Presidential classified document scandals should take down America’s secrecy industry

Presidential classified document scandals should take down America’s secrecy industry

David Dayen writes: Somewhere in Plains, Georgia, an aide or 98-year-old Jimmy Carter himself is rifling through old boxes, searching for any document from the late 1970s marked “classified.” I’m not sure what threats there are to the Republic from high-level information about Rhodesia or the Warsaw Pact slowly decomposing in a filing cabinet, but the National Archives is on the case, directing former presidents and vice presidents to scour their properties for any official secrets. (Carter has found classified…

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Sisi is driving Egypt off a cliff

Sisi is driving Egypt off a cliff

Mohammad Fadel writes: Twelve years have now passed since Egyptians bravely took to the streets demanding a right to govern themselves democratically. Some might quibble and claim that the protesters in the center of Cairo, and across so many other cities and towns in Egypt, were not demanding democracy, but something more tangible: “bread, freedom and social justice.” Nearly a decade ago, backers of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s coup claimed the intervention of the military was necessary to preserve the “civic”…

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Protecting endangered species necessitates protecting threatened cultures

Protecting endangered species necessitates protecting threatened cultures

Science News reports: In shallow coastal waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans, a seagrass-scrounging cousin of the manatee is in trouble. Environmental strains like pollution and habitat loss pose a major threat to dugong (Dugong dugon) survival, so much so that in December, the International Union for Conservation of Nature upgraded the species’ extinction risk status to vulnerable. Some populations are now classified as endangered or critically endangered. If that weren’t bad enough, the sea cows are at risk…

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Israel strikes Iran amid international push to contain Tehran

Israel strikes Iran amid international push to contain Tehran

The Wall Street Journal reports: Israel carried out a drone strike targeting a defense compound in Iran, as the U.S. and Israel look for new ways to contain Tehran’s nuclear and military ambitions, according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the operation. Iranian officials said that the country’s air defenses had fended off an attempted attack by three small quadcopters targeting a munitions factory in the city of Isfahan, right next to a site belonging to the Iran Space…

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To fix its problems in Ukraine, Russia turns back to the architect of the war

To fix its problems in Ukraine, Russia turns back to the architect of the war

The New York Times reports: Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the architect of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, took over the day-to-day running of Russia’s war effort this month by convincing his boss that his predecessor was too passive, American and European officials say. But General Gerasimov’s turbocharged strategy is what led to Russia’s problems to begin with, and Moscow still does not have the troops, ammunition or equipment that military officials say it needs to mass the big…

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The narcissism of angry young men

The narcissism of angry young men

Tom Nichols writes: Some years ago, I got a call from an analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center. After yet another gruesome mass shooting (this time, it was Dylann Roof’s attack on a Bible-study group at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine and wounded one), I had written an article about the young men who perpetrate such crimes. I suggested that an overview of these killers showed them, in general, to be young losers who failed…

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U.S. Air Force general predicts war with China in 2025

U.S. Air Force general predicts war with China in 2025

NBC News reports: A four-star Air Force general sent a memo on Friday to the officers he commands that predicts the U.S. will be at war with China in two years and tells them to get ready to prep by firing “a clip” at a target, and “aim for the head.” In the memo sent Friday and obtained by NBC News, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, said, “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me will…

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GOP national sales tax talk backfires, as Democrats see political gold

GOP national sales tax talk backfires, as Democrats see political gold

Politico reports: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has backed his fellow Republicans into a corner with one of the promises he made to his far-right flank to land his job: opening the door to considering fringe legislation that would replace the income tax with a federal sales tax and abolish the IRS. Most GOP members appear determined to distance themselves as much as possible from the idea, and McCarthy himself said this week he doesn’t support the legislation. But Democrats aren’t…

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Tyre Nichols was given impossible orders: 71 commands in 13 minutes

Tyre Nichols was given impossible orders: 71 commands in 13 minutes

The New York Times reports: Police officers unleashed a barrage of commands that were confusing, conflicting and sometimes even impossible to obey, a Times analysis of footage from Tyre Nichols’s fatal traffic stop found. When Mr. Nichols could not comply — and even when he managed to — the officers responded with escalating force. The review of the available footage found that officers shouted at least 71 commands during the approximately 13-minute period before they reported over the radio that…

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How California’s ambitious new climate plan could help speed energy transformation around the world

How California’s ambitious new climate plan could help speed energy transformation around the world

Electrifying trucks and cars and shifting to renewable energy are crucial for California’s zero-emissions future. Sergio Pitamitz / VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images By Daniel Sperling, University of California, Davis California is embarking on an audacious new climate plan that aims to eliminate the state’s greenhouse gas footprint by 2045, and in the process, slash emissions far beyond its borders. The blueprint calls for massive transformations in industry, energy and transportation, as well as changes in institutions and human…

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Pro-Western Petr Pavel sweeps to landslide win in race for Czech presidency

Pro-Western Petr Pavel sweeps to landslide win in race for Czech presidency

The Guardian reports: Petr Pavel, a retired general and former senior Nato commander, has swept to the Czech presidency after a landslide victory over the former prime minister Andrej Babiš in an election overshadowed by rows over the war between Russia and Ukraine. With nearly all the votes counted, returns showed Pavel prevailing by the emphatic margin of 58.3% to 41.68%, the largest ever recorded in a Czech presidential poll and reflecting an advantage of more than 958,000 votes nationwide….

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Inside the extramarital affair and cash-fueled double life of Charles McGonigal

Inside the extramarital affair and cash-fueled double life of Charles McGonigal

Insider reports: One morning in October 2017, Allison Guerriero noticed something unusual on the floor of her boyfriend’s Park Slope, Brooklyn, apartment: a bag full of cash. There it was, lying next to his shoes, near the futon, the kind of bag that liquor stores give out. Inside were bundles of bills, big denominations bound up with rubber bands. It didn’t seem like something he should be carrying around. After all, her boyfriend, Charles F. McGonigal, held one of the…

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Tyre Nichols’s death is evidence that cosmetic change can’t excise the rot of American law enforcement

Tyre Nichols’s death is evidence that cosmetic change can’t excise the rot of American law enforcement

Zak Cheney-Rice writes: The crisis in Memphis is the latest lesson in how limited the most popular reforms are, including those that might have seemed like game-changers not so long ago. Body cameras may have given us visual evidence of Nichols’s deathly beating, but were no deterrent. The federal response is already assuming a familiar shape. “To deliver real change, we must have accountability when law enforcement officers violate their oaths,” wrote Biden on Thursday, years after the criminal convictions…

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