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Category: Politics

Who were the ‘Midway Blitz’ Border Patrol agents in Chicago? Most were veteran immigration officers

Who were the ‘Midway Blitz’ Border Patrol agents in Chicago? Most were veteran immigration officers

Block Club Chicago reports: About 300 Border Patrol agents were among the federal officers who made a torrent of arrests, deployed tear gas nearly 50 times, tased and assaulted residents and shot two people — one fatally — during Operation Midway Blitz in the Chicago area last year. That all happened even though those Border Patrol agents had extensive experience and training, many in crowd control and deescalation, a Block Club Chicago investigation found. They averaged more than a decade…

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China is the only clear winner from Trump’s war against Iran, report concludes

China is the only clear winner from Trump’s war against Iran, report concludes

The Guardian reports: China has emerged as the sole winner in Asia from the strait of Hormuz crisis, according to a report published on Tuesday. The report by the Asia Group thinktank concluded that China had weathered the storm of the global commodities crisis resulting from the closure of the Middle Eastern waterway, and also stood to gain from the economic and geopolitical trends sparked by the wider conflict. Iran virtually closed the strait, a vital waterway through which much…

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After U.S.-Iran War, Oman said to propose Hormuz joint fee plan

After U.S.-Iran War, Oman said to propose Hormuz joint fee plan

The New York Times reports: Iran and U.S.-allied Oman are moving forward with plans to collect payment for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, despite public American objections, according to an Iranian official and four diplomats with knowledge of the matter. If enacted, the plans would be a significant change from the prewar status in the strategic waterway, underscoring how the American-Israeli decision to attack Iran on Feb. 28 has changed the Middle East in far-reaching and unanticipated ways. Before…

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Ben Rhodes: How the ‘cult of success’ created Trump and Musk

Ben Rhodes: How the ‘cult of success’ created Trump and Musk

  From the White House situation room, to shaping the Obama administration’s national security communication – few people have had a closer view of the forces shaping modern America than Ben Rhodes. As Barack Obama’s speechwriter and Deputy National Security Adviser, Rhodes helped craft some of the defining messages of the Obama era and played a central role in major foreign policy decisions, including the Iran nuclear deal. In his new book All We Say, he argues that speeches reveal…

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Experiments reveal the psychological cost of insulting political rhetoric

Experiments reveal the psychological cost of insulting political rhetoric

PsyPost reports: Politicians frequently use aggressive, blaming language to mobilize voters and attack opponents. Recent psychological experiments reveal that exposure to this specific style of communication causes people to feel their core values are under attack, regardless of their own political affiliation. The findings, published in Current Psychology, show that polarizing rhetoric can directly degrade a person’s willingness to grant freedom of speech to political rivals. Political communication has increasingly fractured into hostile territory over the last several years. Across…

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The MAGA vibe shift was conjured up by self-aggrandizing Republicans and self-lacerating liberals

The MAGA vibe shift was conjured up by self-aggrandizing Republicans and self-lacerating liberals

David Wallace-Wells writes: Remember the vibe shift? In 2024, first as the election approached and then after Donald Trump’s victory, pundits and political strategists lined up to declare its cultural meaning quite expansive — a shift not just in electoral politics but also in the partisan alignment and cultural life of the whole country. This was the beginning of an era, we were told; his election was perhaps as significant as the one that once heralded the Reagan revolution or…

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Will the Mamdani effect make 2028 the year of the leftwing president?

Will the Mamdani effect make 2028 the year of the leftwing president?

David Smith reports: In the back yard of a Brooklyn bar, beneath strung-up lightbulbs and swaths of fabric that swooped like great sails, an ecstatic crowd greeted Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, and his victorious ally, Brad Lander. These Democrats also had a withering verdict on their own party establishment. “To me, centrists can go fuck themselves,” said Léa Zimmerman, 34. “They’re fucking useless, they don’t stand for anything, and if they do stand on something, it’s pathetic….

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Supreme Court ruling ‘promises to unleash only chaos,’ writes Sotomayor in scathing dissent

Supreme Court ruling ‘promises to unleash only chaos,’ writes Sotomayor in scathing dissent

The New York Times reports: In a slashing 43-page dissent from the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday allowing the president to fire the leaders of independent agencies for any reason or no reason, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the majority had destroyed the separation of powers and upended settled constitutional law. The ruling, she wrote, “promises to unleash only chaos.” In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that “today, this court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three…

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White House secretly swayed board that was created to prevent civil service politicization

White House secretly swayed board that was created to prevent civil service politicization

The New York Times reports: In the tiny corner of the legal world that follows such things, the March ruling crashed down like a thunderbolt. It was issued by an obscure government agency called the Merit Systems Protection Board, whose purpose is to protect federal workers from unfair firings. But the decision backed President Trump’s assertion that he has broad authority to reshape the executive branch as he wants. The ruling broke with decades of precedent, accepting the White House’s…

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The SAVE Act may be stalled in Congress, but state versions are being advanced all across the country

The SAVE Act may be stalled in Congress, but state versions are being advanced all across the country

Center for American Progress: Ever since President Donald Trump took office for his second term, his administration and its allies in Congress have been intent on passing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act or its subsequent, more extreme version, the SAVE America Act. Both of these bills would require Americans to show proof of their citizenship—for the vast majority, through a valid passport or an original copy of their birth certificate—in person to an election official when they register to vote for the first…

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Iran is jealously competing with Oman as decision-maker over Strait of Hormuz

Iran is jealously competing with Oman as decision-maker over Strait of Hormuz

Patrick Wintour writes: The strait of Hormuz is Iran’s chief bargaining tool in the negotiations with the US and so it was always likely to be the greatest point of contention. Every inch of the 24-mile-wide waterway is being contested in a test of wills and patience. For Iran, the continuation of the dispute is not a problem so long as it does not lose control. Under the memorandum of understanding signed with Washington on 18 June, substantive talks over…

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The American myth always came at someone’s expense. Now, it has all but collapsed

The American myth always came at someone’s expense. Now, it has all but collapsed

Nikhil Pal Singh writes: Writing during the carnage of the first world war, the iconoclast intellectual Randolph Bourne described the American revolutionary inheritance as a squalid marriage between the town capitalist and plantation patriarch. Glittering generalities of freedom and democracy, Bourne observed, were indelibly marked by their long captivity to the money counters and owners of human chattel. In the land lorded over by the likes of Donald Trump, leader of one of the most indecently corrupt, violently inept administrations…

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Iran asserts sole control of Strait of Hormuz, warns challenges will bring more violence

Iran asserts sole control of Strait of Hormuz, warns challenges will bring more violence

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran has the exclusive right to manage traffic in the Strait of Hormuz under the preliminary peace deal signed with President Trump, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday, adding that attempts to circumvent its authority risk triggering more strikes like those seen in recent days. The comments were among the clearest by a top official that Iran expects sole authority over the strait under the deal aimed at reopening the strategic waterway. They are…

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U.S.-Israel relations are becoming increasingly frayed

U.S.-Israel relations are becoming increasingly frayed

Politico reports: When American and Israeli warplanes struck Iran on Feb. 28, Israeli officials let themselves believe the alliance was entering a golden age. Four months later, they are bracing for a future where Israel stands more alone than ever. The vice president of the United States set the stage last week, telling Israel it has almost no friends left in the world, and that it should think hard before turning on the one it has. But the problem for…

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Bill Pulte picks equally inexperienced GOP election operative for powerful spy agency job

Bill Pulte picks equally inexperienced GOP election operative for powerful spy agency job

The New York Times reports: Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has installed as his chief of staff a woman who worked on election-related issues for the Republican National Committee, according to former U.S. officials. Christina Norton, the former R.N.C. official, has also served as Bill Pulte’s chief of staff at the federal housing agency he leads. But much of her recent work for the G.O.P. has centered on election issues, including efforts to monitor voting sites during…

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Trump cut a billion-dollar mining deal. His and Lutnick’s family stand to profit

Trump cut a billion-dollar mining deal. His and Lutnick’s family stand to profit

The New York Times reports: When Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Kazakhstan’s president at the St. Regis Hotel last September in New York, President Trump jumped in by phone as the men sealed a deal on a top priority for Washington. During the call, Mr. Trump and his team won an agreement from the Kazakh leader to give a little-known American company access to one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of tungsten, a metal that the United States…

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