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Category: Politics

Network of Trump allies pursue vendetta against journalists and political opponents of the president

Network of Trump allies pursue vendetta against journalists and political opponents of the president

The New York Times reports: A loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House is pursuing what they say will be an aggressive operation to discredit news organizations deemed hostile to President Trump by publicizing damaging information about journalists. It is the latest step in a long-running effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to undercut the influence of legitimate news reporting. Four people familiar with the operation described how it works, asserting that it has compiled dossiers…

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When the internet chases you from your home

When the internet chases you from your home

Sarah Jeong writes: On the night of Aug. 15, 2014, Zoë Quinn was out having a drink with some friends in San Francisco when her phone began to blow up with messages. Something was exploding on the internet — a strange, incoherent maelstrom of outrage that would take over her life. Ms. Quinn, a 27-year-old video game developer, lived in Boston and was in San Francisco only to visit, but the visit turned into exile. “I never went home from…

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Syria and the West’s shameful failure to act

Syria and the West’s shameful failure to act

An editorial in The Observer says: The crisis in Syria does not feature high on the agenda at this weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz. The absence of two key players – Russia and Turkey – means any substantive initiatives are unlikely. Donald Trump has washed his hands of the conflict, although Pentagon chiefs are resisting his demand to withdraw all US forces. European leaders, beset by many other urgent problems, seem to prefer not to think about Syria at all….

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Nearly 900,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in EU, figures show

Nearly 900,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in EU, figures show

The Guardian reports: Close to 900,000 asylum seekers in the EU are waiting to have their claims processed, according to figures from the European statistics office. Women, men and unaccompanied children are living for years in uncertainty, with numbers of pending applications for international protection almost unchanged from two years ago when 1.1 million migrants were “stuck” in the continent. “Living in limbo is now the norm for those seeking protection,” said Karl Kopp of Pro Asyl, Germany’s largest pro-immigration…

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What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot

What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot

Kevin M. Kruse writes: Atlanta has some of the worst traffic in the United States. Drivers there average two hours each week mired in gridlock, hung up at countless spots, from the constantly clogged Georgia 400 to a complicated cluster of overpasses at Tom Moreland Interchange, better known as “Spaghetti Junction.” The Downtown Connector — a 12-to-14-lane megahighway that in theory connects the city’s north to its south — regularly has three-mile-long traffic jams that last four hours or more….

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Seattle has figured out how to end the war on drugs

Seattle has figured out how to end the war on drugs

Nicholas Kristof writes: On gritty streets where heroin, fentanyl and meth stride like Death Eaters, where for decades both drugs and the war on drugs have wrecked lives, the city of Seattle is pioneering a bold approach to narcotics that should be a model for America. Anyone caught here with a small amount of drugs — even heroin — isn’t typically prosecuted. Instead, that person is steered toward social services to get help. This model is becoming the consensus preference…

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The Amazon fires are more dangerous than WMDs

The Amazon fires are more dangerous than WMDs

Franklin Foer writes: When Jair Bolosonaro won Brazil’s presidential election last year, having run on a platform of deforestation, David Wallace-Wells asked, “How much damage can one person do to the planet?” Bolsonaro didn’t pour lighter fluid to ignite the flames now ravishing the Amazon, but with his policies and rhetoric, he might as well have. The destruction he inspired—and allowed to rage with his days of stubborn unwillingness to douse the flames—has placed the planet at a hinge moment…

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Trump claims he has ‘absolute right’ to order U.S. companies out of China under 1977 law

Trump claims he has ‘absolute right’ to order U.S. companies out of China under 1977 law

CNN reports: President Donald Trump claimed he has the “absolute right” to “order” US companies to stop doing business with China that would involve using his broad executive authority in a new and unprecedented way under a 1977 law. On Friday, China unveiled a new round of retaliatory tariffs on about $75 billion worth of US goods, the latest escalation in an on-going trade war that’s putting a strain on the world’s two largest economies. In response, Trump wrote on…

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Iraqis, bristling over Israeli airstrike, renew call for U.S. troops to get out

Iraqis, bristling over Israeli airstrike, renew call for U.S. troops to get out

The Los Angeles Times reports: News that Israel was behind airstrikes in Iraq has reinvigorated calls to oust U.S. forces from the country. A U.S. official confirmed Friday that Israel had struck a base for the Hashd al Shaabi, an umbrella group of Shiite-dominated militias also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, many with deep links to Iran. Two Iranian commanders were reported killed in the attack, which occurred in July. It was unclear whether Israel was behind three other…

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On the Irish border lanes of Fermanagh, the bad old days are returning

On the Irish border lanes of Fermanagh, the bad old days are returning

The Observer reports: Boris Johnson vowed to preserve peace in Northern Ireland during diplomatic forays to Germany and France last week, saying “under no circumstances” would the UK put checks and controls on the border. The prime minister’s reassurance did not reach the narrow lanes and hedgerows of County Fermanagh. Here it felt like the bad old days had already returned. A helicopter and surveillance aircraft criss-crossed grey skies over the village of Newtownbutler, while in the fields below police…

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How Britain has drifted towards a ‘no-deal Brexit’

How Britain has drifted towards a ‘no-deal Brexit’

Helen Lewis writes: Brexit isn’t what it used to be. In the months immediately after Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, two flavors were on offer—“hard” and “soft.” A soft Brexit generally meant leaving the bloc’s political structures but not its economic ones, such as the single market for goods and services. The hard version meant leaving those, too. Crucially, both versions would see Britain formally agree to a new relationship with the EU. “In the summer…

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What have the Romans ever done for us?

What have the Romans ever done for us?

For the entertainment of many, this video has been making the rounds recently:     For those who don’t follow British politics closely or know much about the history of the British Isles, a little background is in order. The voice here comes from John Cleese in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where he plays a rebel leader conspiring against Roman rule in historic Palestine. Since the Romans also ruled Britania (for about 400 years), the joker who crafted this…

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Trump’s command economy

Trump’s command economy

David A. Graham writes: Fate sometimes has an acute sense of irony. This morning, the political donor and philanthropist David Koch died. Koch’s father was an early, prominent supporter of the limited-government, red-baiting John Birch Society. Koch ran for vice president as a Libertarian in 1980, but he and his brother Charles eventually shifted their focus to pushing the Republican Party in an aggressively small-government, low-regulation direction. They had remarkable success, but had serious disagreements with the current Republican president,…

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David Koch escaped the climate hell he helped create

David Koch escaped the climate hell he helped create

Brian Kahn writes: David Koch is dead. The billionaire died this week at age 79 of causes yet unknown. While he certainly enjoyed the fruits of his labors to deregulate U.S. industry and reduce taxes on the super-wealthy like himself, he will never have to experience the consequences of his biggest achievement: putting the entire planet on the brink of crisis in the service of enriching himself and a few other fossil fuel billionaires. And we, the people and future…

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Global leaders urged to divert Brazilian government from ‘suicide’ path as Amazonian rainforest burns

Global leaders urged to divert Brazilian government from ‘suicide’ path as Amazonian rainforest burns

The Guardian reports: International pressure may be the only way to stop the Brazilian government from taking a “suicide” path in the Amazon, one of the country’s most respected scientists has said, as the world’s biggest rainforest continues to be ravaged by thousands of deliberate fires. The large number of conflagrations – set illegally to clear and prepare land for crops, cattle and property speculation – has prompted the state of Amazonas to declare an emergency, created giant smoke clouds…

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The information war of all against all

The information war of all against all

Peter Pomerantsev writes: “The powerlessness of our enemies is they are still trying to describe and fight us as if we were the old right-wing fringe groups that they faced decades before,” Martin Sellner, a figurehead of the European Identitarian Movement, told me, speaking from his flat in Vienna, Austria. “Our job as the avant-garde from the right is to show the people that the normality of tomorrow doesn’t have to be what is considered normal today. Political normality is…

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