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The United States of Suppression

The United States of Suppression

Teen Vogue reports: The backlash to progress is often swift. The response to the 2020 protests for Black lives and against police brutality — what may have been the biggest mobilization in US recorded history — was stunning. A bright spark of resistance and the expression of long-held frustration was met with suffocating state repression: arrests, beatings, prosecutions, and calls for more police funding from the highest levels of government. With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, authoritarianism in the…

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Climate crisis is making days longer, study finds

Climate crisis is making days longer, study finds

The Guardian reports: The climate crisis is causing the length of each day to get longer, analysis shows, as the mass melting of polar ice reshapes the planet. The phenomenon is a striking demonstration of how humanity’s actions are transforming the Earth, scientists said, rivalling natural processes that have existed for billions of years. The change in the length of the day is on the scale of milliseconds but this is enough to potentially disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and…

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To save life on Earth, bring back taxonomy

To save life on Earth, bring back taxonomy

Robert Langellier writes: In 2009, the botanist Naomi Fraga was hunting a flower without a name near Carson City, Nev. Ms. Fraga saw that the plant was going extinct in real time as its desert valley habitat was bulldozed to make way for Walmarts and housing developments. But in order to seek legal protections for it, she had to give it a name. The diminutive yellow flower became the Carson Valley monkeyflower or, officially, Erythranthe carsonensis, allowing conservationists to petition…

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Nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw. He’s ‘arrogant, narcissistic,’ says Michael Moore

Nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw. He’s ‘arrogant, narcissistic,’ says Michael Moore

The Associated Press reports: Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say President Joe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to a new poll, sharply undercutting his post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still with him even if some “big names” are turning on him. The new survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted as Biden works to salvage his candidacy two weeks after his debate flop, also found that…

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Schiff calls on Biden to drop out, citing ‘serious concerns’ he can’t win

Schiff calls on Biden to drop out, citing ‘serious concerns’ he can’t win

The Los Angeles Times reports: Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who is running for U.S. Senate in California, is calling for President Biden to drop out of the presidential race, he said in an exclusive statement Wednesday to The Times. Schiff, who is heavily favored to win his Senate race, cited “serious concerns” that Biden can beat former President Trump in November. He is the latest Democrat to call for the incumbent president of their own party to end his…

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Pelosi privately works to address Biden crisis after having herself made way for generational change

Pelosi privately works to address Biden crisis after having herself made way for generational change

Politico reports: One House Democrat anxious about President Joe Biden’s effect on the 2024 campaign recently sought out guidance from a trusted party leader: Nancy Pelosi. This lawmaker, who represents a swing seat and was granted anonymity to describe private conversations, said Pelosi asked detailed questions about congressional district-level polling and was “very receptive” to concerns that Biden couldn’t win in November. The member ended the phone call with the distinct impression that Pelosi believed Biden should exit the presidential…

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House Democrats left ‘aghast’ by Biden’s by ‘defensive,’ ‘incoherent,’ and ‘unintelligible’ exchange with Rep. Crow

House Democrats left ‘aghast’ by Biden’s by ‘defensive,’ ‘incoherent,’ and ‘unintelligible’ exchange with Rep. Crow

ABC News reported on a Zoom call Biden held with House Democrats on Saturday: [Colorado Democrat Rep. Jason] Crow questioned Biden’s mental fitness and if his age is a “national security risk.” The president was “defensive” in his responses, sources say. A member described to ABC News the exchange was “hard to watch” and detailed how Crow referenced voters’ concerns about Biden being “at the helm when they go to sleep at night.” The conversation became personal when Biden mentioned…

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In private speech, J.D. Vance said the ‘devil is real’ and praised Alex Jones as a truth-teller

In private speech, J.D. Vance said the ‘devil is real’ and praised Alex Jones as a truth-teller

By Andy Kroll, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey, Documented This story was originally published by ProPublica. Sen. J.D. Vance, whom Donald Trump named as his vice presidential running mate Monday, told a group of influential young conservatives in a closed-door speech in 2021 that they should stand up for “nonconventional people” who speak truth, such as Infowars founder Alex Jones. “If you listen to Rachel Maddow every night, the basic worldview that you have is that MAGA grandmas who have family…

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The hidden ties between Google and Amazon’s Project Nimbus and Israel’s military

The hidden ties between Google and Amazon’s Project Nimbus and Israel’s military

Wired reports: On April 16, police entered Google offices in New York and California to detain several employees protesting a $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel’s government called Project Nimbus. The deal, shared with Amazon, has met pushback from some employees at both companies since 2021, but the protests have grown louder since Israel’s renewed conflict with Hamas after the attacks of October 7, 2023. Current and former Google and Amazon workers protesting Project Nimbus say it makes the companies…

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Why planetary problems need a new approach to politics

Why planetary problems need a new approach to politics

Jonathan S Blake and Nils Gilman write: ‘Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world,’ Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared to the World Health Assembly on 29 November 2021, quoting Albert Camus’s The Plague. ‘Outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics are a fact of nature,’ Tedros, the director-general of the World Health Organization since 2017, continued in his own words. ‘But that does not mean we are helpless to prevent them, prepare for them or mitigate their impact.’ Exuding…

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Deceive, defy, and defer: Netanyahu’s time-tested strategy to outmaneuver Biden

Deceive, defy, and defer: Netanyahu’s time-tested strategy to outmaneuver Biden

Lev Grinberg writes: Watching President Joe Biden clumsily debate Donald Trump on June 27, many Israelis could instantly recognize how their own prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been able to exploit the weaknesses of the aging commander-in-chief for so long. Netanyahu has had a close relationship with his “friend Joe” for decades, going back to Biden’s days in the U.S. Senate and especially during the early years of the Barack Obama administration. According to Biden’s biographer Evan Osnos, the then-vice…

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Biden set to announce support for major Supreme Court changes

Biden set to announce support for major Supreme Court changes

The Washington Post reports: President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, according to two people briefed on the plans. He is also weighing whether to call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad immunity for presidents and other constitutional officeholders, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The…

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Schiff warned donors of wipeout for Democrats if Biden remains in race. Biden remains in denial

Schiff warned donors of wipeout for Democrats if Biden remains in race. Biden remains in denial

The New York Times reports: Representative Adam B. Schiff, the California Democrat who is running for Senate, warned during a private meeting with donors on Saturday that his party was likely to suffer overwhelming losses in November if President Biden remained at the top of the ticket, according to two people with direct knowledge of Mr. Schiff’s remarks at the meeting. If Mr. Biden remained, not only would he lose to former President Donald J. Trump, he could be enough…

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Democratic pollster, Stanley Greenberg, warns the party may ‘lose everything’ if Biden stays in the race

Democratic pollster, Stanley Greenberg, warns the party may ‘lose everything’ if Biden stays in the race

CNN reports: The public calls from Democrats asking President Joe Biden to bow out of the presidential race have quieted in recent days, but private efforts to nudge the president and his top aides continue, several Democratic sources told CNN. Among the efforts, these sources say, are repeated memos from a seasoned and respected Democratic pollster, Stanley Greenberg, sharing his take that Biden is on track to lose the election – and in a way that does deep damage to…

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