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Category: Politics

The narcissism of angry young men

The narcissism of angry young men

Tom Nichols writes: Some years ago, I got a call from an analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center. After yet another gruesome mass shooting (this time, it was Dylann Roof’s attack on a Bible-study group at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine and wounded one), I had written an article about the young men who perpetrate such crimes. I suggested that an overview of these killers showed them, in general, to be young losers who failed…

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U.S. Air Force general predicts war with China in 2025

U.S. Air Force general predicts war with China in 2025

NBC News reports: A four-star Air Force general sent a memo on Friday to the officers he commands that predicts the U.S. will be at war with China in two years and tells them to get ready to prep by firing “a clip” at a target, and “aim for the head.” In the memo sent Friday and obtained by NBC News, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, said, “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me will…

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GOP national sales tax talk backfires, as Democrats see political gold

GOP national sales tax talk backfires, as Democrats see political gold

Politico reports: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has backed his fellow Republicans into a corner with one of the promises he made to his far-right flank to land his job: opening the door to considering fringe legislation that would replace the income tax with a federal sales tax and abolish the IRS. Most GOP members appear determined to distance themselves as much as possible from the idea, and McCarthy himself said this week he doesn’t support the legislation. But Democrats aren’t…

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How California’s ambitious new climate plan could help speed energy transformation around the world

How California’s ambitious new climate plan could help speed energy transformation around the world

Electrifying trucks and cars and shifting to renewable energy are crucial for California’s zero-emissions future. Sergio Pitamitz / VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images By Daniel Sperling, University of California, Davis California is embarking on an audacious new climate plan that aims to eliminate the state’s greenhouse gas footprint by 2045, and in the process, slash emissions far beyond its borders. The blueprint calls for massive transformations in industry, energy and transportation, as well as changes in institutions and human…

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Pro-Western Petr Pavel sweeps to landslide win in race for Czech presidency

Pro-Western Petr Pavel sweeps to landslide win in race for Czech presidency

The Guardian reports: Petr Pavel, a retired general and former senior Nato commander, has swept to the Czech presidency after a landslide victory over the former prime minister Andrej Babiš in an election overshadowed by rows over the war between Russia and Ukraine. With nearly all the votes counted, returns showed Pavel prevailing by the emphatic margin of 58.3% to 41.68%, the largest ever recorded in a Czech presidential poll and reflecting an advantage of more than 958,000 votes nationwide….

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Inside the extramarital affair and cash-fueled double life of Charles McGonigal

Inside the extramarital affair and cash-fueled double life of Charles McGonigal

Insider reports: One morning in October 2017, Allison Guerriero noticed something unusual on the floor of her boyfriend’s Park Slope, Brooklyn, apartment: a bag full of cash. There it was, lying next to his shoes, near the futon, the kind of bag that liquor stores give out. Inside were bundles of bills, big denominations bound up with rubber bands. It didn’t seem like something he should be carrying around. After all, her boyfriend, Charles F. McGonigal, held one of the…

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Tyre Nichols’s death is evidence that cosmetic change can’t excise the rot of American law enforcement

Tyre Nichols’s death is evidence that cosmetic change can’t excise the rot of American law enforcement

Zak Cheney-Rice writes: The crisis in Memphis is the latest lesson in how limited the most popular reforms are, including those that might have seemed like game-changers not so long ago. Body cameras may have given us visual evidence of Nichols’s deathly beating, but were no deterrent. The federal response is already assuming a familiar shape. “To deliver real change, we must have accountability when law enforcement officers violate their oaths,” wrote Biden on Thursday, years after the criminal convictions…

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In social-media exile, Trump has increasingly amplified extremism

In social-media exile, Trump has increasingly amplified extremism

The New York Times reports: In September, former President Donald J. Trump went on Truth Social, his social network, and shared an image of himself wearing a lapel pin in the form of the letter Q, along with a phrase closely associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory movement: “The storm is coming.” In doing so, Mr. Trump ensured that the message — first posted by a QAnon-aligned account — would be hugely amplified, visible to his more than four million…

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How pharmaceutical companies inflate prices on their best-selling drugs at the expense of patients and taxpayers

How pharmaceutical companies inflate prices on their best-selling drugs at the expense of patients and taxpayers

The New York Times reports: In 2016, a blockbuster drug called Humira was poised to become a lot less valuable. The key patent on the best-selling anti-inflammatory medication, used to treat conditions like arthritis, was expiring at the end of the year. Regulators had blessed a rival version of the drug, and more copycats were close behind. The onset of competition seemed likely to push down the medication’s $50,000-a-year list price. Instead, the opposite happened. Through its savvy but legal…

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Trump’s killing spree: The inside story of his race to execute every prisoner he could

Trump’s killing spree: The inside story of his race to execute every prisoner he could

Rolling Stone reports: In the final moments of Brandon Bernard’s life, before he was executed by lethal injection at a federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Dec. 10, 2020, President Donald Trump picked up the phone to entertain a final plea for mercy on Bernard’s behalf. The call was not with Bernard’s family or his attorneys. Nor was it with representatives from the Justice Department’s Pardon Attorney office, who had recommended just days earlier that Trump spare Bernard’s life….

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Facebook was a cash cow for Trump. It could end up being a ‘bronze goose’

Facebook was a cash cow for Trump. It could end up being a ‘bronze goose’

Politico reports: Trump was suspended from Facebook for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot in early 2021. But the suspension wasn’t permanent and Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said earlier this week that it would be lifted soon. “President Trump should have never been banned, so getting back on this platform allows the campaign access to that universe once again,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. “We are getting closer to the full spectrum of building…

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Supreme Court failed to disclose financial ties with expert brought in to review leak probe

Supreme Court failed to disclose financial ties with expert brought in to review leak probe

CNN reports: The Supreme Court did not disclose its longstanding financial ties with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff even as it touted him as an expert who independently validated its investigation into who leaked the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. The court’s inquiry, released last week with Chertoff’s endorsement, failed to identify who was responsible for the unprecedented leak. The decision to keep the relationship with Chertoff quiet is a reflection of a pattern of opacity at the…

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The logic behind Biden’s refusal to negotiate the debt ceiling

The logic behind Biden’s refusal to negotiate the debt ceiling

Ronald Brownstein writes: President Joe Biden has already made the most important domestic-policy decision he’ll likely face this year. Biden and his top advisers have repeatedly indicated that they will reject demands from the new GOP majority in the House of Representatives to link increasing the debt ceiling with cutting federal spending. Instead, Biden is insisting that Congress pass a clean debt-ceiling increase, with no conditions attached. Biden’s refusal to negotiate with Republicans now is rooted in the Obama administration’s…

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Black like me

Black like me

Colin Grant writes: It is commonly agreed that race is a social construct. If, as sociologists such as Alondra Nelson tell us, there is more difference within groups than between groups – so that, as the child of dark-skinned Jamaican parents, I have more in common genetically with a red-haired Scot than a sub-Saharan African – then why do I still feel obliged to accept the primacy of race, and the notion that any distancing from those of my own…

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How not to negotiate with Russia

How not to negotiate with Russia

Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister of Ukraine, writes: As Russia’s total aggression on Ukraine nears its first year, some people in the United States and elsewhere in the West continue to suggest that Ukraine needs to engage in peace negotiations with Russia as soon as possible. They may have good intentions, but they don’t seem to recognize that Russia has not proposed any meaningful talks and remains focused on destroying Ukraine militarily. But there’s a bigger point that the “peace…

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Yevgeny Prigozhin has become Putin’s preeminent rival

Yevgeny Prigozhin has become Putin’s preeminent rival

Mikhail Zygar writes: President Vladimir Putin of Russia, it seems, has finally noticed that the war in Ukraine created a dangerous competitor to his power: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the private military company, the Wagner group, whose troops fight alongside the Russian Army. Depending on your point of view, Mr. Prigozhin could be considered either the person of the year or the villain of the year. Mr. Putin is, according to many sources in Moscow, confident that he can…

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