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Category: Politics

Tactics of fiery White House trade adviser draw new scrutiny as some of his pandemic moves unravel

Tactics of fiery White House trade adviser draw new scrutiny as some of his pandemic moves unravel

The Washington Post reports: Amid the Trump administration’s troubled response to the coronavirus pandemic, senior White House aide Peter Navarro has refashioned himself as a powerful government purchasing chief, operating far beyond his original role as an adviser on trade policy. But U.S. officials say the abrasive figure’s shortcomings as a manager could influence how well prepared the United States is for a second wave of coronavirus infections expected this fall. Navarro’s harsh manner and disregard for protocol have alienated…

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Will a Covid-19 vaccine be rushed through FDA approval this fall?

Will a Covid-19 vaccine be rushed through FDA approval this fall?

STAT reports: There is growing concern that the Food and Drug Administration, under political pressure, could approve a Covid-19 vaccine before it has robust safety and efficacy data. The consequences of such a decision could be significant, particularly if the vaccine is ultimately shown to be less effective than early data suggest. But an approval before the completion of large, Phase 3 trials does not have to be problematic. Experts aren’t ruling out the possibility that a vaccine could be…

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U.S. debt will overtake GDP next year for the first time since 1946, CBO says

U.S. debt will overtake GDP next year for the first time since 1946, CBO says

CNN reports: The US debt is projected to exceed the size of the entire country’s economy next year, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. It will be the first time the federal debt could be bigger than the US gross domestic product since 1946, just after World War II. The CBO also projected that the federal budget deficit will hit $3.3 trillion this year, more than triple the shortfall recorded in 2019. That would be the largest deficit as a…

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Alexei Navalny novichok poisoning viewed as though Putin left his autograph at the scene of the crime

Alexei Navalny novichok poisoning viewed as though Putin left his autograph at the scene of the crime

The Guardian reports: World leaders are demanding answers from the Kremlin after toxicological examinations indicated that the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent from the novichok family. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, revealed that tests carried out at a military laboratory had “identified unequivocally” the Soviet era nerve agent. She referred to the case as an “attempted murder” and said the findings raised “very difficult questions that only the Russian government can answer, and has…

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Leaked document warns of ‘serious errors’ in census data under fast-tracked timeline

Leaked document warns of ‘serious errors’ in census data under fast-tracked timeline

NBC News reports: An internal Census Bureau document sent to members of Congress and obtained by NBC News warned that the new truncated deadline set by the agency’s director last month has the potential to undermine the integrity of the count and lead to “serious errors.” The document was sent to the House Oversight Committee, which has been probing the Census for several years since its failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the decennial. The document appears to…

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U.S. says it won’t join global effort to develop, distribute coronavirus vaccine

U.S. says it won’t join global effort to develop, distribute coronavirus vaccine

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration said it will not join a global effort to develop, manufacture and equitably distribute a coronavirus vaccine, in part because the World Health Organization is involved, a decision that could shape the course of the pandemic and the country’s role in health diplomacy. More than 170 countries are in talks to participate in the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) Facility, which aims to speed vaccine development and secure doses for all countries and…

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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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