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Category: Politics

Stephen Miller is directing Trump’s war on drug boats

Stephen Miller is directing Trump’s war on drug boats

Jonathan Blitzer writes: Late this summer, James Story, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela for three years of Donald Trump’s first term and for two of Joe Biden’s, felt that anything was possible in the relationship between Washington and Caracas. It had been six years since the U.S. closed its Embassy in Venezuela, to protest the rule of the Socialist authoritarian Nicolás Maduro. The issue of how to dislodge Maduro’s regime has been an American political conundrum for at…

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Fired Justice Department lawyer blows the whistle on abuses of power at the DOJ

Fired Justice Department lawyer blows the whistle on abuses of power at the DOJ

  60 Minutes reports: Erez Reuveni, a fired Department of Justice lawyer who’s now blowing the whistle, says he witnessed a disregard of due process and for the rule of law at the DOJ. Reuveni previously won commendations for his work and was so effective defending President Trump’s first-term immigration policy that he was promoted quickly in Mr. Trump’s second term. But he says he was put on leave and then fired after refusing to sign a brief in the…

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North Carolina’s racial gerrymandering is a preview of what a post-Voting Rights Act America will look like

North Carolina’s racial gerrymandering is a preview of what a post-Voting Rights Act America will look like

Mother Jones reports: The GOP-controlled North Carolina legislature, which has already gone to extreme lengths to undermine the will of the voters, is set to pass a new Trump-inspired gerrymandered congressional map this week that is expected to give Republicans one additional seat heading into the midterms. It will make one of the most gerrymandered states in the country even more gerrymandered, likely giving Republicans nearly 80 percent of US House seats in an otherwise closely divided swing state where…

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‘We come offering bread and prayer, hope for justice and healing — we leave washing pepper spray out of each other’s eyes’

‘We come offering bread and prayer, hope for justice and healing — we leave washing pepper spray out of each other’s eyes’

Religion News Service reports: Last Friday (Oct. 17), the Rev. Hannah Kardon, a United Methodist minister in the Chicago area, stood alongside other protesters demonstrating outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Illinois. As a line of Illinois State Police began marching toward her and other demonstrators, gripping wooden batons, footage shows the pastor with her hands raised in prayer. Officers then pushed into the protesters, forcing them back. One officer shifted his stance, reared back and…

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Trump promised ‘total respect to the existing building’ then demolished part of the White House

Trump promised ‘total respect to the existing building’ then demolished part of the White House

CNBC reports: The White House on Tuesday dismissed anger over the demolition of parts of the building’s East Wing to build a new ballroom at the behest of President Donald Trump. “In the latest instance of manufactured outrage, unhinged leftists and their Fake News allies are clutching their pearls over President Donald J. Trump’s visionary addition of a grand, privately funded ballroom to the White House,” the White House said in a statement. The White House called the ballroom “a…

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What can we do?

What can we do?

Paul Waldman writes: In my years of writing about politics, there’s one question I’ve gotten more than any other from readers, attendees at bookstore events, and my own friends and family: “But what can we do?” It’s an earnest question born of a dilemma faced by every member of a giant democratic polity such as ours. We’re more attuned than ever to the goings-on in politics and government; the average American living 50 or 100 or 150 years ago had…

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Civil resistance confronts the Trump autocracy

Civil resistance confronts the Trump autocracy

Paul Krugman writes: Last Saturday’s No Kings Day 2 was awesome to behold. The very best of America shone through. From coast to coast, in big cities and small, in red states as well as blue states, Americans peacefully marched to uphold our humanity as a country and to show our solidarity against autocracy and lawlessness. And also awesome were the right-wing attacks on Kings Day 2 participants in the days before the rallies. They were so extreme and so…

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What you should know about Russ Vought, Trump’s shadow president

What you should know about Russ Vought, Trump’s shadow president

By Andy Kroll This story was originally published by ProPublica On the second day of the federal government shutdown, President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video set to the classic song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult. The star of that video, which quickly went viral, was Russell Vought, the president’s top budget adviser. More than that, Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fire civil servants, freeze government programs and dismantle entire agencies, and he’s…

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Trump nominee says MLK Jr. holiday belongs in ‘hell’ and that he has ‘Nazi streak,’ according to texts

Trump nominee says MLK Jr. holiday belongs in ‘hell’ and that he has ‘Nazi streak,’ according to texts

Politico reports: Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO. Ingrassia, who has a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled Thursday, made the remarks in a chain with a half-dozen Republican operatives and influencers, according to…

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What over a decade of incel messaging and Bronze Age Pervert have done to Young Republicans

What over a decade of incel messaging and Bronze Age Pervert have done to Young Republicans

Alan Elrod writes: “The Spanish came to America and had sex with every single woman.” “Sex is gay” “Sex? It was rape.” “Epic” This text exchange is part of the cache of messages sent in a Telegram group chat by Young Republicans. In these messages, exposed by POLITICO reporters Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, hundreds of racial and homophobic slurs are used by leading Young Republicans, including a Kansas state senator, along with joking references to Hitler and the Holocaust….

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One target at a time: The logic that helped Israeli liberals commit genocide

One target at a time: The logic that helped Israeli liberals commit genocide

Yuval Abraham writes: A few months after October 7, I enrolled in an introductory course on genocide at the Open University of Israel. The lecturer began the first class by telling us — about 20 Jewish-Israeli students gathered on Zoom — that by the end of the semester we would understand exactly what genocide entails and be able to explain why Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. In a nutshell, his argument was this: At most, Israel might be…

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Stunning success of No Kings protests gives Trump a bout of AI diarrhea

Stunning success of No Kings protests gives Trump a bout of AI diarrhea

Julianne McShane writes: Saturday’s “No Kings” protests were, as my colleagues chronicled, about as wholesome as you could imagine. There were inflatable animals. There were American flags galore. Even the New York Police Department admitted that the 100,000 protesters were peaceful and that cops made no arrests; police in Washington, DC and Austin, Texas said the same. But that hasn’t stopped top Republicans from thoroughly melting down over its success. Case in point: On his Truth Social platform on Saturday…

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson calls for a nationwide general strike

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson calls for a nationwide general strike

HuffPost reports: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson boldly called for Americans to stage a general strike during his speech at his city’s ‘No Kings’ rally on Saturday. Summoning people of all backgrounds to unite and take a stand against President Donald Trump’s “tyranny,” the “ultra-wealthy” and corporate greed, Johnson said, “We are going to make them pay their fair share in taxes to fund our school, to fund jobs, to fund healthcare, to fund transportation.” “Democracy will live on because of…

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No Kings protests the largest single-day political protest ever in the U.S.

No Kings protests the largest single-day political protest ever in the U.S.

Strength In Numbers partnered with independent Atlanta-based science newsroom The Xylom on Oct. 18, 2025, to produce a crowdsourced estimate of turnout for the second “No Kings Day” protests held around the country. This follows our first attempt at crowdsourced crowd-counting for the first protests held in June. Our median estimate is that 5.2 million people participated in a No Kings Day demonstration somewhere in the country on Saturday, with an upper bound of 8.2 million people. We provide an…

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From California to Chicago, the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino is seen making race-based arrests

From California to Chicago, the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino is seen making race-based arrests

Chicago Sun-Times reports: On the morning of Jan. 7, Jesús Ramírez and other day laborers huddled in a Home Depot parking lot in Bakersfield, California, hoping for work. Suddenly, they were surrounded by U.S. Homeland Security vehicles. One agent demanded Ramírez show his papers. When he pulled out his wallet, the agent “snatched” it and took his ID without asking questions, Ramírez said. “It was clear to me the agents did not know who I was,” Ramírez, 64, said in…

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Israel heavily bombs Gaza in major ceasefire violation

Israel heavily bombs Gaza in major ceasefire violation

Middle East Eye reports: Heavy Israeli bombing rocked the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 15 Palestinians, in a major violation of the ceasefire. More than 100 air strikes were reported in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north, and parts of central Gaza. Among the sites hit were a cafe, a mobile phone charging station, a group of journalists and a house sheltering displaced people. The Israeli military said the strikes were in response…

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