20 May 2023, NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday: Jake’s Takes

Week in politics: Debt ceiling updates; DeSantis’s anticipated announcement

If you haven’t heard the debate about the debt ceiling yet, you are not listening to the news. DeSantis is not going to win the Republican primaries. Announce away, but it’s not going to mean anything.

Ahead of elections in Greece, voters want answers on the deadly train crash

The debt ceiling is not a good opportunity to ask questions about the budget, but elections are a good time to ask for answers on government missteps. What was the cause of the deadly train crash in Greece?

Opinion: Progress can be a turtle

Change should happen slowly to become a lasting part of the fabric of reality. Progress shouldn’t be rushed.

‘Undaunted’ tells the story of the women journalists who blazed a trail for others

Telling the story of journalists is very important, today. We need to celebrate the people who report the news. If we don’t have good access information about the events that shape our culture, then we are powerless to shape the future course of things.

Remembering slain Chicago police officer Aréanah Preston with her mother

Chicago was once a place where labor was organized. It has become known today as a center of violence. We need to revive the heritage of Chicago and find a way to organize against the poverty that causes violence in the city. People need a viable future to shift from dying to thriving.

Is drawing a voting map that helps a political party illegal? Only in some states

Gerrymandering is a shifty and shady technique for manipulating the vote. The biggest cure for all the voting legitimacy problems is to overwhelm the opposition by creating enough support for your cause. There are so many people who do not vote in this country, we could change things in the next election cycle if we can get our messages out there forcefully.

A New Hampshire church rose quickly — until questions about its pastor led to its equally rapid fall

Will religious institutions survive the social media age? If so, they will have to clean up their act. It is impossible to hide corruption with so many people acting as investigative journalists. The time for hiding is gone.

Marty Stuart of the Fabulous Superlatives on their new album ‘Altitude’

Fabulous Superlatives is a great name for a band. You can’t judge a book by its cover, but a band’s name is pretty telling.

Biden wraps up a second day at the G-7 meet in Hiroshima, Japan

“WHAT IS THE G7 SUMMIT?

The Group of Seven is an informal group of leading industrialized nations. It consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.”

What the battle for Bakhmut tells us about the war in Ukraine

It is hard to keep track of the war in Ukraine, but we are deeper than a year into the process. What exactly is the status of the war? How many have died? What territories are still under Russian control?

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to announce his Presidential run in the coming days

What is DeSantis thinking? He will be squandering this opportunity if he does enter the primaries. He would do better to focus on Florida, but it would be better for all of us if he dropped out of politics altogether. Maybe if he runs for president, he will lost more of his base in Florida and will be squeezed out of power.

How far-right nationalism campaigns in Turkey have impacted its presidential election

The fringe campaigns drew enough support from the voting public to cause a runoff between the two biggest candidates.

Taco Bell is petitioning the government to cancel the trademark for ‘Taco Tuesday’

Trademark law can get confusing, especially when it is a phrase as commonly used as Taco Tuesday. What exactly are the rights pertaining to the use of this phrase?

Sigourney Weaver on acting in Paul Schrader’s latest film ‘Master Gardener’

I have loved Sigourney Weaver since her outstanding performance in Alien. That was such a creepy movie, and she channeled some serious heroic energy to make it believable.

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