Bloomberg will continue campaign operation to defeat Trump even if he’s not the nominee

Bloomberg will continue campaign operation to defeat Trump even if he’s not the nominee

NBC News reports: Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s massive campaign apparatus and an army of some 500 staffers will march on through the general election in November even if he loses the Democratic nomination, campaign officials tell NBC News, shifting their efforts toward working to elect whomever the party selects to face President Donald Trump. Bloomberg’s vast tech operation will also be redirected to help the eventual nominee, as Democrats struggle to compete with the vaunted digital operation built…

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U.S. probes if Russia is targeting Biden in 2020 election meddling

U.S. probes if Russia is targeting Biden in 2020 election meddling

Bloomberg reports: U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are assessing whether Russia is trying to undermine Joe Biden in its ongoing disinformation efforts with the former vice president still the front-runner in the race to challenge President Donald Trump, according to two officials familiar with the matter. The probe comes as senior U.S. officials are warning that Russia’s election interference in 2020 could be more brazen than in the 2016 presidential race or the 2018 midterm election. Part of the…

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In these bleak times, imagine a world where you can thrive

In these bleak times, imagine a world where you can thrive

Gary Younge writes: As a child my mother used to put on the song Young, Gifted and Black, by Bob and Marcia, put my feet on hers and then dance us both around the living room. “They’re playing our song,” she’d say. It was the early 1970s, she was barely 30 and I was the youngest of three children she was raising alone. Struggling to believe there was a viable future for her children in a country where racism was…

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Trump’s Mideast allies know he can’t be trusted

Trump’s Mideast allies know he can’t be trusted

Politico reports: For years, they urged America to take a harder line on Iran, dissed its decision to ink a nuclear deal with Tehran and cheered when a tough-talking Donald Trump won the presidency. Now, America’s closest Middle East allies are practically ducking for cover. In recent days, as the U.S. killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iran fired back with a missile barrage in Iraq, Gulf Arab states and Israel were expressing second thoughts about what they’d helped unleash….

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For many Syrians, Qassem Suleimani is the man who brutalised millions just to save Bashar Al Assad

For many Syrians, Qassem Suleimani is the man who brutalised millions just to save Bashar Al Assad

Kareem Shaheen writes: The voice on the other end of the line sounded like nothing I had heard before. There was a gasping, exhausted weakness to it, as though the young man whose voice it was had put every ounce of energy he had left into articulating the words. It was the voice of somebody who was being starved to death. The young man was a resident of Madaya, a town of about 40,000 people near the Syrian-Lebanese border. It…

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‘We are not safe’: India’s Muslims tell of wave of police brutality

‘We are not safe’: India’s Muslims tell of wave of police brutality

The Guardian reports: It was midnight at a police barracks in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and in a freezing windowless room about 150 Muslim men and boys sat huddled, bloodied and bruised. Some of the shivering prisoners had raw gashes across their hands and faces, others had broken limbs splayed out at awkward angles. The beatings from police came frequently, according to multiple corresponding accounts; to those who asked for water or closed their eyes in drowsiness or…

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Army general denies request by officer pardoned by Trump to have his Special Forces tab reinstated

Army general denies request by officer pardoned by Trump to have his Special Forces tab reinstated

The Washington Post reports: An Army general has denied a request by an officer pardoned in an open murder case by President Trump to have his Special Forces tab reinstated, setting up a potential flashpoint with the commander in chief. The decoration for retired Army Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn was denied Dec. 3 by Lt. Gen. Francis M. Beaudette, the commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, the Army disclosed Thursday. The service said in statement that it will next…

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In Australia’s burning forests, signs we’ve passed a global warming tipping point

In Australia’s burning forests, signs we’ve passed a global warming tipping point

InsideClimate News reports: As extreme wildfires burn across large swaths of Australia, scientists say we’re witnessing how global warming can push forest ecosystems past a point of no return. Some of those forests won’t recover in today’s warmer climate, scientists say. They expect the same in other regions scarred by flames in recent years; in semi-arid areas like parts of the American West, the Mediterranean Basin and Australia, some post-fire forest landscapes will shift to brush or grassland. More than…

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Trump’s deep state

Trump’s deep state

Politico reports: In recent days, one aide to President Donald Trump has blitzed the media to talk about troop deployments, deterrence and the likelihood of American bombs raining down on Iranian soil. It’s not the man who leads the Pentagon. Instead, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has seized the spotlight amid the escalating U.S. confrontation with Iran. As he’s done so, he’s come across to some observers as an unofficial secretary of defense, overshadowing the actual defense secretary. Pompeo’s omnipresence…

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‘Insulting and demeaning’: Two GOP lawmakers rip Trump administration after Iran briefing

‘Insulting and demeaning’: Two GOP lawmakers rip Trump administration after Iran briefing

NBC News reports: Lawmakers came away with vastly different interpretations of two classified briefings that top Trump administration officials held Wednesday about the airstrike last week that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, with two Republican senators sharply criticizing the officials. “It was probably the worst briefing I’ve seen at least on a military issue in the nine years I’ve served in the United States Senate,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said. Lee said he left the briefing “somewhat unsatisfied” with…

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Arsonist-in-chief: Republicans praise Trump for cooling a crisis of his own making

Arsonist-in-chief: Republicans praise Trump for cooling a crisis of his own making

Politico reports: Capitol Hill breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday as President Donald Trump pulled the nation back from the brink of all-out war with Iran — with even some of the GOP’s staunchest defense hawks applauding Trump’s restrained response to the Iranian counter-attack. “A homerun speech by President Trump about the challenges we face with Iran. It was measured and firm,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s top allies in Congress. On the other end of the…

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The Trump we did not want to see

The Trump we did not want to see

Jamelle Bouie writes: Much of the work of H.P. Lovecraft, an American horror and science fiction writer who worked during the first decades of the 20th century, is defined by individual encounters with the incomprehensible, with sights, sounds and ideas that undermine and disturb reality as his characters understand it. Faced with things too monstrous to be real, but which exist nonetheless, Lovecraftian protagonists either reject their senses or descend into madness, unable to live with what they’ve learned. It…

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Some administration officials believe Iran intentionally missed areas with Americans

Some administration officials believe Iran intentionally missed areas with Americans

CNN reports: There is a growing belief among some Trump administration officials that Iran’s missiles intentionally missed areas populated by Americans when they targeted two Iraqi bases housing US troops early Wednesday local time, multiple administration officials said. Iran fired a number of missiles aimed at the bases in retaliation for the American strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani last week, further escalating tensions between the two countries. Officials have said there were no US casualties as a result…

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U.S. officials knew Iranian missiles were coming hours in advance

U.S. officials knew Iranian missiles were coming hours in advance

The Washington Post reports: The Iranian missile strike on American locations in Iraq on Tuesday was a calibrated event intended to cause minimal American casualties, give the Iranians a face-saving measure and provide an opportunity for both sides to step back from the brink of war, according to senior U.S. officials in Washington and the Middle East. White House officials were bracing as early as Tuesday morning for Iran to respond to the U.S. killing last week of Qasem Soleimani,…

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