Browsed by
Category: Politics

Trump’s oligarchy

Trump’s oligarchy

Axios reports: President-elect Trump has assembled an administration of unprecedented, mind-boggling wealth — smashing his own first-term record by billions of dollars. That’s even without counting the ballooning fortunes of his prized outside adviser and the world’s richest man: Elon Musk. Why it matters: It’s not hyperbole to call this a government of billionaires. Whether it acts as a government for billionaires — as Democrats argue is inevitable — could test and potentially tarnish Trump’s populist legacy. The big picture: Besides Trump, Musk and his fellow Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)…

Read More Read More

Will Trump have the legal power to impose martial law?

Will Trump have the legal power to impose martial law?

David French writes: [T]here is a statutory basis for military intervention in domestic affairs, and the statute — called the Insurrection Act — is so poorly drafted that I have come to call it America’s most dangerous law. The Insurrection Act is almost as old as the United States itself. The law dates to 1792, and it permits the president to deploy American troops on American streets to impose order and maintain government control. There is nothing inherently wrong with…

Read More Read More

No, Trump can’t just ‘dismiss’ the Senate

No, Trump can’t just ‘dismiss’ the Senate

Akhil Reed Amar, Josh Chafetz, and Thomas P. Schmidt write: Donald Trump has not even returned to office, and already a constitutional crisis may be in the making. Trump has started announcing the people he intends to nominate for positions in his new administration. That is his prerogative. Several senators have criticized some of Trump’s choices. That is their prerogative (and two Trump nominees have already withdrawn under pressure). But rumors have been circulating of a plan to have Trump…

Read More Read More

Incoming Trump administration plans to deport some migrants to countries other than their own

Incoming Trump administration plans to deport some migrants to countries other than their own

NBC News reports: The incoming Trump administration is preparing a list of countries to which it may deport migrants when their home countries refuse to accept them, according to three sources familiar with the plans. The countries on the list have included but may not be limited to Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Panama and Grenada, the sources said. The plans could mean that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of migrants would be permanently displaced in countries where they…

Read More Read More

Syria’s rebel coalition has shaped itself into a nationalist force that aims to overthrow Assad regime

Syria’s rebel coalition has shaped itself into a nationalist force that aims to overthrow Assad regime

Hassan Hassan writes: The stunningly successful offensive by Syrian rebels last week accomplished what years of bloodshed by larger factions could not. Within four days, the rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, captured much of Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities, and now controls most of Aleppo Province and all of Idlib Province. Long-entrenched front lines held by government forces and fortified by Russian firepower crumbled. Underlying the success of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is a crucial development: It has evolved from…

Read More Read More

Inside the Iraqi factions’ decision to stay out of Syria

Inside the Iraqi factions’ decision to stay out of Syria

Middle East Eye reports: Iraq’s Shia forces, including major Iranian-affiliated armed factions, have unanimously decided not to send fighters to Syria to defend Bashar al-Assad from the rebel advance, officials and commanders told Middle East Eye. Last week, Syrian rebels led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham launched an offensive on Assad’s forces, seizing the major cities of Aleppo and Hama in a matter of days. The advance, which is now bearing down on Homs, has greatly concerned Iraqi leaders, who consider…

Read More Read More

Sick animals suggest COVID pandemic started in Wuhan market

Sick animals suggest COVID pandemic started in Wuhan market

Nature reports: The quest to understand where the COVID-19 pandemic started has revealed fresh clues. Researchers have re-analysed data collected from a market in Wuhan, China, during the early days of the pandemic and found that animals there were infected with a virus – although they could not confirm what exactly caused the infection. “The conclusion is convincing that there was infection in the animals,” says Spyros Lytras, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Tokyo. The results, which have…

Read More Read More

Russia is increasingly open about its national eugenics project

Russia is increasingly open about its national eugenics project

Alexey Kovalev writes: “Spare people” with low “social value” is how Russian parliamentarian Aleksandr Borodai described his compatriots sent as cannon fodder to Ukraine in a leaked tape, the authenticity of which he later confirmed. Expendable manpower, he explained, can be thrown at Ukraine’s “bravest [and] boldest,” and “exhaust the enemy to the maximum.” Borodai isn’t just anybody: He’s a political consultant from Moscow who declared himself prime minister of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic in Ukraine in 2014, and…

Read More Read More

Tulsi Gabbard — Russian asset or just a politically opportunistic sycophant who wants to please Trump?

Tulsi Gabbard — Russian asset or just a politically opportunistic sycophant who wants to please Trump?

ABC News reports: Since becoming President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard’s rosy posture toward Moscow has prompted some Democratic critics to suggest that she could be “compromised,” or perhaps even a “Russian asset” — claims the ex-Hawaii representative and Army officer has forcefully denied. But former advisers to Gabbard suggest that her views on Russia and its polarizing leader, Vladimir Putin, have been shaped not by some covert intelligence recruitment as far as they know…

Read More Read More

Islamist rebels seize strategic city of Hama from Syrian regime forces

Islamist rebels seize strategic city of Hama from Syrian regime forces

The Guardian reports: Islamist insurgents have captured the Syrian city of Hama in a battle to seize a vital location on the road to Damascus, marking the latest challenge to Bashar al-Assad’s control of the country. Militants led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered the city from the east on Thursday after surrounding it during five days of fighting with forces loyal to Assad. Video circulating online suggested that the insurgents had captured a military airport outside Hama,…

Read More Read More

Trump’s ugliest threats are stirring surprising GOP resistance

Trump’s ugliest threats are stirring surprising GOP resistance

Greg Sargent writes: There are still nearly two months to go before Donald Trump assumes the presidency again, but Republicans or GOP-adjacent industries have already begun to admit out loud that some of his most important policy promises could prove disastrous in their parts of the country. These folks don’t say this too directly, out of fear of offending the MAGA God King. Instead, they suggest gingerly that a slight rethink might be in order. But unpack what they’re saying,…

Read More Read More

An architect of Project 2025 is pressuring Republican senators to confirm Pete Hegseth

An architect of Project 2025 is pressuring Republican senators to confirm Pete Hegseth

The Associated Press reports: The think tank behind Project 2025, the conservative blueprint linked to President-elect Donald Trump, is launching an effort to back Trump’s imperiled selection for secretary of defense in its latest attempt to wield influence in the incoming Republican administration. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Thursday that his group will spend $1 million to pressure senators unwilling to back Pete Hegseth, whose nomination to lead the Pentagon has come into question due to his views on…

Read More Read More

Joe Biden should pardon Reality Winner for her actions as a whistleblower

Joe Biden should pardon Reality Winner for her actions as a whistleblower

Margaret Sullivan writes: In late November, Reality Winner – who turned 33 this week – finished her lengthy punishment for sending a government document to a news organization. It’s past time for her to be pardoned so that she can move on with her life and, particularly, her education. She wants to be a veterinary technician, get a good-paying job and move out of her mother’s Texas house, but having a felony in one’s background doesn’t help with any of…

Read More Read More

Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, Amnesty International concludes

Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, Amnesty International concludes

Middle East Eye reports: Israel is carrying out a genocide in the Gaza Strip, a new report by Amnesty International has concluded. The report, titled ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza is based on research and legal analysis carried out since October 2023 and concludes that Israel’s war on the enclave is being carried out with “the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza”. Amnesty International is arguably the highest profile rights group to…

Read More Read More

Gazans face extreme hunger as ‘real famine’ spreads from north to south

Gazans face extreme hunger as ‘real famine’ spreads from north to south

Ruwaida Kamal Amer reports: Mustafa Al-Darsh, a 35-year-old father of three from Gaza City, spends hours every day searching for food for his family. Some days, he manages to secure a few canned goods; other days, his family has to settle for plain rice. “In the north, we yearn to eat bread with some thyme,” he told +972. He hasn’t been able to find flour for months. Since the start of October, when the Israeli army encircled northern Gaza and began subjecting…

Read More Read More

‘Progressive except for Palestine’: How a tech charity imploded over a statement on Gaza

‘Progressive except for Palestine’: How a tech charity imploded over a statement on Gaza

The Guardian reports: Miliaku Nwabueze, a senior program manager at Code for Science & Society, had been concerned for some time about the role of technology in state violence. Then, on 7 October of last year, Hamas entered Israel, killing and kidnapping about 1,400 people. Less than a week later, as Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians out of northern Gaza in the onset of its deadly retaliation, Nwabueze decided to write a message to her colleagues on the US-based non-profit…

Read More Read More