Charlie Huston's Blog, page 3

G.O.P. Health Bill Faces Revolt From Conservative Forces

G.O.P. Health Bill Faces Revolt From Conservative Forces:

The Republican bill would scrap the mandated coverage in the Affordable Care Act in favor of tax incentives to coax people to purchase health care. But the legislation maintains many of the act’s mandates and basic benefits, including prohibiting insurers from denying policies for pre-existing conditions or capping benefits in a year or a lifetime.

Some conservatives have labeled the House plan “Obamacare lite,” saying it is nearly as i...

Sexist Political Criticism Finds a New Target: Kellyanne Conway

Sexist Political Criticism Finds a New Target: Kellyanne Conway:

“There seems to be great resentment of both as power hungry and wanting to control men,” said Marjorie J. Spruill, the author of “Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics.” “Whereas Hillary is called castrating or shrewish, Conway is often called a slut. The implication is that she is using femininity to control men.”

The Old Trump is Back. In Fact, He Never Left

robertreich:

It seems an eternity ago but it was only last Tuesday night when Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress and stuck to the teleprompter without going off the deep end – eliciting rapturous praise from the media. 

“Donald Trump at his most presidential,“gushed NBC; “a recitation of hopes and dreams for the nation,” oozed NPR; “the most presidential speech Mr. Trump has ever given — delivered at precisely the moment he needed to project sobriety, seriousness of purpose an...

startswithabang:The First Woman In Space Turns 80, And You...

startswithabang:

The First Woman In Space Turns 80, And You Probably Never Heard Of Her

“Her flight into space, at age 26, is still the record for youngest female astronaut/cosmonaut. Aboard Vostok 6, her rendezvous with Vostok 5 cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky made them the first cosmonauts aboard different vessels to communicate in space. In cosmonaut history, only Yuri Gagarin and Alexey Leonov are more revered.”

Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, launched aboard the spac...

How Uber Used Secret Greyball Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

How Uber Used Secret Greyball Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide:

But unknown to Mr. England and other authorities, some of the digital cars they saw in the app did not represent actual vehicles. And the Uber drivers they were able to hail also quickly canceled. That was because Uber had tagged Mr. England and his colleagues — essentially Greyballing them as city officials — based on data collected from the app and in other ways. The company then served up a fake version of the app populat...

Leashes Come Off Wall Street, Gun Sellers, Polluters and More

Leashes Come Off Wall Street, Gun Sellers, Polluters and More:

It isn’t as if the White House strategy is subtle, it’s just that everyone keeps taking the bait:  “Pay no mind to the man pulling the levers behind the curtain, just look at that giant head over there!”

In many cases, records show that the changes came after appeals by corporate lobbyists and trade association executives, who see a potentially historic opportunity to lower compliance costs and drive up profits. Slashing regulation...

What Can Be Gleaned From Trump’s Allegations of Wiretapping

What Can Be Gleaned From Trump’s Allegations of Wiretapping:

If there was a wiretap order targeting Mr. Trump or his associates, what would that mean?

If it was a criminal wiretap, it would mean that the Justice Department had gathered sufficient evidence to convince a federal judge that someone using the phone number or email address probably committed a serious crime. If it was a national security wiretap, it would mean a federal judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had a bas...

A Conspiracy Theory’s Journey From Talk Radio to Trump’s Twitter

A Conspiracy Theory’s Journey From Talk Radio to Trump’s Twitter:

“I’m very worried that our president is suggesting that the former president has done something illegally,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told the audience at a town hall-style meeting in his home state over the weekend. At the same time, he said, “I would be very worried if, in fact, the Obama administration was able to obtain a warrant lawfully about Trump campaign activity with a foreign government.”

N...

Trumpism at Its Best, Straight Up

Trumpism at Its Best, Straight Up:

The first thing we learned was that Trumpism is an utter repudiation of modern conservatism. For the last 40 years, the Republican Party has been a coalition of three tendencies. On Tuesday, Trump rejected or ignored all of them.

There used to be Republican foreign policy hawks, people who believed that it was in America’s interest to serve as a global policeman, actively preserving a democratic world order. Trump explicitly repudiated this worldview, drawing...

Paul Ryan’s Misguided Sense of Freedom

Paul Ryan’s Misguided Sense of Freedom:

…

Mr. Ryan inadvertently revived an idea that desperately needs to be resuscitated — the idea that freedom requires not just a lack of barriers, but also the conditions that allow people to live their lives fully. Deprivation, then, is a constraint on Americans’ freedom.

This conception harks back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms. In his third term, Roosevelt delivered a State of the Union address that outlined four core principles, free...