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Category: Politics

Longtime Trump CFO Weisselberg expected to be jailed in New York’s notorious Rikers Island

Longtime Trump CFO Weisselberg expected to be jailed in New York’s notorious Rikers Island

Reuters reports: Allen Weisselberg, a longtime executive for Donald Trump who served as the star prosecution witness in the criminal trial of the former president’s real estate company, was sentenced on Tuesday to five months behind bars for helping engineer a 15-year tax fraud scheme at the Trump Organization. Weisselberg, 75, is expected to be sent to New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail. The Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer pleaded guilty in August, admitting that from 2005 to 2017…

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The pro-Bolsonaro ‘insurrection’ was pathetic – and, for now, has made President Lula stronger

The pro-Bolsonaro ‘insurrection’ was pathetic – and, for now, has made President Lula stronger

Richard Lapper writes: Clad in canary yellow football shirts or draped in the colours of the Brazilian flag, pro-Bolsonaro activists applauded a line of heavily armed police as it marched into their midst in Brasília on Sunday. Hundreds of extreme rightwing followers had been gathering in Brazil’s modernist capital since late on Friday. On Sunday afternoon they breezed past security cordons and trashed the elegant buildings that host the country’s most important democratic institutions – the presidential palace, the supreme…

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How Bolsonaro’s rhetoric — then his silence — stoked Brazil assault

How Bolsonaro’s rhetoric — then his silence — stoked Brazil assault

The Washington Post reports: For more than four years, the most fundamental of questions has loomed over Brazil: Would its young democracy survive the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro? Latin America’s largest country embarked on what amounted to a test of its democratic strength in 2018 when it elected the former army captain who openly lamented the collapse of the country’s military dictatorship, once threatened to reinstall its rule on the first day of his presidency and sought at every turn…

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Kevin McCarthy reveals how the MAGA House will protect Trump

Kevin McCarthy reveals how the MAGA House will protect Trump

Greg Sargent writes: As speaker, McCarthy has already declared that the GOP-controlled House will target the “weaponization of the FBI.” When the FBI executed a lawful search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, Republicans treated it as a historic abuse of power, so there’s little doubt the committee will target criminal investigations into Trump. This will likely entail subpoenas designed to “investigate” the process by which law enforcement sought the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. There will also undoubtedly be subpoenas directed at ongoing…

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White House cooperating after Obama-era docs discovered, attorney says

White House cooperating after Obama-era docs discovered, attorney says

Politico reports: The White House said on Monday that it was cooperating with the Justice Department and the National Archives following the discovery of classified Obama-era documents in a private space at a Biden-connected think tank in November. “Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives,” said Richard Sauber, special counsel to President Joe…

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Russia’s Wagner group ramping up operations outside of Ukraine, U.S. warns

Russia’s Wagner group ramping up operations outside of Ukraine, U.S. warns

Politico reports: Top U.S. officials are increasingly tracking the movements and efforts of a Russian private military group outside of Ukraine as Moscow continues to use the organization to launch influence operations in Africa and Europe. Last month the Biden administration downgraded classified intelligence saying Russia is relying on the Wagner group in Ukraine to recruit prisoners and launch offensives in the city of Bakhmut. But U.S. officials are also gathering intelligence related to the group’s activities in countries such…

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The irreversible change in Belarus

The irreversible change in Belarus

Anna Nemtsova writes: Every day, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the 40-year-old leader of Belarus’s exiled opposition, tries to rally her camp against the man who, as she says, is “proud of being called ‘the last dictator in Europe,’” Alexander Lukashenko. Every day, he seems to ratchet up his regime’s campaign of repression, which—overshadowed by the war in Ukraine—goes largely unnoticed elsewhere in Europe. For Tsikhanouskaya, the democratic movement’s struggle is also personal. One of the political prisoners in Belarus is her husband,…

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Ukraine sees ‘year of victory,’ but decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy

Ukraine sees ‘year of victory,’ but decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy

The Washington Post reports: With upgraded weaponry on the way, Western resolve holding firm, and the Ukrainian army continuing to outmaneuver and outwit Russia’s flailing military, Ukraine’s promised “year of victory” is off to a good start. If 2023 continues as it began, there is a good chance Ukraine will be able to fulfill President Volodymyr Zelensky’s New Year’s pledge to retake all of Ukraine by the end of the year — or at least enough territory to definitively end…

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Russia and Belarus extend military drills amid fears of new push into Ukraine

Russia and Belarus extend military drills amid fears of new push into Ukraine

The Guardian reports: Russia and Belarus have expanded their joint military training exercises in Belarus, the country’s defence TV channel said on Sunday, as concern grows that Moscow is pressuring its closest ally to join the war in Ukraine. The two countries added weapons, soldiers and specialised equipment to the exercises and were doing drills drawing on Russian experience in Ukraine, Reuters reported. On Friday the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, visited a military base where Russian troops are stationed to…

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Now fighting for Ukraine: Volunteers seeking revenge against Russia

Now fighting for Ukraine: Volunteers seeking revenge against Russia

The New York Times reports: The sharp crack of sniper fire rang out across the snowbound valley. Soldiers in white camouflage crouched low, shooting at the hill opposite to provide cover as four men evacuated a casualty. The action was part of a live-fire training exercise for new recruits on a recent morning outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. But there was an unusual element to the event. While a Ukrainian Army officer was giving the orders, the trainees were members…

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Turkey supports Ukraine without alienating Russia

Turkey supports Ukraine without alienating Russia

Michael Weiss and James Rushton report: On Dec. 20, two Turkish air force A400M transport aircraft that had been stranded at an airfield just outside of Kyiv for 299 days took off and returned home. The planes, believed to have been used to shuttle Turkish drones and other weapons to Ukraine, had been grounded by Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. The airspace between Ukraine and Turkey since has remained contested by Russia and too dangerous to risk the return journey. What…

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Brazil is having its own Jan. 6

Brazil is having its own Jan. 6

Rollng Stone reports: Images eerily evocative of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol are coming out of Brazil as thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro storm government buildings in the capital of Brasília. According to The New York Times, protesters have breached Brazil’s Congress, presidential offices, and Supreme Court believing Bolsonaro’s baseless claims that the recent presidential election was stolen from him. President Joe Biden condemned the attacks as an “assault on democracy and on…

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From Gingrich to McCarthy, the roots of governance by chaos

From Gingrich to McCarthy, the roots of governance by chaos

Robert Draper writes: Newt Gingrich was disdainful. After watching days of House Republicans failing to elect a speaker, Mr. Gingrich, the most famous of all recent G.O.P. House speakers, vented about the hard-right holdouts, among them Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida. “There’s no deal you can make with Gaetz,” Mr. Gingrich said in an interview Thursday night. “He’s essentially bringing ‘Lord of the Flies’ to the House of Representatives.” In contrast, Mr. Gingrich said of his own speakership, which sought…

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Inside the right’s plans to seize power in the new Congress

Inside the right’s plans to seize power in the new Congress

The Grid reports: A week after the midterm elections in November, a small group of far-right GOP lawmakers and activists gathered on K Street in Washington, D.C., to discuss strategies to use their narrow majority to extract power in the House. The next Congress, influential activist Ed Corrigan said, could be a “European-style coalition government” run by three groups: “The Democrats, the Republicans and the Freedom Caucus.” The forum was convened by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and attended by several…

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Enablers, line-straddlers and quiet resisters: How GOP lawmakers contributed to Jan. 6

Enablers, line-straddlers and quiet resisters: How GOP lawmakers contributed to Jan. 6

Politico reports: A handful of Republicans who remained in the Jan. 6 committee’s sights throughout its investigation are now leading the effort to deny Kevin McCarthy the speakership — using their power to bring the House to a standstill. During its last days of existence, the Capitol riot panel unleashed a massive trove of evidence with an unmistakable conclusion: At every stage of former President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election results, a phalanx of hardline GOP lawmakers…

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How Trump’s missing call logs could become his Nixon tapes

How Trump’s missing call logs could become his Nixon tapes

The Daily Beast reports: During the nearly nine hours that Congress was under attack on Jan. 6, 2021, the official White House call logs show former President Donald Trump not placing a single phone call. And while historians may consider the missing call logs a crime of inaccurately memorializing history, it may also actually bolster the expected criminal case against Trump. “The first thing one thinks of is the Nixon tapes, the missing 18 minutes. It’s never been resolved,” said…

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