12 Stories You Missed In The Echo Chamber of Doom This Week

To help wade through the morass of articles online about what is and isn’t happening in the Trump administration, we’ll be doing a weekly roundup of the most useful articles we’ve read this week. Our aim is to find ones that point out some of the alarming trends being pushed forward, the lesser heard arguments being made, and arm everyone with the information they need more than ever right now.

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Burst your bubble: five conservative articles examining Milo Yiannopoulos

The Guardian

“The end of the Milo show is exposing the worst of American conservatism. I’m not just talking about Milo Yiannopoulos’s own apparent defense of pedophilia, but the reactions of the people who enabled and promoted him.”

‘Demonic activity was palpable’ at Trump’s rally, pastor says

The Washington Post

“I know why people voted for him; I know why people voted against his opponent. But, at the end of the day, what I felt from his leadership in this experience was actually horrifying. There was palpable fear in the room. There was thick anger and vengeance. He was counting on it. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that it would not have taken very much for him to have called this group of people into some kind of riotous reaction.”

I Was a Muslim in Trump’s White House

The Atlantic

“I told him I had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim. I told him that the administration was attacking the basic tenets of democracy. I told him that I hoped that they and those in Congress were prepared to take responsibility for all the consequences that would attend their decisions.”

North Carolina needed 6,500 farm workers. Only 7 Americans stuck it out

The Washington Post

“It seems clear that it would take a quite large increase in agricultural wages to get native workers to do these jobs, an increase that could very well put the farms in question out of business. Given that, making it easier to bring in agricultural workers appears to both dramatically benefit those workers and make life slightly more convenient for the industry in question.”

Republican Health Proposal Would Redirect Money From Poor to Rich

The New York Times

“What the plan doesn’t do, currently, is change any of the Obamacare regulations on health insurance that Republicans say drive up the cost. Those rules, including requirements that every plan cover a standard package of benefits, and those requiring companies to charge the same prices to healthy and sick Americans, would stay on the books, because they can’t be easily changed through the budget process.”

How The DNC Race Turned Into A Group-Therapy Session

FiveThirtyEight

“Perhaps that’s because the race for DNC chair, culminating in a vote this Saturday, has become the closest thing to a group-therapy session that the Democratic Party can muster, a safe space to repeat the new self-flagellating conventional wisdoms of the day and try to heal. They flubbed it, everyone concedes. Went up for the easy layup and missed while Donald Trump simultaneously pantsed them.”

Pope suggests it’s better to be an atheist than a bad Christian

CNN

“So many Christians are like this, and these people scandalize others,” Francis said during morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, according to Vatican Radio. “How many times have we heard — all of us, around the neighborhood and elsewhere — ‘But to be a Catholic like that, it’s better to be an atheist.’ It is that: scandal.”

Trump Voters Are Not the Enemy

The New York Times

“This is part of a national trend: Mortality rates for white middle-aged Americans have risen, reflecting working-class “deaths of despair.” Liberals purport to champion these people, but don’t always understand them.”

Giffords to lawmakers avoiding town halls: ‘Have some courage’

The Hill

“Many of the members of Congress who are refusing to hold town halls and listen to their constituents concerns are the very same politicians that have opposed commonsense gun violence prevention policies and have allowed the Washington gun lobby to threaten the safety of law enforcement and everyday citizens in our schools, businesses, places of worship, airports, and movie theaters.”

A New Diagnosis: ‘Post-Election Stress Disorder’

The Daily Beast

“Fifty-seven percent of Americans report that the current political climate is a very or somewhat significant source of stress, and 40 percent say the same about the outcome of the election, according to an online survey of 1,019 adults conducted by the American Psychological Association after the inauguration.”

This Obscure News Story, Which Should Be Huge, Shows How Trump Gets Away With Corruption

New York Mag

“The House of Representatives has refused to investigate either one of the two massive ongoing legal and ethical violations involving the Trump administration: President Trump’s opaque ties (financial and otherwise) to Russia, and his ongoing self-enrichment in office and violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.”

Foreign Policy
“Until the Kremlin has a sense of where the Trump administration’s red lines lie, we’re unlikely to have seen the last of these little acts of geopolitical trolling.”