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QAnon is thriving in Germany. The extreme right is delighted

QAnon is thriving in Germany. The extreme right is delighted

The New York Times reports: Early in the pandemic, as thousands of American troops began NATO maneuvers in Germany, Attila Hildmann did a quick YouTube search to see what it was all about. He quickly came across videos posted by German followers of QAnon. In their telling, this was no NATO exercise. It was a covert operation by President Trump to liberate Germany from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government — something they applauded. “The Q movement said these are troops that…

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How our brain sculpts experience in line with our expectations

How our brain sculpts experience in line with our expectations

Daniel Yon writes: The Book of Days (1864) by the Scottish author Robert Chambers reports a curious legal case: in 1457 in the town of Lavegny, a sow and her piglets were charged and tried for the murder of a partially eaten small child. After much deliberation, the court condemned the sow to death for her part in the act, but acquitted the naive piglets who were too young to appreciate the gravity of their crimes. Subjecting a pig to…

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Mortality: ‘I could be one of the diers,’ said Trump

Mortality: ‘I could be one of the diers,’ said Trump

Olivia Nuzzi writes: Donald Trump was on the phone, and he was talking about dying. It was Saturday, October 3, and while his doctor had told the outside world that the president’s symptoms were nothing to worry about, Trump, cocooned in his suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, was telling those close to him something very different. “I could be one of the diers,” he said. The person on the other end of the line…

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Trump’s grip on Republicans is loosening amid a coronavirus backlash and fears of an electoral bloodbath

Trump’s grip on Republicans is loosening amid a coronavirus backlash and fears of an electoral bloodbath

Politico reports: For Republicans, fearful of a possible electoral disaster just weeks away, it has become safe at last to diss Donald Trump — or at least to distance themselves from him in unmistakably purposeful ways. A barrage of barbed comments in recent days shows how markedly the calculus of fear has shifted in the GOP. For much of the past four years, Republican politicians were scared above all about incurring the wrath of the president and his supporters with…

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Covid-19 cases in Arizona dropped 75% after mask mandates began, report says

Covid-19 cases in Arizona dropped 75% after mask mandates began, report says

Arizona Republic reports: COVID-19 cases in Arizona spiked 151% after a statewide stay-at-home order expired and dropped 75% following local mask mandates, a new report says. The report, published this week by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was authored by officials with the Arizona Department of Health Services, including director Dr. Cara Christ. A stay-at-home order in Arizona expired May 15 and two weeks later — between June 1 and June 15 — the daily average number…

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White House blocked CDC from requiring masks on public transportation

White House blocked CDC from requiring masks on public transportation

The New York Times reports: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drafted a sweeping order last month requiring all passengers and employees to wear masks on all forms of public and commercial transportation in the United States, but it was blocked by the White House, according to two federal health officials. The order would have been the toughest federal mandate to date aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, which continues to infect more than 40,000 Americans a…

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Lessons from embedding with the Michigan militia – 5 questions answered about the group allegedly plotting to kidnap a governor

Lessons from embedding with the Michigan militia – 5 questions answered about the group allegedly plotting to kidnap a governor

A search warrant and a list of seized property from an FBI raid related to the alleged kidnapping plot. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images By Amy Cooter, Vanderbilt University Details are still emerging about the men arrested on federal and state charges related to an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Federal prosecutions can take months and even years, so it will be quite some time before a full analysis of this situation becomes possible. But as a…

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The Taliban endorse Trump: ‘We hope he will win the election’ and withdraw U.S. troops — updated

The Taliban endorse Trump: ‘We hope he will win the election’ and withdraw U.S. troops — updated

CBS News reports: President Trump’s reelection bid received a vote of support Friday from an entity most in his party would reject: the Taliban. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News in a phone interview, “We hope he will win the election and wind up U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.” The militant group expressed some concern about Mr. Trump’s bout with the coronavirus. “When we heard about Trump being COVID-19 positive, we got worried for his health, but seems he…

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NextEra Energy, a wind and solar power producer, tops Exxon as most valuable U.S. energy company

NextEra Energy, a wind and solar power producer, tops Exxon as most valuable U.S. energy company

CBS News reports: It’s a milestone for renewable energy in the U.S.: A solar and wind power provider topped ExxonMobil as America’s most valuable energy company. NextEra Energy, based in Juno Beach, Florida, eclipsed Exxon this week when its value hit $143.8 billion, edging out the fossil-fuel giant. After the close of trading on Wednesday, NextEra was worth $900 million more that Exxon and about $2 billion more than Chevron, America’s No. 2 oil and gas producer. NextEra’s enormous growth…

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Trump’s tax records expose more than $21 million in highly unusual payments

Trump’s tax records expose more than $21 million in highly unusual payments

The New York Times reports: Donald J. Trump needed money. His “self-funded” presidential campaign was short on funds, and he was struggling to win over leery Republican donors. His golf courses and the hotel he would soon open in the Old Post Office in Washington were eating away at what cash he had left on hand, his tax records show. And in early 2016, Deutsche Bank, the last big lender still doing business with him, unexpectedly turned down his request…

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Trump’s $21 million tax break for saving the forest outside his NY mansion is under investigation

Trump’s $21 million tax break for saving the forest outside his NY mansion is under investigation

The Washington Post reports: Five years ago, Donald Trump promised to preserve more than 150 acres of rolling woodlands in an exclusive swath of New York suburbia prized for its luxury homes and rural tranquility. In exchange for setting aside this land on his estate known as Seven Springs, Trump received a tax break of $21.1 million, according to court documents. The size of Trump’s tax windfall was set by a 2016 appraisal that valued Seven Springs at $56.5 million — more…

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The metaphors of strength that Trump and other use are making the pandemic worse

The metaphors of strength that Trump and other use are making the pandemic worse

Ed Yong writes: On Monday, as President Donald Trump left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia tweeted a doctored clip of the president tackling and punching the wrestler and WWE CEO Vince McMahon. In the edited version, McMahon’s face has been replaced with a picture of a virus. “COVID stood NO chance against @realDonaldTrump!” Loeffler wrote. Similar sentiments, trumpeting Trump’s strength and fighting spirit, have poured forth since he tested positive for COVID-19. “#TrumpStrong,” Twitter…

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Court packing can be an instrument of justice

Court packing can be an instrument of justice

Jamelle Bouie writes: Much of the point of the Republican alliance with Donald Trump was to establish control over the federal judiciary as a whole and the Supreme Court in particular. The deal was simple: Republicans would support him and his agenda, such as it was. He would nominate a cadre of reliably conservative judges, handpicked by the Federalist Society and backed by groups like the Judicial Crisis Network, to lifetime positions on the federal bench, where they would write…

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The Michigan plot wasn’t about Trump — it goes deeper than that

The Michigan plot wasn’t about Trump — it goes deeper than that

Fred Kaplan writes: The most striking thing about the six domestic terrorists arrested on Thursday for conspiring to kidnap the governor of Michigan isn’t that they actually took steps to carry out their plot—though that is unusual and frightening (most groups of this ilk talk big but do little). More, it’s what the gang reveals about the steep rise in American militia activity this year. Some of these groups—including this one, which, had it succeeded, would have been the season’s…

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