Music: Bugge Wesseltoft — ‘Sender’
Trump’s trail of fears
Jamelle Bouie writes: On Saturday, after Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts formally announced her campaign to oust President Trump from the White House, he took aim at her on Twitter. “Today, Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for President,” he said, making a strange, meta-textual reference to his previous tweets before launching into his usual mockery of Ms. Warren’s claims to Native heritage. “Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or…
Private Mossad for hire
Adam Entous and Ronan Farrow write: One evening in 2016, a twenty-five-year-old community-college student named Alex Gutiérrez was waiting tables at La Piazza Ristorante Italiano, an upscale restaurant in Tulare, in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Gutiérrez spotted Yorai Benzeevi, a physician who ran the local hospital, sitting at a table with Parmod Kumar, a member of the hospital board. They seemed to be in a celebratory mood, drinking expensive bottles of wine and laughing. This irritated Gutiérrez. The kingpins, he…
The problematic role of lobbyists in our politics
Tom Friedman 2011: "I hope that Israel’s prime minister understands that standing ovation he got in Congress this year wasn't for his politics. That ovation was bought & paid for by the Israel lobby."Was that an "anti-semitic trope"? Or is it so only when @IlhanMN says it? — Moshe (@Moshelias) February 11, 2019 Listening and learning, but standing strong 💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/7TSroSf8h1 — Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 11, 2019 I am so confused. At NO point did @IlhanMN say a damn…
Meet the Republicans in Congress who suddenly discovered anti-Semitism
Think Progress reports: After Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) made comments on Sunday evening that evoked an anti-Semitic trope in suggesting that support for Israel in Congress was due to financial support from pro-Israel organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), congressional Democrats and Republicans alike criticized her remarks. But six of those people have had anti-Semitic moments in their own pasts that make their sudden concern for the Jewish community seem somewhat less believable. Among them: House Minority…
Here’s how the Israel lobby stacks up against other Washington influencers
Market Watch reports: The pro-Israel lobby is a significant player in terms of political donations, contributing $14.9 million in the 2018 election cycle, according to data from OpenSecrets.org, a website tracking money in politics that’s run by a nonpartisan research group, the Center for Responsive Politics. The center ranks this lobby as the 50th-biggest spender in the last cycle — well behind the securities and investment industry at No. 1 with its $399 million, as well as lagging the electronics…
U.S. banks won $21 billion Trump tax windfall then cut staff, loaned less
Bloomberg reports: Major U.S. banks shaved about $21 billion from their tax bills last year — almost double the IRS’s annual budget — as the industry benefited more than many others from the Republican tax overhaul. By year-end, most of the nation’s largest lenders met or exceeded their initial predictions for tax savings. On average, the banks saw their effective tax rates fall below 19 percent from the roughly 28 percent they paid in 2016. And while the breaks set…
Music: Bugge Wesseltoft — ‘El’
Humans cannot survive without them yet within a century the world’s insects may be extinct
The Guardian reports: The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could…
A princess from Dubai vanishes. A video offers alarming clues
The New York Times reports: The princess known as Sheikha Latifa had not left Dubai, the glittering emirate ruled by her father, in 18 years. Her requests to travel and study elsewhere had been denied. Her passport had been taken away. Her friends’ apartments were forbidden to her, her palace off-limits to them. At 32, Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum went nowhere without a watchful chauffeur. “There’s no justice here,” she said in a video she secretly recorded last year….
Saudi Arabia’s threadbare cover-up of Khashoggi’s murder unravels further
In an editorial, the New York Times says: The Saudi heir and his friends in the White House evidently calculated that the outcry over the barbarous murder of Jamal Khashoggi would die out over time, and that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would be free to continue on his autocratic way, repressing critics and dissidents with impunity. They were wrong. More than four months have passed since Mr. Khashoggi was savagely throttled and dismembered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul…
Michael Cohen’s secret agenda
The Washington Post reports: At first, Michael Cohen appeared indifferent as he listened to the group of Republican leaders urge his boss to run for governor. It was the fall of 2013, and Donald Trump was already fixated on “the big thing,” as he referred to running for president. But the Republicans knew they were getting somewhere when Trump signaled to his attorney that he wanted more talks. “So Michael,” Trump would say, “you get us a date on the…
Music: Bugge Wesseltoft — ‘Singing’
Plan to end Brexit deadlock: Back May’s deal, then hold people’s vote
The Guardian reports: Theresa May could win parliament’s approval for her controversial Brexit deal in return for guaranteeing another referendum, under a new plan being drawn up by a cross-party group of MPs. The new vote would give the British people a simple choice: to confirm the decision or stay in the EU. The initiative, aimed at breaking the political impasse, is being advanced by Labour MPs Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson and has won the support of prominent Remainers…
Private eyes detail inner workings of National Enquirer ‘blackmail’ machine
The Daily Beast reports: It may have shocked the world when the publisher of the National Enquirer allegedly tried to use nude pictures to coerce Jeff Bezos. But it came as no surprise to three veterans of the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc. “The threats, the blackmail, that’s their business model,” one former National Enquirer staffer told The Daily Beast. That model burst out into public view on Thursday night when Bezos—the world’s richest man, the founder of Amazon,…
Matthew Whitaker plays to an audience of one
Natasha Bertrand writes: It took about five minutes of questioning for the acting attorney general to provoke gasps and jeers in the congressional hearing room. “Your five minutes is up,” Matthew Whitaker, an ex–U.S. attorney turned toilet salesman, told the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic chairman, Jerry Nadler. Nadler cracked a smile, but from that point on, the rules of engagement seemed clear: Whitaker, with just days remaining in his legally dubious role as the interim head of the Justice Department,…