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Category: Politics

Big Oil is in trouble. Its plan: Flood Africa with plastic

Big Oil is in trouble. Its plan: Flood Africa with plastic

The New York Times reports: Confronting a climate crisis that threatens the fossil fuel industry, oil companies are racing to make more plastic. But they face two problems: Many markets are already awash with plastic, and few countries are willing to be dumping grounds for the world’s plastic waste. The industry thinks it has found a solution to both problems in Africa. According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, an industry group representing the world’s largest chemical makers…

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How Angela Merkel’s great migrant gamble paid off

How Angela Merkel’s great migrant gamble paid off

The Observer reports: Mohammad Hallak found the key to unlock the mysteries of his new homeland when he realised you could switch the subtitles on your Netflix account to German. The 21-year-old Syrian from Aleppo jotted down words he didn’t know, increased his vocabulary and quickly became fluent. Last year, he passed his end of high school exams with a grade of 1.5, the top mark in his year group. Five years to the month after arriving in Germany as…

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An American disaster foretold

An American disaster foretold

Roger Cohen writes: Henry Kissinger this month called François Delattre, the former French ambassador to the United States who is now the secretary general of the Foreign Ministry. Kissinger was concerned about the deteriorating state of U.S.-Chinese relations and the risk that the situation could slip out of control. Delattre told me he has his own concerns in that regard. An October surprise might involve a military incident in the South China Sea that President Trump uses to demonstrate American…

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Trump escalates rhetoric on unrest in cities, looking for a campaign advantage

Trump escalates rhetoric on unrest in cities, looking for a campaign advantage

The Washington Post reports: President Trump threatened Friday to invoke the Insurrection Act in American cities and told supporters in New Hampshire they must vote for him to “save democracy from the mob,” an escalation of his campaign rhetoric against demonstrators in the streets. Trump opened his speech in a suburban airport hangar here with a harsh, fiery depiction of major American cities and a detailed monologue about agitators chasing and taunting his supporters and allies outside the White House…

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Top intelligence office informs congressional committees it’ll no longer brief on election security

Top intelligence office informs congressional committees it’ll no longer brief on election security

CNN reports: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has informed the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence that it’ll no longer be briefing on election security issues, according to letters obtained by CNN and a senior administration official. Instead, ODNI will primarily provide written updates to the congressional panels, the official said. The official added that other agencies supporting election security, including the Department of Justice, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, intend to continue…

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Kenosha militia event asking attendees to bring weapons was reported 455 times without Facebook acting

Kenosha militia event asking attendees to bring weapons was reported 455 times without Facebook acting

BuzzFeed reports: In a companywide meeting on Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that a militia page advocating for followers to bring weapons to an upcoming protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, remained on the platform because of “an operational mistake.” The page and an associated event inspired widespread criticism of the company after a 17-year-old suspect allegedly shot and killed two protesters Tuesday night. The event associated with the Kenosha Guard page, however, was flagged to Facebook at least 455 times…

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New study suggests polls are missing shy Trump voters

New study suggests polls are missing shy Trump voters

Bloomberg reports: A new online study finds that Republicans and independents are twice as likely as Democrats to say they would not give their true opinion in a telephone poll question about their preference for president in the 2020 election. That raises the possibility that polls understate support for President Donald Trump. Some 11.7% of Republicans and 10.5% independents said they would not give their true opinion, vs. 5.4% of Democrats, according to the study by CloudResearch LLC, a Queens,…

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Employees outraged with Zuckerberg as Facebook continues promoting violence

Employees outraged with Zuckerberg as Facebook continues promoting violence

BuzzFeed reports: Frustrated Facebook employees slammed CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday during a companywide meeting, questioning his leadership and decision-making, following a week in which the platform promoted violent conspiracy theories and gave safe harbor to militia groups. The billionaire chief executive was speaking via webcast at the company’s weekly all-hands meeting, attempting to address questions about violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and the QAnon conspiracy that has proliferated across Facebook. The meeting came one day after the Verge reported that…

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How Biden could lose

How Biden could lose

George Packer writes: Here is a prediction about the November election: If Donald Trump wins, in a trustworthy vote, what’s happening this week in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will be one reason. Maybe the reason. And yet Joe Biden has it in his power to spare the country a second Trump term. Events are unfolding with the inevitable logic of a nightmare. A white police officer shoots a Black man as he’s leaning into a car with his three sons inside—shoots him…

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On climate change, we’ve run out of presidential terms to waste

On climate change, we’ve run out of presidential terms to waste

Bill McKibben writes: The working definition of the ongoing brain seizure that is 2020 is either that Coloradans are being told by state authorities to install smoke-resistant “safe rooms” in their houses, or that Californians now must weigh what kind of mask to wear. An N95 mask helps to filter out harmful particulates from the wildfire smoke that is overwhelming the Golden State, but many come with an exhalation valve to keep the wearer from overheating—and that valve can spread…

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Evidence from federal judge prompts new call for investigation into Trump’s admission to the University of Pennsylvania

Evidence from federal judge prompts new call for investigation into Trump’s admission to the University of Pennsylvania

The Washington Post reports: A professor at the University of Pennsylvania has renewed a request to investigate how President Trump was admitted to the school in 1966, citing what he called “new evidence” on secretly recorded tapes in which Trump’s sister says a friend took his entrance exam. The professor, Eric W. Orts, is one of six faculty members who asked Penn’s provost earlier this summer to launch an investigation into how Trump transferred into the school. He noted that…

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Terminating payroll tax could end Social Security benefits in 2023, chief actuary warns

Terminating payroll tax could end Social Security benefits in 2023, chief actuary warns

NBC News reports: The federal government’s ability to pay Social Security benefits could stop by mid-2023 if President Donald Trump were to permanently terminate the payroll tax and not offer another revenue source, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration said Monday. The chief actuary, Stephen Goss, offered the prediction in a letter to a group of Senate Democrats who requested an analysis of what would happen if the payroll tax is eliminated with no other funding stream for…

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Overt racism remains entrenched within law enforcement across America, report says

Overt racism remains entrenched within law enforcement across America, report says

The Guardian reports: White supremacist groups have infiltrated US law enforcement agencies in every region of the country over the last two decades, according to a new report about the ties between police and far-right vigilante groups. In a timely new analysis, Michael German, a former FBI special agent who has written extensively on the ways that US law enforcement have failed to respond to far-right domestic terror threats, concludes that US law enforcement officials have been tied to racist…

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The racism of Republican agenda is on display at the RNC

The racism of Republican agenda is on display at the RNC

Thomas B. Edsall writes: The center-right political coalition in America — the Republican Party as it stands today — can be described as holding two overarching goals: First, deregulation and reductions in corporate and other tax liabilities — each clearly stated on the White House website — and second, but packing a bigger punch, the preservation of the status quo by stemming the erosion of the privileged status of white Christian America. For those who want confirmation of Republican accomplishments…

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Multiple states are criminalizing free speech

Multiple states are criminalizing free speech

The Intercept reports: Prosecutors and lawmakers in several states have responded to mass protests against police brutality by charging demonstrators with committing felonies, including terrorism charges. The trend of criminalizing protest has been on the uptick since the 2016 protests against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock, during and after which numerous states upped charges for protests “near critical infrastructure” as felonies. Since 2016, 14 states have enacted new laws to restrict the right to peaceful assembly, according to…

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White House creating ‘very large’ dossier on journalist who reports on flow of tax dollars into Trump Organization

White House creating ‘very large’ dossier on journalist who reports on flow of tax dollars into Trump Organization

The Washington Post reports: The Secret Service had asked for a room close to the president. But Mar-a-Lago said it was too late. The room was booked. Would agents like a room across the street from the president, instead? “I do have a Beach Cabana available,” a staff member at President Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla., wrote in March 2017 to a Secret Service agent seeking rooms for the upcoming weekend. “Across the street at the Beach Club, North…

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