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Graham Platner went to hell and back. He has a simple message for Democrats

Graham Platner went to hell and back. He has a simple message for Democrats

Ben Rhodes writes: Americans have a dysfunctional relationship with 21st-century wars. Most of us do not fight in them, see the carnage or live with their physical and psychological ruins. Yet we cannot heal our own nation unless we reckon with their monstrous futility. For Graham Platner, that reckoning began when he was a 20-year-old infantryman in Iraq. His company was constructing a patrol base near Falluja. To build it, they hired locals who often brought their kids to the…

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Betrayed: Trump is said to be in talks to send Afghans who aided U.S. forces to Congo

Betrayed: Trump is said to be in talks to send Afghans who aided U.S. forces to Congo

The New York Times reports: After halting a U.S. resettlement program for Afghans who helped the American war effort, President Trump is in talks to send as many as 1,100 of them to the Democratic Republic of Congo, an aid worker briefed on the plan said Tuesday. The group includes interpreters for the U.S. military, former members of the Afghan Special Operations forces and family members of American service members. More than 400 children are among them. The Afghans have…

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The conspiracy theory lurking behind Tucker Carlson’s apology

The conspiracy theory lurking behind Tucker Carlson’s apology

Michelle Goldberg writes: Tucker Carlson, you might have heard, is sorry. Early this week he posted a long conversation with his brother, Buckley, a former Trump speechwriter, in which they tried to make sense of the wreckage of the second Donald Trump presidency. “We’re implicated in this, for sure,” said Tucker. A few moments later, he added: “It’s a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be,…

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Downing Street says Falklands sovereignty rests with UK after report of Pentagon ‘review’

Downing Street says Falklands sovereignty rests with UK after report of Pentagon ‘review’

BBC News reports: Sovereignty of the Falkland Islands “rests with the UK”, Downing Street has said, following a report the US could review its position on Britain’s claim to the territory. An internal Pentagon email reported by Reuters suggested the US was considering options to punish Nato allies it believed failed to support its war on Iran. The options discussed also included seeking Spain’s suspension from Nato over its opposition to the war. BBC News has not been able to…

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The looming food crisis: Why the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is disrupting global agriculture

The looming food crisis: Why the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is disrupting global agriculture

  The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have raised fuel costs and caused shortages of key fertilizers around the world, wreaking havoc on the agricultural industry. Adam Hanieh, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at the University of London, says the effects could be felt for a long time, particularly in the Global South. “About a third of the world’s basic fertilizers now pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” says Hanieh, who…

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Has the Strait of Hormuz emerged as Iran’s most powerful form of deterrence?

Has the Strait of Hormuz emerged as Iran’s most powerful form of deterrence?

By Christian Emery, UCL One of the US and Israel’s justifications for launching the war on Iran was to ensure the regime in Tehran could never possess nuclear weapons, the ultimate deterrent against external attack. But the main lesson that has been taken from the war, according to some commentators, is that Iran’s own geography already provides it with all the deterrent it needs. The US-Israeli strikes have inflicted massive damage on Iran’s leadership and have destroyed billions of US…

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IEA chief: ‘We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history’

IEA chief: ‘We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history’

CNBC reports: “We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history,” Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told CNBC Thursday. “As of today, we’ve lost 13 million barrels per day of oil … and there are major disruptions in vital commodities,” he told Steve Sedgwick virtually at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore. Birol has previously warned that the Iran war and ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz would result in “the largest energy crisis…

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Trump’s DOJ has cut thousands of law-enforcement jobs while vowing to get tough on crime

Trump’s DOJ has cut thousands of law-enforcement jobs while vowing to get tough on crime

Reuters reports: The Trump administration has cut more than 4,000 employees from some of the nation’s top law-enforcement agencies, even as it vowed to crack down on crime, according to ​records obtained by Reuters. The records, from the U.S. Justice Department’s management unit, show that the total number of employees at the FBI has dropped more than 7% since the government’s ‌2024 fiscal year, a loss of about 2,600 people. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s staff has dropped by about 6%,…

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DOJ targets hundreds of citizens in new push for denaturalization

DOJ targets hundreds of citizens in new push for denaturalization

The New York Times reports: The Justice Department has identified 384 foreign-born Americans whose citizenship it wants to revoke, part of a push to increase the pace of denaturalizations by assigning the cases to prosecutors in dozens of U.S. attorney’s offices across the country. Senior Justice Department officials in Washington told colleagues during a meeting last week that civil litigators in 39 regional offices would soon be assigned to file denaturalization cases against the individuals, according to an official familiar…

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Rep. Chip Roy introduces MAMDANI Act aimed at deporting, denaturalizing socialist-, communist-affiliated immigrants, noncitizens

Rep. Chip Roy introduces MAMDANI Act aimed at deporting, denaturalizing socialist-, communist-affiliated immigrants, noncitizens

WFAA reports: U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, an Austin-based Republican, introduced new legislation today that, if passed, would allow for the deportation, denaturalization or inadmission of any immigrant or noncitizen found to be affiliated with communism, socialism or Islamic fundamentalism. Named after New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, the MAMDANI Act would radically change U.S. immigration law. Any noncitizen found to be affiliated with a communist party, a socialist party, the Chinese…

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Worried about U.S. democracy, former NASA astronauts are launching a political nonprofit

Worried about U.S. democracy, former NASA astronauts are launching a political nonprofit

The Wall Street Journal reports: More than 100 former NASA astronauts are trading the flight deck for the political arena, launching a nonpartisan nonprofit that will advocate for constitutional limits and bringing back civic responsibility. Astronauts For America, which includes a mix of Republicans, Democrats and independents, plans to score political candidates and meet with federal policymakers to share concerns about the state of U.S. democracy. The group is independent of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and membership is…

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Clearing Strait of Hormuz of mines could take six months, Pentagon tells Congress

Clearing Strait of Hormuz of mines could take six months, Pentagon tells Congress

The Washington Post reports: It could take six months to fully clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines deployed by the Iranian military, and any such operation is unlikely to be carried out until the U.S. war with Iran ends, the Pentagon has informed Congress — an assessment that means the conflict’s economic impact could extend late into this year or beyond. A senior Defense Department official shared the estimate during a classified briefing Tuesday for members of the House…

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Iran’s military more capable than Trump administration is publicly acknowledging, sources say

Iran’s military more capable than Trump administration is publicly acknowledging, sources say

CBS News reports: The Islamic Republic of Iran maintains more military capabilities than the White House or Pentagon has publicly admitted, according to multiple U.S. officials with knowledge of intelligence on the matter. About half of Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles and its associated launch systems were still intact as of the start of the ceasefire in early April, three of the officials told CBS News. Roughly 60% of the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still…

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DOJ is aligning itself with the KKK and other extremists by indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center

DOJ is aligning itself with the KKK and other extremists by indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center

Joe Patrice writes: Running a confidential informant program inside hate groups is expensive and dangerous work. For about four decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center has done it anyway. Its work contributed to the dismantling of the Ku Klux Klan as a political force. The SPLC’s work is so important that it routinely shared what it learned with the FBI. On Tuesday, the Trump Justice Department indicted them for it. A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama…

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Republican Oversight members divided over whether to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, committee chair says

Republican Oversight members divided over whether to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, committee chair says

Politico reports: Members on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are divided over whether President Donald Trump should pardon Jeffrey Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her cooperation in the panel’s Epstein investigation, Chair James Comer said in an interview Wednesday. Maxwell, who was deposed by the Oversight Committee as the sole convicted accomplice in the Epstein sex trafficking scheme, previously invoked her Fifth Amendment right in declining to answer the panel’s questions. Her lawyer has said…

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Top Trump terror official, Julia Varvaro, exposed on ‘sugar daddy’ site

Top Trump terror official, Julia Varvaro, exposed on ‘sugar daddy’ site

The Daily Beast reports: A Department of Homeland Security deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism has been accused of picking up men on a sugar daddy website. Julia Varvaro, 29, allegedly had a profile on Seeking.com, a site that is often used by young, attractive singles looking for older, wealthier partners to help fund their luxury lifestyles, according to the Daily Mail. The profile, which was under the name “Alessia,” said its owner worked for a government agency and offered “seductive…

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