What’s coming up on Sunday Kos:
- Book review: 'The Tribalization of Politics' by Susan Grigsby
- The ongoing human rights crime at our border has grown critical, by Frank Vyan Walton
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Healthcare beyond hormones: Trans patients struggle to find inclusive care for common health issues, by Marissa Higgins
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Pretty hate machine: bot nation threatens our national discourse, by Chris Reeves
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Limbaugh, Tiger, Obama, and Trump: I'm not talking about a golf foursome, by Ian Reifowitz
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"Fact checking Democrats in a sea of Trump lies," by Eric Boehlert
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The sinner's prayer, by Irna L Landrum
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Democratic Party candidates need to respond to the Black Census Report, by Denise Oliver Velez
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Republicans peddle grotesque abortion-slavery comparison, by Jon Perr
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Using stories from real life to make the existential fight for Medicare for All real to all, by Egberto Willies
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Soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, by Mark E Andersen
• Owners of Russian aluminum mill being built in Kentucky say it’s not subject to a national security review:
A Russian-backed aluminum mill trying to set up shop in Kentucky insists it is outside the scope of any review by a special government panel charged with scrutinizing foreign investment that could cause national security concerns.
A statement to McClatchy Wednesday from Braidy Industries said that while it “respects and supports the important national security responsibilities” of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, its $1.7 billion mill project in Ashland “does not enter or interfere with (the committee’s) rules or regulations.”
Congressional Democrats want such a review because of a planned $200 million investment from a Kremlin-linked company. The Treasury Department, while not confirming or denying any such review, said in a letter Tuesday that it has the power to lead one.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Report finds that 7% of new cars sold in first quarter of 2019 had self-driving capabilities: Tesla, Toyota, and Nissan may love this payback for its investment in technology that allows car owners to skip the driving part of getting to their destinations. But, reports Alex Davies, “researchers and customer advocacy groups [...] say the manufacturers of such systems do a lackluster job of ensuring that drivers know how they work and what they can and can’t do.”
• Trump regime wins in case on Keystone XL pipeline:
A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out a lower court decision to halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. But several major obstacles remain to the controversial project's progress, ensuring that the much-delayed Keystone XL will likely not be built soon.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision hands a victory, at least for now, to the Trump administration and tar sands oil interests that have sought to jump-start construction of the northern leg of the pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska.
• Military appeals court reverses West Point cadet’s rape conviction: And sexual assault victim advocates are pissed. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Army court of criminal appeals ordered Jacob Whisenhunt released from confinement and reinstated at the U.S. Military Academy. In 2017, he was convicted on three counts of sexual assault by a jury of six West Point faculty and staff. He has served two years of his 21-year sentence. The panel said it found the information on which Whisenhunt was convicted to be “factually insufficient.” He was convicted of raping a female classmate in her sleeping bag during field training in 2016. The woman testified that she froze when she awakened to find Whisenhunt assaulting her. He testified it was consensual sex and that he and the woman had tried to be quiet so squad members would not hear them. The AP reported that the three judges “found it implausible that the woman would stay quiet while being raped and that Whisenhunt would be so brazen as to expect to get away with it.” They apparently bought into the myth that it isn’t rape unless the victim screams and fights back, so gave Whisenhunt a pass once again showing why so many men do expect to get away with it.