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Category: Politics

Oversight Board: ‘Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities’

Oversight Board: ‘Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities’

Will Oremus writes: [T]he problems with Mr. Trump’s presence on Facebook — the lies, the propaganda, the incitements — are not just Trump problems. They’re Facebook problems (and to be fair, Twitter problems). Manipulation, misinformation, fear and loathing are endemic to today’s social media platforms, whose engagement-driven algorithms are built to spread whatever messages tap into users’ viscera and provoke a quick “like” or an angry comment. Yet the platforms have delegated much of the work of moderating this content…

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Facebook ban hits Trump where it hurts: messaging and money

Facebook ban hits Trump where it hurts: messaging and money

The New York Times reports: The decision by Facebook on Wednesday to keep former President Donald J. Trump off its platform could have significant consequences for his political operation as he tries to remain the leader of the Republican Party, thwarting his ability to amplify his message to tens of millions of followers and hampering his fund-raising ability. Facebook has increasingly become one of the most vital weapons in a political campaign’s arsenal, with its ability to juice small-dollar online-fund-raising…

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Facing an ouster from House leadership, Cheney says the GOP is at ‘turning point’

Facing an ouster from House leadership, Cheney says the GOP is at ‘turning point’

CNN reports: In a new op-ed for The Washington Post, Rep. Liz Cheney says the Republican Party is at a “turning point” and must decide whether to accept or reject Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, which she says provoked the violence on January 6 and could provoke violence again. “Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other…

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Judge says Barr misled on how his Justice Dept. viewed Trump’s actions

Judge says Barr misled on how his Justice Dept. viewed Trump’s actions

The New York Times reports: A federal judge in Washington accused the Justice Department under Attorney General William P. Barr of misleading her and Congress about advice he had received from top department officials on whether President Donald J. Trump should have been charged with obstructing the Russia investigation and ordered that a related memo be released. Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the United States District Court in Washington said in a ruling late Monday that the Justice Department’s obfuscation…

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Covid in Varanasi: Anger rises as coronavirus rages in Modi’s constituency

Covid in Varanasi: Anger rises as coronavirus rages in Modi’s constituency

BBC News reports: City residents say the first signs of trouble became visible in March. As cases spiked in Delhi and Mumbai and authorities there began imposing restrictions, migrant workers began returning home to their villages in and around Varanasi [whose MP, Narendra Modi, is India’s prime minister] on overcrowded trains, buses and trucks. Many came home for the Holi festival on 29 March or to vote in the village council elections on 18 April – held against advice from…

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Why rising diversity might not help Democrats as much as they hope

Why rising diversity might not help Democrats as much as they hope

Nate Cohn writes: The Census Bureau released two important sets of data last week that have big implications for American politics — and that challenge some prevailing assumptions for both Democrats and Republicans. The first set of data lays out long-term demographic trends widely thought to favor Democrats: Hispanics, Asian-Americans and multiracial voters grew as a share of the electorate over the last two presidential races, and white voters — who historically tend to back the G.O.P. — fell to…

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Republicans are purging Liz Cheney for opposing Trump’s insurrection

Republicans are purging Liz Cheney for opposing Trump’s insurrection

Jonathan Chait writes: In the few days after January 6, it appeared the Republican establishment that had tolerated four years of naked corruption and frequently undisguised racism had finally lost its patience with Donald Trump. A Mike Pence adviser said the vice-president was “done with Trump’s bullshit.” Kevin McCarthy, whom Trump customarily addressed as “My Kevin” as though he were his manservant, had a private screaming match. Several candidate members publicly resigned, and Murdoch-owned media outlets called for his resignation….

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Proud Boys saw wave of contributions from Chinese diaspora before Capitol attack

Proud Boys saw wave of contributions from Chinese diaspora before Capitol attack

USA Today reports: The donations started coming in about 10 p.m. on Dec. 17. A donor named Li Zhang gave $100. A few minutes later, someone named Jun Li donated $100. Then Hao Xu gave $20, followed shortly by $25 from a Ying Pei. In all, almost 1,000 people with Chinese surnames gave about $86,000 to a fundraiser on the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo for members of the extremist street gang the Proud Boys. Their gifts made up more than 80%…

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Reaching ‘herd immunity’ is unlikely in the U.S., experts now believe

Reaching ‘herd immunity’ is unlikely in the U.S., experts now believe

The New York Times reports: Early in the pandemic, when vaccines for the coronavirus were still just a glimmer on the horizon, the term “herd immunity” came to signify the endgame: the point when enough Americans would be protected from the virus so we could be rid of the pathogen and reclaim our lives. Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are…

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Why are millions of Americans saying no to vaccines?

Why are millions of Americans saying no to vaccines?

Derek Thompson writes: Several days ago, the mega-popular podcast host Joe Rogan advised his young listeners to skip the COVID-19 vaccine. “I think you should get vaccinated if you’re vulnerable,” Rogan said. “But if you’re 21 years old, and you say to me, ‘Should I get vaccinated?’ I’ll go, ‘No.’” Rogan’s comments drew widespread condemnation. But his view is surprisingly common. One in four Americans says they don’t plan to take the COVID-19 vaccine, and about half of Republicans under…

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Cheney stokes GOP rift with ‘big lie’ rebuke of Trump

Cheney stokes GOP rift with ‘big lie’ rebuke of Trump

Politico reports: Rep. Liz Cheney on Monday escalated her feud with former President Donald Trump and his supporters in Congress, issuing a less-than-subtle swipe at the former president’s latest attempt to claim the 2020 election was stolen from him. On Monday morning, Trump issued a statement from his Save America PAC proclaiming that the presidential election “will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!” — an attempt to appropriate the label given to the false claim by…

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Giuliani raids signal accountability is coming for the Trump era

Giuliani raids signal accountability is coming for the Trump era

Norman Eisen writes: Former President Donald Trump and his cronies should beware. The search warrants executed against Trump’s former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, mark a leap forward in the Department of Justice’s look into the past four years of potential illegalities. It signals turbulent waters ahead for Giuliani and his former client alike. These warrants are not easy to get. You need to convince a judge there is probable cause of wrongdoing. The warrant must also pass tough review at…

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Trump’s secret rules for drone strikes and presidents’ unchecked license to kill

Trump’s secret rules for drone strikes and presidents’ unchecked license to kill

Hina Shamsi writes: On Friday night, in response to transparency lawsuits filed by the ACLU and the New York Times, the Biden administration released a redacted version of President Trump’s rules for the use of lethal force against terrorism suspects abroad. During the Trump administration, the Times and other media reported that the Trump rules weakened even the loose policy safeguards put in place by the Obama administration in 2013, which were also released in response to litigation in 2016….

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We still don’t know who the coronavirus’s victims were

We still don’t know who the coronavirus’s victims were

Ibram X. Kendi writes: To reflect on the racial pandemic of the past year is to reflect on the ravages of multiple viruses, all mutating from the original American virus: racism. People of color—already forced into the shadows of society—were infected, hospitalized, impoverished, and killed at the highest rates by COVID-19. All the while, they received the fewest medical and economic protections—prolonging, deepening, and spreading their suffering. The groups of people who suffered the most from COVID-19 in the United…

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Joe Biden is electrifying America like FDR

Joe Biden is electrifying America like FDR

Nicholas Kristof writes: The best argument for President Biden’s three-part proposal to invest heavily in America and its people is an echo of Franklin Roosevelt’s explanation for the New Deal. “In 1932 there was an awfully sick patient called the United States of America,” Roosevelt said in 1943. “He was suffering from a grave internal disorder … and they sent for a doctor.” Paging Dr. Joe Biden. We should be cleareyed about both the enormous strengths of the United States…

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Why Kristi Noem is rising quickly as a Republican prospect for 2024

Why Kristi Noem is rising quickly as a Republican prospect for 2024

The New York Times reports: With Republicans hungry to cultivate their next generation of national leaders, it is not a Capitol Hill comer or a veteran battleground-state politician who is stirring interest by fusing Trumpism with a down-home conservatism spin. It is the first-term governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, a rancher who delights in sharing images of herself shooting pheasants and riding horses. Ms. Noem began drawing wider attention last year for cozying up to President Donald J. Trump…

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