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Category: Politics

ICE plans to pay $5 million to create national voting database

ICE plans to pay $5 million to create national voting database

Wired reports: In a bid to tackle alleged voter fraud, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to award a contract worth up to $5 million to a company that will create a massive national database of voters. ICE first detailed what the contract would entail in a document published last week. “The purpose of this acquisition is for the handling and secure delivery of publicly available voter registration files and voter history files to support Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) fraud…

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Gloria Steinem’s revolution is unfinished

Gloria Steinem’s revolution is unfinished

Nikki McCann Ramirez writes: Gloria Steinem never held elected office. She never ran for one, never seemed particularly interested in pursuing power inside the governing systems she strove so hard to change. Steinem was, over the course of her lifelong activism, a beacon of the manner in which Americans can shape their nation for the better, without ever having to put their name on a ballot. Steinem died on Monday at the age of 92, after nearly seven decades as…

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New mail voting rules moved forward despite USPS officials’ concerns about mass disenfranchisement

New mail voting rules moved forward despite USPS officials’ concerns about mass disenfranchisement

By Jen Fifield This story was originally published by ProPublica Top U.S. Postal Service officials tasked with issuing new regulations on mail voting expressed concerns in internal meetings about how the rules they were drafting could delay or block ballots from reaching large swaths of eligible voters for the upcoming midterms, but the rules moved forward anyway, ProPublica has learned. The revelations about the discussions, from someone familiar with the rulemaking process, come as a separate anonymous federal employee filed…

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Israel ‘seeking Trump’s support for plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza’

Israel ‘seeking Trump’s support for plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza’

The Guardian reports: Israel’s defence minister has said his country is seeking Donald Trump’s support to approve plans to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in what has widely been condemned as a potential war crime. Israel Katz said there was “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration” during a conference hosted by the Israeli news site Ynet and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. He said the Israeli government was “organised and prepared to get them out…

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The U.S. has killed 227 civilians in boat strikes. ‘It’s been a year of murders’

The U.S. has killed 227 civilians in boat strikes. ‘It’s been a year of murders’

The Intercept reports: Top military officers from a secretive command watched a speedboat cut through the waters of the Caribbean Sea, early last September. A plane above provided live video of the vessel and the 11 men on board. In the early morning hours, Adm. Frank Bradley sought the counsel of his top legal adviser, Col. Cara Hamaguchi. Then he ordered SEAL Team 6 operators to attack the packed boat. After the vessel exploded, two helpless survivors pulled themselves onto…

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EU struggles to find an effective response after Germany blames Russia for a foiled drone attack

EU struggles to find an effective response after Germany blames Russia for a foiled drone attack

The Associated Press reports: The European Union on Wednesday weighed how best to respond to an attempted drone attack at a German airport blamed on Russia but struggled to find new ways to meet the challenge without resorting to military means. The German government said Tuesday that Russia was responsible for the failed attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport on Aug. 4 using a drone laden with explosives and announced it would shut down a Russian consulate among other measures. The nature…

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Whistle-blower says Trump officials are defying court orders on voting by mail

Whistle-blower says Trump officials are defying court orders on voting by mail

The New York Times reports: A U.S. Postal Service official has alleged that the agency is moving forward with a “secretive, rushed” effort to implement President Trump’s order exerting federal control over mail voting, despite a court order blocking those plans. The official filed a whistle-blower report, published on Tuesday morning by the office of Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, asserting that the “risky and haphazard” implementation of Mr. Trump’s order could lead to a “catastrophic failure” in the…

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The plot to steal Venezuela’s oil is both vile and deeply stupid

The plot to steal Venezuela’s oil is both vile and deeply stupid

Paul Krugman writes: The United States has an ugly reputation in Latin America — a reputation that, I’m sorry to say, is mostly well deserved. Our government has a long track record of supporting dictators, assisting in the overthrow of democratic governments, and sometimes even sending in the Marines, often on behalf of American corporations trying to pillage other nations’ natural resources. Excluding the Trump II presidency, we have, I think, behaved better in the recent past. And this was…

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Under Hegseth’s control, the U.S. Army is at risk of ‘generational damage’

Under Hegseth’s control, the U.S. Army is at risk of ‘generational damage’

The Atlantic reports: During a White House meeting last week, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll brought his concerns about the future of the Army under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directly to President Trump—a sign of how far tensions between the two Pentagon leaders had escalated, and of the dysfunction inside the building, four people familiar with the conversation told us. Trump was surprised when Driscoll told him how many generals and other top officers had been fired, pushed out, or passed…

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These generals fought to defend Israel. Now they see ‘Jewish terrorism’ as the greatest threat

These generals fought to defend Israel. Now they see ‘Jewish terrorism’ as the greatest threat

The New York Times reports: Maj. Gen. Eyal Ben-Reuven spent his life fighting for Israel. He survived the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, when his platoon was nearly wiped out, then went on to command a division in the West Bank and lead Israel’s ground forces in the 2006 war against Hezbollah. But in recent months, he has returned to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, touring the territory with retired generals and former Israeli officials like himself. He has walked through the…

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Moscow’s ‘meat grinder’: Russia ‘losing 6,000 more troops in Ukraine each month than it can recruit’

Moscow’s ‘meat grinder’: Russia ‘losing 6,000 more troops in Ukraine each month than it can recruit’

The Guardian reports: Russia is losing about 6,000 more troops in Ukraine each month than it can recruit, western officials have said. While Russia is still acquiring new battlefield recruits at speed, with an estimated rate of 1,000 a day, in the last two months even this has not been sufficient to replace those killed or injured. “We estimate that the gap between the number of people Russia is losing to casualties and the number they’re being able to recruit…

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The mass movement opposing data centers is a rejection of the ‘inevitability’ mantra

The mass movement opposing data centers is a rejection of the ‘inevitability’ mantra

David Wallace-Wells writes: Like any mass populist movement, this one features echoes — and veterans — of others. But with data centers, something different, bigger and perhaps irreducible appears to be happening. Perhaps the better analogy is not with any movement of the social media era but with the long crusade against nuclear power, which managed to pull many threads of opposition together because nuclear plants’ iconic towers triggered, beyond political objections, apocalyptic ones, as well. On the ground, the…

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Build American AI launches data center push in battleground states

Build American AI launches data center push in battleground states

Axios reports: Build American AI — an advocacy group tied to pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future — is spending big on the AI data center fight, with plans to pour millions of dollars into battleground states, according to an announcement shared first with Axios. Why it matters: The data center backlash is becoming a issue of the midterms, and supporters of the developments are punching back. Driving the news: Build American AI, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, has about $50 million cash on hand. The group’s campaign will begin…

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Javier Milei’s Argentina: A ‘new land of freedom’ for billionaires?

Javier Milei’s Argentina: A ‘new land of freedom’ for billionaires?

  In July, Fortune reported: Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel made headlines when he decided to relocate with his family to Buenos Aires earlier this summer, purchasing a mansion in an exclusive neighborhood and meeting with President Javier Milei and senior government officials. This is exactly the plan, it turns out — Argentina wants more people like him. The country has been preparing for the last year to launch a full citizenship-by-investment scheme. In July 2025, Decree 524/2025 established an Investment…

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Trump’s plan to sell off a part of Yosemite is what oligarchy looks like

Trump’s plan to sell off a part of Yosemite is what oligarchy looks like

Rebecca Solnit writes: Do people still say a car was “sold for parts”? Because the US is being sold for parts or just handed over to the oligarchy. It’s a fire sale, a bankruptcy auction, it’s a planned dismantling of everything from its military to its institutions of higher education to its scientific research to its public lands. And while the threat to sell off part of Yosemite National Park is about a quarter-mile parcel on the park’s edge, Yosemite…

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Datacenter backlash brings the entire political spectrum together – against the big tech billionaires

Datacenter backlash brings the entire political spectrum together – against the big tech billionaires

Aaron Regunberg writes: Bryce Gustafson has been knocking on doors in Indiana for more than a decade. The lead organizer with Citizens Action Coalition (CAC), a consumer and environmental organization, he usually encounters a mix of reactions when he’s out canvassing; whatever issue he’s talking about, there’s always at least a few people on the other side. But at a recent festival in the rural town of Monrovia, Indiana, he was struck by an unusual spirit of unity. He was…

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