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Category: Politics

Seattle’s CHAZ: Inside the occupied vegan paradise – and Trump’s ‘ugly anarchist’ hell

Seattle’s CHAZ: Inside the occupied vegan paradise – and Trump’s ‘ugly anarchist’ hell

The Independent reports: There were activists with bullhorns, and artists painting designs on the street. Stalls collected donations for the homeless and others offered vegan curry. There were people posing for images in front of a boarded-up police station, while others sat on the grass. There were people of colour, and there were white people, lots of white people. But the “ugly anarchists” denounced by Donald Trump on Twitter that very morning? Could it be they existed only in his…

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Most Americans, including Republicans, support sweeping Democratic police reform proposals, poll finds

Most Americans, including Republicans, support sweeping Democratic police reform proposals, poll finds

Reuters reports: Most Americans, including a majority of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, support sweeping law enforcement reforms such as a ban on chokeholds and racial profiling after the latest death of an African American while in police custody, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Thursday. The national survey on June 9-10, shows the public broadly on the side of Democratic lawmakers, who proposed a series of changes to police departments (here) in the United States as protesters…

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Trump prizes re-election more than public health

Trump prizes re-election more than public health

The Daily Beast reports: As President Donald Trump prepared to return to the campaign trail amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, administration officials and several close advisers warned him of the dangers that could come with packing a venue full of his political supporters. He was not dissuaded. “He’s been [gently] reminded of the concerns,” said a senior administration official, regarding the potential for spreading the virus at large public gatherings. “The president said something like, ‘My team will make sure…

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Bolton rips Trump: ‘Getting reelected was the only thing that mattered’

Bolton rips Trump: ‘Getting reelected was the only thing that mattered’

Politico reports: President Donald Trump repeatedly endangered national security — and committed a series of potentially impeachable offenses — to boost his reelection prospects, former national security adviser John Bolton argues in a forthcoming White House memoir. Bolton writes that the House should have broadened its impeachment inquiry to other areas of his foreign policy, contending that he can document — and identify witnesses to — “Ukraine-like transgressions … across the full range of his foreign policy,” according to a…

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America is losing in the fight against Covid-19

America is losing in the fight against Covid-19

The Hill reports: When throngs of tourists and revelers left their homes over Memorial Day weekend, public health experts braced for a surge in coronavirus infections that could force a second round of painful shutdowns. Two weeks later, that surge has hit places like Houston, Phoenix, South Carolina and Missouri. Week-over-week case counts are on the rise in half of all states. Only 16 states and the District of Columbia have seen their total case counts decline for two consecutive…

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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff apologizes for his role in Trump’s Lafayette Square photo op

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff apologizes for his role in Trump’s Lafayette Square photo op

The New York Times reports: The country’s top military official apologized on Thursday for taking part in President Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square for a photo op after the authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the area of peaceful protesters. “I should not have been there,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a prerecorded video commencement address to National Defense University. “My presence in that moment and in that…

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Why are so many NYPD officers refusing to wear masks at protests?

Why are so many NYPD officers refusing to wear masks at protests?

The New York Times reports: Riot helmets, ballistic vests, shields, batons — fully decked-out police officers have become staples in New York City as the protests against racism and police brutality approach their third week. But increasingly, one piece of equipment has attracted attention with its absence: the face mask. On any given day, any corner, any group of officers, some or all of them are not wearing masks. Others wear them below their chin. With masks having become as…

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Inside Seattle’s ‘autonomous zone’ with free food, free speech, and no police

Inside Seattle’s ‘autonomous zone’ with free food, free speech, and no police

The New York Times reports: On the streets next to a police precinct in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, protesters and officers spent a week locked in a nightly cycle of standoffs, at times ending with clouds of tear gas. But facing a growing backlash over its dispersal tactics in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, the Seattle Police Department this week offered a concession: Officers would abandon their precinct, board up the windows and let the protesters have…

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Four years embedded with the alt-right

Four years embedded with the alt-right

Daniel Lombroso writes: White nationalists have always been able to find one another in America, but the recent resurgence of the white-nationalist movement—and the extent to which its ideas have seeped into the mainstream alongside Donald Trump’s political ascent—is stunning. In November 2016, I captured footage of Trump supporters throwing Nazi salutes in celebration of his presidential victory, a moment that became an explosive story in the days that followed, and set the tone for the Trump presidency. In the…

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Federal arrests show no sign that antifa activists plotted protests

Federal arrests show no sign that antifa activists plotted protests

The New York Times reports: Inciting a riot. Hurling a Molotov cocktail. Plotting to sow destruction. Those are some of the most serious charges brought by federal prosecutors against demonstrators at protests across the country in recent weeks. But despite cries from President Trump and others in his administration, none of those charged with serious federal crimes amid the unrest have been linked so far to the loose collective of anti-fascist activists known as antifa. A review of the arrests…

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Most Americans trust Black Lives Matter movement more than Trump to promote justice and racial equality

Most Americans trust Black Lives Matter movement more than Trump to promote justice and racial equality

USA Today reports: The police crackdown to clear protesters from Lafayette Square last week looms as a defining moment in the national debate over race and law enforcement that has been sparked by the death of George Floyd. An exclusive USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds Americans overwhelmingly endorse the right of peaceful protest outside the White House – a view held by nearly 9 of 10 people across racial and partisan lines. Nearly 9 of 10 had heard about the clashes…

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Pentagon is open to replacing base names linked to white supremacy, but Trump shuts down the discussion

Pentagon is open to replacing base names linked to white supremacy, but Trump shuts down the discussion

The New York Times reports: Monuments and memorials bearing the names of men who fought to preserve slavery and uphold white supremacy are facing a reckoning, as demonstrations against police brutality have erupted across the country in response to the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The protests have also reignited a debate within the military community over 10 Army bases named after Confederate leaders, which as recently as February the service said it had no intention…

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More than 1,250 former Justice Dept. workers call for probe on Barr’s role in clearing peaceful demonstrators

More than 1,250 former Justice Dept. workers call for probe on Barr’s role in clearing peaceful demonstrators

The Washington Post reports: More than 1,250 former Justice Department workers on Wednesday called on the agency’s internal watchdog to investigate Attorney General William P. Barr’s involvement in law enforcement’s move last week to push a crowd of largely peaceful demonstrators back from Lafayette Square using horses and gas. In a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the group said it was “deeply concerned about the Department’s actions, and those of Attorney General William Barr himself, in response…

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Former federal judge determines Justice Dept reversal on Flynn case was a ‘gross abuse’ of power

Former federal judge determines Justice Dept reversal on Flynn case was a ‘gross abuse’ of power

The New York Times reports: Accusing the Justice Department of a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power,” a former mafia prosecutor and retired federal judge urged a court on Wednesday to reject the Trump administration’s attempt to drop the criminal case against Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, and instead sentence him. The authority of judges to scrutinize case dismissal requests “empowers courts to protect the integrity of their own proceedings from prosecutors who undertake corrupt, politically motivated…

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White House goes quiet on coronavirus as outbreak spikes again across the U.S.

White House goes quiet on coronavirus as outbreak spikes again across the U.S.

Politico reports: The coronavirus is still killing as many as 1,000 Americans per day — but the Trump administration isn’t saying much about it. It’s been more than a month since the White House halted its daily coronavirus task force briefings. Top officials like infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci have largely disappeared from national television — with Fauci making just four cable TV appearances in May after being a near fixture on Sunday shows across March and April — and…

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Large majorities of Americans support protests over Floyd killing and say police need to change, poll finds

Large majorities of Americans support protests over Floyd killing and say police need to change, poll finds

The Washington Post reports: Americans overwhelmingly support the nationwide protests that have taken place since the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis, and they say police forces have not done enough to ensure that blacks are treated equally to whites, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll. President Trump receives negative marks for his handling of the protests, with 61 percent saying they disapprove and 35 percent saying they approve. Much of the opposition to…

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