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Category: Politics

DOJ explores using criminal charges against election officials

DOJ explores using criminal charges against election officials

The New York Times reports: Senior Justice Department officials are exploring whether they can bring criminal charges against state or local election officials if the Trump administration determines they have not sufficiently safeguarded their computer systems, according to people familiar with the discussions. The department’s effort, which is still in its early stages, is not based on new evidence, data or legal authority, according to the people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Instead, it is…

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America’s new era of secret police and disappearance

America’s new era of secret police and disappearance

Hamilton Nolan writes: In the HBO drama “The Leftovers,” two percent of the world’s population suddenly disappears. This is cast as a fantastical and mysterious occurrence, setting the stage for a surreal tale of science fiction. You should never underestimate American ingenuity, though. We are on the verge of our own age of mass disappearance. It will be all too real. And it will not be fun. Trump’s big budget bill passed the Senate yesterday. It will now go back…

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Federal judge rules against Trump’s attempt to stop asylum claims at border

Federal judge rules against Trump’s attempt to stop asylum claims at border

The New York Times reports: A federal judge in Washington ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot categorically deny asylum claims from people crossing the southern border, striking down a change made on President Trump’s first day in office. The ruling rejected the idea, repeatedly put forth by the president, that such extraordinary powers were justified to curtail what Mr. Trump has called an invasion of the United States by immigrants crossing the southern border. In a hefty 128-page…

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Trump’s finances were increasingly shaky. Then he began to capitalize on his presidency

Trump’s finances were increasingly shaky. Then he began to capitalize on his presidency

The New York Times reports: Last spring, even as Donald J. Trump’s march back toward the White House dominated public attention, his finances, largely out of view, faced serious threats. His office building in Lower Manhattan generated too little cash to cover its mortgage, with the balance coming due. Many of his golf courses regularly lacked enough players to cover costs. The flow of millions of dollars a year from his stint as a television celebrity had mostly dried up….

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Iran suspends cooperation with IAEA

Iran suspends cooperation with IAEA

The New York Times reports: Iran’s president has enacted a law to suspend cooperation with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday, in a move that will shut out international inspectors from overseeing the country’s contested nuclear program. The decision will further strain relations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which were already at a low point since the start of the 12-day war with Israel and the United States that battered Iran’s nuclear…

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USAID cuts may cause over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, leading medical journal reports

USAID cuts may cause over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, leading medical journal reports

Reuters reports: Deep funding cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and its potential dismantling could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal on Monday. President Donald Trump’s administration, since taking office in January, has made funding cuts to USAID and its aid programs worldwide in what the U.S. government says is part of its broader plan to remove wasteful spending. Human rights experts and advocates have…

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Fascism in the America enters the fifth and final phase

Fascism in the America enters the fifth and final phase

Greg Olear writes: In “Slouching Towards Dictatorship,” the introduction to my 2024 book Rough Beast: Who Donald Trump Really Is, What He’ll Do If Re-elected, and Why Democracy Must Prevail, I warned that if, God forbid, Trump won a second term, a rabid battalion of religious zealots, Christian nationalists, and reactionary monarchists [are] poised to make so many drastic changes to the country so quickly that the United States won’t be recognizable by the Fourth of July 2025. Full disclosure:…

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Trump steals from the poor and gives to the rich

Trump steals from the poor and gives to the rich

The New York Times reports: Millions of low-income Americans could experience staggering financial losses under the domestic policy package that Republicans advanced through the Senate on Tuesday, which reserves its greatest benefits for the rich while threatening to strip health insurance, food stamps and other aid from the poor. For many of these families, the loss of critical federal support is likely to negate any improvements they might have seen as a result of slightly lower taxes, experts said. That…

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The Supreme Court is complicit in ‘the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts’

The Supreme Court is complicit in ‘the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts’

Kate Shaw writes: Much like its opinion exactly a year ago in Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court’s opinion in Trump v. CASA significantly limiting federal courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions will result in more power and less accountability for the president. The Supreme Court has now relieved President Trump of one of the key constraints he has faced in his more than five months in office. But the power transfer that will result from this opinion is…

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Conservatives who find empathy troublesome

Conservatives who find empathy troublesome

Elizabeth Bruenig writes: Five years ago, Elon Musk told Joe Rogan during a podcast taping that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit.” By that time, the idea that people in the West are too concerned with the pain of others to adequately advocate for their own best interests was already a well-established conservative idea. Instead of thinking and acting rationally, the theory goes, they’re moved to make emotional decisions that compromise their well-being and that…

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Sean Feucht, the Christian rocker at the center of MAGA

Sean Feucht, the Christian rocker at the center of MAGA

Ali Breland writes: After wildfires erupted in Los Angeles County earlier this year, a team from the Department of Housing and Urban Development descended on the wreckage. Led by HUD Secretary Scott Turner, the entourage walked through the rubble in Altadena, reassuring victims that the Trump administration had their back. At Turner’s request, a Christian-nationalist musician named Sean Feucht tagged along. “I can’t overemphasize how amazing this opportunity is,” Feucht had posted on Instagram the day before. “I’m bringing my…

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Immigration raids leave crops unharvested, California farms at risk — ‘70% of the workers are gone’

Immigration raids leave crops unharvested, California farms at risk — ‘70% of the workers are gone’

Reuters reports: Lisa Tate is a sixth-generation farmer in Ventura County, California, an area that produces billions of dollars worth of fruit and vegetables each year, much of it hand-picked by immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Tate knows the farms around her well. And she says she can see with her own eyes how raids carried out by agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the area’s fields earlier this month, part of President Donald Trump’s migration crackdown, have…

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ICEBlock: This iPhone app alerts users to nearby ICE sightings

ICEBlock: This iPhone app alerts users to nearby ICE sightings

CNN reports: Joshua Aaron has worked in and around the tech industry for around two decades. He built his first app — a blackjack game — at computer camp when he was 13. His newest app is designed for a very different purpose: to let users alert people nearby to sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area. Aaron launched the platform, called ICEBlock, in early April after watching President Donald Trump’s administration begin its immigration crackdown. The…

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DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship

DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship

NPR reports: The Justice Department is aggressively prioritizing efforts to strip some Americans of their U.S. citizenship. Department leadership is directing its attorneys to prioritize denaturalization in cases involving naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes — and giving district attorneys wider discretion on when to pursue this tactic, according to a June 11 memo published online. The move is aimed at U.S. citizens who were not born in the country; according to data from 2023, close to 25 million immigrants…

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Kristi Noem secretly took a cut of political donations

Kristi Noem secretly took a cut of political donations

By Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski This story was originally published by ProPublica In 2023, while Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota, she supplemented her income by secretly accepting a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit that promotes her political career, tax records show. In what experts described as a highly unusual arrangement, the nonprofit routed funds to a personal company of Noem’s that had recently been established in Delaware. The payment totaled $80,000…

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Sen. Warnock: ‘Who are we? Not, who do we tell ourselves we are, but who are we really?’

Sen. Warnock: ‘Who are we? Not, who do we tell ourselves we are, but who are we really?’

  In a speech delivered in the U.S. Senate yesterday, Sen. Reverend Raphael Warnock said: Maybe because I’m a preacher, and it’s Sunday, and I’ve been here instead of church, I have especially been thinking about those of us who are people of faith. People whose lives are informed by scripture, people of the book. And maybe those of us who have different politics but read from the same book ought to spend some time together reading the book, because…

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