Jamil Smith | President Sharpie

08 September 19

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Notice to the Readership on Funding

Regrettably the progress of this month's funding drive is insufficient to address the organizations immediate expenses. While the amount of funds lacking may not seem great we cannot proceed with out them.

There are a number of "immovable expenses" such as payroll, creative fees, contractors and vendors that we no choice but to address. Our average donation is roughly $30. 500 donations at that level are required to complete the September funding drive.

Thank you.

Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News

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07 September 19 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News RSN Isn't Something You Can Take for Free - To get what RSN has to offer, you have to be a part of it, you have to participate. That's the key. It's the participation that builds the social benefit. RSN, it's about doing something. Help. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News Sure, I'll make a donation! Jamil Smith | President Sharpie Jamil Smith, Rolling Stone Smith writes: "It is understandable that people laugh at this. There is an inherent hilarity in the doctored map alone, its black Sharpie-d bubble emerging from just north of Jacksonville and curving around the Florida panhandle only to ensure that some slice of Alabama would be jeopardized by this newly enhanced path of Hurricane Dorian." EXCERPTS:  The federal crime he committed in doctoring the map, as confirmed by a White House official to the Washington Post Thursday night, may have been one of his more minor offenses overall. But it was clear and unmistakable. Title 18 U.S. Code 2074 states that “Whoever knowingly issues or publishes any counterfeit weather forecast or warning of weather conditions falsely representing such forecast or warning to have been issued or published by the Weather Bureau, United States Signal Service, or other branch of the Government service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ninety days, or both.” Trump did that, and proudly, on national television. But the more insidious offense is what Trump is evidencing in his actions. He has shown us previously, through his various authoritarian impulses, that he believes that he does not represent the state or govern the state so much that he is the state. This Alabama mess, contrary to what Al Roker insisted Thursday, is not a distraction. It is part of the whole. We see, in Trump’s relentless focus on his own misbegotten truth, an unbreakable grip on a reality that does not exist. It stems from his strange idea of manhood, the idea that a lack of vulnerability and an unwillingness to admit error equals strength — when just the opposite is true. That is why we need someone who tells the truth unreservedly to oppose this president. It would befit the current frontrunner, Joe Biden, to remember that as he continues to cover up for his own lies and misstatements (about his past Iraq position, most notably). Insisting that the “details are irrelevant in terms of decision-making,” as the former vice-president asserted recently to NPR, is a curious approach for someone preparing to run against a serial fabricator. He argues that he is the most “electable,” but Biden is playing a game that Trump already knows how to win. I guess he truly is a Democrat. READ MORE Voters at a polling precinct. (photo: Getty Images) Why the Right Hates Voting Rights Luke Savage, Jacobin Excerpt: "The Republican Party, which is a largely white party, saw the writing on the wall, and they really only had two options. They could either try and change their policies to go after this younger, more diverse, more progressive electorate, or they could try to prevent them from voting. They did the latter." READ MORE 'This is a story about a wrongful conviction.' (photo: Matt Rota/WP) An Alabama Man Has Been on Death Row 21 Years. He Is Almost Certainly Innocent. Radley Balko, The Washington Post Balko writes: "Over the next few years, six young black men and one black girl would be arrested for crimes associated with Hardy's murder. Four were charged. Two were tried - one was acquitted; one was convicted and sentenced to die. There was precious little evidence for any of the charges." READ MORE A security contractor frisks a detainee ahead of a deportation. (photo: Getty Images) US Sends Pregnant Migrant Having Contractions Back to Mexico Associated Press Excerpt: "A Salvadoran woman who was eight and a half months pregnant and experiencing contractions was apprehended by US border patrol after crossing the Rio Grande and forced to go back to Mexico." READ MORE One in every twelve people who receives food stamps nationwide will lose them under the policy - some 3.6 million people. (photo: Shutterstock) The Trump Administration Plans to Gut Food Stamps, Hitting Red States Hardest Adam Pyke, ThinkProgress Pyke writes: "President Donald Trump's latest attack on working families will hit especially hard in the states that voted for him: More than half of the people who are set to lose access to food stamps under regulations proposed this summer live in states that went for Trump in 2016." READ MORE Evelyn Hernández arriving in court last month. (photo: Oscar Rivera/AFP/Getty Images) Prosecutors Are Going After a Woman Acquitted for Having a Stillbirth - for a Third Time Karla Zabludovsky, BuzzFeed Zabludovsky writes: "El Salvador's attorney general is appealing the decision to acquit Evelyn Hernandez, a Salvadoran woman who served prison time for aggravated homicide after delivering a stillborn baby, marking the state's third attempt to prosecute her." READ MORE A hurricane. (photo: BBC) How Warm Oceans Supercharge Deadly Hurricanes Sarah Gibbens, National Geographic Gibbens writes: "The same perennially warm waters that attract tourists to the Bahamas also helped sustain one of the most destructive storms ever seen in the region." READ MORE Contribute to RSN Update My Monthly Donation