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Category: Politics

Could U.S. voters abroad hold all the cards?

Could U.S. voters abroad hold all the cards?

Politico reports: The November election could come down to a hair’s breadth margin, and both Democrats and Republicans are looking to rack up as many votes as they can from American voters abroad. For the first time in a presidential cycle, Democrats are allocating significant money to the effort to help push their party over the finish line. The Democratic National Committee and private donors are putting more than $450,000 into a get-out-the-vote campaign aimed at reaching Americans from swing…

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Trump promotes ‘remigration,’ a white supremacist euphemism for ethnic cleansing

Trump promotes ‘remigration,’ a white supremacist euphemism for ethnic cleansing

HuffPost reports: Last weekend, former President Donald Trump posted another anti-immigrant screed to Truth Social. It would have been unremarkable ― at least, graded on the Trumpian curve of extreme xenophobia ― except for one word. “[We will] return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration),” he wrote. “I will save our cities and towns in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and all across America.” Many people might have glossed over his use of “remigration.”…

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Is Donald Trump, as J.D. Vance once asked, just a ‘cynical asshole’ or ‘America’s Hitler’?

Is Donald Trump, as J.D. Vance once asked, just a ‘cynical asshole’ or ‘America’s Hitler’?

David Runciman writes: On 6 January 2021, two weeks before he was due to leave office, Trump encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol in a bid to prevent the congressional ratification of his election defeat. Though Trump claims he was not responsible for what happened next, the riot that followed – with his supporters storming government buildings and elected officials fleeing for their lives – echoed some of the darkest chapters of modern European history. This is how…

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As president, Trump demanded investigations of foes. He often got them

As president, Trump demanded investigations of foes. He often got them

The New York Times reports: It was the spring of 2018 and President Donald J. Trump, faced with an accelerating inquiry into his campaign’s ties to Russia, was furious that the Justice Department was reluctant to strike back at those he saw as his enemies. In an Oval Office meeting, Mr. Trump told startled aides that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions would not order the department to go after Hillary Clinton and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, Mr….

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A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban

A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban

NBC News reports: The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed following the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation, a new investigation of federal public health data finds. From 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal mortality cases in Texas rose by 56%, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period, according to an analysis by the…

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MAGA Republicans pass new election rules in Georgia that could rig the state for Trump

MAGA Republicans pass new election rules in Georgia that could rig the state for Trump

Mother Jones reports: Less than two months before the election, the Trump-aligned majority on the Georgia State Election Board passed a new set of eleventh-hour rule changes on Friday that could plunge the vote counting process into chaos and give Republicans yet another pretext not to certify the results if Kamala Harris wins the state. During a highly contentious meeting, the state board voted 3-2 to require county election boards to hand count ballots cast on Election Day and then…

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Zelenskyy has a gamechanging plan to win peace. For it to work, Biden must back it – and fast

Zelenskyy has a gamechanging plan to win peace. For it to work, Biden must back it – and fast

Timothy Garton Ash writes: Earlier this week, I started a 3,000km, two-day journey back from the other end of Europe, where I witnessed Ukrainian resilience against Russian terror in the besieged city of Kharkiv. A university lecturer told me that from a 12th storey balcony in a north-eastern suburb she had actually seen the flashes of missiles taking off from launchpads just across the frontier, in the Russian city of Belgorod. An S-300 missile can reach Kharkiv from Belgorod in…

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Labelling Trump’s lies as ‘disputed’ on X makes supporters believe them more, study finds

Labelling Trump’s lies as ‘disputed’ on X makes supporters believe them more, study finds

The Guardian reports: Labelling tweets featuring false claims about election fraud as “disputed” does little to nothing to change Trump voters’ pre-existing beliefs, and it may make them more likely to believe the lies, according to a new study. The study, authored by John Blanchard, an assistant professor from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and Catherine Norris, an associate professor from Swarthmore College, looked at data from a sampling of 1,072 Americans surveyed in December of 2020. The researchers published…

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A plan to liquidate northern Gaza is gaining steam

A plan to liquidate northern Gaza is gaining steam

Meron Rapoport reports: The date is October, November, or December 2024, or maybe early 2025. The Israeli military has just launched a new operation throughout northern Gaza — “Operation Order and Clean-up,” we’ll call it. The army orders the temporary evacuation of all Palestinian residents north of the Netzarim Corridor “for their personal safety,” explaining that “the IDF is expected to take significant action in Gaza City in the coming days, and wants to avoid harming civilians.” The order is…

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With world’s attention shifting, some in Gaza fear they will be forgotten

With world’s attention shifting, some in Gaza fear they will be forgotten

The New York Times reports: After nearly a year of war, fear marks everyday life for Palestinians in Gaza. There is fear of the Israeli warplanes that tear through the skies and carry out deadly airstrikes. There is fear of famine with only a trickle of aid coming in. There is fear of being displaced, yet again, by Israeli evacuation orders. And now, there is increasing fear of being forgotten. International attention has been diverted, first by deadly Israeli military…

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A broader Israel-Lebanon war now seems inevitable

A broader Israel-Lebanon war now seems inevitable

Ishaan Tharoor writes: On Wednesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the war against Hezbollah had entered a “new phase” and that Israel would be concentrating more of its efforts against the group. “The center of gravity is moving north. We are diverting forces, resources, and energy toward the north,” Gallant told Israeli Air Force personnel at an air base. By the next day, dozens of Israeli airstrikes hit alleged Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, the group’s leader Hasan Nasrallah…

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Sheikh Omar Suleiman: ‘Republicans were vile. Democrats were absent. Palestinians were invisible’

Sheikh Omar Suleiman: ‘Republicans were vile. Democrats were absent. Palestinians were invisible’

  In the wake of a hate crimes hearing in the US Senate in which Palestinian voices were not platformed, Mehdi sat down with renowned Muslim-American scholar and pastor Sheikh Omar Suleiman. They talked about the killing of six-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and the double standards in how that horrific murder was covered, but also of his mother’s resilience and the resilience of Palestinians in general despite Gaza. They also covered Republican Senator John Kennedy’s Islamophobic conduct: “In a hearing about…

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I’m the Republican governor of Ohio. Here is the truth about Springfield

I’m the Republican governor of Ohio. Here is the truth about Springfield

Gov. Mike DeWine writes: I was born in Springfield, Ohio. My wife, Fran, and I have lived our entire lives less than 10 miles from this city. When we were dating in high school, we would go there to see movies at the Regent or State Theater or to eat fried clams at Howard Johnson’s. I remember Fran taking the bus about eight miles from our hometown, Yellow Springs, to Springfield to shop at Wren’s Department Store. Over the years,…

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Trump makes antisemitic statements at event on fighting antisemitism in America

Trump makes antisemitic statements at event on fighting antisemitism in America

The Forward reports: In a speech Thursday billed as former President Donald Trump’s answer to rising antisemitism, he said Jews would bear much of the responsibility if he loses the presidential election. And in a second speech later in the evening, to the Israeli American Council, Trump elaborated on his past assertions in recent weeks that Israel would not survive if he doesn’t win in November, by painting a doomsday scenario in which Iran launches nuclear weapons and invoking the…

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Elon Musk is debasing American society

Elon Musk is debasing American society

Thomas Chatterton Williams writes: To paraphrase former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, you wage mimetic warfare with the unsubstantiated smear you’ve got, not the one you want. It just so happens that the one most recently deployed by Donald Trump is the kind that proliferates these days on X. When Trump declared, seemingly out of nowhere, during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that Haitian immigrants living legally in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the dogs … eating the cats ……

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Uncommitted movement: Trump remains biggest threat, not Democrats

Uncommitted movement: Trump remains biggest threat, not Democrats

Middle East Eye reports: A group of Michigan-based Democratic voters who launched a historic nationwide primary ballot initiative to enact policy change on Gaza now say their best bet is to continue working through party channels. However, that’s not to say that White House officials or Democratic Party staff have heeded their calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an arms embargo on Israel, and a lifting of the 17-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip. In a virtual press conference…

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