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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 publisher of Time and People magazines was closing in Sunday on an agreement to sell itself to the Meredith Corporation.Credit...Mario Tama/Getty ImagesBy and A long chapter in media history came to an unlikely close on Sunday night with a sale agreement for Time Inc.
Ku Klux Klambakes
Adam Hochschild's books include King Leopold’s Ghost, To End All Wars, and Lessons from a Dark Time and Other Essays, which was published last fall. He teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. (December 2019)
Timed toilet breaks, impossible targets and workers falling asleep on feet: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
Alan Selby went undercover at the firm's Tilbury warehouse in Essex where ambulances are regularly called and where workers face the sack if they fail to pack at least two items per minute Alone in a locked metal cage, 10 feet from my nearest colleague, a robot approaches from the shadows and thrust
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 as her doctor patted her hand. "This is going to work," the doctor said. Eight years ago, a spinal-fusion-gone-wrong left Jendron—a 66-year-old resident of Rochester, New York—ailing.
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
As the attorney general is frequently questioned on his Russia-related dealings, he has been able to quickly enact big changes at the agency.
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
THIRTY YEARS AGO, nearly half of Louisiana voted for a Klansman, and the media struggled to explain why. It was 1990 and David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, astonished political observers when he came within striking distance of defeating incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator J.
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.
Op-Ed: 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
Hundreds of thousands of comments left on the FCC's website about net neutrality may be fake, according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
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.
The party had some legitimately good ideas. They’re not in this bill. 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
"Heart of Texas" grew into the most popular Texas secession page on Facebook. It was run by the Russians.
Survey: One-Third of Republicans Favor Leaders Unchecked by Courts or Congress
The Cable goes inside the foreign policy machine, from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay, the White House to Embassy Row. A new global survey finds that right-of-center ideology and education affect support for democracy.
'We tried nice guys': conservative hardliners stay in a trance for Trump
Nearly a year ago, conservative Christians gambled on Donald Trump, a thrice-married Manhattan billionaire who bragged about sexual assault, ran casinos and used to support a woman’s right to abortion. The bet paid off.
'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
Achill of remembrance has come over me during this August month. It feels as if the 2017 summer breeze is being scattered by the winds of war blowing from across our world towards Britain, just like they were in 1939.
Trump’s voting commission asked states to hand over election data. Some are pushing back.
The commission’s requests for information have run into resistance and outright defiance from states across the country.
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.
https://apple.news/As6Au6Y_OTheM3TRSZxiiSg
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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?
AMY GOODMAN: As President Trump prepares to mark 100 days in office, we spend the hour with the world-renowned linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky. I 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
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Seventy-five days ago today, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. On the international front, Trump has expanded U.S. military operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia, while resuming arms sales to Bahrain.
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
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Nazis Once Published List of Jewish Crimes, Trump Now Pushing to Do the Same for Immigrant Crimes
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what President Trump has said he’s going to do: keep a list of, quote, “immigrant crimes”?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/24/politics/kfile-pete-king-town-halls/index.html?sr=fbCNN022417kfile-pete-king-town-halls0858PMStoryLink&linkId=34864138
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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'
Speaking to the communications college at the University of Texas, Austin, on Tuesday, McRaven praised the work of the press as necessary to hold others accountable, according to reports.
‘Greatest threat to democracy’: Commander of bin Laden raid slams Trump’s anti-media sentiment
"Never has the government openly challenged the idea of a free press,” said retired Navy admiral William H. McRaven, chancellor of the University of Texas System.
How to lose a constitutional democracy
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?
The beast that ate American democracy.
Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study
This article is more than 8 years old.
"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
The hostility to immigrants and Islam in the executive orders comes straight out of Stephen Bannon’s Breitbart.
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.
http://m.democracynow.org/headlines/2017/1/26/47746
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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
We are now getting to see what American democracy looks like without any real buffers in the way of sheer populism and demagoguery.
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?
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our update on the presidential election to look at the results of the recount effort in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
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.
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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
Trump’s astounding rise isn’t the result of too much democracy, but of too little. 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.
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 official
In the post-factual democracy, politicians win by getting feelings right and facts wrong
AP Photo/Geert Vanden WijngaertFacts, schmacts.From our SeriesIdeasOur home for bold arguments and big thinkers.By Published Last updated on November 9, 2016This article is more than 2 years old.
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.