Since launching Medium membership, our primary focus has been on funding the creation of exclusive content from talented writers and experts in the Medium ecosystem. Members have enjoyed original pieces across a variety of topics: from an immersive view of a political rally in Phoenix by Dave Eggers, to an expert analysis on the impact of vacant Chicago real estate from school closures by Eve L. Ewing, to a candid interview with indie rock icon Liz Phair by Steven Johnson.

Recently, we expanded our Partner Program to empower writers and publishers to produce original content directly for our paying members and earn money based on depth of reader engagement. Building a system that rewards this kind of content will continue to be our primary focus.

At the same time, in our quest to make Medium the world’s best place to read stories of depth and meaning, we don’t want to stop there. We recognize the amazing, important work that many publications off-Medium do, and we know our members care about these stories, as well. By integrating this content, we think we can create an even more valuable reading experience. So we’re partnering with many publishers we love to bring you a few of their most relevant stories every day, based on your interests.

So far, you can enjoy curated selections from The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Fast Company, Bloomberg, CNN, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, and many more.

These stories are handpicked by Medium editors based on our members’ interests. All of these selections are placed behind our metered membership paywall, so members get unlimited access and can read these stories without ever leaving Medium. That means personalized recommendations based on your interests, popular features like highlights and responses, and — most importantly — no ads, retargeting, or popups in sight.

Follow the publications you love from this directory. Once you’re following them, you’ll start seeing their stories on your homepage, Medium app, and Daily Digest email. You will also see popular stories from these publishers curated into the topics that are featured on your homepage (which you can customize here).

Publishers to follow for curated selections on Medium - Curated stories from Medium

Now on Medium: Daily Stories from Leading Publishers was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today we’re launching the first step of an exciting new phase at Medium.

We strongly believe that quality content needs to be paid for by consumers — not advertisers — so creators can do their best work, and to align the incentives of everyone involved. So, since March, we’ve been experimenting with our subscription paywall and putting more and more great stories behind it. But that’s only a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of fantastic stories published on Medium every day. And, though Medium is an open publishing platform, we haven’t enabled a way for most of our writers to participate in the economics.

Until now.

Starting today, we are sending a small group of writers and publications on Medium our first batch of invitations to our updated Partner Program. We’ll be sending more over time, and you can learn how to get on the invite list at the end of this post. But first, some details.

When you join the program, you will have the option to publish your story to Medium members only and get paid based on engagement. Your content will still be distributed to your followers, discoverable through search, the Medium home page, and our apps. Note: We have recently switched our paywall from “no access” to a “metered” one, meaning non-members will still be able to read a limited amount of locked stories each month.

How does this all work?

For the creators in the program, each month you will be paid based on the level of engagement your stories get from Medium members. Essentially, we look at the engagement of each individual member (claps being the primary signal) and allocate their monthly subscription fee based on that engagement. This is one of the reasons we love Claps — it helps us measure the depth of appreciation that a member has for each individual post. (For our members, we’re excited to give you more meaningful control over the stories you support. The more claps you give a locked post, the more share of your membership fee that author will get.)

We can’t wait to see the new opportunities the Partner Program creates for writers. But we also recognize that not everyone has the same set of goals when they write on Medium. If you are not interested in making money from your work, nothing changes: Medium remains free and open. You can create an account, write directly on Medium, publish your work, and share it broadly…all for free.

These are just the early days of what we consider a grand experiment. Imagine a day when anyone with the skills and willingness to put in the effort can write something useful, insightful, or moving and be compensated based on its value to others. There is a lot we need to figure out to make this work right. But we are convinced that by joining forces, we can make a new economic model for quality content. We hope you’ll join us in this experiment.

If you are interested and did not get one of the first invitations, don’t worry — more are coming soon. To make sure you’re on the list please join the Partner Program waitlist. In the meantime, check out our FAQ (learn more about becoming a Medium member here). And if you have questions or feedback about the program, email us at yourfriends@medium.com. We’re listening.

Michael Sippey, Head of Product
katie zhu, Product Manager
Brian Zotter, Engineering Lead

Expanding the Medium Partner Program was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Remember that time you saw a really amazing live show? You couldn’t help but jump out of your seat and clap so hard your hands felt raw afterwards. Or when you heard a great lecture or stirring speech, and felt connected to the people around you by joining in with their applause? Now, remember when you last read a story that turned your thinking upside down, offering a new look at a topic that you’d never considered before. Was tapping a heart icon one time enough? Was it satisfying?

Today we’re hoping to change that. Rolling out to Medium users over the coming week will be a new, more satisfying way for readers to give feedback to writers. We call it “Claps.” It’s no longer simply whether you like, or don’t like, something. Now you can give variable levels of applause to a story. Maybe clap once, or maybe 10 or 20 times. You’re in control and can clap to your heart’s desire.

So why are we making this change?

Since day one, Medium has had a goal of measuring value. The problem, as we saw it, with much of the media/web ecosystem is that the things that are measured and optimized for were not necessarily the things that reflected true value to people. For example, a pageview is a pageview, whether it’s a 3-second bounce (clickbait) or a 5-minute, informative story you read to the end. As a result, we got a lot more of the former.

On Medium, we’ve tried to provide more meaningful metrics. We display to our authors not only views, but reads (i.e., how many people got to the bottom of a post). We calculate time spent on posts and display that for publication owners. And we use all of this in our systems that determine which posts to distribute to more people. The goal is always to be able to suss out the great from the merely popular.

So what’s wrong with Recommends?

The Recommend — our version of a Like or upvote or fav — has been our explicit feedback signal since almost day one. Explicit feedback is the most valuable signal, both for authors and the Medium system. But a simple, binary vote has its limitations. It shows you how many people thought something was good, not how good was it?

Earlier this year, we released Series and decided to do something different with the feedback mechanism. Instead of a binary input, we had an applause button, which you could press as many times as you want, and the count just kept going up. At first, we thought this was just fun. But then we realized it could be meaningful.

Just like in real life, we found ourselves applauding more the more we appreciated a Series.

Hm, we thought: What if we could capture this level of sentiment for posts? Authors would get much more meaningful data about what readers really valued. And as a reader, it would be more satisfying than simply ❤️-ing a nicely filtered photo of avocado toast.

We know this will take some getting used to, and we don’t take this change lightly for those who’ve been on Medium for a long time and given — or received — thousands of little green hearts. (We’re right there with you.) But we hope, once you get clapping, you’ll see how natural and more expressive it is.

To summarize: Just click the 👏 instead of the ❤️. If you feel strongly, click it more (or just hold down). The more you clap, the more positive feedback you’re providing to the author, and the more you’re letting us know the story is worth reading. (Only the author can see how many claps you gave them.) Our system will evaluate your claps on an individual basis, assessing your evaluation of a story relative to the number of claps you typically send. All this will help the stories that matter most rise to the top.

Again, this system will be rolling out in the next few days across Medium surfaces. If you don’t see it yet, you will soon. We’ll tweak and adjust based on what we learn, so please give us your feedback.

Show authors more ❤️ with 👏’s was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The best part of working at Medium is witnessing the amazing stories that writers tell using our platform. We provide the canvas and every day, creators infuse it with their expertise, emotion, passion, and point of view.

There’s nothing quite like discovering a great new writer. The strongest voices on Medium captivate and inform us. Their style is as unique as their perspective on the world. With them, we laugh, tear up, take action, finally understand something, and sometimes question everything. And above all, they aren’t afraid to take a stand for what they believe in.

The magic of Medium is more than browsing top stories; it’s about following the ideas of these powerful voices over time and building a connection with them. So we want to help our millions of readers around the world unlock that magic. That’s why, today, we’re introducing Noteworthy.

With Noteworthy, we’ll introduce you to a selection of our favorite writers, experts, photographers, thinkers, activists, illustrators, journalists, videographers, and storytellers. For each Noteworthy writer, you’ll discover not only their stories, but also their ideas and motivations. Through a short film and a written profile, you’ll hear what inspires them, understand more about their background, and even see where they write.

We’re excited to introduce the first three Noteworthy writers: Quincy Larson, Ezinne Ukoha, and Alana Massey. Check out the short films below, read more about them, and be sure to follow them to catch their upcoming work on Medium as soon as it’s published.

Selected as Noteworthy for inspiring a global community of coders on Medium, Quincy teaches us that the future of the internet is in our hands.

Selected as Noteworthy for her fearless honesty, Ezinne reminds us that writing truthfully about the world — especially today’s world — is an act of courage.

Selected as Noteworthy for her ability to unpack the zeitgeist, Alana is your go-to writer for all things culture.

Want more Noteworthy? We’re debuting three writers at once today to kick things off in style, and we’ll be releasing new profiles one at a time from here.

Follow the publication on Medium to discover new Noteworthy writers first, check us out on Twitter and Instagram for behind-the-scenes Noteworthy content, and respond below letting us know writers you think we should feature next.

Welcome to Noteworthy: Spotlighting Top Voices on Medium was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Since we introduced Series — a new type of mobile story on Medium that can be added to over time — we’ve loved watching writers unleash their creativity. Ben Wolford chronicled his efforts to track down a child in the Dominican Republic day by day; Amber Vittoria catalogued and illustrated the moments in her life that made her realize she is an artist; Hassan S. Ali satirized what spin class is really like; and Melinda Gates outlined the badass women in science you need to know.

Welcome to Series, a new type of story on Medium

We want to help creators take their series to the next level. Starting today, you can upload videos to your series to tell even more vivid and immersive stories, and we’ve added Series to your profile page so you can show them off more easily.

Beyond the improvements to Series, we’ve added some new tools for writers of Medium stories, too, which we outline at the end of this post. These updates include a simple way to select a featured image for any story and support for new embeds.

Video in Series

Series are created in cards, which readers tap through one by one on their phones. Previously, Series creators were limited to text and images on each card. Starting today, creators can add a video to any card, too.

Videos are a great way to make your series more immersive: to help readers visualize an experience you’re having, showcase an event you’re describing, or make an update feel more personal. You can add videos via our iOS app, once you’ve updated to the latest version. You can view videos in Series in the iOS and Android apps. Each video is capped to 30 seconds for now, and you can learn more about our technical specs in our help center.

Series on Profile Pages

Thousands of series have been created over the last two months, but readers have only been able to discover series published by authors they follow or those hand-picked by our editors. Now, your series are listed on your profile page as well, providing an easy way for you to showcase them for readers.

All your series are featured in a carousel in the default “Profile” tab, as well as in the dedicated “Series” tab. When readers click a series on iOS or Android, they’ll be taken directly into the cover page. On web, readers will be able to send a push notification to their app.

In addition to the updates for creating series, we’ve made some improvements recently for writing stories as well.

Select a Featured Image

We’ve made it easier for authors to select the image they want to feature with their story. This featured image appears in previews of your story on Medium (on a homepage or profile) or in a tweet, Facebook post, or across the internet.

When you hit “Publish” on your story, in addition to adding tags, you’ll now be able to select an image from your story to be featured. You should see a selection of all the images you added to your story, though it’s worth noting that we’ll omit images that aren’t high resolution enough.

New Embeds: Genius, RadioPublic, JauntVR, Keynote, and more

On Medium, you can include embeds from hundreds of popular websites to enhance your stories — and we’re adding more embed providers all the time.

This year so far, we’ve added support for over 50 new embeds, including annotations and videos from Genius, podcasts from RadioPublic, virtual reality videos from JauntVR, and presentations from Apple Keynote. Just find the object you want to embed in your story (a specific annotation, podcast, video, or presentation, for example), paste the URL into the Medium editor, hit enter, and we’ll take care of the rest. As always, you can visit the full list of embeds we support.

Press Play: Now You Can Add Videos to Your Series on Medium was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When we started designing this new reading experience, we went back to our core mission — to build a place for thoughtful ideas on the internet. We never wanted Medium to be yet another feed you feel obligated to check throughout the day. So this new experience is designed to deliver a satisfying, completable, and controllable experience for every reader.

Curated topics, packaged up and delivered directly to you

Starting today, you can choose from over 50 curated topics to add to your homepage and app. Topics cover popular areas on Medium like Science, Technology, Productivity, Digital Design, Politics, Culture, Creativity, and more. So whatever your interests, we’ve got you covered. And rest assured, you’ll still see stories from the people and publications you follow — you can always find the latest from your favorites at the top of the page.

Topics are different from tags, which many of you follow already. Topics are a set of stories hand-picked by Medium staff, packaged up and delivered to your homepage.

A completable reading experience

On your new homepage and app home screen, you’ll see that each topic displays four to six stories, so you can quickly and easily find the best new stories on the topics you care about most. Can’t get enough pieces on Productivity, though? Simply click the topic’s ‘more’ button and read to your heart’s content. The same is true with the people and publications you follow. More stories are always just a click away.

It’s early days for this new reading experience. We’ll continue to build on it in the coming months and it will be available to all Medium users over the next few days. And if you’re missing your original feed, you can return to it easily, just visit the FAQ for how. Happy reading!

Chris Fry, Head of Engineering & Product Development

Welcome to a smarter reading experience was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Readers spend almost five million hours per month on Medium, following the latest smart ideas from their favorite writers. Today, we’re introducing a new type of story to Medium for readers who just can’t wait for that next post: Series. Series are mobile stories that can be added to over time and unfold card by card with the tap of your finger. This is our first step toward building a new way to read on Medium that’s both seamless and serialized.

With more and more readers turning to Medium on their phones, we began to explore how we could provide a new means of storytelling that didn’t simply conform to the constraints of a small screen, but instead used these constraints to build a more powerful type of story.

It’s a new way to tell deeper, more meaningful stories that develop over time. Much of what we create on the internet today has to stand on its own — context is not guaranteed. But Series changes that: you can go deeper, share more complex ideas, and tell ongoing stories in a way that you couldn’t with a single post. Whether inspiration strikes all at once or over time, you can start a series whenever, adding to it as you come up with new ideas.

As a reader following along, you can opt to get a push notification every time the creator adds a new installment. And if you have to stop reading in the middle, Series always saves your place so you can jump back in wherever you left off. When you reach the end, you can give feedback in the form of claps to let the creator know you’re reading and that you can’t wait for the next update.

You can start reading series in our iOS and Android apps today. Just download or update the app, and you’ll see a new Series tab that will include stories from the creators you follow on Medium, as well as ones featured by our editorial team.

We’ve lined up some great series for you to start reading right away. 👀 Melinda Gates dives into the most effective ways to save the lives of children across the globe, Bernie Sanders explores the human stories behind rising prescription drug prices, Quincy Larson explains in detail why he believes net neutrality works, and Jeff Lewonczyk paints a vivid picture of the future through illustrations.

And if you’re feeling inspired, you can start creating your own series today in our iOS app or on the web. We can’t wait to see what you come up with.

ABC. Always be clappin’.

Welcome to Series, a new type of story on Medium was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Writers have turned to Medium to tell their stories, giving us a glimpse into their most tender and painful moments. Some gave us hope for romance at the end of the tunnel and others made us mourn for love lost. We read about online dating done wrong, online dating done right, online dating dealbreakers, online dating as a job interview and online dating with religion (and not getting #blessed). We learned that promiscuity can lead to empathy, love can’t always conquer politics and Beef Stroganoff is not an ideal meal for a breakup.

The most romantic month — i.e. the month people read the most stories about love — was June of 2016 (maybe Juno, the patroness of marriage was doing her thang?) with people spending 2.5x more time reading about love than during the average month last year. April 2016, on the other hand, was the least romantic month (turns out April Fools’ Day is a popular day for breakups), with people spending roughly half the average amount of time reading about love.

So, if springtime is for haters (or at least really tasteless pranksters) and summer is for lovin’, where do the most people tend to read about love? We looked into which cities spent the most time reading about love relative to the total time people from that location spent reading on Medium and things got interesting. Those top ten cities were:

1. Lagos, Nigeria
2. Clover, South Carolina
3. Delaware, Ohio
4. Wellington, New Zealand
5. Bridgetown, Barbados
6. Abuja, Nigeria
7. St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada
8. Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
9. Singapore
10. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

And while where people read about love was unexpected (Canada and Nigeria: tell us your romantic secrets), we also wanted to find out who was tugging at readers’ heartstrings most. The most popular writer on relationships is C. Brian Smith who wrote ‘The Straight Men Who Want Nothing to Do With Women’, a story about men who prioritize their relationship with themselves over traditional partnerships, followed by Heidi K. Isern whose story ‘Why You Cannot Find the One’ prompted hundreds of readers to reach out to the author asking for love advice, which she gave in a follow up post. Emma Lindsay, another top writer, struck a chord with readers for her candid account of the challenges of singlehood and finding a partner in ‘Being Single Is Hard’ and Jack Preston King tackled the pain of diminishment in a marriage with ‘How Men Die’. Other top writers include Jessica Semaan, Tracy Moore, Tiffany Sun, Abbie, Charlie Sierra Bravo and Brooke Maggs (check out the full list here).

These writers and scores more have made us laugh, cry and cringingly-self-identify, and in honor of the day we’ve rounded up your favorites here and here. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Love [Data] Actually was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Words matter. They’re critical tools for debate, inspiration, and understanding. We take them seriously at Medium. We know you take them seriously, too — 200 million words were published in January, Medium’s biggest month in history. Driving that growth are people well-known and unknown, sharing their insight into what’s happening in American politics and the world at-large. Your posts reveal that substance, candor, and credibility more than ever, from people who can deepen our perspectives and challenge our biases, are paramount.

To get you started, here are five top important topics rounded-up from January:

1. The travel ban for refugees and immigrants

Donald Trump issued a flurry of executive orders his first week as President, but none more controversial than the temporary travel ban on citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries. This executive order, combined with his campaign rhetoric promising a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” led many to believe the executive order was an incremental step to make good on his promise.

Senator Kamala Harris was unequivocal in her response: “Make no mistake — this is a Muslim ban”, and the order reinvigorated protesters across the country. Senator Jeff Flake joined other conservative leaders who took issue with the clumsy enforcement of and roll out, stating “it’s unacceptable when even legal permanent residents are being detained or turned away at airports and ports of entry.”

Malala Yousafzai added her thoughts:

Writers shared stories from their own family. Neghar Fonooni told us about her Iranian father, who, at “17 and alone, didn’t speak a word of English when he boarded that plane.” Tasha Butler reminded us about another executive order from a previous generation:

This order declared that all people of Japanese ancestry be removed from their homes and relocated to internment camps.

Shibley Telhami points us towards data from The Brookings Institution which he believes illustrates “how Trump changed Americans’ view of Islam for the better.” And the Washington Post warns that the “Shock. Outrage. Resistance. Repeat.” catalyzed by the travel ban may be a reoccurring in Trump’s administration.

2. Media, democracy and entertainment

What has become abundantly clear, just 18 days into Trump’s presidency, is that the heightened frenzy he introduced to our politics during the campaign show no signs of slowing now that he occupies the Oval Office.

Hyperbolic partisan rage has been the norm for so long, it is more challenging than ever to vet for accurate information and assess when concern has merit. As Sean Blanda reminds us:

The methods used to fund modern journalism simultaneously undermine trust in the news outlets.

The level of mistrust might further expand by what Berny Belvedere describes as, an “alt-fact administration.” Michael Tracey contends:

[Trump] is keenly aware of how to prod the media into indulging its worst instincts, so a vicious cycle emerges where Trump does something outlandish, and then the media responds by acting outlandishly in its own right.

Michael Marinaccio says quit blaming the news media for feeding us exactly what consumers continually demand — entertainment.

Intensified concern doesn’t seem misplaced, just follow Amy Siskind and her weekly chronicles for Trump’s most recent assault on democratic norms. Conservatives from The Buckley Club like Tim Carlson have remained stalwartly #NeverTrump. And G. Clinton illustrated the slippery slope some conservatives navigate who are forsaking principle out of hatred for leftists:

The things that Donald Trump seems to stand for are the antithesis to what I believe a leader of conservatism should espouse.

Yonatan Zunger published a widely read post this month musing on Trump’s potentially sinister ulterior motives. As did Jake Fuentes on what he saw as Trump’s head fake. This drove an important discussion and incited some pointed criticism. Nicholas Grossman rejected the notion that this is part of a master plan from Trump and chief strategist Steve Bannon, and chalks it up to inexperience and human fallibility, while acknowledging:

As Americans are learning, most restraints on presidential power are norms. The modern United States has never been confronted with a White House that doesn’t care about precedent, democratic values, or conflicts of interest.

Abby Ohlheiser shared a similar critique (which doubled as a critique of Medium for helping give rise to “unproven speculations”) by citing heavily from Cornell professor Tom Pepinsky, who wrote:

…Everything that Zunger identifies is evidence not of a deliberate planning by an aspiring authoritarian, but of the exact opposite: the weakness and incoherence of administration by a narcissist.

Zunger acknowledged these counter points in a second post but emphasized:

You don’t need to be brilliant to be a danger to democracy; quite literally, an idiot could do it. Inventing effective authoritarianism from scratch may require an evil brilliance, but copying existing techniques requires only amorality.

3. Women march

The day after Trump’s Inauguration, millions of people throughout the world took to the streets as part of the Women’s March movement. Millions of others came to Medium to make sense of it all.

Melissa Harris-Perry asked what is normal. Is it Trump? The protestors? Both? Writer susan.speer said she marched for the women who couldn’t, and even for those who didn’t ask her to:

There’s a lot of women right here, in this country, who need things they aren’t getting, and they deserve their own conversation.

Dina Leygerman published a point-by-point case for why women are still not equal:

You are not equal. Even if you feel like you are. You still make less than a man for doing the same work. You make less as a CEO, as an athlete, as an actress, as a doctor. You make less in government, in the tech industry, in healthcare.

Stefanie Williams responded by challenging what she sees as the pervading wisdom of those who marched (eventually turning in her liberal card altogether):

The smugness of liberalism as of late has made me hesitant to declare my identity recently. The “we know better than you” attitude is too reminiscent of the patriarchal right.

And while helping to lead a march in Park City, UT, Chelsea Handler and Mary McCormack looked for the bright side of a Trump’s election:

4. The Russian dossier

Following BuzzFeed News’s release of a dossier that was produced by a former British intelligence officer and circulating the highest offices of American government, many weren’t sure what to make of the dossier’s accusations. Amongst other things, the dossier supported U.S. intelligence reports that Vladimir Putin ordered Russian powers to meddle in the U.S. presidential election to hurt Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and prop up Trump. But this dossier went further and claimed the Russian government had incriminating information on Trump they could use to blackmail him.

Former Department of Defense intelligence analyst, Jim Arkedis, drew upon his years of experience analyzing similar intelligence to share how he would assess the dossier’s credibility:

I think there’s enough evidence there that it would be irresponsible not to consider how this could impact our nation’s security and what, if anything, can be done to mitigate those potential impacts.

Taylor Griffin served in the White House and Treasury under President George W. Bush and viewed the document with a healthy degree of skepticism, saying; “It is telling that Trump’s primary opponents had the information, as apparently did Hillary Clinton’s allies, and chose not to use it.”

To his fellow conservatives, Griffin offers these thoughts regarding Russian interference in the election:

How plausible is it, really, that Democrats, the media, every U.S. intelligence agency, and the vast majority of cybersecurity professionals are in on a conspiracy to spare Hillary Clinton’s feelings and discredit Donald Trump?

Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev has spent years covering authoritarian leaders and a blunt message to “doomed colleagues in American media” now tasked with covering Trump:

Facts don’t matter. You can’t hurt this man with facts or reason. He’ll always outmaneuver you. He’ll always wriggle out of whatever carefully crafted verbal trap you lay for him. Whatever he says, you won’t be able to challenge him. He always comes with a bag of meaningless factoids (Putin likes to drown questions he doesn’t like in dull, unverifiable stats, figures and percentages), platitudes, false moral equivalences and straight, undiluted bullshit. He knows it’s a one-way communication, not an interview.

5. A cabinet is nominated

Six cabinet members have been confirmed by the US Senate. Eleven are awaiting a confirmation vote, such as Sen. Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. Earlier this month Senator Cory Booker and Congressman John Lewis testified against Senator Sessions to articulate their concerns about Sessions’ record on civil rights:

But prior to her confirmation yesterday, the nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education seemed to draw most of the Democrat’s ire.

U.S. Senator Bob Casey was concerned with DeVos’ testimony when he asked her about protecting victims of sexual assault by enforcing existing laws. In his words, “maintaining protections for the victims of campus sexual assault is not negotiable.” And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand writes:

I have never heard so many concerns from my constituents about someone so ill prepared for the position they were nominated for.

Sen. Lamar Alexander made the case for confirming DeVos. Claiming Democrats are “desperately are searching for a valid reason to oppose Betsy DeVos.”

As we move into February, things show no signs of slowing down.

Democracy Online: A Record-Breaking January on Medium was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.