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Category: Politics

The dangers of depicting Greta Thunberg as a prophet

The dangers of depicting Greta Thunberg as a prophet

Climate activist Greta Thunberg listens during a meeting with climate scientists at the COP25 summit in Madrid, Spain. AP Photo/Paul White By Ellen Boucher, Amherst College She came from obscurity and ignited a global movement. Beginning with a small but persistent act of protest outside the Swedish parliament, she inspired millions to join her. Her fiery speech to the United Nations in September 2019 warned of the end of the world. Her unfailing determination and passion makes her appear otherworldly,…

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Trump presents his own impeachment defense

Trump presents his own impeachment defense

Politico reports: On the eve of his likely impeachment, President Donald Trump has opted to act as his own defense lawyer. In a six-page, stream-of-consciousness diatribe sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and released by the White House on Tuesday afternoon, Trump denounced the Democrats’ two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — as “not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory,” engaging with a process the White House had until now spurned in protest….

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We are Republicans, and we want Trump defeated

We are Republicans, and we want Trump defeated

George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson write: Patriotism and the survival of our nation in the face of the crimes, corruption and corrosive nature of Donald Trump are a higher calling than mere politics. As Americans, we must stem the damage he and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character. That’s why we are announcing the Lincoln Project, an effort to highlight our country’s story and values,…

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More than 750 American historians call for Trump to be impeached

More than 750 American historians call for Trump to be impeached

Historians on Impeachment write: We are American historians devoted to studying our nation’s past who have concluded that Donald J. Trump has violated his oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” His “attempts to subvert the Constitution,” as George Mason described impeachable offenses at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, urgently and justly require his impeachment. President Trump’s numerous and flagrant abuses of power…

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The U.S. Senate is a huge — and growing — source of bias in the political system

The U.S. Senate is a huge — and growing — source of bias in the political system

Matthew Yglesias writes: Democrats have a Senate problem, and not just in the sense that Republicans currently hold the majority or that the prospect of that changing in 2020 is relatively slim. The problem is that the odds of ever changing it are slimmer than is generally realized. Data for Progress, a progressive think tank and advocacy organization, is trying to raise alarm bells about the issue. In a new memo, co-founder Colin McAuliffe writes that “the Senate is an…

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Mike Bloomberg has a plan to clean up electricity and it doesn’t need Congress

Mike Bloomberg has a plan to clean up electricity and it doesn’t need Congress

David Roberts writes: Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is a problematic presidential candidate for all sorts of reasons. Progressives are irritated that he is attempting to brute-force his way into the Democratic primary by spending more on ad campaigns than the rest of the primary field combined. .@MikeBloomberg has officially passed the $100 million mark. In total, we have tracked $100,407,009 in advertising from Bloomberg since November 25. That's an average of $3,718,778 per day. #Election2020 — Advertising Analytics (@Ad_Analytics) December 10,…

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I headed the FBI and CIA. There’s a dire threat to the country I love

I headed the FBI and CIA. There’s a dire threat to the country I love

William Webster writes: The privilege of being the only American in our history to serve as the director of both the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. gives me a unique perspective and a responsibility to speak out about a dire threat to the rule of law in the country I love. Order protects liberty, and liberty protects order. Today, the integrity of the institutions that protect our civil order is, tragically, under assault from too many people whose job it should…

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Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have a problem: each other

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have a problem: each other

The New York Times reports: Diane Chojnowski and Denyce Rusch were among the Iowans who braved light snowfall and temperatures in the teens to see Senator Bernie Sanders on Sunday afternoon, a few hours before Senator Elizabeth Warren was also due in this liberal pillar of eastern Iowa. But after Ms. Chojnowski and Ms. Rusch praised Mr. Sanders, they turned to a predicament far more bothersome than the winter weather: choosing between the two progressive candidates. “You worry about Bernie…

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Judiciary Committee impeachment report alleges Trump committed ‘multiple federal crimes’

Judiciary Committee impeachment report alleges Trump committed ‘multiple federal crimes’

Politico reports: President Donald Trump committed criminal bribery and wire fraud, the House Judiciary Committee alleges in a report that will accompany articles of impeachment this week. The report, a 169-page assessment of the case for Trump’s removal from office, contends that Trump committed “multiple federal crimes” — ones that Democrats addressed under the broad umbrella of “abuse of power,” the first article of impeachment against the president. “Although President Trump’s actions need not rise to the level of a…

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Russia’s state TV calls Trump their ‘agent’

Russia’s state TV calls Trump their ‘agent’

Julia Davis reports: Sometimes a picture doesn’t have to be worth a thousand words. Just a few will do. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned home from his visit with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week, Russian state media was gloating over the spectacle. TV channel Rossiya 1 aired a segment entitled “Puppet Master and ‘Agent’—How to Understand Lavrov’s Meeting With Trump.” Vesti Nedeli, a Sunday news show on the same network, pointed out that it…

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Barack Obama: Women are better leaders than men

Barack Obama: Women are better leaders than men

BBC News reports: If women ran every country in the world there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes, former US President Barack Obama has said. Speaking in Singapore, he said women aren’t perfect, but are “indisputably better” than men. He said most of the problems in the world came from old people, mostly men, holding onto positions of power. He also spoke about political polarisation and the use of social media to spread falsehoods. Speaking at…

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The imminent end of Britain’s social democracy

The imminent end of Britain’s social democracy

Matt Seaton writes: The immediate, clear consequence of the UK election of December 12, 2019, is that Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has succeeded where Theresa May’s failed in the last general election, in 2017—by winning an emphatic parliamentary majority that can pass the legislation necessary to facilitate Britain’s departure from the European Union. The faint irony of that two-year hiatus and the handover of party leadership from May to Johnson is that the latter’s deal is rather worse—from the Brexiteers’…

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A Labour revival must tap into the energy for change on the ground

A Labour revival must tap into the energy for change on the ground

John Harris writes: Ten days before the election, I was in the Dumbiedykes estate in Edinburgh, a high-rise scheme a few minutes’ walk from the Scottish parliament, where a shrinking working-class community is hanging on in the face of gentrification. The neighbourhood, which had a Labour MP until 2010, is the headquarters of an organisation called Edinburgh Helping Hands, whose motto is “Solidarity not charity”: its work runs from giving children in the city free bikes, through football and boxing…

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Donald Trump fears only one Democrat: Warren Sanders

Donald Trump fears only one Democrat: Warren Sanders

Robert Reich writes: There aren’t 20 Senate Republicans with enough integrity to remove the most corrupt president in American history, so we’re going to have to get rid of Trump the old-fashioned way – by electing a Democrat next 3 November. That Democrat will be Warren Sanders. Although there are differences between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, I’m putting them together for the purpose of making a simple point. These two have most of the grassroots energy in the 2020…

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Centrists say Johnson’s victory is proof Sanders or Warren can’t win. They’re wrong

Centrists say Johnson’s victory is proof Sanders or Warren can’t win. They’re wrong

Cas Mudde writes: The exit polls for the UK general election had barely been published and US pundits were already tweeting out the lessons for next year’s US presidential election. It’s almost as if their conclusions had been reached before the results were known. “Right populism will always beat left populism,” tweeted Yascha Mounk. Perhaps that’s the case, but I don’t know of many elections in which right and left populism were up against each other. And that’s leaving aside…

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Devoid of agility, charisma and credibility, Corbyn has led Labour into the abyss

Devoid of agility, charisma and credibility, Corbyn has led Labour into the abyss

Polly Toynbee writes: Given the worst choice in history, the public preferred [Boris Johnson] to his opponent. How bad did Labour have to be to let this sociopathic, narcissistic, glutton for power beat them? That’s the soul-searching question every Labour member, office-holder and MP has to ask. Labour was disastrously, catastrophically bad, an agony to behold. A coterie of Corbynites cared more about gripping power within the party than saving the country by winning the election. The national executive committee,…

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