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Category: Politics

DHS authorizes domestic surveillance to protect statues and monuments

DHS authorizes domestic surveillance to protect statues and monuments

Lawfare reports: You might not imagine that the U.S. intelligence community would have much stake in local protests over monuments and statues. You’d be wrong. A document provided to Lawfare on July 19 from the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) describes personnel as “collecting and reporting on various activities in the context of elevated threats targeting monuments, memorials, and statues”—and it gives legal guidance concerning the “expanded intelligence activities necessary to mitigate the significant…

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Lack of clear plans for Republican National Convention makes security ‘not achievable’ says local sheriff

Lack of clear plans for Republican National Convention makes security ‘not achievable’ says local sheriff

Politico reports: The sheriff of Jacksonville, Fla., said he can’t provide security for the Republican National Convention because of a lack of clear plans, adequate funding and enough law enforcement officers. “As we’re talking today, we are still not close to having some kind of plan that we can work with that makes me comfortable that we’re going to keep that event and the community safe,” Duval County Sheriff Mike Williams told POLITICO. “It’s not my event to plan, but…

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The U.S. is the accidental Sweden, which could make the fall ‘catastrophic’ for Covid-19

The U.S. is the accidental Sweden, which could make the fall ‘catastrophic’ for Covid-19

STAT reports: With the Covid-19 pandemic rampaging across the U.S. in April and 20 million people filing for unemployment in that month alone, libertarians thought there was a better way. The Heritage Foundation praised Sweden for “preserving economic freedom.” The Cato Institute said Sweden’s response to Covid-19 “may prove to be superior from a public health perspective.” In early May, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at a committee hearing that the U.S. “ought to look at the Swedish approach.” The…

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As Trump ignores virus crisis, Republicans start to contradict him

As Trump ignores virus crisis, Republicans start to contradict him

The New York Times reports: President Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis, with some concluding they must work around Mr. Trump and ignore or even contradict his pronouncements. In recent days, some of the most prominent figures in the G.O.P. outside the White House have broken with Mr. Trump over issues like the…

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Trump administration pushing to block new money for testing, tracing and CDC in upcoming coronavirus relief bill

Trump administration pushing to block new money for testing, tracing and CDC in upcoming coronavirus relief bill

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday. The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said. The…

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Trumpism is the new McCarthyism

Trumpism is the new McCarthyism

Peter Beinart writes: When some presidents leave office, politicians and political thinkers jockey to be their intellectual heirs. Even Ronald Reagan, a Republican, claimed the legacy of John F. Kennedy. Even Barack Obama, a Democrat, claimed the legacy of Reagan. If Donald Trump loses this fall, few will be in a hurry to claim his legacy. Commentators on the left and in the center—and even some on the right—will compete instead to tar their foes with it. For people across…

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States reject tens of thousands of mail ballots in this year’s primaries, setting off alarm bells for November

States reject tens of thousands of mail ballots in this year’s primaries, setting off alarm bells for November

NBC News reports: New Yorker Sasha Aickin, 43, has no idea if his vote counted. It took weeks for his absentee ballot to arrive — appearing in his mailbox just three days before the election on June 23. It came with two sets of instructions in very fine print. Neither set, Aickin said, told him to sign the envelope or had complete information about his options for returning the ballot. He saw the city’s Board of Elections account tweet confirming…

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Trump’s rush to abandon a leadership role in confronting the pandemic

Trump’s rush to abandon a leadership role in confronting the pandemic

The New York Times reports: Each morning at 8 as the coronavirus crisis was raging in April, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, convened a small group of aides to steer the administration through what had become a public health, economic and political disaster. Seated around Mr. Meadows’s conference table and on a couch in his office down the hall from the Oval Office, they saw their immediate role as practical problem solvers. Produce more ventilators. Find more…

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‘Invictus’ was among John Lewis’s favorite poems. It captures his indomitable spirit

‘Invictus’ was among John Lewis’s favorite poems. It captures his indomitable spirit

David Greenberg writes: Some children have an uncanny sense of their destiny. As a boy, John Lewis loved William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus.” His sister Ethel Mae Tyner once told an interviewer that she remembered her big brother reciting it around the house. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Could the boy reciting those lines have imagined that he would famously endure…

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How to fix the Covid-19 dumpster fire in the U.S.

How to fix the Covid-19 dumpster fire in the U.S.

STAT reports: There’s no point in sugar-coating this. The U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic is a raging dumpster fire. Where a number of countries in Asia and Europe have managed to dampen spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the point where they can consider returning to a semblance of normalcy — friends from Paris just emailed me pictures from their Sicilian vacation — many international borders remain closed to Americans. On Sunday, Florida reported more than 15,000 cases —…

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Rancor between scientists and Trump allies threatens pandemic response as cases surge

Rancor between scientists and Trump allies threatens pandemic response as cases surge

The Washington Post reports: This week’s remarkable character assault by some top White House advisers on Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, signified President Trump’s hostility toward medical expertise and has produced a chilling effect among the government scientists and public health professionals laboring to end the pandemic, according to administration officials and health experts. As novel coronavirus cases surge out of control coast to coast, the open rancor between the scientific community and a White House determined…

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Portland officials decry aggressive tactics of federal agents in their city

Portland officials decry aggressive tactics of federal agents in their city

The Washington Post reports: City officials on Friday demanded the Trump administration remove what they called a heavy-handed army of federal agents who have been grabbing protesters off the streets — tactics that federal officials defended as legal and necessary to quell ongoing unrest. The fight between the White House and the left-leaning city government intensified Friday amid videos and firsthand accounts of mysterious federal agents driving around in unmarked rental minivans and detaining protesters. Friday night saw additional clashes,…

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Federal officers deployed in Portland didn’t have proper training, DHS memo said

Federal officers deployed in Portland didn’t have proper training, DHS memo said

The New York Times reports: The heavily armed federal agents facing a growing backlash for their militarized approach to weeks of unrest in Portland were not specifically trained in riot control or mass demonstrations, an internal Department of Homeland Security memo warned this week. The message dated Thursday was prepared by the agency for Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, as he arrived in Portland to view the scene in person, according to a copy of the…

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Social media and the death of good-faith debate

Social media and the death of good-faith debate

Lili Loofbourow writes: A number of public thinkers are pining for a culture capable of hosting spirited debate in a neutral “marketplace” of ideas. In this vision, intellectual exchange is unencumbered by personal attacks or harsh judgment or, indeed—to preserve freedom of inquiry—the risk of professional consequences. And at the moment, many intellectuals seem most focused on curbing these “illiberal” tendencies on the left. The left, they say, have declared certain ideas off-limits for debate, dismissing those who want to…

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Trump’s secret police abducting protesters in Portland

Trump’s secret police abducting protesters in Portland

The Washington Post reports: When several men in green military fatigues and generic “police” patches sprang out of an unmarked gray minivan in front of Mark Pettibone in the early hours of Wednesday morning, his first instinct was to run. He did not know whether the men were police or far-right extremists, who frequently don militarylike outfits and harass left-leaning protesters in Portland, Ore. The 29-year-old resident said he made it about a half-block before he realized there would be…

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White House task force report says 18 states in coronavirus ‘red zone’ should roll back reopening

White House task force report says 18 states in coronavirus ‘red zone’ should roll back reopening

CNN reports: An unpublished document prepared for the White House coronavirus task force and obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom, recommends that 18 states in the coronavirus “red zone” for cases should roll back reopening measures amid surging cases. The “red zone” is defined in the 359-page report as “those core-based statistical areas (CBSAs) and counties that during the last week reported both new cases above 100 per 100,000 population, and a diagnostic test positivity result…

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