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Category: Politics

The manosphere influencers who feel duped by the president they helped elect

The manosphere influencers who feel duped by the president they helped elect

Elaine Godfrey writes: About half an hour into Episode 694 of the Flagrant podcast, and after a lively debate over manscaping methods, Andrew Schulz leaned back into the couch and brought the chin-wag to a screeching halt. “Are you guys, like—do you feel existential anxiety about the war?” he asked his co-hosts. Schulz seemed to be feeling some. “Americans can’t fucking afford health care,” he said later. “They don’t care about what’s happening in Iran!” War hawks have been angling…

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Expat influencers sold Dubai to the world and were paid to look the other way. Now the dream is crumbling

Expat influencers sold Dubai to the world and were paid to look the other way. Now the dream is crumbling

Brigid Delaney writes: For people living in close proximity to a war zone, the lack of sympathy for Australian and British expats and influencers in Dubai has been, on the face of it, curious. Since their adopted home was bombed in the initial days of the war, they have faced mostly ridicule and contempt in their home countries. In the UK, the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, called out “tax exiles and washed-up old footballers” in Dubai who “mock ordinary…

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The oil crisis is only beginning

The oil crisis is only beginning

Bloomberg reports: The biggest oil supply shock in history has reached the one-month mark. Prices have surged, growth forecasts are being cut worldwide, and shortages are emerging across Asia, from Thailand to Pakistan. But the energy industry is warning that the crisis is only beginning. In conversations with more than three dozen oil and gas traders, executives, brokers, shippers and advisers over the last week, one message was repeated over and over: The world still hasn’t grasped the severity of…

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Trump has opened up Pandora’s box in the Middle East, and possibly only Iran will benefit

Trump has opened up Pandora’s box in the Middle East, and possibly only Iran will benefit

An editorial at The Independent says: At an unfortunately timed event held in Miami to promote US investment in Saudi Arabia, the president of the United States told his audience that they could ask him about anything, even sex, and that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, although “a great son” to his father, the king, “did not think he would be kissing my ass… He thought he [Trump] would be just another American president that was…

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‘He’s lied about everything’: Iran war puts Trump on shaky ground with young MAGA men

‘He’s lied about everything’: Iran war puts Trump on shaky ground with young MAGA men

Politico reports: Joseph Bolick feels betrayed by President Donald Trump. And it’s because of the war in Iran. The 30-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran voted for Trump in 2024. But at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference gathering this week he sported a hat emblazoned with “America First” — a slogan Trump championed during his campaign, along with the promise not to start new wars in foreign countries. “He’s lied about everything,” said Bolick. “If you go into a…

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Five takeaways from the ‘No Kings’ rallies as the Midterms heat up

Five takeaways from the ‘No Kings’ rallies as the Midterms heat up

The New York Times reports: Thousands of demonstrations against the Trump administration unfolded across the country on Saturday, the third round in a nationwide series of loosely coordinated “No Kings” rallies. The day of protest, the first since October, came as the midterm election season takes shape, and as Democrats work to capitalize politically on the unpopular war with Iran. Exactly a month earlier, President Trump ordered the first U.S. strikes against Iran, setting off a conflict that has sent…

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Pope opens Holy Week condemning war waged in Jesus’s name

Pope opens Holy Week condemning war waged in Jesus’s name

Crux reports: Pope Leo XIV opened his first Holy Week as pontiff with a rebuke of those who pray for war, offering his condemnation mere days after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.” Hegseth – who prefers to be called the “Secretary of War” – made his prayer during a recent Christian worship service at the Pentagon, attended by military and civilian workers. Speaking during his March 29 Mass…

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Why the U.S. and Israel are losing the war against Iran

Why the U.S. and Israel are losing the war against Iran

Patrick Wintour writes: The price of oil is the key metric for Iran’s success, along with its remaining supply of missile launchers. As a result, 95% of traffic through the strait of Hormuz remains blocked, depriving the markets of 10-13m barrels of oil each day. Such is Iran’s stranglehold even Trump describes Iran allowing ships through as a “present” to the US. Trump admits he is surprised the price of oil is not higher. Jason Bordoff, the founding director at…

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Trump getting ‘bored with Iran’

Trump getting ‘bored with Iran’

MS NOW reports: Nearly one month after the U.S. began strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump is sending thousands of troops to the Middle East to potentially fight in a war he said he has “already won.” That contradiction has frustrated some senior White House aides and outside allies, three of whom spoke to MS NOW about the president’s public messaging. They described it as confusing, internally inconsistent and increasingly detached from battlefield reality. Trump calling the war already won…

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Trump faces new oil shock threat as Iran eyes Red Sea

Trump faces new oil shock threat as Iran eyes Red Sea

Politico reports: It’s not just Hormuz. There’s a second strait in the Middle East vital to global energy markets that Iran is threatening to close if President Donald Trump fails to wind down the Iran war. The world is already experiencing the worst disruption to global energy markets in history following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. But if Iranian proxies close the Bab el-Mandeb strait — a busy Red Sea choke point — it would compound global financial woes…

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Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director’s personal email, publish photos and documents

Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director’s personal email, publish photos and documents

Reuters reports: Iran-linked hackers have broken into ​FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email inbox, publishing photographs of the director and other documents to the internet, the hackers and the ‌bureau said on Friday. On their website, the hacker group Handala Hack Team said Patel “will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.” The hackers published a series of personal photographs of Patel sniffing and smoking cigars, riding in an antique convertible, and making a face while…

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A pliant autocracy in Iran won’t solve America’s problems in the Middle East

A pliant autocracy in Iran won’t solve America’s problems in the Middle East

Fawaz A. Gerges writes: Over the past few weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump and his team have voiced contradictory objectives for the war they, together with Israel, launched against Iran. But it is clear that after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed, Trump hoped to deal with a transactional authoritarian figure. He called “what we did in Venezuela”—forcing the replacement of one autocrat, President Nicolás Maduro, with another, Delcy Rodríguez—a “perfect scenario” for Iran and insisted on being “involved with…

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MAGA is growing anxious over Viktor Orbán’s fate

MAGA is growing anxious over Viktor Orbán’s fate

Ian Ward writes: As the war with Iran continues to dominate headlines in Washington, another overseas battle is quietly capturing attention among the elite echelons of the MAGA movement: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s fight for reelection. Orbán, who has consolidated power over Hungarian politics since re-entering the prime minister’s office in 2010, is facing one of his most challenging reelection contests to date, as voters chafe at a sluggish economy, the rising cost of living and a string of…

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The rapid rise of China as a scientific superpower

The rapid rise of China as a scientific superpower

Ross Andersen writes: If China finally eclipses the United States as the world’s preeminent scientific superpower, there won’t be an official announcement. Neither will there necessarily be a dramatic Promethean demonstration, a bomb flash in the desert, a satellite beeping overhead, a moon landing. It will be a quiet moment, observed by a small, specialized subset of scientists who have forsaken the study of the stars, animals, and plants in favor of a more navel-gazing subject: the practice of science…

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Gulf states may soon have to ‘repatriate tens of billions of dollars in investments’ from the U.S.

Gulf states may soon have to ‘repatriate tens of billions of dollars in investments’ from the U.S.

Politico reports: President Donald Trump is counting on money from the Gulf Arab States to power his economic golden age. But as the war with Iran nears its fifth week and the regional economy enters a free fall, hundreds of billions of dollars that Middle Eastern governments have pledged for U.S. projects are under threat. That has the Trump administration concerned that Gulf leaders may not be able to fulfill promises to invest heavily in the U.S., according to three…

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Robert Pape describes the ‘escalation trap’ that the U.S. is falling into in the war against Iran

Robert Pape describes the ‘escalation trap’ that the U.S. is falling into in the war against Iran

  Is America’s war in Iran headed toward an escalation trap? Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and an expert on global security, argues that the decapitation of Iran’s leadership failed to break the regime, while upping the pressure for more force — including raising the specter of a ground war. Pape joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the difference between initial tactical success and long-term strategic success.