Tag: The Soapbox

The Education of Byron Donalds, the Right-Wing Fringe’s Newest Star

In his third year of college, Donalds realized he had to turn his life around. When he learned he could transfer his credits to Florida State University but leave his GPA behind, he jumped at the opportunity. He joined a business fraternity and met a woman named Erika, who invited him to visit her church. […]

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They’re Not Joking: House Republicans Actually Compare Themselves to the Mob

If Congress forces the United States into default, the Freedom Caucus will be the likely culprit. On March 10 it laid out its demands for raising the debt ceiling. All “topline discretionary” spending (i.e., spending that must be appropriated, excepting emergency spending) must be frozen at current levels, “allowing for 1 percent annual growth” (i.e., inflation increases […]

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TikTok Is a Problem—but Not Our Biggest Social Media Problem

Members of Congress accused TikTok of collecting user data, failing to moderate content, putting minors at risk, and providing the Chinese government with access to private user information. All social media platforms, from Meta to Google and Twitter, collect user data. Alben explained to The New Republic that certain categories of data are protected, such […]

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What If the Worst Crime Imaginable Never Happened?

Louisiana’s recent reluctance to execute its prisoners stands in sharp contrast to other red states in the Deep South, such as Texas and Oklahoma, which each carried out five death sentences in 2022. Oklahoma has already scheduled executions into 2024 in several controversial cases, including Richard Glossip’s. Louisiana’s reprieve has also been tenuous. The state’s […]

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Florida’s Attempt to Muzzle the Press Could Hurt Fox News the Most

The threat of litigation in countries without the United States’ high level of press protection can have a subtle but profound chilling effect on journalism and accountability. Australian legal commentators, for example, noted that the #MeToo movement faltered in that country after figures like actor Geoffrey Rush began suing the women who accused them of […]

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Ron DeSantis Looks Like a Loser

It’s poorly written and has Trump’s usual weird capitalization issues, but it is also a pretty compelling argument against a DeSantis presidential bid pic.twitter.com/9eVPZEYQhv — Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) March 22, 2023 DeSantis lays a glove on Trump; Trump responds by throwing the entire kitchen sink at him. DeSantis lays a glove on Trump; Trump responds […]

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The Rise of Damian Williams, America’s Top Crypto Cop

In the case of FTX, Williams’s office moved rather quickly, filing a sealed indictment less than a month after the collapse of the company. For Williams, who has the résumé of someone who’s checked every box of meritocratic success, SBF could be the high-profile prosecution that elevates him from being simply another nice suit behind […]

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The Trump Indictment Is Bringing Out the Worst in People. Here’s a List of Them.

Like most former presidents, Donald Trump has been spending his time playing golf, thinking about his legacy, and, of course, practicing his perp walk. With an indictment from the Manhattan district attorney reportedly just days away, Mar-a-Lago’s leading potential felon “welcomes the idea of being paraded by the authorities before a throng of reporters and […]

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Will the Supreme Court Let Jack Daniel’s Go to the Dogs?

“Well, I mean, you say that, but you know, you make fun of a lot of marks: Doggie Walker, Dos Perros, Smella R. Paw, Canine Cola, Mountain Drool. Are all of these companies taking themselves too seriously?” Kagan asked. “I think there are a lot of products that take them too seriously,” Cooper claimed. “You […]

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What to Expect If the Abortion Drug Mifepristone Gets Banned

“As part of all of these various abortion restrictions we’ve seen, we know that it makes people question whether anything they do is legal,” Wang said. “We definitely have people questioning, ‘Can I even talk about abortion? Can I share abortion resources? Can I leave my state to seek care?’” Abortion clinics, many of which […]

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Trump Asked Supporters to Take to the Streets. This Was the Sad Result.

Meanwhile, on Truth Social, Donald Trump is having a bad time. Over the weekend, the former President posted nonstop tirades against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, his former lawyer Michael Cohen, and of course Ron DeSanctimonious, who dismissed questions about Trump’s possible arrest on Monday by stating that he has “real issues to deal with […]

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GOP’s Idea of Youth: Little League? Proms? Try Working in a Slaughterhouse and Marrying at 10

Child marriage is legal in 43 states, according to a recent tally by The Washington Post, and in seven of these there’s no minimum age at all. Where procedural restrictions are imposed in states that allow child marriage it’s usually only that the child receive permission from a parent (or, in some cases, a judge). […]

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Greg Abbott’s Authoritarian Power Grab of Houston’s Public Schools

Over the years, evidence has piled up suggesting that these kinds of school takeovers are ineffective and that the primacy of standardized tests constrains schools to “teach for the test”—forcing teachers to achieve arbitrary scores to maintain their good standing. Meanwhile, the charter schools pitched as a remedy are often “intensely segregated settings,” according to […]

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Lindsey Graham Has Some Good Advice for Donald Trump, for Once

The Supreme Court, for its part, hasn’t been too friendly to Donald Trump over the years, Sure, it’s ruled in favor of some of his policies, such as the Muslim travel ban. It’s occasionally handed him a mixed legal victory when blocking Congress’s efforts to scrutinize him more closely. But there are few signs, if […]

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The New York Times and Israel: What Is (and Isn’t) Fit for Print

Oren’s complaints notwithstanding, today, the punditocracy remains largely pro-Israel, though it is fair to say that along with Israel’s descent into ever greater illiberalism, theocracy, and harsher treatment of the Palestinians, under what gives every impression of being a permanent occupation, the times—together with Times—have definitely been ’a-changing. During the May 2021 Israeli war with […]

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Fear the Wrath of the TikTok Voter

“One of the things that I always wanted to keep top of mind in how we were using the platform was not only meeting people where they were at, but speaking the language that they were speaking,” Henry said about the Fetterman campaign’s TikTok strategy. The app has “massive reach,” Henry continued, allowing creators to […]

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The War on Terror Created a Cancer Crisis. These Vets Are Trying to Fight Back.

Simoni, who now works as a trauma nurse, clinical nurse researcher, and epidemiologist, (while now also pursuing a PhD in a nursing), sought out more information but found no data linking post-9/11 veterans and heightened cancer rates. Simoni, then still in nursing school, approached her advisor, asking if she could undertake a study to further […]

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Amy Coney Barrett Could Be the Deciding Vote That Affirms the Navajo Nation’s Water Rights

In an exchange with Shay Dvoretzky, who argued on behalf of the Navajo Nation, she also noted that the tribe’s request was narrower than its critics had suggested and didn’t involve mandates to build pipelines, as some of her colleagues had suggested. “That’s really just about intervening in litigation to assert those on the Navajo’s […]

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Arresting Donald Trump Would Not Be Good for Donald Trump

The most curious part of the emerging Trump defense—that this is a politically motivated prosecution—is that no one, with the exception of Trump himself, bothers to deny that there was criminal wrongdoing. Most Americans do not trust Trump; a majority believed Daniels was telling the truth when she came forward five years ago. In the […]

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Missouri Becomes Latest State to Attempt a Ban on Gender-Affirming Care

The Tribune notes that such hesitation in the face of an AR-15 had led police in other shootings—including at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando—to respond less quickly. Republicans, both in Texas and nationally, have opposed banning or further regulating weapons like the AR-15—even now as police […]

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Howard Schultz Will Step Down From Starbucks to Spend Less Time Getting Owned by Union Organizers

The Tribune notes that such hesitation in the face of an AR-15 had led police in other shootings—including at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando—to respond less quickly. Republicans, both in Texas and nationally, have opposed banning or further regulating weapons like the AR-15—even now as police […]

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Undercover Officers Were Sent to Investigate a Drag Show in Orlando, for Some Reason

The Tribune notes that such hesitation in the face of an AR-15 had led police in other shootings—including at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando—to respond less quickly. Republicans, both in Texas and nationally, have opposed banning or further regulating weapons like the AR-15—even now as police […]

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Trump Is Handling His Potential Indictment With His Typical Sagacity and Grace

The Tribune notes that such hesitation in the face of an AR-15 had led police in other shootings—including at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and at Pulse, nightclub in Orlando—to respond less quickly. Republicans, both in Texas and nationally, have opposed banning or further regulating weapons like the AR-15—even now as police officers […]

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Uvalde Cops Admit AR-15 Scared Them From Saving Children

And money talks. Hoeven has seemingly expressed little public concern about the rail industry since the East Palestine derailment. In 2021, however, he, Cramer, and Armstrong did send a letter to the Surface Transportation Board advocating for the Canadian Pacific, or CP, and Kansas City Southern, or KCS, merger. As The American Prospect reports, Hoeven […]

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What Changed Fed Chair Jerome Powell from Hero to Goat in One Week?

A major reason for this inattention, as I noted last week, was the 2018 bank-deregulation law passed by Congress, which raised the threshold for banks that received special Fed scrutiny from $50 billion to $250 billion. (Silicon Valley’s and Signature Bank’s assets were $209 billion and $110 billion, respectively.) At a Senate hearing last week, […]

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Forget What Trump Said—Kevin McCarthy’s Comments Are Way Scarier

If we lose that basic measure of democratic accountability, and allow an intensely ideological Congress, led by members from California and Georgia and Texas and Florida, to exert pressure to decide what prosecutions a DA in New York City should and should not bring, we’re cooked. There’s a lot that’s imperfect about our justice system, […]

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Iraq, the U.S., and The New Republic: 20 Years Later, Lessons Not Learned

The magazine’s case for war rested on three pillars: first, the alleged threat posed by Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction (a grab-bag term that included nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons), which, if not used by Saddam himself, could be handed off to terrorists; second, Saddam’s brutal dictatorship, which besides depriving his people of […]

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What the Right Got Wrong About “Woke” Banks

Why is this important? While Biden and his fellow Democrats can’t do much in the way of passing laws with the GOP in control of the House, they can still spend the next two years setting an example. Collectively, everyone on the team should be seeking out opportunities to play Gallant to the Republicans’ weird […]

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Does Biden Suffer From Indispensable Man Syndrome?

It is easy to imagine that Biden sees his singular status in roughly the same way as did Eisenhower. While Kamala Harris is no Nixon, she also lacks anything like universal acceptance in the Democratic Party as a replacement nominee. As a result, Biden undoubtedly regards himself as the only Democrat who can prevent a […]

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I Am an Iraqi American. The War Still Chills Me to the Bone.

But all my intimate experience of the ways in which America and Iraq clashed and intersected, psychologically, culturally, professionally, geographically, violently, and lovingly, were useless in the spring of 2003. The tiny things: a little brass Ottoman shoe with the upturned toe among the small suitcase of things my mother had carried with her when […]

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