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Category: Politics

Trump’s lawyer makes spurious and inflammatory comparison with rushed trial of the Scottsboro Boys

Trump’s lawyer makes spurious and inflammatory comparison with rushed trial of the Scottsboro Boys

The New York Times reports: In seeking to persuade Judge Chuktan to move quickly to trial, Ms. Gaston [one of the prosecutors in the case] reminded her that Mr. Trump had repeatedly attacked the “integrity of the court and the citizens of D.C.” on social media in ways that could affect the case’s jury pool. At a hearing last month, Judge Chutkan warned Mr. Trump that she would not tolerate him using social media posts to intimidate witnesses or taint…

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Jim Jordan’s latest antics won’t save Trump from a jury’s judgment

Jim Jordan’s latest antics won’t save Trump from a jury’s judgment

Greg Sargent writes: Because Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) cares deeply about the plight of the unfairly accused, he has launched yet another House GOP effort to protect Donald Trump from prosecution. The Judiciary Committee, which Jordan chairs, is demanding that Georgia prosecutor Fani T. Willis turn over documents related to her indictment of the former president over his insurrection attempt. Jordan’s game — using House investigations to protect Trump at all costs — is transparent. Yet if he really pursues…

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Pope says ‘backward’ U.S. conservatives have replaced faith with ideology

Pope says ‘backward’ U.S. conservatives have replaced faith with ideology

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church, saying they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time. Francis’ comments were an acknowledgment of the divisions in the U.S. Catholic Church, which has been split between progressives and conservatives who long found support in the doctrinaire papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, particularly on issues of abortion…

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Neo-Nazis repeatedly targeted Jacksonville before mass shooting

Neo-Nazis repeatedly targeted Jacksonville before mass shooting

The Daily Beast reports: Months before a gunman fired a swastika-covered rifle at Black shoppers in a Jacksonville, Florida Dollar General on Saturday, a white supremacist group spray-painted its logo and “reclaim America” on a city billboard. A different white supremacist group posted racist stickers around Jacksonville months before that. Weeks earlier, a third white supremacist group projected a swastika onto a Jacksonville building, following a fourth white supremacist group that also used a laser projector to beam its own…

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How the ‘urban doom loop’ could pose the next economic threat

How the ‘urban doom loop’ could pose the next economic threat

The Washington Post reports: In Indianapolis, the technology giant Salesforce is paring back a quarter of its office space in the tallest building in Indiana, where it has been a key tenant for the past six years. In Atlanta, the private investment giant Starwood Capital defaulted on a $212 million mortgage on a 29-story office tower. And in Baltimore, a landmark building sold for $24 million last month, roughly $42 million less than it fetched in 2015. All across the…

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Ukraine’s counteroffensive is making substantial progress. Russia knows this, even if the West doesn’t

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is making substantial progress. Russia knows this, even if the West doesn’t

Jan Kallberg writes: The bleakness of the Western commentariat’s recent output is striking — Ukraine’s counteroffensive has made little progress, they say. Major US news outlets cite intelligence agencies opining that things are “grim” and that hopes are fading that Ukraine can reach its (supposed) objective of Melitopol, more than 50 miles away. This is simply wrong. Intelligence analysts may look at the map of Southern Ukraine and see distances; military planners will apply the military math and see something…

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The last days of Wagner’s Prigozhin

The last days of Wagner’s Prigozhin

The Wall Street Journal reports: Yevgeny Prigozhin spent his final days planning for the future. Last Friday, the warlord’s private jet touched down in the capital of Central African Republic, on a mission to salvage one of the first client states of his Wagner mercenary company. His African empire had come to include some 5,000 men deployed across the continent. In the riverside presidential palace in Bangui, the capital, Prigozhin told President Faustin-Archange Touadera that his aborted June mutiny in…

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In Syria, a revolution reborn

In Syria, a revolution reborn

Leila Al Shami writes: Yesterday, 25 August, the revolution flag flew high in villages, towns and cities across Syria. In Sweida, Dera’a, Aleppo, Idlib, Raqqa, Hasakeh and Deir Al Zour, thousands were on the streets reviving the chants of the revolution. Protests erupted in the south of the country a few days ago, in regime-held Sweida and Dera’a. They were triggered by the cost-of-living crisis, especially the recent increase in fuel prices as subsidies were cut. People are struggling to…

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Is Yemen’s future a permanently fractured state?

Is Yemen’s future a permanently fractured state?

Mohammed Ali Kalfood writes: In mid-June, dozens of political and tribal figures from Yemen’s largest governorate, Hadhramaut, announced the establishment of a new political entity known as the Hadhramaut National Council, which they said “aims to serve as a political platform to express the aspirations and represent the interests of the Hadhrami community in Yemen.” Hadhramaut, which holds some 80 percent of Yemen’s oil reserves, shares a long border with Saudi Arabia—which partly explains why the formation of the council…

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The ‘false prophet’ v the pope: Argentina faces clash of ideologies in election

The ‘false prophet’ v the pope: Argentina faces clash of ideologies in election

The Observer reports: In one corner of the ring stands Javier Milei, 52, self-described former tantric sex coach, outsider anarcho-capitalist and frontrunner in Argentina’s upcoming presidential elections; in the other, his compatriot Pope Francis, 86, world champion of the poor, repeatedly derided by Argentina’s likely next president as “a fucking communist” and “the representative of the evil one on Earth” for promoting the doctrine of “social justice” to aid the underprivileged. Milei, a political unknown until 2020, has pledged to…

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Trump can and should be disqualified from running for president under the 14th Amendment

Trump can and should be disqualified from running for president under the 14th Amendment

Shan Wu writes: The “Disqualification Clause” found in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment fits Donald J. Trump like a glove. Or as political podcaster Allison Gill asked on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter: “if section 3 of the 14th amendment wasn’t designed for him, who was it designed for?” The historical answer to Gill’s query is, of course, that it was designed for Confederates trying to get back into the federal government after losing the Civil…

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Efforts to disqualify Trump from state ballots are starting to materialize

Efforts to disqualify Trump from state ballots are starting to materialize

ABC News reports: [Federalist Society members, William] Baude and [Michael Stokes] Paulsen maintain their theory [that Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment bars Trump from public office] is “self-executing.” They say that means that public elections officials don’t need special permission from lawmakers to disqualify Trump from the ballot: if they believe the argument is valid, they can disqualify potential candidates on their own. Not only that, the scholars argue, the election officials are legally required to do…

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Trump remains Russia’s favorite but Vivek Ramaswamy is vying for second place

Trump remains Russia’s favorite but Vivek Ramaswamy is vying for second place

Julia Davis writes: In Russia, multiple indictments of former U.S. President Donald J. Trump prompted intense coverage and detailed discussions in the Kremlin-controlled state media. Russian propagandists and analysts speculate that the criminal prosecutions won’t hurt their favorite candidate, but only bolster his popularity. Encouraged by their belief that most of the GOP’s top contenders would limit or stop U.S. aid to Ukraine, Russian talking heads nonetheless prefer Trump himself. Referring to Trump’s booking record in Georgia, reporter Valentin Bogdanov, who is…

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Following Elon Musk’s lead, Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation

Following Elon Musk’s lead, Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation

The Washington Post reports: Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election. An array of circumstances is fueling the retreat: Mass layoffs at Meta and other major tech companies have gutted teams dedicated to promoting accurate information online. An aggressive legal battle over claims that the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to silence certain…

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Fox News quietly retracted false report without correction or apology after Pentagon protest

Fox News quietly retracted false report without correction or apology after Pentagon protest

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. Marine Corps went up to the highest levels of Fox News last month to challenge a story that falsely claimed a fallen Marine’s family had to cover the cost of transporting her remains, emails obtained by The Washington Post show. Fox quietly amended the digital story and then removed it from its website following more complaints from the Marines but still has not apologized or corrected the erroneous report, which had been based on…

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Human activities — not volcanic eruptions — are the primary cause of climate change

Human activities — not volcanic eruptions — are the primary cause of climate change

Patrick Pester writes: The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption in January 2022 was one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. Detonating underwater with the force of 100 Hiroshima bombs, the blast sent millions of tons of water vapor high into the atmosphere. Some commentators have speculated in recent weeks that the volcano is to blame for searing summer temperatures and are even using the volcano to cast doubt on the role humans are playing in climate change, as reported…

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