It’s been two weeks since President Trump announced on Twitter that he’d be banning transgender service in the military, and though there’s still no actual policy in effect, Trump is standing by the decision. Speaking to the press Thursday, Trump claimed to have “great respect” for the transgender community and boasted that many transgender people […]
A striding anti-immigration bill in Texas suffered another blow Wednesday when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton arguing the law was constitutional. Referred to as SB4, the law targets so-called sanctuary cities―or, those that do not require local police to enforce federal immigration law. Set to take effect September 1, […]
Late last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Russia will expel more than 750 U.S. mission staff members from the country in retaliation for President Trump begrudgingly singing a Russian sanctions bill that was approved by veto-proof majorities in both chambers of Congress. For days, Trump said nothing. During a question-and-answer sessions with reporters at his […]
A massive new report by more than 450 scientists, confirms that the Earth warmed to a new record in 2016, driven by a record increase in carbon dioxide levels. The 27th annual “State of the Climate” report, led by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), stands as the first comprehensive rebuke by the nation’s and […]
The nation’s leading electric utility and their affiliated companies, along with top utility executives, contributed more than four times as much money to the Republican Governors Association in the first six months of 2017 than to the Democratic Governors Association, according to a new report. Governors can have a significant impact on the activities of […]
In God and the Transgender Debate, due out next week, Andrew T. Walker has written a wickedly dangerous book. He has repackaged the “love the sinner, hate the sin” mantra — used to condemn the gay community for decades — to help evangelical Christians reject transgender people in exactly the same way. As Director of Policy Studies […]
Despite the repeated failure of Republicans in Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Trump has succeeded in raising health care premiums. A number of insurers who provide coverage through the Obamacare marketplaces have requested double digit rate increases for the coming year, and the majority cite uncertainty about the actions of the […]
Two days before President Trump revealed his first budget plan, a blueprint that included a request for an immediate $1.5 billion and then $2.6 billion more next year to fund the construction of a wall along the Mexican border, the Berkeley city council met in a building 508 miles from the border and more than 2,800 […]
During a BBC radio interview on Thursday, White House adviser Sebastian Gorka criticized Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for comments he made earlier in the week assuring Americans that nuclear war with North Korea was not an imminent possibility. Gorka characterized Tillerson’s input on military matters as “nonsensical.” “You should listen to the president; the […]
The Department of Energy approved plans to reduce the workforce of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Brookhaven National Laboratory by as many as 525 positions. Both labs maintain the planned staffing cuts are not related to the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to DOE’s science programs. The labs’ explanations for the staffing reductions, though, […]
Taylor Swift has zero doubts about how, exactly, then-radio host David Mueller touched her during a meet-and-greet in 2013. Mueller’s contact was a “definite grab,” she testified on Thursday, the fourth day of her sexual assault trial and the first time she took the stand. “He grabbed my ass underneath my skirt. It was underneath […]
Let’s get this out of the way: NCAA amateurism, the system that lets predominately white coaches and executives become millionaires on the back of predominately black labor, is an exploitative, racist, and broken system that needs to be reformed yesterday. The statistics back this up. A 2013 study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for […]
Roughly 180 migrants were forced from a boat by smugglers off the coast of Yemen, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Thursday. This comes one day after smugglers deliberately drowned around 50 migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia into the sea as they neared the coast of Shabwa, a Yemeni Governorate on the Arabian Sea. The news is […]
On Thursday morning, President Trump retweeted a Twitter poll from an account called @ProgressPolls. The “poll,” conducted on August 4 (President Obama’s birthday), asked the question: “Who is a better President of the United States?” Who is a better President of the United States? #ObamaDay — ProgressPolls (@ProgressPolls) August 4, 2017 Trump likely retweeted this […]
On Thursday, President Donald Trump’s favorite TV show featured a Christian preacher who made a case on the air that Trump has a biblical justification for attacking North Korea. During a Fox & Friends interview, Southern Baptist minister and outspoken Trump backer Rev. Robert Jeffress claimed that “the Bible, especially Romans 13, does give President […]
A year and a half after David and Hannah Edwards had to withdraw their transgender daughter from Nova Classical Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the publicly financed charter school has settled their complaint, agreeing to pay $120,000 and finally implement policies that respect transgender students. Though the Edwards no longer send their daughter to Nova, […]
Climate change could be a lot worse for America than you thought. That’s one of the messages from deep inside the 600-page final draft of the Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) that was leaked to the New York Times this week. If America stays on its current emissions path — often referred to as business-as-usual, or […]
An immigration reform bill that ensures the United States has the best and brightest foreign workers and also legalizes the current undocumented population in the United States has generally been a non-starter conversation since President Donald Trump took office. But major polls published after the president’s inauguration shows that’s exactly the kind of legislation that […]
Last week, the Huffington Post published a scathing report, citing more than a dozen sources, alleging Fox News personality Eric Bolling sent lewd, unsolicited photos to at least three colleagues. The report said the women, all Bolling’s current or former colleagues at Fox News, found the images of male genitalia they received from Bolling “deeply […]
It’s been an action-packed 24 hours in U.S.-Korea relations. After learning of North Korea’s increased nuclear potential on Tuesday, President Trump threatened the isolated nation with “fire and fury”—a hint at nuclear war. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un promptly proceeded to threaten Guam, a U.S. territory, with an offensive attack. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson later […]
Tensions are reaching a historical high between the United States and North Korea, and the nature of the Trump administration is rapidly making things worse. On Tuesday, Donald Trump threatened North Korea, but the way he did it was strange. “North Korea best not make any more threats to the U.S. They will be met with […]
