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Category: Politics

Social Security is going broke. Where is the outrage?

Social Security is going broke. Where is the outrage?

Jason Furman writes: The first major public policy issue I worked on in the White House, almost 30 years ago, was President Bill Clinton’s call to “save Social Security first.” Though the fund wasn’t projected to run dry for another three decades, the country seemed gripped by the issue. A few years later, George W. Bush felt strongly enough about the looming crisis that he spent much of his political capital pushing a strategy to resolve it. This week the…

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A Peter Thiel-backed tribunal is putting journalists on trial. I’m its first target

A Peter Thiel-backed tribunal is putting journalists on trial. I’m its first target

Gary Baum writes: For many journalists, blowback is just part of the business. The irate call to the editor or publisher, often expressed through the promise of litigation. The online pile-on, often expressed through personal invective. Occasionally, the threat of violence, often expressed through all-caps derangement. It’s rare to encounter a novel variant. But on April 21, I received a remarkable email. “Someone has filed an objection against something you wrote,” explained Austin Livingston, pointing me to a web page…

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Trita Parsi: So they tried to deport me…

Trita Parsi: So they tried to deport me…

Trita Parsi writes: I have fought the neocons and warmongers in Washington for more than 25 years. Throughout, they have tried to silence, discredit, slander, and cancel me. Only recently, however, have they tried to deport me. At least, that appears to have been the aim of a hit piece in Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, which claimed that Marco Rubio’s State Department was “investigating” me for allegedly seeking to “undermine the U.S.”—presumably because of my opposition to war with…

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Jane Fonda to host First Amendment celebration opposite Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 event

Jane Fonda to host First Amendment celebration opposite Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 event

Reuters reports: As mixed martial arts fighters gather on ​Sunday on the South Lawn of the White House in a cage match to celebrate President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday — ‌a spectacle kicking off a series of events commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary — actor and activist Jane Fonda will sponsor entertainment of a different sort from New York City. Fonda’s advocacy group, Committee for the First Amendment, will host a concert featuring actors, musicians and public figures appearing in…

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Trump is taking aim at forest and wildfire research just as the West is poised to burn

Trump is taking aim at forest and wildfire research just as the West is poised to burn

NPR reports: Few public universities get more federal research funding than the University of Washington. So as President Trump has already cancelled or suspended about a quarter of all funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health, the atmosphere on this leafy Seattle campus is tense. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought appears before the House Budget Committee at the U.S. Capitol on April 15. The budget office recently proposed a rule change…

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The Constitution promises an interpreter for fair trials – U.S. courts often can’t deliver

The Constitution promises an interpreter for fair trials – U.S. courts often can’t deliver

A court interpreter checks the day’s schedule of assignments. AP Photo/Brennan Linsley By Carol Rose Little, University of Oklahoma In northern Oregon, just before dawn in October 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested and shackled two farmworkers on their way to work. The man and woman were Guatemalan citizens who spoke no English and very little Spanish. They spoke Mam, an Indigenous Mayan language. Despite the man trying to tell an ICE officer as much, he was not provided…

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The storage tanks in Cushing, Oklahoma, are hitting bottom. The oil market is about to hit a tipping point

The storage tanks in Cushing, Oklahoma, are hitting bottom. The oil market is about to hit a tipping point

CNN reports: Cushing, Oklahoma, dubs itself the pipeline crossroads of the world. The tagline is emblazoned on a giant roadside sign fashioned out of pipes on the corner of Main Street and South Stiles Road. It has a valve and everything. But it’s not just a slogan. In 1912, Tom Slick (his real name) was passing through what’s now Drumright, Oklahoma, when he smelled oil. He bought the land for $1 an acre and started digging, uncovering what was then…

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UAE to unlock billions of dollars for Iran, sources say

UAE to unlock billions of dollars for Iran, sources say

Reuters reports: The United Arab Emirates has agreed to unlock billions of dollars for Iran, four sources said, ​in a tactical shift after weeks of Iranian attacks on the wealthy Gulf Arab state during the U.S.-Israeli war with the Islamic Republic. Word of the move, which has not ‌been previously reported, coincides with the final stages of broader negotiations between Tehran and Washington on ending the war, talks that diplomats say could involve the release of tens of billions of…

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Democrats should be on the front lines of the data center resistance

Democrats should be on the front lines of the data center resistance

Tressie McMillan Cottom writes: Americans hate data centers. They really, really hate them. A Gallup poll from May found that 71 percent of Americans would oppose a data center being built in their area. In rural communities in Utah and North Carolina, regular people are organizing to stop data center construction, speaking out at public hearings and pressuring politicians for bans. They are passionate enough to attend political education sessions about water rights, land use and thermodynamics. Cities like Tulsa,…

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After SpaceX’s huge IPO, Americans’ financial future will be bound to AI

After SpaceX’s huge IPO, Americans’ financial future will be bound to AI

Eduardo Porter writes: Americans are growing worried about what artificial intelligence portends for their futures. Eight in 10 Americans report concern over AI, compared with a third who report being excited, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll. More than half think it will do more harm than good in their daily lives. Seven out of 10 think it will reduce the number of available jobs. Skeptical though they may be, they are about to get more AI rammed down their…

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Active Clubs, a white supremacist youth group, helped orchestrate the Belfast riots

Active Clubs, a white supremacist youth group, helped orchestrate the Belfast riots

Wired reports: Within an hour after a horrific knife attack took place in Belfast on Monday night, far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson had shared a video of the incident on X, a post that racked up 6 million views. Within hours Elon Musk, the owner of the platform, weighed in, agreeing with a post calling for “consequences” for politicians. By Tuesday morning, supercharged by X, the video was everywhere, and groups on Facebook were organizing protests across Northern Ireland and…

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The Silicon Valley elites who believe their political power should match their financial might

The Silicon Valley elites who believe their political power should match their financial might

The American Prospect reports: According to Zack Rosen, founder of California YIMBY and the Abundance Network, the problem with politics is Americans being too involved. Bemoaning the rise of small-dollar political donations in fundraising documents leaked to the Prospect, Rosen is blunt: “Small dollar internet fundraising makes politics dumber.” Rosen misses what he considers to be a bygone era of elite dominance. Lamenting the current state of democratized influence, Rosen says “the old gatekeepers were political professionals who could count…

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Oil executives warn White House that gas prices will get worse

Oil executives warn White House that gas prices will get worse

The Washington Post reports: Oil and gas executives have warned the White House that gasoline prices could surge in coming months as fuel inventories fall to critical lows, complicating the Trump administration’s efforts to contain inflation that has already rattled American consumers. Industry officials say they are doing everything they can to sound an alarm that prices are about to soar as the commercial and government inventories that have mitigated price rises so far are rapidly depleting, according to multiple…

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China is propping up the global economy by importing a lot less oil

China is propping up the global economy by importing a lot less oil

The Wall Street Journal reports: A sharp fall in China’s crude oil imports during the Iran war has been instrumental in holding down oil prices and keeping the global economy humming. Clues are emerging in the mystery of the missing three million barrels—the oil that China would normally be importing but isn’t now. Chinese people are driving fewer gasoline-powered cars and taking trains instead of planes. The country is dialing back operations at the plants that turn crude oil into…

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Is the U.S. secretly sneaking oil through the Strait of Hormuz, as Trump claims?

Is the U.S. secretly sneaking oil through the Strait of Hormuz, as Trump claims?

ABC News reports: Soon after President Donald Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday that the United States has been secretly ferrying “millions of barrels” of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump announced on social media that “more than 100 MILLION Barrels of Oil” and “more than 200 Commercial Ships” have successfully traveled through the strait. “Last month, I directed our Great U.S. Military to execute a secret mission to support Oil Tankers and other Commercial Ships through…

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Stalled Anti-Weaponization Fund workaround: Quietly invite claimants to sue the government, then settle

Stalled Anti-Weaponization Fund workaround: Quietly invite claimants to sue the government, then settle

Sarah Fitzpatrick writes: Shortly after Trump took office for the second time, the White House asked the Justice Department and Trump’s legal advisers to find a way to reimburse him and those close to him for the millions of dollars in legal expenses he has incurred, including over the Mueller probe into his campaign’s relationship with Russia as well as multiple impeachments and criminal investigations. That effort was later combined with a separate but related push by Trump supporters to…

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