Contraception, Congestion Pricing, & Using MDMA for PTSD
June 6, 2024
Hello, readers – happy Thursday! Today, we’ll be talking about Israel’s influence campaign, reproductive rights, the ANC, London’s hospital outage, congestion pricing in NYC, Disney World’s potential expansion, and why you can’t use MDMA to treat PTSD.
Here’s some good news: The British Army shared that the five military horses that injured themselves as they ran loose through central London in April are all expected to return to duty, with three already back at work. Also, Vermont has become the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by climate change.
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.” – Immanuel Kant
Israeli Influencers Of A Different Kind

According to multiple Israeli officials, Israel’s government targeted U.S. lawmakers with a covert influence campaign beginning last year. The officials said that the operation was led by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, an arm of the government that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel. Their testimony, backed by documents, shows that the ministry spent over $2 million dollars to contract the campaign out to Stoic, a Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm.
The influence campaign began last October, and is apparently still active on Twitter. Israel utilized hundreds of fake accounts across multiple social media platforms to target lawmakers, flooding their comment sections with pro-Israel opinions in an attempt to convince them that their constituents were more Zionist than they actually were. The campaign used ChatGPT to write many of those comments and also used the AI software to create three fake English-language news websites with significant pro-Israel biases. Interestingly, the campaign chose to target lawmakers who happened to be Black and Democrats, including House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Raphael Warnock.
The operation was discovered and stifled by multiple groups months ago, but its connection to Israel’s government was not reported on until this week. Despite testimony from four different officials and a paper trail verified by the New York Times, Israel’s government denies its involvement.
A Grand Old Pain Point
On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked legislation aimed at protecting access to contraception. A test vote for a bill to “safeguard the right to contraception once and for all,” according to President Biden, passed with a 51-39 majority, but the vote required 60 Senators in favor for the legislation to be put to an actual vote.
Senate Republicans said they rejected the legislation because it was a clear election-year stunt by Democrats. “The Democrats are using their power to push an alarmist and false narrative that there is a problem accessing contraception,” said Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy. “I expect we will see a lot more show votes this summer,” added South Dakota Sen. John Thune.
While contraceptives like birth control pills haven’t been tied into culture-war issues like abortion up until recently, Republican states have taken increasingly aggressive stances on the issue. In Missouri, for example, GOP lawmakers stalled a bill that would expand insurance coverage for birth control, conflating birth control pills with medication abortions. Democrats are now attempting to bring the issue to the national stage, sensing that Republicans have a messaging weakness in that area.
A New Era For The ANC
- For the first time since the end of apartheid in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) has lost its majority in the nation’s government. The historic loss saw the ANC win just 40.2% of ballots cast last week. The party is now looking to form a national unity government, which would (in theory) involve sharing power between all the major parties in South Africa.
- Unfortunately, national unity is about as easy to achieve as you’d expect – the pro-business Democratic Alliance (South Africa’s second-biggest political party) has already refused to work with the Marxist-inspired Economic Freedom Fighters (the fourth-biggest party). However, analysts say that the draw of sharing power over the country will likely entice the political opponents to come together for some semblance of influence.
Hospitals Are On Life Support
- On Wednesday, a massive cyberattack took down services at multiple major hospitals in London, disrupting operations (both business and medical) and diverting patients to other hospitals. The cyberattack targeted Synnovis, a company that manages blood transfusions and other services for the King’s College and Guy’s and St. Thomas’ hospital trusts – for clarification purposes, King’s College is one hospital organization, while Guy’s and St. Thomas’ is another. The two run multiple hospitals in London.
- “Unfortunately, some operations and procedures, which rely more heavily on pathology services, have been postponed, and blood testing is being prioritized for the most urgent cases, meaning patients have had phlebotomy appointments canceled,” said Synnovis on Wednesday. According to one British cybersecurity expert, a Russian hacker group named Qilin was likely behind the attack. He described the incident as “the more serious type of ransomware, where the system just doesn’t work.”
More Mixed Nuts
- In heated debate, Britain’s Sunak and Starmer go head-to-head on the economy (Reuters)
- King Charles and Rishi Sunak join veterans for 80th anniversary of D-day (Guardian)
- Foreign policy becomes a liability for Biden’s campaign as he heads to France (Politico)
- ‘Godfathers of climate chaos’: UN chief urges global fossil-fuel advertising ban (Guardian)
- Gunman captured after shootout outside US Embassy in Lebanon (AP)
Middle East Mixed Nuts
- House passes International Criminal Court sanctions bill after prosecutor seeks Netanyahu warrant (CNN)
- Starvation already causing mass death and lasting harm in Gaza, agencies say (Guardian)
- Rights group accuses Israel of hitting residential buildings with white phosphorous in Lebanon (AP)
- Gaza war: Hamas leader demands full end to fighting in apparent blow to Biden plan (Reuters)
Negative Feedback Takes A Toll
- New York City was set to implement “congestion pricing” at the end of this month. The program would have had drivers pay $15 to enter Manhattan south of 60th street, with commercial vehicles and trucks paying steeper tolls. The revenue it generated would have been used for transportation upgrades and maintenance, including improving the city’s old subway system and other public transit options.
- Yesterday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced she is indefinitely delaying the implementation. Hochul said it “risks too many unintended consequences for New Yorkers at this time,” but many think the consequences would have been for Hochul. John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union, said, “This was going to be a disaster for Hochul at the ballot, and the plan is bleeding into the Dem’s efforts to take back the House.”
A Whole New World Of Investment
- The five supervisors who oversee the Disney World district in Florida – all appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis – voted Wednesday to approve an agreement that could result in Disney investing up to $17 billion into its Florida resort. A second vote is required for final approval, set for next week.
- Under the deal’s terms, over the next decade or two, Disney would be approved to build a fifth major theme park at Disney World and two more minor parks. Hotel room capacity could expand from 40,000 rooms to more than 53,000 rooms and the amount of retail and restaurant space could increase by more than 20%.
More Nuts In America
- “No Schoolers”: How Illinois’ Hands-Off Approach to Homeschooling Leaves Children at Risk (ProPublica)
- Texas prosecutor seeks to overturn governor’s pardon of man convicted of murdering BLM protester (NBC)
- Hunter Biden’s ex-wife is called as a witness in his federal gun trial (AP)
- GOP plans aggressive ‘weaponization’ investigations in wake of Trump conviction (WaPo, $)
- Arizona voters will decide if local police can arrest people for crossing into the US from Mexico (AP)
- Trump allies Byron Donalds and Wesley Hunt go after Black voters on Biden’s turf in Philadelphia (Politico)
E Gets An F From The FDA
- On Tuesday, an FDA advisory committee killed the vibes by voting overwhelmingly against approving MDMA (also known as molly or ecstasy) as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. 9 of the 11 committee members voted against using the psychedelic drug for medical use on the grounds of its lack of effectiveness, and 10 of 11 said its risks did not outweigh the benefits.
- Tuesday’s vote marks the first time that the FDA has ever considered a psychedelic drug for therapeutic purposes. MDMA belongs to a class of psychoactive drugs that can create a sense of relatedness and emotional openness in users, and drug companies have sought to combine those effects with guided therapy sessions in order to treat PTSD. About 5% of Americans – 13 million people – experience the effects of PTSD in a given year, and current treatments like antidepressants and cognitive behavioral therapy have limited efficacy in most of the population.
- “Participants appear to experience rapid, clinically meaningful, durable improvement in their PTSD symptoms,” the FDA wrote in a brief about the MDMA studies in question. However, the agency said that “several factors make these data challenging to interpret and complicate the benefit-risk assessment for this application.” While researchers attempted to use double-blind studies to reduce bias in results of MDMA studies, the obvious effects of the drug made those efforts mostly useless, as it’s very easy to tell when someone is on MDMA.
More Loose Nuts
- Amanda Knox reconvicted of slander in Italy in case linked to her quashed murder conviction (CBS)
- Joro spiders, giant, venomous flying arachnids, are here to stay, pest experts say (USA Today)
- Boeing Starliner launch: NASA astronauts lift off (CNN)
- Questions Dog a Case Involving a Suspended License and a Viral Video (NYT, $)
- Brooklyn man arrested in betting scheme that appears to have involved banned NBA player (NBC)