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Category: Politics

U.S. talks with the Taliban could be a breakthrough in the Afghan war

U.S. talks with the Taliban could be a breakthrough in the Afghan war

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The Washington Post reports: A first possible breakthrough in the 17-year Afghan conflict came in June, when a brief cease-fire during a Muslim holiday produced a spontaneous celebration by Afghan troops, civilians and Taliban fighters. The nationwide yearning for peace became palpable. Now, in a development that could build on that extraordinary moment, a senior American diplomat and Taliban insurgent officials have reportedly held talks for the first time, meeting in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar and agreeing to…

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I’m a liberal feminist lawyer. Here’s why Democrats should support Judge Kavanaugh

I’m a liberal feminist lawyer. Here’s why Democrats should support Judge Kavanaugh

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Lisa Blatt writes: Sometimes a superstar is just a superstar. That is the case with Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who had long been considered the most qualified nominee for the Supreme Court if Republicans secured the White House. The Senate should confirm him. I have argued 35 cases before the Supreme Court, more than any other woman. I worked in the Solicitor General’s Office for 13 years during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. Because I am a liberal Democrat and…

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As the bizarre QAnon group emerges, Trump rallies go from nasty to dangerous

As the bizarre QAnon group emerges, Trump rallies go from nasty to dangerous

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Margaret Sullivan writes: Hostility toward the media at Donald Trump’s rallies is nothing new. It infected the presidential campaign and has marred every raucous gathering of supporters since the election. But on Tuesday night in Tampa, the extreme aggression dropped the basement floor another level. This was a new low. And a scary one at that. “I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in someone getting hurt,” CNN’s much-maligned reporter…

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Why political ambiguity appeals to the masses

Why political ambiguity appeals to the masses

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By Michael Youngblood On a December day in 1996, close to 30,000 excited villagers gathered before a dais in an open field in the backwater town of Akola, in India’s Maharashtra state. They came from near and far to fight for change, as promised by the Shetkari Sanghatana movement. As their leader spoke, they pumped their fists in the air and shouted their support for his key demand of the day: to lift the government-imposed ceiling on the commodity price…

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Disinformation campaign duped group of retired intelligence officials and helped Trump deny Russian links

Disinformation campaign duped group of retired intelligence officials and helped Trump deny Russian links

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Duncan Campbell reports: A British IT manager and former hacker from Darlington ran a disinformation campaign that duped former US intelligence agents and provided Donald Trump with manufactured “evidence” to deny that Russia interfered with the US election A British IT manager and former hacker launched and ran an international disinformation campaign that has provided US President Donald Trump with fake evidence and false arguments to deny that Russia interfered to help him win the election. The campaign is being…

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The defamation case against Alex Jones

The defamation case against Alex Jones

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The New York Times reports: In the five years since Noah Pozner was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., death threats and online harassment have forced his parents, Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner, to relocate seven times. They now live in a high-security community hundreds of miles from where their 6-year-old is buried. “I would love to go see my son’s grave and I don’t get to do that, but we made the right decision,”…

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Flynn, Comey, and Mueller: What Trump knew and when he knew it

Flynn, Comey, and Mueller: What Trump knew and when he knew it

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Murray Waas writes: Previously undisclosed evidence in the possession of Special Counsel Robert Mueller—including highly confidential White House records and testimony by some of President Trump’s own top aides—provides some of the strongest evidence to date implicating the president of the United States in an obstruction of justice. Several people who have reviewed a portion of this evidence say that, based on what they know, they believe it is now all but inevitable that the special counsel will complete a…

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U.S. spy agencies: North Korea is working on new missiles

U.S. spy agencies: North Korea is working on new missiles

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The Washington Post reports: U.S. spy agencies are seeing signs that North Korea is constructing new missiles at a factory that produced the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, according to officials familiar with the intelligence. Newly obtained evidence, including satellite photos taken in recent weeks, indicates that work is underway on at least one and possibly two liquid-fueled ICBMs at a large research facility in Sanumdong, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, according to the…

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‘He doesn’t like bullies’: The story of the 37-year-old who took over the New York Times and is taking on Trump

‘He doesn’t like bullies’: The story of the 37-year-old who took over the New York Times and is taking on Trump

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The Washington Post reports: The new reporter was sharp, humble and eager to learn. Arthur had snazzier shoes than his colleagues at the Oregonian, but this was the only hint that he was a Sulzberger, the family that has owned and published the New York Times since 1896. He was 25 years old at the time he arrived in Portland in 2006, and Arthur Gregg Sulzberger fit right in even as his name stood out. Within months, he was aggressively…

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As parents are reunited with young children, signs of trauma remain

As parents are reunited with young children, signs of trauma remain

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The New York Times reports: [Five-year-old] Thiago and his mother [Ana Carolina Fernandes] were apprehended by the Border Patrol in New Mexico on May 22. The next day, officers informed Ms. Fernandes and other Brazilian mothers detained at the same border facility that their children would be removed from them. Thiago cried himself to sleep when his mother broke the news to him. Another boy had a panic attack and had to be hospitalized. “When the officer came for Thiago,…

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Trump administration ordered to halt forcible drugging of migrant children

Trump administration ordered to halt forcible drugging of migrant children

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The Washington Post reports: A federal judge on Monday found that U.S. government officials have been giving psychotropic medication to migrant children at a Texas facility without first seeking the consent of their parents or guardians, in violation of state child welfare laws. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to obtain consent or a court order before administering any psychotropic medications to migrant children, except in cases of dire emergencies. She also ordered that…

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The Dossier Center exposes the ‘main beneficiaries’ of Russian corruption

The Dossier Center exposes the ‘main beneficiaries’ of Russian corruption

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The Associated Press reports: Over the past three months, a handful of highly placed Russians have discovered their secrets seeping onto the web. It happened to a Russian Interior Ministry official whose emails were published online in April. It happened again this month, when details about a former Kremlin chief of staff’s American energy investment were exposed by Britain’s Guardian newspaper. Last week, Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with U.S. President Donald Trump’s son during the 2016 presidential…

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Europe shouldn’t fear Steve Bannon. It should fear the hype that surrounds him

Europe shouldn’t fear Steve Bannon. It should fear the hype that surrounds him

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Cas Mudde writes: If Steve Bannon didn’t exist, the media would have had to invent him. And, in fact, they largely did. US coverage has turned Bannon into Donald Trump’s Rasputin, single-handedly responsible for his shock election as the 45th president of the United States. And now, as Bannon crosses the Atlantic, breathless reports speak of his “Plan to Hijack Europe for the Far Right”. His meeting with the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson was apparently convened to plot “new…

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TSA on the lookout for Americans who appear ‘abnormally aware of their surroundings’

TSA on the lookout for Americans who appear ‘abnormally aware of their surroundings’

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The Boston Globe reports: Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior under a new domestic surveillance program that is drawing criticism from within the agency. The previously undisclosed program, called “Quiet Skies,” specifically targets travelers who “are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base,” according to a Transportation Security Administration…

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Cairo court sentences 75 protesters to death

Cairo court sentences 75 protesters to death

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Al Jazeera reports: An Egyptian court has sentenced 75 people to death for participating in a 2013 protest against the overthrow of the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. Senior members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood organisation were among those ordered executed by the Cairo Criminal Court on Saturday for their involvement with the sit-in demonstration at Rabaa Square in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. The rulings will be referred to Egypt’s chief Islamic legal authority, the Grand Mufti, for a…

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The liar’s dividend, and other challenges of deep-fake news

The liar’s dividend, and other challenges of deep-fake news

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Paul Chadwick writes: Do the notes taken by the interpreters at the recent Helsinki summit include the words “Snowden” and “swap”? We could ask the Russians to check their (assumed) audio recording and let us all know whether Presidents Trump and Putin discussed such a prospect during their long private chat. Trump wrong-footing his own country’s intelligence community by delivering their most-wanted, Edward Snowden, seems precisely the trolling that Putin would enjoy. What else might leak soon, in the form…

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