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Barr’s FBI investigation, Trump and the threat from within

Barr’s FBI investigation, Trump and the threat from within

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Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, writes: On Monday, Attorney General William Barr, acting more like defense counsel for a cornered president than the nation’s top law enforcement official, ordered a U.S. Attorney review the FBI’s decision to open a counterintelligence investigation into alleged ties between Trump associates and Russia in 2016. This action, coupled with Barr’s previous reckless conduct, unwittingly promotes the interests of America’s enemies as Barr perpetuates dangerous conspiracy theories about secret Washington cabals and…

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The partisan divide on how to read the intelligence on Iran

The partisan divide on how to read the intelligence on Iran

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The Atlantic reports: Adam Schiff, the combative chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, didn’t contest the recent intelligence that the Trump administration said was behind its newly aggressive posture toward Iran. Nor did he accuse the White House of misrepresenting it. Instead he returned to a critique that Democrats have made of Trump’s hawkish Iran policy from the start: that it will lead America down the path of an ill-planned confrontation. “It’s not that I think there isn’t intelligence to…

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American journalism is suffering from ‘truth decay’

American journalism is suffering from ‘truth decay’

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Quentin Fottrell writes: American journalism is losing its objectivity. That’s according to a new analysis on news discourse by the RAND Corporation. In the study, released Wednesday, researchers found a major shift occurred between 1989 and 2017 as journalism expanded beyond traditional media, such as newspapers and broadcast networks, to newer media, including 24-hour cable news channels and digital outlets. “Notably, these measurable changes vary in extent and nature for different news platforms,” it found. RAND is a nonprofit nonpartisan…

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Iran threat debate is set off by images of missiles on small boats

Iran threat debate is set off by images of missiles on small boats

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The New York Times reports: The intelligence that caused the White House to escalate its warnings about a threat from Iran came from photographs of missiles on small boats in the Persian Gulf that were put on board by Iranian paramilitary forces, three American officials said. Overhead imagery showed fully assembled missiles, stoking fears that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps would fire them at United States naval ships. Additional pieces of intelligence picked up threats against commercial shipping and potential…

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Iranians do want regime change — but not the kind Washington hawks are pushing

Iranians do want regime change — but not the kind Washington hawks are pushing

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Vali Nasr writes: Talk of “regime change” is once again in the air, and this time Iran is in the gun sights. President Trump — who withdrew from the nuclear deal Iran had signed with the United States, Europe, Russia and China — still insists that his goal is diplomacy. Only “maximum pressure” will bring Iran back to the negotiating table, the White House says: That’s the rationale for punishing economic sanctions that are aimed at reducing Iran’s exports to…

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Venezuela’s collapse is the worst outside of war in decades, economists say

Venezuela’s collapse is the worst outside of war in decades, economists say

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The New York Times reports: Zimbabwe’s collapse under Robert Mugabe. The fall of the Soviet Union. Cuba’s disastrous unraveling in the 1990s. The crumbling of Venezuela’s economy has now outpaced them all. Venezuela’s fall is the single largest economic collapse outside of war in at least 45 years, economists say. “It’s really hard to think of a human tragedy of this scale outside civil war,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University and former chief economist at the…

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Matt Taibbi’s ‘liberal embrace of war’ screed cites zero liberals embracing war

Matt Taibbi’s ‘liberal embrace of war’ screed cites zero liberals embracing war

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Jonathan Chait writes: Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi has taken the brave and lonely stance that William Barr was wise and correct in his presentation of the Mueller report and decision not to charge the president with obstruction. (“It was Mueller, not Barr, who concluded there was no underlying crime,” concluded Taibbi, “so if the next stage of this madness is haggling over an obstruction charge, that would likely entail calling for a prosecution of Trump for obstructing an investigation into…

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Judge orders public release of what Michael Flynn said in call to Russian ambassador

Judge orders public release of what Michael Flynn said in call to Russian ambassador

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The Washington Post reports: A federal judge on Thursday ordered that prosecutors make public a transcript of a phone call that former national security adviser Michael Flynn tried hard to hide with a lie: his conversation with a Russian ambassador in late 2016. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington ordered the government also to provide a public transcript of a November 2017 voice mail involving Flynn. In that sensitive call, President Trump’s attorney left a message for Flynn’s…

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Air pollution is deadlier than tobacco smoking

Air pollution is deadlier than tobacco smoking

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The Guardian reports: Air pollution may be damaging every organ and virtually every cell in the human body, according to a comprehensive new global review. The research shows head-to-toe harm, from heart and lung disease to diabetes and dementia, and from liver problems and bladder cancer to brittle bones and damaged skin. Fertility, foetuses and children are also affected by toxic air, the review found. The systemic damage is the result of pollutants causing inflammation that then floods through the…

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‘Wood wide web’ — the underground network of microbes that connects trees — mapped for first time

‘Wood wide web’ — the underground network of microbes that connects trees — mapped for first time

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Science reports: Trees, from the mighty redwoods to slender dogwoods, would be nothing without their microbial sidekicks. Millions of species of fungi and bacteria swap nutrients between soil and the roots of trees, forming a vast, interconnected web of organisms throughout the woods. Now, for the first time, scientists have mapped this “wood wide web” on a global scale, using a database of more than 28,000 tree species living in more than 70 countries. “I haven’t seen anybody do anything…

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Trump tells Pentagon chief he does not want war with Iran

Trump tells Pentagon chief he does not want war with Iran

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The New York Times reports: President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict. Mr. Trump’s statement, during a Wednesday morning meeting in the Situation Room, came during a briefing on the rising tensions with Iran. American intelligence…

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Trump’s social media bias reporting project is a data collection tool in disguise

Trump’s social media bias reporting project is a data collection tool in disguise

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Casey Newton writes: Three years ago this month, Mark Zuckerberg gathered together a group of influential conservatives to defend Facebook against allegations of political bias. The company had found itself under pressure after Gizmodo reported that the editors who then worked for Facebook “routinely suppressed conservative news” from its since-abandoned Trending Topics module. It hoped that a roundtable discussion with Glenn Beck, Fox News host Dana Perino, and others would quell the growing panic that Silicon Valley liberals were stifling…

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Trump administration balks at global pact to crack down on online extremism

Trump administration balks at global pact to crack down on online extremism

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The New York Times reports: The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it would not sign an international accord intended to pressure the largest internet platforms to eradicate violent and extremist content, highlighting a broader divide between the United States and other countries over government’s role in determining what content is acceptable online. Citing free speech protections, the administration said in a statement that “the United States is not currently in a position to join the endorsement.” It added that…

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Corruption: Trump pardons billionaire fraudster who wrote glowing book about him

Corruption: Trump pardons billionaire fraudster who wrote glowing book about him

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Vox reports: On Wednesday, President Donald Trump followed through on a campaign promise he made to Conrad Black, a former media mogul and business partner, by pardoning him for fraud and obstruction of justice convictions. In late 2015, Black — who was convicted in 2007 and spent more than three years in prison before being released in 2012 — wrote a piece for National Review headlined “Trump Is the Good Guy.” “It is time to look more seriously at the…

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