primary election

Americans have become accustomed to watching presidential debates, or at least seeing excerpts of them or reports on them, as part of the process of deciding who to vote for. These debates have become a routine, expected part of the election process. But, there is no requirement for successful candidates to participate in debates. This year looks like it could be the first time in a long time in which an American president is elected who has participated in zero debates, either in the primary contest or the general election.

Authored by Glenn Greenwald via The Intercept,

There is ample talk, particularly of late, about the threats posed by social media to democracy and political discourse. Yet one of the primary ways that democracy is degraded by platforms such as Facebook and Twitter is, for obvious reasons, typically ignored in such discussions: the way they are used by American journalists to endorse factually false claims that quickly spread and become viral, entrenched into narratives, and thus can never be adequately corrected.

Authored by Chris Hedges via TruthDig.com,

The ruling elites, who grasp that the reigning ideology of global corporate capitalism and imperial expansion no longer has moral or intellectual credibility, have mounted a campaign to shut down the platforms given to their critics. The attacks within this campaign include blacklisting, censorship and slandering dissidents as foreign agents for Russia and purveyors of “fake news.”

Authored by Daniel Lazare via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

June turned out to be the cruelest month for the Russia-gate industry.

The pain began on June 8 when ex-FBI Director James Comey testified that a sensational New York Times article declaring that “members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials” was “in the main … not true.”

Update 5 (8:10 EST):

According to the Washington Post, Ossoff has taken a small lead as Dekalb County votes have started to flow in.  That said, Ossoff was expected to perform better in early voting so only time will tell if his narrow lead will hold up once in-person votes start to get counted.

Insiders tell me about 145,000 voted early, either in person or by mail. Ossoff barely leads (0.6%) what's in so far, about 120,000 votes.

— Robert Costa (@costareports) June 21, 2017