Watch The Twenty-Two-Year-Old Poet Who Lit Up the Stage at the Biden Inauguration. What Do ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ Mean to the G.O.P.? It cannot be said often enough: The first rule of politics is survival.
This is a sad but pervading truth. We like to think that politicians are driven above all else by a sense of public service, a fundamental belief in the efficacy of government and in the defense of democracy. Surely that is true of some. But we are ever reminded that too many elected officials’ primary impulse is the pursuit, acquisition and maintenance of power. Power is the politicians’ profession.
We see that playing out before our eyes in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection, a high crime of which he is clearly guilty. All but six Republican senators voted that the trial itself was unconstitutional, even though constitutional scholars overwhelmingly disagree. AOC's powerful plea for Republican accountability cannot be ignored. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez uses social media with a fluency that is still uncommon in politicians.
She is at ease online; neither thoughtless nor noticeably self-conscious. She regularly answers questions from voters on Instagram Live while cooking dinner; she peppers her language with millennial slang. AOC is a savvy media figure, but the effects of the live broadcasts are to make her seem less like a polished public persona and more like a plausible person, someone you could imagine speaking to in real life. US - cumulative death toll. November 24 JHU. The Hill We Climb: the Amanda Gorman poem that stole the inauguration show. When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Good Riddance, Leader McConnell. So tell me, Mitch, in these, your final hours as Senate majority leader: Were the judges and the tax cuts worth it?
Were they worth the sacking of the Capitol? The annexation of the Republican Party by the paranoiacs and the delusional? President Donald J. Trump: The End. American businesses need to surprise us by telling Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch that their network fueled the Big Lie that led to the ransacking of the Capitol and that they are no longer going to advertise on any show that spreads conspiracy theories.
Folks, we just survived something really crazy awful: four years of a president without shame, backed by a party without spine, amplified by a network without integrity, each pumping out conspiracy theories without truth, brought directly to our brains by social networks without ethics — all heated up by a pandemic without mercy. – barbaragrieve
The best news I heard this week is that My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell — an avid Trump backer and advertiser on Fox, who has pressed debunked claims that the 2020 election was rigged — said Kohl’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Wayfair and other retailers were dropping his products.
Good for them. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg have to surprise us by once and for all stopping the elevation — for profit — of news that divides and enrages over more authoritative, evenhanded news sources. More Dangerous Than the Capitol Riot. Others have noted that members of Congress have voted before to suspend the joint session certifying the Electoral College vote—which news accounts referred to as a “formality” because that’s what it’s supposed to be, unless an election is actually stolen.
Since 1876, though, there have been exactly two such instances and both were genuine protest votes—they may have been inappropriate, but they aren’t comparable. The first one, in 1969, was an objection to a faithless elector—a member of the Electoral College did not vote for the candidate to whom he was pledged. A representative and a senator objected to the certification of that vote, which was indeed stolen by the faithless elector, before Congress proceeded to confirm the overall vote. The second one occurred in 2005, when a Democratic senator and a Democratic representative voted to reject Ohio’s electoral votes to draw attention to their concerns over alleged problems with electronic voting in the state.
Donald Trump's 'Pussy' Presidency. Read: Donald Trump’s dangerous mask trap Trump modeled his aggressive caricature of maleness throughout his presidency, and throughout his adult life.
During his childhood, his family revolved around the moods and desires of his father, Fred. This helps explain why, in his presidency as in his life, Trump espoused the bland entitlements of the patriarch—expecting to be waited on, unbothered by anyone else’s needs. Trump, in the White House, did what he wanted, when he wanted. Billionaires backed Republicans who sought to reverse US election results. An anti-tax group funded primarily by billionaires has emerged as one of the biggest backers of the Republican lawmakers who sought to overturn the US election results, according to an analysis by the Guardian.
The Club for Growth has supported the campaigns of 42 of the rightwing Republicans senators and members of the House of Representatives who voted last week to challenge US election results, doling out an estimated $20m to directly and indirectly support their campaigns in 2018 and 2020, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
About 30 of the Republican hardliners received more than $100,000 in indirect and direct support from the group. The Club for Growth’s biggest beneficiaries include Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, the two Republican senators who led the effort to invalidate Joe Biden’s electoral victory, and the newly elected far-right gun-rights activist Lauren Boebert, a QAnon conspiracy theorist. President Trump vs. Democracy. Ms.
Collins was right about the first part: Mr. Trump did learn a pretty big lesson. He learned that he can break the law and undermine democracy with impunity. Jeff Flake: ‘Trump Can’t Hurt You. But He Is Destroying Us.’ A kid from Snowflake, Ariz., doesn’t often get to witness such history, and so I kept a journal: The family flew home on Friday afternoon.
I had to stay until Saturday afternoon because the House and Senate met in joint session to count electoral votes. Given the disputed election, there were fears that the Democrats would try to pull something. A dozen or so House Democrats did object to the Florida electoral votes, but because they failed to get any Senate Democrats to sign on with them, they failed to thwart the proceedings. Trump is trying to thwart democracy itself. But the problem is deeper than one man. Democracy rots slowly. Sometimes its decay is perfectly legal, helped along by legislatures and embraced by the courts.
It happens when elected officials deliberately tilt the game to their own advantage. Trump's Caterpillars of the Commonwealth. And then there is the mob. In Henry VI, Part 2, the followers of Jack Cade—played in this production by Rudy Giuliani—call for killing all the lawyers. They also seem to have a desire to kill anyone who can speak French or Latin, or who has any learning at all. Is Trump Trying to Stage a Coup? When Biden takes the presidential oath in January, many will write articles scolding those who expressed concern about a coup as worrywarts, or as people misusing terminology.
But ignoring near misses is how people and societies get in real trouble the next time, and although the academic objections to the terminology aren’t incorrect, the problem is about much more than getting the exact term right. Alarmism is problematic when it’s sensationalist. Alarmism is essential when conditions make it appropriate. The Resentment That Never Sleeps. Gidron and Hall continue: The populist rhetoric of politicians on both the radical right and left is often aimed directly at status concerns. They frequently adopt the plain-spoken language of the common man, self-consciously repudiating the politically correct or technocratic language of the political elites.
Radical politicians on the left evoke the virtues of working people, whereas those on the right emphasize themes of national greatness, which have special appeal for people who rely on claims to national membership for a social status they otherwise lack. The “take back control” and “make America great again” slogans of the Brexit and Trump campaigns were perfectly pitched for such purposes. Robert Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester in the U.K., argued in an email that three factors have heightened the salience of status concerns.
America’s Captured Courts by Sheldon Whitehouse. Decades ago, a group of powerful US corporate interests recognized that the unpopular policies they sought faced steady headwinds in the elected branches of government. But courts, stocked with amenable judges and presented with the right cases, could reliably deliver political wins without answering to voters. WASHINGTON, DC – Any objective observer of the American political system must wonder why, when the United States confronts the world’s highest COVID-19 death toll and a ravaged economy, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will do nothing but confirm outgoing President Donald Trump’s appointees to the federal judiciary.
It’s strange behavior. The explanation is a special-interest lobby operating largely out of public view – a political creature that has stalked America’s judiciary for generations and is determined to capture as much control as it can, while it can. If it were happening in Turkey, we’d call Trump’s actions an attempted coup. The Conservative Movement Needs a Reckoning. The Lies That Infected Trump by Jeffrey D. Sachs.
Ding-dong, the jerk is gone. But read this before you sing the Hallelujah Chorus. Donald Trump's malignant spell could soon be broken. American Democracy’s Moment of Truth by Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Even after four years, many Americans have yet to reckon fully with what Donald Trump's presidency means for the country's politics and long-term future. Even if Trump fails to win re-election, he and the party he now controls have led the United States into dangerous territory from which there is no clear exit. US Election: How to watch America decide between Donald Trump and Joe Biden like a pro. EXPLAINER: The United States is a continent-sized country that runs its elections in 50 different ways across the country.
Harry Belafonte: Trump Is Standing in Our Way. In his ignorance or his indifference, or perhaps in his contempt, Mr. Trump's COVID Denial: The President Abandons the Pandemic. Many patients emerge from illness having had a come-to-Jesus moment that reorients their thinking. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, for one, issued a mea culpa last week after he was discharged from a COVID-19 hospitalization that included a week in the intensive-care unit. The Trump Administration Is Reversing Nearly 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List. The Atlantic's Endorsement: Against Donald Trump. In most matters related to the governance and defense of the United States, the president is constrained by competing branches of government and by an intricate web of laws and customs. Only in one crucial area does the president resemble, in the words of the former missile officer and scholar Bruce Blair, an absolute monarch—his control of nuclear weapons.
Richard Nixon, who was president when Major Hering asked his question, was reported to have told members of Congress at a White House dinner party, “I could leave this room and in 25 minutes, 70 million people would be dead.” Oh, Now You Believe in Norms. Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris has made a clear statement in favor of expanding the Supreme Court beyond its current size. But that hasn’t stopped conservatives and Republicans from denouncing — perhaps with a hint of fear — their as-yet unarticulated plan to do so. Amazingly, this particular argument against expanding the Supreme Court hinges on preserving the norms of American democracy. Mike Pence’s Debate Performance Bugged Me Out. Why America Ignored Its Coronavirus Response Plan.
Study Finds ‘Single Largest Driver’ of Coronavirus Misinformation: Trump. JHU 2 September. Electoral college explained: how Biden faces an uphill battle in the US election. Stephen Miller’s Dystopian America. The Truth Behind Trump’s ‘Rocking’ Economy. America Never Learns the Limits of Bootstrapping. How to Beat Populists When the Facts Don't Matter. QAnon. The Week QAnon Went Mainstream. Why the Pandemic Is So Bad in America.
The countries that fared better against COVID‑19 didn’t follow a universal playbook. Many used masks widely; New Zealand didn’t. Many tested extensively; Japan didn’t. Many had science-minded leaders who acted early; Hong Kong didn’t—instead, a grassroots movement compensated for a lax government. Many were small islands; not large and continental Germany. Each nation succeeded because it did enough things right. – barbaragrieve
Despite its epochal effects, COVID‑19 is merely a harbinger of worse plagues to come. The U.S. cannot prepare for these inevitable crises if it returns to normal, as many of its people ache to do. Normal led to this. Normal was a world ever more prone to a pandemic but ever less ready for one. To avert another catastrophe, the U.S. needs to grapple with all the ways normal failed us. It needs a full accounting of every recent misstep and foundational sin, every unattended weakness and unheeded warning, every festering wound and reopened scar. – barbaragrieve
But the COVID‑19 debacle has also touched—and implicated—nearly every other facet of American society: its shortsighted leadership, its disregard for expertise, its racial inequities, its social-media culture, and its fealty to a dangerous strain of individualism. – barbaragrieve
Six months and 150,000 deaths: the defining Covid-19 moments in the US – timeline. If you’re not terrified about Facebook, you haven’t been paying attention. Donald Trump Is the Best Ever President in the History of the Cosmos. JHU 25 July. Inside Trump’s Failure: The Rush to Abandon Leadership Role on the Virus. Trump's sweaty Fox News interview shows his 2020 chances melting away. Trump consults Bush torture lawyer on how to skirt law and rule by decree. Mary Trump, Donald Trump, and the American Psyche. The Cruelty Is the Point. Our counter shows just how many Americans died because of Trump’s inaction. Former CDC directors: Trump has politicized science more than any past president. This Is Trump’s Plague Now. The Most Conspicuous Scandal in American History. All of Trump’s Lies About the Coronavirus. Why Is the COVID-19 Death Rate Down? Trump sees the coronavirus as a threat to his self-interest – not to people.
American Exceptionalism Strikes Out by J. Bradford DeLong. How America Lost the War on Covid-19. Trump Is Turning America Into the ‘Shithole Country' He Fears. The United States Blues. The U.S. Is Lagging Behind Many Rich Countries. These Charts Show Why. How the White House Coronavirus Response Went Wrong. The Decline of the American World. The US commits the same abuses it condemns abroad. The Second Coronavirus Surge Is Here. Adam Serwer: It Didn’t Have to Be Like This. How to Sell Your Soul to Donald Trump. Daily chart - America’s anachronistic electoral college gives Republicans an edge. Think Trump is bad? President Tom Cotton would be even more terrifying. America isn't just a failing state, it is a failed experiment. America Will Struggle After Coronavirus. These Charts Show Why. The Coronavirus in America: The Year Ahead. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents. 5 Takeaways on the C.D.C.’s Coronavirus Response.
In an accompanying editorial, one of the article’s authors, Michael Shear , highlighted 5 specific areas that factor into these challenges and failures. He explicitly discusses the United States’ fractured and antiquated disease surveillance and reporting systems, perceptions of the CDC as an adversary among White House officials, the CDC’s risk-averse culture, the demand for Dr. Redfield to balance competing demands of the CDC and President Trump, and an absence of timely, reliable, and actionable CDC guidance for state and local health officials. – barbaragrieve
The C.D.C. Waited ‘Its Entire Existence for This Moment.’ What Went Wrong? This is just the beginning, I promise you: an open letter to Donald Trump. Qualified immunity. The Lessons of the Great Depression. Trump is a doughnut. On the Economics of Not Dying.
What, after all, is the economy’s purpose? If your answer is something like, “To generate incomes that let people buy things,” you’re getting it wrong — money isn’t the ultimate goal; it’s just a means to an end, namely, improving the quality of life. Now, money matters: There is a clear relationship between income and life satisfaction. But it’s not the only thing that matters. In particular, you know what also makes a major contribution to the quality of life? Not dying. – barbaragrieve
If We Had a Real Leader. Mike Pompeo is the number one evangelist of Trumpism in the world. Crumbs for the Hungry but Windfalls for the Rich. We Live in a Patchwork Pandemic Now.
Policies can also support people in protecting themselves. Essential workers earn low hourly wages and cannot afford to miss a shift, even if they have symptoms. “The only way to prevent them from going to work is to give them paid sick leave,” Ray says. The same goes for a minimum living wage, hazard pay, universal health care, stipends for people who are self-isolating, debt moratoriums, rent freezes, food assistance, and services to connect people with existing support. – barbaragrieve
Of all the threats we know, the COVID-19 pandemic is most like a very rapid version of climate change—global in its scope, erratic in its unfolding, and unequal in its distribution. And like climate change, there is no easy fix. Our choices are to remake society or let it be remade, to smooth the patchworks old and new or let them fray even further. – barbaragrieve
What’s happening is not one crisis, but many interconnected ones. As we shall see, it will be harder to come to terms with such a crisis. It will be harder to bring it to heel. And it will be harder to grapple with the historical legacies that have shaped today’s patchwork. – barbaragrieve
QAnon Is More Important Than You Think. READ: Rick Bright's full House opening statement. Under Trump, American exceptionalism means poverty, misery and death. Trump Is Unraveling. Dishonest Don's monumental backdrop highlights his monumental errors. Will Americans ever forgive Trump for his heartless lack of compassion? Trump's Macabre Declarations of Victory. Whistleblower complaint set to lift lid on Trump pressure to push untried drug.