•This week at The Hustings: Braver Angels debaters comments today on the resolution, “America is a racist nation.” Coming Tuesday; our left and right pundits debate the Texas state legislature’s proposed voting law. Go to https://thehustings.news
•Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, is pushing for a “trial” vote this week on the bipartisan “hard” infrastructure deal to gauge whether 10 Republicans will support cloture on the $973 billion five-year/$1.2 trillion eight-year package, The Washington Post reports. Senate Republicans are balking on the vote, however, because many of the bill’s details still face negotiations, NPR says.
•The Biden Administration’s Justice Department will appeal Texas federal judge Andrew Hanan’s ruling late last week that found the Department of Homeland Security does not have the authority to implement the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that has been in place since 2012, but was suppressed under the Trump administration, Roll Call reports.
•More than 180 Europeans have died, primarily in Western Germany, Eastern Belgium and The Netherlands, after flooding caused by two months’ worth of rain occurring in just two days, NPR says. Many more people remain missing. “The German language knows hardly any words for this devastation,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said, according to Politico. “We have to hurry to fight climate change.”
White House Announces First Guantanamo Bay Transfer – The Biden administration has announced the first transfer of a prisoner from Guantanamo Bay, The Hill reports. Abdul Latif Nasir, 56, will be transferred to Morocco from the military prison used to hold suspects believed to be involved in the “War on Terror” after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Citing a Pentagon statement, The Hill reports that the Periodic Review Board “determined in 2016 that detaining Nasir ‘no longer remained necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the national security of the United States.’” Nasir’s release was not fully processed during the Obama administration, and he remained in the Guantanamo Bay prison through the Trump administration. His release decreases the number of prisoners there to 39.
Note: Just 11 of those 39 detainees have been charged with war crimes, according to The New York Times. Considering the nearly 20-year history of Guantanamo Bay detainees, it seems unlikely any significant number of those remaining will be afforded due process.
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Not Russia, This Time – The Biden administration and U.S. allies have identified hackers affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) for the “indiscriminate” March attack of the Microsoft Exchange Server, The Wall Street Journal reports. The attack indiscriminately affected tens of thousands of email accounts globally. In addition, four Chinese nationals, including three intelligence officers, have been indicted for separate hacking activity, the Journal says.
“The United States and countries around the world are holding the People’s Republic of China accountable for its pattern of irresponsible, disruptive, and destabilizing behavior in cyberspace, which poses a major threat to our economic and national security,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
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Clients of Cybersurveillance Company in 20 Countries Spy on 180 Activists, Politicians, Journalists – At least 20 countries hired Israeli cybersecurity company NSO Group to spy on the mobile phones of at least 180 human rights activists, politicians, and journalists around the world, Forbidden Stories reported in The Pegasus Project, Sunday. In an investigation with tech support by Amnesty International, the non-profit news website, based in France, found that authoritarian and democratic governments alike hired NSO Group’s Pegasus, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Mexico, Morocco, Uganda, Rwanda, Turkey, Hungary, Bahrain, Qatar, the U.A.E. and India.
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Buy, Buy, Buy: Sales Up in June – Retail sales — specifically retail and food services sales — unexpectedly rose 0.6% in June, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Economists polled by Reuters had predicted the number would fall 0.4%. Compared with June 2020, overall sales growth was 18%.
Note: With the exception of Food & Beverage Stores, which had an increase of just 1.3% compared with the first six months of 2020 (people still needed to buy food and beverages during the solid section of the pandemic so there wouldn’t be a huge gain), increases in other categories are impressive:
•Clothing & clothing accessories: 74.4%
•Motor vehicle & parts: 37.8%
•Gasoline: 29.3%
•Electronics & appliances: 35.4%
•Sporting goods, hobby, musical instruments, and books: 44.6%
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods