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Category: Politics

A letter on justice and open debate

A letter on justice and open debate

More than 150 prominent artists and public thinkers signed the following letter: Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms…

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I no longer believe in a Jewish state

I no longer believe in a Jewish state

Peter Beinart writes: I was 22 in 1993 when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn to officially begin the peace process that many hoped would create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. I’ve been arguing for a two-state solution — first in late-night bull sessions, then in articles and speeches — ever since. I believed in Israel as a Jewish state because I grew up in a family that had hopscotched from continent to continent…

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Trump’s America is slipping away

Trump’s America is slipping away

Ronald Brownstein writes: Donald Trump is running for the presidency of an America that no longer exists. Trump in recent weeks has repeatedly reprised two of Richard Nixon’s most memorable rallying cries, promising to deliver “law and order” for the “silent majority.” But in almost every meaningful way, America today is a radically different country than it was when Nixon rode those arguments to win the presidency in 1968 amid widespread anti-war protests, massive civil unrest following the assassination of…

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Solving the climate crisis is about everything and everyone

Solving the climate crisis is about everything and everyone

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson writes: The Black Lives Matter movement is not a distraction from saving the planet. We can’t solve the climate crisis without people of color, but we could probably solve it without racists. Whether it’s Hurricane Katrina or air pollution, storms and exposure to toxins cause much greater harm to communities of color. (Although, yes, in the longer term, climate change is coming for us all, even if you have a bunker in New Zealand.) So it follows…

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Supreme Court rules large swath of Oklahoma is Indian reservation

Supreme Court rules large swath of Oklahoma is Indian reservation

The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that much of eastern Oklahoma falls within an Indian reservation, a decision that could reshape the criminal-justice system by preventing state authorities from prosecuting offenses there that involve Native Americans. The 5-to-4 decision, potentially one of the most consequential legal victories for Native Americans in decades, could have far-reaching implications for the people who live across what is now deemed “Indian Country” by the high court. The lands include…

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America is refusing to learn how to fight the coronavirus

America is refusing to learn how to fight the coronavirus

David Wallace-Wells writes: Just before the holiday weekend, on the day that Donald Trump stood beneath Mount Rushmore and warned against “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history” and the day before his Washington, D.C., fireworks display generated air pollution 15 times the EPA standard and roughly equivalent to the choking megacities of India and China, the state of Arizona reached a terrible pandemic milestone. For the first time in its history, indeed for the first time in any…

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Trump Tulsa rally ‘likely’ source of virus surge, local health official says

Trump Tulsa rally ‘likely’ source of virus surge, local health official says

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa that drew thousands of people in late June, along with large protests that accompanied it, “likely contributed” to a dramatic surge in new coronavirus cases, Tulsa City-County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said Wednesday. Tulsa County reported 261 confirmed new cases on Monday, a one-day record high, and another 206 cases on Tuesday. Although the health department’s policy is to not publicly identify individual settings where people may…

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Churches were eager to reopen. Now they’re a major source of new coronavirus cases

Churches were eager to reopen. Now they’re a major source of new coronavirus cases

The New York Times reports: Weeks after President Trump demanded that America’s shuttered houses of worship be allowed to reopen, new outbreaks of the coronavirus are surging through churches across the country where services have resumed. The virus has infiltrated Sunday sermons, meetings of ministers and Christian youth camps in Colorado and Missouri. It has struck churches that reopened cautiously with face masks and social distancing in the pews, as well as some that defied lockdowns and refused to heed…

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Facebook ad boycott organizers met with Zuckerberg. It was ‘nothing more than a PR exercise’

Facebook ad boycott organizers met with Zuckerberg. It was ‘nothing more than a PR exercise’

CNN reports: Civil rights and activist groups blasted Facebook’s leadership on Tuesday after meeting with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives to discuss the demands of a large advertiser boycott that now includes hundreds of brands. “The meeting we just left was a disappointment,” said Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change. “[Facebook] showed up to the meeting expecting an ‘A’ for attendance.” Free Press, a media activist group and one of the organizers of the #StopHateForProfit campaign to…

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Jack Posobiec, promoted by Trump, collaborated for years with white supremacists, neo-fascists and antisemites

Jack Posobiec, promoted by Trump, collaborated for years with white supremacists, neo-fascists and antisemites

SPLC Hatewatch reports: Jack Posobiec, a correspondent for One America News Network (OANN) whose work has been embraced by President Trump, collaborated for years with white supremacists, neo-fascists and antisemites, a Hatewatch investigation has determined. Posobiec’s ties to far-right extremists travel beyond borders into Europe. His connections to white supremacy are too numerous to compile into one article, so Hatewatch is running a series of stories on the correspondent’s ties to the movement and promotion of it. This first story…

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Mexico border towns try to protect themselves from infected Americans crossing amid Covid-19 fears

Mexico border towns try to protect themselves from infected Americans crossing amid Covid-19 fears

The Guardian reports: As he campaigned for the presidency, Donald Trump promised to build a “big beautiful wall” along the US-Mexico border, claiming it would keep migrants out of the country and stop everything from drugs to disease. But with Covid-19 cases surging on both sides of the frontier, towns in northern Mexico are pleading to restrict cross-border movement – this time to stop tourists and travellers bringing in coronavirus from the US. Over the weekend, townspeople in Sonoyta on…

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I read Kanye West’s interview about his ‘presidency’ aspirations so you don’t have to

I read Kanye West’s interview about his ‘presidency’ aspirations so you don’t have to

J’na Jefferson writes: I personally don’t think anyone should be giving Kanye any attention, and talking about him or making fun of him instead of encouraging him to get help doesn’t do anyone any favors. As a former fan, I’ve done a very good job of not viewing much about this “presidential run” over the last few days for my own sanity. However, I’ve got a job to do, dammit, and if that means destroying my wellbeing while doing it,…

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Sweden has suffered ‘a self-inflicted wound.’ The choice between lives and paychecks is a false one

Sweden has suffered ‘a self-inflicted wound.’ The choice between lives and paychecks is a false one

The New York Times reports: Ever since the coronavirus emerged in Europe, Sweden has captured international attention by conducting an unorthodox, open-air experiment. It has allowed the world to examine what happens in a pandemic when a government allows life to carry on largely unhindered. This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better. “They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a…

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The pandemic experts are at risk of burning out

The pandemic experts are at risk of burning out

Ed Yong writes: Saskia Popescu’s phone buzzes throughout the night, waking her up. It had already buzzed 99 times before I interviewed her at 9:15 a.m. ET last Monday. It buzzed three times during the first 15 minutes of our call. Whenever a COVID-19 case is confirmed at her hospital system, Popescu gets an email, and her phone buzzes. She cannot silence it. An epidemiologist at the University of Arizona, Popescu works to prepare hospitals for outbreaks of emerging diseases….

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Trump doesn’t want to govern and couldn’t do it if he tried

Trump doesn’t want to govern and couldn’t do it if he tried

Jamelle Bouie writes: Donald Trump made his name in Republican Party politics as a “birther,” a true believer in — and an evangelist for — the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was a foreign-born, illegitimate president. Having stoked a wave of white grievance and resentment, Trump rode it, first to influence — let’s not forget that Mitt Romney came to receive Trump’s endorsement in person during the 2012 presidential race — and then to the summit of power as…

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Trump’s worldview forged by neglect and trauma at home, writes his niece, a clinical psychologist

Trump’s worldview forged by neglect and trauma at home, writes his niece, a clinical psychologist

The Washington Post reports: A tell-all book by President Trump’s niece describes a family riven by a series of traumas, exacerbated by a daunting patriarch who “destroyed” Donald Trump by short-circuiting his “ability to develop and experience the entire spectrum of human emotion,” according to a copy of the forthcoming memoir obtained by The Washington Post. President Trump’s view of the world was shaped by his desire during childhood to avoid his father’s disapproval, according to the niece, Mary L….

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