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Political myth: How Trump distorted the Cowboy image into a poisonous caricature of the values it professed

I write a lot about how the Biden-Harris administration is working to restore the principles of the period between 1933 and 1981, when members of both political parties widely shared the belief that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. And I write about how that so-called liberal consensus broke down as extremists used the Reconstruction-era image of the American cowboy — who, according to myth, wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone—to stand against what they insisted was creeping socialism that stole tax dollars from...

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Asleep at the wheel: U.S. auto industry faces big threat from Chinese EV makers after failing to innovate

A tiny, low-priced electric car called the Seagull has American automakers and politicians trembling. The car, launched last year by Chinese automaker BYD, sells for around $12,000 in China, but drives well and is put together with craftsmanship that rivals U.S.-made electric vehicles that cost three times as much. A shorter-range version costs under $10,000. Tariffs on imported Chinese vehicles probably will keep the Seagull away from America’s shores for now, and it likely would sell for more than 12 grand if imported. But the rapid emergence of low-priced EVs from China could shake up the global auto industry...

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Seeds of doubt: Why enemies of Democracy always target the public trust of government

When the Nixon scandals were at their height, 36 percent of Americans told pollsters they still had a “high degree of trust in the American government.” According to Pew, that metric stands at 16 percent. In 2016, Russian intelligence hacked both the RNC and the DNC. They never revealed the dirt they got on the RNC, but, at Donald Trump’s request, they handed off DNC data including Hillary’s emails to the media with the (successful) goal of destroying America’s trust in her. Yesterday, we learned from reporting by The Guardian that Alexander Smirnov, the Russian agent who began peddling lies about Hunter and...

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Former Vice President Mike Pence stands with growing list of Republicans refusing to endorse Trump

Former Vice President Mike Pence said he will not be backing Donald Trump in the 2024 election. “It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” Pence said in an interview with Fox News Channel in March, weighing in for the first time since the former president became the presumptive GOP nominee. Pence ran against Trump for their party’s nomination but dropped his bid before voting began last year. The decision makes Pence the latest in a series of senior Trump administration officials who have declined to endorse their former boss’s bid...

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TikTok Timeline: The evolution of a fun app for teens into a potential national security threat

If it feels like TikTok has been around forever, that is probably because it has, at least if you are measuring via internet time. What is now in question is whether it will be around much longer and, if so, in what form? Starting in 2017, when the Chinese social video app merged with its competitor Musical.ly, TikTok has grown from a niche teen app into a global trendsetter. While, of course, also emerging as a potential national security threat, according to U.S. officials. On April 24, President Joe Biden signed legislation requiring TikTok parent ByteDance to sell to...

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Economic investment: How free child care services can change the lives of average American parents

Last summer, Derrika Richard felt stuck. She did not have enough money to afford child care for her three youngest children, ages 1, 2 and 3. Yet the demands of caring for them on a daily basis made it impossible for Richard, a hairstylist, to work. One child care assistance program rejected her because she was not working enough. It felt like an unsolvable quandary: Without care, she could not work. And without work, she could not afford care. But Richard’s life changed in the fall, when, thanks to a new city-funded program for low-income families called City Seats,...

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