Fearless, Adversarial Journalism – Spoken Edition

Subscribe to the Deconstructed podcast onApple Podcasts,Google Podcasts,Stitcher,Radio Public, andother platforms. New to podcasting? Clickhere. In the wake of the 2018 midterms, the Democratic Party in Congress is looking a lot more diverse—not just in terms of gender and ethnicity, but in ideology as well.

The letter from the IRS is datedDecember 24,2018, the Monday after the start of the government shutdown. The headline reads, “Notice of intent to seize (levy) your property or rights to property.” It describes how the recipient, Aaron Caddel, owner of a small chain of boutique bakeries called Mr. Holmes Bakehouse,has 30 days to pay the $86,296.40 owed the government or face seizure of the funds from his company’s bank account.

Last November, the French started a new Saturday tradition: “Gilet jaune” protesters wearing yellow safety vestsstarted to taketo the streets by the tens of thousands in the morning, shouting slogans against the high cost of living, against French President Emmanuel Macron, and against his detested taxes and social service reforms.

In the first major strike since the U.S. Supreme Court struck a blow to public-sector unions last June, more than 30,000 Los Angeles public school teachers took to the rainy streets Monday to launch the LA teachers union’s first labor stoppage in 30 years. It’s the seventh major teacher protest over the last year, but unlike their counterparts in Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, the Los Angeles teachers are not striking against austere Republican state legislatures.

Gail Atwater and her two young children were driving home from soccer practice in March 1997 when they realized that a rubber bat that was usually affixed to the window of their pickup truck was missing. It was a favorite toy of Atwater’s 3-year-old, Mac, so the trio turned around, retracing their route to see if they could find it. Atwater slowed to a speed of roughly 15 miles per hour as she cruised through Lago Vista, the lakeside bedroom community just northwest of Austin, Texas.

Last week, the New York Times reported that the FBI, in 2017, launched an investigation of President Trump “to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security” and specifically “whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.

Since its founding in the early 20th century, theU.S. Border Patrol has operated with near-complete impunity, arguably serving as the most politicized and abusive branch of federal law enforcement — even more so than theFBI during J. Edgar Hoover’s directorship. The 1924 Immigration Act tapped into a xenophobia with deep roots in the U.S. history. The law effectively eliminated immigration from Asia and sharply reduced arrivals from southern and eastern Europe.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, center, speaks to the press during a tour of the newly inaugurated Al-Fattah Al-Alim mosque in Egypt’s new administrative capital, east of Cairo, on Jan. 10, 2019. Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, Pool/AFP/Getty Images “The good news is this: The age of self-inflicted American shame is over.” So said Mike Pompeo in Cairo on Thursday.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezfailed in her long-shot bid for a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, according to an announcement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday evening. Pelosi named a member of the New Democrat Coalition, the centrist wing of the party, to the seat instead, part of a sweeping set of wins by the Wall Street-friendly caucus.

The “smart home” of the 21st century isn’t just supposed to be a monument to convenience, we’re told, but also to protection, a Tony Stark-like bubble of vigilant algorithms and internet-connected sensors working ceaselessly to watch over us. But for some who’ve welcomed in Amazon’s Ring security cameras, there have been more than just algorithms watching through the lens, according to sources alarmed by Ring’s dismal privacy practices.

Republican Jon Kyl, whose second Senate tenure concluded on December 31, is keeping secret nine clients he advised while working at a powerful corporate lobbying and law firm in 2017 and 2018. Kyl was supposed to reveal the clients in his mandatory Senate financial disclosure, but he cited a D.C. bar rule to keep them confidential. Kyl, a longtime U.S.

An Afghan National Army soldier overlooks a valley in eastern Afghanistan in October 2013. Photo: Sebastiano Tomada/Sipa USA via AP There’s been a lot of talk from politicians and world leaders about President Donald Trump’s recent announcement that the U.S. will pullabout 7,000 troopsout of Afghanistan, reducing the American military presence there by half. But little has been heard from those with the most at stake: Afghans themselves.

In the first vote of the 116th Congress on Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was one of just three Democrats who split with their party and voted against a rules package introduced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and backed by the leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke speaks to the crowd at his Turn out For Texas Rally, featuring a concert by Wille Nelson, in Austin, Texas on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/AP Just before thenew year, Steve Phillips, senior fellow at liberal think tank Center for American Progress, filed paperwork to launch a Super PAC to support New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s anticipated 2020 run.

NBC News and MSNBC specializein repeating and disseminating what U.S intelligence officials tell them to say and then calling that servitude “reporting.” Those two networks really are the all-but-official outlets for CIA messaging. And this status has led their brightest on-air stars tobroadcasta series of extremely consequential stories that turned out to be humiliatingly wrong.