Browsed by
Category: Politics

Reconstruction-era law could keep Trump off presidential ballot in six Southern states

Reconstruction-era law could keep Trump off presidential ballot in six Southern states

HuffPost reports: Should former President Donald Trump run for the White House again, an obscure Reconstruction-era law could keep him off the ballot in six southern states, including North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, because of his incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The third section of the 14th Amendment prohibits people who swore to defend the Constitution, but who subsequently took part in an insurrection against the United States, from holding state or federal office. Other language in that post-Civil…

Read More Read More

Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis

Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis

Council on Foreign Relations reports: Months after the Taliban’s takeover, Afghanistan is in crisis. Millions of people are facing starvation, the health-care system is collapsing, and wages are plummeting. The country of thirty-eight million people heavily depended on foreign aid before the Taliban came to power in August. Now, experts say it has been devastated by the international response to the hard-line Islamist group’s seizure of power: halting billions of dollars in assistance and enforcing sanctions that have impeded relief…

Read More Read More

Census memo cites ‘unprecedented’ meddling by Trump administration

Census memo cites ‘unprecedented’ meddling by Trump administration

The New York Times reports: A newly disclosed memorandum citing “unprecedented” meddling by the Trump administration in the 2020 census and circulated among top Census Bureau officials indicates how strongly they sought to resist efforts by the administration to manipulate the count for Republican political gain. The document was shared among three senior executives including Ron S. Jarmin, a deputy director and the agency’s day-to-day head. It was written in September 2020 as the administration was pressing the bureau to…

Read More Read More

DirecTV loss could cripple rightwing One America News

DirecTV loss could cripple rightwing One America News

Reuters reports: The largest satellite provider in the United States said late Friday it will drop One America News, a move that could financially cripple the rightwing TV network known for fueling conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The announcement by DirecTV, which is 70% owned by AT&T, comes three months after a Reuters investigation revealed that OAN’s founder testified that AT&T inspired him to create the network. Court testimony also showed that OAN receives nearly all of its revenue…

Read More Read More

Alex Jones gave Oath Keepers leader the audience to spew his anti-government hatred

Alex Jones gave Oath Keepers leader the audience to spew his anti-government hatred

CNN reports: Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes has spewed violent rhetoric and whipped up unsubstantiated fears about secret government plots and imminent civil war for more than a decade with the help of another purveyor of extremism: conspiracy monger and internet powerhouse Alex Jones. Jones, who has built a staggering online following around his Infowars empire, has given Rhodes a platform to reach a wider audience — from the day Rhodes plugged the Oath Keepers’ first public meeting to the…

Read More Read More

Why didn’t the FBI see the Capitol siege coming?

Why didn’t the FBI see the Capitol siege coming?

Grid reports: In the lead-up to the Capitol siege, the FBI received at least a dozen warnings about the possibility of violence that day. When the day came and the Capitol barricades fell, it became evident the FBI largely ignored them all. The warnings came from all sides: regional law enforcement, social media platforms, Congress (specifically the House and Senate intelligence committees), a top defense official, extremist watchdogs, right-wing experts, journalists and even three different components within the FBI itself….

Read More Read More

U.S. intelligence indicates Russia preparing operation to justify invasion of Ukraine

U.S. intelligence indicates Russia preparing operation to justify invasion of Ukraine

CNN reports: The US has information that indicates Russia has prepositioned a group of operatives to conduct a false-flag operation in eastern Ukraine, a US official told CNN on Friday, in an attempt to create a pretext for an invasion. The official said the US has evidence that the operatives are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy forces. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the Defense Department has…

Read More Read More

Romney warns against getting rid of filibuster, citing possible Trump win in 2024

Romney warns against getting rid of filibuster, citing possible Trump win in 2024

The Hill reports: Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Tuesday issued a warning to Democrats about the potential consequences of getting rid of the filibuster and accused President Biden of going down “the same tragic road” of former President Trump. “The United States Senate is one of our vital democratic institutions, and the power given to the minority in the Senate and the resulting requirement for political consensus are among the Senate’s defining features,” Romney said while speaking on the Senate…

Read More Read More

NATO chief warns of ‘real risk of conflict’ as talks with Russia over Ukraine end

NATO chief warns of ‘real risk of conflict’ as talks with Russia over Ukraine end

The Guardian reports: Nato discussions with Russia have concluded with no sign of progress towards narrowing substantial differences or defusing the crisis over Ukraine, and with the alliance’s secretary general warning “there is a real risk for a new armed conflict in Europe”. After four hours of talks, the US delegation leader, the deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, said she had heard nothing in Brussels that differed from the Kremlin position laid out at bilateral talks in Geneva, demanding…

Read More Read More

Justice Dept. creating unit focused on domestic terrorism

Justice Dept. creating unit focused on domestic terrorism

The Associated Press reports: The Justice Department is establishing a specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism, the department’s top national security official told lawmakers Tuesday as he described an “elevated” threat from violent extremists in the United States. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, testifying just days after the nation observed the one-year anniversary of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, said the number of FBI investigations into suspected domestic violent extremists has more than doubled since the spring of…

Read More Read More

Democrats’ filibuster conundrum: It’s not just Manchin and Sinema

Democrats’ filibuster conundrum: It’s not just Manchin and Sinema

Politico reports: A Democratic senator from Arizona is still not sold on changes to the filibuster. And it’s not Kyrsten Sinema. Mark Kelly is not yet committed to a change in the Senate rules that would allow elections reform legislation to pass by a simple majority. A centrist who is up for reelection in November, Kelly said Monday he is still undecided just days before he may have to vote on proposals to weaken the filibuster. “I’ve never been part…

Read More Read More

Joe Manchin’s coal corruption is much worse than you knew

Joe Manchin’s coal corruption is much worse than you knew

Jeff Goodell writes: One of the hardest things to grasp about the climate crisis is the connectedness of all things. One recent drizzly afternoon, I drove from Charleston, West Virginia, to the John Amos coal-fired power plant on the banks of the Kanawha River, near the town of Nitro. In the rain, the plant looked like one of the dark satanic mills that poet William Blake wrote about, with three enormous cooling towers that steamed like giant witches’ cauldrons. Across…

Read More Read More

Trump’s potential liability for Capitol riot faces major test in court

Trump’s potential liability for Capitol riot faces major test in court

CNN reports: A federal judge in Washington, DC, is questioning former President Donald Trump’s actions during his speech on January 6, 2021, as he considers for the first time whether Trump is immune from liability related to his supporters attacking the US Capitol. During a court hearing Monday, Judge Amit Mehta pointed out repeatedly that Trump on January 6 asked the crowd to march to the Capitol, but that he didn’t speak up for two hours asking people to stop…

Read More Read More

Is civil war on the horizon?

Is civil war on the horizon?

David Remnick writes: The edifice of American exceptionalism has always wobbled on a shoddy foundation of self-delusion, and yet most Americans have readily accepted the commonplace that the United States is the world’s oldest continuous democracy. That serene assertion has now collapsed. On January 6, 2021, when white supremacists, militia members, and MAGA faithful took inspiration from the President and stormed the Capitol in order to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election, leaving legislators and the Vice-President essentially…

Read More Read More

As gun sales went up, murders increased

As gun sales went up, murders increased

Jeff Asher and Rob Arthur write: After murders in the United States soared to more than 21,000 in 2020, researchers began searching for a definitive explanation why. Many factors may have contributed, such as a pandemic-driven loss of social programs and societal and policing changes after George Floyd’s murder. But one hypothesis is simpler, and perhaps has significant explanatory power: A massive increase in gun sales in early 2020 led to additional murders. New data from the Bureau of Alcohol,…

Read More Read More

How we know Trump’s election fraud claims are bogus

How we know Trump’s election fraud claims are bogus

Henry Olsen writes: Former president Donald Trump, like a tone-deaf musician, used the anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot last week to once again allege, without evidence, that the 2020 election was rigged. “Look at the numbers,” he told his followers, “they speak for themselves.” He’s right, they do: They conclusively show his fraud allegations are bogus. For proof, let’s take a deep dive into Pennsylvania’s results. Trump won the Keystone State in 2016 by less than a point…

Read More Read More