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The modern Republican Party has always exploited and encouraged extremism

The modern Republican Party has always exploited and encouraged extremism

David Corn writes: In May, during an Aspen Institute conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the audience, “I want the Republican Party to take back the party, take it back to where you were when you cared about a woman’s right to choose, you cared about the environment…This country needs a strong Republican Party. And we do. Not a cult. But a strong Republican Party.” Her comments echoed a sentiment that Joe Biden had expressed during the 2020 campaign: If…

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Caught on tape: Doug Mastriano prayed for MAGA to ‘seize the power’ ahead of January 6

Caught on tape: Doug Mastriano prayed for MAGA to ‘seize the power’ ahead of January 6

Rolling Stone reports: A week before Jan. 6, on a Zoom call organized by far-right Christian Nationalists seeking to reinstall Donald Trump in the White House, a man with a booming baritone voice bowed his bald head and began to pray. “We remember the promises of old,” he said, before invoking the book of Revelations and its account of the End Times: “We know we overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony and…

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Federal judge stomps all over Trump Russiagate lawsuit against Clinton

Federal judge stomps all over Trump Russiagate lawsuit against Clinton

The Daily Beast reports: A federal judge in Florida has tossed a racketeering lawsuit that Donald Trump filed against Hillary Clinton and a slew of other defendants—dismantling his claims one by one in an absolutely withering critique. “It is not simply that I find the Amended Complaint ‘inadequate in any respect,’” Judge Donald Middlebrooks writes at one point. “It is inadequate in nearly every respect.” Trump filed the suit in March alleging that Clinton and the others “orchestrated a malicious…

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DOJ to appeal Trump special-master order that has halted national-security risk assessment

DOJ to appeal Trump special-master order that has halted national-security risk assessment

Bloomberg reports: The US Justice Department will appeal a federal judge’s order for a special master to review documents the FBI seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, saying the ruling has thwarted a review of the potential national-security impact. The department also is seeking emergency approval to continue using the classified materials — including some with highest top-secret rating — that were removed from Mar-a-Lago as part of its ongoing criminal investigation into whether Trump or anyone else…

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Frontline: Lies, politics and democracy

Frontline: Lies, politics and democracy

  In “Lies, Politics and Democracy,” FRONTLINE examines how officials fed the public lies about the 2020 presidential election and embraced rhetoric that led to political violence. An epic examination of former President Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican Party, the documentary presents startling details from GOP insiders on how the indulgence of Trump’s authoritarian impulses and embrace of his rhetoric enabled his power over the American political system, leading the nation to a precarious moment in which most Republican…

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Federal grand jury probing formation and fundraising efforts of Trump’s Save America PAC

Federal grand jury probing formation and fundraising efforts of Trump’s Save America PAC

ABC News reports: A federal grand jury investigating the activities leading up the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the push by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the result of the 2020 election has expanded its probe to include seeking information about Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America, sources with direct knowledge tell ABC News. The interest in the fundraising arm came to light as part of grand jury subpoenas seeking documents, records and testimony…

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Twenty-five percent of Republicans see Trump’s MAGA as threat to democracy, poll indicates

Twenty-five percent of Republicans see Trump’s MAGA as threat to democracy, poll indicates

Reuters reports: Days after Democratic President Joe Biden gave a fiery speech attacking former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies as an extremist threat, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found a majority of Americans believe Trump’s movement is undermining democracy. Fifty-eight percent of respondents in the two-day poll – including one in four Republicans – said Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement is threatening America’s democratic foundations. Biden’s Sept. 1 speech marked a sharp turn for his efforts…

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Trump’s Truth Social in limbo as merger partner grapples with another failed vote

Trump’s Truth Social in limbo as merger partner grapples with another failed vote

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump has failed to win another vote — this time, from the shareholders of an investment ally his social network Truth Social had been counting on for cash. Digital World Acquisition, a special-purpose acquisition company, said Thursday it had not yet gained enough shareholder votes to extend its deadline for merging with Trump’s start-up — a necessary step to unlock $1.3 billion in raised funds. The company was scheduled for liquidation Thursday unless…

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In Moscow, the war is a world away

In Moscow, the war is a world away

The New York Times reports: On a recent evening in Red Square, a corps of elite paratroopers dressed in camouflage performed a battle-like dance with pyrotechnics. An Egyptian performer dressed as a pharaoh rode back and forth in a chariot wielding an ankh, the ancient Egyptian symbol of life, as a band played “Katyusha,” a Soviet-era patriotic war song. Nataliya Nikonova, 44, was one of thousands of spectators cheering from the bleachers at a festival celebrating the militaries of Russia…

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NASA to crash $330m spacecraft into asteroid to see if impact can alter course

NASA to crash $330m spacecraft into asteroid to see if impact can alter course

The Guardian reports: In a few weeks, Nasa controllers will deliberately crash their $330m Dart robot spacecraft into an asteroid. The half-tonne probe will be travelling at more than four miles a second when it strikes its target, Dimorphos, and will be destroyed. The aim of this kamikaze science mission is straightforward: space engineers want to learn how to deflect asteroids in case one is ever discovered on a collision course with Earth. Observations of Dart’s impact on Dimorphos’s orbit…

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Michael Flynn: From government insider to holy warrior

Michael Flynn: From government insider to holy warrior

  The Associated Press reports: The crowd swayed on its feet, arms pumping, the beat of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” thumping in their chests. The people under the revival tent hooted as Michael Flynn strode across the stage, bopping and laughing, singing the refrain into his microphone and encouraging the audience to sing along to the transgressive rock anthem. “We’ll fight the powers that be just/Don’t pick our destiny ’cause/You don’t know us, you don’t belong!” The…

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Elected officials, police chiefs on leaked Oath Keepers list

Elected officials, police chiefs on leaked Oath Keepers list

The Associated Press reports: The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that’s accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Wednesday. The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work…

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‘They’re getting killed among women’: Skeptical female voters stand in way of GOP Senate

‘They’re getting killed among women’: Skeptical female voters stand in way of GOP Senate

Politico reports: Republicans this election cycle thought they had finally achieved a breakthrough with suburban women after years of losing support. Now, as the primary season has all but ended, the GOP is back where it once was: Appealing directly to skeptical female voters, the women whose support will make or break the party’s drive to retake the Senate majority. A sure sign: One after the other, Republican nominees in top Senate battlegrounds have softened, backpedaled and sought to clarify…

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Belarusian volunteers fighting against Russia in Ukraine

Belarusian volunteers fighting against Russia in Ukraine

Anne Applebaum writes: No revolutionary posters line the streets, “flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues,” as they did when George Orwell left Barcelona to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Nor can you hear loudspeakers “bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night,” as Orwell did in 1936. Instead, gathered in a basement on a quiet, tree-lined street, the Belarusians preparing to leave Warsaw to join the Ukrainian army look more like a bunch of…

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