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Category: Politics

Elizabeth Warren is running a brilliant campaign

Elizabeth Warren is running a brilliant campaign

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David Axelrod writes: Elizabeth Warren is running a strategically brilliant campaign. More than any other candidate, she has a clear, unambiguous message that is thoroughly integrated with her biography. That is essential to a successful campaign. Her unsparing critique of corporate excess and her expansive — and expensive — agenda for change mirror those of the reigning left champion, Bernie Sanders, in places. But where Sanders sometimes seems like a parody of himself — or of Larry David’s parody of…

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With Ratcliffe, another Trump nominee withdraws with a damaged reputation

With Ratcliffe, another Trump nominee withdraws with a damaged reputation

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Michael Warren writes: Five of the worst words to hear in Washington these days: “The President has nominated you…” Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe, President Donald Trump’s short-lived nominee for director of national intelligence, is the latest would-be official to get the bad news. Up until he was tapped for the country’s top intelligence job on July 28, Ratcliffe was practically unknown around Washington. Five days later, after Trump announced on Twitter that he had withdrawn from consideration, Ratcliffe has a…

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U.S. preparing to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan in initial deal with Taliban

U.S. preparing to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan in initial deal with Taliban

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The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is preparing to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan in exchange for concessions from the Taliban, including a cease-fire and a renunciation of al-Qaeda, as part of an initial deal to end the nearly 18-year-old war, U.S. officials say. The agreement, which would require the Taliban to begin negotiating a larger peace deal directly with the Afghan government, could cut the number of American troops in the country from roughly 14,000 to between…

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Can the president of Brazil jail Glenn Greenwald for publishing leaks?

Can the president of Brazil jail Glenn Greenwald for publishing leaks?

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Adriana Carranca writes: On June 9, The Intercept began publishing a series of investigative stories that sent shocks through Brazil. The pieces appeared to supply evidence that Sergio Moro, Brazil’s Justice Minister and the former top judge in a major corruption investigation, colluded with federal prosecutors to convict prominent political figures—among them, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had been leading 2018 election polls and was rendered ineligible to run. Drawing from private chats leaked to Glenn Greenwald—the Intercept’s…

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The conservative nationalists’ contempt for America’s unalterably multiracial, multicultural national character

The conservative nationalists’ contempt for America’s unalterably multiracial, multicultural national character

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Will Wilkinson writes: The Republican Party under Donald Trump has devolved into a populist cult of personality. But Mr. Trump won’t be president forever. Can the cult persist without its personality? Does Trumpist nationalism contain a kernel of coherent ideology that can outlast the Trump presidency? At a recent conference in Washington, a group of conservatives did their level best to promote Trumpism without Trump (rebranded as “national conservatism”) as a cure for all that ails our frayed and faltering…

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U.S. ends Cold War missile treaty, with aim of countering China

U.S. ends Cold War missile treaty, with aim of countering China

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The New York Times reports: The United States on Friday terminates a major treaty of the Cold War, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement, and it is already planning to start testing a new class of missiles later this summer. But the new missiles are unlikely to be deployed to counter the treaty’s other nuclear power, Russia, which the United States has said for years was in violation of the accord. Instead, the first deployments are likely to be intended to…

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Bashar al-Assad’s useful idiot

Bashar al-Assad’s useful idiot

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Josh Rogin writes: Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) talks often about her January 2017 trip to Syria, when she met Bashar al-Assad, toured Aleppo after it had been reduced to rubble (by the Assad regime), and interviewed Syrian civilians and the regime-approved “opposition,” who unanimously told her Assad was a better option for Syria than the “terrorists.” But Gabbard never talks about her other trip — to the Turkish-Syrian border with a group of lawmakers in June 2015, when she met…

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Irish unity is now being championed by moderate politicians

Irish unity is now being championed by moderate politicians

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Finn McRedmond writes: In March this year at a St Patrick’s Day parade, Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Féin in the Republic of Ireland, marched behind a banner that read “England get out of Ireland”. The stunt garnered widespread criticism. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s deputy, Simon Coveney, didn’t mince his words when he called it “offensive, divisive and an embarrassment”. This incident was symptomatic of a party that has misread the room. Growing support for a united Ireland is clear:…

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Majority of House Democrats now support impeachment inquiry

Majority of House Democrats now support impeachment inquiry

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Politico reports: The impeachment dam has broken. More than half of House Democrats say they would vote to launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, a crucial threshold that backers said will require Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reconsider her steadfast opposition. Though Pelosi has given no indication that even a significant majority of House Democrats embracing impeachment proceedings would shift her view, supporters of an inquiry argue that crossing the halfway mark among the caucus isa symbolic boost that could…

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FBI warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat

FBI warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat

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Jana Winter reports: The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News. The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents…

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Facing harsh prison sentences, Iran’s courageous women continue defying their cowardly rulers

Facing harsh prison sentences, Iran’s courageous women continue defying their cowardly rulers

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Her name is #YasamanAryani she is one of the youngest women’s right activist who joined #WhiteWednesdays movement against #ForcedHijab .Today Yasaman & her mother #MonirehArabshahi each got 16 yrs jail sentence for their Peaceful activities. Be her voice. pic.twitter.com/cXobnww8ds — Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) July 31, 2019 The Independent reports: Iranian women are sharing videos of themselves removing their headscarves in public, despite a recent ruling they could face 10 years in jail for doing so. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian…

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White House ‘undercutting evidence’ of climate crisis, says analyst who resigned

White House ‘undercutting evidence’ of climate crisis, says analyst who resigned

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The Guardian reports: A former senior government analyst has accused the Trump administration of “undercutting evidence” of the threat to national security from the climate crisis after his report on the issue was blocked by the White House. Rod Schoonover, who worked as an intelligence analyst for the federal government for 10 years before resigning earlier this month, submitted a written testimony on the “wide-ranging implications” of global heating over the next 20 years, for submission to the House intelligence…

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Criticizing the occupation doesn’t make you anti-Semitic or anti-Israel

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Criticizing the occupation doesn’t make you anti-Semitic or anti-Israel

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Haaretz reports: Freshman Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as a myriad of other topics, while on New York radio station Hot 97’s morning show “Ebro in the Morning” with Ibrahim “Ebro” Darden. “How do you have white supremacist Jews?” Ebro asked the congresswoman. “How do you have people like Stephen Miller? How do you have these individuals who are legit aligning with racism and white supremacy, but they’re Jewish? And it’s something that most people…

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George Wallace’s daughter: ‘Unfortunately it does look like the ‘60s now’

George Wallace’s daughter: ‘Unfortunately it does look like the ‘60s now’

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John Archibald writes: Peggy Wallace Kennedy went to political rallies with her dad – George Wallace – as he ran for president in the ‘60s and ‘70s. She saw hate and anger that a child should not have to see. She felt a bitterness she did not at the time comprehend. She didn’t know why protesters in the northeast threw ink on her new beige dress outside one of those rallies. But then, she didn’t understand the virulence of her…

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Republicans see Israel as a model for what they want America to be: A white, Judeo-Christian state

Republicans see Israel as a model for what they want America to be: A white, Judeo-Christian state

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Peter Beinart writes: If you listened earlier this month to Republican responses to Donald Trump’s call for Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley to “go back” to the “places from which they came,” you noticed something odd. Trump’s defenders kept mentioning Israel. “They hate Israel,”replied Lindsey Graham when asked about Trump’s attacks on The Squad. Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin called Omar and Tlaib “anti-Israel.” Trump himself responded to the controversy by declaring that Omar “hates Israel.” This…

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Trump intel pick John Ratcliffe started conspiracy theory about FBI anti-Trump ‘secret society’

Trump intel pick John Ratcliffe started conspiracy theory about FBI anti-Trump ‘secret society’

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The Daily Beast reports: Donald Trump’s new pick for director of national intelligence played a role last year in popularizing what briefly became one of the right’s most easily debunked conspiracy theories about the investigation into the president and Russia, offering what he presented as evidence of an anti-Trump “secret society” operating within the FBI. Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has been an outspoken critic of the FBI’s investigation into contacts between Trump’s campaign…

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