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Category: Politics

Reinhart Koselleck’s theory of history for a world in crisis

Reinhart Koselleck’s theory of history for a world in crisis

Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann writes: In the summer of 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War, the British historian Eric Hobsbawm travelled to the British occupation zone of Germany to re-educate young Germans. A recent graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, where he had also joined the Communist Party, Hobsbawm was working on his PhD dissertation and had just secured his first appointment as a lecturer at Birkbeck College in London. Born in 1917 into a Jewish family in…

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Justice Department zeroing in on longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy

Justice Department zeroing in on longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy

The Washington Post reports: Federal prosecutors are preparing to charge longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests, according to people familiar with the matter, a result of a sprawling, years-long investigation that involved a figure who helped raise millions for Donald Trump’s election and the Republican Party. Broidy is under scrutiny for his alleged role in a campaign to persuade high-level Trump administration officials to drop an investigation…

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Trump creates his own ‘deep state’

Trump creates his own ‘deep state’

John Sipher writes: John Ratcliffe, the newly confirmed director of national intelligence, sent letters to congressional leaders on Friday, stating that his office would no longer conduct most oral intelligence briefings on issues related to election security; instead there would be written updates. The shift, he said, was because of leaks from the intelligence committees, and the new system would ensure that intelligence information “is not misunderstood nor politicized.” Democrats and other critics questioned how, exactly, written information would limit…

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Groups pressure Biden to exclude fossil fuel execs from team

Groups pressure Biden to exclude fossil fuel execs from team

The Hill reports: More than 100 climate and advocacy groups are asking Joe Biden’s presidential campaign to commit to blocking fossil fuel representatives from its transition team or administration should the former vice president win the election. “We urge you to ban all fossil fuel executives, lobbyists, and representatives from any advisory or official position on your campaign, transition team, cabinet, and administration,” the groups wrote in a letter to the campaign, which was signed by a mix of 145…

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Facebook takes down Russian operation that recruited U.S. journalists

Facebook takes down Russian operation that recruited U.S. journalists

The Washington Post reports: Facebook removed a network of fake accounts and pages created by Russian operatives who had recruited U.S. journalists to write articles critical of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala D. Harris, in an apparent bid to undermine their support among liberal voters. Facebook said it caught the network of 13 fake accounts and two pages early, before it had a chance to build a large audience — an action that the company…

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Some academics fear for their career because they don’t believe progressive orthodoxies

Some academics fear for their career because they don’t believe progressive orthodoxies

John McWhorter writes: Our national reckoning on race has brought to the fore a loose but committed assemblage of people given to the idea that social justice must be pursued via attempts to banish from the public sphere, as much as possible, all opinions that they interpret as insufficiently opposed to power differentials. Valid intellectual and artistic endeavor must hold the battle against white supremacy front and center, white people are to identify and expunge their complicity in this white…

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Bill Barr’s hidden truths about Justice Department’s rule of forbearance in an election

Bill Barr’s hidden truths about Justice Department’s rule of forbearance in an election

Ryan Goodman writes: With unprecedented numbers of Americans starting to cast early votes in the presidential election come mid-September, many eyes are on what Attorney General William Barr and his colleagues in the Justice Department will do. If they abide by a longstanding Justice Department rule of forbearance — sometimes called the 60 or 90-day rule — they will refrain from public indictments or other overt disclosures in cases that could affect the election. Prosecutors would, instead, conscientiously defer such…

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White House covered up Covid-19 public health risks while privately warning states of the threat

White House covered up Covid-19 public health risks while privately warning states of the threat

Politico reports: Senior Trump administration officials in June privately warned seven states about dangerous coronavirus outbreaks that put them in the highest risk “red zone” while publicly dismissing concerns about a second wave of Covid-19, according to White House documents House Democrats released on Monday. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released eight weeks of previously confidential reports obtained from the White House coronavirus task force that Democrats said showed the administration acting over the summer to willfully…

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New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials

New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials

The Washington Post reports: One of President Trump’s top medical advisers is urging the White House to embrace a controversial “herd immunity” strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions. The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines,…

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Trump’s popularity slips in latest Military Times poll — and more troops say they’ll vote for Biden

Trump’s popularity slips in latest Military Times poll — and more troops say they’ll vote for Biden

Military Times reports: The latest Military Times poll shows a continued decline in active-duty service members’ views of President Donald Trump and a slight but significant preference for former Vice President Joe Biden in the upcoming November election among troops surveyed. The results, collected before the political conventions earlier this month, appear to undercut claims from the president that his support among military members is strong thanks to big defense budget increases in recent years and promised moves to draw…

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The Oath Keepers are today’s Blackshirts

The Oath Keepers are today’s Blackshirts

Casey Michel writes: When [Stewart] Rhodes launched the Oath Keepers in 2009, he positioned the group as a disinterested platoon of law enforcement officers, military members, and other assorted volunteers looking simply to uphold their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Their fear was that an unscrupulous, overreaching president might order cops and service members to violate the rights of their own countrymen. This had nothing to do with…

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Court denies Flynn’s bid to end case and renews fight over McGahn subpoena

Court denies Flynn’s bid to end case and renews fight over McGahn subpoena

The New York Times reports: A Federal District Court judge may go forward with his plans to scrutinize the Justice Department’s request to drop the prosecution of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, a full appeals court ruled on Monday. A three-judge panel on the court had earlier ordered the judge to end the case immediately. Separately, a panel on that same court ruled for a second time that the House cannot sue Donald F. McGahn II,…

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Justice Dept. never fully examined Trump’s ties to Russia, ex-officials say

Justice Dept. never fully examined Trump’s ties to Russia, ex-officials say

The New York Times reports: The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to narrow the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump’s decades-long personal and business ties to Russia. The special counsel who finished the investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, secured three dozen indictments and convictions of some top Trump advisers, and he produced a report that outlined Russia’s…

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Inside Trump’s pressure campaign on federal scientists over a covid-19 treatment

Inside Trump’s pressure campaign on federal scientists over a covid-19 treatment

The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s accusatory tweet barreled in at 7:49 a.m. a week ago Saturday: The “deep state” at the Food and Drug Administration was trying to sandbag his election prospects by slowing progress on coronavirus treatments and vaccines until after Nov. 3. Shocked and upset, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, who was tagged in the tweet, immediately began calling his contacts at the White House to find out why the president was angry. During his conversations, he mentioned…

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Trump embraces fringe theories on protests and the coronavirus

Trump embraces fringe theories on protests and the coronavirus

The New York Times reports: President Trump unleashed an especially intense barrage of Twitter messages over the weekend, embracing fringe conspiracy theories claiming that the coronavirus death toll has been exaggerated and that street protests are actually an organized coup d’état against him. In a concentrated predawn burst, the president posted or reposted 89 messages between 5:49 a.m. and 8:04 a.m. on Sunday on top of 18 the night before, many of them inflammatory comments or assertions about violent clashes…

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Trump threatens Portland mayor — ‘he hasn’t seen anything yet’ — after fatal shooting

Trump threatens Portland mayor — ‘he hasn’t seen anything yet’ — after fatal shooting

The New York Times reports: A fatal shooting during a night of political conflict in Portland, Ore., has yet again escalated tensions in the city and further inflamed the issues of crime, protest and race that President Trump is trying to make a focus of presidential politics. A man affiliated with a right-wing group was shot and killed on Saturday as a large group of supporters of President Trump traveled in a caravan through downtown Portland, Ore., which has seen…

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