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Category: Politics

Putin aims to triumph in battle against the liberal West for ‘cultural supremacy’

Putin aims to triumph in battle against the liberal West for ‘cultural supremacy’

Bloomberg reports: President Vladimir Putin sought to position Russia as leading the defense of “traditional” cultural values against the liberal West in a new Kremlin decree. “The battle for cultural supremacy is growing on the world stage,” according to the statement Putin signed Monday on Russia’s “humanitarian policy” abroad. “Centuries of history have given Russia a rich cultural heritage and spiritual potential that has put it in a unique position to successfully spread traditional Russian moral and religious values.” The…

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Putin scrambles for high-tech parts as his arsenal goes up in smoke

Putin scrambles for high-tech parts as his arsenal goes up in smoke

Politico reports: It’s the microchips that look set to get Vladimir Putin in the end. Six months into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is being throttled by a severe technology deficit inflicted by sanctions. Having fired off (or lost in combat) way more of their missile firepower than they originally anticipated, Moscow’s soldiers are now increasingly relying on ancient stocks of primitive Soviet-era munitions while Western-armed Ukrainian forces are battling to turn the tide in a southern counteroffensive with pinpoint…

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How liberals learned to appreciate the military

How liberals learned to appreciate the military

Dominic Tierney writes: In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Harlem’s Riverside Church to a crowd of thousands that flowed out the door as far as 120th Street. King publicly condemned the Vietnam War because it had “broken and eviscerated” the civil-rights and anti-poverty movements at home. The American government was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” In 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invoked another MLK speech while asking Congress to help his country repel the…

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A second constitutional convention? Some Republicans want to force one

A second constitutional convention? Some Republicans want to force one

The New York Times reports: Representative Jodey Arrington, a conservative Texas Republican, believes it is well past time for something the nation has not experienced for more than two centuries: a debate over rewriting the Constitution. “I think the states are due a convention,” said Mr. Arrington, who in July introduced legislation to direct the archivist of the United States to tally applications for a convention from state legislatures and compel Congress to schedule a gathering when enough states have…

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EU races to help industry as Russian gas halt rattles markets

EU races to help industry as Russian gas halt rattles markets

Reuters reports: Europe’s gas prices surged, its share prices slid and the euro sank on Monday after Russia stopped pumping gas via a major supply route, sending another economic shock wave through the European Union as it struggles to recover from the pandemic. EU governments are pushing through packages worth billions of dollars to prevent utilities being crushed by a liquidity crunch and to protect households from soaring energy bills, after Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom said it would stop pumping gas…

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Biden laid the trap. Trump walked into it

Biden laid the trap. Trump walked into it

David Frum writes: In 2016, Hillary Clinton warned that Donald Trump was a fool who could be baited with a tweet. This past Thursday night, in Philadelphia, Joe Biden upped the ante by asking, in effect: What idiot thing might the former president do if baited with a whole speech? On Saturday night, the world got its answer. For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Don’t let the election be about Trump. Make it…

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How Portland stopped the Proud Boys

How Portland stopped the Proud Boys

Robert Evans writes: This was the first summer since 2019 that I have not needed to don armor, strap on a gun or load up a first aid kit to go and report in downtown Portland, Oregon. Since 2017, the Rose City has hosted regular gatherings of far-right militant groups, like the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer, that degenerate into mass brawls with anti-fascist activists. Violence has been regular enough that some local left-wing activists refer to summer as the…

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Israeli army: ‘High possibility’ soldier killed reporter

Israeli army: ‘High possibility’ soldier killed reporter

The Associated Press reports: The Israeli army said Monday there was a “high possibility” that a soldier killed a well-known Al Jazeera journalist in the occupied West Bank last May, as it announced the results of its investigation into the killing. In a briefing to reporters, a senior military official said a soldier opened fire after mistakenly identifying Shireen Abu Akleh as a militant. But he provided no evidence to back up the Israeli claim that Palestinian gunmen were present…

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Gorbachev freed my generation of eastern Europeans from the abyss. We saw a different future

Gorbachev freed my generation of eastern Europeans from the abyss. We saw a different future

Ivan Krastev writes: The German poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger labelled him “the hero of retreat”. But does retreat produce heroes? A lost man haunted by the death of his beloved wife and torn apart by a sense of guilt and anger for the tragic death of his beloved country. This is how Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s first and final president, vividly appears in Vitaly Mansky’s documentary Gorbachev. Heaven. This was also my experience several years ago when I visited…

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Women are so fired up to vote, I’ve never seen anything like it

Women are so fired up to vote, I’ve never seen anything like it

Tom Bonier writes: I’ve watched Americans in recent years acclimate to some very grim realities. Especially since the ascension of Donald Trump, numerous tragedies and extreme policies have been met with little political consequence: schools targeted by mass murderers, immigrants treated as subhuman and autocratic regimes around the globe affirmed as allies. While Mr. Trump did fail in his re-election bid, a swing of just over 20,000 votes in the three states with the narrowest margins would have produced a…

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What is owed to Pakistan and it’s millions of climate refugees?

What is owed to Pakistan and it’s millions of climate refugees?

Fatima Bhutto writes: We heard the story all the time, told as a warning: When man first set foot on Earth, all the winged animals flew high into the sky, and the fish dived deeper into the sea, scattering in fear because they knew the destroyer of the world had arrived. What is folklore but prophecy? Today, one-third of my country, Pakistan, is underwater. After unusually intense monsoon rains fell over several weeks, the waters from flash floods made their…

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The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse

The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse

Douglas Rushkoff writes: As a humanist who writes about the impact of digital technology on our lives, I am often mistaken for a futurist. The people most interested in hiring me for my opinions about technology are usually less concerned with building tools that help people live better lives in the present than they are in identifying the Next Big Thing through which to dominate them in the future. I don’t usually respond to their inquiries. Why help these guys…

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Ukraine sees many ways to hurt Russia in Kherson offensive

Ukraine sees many ways to hurt Russia in Kherson offensive

The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukrainian officials say their military’s southern offensive is going slowly. They also say that is precisely the plan. The announcement Monday of a thrust in the south raised hopes that Ukraine could reclaim territory Russia seized early in the war, including the regional capital of Kherson. But success could take many shapes, say officials and Western analysts. Even without quickly regaining much ground, Kyiv can achieve progress by forcing Russia to expose its troop locations…

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IAEA chief ‘gravely concerned’ over situation at Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility

IAEA chief ‘gravely concerned’ over situation at Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility

Politico reports: The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine again lost connection to its main external power line but remains connected to a reserve line, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said late Saturday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its experts were told by Ukrainian staff at the nuclear facility that the plant’s fourth operational power line was down. The three other power lines “were damaged during Russian shelling earlier,” Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom said last month. The disconnection of…

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The North Atlantic Fellas Organization is fighting the Kremlin’s propaganda machine — and winning

The North Atlantic Fellas Organization is fighting the Kremlin’s propaganda machine — and winning

Mark Scott writes: Ivana Stradner opened her iPhone and typed a simple call-to-arms: Unleash the hounds. A Washington think-tanker and an expert in Russian propaganda, Stradner is also a member of NAFO — or the North Atlantic Fellas Organization — an informal alliance of internet culture warriors, national security experts and ordinary Twitter users weaponizing memes, viral videos and, yes, dog photos to push back against Russian online disinformation. “I see myself as a NAFO civilian propagandist,” said Stradner, an…

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Democrats and Republicans agree democracy is in danger and each see their opponents as the threat

Democrats and Republicans agree democracy is in danger and each see their opponents as the threat

The New York Times reports: The good news is that deeply divided Americans agree on at least one thing. The bad news is they share the view that their nearly two-and-a-half-century-old democracy is in danger — and disagree drastically about who is threatening it. In a remarkable consensus, a new Quinnipiac University poll found that 69 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans say that democracy is “in danger of collapse.” But one side blames former President Donald J….

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