How mass killings by U.S. forces after 9/11 boosted support for the Taliban

How mass killings by U.S. forces after 9/11 boosted support for the Taliban

The Guardian reports: The men of Zangabad village, Panjwai district lined up on the eve of 11 September to count and remember their dead, the dozens of relatives who they say were killed at the hands of the foreign forces that first appeared in their midst nearly 20 years ago. Their cluster of mud houses, fields and pomegranate orchards was the site of perhaps the most notorious massacre of the war, when US SSgt Robert Bales walked out of a…

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9/11 made the media whitewash what really happened in Bush v. Gore

9/11 made the media whitewash what really happened in Bush v. Gore

Jonathan Chait writes: By now nearly everybody, with the exception of a handful of Bush administration leftovers, understands that the September 11 attacks induced some form of mass psychosis into the American polity. The contours of this understanding vary. Nearly everybody now agrees that the post-9/11 impulse to divide the world into a Manichaean contest between Islamic terrorism and democracy was tragically misguided. A smaller group of Americans understands that the rally-around-the-flag atmosphere canonized and empowered a series of deeply…

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Biden vaccine mandate raises longstanding legal questions, experts say

Biden vaccine mandate raises longstanding legal questions, experts say

USA Today reports: Throughout the pandemic, public health experts have frequently pointed to the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts to justify state vaccine mandates. But experts say that case is unlikely to have much influence over the legal challenges raised to the new Biden administration policy. Henning Jacobson, a pastor from Cambridge, Mass., refused a smallpox vaccination during an outbreak of the disease in 1905, citing bad reactions he had to shots in the past. He was…

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Pfizer’s Covid vaccine could be authorized for children aged 5-11 but may pose risk for boys

Pfizer’s Covid vaccine could be authorized for children aged 5-11 but may pose risk for boys

The Guardian reports: Healthy boys may be more likely to be admitted to hospital with a rare side-effect of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine that causes inflammation of the heart than with Covid itself, US researchers claim. Their analysis of medical data suggests that boys aged 12 to 15, with no underlying medical conditions, are four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than ending up in hospital with Covid over a four-month period. Most children who…

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In speech taking on Trump, Christie calls on Republicans to renounce conspiracy theories and discredit extremists ‘in our midst’

In speech taking on Trump, Christie calls on Republicans to renounce conspiracy theories and discredit extremists ‘in our midst’

CBS News reports: Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was once a close adviser to former President Trump, told Republicans gathered at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Thursday evening that the party must “face the realities of the 2020 election,” discredit the “extremists in our midst” and “renounce the conspiracy theories.” While Mr. Trump remains popular among a significant segment of Republicans not yet weary of his false claims of election fraud, Christie addressed those who are. “We need…

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The wealth lobby is buying up Democrats to defeat Biden’s tax reform

The wealth lobby is buying up Democrats to defeat Biden’s tax reform

Jonathan Chait writes: Last week, Democratic senator turned anti-tax lobbyist Heidi Heitkamp, who represented North Dakota for one term before losing in 2018, appeared on CNBC to make a surprisingly emotional appeal against President Biden’s plan to close a notorious loophole for the wealthy. The loophole, called “stepped-up basis” or “the angel-of-death loophole,” allows capital gains to escape any tax at all as long as the owners pass the asset on to their heirs before they sell it. Heitkamp’s thoughts…

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The California recall could be a road map for Democrats

The California recall could be a road map for Democrats

Ronald Brownstein writes: California Governor Gavin Newsom is confronting the toughest challenge Democrats may face in next year’s midterm election—and guiding his party toward a possible solution as the Republican-driven recall against him enters its final days. One key reason the president’s party historically fares so poorly in midterm elections is that its supporters turn out at lower rates than voters of the party not in the White House. Polling earlier this summer showed that Newsom faced an especially acute…

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From 4% to 45%: Energy Department lays out ambitious blueprint for solar power

From 4% to 45%: Energy Department lays out ambitious blueprint for solar power

The New York Times reports: The Biden administration on Wednesday released a blueprint showing how the nation could move toward producing almost half of its electricity from the sun by 2050 — a potentially big step toward fighting climate change but one that would require vast upgrades to the electric grid. There is little historical precedent for expanding solar energy, which contributed less than 4 percent of the country’s electricity last year, as quickly as the Energy Department outlined in…

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The Capitol Police said Jan. 6 unrest on Capitol grounds would be ‘highly improbable’

The Capitol Police said Jan. 6 unrest on Capitol grounds would be ‘highly improbable’

Jason Leopold reports: The chief of the Capitol Police and its top intelligence officer personally approved permits for six demonstrations to be held on Jan. 6, 2021, despite signs that one of the applications was filed for an organization that didn’t exist and that five of them were a proxy for a group staging large, violent protests across the country. Capitol Police documented concerns that organizers had attempted to conceal their affiliation with Ali Alexander, the right-wing activist behind the…

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One thing we can agree on is that we’re becoming a different country

One thing we can agree on is that we’re becoming a different country

Thomas B. Edsall writes: A highly charged ideological transition reflecting a “massive four-decade-long shift in political values and attitudes among more educated people — a shift from concern with traditional materialist issues like redistribution to a concern for public goods like the environment and diversity” is a driving force in the battle between left and right, according to Richard Florida, an urbanologist at the University of Toronto. This ideological transition has been accompanied by the concentration of liberal elites in…

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As Taliban crush dissent, new leaders face cascading challenges

As Taliban crush dissent, new leaders face cascading challenges

The New York Times reports: Only one day after the Taliban named an acting cabinet to lead the nation they spent two decades trying to conquer, the dizzying challenges that accompanied victory were coming into sharp relief Wednesday. Tensions flared with neighboring Pakistan. Afghanistan’s longstanding humanitarian crisis deepened. And the militants’ brutal crackdown on dissent threatened to further erode public trust. The Taliban, who witnesses say crushed several small protests around the country on Wednesday, have been rounding up scores…

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Inflammatory responses to pathogens changed dramatically during the Neolithic period

Inflammatory responses to pathogens changed dramatically during the Neolithic period

Science reports: When early farmers of the Vinca culture first sowed barley and wheat 7700 years ago in the rich soil of the Danube River and its tributaries, they changed more than their diet: They introduced a new way of life to the region. They crowded together in mud huts, living cheek by rump with aurochs, cows, pigs, and goats—and their poop—in settlements that eventually swelled to thousands of people. Togetherness brought a surge in diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis,…

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After 9/11, the U.S. got almost everything wrong

After 9/11, the U.S. got almost everything wrong

Garrett M. Graff writes: On the Friday after 9/11, President George W. Bush visited the New York City site that the world would come to know as Ground Zero. After rescue workers shouted that they couldn’t hear him as he spoke to them through a bullhorn, he turned toward them and ad-libbed. “I can hear you,” he shouted. “The whole world hears you, and when we find these people who knocked these buildings down, they’ll hear all of us soon.”…

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How the NYPD is using post-9/11 tools on everyday New Yorkers

How the NYPD is using post-9/11 tools on everyday New Yorkers

The New York Times reports: It was an unusual forearm tattoo that the police said led them to Luis Reyes, a 35-year-old man who was accused of stealing packages from a Manhattan building’s mailroom in 2019. But the truth was more complicated: Mr. Reyes had first been identified by the New York Police Department’s powerful facial recognition software as it analyzed surveillance video of the crime. His guilty plea earlier this year was not solely the result of keen-eyed detectives…

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