Attention to the Unseen

Democracy Docket reports: If there were any Republican hopes that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) might change her mind to vote for the SAVE America Act, she made it clear in no uncertain terms that she will never. “While I support the bill’s core tenets—ensuring that only American citizens vote and requiring identification when voting—I remain opposed to it,” wrote Murkowski in a Wall St. Journal op-ed, not even 24 hours after President Donald Trump made a deceitful plea for the…

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Democracy Docket reports: State election officials widely condemned President Donald Trump’s Thursday night speech, which pushed debunked election lies alleging foreign interference in the 2020 election. Many election chiefs gathered in Rapid City, South Dakota this week for a conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) to discuss preparations for the midterm elections. When Trump delivered his address to the nation, the secretaries attended a dinner at Mount Rushmore. “When he casts doubt on elections, it is…

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The New York Times reports: When President Trump tried to undermine and overturn the election results in 2020, he ran into stiff pushback — not just in the courts, but from many officials in his own government. He made sure there would be little room for such dissent when he returned to the White House. Those seeking to join Mr. Trump’s second administration had to pass a key litmus test: Did they believe the 2020 election was stolen from Mr….

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The Guardian reports: Friedrich Merz has warned Donald Trump’s administration against interfering in German elections after the US state department announced a scheme to fund Maga-aligned causes in Europe. The German chancellor was responding to a US initiative offering grants of up to $3m (£2.2m) for European charities, thinktanks and individuals. The funding will be for those seeking to “address national sovereignty, migration, censorship and lawfare challenges in line with shared political philosophy, law and our common western civilizational heritage”….

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The Hill reports: Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) on Thursday said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s testosterone screening requirement for U.S. service members is indicative of “homoeroticism.” Hegseth announced this week that the Pentagon will give the screenings to service members 30 years and older, regardless of gender. Should treatment be recommended following the test, they will have the choice to receive testosterone replacement therapy. “I think it’s indicative of the fact that there are so many people in this administration that…

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Politico reports: Nearly half of House Democrats voted to cut off aid to Israel Wednesday, underscoring a seismic shift in political support for the longtime U.S. ally. The amendment to a State Department spending bill would have eliminated $3.3 billion in funding, and thanks to strong Republican support for the Jewish state, it failed 314-104 . But the vote served as a moment of reckoning for House Democrats who have had to confront years of voter outrage about Israel’s handling…

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JTA reports: For much of the modern history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the phrase “one-state solution” was a fringe idea, especially among Jewish supporters of Israel. The proposal that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs would live under one government was largely seen as the very antithesis of Zionism, which asserts the legitimacy of Jewish nationalism and the right to establish a Jewish-led state in Jews’ ancestral homeland. That is changing — at least in some corners of the Jewish world….

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