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Category: Politics

Twitter’s new labels for tweets that break its rules may have stark implications for Trump’s account

Twitter’s new labels for tweets that break its rules may have stark implications for Trump’s account

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The Washington Post reports: Twitter on Thursday said it would begin labeling tweets from national political figures, including President Trump, that the company would have taken down under other circumstances for violating its rules, a move that could appease some longtime critics at the cost of opening a new political rift with the White House. The new policy applies to political candidates and government officials who have more than 100,000 followers, Twitter said. Before users can view tweets that the…

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Supreme Court bars challenges to partisan gerrymandering

Supreme Court bars challenges to partisan gerrymandering

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The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that federal courts are powerless to hear challenges to partisan gerrymandering, the practice in which the party that controls the state legislature draws voting maps to help elect its candidates. The vote was 5 to 4, with the court’s more conservative members in the majority. In a momentous decision, the court closed the door on such claims. The drafters of the Constitution, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote…

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Roberts won’t let Trump get away with a lie in census case

Roberts won’t let Trump get away with a lie in census case

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Noah Feldman writes: Chief Justice John Roberts split the baby — again. In a dramatic and complicated opinion in a much watched census case, he first held that the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census was constitutionally and statutorily permissible and was supported by sufficient evidence. He was joined by the U.S. Supreme Court’s other conservatives. Then Roberts switched course. In a separate part of his opinion, in which he was joined by only…

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The Republican Party’s drift towards the far-right

The Republican Party’s drift towards the far-right

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The New York Times reports: The Republican Party leans much farther right than most traditional conservative parties in Western Europe and Canada, according to an analysis of their election manifestos. It is more extreme than Britain’s Independence Party and France’s National Rally (formerly the National Front), which some consider far-right populist parties. The Democratic Party, in contrast, is positioned closer to mainstream liberal parties. These findings are based on data from the Manifesto Project, which reviews and categorizes each line…

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Is Trump a rapist?

Is Trump a rapist?

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Charles M Blow writes: I am simply disgusted by what’s happening in America. My political differences with this president and his accomplices in Congress — and now on the Supreme Court — are only part of the reason. Indeed, those differences may not be the lesser reason, and that, for me, says a lot. For me, the reason is that the country, or large segments of it, seems to be acquiescing to a particular form of evil, one that is…

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U. S. asylum officers say Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy is threatening migrants’ lives, ask federal court to end it

U. S. asylum officers say Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy is threatening migrants’ lives, ask federal court to end it

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The Washington Post reports: U.S. asylum officers slammed President Trump’s policy of forcing migrants to remain in Mexico while they await immigration hearings in the United States, urging a federal appeals court Wednesday to block the administration from continuing the program. The officers, who are directed to implement the policy, said it is threatening migrants’ lives and is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.” The labor union representing asylum officers filed a friend-of-the-court brief that sided with…

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How Elizabeth Warren is defining the presidential race

How Elizabeth Warren is defining the presidential race

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Michael Kruse writes: In the middle of the volatile fall of 2008, with foreclosures skyrocketing and companies failing and unemployment spiking and the stock market sinking, 80 rattled first-semester Harvard Law School students stood outside a classroom and watched the Dow plummet yet again. Then they stepped inside and took their seats for their contracts course with professor Elizabeth Warren. “And professor Warren’s like, ‘We’re actually not going to talk about contracts,’” former student Danielle D’Onfro told me. “‘We’re going…

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America’s disgrace: Child abuse approved by Trump and overseen by the U.S. Border Patrol

America’s disgrace: Child abuse approved by Trump and overseen by the U.S. Border Patrol

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Clara Long and and Nicole Austin-Hillery write: A 14-year old told us she was taking care of a 4-year old who had been placed in her cell with no relatives. “I take her to the bathroom, give her my extra food if she is hungry, and tell people to leave her alone if they are bothering her,” she said. She was just one of the children we talked with last week as part of a team of lawyers and doctors…

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The new left economics: How a network of thinkers is transforming capitalism

The new left economics: How a network of thinkers is transforming capitalism

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Andy Beckett writes: For almost half a century, something vital has been missing from leftwing politics in western countries. Since the 70s, the left has changed how many people think about prejudice, personal identity and freedom. It has exposed capitalism’s cruelties. It has sometimes won elections, and sometimes governed effectively afterwards. But it has not been able to change fundamentally how wealth and work function in society – or even provide a compelling vision of how that might be done….

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‘Climate apartheid’: UN expert says human rights may not survive

‘Climate apartheid’: UN expert says human rights may not survive

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The Guardian reports: The world is increasingly at risk of “climate apartheid”, where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said. Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of…

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Oregon’s legislative chaos has senators fleeing to Idaho and a militia threatening the capitol

Oregon’s legislative chaos has senators fleeing to Idaho and a militia threatening the capitol

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Slate reports: Oregon’s state legislature appeared to be on track last week to pass a sweeping climate change bill aimed at curbing emissions in the state. At least until Republicans in the state Senate decided to go to extremes to prevent a vote, making a move that resulted in the governor calling in Oregon State Police. And the drama didn’t end there: Democrats cancelled a session Saturday over safety threats from a far-right militia group. The bill would make Oregon…

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The Boomers’ mistakes are fast creating a crisis for younger Americans

The Boomers’ mistakes are fast creating a crisis for younger Americans

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Lyman Stone writes: The Baby Boomers ruined America. That sounds like a hyperbolic claim, but it’s one way to state what I found as I tried to solve a riddle. American society is going through a strange set of shifts: Even as cultural values are in rapid flux, political institutions seem frozen in time. The average U.S. state constitution is more than 100 years old. We are in the third-longest period without a constitutional amendment in American history: The longest…

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Donald Trump doesn’t deny he’s a rapist

Donald Trump doesn’t deny he’s a rapist

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In response to the latest allegation that he engaged in a sexual assault, Donald Trump’s first line of defense is to claim that the victim is not his kind of woman — he doesn’t deny that he is this kind of man. In reference to E. Jean Carroll, Trump says: “Number one, she’s not my type,” but he leaves open the possibility that any woman who is his type, might be the type of woman he would consider raping if…

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Are the Tories really prepared to take a wild gamble on a Boris Johnson premiership?

Are the Tories really prepared to take a wild gamble on a Boris Johnson premiership?

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Andrew Rawnsley writes: The Tories have a history as a party of falling for scoundrels who present as “lovable rogues”. This has always been an integral element of Boris Johnson’s popularity with the Tory grassroots. But do they really want to hand Number 10 to someone quite this roguish? And is he actually all that lovable? The spotlight has been swivelled on to his torrid personal life by the episode in the early hours of Friday morning at his girlfriend’s…

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Trump’s concentration camps

Trump’s concentration camps

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Charles M Blow writes: I have often wondered why good people of good conscience don’t respond to things like slavery or the Holocaust or human rights abuse. Maybe they simply became numb to the horrific way we now rarely think about or discuss the men still being held at Guantánamo Bay without charge or trial, and who may as well die there. Maybe people grow weary of wrestling with their anger and helplessness, and shunt the thought to the back…

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Iranian people feel their ‘bones breaking’ under U.S. sanctions

Iranian people feel their ‘bones breaking’ under U.S. sanctions

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The Associated Press reports: As the U.S. piles sanction after sanction on Iran, it’s the average person who feels it the most. From a subway performer’s battered leather hat devoid of tips, to a bride-to-be’s empty purse, the lack of cash from the economic pressure facing Iran’s 80 million people can be seen everywhere. Many blame President Donald Trump and his maximalist policy on Iran, which has seen him pull out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and…

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