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Category: Politics

Biden’s understudy, Gavin Newsom, waits in the wings

Biden’s understudy, Gavin Newsom, waits in the wings

Matt Bai writes: Newsom has insisted that he supports President Biden and isn’t running some kind of shadow campaign. Which is true, I guess, in the sense that there doesn’t seem to be anything shadowy about it. In just the past few months, Newsom, a vigorous 56, has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People (looking conspicuously presidential in one of those awkward upholstered chairs); traveled to Israel to comfort survivors of the Hamas…

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White House’s stark warning: We are running out of money for Ukraine

White House’s stark warning: We are running out of money for Ukraine

The Daily Beast reports: The White House told party leaders in the House and Senate on Monday that they are running out of time to reach an agreement on sending more aide to Ukraine in its war against Russia. The director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young, explained that a lack of funding would “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield.” “I want to be clear: Without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out…

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Miscalculations, divisions marked offensive planning by U.S., Ukraine

Miscalculations, divisions marked offensive planning by U.S., Ukraine

The Washington Post reports: On June 15, in a conference room at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, flanked by top U.S. commanders, sat around a table with his Ukrainian counterpart, who was joined by aides from Kyiv. The room was heavy with an air of frustration. Austin, in his deliberate baritone, asked Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov about Ukraine’s decision-making in the opening days of its long-awaited counteroffensive, pressing him on why his forces weren’t using Western-supplied…

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Open secret at climate talks: The top temperature goal is mostly gone

Open secret at climate talks: The top temperature goal is mostly gone

Politico reports: Leading scientists worldwide delivered a striking dose of reality to the United Nations on Sunday: it’s “becoming inevitable” that countries will miss the ambitious target they set eight years ago for limiting the warming of the Earth. The ominous estimate points to the growing likelihood that global warming will shoot past 1.5 degrees Celsius before the end of this century, inflicting what scientists describe as an overwhelming toll from intensifying storms, drought and heat on people and the…

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Al Gore slams COP28 climate summit host UAE, says its emissions soared

Al Gore slams COP28 climate summit host UAE, says its emissions soared

Reuters reports: Climate advocate and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Sunday slammed the UAE – host of the COP28 climate summit – saying its position as overseer of international negotiations on global warming this year was an abuse of public trust. The comments, made to Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the conference in Dubai, reflected skepticism among some delegates that COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, head of the UAE’s national oil company ADNOC, can be an…

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UAE’s Cop28 president claims there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels

UAE’s Cop28 president claims there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels

The Guardian reports: The president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal. Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”. The comments were “incredibly concerning” and “verging on climate denial”, scientists said, and they were…

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Israel is using the same tactics in Gaza that Assad employed in Syria

Israel is using the same tactics in Gaza that Assad employed in Syria

Daanish Faruqi writes: As the humanitarian pause took effect in Gaza, footage of the massive destruction in the northern part of the enclave has started to trickle in. Seeing these images of devastation, one cannot but think of Thomas Friedman’s reference to what he calls the “Hama rules” in an article he published with The New York Times on October 14. A neologism he coined many years ago, it refers to then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad’s violent razing of the city…

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Research links the tendency to feel victimized to support for political violence

Research links the tendency to feel victimized to support for political violence

PsyPost reports: A recent series of studies reveals a strong connection between an individual’s tendency to feel victimized and their support for political violence. This research, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Violence, sheds light on how personal perceptions of victimhood can influence attitudes towards violent political actions. In an era where political tensions often lead to violent outbreaks, understanding the root causes of such violence is crucial. Past research has linked trauma, abuse, and relative…

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Trump attempts to spin anti-democracy, authoritarian criticism against Biden

Trump attempts to spin anti-democracy, authoritarian criticism against Biden

The Washington Post reports: Republican polling leader Donald Trump moved to deflect from criminal charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 election and from his own pledges to take revenge on his opponents if he returns to the White House, seeking to parry warnings that he presents a danger to democracy. His speech on Saturday was an effort to turn the tables on rising alarms from Democrats and some Republicans that Trump’s return to power would imperil free elections…

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Santos, now booted from the House, got elected as a master of duplicity – here’s how it worked

Santos, now booted from the House, got elected as a master of duplicity – here’s how it worked

Rep. George Santos in the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 7, 2023. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images By David E. Clementson, University of Georgia U.S. Rep. George Santos, a Republican from New York, was expelled on Dec. 1, 2023 from Congress for doing what most people think all politicians do all the time: lying. Santos lied about his religion, marital status, business background, grandparents, college, high school, sports-playing, income and campaign donation expenditures. Santos’ fellow members of Congress –…

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Swing-state Muslim leaders launch campaign to ‘abandon’ Biden in 2024

Swing-state Muslim leaders launch campaign to ‘abandon’ Biden in 2024

Politico reports: Muslim leaders from several swing states on Saturday descended on Dearborn, Michigan, to launch a national campaign against the reelection of President Joe Biden — a response to his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Organizers from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania are calling the campaign #AbandonBiden, vowing to ensure that Biden is a one-term president. These leaders have run separate pressure campaigns in their respective states, members of the coalition said, but they felt…

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The scale of displacement in Gaza is unparalleled

The scale of displacement in Gaza is unparalleled

The New York Times reports: Up to 1.8 million Gazans — around 80 percent of the population — have been forced to leave their homes since Israel began its bombardment in response to Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7. That number is expected to rise after Israel issued a new evacuation order on Saturday for areas in the south. Gaza has never experienced so much internal displacement in such a short time. Earlier conflicts forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from…

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Iran ‘using Gaza conflict as cover’ for execution of 127 people since war began

Iran ‘using Gaza conflict as cover’ for execution of 127 people since war began

The Guardian reports: The Iranian regime has executed more than 127 people, including women and children, since the Hamas attacks of 7 October, according to human rights groups. According to data collected by Iran Human Rights (IHR) and the Norway-based organisation Hengaw, which have been cross-referenced by the Observer, there has been an alarming rise in executions since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas. A third group, Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA), confirmed that there has…

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Biden’s EPA launches crackdown on planet-warming methane

Biden’s EPA launches crackdown on planet-warming methane

Politico reports: The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled sweeping new regulations targeting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector on Saturday, a significant milestone for President Joe Biden’s strategy for curbing the pollution driving up the Earth’s temperatures. The rule’s 3 a.m. rollout was timed to coincide with the ongoing U.N. climate talks in Dubai, where the U.S. has sought to play a leading role in global efforts to reduce emissions of the powerful planet-heating gas. But its biggest test…

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Trump pardoned them. Now they’re helping him return to power

Trump pardoned them. Now they’re helping him return to power

The Washington Post reports: At a diner known for political chitchat and Coca-Cola memorabilia, former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio walked from table to table on a recent fall morning, asking voters to back him for mayor of his Phoenix-area hometown — and to support the former president who once rescued him from a potential prison sentence. “Are you for Trump?” Arpaio asked one restaurant patron, as town council members, a Republican Party activist and a Bible study group ate…

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‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza

‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza

+972 and Local Call reports: The Israeli army’s expanded authorization for bombing non-military targets, the loosening of constraints regarding expected civilian casualties, and the use of an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than ever before, appear to have contributed to the destructive nature of the initial stages of Israel’s current war on the Gaza Strip, an investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals. These factors, as described by current and former Israeli intelligence members, have likely…

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