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Category: Politics

The Epstein scandal suggests that everything awful we’ve ever believed is true

The Epstein scandal suggests that everything awful we’ve ever believed is true

Joshua Rothman writes: It was odd, for many reasons, to be a journalist in 2016 and 2017, just after the election of Donald Trump. Part of the oddness was that seemingly every story had to include him. If a reporter travelled somewhere to gather material on something apparently unrelated—a natural disaster, a sporting event, a scientific discovery—it felt important to explore whether the people who lived there had voted for Trump, and why. Writing about individuals, one found it crucial…

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ICE and CPB are acquiring a vast cache of weapons from private contractors

ICE and CPB are acquiring a vast cache of weapons from private contractors

Greg Sargent writes: The “forever wars” abroad and the global war on terror after the September 11 attacks left behind a long trail of failure, disillusionment, and death—but they also funneled huge sums of taxpayer money to companies that supplied the equipment that made all that destruction possible. That resulted in windfalls for GOP-connected companies, and fueled a massive public-private bureaucracy that grew harder to rein in as it metastasized to monstrous proportions. Something like this is happening again in…

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A White House staffer appears to run a massive anonymous pro-Trump X account

A White House staffer appears to run a massive anonymous pro-Trump X account

Wired reports: Hours after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, the Trump administration was already working to shape the narrative. Official White House accounts flooded social media with clips of burning flags and clashes between locals and federal immigration agents, casting protestors—not the killing—as the story. Among the accounts amplifying that message was Johnny MAGA, a pro-Trump X account with nearly 300,000 followers. “They’re burning the American flag right now in Minneapolis,” the anonymous account claimed,…

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DHS assault victim Aliya Rahman arrested at State of the Union address

DHS assault victim Aliya Rahman arrested at State of the Union address

  We speak with Minneapolis resident Aliya Rahman, who attended Tuesday’s State of the Union address as a guest of Congressmember Ilhan Omar. Rahman was removed from the chamber Tuesday and spent several hours in jail following what she describes as an aggressive arrest by Capitol Police — all for silently challenging Trump during the speech. “There are only two things you can do at the State of the Union, and they are sit down and stand up,” says Rahman….

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Federal judge rejects government’s request to search Washington Post reporter’s devices

Federal judge rejects government’s request to search Washington Post reporter’s devices

Politico reports: A federal judge rejected the Department of Justice’s demand to continue its search of a Washington Post reporter’s phone and other electronic devices for information that might help an FBI investigation into the leaking of classified information. U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter declined in his Thursday ruling to require the DOJ to return equipment seized from the home of reporter Hannah Natanson in January, saying the court would review her devices for any material relevant to the government’s…

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DOJ withheld and removed files relating to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor

DOJ withheld and removed files relating to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor

NPR reports: The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds. It also removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump. Some files have not been made public despite a law mandating their release. These include what appear to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, as well as notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of…

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The State of the Union for small business is dismal

The State of the Union for small business is dismal

Matthew A. Winkler writes: Donald Trump’s State of the Union is unlike any of the President’s preceding him because America isn’t working the way it used to. Small businesses, which have fewer than 500 employees and account for almost half of private sector payrolls, are suffering record bankruptcies and “still waiting for noticeable economic growth” as US gross domestic product continues to climb, the Republican-leaning National Federation of Independent Business reported last month. The agricultural economy is sliding, with barely…

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A New York congressional candidate feared by the tech oligarchs

A New York congressional candidate feared by the tech oligarchs

Michelle Goldberg writes: If I were a voter in New York’s 12th Congressional District, a recent attack ad against the candidate Alex Bores might make me think twice about considering him. Bores, a 35-year-old member of the New York Assembly, is a reliably progressive candidate in the coming Democratic primary to succeed the liberal stalwart Jerry Nadler, who is retiring. But the spot, paid for by a political action committee called Think Big, points out something seemingly sinister in Bores’s…

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Massive investment in AI has contributed nothing to economic growth last year, Goldman Sachs has calculated

Massive investment in AI has contributed nothing to economic growth last year, Goldman Sachs has calculated

The Washington Post reports: A new economic indicator has captivated Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington. Technology companies’ massive spending on artificial intelligence accounted for half or more of U.S. growth last year, some economists calculated, effectively propping up an otherwise anemic economy. To President Donald Trump and his advisers, the figures showed that AI is helping spark an economic renaissance that must not be impeded by regulation. To some critics, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), the data revealed…

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Elon Musk’s destruction of USAID has left massive death and destruction in its wake

Elon Musk’s destruction of USAID has left massive death and destruction in its wake

Bill McKay writes: This decade has seen the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives in violent conflicts: in the Tigray War in Ethiopia, in civil war in Myanmar, in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and most recently in the RSF massacres in the Sudanese city of Al-Fashir, to name just a few. Yet the largest act of mass murder of this decade, and of this century so far, was not…

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How the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them

How the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them

Shaun Walker writes: William Burns had travelled halfway around the world to speak with Vladimir Putin, but in the end he had to make do with a phone call. It was November 2021, and US intelligence agencies had been picking up signals in the preceding weeks that Putin could be planning to invade Ukraine. President Joe Biden dispatched Burns, his CIA director, to warn Putin that the economic and political consequences if he did so would be disastrous. Fifteen years…

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‘Peaceful dissent is not a crime’: A new lawsuit alleges DHS illegally tracked and intimidated observers

‘Peaceful dissent is not a crime’: A new lawsuit alleges DHS illegally tracked and intimidated observers

NPR reports: Last month, Colleen Fagan was observing an immigration enforcement operation at an apartment complex in Portland, Maine, when federal agents scanned her face with a smartphone and appeared to record her car license plate number. In a social media video she recorded, Fagan can be heard asking why the agent was taking her information. What the agent said next made the video go viral. “Cause we have a nice little database,” the masked agent said. “And now you’re…

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Trump’s top general foresees acute risks in an attack on Iran

Trump’s top general foresees acute risks in an attack on Iran

The Washington Post reports: As the Trump administration weighs an attack on Iran, the Pentagon’s top general has cautioned President Donald Trump and other officials that shortfalls in critical munitions and a lack of support from allies will add significant risk to the operation and to U.S. personnel, according to people familiar with internal discussions. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed his concerns at a White House meeting last week with Trump and his top…

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New polling data shows immigration enforcement is costing the GOP their own voters

New polling data shows immigration enforcement is costing the GOP their own voters

Austin Kocher writes: I came across a fascinating new national survey today from Morris Predictive Insights that I wanted to share. I have been paying closer attention to polling data lately, especially anything that tracks the relationship between immigration enforcement and how voters perceive the parties heading into 2026. This one stood out. It is a poll of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted February 6-10, and it offers some of the clearest evidence yet that the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda…

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Musk’s xAI and Pentagon reach deal to use Grok in classified systems

Musk’s xAI and Pentagon reach deal to use Grok in classified systems

Axios reports: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has signed an agreement to allow the military to use its model, Grok, in classified systems, a Defense official confirmed to Axios. Why it matters: Up to now, Anthropic’s Claude has been the only model available in the systems on which the military’s most sensitive intelligence work, weapons development and battlefield operations take place. But the Pentagon is threatening Anthropic in a dispute over safeguards and may soon need a replacement. Anthropic has refused the Pentagon’s demand that they…

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How AI agents could destroy the economy

How AI agents could destroy the economy

Bloomberg reports: Delivery, payments, and software stocks slid sharply Monday after Citrini Research published a report laying out the potential risks that artificial intelligence could pose to various segments of the global economy. DoorDash Inc., American Express Co., KKR & Co Inc. and Blackstone Inc all slumped more than 8%. Shares of other companies name-checked in the article, including Uber Technologies Inc., Mastercard Inc., Visa Inc., Capital One Financial Corp. and Apollo Global Management Inc. were all lower by at…

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