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Why Trump failed his nation

(CNN)Watching President Donald Trump wrestle with this epic crisis reminds me of the old fable about the Scorpion and the Frog. This moment of extraordinary pain and crisis calls for steadiness and sobriety; empathy for the widespread pain and suffering of others; absolute transparency; a willingness to listen and learn; and rigorous, disciplined attention to detail. None of these qualities are within his nature. Many governors across America have enhanced their popularity simply by doing their jobs during this deadly outbreak of the coronavirus. Even in a polarized nation, it…

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Donald Trump’s special day

(CNN)When Donald Trump was growing up in the New York of the 1950s, Easter was a grand civic festival as well as a religious holiday. He was eight in 1955, when a balmy day brought out about two million people for the Easter Parade along and around Fifth Avenue. “Hats were large, small, sensible, silly, be-flowered, tailored, and of virtually every hue ever conceived by nature or man,” wrote Edith Evans Asbury in the New York Times. Jill Filipovic never thought she’d say it: “Thank God for Andrew Cuomo ……

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Don’t call it ‘social distancing’

(CNN)Public health officials tell us to minimize physical contact in order to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. While the public, thankfully, is hearing the message, there is a hidden danger: As we retreat into our homes, we can lose sight of our essential connections to one another and forget about the plight of those most vulnerable to the fraying of social bonds. To combat those social ills, we should replace the term “social distancing” with the more precise “physical distancing.” In fact, when we practice physical distancing, we need social connectivity…

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Lindsey Graham’s disturbing comments about investigating Biden

(CNN)Sen. Lindsey Graham stated on CBS News on Sunday morning that Attorney General William Barr has set up a mechanism to receive purportedly damaging information coming from Ukraine, via Rudy Giuliani, about former Vice President (and current Democratic presidential contender) Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. The Justice Department has, however, refused even to open an investigation of the efforts of Trump and his surrogates to gather (or generate) dirt from Ukrainians on the Bidens. The President has repeatedly made unfounded and false claims to allege that the Bidens…

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What Trump’s reality show speech revealed

(CNN)CNN asked commentators for views on President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. The opinions expressed are solely those of the authors. View more opinion articles on CNN. Let’s be clear, as fact-checker Daniel Dale was busy pointing out on Twitter, it was full of half-truths and total distortions. But the broad themes Trump hit on are likely to be very popular with wide swaths of American voters. The economy is good, unemployment is down, and his administration passed key pieces of legislation like paid family leave for…

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If Dems can’t pivot post-impeachment, their worst fear could become a reality

(CNN)The Iowa caucuses are almost here. Voters will have a chance to express their preferences among the Democratic presidential candidates on Monday after months of campaigning, advertisements and televised town halls and debates. While Iowa alone will not determine the party’s nominee, it will mark the official start of the campaign season. The most important step will be for Democrats to build on the main lessons of impeachment — rather than trying to put this saga behind them. Sure, Senate Republicans have blocked witnesses from testifying and President Donald Trump…

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Parnas tape is a real problem for Trump

(CNN)“But her emails” became a shorthand way after the 2016 election to explain — often in jest and as memes — why Hillary Clinton, who was favored to win, lost to Donald Trump. However, all jokes aside, post-election studies confirmed that Clinton’s emails were the most-covered topic during the campaign between May 2015 and November 2016. The tapes in question are audio recordings secretly made of Trump by Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was indicted last year for alleged campaign finance violations to which…

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Supreme Court could use ‘Bridgegate’ case to limit attempts to prosecute corruption

(CNN)Six years ago, senior officials in former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration decided to retaliate against a Christie political rival by shutting down lanes on the George Washington Bridge and creating a traffic nightmare in the rival’s town. And thus, the Bridgegate scandal was born. This is the legal question the Supreme Court is now considering as two Bridgegate defendants, Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni, look to overturn their 2016 criminal convictions for wire fraud: Does their conduct properly fall within the parameters of the federal statute? Sign up…

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How Amy Klobuchar can seize her moment

(CNN)When the five qualifying contenders for the Democratic nomination for president take the stage in Des Moines for the final debate ahead of the Iowa primary, only one of them can claim that most coveted mantle: the Democratic candidate who has proven they can win over Republicans. Amy Klobuchar doesn’t just win elections in Minnesota — she crushes them. Even as political control in Minnesota has swung back and forth between Republicans and Democrats and came perilously close to voting for Donald Trump in 2016, Klobuchar won by over 20…

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Joe Biden’s ‘West Wing’ fantasy

(CNN)Former Vice President and current Democratic front-runner Joe Biden is a good guy. In fact, that’s his primary argument for why he deserves the presidency: He’s America’s Uncle, a literal regular Joe who wants to bring respectability back to the Oval Office, uniting the warring houses of red and blue in the common goal of mopping up the toxic sewage pouring out of President Donald Trump’s White House. It’s a heartwarming aspiration, on the face of it. But Biden’s statement Monday that he’d be open to choosing a Republican running…

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The FBI didn’t learn from its disastrous Richard Jewell mistake

(CNN)With a highly anticipated pre-holiday release, Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial turn, “Richard Jewell,” hasn’t exactly turned out to be a commercial box-office success. But the staunchly conservative director — an outlier in Hollywood — has earned some deserved Oscar buzz for his depiction of a wholly flawed investigation, possibly beset by confirmation bias, brought by the FBI against the titular subject, 1996 Atlanta Olympics security guard Richard Jewell. A type of cognitive bias, confirmation bias is considered a systematic error of inductive reasoning. At its most destructive, when applied in…

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How Trump has given Biden a major campaign boost

(CNN)After three years of his chaotic presidency, President Donald Trump has made nostalgia a big, bold idea among Democrats. This is one of the secrets to former Vice President Joe Biden’s ongoing success in the polls. The President, with the full support of his party in Congress, has pushed politics so far off-kilter that Americans are desperately yearning for normalcy in the Oval Office. Biden has called for Democrats and Republicans to work together again. During the debate this week, he said that while he has “no love” for Republicans…

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