Post opinion columnists like Perry Bacon Jr. and Margaret Sullivan have argued for journalists to drop their usual both-sides coverage of politics to more directly cast pro-Trumpian election threats as a threat to the republic.
There are signs that some of those attitudes have also reached the newsroom rank-and-file. While 76% of American adults polled in a recent Pew Research Center study said that journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage, a majority of journalists surveyed disagreed.
Andy Donohue, executive editor of projects for the publication Reveal at the Center for Investigative Reporting, who predicted the rise of the democracy beat in 2020, said in the journalism industry that there is “very broad recognition from everyone from newsroom leaders to reporters that we very much are in a red-alert threat for a real demise to our democratic system.”
“This isn’t Medicare expansion, where you get like, ‘the Democrats say and the Republicans say,’” Donohue said. “We can take the point of view that dismantling American democracy is bad, and start from that point of view and work backward.”
... State lawmakers are invited to huddle in Denver starting on Sunday to learn more about the inner workings of a possible constitutional convention at Academy of States 3.0, the third installment of a boot camp preparing state lawmakers "in anticipation of an imminent Article V Convention."
Rob Natelson, a constitutional scholar and senior fellow at the Independence Institute who closely studies Article V of the Constitution, predicted to Insider there's a 50% chance that the United States will witness a constitutional convention in the next five years. Whether it happens, he said, is highly dependent on Republicans' success winning state legislatures during the 2022 midterm elections. [snip]
If they were successful, a constitutional convention led by conservatives could trigger sweeping changes to the Constitution.
Their goals include gutting federal environmental standards, nixing nationwide education requirements, and creating an incredibly high threshold for Washington, DC, or a territory to earn statehood. Some would like to make it difficult, if not impossible, for someone — National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, for example — to work for decades within the federal government.
Former President Donald Trump, close to announcing a campaign for a second term in office, would find much to love about the convention movement.
Former President Donald Trump lashed out Sunday at American WNBA star Brittney Griner as “spoiled,” and indicated he wouldn’t make any deals to get her out of prison in Russia because she “makes a lot of money.”
Griner was arrested in Moscow in February as she entered the country for a tournament when officials discovered vape cartridges with cannabis oil in her luggage.
Trump claimed on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show that Griner entered Russia “loaded up with drugs.”
In fact she had .7 grams (.024 ounces) of cannabis oil, which is legal in her home state of Arizona and in many other states in America. Russian media, which reported the amount, said officials considered it “significant.”
Griner, who said she had a doctor’s note for the cannabis oil, explained in a Russian court when she pleaded guilty early this month that she had forgotten that it was in her bag and brought it into the country inadvertently. [snip]
Trump criticized reports that the U.S. is considering trading notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, being held in an American prison, to secure the release of Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence in Russia on what U.S. officials call baseless espionage charges. [snip]
Griner “went in there loaded up with drugs into a hostile territory where they’re very vigilant about drugs,” Trump complained. “They don’t like drugs. And she got caught.”
He added: “Now we’re supposed to get her out — and she makes, you know, a lot of money. We’re supposed to get her out for an absolute killer and one of the biggest arms dealers in the world. Killed many Americans. Killed many people, and he’s going to get a free card,” Trump added.
Why can't we trade the Malignant Loser, his family, and his Christofascist followers for the Americans? He'd be a hero in like- minded Putin's Russia, and our national average IQ would skyrocket, and fraud and seditious crime would take a nosedive.
BONUS: Not an uncommon thought, to say the least --
