“Women’s rights and their defenders are really often caught in the cross-hairs of these very risk-averse banks and overzealous regulatory authorities,” says law professor Jayne Huckerby, an author of a study that found institutional donors such as Western governments and large foundations — as well as banks — are increasingly neglecting human-rights organizations that focus their work on women’s issues and operate in areas such as Syria and Iraq.
Read More in The Washington Post
Amazon Echo Plays A Role in Finding Political Truths
A team at the Duke Reporters Lab has been developing a fact-checking app for the Amazon Echo. Owners of the Echo can “ask the fact-checkers” about claims they hear on the news and social media. The development team is led by Bill Adair, professor of the practice of journalism and public policy and founder of the Pulitzer Prize-winning site PolitiFact. Student researcher Julia Donheiser and project manager Rebecca Ianucci join Adair to talk through the promise and pitfalls of the project.
In N.C., As In Kansas, Trickle-Down Tax Cuts Are Just a Trick
“To build a stronger economy we need to fund our government, and ensure that those most able to pay, put forth their fair share. For one, we need to reinstate a progressive income tax. Second, we must raise the corporate income tax, not cut,” writes Mark Paul, postdoctoral associate at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity.
Opposing Immigration Wasn’t Always Racist
“Trump, no doubt, played to racial sentiments. But he also saw something his opponents didn’t: that even if Democrats refuse to acknowledge some of the complexities of immigration, many voters still see a need for limits,” writes Peter Skerry, a senior fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.
Read More in The Boston Globe
Has Trump Stolen Philosophy’s Critical Tools?
“While Trump appeals more often to emotions than to facts — or even to common sense — critique can help those who oppose him question the Trumpian version of reality. We can ask not whether a statement is true or false, but how and why it was made and what effects it produces when people feel it to be true,” writes literature Ph.D. student Casey Williams.
Read More in The New York Times
Evaluating Gov. Roy Cooper’s First 100 Days
Sanford School public policy professor Pope “Mac” McCorkle joins a panel of political observers to debate the governor’s job performance in his first 100 days. “Gov. Cooper is facing an unprecedented situation for a Democrat in North Carolina, and I think he’s actually done amazingly well given the situation being that there’s Republican super majorities in both chambers” of the General Assembly, McCorkle says. (17:26 mark)
Watch on Spectrum’s ‘Capital Tonight’
Trump, ‘Fake News’ And Russia Coverage
President Donald Trump offers a consistently defiant response to allegations about the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 campaign: “fake news.” The Reporters’ Lab at Duke catalogued 111 Trump statements about “fake news” over the five months following his election. “Of all the times we found Trump referring to ‘fake news’ from Nov. 8 to April 7, 41 percent were either direct or indirect responses to news coverage about Russia’s role in the presidential campaign,” writes student researcher Riley Griffin.
Read More at Poynter.
White-Collar Government
Trump’s cabinet is the wealthiest in U.S. history. In light of this news, this podcast revisits Sanford School of Public Policy professor Nicholas Carnes‘ interview on the effects of a government run by the rich, for the rich, and ways to get working class Americans a seat at the table.
Listen on Scholars Strategy Network
3 Questions Trump Must Answer After His Syria Strike
“Candidate Trump repeatedly promised that he would not simply conduct American foreign policy in the way Obama did. By punishing Assad for his brazen violation of international law and basic human decency, Trump took a significant step forward in fulfilling that campaign promise,” writes political scientist Peter Feaver. “But Trump also promised that his approach would produce more lasting success than Obama’s. Whether he fulfills that promise will depend on what comes next, not on what happened Thursday.”
Read More in Foreign Policy
Impacts of Trump’s Climate Change Policy
President Trump’s order last week that took aim at the Obama administration’s efforts to tackle climate change also disbanded the Interagency Working Group that calculated the social cost of carbon across federal agencies. But the order did not eliminate the metric entirely, says law professor Jonathan Wiener. “It says each agency can employ its own social cost of carbon, so it allows agency-by-agency development,” he says.
Read More on Climate Wire
NCAA: The Most Powerful Political Organization in The U.S.
“NCAA pressure was the game-changer with North Carolina’s bathroom bill. It appeared that the law would stay in place until the state’s basketball fans realized there would be no tournament games played here,” says anthropologist Orin Starn. “And so we witnessed the unlikely spectacle of the much-criticized billion-dollar sports leviathan at the forefront of defending LGBT rights.”
Read More in The Boston Globe
How to Handle North Korea? Apply Pressure — Then Wait
“Last year alone, North Korea conducted two nuclear weapons tests and 24 missile tests, with more this year, including a new missile test on April 5, clearly intended to overshadow and complicate the first meeting this week between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. To avoid past failures in trying to thwart North Korea, the Trump administration should initiate bilateral diplomatic talks with the communist nation immediately,” writes Andrew Byers, a visiting assistant professor of history and an intelligence analyst.
Read More in The Hill
