Crooked Media - A farewell to harms

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy took the unprecedented step of branding gun violence an American public health crisis, and urged the country to rethink its approach to this endemic threat. 

• Murthy’s new advisory report paints a sweeping portrait of firearms' staggering death toll: More than 48,000 Americans died by gunshot in 2022, up by over 16,000 from 2010. Guns recently surpassed even car crashes to become the leading cause of death among children and adolescents, killing 4,603 people under the age of 19 in 2022. Black Americans are over four times more likely to suffer gun-related homicide. But White Americans are experiencing a surge in gun-related suicides. 

• While the report is historic, it also states what health advocates have known for years: guns are a distinctly American public-health problem that ought to be remedied with public-health thinking. Guns, like cigarettes and cars, are easy to obtain and lethal. Intuitively, the idea that guns represent an inherent public health risk should be obvious: they’re designed to make people extremely sick, to the point of death, extremely fast.

• Gun control opponents, from the NRA to Congress, understand the damning public health implications of their position. How can we be sure? Because they managed to legally ban the CDC, the nation’s premier public health agency, from studying the question for years, in a surefire sign they didn’t want the public to know the evidence. That ban was finally lifted in 2013, allowing funding for basic research to finally proceed. That’s one big reason we just got this new report.

Murthy’s declaration comes with no special enforcement powers. But similar moves have saved millions of lives in the past. 

• For example, the Surgeon General released a similar report on smoking in 1964. The report didn’t outlaw cigarettes or stop the tobacco lobby’s lies. Instead, it shifted the focus on cigarettes to a society-based public health approach. Today, everyone knows smoking kills. You can light up. But you can’t plead ignorance. Smoking rates have plummeted.

• Or, consider seat belts. In the 1970s, policy makers, who had no intention of banning cars, recognized how deadly they could be. They moved toward seatbelt laws, safety standards, anti-drunk driving messaging, and educational campaigns about the importance of a properly installed child seat. You can still buy all the cars you want (God bless). But thanks to this public health approach, the roads are much safer. 

“It is up to us to take on this generational challenge with the urgency and clarity the moment demands,” the Surgeon General concludes. “The safety and well‑being of our children and future generations are at stake.”

President Biden has repeatedly taken steps to ease the burden of Americans’ staggering $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. Naturally, Republicans have done their best to stop him. And unfortunately for a lot of former students, Biden’s opponents just scored a big win. 

Millions of student borrowers, who had been looking forward to lower monthly loan payments starting July 1st, will get no such relief — at least not for now, thanks to two judges’ orders in lawsuits brought by Republicans. President Biden’s SAVE plan involved slashing payments for up to 8 million participating borrowers as part of the president’s broader loan relief efforts. But GOP officials sued, and now judges in Missouri and Kansas put temporary injunctions on SAVE’s ability to ease payments. 

Both judges found that the Biden Administration likely lacked the authority to order the new payment schedules, and stopped SAVE while legal wrangling continues. It’s the latest blow to Biden’s student loan agenda, which had scored some significant successes in the past.  The Administration has already wiped away $5.5 billion in debt for nearly 415,000 borrowers. But the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority struck down an initiative to relieve about $20,000 in debt for 40 million borrowers last June.  

Judge Juan Merchan partially lifted disgraced former President Donald Trump’s gag order. Trump is now free to attack witnesses and jurors, but still can’t go after court staff, their families, or prosecutors except for D.A. Alvin Bragg. Trump immediately lied about the ruling’s implications. Yep, that’s him!

Israel must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men for required military service, the country’s Supreme Court ruled. The decision complicates Israel’s long-simmering tensions between secular Israelis and Orthodox seminary students, who are exempt from the draft. It also could drive a wedge in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet.

Trump may announce his VP pick as soon as this week, possibly before Thursday’s debate, NBC News reported, citing four sources close to Trump’s campaign.  

Julian Assange pleaded guilty to a single felony charge before a judge in the U.S. Pacific territory of the Northern Mariana Islands Wednesday. Assange's deal to admit to one count of violating the Espionage Act related to leaking documents between 2009 and 2011 secures his freedom and ends his lengthy legal saga.  

Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has some advice for President Biden on how to beat Trump in Thursday’s debate: don’t waste time trying to refute his “nonsense.” Instead, be “direct and forceful,” and bring the anti-hater energy Biden had in his most recent State of the Union speech. All due respect to Hillary, “I’ve faced off against both Trump and Biden before losing both my presidential campaigns” is not a super compelling basis for an argument! 

Voters in parts of the Bronx and Westchester County went to the polls today to determine the fate of progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and his centrist primary challenger, Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) was able to hold on to her in the face of more moderate challengers funded by AIPAC. Tonight we’ll see if Rep. Bowman can do the same.

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