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Category: Politics

No, America is not on the brink of a civil war

No, America is not on the brink of a civil war

Musa al-Gharbi writes: According to a number of polls and surveys, significant majorities of Republican-aligned voters seem to believe the big lie that Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 US presidential election and, consequently, the Biden administration is illegitimate. Taking these data at face value, a growing chorus insists that we’re living in a “post-truth” era, where members of one political party, the Republican party, can no longer tell facts from falsehood. As a result of the Republican…

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What if Putin is bluffing?

What if Putin is bluffing?

Owen Matthews writes: The evidence for Vladimir Putin’s apparent intent on reinvading Ukraine is familiar enough, not least because it has been trumpeted by top officials in Washington and London over recent weeks with unusual and increasing emphasis. Some 170,000 Russian troops have been building up on Ukraine’s borders since October. According to U.S. intelligence sources, those troops’ commanders have been given orders to prepare detailed tactical plans for a land invasion. Russian agents have been preparing attacks and provocations…

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Ukraine crisis: Nord Stream 2 pipeline could be axed

Ukraine crisis: Nord Stream 2 pipeline could be axed

BBC News reports: Germany and the US have warned they could target a key Russian gas pipeline if the country invades Ukraine. A US state department spokesman said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline “will not move forward” if Russia were to attack. The controversial energy project is designed to double gas flow and runs from Russia direct to Germany under the Baltic Sea. It circumvents Ukraine, which relies on existing pipelines for income and is under threat from Russian forces….

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As ISIS resurges, U.S. is drawn back into the fray

As ISIS resurges, U.S. is drawn back into the fray

The New York Times reports: An audacious attack on a prison housing thousands of former ISIS fighters in Syria. A series of strikes against military forces in neighboring Iraq. And a horrific video harking back to the grimmest days of the insurgency that showed the beheading of an Iraqi police officer. The evidence of a resurgence of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is mounting by the day, nearly three years after the militants lost the last patch of…

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Overclassification of information undermines national security and erodes public trust, spy chief says

Overclassification of information undermines national security and erodes public trust, spy chief says

The Wall Street Journal reports: The U.S. intelligence community’s approach to classifying vast amounts of information is so flawed that it harms national security and diminishes public trust in government, according to Avril Haines, President Biden’s director of national intelligence. The acknowledgment of such concerns about how the nation’s spy agencies choose what information to keep secret under various classification levels is among the most significant by a president’s sitting intelligence chief, government transparency advocates said, and could indicate broader…

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Putin is no chess master

Putin is no chess master

Eliot A. Cohen writes: A terrible thing may be impending in Ukraine. Undoubtedly, subversion, sabotage, and murder await, although such miseries have been going on for some time without the West paying much attention. But a Russian onslaught, to include air and missile strikes followed by an invasion, would be a lot worse. Thousands of people may die, and the foundations of European security would be rocked as they have not been since the early days of the Cold War….

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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is among the leading candidates to succeed Justice Breyer

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is among the leading candidates to succeed Justice Breyer

The New York Times reports: Attention quickly turned on Wednesday to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as one of a small number of likely options who could fulfill President Biden’s pledge to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, after the disclosure that Justice Stephen G. Breyer has decided to retire. Judge Jackson, 51, already successfully went through the Senate confirmation process last year, when Mr. Biden elevated her from the Federal District Court in the District of Columbia…

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San Jose just voted to institute first-in-the-nation gun ownership requirements

San Jose just voted to institute first-in-the-nation gun ownership requirements

CNN reports: The San Jose, California, city council voted Tuesday night to adopt a first-in-the-nation ordinance requiring most gun owners to pay a fee and carry liability insurance, measures aimed at reducing the risk of gun harm by incentivizing safer behavior and easing taxpayers of the financial burden of gun violence. The council in the Silicon Valley city split the vote into two parts: the first approving the bulk of the proposal, including the insurance provisions, and the second approving…

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Biden says a Russian invasion of Ukraine ‘would change the world’

Biden says a Russian invasion of Ukraine ‘would change the world’

CNBC reports: President Joe Biden cast a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine in stark historical terms Tuesday, saying, “it would be the largest invasion since World War II.” “It would change the world,” said Biden, if the tens of thousands of Russian troops who have been amassing on the Russian-Ukrainian border were to launch an incursion into Ukrainian territory. Biden’s remarks reflect a growing consensus among experts that any conflict in Ukraine is unlikely to be confined to a small…

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Michael Flynn sides with Putin against Ukraine

Michael Flynn sides with Putin against Ukraine

Forbes reports: Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor who resigned and pleaded guilty for misleading authorities over his ties to the Russian government—before later pardoned by former President Donald Trump—attacked the Biden Administration Monday for its support of Ukraine in an op-ed article on a right-wing site criticized for spreading misinformation, appearing to parrot the views of Russian President Vladimir Putin. [Continue reading…]

What the Trump documents might tell the January 6 committee

What the Trump documents might tell the January 6 committee

The New York Times reports: The National Archives has turned over to the House select committee investigating the assault on the Capitol last Jan. 6 a large batch of documents that former President Donald J. Trump had sought to keep out of the panel’s hands, citing executive privilege. The committee has yet to make the documents public or disclose how far along it is in scrutinizing them for any new information about the roles played by Mr. Trump and his…

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Lawyer behind Trump election memos invoked 5th Amendment 146 times before January 6 panel

Lawyer behind Trump election memos invoked 5th Amendment 146 times before January 6 panel

Yahoo News reports: John Eastman, the conservative law professor who authored memos outlining how President Donald Trump could overturn the results of the 2020 election, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 146 times when he was questioned by the Jan. 6 committee last month, a lawyer for the panel revealed late Monday. The disclosure came in a court hearing before U.S. District Judge David Carter in Santa Ana, Calif., on Eastman’s lawsuit to block a subpoena from the committee directing Chapman…

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Oil firms accused of scare tactics after claiming climate lawsuits ‘a threat to U.S.’

Oil firms accused of scare tactics after claiming climate lawsuits ‘a threat to U.S.’

The Guardian reports: US oil firms have been accused of using scare tactics after telling a federal court on Tuesday that lawsuits alleging fossil fuel companies lied about the climate crisis could threaten America’s oil supply. At a closely watched appeals court hearing to decide whether a lawsuit by the city of Baltimore should be heard in state or federal court, an attorney for BP, Exxon, Shell and other energy firms painted the case as a threat to America’s energy…

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The speech that helped a new generation of Germans face the Nazi past honestly

The speech that helped a new generation of Germans face the Nazi past honestly

Helmut Walser Smith writes: On 8 May 1985, West Germany’s president Richard von Weizsäcker delivered something akin to the Gettysburg Address – not for a nation in the midst of war, as was the case for the United States’ president Abraham Lincoln in 1863, but for a country working through the memory and the meaning of a lost war 40 years after its end. There were, of course, vast differences in the two speeches. Given on a grey day on…

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The unusual origins behind the splashiest, newest political news site

The unusual origins behind the splashiest, newest political news site

Politico reports: The launch of the website Grid earlier this month represented the latest bet that the market for explainer journalism still exists in the digital space. But unlike others in the field, Grid has a unique origin story, one that involves early ties to a global consulting firm best known for its crisis communications management and lobbying work on behalf of foreign governments, most notably the United Arab Emirates. Months before Grid brought on board any writers or staff,…

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