The Month-to-month’s Presidential Accomplishment Index on CNN
The Washington Month-to-month’s April/Might/June print problem, 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 occasions for the Month-to-month about how the warrantless surveillance allowed underneath Part 702 of the International Intelligence Surveillance Act is important and efficient and doesn’t trample on the privateness rights of Individuals.
In March 2023, I made The Case for Protecting Enhanced Surveillance Authority. Final December, I famous If Conservatives Care Concerning 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 had been focused by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program underneath J. Edgar Hoover, had been the first opponents of surveillance powers.
However Hoover is lifeless, and conspiracy theorizing on the fitting could 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 right now, after decreasing 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 accomplice with far-right Republican and push unwarranted paranoia of federal legislation enforcement businesses within the course of.
At present within the Month-to-month, I clarify why Democrats ought to defend Part 702 as a substitute 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, although 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 higher wield energy and drive the 2 main events to courtroom the agricultural vote.
Since then, the guide turned 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 for those who 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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