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Category: Politics

Beware the ruinous optimism of Democratic leaders

Beware the ruinous optimism of Democratic leaders

Jamelle Bouie writes: If you want a sense of what separates much of the leadership of the Democratic Party from many of its supporters — of what illustrates their profound disconnect from younger cohorts of liberal and progressive voters — you could do much worse than to read this recent statement from Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. “Some things take longer than others, and you can only do what you can do at a given time,” she said in an…

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The January 6 committee isn’t messing around

The January 6 committee isn’t messing around

Quinta Jurecic writes: The open hearing last week of the committee investigating the January 6 coup attempt plunged viewers back into the brutality and terror of that day. The committee featured footage of insurrectionists beating the law-enforcement officers who attempted to stop them from entering the Capitol, material disturbing enough that YouTube later labeled video of the hearing as “inappropriate for some users.” Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer who testified about her injuries at the hands of the rioters,…

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AG Garland and federal prosecutors are watching all of the January 6 hearings

AG Garland and federal prosecutors are watching all of the January 6 hearings

NPR reports: Attorney General Merrick Garland is watching the House hearings on the lead-up to and day of Jan. 6, 2021 — as are the Justice Department lawyers prosecuting cases related to the attack on the Capitol. “I’m watching and I will be watching all the hearings, although I may not be able to watch all of it live. But I’ll be sure that I’ll be watching all that. And I can assure you that the January 6 prosecutors are…

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Universal health care could have saved more than 330,000 American lives during the pandemic

Universal health care could have saved more than 330,000 American lives during the pandemic

Rachel Nuwer writes: Americans spend more on health care than people in any other nation. Yet in any given year, the piecemeal nature of the American medical insurance system causes many preventable deaths and unnecessary costs. Not surprisingly, COVID-19 only exacerbated this already dire public health issue, as evidenced by the U.S.’s elevated mortality, compared with that of other high-income countries. A new study quantifies the severity of the impact of the pandemic on Americans who did not have access…

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How Houston moved 25,000 people from the streets into homes of their own

How Houston moved 25,000 people from the streets into homes of their own

Michael Kimmelman writes: One steamy morning last July, Ana Rausch commandeered a shady corner of a parking lot on the northwest side of Houston. Downing a jumbo iced coffee, she issued brisk orders to a dozen outreach workers toting iPads. Her attention was fixed on a highway underpass nearby, where a handful of people were living in tents and cardboard lean-tos. As a vice president of Houston’s Coalition for the Homeless, Ms. Rausch was there to move them out. I…

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Ukraine fears defeat in east without rapid surge in military aid

Ukraine fears defeat in east without rapid surge in military aid

The Wall Street Journal reports: The war in Ukraine has turned into a grinding artillery contest where Russia is steadily gaining ground thanks to its overwhelming advantage in firepower. As the U.S. and allies gather Wednesday to discuss fresh military aid to Kyiv, Ukraine’s fate will largely depend on how fast and in what quantities these heavy weapons arrive. Without a broad and rapid increase in military assistance, Ukraine faces a defeat in the eastern Donbas region, Ukrainian officials warn….

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Putin’s grim journey from economic reformer to war criminal

Putin’s grim journey from economic reformer to war criminal

Anders Åslund writes: Vladimir Putin’s 22-year reign has been marked by a steady decline in the goals he has set for himself and his country. He initially embraced progressive notions of domestic reform and international integration, but has since led Russia deeper and deeper into authoritarian isolation. His recent comments comparing himself to Peter the Great and boasting of plans to seize Ukrainian lands represent a new low in this depressing journey from would-be reformer to war criminal. It is…

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Morocco counters Russia’s weaponization of the food-energy nexus

Morocco counters Russia’s weaponization of the food-energy nexus

Michaël Tanchum writes: After 100 days of war in Ukraine on Europe’s eastern flank, a critical new front has opened on Europe’s southern flank with the food crisis in Africa. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has accused Moscow of weaponizing famine and using it against Africa. Already on a near-war footing to counter Moscow’s westward advances in Ukraine, Europe is now pressed to prevent a famine-driven mass migration crisis coming to its southern shores from North Africa. As…

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How Bolsonaro is using the military to challenge Brazil’s election process

How Bolsonaro is using the military to challenge Brazil’s election process

The New York Times reports: President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has for months consistently trailed in the polls ahead of the country’s crucial presidential race. And for months, he has consistently questioned its voting systems, warning that if he loses October’s election, it will most likely be thanks to a stolen vote. Those claims were largely regarded as talk. But now, Mr. Bolsonaro has enlisted a new ally in his fight against the electoral process: the nation’s military. The leaders…

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How did guns grow so powerful, both as weapons and symbols?

How did guns grow so powerful, both as weapons and symbols?

Phil Klay writes: Samuel Walker and fifteen other Texas Rangers rode into the countryside to hunt for Comanches in June of 1844. The Lords of the South Plains, as the Comanches were known, had ruled the American Southwest for a century; by displacing other Native American nations, raiding colonial outposts, enslaving people, and extracting tribute, they enacted what the historian Pekka Hämäläinen, in his book “The Comanche Empire,” called a story of role reversal, “in which Indians expand, dictate, and…

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Which kinds of conflict are good for democracy?

Which kinds of conflict are good for democracy?

Rochelle DuFord writes: A cursory online search will provide you with nearly 100 million web pages concerning ‘the Left’s circular firing squad’. The idea of a circular firing squad is meant to evoke people so torn by their minor differences that they eliminate any possibility for solidarity or collective work. Rather than aiming our weapons at our enemies, we somehow get mixed up and begin to aim them at our friends. The supposed results of all this fighting: cancel culture,…

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Ukraine fears Western support will fade as media attention dwindles

Ukraine fears Western support will fade as media attention dwindles

The Observer reports: Ukraine’s war with Russia is heading towards its fifth month amid increasing local concern that dwindling media attention could lead to a gradual loss of western support just as Moscow is making slow but steady gains on the frontline. The anxiety reflects a growing normalisation of the conflict in which large parts of the country feel distant from the war in eastern Donbas – as it becomes clear that casualties are mounting and economic costs soaring. “It’s…

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The role of history in the war in Ukraine

The role of history in the war in Ukraine

Lawrence Freedman writes: Putin’s rhetoric is littered with historical references, recently, in his Peter the Great mode, to the start of the eighteenth century and Russia’s war with Sweden, to Catherine the Great’s acquisition of Novorussia, which includes much of the land that is now at the heart of the fighting, and then to the construction of the USSR and its eventual collapse, with the Great Patriotic War always the highlight. For Putin history describes a struggle for Russia to…

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In Kherson, misery under Russian occupation but hope over Ukrainian gains

In Kherson, misery under Russian occupation but hope over Ukrainian gains

The Washington Post reports: More than three months of occupation by Russian soldiers has left much of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region isolated, without access to basic medicines and cut off from Ukrainian cellphone and internet service. The Russian tricolor flag is displayed at most of the main government buildings. There are whispers of a coming referendum that would formally make Kherson part of Russia, at least in the Kremlin’s eyes. The armed occupying forces patrol the streets, while the blasts…

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Poland shows the risks for women’s lives when abortion is banned

Poland shows the risks for women’s lives when abortion is banned

The New York Times reports: It was shortly before 11 p.m. when Izabela Sajbor realized the doctors were prepared to let her die. Her doctor had already told her that her fetus had severe abnormalities and would almost certainly die in the womb. If it made it to term, life expectancy was a year, at most. At 22 weeks pregnant, Ms. Sajbor had been admitted to a hospital after her water broke prematurely. She knew that there was a short…

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Putin’s imperial ambitions

Putin’s imperial ambitions

If it wasn’t obvious by the reign of terror, Putin now openly admits he’s a Tsar. The 21st century Hitler disgraces even Russian history by comparing his depraved kleptocracy to a 17th century emperor who “opened a window to Europe.” Putin’s lobbing missiles thru that window. https://t.co/zGCA9sF5Qr — 🇺🇦Paula Chertok🗽🇺🇦 (@PaulaChertok) June 11, 2022 When Putin says he will retake what is "historically his" – and restore the Russian "borders" – I present you a map of Russia 1914. @cepa…

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