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Category: Politics

How Russian trolls helped keep the Women’s March out of lock step

How Russian trolls helped keep the Women’s March out of lock step

Ellen Barry reports: Linda Sarsour awoke on Jan. 23, 2017, logged onto the internet, and felt sick. The weekend before, she had stood in Washington at the head of the Women’s March, a mobilization against President Donald J. Trump that surpassed all expectations. Crowds had begun forming before dawn, and by the time she climbed up onto the stage, they extended farther than the eye could see. More than four million people around the United States had taken part, experts…

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Proud Boys memo reveals meticulous planning for ‘street-level violence’

Proud Boys memo reveals meticulous planning for ‘street-level violence’

The Guardian reports: The document is so dowdy and formal it resembles the annual minutes of a society of tax accountants. Its index lists sections on “objectives” and “rules of engagement” and carries an “addendum” that provides recommendations for hotels and parking. On the cover, two words give a clue to the notoriety of the group that produced it: “MAGA” and “WARNING”. That and the date: 5 January 2021, the day before the US Capitol attack. What goes unsaid on…

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Congress is running out of time to prevent Trump, if re-elected, gaining the power to fire key federal workers

Congress is running out of time to prevent Trump, if re-elected, gaining the power to fire key federal workers

The Daily Beast reports: In the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump quietly attempted what might have been his most brazen play yet to reshape the federal government in his image: He issued an executive order giving him the power to fire essentially any civil servant at will. That attempt was thwarted by the election of Joe Biden. But in laying out a 2024 presidential bid and a White House comeback, Trump has vowed to enact that order again…

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Trump’s embrace of QAnon is becoming increasingly explicit

Trump’s embrace of QAnon is becoming increasingly explicit

The New York Times reports: Former President Donald J. Trump appeared to more fully embrace QAnon on Saturday, playing a song at a political rally in Ohio that prompted attendees to respond with a salute in reference to the cultlike conspiracy theory’s theme song. While speaking in Youngstown in support of J.D. Vance, whom he has endorsed as Ohio’s Republican nominee for the Senate, Mr. Trump delivered a dark address about the decline of America over music that was all…

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As Trump inquiry heats up, AG Garland says divisions imperil the rule of law

As Trump inquiry heats up, AG Garland says divisions imperil the rule of law

The New York Times reports: An emotional Attorney General Merrick B. Garland addressed new citizens on Saturday at Ellis Island, the site of his family’s American origin story, and warned that the country had become dangerously divided by political factionalism, which has imperiled the democracy and the rule of law. Mr. Garland was presiding over the oath of allegiance for 250 naturalized citizens at the iconic immigration processing center, on the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution in 1787….

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‘Huge mistake’: DeSantis’ migrant relocation stunt could undercut support in South Florida

‘Huge mistake’: DeSantis’ migrant relocation stunt could undercut support in South Florida

Politico reports: Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to transport mostly Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard earlier this week could hurt the Republican governor in November with a key constituency that the GOP has sought to win over. The move by DeSantis dominated the radio and television airwaves in South Florida — where large swaths of Hispanic voters live. One Spanish radio host loudly denounced the move and even compared DeSantis’ actions to that of deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who relocated…

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Top Arizona Republican warns of fascist threat posed by Trump-backed candidates

Top Arizona Republican warns of fascist threat posed by Trump-backed candidates

CNN reports: The outgoing Republican speaker of the Arizona House says Trump-backed GOP candidates might send the country “back into the dark ages” if they win key midterm races and help enact laws to make it easier to overturn elections — which he said was tantamount to “fascism.” Rusty Bowers made the comments in an interview for an upcoming CNN special report by Jake Tapper, “American Coup: The January 6th Investigation.” The documentary, which details the major bombshells from Congress’…

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Calls for war-crimes tribunal grow over Russia’s actions in Izyum

Calls for war-crimes tribunal grow over Russia’s actions in Izyum

Politico reports: The foreign minister of the Czech Republic, current holder of the presidency of the Council of the EU, called for a “special international tribunal” after evidence of torture on civilians emerged from a mass burial site in Izyum in northeastern Ukraine. “Russia left behind mass graves of hundreds of shot and tortured people in the Izyum area. In the 21st century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent,” Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský wrote in a…

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More bosses are spying on so-called quiet quitters. It could backfire

More bosses are spying on so-called quiet quitters. It could backfire

The Wall Street Journal reports: In the battle against “quiet quitting” and other obstacles to productivity in the workplace, companies are increasingly turning to an array of sophisticated tools to watch and analyze how employees do their jobs. The sobering news for America’s bosses: These technologies can fall short of their promises, and even be counterproductive. Patchy evidence for the effectiveness of workplace monitoring tech hasn’t stopped it from sweeping through U.S. companies over the past 2½ years. Since the…

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As India joins China in distancing from Russia, Putin warns of escalation

As India joins China in distancing from Russia, Putin warns of escalation

The New York Times reports: Underlining Russia’s widening isolation on the world stage, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India told President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday that it is no time for war — even as the Russian president threatened to escalate the brutality of his campaign in Ukraine. The televised critique by Mr. Modi at a regional summit in Uzbekistan came just a day after Mr. Putin acknowledged that Xi Jinping, China’s leader, had “questions and concerns” about the…

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‘A crisis coming’: The twin threats to American democracy

‘A crisis coming’: The twin threats to American democracy

David Leonhardt writes: The United States has experienced deep political turmoil several times before over the past century. The Great Depression caused Americans to doubt the country’s economic system. World War II and the Cold War presented threats from global totalitarian movements. The 1960s and ’70s were marred by assassinations, riots, a losing war and a disgraced president. These earlier periods were each more alarming in some ways than anything that has happened in the United States recently. Yet during…

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Justice Deptartment asks appeals court to restore access to Trump raid documents

Justice Deptartment asks appeals court to restore access to Trump raid documents

Politico reports: The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to lift a judge’s order blocking criminal investigators from accessing about 100 documents with national security classification markings recovered from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound last month. In a filing with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta Friday night, prosecutors said the government is facing irreparable harm as a result of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling putting the potentially classified records off-limits to the…

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The Mar-a-Lago judge’s latest opinion is as atrocious as legal experts say it is

The Mar-a-Lago judge’s latest opinion is as atrocious as legal experts say it is

Harry Litman writes: Thursday’s 10-page opinion by U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon denying the government’s motion for a stay in the Mar-a-Lago documents case is being savaged by commentators in terms normally reserved for grotesque transgressions of justice like the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. Respected and generally sober legal analysts have called it an atrocity, “legally and practically incoherent,” “dangerous garbage,” and declared Cannon “a partisan hack.” “No honest and competent legal analyst could have ruled as…

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Trump’s team of lawyers marked by infighting and possible legal troubles of its own

Trump’s team of lawyers marked by infighting and possible legal troubles of its own

The New York Times reports: To understand the pressures, feuds and questions about competence within former President Donald J. Trump’s legal team as he faces potential prosecution on multiple fronts, consider the experience of Eric Herschmann, a former Trump White House lawyer who has been summoned to testify to a federal grand jury. For weeks this summer, Mr. Herschmann tried to get specific guidance from Mr. Trump’s current lawyers on how to handle questions from prosecutors that raise issues of…

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What happens when a party rejects humanity?

What happens when a party rejects humanity?

Sarah Jones writes: When two planeloads of migrants from Venezuela arrived in Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday, they had no idea where they were or where they could go to find shelter. A woman called Perla had lured them onto the plane with promises of a journey to Boston and expedited work papers, NPR reports. “She offered us help. Help that never arrived,” one migrant, Andres Duarte, said. “Now we are here. We got on the plane with a vision of…

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Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims

Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims

The Guardian reports: Criticism in the US of the oil industry’s obfuscation over the climate crisis is intensifying after internal documents showed companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted “gaslighting” the public over purported efforts to go green, and even wished critical activists be infested by bedbugs. The communications were unveiled as part of a congressional hearing held in Washington DC, where an investigation into the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis produced documents…

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