Attention to the Unseen

Elizabeth Warren writes: Last month, I announced my economic patriotism agenda — a commitment to fundamentally change the government’s approach to the economy so we put American workers and middle-class prosperity ahead of multinational profits and Wall Street bonuses. I’ve already released my plan applying economic patriotism to our manufacturing policy. This is my plan for how economic patriotism can rein in Wall Street. For decades, Washington has lived by a simple rule: If it’s good for Wall Street, it’s…

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Quartz reports: In between stints as US attorney general for George HW Bush in the early 90s and now for Donald Trump, while making millions as an executive at Verizon and a lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, William Barr sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Republicans and their causes. Most of those donations made between 1993 and 2019 were occasional at best. But in the lead up to his Senate confirmation hearings for attorney general earlier this year,…

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The New York Times reports: With three days of attacks on four liberal, minority first-term congresswomen, President Trump and the Republicans have sent the clearest signal yet that their approach to 2020 will be a racially divisive reprise of the strategy that helped Mr. Trump narrowly capture the White House in 2016. It is the kind of fight that the president relishes. He has told aides, in fact, that he is pleased with the Democratic reaction to his attacks, boasting…

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CNN reports: Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said Tuesday his country was aware that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was interfering in the 2016 US presidential election from the safety of Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he lived under political asylum until this year. “We did notice that he was interfering in the elections and we do not allow that because we have principles, very clear values, as we would not like anyone to interfere in our elections,” he said. “We…

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Karen Heller writes: As a child, he believed the camp to be a magical oasis, where mythical dinosaurs prowled the woods at night. A native of Los Angeles, he marveled at the “flying exotica” of dragonflies, the treasures of rural life and, that first winter, the “pure magic” of snow. George Takei spent ages 5 to almost 9 imprisoned by the U.S. government in Japanese American internment camps. A relentless optimist, he believed the shameful legacy of incarcerating an estimated…

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George Conway writes: [H]ow naive an adult could be. The birther imaginings about Barack Obama? Just a silly conspiracy theory, latched onto by an attention seeker who has a peculiar penchant for them. The “Mexican” Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel incident? Asinine, inappropriate, a terrible attack on the judiciary by an egocentric man who imagined that the judge didn’t like him. The white supremacists’ march in Charlottesville? The president’s comments were absolutely idiotic, but he couldn’t possibly have been referring to…

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The Washington Post reports: When Donald Trump assailed Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals during his 2015 presidential campaign launch, companies including Macy’s and NBC rushed to cut their business ties with him. When a tape surfaced in 2016 of Trump boasting about grabbing women’s genitals, top Republican officials briefly pulled their endorsements, disinvited him from events and even sought to remove him from the ticket. When, as president, Trump equivocated on condemning white supremacists in a deadly Virginia rally,…

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The Associated Press reports: Reversing decades of U.S. policy, the Trump administration said Monday it will end all asylum protections for most migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border — the president’s most forceful attempt to block asylum claims and slash the number of people seeking refuge in America. The new rule, expected to go into effect Tuesday, would cover countless would-be refugees, many of them fleeing violence and poverty in Central America. It is certain to face legal challenges….

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Charles M Blow writes: America was born with a congenital illness and it has been in need of active rehabilitation ever since, although it has often rejected the curative treatments and regressed. Challenging America to own its sins and live up to its ideals isn’t a vicious attack, it’s an act of patriotism. As James Baldwin once put it, “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right…

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The Guardian reports: For Kurt Bardella, a commentator and former GOP congressional aide, it’s fairly simple. They share Trump’s views. “Republicans agree with the president’s racist tweets,” he said. “At this point, it’s the only explanation. It’s a pattern of behaviour that the president engages in overtly racist rhetoric.” Bardella highlighted examples including Trump’s attacks on African American football players who “take a knee” during the anthem to protest racial injustice; his pardoning of Joe Arpaio, a sheriff who discriminated…

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