Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: As Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia charmed Goldman Sachs bankers and Silicon Valley executives on an American tour this spring, some of his most trusted lieutenants were taking care of business in Washington. In a low-key ceremony two blocks from the White House, Saudi officials signed an agreement with Booz Allen Hamilton, the American consulting company, to help train the kingdom’s growing ranks of cyberfighters. The agreement would “open great horizons” by…

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The New York Times reports: In the final months of the Obama administration, Walmart was under pressure from federal officials to pay nearly $1 billion and accept a guilty plea to resolve a foreign bribery investigation. Barclays faced demands that it pay nearly $7 billion to settle civil claims that it had sold toxic mortgage investments that helped fuel the 2008 financial crisis, and the Royal Bank of Scotland was ensnared in a criminal investigation over its role in the…

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Janet Reitman writes: White supremacists and other far-right extremists have killed far more people since Sept. 11, 2001, than any other category of domestic extremist. The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism has reported that 71 percent of the extremist-related fatalities in the United States between 2008 and 2017 were committed by members of the far right or white-supremacist movements. Islamic extremists were responsible for just 26 percent. Data compiled by the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database shows that the…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The Congress of El Salvador agreed in April to extend the authority of jailers to keep gang leaders in solitary confinement. Over the next five days, the two reigning street gangs killed more than 100 people. With the highest homicide rate of all countries in the world, El Salvador is a nation held hostage. Law-enforcement officials estimate that one gang, MS-13, operates an extortion racket with little pressure from authorities in 248 of the 262…

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CNN reports: The Republican candidate running in a competitive House race in North Carolina has a history of making anti-Muslim comments, a CNN KFile review finds. Mark Harris, a former pastor who stepped down from his congregation in 2017, is the GOP nominee in North Carolina’s 9th District, which runs along the state’s southern border below Charlotte and Fayetteville. Harris defeated three-term GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger in a May primary and is now facing Democrat Dan McCready. CNN rates the race toss-up, the most competitive designation. Harris, as the…

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CBS News reports: Pharrell Williams is not “happy” with President Trump. The singer and producer’s lawyer sent the president a cease-and-desist letter on Monday, objecting to the use of the song “Happy” at a recent Trump rally, according The Hollywood Reporter. The president played Williams’ hit song at a political event on Saturday, just hours after a gunman opened fire at Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 and wounding at least six others. Mr. Trump spoke at a Future Farmers of America…

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Jelani Cobb writes: On the afternoon that the first of the funerals for the eleven people killed at the Tree of Life synagogue, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, were held, a crowd began to spill over the street and onto the sidewalks and lawns along a stately stretch of Beechwood Boulevard. There is not a word in the American lexicon for such gatherings—the semi-spontaneous assembly of people in the wake of tragedy, who are united by both grief…

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Vanity Fair‘s Emily Jane Fox reports: During our conversation, [Trump’s former lawyer, Micheal] Cohen recalled a discussion at Trump Tower, following the then-candidate’s return from a campaign rally during the 2016 election cycle. Cohen had watched the rally on TV and noticed that the crowd was largely Caucasian. He offered this observation to his boss. “I told Trump that the rally looked vanilla on television. Trump responded, ‘That’s because black people are too stupid to vote for me.’” (The White…

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Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, writes: Trump’s rhetoric matters. He is the President of the United States and he has — at best — been grossly irresponsible and utterly reckless with his words. At worst, he has inspired violence targeting minority groups in a manner reminiscent of the darkest moments in history. Whether Donald Trump himself is an anti-Semite, racist, neo-Nazi or white supremacist is almost irrelevant. Those who align with these movements feel…

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The Hill reports: President Trump said Wednesday that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if billionaire philanthropist George Soros or someone else is funding the caravan of Central American migrants moving toward the U.S. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Trump told reporters outside the White House when asked if “someone” is paying for the caravan. “George Soros?” a reporter interjected. “I don’t know who, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” Trump said. “A lot of people say yes.” The unfounded conspiracy theory that Soros,…

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The Washington Post reports: U.S. archivists on Wednesday revealed one of the last great secrets of the Watergate investigation — the backbone of a long-sealed report used by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski to send Congress evidence in the legal case against President Richard M. Nixon. The release of the referral — delivered in 1974 as impeachment proceedings were being weighed — came after a former member of Nixon’s defense team and three prominent legal analysts filed separate lawsuits seeking its…

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