Attention to the Unseen

The Times of Israel reports: US President Donald Trump told a pro-Israel conference Saturday night that some American Jews don’t love Israel enough. He also noting that he did not have to worry about getting his audience’s votes, because they would cast ballots with business interests in mind. Those comments, to the Israeli American Council advocacy group in Florida, drew quick criticism from opponents and were derided as anti-Semitic. In his 45-minute speech to an audience of over 4,300, the…

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Garry Kasparov writes: The totalitarian Soviet Union where I grew up tried to dominate the truth, to distort it and control it. Reality was whatever the Party put out on the nightly news, or in the official newspapers, Pravda, which means “Truth” and Izvestia, which means “News.” It was increasingly obvious back then, even to communist true believers, that what we were being told didn’t match the world we saw around us. As the joke went, “there is no news…

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William J. Burns writes: President Donald Trump’s October decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria produced a rare moment of bipartisanship in foreign policy. With a shared sense of alarm, Republicans and Democrats alike accused Trump of betrayal. Certainly, it was a betrayal of the Kurdish partners who bled for us in the fight against the Islamic State. It was also a betrayal of process—leaving our military leaders and diplomats struggling to keep up with tweets, our allies in the…

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Former United States representative, Katie Hill, writes: People have speculated that Speaker Pelosi or the party leadership asked me to resign because of the photos and the allegations about me. That could not be further from the truth. In fact, one of the most difficult moments during my resignation process was my phone call to the Speaker, a woman I admire more than anyone and whom I had come to love. She told me I didn’t have to do this,…

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Laurence H. Tribe writes: Of particular interest to me in this week’s House impeachment hearing was a moment when the chief counsel for the Republicans read aloud a quote about the dangers of a purely partisan, policy-based impeachment of a sitting president. This was from page 140 of my book with Joshua Matz, “To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment.” The passage continued by describing the even greater dangers posed by a purely partisan, personality-driven refusal to impeach and…

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John Cassidy writes: With the polls also showing that Democratic voters are overwhelmingly supportive of impeachment, independents are more narrowly in favor, and Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed, it is tempting to conclude that the over-all impact will be a wash. But focussing too much on polling data can be dangerous. Presidential elections aren’t merely bloodless exercises in eliciting public opinion on a given day; they are titanic, coast-to-coast struggles, in which turnout, activism, and civic engagement also matter enormously. Trump’s…

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Lawrence Lessig writes: In a study published last month, the research institute PRRI found that 55% of “Republicans for whom Fox News is their primary news source say there is nothing Trump could do to lose their approval, compared to only 29% of Republicans who do not cite Fox News as their primary news source.” That 26-point difference is driven not just by politics, but in part by the media source. Chart showing that disapproval of Nixon fell for both…

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Voice of America reports: Russian efforts to weaken the West through a relentless campaign of information warfare may be starting to pay off, cracking a key bastion of the U.S. line of defense: the military. While most Americans still see Moscow as a key U.S. adversary, new polling suggests that view is changing, most notably among the households of military members. The second annual Reagan National Defense Survey, completed in late October, found nearly half of armed services households questioned,…

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The Guardian reports: An anonymous online poster who disseminated documents later brandished by Jeremy Corbyn as evidence the Conservatives would put the NHS “on the table” in US trade talks was part of a campaign directed by Moscow, the site hosting the papers has said. On Friday evening, Reddit confirmed it has banned 61 accounts; including that of a user called Gregoriator, who it believes was part of a Russian information operation known as Secondary Infektion. The anonymous user posted…

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Ronald Brownstein writes: Just how far will Republicans go in following President Donald Trump’s embrace of Russia? An answer may be crystallizing as the GOP mobilizes its defense of the president against impeachment. Both congressional Republicans and conservative commentators are defending Trump from impeachment partly by accusing Ukraine of intervening against him in the 2016 presidential election—despite repeated warnings from national-security and intelligence officials that those claims are not only baseless, but advance Vladimir Putin’s goal of discrediting Ukraine. Earlier…

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The Guardian reports: The British diplomat in charge of explaining Brexit to the US government, Congress and public, has resigned, saying she was no longer prepared to “peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust”. Alexandra Hall Hall, the Brexit counsellor at the UK embassy in Washington, had been frustrated with the job for some time, according to friends and colleagues. They said she felt she was not being given enough reliable information to do her job,…

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John Major, a former British prime minister, writes: At elections, political tribes join together to promote their own policies and criticise those of their opponents. That’s the nature of elections. But there are always individuals who enhance parliament. And there are always policies upon which every party can agree. One is democracy, and the right of every adult to vote. At every election the future of our country is at stake. But on this occasion even more than usual. When…

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Robin Wright writes: In mid-November, in a surprise overnight announcement, the revolutionary regime in Iran hiked the price of gasoline. By standards anywhere else in the world, it is still pitifully cheap. A litre of gas increased from eight cents to twelve cents—or to fifty cents per gallon—for the first fifteen gallons each month. That’s about a tankful for a large car. After that, gas went up to ninety cents per gallon. (The U.S. average is around two dollars and…

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The Washington Post reports: A State Department official said Thursday that 1,000 or more protesters may have been killed during weeks of unrest in Iran and that the United States has received video that shows troops firing machine guns mounted on trucks at protesters in one incident. Brian Hook, the special representative for Iran, said the Trump administration will ask Congress to impose harsh sanctions on officials responsible for the alleged atrocities and mistreatment of thousands of protesters who have…

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