Dennis Aftergut and Walter H. White, Jr. write: Jamie Dimon issued what CNN characterized as a “warning to Democrats” this week. During a CNBC interview on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum at Davos, the JPMorgan Chase CEO said that “Donald Trump was right about some critical issues,” so Democrats should not too quickly dismiss Trump’s base as a cult of personality. The danger in Dimon’s remark lies as much in what he did not say as in what he…
BREAKING: Netanyahu just declared “Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea.” Ruling Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza forever, until they’re killed or driven out. Endless occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Will this be your legacy @JoeBiden? pic.twitter.com/e2DcSaIhTK — IfNotNow🔥✡️ (@IfNotNowOrg) January 18, 2024 The New Republic reports: Invoking a phrase that has recently touched off moral panics whenever it’s been uttered by a college sophomore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday promised…
HuffPost reports: Democrats in the House of Representatives are discussing asking President Joe Biden for the resignation of Brett McGurk, his deeply controversial Middle East adviser, according to a Democratic lawmaker and a senior congressional aide. Led by progressives who see McGurk as driving a counterproductive Middle East policy with an unacceptable human rights toll, the effort would take the form of a letter to Biden from a group of House Democrats, they said. A draft has already been written…
As the U.S. launches a fifth round of missile strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, Walter Isaacson digs into the roots of this crisis with Elisabeth Kendall, a Middle East specialist and author who also is Mistress of Cambridge University’s Girton College.
RFE/RL reports: Iran has condemned what it called a “disproportionate and unacceptable” attack by Pakistan on its territory, which came in response to an Iranian strike, raising fears of escalating military exchanges between the two neighbors. While criticizing Islamabad for the scale of the attack, Iran’s Foreign Ministry also appeared to try and allay concerns of rising tensions, striking a conciliatory tone in its statement on January 18 by referring to Pakistan as a “friend and brother.” Pakistani warplanes launched…
The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday in a set of cases that could pave the way for its conservative supermajority to undercut how American society imposes rules on businesses, advancing a key goal of the conservative legal movement. Such a ruling would make it easier to challenge regulations across a gamut of issues, like keeping the air and water clean; ensuring that food, drugs, cars and consumer products are safe; and much more. The…
Kimberly Wehle writes: There’s been a lot of attention paid to the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for actions taken while president, a judgment that will have big implications for the 2024 presidential campaign and special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president on charges related to Jan. 6. But there’s a sleeping giant of a case also percolating in the Supreme Court that’s even more likely than the immunity issue to…
Live Science reports: Mouse, insect or worm — in all these creatures, the same principle guides the formation of super strong connections between neurons in the brain, a new study confirms. The research helps validate the idea that, regardless of species, there’s a universal mechanism that underlies how brain networks form. Different animals carry contrasting numbers of neurons in their brains, ranging from hundreds in worms to tens of billions in humans. Neurons form connections with each other, called synapses,…
The Daily Beast reports: The Middle East is sitting on a powder keg and the longer the tensions continue to escalate the greater chance of the region spiraling to a point where Iran and the U.S. could be drawn into a full-blown war through their respective proxies. Iran entered the conflict directly for the first time Monday night, hitting Israeli and ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. While U.S. and U.K. forces have carried out strikes on Houthi military targets…
CNBC reports: Within 24 hours, Iran launched missile and drone strikes on targets in three countries — Iraq, Syria and Pakistan — and took the extraordinary step of announcing its responsibility for the attacks, triggering anger from its neighbors. The developments have heightened concerns over the possibility of a wider Middle East conflict, as the Israel-Hamas war and daily Israeli bombardment of the Gaza enclave passes the 100-day mark. Baghdad recalled its ambassador to Iran after the Monday night attack…
Nataliya Gumenyuk writes: New Year’s Eve is an important holiday in Ukraine. At the end of December, I asked my sister how she would be celebrating this year. “In the bomb shelter,” she said, matter-of-factly. She planned to cook sandwiches, which would be easier to carry down to the safe room from the 10th floor if there was an air-raid siren. In 2023 there were more than 6,000 air alerts in Ukraine. Last month alone, Russia launched some 624 drones…
Grist reports: Imagine if you could walk from your house to anywhere you needed to go in less than 15 minutes: the pharmacy, the bakery, the gym, and then back to the bakery. In a certain, conspiracy-addled corner of the internet, this urban planning concept of “15-minute cities” gets a shady, sinister gloss. Conspiracy theorists evoke COVID restrictions and tout efforts to create walkable cities as steps toward “climate lockdowns.” They warn of a plot by the World Economic Forum…
Dennis Aftergut and Laurence E Tribe write: On Friday, District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a new order in the Donald Trump classified documents case adding to the mountain of evidence that she is firmly in the former president’s pocket. Trump appointed Cannon in 2020 and the Senate confirmed her appointment in the days after he lost the 2020 election. It’s deeply offensive to the rule of law for judges to bend the law to benefit those who put them on…
Politico reports: Election officials across the U.S. are confident they can overcome foreign and domestic hacking threats to run a secure election this November. They’re far less sanguine that Americans will believe them. And they’re terrified of the backlash from those who don’t accept the results. “I’m scared to death” about the level of voter distrust heading into 2024, said Mark Earley, the supervisor of elections in Leon County, Florida, which includes the capital of Tallahassee. Earley’s comments were echoed…