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Category: Politics

Jeffrey Epstein minimized both the legal and social consequences of being a sex offender

Jeffrey Epstein minimized both the legal and social consequences of being a sex offender

The New York Times reports: A strange thing happened when Jeffrey Epstein came back to New York City after being branded a sex offender: His reputation appeared to rise. In 2010, the year after he got out of a Florida prison, Katie Couric and George Stephanopoulos dined at his Manhattan mansion with a British royal. The next year, Mr. Epstein was photographed at a “billionaire’s dinner” attended by tech titans like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. A page popped up…

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Warren and Sanders voters have astonishingly little in common

Warren and Sanders voters have astonishingly little in common

Politico reports: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are two of the most ideologically aligned candidates in the Democratic primary — both left-wing populists who rail against a “rigged” economic system. But the fellow enemies of the 1 percent have surprisingly different bases of support. In poll after poll, Sanders appeals to lower-income and less-educated people; Warren beats Sanders among those with postgraduate degrees. Sanders performs better with men, Warren with women. Younger people who vote less frequently are more often…

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The long history of the citizenship question as a political weapon wielded by racists and xenophobes

The long history of the citizenship question as a political weapon wielded by racists and xenophobes

The New York Times reports: [Following its first occurrence in 1820, then again in 1830 and 1870,] [t]he next time citizenship was on the form, in a question about naturalization in the 1890 census, it came with the rise of a virulent campaign against immigrants. Curiously, one of the campaign’s principal leaders was the superintendent of the 1870 and 1880 censuses, Gen. Francis Amasa Walker. General Walker, who was also president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became increasingly obsessed…

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Citizenship question dropped from census, but advocates fear ‘damage has been done’

Citizenship question dropped from census, but advocates fear ‘damage has been done’

ABC News reports: Earlier this month, a chilling missive arrived at the Chicago office of the American Civil Liberties Union: a fake ACLU flier that had surfaced online, calling on immigrants to boycott the 2020 census. “If you get a census form, do not fill it out! ICE will find you and deport you!” it warned. The document went on to advise people to destroy any census form that arrives in the mail and to ignore knocks at the door…

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Real hedge-fund managers wonder whether Epstein’s real business was blackmail

Real hedge-fund managers wonder whether Epstein’s real business was blackmail

Michelle Celarier reports: [T]he hedge-fund managers we spoke to leaned toward the theory that [Jeffrey] Epstein was running a blackmail scheme under the cover of a hedge fund. How such a scheme could hypothetically work has been laid out in detail in a thread on the anonymous Twitter feed of @quantian1. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but in summary it is a rough blueprint for how a devious aspiring hedge-fund manager could blackmail rich people into investing with him…

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Trump’s instinct is to empathize with abusers rather than their victims

Trump’s instinct is to empathize with abusers rather than their victims

Michelle Goldberg writes: Your eyes would glaze over if I tried to list every Trump associate implicated in the beating or sexual coercion of women. Still, it’s worth reviewing a few lowlights, because it’s astonishing how quickly the most lurid misdeeds fade from memory, supplanted by new degradations. [Labor secretary, Alexander] Acosta [who resigned today], you’ll remember, got his job because Trump’s previous pick, Andrew Puzder, withdrew following the revelation that his ex-wife, pseudonymous and in disguise, had appeared on…

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House votes to limit Trump’s authority to strike Iran

House votes to limit Trump’s authority to strike Iran

The New York Times reports: The House voted Friday to curb President Trump’s ability to strike Iran militarily on Friday, adopting a bipartisan provision that would require the president to get Congress’s approval before authorizing military force against Tehran. The 251-170 vote reflects lawmakers’ growing desire to take back long-ceded authority over matters of war and peace from the executive branch, a reclamation legislators contend has grown increasingly urgent amid escalating tensions with Iran. It also reflected a war weariness…

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A fair and welcoming immigration system

A fair and welcoming immigration system

Elizabeth Warren writes: Immigrants have always been a vital source of American strength. They grow our economy and make our communities richer and more diverse. They are our neighbors, our colleagues, and our friends — and every bit as much a part of America as those who were born in the United States. President Trump sees things differently. He’s advanced a policy of cruelty and division that demonizes immigrants. He’s axed programs that protect young Dreamers and asylum seekers fleeing…

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Boris Johnson shows ‘lack of leadership that is lamentable’

Boris Johnson shows ‘lack of leadership that is lamentable’

The Guardian reports: Boris Johnson has been heavily criticised by fellow Tory MPs over his role in Sir Kim Darroch’s decision to resign as the UK ambassador to Washington, with one backbencher saying the frontrunner in the Conservative leadership contest should come to the Commons to apologise. An urgent question in the Commons about Darroch’s departure, which followed the leak of diplomatic cables critical of the Donald Trump White House, saw repeated condemnation of Johnson, and only one Conservative MP…

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Illusions of sovereignty: As the UK retreats from the EU it will face increasing pressures from the U.S.

Illusions of sovereignty: As the UK retreats from the EU it will face increasing pressures from the U.S.

Patrick Wintour writes: A chain of events has been triggered that is increasingly exposing the UK diplomatically and militarily in the Gulf. The UK has put British shipping on maximum alert in the Gulf, just as the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is forced to admit that – due to successive defence cuts – the UK does not have the resources to defend British vessels. Simultaneously, the UK is battling diplomatically to keep the nuclear deal with Iran alive – a…

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How fake news could lead to real war

How fake news could lead to real war

Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon write: Who really bombed the oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman three weeks ago? Was it Iran, as the Trump administration assured us? Or was it Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Israel—or some combination of the three? Here’s a confession from two former senior government officials: For days after the attacks, we weren’t sure. Both of us believed in all sincerity there was a good chance these actions were part of a…

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Jeffrey Epstein’s wealth may not be as vast as claimed

Jeffrey Epstein’s wealth may not be as vast as claimed

The New York Times reports: When federal prosecutors announced sex-trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein this week, they described him as “a man of nearly infinite means.” They argued that his vast wealth — and his two private jets — made him a flight risk. Mr. Epstein is routinely described as a billionaire and brilliant financier, and he rubbed elbows with the powerful, including former and future presidents. Even after his 2008 guilty plea in a prostitution case in Florida, he…

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In a first, 22 nations condemned China’s repression of Uigher Muslims. Without the U.S.

In a first, 22 nations condemned China’s repression of Uigher Muslims. Without the U.S.

Rick Noack writes: More than 20 nations signed a letter this week forcefully condemning China’s apparent systematic detention of minority Uighurs and other Muslims — a landmark step toward holding Beijing accountable for what human rights groups and the United States have described as a policy of mass incarceration based solely on ethnicity. The letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was also notable for another reason: that it was written at all. The United States has…

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What happened to ‘the party of family values’?

What happened to ‘the party of family values’?

Peter Wehner, who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and as a senior aide to George W. Bush, describes the hypocrisy of a party that has yet to demand the resignation of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and that has aligned itself with a president who is a sexual predator.   The Guardian reports: Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated…

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Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein’s mutual appetite for wealth and women

Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein’s mutual appetite for wealth and women

The New York Times reports: It was supposed to be an exclusive party at Mar-a-Lago, Donald J. Trump’s members-only club in Palm Beach, Fla. But other than the two dozen or so women flown in to provide the entertainment, the only guests were Mr. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The year was 1992 and the event was a “calendar girl” competition, something that George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream Enterprise, had organized at Mr. Trump’s request. “I arranged…

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‘American Carnage’ reveals how conflict between Republicans led to their peace with Trump

‘American Carnage’ reveals how conflict between Republicans led to their peace with Trump

Jennifer Szalai writes: “American Carnage” isn’t just another drop in the deluge of Trump books; in fact, it isn’t really a Trump book at all. Instead it’s a fascinating look at a Republican Party that initially scoffed at the incursion of a philandering reality-TV star with zero political experience and now readily accommodates him. [Tim] Alberta, a political correspondent for the conservative magazine National Review before moving to Politico, brings more than a decade of reporting and a real understanding…

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