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Mother Jones

How Trump Plans to Upend Immigration

In January, former President Donald Trump will reclaim the White House after years of vowing to unleash an unprecedented overhaul of the immigration system in the United States. With mass deportation as a central promise of his campaign, Trump will undoubtedly build on the sweeping crackdown that marked his first term. He has already pledged […]

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Donald Trump “Will Take a Wrecking Ball to Global Climate Diplomacy”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Donald Trump’s new term as US president poses a grave threat to the planet if it blows up the international effort to curb dangerous global heating, stunned climate experts have warned in the wake of his decisive election victory. Trump’s return […]

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How Donald Trump Won the White House, Again

Donald Trump’s return to the White House follows one of the most tumultuous election years in modern U.S. history: one that included an incumbent president dropping his reelection bid, Vice President Kamala Harris thrust into contention a few short months before Election Day, and two attempts on Trump’s life. Harris was unable to build a […]

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Insurrectionists Are Lining Up for the Pardons Trump Has Promised to Dispense

More than 1,500 people charged with or convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress are now presumably hoping to win pardons and commutations that the now president-elect has repeatedly, if vaguely, promised to give many of them. And they aren’t alone. Numerous people convicted since 2020 of federal crimes in […]

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Kamala Harris Concedes, Telling Supporters “Do Not Despair”

Kamala Harris conceded the presidential election to Donald Trump Wednesday afternoon in a speech at Howard University. Addressing a crowd of sometimes tearful supporters, Harris emphasized the need to accept Trump’s victory but continue “the fight for our country.” “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” she […]

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Lateefah Simon, on Track to Be a New House Dem: “I’ve Never Shied Away From Any Fight”

Inside a museum in Oakland, not far from where Kamala Harris launched her first bid for the presidency back in 2019, Lateefah Simon, a Democrat whom Harris mentored, declared victory in her congressional race on Tuesday night. Early ballot returns showed her with 63 percent of the vote, though results were still coming in Wednesday […]

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This Conservative Texas Town Defeated an Extreme Abortion Travel Ban

The city of Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle, has emerged as one of the strongholds of the anti-abortion movement in that state and around the country, not least because its sole federal judge, a far-right Trump appointee, has been so willing to rubber-stamp conservative challenges to reproductive health options like the abortion pill and birth […]

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After Win, Trump Fans Admit “Project 2025 Is the Agenda”

On Wednesday morning, some of Trump’s favorite fans finally felt comfortable joking about what the next president has long denied: Project 2025 has always been the plan for a second Trump term. “Now that the election is over I think we can finally say that yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda. Lol,” right-wing podcast […]

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I Spent Last Night With Arizona Dems As Their World Fell Apart

The problem with holding a election-night watch party in the mountain time zone is that by the time people start to roll in, the night will have already taken a turn. After racking up historic wins during the Trump era, Arizona Democrats entered the 2024 election hoping to keep the positive results coming. But at […]

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Elon Musk Just Became One of the Most Powerful Men in the World

There’s no overstating how good election night was for Elon Musk. With Donald Trump’s victory, Musk—already the richest man in the world, thanks in part to lucrative federal contracts—has also made himself a major force in politics. During a Spaces conversation hosted on his X platform on Tuesday night, Musk said that America PAC, the […]

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New Tax on Firearms Will Help Domestic Violence Victims in Colorado

Colorado voters on Tuesday brought to victory a ballot measure that will provide millions of critical dollars to organizations supporting victims of domestic and sexual violence through the creation of a new tax on firearms and ammunition. With nearly three-quarters of the votes counted as of this morning, the measure, known as Proposition KK, passed with […]

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Tim Sheehy Might Have Lied About Getting Shot. He Won a Senate Seat Anyway.

Last week, Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News anchor and Donald Trump supporter this year, wanted to give Montana Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy a chance to explain himself. For the past year, in a pivotal campaign to flip the Senate, Sheehy had been embroiled in a scandal involving potentially stolen valor. Sheehy says he […]

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Arizona Passes Measure to Arrest Immigrants Who Enter the US Illegally

Arizona voters passed Proposition 314, a measure that will allow state and local police to arrest people crossing the border outside ports of entry and empower state judges to order deportations. The ballot measure passed with just over 62 percent of the vote. Advocates, including ACLU Arizona and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, […]

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Donald Trump, Candidate of Retribution, Is Restored to Power

Former President Donald Trump was poised to return to the White House for a second time late on Tuesday, ending the evening at the brink of victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. After running on a dark campaign of retribution, Trump tried to strike a conciliatory tone in a rambling victory speech at the Palm […]

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Republicans on Track to Take Senate Control

The Republican Party is on track to win control of the Senate, a significant victory that will allow the GOP to exercise power over judicial appointments and executive branch appointees. If Trump retakes the White House, GOP Senate control will clear his path to make significant changes to the judiciary, including possibly appointing multiple Supreme […]

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America Meets Its Judgment Day

Every election is a Judgment Day, but this one more so than any other in the history of the nation. Never before has a major party run a nominee described by retired military leaders who worked with him as a “fascist” and a serious threat to American democracy. Never before has the electorate been provided […]

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Bernie Moreno Defeats Sherrod Brown, Ohio’s Last Statewide-Elected Democrat

Late Tuesday night, the Associated Press projected Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno defeated Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown—and with him, any sense that Ohio was still a swing state. Brown, who served three terms, maintained an edge for most of his US Senate reelection bid against Moreno, a former luxury car dealership owner from Colombia. But […]

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Republicans Defeat Ohio Anti-Gerrymandering Initiative With Brazen Anti-Democratic Tactics

Ohio voters defeated a major ballot initiative on Tuesday that would have ended partisan gerrymandering in the state and curbed the lopsided majorities Republicans hold in the state legislature and US House delegation. The measure, known as Issue 1, was voted down with 54 percent of the vote. Republicans aggressively used their power to thwart […]

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Missouri Voted on Abortion Rights and Abortion Rights Won

The first state to ban abortion after the fall of Roe v. Wade just became the first state to have a near-total abortion ban reversed by popular vote. The people of Missouri voted on Tuesday to create a constitutional right to “reproductive freedom”—defined as the ability to make and carry out one’s own decisions about […]

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Bomb Scares Bearing Moscow’s Fingerprints Seem Intended to Help Donald Trump

It started with Georgia: a handful of bomb threats sent to polling locations in heavily Democratic areas. Two polling sites in Union City outside Atlanta, where the population is nearly 90 percent Black, were temporarily shut down. Georgia officials, citing federal law enforcement, named Russia as the culprit, as the threats had come from that […]

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Meet Some “Poll Observers” Who Are at One of Georgia’s Tabulation Centers

As Georgia vote counters page through the absentee and mail-in ballots, a few folks seated nearby who self-identify as “poll observers” are watching closely. A new election law in Georgia permitted anyone designated by an “independent candidate, nonpartisan candidate, a political party, or political body” to gain more access to voting centers and tabulation sites. Republican […]

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New Yorkers Just Created the Most Extensive Anti-Discrimination Protections in the US

In a victory for abortion rights advocates, New Yorkers just voted to enshrine extensive anti-discrimination protections into their state constitution—permanently insulating the rights of pregnant people, abortion seekers, and the LGBTQ community, among others, from changing political winds. Proposal 1 is one of 10 ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights that went before voters on […]

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Florida’s Abortion Rights Amendment Just Failed

Florida’s six-week abortion ban will remain the law of the land, as an abortion rights constitutional amendment failed Tuesday night. With 91 percent of the vote tallied as of 9:20 p.m., support for Florida’s Amendment 4 hovered around 57 percent, according to Associated Press projections—shy of the 60 percent threshold required to pass. The amendment […]

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The Front Row Joes Ponder What May Be Their Last Trump Rally

No matter the outcome, Election Night this year is bittersweet for one particular group of former President Donald Trump’s supporters: The most dedicated of Trump superfans known as the Front Row Joes. There are about 1,500 of them from all across the country, and they got their start with Trump back in 2015 when no […]

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Long Lines, Closed Polls, and Water Bans—But Disabled Voters Are Turning Out

In the days and weeks after the 2020 election, more than 65,000 mail-in ballots were rejected for arriving too late—and given how much is at stake in 2024’s races, nationally and at the state level, it makes sense that American voters would do just about anything to make sure their vote gets counted. For millions […]

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Why the New York Times Needle Might Break Tonight

As the sun set over the New York Times building on election night, the Times Tech Guild—the union of workers that power the infrastructure for the company’s news, games, and cooking—closed out their second day on the picket line. Their strike, an attempt to push for a deal they’ve negotiated for over two years, might […]

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In Scathing Call, Trump-Appointed Judge Rejects Georgia GOP’s Bogus Election Lawsuit

A Trump-appointed federal judge on Tuesday harshly rejected an eleventh-hour bid from the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party that sought to force seven historically Democratic counties in the swing state to stop accepting absentee ballots returned after Friday. In a telephone hearing on Tuesday, Judge R. Stan Baker of the US District […]

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Questionable Signature Matching Could Disqualify Thousands of Nevada Voters

Nevada’s secretary of state, the New York Times’ Danny Hakim reports, is concerned about the large numbers of absentee ballots getting rejected in the state’s most populous counties because of signature mismatches—potentially enough ballots to change election results. From the Times: More than 11,300 ballots were reported by the state Monday night as still needing […]

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A Ballot Measure About Rent-Control Is Dividing California Democrats

As Americans cast their votes in an election dominated by debates over inflation and the cost of living, a ballot measure in Vice President Kamala Harris’ home state is dividing the Democratic Party on the issue of how to address skyrocketing rents. Proposition 33—dubbed the Justice for Renters Act—would repeal the state’s controversial Costa-Hawkins Rental […]

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I’ve Covered Kamala Harris for 20 Years. One Thing About Her Has Never Changed.

The first time I met Kamala Harris, in 2007, I was a reporter profiling her for San Francisco magazine. She was in a basement near City Hall, trying to persuade a roomful of low-level ex–drug dealers to find time in their lives for a little self-care. “I have a job that’s just crazy,” she told the […]

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