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Category: Politics

In Lebanon, a ceasefire is cause for celebration. Not in Israel

In Lebanon, a ceasefire is cause for celebration. Not in Israel

Orly Noy writes: The international media was awash yesterday with clips of people in Lebanon celebrating news of the looming ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which came into force early this morning. As one report explained alongside a video, “The news has brought a moment of hope and relief to those affected by the ongoing conflict.” The same video was shared by the Hebrew Instagram page “Push – Real-Time Reports,” which has more than 860,000 followers. They captioned it rather…

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How Trump plans to seize the power of the purse from Congress

How Trump plans to seize the power of the purse from Congress

By Molly Redden This story was originally published by ProPublica Donald Trump is entering his second term with vows to cut a vast array of government services and a radical plan to do so. Rather than relying on his party’s control of Congress to trim the budget, Trump and his advisers intend to test an obscure legal theory holding that presidents have sweeping power to withhold funding from programs they dislike. “We can simply choke off the money,” Trump said…

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Top Trump aide, Boris Epshteyn, accused of asking for money to ‘promote’ potential appointees

Top Trump aide, Boris Epshteyn, accused of asking for money to ‘promote’ potential appointees

The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump’s legal team found evidence that a top adviser asked for retainer fees from potential appointees in order to promote them for jobs in the new administration, five people briefed on the matter said on Monday. Mr. Trump directed his team to carry out the review of the adviser, Boris Epshteyn, who coordinated the legal defenses in Mr. Trump’s criminal cases and is a powerful figure in the transition. Several people whom…

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Mexican president challenges Trump over tariffs and illegal weapons coming from the U.S.

Mexican president challenges Trump over tariffs and illegal weapons coming from the U.S.

Rolling Stone reports: Mexico’s recently elected President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded forcefully to Donald Trump’s plans to levy 25 percent tariffs on goods imported from Mexico if the nation doesn’t stem the flow of undocumented immigrants and drugs across the southern border. Sheinbaum promised during a morning news conference on Tuesday that Mexico will retaliate with tax penalties of their own if the president-elect goes through with his tariff plan. “President Trump, it isn’t with threats or tariffs that we…

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Trump’s promises of mass deportation and high tariffs are now facing some corporate headwinds

Trump’s promises of mass deportation and high tariffs are now facing some corporate headwinds

Jay Kuo writes: Texas relies heavily on undocumented labor, especially in the construction sector. According to a report by the American Immigration Council and Texans for Economic Growth, around 60 percent of the immigrant workforce in the state is undocumented. That’s a quarter of a million workers. Deporting them would devastate the industry and drive up housing prices in the state. Marek, a big Houston-based residential and commercial construction company, warned NPR of the consequences. “It would devastate our industry,…

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In Trump’s mass deportation plan, the private prison industry sees a lucrative opportunity

In Trump’s mass deportation plan, the private prison industry sees a lucrative opportunity

ABC News reports: As the government and law enforcement brace for the sweeping ramifications of President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to deport what could be millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States, another stakeholder appears poised to cash in on the complex logistics that would be required: the powerful private prison industry. On corporate earnings calls since Election Day, executives at the country’s top private prison firms have embraced Trump’s immigration agenda as a potential windfall if the federal government…

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The entire history of Zionism’s injustices, in one Bedouin village

The entire history of Zionism’s injustices, in one Bedouin village

Orly Noy writes: Last week, the State of Israel hung the scalp of another Palestinian community on its belt after completing the demolition of Umm Al-Hiran. On the morning of Nov. 14, hundreds of police stormed the Bedouin village — which is located in the Negev/Naqab desert, in southern Israel — accompanied by special forces officers and helicopters. The residents, Israeli citizens who had long feared that this day would come, had already self-demolished most of the structures in the…

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We know who’s to blame for Trump’s evasion of justice. It isn’t Jack Smith

We know who’s to blame for Trump’s evasion of justice. It isn’t Jack Smith

Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern write: The six-page filing that special counsel Jack Smith submitted Monday is surely one of the strangest requests a federal prosecutor has ever had to make. Smith moved to dismiss charges against Donald Trump for election subversion, asking Judge Tanya Chutkan to toss out the case due to an “unprecedented circumstance”: The defendant has, of course, been reelected president. In the filing, he assures the judge (and the public) that the government “stands fully…

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Trump’s mass deportation plan could clog immigration courts for years

Trump’s mass deportation plan could clog immigration courts for years

Axios reports: It’s one thing to call for the largest deportation in American history. It’s another to pull it off logistically, given the highly complex process of spotting, detaining, holding and evicting people in the U.S. illegally. Why it matters: The judicial process — one small piece of a long, expensive deportation machinery — illustrates vividly the complexity ahead. The big picture: The U.S. immigration system’s backlog of 3.7 million court cases will take four years to resolve at the current pace — but that could balloon…

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U.S. farm groups want Trump to spare their workers from deportation

U.S. farm groups want Trump to spare their workers from deportation

Reuters reports: U.S. farm industry groups want President-elect Donald Trump to spare their sector from his promise of mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain heavily dependent on immigrants in the United States illegally. So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan. Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor…

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Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo wants to ‘crush liberal dominance’

Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo wants to ‘crush liberal dominance’

NPR reports: Leonard Leo may not be a household name, but odds are most people in the country know his signature achievement: Leo was a key architect of the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court that rolled back the federal right to an abortion. The conservative activist advised President-elect Donald Trump during his first term on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The three picks gave conservatives their 6-3 majority on the high court. And…

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‘Total oppression’: West Bank children being killed at unprecedented rate

‘Total oppression’: West Bank children being killed at unprecedented rate

The Guardian reports: Mohammad was 12, a football-mad teenager who spent his days dreaming of a career on the pitch and his last minutes practising ball skills. Ghassan was 14, a quiet, generous teenager who ran errands for elderly relatives, with an adoring six-year-old brother who stuck to him like a shadow. Both boys were shot dead this summer by Israeli soldiers, victims of an unprecedented surge in attacks on children in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. In…

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What the broligarchs want from Trump

What the broligarchs want from Trump

Brooke Harrington writes: After Donald Trump won this month’s election, one of the first things he did was to name two unelected male plutocrats, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to run a new Department of Government Efficiency. The yet-to-be-created entity’s acronym, DOGE, is something of a joke—a reference to a cryptocurrency named for an internet meme involving a Shiba Inu. But its appointed task of reorganizing the federal bureaucracy and slashing its spending heralds a new political arrangement in Washington:…

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Trump is running his transition team on dark money

Trump is running his transition team on dark money

The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump is keeping secret the names of the donors who are funding his transition effort, a break from tradition that could make it impossible to see what interest groups, businesses or wealthy people are helping launch his second term. Mr. Trump has so far declined to sign an agreement with the Biden administration that imposes strict limits on that fund-raising in exchange for up to $7.2 million in federal funds earmarked for…

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Huge election year worldwide sees weakening commitment to act on climate crisis

Huge election year worldwide sees weakening commitment to act on climate crisis

The Guardian reports: An unprecedented year of elections around the world has underscored a sobering trend – in many countries the commitment to act on the climate crisis has either stalled or is eroding, even as disasters and record temperatures continue to mount. So far 2024, called the “biggest election year in human history” by the United Nations with around half the world’s population heading to the polls, there have been major wins for Donald Trump, the US president-elect who…

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Foreign nationals propel U.S. science. Visa limits under Trump could change that

Foreign nationals propel U.S. science. Visa limits under Trump could change that

NPR reports: Foreign-born workers account for about half of the doctoral-level scientists and engineers working in the U.S. Many were initially hired under H-1B visas, which are granted to as many as 85,000 highly skilled specialists each year, allowing them to work in the U.S. for up to six years. But the incoming Trump administration has signaled that it will crack down on H-1B visas, which could make it harder for universities, research institutions, and tech firms in the U.S….

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