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Category: Politics

Use of NATO arms for attack in Russia raises doubts about Kyiv’s controls

Use of NATO arms for attack in Russia raises doubts about Kyiv’s controls

The Washington Post reports: The Russian fighters aligned against Moscow who launched a cross-border raid from Ukraine into the Belgorod region of Russia last week used at least four tactical vehicles originally given to Ukraine by the United States and Poland, U.S. officials said, raising questions about the unintended use of NATO-provided equipment and Kyiv’s commitments to secure materiel supplied by its supporters. Three of the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, also known as MRAPs, taken into Russia by the fighters…

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Le Pen’s far right served as mouthpiece for the Kremlin, says French parliamentary report

Le Pen’s far right served as mouthpiece for the Kremlin, says French parliamentary report

France 24 reports: After a six-month inquiry and more than 50 hearings, the cross-party parliamentary inquiry found that the National Rally (Rassemblement national or RN) party had served as a “communication channel” for Russian power, notably supporting Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea, according to the leaked report. The text, due to be published next week, was adopted on Thursday by eleven votes to five – to the dismay of the inquiry’s chair and instigator, RN lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy, who promptly…

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Biden has a theory of MAGA that just might be working

Biden has a theory of MAGA that just might be working

Greg Sargent writes: Now that Congress has passed the debt limit deal, explanations for President Biden’s success in negotiating the outcome are abounding. Among them: Biden drew on his long experience in Washington to achieve bipartisan compromise; he avoided claiming a win so Republicans could support it; he didn’t get distracted by the media’s second-guessing. Here’s another way to understand this unexpected outcome: Biden is operating from a largely unappreciated theory of MAGA, and in some ways, it’s working. Passage of the deal, which averts default and economic…

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Inside the complicated reality of being America’s oldest president

Inside the complicated reality of being America’s oldest president

The New York Times reports: There was the time last winter when President Biden was awakened at 3 a.m. while on a trip to Asia and told that a missile had struck Poland, touching off a panic that Russia might have expanded the war in Ukraine to a NATO ally. Within hours in the middle of the night, Mr. Biden consulted his top advisers, called the president of Poland and the NATO secretary general, and gathered fellow world leaders to…

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Trump lawyer’s notes could become key evidence in the classified documents inquiry

Trump lawyer’s notes could become key evidence in the classified documents inquiry

The New York Times reports: Turning on his iPhone one day last year, the lawyer M. Evan Corcoran recorded his reflections about a high-profile new job: representing former President Donald J. Trump in an investigation into his handling of classified documents. In complete sentences and a narrative tone that sounded as if it had been ripped from a novel, Mr. Corcoran recounted in detail a nearly monthlong period of the documents investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter….

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Former gun company executive explains roots of America’s gun violence epidemic

Former gun company executive explains roots of America’s gun violence epidemic

By Corey G. Johnson This story was originally published by ProPublica. From the movie theater to the shopping mall, inside a church and a synagogue, through the grocery aisle and into the classroom, gun violence has invaded every corner of American life. It is a social epidemic no vaccine can stem, a crisis with no apparent end. Visual evidence of the carnage spills with numbing frequency onto TV shows and floods the internet. Each new shooting brings the lists of…

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Ukraine’s Zelensky: We are ready for counteroffensive

Ukraine’s Zelensky: We are ready for counteroffensive

The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was now ready to launch a long-awaited counteroffensive but tempered a forecast of success with a warning: It could take some time and come at a heavy cost. “We strongly believe that we will succeed,” Zelensky said in an interview in this southern port city as his country’s military girded for what could be one of the war’s most consequential phases as it aims to retake territory occupied by Russia. “I don’t know how…

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White resistance to federal power

White resistance to federal power

Eric Foner writes: Earlier this year, Randy McNally, the speaker of the Tennessee Senate, issued a proclamation declaring April 2023 Confederate History Month. He urged ‘citizens from across this state’ to remember their ancestors’ ‘heroic struggle’ for ‘individual freedom’. Observers outside Tennessee may find it incongruous to identify a war fought to preserve slavery with the ideal of freedom, but Jefferson Cowie, who teaches history at Vanderbilt University, in the heart of the state, wouldn’t be surprised. His new book…

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Weapons expert cut from UK government event due to tweets critical of government

Weapons expert cut from UK government event due to tweets critical of government

BBC News reports: A global expert on nerve agents, stood down from speaking at a government-backed conference, says he believes it is because he is outspoken on a range of issues including asylum policy. Dan Kaszeta was disinvited from Tuesday’s conference after his social media content was vetted. The Ministry of Defence said checks on people speaking at government-organised events ensured a balanced discussion. But Mr Kaszeta insisted he would have only spoken on his area of expertise. That is…

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America is headed toward collapse. History shows how to stave it off

America is headed toward collapse. History shows how to stave it off

Peter Turchin writes: How has America slid into its current age of discord? Why has our trust in institutions collapsed, and why have our democratic norms unraveled? All human societies experience recurrent waves of political crisis, such as the one we face today. My research team built a database of hundreds of societies across 10,000 years to try to find out what causes them. We examined dozens of variables, including population numbers, measures of well-being, forms of governance, and the…

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Model prosecution memo for Trump classified documents

Model prosecution memo for Trump classified documents

Andrew Weissmann, Ryan Goodman, Joyce Vance, Norman L. Eisen, Fred Wertheimer, Siven Watt, E. Danya Perry, Joshua Stanton and Joshua Kolb write: This model prosecution memorandum assesses potential charges federal prosecutors may bring against former President Donald Trump. It focuses on those emanating from his handling of classified documents and other government records since leaving office on January 20, 2021. It includes crimes related to the removal and retention of national security information and obstruction of the investigation into his…

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Antisemitism is far more prevalent on the far right than the far left

Antisemitism is far more prevalent on the far right than the far left

The Forward reports: A new study is casting doubt on the idea, held by some but not most American Jews, that antisemitism is just as prevalent on the far left as it is on the far right. Though far more American Jews consider the far right as the greater antisemitic threat, some academics and Jewish leaders have embraced horseshoe theory — the idea the opposite ends of an ideological spectrum are similar — and applied it to antisemitism. Though the…

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The judicial power grab led by Chief Justice John Roberts

The judicial power grab led by Chief Justice John Roberts

Josh Chafetz writes: Although the Supreme Court has been deciding cases at a glacial pace this term — and that with an almost comically small docket of only 59 merits cases — the justices have found other ways to keep busy. They have been spinning their ethical lapses (Justice Clarence Thomas), blowing off congressional oversight (Chief Justice John Roberts), giving interviews whining about public criticism (Justice Samuel Alito) and presenting awards to one another (Justice Elena Kagan to Mr. Roberts). In the cases it has decided, the Supreme Court has gutted an important provision…

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More than two dozen cities and states are suing Big Oil over climate change – they just got a boost from the US Supreme Court

More than two dozen cities and states are suing Big Oil over climate change – they just got a boost from the US Supreme Court

By Patrick Parenteau, Vermont Law & Graduate School and John Dernbach, Widener University Honolulu has lost more than 5 miles of its famous beaches to sea level rise and storm surges. Sunny-day flooding during high tides makes many city roads impassable, and water mains for the public drinking water system are corroding from saltwater because of sea level rise. The damage has left the city and county spending millions of dollars on repairs and infrastructure to try to adapt to…

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World’s wheat supply at risk of a dangerous shock due to heat and drought, study warns

World’s wheat supply at risk of a dangerous shock due to heat and drought, study warns

NBC News reports: Extreme heat waves and drought due to climate change have the potential to shock the global food supply and send prices soaring, according to a new study. The research, published Friday in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, assesses a worst-case scenario in which extreme weather hits two breadbasket regions in the same year, hammering winter wheat crops in both the U.S. Midwest and northeastern China. Winter wheat is planted in the fall, goes dormant in…

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Biden is delivering on his most far-fetched pledge: Compromise

Biden is delivering on his most far-fetched pledge: Compromise

David Ignatius writes: President Biden this week accomplished what America elected him to do — govern from the center and make deals that solve problems. Progressive Democrats don’t seem to like that cooperative spirit, which is a big reason their candidates keep failing to become president. “The agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want. That’s the responsibility of governing,” Biden said last weekend in announcing the deal to raise the debt ceiling. It’s a defining…

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