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Category: Politics

USAID’s demise heralded a dark shift in America’s values

USAID’s demise heralded a dark shift in America’s values

Jeremy Konyndyk writes: Last February, Elon Musk boasted of “feeding USAID into the woodchipper” as President Trump kicked off his second term with an unanticipated assault on the agency. A year later, the brutal fallout is coming into focus. Humanitarian aid last year reached 25 million fewer people than in 2024 despite rising global need. More than 2,000 health clinics have closed in crisis zones around the world. Global food aid funding dropped by 40 percent from 2024 to 2025….

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The Chomsky/Epstein puzzle

The Chomsky/Epstein puzzle

Chris Knight writes: Noam Chomsky’s life and work cannot be understood without taking into account his militarily-funded linguistics research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There were, I believe, always two ‘Noam Chomskys’ – one working for the US military and the other working tirelessly against that same military. This contradiction cannot explain every aspect of Chomsky’s puzzling friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. But it is the underlying contradiction that helps us understand why someone as radical as Chomsky ended…

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Jeff Bezos cares more about his superyacht and massive tax breaks than he cares about democracy

Jeff Bezos cares more about his superyacht and massive tax breaks than he cares about democracy

David Remnick writes: It’s truly impossible to keep up, isn’t it? Last week—after the Wall Street Journal broke more news about the Trump family’s dodgy crypto-business dealings and before the President shared a racist video of the Obamas depicted as dancing apes—the Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos decided that one of his smaller properties, the Washington Post, has proved such a drag on his two-hundred-and-thirty-billion-dollar fortune that prudence required that he obliterate much of its newsroom. Early in his proprietorship, Bezos…

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U.S. Olympic athletes in Italy are speaking out about the political crisis at home

U.S. Olympic athletes in Italy are speaking out about the political crisis at home

The Los Angeles Times reports: Mikaela Shiffrin has generally let her performances do the talking during a career that has seen her win two Olympic titles and more World Cup races than any skier in history. But she clearly had something more to say before taking the slopes for the first time in the Milan-Cortina Winter Games. “I actually have some thoughts,” she said when asked by a reporter how she felt about representing the U.S. at a time when…

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A genocide against Ukrainians is unfolding right now

A genocide against Ukrainians is unfolding right now

Roman Sheremeta posted on X: A genocide against Ukrainians is unfolding right now. It already has a name: “Kholodomor” (exhaustion through cold) This crime is being deliberately committed by russia. In legal terms, it has a clear definition – genocide. Under Article II of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, one of the defining acts of genocide is: “Deliberately inflicting on a group of people conditions of life calculated to bring about its…

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Two appeals court judges overrule at least 360 other judges by backing Trump’s mass detention policy

Two appeals court judges overrule at least 360 other judges by backing Trump’s mass detention policy

Politico reports: A federal appeals court Friday night backed the Trump administration’s policy to lock up the vast majority of people it is seeking to deport without offering a chance for bond, even if they have no criminal records and have resided in the country for decades. A divided three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the administration’s view — a reversal of every administration’s position for the last 30 years — is the correct interpretation…

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The Epstein scandal is taking down Europe’s political class. In the U.S., no one is facing accountability

The Epstein scandal is taking down Europe’s political class. In the U.S., no one is facing accountability

Politico reports: Across the Atlantic, heads are rolling over the Jeffrey Epstein revelations. In Norway, one prominent diplomat has already been suspended and a police investigation has been opened into a former prime minister. In the U.K., the former ambassador to the U.S. has been fired; on Tuesday, he resigned from the House of Lords. Police are reviewing reports he shared market-sensitive information with Epstein. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, was stripped of his royal titles and residence….

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Prosecutors began investigating Renee Good’s killing. Washington told them to stop

Prosecutors began investigating Renee Good’s killing. Washington told them to stop

The New York Times reports: Hours after an immigration agent fatally shot Renee Good inside her S.U.V. on a Minneapolis street last month, a senior federal prosecutor in Minnesota sought a warrant to search the vehicle for evidence in what he expected would be a standard civil rights investigation into the agent’s use of force. The prosecutor, Joseph H. Thompson, wrote in an email to colleagues that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a state agency that specializes in investigating…

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Trump has never hidden his racism

Trump has never hidden his racism

Jamelle Bouie writes: Let’s suppose you’re the spoiled son of a self-made man. Let’s suppose that, despite your flash and bravado, you’ve failed at virtually everything you’ve tried. You’re the laughingstock of polite society, a punchline for the privileged. You think you’re superior enough to be the president of the United States — the highest honor in your country — but the actual president is a man of humble origins, a minority of the kind your family didn’t even rent…

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NSA detected phone call between foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump

NSA detected phone call between foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump

The Guardian reports: Last spring, the National Security Agency (NSA) detected evidence of an unusual phone call between an individual associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower’s attorney briefed on the existence of the call. The highly sensitive communique, which has roiled Washington over the past week, was brought to the attention of the director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard – but rather than allowing NSA officials to distribute the information…

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Hitler didn’t have AI, but he employed the same playbook that Trump uses every single day

Hitler didn’t have AI, but he employed the same playbook that Trump uses every single day

Another day, another outrage. How Hitler used outrageous behavior to distract the German establishment. Google’s AI offers this overview: Hitler utilized a strategy of manufactured crises, constant scandalous behavior, and extreme rhetoric to disorient, distract, and eventually dominate the traditional German establishment—including conservative politicians, military leaders, and the press—between 1930 and 1934. By creating an atmosphere of perpetual chaos, Hitler compelled the elite to react to immediate “emergencies,” preventing them from organizing effective opposition to his true goal of dismantling…

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Federal judge rules DOJ can ‘no longer’ be trusted in voter roll crusade

Federal judge rules DOJ can ‘no longer’ be trusted in voter roll crusade

Democracy Docket reports: A federal judge in Oregon issued a sweeping rebuke of the Justice Department’s nationwide push to seize state voter rolls, ruling that the department can no longer be presumed to be acting in good faith and warning that its conduct threatens voters and states’ rights. And the judge cited a recent letter sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi linking the voter roll crusade to the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota as one reason…

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Federal judge will let Marimar Martinez release text messages sent by Border Patrol agent who shot her

Federal judge will let Marimar Martinez release text messages sent by Border Patrol agent who shot her

Chicago Sun-Times reports: Federal prosecutors say the public release of text messages sent by the Border Patrol agent who shot Chicago’s Marimar Martinez last fall could only serve one purpose: to “sully” his reputation. But the Trump administration has shown “zero concern about the sullying of Ms. Martinez’s reputation,” a federal judge pointed out Friday. That’s partly why U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis said Martinez will be allowed to share the text messages with the public — as long as…

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ICE and CBP’s face-recognition app can’t actually verify who people are

ICE and CBP’s face-recognition app can’t actually verify who people are

Wired reports: The face-recognition app Mobile Fortify, now used by United States immigration agents in towns and cities across the US, is not designed to reliably identify people in the streets and was deployed without the scrutiny that has historically governed the rollout of technologies that impact people’s privacy, according to records reviewed by WIRED. The Department of Homeland Security launched Mobile Fortify in the spring of 2025 to “determine or verify” the identities of individuals stopped or detained by…

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GOP’s new fear: Losing the Senate in November

GOP’s new fear: Losing the Senate in November

Axios reports: Top Republicans are increasingly worried about private polling that paints a dire picture of the midterms — and it’s not just the House they’re afraid of losing, it’s also the Senate. Why it matters: President Trump has warned Republicans that losing their slim House majority could lead to a third impeachment. But a Democratic takeover of the Senate would be a political earthquake — and neuter his last two years in office. Zoom in: For the first time, GOP strategists are telling Axios that…

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U.S. secretly deporting Palestinians to West Bank in coordination with Israel

U.S. secretly deporting Palestinians to West Bank in coordination with Israel

+972 Magazine reports: The United States is quietly deporting Palestinians arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the occupied West Bank by private jet, with two such flights taking place in coordination with the Israeli authorities since the beginning of this year — part of a secretive and politically sensitive operation revealed through a joint investigation by +972 Magazine and The Guardian. Eight Palestinian men — shackled for the entire journey by their wrists and ankles — were flown…

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