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Category: Politics

Trump quotes Putin condemning American democracy, praises autocrat Orban

Trump quotes Putin condemning American democracy, praises autocrat Orban

The Washington Post reports: Republican polling leader Donald Trump approvingly quoted autocrats Vladimir Putin of Russia and Viktor Orban of Hungary, part of an ongoing effort to deflect from his criminal prosecutions and spin alarms about eroding democracy against President Biden. His speech at a presidential campaign rally here on Saturday also reprised dehumanizing language targeting immigrants that historians have likened to past authoritarians, including a reference that some civil rights advocates and experts in extremism have compared to Adolf…

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Like Putin, Viktor Orbán is learning he can act with impunity: the cash keeps flowing

Like Putin, Viktor Orbán is learning he can act with impunity: the cash keeps flowing

Katalin Cseh writes: The decision by European leaders to open formal EU membership negotiations with Ukraine is historic – it offers hope to a people who are courageously fighting Russian aggression and sacrificing their lives for a European future. The agreement marks a historic new chapter for the EU. But legally, it required the unanimity of all 27 leaders, and it only became possible because Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán – who had threatened to block the opening of talks…

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‘Poisoning the blood of our country’: Trump’s fascist attack on immigrants

‘Poisoning the blood of our country’: Trump’s fascist attack on immigrants

Politico reports: With a border deal hanging in the balance and the Iowa caucuses a month away, Donald Trump amplified his attack on immigrants at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” the former president said. “They’ve poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country from…

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Why a Trump conviction might not save Biden’s reelection

Why a Trump conviction might not save Biden’s reelection

Politico reports: It’s the go-to refrain for Democrats watching Joe Biden fall behind Donald Trump in polls: Just wait until Trump is convicted. Yes, Biden’s historically unpopular. Yes, views of his job performance are growing increasingly negative. But if a jury of Trump’s peers in Manhattan, or South Florida, or Atlanta or Washington convicts him before Election Day, they say, it would have a dramatic impact on the race. They’re probably wrong. The evidence so far suggests the race might…

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‘The venom of our age’: James Carville on the danger of Mike Johnson’s Christian nationalism

‘The venom of our age’: James Carville on the danger of Mike Johnson’s Christian nationalism

The Guardian interviews James Carville: As hard-right movements rattle or control European governments, the words of George Steiner animate James Carville. “Nationalism is the venom of our age,” Steiner wrote in his 1965 essay on the Holocaust, A Kind of Survivor. “It has brought Europe to the edge of ruin.” Those words prompted Carville, the centrist Democratic political consultant who guided Bill Clinton to the presidency, to say: “The greatest distinction in the world is between patriotism, which is positive…

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Microsoft’s AI chatbot replies to election questions with conspiracies, fake scandals, and lies

Microsoft’s AI chatbot replies to election questions with conspiracies, fake scandals, and lies

Wired reports: With less than a year to go before one of the most consequential elections in US history, Microsoft’s AI chatbot is responding to political queries with conspiracies, misinformation, and out-of-date or incorrect information. When WIRED asked the chatbot, initially called Bing Chat and recently renamed Microsoft Copilot, about polling locations for the 2024 US election, the bot referenced in-person voting by linking to an article about Russian president Vladimir Putin running for reelection next year. When asked about…

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Israel tempers claims of imminent Hamas defeat as both sides seem set on long war

Israel tempers claims of imminent Hamas defeat as both sides seem set on long war

Peter Beaumont writes: Israel’s insistence to the Biden administration that it needs more time to defeat Hamas has raised questions over the level of damage inflicted on the Islamist militant organisation, and whether it is changing tactics in its fight against the Israel Defense Forces. In a week in which nine Israeli soldiers were killed, including two senior commanders and several other officers in a single complex ambush in the Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, analysts and commentators have begun…

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Russia’s Hamas stance puts it on a collision course with Israel

Russia’s Hamas stance puts it on a collision course with Israel

  Battle lines are being drawn around the war with Hamas as the United States and Russia comfortably slide into their Cold War-era roles as backers of opposite sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Insider’s Simon Ostrovsky gets to the bottom of what Russia’s deteriorating relationship with Israel could mean for the war in Ukraine as well as its position in the Middle East.

Bernie Sanders demands answers on Israel’s ‘indiscriminate’ Gaza bombing

Bernie Sanders demands answers on Israel’s ‘indiscriminate’ Gaza bombing

The Guardian reports: The US’s support for Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza is facing new scrutiny in Washington following a proposed resolution by the independent senator Bernie Sanders that could ultimately be used to curtail military assistance. It is far from clear whether Sanders has the support to pass the resolution, but its introduction in the Senate this week – by an important progressive ally of the US president, Joe Biden – highlights mounting human rights and political concerns by…

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U.S. has collected intel that could be used to judge the legality of Israel’s conduct of war

U.S. has collected intel that could be used to judge the legality of Israel’s conduct of war

Politico reports: While American officials say they are not making judgments in real-time about whether Israel is abiding by the laws of war, the U.S. has gathered intelligence that might allow it to make such assessments. The U.S. has collected intelligence and formulated detailed assessments related to both Israel and Hamas military movements and tactics in Gaza since the war began in October, according to two people familiar with the intelligence. That has included data on targeting by both sides,…

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Award ceremony suspended after writer compares Gaza to Nazi-era Jewish ghettos

Award ceremony suspended after writer compares Gaza to Nazi-era Jewish ghettos

  The Guardian reports: A German foundation has said it will no longer be awarding a prize for political thinking to a leading Russian-American journalist after criticising as “unacceptable” a recent essay by the writer in which they made a comparison between Gaza and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe. Masha Gessen was due to be presented with the Hannah Arendt prize for political thought on Friday. But the award ceremony will now not take place as planned after the…

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Hungary blocks €50bn in EU aid for Ukraine hours after membership talks approved

Hungary blocks €50bn in EU aid for Ukraine hours after membership talks approved

The Guardian reports: Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has blocked a €50bn EU aid package for Ukraine, hours after leaders side-stepped his opposition to agree to open talks with Kyiv on joining the bloc. A crunch summit in Brussels broke up close to 3am on Friday with the Hungarian leader refusing to green light funding to help Ukraine’s government over the next four years. EU leaders will postpone their discussion on the budget to January, concluding that after seven hours…

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How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump

How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump

CNN reports: A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Its disappearance, which has not been previously reported, was so concerning that intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the…

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Welcome to the Nixon Renaissance, where ‘Tricky Dick’ is cool and Watergate was a set-up

Welcome to the Nixon Renaissance, where ‘Tricky Dick’ is cool and Watergate was a set-up

Ian Ward writes: In late August, Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy took a break from his typical campaign events to make a pit stop at an unusual venue for mainstream Republicans: The Richard Nixon Presidential Library. Speaking before a packed house, Ramaswamy was slated to deliver a speech on foreign policy. But his opening remarks served the more provocative purpose of challenging Nixon’s much-maligned status in the annals of conservative history. “He is by and away the most underappreciated president…

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Vigil outside the White House: ‘President Biden, your staff demands a ceasefire’

Vigil outside the White House: ‘President Biden, your staff demands a ceasefire’

  CNN reports: Political appointees and Biden administration staffers held a vigil in front of the White House on Wednesday to call on President Joe Biden to support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. More than three dozen people, including political appointees, administration staffers and civil service career staff, attended the early evening vigil in front of the White House. The participants wore sunglasses and masks to conceal their identities. Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned from his…

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Nearly half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza are imprecise ‘dumb bombs,’ U.S. intelligence finds

Nearly half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza are imprecise ‘dumb bombs,’ U.S. intelligence finds

  CNN reports: Nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza in its war with Hamas since October 7 have been unguided, otherwise known as “dumb bombs,” according to a new US intelligence assessment. The assessment, compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and described to CNN by three sources who have seen it, says that about 40-45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions Israel has used have been unguided. The rest have been…

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