Browsed by
Category: Politics

Wisconsin GOP’s impeachment plan: Another MAGA coup against democracy

Wisconsin GOP’s impeachment plan: Another MAGA coup against democracy

Dennis Aftergut and Austin Sarat write: MAGA Republicans in Wisconsin are gearing up to impeach newly elected state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz, just five weeks after she took her seat on the court and before she has cast her first vote. They want to stop her from doing what the majority of Wisconsin voters elected her to do. Their plan is nothing less than a coup attempt, an effort to sideline a duly elected judge not because she has…

Read More Read More

Why you should pay attention to the Texas attorney general’s impeachment trial

Why you should pay attention to the Texas attorney general’s impeachment trial

Shirin Ali writes: A battle that’s long been brewing in Texas is finally coming to a head as the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, undergoes an impeachment trial for allegations of corruption, bribery, and abuse of power. It all started after Paxton demanded that $3.3 million in taxpayer money be used to settle a lawsuit against him. (Paxton has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty this week in his first hearing.) Paxton is a polarizing political figure, even beyond…

Read More Read More

How ‘free speech’ warrior RFK Jr. tried to intimidate a DailyKos blogger

How ‘free speech’ warrior RFK Jr. tried to intimidate a DailyKos blogger

The Daily Beast reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long postured as an absolute defender of “free speech” online, especially after private social media firms declined to provide a platform to his deadly misinformation during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. But he hired Kyle Rittenhouse’s former attorney to deliver a kill shot to an anonymous DailyKos blogger who penned an article he disliked. That DailyKos writer, who for two decades has contributed to the site’s community section under the…

Read More Read More

Appeals court says Biden admin likely violated First Amendment but narrows order blocking officials from communicating with social media companies

Appeals court says Biden admin likely violated First Amendment but narrows order blocking officials from communicating with social media companies

CNN reports: A federal appeals court on Friday said the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment in some of its communications with social media companies, but also narrowed a lower court judge’s order on the matter. The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that certain administration officials – namely in the White House, the surgeon general, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – likely “coerced or significantly encouraged social media…

Read More Read More

Climate report card says countries are trying, but urgently need improvement

Climate report card says countries are trying, but urgently need improvement

The New York Times reports: Eight years after world leaders approved a landmark agreement in Paris to fight climate change, countries have made only limited progress in staving off the most dangerous effects of global warming, according to the first official report card on the global climate treaty. Many of the worst-case climate change scenarios that were much feared in the early 2010s look far less likely today, the report said. The authors partly credit the 2015 Paris Agreement, under…

Read More Read More

Ukraine’s strikes behind enemy lines are paying off

Ukraine’s strikes behind enemy lines are paying off

Michael Weiss and James Rushton report: At first, it looks like ordinary surveillance footage of a large military plane sitting on the tarmac. But then the wing catches fire. A second plane flickers across the screen, and in an instant its fuselage is engulfed in flames. Even in grainy black and white you can see the smoke billowing up into the night sky. Two Russian Ilyushin IL-76 strategic airlifters were destroyed by Ukrainian drones on Aug. 29 at Kresty air…

Read More Read More

Elon Musk acknowledges withholding satellite service to thwart Ukrainian attack

Elon Musk acknowledges withholding satellite service to thwart Ukrainian attack

The New York Times reports: A top adviser to Ukraine’s president accused Elon Musk of enabling Russian aggression, after the billionaire entrepreneur acknowledged denying satellite internet service in order to prevent a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian naval fleet last year. The Starlink satellite internet service, which is operated by Mr. Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, has been a digital lifeline in Ukraine since the early days of the war for both civilians and soldiers in areas where digital infrastructure…

Read More Read More

Judge refuses to move prosecution of Mark Meadows to federal court

Judge refuses to move prosecution of Mark Meadows to federal court

Politico reports: The prosecution of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for attempting to overturn the 2020 election will remain in state court, a federal judge ruled Friday as he turned down Meadows’ bid to move the case to federal court. The decision, which Meadows is likely to appeal, is a victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ drive to bring former President Donald Trump, Meadows and 17 other defendants to trial under the state’s broad criminal…

Read More Read More

The surprisingly strong constitutional case for Trump’s disqualification

The surprisingly strong constitutional case for Trump’s disqualification

Thor Benson interviewed CREW President, Noah Bookbinder, to discuss whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies Trump from running for office: Thor Benson: There might be a legitimate constitutional argument here, but what do you say to people who say it’s anti-democratic? Noah Bookbinder: There’s a certain irony in the argument that it’s anti-democratic to take somebody off the ballot — that everybody should be able to vote for the candidate of their choice. What happened after the 2020…

Read More Read More

‘Offensive’: Georgia prosecutor excoriates Jordan for probe into Trump charges

‘Offensive’: Georgia prosecutor excoriates Jordan for probe into Trump charges

Politico reports: The Georgia district attorney at the heart of former President Donald Trump’s latest indictment on Thursday rebuked House Republicans’ investigation into her office, accusing them of blatantly trying to obstruct a criminal proceeding. Fulton County DA Fani Willis on Thursday sent a fiery letter to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, responding to his decision to launch an investigation into the Georgia office just hours before Trump appeared in court late last month on charges related to interfering in…

Read More Read More

13 presidential libraries issue rare joint warning about U.S. democracy

13 presidential libraries issue rare joint warning about U.S. democracy

The Associated Press reports: Concern for U.S. democracy amid deep national polarization has prompted the entities supporting 13 presidential libraries dating back to Herbert Hoover to call for a recommitment to the country’s bedrock principles, including the rule of law and respecting a diversity of beliefs. The statement released Thursday, the first time the libraries have joined to make such a public declaration, said Americans have a strong interest in supporting democratic movements and human rights around the world because…

Read More Read More

Mike Huckabee rebuked for threatening violence if Trump fails to be reelected

Mike Huckabee rebuked for threatening violence if Trump fails to be reelected

HuffPost reports: Right-wing commentator Mike Huckabee is coming under heavy criticism after warning of “bullets” in future elections should Donald Trump lose in 2024 due to his mounting legal woes. Over the weekend, Huckabee accused President Joe Biden of trying to “destroy Trump” via legal actions in the courthouse rather than at the ballot box via an election. “Here’s the problem: If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going…

Read More Read More

Musk secretly shut down Starlink to foil a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian ships, new biography reveals

Musk secretly shut down Starlink to foil a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian ships, new biography reveals

CNN reports: Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled “Elon Musk.” As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes. Musk’s decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to…

Read More Read More

‘A revolution is already happening’: Thousands of Syrians join protests calling for fall of Assad regime

‘A revolution is already happening’: Thousands of Syrians join protests calling for fall of Assad regime

inews reports: Anti-regime protests that are spreading across Syria could be the spark of another revolution, opposition activists have said, 12 years after similar demonstrations turned into a full-scale civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Videos on social media have shown hundreds of people gathering in the main square of Suwayda, waving flags of the Druze minority and chanting “long live Syria, and down with Bashar al-Assad”. Others shout: “Step down Bashar, we want to live in…

Read More Read More

The ‘liquid imperialism’ that engulfed Syria

The ‘liquid imperialism’ that engulfed Syria

Yassin al-Haj Saleh writes: Syria is a country of only 71,498 square miles in area, with a population of less than 24 million, and yet two global superpowers (the United States and the Russian Federation) and three of the largest regional powers (Iran, Turkey and Israel) are present on its territory. Israel has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967, and carries out almost nonstop incursions into Syrian air space today. In centuries past, prior to the heyday of European…

Read More Read More

Lawsuit filed to remove Trump from ballot in Colorado under 14th Amendment

Lawsuit filed to remove Trump from ballot in Colorado under 14th Amendment

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: Having disqualified himself from public office by violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Donald Trump must be removed from the ballot, according to a lawsuit filed today by six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters including former state, federal and local officials, represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the firms Tierney Lawrence Stiles LLC, KBN Law, LLC and Olson Grimsley Kawanabe Hinchcliff & Murray LLC. Section 3 of the…

Read More Read More