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Category: Politics

Now is not the time for Democrats to surrender

Now is not the time for Democrats to surrender

Jamelle Bouie writes: Democrats may be in the minority, but they are not yet an opposition. What’s the difference? An opposition would use every opportunity it had to demonstrate its resolute stance against the incoming administration. It would do everything in its power to try to seize the public’s attention and make hay of the president-elect’s efforts to put lawlessness at the center of American government. An opposition would highlight the extent to which Donald Trump has no intention of…

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How billionaires have sidestepped a tax aimed at the rich

How billionaires have sidestepped a tax aimed at the rich

By Paul Kiel This story was originally published by ProPublica Fourteen years ago, Congress set out to remedy a basic unfairness in the tax code. The tax that funds Medicare, because it’s aimed mainly at wages, hits even the poorest American workers. But the wealthy could easily avoid paying their share. So lawmakers created a new type of Medicare tax to capture the kinds of income the rich often enjoy: interest, dividends and capital gains from investments. A host of…

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The Sunbelt’s growing population faces increasing climate hazards

The Sunbelt’s growing population faces increasing climate hazards

Inside Climate News reports: Counties across the southern half of the U.S., especially those with large and socially vulnerable populations, will be much more exposed to wildfire, drought and extreme heat than other parts of the country as the region’s climate warms in the coming decades, according to new research from the U.S. Forest Service and Resources for the Future. The report, “Changing Hazards, Exposure, and Vulnerability in the Conterminous United States, 2020–2070,” builds on the Forest Service’s 2020 Resources…

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Meta censorship is having a ‘devastating’ impact on Palestinian news sources

Meta censorship is having a ‘devastating’ impact on Palestinian news sources

Middle East Eye reports: Meta’s policy of censorship is having a “devastating” impact on Palestinians, according to a new report by a prominent Arab media watchdog. The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, also known as 7amleh, collected 20 first-hand testimonies from Palestinian influencers, journalists and media outlets who have experienced the tech conglomerate’s discriminatory practices. Since October 2023, with the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Meta has been accused of censoring Palestinian content and groups on…

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Elon Musk’s failure to follow federal security rules prompts questions about what he is trying to hide

Elon Musk’s failure to follow federal security rules prompts questions about what he is trying to hide

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, have repeatedly failed to comply with federal reporting protocols aimed at protecting state secrets, including by not providing some details of his meetings with foreign leaders, according to people with knowledge of the company and internal documents. Concerns about the reporting practices — and particularly about Mr. Musk, who is SpaceX’s chief executive — have triggered at least three federal reviews, eight people with knowledge of the efforts…

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Trump to Putin’s rescue

Trump to Putin’s rescue

Tom Nichols writes: Dictatorships seem stable and almost invulnerable, until the day they fall. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime crumbled in days in the face of an offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a group that the United States considers a terrorist organization. But the Syrian civil war is, for now, mostly over. Hundreds of thousands are dead. I wrote more than a decade ago in favor of Western intervention in Syria, back when the butcher’s bill was…

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A top Russian general is killed in a Moscow bombing claimed by Ukraine

A top Russian general is killed in a Moscow bombing claimed by Ukraine

The Associated Press reports: A senior Russian general was killed Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service leveled criminal charges against him. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack. Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed as he left for his office. Kirillov’s assistant also died in the attack. Kirillov, 54, was under sanctions…

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Netanyahu says Israeli troops will occupy a buffer zone inside Syria for the foreseeable future

Netanyahu says Israeli troops will occupy a buffer zone inside Syria for the foreseeable future

The Associated Press reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israeli forces will stay in a buffer zone on the Syrian border, and specifically on the summit of Mount Hermon, “until another arrangement is found that will ensure Israel’s security.” Netanyahu made the comments from the mountain’s summit — the highest peak in the area — which is inside Syria, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with the Israel-held Golan Heights. This was apparently the first…

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Emboldened by ABC settlement, Trump threatens more lawsuits against the press

Emboldened by ABC settlement, Trump threatens more lawsuits against the press

CNN reports: President-elect Donald Trump had not been terribly successful in suing media organizations until this weekend when ABC News agreed to settle a closely-watched defamation case he brought against the network to the tune of $16 million. Now, Trump is expanding his threats of legal action against the news media as he prepares to move back into the White House, stating he wants to “straighten out the press.” On Monday, Trump said he has a new target: The Des-Moines…

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The Democrats’ stubborn refusal to learn from the campus protests for Palestine

The Democrats’ stubborn refusal to learn from the campus protests for Palestine

Ahmed Moor writes: In mid-November, I attended a public meeting organized by Reclaim Philadelphia, a progressive group founded in the aftermath of the first Trump presidency. The event served as an election post-mortem, but also as a place to begin to chart a way forward — to consider what the next four years may bring. Speakers, including members of the local Philadelphia community and Reclaim’s leadership, described the ways in which the Democratic party leadership had failed them: plenty of…

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Giant companies took secret payments to allow free flow of opioids

Giant companies took secret payments to allow free flow of opioids

The New York Times reports: In 2017, the drug industry middleman Express Scripts announced that it was taking decisive steps to curb abuse of the prescription painkillers that had fueled America’s overdose crisis. The company said it was “putting the brakes on the opioid epidemic” by making it harder to get potentially dangerous amounts of the drugs. The announcement, which came after pressure from federal health regulators, was followed by similar declarations from the other two companies that control access…

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How the renewable energy boom is remaking the American West

How the renewable energy boom is remaking the American West

Inside Climate News reports: Local conservationist Patrick Donnelly drove east along the Loneliest Road in America, a ribbon of pavement in north central Nevada that deserves its name. Before him, sprawling in every direction, was a green-gray sagebrush basin so large you could probably plop Las Vegas in it and still have room to spare. Save for a stiff wind and the occasional cow bleat, a heavy silence sat on the valley. Not much moved aside from skittish grouse and…

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Amazon disregarded internal warnings on injuries, Senate investigation claims

Amazon disregarded internal warnings on injuries, Senate investigation claims

The New York Times reports: For years, worker advocates and some government officials have argued that Amazon’s strict production quotas lead to high rates of injury for its warehouse employees. And for years, Amazon has rejected the criticism, arguing that it doesn’t use strict quotas, and that its injury rates are falling close to or below the industry average. On Sunday, the majority staff of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which is chaired by Senator Bernie…

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Hegseth’s guard left the Army after the beating of a civilian during training

Hegseth’s guard left the Army after the beating of a civilian during training

The New York Times reports: When Pete Hegseth visited senators on Capitol Hill this month in an effort to show that he has the qualifications and judgment to lead the Defense Department, he was escorted by a security guard with a dark episode in his past. The guard, a former Army Special Forces master sergeant named John Jacob Hasenbein, left the military after a 2019 training event in which witnesses said he beat a civilian role player — kicking him,…

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Questions ABC News should answer following the $16 million Trump settlement

Questions ABC News should answer following the $16 million Trump settlement

Richard J. Tofel writes: As someone who practiced press law for more than twenty years, and served as a senior executive of news organizations for just as long, I was shocked by the decision of ABC News last week to pay $16 million to settle Donald Trump’s libel case over George Stephanopoulos’s This Week broadcast in March. The shock came, and still lingers, because I—and every experienced press lawyer not involved in the case with whom I have discussed it—considered…

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True scale of Assad’s slaughter revealed at Syrian mass grave

True scale of Assad’s slaughter revealed at Syrian mass grave

  His prisons held hundreds of thousands of people: relentlessly tortured and abused, many of them did not survive. But since Bashar Al-Assad fell from power – the full horror of the regime’s crimes is being revealed. Syria was largely cut off to journalists during his 24 years in power. But now the daunting task of documenting Assad’s atrocities can begin: starting with the country’s mass graves. Including one where around 150 thousand people may have been buried.