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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is destroying Donald Trump’s election chances, poll says

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is destroying Donald Trump’s election chances, poll says

HuffPost reports: Third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy is on track to push President Joe Biden to an easy victory over Donald Trump in a potential 2024 showdown, according to a new poll. Since Kennedy announced he was leaving the Democratic race to run as an independent earlier this month, the debate has swirled over whom he would hurt more, the four-times-indicted ex-president or the incumbent. But an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll released Tuesday offered an early prediction: Biden would beat…

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Man who spread misinformation on Trump’s behalf sentenced to seven months in prison

Man who spread misinformation on Trump’s behalf sentenced to seven months in prison

The New York Times reports: A digital-age dirty-trickster who used Twitter posts that looked like Hillary Clinton ads to spread false information before the 2016 presidential election was sentenced on Tuesday to seven months in prison. During a trial last spring, prosecutors presented evidence that the man, Douglass Mackey, had joined private Twitter groups where participants reveled in using lies and deceit on behalf of Donald J. Trump, carrying out what one participant termed “the deep psyops of meme war.”…

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MSNBC: Death toll at Gaza hospital indicative of Israeli bombing, not misfired Palestinian rocket

MSNBC: Death toll at Gaza hospital indicative of Israeli bombing, not misfired Palestinian rocket

  MSNBC’s Raf Sanchez: We should also say that this kind of death toll is not what you normally associate with Palestinian rockets. These rockets are dangerous, they are deadly — they do not tend to kill hundreds of people in a single strike in the way that Israeli high explosives, especially these [U.S. made] bunker buster bombs that are used to target these Hamas tunnels under Gaza City, do have the potential to kill hundreds of people. And we…

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Gaza taps are running dry as water shortage reaches crisis point

Gaza taps are running dry as water shortage reaches crisis point

NBC News reports: The taps in the besieged Gaza Strip are running dry, and residents are scrambling to save every last drop of water as the shortage reaches a crisis point. Dunia Aburahma said her family has rationed supplies, allowing her only a quart of drinking water per day. “I haven’t taken a shower for four days now,” said Aburahma, 22, an architecture student who fled northern Gaza with her family last week ahead of Israel’s threatened ground invasion and…

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Whatever unfolds in Gaza war, judgment day looms for Netanyahu

Whatever unfolds in Gaza war, judgment day looms for Netanyahu

Reuters reports: One Israeli cabinet minister was barred from a hospital visitors’ entrance. Another’s bodyguards were drenched with coffee thrown by a bereaved man. A third had “traitor” and “imbecile” shouted at her as she came to comfort families evacuated during the horror. The shock Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas gunmen has rallied Israelis to one another. But there is little love shown for a government being widely accused of dropping the country’s guard and engulfing it in a Gaza…

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Suspect in death of 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was obsessed with Israel-Hamas war, prosecutors say

Suspect in death of 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was obsessed with Israel-Hamas war, prosecutors say

NBC News reports: The suburban Chicago landlord accused of stabbing a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy to death and badly wounding his mother was ordered held behind bars Monday while federal authorities opened a hate crimes investigation into what they say was a deadly anti-Muslim attack. Dressed in an orange prison-issued jumpsuit, his hair disheveled, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba answered “yes sir” to the judge but otherwise sat quietly in a Will County courtroom where he was formally charged with three counts…

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Ukraine uses secretly shipped U.S. missiles to launch surprise strike

Ukraine uses secretly shipped U.S. missiles to launch surprise strike

Politico reports: The Ukrainian military on Tuesday used U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles to strike nine Russian helicopters in eastern Ukraine, after Washington secretly shipped the weapons in recent weeks. The delivery and use on the battlefield, confirmed by two people familiar with the move, marks a major ramp up of the administration’s defense of Ukraine, for the first time providing Kyiv’s forces with the ability to strike Russian targets far behind the front lines. President Joe Biden had been hesitant to…

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Russian sources disappeared after Trump declassified ex-spy’s evidence, UK court told

Russian sources disappeared after Trump declassified ex-spy’s evidence, UK court told

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump’s decision to declassify evidence given by a former British spy about the former US president’s alleged links with Russia led to the disappearance of two Russian sources, according to a court document. Christopher Steele, who used to run MI6’s Russia desk, compiled the notorious “Steele dossier” investigating Trump’s connections to Russia. In a witness statement released on Tuesday, Steele said publication of his testimony to the Mueller investigation on the matter, originally classified secret, was…

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Trump’s statements pose ‘grave threats’ to court proceedings, Judge Chutkan says in written gag order

Trump’s statements pose ‘grave threats’ to court proceedings, Judge Chutkan says in written gag order

CNN reports: US District Judge Tanya Chutkan has put into writing her limited gag order that bars Donald Trump from making public statements about witnesses who might testify against him in the federal election subversion case as well as prosecutors and court staff. Trump’s public statements pose “grave threats to the integrity of these proceedings,” especially those that could be construed as harassment and intimidation, Chutkan said in the order released Tuesday. The written order expands upon what Chutkan articulated…

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The Right’s latest target: unmarried women

The Right’s latest target: unmarried women

Jeet Heer writes: The reactionary right has found an impressive new target in its ongoing culture war. This time it’s Taylor Swift, whose current Eras Tour—encompassing 146 dates on five continents—is a cultural and economic earthquake so large that it has even registered on the sensitive fiscal seismographs of the Federal Reserve. In July, the Philadelphia Fed, in its authoritative Beige Book, credited Smith with reviving that city’s flagging tourism industry. As Time reports, Swift’s tour is projected to gross…

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The invasion of Gaza will be a disaster for Israel

The invasion of Gaza will be a disaster for Israel

Marc Lynch writes: Those urging Israel to invade Gaza with maximalist goals are pushing their ally into a strategic and political catastrophe. The potential costs are extraordinarily high, whether counted in Israeli and Palestinian deaths, the likelihood of a protracted quagmire, or mass displacement of Palestinians. The risk of the conflict spreading is also alarmingly large, particularly in the West Bank and Lebanon but potentially far wider. And the potential gains—beyond satisfying demands for revenge—are remarkably low. Not since the…

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Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and China say Israel has gone too far

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and China say Israel has gone too far

The Times of Israel reports: Meeting on Sunday with visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said that Israel’s activity in Gaza had “exceeded” its right to self-defense and had become collective punishment. Sissi, whose country shares a narrow border with the Gaza Strip that has remained largely blocked over the past week, said during the meeting that Israel’s “reaction went beyond the right to self-defense, turning into collective punishment for 2.3 million people in Gaza,”…

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It’s becoming impossible to report from Gaza

It’s becoming impossible to report from Gaza

The Washington Post reports: Over the years, NPR has relied on Anas Baba to be its eyes and ears within Gaza. This past week was no exception. The Palestinian producer interviewed civilians seeking shelter from Israeli airstrikes at Gaza City’s main hospital, where hallways were crowded with the wounded and dying. Later, he called in an eyewitness account of young children traveling on foot for dozens of miles in an attempt to evacuate the city. The reporting took “a lot…

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How Hamas shattered Israel’s aura of invincibility

How Hamas shattered Israel’s aura of invincibility

The New York Times reports: The 10 gunmen from Gaza knew exactly how to find the Israeli intelligence hub — and how to get inside. After crossing into Israel, they headed east on five motorcycles, two gunmen on each vehicle, shooting at passing civilian cars as they pressed forward. Ten miles later, they veered off the road into a stretch of woodland, dismounting outside an unmanned gate to a military base. They blew open the barrier with a small explosive…

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Poland shows that autocracy is not inevitable

Poland shows that autocracy is not inevitable

Anne Applebaum writes: Thirty-four years ago, in June 1989, Poland woke up to a surprise. Despite a voting process rigged to favor the Communist Party, despite decades of propaganda supporting Communists and smearing anti-Communists, despite the regime’s control of the army, the police, and the secret police, the democratic opposition won, taking all of the seats that it was allowed to contest. A team of former dissidents took control of the government two months later—the first non-Communist government in Soviet-occupied…

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