Despite the increasing calls for impeaching Trump, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has called for caution. She is struggling to bridge a divide within the party between those who worry that impeachment will fail and those who worry that failing to impeach is tantamount to approving of Trump’s bad behavior. Pelosi therefore leaned heavily …

Users of Uber and Lyft are quite familiar with surge pricing. Basically, when demand is high, drivers are supposed to get a pay boost to encourage them to get on the road and pick up passengers. The idea is that a financial incentive will keep drivers and passengers happy. But there’s a problem: Uber and …

A judge in Brooklyn ruled against a group of parents who attempted to challenge New York’s mandatory measles vaccinations order. The parents claimed the city’s public health authority exceeded its bounds. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public emergency in parts of Brooklyn experiencing a measles outbreak. The declaration required that unvaccinated …

The House voted to reinstate Obama-era net neutrality rules by a vote of 232-190. Predictably, the vote fell along party lines, with only a single Republican––Bill Posey of Florida––breaking ranks with his party to support the bill. Supporters of net neutrality should not get their hopes up yet, however. The bill stands little chance in …

Once upon a time, millions of Americans were absolutely in a rage about Hillary Clinton’s emails. These people believed that, in her capacity as Secretary of State, jeopardized the security of the United States by using a private email server for her communications. There was an FBI investigation about it, just before the election. That investigation likely cost her the election, in fact. It found nothing incriminating in her emails and no negative results of using her private server. 

You might think that a man who built his entire presidency on email security would uphold the strictest email security protocols in his White House. That is not the case, however. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, uses WhatsApp and his personal email for White House business. And Kushner isn’t the only one. 

Ivanka also uses WhatsApp and her personal email. The WhatsApp messages between Kushner and Ivanka are particularly troublesome. WhatsApp messages are encrypted, so unless one of them turn their messages over to the government, there’s no way to tell what was in them.

Former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland and former adviser Stephen K. Bannon also used personal email accounts for White House business. McFarland used AOL. Yes, you read that correctly. AOL.

Adviser Stephen Miller, former chief of staff Reince Priebus, and the former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn all also used personal emails. 

More news.

For half the United States population, the president is doing a great job––and he has been since the first day. For the other half, however, the sky is falling––and it has been since the beginning. But during the past few days, it seems that the intensity of the anti-Trump panic is increasing. 

The Washington Post holds that Trump’s mental state has “frayed” since he fired Comey from the FBI, and he gets especially bad when controversy rocks the White House. In light of the Christchurch shootings and the criticism directed at Trump, it’s no surprise that he seems especially unhinged. He re-ignited a beef with a dead man, John McCain. He retweeted conspiracy theories. He complained about an SNL rerun. 

All of these things made Kellyanne Conway’s husband, George Conway, speculate that Trump is deteriorating: “His condition is getting worse.” He’s referring to his earlier speculation that Trump is a narcissist. 

There is also increasing discussion about Trump’s ties to white supremacy. Critics suggest that Trump cannot distance himself from white supremacists because his power depends on them. Digging through Trump’s tweets, Slate figured out that Trump has retweeted four white supremacists accounts that were later suspended. 

More about politics.

President Donald Trump issued a thinly veiled threat on Monday in an interview with Breitbart News. He said:

“You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. Okay? I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump–I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough—until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”

News outlets have pointed out that these statements are highly authoritarian, but Republicans don’t seem to mind. The Washington Post suggests that Trump’s mention of the police and the military is especially frightening. 

Trump’s boasting on Monday was not a random threat. It must be taken in the context of the week’s political climate. The Mueller report is going to drop any time now, and the House of Representatives just passed a resolution for making the report public with a stunning 420-0 vote in favor. Trump, seeing the potential for a presidency-ending––or an election-killing––report, may be posturing to save his own neck. 

More about politics.

A recent FBI investigation has revealed the largest ever college admissions scam. 

William Singer, owner of college admissions companies Key Worldwide Foundation and Edge College & Career Network, the alleged ringleader of the scam, has pled guilty to accepting bribes totaling $25 million. He also to have worked with over 750 families.

Parents paid Singer, who would in turn have people take admissions tests for students, ensuring perfect scores. He would get the students labeled disabled in some way. He would fake athletic credentials and bribe coaches. These Bribes were often disguised as charitable donations. 

While most of the students seem to have been unaware of their parents schemes, some did know. Take the case of Isabelle Henriquez, for example. She is the daughter of Manuel Henriquez of Hercules Capital. Isabelle took her SAT at a special location, where the proctor worked with Singer. The proctor sat next to Isabelle and gave her the answers “After the exam, he ‘gloated’ with [Isbelle’s mother] Elizabeth Henriquez and her daughter about the fact that they had cheated and gotten away with it.”

What should be done with these students? To maintain the credibility of higher education, there can be only one option: all students who benefitted from this scheme must be immediately expelled or, if they have already graduated, their degrees must be nullified. If they wish to try again, then they must re-apply to colleges under a pseudonym, carefully monitored by an independent agency. Allowing anyone to benefit from cheating devalues the degrees of the millions of Americans who worked hard to earn those degrees, and it makes a mockery of those who make massive financial sacrifices to attend college. The parents of these students should donate money to provide scholarships for low-income students. 

More education.

On Sunday, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after takeoff. The pilot issued a distress call after the plane struggled to ascend at a stable speed. The jet was cleared to return to Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, but it lost contact with air traffic control six minutes after takeoff and then crashed. The plane had 157 people on board, including passengers from at least thirty-five different countries. Among the passengers were United Nations delegates.

The crashed plane was a Boeing 737 Max 8. It was the same kind of plane involved in the Lion Air crash in Indonesia in which 189 people died. Both American and Indonesian officials suggest that automated anti-stall software may have caused the Lion Air crash. 

As a result of this second crash, both China and Indonesia have grounded all Boeing 737 Max 8 flights. The Chinese aviation oversight agency said that it had a zero tolerance policy for safety hazards: “Given that two accidents both involved newly delivered Boeing 737-8 planes and happened during take-off phase, they have some degree of similarity.” This is enough of a risk for China to ground all flights. 

A variety of airlines––many of which operate in the United States––are still operating 737 Max-8 jets. 

More news.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said that there is already direct evidence of Trump colluding with the Russians to influence the 2016 election. 

“I think there is direct evidence in the emails from the Russians through their intermediary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what is described in writing as the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump,”Schiff said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” 

Schiff said those offers look much worse when seen in light of the Moscow Trump Tower deal. Schiff points out the negotiations for that building took place during the 2016 campaign. That means, of course, that Trump was trying to win the presidency and trying to solidify a deal with the Russians at the same time––a clear conflict of interests.  

Schiff did not say that the evidence was enough for impeachment, as that would be total speculation. 

Senator Mark Warner, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said something similar: “I’m going to reserve judgment until I’m finished, but there’s no one who can factually say there isn’t plenty of evidence of collaboration or communication between the Trump Organization and Russians.” 

It’s impossible to predict whether these kinds of accusations will lead to anything, but with Democrats in charge of the House it’s certain that the heat will stay on Trump.

President Donald Trump and his supporters––whom Hillary Clinton famously, and much to her detriment called a “basket of deplorables”––have often been accused of racism, homophobia, and worst of all, hate-inspired violence. But there has been a disturbing Trend in this, the third year of his presidency: people find it increasingly acceptable to harm physically people wearing MAGA (Make America Great Again, Trump’s campaign slogan) hats. 

It began more subtly––by ruining the lives of some high school boys wearing MAGA hats. The incident began when a viral video appeared to show (as this Reddit post reads): “Guy with a MAGA hat mocking a elder Native American protestor.” Later, fuller videos came out that showed the boys simply stood their ground when approached by the Native American man. Further background revealed that the boys seem to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the incident was exacerbated by the fact that they’re immature teenage boys. 

But two incidents have made national news. In one, a New Jersey teen knocked over an elderly man wearing a MAGA hat. In another, a Brazilian woman accosted a man wearing a MAGA hat. The teen faces charges, and the woman faces deportation.

The Miami Herald makes the controversial argument that anti-Trump violence is not reported on with nearly as much intensity as fake Smolletthate crimes, including the “attack.” Like it or not, the Herald makes a point.

More news.

The students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High still feel like it was yesterday when a gunman took the lives of 17 students on February 14th 2018 in Parkland, Florida. The school held a moment of silence and a half-day to commemorate one-year since the deadly attack, reported by ABC News today. For many, they simply …