Top Items:
Brett Kelman / The Tennessean:
Tennessee abandons vaccine outreach to minors — not just for COVID-19 — The Tennessee Department of Health will halt all adolescent vaccine outreach - not just for coronavirus, but all diseases - amid pressure from Republican state lawmakers, according to an internal report and agency emails obtained by the Tennessean.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Truthout, Mediaite, Daily Kos, New York Times, KRDO, Joe.My.God., Bulwark+, Raw Story, CBS News, Crooks and Liars, Insider, Twitchy, Lawyers, Guns & Money, HotAir, NPR, The Daily Beast, BuzzFeed News, Mercury News, The Guardian, WATE-TV, Washington Examiner, Vanity Fair, Forbes, The Hill and New York Magazine
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Natalie Fertig / Politico:
Schumer launches long-shot bid for legal weed — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released sweeping draft legislation Wednesday to legalize weed, officially kickstarting a difficult debate in his chamber that also makes a major splash for one of his campaign promises.
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, Reason, The Daily Caller, ABC News, Political Wire and Althouse
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NBC News:
Senate Democrats reveal $3.5 trillion plan to invest in health care, climate change and more … WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders announced an agreement Tuesday evening to advance a $3.5 trillion spending plan to finance a major expansion of the economic safety net.
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, Axios, Roll Call, HotAir, Talking Points Memo, The Moderate Voice, Breitbart, Slate, The Daily Caller, Raw Story, UPI and Bloomberg
Washington Post:
Senior Democrats prepare Medicare and climate initiatives as well as tax hikes on wealthy as details of $3.5 trillion budget deal emerge
Senior Democrats prepare Medicare and climate initiatives as well as tax hikes on wealthy as details of $3.5 trillion budget deal emerge
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Roll Call, Daily Kos, Townhall and Political Wire
Washington Post:
Drug overdoses soared to a record 93,000 last year — Deaths from drug overdoses soared to more than 93,000 last year, a staggering record that reflects the coronavirus pandemic's toll on efforts to quell the crisis and the continued spread of the synthetic opioid fentanyl in the illegal narcotic supply …
Discussion:
CNN, Washington Examiner, Slate and Twitchy
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Betsy McKay / Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Drug-Overdose Deaths Soared Nearly 30% in 2020, Driven by Synthetic Opioids
U.S. Drug-Overdose Deaths Soared Nearly 30% in 2020, Driven by Synthetic Opioids
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, Human Events and Insider
Dan Goldberg / Politico:
Pandemic fueled deadliest year for drug overdoses, CDC data shows
Pandemic fueled deadliest year for drug overdoses, CDC data shows
Discussion:
Bloomberg, CBS News, National Review and WBBH-TV
Michael Kranish / Washington Post:
How Tucker Carlson became the voice of White grievance — Tucker Carlson huddled in a low-ceilinged dungeon that had served as a holding pen for Africans bound for enslavement in the United States. It was a July day in 2003 in Ghana, and Carlson stood alongside some of America's most prominent civil rights leaders.
Discussion:
Insider, POLITICUSUSA, Raw Story, No More Mister Nice Blog and Breaking News USA, more at Mediagazer »
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Inside Facebook's Data Wars — Executives at the social network have clashed over CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned data tool that revealed users' high engagement levels with right-wing media sources. — One day in April, the people behind CrowdTangle, a data analytics tool owned by Facebook, learned that transparency had limits.
Discussion:
Insider, more at Mediagazer »
Felicia Sonmez / Washington Post:
George W. Bush says ending U.S. military mission in Afghanistan is a mistake — Former president George W. Bush said he believes the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is a mistake, in rare public remarks on the military intervention he launched nearly two decades ago.
Discussion:
HotAir, Insider, Axios, YouTube, CNN, DW.COM, NBC News, Politico, The Western Journal, The American Independent and The National Interest
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Lara Seligman / Politico:
Biden directs evacuation flights for Afghan interpreters to begin late July
Biden directs evacuation flights for Afghan interpreters to begin late July
Discussion:
Washington Post, Fox News, Associated Press and ABC News
Tom Nichols / The Atlantic:
The Moral Collapse of J. D. Vance — What do we call a man who turns on everything he once claimed to believe? For a practitioner of petty and self-serving duplicity, we use “sellout” or “backstabber.” (Sometimes we impugn the animal kingdom and call him a rat, a skunk, or a weasel.)
Charles P. Pierce / Esquire:
Ken Starr's Completely Inexcusable Career Has a New Chapter Titled ‘Jeffrey Epstein’ — If there is a less excusable human being walking upright than Ken Starr, head huntsman of the Great Penis Chase of 1998, then I'm hard pressed to think of who it is. Since his salacious moment in the national spotlight, Starr has presided over a
Discussion:
The Hill
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Ed Pilkington / The Guardian:
Ken Starr helped Jeffrey Epstein with ‘scorched-earth’ campaign, book claims
Ken Starr helped Jeffrey Epstein with ‘scorched-earth’ campaign, book claims
Discussion:
The Hill, Joe.My.God., Raw Story, Judi Hershman and ArkansasTimes
Christina Maxouris / CNN:
‘We are seeing people passing quicker than before’: What hospitals look like in US Covid hot spots — (CNN)Dr. Sergio Segarra says when Covid-19 patient numbers in the Miami hospital he works in dipped below 20 last month, he began feeling optimistic. — “I remember seeing articles …
Discussion:
NewsNation Now, TheGrio, WAPT and The Hill
Matt Johnson / WSB-TV:
‘He wished he had gotten the vaccine:’ Local man battling COVID-19 from ICU for months — GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Blake Bargatze, 24, was the only one in his family to not get vaccinated and now he remains in a hospital ICU more than three months after contracting COVID-19, according to his family.
Discussion:
Raw Story
Tom Phillips / The Guardian:
Bolsonaro in hospital as hiccups persist for more than 10 days — President, 66, to be observed by doctors for next 48 hours — Speculation grows over health of Brazil's far-right leader — The Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been admitted to hospital complaining of abdominal pain …
Discussion:
The Uprising
Niraj Chokshi / New York Times:
Norwegian Cruise Line sues Florida over prohibition on vaccine requirements. — The fight over requiring vaccinations for travel is heating up. — Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings sued Florida's surgeon general on Tuesday, accusing the state of preventing it from “safely and soundly” …
Discussion:
HotAir, The Daily Caller, Bangor Daily News, NBC 6 South Florida and WSVN-TV
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Rebekah Riess / CNN:
Norwegian Cruise Line sues Florida surgeon general over vaccine passport ban
Norwegian Cruise Line sues Florida surgeon general over vaccine passport ban
Discussion:
Florida Politics, WINK NEWS, KRDO and Gizmodo
Alana Goodman / Washington Free Beacon:
Terry McAuliffe Fundraises for Virginia Dem Who Served Time for Underage Sex — Five years after calling on him to resign, Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe spoke at a fundraiser for a state lawmaker who served jail time in an underage sex case.
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Joseph Cox / VICE:
Inside the Industry That Unmasks People At Scale — Unique IDs linked to phones are supposed to be anonymous. But there's an entire industry that links them to real people and their address. — Joseph Cox — Tech companies have repeatedly reassured the public that trackers used …
John Schwartz / New York Times:
Parts of the Amazon Go From Absorbing Carbon Dioxide to Emitting It — A new study analyzing hundreds of aerial readings of emissions above the forest canopy found that forest regions in the southeast were most affected. — Portions of the Amazon rainforest are now emitting more carbon dioxide …
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Matthew Dalton / Wall Street Journal:
EU Unveils Sweeping Economic Plan to Combat Climate Change
EU Unveils Sweeping Economic Plan to Combat Climate Change
Discussion:
Courthouse News Service, New York Times and National Review
Benjamin Weiser / New York Times:
Iranian Operatives Planned to Kidnap a Brooklyn Author, Prosecutors Say — Masih Alinejad spoke critically of her native country's autocracy. Now an Iranian intelligence official and three others have been indicted in New York. — An Iranian American journalist living in Brooklyn …
Jason L. Riley / Wall Street Journal:
Critical Race Theory Is a Hustle — It may resemble a serious academic discipline, but it's really just a fancy argument for racial preferences. — A majority of American fourth- and eighth-graders can't read or do math at grade level, according to the Education Department.
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Kenny Xu / HotAir:
Critical Race Theory has no idea what to do with Asian-Americans
Critical Race Theory has no idea what to do with Asian-Americans
Discussion:
The Federalist and Newsweek
Washington Post:
Inside the secret plan for the Texas Democratic exodus: A phone tree, a scramble to pack and a politically perilous trip — They activated the plan with a phone tree late Sunday: Pack your bags — and make sure they weigh no more than 45 pounds. Be ready to leave Austin at noon tomorrow.
Discussion:
ABC News, The Guardian, Politico, NBC News, New York Times, CBS News, Washington Examiner, CBS Dallas / Fort Worth, One America News Network, KXAN-TV, Bloomberg, ABC7, Althouse and Forbes
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The Texas Tribune:
Senate presses forward passing GOP voting and bail bills, as Texas House in chaos over Democrats' decampment
Senate presses forward passing GOP voting and bail bills, as Texas House in chaos over Democrats' decampment
Discussion:
HotAir, Breitbart, Truthout, HuffPost, National Review, The Hill, Townhall, Louder With Crowder, Off the Kuff, Houston Public Media, Axios, oann.com, IJR, WATE-TV, Lucianne, Fox News and Just The News
Kyle Smith / National Review:
There Goes Biden's ‘Moderate’ Brand — President Biden's implicit promise to turn down the temperature and restore normal patterns of rhetoric to the presidency can no longer be taken seriously after yesterday's ridiculous episode of hyperventilation disguised as a speech.
Discussion:
Breitbart, Newsbusters, The Atlantic and BizPac Review
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Lee Moran / HuffPost:
New Book Details Eric Trump ‘Flipped Out’ On Election Night — Donald Trump's son reportedly screamed at campaign aides as his father's lead against Joe Biden narrowed, according to Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker's new book. — Eric Trump “flipped out” on the night of the 2020 election …
Discussion:
Raw Story, Truthout, Insider, CNN and Political Wire
The Daily Beast:
Inside Shepard Smith's Post-Fox News Crash on CNBC — The ex-Fox anchor's much-hyped new show has failed to bring in viewers and, per insiders, it has struggled with some internal turmoil, including “regular tantrums” from Smith. — Whether it's a poor time slot, behind-the-scenes squabbles …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, more at Mediagazer »
Kelly Weill / The Daily Beast:
Emails Reveal Cops Fanned Flames as FBI Debunked Antifa Hoax — LIE SEASON … Wildfires are back and could be worse than ever. Just don't tell the cops manufacturing wild rumors about how they start. — On Sept. 11, 2020, the same day the Federal Bureau of Investigation released …
Discussion:
Raw Story
Sarah Jackson / Insider:
Facebook staffers were told by execs to scrap any mention of Russia in a 2017 white paper on the platform's security concerns: ‘We started to feel like we were part of a cover-up’ — Facebook's 2017 white paper initially mentioned Russian election interference, a new book says.
Discussion:
Breaking News USA, more at Techmeme »
Robin Bravender / Insider:
Ex-Kamala Harris staffers have bad memories of a toxic culture in her past offices and are texting each other about it — Some former Harris staffers are feeling vindicated after reports of dysfunction in her office. — They're texting one another and having flashbacks about their time working for her.
Tim Pearce / The Daily Wire:
George Floyd Mural Blown Apart By Lightning Strike, Officials Say — A lighting blast demolished a mural of George Floyd in Toledo, Ohio, on Tuesday, according to the city's fire department. — The piece had been painted onto the side of a shuttered bar, according to Toledo's The Blade.
Discussion:
New York Post, Breitbart, BizPac Review and Ace of Spades HQ
Tahir Hamut Izgil / The Atlantic:
My Friends Were Sent to the Camps — If you took an Uber in Washington, D.C., a couple of years ago, there was a chance your driver was one of the greatest living Uyghur poets. Tahir Hamut Izgil arrived with his family in the United States in 2017, fleeing the Chinese government's merciless persecution of his people.