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Category: Politics

Another Russia is possible

Another Russia is possible

Dmitri Alperovitch and Sergey Radchenko write: As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine drags on and realigns global geopolitics, the United States needs to review and revise its long-term strategy toward Russia. The primary focus of this strategy, not unlike the original Cold War–era strategy of containment articulated by George Kennan in this magazine 75 years ago, must once again be a “patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” During the Cold War, the United States…

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Trump’s second term would look like this

Trump’s second term would look like this

Jonathan Rauch writes: Ever since the U.S. Senate failed to convict Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection and disqualify him from running for president again, a lot of people, myself included, have been warning that a second Trump term could bring about the extinction of American democracy. Essential features of the system, including the rule of law, honest vote tallies, and orderly succession, would be at risk. Today, however, we can do more than just speculate…

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DOJ indicates Trump’s demand for special master may be too late

DOJ indicates Trump’s demand for special master may be too late

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s team demanded last week that a judge appoint an official to sift through all the material that was seized from his home to find out if it was privileged. The government indicated Monday that his demand — which came nearly two weeks after the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate — may have come too late. The Justice Department told a federal judge that its review of the records seized identified only a “limited set” that might…

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When an election denier becomes an election chief

When an election denier becomes an election chief

Politico reports: Many of the election deniers running for secretary of state this year have spent their time talking about something they can’t do: “decertifying” the 2020 results. The bigger question — amid concerns about whether they would fairly administer the 2024 presidential election — is exactly what powers they would have if they win in November. Atop the list of the most disruptive things they could do is refusing to certify accurate election results — a nearly unprecedented step…

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Ukrainian forces begin ‘shaping’ battlefield for counteroffensive, senior U.S. officials say

Ukrainian forces begin ‘shaping’ battlefield for counteroffensive, senior U.S. officials say

CNN reports: Ukrainian forces have begun “shaping” operations in southern Ukraine to prepare the battlefield for a significant Ukrainian counteroffensive, two senior US officials briefed on the intelligence told CNN. Shaping operations are standard military practice prior to an offensive and involve striking weapons systems, command and control, ammunition depots and other targets to prepare the battlefield for planned advances. The US believes the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which has long been anticipated, will include a combination of air and ground operations….

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The environmental cost of the war in Ukraine

The environmental cost of the war in Ukraine

Fred Pearce writes: What happens to the environment when a large, industrialized country is consumed by war? Ukraine is finding out. While concern about human lives remains paramount, Russia’s war on that country’s environment matters. The fate of Ukraine after the conflict is over is likely to depend on the survival of its natural resources as well as on its human-made infrastructure – on its forests, rivers, and wildlife, as well as its roads, power plants, and cities. Some 30…

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Justice Alito’s crusade against a secular America isn’t over

Justice Alito’s crusade against a secular America isn’t over

Margaret Talbot writes: Some baby boomers were permanently shaped by their participation in the countercultural protests and the antiwar activism of the nineteen-sixties and seventies. Others were shaped by their aversion to those movements. Justice Samuel Alito belongs to the latter category. For many years, he lacked the power to do much about that profound distaste, and in any case he had a reputation for keeping his head down. When President George W. Bush nominated Alito to the Supreme Court,…

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Trump’s legal team scrambles to find an argument

Trump’s legal team scrambles to find an argument

The New York Times reports: On May 25, one of former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to a top Justice Department official, laying out the argument that his client had done nothing illegal by holding onto a trove of government materials when he left the White House. The letter, from M. Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor, represented Mr. Trump’s initial defense against the investigation into the presence of highly classified documents in unsecured locations at his…

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Assessing Trump’s claim of ‘executive privilege’ on FBI access to MAL docs

Assessing Trump’s claim of ‘executive privilege’ on FBI access to MAL docs

Michael Stern writes: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and former President Donald Trump are locked in a long running dispute over records taken from the White House in January 2021. According to a NARA May 2022 letter and more recent reporting, the agency went back and forth with Trump’s lawyers about “missing Presidential records” throughout 2021 and well into 2022. In January 2022, Trump transferred 15 boxes of records from Mar-a-Lago to NARA. It’s an exchange that may…

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‘The U.S. could lose the right to vote within months,’ warns Colorado secretary of state

‘The U.S. could lose the right to vote within months,’ warns Colorado secretary of state

The Guardian reports: Colorado’s secretary of state, Jena Griswold, is warning anyone who will listen that the fate of free and fair elections in the United States hangs in the balance in this November’s midterm contests. In many of the most competitive races for offices with authority over US elections, Republicans nominated candidates who have embraced or echoed Donald Trump’s myth of a stolen election in 2020. Griswold, who chairs the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State (Dass) and is…

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Fox News fired me after I said Biden won. That wasn’t the worst of it

Fox News fired me after I said Biden won. That wasn’t the worst of it

Chris Stirewalt writes: My first meeting in Roger Ailes’ boardroom of doom was on Election Day 2010. At the time, I was the network’s new political editor. Republicans were poised to deliver a serious walloping to President Barack Obama and roll back the Democrats’ doughty majorities in both houses of Congress. The GOP was in a position to score major wins in governors’ mansions and statehouses from coast to coast. The second floor of the News Corp headquarters on Sixth…

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‘Slower burn.’ Russia dodges economic collapse but the decline has started

‘Slower burn.’ Russia dodges economic collapse but the decline has started

CNN reports: Six months after invading Ukraine, Russia is bogged down in a war of attrition it didn’t anticipate but it is having success on another front — its oil-dependent economy is in a deep recession but proving far more resilient than expected. “I’m driving through Moscow and the same traffic jams are there as before,” says Andrey Nechaev, who was Russia’s economy minister in the early 1990s. The readiness of China and India to snap up cheap Russian oil…

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U.S. feared Trump’s mishandling of intelligence files put spies’ lives at risk

U.S. feared Trump’s mishandling of intelligence files put spies’ lives at risk

The New York Times reports: They risk imprisonment or death stealing the secrets of their own governments. Their identities are among the most closely protected information inside American intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Losing even one of them can set back American foreign intelligence operations for years. Clandestine human sources are the lifeblood of any espionage service. This helps explain the grave concern within American agencies that information from undercover sources was included in some of the classified documents recently…

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It’s over: Trump will be indicted

It’s over: Trump will be indicted

Brad Moss writes: I have finally seen enough. Donald Trump will be indicted by a federal grand jury. You heard me right: I believe Trump will actually be indicted for a criminal offense. Even with all its redactions, the probable cause affidavit published today by the magistrate judge in Florida makes clear to me three essential points: (1) Trump was in unauthorized possession of national defense information, namely properly marked classified documents. (2) He was put on notice by the…

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Possibility of obstruction looms over Trump after thwarted efforts to recover documents

Possibility of obstruction looms over Trump after thwarted efforts to recover documents

The New York Times reports: When the Justice Department proposed redactions to the affidavit underlying the warrant used to search former President Donald J. Trump’s residence, prosecutors made clear that they feared the former president and his allies might take any opportunity to intimidate witnesses or otherwise illegally obstruct their investigation. “The government has well-founded concerns that steps may be taken to frustrate or otherwise interfere with this investigation if facts in the affidavit were prematurely disclosed,” prosecutors said in…

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Intel officials to assess national security fallout from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents

Intel officials to assess national security fallout from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents

Politico reports: The U.S. intelligence community will evaluate the potential national security risks stemming from former President Donald Trump’s possession of top-secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told top lawmakers. In a letter obtained by POLITICO and dated Friday, Haines told House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) that her office will lead an “assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from…

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