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Category: Politics

Grand juries are repeatedly pushing back against dubious indictments

Grand juries are repeatedly pushing back against dubious indictments

The New York Times reports: Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to secure a felony assault indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington this month, according to two people familiar with the matter. The remarkable failure by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington was the second time in recent days that it was unable to persuade grand jurors to bring an indictment in a felony assault case against a federal…

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Majority of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling on every issue, poll finds

Majority of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling on every issue, poll finds

Quinnipiac University Poll reports: In the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops to Washington D.C. in an effort to reduce crime, voters 56 – 41 percent oppose the move, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today. There are wide partisan and gender differences. Republicans (86 – 12 percent) support the president’s decision to deploy the National Guard to the nation’s capital to reduce crime, while Democrats (93 – 5…

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The Federal Reserve tried to put off confrontation with Trump for as long as possible

The Federal Reserve tried to put off confrontation with Trump for as long as possible

Victoria Guida writes: The Federal Reserve is not a place that panics. My experience of the central bank and its staff is that they try to think as many steps ahead as possible. Just as Fed policymakers weigh the balance of risks to the economy, and the many potential scenarios that may unfold, they similarly weigh the balance of political risks to their mandate and autonomy. It’s an institution made up of regular people, of course — people who feel…

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How AI became the far right’s latest weapon against refugees

How AI became the far right’s latest weapon against refugees

Anagha Nair writes: Earphones plugged in, a cigarette dangling from his hand, Mohammed al-Mohammed was waiting for a train at a station in Hamburg, Germany, when he was enveloped by screams of horror. Amid the chaos of people fleeing, he glimpsed a flash of metal out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he saw a lady clutching a raised knife, pointed toward him. Mohammed’s reflexes kicked in, and he pushed the lady away. As another man tackled her and…

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Trump’s attack on Federal Reserve may undermine the global economy

Trump’s attack on Federal Reserve may undermine the global economy

Politico reports: Europe’s central bankers were cautiously critical Tuesday of U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to oust a top Federal Reserve official. They expressed unease at the potential spillover effects from a growing political threat to the independence of the world’s most important central bank. Trump invoked sweeping executive powers to unseat Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in an unprecedented challenge to the legally enshrined independence of the Fed on Monday, after housing chief William Pulte accused her of mortgage…

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Third of U.S. economy already in recession or at high risk, and another third is stagnating, Moody’s economist warns

Third of U.S. economy already in recession or at high risk, and another third is stagnating, Moody’s economist warns

Fortune reports: After saying that the U.S. is on the precipice of a recession earlier this month, Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi continued to add more granularity to his warning. In social media posts on Sunday, he said his assessments of various datasets indicate that states accounting for nearly a third of U.S. GDP are already in a recession or at high risk of slipping into one. Another third is treading water, while the last third is still expanding….

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Is Trump preparing to go to war against Venezuela?

Is Trump preparing to go to war against Venezuela?

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is aggressively stoking tensions with Venezuela and its president, Nicolás Maduro, and appears to be creating conditions that could lead to a military confrontation. A major buildup of U.S. naval forces is underway outside Venezuela’s waters as the administration has stepped up belligerent rhetoric about fighting drug cartels and labeled Mr. Maduro a terrorist-cartel leader. All that raises the question of whether the end goal is just to counter drug-smuggling boats, or…

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Trump-appointed judge rejects lawsuit and rebukes White House for ‘smear’ of judiciary

Trump-appointed judge rejects lawsuit and rebukes White House for ‘smear’ of judiciary

Politico reports: A federal judge has forcefully rejected a highly unusual lawsuit the Trump administration filed against 15 other judges whom the Justice Department accused of hindering the president’s mass deportation agenda. In tossing out the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen — an appointee of Donald Trump — lamented what he described as the White House’s months-long “smear” of the federal judiciary. Cullen wrote in a 39-page decision Tuesday that the lawsuit was unprecedented, defective and the wrong way…

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ICE has been turned into a political instrument and propaganda tool

ICE has been turned into a political instrument and propaganda tool

Nick Miroff writes: In a video produced by the Department of Homeland Security this month, two tricked-out ICE vehicles roll around on the National Mall to “Toes” by rapper DaBaby: “My heart so cold I think I’m done with ice (uh, brr) / Said if I leave her, she gon’ die / Well … you done with life.” The vehicles feature a new ICE logo and DEFEND THE HOMELAND in block letters, painted in a color scheme similar to the…

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Three grand juries refuse to charge woman with felony assault of FBI agent in D.C.

Three grand juries refuse to charge woman with felony assault of FBI agent in D.C.

The New York Times reports: Federal prosecutors on Monday reduced the charges against a woman accused last month of assaulting an F.B.I. agent during a protest against immigration officials in Washington, refiling her case as a misdemeanor after they were unable to persuade three grand juries over a month to indict her with a felony. It is highly unusual for prosecutors to fail even once — let alone three times — to obtain an indictment from a grand jury given…

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DOGE uploaded live copy of Social Security database to ‘vulnerable’ cloud server, whistleblower reveals

DOGE uploaded live copy of Social Security database to ‘vulnerable’ cloud server, whistleblower reveals

TechCrunch reports: A top Social Security Administration official turned whistleblower says members of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uploaded hundreds of millions of Social Security records to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of most Americans at risk of compromise. Charles Borges, the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer, said in a newly released whistleblower complaint published Tuesday that other top agency officials signed off on a decision in June to upload “a live copy…

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Joining ICE to bring the war home

Joining ICE to bring the war home

Video of the arrest of Amanda Trebach, a member of the immigrant rights’ group Unión del Barrio and an ICU nurse, who was monitoring ICE operations in the Los Angeles, begs many questions not the least of which is this: who is ICE recruiting?   “Yanis Varoufuckice” recently attended a Department of Homeland Security job fair at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia where they spent two days talking to people looking for jobs with ICE: One of the…

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A march to dictatorship

A march to dictatorship

William Kristol writes: In only seven months, we’ve seen a remarkably sustained if somewhat chaotic series of abuses and usurpations in pursuit of the object of despotism. It’s a purposeful project, not an inadvertent one. All societies obviously have authoritarian elements. Every democracy is susceptible to the claim of a demagogue who insists, “I alone can fix it.” Every polity is susceptible to bigotry. Every public is susceptible to the lure of false promises and the fear of invented threats….

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This is what American fascism looks like

This is what American fascism looks like

Garrett Graff writes: The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism. In the end, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen here. The precise moment when and where in recent weeks America crossed that invisible line from democracy into authoritarianism can and will be debated by future historians, but it’s clear that the line itself has been crossed. I think many Americans wrongly believe…

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The forgotten history of Hitler’s establishment enablers

The forgotten history of Hitler’s establishment enablers

Adam Gopnik writes: Hitler is so fully imagined a subject—so obsessively present on our televisions and in our bookstores—that to reimagine him seems pointless. As with the Hollywood fascination with Charles Manson, speculative curiosity gives retrospective glamour to evil. Hitler created a world in which women were transported with their children for days in closed train cars and then had to watch those children die alongside them, naked, gasping for breath in a gas chamber. To ask whether the man…

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How Israelis turned atrocity denial into an art

How Israelis turned atrocity denial into an art

Ron Dudai writes: A decade ago, in the final days of the weekly joint Palestinian–Jewish protests against Israel’s construction of the separation wall in the West Bank village of Al-Ma’asara, one of our pre-demonstration rituals was a speech by Mahmoud, a local community leader. Phone in hand, he would declare: “We will not have another Nakba, because now we have this. We have a smartphone. We have Facebook. They will try to drive us away again, but everyone will see…

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