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Category: Politics

In 2020, disinformation disseminated by social media, broke America

In 2020, disinformation disseminated by social media, broke America

BuzzFeed reports: Disinformation and its fallout have defined 2020, the year of the infodemic. Month after month, self-serving social media companies have let corrosive manipulators out for dollars, votes, and clicks vie for attention, no matter the damage. After an initial showing of unity as the coronavirus pandemic hit North American shores, people in the US became divided over basic scientific facts about COVID-19. Then, after a horrified country watched George Floyd take his last breaths as a police officer…

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‘Existential peril’: Mass transit faces huge service cuts across U.S.

‘Existential peril’: Mass transit faces huge service cuts across U.S.

The New York Times reports: In Boston, transit officials warned of ending weekend service on the commuter rail and shutting down the city’s ferries. In Washington, weekend and late-night metro service would be eliminated and 19 of the system’s 91 stations would close. In Atlanta, 70 of the city’s 110 bus routes have already been suspended, a move that could become permanent. And in New York City, home to the largest mass transportation system in North America, transit officials have…

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Trump’s Operation Warp Speed promised a flood of covid vaccines. Instead, states are expecting a trickle

Trump’s Operation Warp Speed promised a flood of covid vaccines. Instead, states are expecting a trickle

The Washington Post reports: Federal officials have slashed the amount of coronavirus vaccine they plan to ship to states in December because of constraints on supply, sending local officials into a scramble to adjust vaccination plans and highlighting how early promises of a vast stockpile before the end of 2020 have fallen short. Instead of the delivery of 300 million or so doses of vaccine immediately after emergency-use approval and before the end of 2020 as the Trump administration had…

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How Joe Biden’s digital team tried to tame the MAGA internet

How Joe Biden’s digital team tried to tame the MAGA internet

Kevin Roose writes: Last April, when Rob Flaherty, the digital director for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, told me that the former vice president’s team planned to use feel-good videos and inspirational memes to beat President Trump in a “battle for the soul of the internet,” my first thought was: Good luck with that. After all, we were talking about the internet, which doesn’t seem to reward anything uplifting or nuanced these days. In addition, Mr. Trump is a digital powerhouse,…

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Sweden ends its deadly libertarian pandemic experiment

Sweden ends its deadly libertarian pandemic experiment

The Wall Street Journal reports: Sweden’s Covid-19 experiment is over. After a late autumn surge in infections led to rising hospitalizations and deaths, the government has abandoned its attempt—unique among Western nations—to combat the pandemic through voluntary measures. Like other Europeans, Swedes are now heading into the winter facing restrictions ranging from a ban on large gatherings to curbs on alcohol sales and school closures—all aimed at preventing the country’s health system from being swamped by patients and capping what…

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Arizona Legislature ‘cannot and will not’ overturn election, Republican House speaker says

Arizona Legislature ‘cannot and will not’ overturn election, Republican House speaker says

USA Today reports: Republican Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Rusty Bowers said Friday that pleas from some GOP lawmakers to overturn the results of the state’s presidential election are illegal and “cannot and will not” happen. Republican state Reps. Mark Finchem and Kelly Townsend spent much of the day imploring their fellow legislators on social media to overturn the election results in favor of President Donald Trump. Bowers said such action would be both illegal and inappropriate. “As…

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Trump calls Georgia governor to pressure him for help overturning Biden’s win in the state

Trump calls Georgia governor to pressure him for help overturning Biden’s win in the state

The Washington Post reports: President Trump called Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Saturday morning to urge him to persuade the state legislature to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state and asked the governor to order an audit of absentee ballot signatures, the latest brazen effort by the president to interfere in the 2020 election. Hours before he was scheduled to hold a rally in Georgia on behalf of the state’s two GOP senators, Trump pressed Kemp to…

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‘We’ve lost our moral authority’: Kinzinger unwilling to back off Trump

‘We’ve lost our moral authority’: Kinzinger unwilling to back off Trump

Politico reports: Rep. Adam Kinzinger is sticking around next Congress — and the Illinois Republican isn’t done sticking it to Donald Trump. Kinzinger, fresh off a re-election victory in his conservative district nestled between Chicago and Peoria, has been dialing up his criticism of the president since Nov. 3. The 42-year-old lawmaker has long pushed back on Trump’s foreign policy moves. But with most of the Republican party still paralyzed by Trump’s brazen attempts to overturn the election, Kinzinger is…

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New Mexico shut down nearly everything to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed by covid. It wasn’t enough

New Mexico shut down nearly everything to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed by covid. It wasn’t enough

The Washington Post reports: The governor had been sounding the alarm for more than a month. But by mid-November, it was clear to Michelle Lujan Grisham that she would need to take extreme measures to head off the “most serious emergency that New Mexico has ever faced.” With covid-19 cases rising exponentially and hospital beds dwindling, she dragged her state back to the darkest days of spring, when restaurant dining was banned, nonessential businesses were closed and residents were ordered…

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Report points to microwave ‘attack’ as likely source of mystery illnesses that hit diplomats and spies

Report points to microwave ‘attack’ as likely source of mystery illnesses that hit diplomats and spies

The New York Times reports: The most probable cause of a series of mysterious afflictions that sickened American spies and diplomats abroad in the past several years was radiofrequency energy, a type of radiation that includes microwaves, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has concluded in a report. The conclusion by a committee of 19 experts in medicine and other fields cited “directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy” as “the most plausible mechanism” to explain the illness, which came to…

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The U.S. has passed the hospital breaking point

The U.S. has passed the hospital breaking point

Robinson Meyer and Alexis C. Madrigal write: Since the beginning of the pandemic, public-health experts have warned of one particular nightmare. It is possible, they said, for the number of coronavirus patients to exceed the capacity of hospitals in a state or city to take care of them. Faced with a surge of severely ill people, doctors and nurses will have to put beds in hallways, spend less time with patients, and become more strict about who they admit into…

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Wall Street and finance workers could get COVID vaccines before most Americans

Wall Street and finance workers could get COVID vaccines before most Americans

MarketWatch reports: Wall Street could get a shot in the arm in the coming months, while much of Main Street waits months for their COVID inoculations. Lenders, bank tellers and traders could jump ahead of most Americans for vaccines, after such remedies receive emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration, potentially putting financial industry workers ahead of those aged above 65, adults with medical issues and the rest of the U.S. population. The American Bankers Association said it has…

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A gathering political storm hits Georgia, with Trump on the way

A gathering political storm hits Georgia, with Trump on the way

The New York Times reports: Some of the biggest names in national politics jumped into the fiercely contested runoffs for two Georgia Senate seats on Friday, even as a second recount showed that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had maintained his lead in the state and Republicans braced for a visit by President Trump, who has railed against his loss there with baseless claims of fraud. With Mr. Trump set to campaign for the two Republican incumbents, David Perdue and Kelly…

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Trump Pentagon nominee spreads debunked conspiracies and tweets suggesting Trump declare martial law

Trump Pentagon nominee spreads debunked conspiracies and tweets suggesting Trump declare martial law

CNN reports: President Donald Trump’s nominee to become a senior Pentagon official spread debunked conspiracies on Twitter that called Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden a “coup” attempt and shared tweets that suggest Trump should declare martial law. Scott O’Grady, a former fighter pilot and Trump loyalist, repeatedly retweeted tweets that falsely stated Trump won the election in “landslide fashion” and that millions of votes were stolen from the President. On November 25, O’Grady retweeted a tweet that said, “Trump…

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Judge orders restoration of DACA program

Judge orders restoration of DACA program

CBS News reports: A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to fully restore an Obama-era initiative that protects undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation, requiring officials to open the program to new applicants for the first time since 2017. Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn instructed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to post a public notice by Monday that states the department will accept and adjudicate Deferred Action for…

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How do you solve a problem like John Durham?

How do you solve a problem like John Durham?

Benjamin Wittes writes: How should the next attorney general, whoever he or she turns out to be, handle the John Durham probe? The more I study what Attorney General Bill Barr did in his secret October order naming the Connecticut U.S. attorney as a special counsel, the more devilishly clever it seems—and the bigger the pickle it creates for Barr’s successor. This, presumably, is Barr’s intention. Untangling this knot is going to take no small amount of diplomacy, lawyering and…

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