Absence of homegrown Black players at World Baseball Classic shames Major League Baseball

With Opening Day nearing, old-school Major League Baseball fans are now focused on their probably doomed squads' chances of winning the World Series.

Meanwhile, fans around the planet — and leading-edge Americans — are experiencing the World Baseball Classic as the game’s version of soccer’s World Cup.

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A neuroscientist explains why Donald Trump’s narcissism is now a major threat

On March 18, former president Donald Trump said he believes that he will likely be arrested on charges relating to hush money paid to a porn star.

He is already calling on his supporters to protest his arrest, and while that is not exactly surprising, it is something we should be deeply concerned about. Trump embodies the qualities of a textbook narcissist, and when narcissists feel threatened, they frequently experience what is called narcissistic rage, and become aggressive and obsessed with revenge. Given the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol, which Trump helped incite, we should be vigilant to ensure that history does not repeat itself.

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They sabotaged Jimmy Carter, too

I said Friday the best way to understand Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin is to think of the former as the leader of a totally made-up confederacy and the latter as the leader in a totally made-up presidency, who are together in league against the real America.

Trump’s confederacy of the mind and spirit is what I call Realamerica, not to be confused with the real America. Realamericans live there according to God's law, which puts white Christian men on top of society. In Realamerica, the US Constitution was handed down by God, and the real America should stay the same as it was at its founding. The goal of Realamericans is the domination or sabotage of the real America in which their makebelieve confederacy exists.

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Congress should include education and healthcare in its fight against hidden fees

If you are a Comcast cable customer, your bill probably includes a Broadcast TV fee and a Regional Sports Fee. Together, these may add up to $18-$20 a month or more, according to a 2019 Consumer Reports analysis.

What is a Broadcast TV fee?

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‘Our best face’: Jan. 6 rally organizers coordinated with White House and militant Trump backers

As the Women for America First bus tour wound across the country as Donald Trump refused to concede the 2020 election, chairperson Amy Kremer oversaw the operation from the road, while her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, worked from Washington, D.C.

Soon, the culmination of their effort to keep the president in power would be afoot: a massive rally scheduled for Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, just south of the White House. Trump himself would be the guest of greatest honor.

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Fox News is indeed a news organization: Federal Election Commission

In a legal opinion from December made public Friday, the Federal Election Commission rejected an allegation that Fox News should be regulated as a political organization — and confirmed that, for the purposes of election law, Fox News is a media company engaged in journalism.

The complaint, filed in part against now-Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and his campaign treasurer Lisa Lisker, alleged that Fox News made an illegal in-kind contribution to the Vance campaign.

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Trump’s alliance with Putin against America

Donald Trump again blamed America for threatening the values of western civilization instead of the foreign nation that’s threatening them. “The greatest threat to western civilization today is not Russia,” he said. “It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves, and some of the horrible USA-hating people that represent us.”

The criminal former president seemed to be taking Vladimir Putin’s side over his own country’s. Indeed, he thinks we should stay out of the war in Ukraine. He thinks Russia is a victim of American aggression. This pattern might be the only thing about this lying, thieving, philandering sadist that’s steady, reliable and predictable.

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New PFAS guidelines – a water quality scientist explains technology and investment needed to get forever chemicals out of US drinking water

Harmful chemicals known as PFAS can be found in everything from children’s clothes to soil to drinking water, and regulating these chemicals has been a goal of public and environmental health researchers for years. On March 14, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed what would be the first set of federal guidelines regulating levels of PFAS in drinking water. The guidelines will be open to public comment for 60 days before being finalized.

Joe Charbonnet is an environmental engineer at Iowa State University who develops techniques to remove contaminants like PFAS from water. He explains what the proposed guidelines would require, how water utilities could meet these requirements and how much it might cost to get these so-called forever chemicals out of U.S. drinking water.

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Time's up: Election officials order Trump to stop stalling and file his financial disclosures

Former President Donald Trump is violating a federal financial disclosure law, and the Federal Election Commission is telling him to comply immediately — or face financial penalties, according to a letter obtained by Raw Story.

Trump had previously applied for, and received, two extensions on the filing deadline as he runs for president ahead of the 2024 election. Then, in a letter dated March 15, Trump lawyer Derek H. Ross asked for an additional 30-day extension for Trump, citing "complexities of his financial holdings."

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Sen. Sherrod Brown blasts conservatives lobbying for loose train regulations: 'They're to blame for East Palestine'

WASHINGTON — Sen. Sherrod Brown (R-OH) wasn't shocked to hear that FreedomWorks was spotted on Capitol Hill this week lobbying against train regulations.

The conservative Washington Examiner reported the pushback on the bipartisan bill from Brown and Republican Sen. J.D. Vance (OH). In a letter to lawmakers sent Monday, the group said that all the bill does is give more power to the Department of Transportation.

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GOP senators shrug off Trump-linked group buying up Capitol Hill real estate

WASHINGTON — Republican senators were short on specifics when asked about the Donald Trump-affiliated group run by Mark Meadows called the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI).

A recent report from Grid revealed that the group is buying up real estate all over Capitol Hill, which is notoriously expensive. One building, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Raw Story, sits behind the Library of Congress. One 2,000-square-foot home behind the Library of Congress is going for $2.5 million. An 1885 townhouse nearby is going for $2.01 million and is 3,000 square feet.

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Bethany Mandel and the makebelievers

Straight away "woke" means antiracist – or, more broadly speaking, anti-bigotry of whatever degree and kind. That's the Ur-meaning of it. Anyone saying they're antiwoke is saying they're anti-antiracist.

The word is getting a lot of attention today on account of an author who wrote a whole new book criticizing the waves of wokeness crashing across the land but could not define the word when asked.

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From Marjorie Taylor Greene to Ro Khanna: Several members of Congress could personally profit from Biden-backed fossil fuel drilling project in Alaska

ConocoPhillips is the big corporate winner after the Biden administration this week approved the massive Willow oil and gas project.

The project will open massive amounts of public land in Alaska’s North Slope to new drilling by the Houston-based petroleum company.

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GOP's Ron Johnson refuses to comment on Trump's World War III rant — insists he never heard the widely-reported remarks

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) dodged when asked about Donald Trump's recent comments that he could prevent a third world war.

Speaking Tuesday in Davenport, Iowa, Trump told a packed crowd his skills make him the "only" 2024 candidate who can "prevent World War III."

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‘Our best face’: How ‘peaceful’ MAGA leader Amy Kremer cultivated ties to a violent Three Percenter group

On Jan. 6, 2021, just south of the White House, Amy Kremer stood atop the stage where President Donald Trump would soon address his followers. She gazed over what she created — and what a sight it was.

Kremer and her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, were about to host the sitting president of the United States as he amassed his faithful in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election’s results. Their organization, Women for America First, was the one and only group that possessed the official permit to stage Trump’s “Save America” rally.

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Silicon Valley Bank and why the economy is allowed to be rigged

I think the Editorial Board’s Noah Berlatsky is right. It’s good for the US government to help banks to prevent them from hurting the economy, even when the bank is Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed Friday, and even when most of its depositors are very obscenely rich.

But it’s also good, as Noah said, to help normal people who work, who take care of others, who raise families, and so on, but who also struggle every day. “Bank bailouts happen instantly,” Noah said. “Bailouts for student debt, or medical debt or for children in poverty occur on a much longer, and in many cases infinite, timetable.

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The GOP's magic words have lost their magic

It seems to me, and it may seem to you, too, that the president says and does things no other Democratic president has said and done in our lifetimes. Yes, there's Joe Biden’s maddening "tough on crime" posture. There's the evil of his administration’s border policies. But these are exceptions to an emerging pattern of behavior in which the president regularly demonstrates what his party is, not what it is not.

It may be hard to see what with news of the criminal former president still leading a coalition of Republicans whose primary objective is sabotage, insurrection and tyranny. But it's there.

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How Hollywood hurt me more than Will Smith’s slap

For me, Hollywood isn’t a state of mind. It’s the place where, 30 years ago, “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” rented me my first Los Angeles apartment. It’s where Brad Pitt's weed guy came to the crib off LaBrea with a briefcase full of selections; cannabis swag like I’d never seen. Until the COVID-19 shutdown, I could see “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” skits being crafted on the way to my subway stop.

That’s why the 2022 Oscars, where Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, has me watching network television tonight. When the big local industry’s self-fellation fest gets marred by violence, it hits me where I live. The Academy Awards show is a social institution worth millions of dollars a year to ABC. Hundreds of career arcs are at stake. While awards for art don’t make sense to me, I fully appreciate that the Oscars matter.

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Republican craycray is Republican cultthink

There's some political utility to saying that the congressional Republicans, especially those in the House, are, well, crazy. There's some utility to it because of its effect on respectable white people.

Respectable white people are that cohort of Americans that decides which of the major parties prevails most of the time during any given historical period. They are unlikely to be seen palling around in public with anarchists and other Republican mayhem agents, as their reputations as respectable white people demand that they at least maintain the appearance of taking the side of "law and order."

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A neuroscientist explains the problem of ignorance and how we can fight it

The great paradox of modern times is that we have access to more information than ever, but ignorance seems to be growing.

People in the United States and around the world believe more bogus theories now than they did 10 years ago. Comment sections on social media reveal that most people are just as gullible as ever, and in some ways, even more likely to believe outlandish things. This ignorance has consequences of global importance, because an increase in ignorance will lead to ignorant people getting elected to positions of power. I don’t think I need to give an example here because you’re probably already thinking it.

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How Kushner and Trump sold out America for billions while the media looked the other way

Lauren “Bam Bam” Boebert announced at CPAC:

“We are going to investigate Hunter Biden because he has used his father’s positions in government for shady business dealings with Ukraine and China. We no longer need a resident in the White House. We need a president who puts America first and not his business dealings with corrupt foreign countries.”

You’d think such a statement by a Trump supporter would be met with shocked silence, but the crowd went wild with applause. And there is, of course, some legitimacy to the sentiment.

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Don't argue with Tucker Carlson. Say what he is

I'd like us to take a deep breath. Tucker Carlson has done this before. The Fox host will do this again. And again. And again. He's done this so frequently, so consistently, so intently that there should now be no doubt that he's a propagandist, a hypocrite and a liar. This has been so thoroughly established as fact that the reaction to his latest effort feels almost respectful, as if we knew nothing about his character and were pained for having given him the benefit of the doubt.

For those who don't know, Carlson aired this week the first in a planned series of broadcasts that attempt to portray the J6 insurrection as nothing more than sightseeing gone wrong, or an inside job by the FBI or, really, anything that might to his viewers wash the blood from the hands of the criminal former president.

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Michael Cohen responds to report of pending charges for Trump in New York

The New York Times reported on Thursday that New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg was likely going to be filing criminal charges against former President Donald Trump.

As of Wednesday, Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has met with Bragg's office a total of 19 times to give details about the hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels that Trump ordered to be paid a month before the 2016 election. Cohen ultimately ended up in prison over the issue, drawing all of the responsibility. But without the Justice Department to protect him as a president, Trump's legal chickens are coming home to roost.

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How House Republicans plan to crush your 401(k)

The most powerful Republican wants to put millions out of work. That's what Senator Elizabeth Warren got Jerome Powell to admit on Tuesday as the Donald Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Reserve testified before the Senate Banking Committee.

You can debate whether taming inflation, which has cooled year-over-year for seven straight months, is worth raising interest rates to put about two million Americans on unemployment.

But if Powell is really worried about the general health of the American economy, he should concentrate on a far greater threat to the US economy than high egg prices – his fellow Republicans.

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Fraud warning: State Farm's political action committee latest victim of theft

You can buy a lot of khakis for $12,200.

That's how much money State Farm Insurance's federal political action committee lost in January to "unknown" thieves, according to a letter the company's PAC sent Wednesday to the Federal Election Commission and reviewed by Raw Story.

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