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Category: Politics

Proud Boys celebrate Trump’s ‘stand by’ remark about them at the debate

Proud Boys celebrate Trump’s ‘stand by’ remark about them at the debate

The New York Times reports: Members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group that has endorsed violence, celebrated on Tuesday night after President Trump mentioned them during the first presidential debate. Asked whether he condemned white supremacists and military groups, Mr. Trump demurred and then said, “Proud Boys — stand back and stand by.” Within minutes, members of the group were posting in private social media channels, calling the president’s comments “historic.” In one channel dedicated to the Proud Boys…

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The Trump family is worried Brad Parscale will start talking, says campaign adviser

The Trump family is worried Brad Parscale will start talking, says campaign adviser

Gabriel Sherman writes: Inside Trumpworld there’s a view that the past week is an inflection point in the campaign. It started on Sunday night with the bombshell New York Times report that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. “For Trump the Times story was worse than losing reelection,” said the second Republican. “If you had told Donald back in 2015 that his tax returns would be exposed and he’d have all these investigations, I…

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Tuesday’s debate made clear the direct threat Trump poses to American democracy

Tuesday’s debate made clear the direct threat Trump poses to American democracy

David Sanger writes: President Trump’s angry insistence in the last minutes of Tuesday’s debate that there was no way the presidential election could be conducted without fraud amounted to an extraordinary declaration by a sitting American president that he would try to throw any outcome into the courts, Congress or the streets if he was not re-elected. His comments came after four years of debate about the possibility of foreign interference in the 2020 election and how to counter such…

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White House blocked CDC order to keep cruise ships docked

White House blocked CDC order to keep cruise ships docked

The New York Times reports: The White House has blocked a new order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep cruise ships docked until mid-February, a step that would have displeased the politically powerful tourism industry in the crucial swing state of Florida. The current “no sail” policy, which was originally put in place in April and later extended, is set to expire on Wednesday. Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the C.D.C., had recommended the…

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Trump allies say the virus has almost run its course while experts most Americans remain at risk

Trump allies say the virus has almost run its course while experts most Americans remain at risk

The New York Times reports: In the last week, leading epidemiologists from respected institutions have, through different methods, reached the same conclusion: About 85 to 90 percent of the American population is still susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the current pandemic. The number is important because it means that “herd immunity” — the point at which a disease stops spreading because nearly everyone in a population has contracted it — is still very far off. The evidence came from…

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Covid-19: The most complicated vaccine campaign ever

Covid-19: The most complicated vaccine campaign ever

Sarah Zhang writes: On the day that a COVID-19 vaccine is approved, a vast logistics operation will need to awaken. Millions of doses must travel hundreds of miles from manufacturers to hospitals, doctor’s offices, and pharmacies, which in turn must store, track, and eventually get the vaccines to people all across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with state and local health departments, coordinates this process. These agencies distributed flu vaccines during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic…

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Threat to evacuate U.S. diplomats from Iraq raises fear of war

Threat to evacuate U.S. diplomats from Iraq raises fear of war

Reuters reports: Washington has made preparations to withdraw diplomats from Iraq after warning Baghdad it could shut its embassy, two Iraqi officials and two Western diplomats said, a step Iraqis fear could turn their country into a battle zone. Any move by the United States to reduce its diplomatic presence in a country where it has up to 5,000 troops would be widely seen in the region as an escalation of its confrontation with Iran, which Washington blames for missile…

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In Trump’s eyes, evangelical leaders are ‘all husters’

In Trump’s eyes, evangelical leaders are ‘all husters’

McKay Coppins writes: One day in 2015, Donald Trump beckoned Michael Cohen, his longtime confidant and personal attorney, into his office. Trump was brandishing a printout of an article about an Atlanta-based megachurch pastor trying to raise $60 million from his flock to buy a private jet. Trump knew the preacher personally—Creflo Dollar had been among a group of evangelical figures who visited him in 2011 while he was first exploring a presidential bid. During the meeting, Trump had reverently…

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An insider’s account of how the Mueller investigation fell flat

An insider’s account of how the Mueller investigation fell flat

Garrett M. Graff writes: Andrew Weissmann headed the prosecution of Paul Manafort on Robert Mueller’s team. His new memoir, Where Law Ends, is an elegy for the Russia investigation that never was—one in which the special counsel’s office was actually able to crack the oddball collection of grifters who populated Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, from Paul Manafort to George Papadopoulos, and figure out the actual truth of their relationship with an expansive cast of Russian oligarchs and intelligence…

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Supreme Court reform is not revenge

Supreme Court reform is not revenge

Lawrence Goldstone writes: Following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Democrats, not surprisingly, are outraged at Republicans’ course reversal on filling a vacancy during an election year. Two proposals are gaining momentum among commentators and progressive activists: expanding the number of justices and instituting term limits. These ideas almost always seem to smack of political revenge. But to think only in terms of getting even is to miss the point. Each of these notions is in line with what the Founders…

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Vote like the future of humanity depends on it — because it does

Vote like the future of humanity depends on it — because it does

Bill McKibben writes: To understand the planetary importance of this autumn’s presidential election, check the calendar. Voting ends on November 3rd — and by a fluke of timing, on the morning of November 4th the United States is scheduled to pull out of the Paris Agreement. President Trump announced that we would abrogate our Paris commitments during a Rose Garden speech in 2017. But under the terms of the accords, it takes three years to formalize the withdrawal. So on…

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Trump campaign strategy to deter millions of Black Americans from voting in 2016

Trump campaign strategy to deter millions of Black Americans from voting in 2016

  Channel 4 News has exclusively obtained a vast cache of data used by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign on almost 200 million American voters. It reveals that 3.5 million Black Americans were categorised by Donald Trump’s campaign as ‘Deterrence’ – voters they wanted to stay home on election day. Tonight, civil rights campaigners said the evidence amounted to a new form of voter “suppression” and called on Facebook to disclose ads and targeting information that has never been made…

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Trump’s ‘biggest fear’ is ‘massive’ IRS bills and potential tax fraud charges, says Michael Cohen

Trump’s ‘biggest fear’ is ‘massive’ IRS bills and potential tax fraud charges, says Michael Cohen

Yahoo News reports: Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime former personal attorney, has a theory. He believes the president is terrified of receiving a large bill from the Internal Revenue Service. “His biggest fear is … he will end up with a massive tax bill, fraud penalties, fines, and possibly even tax fraud,” Cohen said in an interview with Yahoo News on Monday, the morning after the New York Times published a report detailing how Trump, a self-described billionaire, paid zero…

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Trump’s taxes show he’s a national security threat

Trump’s taxes show he’s a national security threat

Timothy L. O’Brien writes: Due to his indebtedness, his reliance on income from overseas and his refusal to authentically distance himself from his hodgepodge of business, Trump represents a profound national security threat – a threat that will only escalate if he’s re-elected. The tax returns also show the extent to which Trump has repeatedly betrayed the interests of many of the average Americans who elected him and remain his most loyal supporters. I have some history with Trump and…

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New document reveals scope and structure of Operation Warp Speed and underscores vast military involvement

New document reveals scope and structure of Operation Warp Speed and underscores vast military involvement

STAT reports: When President Trump unveiled Operation Warp Speed in May, he declared that it was “unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.” The initiative — to accelerate the development of Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics — lacks the scale, and the degree of secrecy, of the effort to build the atomic bomb. But Operation Warp Speed is largely an abstraction in Washington, with little known about who works there other than its top leaders, or how it…

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Overheard: CDC Director Robert Redfield voices alarm over influence of Trump’s new coronavirus task force adviser

Overheard: CDC Director Robert Redfield voices alarm over influence of Trump’s new coronavirus task force adviser

NBC News reports: The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has grown increasingly concerned that President Donald Trump, pushed by a new member of his coronavirus task force, is sharing incorrect information about the pandemic with the public. Dr. Robert Redfield, who leads the CDC, suggested in a conversation with a colleague Friday that Dr. Scott Atlas is arming Trump with misleading data about a range of issues, including questioning the efficacy of masks, whether young people…

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