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Radical democratic transformation seeks to empower those that have been excluded from the leading roles in the digital economy
To note that the “techlash” – our rude and abrupt awakening to the mammoth powers of technology companies – is gaining force by the month is to state the obvious. Amazon’s sudden departure from New York City, where it was planning to open a second headquarters, attests to the rapidly changing political climate. The New Yorkers, apparently, have no desire to spend nearly $3bn in subsidies in order to lure Amazon – a company that, on making $11.2bn in profits in 2018, has paid no tax and even managed to book $129m in tax rebates.
Ignored in most accounts of the growing anti-Silicon Valley sentiment is the incongruence of the political and ideological forces behind the techlash. To paraphrase a Russian classic: while all the happy apologists of big tech are alike, all its critics are unhappy in their own way. These critics, united by their hatred of the digital giants, do make short-term tactical alliances; such arrangements, however, cannot hold in the long term.
Continue reading...If democracy is to recapture the world’s imagination, it will have to show it can deliver a better way of life than the autocrats
Every time the president of the United States declares the free press an enemy or calls to congratulate a newly elected strongman, it comes as a reminder of what we already knew: democracy is in retreat, in the US and around the world. An apologist for military dictatorship now leads Brazil. China’s premier no longer has to worry about term limits. Hungary, Turkey and the Philippines have opted for authoritarians. Surveys suggest that people around the world, including the young, have declining faith in democracy as a sensible way to govern.
Democracy’s champions, meanwhile, are rushing to the barricades in defense. The new leadership of the House of Representatives has made this session’s HR 1 bill a tome that, when all is said and done, at best catches the country up to best practices internationally. Others are going to court to defend old norms, like presidents disclosing their tax returns. They fly to places where ballot access is under attack and watch for irregularities. These are all noble-enough causes, but they don’t do sufficient justice to the fact of how poorly the institutions being defended have come to serve us.
Continue reading...Johnny Manziel’s time in the Canadian Football League is over. The CFL terminated the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner’s contract with the Montreal Alouettes on Wednesday. The league also informed the eight other teams that it wouldn’t register a contract for Manziel if any tried to sign him.
The league said Manziel had violated an agreement that made him eligible to play in the CFL. “We advised Montreal that Johnny had violated one of the conditions we had set for him to be in our league. And Montreal announced his release today,” CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie said. “We didn’t release the terms of those conditions then and we’re not going to do that now. “
Continue reading...A Canadian semi-pro hockey league has apologized to a black player who left the ice in the middle of a game because he and his family in the stands were subjected to racist abuse from spectators.
Jonathan Diaby, a 24-year-old defenseman for Marquis de Jonquière of the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey (LNAH), an independent league based in Quebec, said the abuse began after he received a penalty during the first period of Saturday’s game against Pétroliers du Nord in Saint-Jérôme, about 60km northwest of Montreal.
Continue reading...The new season kicks off this weekend. Our panel of writers deliver their verdicts on the MVP, MLS Cup champions and white shirts
Seeing FC Cincinnati be the biggest thing to hit the city since WKRP went off the air. And it’ll be fun to see the midwest steal the hipster northwest’s thunder for a year. BD
Continue reading...Members of Congress approved measure requiring federal background checks for all firearms sales by vote of 240-190
Gun control campaigners celebrated a precious win on Wednesday when the US House of Representatives passed its first major legislation on the issue in nearly a quarter of a century.
Related: ‘A Parkland every five days’: project tells stories of the children lost to gun violence
Continue reading...The US president’s former lawyer labels him an unpatriotic ‘liar’, a ‘cheat’ and a ‘racist’ who was part of a criminal scheme
Donald Trump, is a “conman”, a “racist” and “liar” who knew about the WikiLeaks trove of hacked Clinton campaign emails before they were released and lied about negotiating a real estate project in Russia during his presidential campaign, his former lawyer Michael Cohen has alleged in testimony to Congress.
The explosive opening statement, which Cohen says is “the truth about Mr Trump” was delivered to the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday morning.
Continue reading...Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr was arrested after grand jury indictments alleging illegal possession of absentee ballots
A political operative at the center of a ballot fraud scandal in North Carolina was arrested on Wednesday on criminal charges over activities in the 2016 elections and the Republican primary in 2018.
The Wake county district attorney, Lorrin Freeman, announced that Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr was arrested after grand jury indictments alleging illegal possession of absentee ballots and obstruction of justice.
Continue reading...Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle garnered the most votes, but neither received the more than 50% needed to avoid 2 April runoff
A former federal prosecutor and a county board leader will face each other in a runoff for the mayorship of Chicago this spring – in a contest that will result in the city being led by its first black female mayor.
The two women topped a large field of candidates in Tuesday’s election that included a member of the Daley family that has dominated the city’s politics for much of the last six decades.
Continue reading...U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz said he 'personally apologized' to Michael Cohen after tweeting Tuesday that his wife was about to learn of the lawyer's alleged trysts.
View full coverage on Google NewsWalmart is replacing blue-vested people greeters with customer hosts, a move that is affecting many disabled employees.
View full coverage on Google NewsNASA's Juno spacecraft recently captured the images, which were later color-enhanced.
View full coverage on Google NewsNEW DELHI — Pakistan said it shot down two Indian aircraft inside its airspace and launched strikes on Indian-controlled Kashmir on Wednesday.
View full coverage on Google NewsDonald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen is prepared to testify that Trump was aware of longtime adviser Roger Stone's efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks in ...
View full coverage on Google NewsPresident Donald Trump declared a national emergency on February 15 in order to free up funds to build his desired wall along the US-Mexico border.
View full coverage on Google NewsHANOI – Warming up for his meetings with Kim Jong Un, President Donald Trump spoke to the leaders of Vietnam on Wednesday while proclaiming that their ...
View full coverage on Google NewsTrump's attorneys told The New York Times that the notes were a jewel in special counsel Robert Mueller's evidence that President Donald Trump may have ...
View full coverage on Google NewsIn each of the past four years, 1,000 or more immigrant children who arrived at the southern U.S. border without their parents have reported being sexually ...
View full coverage on Google NewsRep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fired back at Ivanka Trump on Tuesday after the senior White House adviser said she doesn't think most people believe in the ...
View full coverage on Google NewsDetails surrounding the alleged murders of five Pennsylvania family members at the hands of a mother and daughter duo emerged Tuesday, suggesting the ...
View full coverage on Google News76-year old incumbent gets 56 percent of the votes securing a second four-year term as head of Africa's largest economy.
View full coverage on Google NewsThe British prime minister said if lawmakers vote down her deal again, they can vote for a short-term extension of the Brexit deadline.
View full coverage on Google NewsLONDON — Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, announced Monday evening that his bloc in Parliament would support a second ...
View full coverage on Google NewsYellow-vest protests have rocked France for 15 weeks, and while the most dramatic scenes have been in Paris, much of the discontent has spread from the ...
View full coverage on Google NewsKraft Heinz was slashed by one-third in three days. Will the company lose its investment-grade credit rating? This article discusses the critical metric to watc.
View full coverage on Google NewsJeep announced today that its new Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer are expected to launch in early 2021, so now it's time to ponder what these machines ...
View full coverage on Google NewsGREENWOOD COUNTY, S.C. -- The South Carolina man who was widely praised for buying $540 worth of Girl Scout cookies was arrested by Drug ...
View full coverage on Google NewsWe told you back in December that Samsung wasn't going to be targeting the mass market with its super-expensive, ultra-luxe Galaxy Fold -- the plan here is not ...
View full coverage on Google NewsThe Huawei Mate X is the here, and it's straight outta the future. We've gotten our hands on the hottest device of MWC 2019!
View full coverage on Google NewsSpotify has officially arrived in India, one of the fastest growing music markets. Its premium offering is priced between 18 cents a day to $1.67 a month.
View full coverage on Google NewsNubia's Alpha is a smartphone with a 4-inch flexible OLED display you wear on your wrist. It's hideous and clunky and maybe the worst thing at MWC 2019.
View full coverage on Google NewsThe Kardashian-Jenner family isn't happy that Jordyn Woods is going public with her side of the drama. A source tells ET, "The Kardashians are upset with ...
View full coverage on Google NewsWhile R. Kelly spent the weekend behind bars at Cook County Jail after being charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, a fan he'd met just a ...
View full coverage on Google NewsNickelodeon on Tuesday unveiled the nominees and host — DJ Khaled — for this year's Kids' Choice Awards.
View full coverage on Google NewsChadwick Boseman may not have turned his back to the stage like Spike Lee, but he was spotted having a crucial reaction when the Oscars ended with “Green ...
View full coverage on Google NewsBLACKSBURG, Va. -- The Zion Williamson watch continues, and Duke's struggles without its star big man did, too, in a 77-72 loss to Virginia Tech on Tuesday.
View full coverage on Google NewsThe Oklahoma City Thunder put a scare into the Denver Nuggets with a strong fourth quarter spurt, but the Nuggets pulled away late to go to 3-0 on the season ...
View full coverage on Google NewsKyrie Irving is a former NBA champion, a six-time All-Star, and is, in his curious way, the vocal leader of the Boston Celtics, a nominal championship contender ...
View full coverage on Google NewsCats may rule the internet, but few felines have achieved the online fame of Lil Bub. Discovered as a feral kitten outside Bloomington, Indiana, in 2011, she had ...
Quantum computers will process significantly more information at once compared to today's computers. But the building blocks that contain this information ...
View full coverage on Google NewsSpain’s record scorer on revolutionising football in her home city and her petition to get female players on computer games
Towards the end of 2018 Vero Boquete, Spain’s all-time leading goalscorer who has won a Champions League and domestic titles in three countries, received “the biggest prize” of her career.
In her home city of Santiago de Compostela – in Galicia in the north-west of Spain and famous for being the climax of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route – the main stadium was renamed the Estadio Vero Boquete de San Lázaro.
Continue reading...Democrats, joined by 13 Republicans, passed the measure killing the president’s border wall order; it now moves to a Senate vote
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has advanced a resolution to terminate Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration at the US-Mexico border, in a bid to block the president from beginning construction on a border wall without approval from Congress.
In a vote of 245-182, the House easily passed the measure.
Continue reading...Democrats are moving quickly to try to roll back Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to siphon billions of dollars from the military to fund construction of a fence along the US-Mexico border.
Related: Kim Jong-un arrives in Hanoi for Vietnam summit with Donald Trump
Continue reading...FDA to offer faster drug reviews to companies promoting 'national priorities' ABC News FDA to offer faster drug reviews to comp...