politics
-
Hasan Piker on Pod Save America
I stopped listening to Pod Save America a long time ago. Their goal (other than to make a ton of money on ads), is to get Democrats elected—and that’s a goal I no longer share. (I think electing Democrats can sometimes still be a means to the broader aspiration of improving the material conditions of…
-
The Threat of High-School Journalism
This story came out of my hometown yesterday: Staff at the Palmer Ridge High School student newspaper expected “significant reaction” when they endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, but they’ve been surprised by the vitriol they’ve received. “Some of the stuff we’ve seen on Facebook is quite disgusting,” said Evan Ochsner, a Palmer Ridge senior and co-editor-in-chief. “There…
-
Slow Motion Bias
Beth Mole covers a new study that shows that “slow motion might actually muddle” our perception of premeditation: To see if artificially lengthened footage can alter perceptions, the researchers showed 489 volunteers a similar five-second video clip of an armed robbery that ended with a robber shooting a sales clerk. Participants watched the clip at…
-
The #NoBillNoBreak Sit-In Was Pretty Much Everything I Hate About Democratic Politics
This week, Democratic Congresspeople occupied the floor of the House of Representatives in an attempt to force votes on what they called “commonsense” gun control bills. Nearly 100 Democrats led by Georgia Rep. John Lewis demanded a vote on measures to expand background checks and block gun purchases by some suspected terrorists in the aftermath of…
-
Net Neutrality Wins Big
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the F.C.C. today, ruling that high-speed broadband is a utility. Tom Wheeler, Chairman of the F.C.C., celebrated what Jon Brodkin called a “total victory”: “Today’s ruling is a victory for consumers and innovators who deserve unfettered access to the entire Web, and it…
-
Making History?
The folks over at Reason have their super hot take on Hillary Clinton’s nomination: It’s the kind of surface-level thinking we’ve long come to expect from the libertarian crowd. No, Hillary Clinton isn’t going to solve all of America’s problems by virtue of being a woman. But there is evidence to support the notion that the first female…
-
Likely a racist?
Rep. Reid Ribble (R) of Wisconsin says Donald Trump is “likely a racist.” Three-term GOP Rep. Reid Ribble of Wisconsin told CNN on Wednesday Trump’s comments — that federal judge Gonzalo Curiel could not rule fairly in a Trump University case because of his Mexican heritage — is a “racist” remark, putting him in line…
-
We have to do better than the death penalty.
Clint Smith writes on the injustice of the death penalty for The New Yorker: Those who support the death penalty are accepting a practice that is both ineffective and fundamentally flawed. It means supporting a system that not infrequently kills those with serious mental illness. It means supporting a system in which an execution is far more likely to…
-
Hanoi’s New Arms?
Dan de Luce and Keith Johnson at Foreign Policy report that the U.S. ban on arms sales to Vietnam is likely no more. The White House appears poised to end a ban on arms sales to Vietnam in time for a landmark visit by President Barack Obama later this month, despite misgivings from some lawmakers and human…
-
Paul Ryan Face Plants
David Dayen has some harsh (and fair) criticism of Paul Ryan’s work as Speaker of the House so far: By the end, Boehner had come to hate the House Freedom Caucus, the far-right cabal that brought on his ouster through its relentless opposition to compromise. But Ryan merely fears the Freedom Caucusers, unwilling to cross…
Timothy Pate 