Rolling Stone Digs Deeply Into MSNBC Anchor Rachel Maddow & Her Dogged Pursuit of Trump Truth

Beware of women wearing pearls! Calif. Dem. Senator Kamala Harris reinforced that message last week (and Tuesday June 14, 2017) when she grilled Trump administration cabinet members in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. 

This Vassar-ready blonde has morphed into the woman today known as Rachel Maddow, the openly-gay Rhodes scholar who arrived on the MSNBC cable news scene via progressive Air America Radio. 'The Rachel Maddow Show' is now the number-one prime-time news program on cable TV, a notable achievement for the woman who leads the resistance in the Trump era with a firm commitment to "increase the amount of useful information in the world". 

Rolling Stone makes Rachel Maddow their cover girl, writing that in mid-May, 'The Rachel Maddow Show' was "second only to the NBC playoffs as the most-watched program on cable, period."

 On the whiteboard behind Maddow's desk is a running, if haphazardly diagrammed, list of the stories she's thinking about, with the most important circled in blue marker. Perpetual favorites like Flynn and Trump's ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort hold a prominent place. Another name floating in its own blue circle: Viktor Medvedchuk, "a superclose-to-Putin oligarch" whose name recently turned up in intercepts for having had contact with the Trump campaign. "But we haven't talked about the fact that he was [also] one of the first individuals sanctioned by the U.S. government after the Crimea thing," says Maddow. "And so what is that guy doing talking to the Trump campaign during the campaign when he is one of the sanctioned individuals?"

We all know the truth: Rachel Maddow is relentless on the hunt to uncover all the relevant facts about connections between the Trump Administration and Russia. 

Silicon Valley Leads Major Innovations & Curriculum Development In America's Public Schools

Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce, is giving middle school principals in San Francisco public schools $100,000 “innovation grants” with the challenge to behave more like start-up founders and less like bureaucrats.

In Maryland, Texas, Virginia and other states, Netflix’s chief, Reed Hastings, promotes a popular math-teaching program where Netflix-like algorithms determine which lessons students see.

And in more than 100 schools nationwide, Facebook’s chief, Mark Zuckerberg, is testing a really big idea: software that puts children in charge of their own learning, recasting their teachers as support system facilitators and mentors.

"In the space of just a few years, technology giants have begun remaking the very nature of schooling on a vast scale, using some of the same techniques that have made their companies linchpins of the American economy, " writes The New York Times. Through their philanthropy, they are influencing the subjects that schools teach, the classroom tools that teachers choose and fundamental approaches to learning.

The tech industry is also leading the way expressing their upset that Donald Trump withdrew America from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Given the right-wing commitment to pull our children back to the Stone Age, as the test scores of America's kids fall lower and lower, tech giants are focused on creating a 21st century workforce. There are understandable debates about who's in charge among sectors of parents who believe they should determine their child's curriculum. The problem with this thesis is that as a civic society, America has a vested interest in an educated workforce. If they learn about science and evolution in the process, that is what America needs. ~ Anne

CFDA Honors Gloria Steinem As Trump Moves To Curtail Women's Right To Birth Control, Bowing To Religious Forces

Feminist icon Gloria Steinem arrived on the national stage with her 1962 essay 'The Moral Disarmament of Betty Coed'. In 1963, Steinem famously used her good looks and socially-perceived 'hot bod' to work undercover at the Playboy Club, penning her experiences in an essay called 'A Bunny's Tale'. Feeling the backlash, in 2969 Steinem explained why men shouldn't fear feminists in 'After Black Power, Women's Liberation'. 

In 2017, many American women wonder why we can't cement our equality in 21st century America, where anti-feminist forces are perhaps more formidable than ever. Surrounded by pundits who argued that Hillary Clinton should drop the allegation that misogyny played any role in the 2016 election, former RNC chairman Michael Steele agreed that misogyny DID play a role, describing America as a very provincial nation with traditional views about women's roles. 

In the aftermath of Clinton's loss, the fashion industry is galvanized around women's issues, having taken a Clinton win for granted. On June 5, Steinem will receive the CFDA Board of Directors' Tribute for her endless legacy of work within the women's movement, in an honor presented by her close friend Diane von Furstenberg, a board member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. 

In a week when the Trump administration is a Trump Tweet away from abandoning the Democrats argument that contraception is a fundamental plank of women's health with a dilution of the contraception mandate, the battle to control women's reproduction is a Republican priority. The move would impact thousands of women who currently get contraception from employer-provided insurance plans with no out-of-pocket costs. Trump believes that a company's CEO's religious beliefs should dictate the right of women's employees to affordable contraception. 

Gloria Steinem agrees that "we're all enmeshed in this political system that is devoted to controlling reproduction." This staggering reality is a dagger in the hearts of the majority of American women living in the 21st century. 

Vogue.com invites 17 self-described feminists to share their thoughts about feminism today and what Steinem means to them, from her writings to her street activism and also her revolutionary fashion style.