Browsed by
Category: Politics

How an aging, digitally semi-literate population is reshaping the internet and politics

How an aging, digitally semi-literate population is reshaping the internet and politics

Comments 0 Comment

BuzzFeed reports: Although many older Americans have, like the rest of us, embraced the tools and playthings of the technology industry, a growing body of research shows they have disproportionately fallen prey to the dangers of internet misinformation and risk being further polarized by their online habits. While that matters much to them, it’s also a massive challenge for society given the outsize role older generations play in civic life, and demographic changes that are increasing their power and influence….

Read More Read More

The Pete Buttigieg boom

The Pete Buttigieg boom

Comments 0 Comment

Vox reports: As strange as it may sound, the mayor of a medium-size city in the Midwest is now a real contender for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. A late March Quinnipiac poll had Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, tied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for fifth place nationally, putting him ahead of Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). On Monday, Buttigieg announced that his campaign raised more than $7 million in the…

Read More Read More

Attacks by white extremists are growing. So are their connections

Attacks by white extremists are growing. So are their connections

Comments 0 Comment

The New York Times reports: In a manifesto posted online before his attack, the gunman who killed 50 last month in a rampage at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, said he drew inspiration from white extremist terrorism attacks in Norway, the United States, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom. His references to those attacks placed him in an informal global network of white extremists whose violent attacks are occurring with greater frequency in the West. An analysis by The…

Read More Read More

U.S. auto plants would shut down within a week if border closes, economist says

U.S. auto plants would shut down within a week if border closes, economist says

Comments 0 Comment

CNN reports: The entire US auto industry would shut down within a week if President Donald Trump goes through with his pledge to close the US-Mexican border, according to a leading expert on the industry. That’s because every automaker operating an auto plant in the United States depends on parts imported from Mexico, said Kristin Dziczek, the vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research. About 16% of all auto parts used in the United…

Read More Read More

U.S. officials said aid to El Salvador helped slow migration. Now Trump is canceling it

U.S. officials said aid to El Salvador helped slow migration. Now Trump is canceling it

Comments 0 Comment

The Washington Post reports: Until last week, U.S. officials held up El Salvador as proof that foreign aid could help curb migration. The partnership between the two countries drew praise from diplomats, members of Congress and even America’s top border enforcement official. Then President Trump announced that he was withdrawing economic assistance to the Central American country and its neighbors Guatemala and Honduras. “They haven’t done a thing for us,” the president said Friday. The claim baffled development officials and…

Read More Read More

Theresa May calls for Brexit talks with Jeremy Corbyn

Theresa May calls for Brexit talks with Jeremy Corbyn

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: Theresa May has offered to enter talks with Jeremy Corbyn to break the logjam over Brexit and let parliament decide a binding way forward if they fail to find a compromise. In a significant shift, May said she would request an extension to leaving the European Union and opened the door to accepting a softer Brexit, with No 10 not ruling out accepting either a customs union or a second referendum. The prime minister extended the offer…

Read More Read More

An era of fidgety politics marked by the loss of belief in collective agency

An era of fidgety politics marked by the loss of belief in collective agency

Comments 0 Comment

John Harris writes: Forty years of post-Thatcher individualism have done their work, so that protest is now not a matter of collective agency (in other words, “we can stop this”), but the kind of atomised conscience-salving I first glimpsed at the time of the Iraq war, with the appearance of that deathly slogan “Not in my name”. Moreover, in a world as over-mediated as ours, each day brings a different spectacle – a march, a parliamentary vote, some or other…

Read More Read More

Whistle-blower in White House informs Congress about serious breaches of national security at highest levels of Trump administration

Whistle-blower in White House informs Congress about serious breaches of national security at highest levels of Trump administration

Comments 0 Comment

The New York Times reports: A whistle-blower working inside the White House has told a House committee that senior Trump administration officials granted security clearances to at least 25 individuals whose applications had been denied by career employees, the committee’s Democratic staff said Monday. The whistle-blower, Tricia Newbold, a manager in the White House’s Personnel Security Office, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in a private interview last month that the 25 individuals included two current senior White House…

Read More Read More

Trump’s threat to cut off much of America’s food supply

Trump’s threat to cut off much of America’s food supply

Comments 0 Comment

Reuters reports: President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border would hit American consumers — in the gut. From avocado toast to margaritas, the United States is heavily reliant on Mexican imports of fruit, vegetables and alcohol to meet consumer demand. Nearly half of all imported U.S. vegetables and 40 percent of imported fruit are grown in Mexico, according to the latest data from the United States Department of Agriculture. Americans would run out of avocados in three…

Read More Read More

Trump laid a trap on immigration — and only Beto is avoiding it

Trump laid a trap on immigration — and only Beto is avoiding it

Comments 0 Comment

Peter Beinart writes: Beto O’Rourke isn’t known for his wonkish heft. But in his formal announcement for president on Sunday, the former Texas congressman offered one of the most important policy proposals of the nascent presidential campaign: He argued that to solve America’s problems at the border, America’s leaders must “help people in Central America where they are.” In so doing, he began laying a foundation to effectively rebut Donald Trump on his signature issue: immigration. Every major Democratic presidential…

Read More Read More

Judge the attorney general by what he ultimately sends to Congress

Judge the attorney general by what he ultimately sends to Congress

Comments 0 Comment

Benjamin Wittes writes: Here’s a radical idea: For the next two weeks, let’s give Attorney General William Barr the benefit of the doubt. I understand why so many people are suspicious of Barr and are lining up to denounce him—and there may well come a day, and it might come soon, when I will get in line and join them. Barr’s initial letter summarizing the top-line conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation allowed President Donald Trump to claim exoneration…

Read More Read More

It’s time to focus on Trump’s corruption

It’s time to focus on Trump’s corruption

Comments 0 Comment

Michael Paarlberg writes: It’s a fortunate thing for Donald Trump that the Democrats, and much of the media, spent the past two years focused on the narrow question of whether his 2016 campaign actively colluded with Russian agents to hack his opponents’ emails. Were it not for this singular obsession, we might have come to appreciate the full scope of graft, influence peddling and petty theft that has made this the most crooked administration in US history. One doesn’t have…

Read More Read More

For Russia, an assassin ends up as ‘a used bullet’ who can easily be replaced

For Russia, an assassin ends up as ‘a used bullet’ who can easily be replaced

Comments 0 Comment

Michael Schwirtz writes: For months, I had been traveling in Russia and Europe, reporting on the poisoning last year in England of the former Russian spy, Sergei V. Skripal. It had touched off a geopolitical confrontation and brought talk of a new Cold War. Britain and its allies enacted sanctions and expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats after blaming the nerve agent attack on two officers from Russia’s military intelligence service, the G.R.U. For Ukraine, Russian interference was an old…

Read More Read More

How many innocent people does the U.S. kill by remote control?

How many innocent people does the U.S. kill by remote control?

Comments 0 Comment

In an editorial, the New York Times says: The Pentagon says American airstrikes in Somalia have killed no civilians since President Trump accelerated attacks against Shabab militants there two years ago. Amnesty International investigated five of the more than 100 strikes carried out in Somalia since 2017 by drones and manned aircraft, and in just that small sampling found that at least 14 civilians were killed. The Pentagon says airstrikes by the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State killed at…

Read More Read More

Leaked reports reveal how Saudis torture political prisoners

Leaked reports reveal how Saudis torture political prisoners

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: Political prisoners in Saudi Arabia are said to be suffering from malnutrition, cuts, bruises and burns, according to leaked medical reports that are understood to have been prepared for the country’s ruler, King Salman. The reports seem to provide the first documented evidence from within the heart of the royal court that political prisoners are facing severe physical abuse, despite the government’s denials that men and women in custody are being tortured. The Guardian has been told…

Read More Read More