Category: Editorial

Alabama, Tennessee, Vermont, Oregon remove slavery loopholes from constitutions, Louisiana does not

Voters in Vermont, Tennessee, Oregon, and Alabama voted Tuesday to end constitutional clauses that allow slavery or indentured servitude as a form of punishment. Ratified in 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in America, but it provided leeway for the practice as punishment for individuals convicted of a crime. Several state constitutions still have language allowing involuntary servitude for prisoners.

Tennessee’s initiative, which received bipartisan support and is known throughout the state as Amendment 3, will alter the language to read: “That slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited in this State. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.”


On Wednesday, it was announced that Oregon voters also passed their version of the proposal after the results proved too close to call on Election Day. Louisiana’s voters rejected their own, similar proposal – Amendment 7 – which read, “Do you support an amendment to prohibit the use of involuntary servitude except as it applies to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice?”

Voters in Colorado became the first to approve removal of slavery exception language from the state constitution in 2018, followed by Nebraska and Utah two years later.


The movement to end or regulate the use of prison labor has existed for decades, since the time when former Confederate states sought ways to maintain the use of chattel slavery after the Civil War. Southern states used racist laws, referred to as “Black codes,” to criminalize, imprison and re-enslave Black Americans over benign behavior.


The Supreme Court Is Not Supposed to Have This Much Power

And Congress should claw it back.

Only after Republicans lost control of Congress in 1875 was the Court able to enforce its contrary interpretations of the Constitution—to devastating effect. In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 and related cases, the Court refused to enforce federal civil-rights laws on the theory that the newly enacted Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments gave Congress no power against private racial violence or discrimination in public accommodations. For the next half century—as part of what the historian W. E. B. Du Bois called the “counter-revolution of property”—the Court condemned the Reconstruction Congress as a group of unprincipled fanatics. And it invented new doctrines that authorized the Court to invalidate federal legislation that it thought went too far toward interfering with white business interests. It was during this period that judicial supremacy took hold as a dominant ideology in the United States.


This bears repeating: Judicial supremacy is an institutional arrangement brought to cultural ascendancy by white people who wanted to undo Reconstruction and the rise of organized labor that had followed. And that makes sense, as judicial supremacy can harness the power of an entrenched minority and use that power to undermine the more democratic legislative branch. Decades after the Court in Marbury v. Madison first anticipated that it might disagree with Congress about a federal law’s constitutionality, the justices finally convinced skeptics of the need for this authority by disempowering Congress and unraveling its legislative efforts to establish political equality.


Paul Finkelman: America’s ‘Great Chief Justice’ was an unrepentant slaveholder In the nearly 150 years since Reconstruction, the thrust of judicial supremacy has continued to be revanchist. Through the 21st century, the justices overwhelmingly have exercised their claim of supremacy over Congress to insulate the wealthy and powerful from federal labor laws, federal voting laws, federal civil-rights laws, federal campaign-finance laws, and federal health-care laws. Decisions such as Citizens United and Shelby County are typical examples of how the Court has overruled Congress to make it harder for ordinary people to participate in American democracy on equal terms. But their damage goes beyond even that: Because the limits of our constitutional imagination can extend no further than the opinions of those who happen to sit on the Court, judicial supremacy has also impoverished what we think is possible through democratic politics—and through organizing for political change at the national level.


In the nearly 150 years since Reconstruction, the thrust of judicial supremacy has continued to be revanchist. Through the 21st century, the justices overwhelmingly have exercised their claim of supremacy over Congress to insulate the wealthy and powerful from federal labor laws, federal voting laws, federal civil-rights laws, federal campaign-finance laws, and federal health-care laws. Decisions such as Citizens United and Shelby County are typical examples of how the Court has overruled Congress to make it harder for ordinary people to participate in American democracy on equal terms. But their damage goes beyond even that: Because the limits of our constitutional imagination can extend no further than the opinions of those who happen to sit on the Court, judicial supremacy has also impoverished what we think is possible through democratic politics—and through organizing for political change at the national level.

Rather than look to the Court to glimpse some fundamental truth from scant constitutional text, Americans ought to demand that their elected representatives engage in the hard work of national lawmaking. Congress must act, even if it means overriding the interpretations of the Court and reshaping its jurisdiction. Encouragingly, members of the House have recently passed bills to enforce their understanding of what federal laws our nation demands and our Constitution permits—including reproductive freedom and voting rights. But the bills have all stalled in the Senate for two reasons that remain within its control. One, the filibuster, will be abolished as soon as 50 senators recognize that a permanently incapacitated Senate is far more destructive than an active Senate that But the other obstacle may be more pernicious: a fear among legislators that there is no point to legislating if the Court will simply invalidate anything Congress achieves.might one day be controlled by an opposing party.

Yet as the Reconstruction Congress recognized, everything the Court has the power to do comes from federal statutes passed by Congress—statutes that a majority of Congress always has the power to amend. Conflicts over constitutional interpretation are not really over who has the best understanding of words inscribed in an old document. They are about who—or which actors in our system of national government—can deliver on a particular, and inherently contested, meaning in the context of our current times. It is a question of political leadership, not legalism.
There is nothing unconstitutional about Congress reasserting its authority to define the nation’s highest law. The experience of Reconstruction brings into view this firmly grounded practice. In fact, a surviving remnant of the Reconstruction Congress’s work—today codified in 42 U.S.C. § 1983—has underwritten some of the most famous cases in modern constitutional law. In Section 1983, Congress instructed federal courts to stop state or local officials from depriving anyone of their “rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution.” Section 1983 is what Oliver Brown invoked when he challenged Kansas’s segregation laws in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, what “Jane Roe” invoked to challenge Texas’s abortion law in Roe v. Wade, and what James Obergefell invoked when he challenged Ohio’s same-sex-marriage ban in Obergefell v. Hodges. While these landmark cases invalidated state laws, the justices were following, not undermining, Congress’s orders. The decisions overruling state interpretations of the Constitution don’t represent judicial supremacy, but rather Congress’s ability to make and enforce national constitutional commitments.

It’s June again—that time of year when Americans wake up each morning and wait for the Supreme Court to resolve our deepest political disagreements. To decide what the Constitution says about our bodily autonomy, our power to avert climate change, and our ability to protect children from guns, the nation turns not to members of Congress—elected by us—but to five oracles in robes.
This annual observance of judicial supremacy—the idea that the Supreme Court has the final say about what our Constitution allows—is an odd affliction for a nation that will close the month ready to celebrate our independence from an unelected monarch. From one perspective, our acceptance of this supremacy reflects a sense that our political system is simply too broken to address the most urgent questions that we confront. But it would be a mistake to see judicial supremacy as a mere symptom of our politics and not a cause.


Contrary to what many people have come to believe, judicial supremacy is not in the Constitution, and does not date from the founding era. It took hold of American politics only after the Civil War, when the Court overruled Congress’s judgment that the Constitution demanded civil-rights and voting laws. The Court has spent the 150 years since sapping our national representatives of the power to issue national rules. These judicial decisions have destroyed guardrails that national majorities deemed vital to a functional, multiracial democracy—including protecting the right to vote and curbing the influence of money in politics. Even worse, the Court’s assertion of the power to invalidate federal laws has stripped Americans of the expectation, once widely shared, that the most important interpretations of the Constitution are expressed not by judicial decree but by the participation of “We, the People,” in enacting national legislation.


In the decades before the Civil War, when national parties violently contested the constitutionality of slavery west of the Mississippi, the center of gravity was Congress. As the historian James Oakes recounts, when a border-state senator proposed asking the Supreme Court to decide the issue in 1848, other senators ridiculed his idea as implausible. “The Constitution was interpreted as variously as the Bible,” Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire responded. White southerners believed “the Constitution carries slavery with it,” while northerners construed the Constitution “to secure freedom.” As Hale and his contemporaries appreciated, resolving such a fundamental national disagreement could never turn on a court’s answer to which interpretation was more correct. Rather, the winning interpretation would depend on whether adherents could build sufficient political majorities to control the national government. The Supreme Court did attempt to decide the question in its infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision—interpreting the Constitution to hold that the federal government lacked the power to abolish slavery anywhere in the United States. But rather than accept this novel assertion of judicial supremacy over Congress, the Republican Party responded with defiance. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln successfully ran for president on a platform of repudiating the Court with national legislation. In his inaugural address, he remarked that “the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,” then “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

Through the Civil War and the Reconstruction era that followed, the politically dominant Republicans in Congress enacted legislation to build a multiracial democracy in the United States for the first time. Some of these laws boldly overruled the Court, including statutes in 1862 and 1866 that began the abolition of slavery and recognized the citizenship of Black people. Others prevented the Court from retaliating against Congress’s interpretation of the Constitution, such as legislation stripping the Court of jurisdiction over certain matters. Still others enlisted the Court in the project of enforcing Congress’s constitutional judgments. Acts in 1870 and 1871 instructed federal courts to enforce the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments against recalcitrant state officials, while acts in 1870 and 1875 tasked judges with banning voting restrictions, lynch mobs, and racial discrimination.

Congressional checks on the Supreme Court are also very different from the calls for “nullification” by slaveholders before the Civil War, their descendants during the civil-rights movement, and Texas legislators today. The Civil War itself resolved that the representatives of states must enforce their constitutional interpretations not by defying the government created by the Constitution but by participating in it. For the past two centuries, Congress has been the branch of the federal government where our democracy’s pursuit of equal justice under law has most often been realized. The question is not whether some commitments—abolition, reproductive freedom, racial equality—are worth making supreme and constitutive of a national American identity. Rather, the question is who gets to decide the content of those commitments for all Americans: the 50 states, a five-justice majority, or our national legislature.


If the Court is today eviscerating those very constitutional commitments through its case law, Congress should enact or amend federal statutes to advance a different understanding of a nation built on democratic justice. It should reshape the Court’s ability to intervene in these disputes, including by restricting the Court’s authority to set aside federal legislation. And it should conscript the Court in enforcing federal commitments when resistant state officials brazenly declare that the national government has no jurisdiction to protect Americans from their parochial rule.
The thing stopping Congress from reversing each wrongheaded decision the Court issues this month therefore isn’t the Constitution. It’s our failure to demand more from our elected representatives.


The promise of a genuinely multiracial democracy will fade if Americans are unwilling to embrace structural reforms that can make our policies and our politics more responsive to majority rule. How Congress allocates the power to interpret the Constitution should be at the heart of those reforms. We simply cannot build a better politics if we don’t reclaim the authority of Congress to resolve our most fundamental disagreements. Rather than allow a handful of us to define the Constitution’s meaning in a mystical ritual each June, the rest of us should define it with the hard, messy work of American politics year-round.

How Black & Brown Women Are Reclaiming Roller Skating Culture

Amy Collado is wearing gold hoop earrings, a blue bandana, and vintage-style glasses for our Zoom conversation. She’s sitting in front of a collection of records and a poster of André 3000, and I feel like I’ve traveled back in time. She’s like that cool young tía that we all grew up loving, but instead of sharing her latest discount store find, she’s passionately talking about the rising interest in roller skating culture on social media.

With many seeking out nostalgic pursuits during times of social isolation, roller skating catapulted into viral popularity last year for able-bodied folks, with Google searches of the throwback sport skyrocketing and some roller skating TikTok videos garnering over 10 million views. Collado, the founder of Club Butter Roll — a social media wellness platform launched several years ago that encourages skating for Black and Brown communities — tells me that her platform grew immense interest over the past year. “People were quarantined and wanted to be outside. Roller skating just so happened to be one of the few things that people latched onto,” she says. But while roller skating has seen a rise in popularity recently, Black and Brown women found safety and joy through skating long before it was dubbed a quarantine trend.
Roller skating is deeply tied to early hip-hop culture. Rappers like Queen Latifah and N.W.A. performed at the now-closed Skateland rolling rink in the mid-1980s when other venues shunned Black acts. Meanwhile, every city had — and continues to have — its own signature skating style from Los Angeles to Chicago. Historically, skating dates back to the civil rights movement, when Black skaters protested desegregated rinks in the 1960s. Documentaries like United Skates, which premiered in 2018, showcases the significance of skating rinks for Black communities and the Black activists who were fighting to keep rinks open as they faced closures. “You can take the goddamn building, but you can’t take the spirit,” a DJ says in the film. It’s a quote that still resonates.


In 2020, millions took to the streets and to social media worldwide to protest police brutality and systemic racism following the murder of George Floyd by cops in Minneapolis. This global reckoning helped drive the conversation around racial disparities — including within skating culture.


“Since [Black Lives Matter] was existing at the same time as this trend of roller skating was blowing up, a lot of people did feel the need, including myself, to make sure that people acknowledge the history of roller skating and acknowledge POC skaters and how long we’ve been doing this,” says Liliana Ruiz, an Afro-Latina skater who’s been skating since she was a kid and worked at the L.A.-famous skating rink World On Wheels. But for Black and Brown skaters, it was about more than just acknowledgment. They were finding a sense of escapism and joy as they rolled down the same streets where they had previously been left unprotected. When the reality of racial injustice became too taxing, skating was the revolutionary way to reclaim their joy.

It’s important to note that while Black and Brown skaters are finding joy in skating, rink closures and social-distancing guidelines amid the pandemic have forced them to only skate outside, which presents its own set of dangers for people of color. Ruiz enjoys skating in Venice Beach and being able to connect with others who’ve been skating there for decades, but she has found that skaters have had to change parks because of racial profiling incidents. “It used to be a different part of Venice Beach, but there were a lot of incidents with the police because of racism and prejudice towards the music and the people who are skating and occupying the space,” she says. Still, these acts of violence haven’t stopped them from building communities within the sport.
Skating has also provided some skaters of color with a COVID safe activity during a pandemic that is disproportionately infecting and killing Black and Brown Americans at disturbingly high rates. Being forced to isolate for the safety of her family is what made Mala Muñoz, content creator and host of Locatora Radio, dust off her skates after years of not using them.


“For me, safety is really important because I live with my grandparents. I cannot be fucking around,” she says during our Zoom call, referring to the higher risks of severe illness for elders infected by the virus.


The L.A.-born and raised Chicana says she grew up skating and going to birthday parties at skating rinks but stopped right before college when everything in her life as a young Latina pivoted towards securing a career — a reality that is familiar to many children in immigrant and low-income families. For Black and Brown communities, engaging in activities simply for pleasure can feel wrong or even shameful when their families are suffering from economic inequality and oppression. This leads to many young POC adults prioritizing their careers and pushing leisure aside.


“I stopped because if it’s not getting you awards and accolades, not getting you into college, not a future career prospect, then why keep doing it?” she says. “I felt very discouraged from having fun and pursuing different types of hobbies like [skating].”
Now, Muñoz is learning to embrace feeling unapologetic joy through skating, acknowledging how Black skating culture has allowed her to feel like there is nothing wrong with dedicating time to leisure, although she had been taught otherwise. “I can be a grown woman and writer with a business and a podcast, all of these things while fucking around on my skates,” she says. “I can learn new tricks and make new friends just because — and that’s fine.”

Stranger than Fiction: Writing a Contagion Novel during COVID-19

By guest columnist, Emily McGowan.

“I don’t know how, but I guess she carried it home. At first, she stole the telephone and shut herself in her room. That was stupid, I told myself, because it might be nothing—just a cold, the flu, anything else.”— [The Dresden Protocol, chapter 23]

I never asked for COVID-19. 

Like most of us, I learned about coronavirus in the final hours of 2019. Dozens of patients had fallen ill in Wuhan, China; by January 11th, the World Health Organization had identified a new disease which we now know as COVID-19. Fever, a dry cough, shortness of breath — the early symptoms looked innocent, but within weeks, all hell had broken loose. 4,296 dead. 119,179 infected, though these numbers grow by the minute. Italy has closed its borders, and in America, hand sanitizer is practically worth its weight in gold. Every day, coronavirus creeps one step closer to my hometown of Savannah, Georgia. Rumor has it that we may have our first patient already.

In the early days, I wasn’t too concerned. Disease is not a staple of my first world lifestyle, and last I checked, my name isn’t Nostradamus.”Come writers and critics,” Dylan sang, “Who prophesize with your pen/And keep your eyes wide/The chance won’t come again.”


I write speculative fiction. This genre isn’t magic, but it certainly isn’t science either. When I sit down to type, I’m perfectly content to tell stories about what people want, why they want them, and what outlandish thing stands in their way. I deal in fallen heroes and folklore. It feels like the most important job in the world, but at the end of the day, I’m selling you words. And behind the safety of my computer, I told myself that this threat—a real live virus—could never land on the shores of my quiet little life.

Unfortunately, that’s not how pandemics work. In a matter of weeks, COVID-19 has spread to and within America, infecting hundreds of patients from sea to shining sea. 267 cases in Washington. 176 in New York. Half a dozen cases were reported in my state — and all across Savannah, people are scrubbing their hands raw. Mothers wear masks in the grocery store. Locals look at Chinese students askance. The virus is spreading exponentially, and though it’s all we talk about, nobody knows quite what to expect. Not even the writers. 
Compared to genres like romance or nonfiction, I believe that speculative fiction is somewhat unique in the wide world of literature. Its stories are founded on the premise of “what if.” What if time travel existed? What if men had handmaids? What if post-apocalyptic teenagers fell in love during a battle royale? At their best, these what-ifs are not attempts to escape our problems but to face or even solve them with a fresh perspective. In order to be effective, speculative fiction often blends this ‘what if’ with tangible details, something solid that grounds the reader in the harsh realities that our world desperately needs.

Except reality is the last thing many of us want. With every day that passes, the morbid headlines bog us down — and when given the choice between denial and a COVID-induced anxiety attack, we’d happily pick the first. It’s overblown, we tell ourselves. Any day now, the virus is going to die out and everyone who stockpiled toilet paper and Lysol will see that we were right. At best, this veers into tone-policing, and at worst, I fear that it is leading to some very reckless behavior — and not the type you might think. It’s become popular to mock people for being over-cautious, but what do we say about the people who don’t wash their hands? The ones who bring their “cold” into a crowded movie theatre? The ones who force their employees to come to work? 
SOURCE:
https://www.theeastbywest.com/home/stranger-than-fiction-writing-a-contagion-novel-during-covid-19

Staying home due to the coronavirus? Here’s what to stock in your fridge and pantry

It’s important to stock up on foods that pack a nutritional punch. Here’s what to add to your shopping list.

The latest CDC recommendations call for people at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19 (the novel coronavirus) to take action, including stocking up on groceries and any medications they may need. If you’re preparing to stay home more than usual, it’s important to have healthful foods on hand. That means selecting foods that pack a  nutritional punch in order to ensure you’re getting the fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other health- and immune-supporting compounds you need. It also means shopping for food that will last for an extended period of time — about two weeks’ worth for those who are quarantined. We hope you won’t be holed up for too long, but just in case, here’s a list of foods to buy.

See our full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Fruits and vegetables

It’s a good idea to keep both your freezer and pantry loaded up with fruits and veggies. These foods supply the same nutrients as fresh produce but last a lot longer. Pick up unsweetened fruits, and unseasoned or low- or no-added-sodium veggies. You’ll also want to load up on some hardier perishables, which you can eat before going for your longer-lasting stash. Here are some fruits and veggies to add to your shopping list.

  • Long-lasting fruits: Think bananas, apples, grapefruit, oranges and clementines. Unripe bananas will ripen over the course of several days, so you can enjoy them as you go. You can also slice and freeze them for snacking or to toss in smoothies down the line. Citrus fruits are packed with vitamin C, which is crucial for keeping your immune system strong.
  • Frozen fruit: Load up on frozen berries, pineapple, mangoes and peaches which are perfect for making smoothies or topping yogurt and oatmeal. In addition to fiber, these gems contain phytonutrients, which play a key role in gut and immune health.
  • Freeze dried fruit: Crispy, freeze dried fruit supplies vitamins and minerals and is perfect for snacking and adding to trail mixes. You can find freeze dried blueberries, mangoes, and others at Trader Joe’s as well as all the mainstream markets.
  • Dried fruit: Shop for dried raisins, mango (which is a year-round nutritionist favorite), dates, figs, apricots, prunes, and whichever dried fruits you fancy. Just watch for dried fruits coated in added sugars (such as cranberries).
  • Canned and jarred fruits: No-added-sugar canned and jarred fruit are good, shelf-stable options. Shop for applesauce, pineapple, pears and peaches that are canned in 100 percent juice.
  • Long-lasting veggies: Start your at-home stay with hardy veggies, like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, peppers and cauliflower, which, when unwashed and uncut, stay fresh for several days. Carrots (in the refrigerator) and potatoes (on the counter) last even longer.
  • Frozen veggies: Pick from any you like! Try frozen spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, riced cauliflower, butternut squash and green beans. Stock up on these since they should form the foundation of the majority of your meals.
  • Dried veggies: For more variety and fun, try dried veggies, like, beets, carrots and kale. It’s another way to get ample nutrition.
  • Canned veggies: Dietitians keep these canned foods on hand for everyday eats. Canned pumpkin, canned tomatoes and canned olives are some top picks.

Protein

You want to make sure you’re getting sufficient protein throughout the day since your immune system cells rely on it. Without enough, you may start to feel weak and tired. In addition to chicken, shrimp and fish (which all freeze well for long-term use), Here are some solid sources:

  • Canned beans: Look for no-added-salt varieties, but if you can’t find them, rinse your beans under running water. It removes a good portion of the sodium. Stock up on chickpeas, lentils, black beans and others, and don’t overlook other bean-based canned foods, like canned, lower-sodium lentil and split pea soup, such as those from Amy’s Kitchen. These foods supply protein and fiber, along with health-supporting minerals, like magnesium and potassium. Research suggests that people who consistently eat these foods tend to outlive those who don’t.
  • Canned fish: Tuna, salmon and sardines are all great options. Our dietary guidelines call for two servings of seafood each week and canned fish is a convenient way to meet the mark. Try canned fish on top of salads or crackers, mixed with pasta, or get cooking and make fish cakes.
  • Chickpea and lentil pasta: These shelf-stable foods pack way more protein and fiber than ordinary noodles. Look for brands that feature one ingredient, such as Barilla Red Lentil Pasta.
  • Seeds: Seeds, such as pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds and chia seeds, supply some protein as well as fiber. Add them to your breakfast cereal (hot or cold) or use them to top salads, sautéed veggies or avocado toast.
  • Nuts: Pick up a variety of nuts, such as pistachios, pecans, walnuts, peanuts and almonds. You can use them to boost the nutrition and tastiness of a range of meals and snacks.
  • Dried, roasted beans: Along with plant-based protein, these foods supply fiber, vitamins and minerals. Look for dry roasted chickpeas, broad beans and edamame. If you like flavored versions, make sure to read labels and consider limiting those with added sugars, artificial sweeteners and excess sodium.
  • Cheese: Some hard cheeses, like Cheddar, can last more than two weeks as long as you make sure to store them properly. Shredded cheese can last even longer when frozen. You can also grab some dried cheese crisps (like Whisps and Just the Cheese). Cheese crisps stand in well for crackers and croutons, whether over salads or in a bowl of soup.
  • Eggs: Store eggs in their carton on a fridge shelf (rather than the door), where they’ll last for about three weeks. Boiled eggs will stay good in their shell for a week. They’re a convenient way to get a protein fix and they pair well with fresh or frozen veggies.
  • Milk: A cup of dairy milk provides 8 grams of protein — more than an egg. Unflavored, shelf-stable varieties sold in aseptic packaging are a great choice for emergency situations. You might want to load up on milk made for lunch boxes, like Horizon Organic low-fat milk, to get through your at-home stay. If you’re choosing plant-based options, only pea- and soy-based versions come close or match the protein content in dairy milk. Choose no-added-sugar versions of these dairy alternatives.

Grains and grain alternatives

Grains and grain alternatives, like bean-based pastas, provide fiber and other nutrients to keep you healthy during your at-home stay. Plus, they’re great as stand-alone side dishes or mixed in with other on-hand ingredients. You’ll definitely want to shop for these items.

  • Single ingredient grains: Shop for whole grains, such as steel cut oats, quinoa and brown rice. These make tasty and nutritious side dishes, and they’ll keep in your pantry the entire time you’re holed up — and beyond.
  • Pasta: Though whole grain options don’t contain the fiber and protein that chickpea and lentil versions supply, they’re still a worthwhile side dish and can serve as a good delivery vehicle for veggies and protein (such as sautéed shrimp or canned tuna).
  • Flours: Stock up on an assortment of flours, such as chickpea flour, almond flour and whole-grain flour. You might as well bake if you’re staying home! These flours provide more nutrition than processed, white flour.
  • Breads: It won’t stay fresh on the counter, but sliced, frozen bread will last for months. Make sure to buy 100 percent whole grain varieties or gluten free versions if needed.
  • Crackers: Whole grain (like Triscuits), seed (try Mary’s Gone Crackers) or nut-based (such as those from Simple Mills) varieties are delicious on snack plates. Serve them with cheese and fruit for a satiating and fun way to refuel. Swap the cheese for nuts if you want to keep it dairy free.
  • Cereal: Whole grain, low-added sugar and fiber-full cereals cover off on a lot of nutrients when fortified. Shop for varieties with at least three grams of fiber and less than 6 grams of added sugar (though no added sugar is ideal). Add fruit, nuts or seeds, and milk and breakfast is served.
  • Popcorn: You might be surprised to learn that this whole grain is loaded with antioxidants and fiber. You’ll appreciate having some of this on hand since you’ll no doubt have some extra time to watch Netflix. You can buy the kernels and pop them on your stove, or opt for a microwavable option, such as Quinn Snacks Microwave Popcorn

Extras

Just because you’re at home doesn’t mean you want to cook everything from scratch. Make sure to buy some healthier convenience options, like veggie burgers, frozen entrees and even some dark chocolate. After all, it will be a long two weeks if you don’t have a treat handy.

How to Travel With Medical Marijuana

This fall, Sierra Riddle queued up at security at Los Angeles International Airport with a tincture bottle of THC oil — the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis — in her purse.

Ms. Riddle, 31, a nursing assistant from southern Oregon, was traveling with her son Landon, 9, and uses medical marijuana to treat his severe nerve pain from chemotherapy, as well as her own chronic pain. She was on her way to a medical conference in Dallas to talk about her son’s medical marijuana use and was “praying and meditating that we’d make it through security,” when a Transportation Security Administration agent pulled the bottle out of her bag.

“It’s just botanical oils,” Ms. Riddle said she told the officer. “But this was L.A. — they’re hip to the game and so they knew what is was.”

To Ms. Riddle’s surprise, the officer told her that, while it’s illegal to fly with marijuana and he was obliged to call the police, instead, he would just throw the bottle in the trash and wouldn’t report her.

With 33 states now allowing some form of medical marijuana, it might seem that traveling with medical marijuana should be easy enough. But there’s a difference between state governments and the federal government, and if you don’t know the rules, traveling with medical marijuana could lead to an arrest or at the very least, a complicated legal gray area.

In the United States, the federal government still classifies marijuana, even medical marijuana, as a Schedule I controlled substance, which means anyone transporting it across state lines is committing a federal crime and can be charged with drug trafficking. This carries a minimum penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the first offense.

Internationally, fines and punishments for marijuana possession can be much harsher, including long jail sentences or even execution for trafficking large amounts.

The T.S.A. says it’s not interested in finding your medical marijuana.

“We’re focused on security and searching for things that are dangerous on the airplane,” said Mark Howell, a T.S.A. regional spokesman. Even though the T.S.A. is a federal agency, and it can often feel as though agents are overly zealous about checking your bags, “we’re not actively looking for marijuana or other drugs,” Mr. Howell said.

Careful: Though a recent Instagram post by the T.S.A. notes that while “T.S.A. officers DO NOT search for marijuana or other illegal drugs,” if they do find it, they are required by federal law to turn it and the owner over to local law enforcement.

In a state where medical marijuana is legal, Mr. Howell added, “you present your medical marijuana card, and the law enforcement officials will usually just give it back to you.”

You should also look up your airline’s rules and regulations: Many carriers, including Delta Air Lines, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines have created policies that ban medical marijuana (THC) from their aircraft, even if you have a medical card.

Know the laws of the states you are traveling to or through: Even if you have a medical marijuana card, you can be arrested and charged for possession in states where medical marijuana is not legal.

Nearly 20 states accept out-of-state medical marijuana authorizations, but reciprocity laws vary from state to state.

In some states, like Arkansas, visitors are required to sign up for the medical marijuana program 30 days in advance and pay a $50 nonrefundable fee. Visitors should also keep in mind the state’s purchasing limit, which can be different for residents versus those who are there temporarily. In Oregon, for example, residents can possess up to 24 ounces, while visitors are allowed only one ounce.

Amtrak’s policy is strict: “The use or transportation of marijuana in any form for any purpose is prohibited, even in states or countries where recreational use is legal or permitted medically.”

Greyhound Lines bans alcohol and drugs “anywhere on the bus (including in your checked baggage).”

If you choose to drive with medical marijuana, be discrete. Many marijuana arrests begin as traffic stops, according to Americans for Safe Access, a nonprofit advocacy group. They recommend keeping cannabis locked in your trunk and never driving under the influence. You should never carry medical marijuana in a state where it’s not legal.

Trump Impeachment: Making a Case Against a President, and Against Tuning Out

They played video. They brought graphics. They cited Alexander Hamilton so many times, they may owe royalties to Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The Democratic House impeachment managers, unfolding their case against President Donald J. Trump, were conducting a TV trial without many of the staples of legal drama, particularly witnesses on the stand. Instead, they relied on multimedia, impassioned speeches and repetition, repetition, repetition — all in a presentation of 24 hours over three days.

If the O.J. Simpson trial was a long-running daytime soap, this was democracy in binge mode.

The trial of Mr. Trump, as the TV pundits reminded us before, during and after, was an unusual one, in that much of the jury was assumed to already have a verdict in mind. This meant a different dynamic from the usual televised trial, in which the prosecution is speaking to the jury first and the viewing audience second, if at all.

Instead, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California and his team were effectively speaking to the court of public opinion — home viewers who might bring pressure to bear on certain swing senators, or turn against them at the ballot box — though they had to do so by at least arguing as if the outcome were not a foregone conclusion.

So there was the case, and then there was the case about the case. If the Republican majority was going to acquit the president, and if it was going to voting against calling witnesses and subpoenaing documents that might weaken his defense, the Democrats would make sure that the viewing audience knew it.

Their arguments often focused on what the audience wasn’t seeing and hearing, because the White House refused it. Wednesday night, Mr. Schiff made a refrain of referencing evidence — a diplomatic cable, a statement attributed to the former national security adviser, John R. Bolton — and turning it into a question to the Senate. Wouldn’t you like to read them? Wouldn’t you like to hear them? “They’re yours for the asking,” he said.

What the three days asked of viewers, largely, was patience. The constitutional stakes were as high as they come. But the dynamics were staid, thanks to Senate rules that limited TV coverage to two cemented-in-place camera vantages that gave the broadcast all the visual verve of a security-camera tape.

The managers’ most effective tool, both to break out of the visual monotony and substitute for live witnesses, was file video, which they used to string together the words of Mr. Trump and his staff into a kind of cinéma-vérité documentary of the often right-out-in-the-open scandal.

There was Mr. Trump at a news conference with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Helsinki, dismissing his own intelligence agencies’ findings on Russian hacking. There was his personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, regaling Fox News hosts about his Ukraine exploits. There was Senator John McCain, a frequent critic of Mr. Trump, summoned Friday as a posthumous witness.

Certain greatest hits went into heavy rotation. The acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, seemed to say “get over it” onscreen as often as his boss said “You’re fired” on “The Apprentice.”

The senators were a captive audience, though some ducked out, unseen by the stationary cameras. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina vanished before managers played a video of him, prosecuting the Clinton impeachment trial in 1999, in which he contradicted arguments he’s made to defend President Trump. (Mr. Graham did make himself available to cameras between sessions, as did the Democratic presidential candidates kept off the trail in Iowa by Senate duty.)

If any senators weren’t keen on their duty, a good chunk of their constituents were willing to volunteer. Eleven million viewers watched the trial’s first day — hardly Super Bowl numbers but more than watched the Clinton trial, though the numbers declined the next day. And the three major broadcast networks aired more of the trial during the daytime than in 1999, though they left the evening portion to cable news.

In a way, the Democrats programmed their presentation the way a cable news channel does. They recycled through their arguments and video clips during the daytime, for a home audience watching snippets here and there.

Then in prime time, they brought out their centerpiece programming, delivered by Mr. Schiff. (This was around where Fox News usually cut away, preferring its own prime-time hosts.) At the end of Friday’s session, he stepped back from the specifics of the abuse-and-obstruction cases to argue “moral courage” and putting country over party.

“Give America a fair trial,” he concluded. “She deserves it.”

The tone wasn’t entirely solemn. On Thursday evening, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York told a story about a friend who’d just asked him if he’d heard about “the latest outrage.” Mr. Jeffries assumed this referred to Mr. Trump. Actually, his friend said, “Someone voted against Derek Jeter on his Hall of Fame ballot.”

Mr. Jeffries moved on to connect the American pastime of baseball with the American tradition of the Constitution. But his anecdote made another point. The House managers were not just vying with an opposition party and a truculent defender. They were pitted against every other distraction in the mediasphere, every other shiny enticement and new outrage offering a reason to tune out. READ MORE:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/arts/television/trump-impeachment.html

Pompeo Denounces News Media, Undermining U.S. Message on Press Freedom

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo escalated his clash with a respected NPR journalist on Saturday, lashing out at her and what he called the “unhinged” news media in an extraordinary statement. A day earlier, he abruptly ended an interview with her and delivered what the news outlet described as a profanity-laced rant.

The statement, which used the fiery language to attack the news media that has become a trademark of President Trump’s, ignited outrage online among foreign policy experts, scholars of diplomacy and press freedom advocates.

Mr. Pompeo violated the goals and nonpartisan nature of his office, whose core mission is to promote American values worldwide, including freedom of the press, they said.

The interview between Mr. Pompeo and the reporter, Mary Louise Kelly, circulated widely after it was published on Friday night. Describing a tense exchange after a taped part of the interview, Ms. Kelly said that Mr. Pompeo shouted at her repeatedly using the “f-word” and challenged her to find Ukraine on an unlabeled map that his aides pulled out, which she did.

In his statement, released on Saturday morning by the State Department, Mr. Pompeo said: “It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this administration.”

He added, “It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.”

Mr. Pompeo also said Ms. Kelly, a veteran reporter who is a host of “All Things Considered,” had lied in “setting up our interview” and in agreeing to have the “post-interview conversation” off the record.

On the program, Ms. Kelly said Katie Martin, an aide to Mr. Pompeo who has worked in press relations, never asked for that conversation to be kept off the record, nor would she have agreed to do that.

Mr. Pompeo’s statement did not deny Ms. Kelly’s account of obscenities and shouting. NPR said Saturday that Ms. Kelly “has always conducted herself with the utmost integrity, and we stand behind this report.” On Sunday, The New York Times obtained emails between Ms. Kelly and Ms. Martin that showed Ms. Kelly explicitly said the day before the interview that she would start with Iran and then ask about Ukraine. “I never agree to take anything off the table,” she wrote.

Mr. Pompeo has occasionally issued statements calling on authoritarian governments to respect press freedoms. But he has insulted journalists and has even cursed at diplomatic reporters in private meetings.

His Saturday statement was notable for the public — and broad — denunciation of the news media.

The fact that it was released by his office, at the head of a department known for its decorum, made it even more galling to many observers.

Five Democratic senators sent a letter on Saturday to Mr. Pompeo denouncing his “irresponsible” comments and the “corrosive effects of your behavior on American values and standing in the world.”

“The unavoidable reality is Pompeo never would have been in contention for a senior-level appointment in a normal GOP administration,” Thomas Wright, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, said on Twitter. “He was promoted beyond his abilities because so many people were ruled out. The delta between what’s required & what he has is now on full display.”

Mr. Pompeo, a hawkish evangelical Christian who is a former Republican congressman from Kansas, tries hard to display loyalty to Mr. Trump and reiterate the president’s positions on issues. Mr. Pompeo has aspirations to run for president in 2024, his associates say, and he ties his political future to Mr. Trump’s support. READ MORE: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/us/politics/pompeo-mary-louise-kelly.html

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