Reading archive 2025-02-03 pt 2

Criminal records of Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump include rape, domestic violence

A Taliban highway could lead to the future. But it’s stuck in the past.: Taliban officials have a plan to turn one of the country’s remotest corners into a global trade hub by linking the Afghan heartland with China.

Are conservatives being ‘de-banked’?: Trump is threatening the financial regulatory system to help his crypto backers in Silicon Valley.

Wildlife-Friendly Landscape Design From Scratch: How to craft a landscape design that benefits wildlife, from blank slate to thriving habitat

The Democrats Show Why They Lost

The Tasks of an Anti-Trump Coalition: Avoid progressive pieties and rebuild an effective democratic majority - "The best-organized Democratic interest groups want to fight Trump on the worst possible issues; the Democrats who want to fight on smarter issues tend to be less organized to fight. Until that conundrum is solved, Democrats are disabled and Trump is empowered.

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"Trump's project to brand drug cartels as international terrorist organizations has legal implications that Trump supporters refuse to consider. Right now, the cartels have powerful incentives not to commit violence against U.S. citizens or on U.S. territory. Yet Trump is poised on the verge of actions that could change the cartels' calculus and import Mexico's criminal violence north of the border on a huge scale.

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"His plans to foster voter-ID laws and gerrymandering to disenfranchise Democrats will collide with the new reality of American politics that these measures will harm his prospects more than his opponents': Trump does best among the most disaffiliated Americans, whereas Democrats are widening their lead among those Americans who follow politics closely and vote most often."