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Category: Politics

Is Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf the kind of Iranian leader Trump might work with?

Is Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf the kind of Iranian leader Trump might work with?

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran’s combative Parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, is emerging as an unlikely figure in Washington’s search for a deal to halt a widening Middle East war. Ghalibaf, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air-force commander and Tehran mayor, has denied any talks with the U.S. are under way. He has taunted President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and called the U.S.-Israeli air war with Iran a quagmire. He served in the Revolutionary Guard during Iran’s…

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DOJ agrees to let Michael Flynn loot Treasury to the tune of $1.25 million

DOJ agrees to let Michael Flynn loot Treasury to the tune of $1.25 million

Liz Dye writes: Two years ago, a court in Florida threw out Michael Flynn’s malicious prosecution lawsuit seeking $50 million from the US government. Yesterday, the government agreed to settle it anyway, handing $1.25 million in taxpayer dollars to the former national security advisor. Clearly this is an outrageous abuse by the Trump DOJ. It’s also a template for the looting to come, as everyone from Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio to Trump himself lines up to feed at the government…

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Deputy attorney general endorses illegally sending ICE agents to voting sites

Deputy attorney general endorses illegally sending ICE agents to voting sites

Democracy Docket reports: During a norm-shattering appearance at a conservative political conference Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he couldn’t understand why anyone would disagree with a president deploying federal agents to the polls. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Blanche was echoing recent calls from far-right activists for President Donald Trump to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to voting sites during the 2026 midterms — a tactic clearly meant to intimidate voters and poll…

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Why China insists on internal unity and international harmony

Why China insists on internal unity and international harmony

Peter C Perdue writes: If you think that the People’s Republic of China is still a communist country, you are in for a shock. It is, of course, a single-party state ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. But what is the role of the CCP today? The Party celebrates billionaires, runs a capitalist economy, and depends heavily on global trade and investment. This is far from what Mao Zedong imagined when he took power in 1949. Then, the CCP claimed…

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Trita Parsi: Iranians increasingly expect this to be a long war

Trita Parsi: Iranians increasingly expect this to be a long war

  Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute joins Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussein to analyze the growing risks of a “lose-lose” war between the U.S. and Iran. As oil prices, sanctions dynamics, and regional tensions shift, the conflict may be creating more problems than it solves for both sides. Axios reports: Iranian officials have told the countries trying to mediate peace talks with the U.S. that they have now been tricked twice by President Trump and “we don’t want to be fooled…

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Trump’s ‘absurdly incoherent’ Iran pleas leave allies befuddled

Trump’s ‘absurdly incoherent’ Iran pleas leave allies befuddled

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s messaging on what he wants from American allies in his war against Iran is so confusing that any effort to help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz remains deadlocked, according to four European government officials. Washington has not made any formal requests for equipment, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive talks, while allies are also reluctant to send military assets to the region over fears they would be attacked…

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Trump’s war in Iran exposes America’s shift from a global guardian to an arbiter of chaos

Trump’s war in Iran exposes America’s shift from a global guardian to an arbiter of chaos

Eduardo Porter writes: To shield ordinary Indians from the war in Iran, the government in Delhi redirected supplies of liquefied gas to Indian families, for which it is the main cooking fuel, limiting supplies to the plastics industry. The Nepalese government rationed gas and the Philippines trimmed the government workweek to four days. Bangladesh closed universities and rationed fuel. They have been hardest hit by Iran’s closure of the strait of Hormuz. Economies in Asia import over a third of…

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Trump appeared to have financial motive for keeping classified documents, Jack Smith finds

Trump appeared to have financial motive for keeping classified documents, Jack Smith finds

MS NOW reports: Special counsel Jack Smith gathered evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump took many top secret documents that related to his worldwide business interests, and investigators considered this a likely motive for Trump concealing them at his Florida club after he left the White House, according to newly released case records. The special prosecutor also had evidence indicating that after leaving office Trump had shown a classified map to passengers on a private plane, including his future chief of…

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‘A new world is being born’: Rebecca Solnit on the ‘slow revolution’ the far right cannot tolerate

‘A new world is being born’: Rebecca Solnit on the ‘slow revolution’ the far right cannot tolerate

Zoe Williams writes: When I speak to Rebecca Solnit, she is beaming, and I can’t immediately figure out why. Her new book, The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change, blasts in with a pragmatic positivity, it’s true. She writes with a “pull yourself together, don’t even think about despair” tone. But that’s not why she’s smiling – it’s because Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor just got arrested. “Why is the UK doing these things the US should be…

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Oil industry confronted with its ‘worst nightmare.’ Trump’s former defense secretary sees few options

Oil industry confronted with its ‘worst nightmare.’ Trump’s former defense secretary sees few options

Politico reports: Global energy leaders have been jolted by the enormity of what the U.S.-Israel war with Iran means for their business — and they’re not liking what they’re seeing. It’s the second time in four years that top White House officials have taken the stage at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference to plead with producers to ramp up their drilling to cover supply disruptions from war-driven oil and natural gas price shocks. But unlike the coordinated international response…

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Prince Mohammed bin Salman is said to push Trump to continue Iran war in recent calls

Prince Mohammed bin Salman is said to push Trump to continue Iran war in recent calls

The New York Times reports: Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been pushing President Trump to continue the war against Iran, arguing that the U.S.-Israeli military campaign presents a “historic opportunity” to remake the Middle East, according to people briefed by American officials on the conversations. In a series of conversations over the last week, Prince Mohammed has conveyed to Mr. Trump that he must press toward the destruction of Iran’s hard-line government, the people familiar…

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Treason: People close to Trump are trading based on national secrets

Treason: People close to Trump are trading based on national secrets

Paul Krugman writes: Over the weekend Donald Trump threatened dire vengeance on Iran unless its government opened the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, a deadline that would expire Monday evening in Washington. Specifically, he announced that the U.S. would begin bombing power plants — plants that supply electricity to Iran’s civilian population — unless the Strait was cleared. But at 7:05 AM Monday Trump called the whole thing off — for five days, he said, but many people are…

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Trader made nearly $1 million on Polymarket with remarkably accurate Iran bets

Trader made nearly $1 million on Polymarket with remarkably accurate Iran bets

CNN reports: A trader made nearly $1 million since 2024 from dozens of well-timed Polymarket bets that correctly predicted US and Israeli military actions against Iran, according to an analysis shared with CNN. The bettor won a staggering 93% of their five-figure wagers about Iran, even though the events they predicted were unannounced military operations. The trader had a pattern of prescient bets, including hours before Israeli strikes in October 2024 during its tit-for-tat conflict with Iran, hours before US…

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The truth about Israel’s military justice system has been set free

The truth about Israel’s military justice system has been set free

Michael Sfard writes: The renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking discovered that a black hole, the celestial object that swallows everything around it and from which, seemingly, nothing that enters ever escapes, nevertheless emits a certain level of electromagnetic radiation. As is customary in the exact sciences, the phenomenon was named after the scientist who discovered it; in this case, “Hawking radiation.” Sde Teiman, the Israeli military base-turned-detention facility for Palestinians, which includes a hospital compound for prisoners, has functioned since early…

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As Kansas found, requiring proof of citizenship can end up disenfranchising thousands of eligible voters

As Kansas found, requiring proof of citizenship can end up disenfranchising thousands of eligible voters

The New York Times reports: As President Trump digs in on his demand that senators pass a strict voter identification bill, lawmakers debating the potential impacts of the Republican-backed SAVE America Act might look to one place that already tried it — Kansas. In 2013, Republicans in that state passed legislation so similar it bore a nearly identical name — the Secure and Fair Elections, or SAFE, Act. It, too, aimed to root out voting fraud by noncitizens. As voters…

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TACO: Has Trump chickened out again?

TACO: Has Trump chickened out again?

  Is Donald Trump backing down from a potential strike on Iran – or is this a strategic pivot? In this episode of the Fourcast, we unpack the latest twists in US-Iran tensions as Trump insists talks are “good and productive,” despite Tehran claiming a firm warning forced a retreat. With the Strait of Hormuz at the centre of the crisis and global markets reacting fast, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Meanwhile, Israel says its campaign is far from over,…

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