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Category: Politics

Ukraine is ‘freaking out’ as McCarthy chaos threatens U.S. aid

Ukraine is ‘freaking out’ as McCarthy chaos threatens U.S. aid

Politico reports: After a year and a half of war, Ukraine’s leaders now have a new reason to worry: Mounting political chaos in America is threatening to derail their supply of money and weapons. Days after lawmakers shelved a vital U.S. plan to send billions of dollars in aid to Kyiv, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his own Republican Party colleagues. Aid to Ukraine was named as one of the reasons. In Kyiv, officials are at a…

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Team Trump readies attacks on RFK Jr. as spoiler anxiety grows

Team Trump readies attacks on RFK Jr. as spoiler anxiety grows

Shelby Talcott reports: Members of Donald Trump’s team are quietly preparing to go on offense against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as internal campaign polling suggests his expected third party bid could draw more votes from Trump than President Joe Biden in a general election. Semafor has not independently reviewed the polling. One person close to Trump’s campaign said it showed that Kennedy took more votes from Trump than left-wing independent Cornel West drew from Biden when both were tested. “It’s…

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Trump gave up the idea of running for speaker when he learned he’d probably lose — badly

Trump gave up the idea of running for speaker when he learned he’d probably lose — badly

Politico reports: It wasn’t that anyone seriously thought he’d win the 218 votes to be elected. In fact, most who were familiar with the conference’s internal dynamics believed he couldn’t even get the conference nomination, requiring a simple majority of Republicans. Centrist Republicans running in Biden districts were dreading the prospect of being tied to Trump as speaker. And even traditional and conservative Republicans were not happy about the idea of reporters peppering them with questions about whether they think…

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A broken Congress is what MAGA always wanted

A broken Congress is what MAGA always wanted

David Rothkopf writes: There have been MAGA true believers shitting on the floor of the Congress ever since Jan. 6, 2021. But the right wing’s active desecration of the U.S. government extends far beyond ugly recent events on Capitol Hill, and dates back long before the Trumpist insurrection of two and a half years ago. In fact, the origins of the attacks on the government date back at least four decades to the Reagan administration, when the former president popularized…

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From his ‘War Room,’ Steve Bannon stokes the Republican Party meltdown

From his ‘War Room,’ Steve Bannon stokes the Republican Party meltdown

The New York Times reports: On Wednesday morning, two Republicans who hours earlier had toppled Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House made a well-worn trek to a 19th-century brick townhouse a few blocks away from the Capitol and entered the cluttered sanctuary of Stephen K. Bannon’s recording studio. Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida, the instigator of the rebellion, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of seven other Republican defectors, huddled with Mr. Bannon for a morning meeting ahead…

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The GOP wants power without responsibilities

The GOP wants power without responsibilities

Greg Sargent writes: What’s become clear now is there is no Republican majority in the House united behind any governing approach. The Gaetz faction is committed to a project that most House Republicans ultimately are not: eschewing consensus governing entirely wherever possible and making no concessions to Democrats whatsoever. In this, the Gaetz crew has been urged on by Trump, who wants Republicans to shut down the government to defund ongoing prosecutions of him, a Total War posture that would…

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Poland’s election is neither free nor fair

Poland’s election is neither free nor fair

Anne Applebaum writes: State capture is a clean, formal phrase that describes a messy, ugly process. A political party or clique typically consolidates control over a state’s institutions only after years of bad legislation, concentrated propaganda, and many different forms of corruption. In some cases, constitutions have to be broken. Occasionally violence is required. Whole swaths of the public have to be persuaded, bribed, or frightened into going along. In Poland, this process has been under way for eight years….

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Putin’s fleet retreats: Ukraine is winning the Battle of the Black Sea

Putin’s fleet retreats: Ukraine is winning the Battle of the Black Sea

Peter Dickinson writes: Russia has reportedly withdrawn most of its Black Sea Fleet from occupied Crimea in recent weeks following a series of successful Ukrainian attacks. The retreat of the Russian fleet is a serious setback for Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion and the latest indication that Ukraine is winning the Battle of the Black Sea. Satellite footage from early October indicates that Russian vessels including three Kilo-class submarines, two guided missile frigates, and a patrol ship have all been hastily…

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U.S. will transfer weapons seized from Iran to Ukraine

U.S. will transfer weapons seized from Iran to Ukraine

CNN reports: The US will transfer thousands of seized Iranian weapons and rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, in a move that could help to alleviate some of the critical shortages facing the Ukrainian military as it awaits more money and equipment from the US and its allies, US officials said. US Central Command has already transferred over one million rounds of seized Iranian ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces, it announced on Wednesday. The transfer was conducted on Monday, CENTCOM…

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Pope Francis lambasts climate change skeptics and ‘irresponsible’ Western lifestyles

Pope Francis lambasts climate change skeptics and ‘irresponsible’ Western lifestyles

CNN reports: Pope Francis has made his strongest statement yet on the accelerating climate crisis, pinning blame on big industries and world leaders as well as “irresponsible” Western lifestyles, in a blistering statement on Wednesday. “Our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” the pontiff wrote in a 7,000 word encyclical called Laudate Deum (“Praise God”). “Some effects of the climate crisis are already irreversible, at…

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Giuliani’s drinking has Trump prosecutors’ attention

Giuliani’s drinking has Trump prosecutors’ attention

The New York Times reports: No one close to Mr. Giuliani, 79, has suggested that drinking could excuse or explain away his present legal and personal disrepair. He arrived for a mug shot in Georgia in August not over rowdy nightlife behavior or reckless cable interviews but for allegedly abusing the laws he defended aggressively as a federal prosecutor, subverting the democracy of a nation that once lionized him. Yet to almost anyone in proximity, friends say, Mr. Giuliani’s drinking…

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The only sin that Republicans can’t forgive

The only sin that Republicans can’t forgive

Ronald Brownstein writes: The fall of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy today demonstrated again that the one sin that cannot be forgiven in the modern Republican Party is being seen as failing to fight the Democratic agenda by any means necessary. Of all the accusations that could be leveled against McCarthy, the notion that he was insufficiently committed to battling Democrats would not seem high on the list. As the GOP minority leader in the previous Congress, McCarthy voted to reject…

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Leonard Leo says he will not cooperate with D.C. Attorney General tax probe

Leonard Leo says he will not cooperate with D.C. Attorney General tax probe

Politico reports: Judicial activist Leonard Leo is not cooperating with an investigation by Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb for potentially misusing nonprofit tax laws for personal enrichment, his attorney confirmed. David Rivkin, Leo’s attorney, said in a statement to POLITICO that Schwalb has “no legal authority to conduct any investigatory steps or take any enforcement measures” because Leo’s multi-billion-dollar aligned nonprofits — which poured millions into campaigning for the nominations of conservative Supreme Court justices and advocating before them…

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The disinformation sleuths: a key role for scientists in impending elections

The disinformation sleuths: a key role for scientists in impending elections

An editorial in Nature says: Next year will bring a series of high-profile elections around the globe, including in India, Taiwan, the United States and, in all likelihood, the United Kingdom, as well as for the European Parliament. Social media will play a huge part in bringing information to the hundreds of millions of people casting their votes — and researchers who study elections are worried. Access to social-media data is essential to those who research political campaigns and their…

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How Republican state politics are shaving years off American lives

How Republican state politics are shaving years off American lives

The Washington Post reports: Mike Czup unspooled the hose to wash his hearse. It was time to pick up the body of yet another neighbor who had died in the prime of life. Since he started working at 15 in the funeral business, Czup has seen plenty of tragedies. But the 52-year-old said he’s still coming to grips with a disturbing fact about the bodies he washes, embalms and entombs: About a quarter of the people he buries are younger…

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Trump wanted to fire missiles at Mexico. Now the GOP wants to send troops

Trump wanted to fire missiles at Mexico. Now the GOP wants to send troops

The New York Times reports: The first time Donald Trump talked privately about shooting missiles into Mexico to take out drug labs, as far as his former aides can recall, was in early 2020. And the first time those comments became public was when his second defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, wrote in his memoir that Mr. Trump had raised it with him and asked if the United States could make it look as if some other country was responsible….

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