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Category: Politics

The IRS really, really should have audited Trump

The IRS really, really should have audited Trump

Noah Bookbinder writes: Six years after Donald Trump should have disclosed his tax returns to the public, they have finally been released. This took advocacy, congressional action, and litigation that went to the Supreme Court—all to obtain basic financial transparency from a president. But the House Ways and Means Committee’s report on its investigation, released last week in conjunction with the committee’s vote to disclose Trump’s tax returns, revealed new information that may be as astonishing as anything in the…

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A local paper suggested Santos was a ‘fabulist’ before the election, but no one paid attention

A local paper suggested Santos was a ‘fabulist’ before the election, but no one paid attention

The Washington Post reports: Months before the New York Times published a December article suggesting Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) had fabricated much of his résumé and biography, a tiny publication on Long Island was ringing alarm bells about its local candidate. The North Shore Leader wrote in September, when few others were covering Santos, about his “inexplicable rise” in reported net worth — from essentially nothing in 2020 to as much as $11 million two years later. The story noted…

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George Santos’ massive campaign loans may not be legal

George Santos’ massive campaign loans may not be legal

The Daily Beast reports: Even as Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) embarks on his apology tour, admitting he lied to voters for years about some of the most fundamental facts of his life, there’s been one mystery that Santos has been less than clear about: where his purported millions came from. The Daily Beast now has at least part of the answer—the identities of four Santos corporate clients. And while this new revelation might put Santos in even more hot water,…

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Trump and MAGA misfits turn on ‘Trump’s bitch’ Sean Hannity

Trump and MAGA misfits turn on ‘Trump’s bitch’ Sean Hannity

The Daily Beast reports: Sean Hannity, once the most important mouthpiece for Donald Trump, seems to be increasingly on the MAGAworld outs. And a new revelation that Hannity doesn’t buy the Big Lie isn’t helping. In a just-released deposition surrounding Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit, the Fox News star said he’d never believed—not “for one second”—baseless election fraud claims stemming from the 2020 election. That stance, directly at odds with many of his primetime segments and the beliefs of many…

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Inside the Ukrainian counteroffensive that shocked Putin and reshaped the war

Inside the Ukrainian counteroffensive that shocked Putin and reshaped the war

The Washington Post reports: After weeks of fighting for scraps of territory on the war’s bloodiest front, Oleh, a 21-year-old Ukrainian company commander, was summoned suddenly last August, along with thousands of other soldiers, to an obscure rendezvous point in the Kharkiv region. At his last position, relentless Russian artillery fire had stalked his men’s every step. But here, in a patch of villages, farmland and streams in Ukraine’s northeast, the quiet was deeply alarming. “The silence bothered me the…

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Sudden Russian Death Syndrome

Sudden Russian Death Syndrome

Elaine Godfrey writes: Here is a list of people you should not currently want to be: a Russian sausage tycoon, a Russian gas-industry executive, the editor in chief of a Russian tabloid, a Russian shipyard director, the head of a Russian ski resort, a Russian aviation official, or a Russian rail magnate. Anyone answering to such a description probably ought not stand near open windows, in almost any country, on almost every continent. Over the weekend, Pavel Antov, the aforementioned…

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Epidemics that weren’t: How countries shut down recent outbreaks

Epidemics that weren’t: How countries shut down recent outbreaks

The New York Times reports: When Ebola swept through the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018, it was a struggle to track cases. Dr. Billy Yumaine, a public health official, recalls steady flows of people moving back and forth across the border with Uganda while others hid sick family members in their homes because they feared the authorities. It took at least a week to get test results, and health officials had difficulty isolating sick people while they waited….

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How George Santos defrauded my old congressional district

How George Santos defrauded my old congressional district

Steve Israel writes: The media’s failure to dig into Santos shows the predicament that local newsrooms face in 2022. Newsday dominates the media landscape on Long Island. And its reporters do quality work—they turned out an important investigation just a few years ago that exposed racism in the local real-estate industry. But they don’t have the resources to cover everything—not even everything in their political backyard—and they appear to have written off NY-3 as low priority given the district’s Democratic…

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Republicans step up attacks on FBI as it investigates Trump

Republicans step up attacks on FBI as it investigates Trump

The New York Times reports: When George Piro learned that some of his former colleagues were spreading unfounded rumors about him, he was stunned. Mr. Piro, 55, was a highly decorated agent in the F.B.I. During his 23-year career, he earned a national intelligence medal for the months he spent interrogating Saddam Hussein, supervised several high-profile shooting investigations and consistently earned reviews that were among the highest for agents who ran field offices. Now, he stood accused of misconduct by…

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The Kurdish roots of a global slogan

The Kurdish roots of a global slogan

Shukriya Bradost writes: If I had been killed, would I have had the same impact on the Iranian people as what we have witnessed since the killing in September of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Jina-Mahsa Amini? Definitely not. The use of heavy military weaponry to crack down on protests in Kurdish cities in Iran, which has shocked the world and led to mass killings and arrests of Kurds during the current uprising, is nothing new for Kurds. What is new…

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U.S. scrambles to stop Iran from providing drones for Russia

U.S. scrambles to stop Iran from providing drones for Russia

The New York Times reports: The Biden administration has embarked on a broad effort to halt Iran’s ability to produce and deliver drones to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine, an endeavor that has echoes of its yearslong program to cut off Tehran’s access to nuclear technology. In interviews in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, a range of intelligence, military and national security officials have described an expanding U.S. program that aims to choke off…

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Can Apple make the iPhone without China?

Can Apple make the iPhone without China?

Chris Miller writes: Long before it reached your home, even before its tiny components were pieced together in an assembly plant, your phone was already one of the most complex gadgets in the world. It is the product of a delicate supply chain whose every link is forged by competing business and political interests. That chain is starting to rattle and even break, as the global tech industry works to become less dependent on China. Earlier this month, Taiwan Semiconductor…

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China’s health care system buckles under the strain of a spiraling Covid crisis

China’s health care system buckles under the strain of a spiraling Covid crisis

The New York Times reports: Slumped in wheelchairs and lying on gurneys, the sickened patients crowd every nook and cranny of the emergency department at the hospital in northern China. They cram into the narrow spaces between elevator doors. They surround an idle walk-through metal detector. And they line the walls of a corridor ringing with the sounds of coughing. China’s hospitals were already overcrowded, underfunded and inadequately staffed in the best of times. But now with Covid spreading freely…

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With record military incursions, China warns Taiwan and the U.S.

With record military incursions, China warns Taiwan and the U.S.

The New York Times reports: China sent a record number of military aircraft to menace self-ruled Taiwan in a large show of force to the Biden administration, signaling that Beijing wants to maintain pressure on Taiwan even as some tensions between the superpowers are easing. The swarm of Chinese fighter jets, maritime patrol planes and drones that buzzed the airspace near Taiwan in the 24-hour period leading to Monday morning demonstrated Beijing’s appetite for confrontation with the United States over…

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Ukraine: A battle over the future of Europe

Ukraine: A battle over the future of Europe

Andrew A. Michta writes: Today, Europe is at an inflection point because it remains wedded to “institutional thinking” that is increasingly divorced from hard-power realities on the ground. At the same time, the Continent’s political leaders sense that what happens in Ukraine — and, ultimately, where it ends up on Europe’s political map — will define the course of Europe’s evolution and, by extension, transatlantic relations. No matter what, one thing is certain, though: There will be real and enduring…

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Russia bans sales of oil to countries imposing price cap

Russia bans sales of oil to countries imposing price cap

The Wall Street Journal reports: Russia on Tuesday banned the sale of its oil and petroleum products to countries that put a cap on their sales price, in a move that threatened more uncertainty ahead for global energy markets. The Kremlin’s action is an attempt to undermine a plan by the U.S. and its allies to bar the shipping, financing or insuring of seaborne Russian crude unless it is sold for $60 a barrel or less—a sanction leveled in response…

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