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Odds Are, Russia Owns Trump
Three months ago, The Washington Post reported that even as Donald Trump ran for president, he pursued plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
The US Department of the Interior’s new four-year strategic plan calls for maximizing fossil fuel extraction from public lands
A leaked draft of the US Department of Interior’s four-year strategic plan calls for massive fossil fuel extraction from public lands, with no mention of climate change impacts. The document was leaked to Adam Federman, a reporting fellow with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.
If Roy Moore Isn't Rock Bottom for Republicans, What the Hell Is?
When the news that Alabama Senate candidate and longtime conservative raconteur Roy Moore was accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl when he was 32, we braced for the inevitable pushback from those on the right who would defend him.
So Do Outcomes Matter More than Rhetoric?
Get ready, because I am about to use a concept from Basic Calculus to reveal to you Americans out there a lie that you’ve been taught to believe - almost all of you. No matter which party you support, you “know” one thing about their attitudes and behavior...
Disruption games: why are libertarians lining up with autocrats to undermine democracy?
At a time when strange alliances are disrupting previously stable democracies, the Catalan independence referendum was a perfect reflection of a weird age.
Time Inc. Sells Itself to Meredith Corp., Backed by Koch Brothers
The Meredith Corporation — the owner of Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens and AllRecipes — agreed to purchase Time Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at nearly $3 billion. The deal was made possible, in part, by an infusion of $650 million from the private equity arm of Charles G.
Ku Klux Klambakes
Most of us who grow up in the United States learn a reassuring narrative of ever-expanding tolerance. Yes, the country’s birth was tainted with the original sin of slavery, but Lincoln freed the slaves, the Supreme Court desegregated schools, and we finally elected a black president.
Timed toilet breaks, impossible targets and workers falling asleep on feet: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
Alone in a locked metal cage, 10 feet from my nearest colleague, a robot approaches from the shadows and thrusts a tower of shelves towards me. As I bend to the floor then reach high above my head to fulfil a never-ending stream of orders, my body screams at me.
Russia hackers pursued Putin foes, not just US Democrats
WASHINGTON (AP) — It wasn't just Hillary Clinton's emails they went after. The hackers who disrupted the U.S. presidential election last year had ambitions that stretched across the globe, targeting the emails of Ukrainian officers, Russian opposition figures, U.S.
How Jeff Sessions Plans to End Medical Marijuana Before the Year Is Over
Tears streamed down Claudia Jendron's face this year as her doctor patted her hand and told her, after eight years of failed pain treatments for her spinal fusion-gone-wrong, "This is going to work, Claudia." She was talking about medical marijuana.
Exclusive: What Trump Really Told Kislyak After Comey Was Canned
On a dark night at the tail end of last winter, just a month after the inauguration of the new American president, an evening when only a sickle moon hung in the Levantine sky, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters flew low across Jordan and then, staying under the radar, veered north toward the tw
While eyes are on Russia, Sessions dramatically reshapes the Justice Department
For more than five hours, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sat in a hearing room on Capitol Hill this month, fending off inquiries on Washington’s two favorite topics: President Trump and Russia.
GOP Tax Bill Is The End Of All Economic Sanity In Washington
No doubt many of you read the above headline and immediately started to tweet that the GOP tax bill can’t be the end of economic sanity in Washington because there never was any to begin with. First…please do tweet that, and link to this post when you do.
The Nationalist's Delusion
Trump’s supporters backed a time-honored American political tradition, disavowing racism while promising to enact a broad agenda of discrimination. THIRTY YEARS AGO, nearly half of Louisiana voted for a Klansman, and the media struggled to explain why.
Poll: Economists Unanimous That Debt Would Balloon Under GOP Tax Plan
Republicans have been selling their tax overhaul plan as a major booster for the U.S. economy. In fact, they have argued that it would grow the economy so much that cuts would largely pay for themselves. But on both counts, top economists are doubtful.
Everything Must Go
Economic growth will destroy everything. There’s no way of greening it – we need a new system. Everyone wants everything – how is that going to work? The promise of economic growth is that the poor can live like the rich and the rich can live like the oligarchs.
I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality
Right now, you can go online and connect with friends, watch videos and read the news. There's a good chance you are reading this online right now. We do much more on the internet than consume content, however. Increasingly, the internet is also where we create.
Investigation of fake net neutrality foes has been stymied by the FCC, New York attorney general says
The reports started trickling out in May, in the weeks after the Federal Communications Commission had begun soliciting public comments on a proposal to repeal net neutrality rules that govern the flow of information on the Internet.
Al Franken: The Obvious Setup and Liberals Took the Bait
With all of the sleazy, disgusting and lurid sexual problems that seem to be a part of the Republican official’s way of life, it was only a matter of time before there was a lash back against a Democrat.
The GOP tax plan just got another brutal review
The new analysis from the Urban Institute's and Brookings Institution's Tax Policy Center found that by 2027, 28% of Americans would see an increase in their tax burden due to the tax code overhaul proposed in the TCJA.
How American politics went batshit crazy, starting with Newt Gingrich
There are numerous reasons American politics went off the rails, but there are at least six seminal events in the past 24 years that steered us here. Sound smart: Politics is growing more personal, polarized and pugnacious. This dynamic is particularly acute on the right.
Inequality Is a Bigger Threat to Our Democracy Than Putin Is
Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on much, these days. But the profound threat that Vladimir Putin poses to our republic is one. John McCain has suggested that Russian interference in the 2016 campaign was an attack on “the foundation of democracy.
I've spent months covering Republican tax policy. This bill is way worse than I expected.
I’m not the target audience for the Republican tax bill.
Historian Timothy Snyder: “It’s pretty much inevitable” that Trump will try to stage a coup and overthrow democracy
American democracy is in crisis. The election of Donald Trump feels like a state of emergency made normal. Trump has threatened violence against his political enemies. He has made clear he does not believe in the norms and traditions of American democracy — unless they serve his interests.
How the Russians pretended to be Texans — and Texans believed them
Casey Michel is a journalist based in New York. In early 2016, while researching some of the most popular U.S. secession groups online, I stumbled across one of the Russian-controlled Facebook accounts that were then pulling in Americans by the thousands.
Survey: One-Third of Republicans Favor Leaders Unchecked by Courts or Congress
Amid worries about the future of representative government, a new survey has found that global support for democracy remains strong, though those with right-of-center political views are more supportive of strong men unfettered by checks and balances.
'We tried nice guys': conservative hardliners stay in a trance for Trump
At the Values Voter Summit, as speeches hammered gays, gun control and the GOP old guard, attendees clung to a rose-tinted view of their unlikely champion 07.00 EDT Last modified on Sunday 15 October 2017 07.
'Toxic to Democracy': New Project Reveals Corrupting Web of Trump Empire
Public Citizen on Tuesday launched a new project aimed at documenting President Donald Trump's vast entanglement of business interests and highlighting "the urgent need for the president to disclose his tax returns so Americans can determine the extent of his business holdings and how they may be a
The New Front in the Gerrymandering Wars: Democracy vs. Math
In the late spring of 2011, Dale Schultz walked the short block in Madison from his State Senate office in the Wisconsin Capitol to the glass-paneled building of Michael Best & Friedrich, a law firm with deep ties to his Republican Party.
How Conservatives Manipulated the Mainstream Media to Give Us President Trump
The first rule has always been with us, and it has many salutary aspects, but as journalism has evolved it has come to serve different purposes.
In 1939, I didn’t hear war coming. Now its thundering approach can’t be ignored
As a teenager I would just laugh at newsreels of Hitler and other fascists. I hope what happened next is not witnessed again by my grandchildren’s generation A chill of remembrance has come over me during this August month.
Trump’s voting commission asked states to hand over election data. Some are pushing back.
President Trump’s voting commission stumbled into public view this week, issuing a sweeping request for nationwide voter data that drew sharp condemnation from election experts and resistance from more than two dozen states that said they cannot or will not hand over all of the data.
Death spiral? Obamacare insurers may be having ‘best year’ yet under ACA
New data on the improving finances of the nation’s individual insurers are calling into question repeated Republican claims that Obamacare marketplaces are collapsing under the Affordable Care Act.
Trump's electoral commission is a sham
Jason Kander is a CNN contributor and the former Missouri secretary of state.
Historian Timothy Snyder: Trump's lies are creeping tyranny
Shortly after Donald Trump won the election, Timothy Snyder, a professor of European history at Yale, posted a long note on Facebook that began: “Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism.
Chomsky on the GOP: Has Any Organization Ever Been So Committed to Destruction of Life on Earth?
As President Trump prepares to mark 100 days in office, we spend the hour with the world-renowned linguist and dissident Noam Chomsky. Amy Goodman spoke to him on Monday night at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
John Oliver explains how gerrymandering hurts weirdos, racists, and democracy
"There is understandable concern at the moment about the personalities harming our democracy, but tonight let's talk about one of the major structural problems," John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight, and that's the closest he got to mentioning President Trump.
The GOP Has Declared War on Democracy
Many in the media are portraying the Republicans’ move to invoke the nuclear option to confirm Neil Gorsuch as a mere squabble over Senate rules, the latest example of hyper-partisanship in Washington that both parties are equally responsible for.
The Susan Rice Unmasking Story Is A Perfect Case Study Of The New Pro-Trump Propaganda Ecosystem
For most of the last decade, the flow of misinformation was often easy to track in media, with right-wing media often forcing mainstream outlets to follow the stories and tone they favored.
Noam Chomsky: Trump Administration Is Aiming to Decimate All Programs to Help Working People
Seventy-five days ago today, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. Trump has expanded U.S. military operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia, while resuming arms sales to Bahrain. At the United Nations, the Trump administration led a boycott of U.N.
I am an Arctic researcher. Donald Trump is deleting my citations
As an Arctic researcher, I’m used to gaps in data. Just over 1% of US Arctic waters have been surveyed to modern standards. In truth, some of the maps we use today haven’t been updated since the second world war.
Angela Merkel is now the leader of the free world, not Donald Trump
When Barack Obama revealed that his last phone call as President was to Angela Merkel, reaffirming their alliance and friendship of the last eight years, he wasn’t just saying goodbye. He was handing over his baton.
President Bannon?: Racist, Islamophobic Breitbart Leader Consolidates Power in Trump White House
President Trump took the unprecedented step of giving Bannon a full seat on the "principals committee" of the National Security Council last week. Bannon has emerged as one of the most powerful figures in the White House.
Nazis Once Published List of Jewish Crimes, Trump Now Pushing to Do the Same for Immigrant Crimes
The Trump administration has announced plans to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by unauthorized immigrants living in so-called sanctuary cities, where local officials and law enforcement are refusing to comply with federal immigration authorities’ efforts to speed up deportations.
Rep. Peter King says he's refusing to do town halls because angry protesters 'diminish democracy'
(CNN)Rep. Peter King said Thursday that he won't do town hall meetings because he believes they would just devolve into a "screaming session," adding that angry town halls "trivialize" and "diminish" democracy.
Donald Trump's war on media is 'biggest threat to democracy' says Navy Seal who brought down Osama Bin Laden
William H McRaven, who was commander of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, was delegated responsibility for the dangerous mission targeting the al-Qaeda leader by the CIA in 2011.
Retired Navy admiral: Trump's remark about media 'the greatest threat to democracy'
Will McRaven, a retired U.S. Navy admiral and University of Texas system chancellor, is pushing back on President Trump’s description of the media as “the enemy of the American people.”
‘Greatest threat to democracy’: Commander of bin Laden raid slams Trump’s anti-media sentiment
William H. McRaven, a retired four-star admiral and former Navy SEAL, slammed President Trump’s characterization of the media as “the enemy of the American people,” calling that sentiment the “greatest threat to democracy” he’s ever seen.
How to lose a constitutional democracy
Outside contributors' opinions and analysis of the most important issues in politics, science, and culture. As the Trump administration finds its feet, a fear of autocracy is in the air.
Words in the Age of Trump
This post originally appeared at The Nation. Let’s start with the words “in the age of Trump.” The phrase currently has more than 17 million Google hits, compared to (and this should cheer POTUS) only 6.6 million for “in the age of Obama.
Donald Trump’s Russian Watergate: Michael Flynn resigns, and Sally Yates took him down
National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has resigned late tonight, a full four days after Donald Trump’s White House and the American public were made aware that Flynn had colluded with the Russian ambassador before and after election day.
Trump's White House is falling apart
Losing a national security adviser to scandal within the first month of a new presidency, with Michael Flynn resigning late Monday, isn't just unprecedented; it's one of those events that would have Spock telling Kirk that the readings are off the charts and make no sense.
Post-Fascist Europe Tells Us Exactly How to Defend Our Democracy
Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are 20 lessons from the 20th century, adapted to the circumstances of today.
Gerrymandering is the biggest obstacle to genuine democracy in the United States. So why is no one protesting?
Brian Klaas is a Fellow in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and author of The Despot’s Accomplice: How the West is Aiding & Abetting the Decline of Democracy. There is an enormous paradox at the heart of American democracy. Congress is deeply and stubbornly unpopular.
Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study
What do you do when the Congressional Research Service, the completely non-partisan arm of the Library of Congress that has been advising Congress—and only Congress—on matters of policy and law for nearly a century, produces a research study that finds absolutely
"We Have a Year to Defend American Democracy, Perhaps Less"
Süddeutsche Zeitung, founded 1945, also known as SZ, Germany's largest broadsheet newspaper, publishes articles of international interest in English. (Translation mostly in cooperation with Worldcrunch.)
Trump, Breitbart, and the rejection of multicultural democracy
Outside contributors' opinions and analysis of the most important issues in politics, science, and culture.
The Hatred of Democracy
The last weekend in October of last year, I was at the former Labyrinth Bookstore in New York City where I picked up Jacques Rancière’s The Hatred of Democracy. Ten days later, the country would elect Donald Trump to the presidency.
DN!
An official with Trump’s transition team has announced the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific studies will now have to undergo a political review by the Trump administration before being published.
Comparing presidential administrations by arrests and convictions: A warning for Trump appointees
In May 2015, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks mentioned on PBS’s Newshour that the Obama administration has been remarkably scandal-free:“President Obama has run an amazingly scandal-free administration, not only he himself, but the people around him.
CIA Concludes Russian Interference Aimed To Elect Trump
Updated at 1:49 p.m. ET Saturday with confirmation from the U.S. official and comments from Sen. Ron Wyden Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET Saturday with comments from Sen. Angus King
America’s democracy has become illiberal
Two decades ago, I wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs that described an unusual and worrying trend: the rise of illiberal democracy. Around the world, dictators were being deposed and elections were proliferating.
North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy
In 2005, in the midst of a career of traveling around the world to help set up elections in some of the most challenging places on earth – Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, Sudan and Yemen, among others – my Danish colleague, Jorgen Elklit, and I designed the first comprehensive
Greg Palast: By Rejecting Recount, Is Michigan Covering Up 75,000 Ballots Never Counted?
Investigative reporter Greg Palast has just returned from Michigan, where he went to probe the state’s closely contested election. Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes out of nearly 4.8 million votes cast. Green Party presidential contender Dr.
Yale History Prof Timothy Snyder's 20 Pts for Defending Democracy under a Trump presidency
This article was originally published as a Facebook post November 28, 2016 by Timothy Snyder, the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning.
Elon Musk thinks universal income is answer to automation taking human jobs
Tech innovators in the self-driving car and AI industries talk a lot about how many human jobs will be innovated out of existence, but they rarely explain what will happen to all those newly jobless humans.
David Petraeus’s Probation Officer Would Have to Give Him Permission to Travel As Secretary of State
If Donald Trump chooses former CIA director and retired General David Petraeus as the winner of his secretary of State reality show, he’ll want to throw in a pardon, too. In 2015, Petraeus pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information, which he shared with his mistress.
Trump’s lies have a purpose. They are an assault on democracy.
All politicians lie. In a democracy, they usually tell lies to achieve a particular result: Maybe they want to conceal information that would damage their reputations, or take credit for something they had nothing to do with.
Your Profoundly Disturbing Yet Hopeful Thanksgiving Reading List on Science and Democracy
The past two weeks have brought significant change and significant uncertainty about the future of science and democracy under a Trump administration.
What you — yes, you — can do to save America from tyranny
Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are 20 lessons from across the fearful 20th century, adapted to the circumstances of today.
Post-Truth Nation
By now countless journalists, academics, and luminaries have expressed serious concern over the election of Donald Trump. To put it simply, the only ones celebrating his victory are the KKK, Russia, ISIS, and American conservatives.
What Trump's Rise Means for Democracy
Donald Trump’s nomination for the presidency was inconceivable until primary after primary made it all but inevitable—and a mild Indiana spring evening confirmed it. It suggests to many baffled people, chiefly pundits, that they do not really understand their own country.
More white women voted for Donald Trump than for Hillary Clinton
One might think Donald Trump's sexist and vulgar statements would sway female voters away from the candidate. But roughly 53% of white women voted for Trump on Tuesday, CNN reported. White women turned out for Trump far more than other minority women.
Facebook is harming our democracy, and Mark Zuckerberg needs to do something about it
A generation ago, newspapers and television news programs had a lot of influence over what people read and watched. Stories that made it on the front page got a lot of attention, while most people never heard about stories that mainstream media outlets chose to ignore.
Democracy and the Origins of the US Constitution
In a democracy: Citizens elect their leaders People have a right to change their leaders People choose their leaders through elections which are held frequently. Elections are free and fair People have civil rights. All of these ideas about democracy originated from a number of sources.
Voting for a third party candidate in this election is the worst thing you can do for American democracy
Let’s leave aside the fact that Gary Johnson couldn’t name a single foreign leader on TV yesterday. And let’s forget that Jill Stein is squirrely about her feelings on vaccination science.
We, the Plutocrats vs. We, the People – Saving the Soul of Democracy
The following is a condensed version of a speech that Bill Moyers delivered at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, on July 8, 2016, and is crossposted at TomDispatch.com.
FBI says foreign hackers penetrated state election systems
The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement offici
In the post-factual democracy, politicians win by getting feelings right and facts wrong
As dawn broke on June 24, 2016, UK politician Nigel Farage was celebrating the triumph of a dangerous narrative. Farage, who until yesterday headed the UK Independence Party, declared the vote in favor of Britain leaving the European Union a victory for ordinary people.
Inequality Will Not Go Away On Its Own. Here’s How to Close the Gap.
The immediate crisis may have passed, but most Americans still haven’t recovered from the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Wealthy Americans, on the other hand, are doing better than ever.
Redesign Democracy
Older generations seem to chronically lament that the world of the young is new, unprecedented, and terrible.
Plutocrats at Work: How Big Philanthropy Undermines Democracy
Early twentieth-century skeptics were rightly suspicious of plutocrats deciding how to improve the human condition and then paying to translate their notions into public policy.
The Science of Democracy: Are Humans Hard-Wired To Be Stupid Voters?
The next United States Presidential election is just under 16 months away, and already “silly-season” is in full force.
The influence of elites, interest groups and average voters on American politics
Public policy in the United States is shaped by a wide variety of forces, from polls and election results to interest groups and institutions, both formal and informal.
Council candidates campaign against voter confusion
To figure out whether the proposed waste-to-energy incinerator was inside her County Council district, Carole Jaar Sepe said she had to crack open a computer mapping system and zoom down to the street level.
Why Technology Hasn’t Delivered More Democracy
The current moment confronts us with a paradox.
Toward (a) Civic Trust
Trust in institutions, globally, is at an all-time low. Government, business, journalism, and even non-profits, are all losing the public’s faith. The US Government, in particular, has hovered near its lowest approval ratings in history for an uncomfortably long time.
“It’s making us feel like the opposition is evil”: How cable news hurts democracy — and how to fix it
Have you seen this video before? It’s a clip from a Wednesday-night episode of CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.
Foreclosed nation: Wall Street, the dispossessed & the quality of American democracy
Why has the continued crisis of dispossession not been treated as a national emergency? Given the scale of the foreclosure crisis, the policy response has been muted. Congress and the Obama administration have repeatedly rejected demands for a national moratorium on mortgage foreclosures.
Republicans Find Yet Another Ingenious Way to Suppress Democratic Votes
The number of ways that Republicans invent to reduce the voting power of the Democratic Party is truly impressive. Here's the latest: The court has never resolved whether voting districts should have the same number of people, or the same number of eligible voters.
Seymour Hersh’s alternative history of Bush’s war
The crack investigative reporter tells Salon about a disastrous battle the U.S. brass hushed up, the frightening True Believers in the White House, and how Iran, not Israel, may have manipulated us into war. Since the Sept.
Freedom to Bully
However, the rights guaranteed by open records laws can be abused. As our 2015 report shows, open records requests are increasingly being used to harass and intimidate scientists and other academic researchers, or to disrupt and delay their work.
From tragedy to farce: The GOP primary shows the rapid collapse of American democracy
News from the Kochs and Jeb Bush suggests Citizens United is destroying the U.S. even quicker than critics feared Except for being old white guys from California, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and tech billionaire Gordon Moore don’t appear to have much in common.
Democracy for Sale
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Colin Powell Has A Pretty Good Suggestion For Fixing Voter ID Laws
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday said that black voters should vote lawmakers who support voter ID restrictions out of office. Powell, who served as secretary of state under George W.
A New Study Shows How Donors Distort Democracy
It’s early, but arguably the most important paper of the year has already been released. The author, Michael Jay Barber, finds persuasive evidence that those who donate more than $200 (.22% of the population in 2014), wield more influence over our political system than anyone else.
Ted Cruz’s Father: "The Bible Tells You Exactly Who To Vote For"
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s father, Rev. Rafael Cruz, has voting advice for Christians nationwide who find themselves unable to decide at the ballot box.