Attention to the Unseen

CNN reports: Russia’s influence reaches deep into the British establishment and successive UK governments have turned a blind eye to it, lawmakers were warned, according to multiple sources familiar with testimony given to a parliamentary inquiry. Members of the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) were told that Moscow built up a network of friendly British diplomats, lawyers, parliamentarians and other influencers from across the political spectrum. One witness described the development as “potentially the most significant threat to the…

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Peter Jukes writes: According to its chairman, Dominic Grieve, Boris Johnson personally blocked – for “bogus” reasons – the imminent publication of a cross-party report on Russia meddling in UK politics by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC). Elements of the suppressed report have now leaked out. According to CNN, the evidence of Bill Browder, the campaigner behind the anti-corruption Magnitsky Acts, suggests that Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, has deployed Russians “to infiltrate UK society and to conceal the underlying…

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The New York Times reports: “Yes, billionaires will have to pay a little more,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said of the revised tax package she introduced recently, “six cents on each dollar.” This modest-sounding proposal, though, would have a far-reaching impact on the wealthiest Americans when combined with her other tax plans — shrinking colossal fortunes over time and making it much more difficult to hand down multibillion-dollar legacies. The tax bite for any individual would not equal the $100 billion…

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Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump says he lifted his freeze on aid to Ukraine on Sept. 11, but the State Department had quietly authorized releasing $141 million of the money several days earlier, according to five people familiar with the matter. The State Department decision, which hasn’t been reported previously, stemmed from a legal finding made earlier in the year, and conveyed in a classified memorandum to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. State Department lawyers found the White House Office…

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The New York Times reports: State Department Foreign Service officers usually express their views in formal diplomatic cables, but these days they are using closed Facebook groups and encrypted apps to convey their pride in Marie L. Yovanovitch, the ousted ambassador to Ukraine, whose House testimony opened the floodgates on the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. #GoMasha is their rallying cry. In private conversations, they trade admiring notes about career State Department officials like William B. Taylor Jr. and George…

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  “The Russians were who attacked us in 2016, and they’re now writing the script for others to do the same. And if we don’t get our act together, they will continue to make fools of us internationally.” Fiona Hill Full transcript of testimony of Fiona Hill. For some relevant background on Putin’s work skills as a KGB case officer, watch this 2013 interview with Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy.

Quartz reports: US president Donald Trump will be receiving a special gift from Berlin residents on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall—a 2.7-ton section of the wall itself. The stunt is squarely directed at Trump’s vow to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, a part of his “zero tolerance” immigration policy. “We would like to give you one of the last pieces of the failed Berlin Wall to commemorate the United States’ dedication to building…

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Noah Feldman writes: It’s no surprise that Ambassador William Taylor is expected to be the first witness to testify when the House of Representatives opens public impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump next week. First, he’s an astoundingly credible witness — straight from central casting, as Trump himself likes to say about some of his appointees. As a matter of prosecutorial strategy, that makes him an ideal first witness for House Democrats to lay out their case for the first…

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Politico reports: Elizabeth Warren has been on the receiving end of an onslaught of jabs, swipes, missives, think-pieces and general bashing from opponents this past week, the likes of which she hasn’t experienced since she jumped into the presidential race. But more surprising than the attacks — Warren, having risen to frontrunner status, had those coming — has been her response. In two words: No comment. Her surrogates and campaign aides aren’t going on cable TV to defend her —…

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Eric Levitz writes: These are anxious days for Democrats who favor gated communities and unfettered trade. Americans who believe in a woman’s right to choose and private equity’s right to loot, now need a Klonopin with their morning news. Elizabeth Warren — the slayer of Summers, stumper of Stumpf, and all around bane of (finance) capital — boasts comfortable leads in Iowa and New Hampshire. In at least one of those states, a Trotskyist fellow traveler is her closest competitor….

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The Washington Post reports: From Baghdad to the Shiite Muslim shrine city of Karbala and farther south, Iraqis are pushing for a revolution. They fill central squares to sing and dance from daybreak, and face down riot police when night falls. Iraq’s streets are no stranger to power struggles. They’ve been a stage for sectarian conflict and for the Islamic State’s emergence. But the crowds are different this time, and so is the threat now posed by the largest grass-roots…

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Peter D. Feaver and Will Inboden write: The news of the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a raid by U.S. special operations forces on Oct. 27 capped a dizzying three weeks in the Trump administration’s Syria policy. The turmoil began on Oct. 6, with President Donald Trump’s peremptory decision to pull back about 100 U.S. soldiers from their positions embedded with Kurdish forces in northern Syria. A few days later, he ordered the withdrawal from the…

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Fred Kaplan writes: The House impeachment probe has reached a point where continuing to defend President Donald Trump requires a prodigious capacity for denial or self-delusion. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Trump’s denialist in chief, summed up the situation on Tuesday when asked about Gordon Sondland’s revision to his testimony before the committees three weeks earlier. Originally, the hotel tycoon–turned–ambassador couldn’t remember much about a quid pro quo. But now that his memory had been refreshed by other witnesses’ depositions (which may…

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