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Category: Politics

The real crime isn’t shoplifting — it’s wage theft

The real crime isn’t shoplifting — it’s wage theft

Jason Linkins writes: Last weekend, I stumbled across a viral tweet thread that provided a rather thorough debunking of one of my big bugbears: the insipid shoplifting panic that’s been coursing through the media the past two years. Over several posts, WBAI radio host Rafael Shimunov punctures what’s become a classic “too good to check” story and discovered that many of the foundational ideas behind what’s been sold as a bona fide crisis were falsehoods—and not particularly well-constructed ones at that. Once the evidence…

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Cats with bird flu? The threat grows

Cats with bird flu? The threat grows

Zeynep Tufekci writes: The global H5N1 avian flu outbreak, already devastating wild birds and poultry, keeps spreading to mammals, bringing it one step closer to a potential human outbreak. Of course, since the coronavirus pandemic taught us the importance of responding early and aggressively to outbreaks … Sorry, I’m joking. We don’t seem to have learned much from the Covid outbreak, and it’s not funny. Not enough has been done about an out-of-control H5N1 outbreak at fur farms in Finland or…

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The GOP’s populist wing poses a threat to the North Atlantic alliance and the defense of Ukraine

The GOP’s populist wing poses a threat to the North Atlantic alliance and the defense of Ukraine

Phillips Payson O’Brien writes: Europe and the United States are on the verge of the most momentous conscious uncoupling in international relations in decades. Since 1949, NATO has been the one constant in world security. Initially an alliance among the United States, Canada, and 10 countries in Western Europe, NATO won the Cold War and has since expanded to include almost all of Europe. It has been the single most successful security grouping in modern global history. It also might…

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The alleged election office breach in ‘crooked’ Coffee County was part of a years-long pattern, some locals say

The alleged election office breach in ‘crooked’ Coffee County was part of a years-long pattern, some locals say

CNN reports: The breach of the Coffee County elections office can seem almost out of place in the 97-page Georgia indictment of former President Donald Trump and associates. The sprawling racketeering allegations spread from centers of power with pressure on the vice president to ignore the Constitution, reported calls to secretaries of state to change vote counts, and the creation of slates of fake electors for Congress. They also include the invitation of a tech team to a non-public area…

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Why Biden just can’t shake Trump in the polls

Why Biden just can’t shake Trump in the polls

Ronald Brownstein writes: Like so many bands of wind and rain, hurricane-strength squalls of bad news have battered former President Donald Trump all year. Since April, he’s been indicted four times, on 91 separate felony charges, compared with zero counts for all of his White House predecessors. Trump often likes to claim that anything associated with him is the most spectacular, even when it’s not, but when it comes to accumulating criminal charges, he’s the undisputed champ of former presidents….

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The sleeper legal fight that could define 2024: Is Trump even eligible to run?

The sleeper legal fight that could define 2024: Is Trump even eligible to run?

Politico reports: If Donald Trump wants to be on the ballot next year in all 50 states, he might first have to win an unprecedented courtroom battle over the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment. Under a legal theory that’s gaining traction among Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans, that seldom-used clause arguably disqualifies Trump from ever holding office again due to his attempts to undermine the 2020 election and his role in stoking the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6,…

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Election workers have gotten death threats and warnings they will be lynched, the U.S. government says

Election workers have gotten death threats and warnings they will be lynched, the U.S. government says

The Associated Press reports: More than a dozen people nationally have been charged with threatening election workers by a Justice Department unit trying to stem the tide of violent and graphic threats against people who count and secure the vote. Government employees are being bombarded with threats even in normally quiet periods between elections, secretaries of state and experts warn. Some point to former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen and…

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A new Rudy scandal: FBI agent says Giuliani was co-opted by Russian intelligence

A new Rudy scandal: FBI agent says Giuliani was co-opted by Russian intelligence

Mother Jones reports: It was big news when Rudy Giuliani, once hailed as America’s Mayor, was indicted last month by a district attorney in Atlanta for allegedly being part of a criminal enterprise led by Donald Trump that sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Giuliani was back in headlines this week when he lost a defamation suit filed against him by two Georgia election workers whom he had falsely accused of ballot stuffing. Giuliani’s apparent impoverishment, caused by his…

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State election officials prepare for efforts to disqualify Trump under 14th Amendment

State election officials prepare for efforts to disqualify Trump under 14th Amendment

ABC News reports: Efforts to keep former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment are gaining momentum as election officials in key states are preparing for or starting to respond to legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy. The argument to disqualify Trump from appearing on primary or general election ballots in 2024 boils down to Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states that an elected official is not eligible to assume public office if…

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‘Trump isn’t funding any of us’: Co-defendants in Georgia case are struggling with mounting legal bills

‘Trump isn’t funding any of us’: Co-defendants in Georgia case are struggling with mounting legal bills

CNN reports: Some of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the sprawling election subversion case in Georgia are trying all sorts of ways to fund their mounting legal bills – yet the costs of the 2020 election fallout may quickly exceed their abilities to pay. At least four have turned to crowdfunding online, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for defense lawyers. One now has a political action committee to help with legal fees. Another has an ally in Congress…

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Mitch McConnell may be experiencing focal seizures, doctors suggest

Mitch McConnell may be experiencing focal seizures, doctors suggest

The New York Times reports: A four-line letter, signed by the attending physician of Congress and released by Senator Mitch McConnell on Thursday, suggested that his recent spells of speechlessness were linked to “occasional lightheadedness” perhaps brought on by his recovery from a concussion last winter or “dehydration.” But seven neurologists, relying on what they described as unusually revealing video of Mr. McConnell freezing up in public twice recently, said in interviews Thursday and Friday that the episodes captured in…

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Coup evidence bomb goes off: Trump’s Jan. 5 Roger Stone outreach echoes amidst smoking gun tape

Coup evidence bomb goes off: Trump’s Jan. 5 Roger Stone outreach echoes amidst smoking gun tape

Donald Trump’s indictments bring new heat on the coup’s “team effort,” after new footage that first aired on “The Beat” showed Trump vet Roger Stone pushing the elector plot before all votes were in.   In accordance with Stone’s rules — “Admit nothing, deny everything…” he responded to Ari Melber’s report: Trump veteran Roger Stone replies to a report on the The Beat, and denies Cassidy Hutchison’s testimony under oath that Mark Meadows called him on January 5, 2021. pic.twitter.com/b9dLof2lsJ…

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Proud Boys lieutenant, Joseph Biggs, sentenced to 17 years in Jan. 6 sedition case

Proud Boys lieutenant, Joseph Biggs, sentenced to 17 years in Jan. 6 sedition case

The New York Times reports: Mr. Biggs recorded a podcast after the riot in which he declared that the attack on the Capitol was “a warning shot to the government.” Mr. Biggs’s contacts in the world of right-wing politics were never restricted solely to the Proud Boys. Like Mr. Tarrio, he has long had ties to Roger J. Stone Jr., one of Mr. Trump’s political advisers. He has also been involved at the edges of far-right disinformation campaigns like the…

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As Trump and Republicans target Georgia’s Fani Willis for retribution, the state’s governor opts out

As Trump and Republicans target Georgia’s Fani Willis for retribution, the state’s governor opts out

The Associated Press reports: Some Republicans in Washington and Georgia began attacking Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis immediately after she announced the Aug. 14 indictment of former President Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. But others, including Gov. Brian Kemp, have been conspicuous in their unwillingness to pile on. Kemp, who had previously survived scathing attacks from Trump over his refusal to endorse the former president’s false claims about the election, declined to comment…

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The cult of MAGA will eventually end

The cult of MAGA will eventually end

Peter Sagal writes: [Cult expert, Daniella Mestyanek] Young doesn’t believe that anybody can be argued out of Trumpism (or any other firmly held belief). People can save only themselves, as she did [when she escaped from the Children of God]. But she argues that such self-rescues are happening all around us. “Twenty years ago,” she told me, “when I walked away from a cult, it was much rarer to meet Americans like me, who are completely estranged from their families…

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Top North Carolina judge faces potential sanctions for talking about racial discrimination

Top North Carolina judge faces potential sanctions for talking about racial discrimination

Judd Legum writes: North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls is being threatened with sanctions for criticizing the court’s approach to racial and gender discrimination. Earls, the only Black woman on the court, is under investigation by the state’s Judicial Standards Commission, a body largely comprised of conservative judges appointed by North Carolina Chief Justice Paul Newby. On August 15, Earls received a letter from the Commission informing her that she was under investigation on suspicion that her comments to…

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