A Judge Says Thousands of Detainees May Sue a Prison Company for Using Them as a “Captive Labor Force”
John Moore/Getty Early one morning, Abdiaziz Karim was sleeping in his new dorm in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center when an officer woke him up. The guard pointed out graffiti on the wall and a light fixture smeared with toothpaste, and demanded that Karim, a Somali waiting for an asylum hearing, clean…
The Blob Is Going After Iran
A few months ago Donald Trump decided to suddenly yank our troops from Syria. We’d already beaten ISIS, so why not? It was time to get out. But the Wall Street Journal reports today that apparently things have changed: The Trump administration is considering a significant expansion of the U.S. military footprint in the Middle…
Global Carbon Emissions Will Hit a Record High in 2019… Again.
Carbon dioxide emissions in the United States rose 3.4 percent in 2018, the largest increase in eight years. A rise in emissions from factories, trucks and planes contributed heavily to this increase.Scott Olson/Getty This piece was originally published in HuffPost and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership. Global carbon emissions will hit…
A New Federal Judge Appointed by Trump Has Fought Against Abortion, Fertility Treatments, and Surrogacy
Tom Williams/CQPHO/AP Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to confirm Sarah Pitlyk, who has argued against in vitro fertilization and surrogacy and touted the (debunked) “eugenic origins of the birth control movement,” to a lifetime judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. On Tuesday, Sen. Susan Collins was the only Republican to vote…
Climate Scientists Get an A For Their Warming Predictions
The key metric in all models of the earth’s climate is sensitivity. That is, how much will the globe warm for every ton of greenhouse gases that we dump into the atmosphere? If sensitivity is low, we have little to worry about. If sensitivity is high, we’re well on our way to broiling ourselves to…
A Million-Dollar Donation From Ukraine to the Trump Campaign Would Be Corrupt. So Why Isn’t a Million-Dollar Investigation?
The House is currently hearing from constitutional scholars about whether Ukrainegate constitutes an impeachable offense. I would like to offer up a hypothetical. Consider the following two demands from the Trump team: Demand #1: The president won’t release military aid until Zelensky goes on TV and commits to opening a serious investigation of Burisma and…