Browsed by
Category: Politics

Trump’s legal problems are putting the GOP in a vise

Trump’s legal problems are putting the GOP in a vise

Ronald Brownstein writes: The dilemma for the Republican Party is that Donald Trump’s mounting legal troubles may be simultaneously strengthening him as a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination and weakening him as a potential general-election nominee. In the days leading up to the indictment of the former president, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced two days ago, a succession of polls showed that Trump has significantly increased his lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his closest competitor in…

Read More Read More

Trump lashes out against New York judge who will hear his criminal case

Trump lashes out against New York judge who will hear his criminal case

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump is quite familiar with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, the judge who oversaw the grand jury that indicted Trump this week and will preside over the criminal proceedings that follow. Merchan, 60, who has sat on the New York bench since 2009, also presided over the jury trial last year of Trump’s namesake real estate company, which resulted in a conviction in December, and the prosecution of the company’s longtime…

Read More Read More

As Israelis protest mounting authoritarianism, apartheid regime over Palestinians goes unchallenged

As Israelis protest mounting authoritarianism, apartheid regime over Palestinians goes unchallenged

Alice Speri writes: On very clear days, you can follow the rolling hills surrounding the Palestinian city of Yatta all the way to the Dead Sea on one side, the Negev desert on the other. The windswept landscape offers idyllic views, with clusters of olive trees alternating with narrow rows of cultivated land, patches of shrubs, and the occasional grazing sheep. This is also a unique observation point to watch the reality of Israeli apartheid take hold of the land….

Read More Read More

AI can spread climate misinformation ‘much cheaper and faster,’ study warns

AI can spread climate misinformation ‘much cheaper and faster,’ study warns

Inside Climate News reports: A team of researchers is ringing new alarm bells over the potential dangers artificial intelligence poses to the already fraught landscape of online misinformation, including when it comes to spreading conspiracy theories and misleading claims about climate change. NewsGuard, a company that monitors and researches online misinformation, released a study last week that found at least one leading AI developer has failed to implement effective guardrails to prevent users from generating potentially harmful content with its…

Read More Read More

Trump’s indictment shows no one is above the law

Trump’s indictment shows no one is above the law

Rep. Dan Goldman writes: The rule of law that underlies our democratic values finds its roots in the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who stated: “Passion influences those who are in power … Law is reason without desire.” Our second president John Adams stressed the importance of this concept for our fledgling democracy, insisting that “it may be a government of laws and not of men.” In order to preserve fidelity to the rule of law, Adams and our other Founding Fathers…

Read More Read More

Bragg’s office accuses House Republicans of ‘unlawful political interference’

Bragg’s office accuses House Republicans of ‘unlawful political interference’

The Washington Post reports: The office of New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Friday urged House Republicans to withdraw a demand for information on its case against former president Donald Trump, again rebuffing what it characterized as “unlawful political interference” in an ongoing criminal case. In a letter to the three committee chairmen who are pressing for documents and testimony about Trump’s case, Leslie B. Dubeck, the general counsel for Bragg’s office, chastised them for choosing to “collaborate”…

Read More Read More

The far right is calling for bloody ‘civil war’ after Trump’s indictment

The far right is calling for bloody ‘civil war’ after Trump’s indictment

Vice News reports: Minutes after former President Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York, his supporters flooded social media and extremist message boards with violent and racist threats against the officials prosecuting Trump, as well as bloody civil war. “This cannot go unpunished,” one member of the rabidly pro-Trump message board The Donald wrote on Thursday night. “The DA needs to pay dearly.” “None of this will stop unless there is blood in the streets,” another…

Read More Read More

Douglass Mackey found guilty of violating rights with 2016 memes telling Hillary fans to vote by text

Douglass Mackey found guilty of violating rights with 2016 memes telling Hillary fans to vote by text

Rolling Stone reports: A jury has found former internet troll Douglass Mackey guilty of violating people’s constitutional right to vote by disseminating memes encouraging Democrats to vote via text in the 2016 election. The decision comes after more than four days of deliberations. During the two-week trial, the prosecution presented testimony by MicroChip, a co-conspirator-turned-cooperating witness, who was identified by only his social media handle. On the stand, MicroChip spoke of his mission to sow chaos ahead of the election,…

Read More Read More

The arrest of an American journalist in Russia is awful. For me, it’s also painfully personal

The arrest of an American journalist in Russia is awful. For me, it’s also painfully personal

Margaret Sullivan writes: His face stared out from news stories on Thursday morning, accompanied by headlines like this one in the Guardian: “Russia arrests reporter and accuses him of espionage.” Oh, that’s awful, I thought at first, reflecting that we really are involved in some kind of new cold war, and there is no end to the toll that authoritarian governments will take on journalists. The imprisonment of journalists is at a historic high worldwide; I’ve written columns about that….

Read More Read More

Kushner firm got hundreds of millions from UAE and Qatar

Kushner firm got hundreds of millions from UAE and Qatar

The New York Times reports: Wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have invested hundreds of millions of dollars with Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, according to people with knowledge of the transactions, joining Saudi Arabia in backing the venture launched by former President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law as he left the White House. The infusion of money from interests in the two rival Persian Gulf monarchies reflects the continued efforts by Mr. Trump and his aides and…

Read More Read More

Newly declassified report suggests Havana Syndrome might be caused by directed energy, contradicting officials

Newly declassified report suggests Havana Syndrome might be caused by directed energy, contradicting officials

Gizomondo reports: Several weeks after the intelligence community very publicly disavowed claims that “Havana Syndrome”—the bizarre rash of neurological disorders plaguing U.S. foreign service officials—was the result of a directed energy weapon, a newly declassified report alleges that may very well be what it is. The group behind the report, the Intelligence Community Experts Panel on Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs), was established by the government to figure out just what the heck had happened to the 1,000-ish American officials who claim to…

Read More Read More

Evan Gershkovich’s arrest means no journalist can feel safe in Russia today

Evan Gershkovich’s arrest means no journalist can feel safe in Russia today

The Moscow Times reports: Russia on Thursday arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges in a major escalation of the Kremlin’s wartime crackdown on independent journalism. After being detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, Gershkovich was formally arrested by a Moscow court in a hearing held behind closed doors. Russia’s State Security Service (FSB) alleged that Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, was involved in the collection of “secret information” about a Russian defense company, state-run news…

Read More Read More

He came to D.C. as a Brazilian student. The U.S. says he was a Russian spy

He came to D.C. as a Brazilian student. The U.S. says he was a Russian spy

The Washington Post reports: Like anyone who gets into his dream college, Victor Muller Ferreira was ecstatic when he was admitted to Johns Hopkins University’s graduate school in Washington in 2018. “Today we made the future — we managed to get in one of the top schools in the world,” he wrote in an email to those who had helped him gain entry to the elite master’s program in international relations. “This is the victory that belongs to all of…

Read More Read More

‘This is like a movie’: Ukraine’s secret plan to convince 3 Russian pilots to defect with their planes

‘This is like a movie’: Ukraine’s secret plan to convince 3 Russian pilots to defect with their planes

Michael Weiss reports: At first, the Russian pilots all thought it was a scam. But they agreed to go along with it anyway, especially after the initial payments came through. Last summer, a group of Ukrainian volunteers, working closely with their country’s intelligence service, apparently came close to persuading three Russian aviators who were in the midst of bombing Ukraine to defect with their warplanes in exchange for $1 million a piece. It was a bold, months-long operation, “like a…

Read More Read More

Ukrainian commanders say that Russia exhausted all its reserves on Bakhmut

Ukrainian commanders say that Russia exhausted all its reserves on Bakhmut

The New York Times reports: Hidden in the bowels of an unmarked building, set well back from the fighting, a command center directing operations in the city of Bakhmut was high-tech and humming. Soldiers monitored video screens with live feeds of destroyed buildings and a cratered battlefield. Six weeks after coming to help defend Bakhmut, the men of the Adam Tactical Group, one of Ukraine’s most effective battle units, were quietly confident they had turned the tide against Russian troops…

Read More Read More

The Vulkan Files: Secret trove offers rare look into Russian cyberwar ambitions

The Vulkan Files: Secret trove offers rare look into Russian cyberwar ambitions

The Washington Post reports: Russian intelligence agencies worked with a Moscow-based defense contractor to strengthen their ability to launch cyberattacks, sow disinformation and surveil sections of the internet, according to thousands of pages of confidential corporate documents. The documents detail a suite of computer programs and databases that would allow Russia’s intelligence agencies and hacking groups to better find vulnerabilities, coordinate attacks and control online activity. The documents suggest the firm was supporting operations including both social media disinformation and…

Read More Read More