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Category: Politics

House speaker did little to fight toxic ‘burn pit’ his father campaigned against

House speaker did little to fight toxic ‘burn pit’ his father campaigned against

The Guardian reports: Mike Johnson was a few months away from assuming elected office in late 2014 when he was confronted with an impassioned appeal by the man he would later pay tribute to in his first speech as House speaker: his father Patrick. The elder Johnson, a former firefighter in the Louisiana city of Shreveport, had survived a near fatal industrial explosion when Mike was 12 years old, a defining event in both men’s lives. He had just joined…

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Biden says Netanyahu must change, Israel losing global support

Biden says Netanyahu must change, Israel losing global support

Reuters reports: U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Israel is losing support over its “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza and that Benjamin Netanyahu should change, exposing a new rift in relations with the Israeli prime minister. Biden’s remarks, made to donors to his 2024 re-election campaign, were his most critical to date of Netanyahu’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza. They are a stark contrast to his literal and political embrace of the Israeli leader days after Hamas militants’…

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Gaza after nine weeks of relentless Israeli bombing

Gaza after nine weeks of relentless Israeli bombing

The New York Times reports: Nine weeks ago, the Gaza Strip was a bustling home to more than two million people. Today, neighborhoods have been flattened by Israeli airstrikes and farming communities have been bulldozed by invading Israeli tanks. Video and satellite imagery captured in late November and early December reveals a devastating transformation in much of northern Gaza. The Port of Gaza used to be a lifeline for the Gazan fishing industry, with a fish market next to the…

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Fiona Hill on what happens if Putin wins in Ukraine and Congress

Fiona Hill on what happens if Putin wins in Ukraine and Congress

Maura Reynolds writes: It was nearly two years ago that Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and in recent months, the fighting appears to have ground to a stalemate. Aid from the United States has helped Ukraine get this far — but now Americans are asking, how long should they continue to support Ukraine in its war against Russia? At this point, just what are the stakes for the United States? Since the war began, I’ve turned to Fiona…

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Russia has suffered staggeringly high losses in Ukraine, U.S. report says

Russia has suffered staggeringly high losses in Ukraine, U.S. report says

The New York Times reports: The Russian push in eastern Ukraine this fall and winter was designed to sap Western support for Ukraine, according to a newly declassified American intelligence assessment. The drive has resulted in heavy losses but has not led to strategic gains on the battlefield for Russia, said Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. Since the beginning of the war Russia has suffered from a staggeringly high number of losses, according to another newly…

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The history behind Jack Smith’s Trump-Supreme Court gambit

The history behind Jack Smith’s Trump-Supreme Court gambit

Aaron Blake writes: The question of Donald Trump’s criminal jeopardy could be headed to the Supreme Court sooner rather than later. That’s after special counsel Jack Smith on Monday requested that the court conduct an expedited review of Trump’s claims to “absolute” immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct in office. The court quickly signaled it will consider the petition and asked Trump’s team to respond by next week. One way to read that request is that Smith felt this issue…

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A Texas case shows that abortion ban exemptions are a sham

A Texas case shows that abortion ban exemptions are a sham

Michelle Goldberg writes: Soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, horror stories started emerging of women denied medically urgent abortions for pregnancies gone dangerously awry. In response, the anti-abortion movement developed a sort of conspiracy theory to rationalize away the results of their policies. Abortion rights activists, they argued, were deliberately misconstruing abortion laws, leading doctors to refuse to treat women who obviously qualified for exceptions. “Abortion advocates are spreading the dangerous lie that lifesaving care…

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Biden administration doesn’t have ‘the guts and the moral courage’ to stand up to the Israeli government

Biden administration doesn’t have ‘the guts and the moral courage’ to stand up to the Israeli government

U.S. policymakers "don't have the guts and the moral courage" to stand up to the Israeli govt, says top Middle East watcher @FawazGerges. “I really have no trust in American foreign policy anymore,” he tells me. pic.twitter.com/KjvqMeglLl — Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) December 9, 2023 Fawaz Gerges is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and holder of the Emirates Professorship in Contemporary Middle East Studies.

Peter Beinart & Omer Bartov on UPenn president resignation, Gaza & the weaponization of antisemitism

Peter Beinart & Omer Bartov on UPenn president resignation, Gaza & the weaponization of antisemitism

  University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill voluntarily resigned her position Saturday after a House Education Committee hearing last Tuesday on how colleges have handled antisemitism. Magill has faced demands to resign since September, when she refused to bow to pressure to cancel the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on campus. More universities face accusations that they have failed to protect Jewish students since the October 7 Hamas incursion into southern Israel amid a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on…

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How the politics of memory in Europe obscures what we see in Israel and Gaza today

How the politics of memory in Europe obscures what we see in Israel and Gaza today

Masha Gessen writes: There are now dozens of antisemitism commissioners throughout Germany. They have no single job description or legal framework for their work, but much of it appears to consist of publicly shaming those they see as antisemitic, often for “de-singularizing the Holocaust” or for criticizing Israel. Hardly any of these commissioners are Jewish. Indeed, the proportion of Jews among their targets is certainly higher. These have included the German-Israeli sociologist Moshe Zuckermann, who was targeted for supporting the…

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Jack Smith goes straight to Supreme Court for ruling on Trump’s claimed immunity

Jack Smith goes straight to Supreme Court for ruling on Trump’s claimed immunity

  The Daily Beast reports: Special prosecutor Jack Smith filed a bombshell motion Monday asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on the question of whether Donald Trump has absolute presidential immunity for crimes he’s accused of carrying out while in the White House. If accepted, it will be the first time the high court will weigh in on a criminal case involving the former president—specifically, whether his attempts to overturn the 2020 election were protected by presidential immunity, something…

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Oil nations’ commitment to destroying planet threatens climate summit

Oil nations’ commitment to destroying planet threatens climate summit

Rolling Stone reports: Climate activists say the 2023 UN Climate Conference is on “the verge of complete failure” after oil-producing nations secured the removal of language calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels from the summit’s draft agreement. COP28, held in Dubai and headed by Sultan al-Jaber — the CEO of the United Arab Emirates state-run energy company ADNOC — has already been criticized for overemphasizing the desires of fossil fuel economies and energy corporations rather than the need to…

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Will America abandon Ukraine?

Will America abandon Ukraine?

George Packer writes: In the summer of 1940, when Great Britain was fighting Nazi Germany alone, Winston Churchill asked to borrow a few dozen aging American destroyers to defend the English coast from imminent invasion. Churchill wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Mr. President, with great respect, I must tell you that in the long history of the world, this is a thing to do now.” Today Ukraine is fighting Russia alone. American aid—never timely or sufficient, but enough to help…

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Republicans to meet allies of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán on ending Ukraine aid

Republicans to meet allies of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán on ending Ukraine aid

The Guardian reports: Allies of Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán will hold a closed-door meeting with Republicans in Washington to push for an end to US military support for Ukraine, the Guardian has learned. Members of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and staff from the Hungarian embassy in Washington will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank. The first day includes panel speeches about the Ukraine war as well as topics such…

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Half of Gaza’s population is starving, warns UN

Half of Gaza’s population is starving, warns UN

The Independent reports: Half of Gaza’s population is now believed to be “starving” as Israel’s attack on the besieged strip continues to escalate, a senior UN official warned. Calling for an immediate “humanitarian ceasefire”, Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN World Food Programme, took to X saying: “There’s not enough food. People are starving. “WFP has reached over one million people, but the situation is untenable. We need to get our supplies in [and we need] a humanitarian…

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IFJ: Almost 100 journalists killed, mostly in Gaza, and 400 imprisoned in 2023

IFJ: Almost 100 journalists killed, mostly in Gaza, and 400 imprisoned in 2023

The Guardian reports: A leading organisation representing journalists worldwide has expressed deep concern at the number of media professionals killed around the globe doing their jobs in 2023, with more journalists killed during Israel’s war with Hamas than in any other conflict in more than 30 years. In its annual count of media worker deaths, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said 94 journalists had been killed so far this year and almost 400 others had been imprisoned. The figure…

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