“Trump is ruining our markets.” By Mary Papenfuss HuffPost (8/12/19) American farmers are attacking President Donald Trump in the wake of a new hit from China, which comes as part of the lingering trade war between the countries. Trump’s “strategy of constant escalation and antagonism” has worsened the situation, Roger Johnson, the president of the National Farmers Union, the nation’s second-largest general farmers group, told Bloomberg. Family farmers and ranchers “can’t withstand this kind of pressure much longer,” he added. “It’s really, really getting bad out here,” Bob Kuylen, a North Dakota farmer of 35 years, told CNBC. “Trump is ruining…

Putting pressure on the people in power. By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams (8/14/19) Swedish teen climate activist Great Thunberg set sail aboard a zero-emissions boat Wednesday, beginning a two-week journey across the Atlantic Ocean for a United Nations summit in New York City. The 16-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee—whose solo protests outside the Swedish Parliament have inspired #FridaysForFuture school strikes across the globe—has chosen not to fly to highlight air travel’s contributions to the climate crisis. Instead, she opted for what The Associated Press described as “a high-tech but decidedly low-comfort sailboat.” Put pressure on the people in power “By this journey I hope to increase awareness among…

In practice, this executive order would mean that whichever political party is in power could dictate what speech is allowed on the Internet. By Jon Queally, Common Dreams (8/11/19) Civil liberties groups are warning of a major threat to online freedoms and First Amendment rights if a leaked draft of a Trump administration edict—dubbed by critics as a “Censor the Internet” executive order that would give powerful federal agencies far-reaching powers to pick and choose which kind of Internet material is and is not acceptable—is allowed to go into effect. According to CNN, which obtained a copy of the draft, the new rule “calls for…

We sought information on the FBI’s claims of 90 domestic terrorism arrests and, frankly, it got kind of weird. By Fritz Zimmermann ProPublia (8/9/19) On July 23, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee that federal investigations of domestic terrorism had led to some 100 arrests in the last nine months. While the FBI quickly announced that the number was 90, not 100, the basic message appeared unchanged: The FBI was actively investigating and prosecuting domestic terrorists. The 90 arrests have been cited countless times since last weekend’s killing of 22 people in El Paso, Texas, by a man suspected of…

Sludge and Data for Progress analyzed the Democratic presidential candidates’ donors by income, race, gender, age, and ideology. [Editor’s Note: Link to the story to find excellent graphs to go with each category below. — Mark L. Taylor] By Donald Shaw & Alex Kotch Sludge (8/8/19) As dozens of Democrats compete to become their party’s nominee for president of the United States, Sludge and Data for Progress have analyzed the individuals who made campaign contributions totaling over $200 to the candidates in the first half of 2019 to create demographic profiles of the candidates’ donor bases. For the 2020 presidential cycle, our…