Search Results for: BID

Clean Mobility: Why the EV transition should provide all Americans with safe and reliable options

By Sita M. Syal, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan The race to decarbonize passenger cars and light-duty trucks in the U.S. is accelerating. Battery electric vehicles accounted for almost 6% of all new vehicle sales in 2022, up from close to 3% in 2021, and demand is outstripping supply, even as manufacturers roll out new models and designs. The Biden administration is spending billions of dollars to build out EV charging networks and providing incentives for purchasing new and used EVs. This shift offers big economic and environmental benefits, but they’re not spread equitably. People who...

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SCOTUS for sale: How a “donation” of $25,000 can buy some “face time” over dinner with a sitting justice

If you think Republican politicians in Congress are corrupt, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Check out how little it costs to purchase access to a Supreme Court justice. Conservatives on the Supreme Court famously legalized billionaires and corporations bribing politicians back in 1976 and 1978, respectively (Buckley v Valeo and First National Bank v Bellotti), doubling down on and expanding the doctrine in 2010 (Citizens United). Back in the 1970s Democratic politicians’ campaigns were largely funded by unions: the movement was awash in cash as it represented nearly a third of American workers. So when the Court legalized political bribery, most...

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Fan the flames: Audio recording exposes Trump campaign staff’s work to promote 2020 election lies

A newly released audio recording offers a behind-the-scenes look at how former President Donald Trump’s campaign team in a pivotal battleground state knew they had been outflanked by Democrats in the 2020 presidential election. But even as they acknowledged defeat, they pivoted to allegations of widespread fraud that were ultimately debunked, repeatedly, by elections officials and the courts. The audio from November 5, 2020, two days after the election, is surfacing as Trump again seeks the White House while continuing to lie about the legitimacy of the outcome and Democrat Joe Biden’s win. The Wisconsin political operatives in the...

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When rightwing politicians weaponize public opinion to cover-up investigations into their schemes

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) recently asked six former presidents and their vice presidents to look to see if they have any presidential records, including documents marked classified, in their possession. It sent the letters to representatives for former presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan and former vice presidents Mike Pence, Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, Al Gore, and Dan Quayle. It did not make a similar request to former president Jimmy Carter because although he was the one who signed the Presidential Records Act into law, it...

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How classified government documents became a 13-year-old girl’s show-and-tell project at school

On a winter’s day in 1984, a briefcase stuffed with classified government documents showed up in a building in Pittsburgh, borne by someone who most certainly was not supposed to have them. That someone was 13-year-old Kristin Preble. She took the papers to school as a show-and-tell project for her eighth grade class. Her dad had found them in his Cleveland hotel room several years earlier and taken them home as a souvenir. As a different sort of show and tell unfolds in Washington over the mishandling of state secrets by the Trump and now Biden administrations, the schoolgirl...

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Election season kicks off in Milwaukee with debates of 2024 GOP presidential candidates in August

The opening Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election season will take place in Milwaukee this August, the Republican National Committee decided on February 23. The rough time and location were the only details finalized as a small group of RNC members met behind closed doors in Washington this week to begin the complicated task of coordinating logistics for what is likely to be a crowded and messy primary season. In the coming weeks, the group plans to finalize a broader set of criteria for participation, including the requirement that each candidate on stage must pledge to support the...

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