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Category: Politics

What Donald Trump doesn’t understand about race in America

What Donald Trump doesn’t understand about race in America

Teresa Wiltz writes: For most of its history, America decreed that anyone with any African ancestry was Black — and rumors of purported Blackness could derail a career, a marriage, a life. Now, the irony is that some feel comfortable accusing those same people of making up their Blackness altogether — or not being “fully Black” if they come from multiple racial backgrounds. But the problem with trying to decide who qualifies as Black and who doesn’t is that there…

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How JD Vance thinks about power

How JD Vance thinks about power

The New York Times reports: In September 2021, JD Vance offered two predictions about former President Donald J. Trump and one piece of advice. Mr. Trump would run again in 2024, Mr. Vance said. He would win. And when he did, Mr. Vance counseled, he needed the right people around him this time. “Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people,” Mr. Vance said on a podcast. He continued. “Then when…

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Biden told Netanyahu to ‘stop bullshitting.’ PM’s own security chiefs say he’s ‘given up on hostages’

Biden told Netanyahu to ‘stop bullshitting.’ PM’s own security chiefs say he’s ‘given up on hostages’

The Times of Israel reports: US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “stop bullshitting me” during their meeting in Washington last week, according to Channel 12 news. The network says the outburst came after Netanyahu told Biden that Israel was moving forward with negotiations on a hostage-for-ceasefire deal. The Times of Israel also reports: According to tonight’s report by Channel 12 news, which first reported on the meeting last night, Halevi said during the heated discussion: “The…

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Navalny couldn’t be freed until Gershkovich was kidnapped. Gershkovich couldn’t be freed until Navalny was dead

Navalny couldn’t be freed until Gershkovich was kidnapped. Gershkovich couldn’t be freed until Navalny was dead

Masha Gessen writes: A few days ago, Russian political prisoners started vanishing from their prison colonies: Their lawyers would come to see them only to be told their clients were no longer there. The disappearance of an inmate is often bad news — it can mean a move to a more remote colony, illness or death. But as the number of “missing” prisoners grew, in the Russian dissident community a mounting sense of anticipation replaced the concern. “A trade,” a…

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A polarisation engine’: How social media has created a ‘perfect storm’ for UK’s far-right riots

A polarisation engine’: How social media has created a ‘perfect storm’ for UK’s far-right riots

Carole Cadwalladr writes: The 1996 Dunblane massacre and the outcry that followed are held up in the US as a textbook example of how an act of terror mobilised a country to demand effective gun regulation. The atrocity, in which 16 children and their teacher were killed, provoked a wave of national revulsion that, within weeks, led to 750,000 people signing a petition demanding a change to the law. Within a year and a half, new legislation had outlawed the…

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$10M cash withdrawal drove secret probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt

$10M cash withdrawal drove secret probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt

The Washington Post reports: Five days before Donald Trump became president in January 2017, a manager at a bank branch in Cairo received an unusual letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service. It asked the bank to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10 million from the organization’s account — all in cash. Inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt, employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags, according to records from the bank. Four…

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How an Elon Musk PAC is using voter data to help Trump beat Harris in 2024 election

How an Elon Musk PAC is using voter data to help Trump beat Harris in 2024 election

CNBC reports: If a voter in Michigan performs a search on Google, a somewhat shocking ad might pop up. The ad shows a young man lying in bed late at night when someone else texts him, “Hey you need to vote,” and then sends the man a video of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The man can hear the gunshots and people screaming in the background. As Trump is rushed off stage with blood pouring down his…

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New ads calling Trump ‘afraid to debate’ to follow him on campaign trail

New ads calling Trump ‘afraid to debate’ to follow him on campaign trail

Reuters reports: The Democratic National Committee’s newest advertising campaign, launched on Friday, taunt Republican rival Donald Trump for not committing to a debate with Kamala Harris and is set to follow him on the campaign trail. The DNC has purchased large ads that dominate the digital homepages of major local newspapers in states where Trump plans to campaign in the coming weeks. The ads say “the convicted felon is afraid to debate” and question whether that is due to his…

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Trump’s stalled Jan 6 election-subversion prosecution revs back to life

Trump’s stalled Jan 6 election-subversion prosecution revs back to life

Politico reports: The stalled criminal case against Donald Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 election is starting to move. The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity — a breathtaking legal victory for Trump’s bid to sideline his criminal prosecutions — had kept the election-subversion case on ice for months. Even after the July 1 ruling, the high court’s rules required a one-month delay to give prosecutors the chance to ask the justices to reconsider the outcome. On Friday,…

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Harris hires Obama campaign veterans to join 2024 effort, replacing Biden loyalists

Harris hires Obama campaign veterans to join 2024 effort, replacing Biden loyalists

The Washington Post reports: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris hired a battery of new senior advisers to her campaign this week, moving swiftly to replace lifetime loyalists of President Biden with Democratic campaign veterans, including multiple leaders of Barack Obama’s presidential bids, according to people briefed on the campaign shifts. David Plouffe, a top strategist on both of Obama’s presidential campaigns, joins Harris as senior adviser for strategy and the states focused on winning the electoral college. Stephanie Cutter,…

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Israeli leaders celebrate assassinations — and make the living pay the price

Israeli leaders celebrate assassinations — and make the living pay the price

Orly Noy writes: We are now faced with the regional war of Gog and Magog that Benjamin Netanyahu has been so determined to ignite. Every one of us is now trying in horror to guess what the response will be to the recent assassinations — which our leaders are celebrating as a “brilliant achievement” of Israel’s sophisticated war machine — and whether our children will survive it. We are now contemplating the fate of the hostages, afraid to say what…

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The man behind Project 2025’s most radical plans

The man behind Project 2025’s most radical plans

By Alec MacGillis This story was originally published by ProPublica In January 2023, a group of about 15 people gathered for three days at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative Washington think tank a few blocks from the Capitol. Their aim was ambitious and farsighted: to start building the next Republican administration, two years before a Republican president might again take office. The group’s leaders originally cast the initiative as candidate-agnostic, intended to assist the 2024 Republican nominee, whoever that might…

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GOP lawmakers support ‘mass deportations’ but have no idea how the policy would work

GOP lawmakers support ‘mass deportations’ but have no idea how the policy would work

NOTUS reports: Former President Donald Trump is promising “mass deportation” — and Republicans in Congress have been quick to support the promise, even if they’re unsure how such an effort would work. “You’ll have to ask the president,” Sen. Ron Johnson said when NOTUS asked last week what that sort of deportation policy would look like. When NOTUS asked Rep. Troy Nehls a similar question — how the government would go about getting a large number of undocumented people out…

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Democracy will suffer a relatively quiet death. We simulated it

Democracy will suffer a relatively quiet death. We simulated it

Through the Democracy Futures Project, Rosa Brooks led a simulation of a second Trump administration. She writes: Imagine, for instance, something like this in spring 2025: On the surface, America seems stable. For nearly all Americans, life continues as usual. But at the Pentagon, top generals are being forced out for objecting to Trump’s cozy relationship with Russia and his plans to use active-duty troops to round up migrants. At the CIA, the Justice Department, and other agencies, civil servants…

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Kamala Harris embodies the demographic trends that have reshaped America

Kamala Harris embodies the demographic trends that have reshaped America

In 2021, Kim Parker and Amanda Barroso from the Pew Research Center wrote: The swearing-in of Kamala Harris as the vice president of the United States marked several important “firsts”: She became the first female vice president, as well as the first Black person and first Asian American to hold that office. But her ascendance to the second-highest office in the land represented so much more. It held up a mirror to America, revealing how key demographic trends have reshaped…

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New Louisiana law will make it easier for the police to use excessive force

New Louisiana law will make it easier for the police to use excessive force

By Richard A. Webster, Verite News This story was originally published by ProPublica Four years before a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, prompting nationwide demonstrations, hundreds of people marched in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to protest officers’ killing of Alton Sterling in front of a convenience store. Law enforcement responded in force: Officers armed with rifles, body armor and gas masks pushed protesters back and forcibly arrested about 200 people. Some were injured. A group of 13 protesters and two…

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