Timothy Snyder writes: We have the rule of law so as not to have a culture of revenge. For much of human history, it was an eye for an eye, as we read in the Bible. In a revenge culture, a chieftain decides who is to blame, and the shamans explain how the blood and chaos is just and necessary. In the Greek tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides, the grand problem is escaping from reciprocal violence within and among families….
HuffPost reports: Democrats are increasing their scrutiny of Jared Kushner’s business activities. Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, for details about its investors on Wednesday, including the $2 billion it received from the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund in 2021. “Mr. Kushner’s limited track record as an investor, including his nonexistent experience in private equity or hedge funds, raise questions regarding the investment strategy behind the seeding investments and lucrative compensation that Affinity…
The New York Times reports: Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a Palestinian professor at a prominent Israeli university, first waded into the debate over the Gaza war by joining academics worldwide in signing a letter that called for a cease-fire. It branded Israel’s assault on the territory a “genocide” and the leaders of her university responded by urging her to resign. That was soon after the war began on Oct. 7. Months later, the professor drew even more scrutiny for saying it was…
Committee to Protect Journalists: The Israel-Gaza war has taken an unprecedented toll on Gazan journalists since Israel declared war on Hamas following its attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. As of June 11, 2024, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 108 journalists and media workers were among the more than 38,000 killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992. Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including…
Politico reports: Republicans are scrambling to prevent Hunter Biden’s conviction on felony gun charges from undermining their argument that the judicial system is being weaponized against Donald Trump. They just can’t agree on how. Trump’s campaign cast the conviction of his rival’s son on Tuesday as a “distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family,” while some hard-line supporters dismissed the proceedings as “fake.” House Speaker Mike Johnson argued that Hunter Biden’s conviction “doesn’t” undercut Republicans’ claims of…
The New York Times reports: Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a woman posing as a Catholic conservative last week that compromise in America between the left and right might be impossible and then agreed with the view that the nation should return to a place of godliness. “One side or the other is going to win,” Justice Alito told the woman, Lauren Windsor, at an exclusive gala at the Supreme Court. “There can be a way of working, a…
The Daily Beast reports: Justice Samuel Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, once again unwitting made herself the internet’s Main Character on Tuesday after an undercover reporter released a secretly recorded conversation in which she nastily complained about her neighbor’s Pride flag and bizarrely declared “I’m German.” “Look at me. I’m German, from Germany. My heritage is German,” she told a documentary maker who was posing as a conservative activist. “You come after me, I’m going to give it back to you. And…
Ian Millhiser writes: Let’s not beat around the bush. It is more likely than not that Donald Trump will return to the White House next year. Right now, polling averages show Trump with a slight popular vote lead over incumbent President Joe Biden. And, even if Biden overcomes this small deficit, the Electoral College system effectively makes Trump votes count more than Biden votes. Although there may be signs that the Republican Party’s advantage in the Electoral College is fading, that advantage was…
The Guardian reports: Israeli attacks in central Gaza killed scores of Palestinians, many of them civilians, amid a special forces operation to free four hostages held there, a death toll that has caused international outrage. At least 274 Palestinians were killed and 698 wounded in Israeli strikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday. The Israeli military said its forces had come under heavy fire during the daytime operation. The EU’s top diplomat,…
Geneva Convention, Article 37 — Prohibition of perfidy 1. (c) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status This evidence of Israel's war crime of perfidy comes not from Palestinians but a right-wing Israeli newspaper: "the special force entered Nuseirat with a truck carrying 'furniture' for displaced persons….driven by a female soldier in civilian clothes." https://t.co/3Nzv1uxMT8 — Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) June 9, 2024 Israel Hayom reports: In Gaza, it is reported that the special force entered Nuseirat with a truck carrying “furniture”…
The Intercept reports: After the Columbia Law Review’s board of directors responded to the publication of an article about Palestine by taking the prestigious journal completely offline, the students who run CLR voted on Wednesday to reject an offer in a letter from the directors to reinstate the website. The Columbia Law School students who run CLR were considering a proposal to append a note to the Palestine article disclaiming what the directors, in an unsigned letter to students,…
The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump is vowing to wrest key spending powers from Congress if elected this November, promising to assert more control over the federal budget than any president in U.S. history. The Constitution gives control over spending to Congress, but Trump and his aides maintain that the president should have much more discretion — including the authority to cease programs altogether, even if lawmakers fund them. Depending on the response from the Supreme Court and Congress, Trump’s…
By Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski This story was originally published by ProPublica. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas acknowledged for the first time in a new financial disclosure filing that he should have publicly reported two free vacations he received from billionaire Harlan Crow. The pair of 2019 trips, one to Indonesia and the other to the Bohemian Grove, an all-male retreat in northern California, were first revealed by ProPublica. Last year, Thomas argued that he did not…
CNN reports: [Judge Aileen] Cannon’s assignment to the documents case was a game of odds. Though the charges were filed in West Palm Beach, the division that is home to Mar-a-Lago, Cannon was randomly chosen from a broader pool of judges in Florida’s southern district. Her approach as a jurist – detail-obsessed to the point of tedious – appears uniquely prone to being exploited by a defense team eager to delay the case. And the complicated system Cannon has set…
The Associated Press reports: Spain became on Thursday the first European country to ask a United Nations court for permission to join South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. South Africa filed its case with the International Court of Justice late last year. It alleged that Israel was breaching the genocide convention in its military assault that has laid waste to large swaths of Gaza. The court has ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the…
CNBC reports: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted millions of dollars’ worth of gifts over the past two decades on the bench, a total nearly 10 times the value of all gifts received by his fellow justices during the same time, according to a new analysis. Thomas received 103 gifts with a total value of more than $2.4 million between 2004 and 2023, the judicial reform group Fix the Court said in a report Thursday. In contrast, Thomas’ fellow justices…