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Category: Politics

CDC removed new guidance about airborne coronavirus transmission days after posting it

CDC removed new guidance about airborne coronavirus transmission days after posting it

BuzzFeed News reports: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed its new guidance for stopping airborne coronavirus transmission on Monday, sparking more concerns that the Trump administration may be interfering with its health advice. The agency’s new “How COVID-19 Spreads” guidance, initially posted on Friday, acknowledged that the virus can spread by aerosol droplets released when infected people breathe, talk, and sing, spreading infectious particles beyond the 6-foot limit widely used as a guide for distancing. Many virus…

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The inside story of why the Mueller investigation failed

The inside story of why the Mueller investigation failed

George Packer writes: Andrew Weissmann was one of Robert Mueller’s top deputies in the special counsel’s investigation of the 2016 election, and he’s about to publish the first insider account, called Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation. The title comes from an adapted quote by the philosopher John Locke that’s inscribed on the façade of the Justice Department building in Washington, D.C.: “Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.” Weissmann offers a damning indictment of a “lawless” president and his knowing…

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Fear of fascism is no longer alarmist

Fear of fascism is no longer alarmist

Francis Wilkinson writes: Americans who think the coming election is their last chance to save the republic from authoritarianism — Americans, until recently, like me — are almost certainly wrong. Authoritarianism is already here, and what Americans will decide in November is whether it will grow more deeply entrenched. According to a new report, the U.S. is undergoing “substantial autocratization” — so much so that only one in five similarly damaged democracies has been able to reverse such decline. President…

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Majority of Americans, including many Republicans, say wait for election to replace Ginsburg

Majority of Americans, including many Republicans, say wait for election to replace Ginsburg

Reuters reports: A majority of Americans, including many Republicans, want the winner of the November presidential election to name a successor to Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday. The national opinion poll, conducted Sept. 19-20 after Ginsburg’s death was announced, suggests that many Americans object to President Donald Trump’s plan, backed by many Senate Republicans, to push through another lifetime appointee and cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the court….

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Fixating on the open Supreme Court seat will provoke a culture war

Fixating on the open Supreme Court seat will provoke a culture war

Anne Applebaum writes: I know that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s empty Supreme Court seat has provoked an epic, long-awaited clash between Democrats and Republicans, that the very principle of judicial independence hangs dangerously in the balance. I realize that the social-media wave cannot be stopped, that the talking heads cannot be silenced, and that Democrats in Congress must fight this nomination. Nevertheless, let me try to convince anyone who will listen: Democrats should not spend the weeks between now and November…

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For Mitch McConnell keeping his Senate majority matters more than the Supreme Court

For Mitch McConnell keeping his Senate majority matters more than the Supreme Court

Jane Mayer writes: As the Democrats weigh their options about how to stop Mitch McConnell from filling Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat, one tactic that they should forget about immediately is arguing that it would be hypocritical of McConnell to jam in a new Justice so close to an election. Obviously, it nakedly is, given that Ginsburg died forty-five days before the 2020 election, and this was McConnell’s rationale for blocking Barack Obama’s nominee two hundred and sixty-nine days…

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In ‘power grab,’ Health Secretary Azar asserts authority over FDA

In ‘power grab,’ Health Secretary Azar asserts authority over FDA

The New York Times reports: In a stunning declaration of authority, Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, this week barred the nation’s health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, from signing any new rules regarding the nation’s foods, medicines, medical devices and other products, including vaccines. Going forward, Mr. Azar wrote in a Sept. 15 memorandum obtained by The New York Times, such power “is reserved to the Secretary.” The bulletin was sent to…

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The supply of disinformation will soon be infinite

The supply of disinformation will soon be infinite

Renée DiResta writes: Someday soon, the reading public will miss the days when a bit of detective work could identify completely fictitious authors. Consider the case of “Alice Donovan.” In 2016, a freelance writer by that name emailed the editors of CounterPunch, a left-leaning independent media site, to pitch a story. Her Twitter profile identified her as a journalist. Over a period of 18 months, Donovan pitched CounterPunch regularly; the publication accepted a handful of her pieces, and a collection…

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Politics is visceral

Politics is visceral

Manos Tsakiris writes: We live in bodies that feel increasingly unsafe. Pandemics, climate change, sexual assault, systemic racism, the pressures of gig-economy jobs, the crisis of liberal democracy – these phenomena create feelings of vulnerability that are, quite literally, visceral. They’re visceral in the sense that emotional experience arises from how our physiological organs – from our guts and lungs to our hearts and hormonal systems – respond to an everchanging world. They’re also political, in that our feelings affect…

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The reason why Trump might delay replacing Ginsburg

The reason why Trump might delay replacing Ginsburg

Tim Alberta writes: If there’s one Republican who could be convinced that filling the sudden Supreme Court vacancy is a bad idea, it’s President Donald Trump. There’s no question that the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the trailblazing liberal justice who died Friday at age 87, gives the GOP an opportunity that appears too good to pass up. By replacing Ginsburg with a conservative jurist, Republicans would cement a durable right-wing majority on the high court, one that could deal…

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For Republicans, a Ginsburg replacement is ‘worth the White House and Senate’

For Republicans, a Ginsburg replacement is ‘worth the White House and Senate’

Alexander Nazaryan writes: Even before the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday night, November’s presidential election was shaping up to be the most consequential in modern American history. President Trump said so himself, as did his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. A procession of crises — the coronavirus pandemic, protests and urban unrest, rampant wildfires — only heightened the sense that, come Nov. 3, voters would choose not merely a president but a direction…

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Can Trump and McConnell push through a successor to Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Can Trump and McConnell push through a successor to Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Jeffrey Toobin writes: In Washington, grief yields quickly to calculation. The announcement of the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court Justice and epic figure in American legal history, came in the early evening on Friday. This led to two simple questions that are now preoccupying the Capitol: Can President Trump win confirmation for Ginsburg’s successor before the end of his term? If so, who will it be? The broad outlines of the situation are already clear. Mitch McConnell,…

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What Ruth Bader Ginsburg would want America to do now

What Ruth Bader Ginsburg would want America to do now

Dahlia Lithwick writes: Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 87 years old when she passed away on Friday night. If you were keeping cosmic score, it was the Jewish New Year and a day for hope and new beginnings. In a world that won’t cast 50-year-old women in films, Justice Ginsburg managed to be an aspiration for the soccer moms and also the middle schoolers and, yes, the toddlers who dressed in tiny glasses and oversized collars for Halloween. She was the…

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped shape the modern era of women’s rights – even before she went on the Supreme Court

Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped shape the modern era of women’s rights – even before she went on the Supreme Court

Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg paying a courtesy call on Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., left, and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., in June 1993, before her confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. AP/Marcy Nighswander By Jonathan Entin, Case Western Reserve University Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, the Supreme Court announced. Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement that “Our nation has lost a jurist of historic stature.” Even before her appointment, she had reshaped American law. When he…

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What Republican senators say in private

What Republican senators say in private

Edward-Isaac Dovere writes: Nearly every reporter in Washington has experienced it: A Republican member of Congress says “off the record,” shifts into a quieter voice, and expresses how much he or she doesn’t like President Donald Trump. Soon after, you watch this same elected official speak up in favor of the president—or, more often, avoid saying anything meaningful at all. Sometimes about the same issue that they were complaining about to you in private. Sometimes within the same day. Sometimes…

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In an historic wildfire season, it’s time to follow the lead of young campaigners

In an historic wildfire season, it’s time to follow the lead of young campaigners

Bill McKibben writes: The numbers shock, of course: these past weeks, West Coast fires have burned an area the size of New Jersey. The smoke has thickened the air to the point where the pollution is literally off the E.P.A.’s existing charts. Five of the ten largest fires in California history are currently burning. But it’s the color that I think will linger in our minds—the orange not of flames but of the shroud of particulates and fog, which tints…

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