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Category: Politics

My dinner with Andreessen

My dinner with Andreessen

Rick Perlstein writes: Recently, I read about venture capitalist Marc Andreessen putting his 12,000-square-foot mansion in Atherton, California, which has seven fireplaces, up for sale for $33.75 million. This was done to spend more time, one supposes, at the $177 million home he owns in Paradise Cove, California; or the $34 million one he bought beside it; or the $44.5 million one in a place called Escondido Beach. Upon reading this, I realized it was time to stop procrastinating and…

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The media should be celebrating college protesters instead of demonizing them

The media should be celebrating college protesters instead of demonizing them

Dan Froomkin writes: Mainstream-media reporters covering the growing wave of college protests against Israel’s war in Gaza have adopted an overwhelmingly negative tone about something they should be celebrating: the peaceful free expression of college students understandably devastated by the pulverizing of Gaza and the slaughter of over 34,000 Palestinians by the Israeli military. The root cause of this journalistic dysfunction is that too many reporters have embraced the toxic presumption that any anti-Gaza-war protest is inherently antisemitic, and that…

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We visited the solidarity encampment at Columbia University. Here’s what it’s really like

We visited the solidarity encampment at Columbia University. Here’s what it’s really like

New York City Council Members Tiffany Cabán, Alexa Avilés, Shahana Hanif, and Sandy Nurse write: If you only go by the recent statements from Mayor Eric Adams, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and President Joe Biden, you might conclude that a student protest against the mass killing in Gaza is worse than the killing itself. These official statements, and so many posts on social media, depict the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the Columbia University campus as a cesspit of antisemitic hatred and…

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Pro-Palestinian encampments and protests spread on college campuses across the U.S.

Pro-Palestinian encampments and protests spread on college campuses across the U.S.

NPR reports: Tensions are growing on U.S. college campuses, as the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have rocked New York-area schools in recent days — and the ensuing arrests of participants — spread from coast to coast. Students have launched protests and encampments at more than a dozen schools across the country, from Massachusetts to Michigan to California. They are calling for an end both to the Israel-Hamas war and their universities’ investment in companies that profit from it or, more broadly,…

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Ukraine to EU: Don’t let U.S. aid package make you complacent

Ukraine to EU: Don’t let U.S. aid package make you complacent

Politico reports: Washington has agreed to send billions more in aid to Ukraine, but Kyiv’s message to Europe is clear: You guys are not off the hook. “We all welcome the decision of the U.S. House of Representatives … But we in Europe cannot and should not relax,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said during a video call with EU foreign ministers on Monday. “The defense of Europe is first and foremost a matter for us, Europeans.” European heads of…

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Opening statements are the most important part of a trial – as lawyers in Trump’s hush money case know well

Opening statements are the most important part of a trial – as lawyers in Trump’s hush money case know well

Former U.S. President Donald Trump enters Manhattan Criminal Court on April 22, 2024. Victor J. Blue – Pool/Getty Images By Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., Harvard University Though Hollywood movies about courtroom dramas often glamorize the closing arguments given by lawyers, in reality the opening statement is likely the most important single event of a trial. Such was the case in the hush money trial involving former President Donald Trump and alleged payments to porn star Stormy Daniels when lawyers for…

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The MAGA circus Trump wanted outside his trial hasn’t arrived

The MAGA circus Trump wanted outside his trial hasn’t arrived

The New York Times reports: Donald J. Trump was evidently not happy with what he saw out the window of his chauffeured S.U.V. as he rode through Lower Manhattan on Monday morning for the beginning of opening arguments in his first criminal trial. The scene that confronted him as he approached the dingy courthouse at 100 Centre Street was underwhelming. Across the street, at Collect Pond Park, the designated site for protesters during the trial, only a handful of Trump…

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Protests at Columbia, Yale, and many other campuses across the U.S.

Protests at Columbia, Yale, and many other campuses across the U.S.

Bruce Robbins, the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia, writes: When Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, testified before the House of Representatives on 17 April, she didn’t fall into the traps set a few months earlier for the presidents of Penn, MIT and Harvard, two of whom are now gone. They had been asked whether they would permit genocidal talk against the Jews on their campuses – a dark discourse that lurked, according to the…

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How the Democratic party is hurting itself by betraying young voters and failing to defend free speech

How the Democratic party is hurting itself by betraying young voters and failing to defend free speech

The New York Times reports: It’s a nightmare scenario for Democrats: Protesters disrupt their convention this summer; they clash with the police; chaos seems to take hold. It may not be imaginary. As protests over Israel’s war in Gaza continue to intensify, especially on college campuses, activists are preparing to be in Chicago this summer for the Democratic National Convention. The very idea sends some Democrats right back to 1968, when their convention, also in Chicago, was overshadowed by infighting…

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Columbia University protests and the lessons of ‘Gym Crow’

Columbia University protests and the lessons of ‘Gym Crow’

Judd Legum writes: In the early morning hours of April 30, 1968, then-Columbia University President Grayson Kirk summoned the NYPD to arrest hundreds of student protestors. About 1,000 police officers arrived on campus and, wielding nightsticks, violently arrested about 700 students. Almost 150 protesters ended up in the hospital with lacerations, a few broken bones, and other injuries. The student protesters had occupied several university buildings, forcing the school to suspend classes, in protest of Columbia’s plans to build a…

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Israel has yet to provide evidence of alleged UNRWA staff terrorist links, Colonna report says

Israel has yet to provide evidence of alleged UNRWA staff terrorist links, Colonna report says

The Guardian reports: Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of its claims that employees of the UN relief agency Unrwa are members of terrorist organisations, an independent review led by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna has said. The Colonna report, which was commissioned by the UN in the wake of Israeli allegations, found that Unrwa had regularly supplied Israel with lists of its employees for vetting, and that “the Israeli government has not informed Unrwa of any…

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PM promises UK’s largest ever military support package for Ukraine

PM promises UK’s largest ever military support package for Ukraine

The Guardian reports: Rishi Sunak has promised the UK’s largest ever military support package for Ukraine as he warned that Vladimir Putin would “not stop at the Polish border” if Russia won the war. The prime minister will visit Poland on Tuesday to discuss European security and the threat from Russia with the Polish leader, Donald Tusk, and the Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, before travelling to Germany to meet the chancellor, Olaf Scholz. The UK plans to give vital equipment…

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California wants to harness more than half its land to combat climate change by 2045. Here’s how

California wants to harness more than half its land to combat climate change by 2045. Here’s how

The Los Angeles Times reports: California has unveiled an ambitious plan to help combat the worsening climate crisis with one of its invaluable assets: its land. Over the next 20 years, the state will work to transform more than half of its 100 million acres into multi-benefit landscapes that can absorb more carbon than they release, officials announced Monday. The so-called nature-based solutions will span natural and working lands such as forests, farms, grasslands, chaparral, deserts and other types of…

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The GOP’s pro-Russia caucus lost. Now Ukraine has to win

The GOP’s pro-Russia caucus lost. Now Ukraine has to win

Anne Applebaum writes: It’s not too late, because it’s never too late. No outcomes are ever preordained, nothing is ever over, and you can always affect what happens tomorrow by making the right choices today. The U.S. Congress is finally making one of those right choices. Soon, American weapons and ammunition will once again start flowing to Ukraine. But delays do have a price. By dawdling for so many months, by heading down the blind alley of border reform before…

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U.S. poised to impose sanctions on IDF unit accused of violations in West Bank

U.S. poised to impose sanctions on IDF unit accused of violations in West Bank

The Guardian reports: A unit of the Israel Defense Forces is facing US sanctions over its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, even as Congress voted for $26bn in new emergency aid to Israel. According to reports in the Israeli media, US state department officials have confirmed they are preparing to impose sanctions on the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has been accused of serious human rights violations against Palestinians. The highly significant move, which would be the…

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Columbia University faces full-blown crisis as rabbi calls for Jewish students to ‘return home’

Columbia University faces full-blown crisis as rabbi calls for Jewish students to ‘return home’

CNN reports: Columbia University is facing a full-blown crisis heading into Passover as a rabbi linked to the Ivy League school urged Jewish students to stay home and tense confrontations on campus sparked condemnation from the White House and New York officials. The atmosphere is so charged that Columbia officials announced students can attend classes and even possibly take exams virtually starting Monday – the first day of Passover, a major Jewish holiday set to begin in the evening. Tensions…

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