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Month: August 2019

Democrats are veering left. It might just work

Democrats are veering left. It might just work

John F. Harris writes: “Candidates who look like they are cautious, modulating, have their foot on the brake are missing the moment,” said veteran Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who is coming out later this summer with a book on how both parties have been refashioned in the Trump era. The moment, according to Greenberg’s polling and focus-group work, has left voters of all stripes clamoring for disruption. Cultural and ideological currents in society—more profound than any given day’s Trump uproars—are…

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Elizabeth Warren is running a brilliant campaign

Elizabeth Warren is running a brilliant campaign

David Axelrod writes: Elizabeth Warren is running a strategically brilliant campaign. More than any other candidate, she has a clear, unambiguous message that is thoroughly integrated with her biography. That is essential to a successful campaign. Her unsparing critique of corporate excess and her expansive — and expensive — agenda for change mirror those of the reigning left champion, Bernie Sanders, in places. But where Sanders sometimes seems like a parody of himself — or of Larry David’s parody of…

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With Ratcliffe, another Trump nominee withdraws with a damaged reputation

With Ratcliffe, another Trump nominee withdraws with a damaged reputation

Michael Warren writes: Five of the worst words to hear in Washington these days: “The President has nominated you…” Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe, President Donald Trump’s short-lived nominee for director of national intelligence, is the latest would-be official to get the bad news. Up until he was tapped for the country’s top intelligence job on July 28, Ratcliffe was practically unknown around Washington. Five days later, after Trump announced on Twitter that he had withdrawn from consideration, Ratcliffe has a…

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U.S. preparing to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan in initial deal with Taliban

U.S. preparing to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan in initial deal with Taliban

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is preparing to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan in exchange for concessions from the Taliban, including a cease-fire and a renunciation of al-Qaeda, as part of an initial deal to end the nearly 18-year-old war, U.S. officials say. The agreement, which would require the Taliban to begin negotiating a larger peace deal directly with the Afghan government, could cut the number of American troops in the country from roughly 14,000 to between…

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Can the president of Brazil jail Glenn Greenwald for publishing leaks?

Can the president of Brazil jail Glenn Greenwald for publishing leaks?

Adriana Carranca writes: On June 9, The Intercept began publishing a series of investigative stories that sent shocks through Brazil. The pieces appeared to supply evidence that Sergio Moro, Brazil’s Justice Minister and the former top judge in a major corruption investigation, colluded with federal prosecutors to convict prominent political figures—among them, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had been leading 2018 election polls and was rendered ineligible to run. Drawing from private chats leaked to Glenn Greenwald—the Intercept’s…

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Metabolic health is inseparable from the health of our gut microbes

Metabolic health is inseparable from the health of our gut microbes

James Hamblin writes: The relationship between microbes and weight gain has long been overlooked in humans, but people have known about similar effects in animals for decades. After World War II, antibiotics became affordable and abundant for the first time. Farmers began giving the drugs to their livestock—for example, to treat a milk cow’s infected udder—and noticed that animals who got antibiotics grew larger and more quickly. This led to a flood of patent applications for antibiotic-laden foods for all…

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The conservative nationalists’ contempt for America’s unalterably multiracial, multicultural national character

The conservative nationalists’ contempt for America’s unalterably multiracial, multicultural national character

Will Wilkinson writes: The Republican Party under Donald Trump has devolved into a populist cult of personality. But Mr. Trump won’t be president forever. Can the cult persist without its personality? Does Trumpist nationalism contain a kernel of coherent ideology that can outlast the Trump presidency? At a recent conference in Washington, a group of conservatives did their level best to promote Trumpism without Trump (rebranded as “national conservatism”) as a cure for all that ails our frayed and faltering…

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U.S. ends Cold War missile treaty, with aim of countering China

U.S. ends Cold War missile treaty, with aim of countering China

The New York Times reports: The United States on Friday terminates a major treaty of the Cold War, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement, and it is already planning to start testing a new class of missiles later this summer. But the new missiles are unlikely to be deployed to counter the treaty’s other nuclear power, Russia, which the United States has said for years was in violation of the accord. Instead, the first deployments are likely to be intended to…

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Bashar al-Assad’s useful idiot

Bashar al-Assad’s useful idiot

Josh Rogin writes: Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) talks often about her January 2017 trip to Syria, when she met Bashar al-Assad, toured Aleppo after it had been reduced to rubble (by the Assad regime), and interviewed Syrian civilians and the regime-approved “opposition,” who unanimously told her Assad was a better option for Syria than the “terrorists.” But Gabbard never talks about her other trip — to the Turkish-Syrian border with a group of lawmakers in June 2015, when she met…

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The world has turned its back on the carnage of Idlib

The world has turned its back on the carnage of Idlib

Kareem Shaheen writes: Close to half a million people in Syria have been displaced from their homes in the past three months, refugees in the making, who would have sought safety with their neighbours across the border if the doors hadn’t been shut in their faces. Let that number sink in for a moment. Half a million rendered homeless, running for their lives. They fled rebel-held areas in the provinces of Idlib and Hama between April and July, trying to…

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Irish unity is now being championed by moderate politicians

Irish unity is now being championed by moderate politicians

Finn McRedmond writes: In March this year at a St Patrick’s Day parade, Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Féin in the Republic of Ireland, marched behind a banner that read “England get out of Ireland”. The stunt garnered widespread criticism. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s deputy, Simon Coveney, didn’t mince his words when he called it “offensive, divisive and an embarrassment”. This incident was symptomatic of a party that has misread the room. Growing support for a united Ireland is clear:…

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How ‘dark patterns’ online manipulate shoppers

How ‘dark patterns’ online manipulate shoppers

Sidney Fussell reports: Dark patterns are the often unseen web-design choices that trick users into handing over more time, money, or attention than they realize. A team of Princeton researchers is cataloging these deceptive techniques, using data pulled from 11,000 shopping sites, to identify 15 ways sites subtly game our cognition to control us. The research builds on the work of Harry Brignull, a London-based cognitive scientist who coined the term dark pattern in 2010, and the authors Richard Thaler…

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Most detailed ever 3D map of Milky Way shows ‘warped’ shape

Most detailed ever 3D map of Milky Way shows ‘warped’ shape

The Guardian reports: The most detailed three-dimensional map yet of the Milky Way has been revealed, showing that our galaxy is not a flat disc but has a “warped” shape like a fascinator hat or a vinyl record that has been left in the sun. “The stars 60,000 light years away from the Milky Way’s centre are as far as 4,500 [light years] above or below the galactic plane – this is a big percentage,” said Dr Dorota Skowron of…

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July was the hottest month in human history — and our addiction to fossil fuels is only getting worse

July was the hottest month in human history — and our addiction to fossil fuels is only getting worse

Eric Holthaus writes: July 2019 is now the hottest month in recorded history, the U.N. confirmed on Thursday. At a press conference in New York, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres announced that the month of July had reached 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a figure that “at least equaled if not surpassed the hottest month in recorded history,” according to data released by the World Meteorological Organization. Temperature information from July is still streaming in, but preliminary data show…

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