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Category: Politics

Trump’s convinced he knows the best way to design aircraft carriers

Trump’s convinced he knows the best way to design aircraft carriers

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Gizmodo reports: Donald Trump did a bizarre thing aboard the USS Wasp on Tuesday. After wishing the sailors “a very Happy Memorial Day,” the President conducted an impromptu poll, asking the crowd who preferred steam-powered catapult systems and who preferred electric. Steam won out in the poll, and now, Trump says he’s going to order old-fashioned steam catapults be installed on new American aircraft carriers. Trump evidently thinks the Navy is trying to innovate too much. The question of which…

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Trump administration hardens its assault on climate science

Trump administration hardens its assault on climate science

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The New York Times reports: President Trump has rolled back environmental regulations, pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, brushed aside dire predictions about the effects of climate change, and turned the term “global warming” into a punch line rather than a prognosis. Now, after two years spent unraveling the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Trump and his political appointees are launching a new assault. In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback…

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Top GOP pollster finds overwhelming support for carbon tax by millennial Republicans

Top GOP pollster finds overwhelming support for carbon tax by millennial Republicans

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Joe Romm reports: A new survey finds Republicans under 40 support a carbon tax 7-to-1. And a remarkable 85% of Republican millennials are concerned that “the current Republican position on climate change is hurting the party with younger voters.” But what makes this result so striking is that the survey was conducted by Frank Luntz, a top GOP strategist and pollster. Luntz wrote an infamous memo in 2002 detailing the exact words conservatives should use if they want to sound…

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European trade policy seen going greener after EU parliament vote

European trade policy seen going greener after EU parliament vote

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Reuters reports: The rise of the Greens, the “Greta effect” of a young Swedish climate activist and the entry of French President Emmanuel Macron’s party into the European Parliament are likely to result in a more defensive and climate-oriented EU trade policy. Sunday’s European election saw the traditional conservative and socialist parties that have long run the European Union lose dozens of seats each. Between them, they can no longer form a majority, making them more reliant to pass European…

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The officials around Jeremy Corbyn who designed this electoral fiasco need to go

The officials around Jeremy Corbyn who designed this electoral fiasco need to go

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Paul Mason writes: [T]he officials who designed this fiasco, and ignored all evidence that it would lead to disaster, must be removed from positions of influence. They include Seumas Milne, director of strategy, and Karie Murphy, who is currently juggling the roles of Corbyn’s chief of staff and acting general secretary. With an electoral fiasco like this, the buck has to stop somewhere, and it must stop with them – together with Ian Lavery MP, the party chair, who twice…

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‘This is bigger’: Palestinian and Israeli teens strike together for the climate

‘This is bigger’: Palestinian and Israeli teens strike together for the climate

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Michael Bäcklund writes: The Israeli school strike branch had a very successful strike on Tuesday, which was three times bigger than the last one in March. It was the first sitting day of the new parliament. We had over 500 students marching and shouting slogans in front of the prestigious Knesset in Jerusalem. We had Arab Palestinians and Jewish Israelis participating together. We have multiplied our following on social media and we have started to plan social media campaign with…

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Greens surge as parties make strongest ever showing across Europe

Greens surge as parties make strongest ever showing across Europe

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The Guardian reports: Green parties have swept to their strongest ever showing in European elections, boosting their tally of MEPs to a projected 71 compared with 52 last time. The result gives them every chance of becoming kingmakers in a newly fragmented parliament. “Thank you so much for your trust in us Greens,” a delighted Ska Keller, one of the European Greens’ two lead candidates for the post of European commission president, told a press conference in Brussels. “This is…

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Trump’s EPA is ‘cooking the books’ to justify its attack on clean air rules

Trump’s EPA is ‘cooking the books’ to justify its attack on clean air rules

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Think Progress reports: Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working to distort the way it measures the benefits of some of the agency’s most impactful policies, regulations that safeguard human health by limiting air pollution. The primary beneficiary of such distortion? The coal industry. When the government evaluates the health and financial benefits of clean air, the calculation typically incorporates the number of lives saved and the scale of reduced health impacts thanks to reducing pollution — also known as…

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Trump turns the full force of the government on perceived political enemies

Trump turns the full force of the government on perceived political enemies

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NBC News reports: President Donald Trump found four former federal officials guilty of “treason” Thursday — and then commissioned his intelligence agencies to help the Department of Justice prove it. At the same time, he is blocking Congress from executing its constitutional duty to execute oversight of his administration, not only with regard to his campaign’s ties to Russia and the interference detailed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation but also on a host of other fronts. He’s wielding power…

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NSA cyberweapon, on the loose, now wreaks havoc across America

NSA cyberweapon, on the loose, now wreaks havoc across America

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The New York Times reports: For nearly three weeks, Baltimore has struggled with a cyberattack by digital extortionists that has frozen thousands of computers, shut down email and disrupted real estate sales, water bills, health alerts and many other services. But here is what frustrated city employees and residents do not know: A key component of the malware that cybercriminals used in the attack was developed at taxpayer expense a short drive down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway at the National Security…

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The spy case that made Adam Schiff a Russia hawk

The spy case that made Adam Schiff a Russia hawk

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Zach Dorfman writes: On September 25, 1984, three officials from the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco departed for San Francisco Airport to meet with their counterparts from Seattle and exchange confidential “pouched” diplomatic materials. This exchange happened every other Tuesday, and each time, the Soviets were tailed by a van full of San Francisco-based FBI counterintelligence officials. Although the FBI knew the Soviets were aware of this surveillance, the Bureau didn’t try to conceal it either, according to the Los…

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The U.S. media is in the crosshairs of the new Assange indictment

The U.S. media is in the crosshairs of the new Assange indictment

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Jack Goldsmith writes: I have written a lot on how hard it is to distinguish WikiLeaks from the New York Times when it comes to procuring and publishing classified information. One implication of the comparison is that any successful prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would have adverse implications for mainstream U.S. news publications efforts to solicit, receive and publish classified information. The May 23 indictment of Assange makes clear that these concerns are real. As Susan Hennessey said, “[I]t…

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Trump’s drastic escalation of his yearslong assault on the intelligence community

Trump’s drastic escalation of his yearslong assault on the intelligence community

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The New York Times reports: President Trump tried somewhat clumsily last year to revoke the security clearance of the former C.I.A. director who played a role in opening the Russia investigation. He then wanted to release classified documents to prove he was the target of a “witch hunt.” Both attempts petered out, hampered by aides who slow-rolled the president and Justice Department officials who fought Mr. Trump, warning he was jeopardizing national security. But this week, Attorney General William P….

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Poisoning America: EPA wants to triple level of rocket fuel chemical allowed in drinking water

Poisoning America: EPA wants to triple level of rocket fuel chemical allowed in drinking water

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Think Progress reports: The Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to raise the threshold for a chemical found in rocket fuel to triple the previous limit allowed in drinking water supplies. This is the first new drinking water rule introduced by the agency since the George W. Bush administration. In the EPA’s latest move to weaken environmental and health protections, it released a notice on Thursday requesting public comment on its proposal to raise the maximum level allowed for the…

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The lure of Western Europe

The lure of Western Europe

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Anne Applebaum writes: By the spring of 1952, the “iron curtain” that Winston Churchill had described as descending on the eastern half of Europe—“from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic”—already felt impenetrable, even permanent. In that year, Czech courts condemned to death Rudolf Slansky, the secretary-general of the Czech Communist Party, for alleged participation in a “Trotskyite-Titoist-Zionist” conspiracy. The East German Communist Party adopted a new economic policy, the “Planned Construction of Socialism.” Harry Truman warned the…

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Steve Bannon’s populists, once a ‘movement,’ keep him at arm’s length

Steve Bannon’s populists, once a ‘movement,’ keep him at arm’s length

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The New York Times reports: Stephen K. Bannon, the millionaire former Trump adviser turned rabble rouser of European populists, settled into a plush set of rooms this week in Paris at the Bristol Hotel, where suites run up to $32,000 a night. An unopened bottle of champagne in front of him, he presented himself as a man of the people and promoted Europe’s right-wing and populist parties even as voting was underway for the European Parliament — “the most important”…

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