Leaked Interior Department database reveals revisionist plans to rewrite American history

Leaked Interior Department database reveals revisionist plans to rewrite American history

Reuters reports: The U.S. Interior Department said a database revealing how President Donald Trump’s administration planned to revise information on key phases of ​American history at national park sites was deliberative and the employees ‌who released it “will be held accountable.” An internal government database first reported by the Washington Post and posted on two public websites on Monday revealed the scope of the Trump administration’s ​effort to revise or remove information on African-American history, LGBT rights, ​climate change and…

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Trita Parsi: ‘Tehran calculates that the war can only end durably if the cost for the U.S. rises dramatically’

Trita Parsi: ‘Tehran calculates that the war can only end durably if the cost for the U.S. rises dramatically’

Trita Parsi tweets: 1. Tehran is not looking for a ceasefire and has rejected outreach from Trump. The reason is that they believe they committed a mistake by agreeing to the ceasefire in June – it only enabled the US and Israel to restock and remobilize to launch war again. If they agree to a ceasefire now, they will only be attacked again in a few months. 2. For a ceasefire to be acceptable, it appears difficult for Tehran to…

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Oil prices soar amid worries of sustained war in Iran

Oil prices soar amid worries of sustained war in Iran

The Washington Post reports: The widening conflict in Iran is shaking financial and energy markets worldwide as tankers in a key shipping corridor are targeted and oil prices begin to soar, threatening to escalate the affordability crunch facing U.S. voters. Major stock indexes recovered midday after a heavy morning of losses. Around 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was slightly in the red and effectively flat. The S&P 500 index also was flat. The Nasdaq tipped into…

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The money behind the war against Iran

The money behind the war against Iran

Judd Legum writes: In private calls over the last several weeks, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) reportedly urged President Trump to attack Iran. Iran is a top regional rival of Saudi Arabia, and MBS had become concerned about Iran’s growing military capabilities. The lobbying campaign achieved success on Saturday, when Trump announced he had begun “major combat operations in Iran.” Trump launched a war even though U.S. intelligence assessed that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United…

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The illusion of control: miscalculation and the road to war with Iran

The illusion of control: miscalculation and the road to war with Iran

Mohammad Yaghi writes: War between the United States, Israel, and Iran has now moved from threat to reality. What had been framed as coercive diplomacy backed by calibrated force has crossed into open interstate confrontation. Yet the underlying logic that produced this outcome has not changed. The road to war was not paved by a sober calculation of costs and benefits, but by an illusion of control: the belief that Washington could coerce Iran into submission through threats, deployments, and…

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The unresolved contradictions that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leaves behind

The unresolved contradictions that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leaves behind

Mehrzad Boroujerdi writes: The 13th-century Persian poet Saadi once offered a prescient warning: “He who would not practice statecraft with his foe will not be able to maintain his rule.” It is a maxim Ayatollah Ali Khamenei chose not to heed. “The enemy” was among the most frequently invoked terms in the lexicon of Iran’s late supreme leader — most often directed at the United States and, at times, Israel. In the end, those very adversaries brought his 37-year rule…

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Israel’s insatiable appetite for war

Israel’s insatiable appetite for war

Orly Noy writes: The siren shattered the silence of Saturday morning across Israel. Not to urge civilians to rush to shelters, but rather to announce the outbreak of war itself — almost like a triumphant fanfare. After more than a week of nerve-wracking uncertainty, tossed between tense anticipation of a war we were told repeatedly was unavoidable, and faint hopes that diplomacy might yet prevail, it was finally upon us. “You can’t step in the same river twice,” goes the…

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This federal judge ruled against Trump. Then the death threats rolled in

This federal judge ruled against Trump. Then the death threats rolled in

  CBS News reports: Federal District Judge John Coughenour was unprepared for what happened after he temporarily blocked President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order last year and called it “blatantly unconstitutional.” He said he faced “dozens if not hundreds” of death threats. “I’ve been at this for 44 years. I have never encountered the hostility toward the judiciary that has existed in this country in the last year,” Coughenour said. “And I don’t think it’s because we’re making bad decisions….

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Strait of Hormuz: If the Iran conflict shuts world’s most important oil chokepoint, global economic chaos could follow

Strait of Hormuz: If the Iran conflict shuts world’s most important oil chokepoint, global economic chaos could follow

By Sarah Schiffling, Hanken School of Economics The reported sinking of several Iranian warships by US missiles in the Gulf of Oman serves as a reminder of the maritime aspect of the conflict which began February 28 with a barrage of Israeli and American missiles targeting Iran. Two other vessels, believed to be tankers, have also been reported as having been hit by missiles, of an as yet undetermined source, in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, underlining the…

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‘Dubai’s nightmare’: Iranian missile and drone strikes shatter calm of Arabian Gulf business hub

‘Dubai’s nightmare’: Iranian missile and drone strikes shatter calm of Arabian Gulf business hub

Middle East Eye reports: Iran unleashed a furious missile and drone assault across the Arabian Gulf on Saturday in response to a surprise US-Israeli attack, but one city in particular appeared to bear the brunt of it: Dubai. The Gulf emirate, one of seven in the UAE, is the region’s good-time capital, where lucrative business deals can be sealed and celebrated. On Saturday, it was engulfed in billowing smoke and flames as missiles and drones rained down on it. The…

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Epic Fury: Death toll from girls’ elementary school bombing in southern Iran reportedly rises to 165

Epic Fury: Death toll from girls’ elementary school bombing in southern Iran reportedly rises to 165

The Guardian reports: The death toll from a missile strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran has risen to 165, according to state media. The IRNA news agency also cited a local prosecutor as saying that 96 people had been wounded in Saturday’s strike in Minab. The strike on school appears to be the worst mass casualty event of the US-Israeli-led bombing campaign on Iran so far. Video and photographs of the aftermath, which have been verified as authentic…

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei brought his country and regime to ruin

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei brought his country and regime to ruin

Barbara Slavin writes: Many if not most successful revolutions boast inspirational leaders followed by less charismatic figures who serve to entrench the new ideology and system of government. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the second-ever supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, exemplified that latter role. Khamenei never had the fervent following of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, and he became increasingly unpopular as his rule dragged on. But after succeeding Khomeini in 1989, Khamenei managed to…

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AI executive Dario Amodei on the red lines Anthropic would not cross

AI executive Dario Amodei on the red lines Anthropic would not cross

  CBS News reports: “It’s about the principle of standing up for what’s right,” said Dario Amodei, CEO of the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, who has found himself at the center of a new kind of firestorm. What’s wrong, in his view, is why the AI company he co-founded has been banned from the federal government. “It feels very punitive and inappropriate, given the amount that we’ve done for U.S. national security,” he said. Anthropic created Claude, an AI chatbot…

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Judges in a Trump stronghold condemn ICE tactics as ‘an assault on the constitutional order’

Judges in a Trump stronghold condemn ICE tactics as ‘an assault on the constitutional order’

Politico reports: Federal judges in one of the Trumpiest states in the country have suddenly become a firewall against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. District court judges in West Virginia describe rampant lawlessness by masked ICE agents, defiance of court orders and a wanton infliction of fear and intimidation by the federal government after the Trump administration deployed a targeted immigration enforcement operation in the state last month. “Operation Country Roads,” a partnership with federal and local law enforcement…

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