Morning Reads: Remembering Selma and Voting Rights 50 Years Later

Good morning!

On this date in 1954, legendary CBS broadcasters Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly broadcast a scathing documentary on their public affairs show, See It Now, about anti-Communist firebrand Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s bullying tactics and guilt-by-association. The show helped shift public opinion about the Wisconsin lawmaker and is believed to have marked the beginning of the end of his influence. McCarthy would be formally censured by Congress before year’s end.

Stat of the day: $11,000 — That’s how much more income the bottom 80 percent of US households would enjoy each year if the country had the same distribution of income as it did in 1979, according to economist Larry Summers.

Selma –> Thousands gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on Sunday to mark the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” — a pivotal event in the civil rights movement. Some observers believe that Obama’s speech was the most impassioned one he has ever given. (Via: Quartz.) AND: At the NYT, Clyde Haberman tells the story of Gee’s Bend, Alabama — where weeks before the Selma march, Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired an impoverished and isolated black community to fight for their rights after their only ready access to the polls — a ferry service to Camden — was halted by the white establishment.

In Big Cable’s pockets –> Ben Collins reports for The Daily Beast that all but two of the 31 co-sponsors of a bill that would roll back the FCC’s new Net neutrality rules “received money from a major telecom or its lobby in 2014,” and asks: “Is their cash enough to end a free Web?”

The War Party –> Josh Rogin reports for BloombergView that “a group of 47 Republican senators has written an open letter to Iran’s leaders warning them that any nuclear deal they sign with President Barack Obama’s administration won’t last after Obama leaves office.”

So much for localism –> Texas lawmakers responded to the city of Denton’s decision to ban fracking by floating bills that would pre-empt such local initiatives. At Truthout, Candice Bernd reports that the bills “are part of a wider strategy emerging in Republican-dominated state legislatures this year to curtail municipalities’ regulatory authority, including their ability to pass local ordinances and citizen-led ballot referendums.” She adds: “The legislation often comes at the behest of industries that stand to lose money because of regulations initiated in the municipalities where they operate.”

Head in the (eroding) sand –> Environmental officials in Florida, a state that scientists say is among the most vulnerable to the impacts of global warming, have been prohibited from using the terms “climate change” or “global warming” in “any official communications, emails, or reports,” according to Tristram Korten at the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. AND: Google has been toying with a new algorithm that would rank search results according to the reliability of the information provided by websites. Denise Robins writes at Media Matters that some prominent climate change deniers are not exactly pleased with the news.

Coming around? –> Sarah Kliff reports for Vox that three “red” states — Kansas, Utah and Montana — all took steps toward expanding their Medicaid programs, which Kliff says could extend insurance coverage to around 300,000 low-income Americans.

Rationalizing the irrational –> At TomDispatch, Andrew Bacevich offers a withering commentary about the role public intellectuals play in making the case for US military action.

Governing –> At Forbes, budget guru Stan Collender writes that the Republican Congress will continue to be stymied on major legislation like the DHS funding bill that passed last week, but have one big chance to shape policy — or prove their inability to govern: the budget Congress is supposed to pass by April 15.

Give the lady a primary! –> Gail Sheehy writes at the NY Daily News that Hillary Clinton’s email problems illustrate the need for a competitive Democratic primary — and she thinks Sen. Elizabeth Warren is just the person to create one. AND: Rep. Donna Edwards, one of the most progressive legislators on Capitol Hill, will announce this week that she intends to run for the Maryland Senate seat that will be vacated by the retirement of Sen. Barbara Mikulski. Arelis R. Hernández has more details at WaPo.

Fantastic voyage –> After 13 years of research and development, Solar Impulse 2 launched from an airport in Dubai this morning and will attempt to circumnavigate the globe using only solar power. According to the Australian Broadcasting Company, “the wingspan of the one-seater plane, known as the Si2, is slightly bigger than that of a jumbo jet, but its weight is around that of a family car.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.