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Category: Politics

U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

Reuters reports: Seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans’ telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful – and that the U.S. intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth. In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans’ telephone records violated the Foreign…

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The election will likely spark violence — and a constitutional crisis

The election will likely spark violence — and a constitutional crisis

Rosa Brooks writes: We wanted to know: What’s the worst thing that could happen to our country during the presidential election? President Trump has broken countless norms and ignored countless laws during his time in office, and while my colleagues and I at the Transition Integrity Project didn’t want to lie awake at night contemplating the ways the American experiment could fail, we realized that identifying the most serious risks to our democracy might be the best way to avert…

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Seven out of ten new coronavirus cases are emerging in red states

Seven out of ten new coronavirus cases are emerging in red states

Philip Bump writes: It’s hard to overstate the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic has been saturated with partisan politics. Simple recommendations like wearing a face mask have been recast as acts of devout patriotism or as mandates for fealty to an insidious federal government. It’s a direct and indirect function of the president: Everything President Trump touches becomes partisan, both intentionally and not, and Trump’s got his hands all over the pandemic. We are therefore no longer surprised when…

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Trump’s encouragement to vote twice could cause election day chaos

Trump’s encouragement to vote twice could cause election day chaos

Richard L. Hasen writes: President Donald Trump on Thursday repeated his encouragement to his supporters to vote twice, first by mail and then—if election officials allow—in person. Voting twice—as the president requests—is not only illegal, but a recipe for chaos in November. Perhaps that is exactly the point. Trump defended his call as a way to test the system against voter fraud, but it’s like encouraging his supporters to try to rob the 7-Eleven to make sure that the police…

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Trump silent as world leaders call for answers from Putin on Navalny poisoning

Trump silent as world leaders call for answers from Putin on Navalny poisoning

CNN reports: The Trump administration remained largely silent Wednesday as leaders around the world expressed concern and demanded answers from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government over the revelation that a leading opposition figure had been poisoned by a Soviet-era chemical nerve agent. The German government announced Wednesday that Alexey Navalny had been poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group — the same agent the Kremlin used to poison ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the…

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Russia is ‘amplifying’ claims of mail-in voter fraud, intel bulletin warns

Russia is ‘amplifying’ claims of mail-in voter fraud, intel bulletin warns

ABC News reports: Russia has sought to “amplify” concerns over the integrity of U.S. elections by promoting allegations that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud, according to an intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News, again echoing a frequent and unfounded complaint raised by President Donald Trump. Analysts with the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence branch issued the warning on Thursday to federal and state law enforcement partners after finding with “high confidence” that “Russian malign influence actors” have targeted…

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A freelance writer learns he was working for the Russians

A freelance writer learns he was working for the Russians

The New York Times reports: Colin Munro Wood was not shocked when he learned that federal investigators believed the new website he had been writing for was a facade for a Russian troll operation looking to sway Americans ahead of the November election. It explained the strange emails and writing prompts he had been receiving from his mysterious editor, an individual who admitted he was not based in the United States but wanted to weigh in on the presidential race….

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If it doesn’t feel like a recession, you should be paying more in taxes

If it doesn’t feel like a recession, you should be paying more in taxes

Kitty Richards and Joseph E. Stiglitz write: As the coronavirus pandemic — and Congress’s undersize response — wreaks havoc throughout the economy, tax receipts are cratering. This means that state and local governments are facing enormous revenue shortfalls at the exact time they are dealing with large additional demands. So far, states and localities have responded by slashing spending and jobs, with 1.5 million public-sector workers laid off by the end of June. The federal government, which unlike most states…

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Disdain for the less educated is the last acceptable prejudice

Disdain for the less educated is the last acceptable prejudice

Michael J. Sandel writes: Joe Biden has a secret weapon in his bid for the presidency: He is the first Democratic nominee in 36 years without a degree from an Ivy League university. This is a potential strength. One of the sources of Donald Trump’s political appeal has been his ability to tap into resentment against meritocratic elites. By the time of Mr. Trump’s election, the Democratic Party had become a party of technocratic liberalism more congenial to the professional…

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DHS withheld July intelligence bulletin calling out Russian attack on Biden’s mental health

DHS withheld July intelligence bulletin calling out Russian attack on Biden’s mental health

ABC News reports: In early July the Department of Homeland Security withheld publication of an intelligence bulletin warning law enforcement agencies of a Russian scheme to promote “allegations about the poor mental health” of former Vice President Joe Biden, according to internal emails and a draft of the document obtained by ABC News. The draft bulletin, titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of US Candidates to Influence 2020 Election,” was submitted to the agency’s legislative and public affairs office for…

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Tactics of fiery White House trade adviser draw new scrutiny as some of his pandemic moves unravel

Tactics of fiery White House trade adviser draw new scrutiny as some of his pandemic moves unravel

The Washington Post reports: Amid the Trump administration’s troubled response to the coronavirus pandemic, senior White House aide Peter Navarro has refashioned himself as a powerful government purchasing chief, operating far beyond his original role as an adviser on trade policy. But U.S. officials say the abrasive figure’s shortcomings as a manager could influence how well prepared the United States is for a second wave of coronavirus infections expected this fall. Navarro’s harsh manner and disregard for protocol have alienated…

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Will a Covid-19 vaccine be rushed through FDA approval this fall?

Will a Covid-19 vaccine be rushed through FDA approval this fall?

STAT reports: There is growing concern that the Food and Drug Administration, under political pressure, could approve a Covid-19 vaccine before it has robust safety and efficacy data. The consequences of such a decision could be significant, particularly if the vaccine is ultimately shown to be less effective than early data suggest. But an approval before the completion of large, Phase 3 trials does not have to be problematic. Experts aren’t ruling out the possibility that a vaccine could be…

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U.S. debt will overtake GDP next year for the first time since 1946, CBO says

U.S. debt will overtake GDP next year for the first time since 1946, CBO says

CNN reports: The US debt is projected to exceed the size of the entire country’s economy next year, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. It will be the first time the federal debt could be bigger than the US gross domestic product since 1946, just after World War II. The CBO also projected that the federal budget deficit will hit $3.3 trillion this year, more than triple the shortfall recorded in 2019. That would be the largest deficit as a…

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Alexei Navalny novichok poisoning viewed as though Putin left his autograph at the scene of the crime

Alexei Navalny novichok poisoning viewed as though Putin left his autograph at the scene of the crime

The Guardian reports: World leaders are demanding answers from the Kremlin after toxicological examinations indicated that the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent from the novichok family. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, revealed that tests carried out at a military laboratory had “identified unequivocally” the Soviet era nerve agent. She referred to the case as an “attempted murder” and said the findings raised “very difficult questions that only the Russian government can answer, and has…

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Leaked document warns of ‘serious errors’ in census data under fast-tracked timeline

Leaked document warns of ‘serious errors’ in census data under fast-tracked timeline

NBC News reports: An internal Census Bureau document sent to members of Congress and obtained by NBC News warned that the new truncated deadline set by the agency’s director last month has the potential to undermine the integrity of the count and lead to “serious errors.” The document was sent to the House Oversight Committee, which has been probing the Census for several years since its failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the decennial. The document appears to…

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U.S. says it won’t join global effort to develop, distribute coronavirus vaccine

U.S. says it won’t join global effort to develop, distribute coronavirus vaccine

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration said it will not join a global effort to develop, manufacture and equitably distribute a coronavirus vaccine, in part because the World Health Organization is involved, a decision that could shape the course of the pandemic and the country’s role in health diplomacy. More than 170 countries are in talks to participate in the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) Facility, which aims to speed vaccine development and secure doses for all countries and…

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