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Category: Politics

Why are Democrats so quiet about the Tate brothers?

Why are Democrats so quiet about the Tate brothers?

Moira Donegan writes: It’s not exactly strange that elements of the Magaverse have embraced Andrew Tate. What’s strange is that the Democrats do not seem interested in holding the Trump movement to account for it. Andrew Tate, the misogynist influencer who is accused by numerous women around the world and now British prosecutors of rape and strangulation, as well as assault, sex trafficking, possession of child abuse images and extreme pornography, and various other forms of gender violence and exploitation,…

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Gulf countries want the war to end, but can’t agree on how. ‘The GCC is nonfunctional’

Gulf countries want the war to end, but can’t agree on how. ‘The GCC is nonfunctional’

Politico reports: As the U.S. continues daily strikes on Iran, the Arab states battered by Tehran’s retaliatory attacks are trying to unite to chart a path toward peace. Longstanding tensions are getting in the way. In recent weeks, top ministers in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have posed for a photo showing their countries are reconciling; Jordan and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council have had meetings at the State Department and on Capitol Hill; and the GCC has…

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Admiral Daryl Caudle’s rise reveals the politics driving Hegseth’s Pentagon

Admiral Daryl Caudle’s rise reveals the politics driving Hegseth’s Pentagon

The New York Times reports: Adm. Daryl Caudle saw an opening to land the Navy’s top job last year, and he seized it. Before Pete Hegseth had even been sworn in as defense secretary, Admiral Caudle, then the head of a major Navy training command, offered to help Mr. Hegseth prepare for his politically contentious Senate confirmation hearing, according to current and former defense officials. The outreach was a breach of military ethics, the officials said. Senior military officers are…

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Brazil moves to ‘protect our voting system’ from U.S. interference; denies visas to State Dept. officials

Brazil moves to ‘protect our voting system’ from U.S. interference; denies visas to State Dept. officials

The Washington Post reports: Brazil has denied visas to two senior State Department officials whom the Trump administration planned to dispatch on a mission to cast doubt on the fairness and integrity of the country’s electoral system before millions of Brazilians vote in a presidential election on Oct. 4, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday. A U.S. State Department delegation, including Trump political appointees Riley M. Barnes, an assistant secretary, and Samuel Samson, a deputy assistant secretary, had planned to depart…

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From a Ukrainian bomb shelter, Laura Loomer explains her shift on Russia’s war

From a Ukrainian bomb shelter, Laura Loomer explains her shift on Russia’s war

The Associated Press reports: Laura Loomer became infamous for spreading conspiracy theories online. Now, as she travels across Ukraine to see the damage inflicted by Russia in its yearslong war, she wants to admit that she fell for some falsehoods of her own. A close ally of President Donald Trump, Loomer has completely reversed her longtime criticism of Ukraine and is urging fellow conservatives to be wary of Moscow’s propaganda, which she blames for duping large swaths of the American…

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The Smithsonian is under siege

The Smithsonian is under siege

Philip Kennicott writes: Lost in this new effort [by Trump] to rewrite American history scrubbed of its invigorating, infuriating, thrilling complexity, is the emotional toll it takes on people who serve the institution. I am sorry that the scholars, curators, volunteers, security guards and the rest of the loyal staff will have to pass signs that demean the integrity of their work. The contents of the museum, the history it explicates, will prepare them for this attack, which is yet…

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Diversity in graduate school linked to higher starting salaries

Diversity in graduate school linked to higher starting salaries

PsyPost reports: Recent research indicates that attending graduate school with a racially diverse group of peers is linked to higher median starting salaries upon graduation. The large study examined decades of data from business and law schools across the United States. The results were published in Nature. The United States Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action in college admissions in 2023. Justices opposing the practice argued that the educational benefits of diversity were too abstract for courts to evaluate…

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Pentagon accused of cover-up over U.S. military casualties in Iran war

Pentagon accused of cover-up over U.S. military casualties in Iran war

The Guardian reports: The Pentagon is taking a “shameful approach” to releasing information about US casualties in the Iran war, Leon Panetta, a former defence secretary and CIA director, has told the Guardian. The defence department has not held a press briefing for two-and-a-half months. Officials have faced accusations that they are engaged in a cover-up designed to hide the true cost of Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran, fearing a public backlash before November’s midterm elections. Panetta, who…

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Trump holds off on major escalation against Iran as advisers raise concerns

Trump holds off on major escalation against Iran as advisers raise concerns

The New York Times reports: President Trump has set aside, at least for now, plans to sharply escalate the American military assault against Iran, with particular concern that intensifying the war could dangerously drain the Pentagon’s already diminished stockpile of Patriot antimissile interceptors and other air defense munitions in the Middle East. The threat to interceptor stockpiles is one of many considerations that have made a return to major combat operations a hugely risky endeavor, administration officials say. Mr. Trump…

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How the Iran war is highlighting data center vulnerabilities

How the Iran war is highlighting data center vulnerabilities

  DW News: A new chapter of warfare is opening. The US-Israel war against Iran has included strikes from both sides against an increasingly important target: commercial data centers. Facilities in the UAE, Bahrain and Iran were hit across the Persian Gulf As military operations increasingly rely on AI, how long will it take adversaries to target them? What kind of attack, including in the US, is likely? They’re already central to many people’s everyday digital lives and their online…

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War has turned Trump’s social media posts into nothing more than noise

War has turned Trump’s social media posts into nothing more than noise

Charlie Warzel writes: If President Trump has one true skill, it is conjuring up alternate realities and getting his supporters to accept them. The examples are everywhere: dismissing stories he doesn’t like as “fake news” from corrupt media, casting the January 6 rioters as victims, election denial. After he baselessly insisted that there had been rampant mail-in voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, 11 states made mail-voting access more restrictive. His repeated false claims in 2024 that Haitians in…

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Fired ‘60 Minutes’ journalist says she was pressured to report on events that ‘never happened’

Fired ‘60 Minutes’ journalist says she was pressured to report on events that ‘never happened’

MS Now reports: Former CBS News “60 Minutes” correspondent Cecilia Vega, one of several prominent journalists fired from the network’s signature broadcast this spring, said she was pressured by the news division’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, and other executives to include misinformation and political bias in reporting that aired this year. Vega’s account of Weiss interfering with independent reporting is similar to those of two other veteran “60 Minutes” correspondents, Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi, who were fired after David Ellison,…

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Trump’s anti-mail voting order gets blocked again, this time by federal appeals court

Trump’s anti-mail voting order gets blocked again, this time by federal appeals court

Democracy Docket reports: The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court order that blocks the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from executing the president’s March executive order attacking mail voting. The decision means President Donald Trump’s sweeping assault on mail voting won’t be carried out in 23 states and the District of Columbia. The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 against the Trump administration’s motion, with one – Judge Joshua D. Dunlap, a Trump…

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Trump’s ‘Golden Age’ of American science starts with dismantling it, while funneling billions into AI

Trump’s ‘Golden Age’ of American science starts with dismantling it, while funneling billions into AI

The Verge reports: The Trump administration unveiled the first “Genesis Mission” grants on Thursday, directing $5 billion toward hundreds of AI-driven science projects in an effort the White House has described as “comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project.” At roughly the same time, Trump’s science adviser Michael Kratsios was on Capitol Hill selling lawmakers on an equally grandiose promise: “A New Golden Age” of American science, one that would prioritize artificial intelligence, robotics, and nuclear energy and…

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Why Trump is facing his biggest danger from rising oil prices since the war began

Why Trump is facing his biggest danger from rising oil prices since the war began

Politico reports: The expanding conflict in the Middle East is thwarting the Trump administration’s bid to lower gasoline prices ahead of the looming midterm elections. It’s not just the Strait of Hormuz — oil tankers are now facing attacks on three major shipping routes as of this week. Global crude oil inventories are reaching critically low levels, with little hope of refilling them soon. And the temporary measures that have kept markets afloat since the war in Iran began, such…

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Federal officials: Grants were cancelled ‘solely’ because states did not vote for Trump

Federal officials: Grants were cancelled ‘solely’ because states did not vote for Trump

The New York Times reports: When the Trump administration canceled more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects in October, it framed the move as an urgent corrective to protect taxpayer funds from waste. But it wasn’t true. In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential…

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