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Category: Politics

Starvation is not a negotiating tactic

Starvation is not a negotiating tactic

Megan Stack writes: “You do whatever you want,” President Trump said he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Mr. Netanyahu, it seems, took Mr. Trump at his word. Israel has clamped Gaza back under near-total siege, barring desperately needed humanitarian aid and other goods from entering the hungry and bomb-decimated enclave. Food, medicine, tents, fuel — for the past week and a half, supplies have not been permitted into Gaza, where some two million Palestinians are trying to survive in the wreckage….

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Putin makes clear Russia will only play ball with Ukraine by his rules

Putin makes clear Russia will only play ball with Ukraine by his rules

Pjotr Sauer writes: For once, the US president and European leaders were on the same page. Grasping for a familiar metaphor, a chorus of western heads of state declared this week that “the ball was in Russia’s court” after Ukraine agreed in talks with the US on Tuesday to an immediate 30-day ceasefire. Rather than making a play, Vladimir Putin on Thursday picked up the ball, scrawled a fresh set of conditions across it, and lobbed it back – insisting…

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Trump silences Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

Trump silences Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

NPR reports: Journalists showed up at the Voice of America today to broadcast their programs only to be told they had been locked out: Federal officials had embarked on indefinite mass suspensions. All full-time staffers at the Voice of America and the Office for Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio and Television Martí, were affected — more than 1,000 employees. The move followed a late Friday night edict from President Trump that its parent agency, called the U.S. Agency for Global…

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Musk installs one of his most trusted advisers inside the Social Security Administration

Musk installs one of his most trusted advisers inside the Social Security Administration

The New York Times reports: A private equity investor who is one of Elon Musk’s closest confidants has taken a new role in the Social Security Administration, a development that could be politically combustible given the program’s popularity with voters and Mr. Musk’s apparent intent to make major changes at the agency. The investor, Antonio Gracias, who has served on the boards of Mr. Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, has started a job at the administration as part of the…

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Trump widens assault on prominent law firms

Trump widens assault on prominent law firms

The New York Times reports: President Trump on Friday opened a third attack against a private law firm, restricting the business activities of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison just days after a federal judge ruled such measures appeared to violate the Constitution. The president signed an executive order to suspend security clearances held by people at the firm, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest. The order also seeks to sharply limit Paul,…

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Trump admin forces Asheville to remove ‘DEI’ language to access hurricane relief aid

Trump admin forces Asheville to remove ‘DEI’ language to access hurricane relief aid

Ja’han Jones writes: The Trump administration recently denied a funding request from the city of Asheville, North Carolina, to help its recovery from Hurricane Helene, telling the city it must cut a program meant to aid female and minority contractors. The mayor said the city has cut the reference to the program and now expects the plan to win approval. During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly used the devastation Helene wrought on North Carolina to spread lies and conspiracy theories…

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Outside America, Musk’s X is a foreign influence threat

Outside America, Musk’s X is a foreign influence threat

Tom Uren writes: We have consistently argued for TikTok to be banned in the U.S. as it could be a powerful tool for the Chinese government to interfere with American political discourse. For U.S. allies, a similar argument now applies to X. Commentators in Canada and the United Kingdom have already floated the idea of banning X. Meanwhile, in France, prosecutors have announced they’ve opened an investigation into X over alleged algorithmic bias. The investigation was launched after the prosecutor’s office received complaints about X’s interference in French democratic debate….

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At DOJ, Trump anoints himself as the ‘chief law enforcement officer in our country’

At DOJ, Trump anoints himself as the ‘chief law enforcement officer in our country’

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Friday walked into the Department of Justice and labeled his courtroom opponents “scum,” judges “corrupt” and the prosecutors who investigated him “deranged.” With the DOJ logo directly behind him, Trump called for his legal tormentors to be sent to prison. “These are people that are bad people, really bad people,” the president said in a rambling speech that lasted more than an hour. “The people who did this to us should go to jail.”…

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Trump tries to dictate what Columbia can teach and who it can admit — ‘a hallmark of autocracy’

Trump tries to dictate what Columbia can teach and who it can admit — ‘a hallmark of autocracy’

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Thursday demanded that Columbia University make dramatic changes in student discipline and admissions before it would discuss lifting the cancellation of $400 million in government grants and contracts. It said the ultimatum was necessary because of what it described as Columbia’s failure to protect Jewish students from harassment. The government called for the university to formalize its definition of antisemitism, to ban the wearing of masks “intended to conceal identity or…

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White House oversaw arrest of Mahmoud Khalil. Now another Palestinian has been arrested

White House oversaw arrest of Mahmoud Khalil. Now another Palestinian has been arrested

The Associated Press reports: On Thursday, Khalil’s lawyers filed new court documents describing how he was rushed from New York to Louisiana last weekend in a manner that left the outspoken Columbia University graduate student feeling like he was being kidnapped. The experience reminded Khalil of when he left Syria shortly after the forced disappearance of his friends there during a period of arbitrary detention in 2013, the lawyers wrote. According to the lawsuit, Khalil repeatedly asked to speak to…

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DOGE operatives inside the Social Security Administration have access to ‘everything, including source code’

DOGE operatives inside the Social Security Administration have access to ‘everything, including source code’

Wired reports: Experts with decades of experience at the agency are now worried that DOGE operatives working across multiple agencies increases the risk of SSA data being shared outside of the agency, or that their inexperience will lead to them breaking systems entirely. In the SSA filing [in federal court in Maryland opposing a motion for a temporary restraining order filed by unions that would prevent DOGE from accessing SSA records], lawyers for the agency claim that the DOGE operatives…

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The beginning of the end of the trading system that built the modern world

The beginning of the end of the trading system that built the modern world

Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux writes: Equities markets roared in anticipation of the deregulation, tax cuts and fiscal restraint the second Trump administration promised. But the tariff war with Mexico and Canada has destroyed that optimism and wiped out the increase in the value of American equities that had accrued since November. On April 2, President Trump plans to take his protectionist policies global. If he does, it will be the beginning of the end of the trading system…

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Mark Zuckerberg wants ‘all the good, bad and ugly’ on display except when it’s about him

Mark Zuckerberg wants ‘all the good, bad and ugly’ on display except when it’s about him

Meta’s Joel Kaplan announced in January, “Meta’s platforms are built to be places where people can express themselves freely. That can be messy. On platforms where billions of people can have a voice, all the good, bad and ugly is on display. But that’s free expression.” Steven Levy writes: It was Meta itself that first told me about the new book attacking Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and the allegedly bankrupt morals of their company. On March 7, a Meta PR…

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U.S. buys 4 million barrels of oil a day from Canada but Trump says, ‘We don’t need anything they have’

U.S. buys 4 million barrels of oil a day from Canada but Trump says, ‘We don’t need anything they have’

CNBC reports: President Donald Trump on Thursday doubled down on his escalating tariff plans, even as his economic agenda continued to rattle investors and contribute to a weekslong stock market sell-off. “I’m not going to bend at all,” Trump said when asked about his tariff plans during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “We’ve been ripped off for years, and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore,” he said. Trump specifically said he would not…

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Heritage Foundation draft report calls for ending U.S. aid to Israel

Heritage Foundation draft report calls for ending U.S. aid to Israel

Jewish Insider reports: The Heritage Foundation has composed a new proposal calling for the U.S. to cut off aid to Israel by 2047 and require the Jewish state to increase its purchasing of U.S. defense materials, Jewish Insider has learned. It was set to announce the report at an event on Wednesday, which has since been canceled, a source familiar with the situation said, after at least one of the headline speakers withdrew from participating. A draft of the report…

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Most Americans believe that Musk’s DOGE cuts are harming the country, poll finds

Most Americans believe that Musk’s DOGE cuts are harming the country, poll finds

Politico reports: Over half of voters believe Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency are hurting the country, a new Quinnipiac University poll finds. Fifty-four percent of voters believe DOGE, which the Trump administration has charged with slashing government spending, is harming the country. In comparison, 40 percent say Musk’s office is helping, according to the Quinnipiac poll. And 60 percent of voters disapprove of how Musk and DOGE deal with the federal workforce, while 36 percent approve. The…

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