President Trump tried to pressure the Justice Department to declare the election “corrupt,” telling the agency to “leave the rest to me,” according to handwritten notes taken by then-deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue during a phone call with the president. The notes were made public by the House Oversight Committee …
Read More »Facebook Upholds Trump Ban … For Now
One silver lining to yet another depressing year in these United States of America is that Donald Trump hasn’t been able to make it worse by broadcasting his thoughts to millions of followers on Facebook or Instagram. It’s going to stay that way — for now, at least. An oversight …
Read More »Democracy on the Brink
WASHINGTON — In the coming weeks, the battle over democracy’s future in America will hit a boil. On one side is a group that looks at the last election and sees a resilient but damaged system. A system that withstood —sometimes only barely — a raging pandemic, a conspiracy-theory-peddling president, …
Read More »Journalist Yamiche Alcindor on 'Bringing the Hard Truth to America'
It’s hard for PBS NewsHour’s Yamiche Alcindor to pick one moment that encapsulates the experience of covering the Trump White House. But if she had to choose, it would be in March, fairly early in the pandemic, when she took the mic at a press briefing and calmly asked President …
Read More »'SNL' Weekend Update on Trump Impeachment Acquittal: 'Dumbest Trial I've Ever Seen'
Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update focused on the absurdity of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, hours after the former president was acquitted despite his role in the Capitol insurrection. “Like so many men living in Florida, Donald Trump has once again escaped from justice,” Colin Jost said. “This has to …
Read More »Farewell to a Fascist: Biden, Washington, and America Pick Up the Pieces
Two days before the inauguration, I talk with my dad about Joe Biden. With the pandemic, I hadn’t been in Washington, D.C., for two years, so it is much overdue. Dad and Joe have much in common. Dad is 47 days younger, and I assume is stupefied that his aged …
Read More »Neil Young: Social Media Is 'Crippling Our Belief System'
Neil Young has responded to the violent assault on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., with an impassioned essay that blames President Trump, social media, and the partisan press for the tragedy. He also says the situation would have played out very differently had the rioters been black. “I was …
Read More »After Threatening Veto, Trump Finally Signs Covid-19 Relief Bill Into Law
Trump spent Christmas pouting and golfing while sitting on a $1 trillion coronavirus relief package, and as a result, 14 million people will temporarily lose their unemployment insurance. This narrowly averted a government shutdown, which would have taken effect Monday night. Despite assurances from the White House that he would …
Read More »It Actually Was a Landslide: 80 Million Votes and Counting For Biden
On election night and the painful week of counting afterward, a narrative took hold that Joe Biden took 2020 in a squeaker. But that’s not reality. And as the final votes are being counted, the “red mirage” has vanished to reveal a blue mandate for President-Elect Joe Biden. Biden has …
Read More »What Pollsters Want You to Know About What Went Wrong
“I don’t want you to lose your job, but why should you exist?” This is what Siena College Research Institute Director Don Levy says a reporter asked him earlier this month after it became clear that he and his fellow pollsters drastically underestimated Donald Trump’s support, four years after making …
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