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Marjorie Taylor Greene’s incredible fundraising haul reveals what the GOP is really about

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s incredible fundraising haul reveals what the GOP is really about

Vox reports: In preparation for what is likely to be a contentious reelection fight, freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has raised more than $3 million in the last three months, Politico reported Wednesday. It’s a shocking total, one that dwarfs the nearly $728,000 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) pulled in during the first three months of 2019, and it follows months of controversy that have dogged Greene since her election victory in November. “I’m just getting started,” Greene tweeted…

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Capitol riot defendant flips to help prosecutors against Proud Boys

Capitol riot defendant flips to help prosecutors against Proud Boys

CNN reports: At least one of the Capitol riot defendants has flipped against the Proud Boys, agreeing to provide information that could allow the Justice Department to bring a more severe charge against the group’s leadership, according to an attorney involved in the case. The development is the first indication that people charged in the insurrection are cooperating against the pro-Trump extremist group. Federal prosecutors have made clear they are focused on building conspiracy cases against leadership of the Proud…

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Sen. McConnell backs off warning to corporate America and still welcomes its money

Sen. McConnell backs off warning to corporate America and still welcomes its money

The Wall Street Journal reports: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday backed off his warning that businesses should stay away from politics but reiterated his frustration with some prominent companies’ criticism of Republican-led efforts to pass new election laws. Mr. McConnell had issued a statement on Monday threatening “serious consequences” for corporations that retaliate against GOP bills in Georgia and elsewhere, saying companies were capitulating to pressure from Democratic activists. The Kentucky Republican didn’t name any companies, or specify…

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Fears of white people losing out permeate Capitol rioters’ towns, study finds

Fears of white people losing out permeate Capitol rioters’ towns, study finds

The New York Times reports: When the political scientist Robert Pape began studying the issues that motivated the 380 or so people arrested in connection with the attack against the Capitol on Jan. 6, he expected to find that the rioters were driven to violence by the lingering effects of the 2008 Great Recession. But instead he found something very different: Most of the people who took part in the assault came from places, his polling and demographic data showed,…

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‘We are doomed’: Devastation from storms fuels migration in Honduras

‘We are doomed’: Devastation from storms fuels migration in Honduras

The New York Times reports: Children pry at the dirt with sticks, trying to dig out parts of homes that have sunk below ground. Their parents, unable to feed them, scavenge the rubble for remnants of roofs to sell for scrap metal. They live on top of the mud that swallowed fridges, stoves, beds — their entire lives buried beneath them. “We are doomed here,” said Magdalena Flores, a mother of seven, standing on a mattress that peeked out from…

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The racism woven into America’s immigration policies

The racism woven into America’s immigration policies

Caitlin Dickerson writes: When David Dorado Romo was a boy growing up in El Paso, Texas, his great-aunt Adela told him about the day the U.S. Border Patrol melted her favorite shoes. Romo’s aunt was Mexican and had a visa that allowed her to commute into South Texas for her job as a maid. Every week she had to report to a Border Patrol station, in accordance with a program that ran from 1917 into the 1930s requiring most Mexican…

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Yes, the Georgia election law is that bad

Yes, the Georgia election law is that bad

Zack Beauchamp writes: Georgia’s new election law SB 202, which many experts decried as an attack on the fundamental fairness of the state’s elections, was compared to Jim Crow by many leading Democrats. Now some observers are pushing back, arguing the bill falls well short of a democratic apocalyptic. In the New York Times, Nate Cohn concluded that “the law’s voting provisions are unlikely to significantly affect turnout or Democratic chances.” Slate’s Will Saletan notes that some provisions really are…

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The forgotten history of the western Klan

The forgotten history of the western Klan

Kevin Waite writes: The Ku Klux Klan was on the rise in the spring of 1869. Vigilantes could measure their success that season by the carnage they left behind: marauded homesteads, assaulted politicians, a church burned to the ground. According to a local report, insurance companies considered canceling their policies, “owing to the Ku Klux threats.” A school serving students of color was supposedly next on the Klan’s hit list. Such havoc could describe almost any southern state in the…

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Trump and his allies abandon Gaetz

Trump and his allies abandon Gaetz

Politico reports: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) built a public profile as an unapologetic, unambiguous, omnipresent booster of President Donald Trump. But as his own political career skids toward disaster amid allegations that he had sex with a minor and paid for sex with women of legal age, neither Trump nor anyone in the ex-president’s orbit is rushing to Gaetz’s defense. A group that often instinctively decries any such charge as part of some nefarious, coordinated witch hunt from deep-state operators…

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Biden effort to combat hunger marks ‘a profound change’

Biden effort to combat hunger marks ‘a profound change’

The New York Times reports: With more than one in 10 households reporting that they lack enough to eat, the Biden administration is accelerating a vast campaign of hunger relief that will temporarily increase assistance by tens of billions of dollars and set the stage for what officials envision as lasting expansions of aid. The effort to rush more food assistance to more people is notable both for the scale of its ambition and the variety of its legislative and…

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Half of Republicans believe false accounts of deadly U.S. Capitol riot, poll finds

Half of Republicans believe false accounts of deadly U.S. Capitol riot, poll finds

Reuters reports: Since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have pushed false and misleading accounts to downplay the event that left five dead and scores of others wounded. His supporters appear to have listened. Three months after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to overturn his November election loss, about half of Republicans believe the siege was largely a non-violent protest or was the handiwork…

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Satellite images show huge Russian military buildup in the Arctic

Satellite images show huge Russian military buildup in the Arctic

CNN reports: Russia is amassing unprecedented military might in the Arctic and testing its newest weapons in a region freshly ice-free due to the climate emergency, in a bid to secure its northern coast and open up a key shipping route from Asia to Europe. Weapons experts and Western officials have expressed particular concern about one Russian ‘super-weapon,’ the Poseidon 2M39 torpedo. Development of the torpedo is moving fast with Russian President Vladimir Putin requesting an update on a “key…

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LexisNexis to provide giant database of personal information to ICE

LexisNexis to provide giant database of personal information to ICE

The Intercept reports: The popular legal research and data brokerage firm LexisNexis signed a $16.8 million contract to sell information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to documents shared with The Intercept. The deal is already drawing fire from critics and comes less than two years after the company downplayed its ties to ICE, claiming it was “not working with them to build data infrastructure to assist their efforts.” Though LexisNexis is perhaps best known for its role as…

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Amazon illegally fired activist workers, labor board finds

Amazon illegally fired activist workers, labor board finds

The New York Times reports: Amazon illegally retaliated against two of its most prominent internal critics when it fired them last year, the National Labor Relations Board has determined. The employees, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, had publicly pushed the company to reduce its impact on climate change and address concerns about its warehouse workers. The agency told Ms. Cunningham and Ms. Costa that it would accuse Amazon of unfair labor practices if the company did not settle the case,…

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Biden’s jobs plan is also a climate plan. Will it make a difference?

Biden’s jobs plan is also a climate plan. Will it make a difference?

Elizabeth Kolbert writes: Last week, as the [cherry] blooms in Kyoto were prematurely fading, President Joe Biden travelled to Pennsylvania to pitch his latest spending plan, aimed, in part, at combatting global warming. The proposal, which the Administration has dubbed the American Jobs Plan, includes eighty-five billion dollars for mass-transit systems, another eighty billion dollars for Amtrak to expand service and make needed repairs, and a hundred billion to upgrade the nation’s electrical grid. It would allocate a hundred and…

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How Emergent BioSolutions put an ‘extraordinary burden’ on the U.S.’s troubled stockpile

How Emergent BioSolutions put an ‘extraordinary burden’ on the U.S.’s troubled stockpile

The New York Times reports: A year ago, President Donald J. Trump declared a national emergency, promising a wartime footing to combat the coronavirus. But as Covid-19 spread unchecked, sending thousands of dying people to the hospital, desperate pleas for protective masks and other medical supplies went unanswered. Health workers resorted to wearing trash bags. Fearful hospital officials turned away sick patients. Governors complained about being left in the lurch. Today the shortage of basic supplies, alongside inadequate testing and…

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