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Category: Politics

Judge orders Bovino not to terrorize children on Halloween and orders him to report to her court daily

Judge orders Bovino not to terrorize children on Halloween and orders him to report to her court daily

Chicago Sun-Times reports: U.S. Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino appeared at Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Tuesday for a preliminary injunction hearing as part of an ongoing lawsuit over the feds’ treatment of protesters during the ongoing immigration blitz. Bovino agreed to return to U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis courtroom every weekday at 6 p.m. to give her updates until a Nov. 5 preliminary hearing on the case. Mayor Brandon Johnson called U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino a “barbaric…

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40 million Americans are about to lose food stamps

40 million Americans are about to lose food stamps

Paul Krugman writes: Here are four things you should know about the imminent hunger games. This is a political decision — specifically, a Republican decision Despite the government shutdown, the SNAP program isn’t out of money. In fact, it has $5 billion in contingency funds, intended as a reserve to be tapped in emergencies. And if the imminent cutoff of crucial food aid for 40 million people isn’t an emergency, what is? The Department of Agriculture, which runs the program,…

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The new strongman era

The new strongman era

Erica FrantzAndrea Kendall-Taylor and Joseph Wright write: When President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China meet this week the world will be watching to see if they can lock in a framework trade agreement and finally restore a sense of lasting stability and predictability to the world’s most consequential relationship. Don’t count on it. Whatever rhetoric or handshake deals come out of their planned encounter at a regional summit in South Korea, they are unlikely to signify more than…

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Heavy Russian cargo plane lands in Caracas during U.S.-Venezuela tensions

Heavy Russian cargo plane lands in Caracas during U.S.-Venezuela tensions

Defense News reports: A Russian transport aircraft of a type linked to the country’s military and former Wagner mercenary group has landed in the Venezuelan capital over the weekend, signaling heightened Russian interest in the Latin American country. The Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft with the registration RA-78765 arrived in Caracas on Sunday after a two-day journey that took it from Russia via Armenia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal and Mauritania to Latin America, flight records show. It appears the aircraft embarked on…

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ICE’s hiring surge is already a disaster

ICE’s hiring surge is already a disaster

Garrett Graff writes: [I]t turns out, if you’re hiring for a pariah agency using nakedly fascist and racist messaging and recruiting for a job where you get to be jeered by your neighbors and are so hated that you literally refuse to show your face, and trying to attract people who will get excited to cos-play as a Navy SEAL in full tactical gear to dress up like you’re taking Fallujah while facing down people in inflatable frog costumes and…

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Border Patrol’s Bovino seen as role model for ICE following leadership purge

Border Patrol’s Bovino seen as role model for ICE following leadership purge

Washington Examiner reports: The Trump administration has begun to purge Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in offices in five major U.S. cities and fill some of those top posts with senior Border Patrol agents who will take over interior immigration enforcement in those regions, according to five sources familiar with the plans. ICE leaders in Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Diego were relieved of their jobs and moved to other posts within the federal agency last Friday, the…

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‘Rubio’s ideological project’: What’s driving Trump’s military campaign against Venezuela?

‘Rubio’s ideological project’: What’s driving Trump’s military campaign against Venezuela?

  The Trump administration has now killed at least 43 people in 10 strikes against so-called drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean. The threat of war against Venezuela and the surrounding region is growing as the Pentagon deploys the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, to the Caribbean. Alejandro Velasco, associate professor at New York University, says the Latin American policy is “primarily Marco Rubio’s ideological project,” motivated by a desire to oust the government of…

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Trump and GOP join Big Oil’s all-out push to shut down climate liability efforts

Trump and GOP join Big Oil’s all-out push to shut down climate liability efforts

Inside Climate News reports: As efforts continue to hold some of the world’s largest fossil fuel corporations liable for destructive and deadly climate impacts, backlash from the politically powerful oil and gas industry and its allies in government is on the rise, bolstered by the Trump administration’s allegiance to fossil fuels. From lobbying Congress for liability protection to suing states over their climate liability laws and lawsuits, attempts to shield Big Oil from potential liability and to shut down climate…

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Chatbots are pushing sanctioned Russian propaganda about Ukraine

Chatbots are pushing sanctioned Russian propaganda about Ukraine

Wired reports: OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, DeepSeek, and xAI’s Grok are pushing Russian state propaganda from sanctioned entities—including citations from Russian state media, sites tied to Russian intelligence or pro-Kremlin narratives—when asked about the war against Ukraine, according to a new report. Researchers from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) claim that Russian propaganda has targeted and exploited data voids—where searches for real-time data provide few results from legitimate sources—to promote false and misleading information. Almost one-fifth of responses to…

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The myth of Israeli innovation

The myth of Israeli innovation

Rhys Machold writes: On June 4th, The Times of Israel reported that in 2024, annual Israeli arms exports had reached an all-time high of $14.8 billion, with Europe buying 54% of the weapons. The article noted that Israeli officials had previously been concerned that Western European allies may cancel weapons deals or sanction Israeli manufacturers over the country’s war of extermination in Gaza. Once the record-breaking export figures came out, however, Israel’s war ministry publicly argued the opposite, claiming that the campaign in Gaza…

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It’s Trump’s casino economy now and you will probably lose

It’s Trump’s casino economy now and you will probably lose

Kyla Scanlon writes: Step into the casino that now passes for the American economy. Donald Trump campaigned on bringing back American manufacturing and rebuilding what America once was — factories, workers in hard hats — from the ground up. But the investment needed to get there, in both the factories and the workers, hasn’t happened. What he has ushered in instead is a casino economy, built on speculation and risk. Across markets and policy, wagers on the future are being…

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The peril of a White House that flaunts its contempt for the law

The peril of a White House that flaunts its contempt for the law

Charlie Savage writes: Since he returned to office nine months ago, President Trump has sought to expand executive power across numerous fronts. But his claim that he can lawfully order the military to summarily kill people accused of smuggling drugs on boats off the coast of South America stands apart. A broad range of specialists in laws governing the use of lethal force have called Mr. Trump’s orders to the military patently illegal. They say the premeditated extrajudicial killings have…

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This county was the ‘model’ for local police carrying out immigration raids. It ended in civil rights violations

This county was the ‘model’ for local police carrying out immigration raids. It ended in civil rights violations

By Rafael Carranza, Arizona Luminaria This story was originally published by ProPublica Manuel Nieto Jr. and his sister had just pulled into a gas station to buy cigarettes and Gatorade when he noticed a sheriff’s deputy standing over two Latino men on the ground. Their north Phoenix neighborhood was on alert. Sheriff’s deputies had been targeting day-labor centers in the area and making traffic stops — arresting people who couldn’t prove their immigration status. They had one thing in common:…

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As U.S. cattle ranchers struggle, Trump wants to Make Argentina Great Again

As U.S. cattle ranchers struggle, Trump wants to Make Argentina Great Again

The Hill reports: President Trump is breaking from his “America First” trade agenda and feuding with some of his most loyal supporters in a fight over U.S. beef prices. Trump has centered his economic agenda on reducing the U.S.’s reliance on cheaper foreign products and boosting domestic production of goods and food. But the president’s plan to boost imports of Argentinian beef while urging American suppliers to lower their prices marks a sharp departure from his platform. The dispute is…

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U.S. hits $38 trillion in debt, after the fastest accumulation of $1 trillion outside of the pandemic

U.S. hits $38 trillion in debt, after the fastest accumulation of $1 trillion outside of the pandemic

The Associated Press reports: In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. government’s gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America’s balance sheet. It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year. The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs…

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America is sliding toward illiteracy

America is sliding toward illiteracy

Idrees Kahloon writes: The past decade may rank as one of the worst in the history of American education. It marks a stark reversal from what was once a hopeful story. At the start of the century, American students registered steady improvement in math and reading. Around 2013, this progress began to stall out, and then to backslide dramatically. What exactly went wrong? The decline began well before the pandemic, so COVID-era disruptions alone cannot explain it. Smartphones and social…

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