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Category: Politics

Republicans fear the prospect of too many Americans exercising their right to vote

Republicans fear the prospect of too many Americans exercising their right to vote

ABC News reports: In the aftermath of the GOP’s assault on the integrity of the 2020 presidential election and amid a torrent of Republican measures aimed at restricting voting rights in the name of security, Democrats are pushing for a far-reaching solution to counter attempts at narrowing access to the ballot box. H.R. 1, known as the For the People Act, seeks to abolish hurdles to voting, reform the role of money in politics and tighten federal ethics rules. Among…

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‘Democracy Pledge’ aims to put businesses on the spot over Trump’s election lie

‘Democracy Pledge’ aims to put businesses on the spot over Trump’s election lie

HuffPost reports: A former federal prosecutor has launched a campaign to press American businesses to openly reject the core assertion that former President Donald Trump and many in his party continue to make, that the 2020 election was somehow illegitimate. “The 2020 presidential election was free and fair, and produced accurate, reliable results,” reads the explanation behind the “Democracy Pledge” that Glenn Kirschner hopes to put before “every company in the country” in the coming months. “Those who sought to…

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‘Fundamentally at odds’: China, U.S. retreat to their corners after Alaska talks

‘Fundamentally at odds’: China, U.S. retreat to their corners after Alaska talks

Politico reports: The first showdown is over, and each side came out throwing punches. Now China and the United States will huddle with their partners in hopes of building international support to pressure the other on multiple fronts. Senior officials from the two countries held three sessions in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday and Friday — the first high-level gathering of U.S. and Chinese officials since President Joe Biden took office. The gathering began with bitter exchanges, and ended with somber…

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The science of making Americans hurt their own country

The science of making Americans hurt their own country

Anne Applebaum writes: The National Intelligence Council has released an unclassified report assessing, retrospectively, foreign threats to the 2020 election. It has a few twists and turns: The Iranian government attempted to run some kind of online influence campaign; the Chinese government considered doing the same but then dropped the idea. But most of the report is about Russia. Unlike in 2016, Russian intelligence operatives weren’t in the business of hacking and leaking this time around. Instead they concentrated on…

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Racist anti-Asian hashtags spiked after Trump first tweeted ‘Chinese virus,’ study finds

Racist anti-Asian hashtags spiked after Trump first tweeted ‘Chinese virus,’ study finds

The Washington Post reports: As the coronavirus spread across the globe last February, the World Health Organization urged people to avoid terms like the “Wuhan virus” or the “Chinese virus,” fearing it could spike a backlash against Asians. President Donald Trump didn’t take the advice. On March 16, 2020, he first tweeted the phrase “Chinese virus.” That single tweet, researchers later found, fueled exactly the kind of backlash the WHO had feared: It was followed by an avalanche of tweets…

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Racism is behind anti-Asian American violence, even when it’s not a hate crime

Racism is behind anti-Asian American violence, even when it’s not a hate crime

Children attend a March 17 vigil at Clemente Park in Lowell, Massachusetts, for the victims of the shooting spree in Atlanta. Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images By Pawan Dhingra, Amherst College Over the past year, attacks on Asian Americans have increased more than 150% over the previous year, including the March 16 murders of eight people, including six Asian American women, in Atlanta. Some of these attacks may be classified as hate crimes. But whether they meet that…

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When Assad’s end comes

When Assad’s end comes

Lina Sergie Attar writes: “Who is the hope for the future of Syria?” A teacher paces in a drab classroom in Syria, asking the young students. “Who is the hope to lead us to a better future?” She adds, “We have the right to choose.” She calls on a few to answer, one by one, later marking them as orphans of the war. They dutifully stand and state the same (and only) answer, “The President, Bashar Hafez al-Assad.” This video…

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We are hurtling toward global suicide

We are hurtling toward global suicide

Ben Ehrenreich writes: On January 13, one week before the inauguration of Joe Biden as the forty-sixth president of the United States and seven long days after the storming of the Capitol by an armed right-wing mob, it was easy enough to miss an article published in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science, despite its eye-catching title: “Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future.” The headline was itself a train wreck: six dully innocuous words piling up in front…

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U.S. to send millions of vaccine doses to Mexico and Canada

U.S. to send millions of vaccine doses to Mexico and Canada

The New York Times reports: The United States plans to send millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico and Canada, the White House said Thursday, a notable step into vaccine diplomacy just as the Biden administration is quietly pressing Mexico to curb the stream of migrants coming to the border. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said the United States was planning to share 2.5 million doses of the vaccine with Mexico and 1.5 million with Canada,…

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Asian-Americans are being attacked. Why are hate crime charges so rare?

Asian-Americans are being attacked. Why are hate crime charges so rare?

The New York Times reports: On a cold evening last month, a Chinese man was walking home near Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood when a stranger suddenly ran up behind him and plunged a knife into his back. For many Asian-Americans, the stabbing was horrifying, but not surprising. It was widely seen as just the latest example of racially targeted violence against Asians during the pandemic. But the perpetrator, a 23-year-old man from Yemen, had not said a word to the victim…

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White supremacists, conspiracy theorists, are targeting critical infrastructure for sabotage

White supremacists, conspiracy theorists, are targeting critical infrastructure for sabotage

The Intercept reports: As the Biden administration turns its attention to an infrastructure system beset with problems, a strange new issue has emerged: conspiracy theorists. That’s according to a detailed intelligence report, produced by the New York Police Department and obtained by The Intercept, which finds that cellphone towers and other critical infrastructure have become an attractive target for conspiracy theorists, especially in the weeks and months following the presidential election. Conspiracy theorists, joined by far-right white supremacist groups, “increasingly…

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New intelligence report adds evidence that Trump was a Russian asset

New intelligence report adds evidence that Trump was a Russian asset

William Saletan writes: Donald Trump was a tool in a long-running Russian campaign to weaken the United States. That’s been documented in Republican-led investigative reports, and now it has been updated with new evidence, thanks to the U.S. Intelligence Community’s assessment of the 2020 election. The report, drafted by the CIA, the FBI, and several other agencies, was released in unclassified form on Tuesday, but it was presented in classified form on Jan. 7. In other words, it was compiled,…

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Europe’s vaccine suspension may be driven more by politics than science

Europe’s vaccine suspension may be driven more by politics than science

The New York Times reports: After days of touting the safety of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, Italy’s health minister, Roberto Speranza, took a call from his German counterpart on Monday and learned that Germany was concerned enough about a few cases of serious blood clots among some who had received the vaccine to suspend its use. For Italy and its neighbors, that call could not have come at a worse time. Their vaccine rollouts were already lagging because of shortages, and they…

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Democrats, pushing stimulus, admit to regrets on Obama’s 2009 response

Democrats, pushing stimulus, admit to regrets on Obama’s 2009 response

The New York Times reports: As Democrats pushed this month to pass the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, they were eager to rebuke Republicans for opposing en masse a measure filled with aid to struggling Americans. But they had another target as well: the core policy of President Barack Obama’s first-term agenda. Party leaders from President Biden on down are citing Mr. Obama’s strategy on his most urgent policy initiative — an $800 billion financial rescue plan in 2009 in…

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Russia stoked Ukraine allegations to undermine Biden, U.S. intel agencies say

Russia stoked Ukraine allegations to undermine Biden, U.S. intel agencies say

Politico reports: Russia tried again last year to help then-President Donald Trump win the White House, the U.S. intelligence community said Tuesday in a long-awaited postmortem — adding that a “primary” tactic in that effort was the spreading of corruption allegations involving Democratic challenge Joe Biden and Ukraine. But the effort fell short of the Kremlin-backed efforts to assist Trump in his 2016 contest against Hillary Clinton, the spy community wrote in its unclassified assessment of foreign threats to the…

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‘Most influential voice’: Warren’s network spreads throughout Biden administration

‘Most influential voice’: Warren’s network spreads throughout Biden administration

Politico reports: Wall Street was relieved when Sen. Elizabeth Warren was passed over for the leadership of the Treasury Department. But now the financial industry faces another threat: President Joe Biden is enlisting a small army of her former aides and allies to run his government. Warren’s expanding network in the upper echelons of the administration includes protégés who helped execute her aggressive oversight of big banks and other corporations as well as friends who share her views of the…

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