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Category: Politics

Why isn’t Trumpism hurting the GOP? Some Democrats see vexing answers

Why isn’t Trumpism hurting the GOP? Some Democrats see vexing answers

Greg Sargent writes: Something extraordinary just happened: In the space of just this week, a president and an ex-president warned that the opposition poses an existential threat to our political way of life. Joe Biden declared that “MAGA Republicans” have placed democracy “under threat.” Barack Obama warned that if GOP election deniers win in Arizona, “democracy may not survive.” Yet the ongoing MAGA threat to U.S. democracy, including from Donald Trump himself, isn’t harming Republican chances of winning the House…

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Days before the midterms, Twitter lays off employees who fight misinformation

Days before the midterms, Twitter lays off employees who fight misinformation

NBC News reports: Mass layoffs at Twitter on Friday battered the teams primarily responsible for keeping the platform free of misinformation, potentially hobbling the company’s capabilities four days before the end of voting in Tuesday’s midterm elections, one current and six former Twitter employees familiar with the cuts told NBC News, five of whom were recently laid off. Two former Twitter employees and one current employee warned that could bring chaos around the elections, as the layoffs hit especially hard…

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DOJ mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024

DOJ mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024

CNN reports: As Donald Trump inches closer to launching another presidential run after the midterm election, Justice Department officials have discussed whether a Trump candidacy would create the need for a special counsel to oversee two sprawling federal investigations related to the former president, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. The Justice Department is also staffing up its investigations with experienced prosecutors so it’s ready for any decisions after the midterms, including the potential unprecedented move of indicting a…

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The aftermath of Israel’s gevalt election

The aftermath of Israel’s gevalt election

Ruth Margalit writes: When Merav Michaeli, the leader of Israel’s left-wing Labor Party, arrived at the ballot box near her home in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning, she grinned from ear to ear. She poked toddlers in their strollers. Waved to photographers. But her sleepless eyes told a different story. Labor, Israel’s once dominant party—the party of Yitzhak Rabin—was inching toward extinction. So was Meretz, another dovish party to its left. So were three predominantly Arab parties. Israel’s peace camp…

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What Bolsonaro’s loss reveals about the limits of populism

What Bolsonaro’s loss reveals about the limits of populism

Yascha Mounk writes: As Sunday’s high-stakes runoff election for the presidency between Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right incumbent, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his left-wing challenger, approached, Brazilian political analysts kept returning to two big questions. The first was simply, “Who will win?” The second was more ominous: “Will the incumbent leave office if he loses?” The answer to the first question came late on Sunday night. Lula clearly, if narrowly, defeated Bolsonaro, with 51 to 49 percent of the…

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Prosecutors are obtaining potentially crucial testimony about January 6

Prosecutors are obtaining potentially crucial testimony about January 6

New York magazine reports: As the midterm campaigns draw to a close, so too may an informal détente between Donald Trump and federal prosecutors since the search of Mar-a-Lago in August. While both sides fight in court, the Justice Department has probably refrained from taking major steps in the key investigations into his possession of classified documents and the attack on the U.S. Capitol in order to avoid influencing the elections. During this relative down period, however, the department has reportedly been fighting…

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CREW to pursue disqualification if Trump runs for reelection

CREW to pursue disqualification if Trump runs for reelection

Should Donald Trump seek reelection to the presidency or any other office, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington will pursue his disqualification under the Fourteenth Amendment for engaging in the January 6th insurrection. In a letter sent to the former president today, CREW President Noah Bookbinder outlined how Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment bars anyone who engaged in insurrection against the Constitution they swore to defend from holding office, and let Trump know that CREW is prepared to…

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Suspected Russian plot used political cartoons to influence American voters

Suspected Russian plot used political cartoons to influence American voters

Bloomberg reports: Social media users tied to Russia are using political cartoons to try to influence the outcome of tight electoral races ahead of the U.S. midterms, according to research provided exclusively to Bloomberg News. Members of a Russian group accused of meddling in prior U.S. elections have pushed internet memes that promote right-wing conspiracy theories in a way that aims to undermine support for Democratic political candidates, according to the social media analysis firm Graphika Inc. The users, who…

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Republican opposition to helping Ukraine grows, WSJ poll finds

Republican opposition to helping Ukraine grows, WSJ poll finds

The Wall Street Journal reports: The majority of Americans support continuing aid to Ukraine in what will likely be a prolonged war with Russia, but support is becoming a partisan issue as Republican opposition grows to helping the country, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll. Military and financial aid to Ukraine has emerged as one of many political flashpoints days before a midterm election in which control of the Congress is at stake. The continuing flow of aid…

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‘I’ll keep doing this until we win’: On the road with Ukraine’s aid suppliers

‘I’ll keep doing this until we win’: On the road with Ukraine’s aid suppliers

James Rushton and Michael Weiss write: It’s a cold and rainy morning as Yahoo News arrives at an anonymous industrial estate somewhere outside of Kyiv. We are here to meet the volunteers of Ukraine Aid Ops, one of a growing number of civilian organizations that supply Ukrainian troops and civilians with humanitarian and nonlethal military aid. Over the next four days they have more than 10 deliveries to make to Ukrainian troops spread across the east of the country, supplying…

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Yet another Chinese rocket is set to tumble uncontrollably back to Earth this week

Yet another Chinese rocket is set to tumble uncontrollably back to Earth this week

LiveScience reports: The core stage of yet another Chinese Long March 5B rocket is set to tumble uncontrollably back to Earth this week after delivering the third and final module to China’s fledgling space station. The roughly 25-ton (23 metric tons) rocket stage, which launched Oct. 31 to deliver the Mengtian laboratory cabin module to the Tiangong space station, is predicted to reenter Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday, Nov. 5 at 11:51 p.m. EDT, give or take 14 hours, according to…

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Putin backed Trump in order to turn Ukraine into Russia’s vassal state

Putin backed Trump in order to turn Ukraine into Russia’s vassal state

Jim Rutenberg reports: On the night of July 28, 2016, as Hillary Clinton was accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in Philadelphia, Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, received an urgent email from Moscow. The sender was a friend and business associate named Konstantin Kilimnik. A Russian citizen born in Soviet Ukraine, Kilimnik ran the Kyiv office of Manafort’s international consulting firm, known for bringing cutting-edge American campaign techniques to clients seeking to have their way with fragile democracies around…

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U.S. officials divided over new intelligence suggesting Russian military discussed scenarios for using nuclear weapons

U.S. officials divided over new intelligence suggesting Russian military discussed scenarios for using nuclear weapons

CNN reports: Russian military officials have discussed how and under what conditions Russia would use a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to a US intelligence assessment described to CNN by multiple sources who have read it. The assessment, drafted by the National Intelligence Council, is not a high confidence product and is not raw intelligence but rather analysis, multiple people who have read it told CNN. For that reason, some officials believe the conversations reflected in…

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The courts are the only thing holding back total election subversion

The courts are the only thing holding back total election subversion

Richard L. Hasen writes: The United States has failed its first important test for democracy since the 2020 election season: Election denialism has taken hold among a significant segment of Republican voters, and election deniers are poised to win elections next week. They will go on to oversee or certify some elections in 2024. The question that matters now is whether the next line of defense for American democracy—our system of state and federal courts—is strong enough for the task…

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Trump lawyers saw Justice Thomas as ‘only chance’ to stop 2020 election certification

Trump lawyers saw Justice Thomas as ‘only chance’ to stop 2020 election certification

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s attorneys saw a direct appeal to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as their best hope of derailing Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election, email messages newly disclosed to congressional investigators show. “We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt,” Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote in a Dec. 31, 2020 email to Trump’s legal…

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The Intercept’s story about government policing disinformation is total garbage

The Intercept’s story about government policing disinformation is total garbage

Mike Masnick writes: Do not believe everything you read. Even if it comes from more “respectable” publications. The Intercept had a big story this week that is making the rounds, suggesting that “leaked” documents prove the DHS has been coordinating with tech companies to suppress information. The story has been immediately picked up by the usual suspects, claiming it reveals the “smoking gun” of how the Biden administration was abusing government power to censor them on social media. The only…

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