Why does it seem like the mainstream media isn’t taking the very real danger of America losing its democracy seriously? When Germany invaded France in 1940, did newspapers fret over what those rich pastries were going to do to Himmler’s triglyceride levels? Because that’s kind of what this moment feels like.
One House Republican is under investigation for trafficking minors. Another helped cover up the molestation of college athletes. A third partners with neo-Nazis and shows “humorous” invented clips of himself killing Democratic colleagues. A fourth was booted from House Committees for expressing support for political violence—even as that violence threatens her own colleagues.
That Rep.
William Hartmann made headlines when he, along with fellow canvasser Monica Palmer, voted to block the certification of Wayne County, Michigan’s 2020 election results. Wayne County encompasses the predominantly Black city of Detroit. Hartmann, an overtly racist MAGA supporter with a social media presence populated by equally racist propaganda, only seemed to have a problem with Black votes but said he was fine with certifying white, more conservative areas.
Chrissie Bixler, along with several others, alleges that the Church of Scientology waged a war of terror against them in order to make sure they didn’t report a rape or sexual assault at the hands of actor and renowned Scientologist Danny Masterson.
“Please let me help with prep,” the CNN host texted one of Andrew Cuomo’s former aides as allegations of sexual harassment came to light.
Unlike her predecessor Melania Trump, the current first lady seems to give a f**k about Christmas.
Andrew Cuomo’s resignation as governor of New York might have been a godsend for CNN. The network faced a nearly intractable conflict of interest: The governor was a major national figure, but his brother, Chris, was also one of CNN’s prime-time stars. Instead, the fallout from Andrew Cuomo’s departure has made Chris Cuomo’s position untenable. He should resign; if he doesn’t, CNN should sack him.
“The recent emergence of the Omicron variant further emphasizes the importance of vaccination, boosters and prevention efforts needed to protect against Covid-19,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said.
The coronavirus is flying through the Greek alphabet. On Friday, the World Health Organization designated Omicron a “variant of concern”—spooking stock markets and triggering a new round of international travel bans. Today, President Joe Biden echoed the WHO’s language, calling Omicron a “cause for concern,” but warned Americans not to panic.Little is known about the variant so far, my colleague Katherine J. Wu says.
The crackpot Republican won’t apologize for joking that Omar had a backpack full of explosives.
The bearded man, who was based in the LA area, had eluded online sleuths who have successfully identified dozens of rioters.
Since Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted under claims of self-defense for fatally shooting two people and wounding a third during racial justice protests last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin, another case in the city is drawing new national attention. Human rights advocates are calling for charges to be dropped in the case of Chrystul Kizer, who faces homicide and other charges for killing her white sex trafficker in 2018 after he drugged her and tried to rape her when she was just 17-years-old.
After a Georgia jury reached a verdict of “guilty” in the closely watched trial of three white men who chased and fatally shot 25-year-old unarmed Black man Ahmaud Arbery, many activists and racial justice advocates following the case have expressed some relief in hearing the conviction.
We go to Cape Town, South Africa, to speak with a leading health justice advocate about how scientists in the country have identified a new Omicron coronavirus variant, and the World Health Organization warns it could be more transmissible than previous variants. Against the advice of the WHO, several countries have closed their borders to foreign travelers.
Amid all the attention paid to the legal drama surrounding both Mississippi’s and Texas’s contested abortion laws, one striking detail seems to have escaped much notice: Neither state makes an exception for rape or incest. This is a major departure, a sign of how extreme America’s abortion politics have become. For decades, exceptions to abortion bans for rape and incest were a rare source of consensus.
Parents know that winter is the season of sickness. Your kid will have approximately infinite colds. You, too, will have approximately infinite colds. Last winter, COVID precautions kept sickness at bay. But this year, school is in session, day-care colds are spreading fast, and the only cohort of people in America not yet eligible for COVID vaccination is our youngest children.
Conservatives in America have, in recent months, used the idea of freedom to argue against wearing masks, oppose vaccine mandates, and justify storming the Capitol. They routinely refer to themselves as “freedom-loving Americans.” Freedom, as a cause, today belongs almost entirely to the right.This was not always the case. In the early 1960s, civil-rights activists invoked freedom as the purpose of their struggle. Martin Luther King Jr.
Back in 2020, I might’ve imagined the end of the pandemic being something like that gum commercial: everyone together, vaccinated, picking the same time to come safely and communally out of lockdown and get back to the way things were before, so grateful to be alive we practically leapt into one another’s arms as soon as we got the chance. That is not, of course, the way things have gone in 2021.
As fall dips into winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the coronavirus has served up the holiday gift that no one, absolutely no one, asked for: a new variant of concern, dubbed Omicron by the World Health Organization on Friday.Omicron, also known as B.1.1.529, was first detected in Botswana and South Africa earlier this month, and very little is known about it so far. But the variant is moving fast.
In the end, President Joe Biden did what many close to him expected: He took a longer-than-anticipated amount of time to arrive at a reasonable, moderate decision that thrilled few but carried limited risk.
The Commerce secretary said in an interview that the Biden administration sees trading partners in Asia as part of the solution.
Aggressive action to deliver pandemic relief was the right call — and withdrawing support now would only hurt American workers.
The president needs people to overcome a new set of fears and direct their purchases into the areas of the service economy hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic.
“The pandemic has been calling the shots for the economy and for inflation,” Janet Yellen said.
We speak with Mansoor Adayfi, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee who was held at the military prison for 14 years without charge, an ordeal he details in his new memoir, “Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo.” Adayfi was 18 when he left his home in Yemen to do research in Afghanistan, where he was kidnapped by Afghan warlords, then sold to the CIA after the 9/11 attacks.
Democracy Now! first aired on nine community radio stations on February 19, 1996, on the eve of the New Hampshire presidential primary. In the 25 years since that initial broadcast, the program has greatly expanded, airing today on more than 1,500 television and radio stations around the globe and reaching millions of people online.
As Democrats in Congress struggle to pass the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, there is large bipartisan consensus in the U.S. Congress to spend over $7 trillion over the next 10 years in military spending. The United States spends more each year on defense than China, Russia, India, the U.K., Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, and Australia combined.
The survivor of a serial rapist who received probation joins us to speak out after a New York judge sparked international outrage when he ruled it is inappropriate to jail the man who attacked her. Christopher Belter pleaded guilty to raping and sexually assaulting her along with three other teenage girls age 15 and 16, but he will avoid serving time in prison, and instead receive 8 years of probation.
Update on Nov. 24: Jurors on Wednesday afternoon returned guilty verdicts against all three of the white men charged with killing 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in February 2020. Travis McMichael fired the fatal shots and was convicted on all counts, including the charge of malice murder. His father Gregory McMichael, a former police officer, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were convicted of felony murder and other charges.
The Oscar-winning actor said it was “a path that I’m choosing not to take at this moment.