During a White House briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders brushed off a question about whether President Trump has anything to say about news that two white Baton Rouge police officers who shot and killed a black man named Alton Sterling while he was pinned down will not be charged. “Certainly a terrible incident, […]
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that an attorney for President Donald Trump discussed the possibility of pardoning key witnesses in the Russia investigation, including former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. The bombshell report raises the question of whether Trump’s personal attorney at the time, John Dowd, […]
Oklahoma teachers plan to walk out on Monday. Teachers in the state haven’t had a raise in a decade and have the lowest salary in the nation according to some estimates. Now, they want to send a message to lawmakers next week by stopping work and closing schools. At least 172 Oklahoma school districts have […]
Former state Sen. Lee Bright (R-SC) announced earlier this month that he will seek his party’s nomination for the U.S. House seat being left open by retiring Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC). His long record of pushing for more guns in schools, in light of February’s horrific Parkland school mass shooting, might be even more disconcerting than […]
An internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) memo obtained by the Huffington Post reveals that agency talking points on climate change seek to cast doubt on the scientific consensus about climate change and mankind’s role in the crisis. The talking points include statements like “human activity impacts our changing climate in some manner” and “clear gaps remain including our […]
A federal court denied Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by attorneys general from Washington, DC and Maryland on Wednesday, rejecting the president’s assertion that the case was politically motivated. In denying the motion, the judge allowed the District of Columbia and Maryland to press ahead with their suit, in which they allege […]
Americans’ concerns about global warming “are not much different from ‘the record-high levels’ they were at a year ago,” Gallup reported Wednesday. Yet partisan gaps grew slightly as the issue became even more politically polarized — a point that has garnered a lot of media attention. But that shift appears to be at least partly driven by […]
On Wednesday, Laura Ingraham, host of the primetime Fox News show Ingraham Angle, mocked 17-year-old Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg for getting rejected by four colleges. “David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it,” Ingraham tweeted. “(Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.)” Ingraham’s […]
A bill that bans a common abortion procedure after 11 weeks “post-fertilization” — also known as 13 weeks gestation — is headed to the desk of Gov. Matt Bevin (R), who’s described himself as “100 percent pro-life.” The Kentucky House of Representatives voted 75-13 in favor of the anti-choice bill on Tuesday, which lawmakers tout […]
Two things were clear during Wednesday’s oral arguments in Benisek v. Lamone, a challenge to Maryland’s gerrymandered congressional maps. The first is that there are almost certainly five justices who think the maps need to go. There is “no other reason” for drawing a map that is all but sure to elect seven Democratic members of […]
Two years ago, when Oslene Johnson was a senior in high school, she would use her study hall period to call members of Congress, hoping to talk to them about a bill she and her classmates had authored. The bill, borne out of Johnson’s AP Government class, would make secret or redacted government files on […]
If everyone knew about Harvey Weinstein, why didn’t anyone say anything? This is the question that lurks around the still-unfolding story of Weinstein’s alleged, rampant sexual predation: As more details emerge about the failure to arrest Weinstein years ago; as some of Hollywood’s sparkliest stars say, well sure, they’d heard the rumors, but they dismissed […]
To see photos of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on his first visit outside his country since he took power in 2011 is to see an image of a leader having a wonderful time with his good friend, Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both men appear totally relaxed and smiling at banquets, in great halls, […]
Congressional Republicans are planning to push a balanced budget amendment when they return from recess in April, Politico reported on Wednesday. The vote comes directly after many of those same Republicans voted to pass two massively expensive measures, a $1.3 trillion dollar spending bill and a $1 trillion dollar tax cut that primarily benefits the wealthiest […]
For almost a year, hundreds of protesters in Massachusetts took action to stop construction of a high-pressure fracked gas pipeline, which would have run for five miles through the Boston neighborhood of West Roxbury. The demonstrations, which featured protesters sitting in holes dug for the pipeline, lead to the arrests of nearly 200 people, many […]
A bipartisan letter signed by every woman in the Senate and circulated Wednesday slammed the body’s “inaction” on moving sexual assault legislation forward despite successful efforts in the House of Representatives. Led by Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar (MN), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), and Patty Murray (WA), the letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell […]
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republican lawmakers are considering moves that may undo years of progress in dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline. A White House commission on school safety plans to hold its first meeting on Wednesday. According to Politico, the first meeting will be closed press, but subsequent meetings will have open press. There are […]
In a Tuesday night court filing, special counsel Robert Mueller’s office revealed that it has linked a Trump campaign official who is cooperating with the special counsel’s investigation to a person who “has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.” According to Mueller’s office, Rick Gates — a longtime associate […]
In a Tuesday night court filing, special counsel Robert Mueller’s office revealed that it has linked a Trump campaign official who is cooperating with the special counsel’s investigation to a person who “has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.” According to Mueller’s office, Rick Gates — a longtime associate […]
In 2016, after the signing of the Paris climate agreement, there was a sharp decrease in bank financing for “extreme fossil fuels.” However, 2017 was a year of “backsliding” into financing the fossil fuel sector again, according to a new report. The world’s largest banks provided $115 billion in funding to the fossil fuel industry […]
Alex Jones is supposedly on thin ice with YouTube. After the Parkland, Florida school shooting, the Infowars host and far-right conspiracy theorist immediately started to popularize the idea that the survivors were, in fact, crisis actors, paid to make the shooting seem worse than it was and to advocate for gun control. In response, YouTube cracked down. […]
For some so-called patriots, the prospect of gun regulations, from banning AR-15s to eliminating high-capacity magazines, is too much to bear. In fact, the way they see it, the only solution isn’t to lobby Washington, but to break up the U.S. wholesale. Couched in terms like “amicable divorce,” these far-right figures — some claiming to […]
David Hogg has had to put up with a lot over the last month and a half. After a mass shooter killed 17 of his fellow classmates and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in February, Hogg quickly started advocating for stricter gun control measures. Almost immediately, he was smeared by […]
Monday’s announcement that the 2020 census will include a question about citizenship was quickly met with uproar. Census data, is in a very big way, the bedrock of our democracy, as it’s used to decide congressional seats and electors in each state and how voting districts are drawn. But it’s also incredibly important for how federal […]