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Category: Politics

‘After this, you’d really have to be a fool to trust the word of the United States’

‘After this, you’d really have to be a fool to trust the word of the United States’

  Eric Edelman and Eliot Cohen bemoan the shameful meltdown in the Oval Office between VP Vance, President Trump and President Zelensky. They discuss Vance’s ambush and whether he executed it alone or in concert with Trump and note that those who are blaming Zelensky for rising to the bait are objectively pro-Putin. They discuss Vance’s dark political views and they consider what Europeans can and should do. They also discuss Trump’s delegation of responsibility to others and his “Trump…

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The Trump administration said these aid programs saved lives. It canceled them anyway

The Trump administration said these aid programs saved lives. It canceled them anyway

By Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy This story was originally published by ProPublica After the Trump administration moved to freeze nearly $60 billion in foreign aid in January, officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly assured Americans that lifesaving operations would continue. “We don’t want to see anybody die,” he told reporters in early February. Aid organizations the world over scrambled to prove their work saved lives, seeking permission from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for…

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Musk and Republican lawmakers threaten judges with impeachment

Musk and Republican lawmakers threaten judges with impeachment

The New York Times reports: Congressional Republicans, egged on by Elon Musk and other top allies of President Trump, are escalating calls to remove federal judges who stand in the way of administration efforts to overhaul the government. The outcry is threatening yet another assault on the constitutional guardrails that constrain the executive branch. Judicial impeachments are rare and notoriously time-consuming. The mounting calls for removing federal judges, who already face increasing security threats, have so far not gained much…

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Trump is the greatest threat to free markets and personal liberties

Trump is the greatest threat to free markets and personal liberties

Dana Milbank writes: Over the past 48 hours, I’ve been receiving from readers and friends the sort of notes one gets upon losing a loved one or perhaps receiving a terminal diagnosis. “So very sorry.” “Hang in there.” “Sending you love and strength.” “With appreciation and sorrow.” The cause of death? The belief that Post owner Jeff Bezos has just ended the tradition of open debate that has guided this paper’s editorial page for generations. “We are going to be…

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Putin doesn’t want peace, he wants Ukraine

Putin doesn’t want peace, he wants Ukraine

In an editorial, The Kyiv Independent says: It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up. In the past several weeks, the U.S. leadership has demonstrated explicit hostility towards Ukraine and aligned its rhetoric and policy with Russia. The animosity culminated today when U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at a meeting in the Oval Office. After…

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‘The free world needs a new leader,’ says EU foreign policy chief as the U.S. aligns with Russia

‘The free world needs a new leader,’ says EU foreign policy chief as the U.S. aligns with Russia

Politico reports: European leaders on Friday rallied to defend Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after United States President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance subjected him to a tirade of withering and infantilizing abuse in the Oval Office. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said: “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.” In what may prove to a significant turning point in the tottering postwar…

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How Elon Musk carried out an electronic coup and seized control of the U.S. government

How Elon Musk carried out an electronic coup and seized control of the U.S. government

The New York Times reports: Trump had announced the Department of Government Efficiency on Nov. 12 as an entity outside of government, but Mr. Musk quickly began to see problems with that — including the fact that it could be subject to public-record rules. He was also intent on getting access to federal data and payment systems. He felt that if he could not, the whole endeavor would be a waste of his time. Several people involved in the talks…

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The DOGE coup is worse than you think

The DOGE coup is worse than you think

Brian Barrett writes: If you’ve felt overwhelmed by all the DOGE news, you’re not alone. You’d need too much cork board and yarn to keep track of which agencies it has occupied by now, much less what it’s doing there. Here’s a simple rubric, though, to help contextualize the DOGE updates you do have time and energy to process: It’s worse than you think. DOGE is hard to keep track of. This is by design; the only information about the…

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Hegseth threatens military strikes in Mexico

Hegseth threatens military strikes in Mexico

The Wall Street Journal reports: It was the first call U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held with Mexico’s top military officials, and it wasn’t going well. Hegseth told the officials that if Mexico didn’t deal with the collusion between the country’s government and drug cartels, the U.S. military was prepared to take unilateral action, according to people briefed on the Jan. 31 call. Mexico’s top brass who were on that call were shocked and angered, feeling he was suggesting U.S….

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Musk’s Starlink is keeping modern slavery compounds in operation

Musk’s Starlink is keeping modern slavery compounds in operation

Wired reports: The plea for help arrived last summer. “I am in Myanmar and work for a fraud company,” a Chinese human-trafficking victim wrote in a short email sent from within the Tai Chang scam compound. Like thousands of others in the region, they were promised legitimate work only to find themselves tricked into modern slavery and forced to scam people online for hours every day. Tai Chang, which backs on to the Myanmar-Thailand border, has been linked to incidents…

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How Sam Altman could divide Elon Musk and Donald Trump

How Sam Altman could divide Elon Musk and Donald Trump

Matteo Wong writes: The rivalry between Sam Altman and Elon Musk is entering its Apprentice era. Both men have the ambition to redefine how the modern world works—and both are jockeying for President Donald Trump’s blessing to accelerate their plans. Altman’s company, OpenAI, as well as Musk’s ventures—which include SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI—all depend to some degree on federal dollars, permits, and regulatory support. The president could influence whether OpenAI or xAI produces the next major AI breakthrough, whether Musk can succeed…

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Judge Alsup blocks mass firings of federal workers. Judge Bates orders sworn testimony from DOGE officials

Judge Alsup blocks mass firings of federal workers. Judge Bates orders sworn testimony from DOGE officials

The Washington Post reports: A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind directives that initiated the mass firing of probationary workers across the government, ruling that the terminations were probably illegal, as a group of labor unions argued in court. U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered OPM to rescind its previous directives to more than two dozen agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Science Foundation…

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Musk’s ‘freelance henchmen’ in DOGE are one scam away from a national security emergency

Musk’s ‘freelance henchmen’ in DOGE are one scam away from a national security emergency

The Atlantic reports: [Elon Musk’s] major contribution, repeated to Trump and his advisers down at Mar-a-Lago, was to reject thinking about government as a lawyer would—a collection of institutions bound by norms, laws, and rules, and controlled by policy and decree. The bureaucracy does not easily bend to white papers. “The government runs on computers” soon became a mantra repeated by Trump’s advisers, who found themselves in awe of his enthusiasm and speed, even as they expressed annoyance at having…

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Conflicts of interest: DOGE operatives at HUD from an AI real estate firm and a mobile home operator

Conflicts of interest: DOGE operatives at HUD from an AI real estate firm and a mobile home operator

Wired reports: On February 10, employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) received an email asking them to list every contract at the bureau and note whether or not it was “critical” to the agency, as well as whether it contained any DEI components. This email was signed by Scott Langmack, who identified himself as a senior adviser to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Langmack, according to his LinkedIn, already has another job: He’s the…

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America’s oligarchy is now fully exposed by Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Musk

America’s oligarchy is now fully exposed by Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Musk

Robert Reich writes: One of the unacknowledged advantages of the horrendous era we’ve entered is that it is revealing the putrid connections between great wealth and great power for all to see. Oligarchs are fully exposed and they are defiant. It’s like hitting the “reveal codes” key on older computers that let you see everything. On Wednesday, Jeff Bezos, the third-richest person in America, who bought the Washington Post in 2013, announced that the paper’s opinion section would henceforth focus…

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Trump’s Washington is starting to feel like Putin’s Moscow

Trump’s Washington is starting to feel like Putin’s Moscow

Peter Baker writes: She asked too many questions that the president didn’t like. She reported too much about criticism of his administration. And so, before long, Yelena Tregubova was pushed out of the Kremlin press pool that covered President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. In the scheme of things, it was a small moment, all but forgotten nearly 25 years later. But it was also a telling one. Mr. Putin did not care for challenges. The rest of the press pool got…

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