Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

Diplomat tells investigators he raised alarms in 2015 about Hunter Biden’s Ukraine work but was rebuffed

Diplomat tells investigators he raised alarms in 2015 about Hunter Biden’s Ukraine work but was rebuffed

The Washington Post reports: A career State Department official overseeing Ukraine policy told congressional investigators this week that he had raised concerns in early 2015 about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company but was turned away by a Biden staffer, according to three people familiar with the testimony. George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, testified Tuesday that he worried that Hunter Biden’s position at the firm Burisma Holdings would complicate…

Read More Read More

Turkish trolls hijacked American right-wing media — and Rudy Giuliani’s brain

Turkish trolls hijacked American right-wing media — and Rudy Giuliani’s brain

BuzzFeed reports: Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer and former Republican mayor of New York who has been amplifying misinformation to Republican President Donald Trump, has more than just one favorite online conspiracy. His obsession with the utterly unfounded theory that Democrats colluded with Ukrainian nationals to delegitimize Trump’s 2016 presidential win is only Giuliani’s latest flight of fancy. It is predated by another that is equally ridiculous: that a 78-year-old Muslim cleric named Fethullah Gülen used a global network of followers…

Read More Read More

The counterintelligence ‘nightmare’ created by Trump’s withdrawal from Syria

The counterintelligence ‘nightmare’ created by Trump’s withdrawal from Syria

Mike Giglio writes: This version of the forever war in Iraq and Syria was built around the work done by local U.S. allies. The fight against ISIS was America’s, but it was also being fought by Syrians, Kurds, and Iraqis—a U.S. strategy known as “by, with, and through.” It meant that local troops carried out ground fighting in battles drawn up by American war planners. It meant that they received arms, training, and logistical support from the U.S. military and…

Read More Read More

The illusion of reason

The illusion of reason

Robert A Burton writes: In wondering what can be done to steer civilization away from the abyss, I confess to being increasingly puzzled by the central enigma of contemporary cognitive psychology: To what degree are we consciously capable of changing our minds? I don’t mean changing our minds as to who is the best NFL quarterback, but changing our convictions about major personal and social issues that should unite but invariably divide us. As a senior neurologist whose career began…

Read More Read More

‘Blatant corruption’: Trump has awarded next year’s G-7 summit of world leaders to his Miami-area resort

‘Blatant corruption’: Trump has awarded next year’s G-7 summit of world leaders to his Miami-area resort

The Washington Post reports: President Trump has awarded the 2020 Group of Seven summit of world leaders to his private company, scheduling the summit for June at his Trump Doral golf resort outside Miami, the White House announced Thursday. That decision is without precedent in modern American history: The president used his public office to direct a massive contract to himself. The G-7 summit draws hundreds of diplomats, journalists and security personnel and provides a worldwide spotlight. The announcement that…

Read More Read More

Insider trading? Trump’s talk can move markets — and make some futures traders billions

Insider trading? Trump’s talk can move markets — and make some futures traders billions

William D Cohan writes: On Thursday, June 27, the S&P 500 index stood at about 2915; a week or so later, it was just below 3000, a gain of 84 points, or $4,200 per e-mini contract. Whoever bought the 420,000 e-minis on June 28 had made a handsome profit of nearly $1.8 billion. Traders in the Chicago pits have been watching these kinds of wagers with an increasing mixture of shock and awe since the start of the Trump presidency….

Read More Read More

Trump’s letter to Erdogan was ‘dumped in the trash’

Trump’s letter to Erdogan was ‘dumped in the trash’

Middle East Eye reports: A leaked letter written by US President Donald Trump to Recep Tayyip Erdogan warning his Turkish counterpart not to be a “fool” has sent shockwaves around Turkey due to its lack of protocol and seriousness. Dated 9 October, the day Erdogan launched an offensive in northeastern Syria against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia, the letter aimed to make a deal between Turkey and the SDF and included an open economic sanctions threat. Yet this…

Read More Read More

In unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors

In unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors

The Washington Post reports: By the time average global warming hits 2 degrees Celsius, Qatar’s temperatures would soar, said Mohammed Ayoub, senior research director at the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute. In rapidly growing urban areas throughout the Middle East, some predict cities could become uninhabitable. “We’re talking about 4 to 6 degrees Celsius increase in an area that already experiences high temperatures,” Ayoub said. “So, what we’re looking at more is a question of how does this impact…

Read More Read More

Exxon and oil sands go on trial in New York climate fraud case

Exxon and oil sands go on trial in New York climate fraud case

Inside Climate News reports: In late 2013, ExxonMobil faced increasing pressure from investors to disclose more about the risks the company faced as governments began limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Of the many costs climate change will impose, oil companies face a particularly acute one: the demand for their product will have to shrink. For years, Exxon had been using something called a proxy cost of carbon to estimate what stricter climate policies might mean for its bottom line. But as…

Read More Read More

Brexit deal may be a rare win-win for Boris Johnson

Brexit deal may be a rare win-win for Boris Johnson

The Guardian reports: Boris Johnson’s team were pasty-faced with exhaustion as they briefed journalists about the details of the Brexit deal in Brussels on Thursday afternoon – but the PM himself was unable to suppress a beam of triumph, as he glad-handed his fellow leaders. Just a week after Johnson’s meeting with the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, at a wedding venue on the Wirral, Downing Street hopes it has now engineered that rare thing in politics – a win-win…

Read More Read More

In the U.S., workers are now paying a higher tax rate than investors and owners

In the U.S., workers are now paying a higher tax rate than investors and owners

Christopher Ingraham writes: Most Americans have to work to earn a living. But the rich are different: They get most of their income not from labor but from what they own — companies, stocks, real estate and the like. These income-generating assets are what economists call capital. And because capital is heavily concentrated among the rich, the U.S. government taxed earnings derived from capital at a higher rate than earnings made through labor for the entirety of the 20th century….

Read More Read More

Putin is on a victory lap of the Middle East

Putin is on a victory lap of the Middle East

Matthew Chance writes: After years battling to assert the Kremlin’s power on the international stage, Vladimir Putin is now on what seems like a victory lap of the Middle East. On Tuesday, Kremlin-backed forces further stepped up to fill the vacuum left in northern Syria by the US. Russian military police units patrolled the contact line between Syrian and Turkish forces, while Putin-backed Bashar al-Assad troops gained full control of the town of Manbij and surrounding areas, according to a…

Read More Read More

Turkey’s Erdogan presses offensive in Syria boosted by a nationalist surge at home

Turkey’s Erdogan presses offensive in Syria boosted by a nationalist surge at home

The Washington Post reports: Turkey’s offensive in northern Syria has exposed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to a furious international backlash, with threats of arms embargoes, sanctions that could tank his vulnerable economy and daily, stinging condemnations from Western allies. But in Turkey, where Erdogan’s voice dominates, the military campaign has generated little public debate. Turkish celebrities and athletes have rallied behind the military. Opposition parties have been broadly supportive. Flag-waving Turks greet soldiers in border towns as they prepare for…

Read More Read More

Trump tax documents show possible indications of fraud

Trump tax documents show possible indications of fraud

ProPublica reports: Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump’s businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender — and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings’ property tax. For instance, Trump told the lender that he took in twice as much rent from one building…

Read More Read More