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      ‘Virality, rumors and lies’: US federal agencies mimic Trump on social media

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      Variety of agencies now deliberately provocative on social media, further inflaming discourse on serious issuesWhen Donald Trump posted during his first term on what was then called Twitter, his attacks and rants differed significantly from US federal agency staff’s more cautious and traditional approach on social media.For example, in January 2017, in response to scrutiny of one of the president’s executive orders, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted: “We are & will remain in compliance with judicial orders. We are & will continue to enforce @POTUS’s EO humanely and with professionalism.” Continue reading… More

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      ‘We’re back at stage one’: Trump cuts rock Louisiana town plagued by gun violence

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      Federal funds helped Bogalusa address the deep roots of crime – but with the grant pulled, has momentum been lost for ever?Before the street outside her mother’s home filled with gunfire, before panicked partygoers sprinted through the front yard, before she discovered that the body on the ground was a young man she had watched grow up, Khlilia Daniels knew something in Bogalusa had to change.It was December of 2022, and Daniels had spent the year watching her home town on Louisiana’s border with Mississippi become a steadily more frightening place. Murders, once rare, now seemed to be happening almost every month, shootings every other week, and in a city of just over 10,000 people, that violence felt close, the losses personal. The victims and perpetrators were predominantly Black, usually young and too often cousins, neighbors or the children of friends, people whom Daniels would see around, until suddenly they were gone. Continue reading… More

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      The US supreme court’s TikTok ruling is a scandal | Evelyn Douek and Jameel Jaffer

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      The decision means TikTok now operates under the threat that it could be forced offline with a stroke of Trump’s penJudicial opinions allowing the government to suppress speech in the name of national security rarely stand the test of time. But time has been unusually unkind to the US supreme court decision that upheld the law banning TikTok, the short-form video platform. The court issued its ruling less than a year ago, but it is already obvious that the deference the court gave to the government’s national security arguments was spectacularly misplaced. The principal effect of the court’s ruling has been to give our own government enormous power over the policies of a speech platform used by tens of millions of Americans every day – a result that is an affront to the first amendment and a national security risk in its own right.Congress passed the TikTok ban in 2023 citing concerns that the Chinese government might be able to access information about TikTok’s American users or covertly manipulate content on the platform in ways that threatened US interests. The ban was designed to prevent Americans from using TikTok starting in January 2025 unless TikTok’s China-based corporate owner, ByteDance Inc, sold its US subsidiary before then.Evelyn Douek is an assistant professor at Stanford Law SchoolJameel Jaffer is inaugural director of the Knight first amendment institute at Columbia University Continue reading… More

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      Trump’s approach to Venezuela repeats the mistakes of the past | Austin Sarat

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      Congress must work to stop the president from leading us further into a South American quagmireDonald Trump seems determined to have a military confrontation with Venezuela. He has deployed a massive military arsenal in and around the Caribbean Sea and taken a series of provocative actions off the Venezuelan coast, justifying it as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.The Council on Foreign Relations says that deployment includes an “aircraft carrier, destroyers, cruisers, amphibious assault ships, and a special forces support ship. A variety of aircraft have also been active in the region, including bombers, fighters, drones, patrol planes, and support aircraft.” This is the largest display of American military might in the western hemisphere since we invaded Panama in 1989.Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty Continue reading… More

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      Trump news at a glance: president pays tribute to Brown University shooting victims amid calls for gun control

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      Donald Trump addressed shooting as politicians urged action to improve gun controls – key US politics stories from Sunday at a glanceDonald Trump on Sunday paid his respects to two people killed and nine who were injured in a shooting at Brown University.“Before we begin, I want to just pay my respects to the people, unfortunately two are no longer with us, Brown University, nine injured and two are looking down on us right now from Heaven,” the president told guests at a holiday reception at the White House. Continue reading… More

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      Trump says building DC triumphal arch is domestic policy chief’s ‘primary thing’

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      Trump praises Vince Haley, his ex-speechwriter tasked with creating Arc de Triomphe knockoff amid affordability crisisAmid concerns that he has failed to address a worsening affordability crisis, with health insurance premiums about to spike dramatically for over 20 million Americans, Donald Trump revealed on Sunday that his domestic policy chief’s main priority is building a triumphal arch for Washington DC.Speaking at a White House holiday party, the president praised Vince Haley, his former speechwriter and a longtime aide to Newt Gingrich who now leads the White House Domestic Policy Council. Continue reading… More

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      US immigration crackdown forces teens to caretake after parents are detained

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      As federal agents target families, teens are left to care for siblings – from accessing bank accounts to medical recordsVilma Cruz, a mother of two, had just arrived at her newly leased Louisiana home when federal agents surrounded her vehicle in the driveway. She had just enough time to call her oldest son before they smashed the passenger window and detained her.The 38-year-old Honduran house painter was swept up in an immigration crackdown that has largely targeted Kenner, a New Orleans suburb with a large Hispanic population, where some parents at risk of deportation had rushed to arrange emergency custody plans for their children in case they were arrested. Continue reading… More

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      Republican says ‘deal can be had’ on healthcare as subsidies set to expire

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      Senator Bill Cassidy urges collaboration between Democrats and his party after Senate rejected dual healthcare billsUS senator Bill Cassidy said on Sunday that “there’s a deal to be had” on tackling the rising cost of healthcare, suggesting he remained optimistic over bipartisan cooperation on the issue despite the recent failure of two competing proposals in the Senate.Speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation, the Louisiana Republican and chair of the Senate healthcare committee encouraged collaboration, saying “there has to be a meeting of the minds between Democrats” and members of his party. Continue reading… More