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:
Talking Points Memo, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Mediaite, Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars, New York Times, Bulwark+, KRDO, Joe.My.God., Raw Story, Insider, Twitchy, HotAir, Lawyers, Guns & Money, The Daily Beast, BuzzFeed News, Washington Post, 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:
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:
Axios, Roll Call, HotAir, Talking Points Memo, The Moderate Voice, New York Times, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, Common Dreams, 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:
Roll Call, Daily Kos, Slate, 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 — Fentanyl, along with isolation and stress from Covid-19 pandemic, propelled surge, experts say — Drug-overdose deaths in the U.S. surged nearly 30% in 2020, the tragic result of a deadlier supply …
Discussion:
Human Events, The Daily Caller 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, No More Mister Nice Blog, Raw Story, POLITICUSUSA and Breaking News USA, more at Mediagazer »
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 — Book by Miami Herald journalist details extraordinary efforts by special prosecutor who hounded Bill Clinton to aid sex trafficker — Ken Starr, the lawyer who hounded Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky …
Discussion:
The Hill, Judi Hershman, Joe.My.God., Raw Story and ArkansasTimes
Lara Seligman / Politico:
Biden directs evacuation flights for Afghan interpreters to begin late July — President Joe Biden has directed evacuation flights for Afghan interpreters and other nationals who helped the U.S. military during the 20-year conflict beginning in late July, according to a senior administration official.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Fox News, Associated Press and ABC News
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Felicia Sonmez / Washington Post:
George W. Bush says ending U.S. military mission in Afghanistan is a mistake
George W. Bush says ending U.S. military mission in Afghanistan is a mistake
Discussion:
HotAir, Axios, Insider, The Hill, CNN, DW.COM, NBC News, Politico, The American Independent and The National Interest
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 and Washington Post, more at Mediagazer »
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, WAPT, New York Post 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
The Texas Tribune:
Senate presses forward passing GOP voting and bail bills, as Texas House in chaos over Democrats' decampment — If the House Democrats who skipped town to block voting legislation don't return before the special session ends, the Senate bills will languish without becoming law. — Copy link
Discussion:
HotAir, Breitbart, National Review, HuffPost, The Hill, Townhall, Louder With Crowder, Axios, IJR, Off the Kuff, oann.com, Houston Public Media, WATE-TV, Lucianne, Fox News and Just The News
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Washington Post:
Inside the secret plan for the Texas Democratic exodus: A phone tree, a scramble to pack and a politically perilous trip
Inside the secret plan for the Texas Democratic exodus: A phone tree, a scramble to pack and a politically perilous trip
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
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, 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, Gizmodo and KRDO
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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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 …
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 …
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
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.)
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
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
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 »
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.
Noah Smith / Noahpinion:
Why Cuba is having an economic crisis — Three crises and a whole lot of bad policy decisions have driven hungry Cubans into the streets. — 6 hr ago — Cuba is in chaos. A wave of protest has been followed by internet blackouts, reports of shootings, lists of missing persons …
Discussion:
CBS News, spectatorworld.com, New York Times and CNN
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 …
Megan Carpentier / Dame Magazine:
HEALTH THE “PRO-LIFE” PARTY'S LONG FIGHT AGAINST VACCINES — The GOP's opposition to preventative measures, like mask-wearing and vaccines, didn't begin with COVID. Ten years ago, they weaponized another vaccine in a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, and recast themselves as the Death Cult Party.
Patrick Radden Keefe / New York Times:
The Sackler Family's Opioid Settlement and Billionaire Justice — Mr. Keefe is the author of “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty.” — In 2016, a small-time drug dealer in Leesburg, Va., named Darnell Washington sold a customer a batch of what he thought was heroin.
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.