Attention to the Unseen

HuffPost reports: Exactly 10 days after taking the presidential oath of office early this year, Donald Trump nearly drowned dozens, potentially hundreds, of his own citizens in California’s Central Valley. Trump, unilaterally, decided he would solve Los Angeles’ wildfire problem by “opening up” taps to let billions of gallons of water being stored in two reservoirs in the Sierra Nevada foothills flow into Southern California. “Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California. Today, 1.6 billion gallons…

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The New York Times reports: August in the Hamptons: Ocean breezes. Oversubscribed Tracy Anderson classes. Parking woes. And this year, with a New York City mayoral election looming in the fall, a freakout that the most sumptuous of summer staples hasn’t soothed. “Even overpriced lobster salad can’t seem to make people out here feel better,” said Robert Zimmerman, a veteran political fund-raiser who has yet to back anyone in the race. “Everyone’s talking about it all the time,” said the…

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The Seattle Times reports: Fifty members of Congress, including several Washington Democrats, are calling on the Department of Homeland Security for answers after two crew members fighting the Bear Gulch fire were arrested by immigration officials. Two people fighting the fire on the Olympic Peninsula were arrested by federal law enforcement Wednesday, as depicted in photos and videos. The two firefighters entered the U.S. illegally, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday in a news release. The 9,200-acre wildfire is…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The leaders of three of the world’s four most powerful nations will meet in China this weekend to discuss how to react to the upending of the international order wrought by the fourth: the U.S. under President Trump. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is set to welcome Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is currently being wooed by Washington, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country—long cultivated by the U.S. as a centerpiece of its aspirations…

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Kapil Komireddi writes: For three decades, successive American presidents have invested enormous diplomatic capital to cultivate a friendship with India. Bill Clinton, who laid the foundations of the modern U.S.-India partnership, called the two democracies “natural allies.” George W. Bush described them as “brothers in the cause of human liberty.” Barack Obama and Joe Biden both cast the relationship as one of the defining global compacts of this century. To Washington, India was a vast emerging market, a potential counterweight…

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Axios reports: Centuries’ worth of experience walked out of key government agencies this summer, including high-level departures from the CDC, Pentagon and intelligence community just in the past week. Why it matters: President Trump and his allies believe the “Deep State,” scientific establishment and federal bureaucracy were overdue for a purge. They’re ushering in a government in which the officials maintaining nuclear weapons, monitoring medical trials or guarding state secrets have shorter resumes and smaller staffs — likely for many years to come. Driving…

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  Even in easy times, this democracy needs care. And right now it is in dire need of defense. And it needs defenders who are willing to do whatever it takes. Americans are begging for more. Begging for Democrats to get off the mat and back into the fight. If political leaders in this country are not prepared to fight with both hands, and are not prepared to make “good trouble”, then perhaps they should step aside and make space…

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The Guardian reports: A day after Donald Trump announced that he was firing Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, the White House proudly released a photo. It showed Trump, his cabinet and other officials giving a thumbs-up. Of the 24 people in the Oval Office, only one was Black. For those who have studied the US president’s long and troubling history of racism, the two events were more than…

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