Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman: “Donald Trump invited Vladimir Putin to attack NATO. I would say that probably was a contributing factor in the calculus around the assassination of Nalvany.”
NBC News reports: Nazis appeared to find a friendly reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year. Throughout the conference, racist extremists, some of whom had secured official CPAC badges, openly mingled with conference attendees and espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories. The presence of these individuals has been a persistent issue at CPAC. In previous years, conference organizers have ejected well-known Nazis and white supremacists such as Nick Fuentes. But this year, racist conspiracy theorists didn’t meet any perceptible resistance…
Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami write: The excesses of the war on Gaza have been so extreme that to many international observers, they have left international law in tatters. One outcome has been to isolate Washington and undermine its claim of defending international norms and the liberal international order. The fact that South Africa, one of the leaders of the global South, has accused Israel of the extraordinary charge of genocide before the International Court of Justice suggests the extent…
The New York Times reports: Former President Donald J. Trump often characterizes his presidential campaign as a battle for America’s future. But speaking at a Christian broadcast media convention in Nashville on Thursday, he wrapped that depiction within a stark good-versus-evil framework, portraying his political opponents as part of a “wicked” system. Mr. Trump also revived his claim that America’s “greatest threat is not from the outside of our country” but “from within,” language that drew alarm last year from…
NBC News reports: On the same day that Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker handed down an opinion declaring that fertilized frozen embryos are people, imperiling women’s access to in vitro fertilization treatments, he espoused support for a once-fringe philosophy that calls on evangelical Christians to reshape society based on their interpretation of the Bible. During an online broadcast hosted by Tennessee evangelist Johnny Enlow on Friday, Parker suggested America was founded explicitly as a Christian nation and discussed…
Derek Thompson writes: Several years ago, the political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is based in Denmark, wanted to understand why people share conspiracy theories on the Internet. He and other researchers designed a study that involved showing American participants blatantly false stories about Democratic and Republican politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. The subjects were asked: Would you share these stories online? The results seemed to defy the logic of modern politics or…
Beyoncé and her husband, Jay-Z, at the 66th Grammy Awards on Feb. 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images By William Nash, Middlebury On Super Bowl Sunday, Beyoncé released two country songs – “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ‘Em” – that elicited a mix of admiration and indignation. This is not her first foray into the genre, but it is her most successful and controversial entry. As of last week, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to have a…
The Guardian reports: A US intelligence assessment of Israel’s claims that UN aid agency staff members participated in the Hamas attack on 7 October said some of the accusations were credible, though could not be independently verified, while also casting doubt on claims of wider links to militant groups. The assault precipitated a full-scale invasion by Israel of Gaza that has killed upwards of 30,000 Palestinians. Earlier this year, Israel accused 12 employees of the United Nations Reliefs and Works…
Politico reports: Joe Biden and his campaign know they’re paying a political price with some voters by not calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. But inside the critical battleground state of Michigan, some Democrats fear the president’s team doesn’t appreciate the depths of discontent from Arab American and young voters over Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war. And they worry that even a widely expected protest vote in next week’s primary won’t give them the wakeup call that’s needed….
They lied. . They still do . They bully you to accept their lies . They lie to justify the daily massacre they are committing . Their own media called out their lies . Shame on you western media for not even reporting the Israeli reports on how they lied . You spread their lies… pic.twitter.com/d5vo2MicUm — Bassem Youssef (@Byoussef) February 22, 2024
Jay Kuo writes: Just when you thought it couldn’t be worse, here we are. As I reported last week, a star witness for the GOP-led impeachment inquiry, someone Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) had called a “highly credible human source,” was indicted for making false statements and reports. The informant, Alexander Smirnov, completely fabricated a claim that Joe and Hunter Biden had each received $5 million in bribes from the Ukrainian company, Burisma. For that attempt to frame the Bidens, Smirnov…
Charles M Blow writes: If you don’t think this country is sliding toward theocracy, you’re not paying attention. The drumbeat of incidents moving us ever closer to the seemingly inescapable future is so steady and frequent that we’ve developed outrage fatigue — we’ve grown numb. For instance, on Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children and that destruction of those embryos, even by accident, is subject to the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. In…
Paying attention to the same thing strengthens bonds between observers. Carlos David Gomez/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA By Garriy Shteynberg, University of Tennessee Only about 1 in 4 Americans said that they had trust in the nation’s institutions in 2023 – with big business (1 in 7), television news (1 in 7) and Congress (1 in 12) scraping the very bottom. While institutional trust is decreasing, political polarization is increasing. The majority of Republicans (72%) and Democrats (64%) think of each…
Reuters reports: Iran has provided Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, six sources told Reuters, deepening the military cooperation between the two U.S.-sanctioned countries. Iran’s provision of around 400 missiles includes many from the Fateh-110 family of short-range ballistic weapons, such as the Zolfaghar, three Iranian sources said. This road-mobile missile is capable of striking targets at a distance of between 300 and 700 km (186 and 435 miles), experts say. Iran’s defence ministry and the…
The Daily Beast reports: The increasingly-discredited star witness for the GOP-led impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden admitted to federal authorities that he had ties to high-ranking Russian officials, according to a memo from special counsel David Weiss filed on Tuesday. “[Alexander] Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services are not benign,” the memo said. “During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a…
CNN reports: Israeli forces fired on a United Nations convoy carrying vital food supplies in central Gaza on February 5, before ultimately blocking the trucks from progressing to the northern part of the territory, where Palestinians are on the verge of famine, according to documents shared exclusively by the UN and CNN’s own analysis. CNN has seen correspondence between the UN and the Israeli military that show the convoy’s route was agreed upon by both parties prior to the strike….