Read our centrist recap for the week below. We shine a light on the spin and useless stories from the Left and Right and detail what you should focus on, before people can pull wool over your eyes.
What the partisans will focus on and you should avoid:
- A tweet calling President Trump a “tool” and “pathetic loser” came from Anderson Cooper’s Twitter account last week. CNN at first claimed it was hacked, then stated it was actually the result of Cooper’s assistant’s phone (which had access to Cooper’s account) being stolen at a gym. The Right will obviously run this for a while, but in reality, it will have no impact on our lives or our world.
What you should focus on:
- The FCC voted to repeal Net Neutrality last week in a 3-2 vote along partisan lines. The repeal will be met with legal battles and could face Congressional action, so it’s not a finality, but it is a big win for the “infrastructure” side of the house. Here’s an article that gives a reasonable look (hint: it’s neither the apocalypse nor the beginning of a North Korean style internet in the U.S.) at what might occur due to this action.
- The Alabama special election was one for the ages. Democratic candidate Doug Jones beat Republican candidate Roy Moore by a very close margin. Roy Moore still hasn’t conceded despite President Trump tweeting congratulations to Doug Jones. We know what this election means for Alabama, but do all these special elections mean anything for 2018? FiveThirtyEight has a great article in which they attempt to answer that question.
- We know you’re tired of hearing about it; we’re tired of writing about it. The reality is, we can’t let ourselves ignore it. Even more allegations of sexual misconduct by our elected officials came out this week, again hitting both sides of the aisle. Some of the accused were Representative Ruben Kihuen (D – Nevada), Representative Blake Farenthold (R – Texas), and Representative Dan Johnson (R – Kentucky). Representatives Ruben Kihuen and Blacke Farenthold will not seek reelection, and, we’re sad to announce that Representative Dan Johnson has taken his own life (it is not known at this time if the suicide was due to the allegations or not).
- Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, while fighting off rumors of his departure, has continued to work on the U.S.’s relationship with North Korea. He has stated the U.S. is ready to speak with North Korea without preconditions, something that could help move the relationship into more stable conditions.
- President Trump formally told NASA to send astronauts to the moon and wants to restart NASA’s program of human exploration of space. President Trump hopes NASA can not only visit the moon but establish a “foundation for an eventual mission to Mars.”
After catching up on the events of the week, check out what Independent and Centrist political candidates and organizations did by visiting our Independent Action post located here.
© 2017 by Free Wheel Media. The article originally published on FreeWheelUs and has been republished by request and with permission from Free Wheel Media.