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A lobbyist at the Trump Tower meeting received $500,000 in suspicious payments

A lobbyist at the Trump Tower meeting received $500,000 in suspicious payments

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BuzzFeed reports: A Russian-born lobbyist who attended the controversial Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 received a series of suspicious payments totaling half a million dollars before and after the encounter. Documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News show that Rinat Akhmetshin, a Soviet military officer turned Washington lobbyist, deposited large, round-number amounts of cash in the months preceding and following the meeting, where a Russian lawyer offered senior Trump campaign officials dirt on Hillary Clinton. The lobbyist also received a large…

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U.S. weapons sold to Saudi Arabia, transferred to Al Qaeda

U.S. weapons sold to Saudi Arabia, transferred to Al Qaeda

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CNN reports: Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found. The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels battling the coalition for control of the country, exposing some of America’s sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other…

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Iraqi president says Trump did not ask permission to ‘watch Iran’

Iraqi president says Trump did not ask permission to ‘watch Iran’

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Reuters reports: Iraqi President Barham Salih said on Monday that President Donald Trump did not ask Iraq’s permission for U.S. troops stationed there to “watch Iran.” Speaking at a forum in Baghdad, Salih was responding to a question about Trump’s comments to CBS about how he would ask troops stationed in Iraq to “watch” Iran. U.S. troops in Iraq are there as part of an agreement between the two countries with a specific mission of combating terrorism, Salih said, and…

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Fool Britannia

Fool Britannia

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Hari Kunzru writes: From the ill-conceived Brexit referendum onward, Britain’s governing class has embarrassed itself. The Remain campaign was complacent, the Leave campaign brazenly mendacious, and as soon as the result was known, most of the loudest advocates for severing ties with the European Union ran away like naughty schoolboys whose cricket ball had smashed a greenhouse window. Negotiations have revealed the pitiful intellectual limitations of a succession of blustering cabinet ministers, the leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition…

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Blackface is the tip of the iceberg

Blackface is the tip of the iceberg

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Jamelle Bouie writes: In American politics, lawmakers can get a pass for almost anything short of open allegiance to racist ideologies or the explicit use of racist imagery. There is a logic to this dynamic, even as it produces absurd results, like forceful condemnations of racism from a Virginia Republican Party that fielded an unapologetic neo-Confederate for Senate just over three months ago or calls for Northam’s resignation from a Republican National Committee that otherwise stands firmly behind President Trump….

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Trump nominates former lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry as the next Interior secretary

Trump nominates former lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry as the next Interior secretary

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The Washington Post reports: President Trump announced Monday that he will nominate David Bernhardt, a veteran lobbyist who has helped orchestrate the administration’s push to expand oil and gas drilling as the Interior Department’s number-two official, to serve as the next secretary. If confirmed, Bernhardt, a 49-year old Colorado native known for his unrelenting work habits, would be well positioned to roll back even more of the Obama-era conservation policies he has worked to unravel since joining Interior a year…

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Trump administration is slower to fill jobs and has higher turnover than any other administration

Trump administration is slower to fill jobs and has higher turnover than any other administration

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The Washington Post reports: From the Justice Department to Veterans Affairs, vast swaths of the government have top positions filled by officials serving in an acting capacity — or no one at all. More than two years into Trump’s term, the president has an acting chief of staff, attorney general, defense secretary, Office of Management and Budget director and Environmental Protection Agency chief. To deal with the number of vacancies in the upper ranks of departments, agencies have been relying…

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Most Americans support appropriate levels of taxation on those with excessive wealth

Most Americans support appropriate levels of taxation on those with excessive wealth

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Politico reports: The prospect of 70 percent tax rates for multimillionaires and special levies on the super-rich draw howls about creeping socialism and warnings of economic disaster in much of Washington. But polling suggests that when it comes to soaking the rich, the American public is increasingly on board. Surveys are showing overwhelming support for raising taxes on top earners, including a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Monday that found 76 percent of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should…

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Welcome to the new age of nuclear instability

Welcome to the new age of nuclear instability

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Rachel Bronson writes: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement on Friday that the United States is suspending the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty should worry everyone. The I.N.F. is a landmark treaty and it has made the world a safe place. It was the first nuclear agreement to ever outlaw an entire class of weapons. The Trump administration has dismissed the I.N.F. as irrelevant because Russia has abrogated its commitment to it by developing a treaty-busting cruise missile of its own….

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John Bolton is a serial arms control killer

John Bolton is a serial arms control killer

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Joseph Cirincione writes: John Bolton relishes in targeting nuclear arms treaties. He is very good at it. The U.S. national security adviser’s latest hit is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, but his list of victims goes back decades. He had a hand in either the U.S. withdrawal or repeal of Richard Nixon’s Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Bill Clinton’s Agreed Framework with North Korea and Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. Now he has helped put the knife into Ronald Reagan’s landmark…

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How will John Roberts respond to a constitutional crisis?

How will John Roberts respond to a constitutional crisis?

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Michael O’Donnell writes: Two years ago, Chief Justice John Roberts gave the commencement address at the Cardigan Mountain School, in New Hampshire. The ninth-grade graduates of the all-boys school included his son, Jack. Parting with custom, Roberts declined to wish the boys luck. Instead he said that, from time to time, “I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice.” He went on, “I hope you’ll be ignored, so you know…

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Sorry, Republicans. You can’t call out Northam for racism and give Trump a pass

Sorry, Republicans. You can’t call out Northam for racism and give Trump a pass

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Tom Nichols writes: Finally, the GOP is calling out a chief executive for his appalling insensitivity on an issue of race: Saturday, via Twitter, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, decried that chief executive’s “past racist behavior” and said “He should resign.” In two tweets posted on Saturday, Republican Party chair Ronna McDaniel listed off what she sees as that same chief executive’s callousness on race, including, apparently, his appearance, in a photo,…

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How Cory Booker got his real education

How Cory Booker got his real education

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Michael Grunwald writes: Senator Cory Booker was educated at Stanford, Oxford and Yale, but he likes to say he got his real education at Brick Towers, the dilapidated and dangerous housing project in inner-city Newark where he spent eight years as a tenant—not by necessity, but by choice. Living in a 16th-floor apartment that often lacked heat, hot water and elevator service, among poor neighbors trapped on the slum side of the American Dream, this celebrated black prodigy from a…

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Tens of thousands of protesters in Venezuela demand Maduro’s exit

Tens of thousands of protesters in Venezuela demand Maduro’s exit

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The Guardian reports: Tens of thousands of Venezuelan protesters streamed on to the streets of the capital on Saturday for what they described as the final push to force Nicolás Maduro from power. “I believe [the end] is coming very soon – this week,” said Barbara Angarita, 49, as she and thousands of other demonstrators poured down the Avenida Principal de las Mercedes in Caracas. “We must have a free country, free for all Venezuelans and for our descendants.” The…

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How Trump’s wall would harm immigrants and refugees

How Trump’s wall would harm immigrants and refugees

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Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin writes: Is the border wall ethical? President Trump has suggested the wall is moral and those who oppose it immoral. His critics claim the opposite. To answer this, we have to consider its effect on humans. What harm could a border wall cause to immigrants and refugees, all of whom are equal to us in the eyes of God? Some people who cross the border are in desperate search of work to support their families. A…

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Why Trump’s most reliable lender decided in 2016 he had become too risky for another loan

Why Trump’s most reliable lender decided in 2016 he had become too risky for another loan

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The New York Times reports: Donald J. Trump was burning through cash. It was early 2016, and he was lending tens of millions of dollars to his presidential campaign and had been spending large sums to expand the Trump Organization’s roster of high-end properties. To finance his business’s growth, Mr. Trump turned to a longtime ally, Deutsche Bank, one of the few banks still willing to lend money to the man who has called himself “The King of Debt.” Mr….

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