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Category: Politics

Trump couldn’t resist talking to Bob Woodward

Trump couldn’t resist talking to Bob Woodward

Timothy L. O’Brien writes: Maybe it’s all Senator Lindsey Graham’s fault. “It was Lindsey Graham who helped convince Donald Trump to talk to Bob Woodward,” Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson told his TV audience Wednesday night. “Lindsey Graham brokered that meeting. Lindsey Graham even sat in on the first interview between Bob Woodward and the president. How’d that turn out?” It hasn’t turned out well, of course. Trump admitted in a taped interview with the veteran investigative reporter that he…

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Trump’s own officials label his Ukraine theory as Russian election interference

Trump’s own officials label his Ukraine theory as Russian election interference

HuffPost reports: An anti-Joe Biden conspiracy theory pushed by President Donald Trump, his personal lawyer and his favorite television network has been labeled Russian interference into the coming U.S. election — by Trump’s own administration. “Andrii Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday in a statement announcing sanctions against the pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker and three Russian employees of…

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Leading prosecutor looking into the origins of Russia probe resigns

Leading prosecutor looking into the origins of Russia probe resigns

The Associated Press reports: A federal prosecutor who was helping lead the investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe has resigned from the Justice Department, a spokesman said Friday. Nora Dannehy was a top prosecutor on a team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham of Connecticut, who was appointed last year to lead an investigation into how the FBI and other federal agencies set out to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether the Trump campaign…

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Peter Thiel met with the racist fringe as he went all in on Trump

Peter Thiel met with the racist fringe as he went all in on Trump

BuzzFeed reports: Four years ago, billionaire venture capitalist and Facebook board member Peter Thiel made one of his biggest bets: He went all in on Donald Trump. The normally tight-lipped and enigmatic Thiel gave a very public imprimatur as a prominent speaker at the Republican convention, tying his reputation as one of the most successful figures in modern tech to a presidential candidate despised throughout Silicon Valley. “Tonight,” he said in a nationally televised address at the convention, “I urge…

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ICE flew detainees to Virginia so the planes could transport agents to D.C. protests. A huge coronavirus outbreak followed

ICE flew detainees to Virginia so the planes could transport agents to D.C. protests. A huge coronavirus outbreak followed

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration flew immigrant detainees to Virginia this summer to facilitate the rapid deployment of Homeland Security tactical teams to quell protests in Washington, circumventing restrictions on the use of charter flights for employee travel, according to a current and a former U.S. official. After the transfer, dozens of the new arrivals tested positive for the novel coronavirus, fueling an outbreak at the Farmville, Va., immigration jail that infected more than 300 inmates, one of…

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U.S. judge urged to stop ‘corrupt’ reversal in case of Trump ex-aide Flynn

U.S. judge urged to stop ‘corrupt’ reversal in case of Trump ex-aide Flynn

Reuters reports: A retired judge blasted the U.S. Justice Department’s plan to drop the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn as corrupt on Friday and urged the judge presiding over the case to reject the move. John Gleeson, a former trial judge and prosecutor, was named by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to argue against the department’s stance in the high-profile case in Washington. Critics have accused the department and Attorney General William Barr…

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U.S. identifies Giuliani ally and Biden dirt-peddler as an ‘active Russian agent’

U.S. identifies Giuliani ally and Biden dirt-peddler as an ‘active Russian agent’

The Daily Beast reports: The president’s personal lawyer has been working closely with “an active Russian agent” trying to smear the president’s chief political rival. That’s the conclusion of the U.S. Treasury Department, which sanctioned on Thursday one of Rudy Giuliani’s Ukrainian allies for interference in the upcoming U.S. elections. Andriy Derkach worked closely with Giuliani—and with the Trump-friendly cable network, OANN—to push accusations of political misconduct against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Derkach, a member…

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Trump boasted that he protected Saudi Crown Prince MBS after Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder, Woodward’s new book says

Trump boasted that he protected Saudi Crown Prince MBS after Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder, Woodward’s new book says

Business Insider reports: President Donald Trump bragged that he protected Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from congressional scrutiny after the brutal assassination of the American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. That’s according to the veteran reporter Bob Woodward’s upcoming book, “Rage,” set to be released next Tuesday. Insider obtained a copy of the book. Woodward conducted 18 wide-ranging interviews with the president for the book, as well as interviews with multiple senior White House officials and former administration officials. Still,…

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Russian state hackers suspected in targeting Biden campaign firm

Russian state hackers suspected in targeting Biden campaign firm

Reuters reports: Microsoft Corp recently alerted one of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s main election campaign advisory firms that it had been targeted by suspected Russian state-backed hackers, according to three people briefed on the matter. The hacking attempts targeted staff at Washington-based SKDKnickerbocker, a campaign strategy and communications firm working with Biden and other prominent Democrats, over the past two months, the sources said. A person familiar with SKDK’s response to the attempts said the hackers failed to gain…

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Would you feel more urgency about climate change if all you could see was smoke?

Would you feel more urgency about climate change if all you could see was smoke?

Charlie Warzel writes: The American West does not have a monopoly on climate-related disasters. Hurricane seasons grow worse each year and devastating earthquakes loom. The flooding in the Midwest and storms like the recent derecho in Iowa are calamities that deserve equal attention. They’re also urgent alarm bells. Everyone on earth right now is experiencing unpredictable and dire weather. No region is alone in experiencing the tragedy of our dying planet. I’m not so naïve as to think that all…

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As quality of life has risen across most of the world over the last decade, it has fallen in the U.S.

As quality of life has risen across most of the world over the last decade, it has fallen in the U.S.

Nicholas Kristof writes: This should be a wake-up call: New data suggest that the United States is one of just a few countries worldwide that is slipping backward. The newest Social Progress Index, shared with me before its official release Thursday morning, finds that out of 163 countries assessed worldwide, the United States, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011. And the declines in Brazil and Hungary…

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Police shot Portland slaying suspect without warning or trying to arrest him first, says ordained minister

Police shot Portland slaying suspect without warning or trying to arrest him first, says ordained minister

The Washington Post reports: When police last week surrounded Michael Forest Reinoehl, a self-described anti-fascist suspected of fatally shooting a member of a far-right group in Portland, Ore., the wanted man wasn’t obviously armed, a witness to the scene said Wednesday. In fact, according to Nate Dinguss, Reinoehl was clutching a cellphone and eating a gummy worm as he walked to his car outside an apartment complex in Lacey, Wash. That’s when officers opened fire without first announcing themselves or…

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America’s complexity deficit has trapped us in a pandemic spiral

America’s complexity deficit has trapped us in a pandemic spiral

Ed Yong writes: Army ants will sometimes walk in circles until they die. The workers navigate by smelling the pheromone trails of workers in front of them, while laying down pheromones for others to follow. If these trails accidentally loop back on themselves, the ants are trapped. They become a thick, swirling vortex of bodies that resembles a hurricane as viewed from space. They march endlessly until they’re felled by exhaustion or dehydration. The ants can sense no picture bigger…

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Bob Woodward: Trump intentionally misled Americans about the danger of the coronavirus

Bob Woodward: Trump intentionally misled Americans about the danger of the coronavirus

The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s head popped up during his top-secret intelligence briefing in the Oval Office on Jan. 28 when the discussion turned to the coronavirus outbreak in China. “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien told Trump, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. “This is going to be the roughest thing you face.” Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security…

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Are we on the cusp of an era of radical reform that repairs America’s broken democracy?

Are we on the cusp of an era of radical reform that repairs America’s broken democracy?

George Packer writes: “There are in history what you could call ‘plastic hours,’” the philosopher Gershom Scholem once said. “Namely, crucial moments when it is possible to act. If you move then, something happens.” In such moments, an ossified social order suddenly turns pliable, prolonged stasis gives way to motion, and people dare to hope. Plastic hours are rare. They require the right alignment of public opinion, political power, and events—usually a crisis. They depend on social mobilization and leadership….

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The Electoral College will destroy America

The Electoral College will destroy America

Jesse Wegman writes: Last week, Nate Silver, the polling analyst, tweeted a chart illustrating the chances that Joe Biden would become president if he wins the most votes in November. The “if” is probably unnecessary. It’s hard to find anyone who disputes that Mr. Biden will win the most votes. This isn’t a liberal’s fantasy. In a recent panel discussion among four veteran Republican campaign managers, one acknowledged, “We’re going to lose the popular vote.” Another responded, “Oh, that’s a…

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