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Category: Politics

Top GOP lawyer decries ease of campus voting in private pitch to RNC

Top GOP lawyer decries ease of campus voting in private pitch to RNC

The Washington Post reports: A top Republican legal strategist told a roomful of GOP donors over the weekend that conservatives must band together to limit voting on college campuses, same-day voter registration and automatic mailing of ballots to registered voters, according to a copy of her presentation reviewed by The Washington Post. Cleta Mitchell, a longtime GOP lawyer and fundraiser who worked closely with former president Donald Trump to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, gave…

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With a heavy weight on his shoulders, Evan Gershkovich is standing tall

With a heavy weight on his shoulders, Evan Gershkovich is standing tall

Jason Rezaian writes: As Evan Gershkovich appeared in a Moscow courtroom, everything about the stage-managed proceedings was designed to elicit a specific response. He was placed in a glass cage where cameras flashed around him. Local Russian journalists covering the appearance yelled words of encouragement to him. Courtroom security guards admonished them for doing so. And the judge presiding over Gershkovich’s case rejected his appeal to be released on bail. In short, everyone played their part. Everyone, that is, except…

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Russian ships accused of planning North Sea sabotage

Russian ships accused of planning North Sea sabotage

BBC News reports: Russia has a programme to sabotage wind farms and communication cables in the North Sea, according to new allegations. The details come from a joint investigation by public broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. It says Russia has a fleet of vessels disguised as fishing trawlers and research vessels in the North Sea. They carry underwater surveillance equipment and are mapping key sites for possible sabotage. The BBC understands that UK officials are aware of Russian…

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Tunisia arrests opposition leader as crackdown escalates

Tunisia arrests opposition leader as crackdown escalates

The Washington Post reports: Tunisian security forces arrested the leader of the main opposition party Monday night and shuttered its headquarters, escalating a crackdown on the president’s critics in this formerly authoritarian North African country, which is veering again toward one-man rule. About 100 plainclothes police officers raided the home of Rachid Ghannouchi, the 81-year-old head of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, on Monday evening, as he was sitting down with family to break the Ramadan fast, his daughter Yusra…

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China is on track to become a nuclear superpower

China is on track to become a nuclear superpower

The New York Times reports: On the Chinese coast, just 135 miles from Taiwan, Beijing is preparing to start a new reactor the Pentagon sees as delivering fuel for a vast expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, potentially making it an atomic peer of the United States and Russia. The reactor, known as a fast breeder, excels at making plutonium, a top fuel of atom bombs. The nuclear material for the reactor is being supplied by Russia, whose Rosatom nuclear giant…

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For Rupert Murdoch, $787.5 million is just the price of doing business

For Rupert Murdoch, $787.5 million is just the price of doing business

Jack Shafer writes: If it seems fairly daft to congratulate Rupert Murdoch on settling the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case at a cost of $787.5 million, you probably need to be brought up to speed on how the tycoon excises malignancies when they threaten his core businesses. Murdoch’s company paid $100 million to celebrities and crime victims in his tabloid phone-hacking scandal in Britain, according to the Washington Post. Another $50 million went one year to women at Fox News who alleged sexual harassment…

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Fox investors seek records in possible step toward suing directors

Fox investors seek records in possible step toward suing directors

Reuters reports: Fox Corp shareholders are demanding company records that may show whether directors and executives properly oversaw Fox News’ coverage of former President Donald Trump’s election-rigging claims, sources told Reuters, in what could be a prelude to lawsuits seeking to make directors liable for costs. Investors are using provisions in Delaware corporate law to demand internal Fox records to investigate how Fox’s leaders acted as its Fox News network aired segments on Trump’s false claims that he lost the…

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Dominon, like Fox, places its business interests above public interest

Dominon, like Fox, places its business interests above public interest

Erik Wemple writes: In its statement, Fox News demonstrated that not even a court record bulging with evidence of perfidy is enough to shame the organization into genuine contrition. “We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems. We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.” (Boldface added to highlight the network’s minimization of the fact that the…

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Tennessee’s GOP lawmakers prioritize legal protection of gun firms above physical protection of children

Tennessee’s GOP lawmakers prioritize legal protection of gun firms above physical protection of children

The Associated Press reports: In the wake of a deadly school shooting last month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee awarded final passage Tuesday to a proposal that would further protect gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits. The Senate’s 19-9 vote sends the bill to Republican Gov. Bill Lee, despite pushback from Democratic lawmakers saying their GOP counterparts are trying to shield gun companies just weeks after the Nashville school shooting that killed six people, including three 9-year-olds. The…

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Trump’s fake Georgia electors are now ratting on each other

Trump’s fake Georgia electors are now ratting on each other

The Daily Beast reports: The fake GOP electors in Georgia that former President Donald Trump recruited as part of his failed attempt to stay in power are starting to point fingers at each other, court documents revealed on Tuesday. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area prosecutor who’s investigating Trump’s effort to upend American democracy there, laid out the details in a legal memo to a state judge—one that hints at criminal indictments to come. According to the memo,…

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Does Clarence Thomas think he’s above the law?

Does Clarence Thomas think he’s above the law?

Jamelle Bouie writes: The law is a little different for those at the top. As the world now knows, Justice Clarence Thomas did not disclose a real estate deal he and his family made in 2014 with Harlan Crow, a billionaire Republican donor. Thomas and several other relatives sold his mother’s home in Savannah, Ga., along with two vacant lots, for $133,363 to a company owned by Crow. “Soon after the sale was completed,” according to ProPublica, “contractors began work…

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U.S. charges four Americans with aiding Kremlin efforts

U.S. charges four Americans with aiding Kremlin efforts

The Washington Post reports: Federal authorities charged four Americans on Tuesday with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri — expanding a previous case that charged a Russian operative with running illegal influence agents within the United States. The FBI signaled its interest in the alleged activities in a series of raids last summer, at which point authorities charged a Moscow man, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, with working for years on behalf of Russian government officials…

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Egypt nearly supplied rockets to Russia, agreed to arm Ukraine instead, leak shows

Egypt nearly supplied rockets to Russia, agreed to arm Ukraine instead, leak shows

The Washington Post reports: Egypt paused a plan to secretly supply rockets to Russia last month following talks with senior U.S. officials and instead decided to produce artillery ammunition for Ukraine, according to five leaked U.S. intelligence documents that have not been previously reported. The Washington Post last week reported on another document that exposed a covert scheme by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi in February to provide Russia with up to 40,000 122mm Sakr-45 rockets, which can be used…

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Reforming Palestinian politics: ‘From every side in Palestine, you are under attack’

Reforming Palestinian politics: ‘From every side in Palestine, you are under attack’

Adam Shapiro writes: In a pre-dawn raid last year, Israeli soldiers stormed the Ramallah office of the Bisan Center for Research and Development, confiscating files and other office material from the Palestinian NGO. After leaving behind a military order declaring the Bisan Center unlawful, the soldiers welded its office door shut. Israeli forces conducted simultaneous raids on six other Palestinian civil society organizations in Ramallah: Addameer, al-Haq, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Health Work…

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Expert witness throws Jim Jordan’s NY clown show into disarray

Expert witness throws Jim Jordan’s NY clown show into disarray

The New Republic reports: On Monday, Jim Jordan brought the latest hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to Manhattan, where he and his fellow House Republicans attempted to paint New York City as a crime-ridden disaster. However, they instead managed to remind Americans that loose gun laws and Republican leadership have led to high crime rates and unlawful schemes that ship guns from red states to blue ones. Jordan’s New York City field trip…

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DA Bragg’s secret weapon may be a lawyer who’s dogged Trump for years

DA Bragg’s secret weapon may be a lawyer who’s dogged Trump for years

The Daily Beast reports: A little-known lawyer in New York has long been the thorn in Donald Trump’s side, pressing deeper with every passing year by taking down his scammy charity, blocking his presidential policies, investigating his finances, grilling his annoyed son with questions, and finally indicting the former president last month. Matthew Colangelo, after years of relentlessly aggressive work, is finally on Trump’s personal radar—and that of his most combative MAGA allies, who’ve painted a target on his back…

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