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Category: Politics

Turkish president threatens to send 3.6 million Syrian refugees to Europe

Turkish president threatens to send 3.6 million Syrian refugees to Europe

The Guardian reports: The Turkish president has threatened to “open the gates” for Syrian refugees in his country to migrate to Europe if the continent’s leaders label Turkey’s military campaign in north-eastern Syria an “occupation”. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned European Union states he would “open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way” during a combative speech at a meeting of lawmakers from his Justice and Development (AK) party on Thursday afternoon. He rebuked critics of the operation in…

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Arrest of Giuliani’s Ukraine associates shows how much Trump has already corrupted U.S. elections

Arrest of Giuliani’s Ukraine associates shows how much Trump has already corrupted U.S. elections

Richard L. Hasen writes: The news of Thursday’s indictments of two associates of Rudy Giuliani’s, who according to their lawyer (and former Trump lawyer) John Dowd, assisted Giuliani “in connection with his representation of President Trump” shows that foreign interference in American elections is a feature and not a bug of the Trump campaign and presidency. And the connections to the emerging Ukraine scandal show that the corruption runs deep in this administration. The tale told in Thursday’s unsealed indictment…

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The House can arrest Giuliani

The House can arrest Giuliani

Josh Chafetz writes: Refusal to comply with a duly authorized subpoena from Congress constitutes contempt of Congress. Contempt of Congress is a crime, and there is a mechanism for referring such cases to federal prosecutors. The problem, of course, is that federal prosecutors answer to the attorney general and, through him, to the White House, and they refuse to prosecute contempts committed by executive officials. In recent decades, congressional houses have sought a court order requiring executive officials to comply…

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The big polluters’ masterstroke was to blame the climate crisis on you and me

The big polluters’ masterstroke was to blame the climate crisis on you and me

George Monbiot writes: Let’s stop calling this the Sixth Great Extinction. Let’s start calling it what it is: the “first great extermination”. A recent essay by the environmental historian Justin McBrien argues that describing the current eradication of living systems (including human societies) as an extinction event makes this catastrophe sound like a passive accident. While we are all participants in the first great extermination, our responsibility is not evenly shared. The impacts of most of the world’s people are…

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After giving Turkey the green light to invade Syria, Trump now says it’s a ‘bad idea’

After giving Turkey the green light to invade Syria, Trump now says it’s a ‘bad idea’

ABC News reports: President Donald Trump on Wednesday called Turkey’s offensive in Syria “a bad idea” that the United States did not support, hours after Turkey launched a long-planned military offensive in northeastern Syria. “The United States does not endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea,” Trump said in a statement. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced via Twitter on Wednesday that the incursion has begun, with a mission to…

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The seeds of Trump’s abandonment of Syrian Kurds were sown by Obama

The seeds of Trump’s abandonment of Syrian Kurds were sown by Obama

Elizabeth Tsurkov writes: The looming Turkish offensive on northeastern Syria is the culmination of incoherent U.S. policy concerning the conflict in Syria, which has prioritized finding short-term fixes over attempting to address any of the dynamics driving the violence. The scope of the Turkish invasion, made possible through the withdrawal of U.S. troops from parts of the border region, remains unclear. The offensive will likely precipitate mass displacement, and if the military action extends beyond the takeover of a few…

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Trump’s longtime business connections in Turkey back in the spotlight

Trump’s longtime business connections in Turkey back in the spotlight

NBC News reports: Trump and his family have long had business ties in and with Turkey, the most visible example being the Trump Towers Istanbul, which licenses the Trump name. The Trump Organization describes the buildings on its website as “a landmark in the historic city of Istanbul” and it is the organization’s first and only office and residential tower in Europe, with offices, apartments and upscale shops. The Washington Post has reported that the organization was paid up to…

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The House must move on Trump impeachment articles now

The House must move on Trump impeachment articles now

Laurence Tribe writes: The White House’s blanket stonewalling of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump isn’t just deeply troubling or further indirect evidence of the president’s underlying abuse of public power for private gain. It signals another clear ground for his impeachment: obstruction of Congress. Article III of the Nixon articles of impeachment provides the closest precedent to what Trump did here: He directed the State Department to prevent Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union,…

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The 20 fossil fuel companies behind a third of all carbon emissions

The 20 fossil fuel companies behind a third of all carbon emissions

The Guardian reports: The Guardian today reveals the 20 fossil fuel companies whose relentless exploitation of the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves can be directly linked to more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the modern era. New data from world-renowned researchers reveals how this cohort of state-owned and multinational firms are driving the climate emergency that threatens the future of humanity, and details how they have continued to expand their operations despite being aware of the…

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What Hunter Biden did was legal — and that’s the problem

What Hunter Biden did was legal — and that’s the problem

Peter Schweizer writes: In 2016, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $264 million as part of a settlement with the federal government. The reason? An Asian subsidiary of the company had hired the children of Chinese government officials in the hopes of currying favor with their powerful parents — a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Had the same thing happened with a foreign company and an American politician’s family, however, no violation would have occurred — because no equivalent…

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Top secret Russian intelligence unit, actively fighting the West, seeks to destabilize Europe, security officials say

Top secret Russian intelligence unit, actively fighting the West, seeks to destabilize Europe, security officials say

The New York Times reports: First came a destabilization campaign in Moldova, followed by the poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria and then a thwarted coup in Montenegro. Last year, there was an attempt to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain using a nerve agent. Though the operations bore the fingerprints of Russia’s intelligence services, the authorities initially saw them as isolated, unconnected attacks. Western security officials have now concluded that these operations, and potentially many others, are…

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Trump’s Ukraine call was ‘crazy’ and ‘frightening,’ White House official told whistle-blower

Trump’s Ukraine call was ‘crazy’ and ‘frightening,’ White House official told whistle-blower

The New York Times reports: A White House official who listened to President Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s leader described it as “crazy,” “frightening,” and “completely lacking in substance related to national security,” according to a memo written by the whistle-blower at the center of the Ukraine scandal, a C.I.A. officer who spoke to the White House official. The White House official was “visibly shaken by what had transpired,” the C.I.A. officer wrote in his memo, one day after…

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White House blocks Sondland testimony, obstructing impeachment inquiry

White House blocks Sondland testimony, obstructing impeachment inquiry

The New York Times reports: The White House all but declared war on the House impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, intervening for the first time to block the testimony of a key witness as President Trump signaled his administration would try to starve investigators of more witnesses and documents. The decision to block Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, from speaking with investigators for three House committees came just hours before he was to appear on…

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Russia opens digital interference front in Libya

Russia opens digital interference front in Libya

Nathaniel Greenberg writes: In February 2015, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi presided over a potentially momentous shift in the history of Arab news media. On the sidelines of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official visit to Cairo, the country’s oldest state-run newspaper Al-Ahram signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the Director General of the Russian-backed media group Rossiya Segodyna, or Russia Today. While attention focused on Russian investments in Egypt’s Zohr gas complex, Russian construction of an industrial zone near the…

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What the Bureau of Land Management shake-up could mean for public lands and their climate impact

What the Bureau of Land Management shake-up could mean for public lands and their climate impact

InsideClimate News reports: The changes underway at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management might not seem like much: A few hundred employees are being relocated from offices near the White House and dispersed throughout the West, while agency leaders move in next door to energy companies in newly leased headquarters in Grand Junction, Colorado. But along with the appointment of a self-described Sagebrush Rebel as acting director, the shuffling of staff could help position conservatives to accomplish substantial political goals:…

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‘Another Trump gift to Putin’: Reactions to administration considering pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty

‘Another Trump gift to Putin’: Reactions to administration considering pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty

Business Insider reports: The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has expressed alarm with the possibility that the US will pull out of a vital treaty with European allies and Russia. Rep. Eliot Engel of New York on Monday sent a letter to the US national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, in which he said he was “deeply concerned” by reports that the White House was considering withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty. “I request your personal engagement on this…

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