The Month-to-month’s Presidential Accomplishment Index on CNN
The Washington Month-to-month’s April/Could/June print situation, that includes our Presidential Accomplishment Index evaluating the coverage data of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, is injecting some desperately wanted perspective into the media’s protection of the 2024 marketing campaign.
Yesterday, Editor-in-Chief Paul Glastris talked to Jake Tapper on his present “The Lead with Jake Tapper” about our complete evaluation. You possibly can take a look at the interview on CNN.com or Tapper’s Instagram feed.
As GOP Splinters on Part 702, Dems Ought to Unite
I’ve written just a few instances for the Month-to-month about how the warrantless surveillance allowed below Part 702 of the International Intelligence Surveillance Act is critical and efficient and doesn’t trample on the privateness rights of Individuals.
In March 2023, I made The Case for Preserving Enhanced Surveillance Authority. Final December, I famous If Conservatives Care In regards to the Border So A lot, They Shouldn’t Wreck Part 702.
It was that left-wing members of Congress, with lengthy recollections of how civil rights and anti-war activists have been focused by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program below J. Edgar Hoover, have been the first opponents of surveillance powers.
However Hoover is useless, and conspiracy theorizing on the precise may be very a lot alive. So now Donald Trump and his minions are those main the combat to hamstring the FBI, whom they baselessly accuse of abusing its powers to oppose Trump.
Yesterday, 19 hypocritical, supposedly border-obsessed conservatives within the Home sunk a procedural vote, stopping flooring consideration of an extension of this system earlier than authorization expires subsequent Friday.
(As I write this, the Speaker Mike Johnson’s workplace is telling congressional reporters that the Home will take one other procedural vote later at this time, after lowering the size of the Part 702 reauthorization invoice from 5 years to 2.)
With Republicans in disarray but once more, Democrats ought to unite to assist get Part 702 reauthorized. But just a few Democrats proceed to associate with far-right Republican and push unwarranted paranoia of federal regulation enforcement businesses within the course of.
At present within the Month-to-month, I clarify why Democrats ought to defend Part 702 as an alternative of validating far-right conspiracies.
The White Rural Rage Controversy
Again in February, the Month-to-month printed an excerpt from the brand new guide White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman.
Within the excerpt, the authors argued that rural voters largely vote for Republican politicians, despite the fact that Republican politicians don’t return the favor with insurance policies that profit rural voters. Schaller and Waldman proposed creating “a brand new rural political motion” to raised wield energy and drive the 2 main events to courtroom the agricultural vote.
Since then, the guide grew to become a nationwide bestseller, but additionally attracted fierce criticism from rural students—most notably in The Atlantic and Politico—who declare the guide caricatures rural whites as violent, authoritarian, and racist.
At present, Schaller and Waldman printed a response to their critics in The New Republic.
No matter your view on the guide, I believe you’ll discover if you happen to learn the excerpt, and all the following exchanges, you’re going to be extra knowledgeable concerning the plight of rural America.
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