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Category: Politics

So is the U.S. actually taking over Greenland? Vance doesn’t seem too sure

So is the U.S. actually taking over Greenland? Vance doesn’t seem too sure

Aaron Blake writes: When it comes to taking control of Greenland, we should apparently take President Donald Trump seriously, not literally. That seemed to be the message Vice President JD Vance suggested during his visit to the island. Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of Greenland somehow becoming part of the United States. It’s an idea that has drawn derision not just from U.S. allies and members of Congress, but also from the populations of both the United States and…

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Hegseth brought his wife to sensitive meetings with foreign military officials

Hegseth brought his wife to sensitive meetings with foreign military officials

The Wall Street Journal reports: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing scrutiny over his handling of details of a military strike, brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed, according to multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions. One of the meetings, a high-level discussion at the Pentagon on March 6 between Hegseth and U.K. Secretary of Defense John Healey, took place at…

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For Trump, Waltz’s worst offense was that Jeffrey Goldberg was one of his contacts

For Trump, Waltz’s worst offense was that Jeffrey Goldberg was one of his contacts

The New York Times reports: For much of this week, President Trump was consumed by a single question. What should he do about his national security adviser, Michael Waltz? “Should I fire him?” he asked aides and allies as the fallout continued over the stunning leak of a Signal group chat set up by Mr. Waltz, who had inadvertently added a journalist to the thread about an upcoming military strike in Yemen. In public, Mr. Trump’s default position has been…

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British Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House

British Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House

Quakers in Britain: Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo. Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House. They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a…

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‘We want to live’: Rage at Israel fuses with ire at Hamas as protests rock Gaza

‘We want to live’: Rage at Israel fuses with ire at Hamas as protests rock Gaza

Ruwaida Amer reports: For the past two days, Palestinians across the Gaza Strip have taken to the streets to demand an end to Israel’s genocidal onslaught and to Hamas’ rule of the territory. Beginning in the northern city of Beit Lahiya, demonstrations quickly spread to other parts of the enclave including Shuja’iyya in the north, Nuseirat and Deir Al-Balah in the center, and Khan Younis in the south. The protests are the largest since the war began, and the most…

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The gleeful cruelty of the White House X account. Welcome to the 4chan administration

The gleeful cruelty of the White House X account. Welcome to the 4chan administration

Charlie Warzel writes: On March 18, the official White House account on X posted two photographs of Virginia Basora-Gonzalez, a woman who was arrested earlier this month by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The post described her as a “previously deported alien felon convicted of fentanyl trafficking,” and celebrated her capture as a win for the administration. In one photograph, Basora-Gonzalez is shown handcuffed and weeping in a public parking lot. The White House account posted about Basora-Gonzalez again yesterday—this…

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The disappearing of Rumeysa Ozturk is state-sponsored terrorism

The disappearing of Rumeysa Ozturk is state-sponsored terrorism

Will Bunch writes: You’ve probably seen something like this before — but only in a movie, and only in a film that was seeking to capture the horrors of daily life under Joseph Stalin at the peak of his 1930s purges across the USSR, or maybe a Gestapo thriller set in Nazi Germany. At 5:30 p.m. on a spring day on an urban residential street, a young woman in a bright white coat, hijab, and sneakers, engrossed in her mobile…

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DOGE plans to rebuild SSA codebase in months, risking benefits and even system collapse

DOGE plans to rebuild SSA codebase in months, risking benefits and even system collapse

Wired reports: The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk. The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell…

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Top Senate Republican challenges Trump’s bid to withhold spending

Top Senate Republican challenges Trump’s bid to withhold spending

The New York Times reports: A top Senate Republican on Thursday accused President Trump of illegally refusing to spend $2.9 billion approved by Congress, teaming with Democrats in an early salvo in the simmering struggle between Congress and the White House over which has the ultimate power over federal spending. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, initiated a letter to the White House, signed by Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the panel’s senior…

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BYD is the world’s hottest car company, while for Tesla things go from bad to worse

BYD is the world’s hottest car company, while for Tesla things go from bad to worse

CNN reports: In the world of electric vehicles, there’s a Chinese company outdoing Elon Musk’s Tesla. And it’s just getting started. BYD, the Shenzhen-based Chinese EV champion, eclipsed Tesla in annual sales last year. Last week, it unveiled a revolutionary battery charging technology that it says adds 250 miles of range in five minutes, outpacing Tesla’s Superchargers, which take 15 minutes to add 200 miles. And last month, BYD launched “God’s Eye,” an advanced driver-assistance system rivaling Tesla’s Full Self-Driving…

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Canada’s old relationship with the U.S. ‘is over,’ says Prime Minister Mark Carney

Canada’s old relationship with the U.S. ‘is over,’ says Prime Minister Mark Carney

The New Republic reports: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney officially broke things off with the United States Thursday, marking a seismic shift in relations between the longtime allies. “The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” Carney said during a press conference, following a meeting in Ottawa with his ministers to “discuss trade options” in response to Donald Trump’s “permanent” 25 percent tariffs on…

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Trump administration wants to turn Ukraine into an American colony

Trump administration wants to turn Ukraine into an American colony

Bloomberg reports: The US is pushing to control all major future infrastructure and mineral investments in Ukraine, potentially gaining a veto over any role for Kyiv’s other allies and undermining its bid for European Union membership. President Donald Trump’s administration is demanding the “right of first offer” on investments in all infrastructure and natural resources projects under a revised partnership deal with Ukraine, according to a draft of the document obtained by Bloomberg News. If accepted, the partnership agreement would…

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Who literally calls the shots in this White House? Stephen Miller

Who literally calls the shots in this White House? Stephen Miller

Garrett Graff asks: Who holds the power in the Trump administration? The full Signal chat provides some of the most “real” indications of where power lies in the Trump administration and how decision-making happens—and none of it is pretty. The answer is shocking, but perhaps not surprising: Donald Trump isn’t that engaged in the policy of his administration, JD Vance is weak and powerless, and the only one that matters is Stephen Miller. I wrote earlier this week about how fascinating it was…

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‘Trump doesn’t have a Yemen policy.’ The folly of U.S. airstrikes on the Houthis

‘Trump doesn’t have a Yemen policy.’ The folly of U.S. airstrikes on the Houthis

Mohammed Ali Kalfood writes: On his third day back in the White House, President Donald Trump issued an executive order re-designating Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization. He ordered the Pentagon to start preparing military plans against the militant group and imposed sanctions on Houthi leaders, along with their main backer, Iran. Then, on March 15, Trump announced a new U.S. bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen that has now continued for 10 days. “YOUR TIME…

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Yale expert on fascism joins exodus of academics escaping from authoritarianism

Yale expert on fascism joins exodus of academics escaping from authoritarianism

The Guardian reports: A Yale professor who studies fascism is leaving the US to work at a Canadian university because of the current US political climate, which he worries is putting the US at risk of becoming a “fascist dictatorship”. Jason Stanley, who wrote the 2018 book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, has accepted a position at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Stanley told the Daily Nous, a philosophy…

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Double standards: DHS staffer faces serious punishment for accidentally adding reporter to group email

Double standards: DHS staffer faces serious punishment for accidentally adding reporter to group email

NBC News reports: A federal worker accidentally includes a journalist on a detailed message in advance of a government operation. While that sounds like the case of The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief being added to a group Signal chat by Trump’s national security adviser Michael Waltz, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed military attack plans in Yemen, it’s not. It’s what happened to a longtime Department of Homeland Security employee who told colleagues she inadvertently sent unclassified details of an…

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