Tag: United States Politics and Government

In Mississippi, a Choice to Forgo Medicaid Funds Is Killing Hospitals

GREENWOOD, Miss. — Since its opening in a converted wood-frame mansion 117 years ago, Greenwood Leflore Hospital had become a medical hub for this part of Mississippi’s fertile but impoverished Delta, with 208 beds, an intensive-care unit, a string of walk-in clinics and a modern brick-and-glass building. But on a recent weekday, it counted just […]

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Costly Court Race Points to a Politicized Future for Judicial Elections

MADISON, Wis. — It is a judicial election like no other in American history. Thirty million dollars and counting has poured into the campaign for a swing seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, with TV ads swamping the airwaves. The candidates leave no illusions that they would be neutral on the court. And the race will […]

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What the Push for ‘Parents’ Rights’ Is Really About

You may have heard the phrase “parents’ rights.” It sounds unobjectionable — of course parents should have rights — which is probably why it’s become the term of choice for the conservative effort to ban books, censor school curriculums and suppress politically undesirable forms of knowledge. When House Republicans introduced a bill that would require […]

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U.S. and Japan Reach Deal on Battery Minerals

WASHINGTON — The United States and Japan have reached an agreement over supplies of the critical minerals used to make car batteries, a deal that will likely put to rest a contentious issue in the relationship with Japan and could be a model for resolving similar disputes with other trading partners. The agreement provides a […]

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North Carolina Expands Medicaid After Republicans Abandon Their Opposition

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina on Monday became the 40th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, the latest sign of how Republican opposition to the health measure has weakened more than a decade after President Barack Obama signed it into law. Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, signed legislation expanding the state’s Medicaid […]

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Inside the U.S. Pressure Campaign Over Israel’s Judicial Overhaul

WASHINGTON — In the 48 hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reluctantly delayed his effort to overhaul the Israeli judiciary, his government was bombarded by warnings from the Biden administration that he was imperiling Israel’s reputation as the true democracy at the heart of the Middle East. In a statement on Sunday night, soon after […]

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Targeting Mayorkas, G.O.P. Takes Its Immigration Message to the Border

PHARR, Texas — Inside a college classroom barely six miles from the United States border with Mexico, House Republicans this month orchestrated the made-for-TV moment they had traveled here for, getting a top immigration official to concede that the government has yet to stop migrants from crossing into the country without authorization. “No sir,” Raul […]

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Biden Acts to Restrict U.S. Government Use of Spyware

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Monday signed an executive order restricting American government use of a class of powerful surveillance tools that have been abused by both autocracies and democracies around the world to spy on political dissidents, journalists and human rights activists. The tools in question, known as commercial spyware, give governments the power […]

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Chicago’s Mayoral Race Pits the Teachers Union Against the Police Union

CHICAGO — When Bobby L. Rush, the Black Panther turned congressman turned elder statesman of this city’s South Side, stood last week to endorse Paul Vallas for mayor, the first question he confronted featured his own words. How could a man who just two and a half years ago called Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police […]

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A Republican Spending Problem

As congressional Republicans prepare for a budget showdown later this year with President Biden, they say that they will insist on large cuts to federal spending. So far, though, they have left out some pretty important details: what those cuts might be. Republicans have been more willing to talk about what they won’t cut. Party […]

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Trump Would Like a Word

Gail Collins: Bret, I have to admit that when the subject of Donald Trump comes up these days, I tend to start telling sex-scandal stories. My bad. Bret Stephens: Don’t let me stand in your way. Gail: Right now, that very old Stormy Daniels mess seems to have produced some very scary stuff. Our former […]

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The Dual Education of Hakeem Jeffries

The campus at Binghamton University was in uproar. Whispers of outside agitators swirled among the mostly white student body. Security was heightened. The source of the friction was the planned appearance of a polarizing Black studies professor who had referred to white people as “ice people” and accused “rich Jews” of financing the slave trade. Outraged Jewish students demanded the […]

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At the Waco Rally and Beyond, Trump’s Movement Now Commands Him

The most telling exchange in Donald Trump’s Waco, Texas, rally on Saturday didn’t come from Trump himself. It came at the beginning, when the aging rock star Ted Nugent was warming up the crowd. “I want my money back,” he yelled. “I didn’t authorize any money to Ukraine, to some homosexual weirdo.” Moments later, speaking […]

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What Did We Learn From Trump’s Waco Rally? He’s Stuck in the Past.

WACO, Texas — In the first big rally of his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump didn’t dwell on the symbolism of speaking in Waco amid the 30th anniversary of the deadly siege there that still serves as a right-wing cri de coeur against federal authority. He didn’t have to. This speech, like so many if […]

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The Potential Trump Indictment Isn’t Frivolous, but It Is Unwise

For the first time in American history, a hotly anticipated indictment of a former American president may actually be handed up. Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, seems set to bring charges related to Donald Trump’s allegedly paying off a porn star named Stormy Daniels to cover up their affair. There are, however, significant problems […]

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Trump Puts His Legal Peril at Center of First Big Rally for 2024

WACO, Texas — Former President Donald J. Trump spent much of his first major political rally of the 2024 campaign portraying his expected indictment by a New York grand jury as a result of what he claimed was a Democratic conspiracy to persecute him, arguing wildly that the United States was turning into a “banana […]

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Donald Trump, and the Sordid Tradition of Suppressing October Surprises

Secretive talks in the waning days of a campaign. Furtive phone calls. Ardent public denials. American history is full of October surprises — late revelations, sometimes engineered by an opponent, that shock the trajectory of a presidential election and that candidates dread. In 1880, a forged letter ostensibly written by James A. Garfield claimed he […]

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Lawmakers Tour D.C. Jail Where Jan. 6 Defendants Are Held

WASHINGTON — When Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, arranged a tour of the D.C. jail to inspect the conditions of defendants charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Democrats faced a choice: Boycott or participate. House Democrats had watched last Congress as the Republican leader Kevin McCarthy pulled his members from a Democratic-led […]

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In Canada, Biden Offers Cooperation, Not Threats

OTTAWA — President Biden used his first official trip to Canada since taking the Oval Office to underscore what he called an “inseparable” relationship between the United States and its northern neighbor, which had become badly frayed during the presidency of Donald J. Trump. In place of Mr. Trump’s belittling comments about Prime Minister Justin […]

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Former Trump Officials Must Testify in 2020 Election Inquiry, Judge Says

A federal judge has ruled that a number of former officials from President Donald J. Trump’s administration — including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows — cannot invoke executive privilege to avoid testifying to a grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The recent ruling by Judge Beryl A. Howell […]

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G.O.P. Demands on Prosecutor in Trump Case Test Limits of Oversight Power

WASHINGTON — The demand by House Republicans for information from a local prosecutor in New York about his criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump is pushing an already escalating fight over the scope and limits of congressional oversight powers into new territory. Legal battles about the oversight authority of Congress were one of […]

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What’s ‘Woke’ and Why It Matters

At least for now, the establishment and the base share the fight against “woke,” for two reasons: The new left is far enough left that there’s room to side with the right while keeping one or both feet in the center. Whether it’s a MAGA fan or a Reaganite, there’s a path for an enterprising […]

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Florida Bill Would Shield DeSantis’s Travel Records

Members of the Florida Legislature moved this week to shield Gov. Ron DeSantis’s travel records from the public, proposing to change the state’s public information laws just as the governor ramps up what is expected to be a 2024 presidential campaign. The bill, which was advanced by state senators in both parties, includes a sweeping […]

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From Rockets to Ball Bearings, Pentagon Struggles to Feed War Machine

WASHINGTON — The Navy admiral had a blunt message for the military contractors building precision-guided missiles for his warships, submarines and planes at a moment when the United States is dispatching arms to Ukraine and preparing for the possibility of conflict with China. “Look at me. I am not forgiving the fact you’re not delivering […]

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Don’t Be Fooled. Ron DeSantis Is a Bush-Cheney Republican.

One of the strangest ads of the 2022 election cycle was an homage to “Top Gun,” featuring Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. In it, DeSantis is the “Top Gov,” setting his sights on his political enemies: “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your governor speaking. Today’s training evolution: dogfighting, taking on the corporate […]

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Trump Plans Rally in Waco During Anniversary of Branch Davidian Standoff

In the chapel at Mount Carmel, the longtime home of the Branch Davidian sect outside Waco, Tex., the pastor preaches about the coming apocalypse, as the sect’s doomed charismatic leader David Koresh did three decades ago. But the prophecies offered by the pastor, Charles Pace, are different from Mr. Koresh’s. For one thing, they involve […]

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El retrato perdido de Trump ha sido encontrado en uno de sus hoteles

En las entrañas del hotel Trump National Doral de Miami, en un pequeño espacio que conduce a las habitaciones eléctricas, un enorme retrato del 45º presidente de Estados Unidos descansa sobre un trozo de espuma deteriorada de color púrpura. Guardado junto a una pila de viejos tapetes de yoga, el retrato del expresidente descansa bajo […]

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That Missing Trump Portrait? Found, Next to Some Old Yoga Mats.

In the bowels of the Trump National Doral hotel in Miami, in a small space leading to electrical rooms, an enormous portrait of the 45th president of the United States rests on a piece of deteriorating purple-colored foam. Stored next to a stack of old yoga mats, the former president’s portrait sits underneath a halogen […]

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The Cold War With China Is Changing Everything

So I guess we’re in a new cold war. Leaders of both parties have become China hawks. There are rumblings of war over Taiwan. Xi Jinping vows to dominate the century. I can’t help wondering: What will this cold war look like? Will this one transform American society the way the last one did? The […]

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Fact Check: The Ties Between Alvin Bragg and George Soros

WASHINGTON — As a potential indictment looms over former President Donald J. Trump, he and his allies have sought to tie the Manhattan district attorney bringing the case to a familiar Republican specter: George Soros, the financier and Democratic megadonor. Mr. Soros, who has backed Democratic candidates and causes as well as democracy and human […]

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