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Category: Politics

Israel could lose

Israel could lose

  Jon B. Alterman writes: Israel’s army has a remarkable record of winning. It won conventional wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973; it forced the Palestine Liberation Organization to give up armed struggle in 1996; and it has deterred Hezbollah since a 2006 campaign laid waste to the group. The military is strong not merely because of U.S. support, but also because everything about Israeli military—from its doctrine, organization, and training to its leadership and personnel—makes it by far the…

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These evangelicals are cheering the Gaza war as the end of the world

These evangelicals are cheering the Gaza war as the end of the world

Talia Lavin writes: On Tuesday, approximately 300,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., to show their support for Israel in an ongoing war that has claimed the lives of thousands of people. The lineup of speakers at the March for Israel included Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Jewish-American celebrities like Debra Messing and Tovah Feldshuh, as well as rabbis and cantors. It also included an evangelical Christian pastor from Texas, infamous for his fire-and-brimstone prophecies about the end of…

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An insurrectionist (rapist and fraudster too) isn’t disqualified from becoming president, judge rules

An insurrectionist (rapist and fraudster too) isn’t disqualified from becoming president, judge rules

The Daily Beast reports: Former President Donald Trump can appear on Colorado’s primary ballot despite his having engaged in an insurrection for his role in Jan. 6, 2021, a judge ruled Friday. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit seeking to remove Trump from the ballot on the grounds that Section III of the Fourteenth Amendment bars from public office anyone who has “taken an oath” but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” The lawyers who filed the suit…

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Nikki Haley draws growing interest from deep-pocketed donors as GOP presidential field shrinks

Nikki Haley draws growing interest from deep-pocketed donors as GOP presidential field shrinks

CNN reports: Tim Scott’s loss appears to be Nikki Haley’s gain. Several of Scott’s financial backers have quickly pivoted to Haley in the days since the South Carolina senator ended his bid for the White House, as Haley jockeys with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to become the alternative to former President Donald Trump, the current front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. In one sign of growing donor enthusiasm for her campaign, billionaire hedge fund founder Ken Griffin said this…

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The world is ‘woefully off track’ on dozens of climate goals, scientists find

The world is ‘woefully off track’ on dozens of climate goals, scientists find

The Washington Post reports: Among the many dramatic ways society must transform to limit the worst effects of climate change, the world is only moving fast enough on one of them — the uptake of electric vehicles, according to a new report from seven climate organizations looking at 42 indicators of climate progress. On the other 41 points of transformation, change is either too slow, too hard to measure, or going in the wrong direction. For example, the global rate…

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Israel’s ludicrous propaganda wins over the only audience that counts

Israel’s ludicrous propaganda wins over the only audience that counts

Jeet Heer writes: On November 11, an Arabic-language Twitter account maintained by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a video purporting to be a selfie by a nurse in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, a major battlefield in the current conflict that was taken over by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) a few days later. In the startling video, as bombs went off in the background, the tearful nurse warned Gazans to heed the call of the IDF to flee to…

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Trump’s plan for immigrant concentration camps points to a brutal 2024 reality

Trump’s plan for immigrant concentration camps points to a brutal 2024 reality

Greg Sargent writes: Donald Trump’s advisers have declared that if he regains the presidency, he will launch an extraordinarily cruel crackdown on immigration. Given that Trump lost reelection in 2020 after attempting a far tamer agenda, advertising such plans might seem like foolish political malpractice. But the politics of immigration can be peculiar. The public tends to turn on the president in power when the situation on the border goes wrong, leading voters to seek a diametrically different approach —…

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Trump’s 2024 trial schedule drifts into chaos

Trump’s 2024 trial schedule drifts into chaos

The Messenger reports: In theory, Donald Trump is facing down the prospect of four criminal trials in four different cases next year that clash with the core period of his campaign to return to the White House. In practice, as court filings, judicial rulings, public statements and other recent developments have illustrated, Trump could face just one trial on his road to Election Day 2024. By all accounts, including her own, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has no intention of…

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Stephen Miller’s America First Legal rakes in $44 million with $27 million from a single donor

Stephen Miller’s America First Legal rakes in $44 million with $27 million from a single donor

The Hill reports: Longtime Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s legal group saw a major jump in revenue last year, raising $44 million, significantly more than the $6 million garnered during 2021. Miller’s national non-profit, America First Legal, registered as a 501c(3), saw a near 600 percent revenue jump, according to a Bloomberg New analysis of tax fillings provided by Accountable.US, a progressive watchdog group. The revenue increase comes after the group started filing more lawsuits, focused on challenging major law firms,…

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No Labels depends on six-figure donors to fund ‘grassroots’ 2024 third party ticket

No Labels depends on six-figure donors to fund ‘grassroots’ 2024 third party ticket

CNBC reports: No Labels, the nonprofit group actively working to field a third party ticket for president in 2024, doubled its annual revenue last year over 2021, collecting $21 million, nearly all of it from wealthy donors who gave $100,000 or more. No Labels is not required to publicly disclose the names of its donors, but CNBC obtained a list from the group of contributions last year that exceeded $5,000. The list did not include names, but it revealed that…

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Advertisers flee X as outcry over Musk’s endorsement of antisemitic post grows

Advertisers flee X as outcry over Musk’s endorsement of antisemitic post grows

The New York Times reports: The blowback over Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X gathered steam on Friday, as several major advertisers on his social media platform cut off their spending after his comments. Disney said it was pausing spending on X, as did Lionsgate, the entertainment and film distribution company. Apple, which spends tens of millions of dollars a year on X, also suspended advertising on the platform, a person with knowledge of the situation…

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Israel fails to produce evidence supporting its claim that Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital sits atop Hamas’s HQ

Israel fails to produce evidence supporting its claim that Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital sits atop Hamas’s HQ

The Washington Post reports: The Israeli raid of the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital stretched into its second day Thursday as troops searched for evidence of the extensive Hamas infrastructure that Israeli and U.S. officials have said lies beneath the facility. The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that searches had uncovered the body of a captive Israeli woman in a house near the hospital, along with weapons. On Wednesday, the IDF released photographs and video of small caches of weapons it…

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Progressives warn Jeffries: AIPAC poses a threat to the Democratic Party

Progressives warn Jeffries: AIPAC poses a threat to the Democratic Party

Politico reports: Progressive Democrats who’ve condemned Israel over its war offensive in Gaza are demanding that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries do more to protect them against primary challenges from pro-Israel Democrats. In a closed-door meeting at party headquarters last Thursday, the three lawmakers who lead the Progressive Caucus’ PAC met with Jeffries and Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), the head of House Democrats’ campaign arm. They told the Democratic leader he needed to keep the influential American Israel Public Affairs…

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Trumpworld is already at war over staffing a new Trump White House

Trumpworld is already at war over staffing a new Trump White House

The Daily Beast reports: The America First Policy Institute was supposed to add the ideological heft to Donald Trump’s ad hoc, seat-of-your-pants policymaking. But a year out from Election Day, Trump’s allies are signaling that the group may be doing more harm than good—and the campaign is making it clear that Trump, not any outside group, will be in charge of staffing up another White House. The Daily Beast reviewed an internal AFPI email showing staff inside the organization collecting…

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Trump promotes political violence

Trump promotes political violence

Dennis Aftergut writes: When the 118th Congress got underway, one of the first actions of the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives was to remove the magnetometers that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had had installed outside the House chamber following the January 6th attack. After Tuesday’s events on Capitol Hill—when deposed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy allegedly sucker-elbowed a fellow Republican who called it “a clean shot to the kidneys” and Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) dared a witness in…

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Another day, another antisemitic conspiracy theory for Elon Musk and X

Another day, another antisemitic conspiracy theory for Elon Musk and X

Vanity Fair reports: The wealthiest man in the world is spreading the same antisemitic conspiracy theory a mass shooter in 2018 referenced to justify the slaughter of 11 worshippers at a Pennsylvania synagogue. On Wednesday, Elon Musk endorsed a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, accusing Jewish communities of “pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post went on to claim that “Western…

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