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Category: Politics

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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The legacy of the Order can be seen in the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers

The legacy of the Order can be seen in the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers

The New York Times reports: They robbed an armored car outside a sprawling Seattle shopping mall. They bombed a synagogue in Boise, Idaho, and within weeks assassinated a Jewish talk radio host in Denver. Then a month later, they plundered another armored car on a California highway in a spectacular daylight heist that netted more than $3.6 million. What initially seemed to F.B.I. agents like distant, disparate crimes turned out to be the opening salvos in a war against the…

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Giuliani’s legal trouble is Trump’s too

Giuliani’s legal trouble is Trump’s too

Renato Mariotti writes: You don’t need to be a lawyer to know that when federal agents knock on your door with a search warrant and seize your electronic devices, you’re in big trouble. Ever since that happened to former Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday, he has tried to downplay the peril he is in, saying whatever evidence is on his phones proves that “the president and I…are innocent.” But it sure looks like he has a long legal…

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With citizens desperate for oxygen, India’s politicians deny there’s even a problem

With citizens desperate for oxygen, India’s politicians deny there’s even a problem

Reuters reports: A forum of scientific advisers set up by the government warned Indian officials in early March of a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus taking hold in the country, five scientists who are part of the forum told Reuters. Despite the warning, four of the scientists said the federal government did not seek to impose major restrictions to stop the spread of the virus. Millions of largely unmasked people attended religious festivals and political rallies that…

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‘It’s all Taliban country now’: New militant checkpoints on key roadways choke off parts of Afghanistan

‘It’s all Taliban country now’: New militant checkpoints on key roadways choke off parts of Afghanistan

The Washington Post reports: Taliban checkpoints have proliferated across key parts of Afghanistan as U.S. forces have withdrawn over the past year, leaving Afghan towns and cities increasingly isolated and impeding the Afghan government’s ability to function. Dozens of temporary Taliban checkpoints now dot the main highways leading into and out of the Afghan capital, according to eight local officials, and more than 10 permanent outposts have been established by the militants along the country’s main north-south highway. Many of…

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Fierce foes, Iran and Saudi Arabia secretly explore defusing tensions

Fierce foes, Iran and Saudi Arabia secretly explore defusing tensions

The New York Times reports: In a prime-time television interview four years ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia dismissed the idea that his kingdom could somehow find an accommodation with its archrival, Iran. “How do we communicate?” he asked. “The mutual points that we can agree on with this regime are almost nonexistent.” Now, Prince Mohammed is finding those points as he embarks on a diplomatic effort to defuse tensions between the two regional powers that have…

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GOP seeks to empower poll watchers, raising intimidation worries

GOP seeks to empower poll watchers, raising intimidation worries

The New York Times reports: The red dot of a laser pointer circled downtown Houston on a map during a virtual training of poll watchers by the Harris County Republican Party. It highlighted densely populated, largely Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods. “This is where the fraud is occurring,” a county Republican official said falsely in a leaked video of the training, which was held in March. A precinct chair in the northeastern, largely white suburbs of Houston, he said he…

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In rural America, fear more than politics shapes attitudes to Covid vaccine

In rural America, fear more than politics shapes attitudes to Covid vaccine

The New York Times reports: “So have you gotten the vaccine yet?” The question, a friendly greeting to Betty Smith, the pastor’s wife, lingered in the air as the four church women sat down for their regular Tuesday coffee and conversation at Ingle’s Market. Mrs. Smith hesitated, sensing a chilly blast of judgment from a never-mask, never-vax companion. She fumbled through a non-reply. Recalling the moment later, she sighed, “We were there to get to know each other better but…

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