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Trump’s response to being humiliated by Putin

Trump’s response to being humiliated by Putin

Jonathan Lemire writes: President Donald Trump is finally taking the fight to Vladimir Putin. Sort of. For now. Trump’s deference to Russia’s authoritarian leader has been one of the most enduring geopolitical subplots of the past decade. But his frustration with Putin has grown. Last week, the president said the United States was taking “a lot of bullshit” from Putin. Today, he authorized a significant shipment of U.S. defensive weapons to Ukraine via NATO and threatened Russia with new tariffs…

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Trump’s assault on free speech

Trump’s assault on free speech

David A. Graham writes: Not that long ago, believe it or not, Donald Trump ran for president as the candidate who would defend the First Amendment. He warned that a “sinister group of Deep State bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, left-wing activists, and depraved corporate news media” was “conspiring to manipulate and silence the American people,” and promised that “by restoring free speech, we will begin to reclaim our democracy, and save our nation.” On his first day back in office,…

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Two-thirds of the DOJ lawyers defending Trump policies in court have quit

Two-thirds of the DOJ lawyers defending Trump policies in court have quit

Reuters reports: The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies – such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University – has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters. Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump’s election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by…

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Karen Hao on how AI is threatening democracy and creating a new colonial world

Karen Hao on how AI is threatening democracy and creating a new colonial world

  The new book “Empire of AI” by longtime technology reporter Karen Hao unveils the accruing political and economic power of AI companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment. “This is an extraordinary type of AI development that is causing a lot of social, labor and environmental harms,” says…

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America’s allies want to redraw the global trade map, minus the U.S., with Europe at the center

America’s allies want to redraw the global trade map, minus the U.S., with Europe at the center

The New York Times reports: Trade chaos is forcing America’s allies closer together, and further from the United States. And as that happens, the European Union is trying to position itself at the center of a new global trade map. The bloc learned this weekend that Washington would subject it to 30 percent tariffs starting Aug. 1. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the E.U. executive branch, responded with a pledge to keep negotiating. She also made it clear…

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Trump is attacking weather science and weakening disaster response capabilities

Trump is attacking weather science and weakening disaster response capabilities

The New York Times reports: In an effort to shrink the federal government, President Trump and congressional Republicans have taken steps that are diluting the country’s ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to catastrophic flooding and other extreme weather events, disaster experts say. Staff reductions, budget cuts and other changes made by the administration since January have already created holes at the National Weather Service, which forecasts and warns of dangerous weather. Mr. Trump’s budget proposal for the next…

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ICE campaign of violence and intimidation will lead to more deaths and disappearances

ICE campaign of violence and intimidation will lead to more deaths and disappearances

Natasha Lennard writes: After weeks of brazen rights violations and outright impunity from America’s secret police force, a federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday issued a sharp rebuke of the racist tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong blocked ICE’s “roving” patrols in Southern California, halting agents from carrying out unconstitutional arrests based on racial profiling alone. Going forward, they’ll need to have specific grounds for believing someone to be undocumented before they can…

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Why the Trump regime continues persecuting Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Why the Trump regime continues persecuting Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Rolling Stone reports: President Donald Trump’s administration unlawfully shipped Kilmar Abrego Garcia to an infamous prison in El Salvador — his home nation where a judge barred him from being deported — where the Maryland man says he was tortured. Trump officials refused to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., as the Supreme Court had ordered, for nearly two months, before suddenly bringing him back to face new criminal charges in Tennessee. A magistrate judge found the government’s evidence…

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How 48 federal judges describe Trump’s actions, in their own words

How 48 federal judges describe Trump’s actions, in their own words

The New York Times: Many Americans in positions of power, including corporate executives and members of Congress, seem too afraid of President Trump to stand up to his anti-democratic behavior. Federal judges have shown themselves to be exceptions. “Judges from across the ideological spectrum are ruling against administration policies at remarkable rates,” said Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University. These rulings have halted Mr. Trump’s vengeful attempts to destroy law firms, forestalled some of his budget cuts and…

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Trump claims ‘nobody cares about’ Jeffrey Epstein. MAGA supporters vehemently disagree

Trump claims ‘nobody cares about’ Jeffrey Epstein. MAGA supporters vehemently disagree

Fox News reports: MAGA supporters are not pleased with President Donald Trump following his full-throated defense of Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose Department of Justice denied the existence of a Jeffrey Epstein client list after years of Trump surrogates vowing to reveal the disgraced financier’s secrets. Longtime conservatives and supporters of Trump sounded off on social media this weekend, as well as in person during a convention in Florida, with various messages pledging that the Epstein scandal will not “go…

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What it feels like to laugh when the world expects you to disappear

What it feels like to laugh when the world expects you to disappear

Hanif Abdurraqib writes: I sometimes say that I consider myself a junior-varsity Muslim. Whether this comes off as a joke or as an invitation for scolding (spoken or unspoken, loving or otherwise) depends entirely on the other Muslims in the room. But, hey, I say hands up and palms out: I take Ramadan very seriously, more seriously than I take anything. Inside me is still a child of rigorous routine. I don’t drink, or smoke, or use drugs, though I…

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Overwhelming majority of Americans have a positive view of immigration

Overwhelming majority of Americans have a positive view of immigration

Gallup reports: When asked if immigration is generally a good thing or bad thing for the country, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults call it a good thing; a record-low 17% see it as a bad thing. This is consistent with the long-term pattern of more Americans viewing immigration as helpful than harmful to the country. But today’s endorsement is up from 64% last year and represents a reversal of the downward trend seen in this view from 2021 to…

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Kristi Noem’s negligence led to thousands of calls to FEMA from flood survivors going unanswered

Kristi Noem’s negligence led to thousands of calls to FEMA from flood survivors going unanswered

The New York Times reports: Two days after catastrophic floods roared through Central Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. The lack of responsiveness happened because the agency had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters. The agency laid…

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George Mason is the latest university under fire from Trump. Its president fears an ‘orchestrated’ campaign

George Mason is the latest university under fire from Trump. Its president fears an ‘orchestrated’ campaign

By Katherine Mangan, special to ProPublica This story was originally published by ProPublica When the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights notified George Mason University on July 1 that it was opening an antisemitism investigation based on a recent complaint, the university’s president, Gregory Washington, said he was “perplexed.” Compared with other campuses, where protesters had ransacked buildings and hunkered down in encampments, George Mason had been relatively quiet over the past year, he said. His administration had taken extensive…

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