On Thursday, federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C. dropped charges against 129 of the remaining 188 people facing rioting charges during the DisruptJ20 protests on Donald Trump’s inauguration last January. The decision comes after a jury found all six of the defendants in the first round of trials not guilty on all charges on Dec. 21.
national politics
Posted inOpinion
Democracy in Crisis: The state of protest in 2018
Donald Trump’s second year in office begins like every new Star Wars movie: with the Resistance in tatters, trying to rebuild. There is plenty of internet #Resistance, ranging from insane conspiracy theories to serious commentary and organizing — but this online profusion has resulted in IRL confusion.
Posted inLetters
Letter to the Editor: Legislative session opens today; call now
Congress is back in session today and that means it’s time to start writing and calling our reps again. Need a topic? Here are a few, but there are many other issues as well.
Posted inOpinion
Democracy in Crisis: How Screwed Are We in 2018?
At the beginning of 2017, we were in purgatory. Remember the interregnum, after we elected Trump but before he took office? We knew it would be bad, but we also had no idea how bad or what to expect. Then Trump took office. Hundreds of people were arrested on Inauguration Day. Tens of thousands came out for the Women’s March. People spontaneously stormed airports when Trump’s first travel ban went into effect.
Posted inOpinion
Democracy in Crisis: 10 of Trump’s insane tweets
I got drunk recently and read all 2,735 tweets that Donald Trump had written since the election in the hopes that Trump’s Twitter feed, collected and searchable on trumptwitterarchive.com, might be a good way to get a sense of the horrors we’ve endured.
Posted inLetters
Letter to the Editor: Paul Ryan promoting a higher birth rate? “Misogyny in its finest hour!”
I frequently have the TV on when I’m doing work in my kitchen and the other day was no exception. CNN happened to be on and I caught the last few minutes of Paul Ryan’s news conference. I wasn’t paying much attention until I heard him advocating for the overhaul of entitlements and increasing the birth rate in this country.
Posted inLetters
Letter to the Editor: Take a Minute to Help Save Net Neutrality
This Thursday, Dec. 14, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to force a vote to end net neutrality. I’ll bet I’m not the first person to warn you about this. But I’ll also bet that you don’t entirely understand what all of this really means.
Posted inCommunity/News
Democracy in Crisis: Jackson Mayor on Trump’s visit to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
Noted racist and U.S. President Donald Trump had the audacity to attend the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson last Saturday.
Posted inCommunity/News, Opinion
Democracy in Crisis: In the struggle to reclaim the U.S. from Trump, impeachment is an unlikely solution
What a year it has been since the dark night when the Democrats lost to Trump. And now, still lacking a serious vision, the Democrats will use the promise of impeachment as an election strategy to try to take the House in 2018.
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa City will likely keep City of Literature designation despite U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO
The U.S. plans to withdraw from UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, but Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature Executive Director John Kenyon said he doesn’t believe the decision will have much of an impact on the local designation or the activities of the local organization.
Posted inUncategorized
Democracy in Crisis: What ‘War and Peace,’ umbrellas and anti-fascists tell us about the way we understand the world
Last week, a few moments before Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner, chair and co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee respectively, came out to present an update on their investigation into Russian attempts to interfere with the 2016 election, a man walked out carrying a large cardboard sign — not a protest sign, but the clip-arty press-conference explainers that are always terrible but expensive looking.
Posted inUncategorized
Democracy in Crisis Podcast: Politics, guns and terror in Las Vegas
In this week’s episode cohosts Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg talk about right-wing politics, country music, guns and the terror in Las Vegas.
