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Category: Politics

In the Iranian regime ‘everyone is now a hardliner’

In the Iranian regime ‘everyone is now a hardliner’

The Economist reports: On June 23rd Iran’s regime ignored President Donald Trump’s warnings and attacked American military bases in Qatar and Iraq. Missiles could be seen over skyscrapers in Doha, Qatar’s capital. While the damage and casualties appear minimal, the war has reached the Gulf, whose glimmering cities offer an alternative vision of the Middle East and whose energy the world needs. The strikes outside Iran come alongside a sudden, ominous power shift inside it. Military hardliners are grabbing power…

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Emil Bove, now a federal court of appeals nominee, proposed defying court orders, former DOJ colleague says

Emil Bove, now a federal court of appeals nominee, proposed defying court orders, former DOJ colleague says

Politico reports: A top Justice Department official who has been nominated for a federal judgeship suggested to colleagues that the administration would defy court orders in order to carry out President Donald Trump’s aggressive plan for mass deportations, according to a whistleblower letter submitted by another attorney who was present. The official, Emil Bove, proposed ignoring court orders as administration lawyers strategized in March over expected legal challenges to the president’s plan to assert wartime powers to rapidly deport some…

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Stephen Miller’s conflict of interest: a financial stake in ICE contractor Palantir

Stephen Miller’s conflict of interest: a financial stake in ICE contractor Palantir

Project On Government Oversight reports: Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s powerful deputy chief of staff and homeland security advisor, is more than just the architect of the administration’s hardline immigration policies: He has a personal financial stake in them. Miller disclosed from $100,001 up to a quarter million dollars of stock in Palantir, a tech company woven into the operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and used by other federal agencies such as the Pentagon. That stock ownership is previously unreported; this new information…

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The Supreme Court just stripped thousands of immigrants of their right to due process

The Supreme Court just stripped thousands of immigrants of their right to due process

Ian Millhiser writes: In a short, one-paragraph order, the Republican justices ruled on Monday evening that President Donald Trump may effectively nullify a federal law and an international treaty that is supposed to protect immigrants from torture. The Court’s order in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. does not explain the GOP’s justices’ reasoning, although Justice Sonia Sotomayor responds to their silent decision in a 19-page dissent joined by her two Democratic colleagues. The Court’s order is only temporary, and…

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Gaza and the undoing of Zionism

Gaza and the undoing of Zionism

Yakov M. Rabkin writes: During a sabbatical I spent in West Jerusalem in the late 1980s, my 7-year-old daughter was enrolled in an Israeli school. One day, she came home and could not find her tricycle anywhere. “Arabs must have stolen it,” she said. We later found the tricycle behind the building, but her immediate assumption gave me pause. Just a few months in, an Israeli school had already planted seeds of anti-Arab prejudice in her young mind. In response,…

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U.S. air strikes probably only delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions — and reinvigorated them

U.S. air strikes probably only delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions — and reinvigorated them

James M. Acton writes: Speaking on Sunday morning, Vice President JD Vance stated that the Saturday U.S. air strikes on Iran had “set their nuclear program back substantially.” His comments came soon after President Donald Trump said that the operation had “completely obliterated” key nuclear facilities in the country. Satellite images of bombed buildings and cratered mountainsides certainly give credence to these claims. But these statements from Vance and Trump are far too confident. In reality, Iran can likely reconstitute…

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The perils of Middle East triumphalism

The perils of Middle East triumphalism

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write: To many outside the Middle East, the American and Israeli war with Iran reads like a linear narrative: the two allies’ formidable militaries and intelligence agencies arrayed against their adversary, poised to prevail, on the cusp of indisputable, decisive triumph. The fight and its expected outcome are viewed through the prism of familiar antecedents: Hitler’s Germany overwhelmed, defeated, willing to acquiesce to the victor’s demands; Japan following suit. When proponents of this war speak…

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How Trump has helped Iran increase its uranium stockpile

How Trump has helped Iran increase its uranium stockpile

You will find more infographics at Statista The New York Times reports: President Trump declared a “spectacular military success,” saying that American bombs had knocked out key pillars of Iran’s nuclear program. Even if he is right, the operation may not have delivered a death blow to a program that is deeply embedded in Iran’s history, culture, sense of security, and national identity. Since Iran first embarked on an ambitious civilian nuclear program in 1974 under the shah, Mohammed Reza…

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As U.S. braces for Iranian retaliation, ‘FBI and Justice Department are completely unprepared to respond to a crisis’

As U.S. braces for Iranian retaliation, ‘FBI and Justice Department are completely unprepared to respond to a crisis’

NBC News reports: As the United States faces possible retaliatory attacks from Iran, a “brain drain” in top Justice Department and FBI national security and counterterrorism units could reduce their ability to prevent potential terror and cyberattacks from Tehran, according to six former senior DOJ and FBI officials. Staff levels in the DOJ National Security Division’s Law and Policy section have dropped by as much as two-thirds, two former DOJ officials said. Its counterintelligence and export control section — which…

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Why the Senate’s Byrd Rule could mean big trouble for Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Why the Senate’s Byrd Rule could mean big trouble for Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Time reports: She wasn’t elected and she doesn’t cast votes. But over the past week, Elizabeth MacDonough, the quietly powerful Senate parliamentarian, may have had more influence over Donald Trump’s legislative agenda than anyone else in Washington. After meeting with Republicans and Democrats behind closed doors, MacDonough in recent days has significantly shrunk the size of the President’s sweeping tax-and-spending package known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” by striking several measures that violated an arcane, decades-old Senate rule known…

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The Democrats must confront their gerontocracy

The Democrats must confront their gerontocracy

Helen Lewis writes: Last week, something happened that is extremely rare in Washington, D.C., but completely normal outside of it: People openly described an octogenarian as frail and overdue for retirement. The subject of discussion was Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting congressional delegate, who turned 88 on Friday. Recently, several D.C. figures have questioned her ability to serve. Beverly Perry, a senior adviser to Mayor Muriel Bowser, went on the record to say that it was “hard”…

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It now appears more likely than ever that Iran will try to develop nuclear weapons

It now appears more likely than ever that Iran will try to develop nuclear weapons

Isaac Chotiner interviewed James M. Acton, the chair and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: One point that opponents of the Obama deal have made is that Iran could have been using hidden sites to enrich uranium beyond what was allowed. But you have argued that that isn’t actually a case for military action. Why? One of the big challenges with all I.A.E.A. [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspections everywhere is, Does the I.A.E.A….

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After U.S. military strikes, Iran could reconsider its nuclear strategy

After U.S. military strikes, Iran could reconsider its nuclear strategy

Seyed Hossein Mousavian writes: On Sunday, US President Donald Trump publicly announced: “The US military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” Following the attack, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the use of force by the United States against Iran today is…

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‘Caught between a devil, a monster and a wildcat’

‘Caught between a devil, a monster and a wildcat’

Middle East Eye reports: There had been growing speculation in recent days that further and larger strikes would hit Iranian nuclear facilities – especially Fordow, which is buried deep underground. However, military experts had said only US bunker-busting bombs could destroy the facility, and that Israel doesn’t have that capability. As a result, many Iranians were worried an American attack might be coming soon. Milad, 35, was one of them. He lives in the northwestern city of Mashhad, 900km from…

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Provision in GOP tax bill that would threaten judicial power breaks Senate rules, says parliamentarian

Provision in GOP tax bill that would threaten judicial power breaks Senate rules, says parliamentarian

HuffPost reports: A provision in the GOP’s tax-and-spending bill that would make it nearly impossible for anyone to sue the Trump administration for breaking laws is on track to be stripped from the bill after the Senate parliamentarian said it violates the chamber’s rules. This provision, which is in Senate Republicans’ version of the One Big Beautiful Act, would require anyone seeking an emergency court order ― that is, a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction ― against the…

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‘It felt like kidnapping,’ Mahmoud Khalil says in first interview after release

‘It felt like kidnapping,’ Mahmoud Khalil says in first interview after release

The New York Times reports: Mahmoud Khalil sat in a Manhattan apartment dotted with posters and signs calling for his freedom and described the moment 105 days before when plainclothes immigration agents had handcuffed him in the building lobby. “All the ‘Know Your Rights’ information and fliers I read and familiarized myself with were useless,” Mr. Khalil said. “There are no rights in such situations.” “It felt like kidnapping,” he said. Mr. Khalil, a 30-year-old Columbia University graduate and U.S….

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