This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Last week I asked, “For whom or what are you thankful this year?”One thing I’m thankful for this year are the emails that you send each week.
You can now know everything about your baby at all times. An expectant parent of a certain type—cash-flush and availed of benzodiazepine, or maybe just fretful—will be dizzied by the options.
For once, Donald Trump has a point.Shortly before Thanksgiving, Trump had dinner with the artist and aspiring presidential candidate Kanye West. Among West’s entourage was a 24-year-old livestreamer named Nick Fuentes. Fuentes, as all the world now knows, traffics in Holocaust denial, among other provocations. West is an outspoken anti-Semite in his own right.
As climate Sahrawi activists in occupied Western Sahara accuse Morocco of greenwashing, the Spanish Film Academy, the Spanish equivalent to the Oscars, has just given its social justice award to the Western Sahara International Film Festival and its film school. We feature our interview at the U.N.
Pressure is growing for Missouri to stop the execution of Kevin Johnson set for Tuesday. At a hearing Monday before Missouri’s Supreme Court, a special prosecutor will request a stay in order to fully investigate how the case was tainted by racism. Meanwhile, Johnson’s 19-year-old daughter has been barred from witnessing his lethal injection because she is under 21.
Unprecedented protests have erupted in multiple Chinese cities over President Xi Jinping’s strict zero-COVID policies, which have resulted in extended strict lockdowns across the country. The protests were triggered by a deadly fire Thursday at an apartment building in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, where local COVID restrictions reportedly prevented firefighters from reaching the trapped residents.
The Georgia Supreme Court Wednesday reinstated the state’s ban on abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.
Abortion opponents plan to use environmental laws to curb access to pills used to terminate an early pregnancy.
Move comes amid White House pressure on the global health organization to move quickly to reduce stigma around the virus’ name.
Inflation has cooled only slightly and job growth remains strong.
A new POLITICO-Morning Consult poll suggests voters’ views of the economy are baked in.
Housing investment, though, plunged at a 26 percent annual pace, hammered by surging mortgage rates.
According to an NBC News poll released Sunday, 70 percent of registered voters expressed interest in the upcoming election as a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale.
In a special broadcast, we remember the legendary historian, author, professor, playwright and activist Howard Zinn, who was born 100 years ago this August. Zinn was a regular guest on Democracy Now!, from the start of the program in 1996 up until his death in 2010 at age 87.
This year marks 100 years since the birth of the historian Howard Zinn. In 1980, Zinn published his classic work, “A People’s History of the United States.” The book would go on to sell over a million copies and change the way many look at history in America. We begin today’s special with highlights from a production of Howard Zinn’s “Voices of a People’s History of the United States,” where Zinn introduced dramatic readings from history.
In an extended interview, acclaimed physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté discusses his new book, “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.” “The very values of a society are traumatizing for a lot of people,” says Maté, who argues in his book that “psychological trauma, woundedness, underlies much of what we call disease.
Lakota historian Nick Estes talks about Thanksgiving and his book “Our History Is the Future,” and the historic fight against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock. “This history … is a continuing history of genocide, of settler colonialism and, basically, the founding myths of this country,” says Estes, who is a co-founder of the Indigenous resistance group The Red Nation and a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe.
This week U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Philippines, where she said the U.S. would defend the Philippines “in the face of intimidation and coercion” from China and vowed to expand the U.S. military presence in the country even after former bases leaked toxic waste into the environment. We recently spoke about the environment and more with Filipino activist Yeb Saño at the U.N. climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
“I think it’s a big challenge [and] another reason Republicans are looking in a different direction in 2024,” Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short said.
ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt said Trump is “running the most unapologetic white nationalist campaign that we’ve ever seen.
“Donald Trump decides that a good strategy would be to attack the prosecutor’s spouse,” Glenn Kirschner commented.
“Bigotry, hate, and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America — including at Mar-A-Lago,” the White House said in a statement.
When people hear the term “hypothermia,” they tend to picture travelers trapped in endless snowdrifts, or huddling on some high ridge of a mountain whipped by raging gales. But it doesn’t take extreme conditions to put people into extreme duress.
There is no joy quite like diving into a debut book from a rising star writer. There’s a certain excitement and energy that, in my opinion, can’t be replicated. Of course, just being a debut doesn’t mean the book is great, or more specifically, great to your own taste.
We’re in the dark days of the year, in the literal sense. The lights have to go on while I’m still working and the walk home after school happens in the darkness and the artificial light. In truth, I like winter—the weather and in a lot of ways the darkness create a sense of coziness. Snow falling through the glow of streetlights make me very happy (when it snows at all these days).
The first time I came across the Oath Keepers back in the summer of 2009, it was all because of a then-29-year-old ex-Marine wearing a skull mask and ranting about the need for “Patriot” militiamen to “rise up” in “a violent revolution.” It was a telling introduction.
The Marine’s name was Charles Dyer. He was an Iraq War combat veteran, and his videos began turning up in late 2008 and early 2009 on YouTube.
There are times over the last three-plus years that I’ve wondered if I’ve been a little too heavy-handed in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Those questions cropped up anew after Emily Oster of The Atlantic suggested that we declare a “pandemic amnesty” for how we reacted when the pandemic first mushroomed. With few exceptions, even though I’m vaccinated and boosted, I still wear a mask indoors. I also have a hair trigger for displays of covidiocy on social media.
The Senate Democrat said another big focus should be on the handling of counties that refuse to enforce state and national gun laws.
He also criticized China’s Covid-19 response as “shutdowns without a seeming purpose.
“I think we’re going to see a lot more people getting vaccinated in the upcoming weeks. This is why we’re launching the campaign we are right now,” said Ashish Jha, the coordinator of the White House’s Covid-19 response.