Browsed by
Category: Politics

Baghdadi’s death is a reminder of the catastrophic failure of the war on terror

Baghdadi’s death is a reminder of the catastrophic failure of the war on terror

Spencer Ackerman writes: After U.S. special operations forces dealt a violent end to the leader of the premier jihadist group in Iraq, the president hailed the importance of the moment. The man was a monster, the president declared, responsible for a regional campaign of devastation, even the beheadings of American hostages. True, the killing would not mean the end of the broader war, the president noted, but the U.S. had dealt “a severe blow” to the jihadists. George W. Bush…

Read More Read More

Russia challenges Trump’s claims about Russian involvement during Baghdadi raid

Russia challenges Trump’s claims about Russian involvement during Baghdadi raid

Julia Davis reports: At the White House Sunday morning, President Trump profusely thanked Russia for its alleged involvement in the killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Trump said: “[The Russians] were very cooperative, they really were good… Russia treated us great. They opened up, we had to fly over certain Russia areas, Russia-held areas. Russia was great.” Russia didn’t seem to see it the same way. The Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, refuted President Trump’s…

Read More Read More

‘Blood for oil’ is official U.S. policy under Trump

‘Blood for oil’ is official U.S. policy under Trump

Adam Weinstein writes: In between playing five hours of golf on Saturday and getting booed at a baseball game on Sunday, President Donald Trump caught up on his other favorite sport: playing military. American service members in Syria cornered and killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the titular leader of ISIS, as Trump spectated; the following morning, in advance of the Sunday talk shows, he gave a triumphant press conference about the operation. Skeptical reporters came away from Trump’s endzone dance with…

Read More Read More

Employee dissent erupts at Facebook over Zuckerberg’s hands-off stance on political ads

Employee dissent erupts at Facebook over Zuckerberg’s hands-off stance on political ads

The New York Times reports: The letter was aimed at Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his top lieutenants. It decried the social network’s recent decision to let politicians post any claims they wanted — even false ones — in ads on the site. It asked Facebook’s leaders to rethink the stance. The message was written by Facebook’s own employees. Facebook’s position on political advertising is “a threat to what FB stands for,” the employees wrote in the letter, which…

Read More Read More

Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria disrupted carefully planned Baghdadi raid

Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria disrupted carefully planned Baghdadi raid

The New York Times reports: The surprising information about the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s general location — in a village deep inside a part of northwestern Syria controlled by rival Qaeda groups — came following the arrest and interrogation of one of Mr. al-Baghdadi’s wives and a courier this past summer, two American officials said. Armed with that initial tip, the C.I.A. worked closely with Iraqi and Kurdish intelligence officials in Iraq and Syria to identify Mr. al-Baghdadi’s…

Read More Read More

Trump notified Russians of Baghdadi raid before telling congressional leaders

Trump notified Russians of Baghdadi raid before telling congressional leaders

The Washington Post reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday called on the White House to brief lawmakers on the raid that targeted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, noting that President Trump had informed the Russians of the military operation before telling congressional leadership. The statement from Pelosi (D-Calif.) came after Trump told reporters at a lengthy news conference that he did not inform the House speaker of the raid because he “wanted to make sure this kept secret.” U.S. presidents typically…

Read More Read More

Trust is becoming the principal casualty of Britain’s raging political war

Trust is becoming the principal casualty of Britain’s raging political war

Nick Cohen writes: Britain is in a revolutionary crisis. Its economy, constitution, place in the international order and sense of who it is and what it can become will be battlefields at the next election. The high stakes alone will ensure that a red mist descends. To heighten the rage, the wilful failure of the Conservative government to prevent the corruptions of the electoral process brought by the age of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will sharpen every grievance. Put…

Read More Read More

How Elizabeth Warren went from wonky blogger to Democratic frontrunner

How Elizabeth Warren went from wonky blogger to Democratic frontrunner

Sam Stein writes: A 70-year-old, twice-elected Senator from Massachusetts might not sound like the biography of a transformative presidential candidate. But Elizabeth Warren is not your traditional White House aspirant, and her ascension in the Democratic primary represents, for better or worse, a tectonic shift within the Democratic Party. Those who have run for the party’s nomination in the past have largely hailed from one of two perches: insurgents or establishment types. Warren’s candidacy is a synthesis of the two….

Read More Read More

Pope Francis, the revolutionary, takes on the traditionalists

Pope Francis, the revolutionary, takes on the traditionalists

Rachel Donadio writes: Pope Francis has helped open the door to allowing married men to become priests, albeit in just one region of the Amazon for now. He has made environmentalism a major focus of his papacy. Yesterday he gave a shout-out to Greta Thunberg and thanked journalists for doing their jobs, rather than calling them enemies of the people. He’s decried income inequality and nationalism and spoken out on behalf of gay people, Muslims, immigrants, and the poor. This…

Read More Read More

About 41% of the global population are under 24 — and they’re angry

About 41% of the global population are under 24 — and they’re angry

Simon Tisdall writes: A spate of large-scale street protests around the world, from Chile and Hong Kong to Lebanon and Barcelona, is fuelling a search for common denominators and collective causes. Are we entering a new age of global revolution? Or is it foolish to try to link anger in India over the price of onions to pro-democracy demonstrations in Russia? Each country’s protests differ in detail. But recent upheavals do appear to share one key factor: youth. In most…

Read More Read More

A new era of global unrest

A new era of global unrest

Max Fisher and Amanda Taub write: It’s not your imagination, and the last few months are not an outlier: Mass protests are on the rise globally. They’ve been growing more common, year over year, since the end of World War II, now reaching an unprecedented level of frequency. And if it might seem difficult to find a common thread — anti-corruption rallies in Lebanon, separatist demonstrations in Spain, pro-democracy marches in Hong Kong, protests against inequality in Chile and over…

Read More Read More

The problem of political advertising on social media

The problem of political advertising on social media

Sue Halpern writes: In the course of the 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton spent eighty-one million dollars on Facebook ads. With a little more than a year to go until the next election, candidates have already spent more than sixty-three million dollars marketing themselves on Facebook and Google. Trump’s campaign has spent more than anyone else’s, with a total of twenty-four million dollars in digital-ad buys. Two of those ads, which were released on Facebook on October…

Read More Read More

Former White House chief of staff warned Trump he would be impeached

Former White House chief of staff warned Trump he would be impeached

The Washington Examiner reports: John Kelly warned President Trump that hiring a “yes man” to succeed him as White House chief of staff would lead to impeachment and, in hindsight, regrets his decision to resign. House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump less than a year after Kelly departed the administration. The retired, four-star Marine general suggested the blame lies squarely with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and other advisers who are unable, or unwilling, to…

Read More Read More

NSC official plans to testify in impeachment probe even if White House tries to block him. White House delayed Ukraine trade decision in August

NSC official plans to testify in impeachment probe even if White House tries to block him. White House delayed Ukraine trade decision in August

Politico reports: Tim Morrison, a National Security Council official who has been identified as a witness to one of the most explosive pieces of evidence unearthed by House impeachment investigators, plans to testify Thursday even if the White House attempts to block him. “If subpoenaed, Mr. Morrison plans to appear for his deposition,” his attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, said. A slew of high-profile witnesses have defied White House, State Department and Pentagon orders not to cooperate with the impeachment probe….

Read More Read More

Justice Department begins criminal investigation of itself

Justice Department begins criminal investigation of itself

The New York Times reports: For more than two years, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it. Now, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how it all began. Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the…

Read More Read More

Mark Zuckerberg — like most Americans — doesn’t know what the First Amendment is for

Mark Zuckerberg — like most Americans — doesn’t know what the First Amendment is for

Masha Gessen writes: What is the First Amendment for? I ask my students this every year. Every year, several people quickly respond that the First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to speak without restriction. True, I say, but what is it for? It’s so that Congress doesn’t pass a law that would limit the right to free speech, someone often says. Another might add that, in fact, the government does place some limits on free speech—you can’t shout “fire” in…

Read More Read More