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Category: Politics

Trump yields to Musk on H-1B visa issue despite strong MAGA opposition

Trump yields to Musk on H-1B visa issue despite strong MAGA opposition

HuffPost reports: President-elect Donald Trump weighed in Saturday on the immigration issue that has been roiling some of his highest-profile supporters online, telling The New York Post that he has “always been in favor” of H-1B visas. It is not exactly true: Trump has waffled on his support for the H-1B program over the years, going so far as to suspend it late in his first term while his administration planned harsh new restrictions for workers seeking the visas. Denial…

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German newspaper publishes op-ed by Elon Musk supporting far-right AfD party; opinion editor resigns

German newspaper publishes op-ed by Elon Musk supporting far-right AfD party; opinion editor resigns

The Guardian reports: The tech entrepreneur and close adviser to Donald Trump Elon Musk has taken a stunning new public step in his support for the far-right German political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), publishing a supportive guest opinion piece for the country’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper that has prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest. The commentary piece in German was launched online on Saturday before being published on Sunday in the flagship paper of the Axel Springer…

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Colorado man accused of attacking TV reporter while yelling: ‘This is Trump’s America now’

Colorado man accused of attacking TV reporter while yelling: ‘This is Trump’s America now’

The Associated Press reports: A Colorado man is facing possible bias-motivated charges for allegedly attacking a television news reporter after demanding to know whether he was a citizen, saying “This is Trump’s America now,” according to court documents. Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, was arrested Dec. 18 in Grand Junction, Colorado, after police say he followed KKCO/KJCT reporter Ja’Ronn Alex’s vehicle for around 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Delta area. Alex told police that he believed he had been followed…

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How Putin tapped a well of ethnic hatred in Russia

How Putin tapped a well of ethnic hatred in Russia

Anna Nemtsova writes: Far-right activists from Russia’s largest nationalist movement, Russkaya Obshchina, donned black camouflage and patrolled multiple cities last month hunting for “ethnic criminals.” They raided dormitories, parks, and construction sites in search of migrants from Central Asia, nabbing six on November 24. On social media, the activists celebrated their “joint raid with law-enforcement officials,” posting a video of themselves leading migrants in chains on their way to deportation. Russkaya Obshchina is working in concert with the Russian state…

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Has Russia’s shadow fleet, built to evade sanctions, added sabotage to its list?

Has Russia’s shadow fleet, built to evade sanctions, added sabotage to its list?

The New York Times reports: Western officials have long been concerned about Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet, an assemblage of aged tankers created to covertly carry Russian crude oil around the world. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the worry primarily concerned the use of such off-the-books ships to circumvent Western sanctions and generate revenue to fuel the Kremlin’s war machine. But Russia’s shadow fleet may now present a more pressing danger to the West. This week, Finnish commandos boarded an oil tanker…

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How the U.S. unwittingly laid the groundwork for the Taliban’s victory long ago

How the U.S. unwittingly laid the groundwork for the Taliban’s victory long ago

The New York Times reports: The Taliban were inching closer, encroaching on land that had once seemed secure, the American officer warned. Four of his men had just been killed, and he needed Afghans willing to fight back. “Who will stand up?” the officer implored a crowd of 150 Afghan elders. The people in Kunduz Province were largely supportive of the Americans and opposed to the Taliban. But recruiting police officers was slow going and, by the summer of 2009,…

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Musk calls for MAGA’s ‘contemptible fools’ to be expelled from the Republican Party

Musk calls for MAGA’s ‘contemptible fools’ to be expelled from the Republican Party

Salon reports: Tesla CEO Elon Musk may have financed an anti-immigrant, ‘America First’ presidential campaign to the tune of $250 million, but his call for more skilled foreign-born workers sparked massive backlash from President-elect Donald Trump’s far-right supporters. Musk on Wednesday asserted that there was a “dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America” and called for increased visa availability, drawing scorn from many of Trump’s followers and close allies. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a momentary pick…

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Freedom Caucus chair: House GOP needs to consider if ‘current leadership is what we need’

Freedom Caucus chair: House GOP needs to consider if ‘current leadership is what we need’

Politico reports: House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris told Fox Business on Thursday that the chamber’s Republicans need to consider if current leadership “is what we need” going into unified GOP government next year. “Before the last couple of weeks, I was in his corner, but now we should consider what’s the best path forward,” Harris (R-Md.) said of Speaker Mike Johnson. “We do need to consider whether — if we’re going to advance Mr. Trump’s agenda — whether the…

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People with extreme wealth should give it away — or be penalized

People with extreme wealth should give it away — or be penalized

Ingrid Robeyns writes: In 2024, wealth concentration rose to an all-time high. According to Forbes’ Billionaires List, not only are there more billionaires than ever—2,781—but those billionaires are also richer than ever, with an aggregate worth of $14.2 trillion. This is a trend that looks set to continue unabated. A recent report from the financial data company Altrata estimated that about 1.2 million individuals who are worth more than $5 million will pass on a collective wealth of almost $31…

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Israel storms northern Gaza’s last hospital as remaining residents forced south

Israel storms northern Gaza’s last hospital as remaining residents forced south

+972 reports: In the morning hours of Dec. 27, Israeli army forces stormed the Kamal Adwan Hospital compound in Beit Lahiya, culminating a nearly week-long siege of the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza. Soldiers forcibly moved patients out of Kamal Adwan to the Indonesian Hospital further south in the city, which had itself been subjected to an evacuation order by the military several days earlier. “Surgical departments, laboratory, maintenance, and emergency units have been completely burned, and the fire…

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New leaders in Damascus call for cordial Syria ties with a resistant Israel — updated

New leaders in Damascus call for cordial Syria ties with a resistant Israel — updated

NPR reports: The newly appointed governor of Damascus has called on the United States to use its influence to push for cordial relations with Israel. In a wide-ranging interview with NPR, Governor Maher Marwan, 42, said that Syria’s new government did not want to seek conflict with Israel, which has been striking strategic military installations in Syria since the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad fell earlier this month. “We have no fear towards Israel and our problem is not…

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A debate about who controls Syria’s state and society

A debate about who controls Syria’s state and society

Ammar Abdulhamid writes: The question of alcohol regulation in Syria, recently raised by secular advocates, is far from a minor detail. It strikes at the core of the discussions about the future nature of the Syrian state. The statement by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), during a recent BBC interview that the country is dealing with more serious challenges at this stage was undermined by his own admission that legal experts drafting Syria’s future constitution were…

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How to buy a piece of a lawsuit and impoverish a country

How to buy a piece of a lawsuit and impoverish a country

Inside Climate News reports: When a foreign mining company sued Greenland in 2022, the government’s lead lawyer thought he was prepared. Paw Fruerlund had handled similar cases before, and he believed the law and facts were on his side. When he arrived at one of the first hearings, however, Fruerlund stared across the table at 12 corporate lawyers from two firms representing his opponent, an Australian company called Greenland Minerals. There were so many, they spilled across two rows of…

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U.S.-funded report, suppressed by Biden administration, says North Gaza on threshold of famine

U.S.-funded report, suppressed by Biden administration, says North Gaza on threshold of famine

A report by the U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning System Network published on December 23, says: Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate (including Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun) has been in place for nearly 80 days. As of November 16, OCHA estimated 65,000-75,000 people remained in North Gaza Governorate, including civilians who have been unable to or prevented from evacuating. More recent satellite-derived imagery suggests thousands of people evacuated in…

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Shortage of talented engineers because American culture venerates ‘mediocrity over excellence’

Shortage of talented engineers because American culture venerates ‘mediocrity over excellence’

The Hill reports: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, co-chairs of President-elect Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency,” are defending the tech industry’s reliance on foreign-born engineers as the incoming Trump administration prepares to crack down on immigration. Musk and Ramaswamy both pointed to a lack of engineers stateside. “The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk wrote in a Wednesday post on his social platform X. When another…

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These MAGA farmers could be ruined if Trump follows through with mass deportations

These MAGA farmers could be ruined if Trump follows through with mass deportations

Politico reports: California farmers could soon enjoy bumper crops thanks to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to lift water restrictions. But who will pick them if he follows through on his deportation threats? The country’s largest agricultural constituency backed Trump in November, bucking California’s deep-blue electorate over his campaign promises to “open the faucet” and deliver more water to the state’s parched, conservative-leaning Central Valley. But now it’s reckoning with an uncomfortable contradiction: Trump also campaigned on mass deportations of undocumented…

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