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Category: Politics

Inside the Koch-backed effort to block the largest election-reform bill in half a century

Inside the Koch-backed effort to block the largest election-reform bill in half a century

Jane Mayer writes: In public, Republicans have denounced Democrats’ ambitious electoral-reform bill, the For the People Act, as an unpopular partisan ploy. In a contentious Senate committee hearing last week, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, slammed the proposal, which aims to expand voting rights and curb the influence of money in politics, as “a brazen and shameless power grab by Democrats.” But behind closed doors Republicans speak differently about the legislation, which is also known as House Resolution 1 and…

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White House dramatically increased tax proposal as it sought to address tensions over next big spending plan

White House dramatically increased tax proposal as it sought to address tensions over next big spending plan

The Washington Post reports: When President Biden’s team began putting together his infrastructure and jobs package this February, the White House National Economic Council circulated an internal proposal calling for about $3 trillion in new spending and $1 trillion in new tax hikes, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. But soon enough, some members of the economic team second-guessed themselves, concerned that the plan could jeopardize the nation’s long-term financial stability. The officials worried that the large…

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Biden task force to probe science manipulation under Trump

Biden task force to probe science manipulation under Trump

NBC News reports: A new White House task force will examine instances where the Trump administration may have distorted or suppressed science in critical government decisions, with an eye toward creating fail-safes to prevent it from happening again, the White House said Monday. In a letter to federal agencies, obtained by NBC News, the White House said the task force’s mandate would include identifying whether current policies effectively “prevent improper political interference in the conduct of scientific research” and “prevent…

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Remote work is here to stay. New York City faces a cataclysmic challenge after the pandemic ends

Remote work is here to stay. New York City faces a cataclysmic challenge after the pandemic ends

The New York Times reports: Spotify’s headquarters in the United States fills 16 floors of 4 World Trade Center, a towering office building in Lower Manhattan that was the first to rise on the site of the 2001 terror attacks. Its offices will probably never be full again: Spotify has told employees they can work anywhere, even in another state. A few floors down, MediaMath, an advertising tech company, is planning to abandon its space, a decision fueled by its…

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The unlikely team of prosecutors hunting Trump in Georgia

The unlikely team of prosecutors hunting Trump in Georgia

The Daily Beast reports: A sheriff’s deputy who went to law school but remained a cop for another two decades. A prosecutor best known for tackling juvenile offenders. And the guy who literally wrote the book on racketeering cases against mafia goons. This is the team Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is assembling to investigate Donald Trump—to go after his advisers and their attempts to manipulate election results in Georgia. In interviews with Willis, her staff, five former members…

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Sidney Powell’s ‘just kidding’ defense is seriously, literally nuts

Sidney Powell’s ‘just kidding’ defense is seriously, literally nuts

Matt Lewis writes: During the 2016 presidential campaign, journalist and author Salena Zito observed that when it came to Donald Trump, “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Zito deserves credit for coining a memorable phrase that certainly sounded plausible back when we were all trying to fathom how Trump won. By 2020, however, it was clear that Trump’s fans were, in fact, taking him literally. The Capitol insurgency that occurred…

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‘He’s toast’: GOP leaves Raffensperger twisting in the wind

‘He’s toast’: GOP leaves Raffensperger twisting in the wind

Politico reports: The former president is obsessed with defeating him next year. He’s getting mauled by his own state party. Last week alone, a Republican congressman announced he’d challenge in the primary and the state legislature voted to strip his office of some official powers. By most accounts, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger doesn’t have a prayer of being reelected. “He’s toast,” said Jay Williams, a Georgia-based Republican strategist. “I don’t know that there’s a single elected official who…

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Cases in Florida, a national Covid bellwether, are rising — especially among younger people

Cases in Florida, a national Covid bellwether, are rising — especially among younger people

The New York Times reports: Scientists view Florida — the state furthest along in lifting restrictions, reopening society and welcoming tourists — as a bellwether for the nation. If recent trends there are any indication, the rest of the country may be in trouble. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Florida has been steadily rising, though hospitalizations and deaths are still down. Over the past week, the state has averaged nearly 5,000 cases per day, an increase of 8…

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How Putin is starving Syria — and what Biden can do

How Putin is starving Syria — and what Biden can do

Charles Lister and Jeffrey Feltman write: From Syria’s northwest, one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world can look a lot like an endless traffic jam. Every day, lines of trucks loaded with food, water, clothes, medical supplies and construction equipment wait to cross from Turkey into the Syrian hills. Once they manage to get through, they pass into the Syrian town of Bab al-Hawa and head into a region that has seen more war than anywhere else in…

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Iran and China sign 25-year cooperation agreement

Iran and China sign 25-year cooperation agreement

Reuters reports: China and Iran, both subject to U.S. sanctions, signed a 25-year cooperation agreement on Saturday to strengthen their long-standing economic and political alliance. “Relations between the two countries have now reached the level of strategic partnership and China seeks to comprehensively improve relations with Iran,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted by Iran’s state media as telling his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif. “Our relations with Iran will not be affected by the current situation, but will…

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The vast majority of America’s Covid deaths could have been prevented, says Birx

The vast majority of America’s Covid deaths could have been prevented, says Birx

CNN reports: The US may finally be getting a handle on the coronavirus pandemic, but for so many Americans, it’s too late, and that disconnect is raising fresh questions about why the US couldn’t have done more earlier. Dr. Deborah Birx, who served as the White House coronavirus response coordinator under the Trump administration, reveals her chilling conclusion in a new CNN documentary that the number of coronavirus deaths could have been “decreased substantially” if cities and states across the…

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A collapse foretold: How Brazil’s Covid-19 outbreak overwhelmed hospitals

A collapse foretold: How Brazil’s Covid-19 outbreak overwhelmed hospitals

The New York Times reports: The patients began arriving at hospitals in Porto Alegre far sicker and younger than before. Funeral homes were experiencing a steady uptick in business, while exhausted doctors and nurses pleaded in February for a lockdown to save lives. But Sebastião Melo, Porto Alegre’s mayor, argued there was a greater imperative. “Put your life on the line so that we can save the economy,” Mr. Melo appealed to his constituents in late February. Now Porto Alegre,…

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Rev. Rick Joyner calls on Christians to arm themselves for civil war. His children would be on the other side

Rev. Rick Joyner calls on Christians to arm themselves for civil war. His children would be on the other side

Nicholas Kristof writes: The Rev. Rick Joyner is a famous evangelical leader who has called on Christians to arm themselves for an inevitable civil war against liberals, whom he suggests are allies of the devil. But this is the awkward part: His five children would be on the other side of that civil war, as he and his kids all acknowledge. Just as America is torn asunder by politics and polarization, so is the Joyner family. The Joyners love each…

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Note to Mitch McConnell: The Senate’s longest filibuster was definitely racist

Note to Mitch McConnell: The Senate’s longest filibuster was definitely racist

Gillian Brockell writes: At his first White House news conference Thursday, President Biden said he agreed with former president Barack Obama that the filibuster is “a relic of the Jim Crow era.” This follows a Tuesday statement by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that the filibuster “has no racial history at all. None. There’s no dispute among historians about that.” Actually, there is, and McConnell’s office later walked back that dubious statement, saying the minority leader was referring only…

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The extremists that the Pentagon is trying to keep out of the military

The extremists that the Pentagon is trying to keep out of the military

Politico reports: Flags from the left-wing Antifa movement. Depictions of Pepe the Frog, the cartoon character that’s been misappropriated by racist groups. Iconography from the far-right Proud Boys, including the phrase “stand back and stand by” from former President Donald Trump. They are all signs that extremists could be infiltrating the military, according to internal training materials that offer a more detailed view into the array of radical groups and ideologies the Pentagon is trying to keep out of the…

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Trump helped the GOP raise $2 billion. Now former aides and allies are jockeying to tap into his fundraising power

Trump helped the GOP raise $2 billion. Now former aides and allies are jockeying to tap into his fundraising power

The Washington Post reports: One day before the Republican Party’s elite donors are slated to gather for their April retreat in Palm Beach, Fla., a nonprofit group aligned with onetime aides to former president Donald Trump is hosting an “investors meeting” a few miles away for major GOP contributors. The keynote speaker is Trump himself, and his gilded Mar-a-Lago Club is hosting the event. The group, the Conservative Partnership Institute, now has former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows…

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