Politics

Politics

There are 1,056 posts filed in Politics (this is page 14 of 106).

How the Russians pretended to be Texans — and Texans believed them – The Washington Post

With each new story of the Russians creating fake online support for Trump I suspect more and more that it was Russian actors behind the fake Mitt Romney Facebook likes of the last election.

In early 2016, while researching some of the most popular U.S. secession groups online, I stumbled across one of the Russian-controlled Facebook accounts that were then pulling in Americans by the thousands.

At the time, I was writing on Russia’s relationship with American secessionists from Texas, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. These were people who had hitched flights to Moscow to swap tactics, to offer advice and to find support. They had found succor in the shadow of the Kremlin.That was how I eventually found my way to the “Heart of Texas” Facebook page (and its @itstimetosecede Twitter feed as well). Heart of Texas soon grew into the most popular Texas secession page on Facebook — one that, at one point in 2016, boasted more followers than the official Texas Democrat and Republican Facebook pages combined. By the time Facebook took the page down recently, it had a quarter of a million followers.

The page started slowly — just a few posts per week. Unlike other secession sites I’d come across, this one never carried any contact information, never identified any of the individuals behind the curtain. Even as it grew, there was nothing to locate it in Texas — or anywhere else, for that matter. It was hard to escape the suspicion that there might be Russian involvement here as well.

Source: How the Russians pretended to be Texans — and Texans believed them – The Washington Post

U.S. and Turkey announce tit-for-tat travel restrictions, a sign of deteriorating alliance – The Washington Post

Now let’s see if saner forces within Turkey and the U.S. can reign in the craziness and thuggishness we’ve seen in U.S.-Turkey relations. This drastic move hopefully will spur some more responsible parties to intervene.

ISTANBUL — The increasingly strained alliance between Turkey and the United States took a sharp downward turn Sunday when both governments abruptly announced they were canceling most visitor visas between the countries, sowing confusion among travelers and exposing a widening rift between the NATO partners.The crisis began when the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, the Turkish capital, announced it was immediately suspending all non­immigrant visa services at diplomatic facilities across Turkey. The move appeared to be retaliatory, coming days after the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrested an employee of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul.

An embassy statement said it was limiting visitors to U.S. missions while it “reassesses” Turkey’s commitment to the security of American personnel — an extraordinary rebuke that underscored a rapidly deteriorating relationship between the longtime allies. Within hours, the Turkish Embassy in Washington released a nearly identical statement announcing its own suspension of nonimmigrant visas for Americans. 

Source: U.S. and Turkey announce tit-for-tat travel restrictions, a sign of deteriorating alliance – The Washington Post

The East India Company: The original corporate raiders | William Dalrymple | World news | The Guardian

A lengthy but compelling account of the East India Company and the dangers of corporate rule.

The painting shows a scene from August 1765, when the young Mughal emperor Shah Alam, exiled from Delhi and defeated by East India Company troops, was forced into what we would now call an act of involuntary privatisation. The scroll is an order to dismiss his own Mughal revenue officials in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and replace them with a set of English traders appointed by Robert Clive – the new governor of Bengal – and the directors of the EIC, who the document describes as “the high and mighty, the noblest of exalted nobles, the chief of illustrious warriors, our faithful servants and sincere well-wishers, worthy of our royal favours, the English Company”. The collecting of Mughal taxes was henceforth subcontracted to a powerful multinational corporation – whose revenue-collecting operations were protected by its own private army.

It was at this moment that the East India Company (EIC) ceased to be a conventional corporation, trading and silks and spices, and became something much more unusual. Within a few years, 250 company clerks backed by the military force of 20,000 locally recruited Indian soldiers had become the effective rulers of Bengal. An international corporation was transforming itself into an aggressive colonial power.

Source: The East India Company: The original corporate raiders | William Dalrymple | World news | The Guardian

How I learnt to loathe England | Prospect Magazine

The Dutch and the British have a lot in common, at first sight. Sea-faring nations with a long and guilty history of colonial occupation and slavery, they are pro free-trade and have large financial service industries—RBS may even move its headquarters to Amsterdam. Both tend to view American power as benign; the Netherlands joined the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Shell, Unilever and Elsevier are just three examples of remarkably successful Anglo-Dutch joint ventures. I say “remarkably” because I’ve learned that in important respects, there is no culture more alien to the Dutch than the English (I focus on England as I’ve no experience with Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland). Echoing the Calvinist insistence on “being true to oneself,” the Dutch are almost compulsively truthful. Most consider politeness a cowardly form of hypocrisy. Bluntness is a virtue; insincerity and backhandedness are cardinal sins.

So let me try to be as Dutch as I can, and say that I left the UK feeling disappointed, hurt and immensely worried. We did not leave because of Brexit. My wife and I are both Dutch and we want our children to grow roots in the country where we came of age. We loved our time in London and have all met people who we hope will become our friends for life. But by the time the referendum came, I had become very much in favour of the UK leaving the EU. The worrying conditions that gave rise to the result—the class divide and the class fixation, as well as an unhinged press, combine to produce a national psychology that makes Britain a country you simply don’t want in your club.

Source: How I learnt to loathe England | Prospect Magazine

How We Found Tom Price’s Private Jets – POLITICO Magazine

A great story on how two dogged reporters uncovered former HHS Secretary Tom Price’s overindulgence of private jet travel.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/APPRIMARY SOURCEHow We Found Tom Price’s Private JetsA tantalizing tip, followed by months of painstaking reporting, revealed the HHS secretary’s extravagant travel habits.

The first tip came from a casual conversation with a source back in May: Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was using private jets for routine travel, possibly in violation of federal travel rules that allowed such flights only when commercial options weren’t available.

But it was a tip and little else—no times, no names of charter services and not even a schedule from a notoriously secretive Cabinet secretary.

So we embarked on a months-long effort to win the trust of sources, both in and outside of HHS, who were in a position to know about the secretary’s travel. This required numerous meetings and phone calls, sometimes after hours, seeking to confirm what the original source acknowledged was just secondhand information. Neither of us had ever reported a story of this difficulty before.

Source: How We Found Tom Price’s Private Jets – POLITICO Magazine

Sonic attacks on diplomats in Cuba: lots of questions, few answers | Miami Herald

The dark arts of intelligence and diplomacy are often compared to a chess match. But a former U.S. diplomat this week turned to a less sophisticated, but perhaps more apt, pastime as a metaphor for the weird, murky confrontation going on between the United States and Cuba.

“Remember that old board game Clue?” mused a former U.S. diplomat earlier this week. “You had to solve a murder by identifying the killer, the weapon and the venue: It was Colonel Mustard, with a knife, in the ballroom.“Well, we’ve got a victim — U.S.-Cuban relations — and a venue, various houses and hotel rooms in Havana. But we haven’t got a suspect or a weapon yet. Not to make a pun, but we don’t have a clue.”

The expulsion of 15 Cuban diplomats from Washington announced on Tuesday, following a State Department decision to pull most personnel out of the American embassy in Havana, leaves diplomatic relations between the countries at half-staff.

Source: Sonic attacks on diplomats in Cuba: lots of questions, few answers | Miami Herald

Breathtaking cluelessness

I just went a few rounds with a friend of a friend on Facebook and it left me aghast. This woman was defending Trump’s Puerto Rico response all the while not knowing what she was talking about. Several times she referred to Puerto Rico as “that country” and mentioned that Trump had “lifted the sanctions” to get the aid flowing.

I couldn’t help but point out that Puerto Rico is, in fact, part of America and that the “sanctions” are actually the Jones Act, the 1920s-era protectionist law that protects the U.S. shipping industry. Her only response was ad hominem attacks which I easily deflected.

I am flabbergasted by her utter cluelessness, coupled with the rabid conviction that she was correct. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Look, it’s okay to not know everything! It takes time to learn stuff. When you’re presented with facts that reveal the gaps in your knowledge, however, you should take the time to fill those gaps. There’s a giant Internet out there and plenty of good, reputable sources that can bring you up to speed. If you don’t trust what you find on the Internet, wander into your local library and ask the nice folks behind the counter for reference materials about your topic. You’d be surprised how far that can get you.

But please try. The country depends on it.

State Department pulls out diplomats, families in wake of Cuba sonic attacks – CNNPolitics

So … who would most benefit from a breakdown in US-Cuba relations? Anyone know? Anyone?

If you said Vladimir Putin, you might be on your way to solving this mystery!

In November, following the US presidential election, American diplomats began to experience a series of strange incidents. As CNN first reported in August, diplomats were awoken late at night in their homes feeling unwell and hearing sounds that resembled insects or metal dragging across the floor.

They were unable to determine the source of the sound, but when they left the room or area they were in the incidents stopped immediately, two US government officials said.

By February, the State Department had concluded their diplomats were the targets of a campaign of harassment and they needed to raise the issue with Cuban officials.

The devices used in the incidents have never been found, two US officials said, but appeared to be a type of sonic weapon that emitted sound waves capable of inflicting physical harm.

But the physical symptoms that people exhibited varied greatly, preventing doctors consulted in the United States from reaching a conclusion about what caused the trauma, two US officials said.

US government technical experts were also baffled. Some affected diplomats had lines of sight to the street in their homes, while others had shrubbery and walls that blocked views of their homes. Some heard loud sounds when the incidents took place, while others heard nothing.

Source: State Department pulls out diplomats, families in wake of Cuba sonic attacks – CNNPolitics

David Crabtree retiring from WRAL TV in late 2018 | News & Observer

David Crabtree

I wish David Crabtree well in his new career in the clergy. On the eve of the Iraq War, he moderated a community forum about how America should respond and I won’t soon forget how bloodthirsty he was for vengeance.

I hope his religious studies have since made him a better person.

WRAL announced on Wednesday that longtime anchor David Crabtree will retire in late 2018.Crabtree has been in TV news for 35 years, taking over as the lead anchor at WRAL when Charlie Gaddy retired in 1994. He is a native of Tennessee who has lived in Raleigh since 1994.

According to WRAL, Crabtree, an ordained deacon, will take a permanent role in the Episcopal Church when he leaves the station. He is currently affiliated with St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Raleigh and is on track to earn a master’s degree in Theological Studies from Duke Divinity School in the spring of 2018.

Crabtree is an award-winning journalist who has interviewed presidents and has reported from the Vatican, political conventions and from the funerals of Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II and Nelson Mandela.

Source: David Crabtree retiring from WRAL TV in late 2018 | News & Observer

Weaponizing sound: Could sonic devices have injured diplomats in Cuba?

Another story of the mystery Cuban sonic weapon. This story focuses more on the auditory effects but neglects the apparent concussions that also seems to be a symptom.

A mysterious illness has been striking people associated with the US Embassy in Cuba — and a secret sonic weapon is rumored to be the source. Over the past year, diplomats in Cuba have experienced an unusual collection of symptoms that range from hearing loss, vertigo, and nausea to concussions, CBS News reported.Yesterday, the mystery grew even more complex when the Associated Press reported that the number of US victims has climbed to 21 people. Canadian diplomatic households were affected as well, the AP says. The Cuban government has denied involvement, and no “piece of equipment” that might be causing the symptoms has been discovered yet, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert told reporters.

Source: Weaponizing sound: Could sonic devices have injured diplomats in Cuba?