Music: Gretchen Parlato & hr-Bigband — ‘Weak’
Garland declares voting rights expansion ‘central’ to democracy
Politico reports: Attorney General Merrick Garland affirmed Friday the expansion of voting rights as a “central pillar” to American democracy, building upon the Biden administration’s commitment as the issue has gained prominence in the aftermath of the 2020 elections. “We know that expanding the ability of all eligible citizens to vote is a central pillar,” Garland said. “That means ensuring that all eligible voters can cast a vote; that all lawful votes are counted; and that every voter has access…
New Trump scandal shows the depth of his assault on American democracy
Stephen Collinson writes: New revelations suggesting that the Trump administration abused Justice Department powers to target his political enemies underscore just how far the ex-President went to destroy cherished principles of American republican government. They show that the true extent of assaults on democracy by Donald Trump are still coming to light and are probably even now not fully known. But this is not just a drama about the alleged misbehavior of a former President. Taken together with the Republican…
After the Keystone XL pipeline, the next target is Line 3
Bill McKibben writes: The announcement this week from the Canadian company TC Energy that it was pulling the plug on the Keystone XL pipeline project was greeted with jubilation by Indigenous groups, farmers and ranchers, climate scientists and other activists who have spent the last decade fighting its construction. The question now is whether it will be a one-off victory or a template for action going forward — as it must, if we’re serious about either climate change or human…
With Facebook’s knowledge, right-wing firm posed as leftist group to divide Democrats
The Guardian reports: A digital marketing firm closely linked to the pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA was responsible for a series of deceptive Facebook ads promoting Green party candidates during the 2018 US midterm elections, the Guardian can reveal. In an apparent attempt to split the Democratic vote in a number of close races, the ads purported to come from an organization called America Progress Now (APN) and used socialist memes and rhetoric to urge leftwing voters to support…
How private equity firms avoid taxes
The New York Times reports: There were two weeks left in the Trump administration when the Treasury Department handed down a set of rules governing an obscure corner of the tax code. Overseen by a senior Treasury official whose previous job involved helping the wealthy avoid taxes, the new regulations represented a major victory for private equity firms. They ensured that executives in the $4.5 trillion industry, whose leaders often measure their yearly pay in eight or nine figures, could…
The newly approved drug that could break American health care
Nicholas Bagley and Rachel Sachs write: Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration overruled—to much criticism—its own scientific advisory committee and approved the Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm. The agency made this decision despite thin evidence of the drug’s clinical efficacy and despite its serious side effects, including brain swelling and bleeding. As a result, a serious risk now exists that millions of people will be prescribed a drug that does more harm than good. Less appreciated is how the drug’s…
Russia’s Federal Security Service poisoned another Putin critic
In an editorial, the Washington Post says: Dmitry Bykov is a prodigious polymath of Russian letters and journalism. He has written prize-winning biographies and was part of a team that created “Citizen Poet,” a hit series online and on television offering biting political satire. For a decade, he has been a leading voice in opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin. On April 13, 2019, traveling with his wife, Ekaterina Kevkhishvili, he arrived at Novosibirsk in Siberia for the first stop…
Music: Gretchen Parlato & hr-Bigband — ‘Butterfly’
The world is horrified by America’s broken democracy
Brian Klaas writes: It’s official: America is no longer a “shining city upon a hill.” Data released Thursday from Pew Research shows that our allies are beyond delighted that the Trump presidency has ended. Confidence in U.S. leadership has soared. Our friends are breathing a sigh of relief. But buried in that story about the United States’ post-Trump redemption is some seriously bad news: U.S. allies see our democracy as a shattered, washed-up has-been. We used to provide a democratic…
America must rethink its unique and contradictory advocacy of Israel’s Jewishness
Shibley Telhami writes: As a new Israeli government takes shape, the Biden administration must rethink its messaging about Israel and the Palestinians, especially in the absence of a clear path to ending their conflict. Beyond offering humanitarian aid to Gaza and dispatching Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Middle East to solidify the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, President Joe Biden offered two principles: that both Palestinians and Israelis “deserve equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and democracy”; and that the region must…
While Manchin preaches bipartisanship, democracy is already dying in the states
Ronald Brownstein writes: While senator Joe Manchin is demanding that both parties agree on any further federal voting-rights legislation, a new study quantifies how completely Republicans have excluded Democrats from the passage of the restrictive voting laws proliferating in red states. In places such as Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, and Montana, the most restrictive laws approved this year have passed on total or near-complete party-line votes, with almost all state legislative Republicans voting for the bills and nearly all…
Campaign of fear: Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers
Reuters reports: Late on the night of April 24, the wife of Georgia’s top election official got a chilling text message: “You and your family will be killed very slowly.” A week earlier, Tricia Raffensperger, wife of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, had received another anonymous text: “We plan for the death of you and your family every day.” That followed an April 5 text warning. A family member, the texter told her, was “going to have a very unfortunate…
Barr tries to distance himself from Trump-era subpoenas of Democratic lawmakers
Politico reports: Former Attorney General William Barr on Friday distanced himself from reports that the Trump Justice Department seized communications records belonging to two prominent Democratic lawmakers who were spearheading investigations into then-President Donald Trump. In a phone interview, Barr said he didn’t recall getting briefed on the moves. Barr’s comments came after The New York Times reported that in 2017 and 2018, the Justice Department seized the records of at least 12 people connected to the House Intelligence Committee,…
Neuroscientists are ‘deeply confused’ about representational drift
Ed Yong writes: Carl Schoonover and Andrew Fink are confused. As neuroscientists, they know that the brain must be flexible but not too flexible. It must rewire itself in the face of new experiences, but must also consistently represent the features of the external world. How? The relatively simple explanation found in neuroscience textbooks is that specific groups of neurons reliably fire when their owner smells a rose, sees a sunset, or hears a bell. These representations—these patterns of neural…
Photographing the unseen
Some time ago, I added an Instagram widget to the sidebar here, adding some visual content to the minimalist design of this site. Anyone who’s interested to learn more about my photography and why I include it here, can do so by reading this.