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Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News

Sorry Dr Fauci and other fearmongers, new study shows vaccines and naturally acquired immunity DO effectively neutralize COVID variants. Good news for everyone but bureaucrats and petty tyrants!

Sen. Rand Paul in a tweet, March 21, 2021

That Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky often disagrees with infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is well known.

This story was produced in partnership withPolitiFact. It can be republished for free.

Recently, the pair clashed at a Senate hearing when Paul, a Republican, argued against mask recommendations for people who have had covid-19 or have been vaccinated against it.

At the hearing, Fauci, President Joe Bidens chief medical adviser, pushed back against Pauls characterization of wearing masks as theater. Continued caution is advised, Fauci said, as scientists study the new variants now circulating in the U.S. and other countries.

Paul, an eye doctor by training, continued the squabble a few days later, calling out Fauci in a tweet, pointing to a study that he said shows vaccines and naturally acquired immunity DO effectively neutralize COVID variants.

The tweet linked to a study published online at the JAMA Network, a family of specialty medical journals.

We reached out to Pauls office for additional sources for his tweet but did not receive a reply.

So, we asked the experts: Are covid variants effectively neutralized by vaccines or natural immunity conferred on people who recover from the illness?

In short, the research cited by Paul does show good blood levels of neutralizing antibodies against at least some of the current variants following infection or vaccination. But theyre not the whole story.

Mehul S. Suthar, an author of the study Paul cited, said the results are encouraging but should not be seen as all-encompassing: Our interpretation is that our study looks at one aspect of immune response, antibodies.

Small Samples. Big Questions.

Neutralizing antibodies are important because they can block the ability of a virus like the one that causes covid to infect cells. But the body also has other defenses. T cells, for example, can be spurred by infection or vaccination, Suthar said, although the study was not designed to look at those.

For the study, researchers gathered blood samples from 40 people who were in the hospital with covid or had recovered from it. From the National Institutes of Health, they also received blood samples drawn from 14 people who had gotten both doses of the Moderna vaccine, said Suthar, an assistant professor at Emory Universitys vaccine center.

Then they ran tests on those samples against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and three variants, including the one dubbed B.1.1.7, which first appeared in the United Kingdom and is now circulating widely in the U.S.

They wanted to know: Did antibodies produced by being infected or vaccinated neutralize B.1.1.7?

We are lucky with B.1.1.7 that our antibodies appear to work well against this virus, Suthar said.

However, as with any study, there are caveats. For one thing, the results were based on a small number of samples. And the analysis did not include other variants of concern, such as the ones that emerged in South Africa and Brazil, which limits the ability to draw broad conclusions.

Finally, antibodies are just one measure of potential protection against disease. Laboratory research measuring antibodies indicates that some immunity is created by both illness and vaccination, but the strength and longevity of that protection the effectiveness in the real world is a separate question. Thats partly because the ideal level of neutralizing antibodies needed for protection is not known and other immune protections, such as T cells, arent measured.

Also, in the real world, other factors such as the variant a person is exposed to, and the presence of other mitigating factors, including masks and good ventilation can make a difference.

Part of the reason that real-world data are so important is looking at the whole picture of immunity, said Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Also, with the level of community transmissions of disease, I would be concerned that there will be more variants that emerge.

Nuance Matters

Pauls tweet taking aim at what he sees as an overcautious approach by public health experts doesnt capture that type of nuance, nor does it reference studies on the other emerging variants.

Blanket assertions made by non-scientific experts are not going to help, said Gronvall.

Dr. Jesse Goodman, professor of medicine and a specialist in infectious diseases at Georgetown University, agreed.

Its wrong to declare victory and say theres no problem with variants and that everyone previously infected will be fine, said Goodman, who served as chief scientist of the Food and Drug Administration under the Obama administration.

Viruses naturally mutate as they replicate. So its not surprising that the coronavirus has done so. Several variants have emerged, including home-grown ones from California and New York.

Lab tests on blood samples from vaccine trial participants in South Africa showed lower levels of neutralizing antibody production, possibly related to the variant circulating there.

How big a difference the lower levels measured in those samples make isnt yet known.

Levels are still high and could effectively neutralize the virus, Fauci wrote in an editorial published Feb. 11 in JAMA.

Even so, clinical trials used to test covid vaccines before they were approved for emergency use showed lower efficacy when tested in areas where the South African variant was circulating.

We expect vaccines and prior infection to offer significant protection against variants that are closely related, said Goodman. But as they become more genetically different like the South African one that protection could go down.

The main goal of the vaccines is to prevent hospitalization and death, and all the vaccines in use in the U.S. appear to substantially reduce the risk of hospitalization and death from covid, according to research.

Even if the current vaccines may not be perfect, they do appear to prevent more severe outcomes, Goodman said.

Dont assume, as Pauls tweet implies, that recovering from covid or getting vaccinated means zero risk of infection.

For one thing, reinfection is rare but can occur.

Goodman pointed to a recent study conducted in Denmark showing that a small percentage (0.65%) of people who tested positive for covid in the spring fell ill again.

People should not presume that even if they had the vaccine or were previously infected that theres no future risk, Goodman said.

Even though no vaccine is 100% effective, Gronvall at Hopkins said not to use that as an excuse to avoid inoculation.

The vaccines appear to be great, she said. Get one when you can.

Our Ruling

Paul is correct that the JAMA study showed vaccination or previous infection appeared, based on a small sample of people, to help neutralize the virus. However, he left out important details that make his position an oversimplification of a complicated issue.

The study considered only one variant the one that emerged in the U.K. and did not include an analysis of other types now circulating, or the potential for additional variants that could emerge. Also, the type of antibody studied is just one factor in protecting against disease, and just what those levels of neutralizing antibodies measured in a laboratory experiment may mean in the real world is not known.

So, for those reasons, we rate the senators statement Half True.

Telephone interview with Mehul S. Suthar, assistant professor at the Emory Vaccine Center, March 22, 2021

Telephone interview with Gigi Gronvall, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and associate professor in the environmental health and engineering department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, March 23, 2021

Telephone interview with Jesse Goodman, professor of medicine at Georgetown University and former chief scientist of the Food and Drug Administration, March 24, 2021

JAMA Network, Neutralizing Antibodies Against SARS-CoV-2 Variants After Infection and Vaccination, March 19, 2021

CNN Politics, Masks Are Not Theater, Fauci Tells Sen. Rand Paul in Hearing Exchange, March 18, 2021

The New England Journal of Medicine, Neutralizing Activity of BNT162b2-Elicited Serum, March 8, 2021

The New England Journal of Medicine, Serum Neutralizing Activity Elicited by mRNA-1273 Vaccine, March 17, 2021

Yale Medicine, Comparing the COVID-19 Vaccines: How Are They Different?, updated March 25, 2021

Fast Company, Can I Get Covid-19 Twice? New Lancet Study Offers Insight on Reinfection Rates, March 22, 2021

JAMA Network, SARS-CoV-2 Viral Variants Tackling a Moving Target, editorial, Feb. 11, 2021

View post:
In His Continued Sparring With Fauci, Sen. Rand Paul Oversimplified the Science - Kaiser Health News

Sorry Dr Fauci and other fearmongers, new study shows vaccines and naturally acquired immunity DO effectively neutralize COVID variants. Good news for everyone but bureaucrats and petty tyrants!

Sen. Rand Paul in a tweet, March 21, 2021

That Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky often disagrees with infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is well known.

This story was produced in partnership with PolitiFact. It can be republished for free.

Recently, the pair clashed at a Senate hearing when Paul, a Republican, argued against mask recommendations for people who have had COVID-19 or have been vaccinated against it.

At the hearing, Fauci, President Joe Bidens chief medical adviser, pushed back against Pauls characterization of wearing masks as theater. Continued caution is advised, Fauci said, as scientists study the new variants now circulating in the U.S. and other countries.

Paul, an eye doctor by training, continued the squabble a few days later, calling out Fauci in a tweet, pointing to a study that he said shows vaccines and naturally acquired immunity DO effectively neutralize COVID variants.

The tweet linked to a study published online at the JAMA Network, a family of specialty medical journals.

We reached out to Pauls office for additional sources for his tweet but did not receive a reply.

So, we asked the experts: Are COVID variants effectively neutralized by vaccines or natural immunity conferred on people who recover from the illness?

In short, the research cited by Paul does show good blood levels of neutralizing antibodies against at least some of the current variants following infection or vaccination. But theyre not the whole story.

Mehul S. Suthar, an author of the study Paul cited, said the results are encouraging but should not be seen as all-encompassing: Our interpretation is that our study looks at one aspect of immune response, antibodies.

Neutralizing antibodies are important because they can block the ability of a virus like the one that causes COVID to infect cells. But the body also has other defenses. T cells, for example, can be spurred by infection or vaccination, Suthar said, although the study was not designed to look at those.

For the study, researchers gathered blood samples from 40 people who were in the hospital with COVID or had recovered from it. From the National Institutes of Health, they also received blood samples drawn from 14 people who had gotten both doses of the Moderna vaccine, said Suthar, an assistant professor at Emory Universitys vaccine center.

Then they ran tests on those samples against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and three variants, including the one dubbed B.1.1.7, which first appeared in the United Kingdom and is now circulating widely in the U.S.

They wanted to know: Did antibodies produced by being infected or vaccinated neutralize B.1.1.7?

We are lucky with B.1.1.7 that our antibodies appear to work well against this virus, Suthar said.

However, as with any study, there are caveats. For one thing, the results were based on a small number of samples. And the analysis did not include other variants of concern, such as the ones that emerged in South Africa and Brazil, which limits the ability to draw broad conclusions.

Finally, antibodies are just one measure of potential protection against disease. Laboratory research measuring antibodies indicates that some immunity is created by both illness and vaccination, but the strength and longevity of that protection the effectiveness in the real world is a separate question. Thats partly because the ideal level of neutralizing antibodies needed for protection is not known and other immune protections, such as T cells, arent measured.

Also, in the real world, other factors such as the variant a person is exposed to, and the presence of other mitigating factors, including masks and good ventilation can make a difference.

Part of the reason that real-world data are so important is looking at the whole picture of immunity, said Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Also, with the level of community transmissions of disease, I would be concerned that there will be more variants that emerge.

Pauls tweet taking aim at what he sees as an overcautious approach by public health experts doesnt capture that type of nuance, nor does it reference studies on the other emerging variants.

Blanket assertions made by non-scientific experts are not going to help, said Gronvall.

Dr. Jesse Goodman, professor of medicine and a specialist in infectious diseases at Georgetown University, agreed.

Its wrong to declare victory and say theres no problem with variants and that everyone previously infected will be fine, said Goodman, who served as chief scientist of the Food and Drug Administration under the Obama administration.

Viruses naturally mutate as they replicate. So its not surprising that the coronavirus has done so. Several variants have emerged, including home-grown ones from California and New York.

Lab tests on blood samples from vaccine trial participants in South Africa showed lower levels of neutralizing antibody production, possibly related to the variant circulating there.

How big a difference the lower levels measured in those samples make isnt yet known.

Levels are still high and could effectively neutralize the virus, Fauci wrote in an editorial published Feb. 11 in JAMA.

Even so, clinical trials used to test COVID vaccines before they were approved for emergency use showed lower efficacy when tested in areas where the South African variant was circulating.

We expect vaccines and prior infection to offer significant protection against variants that are closely related, said Goodman. But as they become more genetically different like the South African one that protection could go down.

The main goal of the vaccines is to prevent hospitalization and death, and all the vaccines in use in the U.S. appear to substantially reduce the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID, according to research.

Even if the current vaccines may not be perfect, they do appear to prevent more severe outcomes, Goodman said.

Dont assume, as Pauls tweet implies, that recovering from COVID or getting vaccinated means zero risk of infection.

For one thing, reinfection is rare but can occur.

Goodman pointed to a recent study conducted in Denmark showing that a small percentage (0.65%) of people who tested positive for COVID in the spring fell ill again.

People should not presume that even if they had the vaccine or were previously infected that theres no future risk, Goodman said.

Even though no vaccine is 100% effective, Gronvall at Hopkins said not to use that as an excuse to avoid inoculation.

The vaccines appear to be great, she said. Get one when you can.

Paul is correct that the JAMA study showed vaccination or previous infection appeared, based on a small sample of people, to help neutralize the virus. However, he left out important details that make his position an oversimplification of a complicated issue.

The study considered only one variant the one that emerged in the U.K. and did not include an analysis of other types now circulating, or the potential for additional variants that could emerge. Also, the type of antibody studied is just one factor in protecting against disease, and just what those levels of neutralizing antibodies measured in a laboratory experiment may mean in the real world is not known.

So, for those reasons, we rate the senators statement Half True.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

Read this article:
Analysis: In his continued sparring with Fauci, Sen. Rand Paul oversimplified the science - Grand Forks Herald

The George Floyd trial has finally started in Minneapolis as if we needed any more drama in this country and the other channels are covering it like a championship game, which makes sense. If your job is to make Americans hate each other, if your job is to divide the country (and thats how they see their job), the opportunity to talk about George Floyd all day islike your Super Bowl.

On Monday morning, CNN spent hours airing footage of prosecutors questioning one of the emergency dispatchers who happened to be on duty the day that George Floyd died. It wasnt very interesting and had no inherent news value.Is that your voice on the 911 recording? the prosecutor asked at one point. Yes, the dispatcher replied,and so it went interminably. Thensuddenly, at one point, the feedstopped without warning. Apparently there were technical difficulties. It wasnt a conspiracy, it was just live TV programing.

But CNNs control room cut to a legal analyst who assured viewers the pause was only temporary. This isnt Law &Order,' the analyst explained. It wont all be wrapped up in fifty-five minutes. This could go on a while. In other words, stay in your seats. Dont turn away. The trial may be boring, but its important.

Its not about George Floyd, obviously; it never was. No one on CNN cared about George Floyd while he was alive. He was unemployed and on drugs. Like a lot of people in this country, they paid him no attention. For that matter, no one on CNN actually cares about George Floyd now. What they care about is you and your role in the systemic racism that supposedly killed George Floyd.

If the Floyd trial ends in acquittal, there could be riots. We accept that as a fact of life in this country. No civilized country should, but suddenly we do. If there are riots, innocent people may die, as they did in large numbers this summer. CNN will downplay those deaths or justify them as they did this summer andas they have so many times before when those deaths are politically convenient. The point isnt to save people from dying. The point is to punish you and to change America. So from that perspective, its worth it.

Thats why theyre replaying that video of George Floyd dying in the sidewalk, to remind you of your culpability in his death. Thats why, even as they rub the countrys face in the death of George Floyd, there are many other tragic deaths some on video they ignore completely.

BOTCHED CARJACKING VICTIM FLUNG TO HIS DEATH FROM CARE; TEENS CHARGED WITH MURDER: POLICE

Heres one:A 66-year-old Pakistani immigrant called Mohammad Anwar died in Washington recently. As in George Floyds case, Anwarsdeath was on video. Unlike George Floyd, Mohammad Anwar was not a violent career criminal with a drug habit. He worked at the very bottom of the so-called gig economy and made his living driving for Uber Eats. Its a tough gig. On Tuesday, he was driving near Nationals Park in southeast Washington when two girls assaulted him with a Taser. The girls were 13 and 15 years old. Mohammad Anwar resisted. It was his car,the key to his living, and he didnt want to lose it.Abystander recorded what happened next.

Anwars last words were, This is my car, and it was.Bystanders watchedall of this happen,but no one stepped forward to help Mohammad Anwar. The two girls hit the gas, flipping the carover. Anwarflew out of the vehicle andlanded face down on the sidewalk, dead. The girls who killed him didnt seem bothered by this.

My phone is in there!My phone! one of them screamed. She cared more about her phone than the life of the man she just killed. This raises all kinds of questions, not only about them, but about us. What kind of society produced children like this? Who raised them? What does it say about our country that no one jumped in to help this poor man before he was killed?

Those are real questions, but CNN wasnt interested in asking any of them. In fact, the network refused even to call it a killing, since didnt help their politics. So in their account, the girls assaulted an Uber driver with a Taser while carjacking him, which led to an accident in which he was fatally injured.

CNN SLAMMED FOR QUESTIONABLE TWEET THAT REFERS TO MURDER AS ACCIDENT

Which led to an accident.It wasnt a killing. It just kind of happened. It was an act of God, like a tsunami or a hailstorm. Unfortunately, he died. In fact, as the mayor of Washington, D.C., explained the next day, it may have been Mohammad Anwars fault. Mayor Muriel Bowser sent a tweet reminding her subjects to pay attention to their surroundings the next time they go outside.

Auto theft is a crime of opportunity, Bowser wrote. Follow these steps to reduce the risk of your vehicle becoming a target. Those tips included locking your car and not walking away as the engine is running.

Got that, D.C. residents? Staying safe is your job. Its not the job of the mayor you hired to protect you and who sits barricaded in her home, surrounded by a massive security detail you pay for as the city shes supposed to protect descends into chaos. No, its up to you. Youre on your own. Follow these steps to reduce the risk. Not surprisingly, carjackings are up all over the city, and if you know people who live there, they will tell you that. Neighborhoods that were safe last year, arent anymore. There are carjackings going on in residential neighborhoods, a 300% rise over one year, in fact.Shootings,robberies and theft are rising, too. Of course they are. Washington is becoming a scary place again. The capital of our country was also its murder capital in the 1980s. Thats not acceptable for a civilized country, but its becoming that way again.

Why is this happening? We dont have to guess. Its very simple. Last summer, the D.C. City Council voted to cut $15 millionfrom the police budget. It devastated the police department. Theyre basically not recruiting cops right now. There is but one class left at the police academy and massive retirements from the police department. If it continues at this rate, there wont be police in Washington in a few years.

DC MAYOR TAKES HEAT FOR SHARING PREVENTING AUTO THEFTS VIDEO AMID SILENCE ON MOHAMMAD ANWARS DEATH

So what happens when you do something like this? Like clockwork, six months after they defunded the police department, Washington, D.C., recorded its highest murder rate in 15 years. When you defund the police, people die. That happens every single time. And thats why Mayor Muriel Bowsermust surround herself with cops. She doesnt want to get hurt, though she doesnt care if you do.

Its a very simple lesson, and everyone knows its true. Thats why we have cops in the first place. Theyve never really gotten credit for the gravest policy screw-up maybe in living memory. They defunded the police across the country, and our leaders are ignoring the consequences. Some places are doubling down. In Baltimore, for example, acity that does not need more tragedy, officials have announced they will no longer prosecute what they call low-level offenses,including drug possession and prostitution.

Whats low-level, exactly?That kind of depends on where you live and how much police protection you have. Prostitution and drugs arent a big deal if theyre not near you. However,when your kids cant go outside because prostitution and drug possessionare taking place right outside your house, theyre not low-level crimes. They wreck your life. The people who run Baltimore dont care about this. They have no interest whatsoever in what is happening outside your house. So the mayor of Baltimore andthe local prosecutor, recently sent a press release describing this policy as a success because it reduced systemic inequity. By the way, it also led to lower arrests. Imagine that?

So Baltimore has equity now. What a relief. Many of us are hoping Baltimore will have more equity. What does that look like? Last week, Baltimore recorded seven murders in six days. Thats a killing every day of the week, plustwo on Saturday. Thats deeply equitable and its happening in cities across the country. Once again, no ones noticing this, but if you live in one, you well know whats happening.

BALTIMORE GROCERY STORE SHOOTING LEAVES TWO DEAD, ONE HURT

In Chicago, for example, the George Soros-funded states attorney, a hard-left ideologue named Kim Foxxstopped prosecuting what she called low-level crimes. Last year, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfootmayor called for an $80 millionreduction in the police budget. What happened next? Can you guess? Have you read thisstory before? Oh, yeah. By January, Chicagos carjacking problem looked like (wait for it)Washington D.C.s.

Through mid-March, more than 370 carjackings had been reported in Chicago, the most the city has seen in a three-month period in at least 20 years, maybe much longer.

But its not just Chicago. This is happening everywhere is we advance toward a full year of mourningthe death of a single man on the sidewalk in Minneapolis. Thousands of Americans have been murdered thanks to the policy changes justified by the death of that man. Ponder that for a minute. Has there ever been a more perverse moment in this country?

Its not clear what we can do about it, but you can start by telling the truth out loud. According to The Washington Examiner, the murder rate in virtually every city in the United States is at its highest levels in more than two decades. Last year, there were more homicides in the United States than in any year since 1998. How did that happen? Oh, BLM. Thanks, BLM. BLM did this to us whilethe people who are funding them were posturing about how great they are and how this is going to make America more equitable. Poor people were paying the price with their lives. No one has admitted this, no one is accepting responsibility for it,and no one has been punished for it.

Irony of ironies, few places are more dangerous than the actual physical place where George Floyd died in Minneapolis.

None of this is getting better, by the way. Its getting worse. Still, no one has asked the most basic question: Why is this happening? Its not all political. The 13 and 15-year-old girls who killed the Pakistani Uber Eats driver werent acting out of political solidarity with anybody. What is that exactly? Why do people do that?

Jordan Peterson sent a very interesting tweet out the other day,just a simple graph ofthe out-of-wedlock birth rate. Among African-Americans, it was 70%. So if you took the out of wedlock birthrate, broke it down by demographic group, and put it next to the crime rate, one thing you notice they track exactly or close enough to suggest a profound connection.

Why is no one interested in pursuing that? No one even asks why this is happening. Youre not supposed tosee how Mohammad Anwar died. Instead, youre supposed to watch endless loops of video of the death of GeorgeFloyd so you can tell yourself its all one bad cop or its all systemic racism.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

But if you look away from the propaganda and you look toward the reality of whats happening to your country on the streets ofWashington or Chicago orMinneapolis, you might have a few questionsfor the people in power. Theyre the ones who created this society. Theyre the ones responsible, and thats exactly the conversation they dont want to have.

So they tell you much more about George Floyd. Watch the 911 dispatcher testify some more. Just dont change the channel.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlsons opening commentary on the March 29, 2020 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight

Read the original here:
Tucker Carlson: Unsafe cities, divisive mainstream media the real legacy of George Floyd's death - Home - WSFX

Photo: Handout/VIA REUTERS

After Georgia Republicans experienced the shocking setback of losing the states presidential election, the party descended into bitter internal recriminations. President Trump blamed Republican officials for allowing massive voter fraud to steal the state; many state Republicans blamed Trumps rhetoric for losing a winnable race.

But both Republican factions heartily agree on the proper corrective steps: a sweeping bill curtailing voting rights and handing new powers to Republican legislators to prevent the unfortunate events of 202021 from happening again. After the states governor, Brian Kemp, a target of Trumps rage, signed the measure, the former president offered his hearty congratulations. They learned from the travesty of the 2020 Presidential Election, which can never be allowed to happen again, the former President wrote in an official statement. Too bad these changes could not have been done sooner!

If you want to understand why this is happening, a timely new paper by University of Washington political scientist Jacob Grumbach helps explain. Grumbach surveys the performance of every state government across a broad array of measures of democratic health, such as indices of voting access like wait times and same-day and automatic voter-registration policies, felon disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and civil rights. His paper finds that the states that backslid on democratization over the past 16 years were shared a single characteristic: Republicans gained full control of their state government.

In other words, states that are rolling back democratic protections are not responding to demographic change nor to any change internal to their state. They are following the agenda of the national Republican Party. That agenda is spreading throughout the states, which are imposing voter restrictions almost everywhere their party has the power to do so. Restricting the franchise has become perhaps the partys core policy objective.

Some Republicans frame that agenda in explicitly Trumpist terms: They are acting to stop the next stolen election, having failed to prevent the last one. Those GOP officials who are too embarrassed to openly endorse Trumps election lies instead offer superficially plausible rationales.

First, they insist they are acting to protect states rights to run their own elections. Overlooking the awkward historical resonance of using the exact same justification once put forward to justify Jim Crowera restrictions, they insist states rights are all about preserving local variation. Elections should be run by those closest to the people, elected by the people, most responsive to the people, argues one leading Republican. State legislators are the closest to those we represent, insists another. States have long experience running elections, and different states have taken different approaches suited to their own locales and populations, pleads National Review.

And yet this mania for geographic proximity in election administration evaporates completely when they move from the state to the local level. Indeed, the most damaging provision in Georgias vote-suppression law removes power from local election boards and concentrates it in the hands of the states. If anybody actually does have local knowledge of election administration, it is the nice librarian who has been volunteering to organize the polls for many years.

But that form of localism has been crushed because, of course, the whole point is that the state government is run by Republicans. Democrats control the federal government. They also control many local governments where Democrats live and vote. They dont control many state governments, though, which are beholden to legislatures whose district maps give Republicans an insurmountable advantage. And so the right-wing intelligentsia has discovered a principle: The state is the only level of government neither too big nor too small to administer elections.

Second, they claim they seek merely to restore confidence in election integrity. And it is true that many Republicans voters lack confidence in the fairness of elections. What is the reason for their lack of confidence? Its that Democrats won a fair, clean, high-turnout election. (Indeed, they won it in spite of an electoral college system that forced them to beat Trump by four percentage points in order to gain a narrow majority.) It follows that restoring confidence means eliminating the conditions that gave rise to this concern: Democrats winning a clean election.

What gives the game away is that Republican vote-suppression maneuvers include a purge of Republican officials who worked in states Trump lost. The Michigan Republican Party removed Republican Aaron Van Langeveldefrom the Board of State Canvassers after he infuriated Trump and his fans by certifying the states electoral votes, thwarting Trumps attempt to override the election and secure an unelected second term.

In Georgia, Republicans stripped Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of his authority over state elections. Sterlings chief operating officer, a Republican, told CNN the move was retribution for Raffenspergers refusal to submit to Trumps demand to disregard the election results and hand the states electoral votes to him.

The next time a Republican attempts to subvert an election result, there wont be any inconvenient law-bound officials standing in the way. The power to act on Trumps farrago of lies will rest in the hands of elected officials accountable to the partys constituents. Rather than arresting the Republican partys long slide into authoritarianism, Trumps departure has accelerated it.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

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Why the Republican War on Democracy Is Moving to the States - New York Magazine

The hallmark of a healthy democracy is civil debate, protest, civic engagement, and an unwavering right to voice ones beliefs even when there is disagreement especially when there is disagreement. Free speech and assembly are fundamental to a functioning democracy. Their placement in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution implies their importance. It comes as a surprise then to see that the Missouri House is poised to pass a bill that would silence the voices of those rising in defense of Black lives by enacting criminal penalties on the right to protest.

Not only that, but it is particularly targeted at protests that we led in St. Louis this past summer as leaders of the protest group #ExpectUS.

We serve in the General Assembly and the United States House of Representatives. Yet, we have been called terrorists, thugs, and monsters for affirming what should be clear: Black lives matter. Theyve always mattered, but time and time again, generation after generation, Black folks have had to take to acts of protest to affirm our humanity and civil rights. Like our ancestors before us, we are both products of mass protests, taking to the streets demanding that our communities be heard and our lives protected. Our protest has always been an act of love.

We have organized together in a protest group that begins each protest with a giant circle of love, people dancing and clapping. A protest group that cares for one another and brings snacks and water for one another. One that is rooted in the Ferguson Uprising and one that continues to grow. In our ranks are public officials, clergy, local leaders, business owners, students, parents, and people of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds. Our protest is an act of love, but it is also a demand that elected leaders do more to ensure we no longer need to take to the streets. To absolve us of the fear that our loved ones will leave home and will not make it safely back. Both of us ran for office because the policies coming out of Jefferson City and Washington, D.C., not only fell short but failed to center the reality on the ground faced by so many people in our community so many people who look like us and share our pain.

SB 26 is a continuation of policies that fail to protect Black and brown communities. It must not pass the Missouri House of Representatives or be signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson. Rather than take up this bill, lawmakers should play a critical role in supporting and encouraging robust speech and protest. Ultimately, what gets lost in the consideration of this anti-democratic, anti-protest legislation is why we protest in the first place.

We protest because the St. Louis Police Department leads the nation in police killings per capita, disproportionately killing Black people. Year after year after year. Weve seen none of our demands met by our government.

We protest because Black lives are not safe in Missouri. They werent safe in 2014 when an officer in Ferguson murdered Mike Brown, Jr. They werent safe in 2015 in Mississippi County when Tory Sanders got lost, ran out of gas, and was effectively tortured to death in a jail cell hours later. They werent safe in 2018 when Black people were 91 percent more likely to be pulled over by the police across the state a number that has increased over the years. They werent safe in 2020 when police killed Donnie Sanders in Kansas City. They have never been safe under the violence of starvation wages that we disproportionately receive wages that must be increased to at least $15.

Some proponents of this legislation have said that it would keep protesters and the general public safe. But silencing dissent cements the status quo. And for Black people in Missouri, there is nothing more dangerous to our livelihoods than the status quo. If public safety is truly at the heart of this legislation, then the Missouri State Legislature must waste no time addressing the series of initiatives protesters and activists have proposed to remedy the cycles of violence that are so rampant in our state and in our communities.

We invite members of the state legislature to engage with us and our communities in a good faith effort to build a better Missouri. We appeal to the fundamental constitutional values of free speech and free assembly as we implore our leaders and Missourians everywhere to reject SB 26 and, instead, focus on building a more robust and inclusive democracy that meets the needs of Black Missourians who are ready and eager for a chance to build strong communities and enact policies that will truly keep our families safe. The right to assemble is the bedrock of any healthy democracy, and it must be protected at all costs, not rolled back.

Rep. Rasheen Aldridge represents HD 78 in the Missouri House; Congresswoman Cori Bush serves Missouris 1st congressional district.

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Opinion: The right to assemble is the bedrock of our democracy Vote NO on SB 26 - The Missouri Times