Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

Why journalists are reluctant to call Trump an authoritarian – and why that matters for democracy

Why journalists are reluctant to call Trump an authoritarian – and why that matters for democracy

A free election can still result in authoritarian rule. Photo illustration: Douglas Rissing, iStock/Getty Images Plus By Karrin Vasby Anderson, Colorado State University In an authoritarian state, the leader engages in unconstitutional or undemocratic practices for the purpose of consolidating power. Key components of authoritarianism include rejecting democratic rules; denying the legitimacy of opponents; tolerating or encouraging political violence; and curtailing the civil liberties of opponents. Since he took office for a second time, President Donald Trump has sent National…

Read More Read More

Social media is still navigating its sectarian phase

Social media is still navigating its sectarian phase

Kyle Chayka writes: On September 1st, the author and statistician Nate Silver wrote a post on X diagnosing a new condition: “Blueskyism,” so named for the decentralized social network that has emerged as a competitor to what used to be Twitter. According to Silver, Blueskyism embodies a newfangled ideology comprising “all the characteristics that make progressivism unappealing to normal people”—the same qualities, Silver argues, that prevent Democrats from recouping electoral favor. As with any good social-media bit, Silver later doubled…

Read More Read More

The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich

The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich

The Guardian reports: Daniel Raab shows no hesitation as he watches footage of 19-year-old Salem Doghmosh crumpling to the ground beside his brother in a street in northern Gaza. “That was my first elimination,” he says. The video, shot by a drone, lasts just a few seconds. The Palestinian teenager appears to be unarmed when he is shot in the head. Raab, a former varsity basketball player from a Chicago suburb who became an Israeli sniper, concedes he knew that….

Read More Read More

Anti-Islamic American biker gang members run security at deadly Gaza aid sites

Anti-Islamic American biker gang members run security at deadly Gaza aid sites

BBC News reports: The firm guarding sites where aid is distributed in Gaza has been using members of a US biker gang with a history of hostility to Islam to run its armed security, a BBC investigation has found. BBC News has confirmed the identities of 10 members of the Infidels Motorcycle Club working in Gaza for UG Solutions – a private contractor providing security at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, where hundreds of civilians seeking food have been killed in…

Read More Read More

MAGA activists push for greater power grabs

MAGA activists push for greater power grabs

Axios reports: MAGA activists are urging President Trump to tear down the remaining guardrails on his authority, dreaming of bigger, faster power grabs than the sweeping changes already in motion. Why it matters: Trump has spent his first eight months smashing norms — and crossing legal lines — in his dizzying pursuit of mass deportations, crime crackdowns, government purges and more. But in MAGA’s maximalist mindset, it’s not enough: The base sees a shrinking window for its revolution, with Trump term-limited and potential midterm losses looming next year….

Read More Read More

ICE is destroying the soul of America

ICE is destroying the soul of America

Garrett Graff writes: If you’re brown, speak Spanish, and work in a blue-collar job, you officially belong to a different class of citizen and according to Chief Justice John Roberts, it’s okay to racially profile you. We have never in US history seen a federal law enforcement agency operate the way ICE has operated this summer — it marks the arrival of a new style of domestic policing, more in line with the infamous “brown shirts” of authoritarian regimes the world…

Read More Read More

Department of Homeland Security claims videotaping ICE raids is ‘violence’

Department of Homeland Security claims videotaping ICE raids is ‘violence’

The American Prospect reports: President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims that making and posting videos of ICE agents as they disappear tens of thousands of immigrants from America’s streets, workplaces, and courtrooms without due process is an act of “violence” to be dealt with accordingly. DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that “videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents,”…

Read More Read More

Israel’s attack on Qatar should be a wake-up call for the Arab world

Israel’s attack on Qatar should be a wake-up call for the Arab world

Mohamad Elmasry writes: If any state should have felt safe from an Israeli attack, it would have been Qatar. It is a small country that poses no real threat to Israel. It is an ally of the United States and hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East. In May, Qatar pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US economy. Qatar has also cultivated a reputation as a peacemaker, mediating in numerous conflicts. Just last…

Read More Read More

Top Democrats pressed to back Mamdani as new poll shows his commanding lead

Top Democrats pressed to back Mamdani as new poll shows his commanding lead

Politico reports: Zohran Mamdani’s allies have a message for top Empire State Democrats as President Donald Trump works to block the democratic socialist’s path to City Hall: Get off the sidelines. Now. Pressure is mounting on Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to publicly endorse the 33-year-old candidate’s mayoral run after Trump’s team dangled jobs in front of the deeply unpopular incumbent Eric Adams to get him to drop out — in…

Read More Read More

Society needs hope

Society needs hope

Carol Graham writes: Young people around the world are experiencing an unprecedented crisis of unhappiness and poor mental health. Many observers blame the expansion of social media that began in 2012-13, as well as the long-term negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the social lives of the young, and no doubt those things have exacerbated the decline in mental health. But the causes of the current crisis run deeper. They have to do with the increasingly uncertain futures that…

Read More Read More

Tiny tubes in primitive Asgard archea may have been the precursor of our own cellular skeletons

Tiny tubes in primitive Asgard archea may have been the precursor of our own cellular skeletons

Veronique Greenwood writes: In 2010, biologists made a shocking discovery. Living in the mud of the North Sea were microorganisms whose genes looked a lot like ours. Genetic analysis revealed that humans, oak trees, blue whales — any living things whose cells have nuclei and mitochondria — are related to these microbes, which were named the Asgard archaea after the home of the Norse gods. Two billion years ago, it was an ancestor of an Asgard that diverged from its…

Read More Read More

The Supreme Court has greenlit racial profiling in immigration enforcement

The Supreme Court has greenlit racial profiling in immigration enforcement

Noah Feldman writes: In a ruling likely to go down in history as a shameful expression of anti-immigrant prejudice, the Supreme Court has allowed ICE agents to re-start “roving stops” of people suspected of being undocumented immigrants because of what they look like, how they speak, and where they are gathered to work or seek employment. The 6-3 ruling in the court’s emergency docket reversed a July order by federal district court judge in Los Angeles, which found ICE had…

Read More Read More

Project 2026: Trump’s plan to rig the midterms

Project 2026: Trump’s plan to rig the midterms

Mother Jones reports: On an April episode of the popular Politics War Room podcast, the veteran journalist Al Hunt posed an increasingly common question from listeners to Democratic strategist James Carville. “Is Trump looking to spark enough protest to justify declaring martial law in 2026, thus suspending the election?” Hunt asked. “You’re so correct to be concerned about this,” Carville responded. “It’s getting worse by the day. It is not going to stop getting worse. And I would be—we ought…

Read More Read More

Johnson claims that when he said Trump was an ‘FBI informant’ he didn’t mean FBI informant

Johnson claims that when he said Trump was an ‘FBI informant’ he didn’t mean FBI informant

The Hill reports: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sought to clarify Monday his comments that spread widely last week about President Trump being an “FBI informant” against the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, suggesting he misspoke about the president’s efforts to assist law enforcement as it investigated the wealthy financier. “I don’t know if I used the right word,” Johnson told reporters Monday. “I said, ‘FBI informant’ but I’m not sure. I wasn’t there — this isn’t my lane.” “I’m…

Read More Read More