Browsed by
Category: Politics

Eighteen steps to a democratic breakdown

Eighteen steps to a democratic breakdown

Risa Brooks and Erica De Bruin write: Democracy is most likely to break down through a series of incremental actions that cumulatively undermine the electoral process, resulting in a presidential election that produces an outcome clearly at odds with the voters’ will. It is this comparatively quiet but steady subversion, rather than a violent coup or insurrection against a sitting president, that Americans today have to fear most. Five sets of actions fuel this corrosion: limiting participation in elections; controlling…

Read More Read More

A PR giant is caught between climate pledges and fossil fuel clients

A PR giant is caught between climate pledges and fossil fuel clients

The New York Times reports: After last month’s United Nations-sponsored environmental conference in Glasgow, the public relations giant Edelman praised the participants for reaching “a new level of international consensus that climate change is an existential threat to humanity.” In a statement posted on its website, Edelman also called for “more scrutiny on corporate climate lobbying efforts” and argued that many of the pledges that resulted from the conference “fall far short of what is necessary to avert global climate…

Read More Read More

G7 diplomats warn Russia of ‘massive consequences’ if it invades Ukraine

G7 diplomats warn Russia of ‘massive consequences’ if it invades Ukraine

The New York Times reports: The top diplomats for the world’s wealthiest large democracies warned Russia on Sunday of “massive consequences” and “severe costs” should it invade Ukraine or continue military aggressions near its border. The foreign ministers for the Group of 7 urged Russia to pull back from the tense border standoff and made clear that any effort to negotiate or otherwise avoid confrontation would be welcome. “Any use of force to change borders is strictly prohibited under international…

Read More Read More

Majority of UK voters think Boris Johnson should resign

Majority of UK voters think Boris Johnson should resign

The Observer reports: Labour surged into a commanding nine-point lead over the Tories this weekend as controversies over rule-breaking Christmas parties at Downing Street and Tory sleaze plunged Boris Johnson into a battle to save his premiership. The latest Opinium poll for the Observer also shows 57% of voters think Johnson should now resign, up nine points from a fortnight ago, as the prime minister appears to be haemorrhaging public support. Johnson’s personal ratings have fallen to -35%, down 14…

Read More Read More

Civilian deaths mounted as secret American unit pounded ISIS in Syria

Civilian deaths mounted as secret American unit pounded ISIS in Syria

The New York Times reports: A single top secret American strike cell launched tens of thousands of bombs and missiles against the Islamic State in Syria, but in the process of hammering a vicious enemy, the shadowy force sidestepped safeguards and repeatedly killed civilians, according to multiple current and former military and intelligence officials. The unit was called Talon Anvil, and it worked in three shifts around the clock between 2014 and 2019, pinpointing targets for the United States’ formidable…

Read More Read More

Deadly collapse at Amazon warehouse puts spotlight on work area phone ban

Deadly collapse at Amazon warehouse puts spotlight on work area phone ban

Bloomberg reports: An Amazon.com Inc. warehouse collapse on Friday night that killed at least six people has amplified concerns among its blue collar workforce about the return of the internet retailer’s mobile phone ban in work areas. The warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, near St. Louis, was reduced to rubble when a string of tornadoes ripped through six states, leaving a trail of destruction that stretched more than 200 miles. Emergency responders expect recovery efforts to continue into next week. Amazon…

Read More Read More

How the oil and gas industry rigs the system to keep winning

How the oil and gas industry rigs the system to keep winning

Naomi Oreskes and Jeff Nesbit write: Despite countless investigations, lawsuits, social shaming, and regulations dating back decades, the oil and gas industry remains formidable. After all, it has made consuming its products seem like a human necessity. It has confused the public about climate science, bought the eternal gratitude of one of America’s two main political parties, and repeatedly out-maneuvered regulatory efforts. And it has done all this in part by thinking ahead and then acting ruthlessly. While the rest…

Read More Read More

Why most Americans say the economy is in rough shape

Why most Americans say the economy is in rough shape

David Leonhardt writes: Offices remain eerily empty. Airlines have canceled thousands of flights. Subways and buses are running less often. Schools sometimes call off entire days of class. Consumers waste time waiting in store lines. Annual inflation has reached its highest level in three decades. Does this sound like a healthy economy to you? In recent weeks, economists and pundits have been asking why Americans feel grouchy about the economy when many indicators — like G.D.P. growth, stock prices and…

Read More Read More

Some say QAnon is losing its power. But I see the opposite

Some say QAnon is losing its power. But I see the opposite

Jitarth Jadeja told Anastasiia Carrier: I left QAnon back in 2019, but I don’t seem to be able to walk away. I talk about my experience a lot — to the Washington Post, CNN and Rolling Stone magazine among many others. I even apologized to Anderson Cooper on his show for having once thought that he ate babies. I’m one of the few former followers willing to go on the record with their story, which means I’m a source for…

Read More Read More

The secret history of the U.S. diplomatic failure in Afghanistan

The secret history of the U.S. diplomatic failure in Afghanistan

Steve Coll and Adam Entous write: Biden welcomed Ghani and his top aides to the Oval Office on the afternoon of June 25th. “We’re not walking away,” Biden told Ghani. He pulled from his shirt pocket a schedule card on which he’d written the number of American lives lost in Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11, and showed it to Ghani. “I appreciate the American sacrifices,” Ghani said. Then he explained, “Our goal for the next six months is to stabilize…

Read More Read More

Enes Kanter Freedom: Why I became an American

Enes Kanter Freedom: Why I became an American

Enes Kanter Freedom writes: When I first arrived in the United States, I had to adjust to a new language, new norms, and new traditions. But I was perhaps most stunned by a simple comment a teammate made. He criticized President Barack Obama, which I feared could have landed him in prison. He smiled and said: “This isn’t Turkey, brother. You have the freedom to say whatever you want.” Americans might find the thought absurd, but the threat of prison…

Read More Read More

Georgia Republicans purge Black Democrats from county election boards

Georgia Republicans purge Black Democrats from county election boards

Reuters reports: Protesters filled the meeting room of the Spalding County Board of Elections in October, upset that the board had disallowed early voting on Sundays for the Nov. 2 municipal election. A year ago, Sunday voting had been instrumental in boosting turnout of Black voters. But this was an entirely different five-member board than had overseen the last election. The Democratic majority of three Black women was gone. So was the Black elections supervisor. Now a faction of three…

Read More Read More

How cryptocurrency revolutionized the white supremacist movement

How cryptocurrency revolutionized the white supremacist movement

Southern Poverty Law Center reports: White supremacists embraced cryptocurrency early in its development, and in some cases produced million-dollar profits through the technology, reshaping the racist right in radical ways, a Hatewatch analysis found. Hatewatch identified and compiled over 600 cryptocurrency addresses associated with white supremacists and other prominent far-right extremists for this essay and then probed their transaction histories through blockchain analysis software. What we found is striking: White supremacists such as Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents, race pseudoscience pundit…

Read More Read More

Tucker Carlson’s Jan. 6 ‘agent provocateur’ is a huge Tucker fan

Tucker Carlson’s Jan. 6 ‘agent provocateur’ is a huge Tucker fan

HuffPost reports: Viewers of Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show were presented this week with a very explosive charge: that a man in red face paint and a “Keep America Great” hat at the front lines of the U.S. Capitol attack is “clearly a law enforcement officer” and an “agent provocateur” who infiltrated the Jan. 6 mob to make Donald Trump’s supporters look bad. “Let’s put his picture back on the screen,” Carlson said Monday on his show as an image…

Read More Read More

A promise by big law firms to punish Republicans who voted to overthrow democracy, didn’t last long

A promise by big law firms to punish Republicans who voted to overthrow democracy, didn’t last long

Rolling Stone reports: In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, some of the country’s biggest law firms joined blue-chip corporations and other industry trade groups by halting all political donations and rethinking their giving strategy altogether. In a few cases, law firms vowed they wouldn’t give money to any of the 147 Republican officeholders who had voted against certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, riding the wave of good publicity by coming out strongly against the politicians who’d…

Read More Read More

The pandemic of the vaccinated is here

The pandemic of the vaccinated is here

Rachel Gutman writes: Even before the arrival of Omicron, the winter months were going to be tough for parts of the United States. While COVID transmission rates in the South caught fire over the summer, the Northeast and Great Plains states were largely spared thanks to cyclical factors and high vaccination rates. But weather and the patterns of human life were bound to shift the disease burden northward for the holidays—and that was just with Delta. Enter a new variant…

Read More Read More