As of March 26, 2021, the effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom appears to have made it onto the ballot. California will see its second gubernatorial recall election in under two decades. The Golden State is a very different place than it was in 2003, when Governor Gray Davis was defenestrated in favor of movie star Arnold Schwarzanegger, and betting markets show Newsom as the strong favorite — but Davis was expected to sail out of the recall at the beginning, too. Why was Davis an easier target, and should Newsom worry that he too will be “sent to the cooler”?
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In a 2017 reconciliation bill, Congress imposed a strongly progressive tax increase on the wealthiest Americans, which was unanimously opposed by the minority opposition. In a bygone era of income-polarized politics, one might have expected Democrats to support such an increase while Republicans vehemently opposed it. Instead, it was proposed by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) while Democrats in the House and Senate made the increase a target for their (wildly successful) 2018 campaigns. The increase came in the form of a cap on the esoteric SALT deduction, but what does the deduction actually do, and why are Democrats from Katie Porter to Nancy Pelosi so eager to see it restored?
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A golden statue of Trump. Rampant conspiracies regarding voter fraud circulating. Potential candidates seeking to succeed Trump. As much as the Trump presidency seems like a fever dream in light of the perceived return to normalcy under Biden, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) demonstrated that Trumpism, and perhaps Trump himself, will remain mainstays in American politics and have supplanted the traditional conservative establishment as the face of the Republican Party.
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Republicans in Congress act with the goal of repealing an obscure piece of legislation called Section 230, part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The law is composed of two portions: a shield and sword. The shield defends Internet companies from liability for the content posted on their platforms. The sword allows such companies to moderate their services however they would like, permitting them to remove pornography, spam, and other posts that would hamper the user experience. These protections have allowed the Internet to flourish, such that Section 230 was dubbed “the law that created the Internet.” With recent events, however, Section 230 has come under fire by politicians on both sides of the aisle.
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This year, it is more important than ever for people to get their flu shot. As we head into the dry, cold weather, flu season, COVID-19 cases are also surging and people in the United States and around the world should definitely not want to risk catching coronavirus and the flu at the same time.
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“The Iowa caucuses have been nothing short of a disaster. Before they began, full results were expected by the end of the night. It has now been over one week since Iowa, and there is still no official winner...Initial problems began when the Shadow App, an application used to vote in certain precincts, crashed.”
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“An economy previously built on dispersed manufacturing has transitioned to white-collar jobs in urban areas like California’s Silicon Valley, and the supply of new housing hasn’t been remotely close to keeping pace with the increasing demand.[2] Yet, it hasn’t always been this way — and it doesn’t have to be now.”
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“It’s all too easy to take for granted all of the ways technology has improved our lives. But as in most things, some have benefitted from the technological revolution more than others. And the ones who’ve gained the most have done so largely in the shadows, packaging and selling their product to anyone who can pay the price. This ever-growing industry is Big Data. And all of us are the product.”
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“The question of overcoming the virus is hardly a scientific one anymore, but a political and ethical one.”
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Pelosi’s heavy involvement in President Trump’s history-making impeachment, among several other more specific instances demonstrating the pair’s mutual animosity- namely their respective State of the Union behavior and the ensuing social media battle- have led to the House Speaker coming to represent different things to different people.
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