Attention to the Unseen

Katie Rogers writes: In the hours since Senator Kamala Harris joined the Democratic presidential ticket, President Trump has responded by sorting women into two categories: the good “suburban housewife” he believes will vote for him, and nasty women who have not shown him or his political allies a sufficient amount of respect. After Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, announced on Tuesday that Ms. Harris would be his running mate, Mr. Trump wasted no time sorting her into…

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Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes: “As time went on, it became clear that the sickness was a feature, that anyone who entered the building became a little sick themselves,” wrote the journalist Olivia Nuzzi in March 2018 of the Donald J. Trump White House and those who serve it. For a century, those who have worked closely with authoritarian rulers have shown the symptoms of this malady: a compulsion to praise the head of state and a willingness to sacrifice one’s own…

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Reuters reports: A shakeup of the U.S. Postal Service is leading to mail delays, union officials said on Tuesday, heightening concerns that an ally of President Donald Trump is destabilizing the service as millions of Americans consider whether to cast their ballots by mail in the Nov. 3 presidential election. New Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has donated $2.7 million to Trump and his fellow Republicans since 2017, has ordered operational changes and a clampdown on overtime in a bid…

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.@KamalaHarris will be a great partner to @JoeBiden in making our government a powerful force for good in the fight for social, racial, and economic justice. pic.twitter.com/q5ggXBro5B — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 11, 2020 I’ve known Senator @KamalaHarris for a long time. She is more than prepared for the job. She’s spent her career defending our Constitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake. This is a good day for our country. Now let’s go win this thing….

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The Daily Beast reports: If you’re looking for a quintessential example of fragile masculinity, look no further. President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday morning that, in pledging to pick a woman as his running mate, Joe Biden has offended men everywhere. Trump made his comments in a simpering interview with Fox Sports personality and OutKick founder Clay Travis. Travis’ fearsome questioning covered why the president thinks the media is so mean to him, what sports he likes to watch on television,…

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Jamelle Bouie writes: There’s no mystery about what President Trump intends to do if he holds a lead on election night in November. He’s practically broadcasting it. First, he’ll claim victory. Then, having spent most of the year denouncing vote-by-mail as corrupt, fraudulent and prone to abuse, he’ll demand that authorities stop counting mail-in and absentee ballots. He’ll have teams of lawyers challenging counts and ballots across the country. He also seems to be counting on having the advantage of…

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The New York Times reports: For some of President Trump’s loudest cheerleaders, it was a story too good to check out: Black Lives Matters protesters in Portland, Ore., had burned a stack of Bibles, and then topped off the fire with American flags. There was even a video to prove it. The story was a near-perfect fit for a central Trump campaign talking point — that with liberals and Democrats comes godless disorder — and it went viral among Republicans…

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STAT reports: The world’s biggest drug makers and their trade groups have cut checks to 356 lawmakers ahead of this year’s election — more than two-thirds of the sitting members of Congress, according to a new STAT analysis. It’s a barrage of contributions that accounts for roughly $11 million in campaign giving, distributed via roughly 4,500 checks from the political action committees affiliated with the companies. The spending follows a long tradition of generous political giving. Major manufacturers typically make…

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The New York Times reports: An American contractor working with the U.S. Army warned at least four years ago about a large cache of potentially explosive chemicals that was stored in Beirut’s port in unsafe conditions, according to a United States diplomatic cable. The presence of the chemicals was spotted and reported by an American port security expert during a safety inspection of the port, the cable said. Current and former American officials who have worked in the Mideast say…

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Politico reports: For a brief moment after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis policeman in late May, some members of the GOP joined calls for change as protests exploded onto streets across the country. That moment is over. Facing possible electoral calamity, Republicans are now turning to a familiar playbook: stoking fear by trying to redefine the Black Lives Matter movement as a radical leftist mob looking to sabotage the white, suburban lifestyle. Republicans are using two lines of…

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Jonathan Chait writes: In a time when institutions across the country have undergone a searching self-examination, the reckoning has only begun for the most powerful source of institutional racism in American life: the United States Senate. It is not merely a problem of legacy and culture — though the Senate’s traditions are deeply interwoven with white supremacy, as Joe Biden inadvertently confessed when he touted his cooperation with segregationists — but of very-much-ongoing discrimination. Quite simply, achieving anything like functional…

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NBC News reports: Lebanon’s government resigned Monday as the fallout from last week’s deadly explosion deepened a political crisis in the country’s blast-ravaged capital. Prime Minister Hassan Diab said he would resign along with all of his ministers. “We will back down and stand with the people. We need to open the door for the people,” he said in a televised address to the nation before presenting his resignation to President Michel Aoun. The move comes after enraged protesters and…

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