Attention to the Unseen

The Washington Post reports: Just three years ago, as they vied to lead the country, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidates competed to produce novel and dramatic policy proposals aimed at America’s most serious problems. The party’s insurgent liberals, who at times ran at the front of the pack, brought to the national stage dozens of new policy ideas on health care, housing, climate, education and more. The scale of their ambition startled Washington and captivated millions of voters. The establishment…

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Ronald Brownstein writes: The decision by Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to block their fellow Democrats from passing new federal voting-rights legislation clears the path for years of tightening ballot restrictions in Republican-controlled states. It also marks a resounding triumph for Chief Justice John Roberts in his four-decade quest to roll back the federal government’s role in protecting voter rights. Roberts as much as anyone set in motion the events that have led to this week’s climactic Senate confrontation…

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The Associated Press reports: Mansour Abbas broke a longstanding taboo when he led his Arab party into Israel’s governing coalition last year. The bold move appears to be paying dividends. Abbas, a once obscure politician, is the linchpin of the shaky union, securing hefty budgets and favorable policies for his constituents and even winning an audience with the king of Jordan. “We are equal partners the whole way, part of the coalition, for the first time in the state of…

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Robert Reich writes: Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results. Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention. A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in…

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Rolling Stone reports: One full day before Trump spoke to an estimated 15,000 die-hard Republicans in Arizona, a group of JFK Jr. obsessed QAnon fanatics arrived at the venue grounds here. They drove all the way from Dallas, Texas, where they’ve been holed up in a Hyatt hotel for over two months amid a series of failed prophecies that JFK Jr. would return from the dead. The first among them was Stephen Tenner, right hand man to the group’s leader…

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The New York Times reports: A newly disclosed memorandum citing “unprecedented” meddling by the Trump administration in the 2020 census and circulated among top Census Bureau officials indicates how strongly they sought to resist efforts by the administration to manipulate the count for Republican political gain. The document was shared among three senior executives including Ron S. Jarmin, a deputy director and the agency’s day-to-day head. It was written in September 2020 as the administration was pressing the bureau to…

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CNN reports: Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes has spewed violent rhetoric and whipped up unsubstantiated fears about secret government plots and imminent civil war for more than a decade with the help of another purveyor of extremism: conspiracy monger and internet powerhouse Alex Jones. Jones, who has built a staggering online following around his Infowars empire, has given Rhodes a platform to reach a wider audience — from the day Rhodes plugged the Oath Keepers’ first public meeting to the…

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