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Ukraine has captured more than 200 Russian soldiers including conscripts with minimal fighting experience

Ukraine has captured more than 200 Russian soldiers including conscripts with minimal fighting experience

The Washington Post reports: Ukrainian forces have captured more than 240 Russian soldiers since their surprise invasion of Russia’s Kursk region this month, according to an analysis of visual evidence that includes mass detentions of young troops appearing to surrender without resistance. The Washington Post reviewed more than 130 photos and videos taken since the incursion began Aug. 6, most of which appear to have been filmed by Ukrainian soldiers and shared on social media. The analysis also included photos…

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Israeli society’s dehumanization of Palestinians is now absolute

Israeli society’s dehumanization of Palestinians is now absolute

Meron Rapoport writes: After every war in recent decades that Israelis have fought in, there have been public displays of remorse. This has often been criticized as a mentality of “shooting and crying” — but at least the soldiers were crying. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, the hugely successful book “The Seventh Day: Soldiers’ Talk about the Six-Day War” was published, containing testimonies from soldiers trying to grapple with the moral dilemmas they faced during the fighting. After the Sabra…

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Why is the DNC more willing to embrace Republicans than Democratic Palestinians?

Why is the DNC more willing to embrace Republicans than Democratic Palestinians?

  In this special episode of ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’, we’re at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, around the corner from the United Center, at the Palestinian-American owned OUD Coffee and Cafe. Mehdi is joined in this exclusive interview with prominent voices from the Uncommitted Movement – and just moments after it was revealed that the DNC would not be allowing a Palestinian to speak at the convention. Joining ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ are co-chair of the Uncommitted Movement Layla Elabed, who briefly…

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Trump’s businesses rake in millions of dollars from Republican political campaigns – including his own

Trump’s businesses rake in millions of dollars from Republican political campaigns – including his own

CNN reports: Late last year, former President Donald Trump announced his endorsement of car dealership owner Bernie Moreno for Ohio’s Senate seat – elevating an untested candidate who’d never held public office over several other more prominent Republicans. Two days later, Moreno’s campaign spent about $17,000 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, and then followed up by spending an additional $79,000 the next month – making him one of the Florida club’s top political spenders. He wasn’t alone. With glitzy Mar-a-Lago fundraisers,…

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Are Republicans losing the culture wars?

Are Republicans losing the culture wars?

Politico reports: Republicans are confronting a decisive moment in the battle over public education: proving they can still win a culture war. School board candidates backed by Moms for Liberty, a conservative vanguard whose members popularized restrictions on classroom library books, are losing elections in Florida and some swing states. Republican leaders who rallied against critical race theory and LGBTQ+ issues recently faced recalls in red pockets of California. And in the presidential race, Democrats are playing offense. This week’s…

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just incinerated his credibility as an environmentalist

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just incinerated his credibility as an environmentalist

The Washington Post reports: As he suspended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Donald Trump on Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talked at length about the “many key issues” on which he claims that he and Trump are aligned. What he did not explain were their profound disagreements in the area that for many years was central to Kennedy’s career and public image: environmental protection. Kennedy had promised to be “the best environmental president in American history.” For decades, as…

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Labor board confirms Amazon drivers are employees, in finding hailed by union

Labor board confirms Amazon drivers are employees, in finding hailed by union

The Washington Post reports: In a loss for Amazon that could force it to meet the Teamsters union at the bargaining table, a regional National Labor Relations Board director said Thursday that the company is a joint employer of some of the thousands of contractor delivery drivers who deliver its packages. The e-commerce giant has previously argued that it should not be responsible for alleged union busting or required to bargain with driver unions, because the drivers who ferry packages…

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What Kamala Harris was really saying in her convention speech

What Kamala Harris was really saying in her convention speech

Jeff Greenfield writes: What ultimately separates standout politicians from the rest is an ability to connect with the American people. It sounds obvious, but it’s a far more challenging task than it seems. Kamala Harris proved in her acceptance speech Thursday night that she understood the assignment. She’s already a unique presidential nominee, a biracial woman with a blended family. She’s faced attacks on her identity from Donald Trump and his allies. What Harris did in her acceptance speech was…

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We’re not going back to an America that wasn’t that great

We’re not going back to an America that wasn’t that great

Noah Berlatsky writes: “We’re not going back” is a way to remind people that Trump is old, rich, and that we’ve been there and done that. But it’s also, more subtly, a reminder that Trump represents a reactionary, bigoted American tradition which we should reject. In 2016, Hillary Clinton made the fact that she could be the first woman president a central campaign theme. In 2008, the fact that Obama might be the first Black president was a huge aspect…

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RFK Jr. was my drug dealer

RFK Jr. was my drug dealer

Kurt Andersen writes: The leading third-party candidate for president—an environmental lawyer and activist, a son and nephew of legendary liberal Democratic politicians—just quit the race and announced that he is joining the campaign of the most anti-environment president and presidential nominee in recent history, the leader of a Republican Party he has turned into a right-wing, anti-democratic, protofascist personality cult. I could go on and on and on, cataloging the contradictions and abandonment of principle, all gobsmacking. But Donald Trump…

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Palestinian American lawmaker, Georgia Rep. Ruwa Romman, gives speech the DNC wouldn’t allow on stage

Palestinian American lawmaker, Georgia Rep. Ruwa Romman, gives speech the DNC wouldn’t allow on stage

  Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday after a four-day convention in Chicago where her campaign refused to allow a Palestinian American to take the stage to address Israel’s war on Gaza. We hear Georgia state Representative Ruwa Romman, who was among the list of speakers offered by the Uncommitted National Movement that the Harris campaign rejected, reading the speech she would have given on the convention floor had the DNC and the Harris campaign allowed her…

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Putin is getting rattled

Putin is getting rattled

Serge Schmemann writes: In purely military terms, Ukraine’s surprise incursion of Russia earlier this month is a dubious gamble. Moscow has not diverted forces from its grinding advances on the Donetsk front, a main focus of the current fighting, and the physical cost in dead or captured troops and evacuated citizens does not concern Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. The more significant potential of the invasion lies on the other front — that of information, propaganda, morale, image and competing narratives….

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Let a Palestinian speak

Let a Palestinian speak

Zeynep Tufekci writes: On Wednesday at the Democratic convention, Jon Polin, the father of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American hostage held by Hamas in Gaza, reminded listeners that there was a “surplus of agony” on all sides of the conflict in the Middle East. “In a competition of pain,” Polin said, “there are no winners.” But there’s one group whose pain will not be heard from the convention stage: Palestinian Americans. And there is a loser: the Democratic Party. A group…

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Michigan Democratic Party chair joins UAW in pushing for a Palestinian voice at convention

Michigan Democratic Party chair joins UAW in pushing for a Palestinian voice at convention

The Detroit News reports: The United Auto Workers and the head of the Michigan Democratic Party on Thursday called on organizers of the Democratic National Convention to allow a Palestinian American to address delegates at the final night of the four-day convention amid deep divisions in the party over Israel’s war in Gaza. Uncommitted delegates and supporters staged a sit-in after being told by DNC officials Wednesday night that there wouldn’t be a Palestinian American speaking from the convention’s main…

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Uncommitted delegates speak out after sleeping outside DNC to protest silencing of Palestinians

Uncommitted delegates speak out after sleeping outside DNC to protest silencing of Palestinians

  As “uncommitted” delegates continue their sit-in just outside the Democratic National Convention in protest of the party’s refusal to meet demands to platform a Palestinian American speaker on the main stage, we hear from two uncommitted delegates who have made a concerted effort to bring Israel’s war on Gaza to the forefront and to push the Harris campaign on its policy in the Middle East. Asma Mohammed, a campaign manager for Vote Uncommitted Minnesota and a delegate from Minnesota,…

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