’s someone who has compassion, empathy,” she declared, talking about herself in third person. Dash also said she felt she played a role at Fox News as “the angry, conservative, Black woman,” until she realized “that anger is unsustainable and it will destroy you.” 

Dash later added that when she watched what happened at the Capitol, where Trump supporters made a final effort at overturning the 2020 presidential election by violently storming the building, that was the end for her. “When that happened I was like ‘OK, I’m done. I’m truly done,’” she said. “Because senseless violence of any kind, I denounce. What happened on January 6 was just appalling and stupid.” 

But people online are not exactly accepting of Dash’s apology, with many noting that she is likely struggling to find work in Hollywood after associating herself with Trump. Dash endorsed Trump early on in his 2016 presidential run, with a donation to his Great America PAC. Over several years, she made a number of racist and misogynistic comments as a Fox contributor. For example, she suggested ending Black History Month because there wasn’t a white history month. She also suggested ending the BET awards and the NAACP Image Awards. In 2015, Dash claimed that former President Barack Obama “didn’t give a shit” about terrorism, at which point Fox suspended her and later decided not to renew her contract for the following year. 

Dash has also made transphobic and anti-feminist comments, stating that feminism is ruining men and masculinity. In 2018, the actress defended Trump’s comments that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the deadly neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where an anti-racist protestor was killed and many others were injured. 

In her apology, Dash noted that she’s no longer the same angry person she was in 2016, adding, “what people don’t know is that I made a lot of mistakes because of that anger.” She went on, “There are things that I am sorry for. Things that I did say, that I should not have said them the way I said them.”

Despite her apology and her acknowledgement that she would like to give the Biden administration a chance, it just might be too little too late.

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Nationwide, people are grappling with the weight of life during the coronavirus pandemic as they reflect on an entire year living under some kind of lockdown. For many, the pandemic has meant working from home, less physical contact with family and friends, and a complete change in how they interact with everyday life in an effort to keep themselves and their loved ones safer from the deadly virus. 

But there is some hope for relief, now that a third vaccine has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use. Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine is now being administered across the country for people ages 18 and older. Despite the fact that there are now even more vaccines being made available to millions of people across the country, some are skeptical that the J&J vaccine is less effective than the Moderna and Pfizer two-dose vaccines, due to lower efficacy numbers.

Media reports on the new vaccine have focused their attention on its efficacy rate: 72% for Johnson & Johnson, compared to 94% for Moderna and 95% for Pfizer. But the lower rate shouldn’t discourage anyone from getting the single-dose vaccine, which is equally as effective as the other two at preventing serious illness, according to The New York Times. The J&J vaccine’s lower effectiveness number refers only to its ability to prevent all infections as a result of contracting the SARS-Cov-2 virus. 

While it may not be as good at preventing mild COVID cases, Johnson & Johnson’s single dose is just as successful as the other two at preventing the most serious cases of this virus, and that’s most important. For more context, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is also more effective than the flu shot. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to the flu vaccine.”

Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco told The New York Times that with any of the three vaccines, “There’s essentially no chance you will die of COVID, which is breathtaking.” This is notable, considering the virus has killed more than half a million people in the U.S. over the last year.

The goal of any of the three vaccines is not to completely root out COVID-19, which is likely here to stay. Instead, the hope is to turn the virus into something like a mild flu or the common cold while we seek to achieve herd immunity and in that regard, things are looking up.

“When you think of what do you want from a vaccine, you don’t want to go to the hospital, and you certainly don’t want to die,” Johnson & Johnson CEO and Chairman Alex Gorsky told CNBC’s Squawk Box. “And what we have seen as far as 100% efficacy in those parameters, again with a single shot.”

Experts say they would recommend any of the three vaccines and suggest that people get whichever one is first made available to them. That is our best possible tool when it comes to moving past the pandemic. Lisa Lee, an infectious disease epidemiologist and public health ethicist at Virginia Tech, said last month that a third vaccine option “substantially reduces the time it takes the U.S. to reach herd immunity.” Lee also noted that as more of the population becomes vaccinated, there is less opportunity for further mutations of the virus to develop. “When we stop transmitting between people, we also stop the opportunity for mutation,” she told CNBC.

After a long year in relative isolation, as people sit with the grief of losing their old ways of living and their loved ones and the uncertainty of what comes next, it’s only natural that they might question the efficacy of a new vaccine. We’ve been dealt so many blows in the last year, after all. But rest assured that if your time comes for the vaccine and the Johnson & Johnson single-dose shot is made available to you, it’s just one more layer of protection for all of us.

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On Thursday, Former USA Olympic Gymnastics coach John Geddert died by suicide hours after being charged with 24 felonies. The human trafficking charges followed accusations that he abused gymnasts in his care. Police found Geddert’s body at an interstate highway rest stop hours after he was criminally charged in Michigan for his ties to the disgraced former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 10 minors in 2018.

Geddert had agreed to surrender to the sheriff’s office on Thursday afternoon before a scheduled 2:15 p.m. arraignment, but he never showed, ESPN reported. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel called Geddert’s suicide “a tragic end to a tragic story for everyone involved.” A spokesperson for Nessel told ESPN, “We had no indication that Geddert intended to flee or hurt himself or others. We had been in contact with his attorney and were assured of his cooperation.” The investigation into his death is “ongoing; no further details will be released at this time,” police said in a statement.

Of the 24 felonies Geddert was charged with, 20 counts were for human trafficking and forced labor; one was for first-degree sexual assault; one was for second-degree sexual assault, racketeering, and lying to a police officer. Geddert, who led the U.S. women’s gymnastics team at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, was accused of “sexual penetration” of a girl under 16 in January 2012, according to the complaint. The Michigan Attorney General’s office also said Geddert was aware Nassar was sexually abusing gymnasts, and both men lied to police about it during the 2016 investigation. 

Nessel also said that victims of his abuse “suffer from disordered eating, including bulimia and anorexia, suicide attempts and self-harm, excessive physical conditioning, repeatedly being forced to perform even when injured, extreme emotional abuse and physical abuse, including sexual assault. Many of these victims still carry these scars from his behavior to this day.”

USA Gymnastics came under scrutiny in 2016 as 332 survivors of sexual assault came forward with allegations that they had been abused by Nassar in one of the biggest sexual violence reckonings in sports. 

Many athletes spoke out following the news of Geddert’s suicide, including Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, a survivor of Nassar’s abuse who was vocal about her experiences. “Sick to my stomach,” Raisman wrote on Twitter. She added, “Thinking of the survivors out there. Wish there was more I could say to ease the pain & suffering.” 

Sarah Klein, the first-known survivor of Nassar’s abuse, blamed officials at top gymnastics organizations for “enabling” Geddert, whom she described as a “narcissistic abuser,” CNN reports. Klein was one of the 150 survivors to speak up about Nassar’s abuse in 2018.

“The bravery of Geddert’s many victims will stand for all time in stark contrast to his cowardice,” she said Thursday. “As a survivor and a mother of two young girls, my only comfort is in the knowledge that I can rest my head on the pillow every night knowing that John Geddert will never terrorize and abuse another child.”

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There’s never a right time to insult and name-call an ex. But perhaps one of the worst possible times to start a fight with a former fling might be while illegally and violently storming the U.S. Capitol in a last-ditch effort to forcefully overturn the 2020 presidential election results (just saying). In that case, it probably doesn’t help to insult someone while also sending video updates of your illegal activities.

But that didn’t stop Richard Michetti of Ridley Park, Pennsylvania from calling his ex a “moron” via text while storming the Capitol with a violent, Trump-supporting mob, The Washington Post reports.

According to the Post, Michetti reportedly took a quick break from rioting to text his ex-girlfriend. “If you can’t see the election was stolen you’re a moron,” the text read, per court documents.

Michetti’s poor timing — and lazy insults — also resulted in his arrest. His ex, who is actually not a moron, went ahead and turned over the text messages along with photographic and video evidence to the FBI the following day.

Other texts between the former couple detail Machetti’s activity during the Capitol attack. “It’s going down here,” Michetti texted around 2:06 p.m. local time. “We stormed the building they held us back with spray and tear gas and paintballs,” he said, adding that his eyes were burning as a result. But he said he felt fairly certain his efforts would successfully “stop the vote it’s fraud this is our country.”

Over the course of two hours, Michetti updated his ex on his activities and sent her two videos from inside the Capitol. Around 4:30 p.m., after former president Donald Trump told his supporters to “go home,” is when Michetti called his ex a “moron.” Little did he know at the time, his “moron” ex would be the one to take him down.

The following day, the woman took all her evidence of her then-boyfriend committing a government crime and bragging about it to the FBI. According to a statement of facts, the unnamed woman told the FBI that Michetti told her on January 5, the day before the riot, that he was taking a train to D.C. because he believed the election was stolen. There is still no evidence of this nearly four months later, despite Trump’s relentless claims otherwise. 

Michetti’s ex then spoke to FBI special agents on January 11 when she was able to identify him in other videos and photos that people had tipped off to law enforcement. He was also caught on Capitol security footage. Michetti has since been charged with knowingly entering a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and obstruction of Congress and faces up to 20 years in prison. He was released this week on unsecured bail with electronic monitoring as he awaits an upcoming court appearance on Monday, Morning Call reports. 

Looks like ex-girlfriends of MAGA bros are actually some of the greatest organizers of the resistance. Who would have thought?

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Despite the fact that literally no one asked for this, the beloved potato we’ve all known as Mr. Potato Head will no longer be a mister. Hasbro announced Thursday their decision to take the potato in a different direction, giving the potato-shaped toy a new name to go along with its new identity as a gender-neutral spud. The potato will be hereby known simply as Potato Head, and the change will be implemented this year. 

Now, Potato Head can go on to live its life with the rest of the genderless potatoes. But perhaps the real question here is: Why — and I cannot stress this enough — was a potato ever assigned a gender to begin with?

The famous potato, known for his breakout role in the 1995 Pixar film Toy Story, has been around for much longer than that. The inventor George Lerner came up with the concept of turning a potato into a “funny-face man” in 1949, according to The Takeout. At the time, World War II had just ended as Americans lived through a period of rationing food, so the potato was a controversial idea for some toy manufacturers who worried that playing with vegetables would seem wasteful.

But Lerner came up with the idea after taking actual potatoes and other similar vegetables straight from the garden and turning them into silly children’s toys. Lerner first started by making the potato dolls for his sisters as a child and the toy kit was officially born on May 1, 1952, after Hasbro bought the rights to Mr. Potato Head for $5,000. 

Now 69 years later, Mr. Potato Head, like other children’s toys, is being rebranded for the sake of performative corporate progressivism.

Still, as Ali Mierzejewski, the editor-in-chief of the toy review site The Toy Insider, explained, “It’s a potato. But kids like to see themselves in the toys they are playing with.” As a couch potato myself, I personally have never felt as seen as I do now by Potato Head’s rebranding. 

While there may have never been a need for a gendered potato to begin with — and material conditions won’t change for trans and non-binary people as a result of Mr. Potato Head dropping the Mister — we have nonetheless entered the age of the gender-neutral Potato. Welcome.

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Group chats are typically a safe place for most people, where friends banter back and forth about the intimate details of our lives, or to commiserate about the freezing cold they are all enduring due to a winter storm knocking out the power in Texas. But Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was in for a rude awakening Thursday after his wife Heidi’s group chat texts were leaked to the media.

It all started when photos of the couple and their kids boarding a flight to Cancún, Mexico went viral online. The senator received backlash for the decision to literally flee the country as his state faced a severe humanitarian crisis. Millions of people were without power for days, many are without clean water and access to food. People are having difficulty staying warm. But Cruz and his family, who say they lost power like everyone else, also decided to take a trip, with the senator saying in a statement that he abandoned Texas “to be a good dad” and take his daughters and their friends to Mexico on their week off from school. He added that he would be back in Texas Thursday night, despite appearing to bring a week’s worth of luggage.

“I was trying to be a dad, and all of us have made decisions,” Cruz said on Thursday. “[I’ve] got two girls, who’ve been cold for two days, and haven’t had heat or power, and they’re saying ‘Hey look! We don’t have school! Why don’t we get out of here?'”

But that whole story unraveled when Heidi’s text messages, which show her actively planning a getaway to Cancún with her neighbors were leaked. “Is everyone warm? That’s a must! We could all huddle in one house,” she suggested in one text, Business Insider reported. Another text read: “Anyone can or want to leave for the week? We may go to Cancun, there is a direct flight at 445pm and hotels with capacity. Seriously.”

A later text from Heidi told the group, “the Ritz Carlton has rooms at like $300 and we’ve been there many times great property good security etc no issues.” She added, “I’ll confirm on the covid we need to call the hotel this am to confirm that but you just test when you arrive as needs to be 3days before return.” When another person in the chat asked who was sending the messages, she replied: “Heidi Cruz.” Other text messages provided to Business Insider included detailed information about the Cruz family’s flight. The New York Times also confirmed that they received the same text messages from one person in the group chat and a second member verified them. (Yikes!)

As of Friday morning, most Texans started getting their power back, though millions of people across the state are now facing an escalating water crisis. Pipes were cracked and frozen, and water treatment plants lost power for much of the week, leaving millions without drinkable water. The state issued a boil water advisory, but as some people commented on Twitter, millions of people also had no way of doing so. And, so far, at least 30 people in Texas have died as a result of the winter storm. 

While Texans continue to recover with the help of friends, neighbors, and solidarity, hopefully Heidi has also learned a valuable lesson about her group chat — and perhaps Ted has learned a little something about leadership and human decency. (Probably not.)

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What's Really Going On In Texas Right Now

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Nearly half a million people remained without power on Thursday morning in Texas after an unprecedented winter storm hit the state earlier in the week. People across the state struggled to stay warm and find enough food and clean water in the ongoing dangerous, freezing conditions. Millions of people across the state have been issued a boil water notice after the storm caused widespread blackouts at water treatment facilities. 

Meanwhile, the state’s political leaders have been inadequate in their response, if not completely absent. Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz came under fire Thursday after he was photographed boarding a flight to Cancún, Mexico for a family vacation as millions of people in his state struggled to stay warm — not to mention the fact that we are still very much in the depths of the global coronavirus pandemic. Furthermore, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blamed the Green New Deal for the statewide power failures, despite the fact that the proposed resolution hasn’t passed in Congress.

In reality, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has a monopoly on power across the state, managing electricity for 90% of Texans. However, Texas officials, power companies, and ERCOT knew well in advance that the winter storm was coming and did seemingly little to prepare. Ahead, we’ve broken down how the state’s ongoing disaster started and what you can do to help.

When did the snowstorm in Texas start?

Snowfall started across Texas on Sunday after a polar vortex fueled a historic storm across the entirety of the United States. On Monday, at least 150 million people nationwide were under ice or winter weather advisories as the snowstorm continued to intensify throughout the week as much of the country experienced record-setting weather.

“This impressive onslaught of wicked wintry weather across much of the Lower 48 is due to the combination of strong Arctic high pressure supplying sub-freezing temperatures and an active storm track escorting waves of precipitation from coast-to-coast,” said the National Weather Service. As Michael J. Ventrice, a meteorological scientist with IBM told The New York Times, the storm is a result of a clash between the Arctic high, and warmer, wetter air in the South.

What happened to the power grid in Texas?

While several states have seen power outages as a result of the winter storm, Texas was hit the hardest due to the fact that it operates its own power grid mostly in isolation from other states. States in other parts of the country, like in the Midwest, were able to generate power thanks to interconnections with power grids in neighboring states.

Hardline conservatives have praised Texas for its independent power system, which is managed by ERCOT. But Democrats have warned for years that the power grid could end up failing. When a winter storm took out power across much of the state in 2011, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, then a state representative, warned the utility company was given too much leeway, according to the Times. 

How did all of this lead to power outages in Texas?

On Thursday, Texas entered its third day of widespread power outages. The outages are a result of both an unprecedented demand for energy and colder-than-usual winter temperatures, stunting the state’s power infrastructure. Now, rather than restoring power across Texas, the state’s power authority suggested that grid operators shift from a complete energy blackout to rolling blackouts. 

ERCOT tweeted on Tuesday that outages overnight led to “load shed” — the power company’s deliberate decision to reduce energy consumption by shutting down part of the power system in order to avoid a broader system failure. 

What is the best way to help support people in Texas?

As with most climate and other social crises these days, mutual aid groups and grassroots organizations have filled in the gap in aid to the most vulnerable people and communities. Statewide warming centers, including pet-friendly options, run by both cities and churches opened up for stranded motorists and people still without power. Donation drives popped up in cities across the state to help unhoused people acquire bedding, linens, and other household items. A comprehensive list of statewide aid can be found here. 

If you’re living in Texas and have the ability to get out in the cold and help, you can assist with mutual aid efforts where you live by helping your neighbors stay warm and get access to clean water, food, and other supplies. You can tap into an existing network, or connect with neighbors where you live and start a network specific to your community.  

Anyone can also help by providing financial assistance to mutual aid networks across the state:

North Texas Rural Resilience: @ntrr4yall on Venmo

Mutual Aid Houston: GoFundMe

Austin Disaster Relief Fund: Donate here

FeedThePeopleDallas: @feedtheppldfw on Venmo

Dallas Harm Reduction Aid: @dallashra on Venmo

Texas Jail Project: Donations will go to commissary for people incarcerated across the state so that they can buy food and supplies.

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Former President Donald Trump’s legal defense is off to an interesting start, to say the least, as the Senate’s impeachment trial continues in its fourth day. Trump’s legal team, which he scrambled to put together just last week, have put forth a bumbling defense as his lawyers Bruce Castor, David Schoen, and Michael van der Veen spoke on behalf of the former president on Friday. It seemed fitting, though, as one person compared Trump’s defense to “one long unhinged Trump tweet being read by lawyers.” 

That’s not a bad assessment of what went down inside the Senate chamber. Let’s debrief (pun intended): Schoen attempted to argue that the Senate’s case against Trump relied mostly on “reported” allegations. Schoen presented a montage of clips of impeachment managers using the language of “reported,” “reportedly,” and “reports” during the trial when presenting evidence against Trump. “As any trial lawyer will tell you, ‘reportedly’ is a euphemism for, ‘I have no real evidence,’” argued Schoen. (Ok!)

He also accused House impeachment managers of manipulating their presentation against Trump, stating that they “created false representation of tweets.” But the evidence he pointed to was never used, according to Business Insider. It should come as no surprise that the former president’s legal defense is a little bit of a mess, when they’ve had to build a case on shaky ground to begin with. 

Meanwhile, van der Veen argued that Democratic lawmakers were no better than Trump when they objected to the Electoral College vote to certify his victory in 2017. The circumstances were completely different: Trump lost the popular vote by almost 2.9 million votes in the 2016 election. This time around he also failed to win enough electoral votes to win. 

Nevertheless, van der Veen went on to share a video montage of Democrats objecting to Trump’s victories in battleground states, including House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin, in order to make the point that their objections were no better than Trump’s repeated attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. “To litigate questions of an election integrity within the system is not incitement to resurrection,” said van der Veen. Ah, yes, incitement to “resurrection.” That’s what this whole trial is about. Regardless, objections from lawmakers over Trump’s 2016 win didn’t also lead to a bloody riot at the US Capitol. 

The fact that Trump’s legal defense is less than perfect isn’t exactly a shock. Rudy Giuliani served as his personal attorney for years, while bringing questionable witnesses to courtrooms in his attempt to overturn election results. We also watched his hair melt down his face on live TV, as he quoted the film My Cousin Vinny. Giuliani certainly set a standard of entertainment when it comes to defending Trump in court — and that’s probably because anyone defending the former president has very little factual evidence on their side. 

His current attorneys might even know that, too. Months before he joined Trump’s legal defense at the Senate impeachment trial, van der Veen, a lawyer based out of Philadelphia, sued Trump ahead of the 2020 election over his claims about widespread mail-in voter fraud, The Inquirer reported. In an August 20 email obtained by the news outlet, van der Veen reportedly wrote, “Donald Trump doesn’t want you to be able to vote. It’s time to stand up for what’s right.” Apparently “what’s right” at this point is winning an acquittal for the man who egged on his supporters as they violently stormed the Capitol. 

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Anna Sorokin, who posed as a German heiress named Anna Delvey to grift her way into a luxurious Manhattan lifestyle, has been released from prison this week after years of backlash for her famous SoHo scam. The 30-year-old scammed friends and banks out of tens of thousands of dollars in cash and services, including trips to Morocco and a private flight to the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting. After spending the last few years in prison at the Albion Correctional Facility in upstate New York, Sorokin was released on parole Thursday, NBC News reports. 

In April 2019, Sorokin was convicted by a Manhattan State Supreme Court jury on four counts of theft services, three counts of grand larceny, and one count of attempted grand larceny. The following month, New York Justice Diane Kiesel sentenced Sorokin to four to 12 years in prison because she said she was “stunned by the depth” of Sorokin’s deceptions.

“This defendant’s alleged criminal conduct spans from check fraud to six-figure stolen loans,” the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said in its indictment at the time. 

For years, Sorokin lied to friends and businesses about her father being a diplomat or an oil baron worth millions of dollars abroad in order to convince them to give her money to maintain a lavish lifestyle. Among some of her grifts, she stole $62,000 from a friend to cover a trip to Morocco, and convincing a bank to lend her $100,000 that she never returned.

At the time of her sentencing, Sorokin originally told the court she was sorry for her mistakes. She later backtracked when she was sentenced to time in prison, telling The New York Times, “I’d be lying to you and to everyone else and to myself if I said I was sorry for anything.” But she has once again changed her tune. During a parole hearing in October 2020, Sorokin told the board: “I’m really ashamed, and I’m really sorry for what I did.” Although she was released on good terms, Sorokin now risks deportation to Germany, Insider reports. 

During her time in prison, Sorokin made art, which she shared on her Instagram. One drawing shows her sitting on a lounge chair behind barbed wire, reading Sally Rooney’s Normal People and joking about her Miu Miu sunglasses being contraband. 

Sorokin also launched her website, Anna Delvey Diaries, while in prison, which includes notes about being incarcerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a Rikers Island tip sheet for former President Donald Trump.

“Surely you will be pleased to discover that this is a surprisingly lawless place (for a government institution), where rules are a viewed as a mere suggestion and boundaries don’t exist,” she tells Trump. 

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When allegations surfaced last month against John Weaver, the co-founder of the conservative anti-Trump super PAC, The Lincoln Project, the organization’s leadership said it was “shocked.” According to allegations from former staff, Weaver had sexually harassed at least 21 young men. But an Associated Press report published Thursday revealed leadership at the organization was well aware of Weaver’s behavior since at least June 2020. The group now says it will hire an outside investigator to evaluate Weaver’s conduct. 

The allegations first came to light in January when The New York Times reported that 21 men had accused Weaver of sending them unsolicited sexually explicit messages and photos online. The 61-year-old longtime GOP strategist, who worked on the presidential campaigns of John McCain and John Kasich, sent messages to boys as young as 14 years old, asking one teen questions about his body while he was still in high school, according to the report. 

In some exchanges, Weaver allegedly offered to help young men find work in politics in exchange for sex. One message reported by the Times shows Weaver telling one young man, he would “spoil you when we see each other,” and adding, “Help you other times. Give advice, counsel, help with bills. You help me … sensually.”  

Despite their public reactions, when these allegations came out, leadership at the Lincoln Project knew about them for months. In June 2020, members of the organization learned in writing and by phone of at least 10 allegations of sexual harassment against Weaver, including two that involved Lincoln Project staffers, AP reported. Neither of those two employees (one was an intern who was finishing law school, the other was a communications staffer) made any allegations of inappropriate physical contact. 

The group said Thursday it would hire an outside investigator, and encouraged anyone tied to a nondisclosure agreement “to contact the Lincoln Project for a release.” However, six former staffers are demanding to be released from their nondisclosure agreements so they could openly speak about Weaver’s abuses. The former employees wrote in a letter published by The New York Times that they wanted to be allowed to disclose information “that would aid the press, public and our donors in answering questions relevant to the public interest.” 

They stated that they did not feel comfortable being asked to contact the Lincoln Project directly, citing comments made by leaders of the organization, including co-founder Steve Schmidt, who allegedly denied having any knowledge of Weaver’s harassment.

Further, late on Thursday, the Lincoln Project tweeted and later deleted, a private conversation between journalist Amanda Becker at The 19th and Lincoln Project co-founder Jennifer Horn, who left the group following accusations against Weaver, The Washington Post reports. The group appeared to be using the private messages to discredit Becker’s reporting on the group by accusing her of “editorializing” and conducting a “hit-job” against the group. Emily Ramshaw, co-founder and CEO of the 19th defended her reporter, writing on Twitter, “We’re not going to be bullied or intimidated out of pursuing critical journalism.”

After the sexual harassment allegations first came to light last month, Weaver confirmed he had sent the inappropriate messages and apologized for his behavior. “To the men I made uncomfortable through my messages that I viewed as consensual mutual conversations at the time: I am truly sorry. They were inappropriate and it was because of my failings that this discomfort was brought on you,” he said in a statement to Axios. “The truth is that I’m gay. And that I have a wife and two kids who I love. My inability to reconcile those two truths has led to this agonizing place. ”

When reached for comment, Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt doubled down, again, and told the AP that none of the group’s leadership were aware of the internal allegations made against Weaver, and thus HR had not investigated them. “In other words, no human being ever made an allegation about any inappropriate sexualized communications about John Weaver ever,” said Schmidt. 

The organization’s founders, including Schmidt and Reed Galen, conservative attorney George Conway; former New Hampshire GOP chair Jennifer Horn; Florida-based veteran political ad maker Rick Wilson; and Weaver, are all prominent Republican strategists. Despite positioning themselves as heroically fighting for “the middle” and taking down Donald Trump, the super PAC continues to peddle dangerous conservative ideologies — like sweeping sexual abuse allegations under the rug.

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Social media influencers will soon have access to labor protections as they prepare to unionize. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced a new agreement this week that will allow influencers who earn money through advertising on social media — including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, and other platforms — to join the union. 

Gabrielle Carteris, the union’s president, told Backstage the agreement “was created in response to the unique nature of Influencer-generated branded content and offers a new way for influencers to work under a SAG-AFTRA agreement. We want to be able to support both current and future SAG-AFTRA members in this space and for them to be able to access the benefits of union coverage.”

Previously, YouTubers were the only influencers afforded union protections and benefits, including the right to earn union income, and qualify for health and pension benefits. While the agreement currently may appear to only affect influencers who already have a larger audience — for instance, TikTok stars like Charli d’Amelio, Addison Rae, and Bella Poarch, three of the biggest names on the platform who have amassed millions of followers — it also opens the door for further recognition of workers in an increasingly informal gig economy. 

More and more of the labor force has turned to gig work, from freelancing in the media industry to other forms of app-based labor. In 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 55 million people in the US were gig workers, and projected that 43% of the workforce would find informal work in 2020. The growing number of workers without formal employment status has led to organizing efforts around their inclusion in existing unions or efforts to form new ones.

Likewise, the inclusion of informal workers in labor unions can only ever be a good thing for the labor movement. As actress and writer Kristin Chirico wrote on Twitter, “a lot of influencers are marginalized people who COULD REALLY BENEFIT from union protections, especially as more brands seek to employ marginalized creators to improve their images.”

That was what led Instagram influencers to form two unions in the US and the UK last year. Under The Creator Union, influencers pushed for more transparency and to root out exploitative practices in the growing industry, while aiming to center the rights of Black and LGBTQ+ influencers who were most commonly underpaid, Vogue Business reported at the time. “Often, even well-known brands don’t allow influencers to negotiate fees, don’t offer a contract, and don’t pay on time,” Nicole Ocran an influencer and co-founder of TCU said. 

The growing gig economy is forcing workers to reimagine what unions should offer them, and who should be included at the bargaining table. As newsrooms across the country have been affected in recent years by shutdowns and layoffs, freelancer writers have started forming their own unions like the Industrial Workers of the World Freelance Journalists Union and the National Writers Union’s Freelance Solidarity Project. Some newsrooms with unions under the Writers Guild of America (including this one) have started pushing to include freelancers in their union, as well. 

Moreover, some people see influencers’ inclusion in SAG-AFTRA as an opportunity for the labor movement to renew efforts around the PRO Act, a labor rights bill that passed in the House last year. The labor rights bill would allow the National Labor Relations Board to impose fines against employers for violating workers’ rights, and increase protections for workers’ right to strike, among others.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the urgent need for Congress to protect and strengthen workers’ rights,” said House Education and Labor Committee Chair Bobby Scott. “Over the past year, workers across the country have been forced to work in unsafe conditions for insufficient pay, because they lacked the ability to stand together and negotiate with their employer.”  

Social media influencers and other essential gig workers may not appear to have much in common on the surface. But increasing union membership and protections for informal workers across the board can only be beneficial for labor rights as a whole. And give them a future which, perhaps, five years ago no one dreamed was possible.

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Former President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial is underway, and this week, House managers of the trial brought forth new and disturbing video footage of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. “From the very beginning, the people around Donald Trump wanted him to take command,” said House impeachment manager David Cicilline. But, according to Cicilline, he did “nothing” to protect the lawmakers inside the building. The rioters “were listening to him. He could have demanded them to leave. But he didn’t.”

Then, security camera footage from inside the Capitol showed a very different picture of what happened that day. House managers played back the shocking footage of far right rioters smashing the windows and forcing their way into the building for the Senate floor on Wednesday. Capitol security camera footage showed former Vice President Mike Pence and his family being escorted down a flight of stairs by Secret Service as the right-wing invaders called for his death. 

The video was time-stamped 2:26 PM, just two minutes after Trump tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,” by overturning the election results, The New York Times reports. Meanwhile, the crowd can be heard on video shouting about finding Pence and hanging him, as one person says, “He’s a total treasonous pig.”

Other footage showed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s aides barricading themselves in an office moments before Trump’s mob attempted to break down the door. Rioters are heard asking where they could find Pelosi, as some shouted, “We’re looking for you!” House impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett, a Democratic delegate from the Virgin Islands noted that the man photographed at Pelosi’s desk was carrying a 950,000-volt stun gun walking stick. 

“They were within 100 feet of where the vice president was sheltering with his family, and they were just feet away from the doors of this chamber where many of you remained at that time,” Plaskett told the Senate. In a scathing indictment of the former president, she added, “Again, that was a mob sent by the president of the United States to stop the certification of an election.”

Despite the footage painting a very clear picture of the events of January 6, many Senate Republicans are still divided over whether to break ranks with Trump, as they look ahead to the 2022 midterms and the future of the party. On the first day of the trial, only six Republicans joined the 50 Democrats who voted to affirm the Senate was within its constitutional right to try the former president for inciting an insurrection. 

Several GOP senators stated that while the footage presented to them was chilling, they still wouldn’t vote to convict Trump, according to a tweet from CNN Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju. Top Republicans, including the former president’s loyal supporter Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said that while the footage was “powerful and emotional… There was very little said about how specific conduct of the president’s satisfies the legal standard” of convicting him. Likewise, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has not said whether he would vote to convict Trump and encouraged other Republicans to vote their conscience, even if they don’t believe the trial is constitutional, Bloomberg reports.

But this all begs the question: What would constitute an impeachable offense, if not a sitting president inciting deadly violence against lawmakers at the US Capitol? The answer is perhaps twofold.

Republican lawmakers for months leading up to and following the 2020 presidential election pushed conspiracy theories that it was rigged or fraudulent. Six Senate Republicans, including Cruz and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, challenged Arizona’s election results — even after pro-Trump extremists broke into the Capitol. Meanwhile, 121 House Republicans also supported the objection. 

This makes one thing clear: If Senate Republicans — who also have blood on their hands for supporting Trump’s narrative of a fraudulent election — voted to convict him at this impeachment trial, they would also be accountable for their role in inciting violence against their colleagues. 

Moreover, the entire party is being asked to decide whether they will continue to support and weaponize Trumpism in its pursuit of legislative and executive power moving forward. As University of Chicago political science professor William Howell told NBC News, “If what we see is that Republicans basically across the board vote to acquit, then we conclude two things: populism will continue to maintain a grip on the party and the relevance of that distinction fades away a bit.” Republican senators refusing to convict Trump still see their loyalty to him as necessary to gaining support and victories in future elections.

While a Senate vote to acquit Trump, which is expected to happen, would mean that he could run again in the 2024 election, the reality is perhaps even more grim: It would also set a dangerous precedent for future similar acts of violence against institutions of democracy to occur with no accountability.

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