COMMON DREAMS: Top News: Who Wants a Wider War?

 

'The Guy Is a Hero': IRS Contractor Who Leaked Trump Tax Returns Gets Max Sentence

"Billionaires control our lives and our government and pay... lower tax rates than the rest of us, but this is the bad guy who should be punished with a five-year prison sentence?"
https://www.commondreams.org/news/tax-returns-of-donald-trump

20+ NGOs Condemn 'Reckless' Decision to Cut Off UNRWA Aid

"Countries must reverse these funding suspensions, uphold their duties towards the Palestinian people, and scale up humanitarian assistance for civilians in dire need in Gaza and the region."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/unrwa-funding-2667115244

Biden White House Says 'We Don't Want a Wider War.' Analysts Say 'Too Late'

"But the U.S. can snap to its senses, end the Gaza war, and climb down from pointless escalations across the Middle East," said one observer.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-middle-east-war

Israel Ministers Call for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza at Settler Conference

"The colonial meeting in Jerusalem poses a blatant challenge to the International Court of Justice decision, accompanied by public incitement to forcibly displace Palestinians," the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/israeli-ministers-settler-conference

Ocasio-Cortez: US Should Restore UNRWA Funding 'Immediately'

"Among an organization of 13,000 U.N. aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ocasio-cortez-unrwa

US Hawks Demand War With Iran After Attack on American Troops in Jordan

"After years of working to block and undermine diplomatic alternatives, these people may be closer than ever to realizing their dream of war with Iran."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-war-iran

'Relentless Hate': Late 2023 Saw Surge in Anti-Muslim Crimes, Discrimination

"The way to stop the hate is to end the apartheid, occupation, and genocide occurring in Palestine," said one CAIR leader.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/rise-in-islamophobia

Summer Lee Challenger Says Constituents 'Have No Families... Live in Squalor'

"This is how A LOT of politicians on both sides of the aisle feel about disadvantaged communities," said Nina Turner. "They usually don't say it out loud, though."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/summer-lee-challenger-says-constituents-have-no-families-live-in-squalor

'Dangerous': Pelosi Calls for FBI to Investigate Cease-Fire Supporters

"She is calling for effectively more surveillance and potential criminalization of protestors by suggesting (falsely) that they have foreign links," said one critic.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ceasefire-2667108639

Trump Fraud Case Finding Suggests 'Major Tax Evasion': Watchdog

A court-appointed monitor found that a $48 million loan Trump has long claimed he took out "never existed."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-tax-evasion

POLITICO Nightly: Peter Navarro was his own worst enemy

BY ANKUSH KHARDORI Peter Navarro, an advisor to former President Donald Trump, speaks to reporters after being found guilty of contempt of Congress at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington on Thursday. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images CONTEMPTIBLE — Peter Navarro has never been particularly well known for his tact or humility . So it was hardly a surprise to see the obstreperous former Trump White House advisor emerge from a federal courthouse in Washington D.C. Thursday afternoon after his conviction for contempt of Congress and present himself as some sort of martyr. “I said from the beginning I am willing to go to prison to settle this issue,” he said , “but I also know that the likelihood of my going to prison is relatively small because we are right on this issue.” The “issue” is whether a former White House official can completely blow off a congressional subpoena after his boss has left office and after the sitting president has made clear that he is not invoking executive privilege over the relevant communications. Much as Navarro might like it to be, this is not the high-minded, momentous constitutional issue that he is claiming it is. How did he get here? The short answer is that Navarro basically did this to himself. By late 2021, the House January 6 committee was deep into its investigation into Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but some witnesses had proven unwilling to cooperate or comply with subpoenas. It was not clear whether or to what extent the Justice Department would be willing to prosecute referrals for contempt of Congress under the circumstances, but the first such prosecution emerged with Steve Bannon in November 2021 . At that point, everyone was on notice: The DOJ was not simply going to look away or slow-walk the criminal referrals from the January 6 committee on this issue. The following month, the House held former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt . Then, in April 2022, the House voted to hold both Navarro and Trump social media manager Dan Scavino in contempt as well. Navarro was indicted by the Justice Department in June. Given the timeline, it seems clear that Navarro could have avoided his prosecution in a variety of different ways. He could have attempted to comply with the subpoena for documents by producing a log of responsive material — even if he believed the underlying material was protected by executive privilege. He could have complied with the subpoena for testimony by showing up and invoking various privileges and protections as he and his lawyers deemed appropriate, including both executive privilege and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Those are the sorts of things that other people did. Meadows and Scavino, for instance, appear to have ultimately avoided prosecution because their lawyers engaged somewhat with the committee and, in Meadows’ case, produced some documents on his behalf. Navarro, for his part, was firmly defiant from the start. If at some point Navarro thought that he might be able to call the bluff of either the committee or the Justice Department, that hope should have dissipated as soon as Bannon was indicted. After that, it was not much of a leap to expect prosecutors to treat Navarro similarly. To be sure, the two differed in one way — Navarro was actually working at the White House after the 2020 election, while Bannon had left years earlier — but that was not enough to deter prosecutors. Navarro, of course, remains defiant. He is convinced that his case is eventually headed to the Supreme Court (which is questionable) and he now awaits sentencing. At the moment, it is unclear whether the presiding judge will allow Navarro to remain out on bail pending his appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is what happened to Bannon . For the time being, a fairly clear lesson has emerged from the Justice Department’s handling of these cases: You may be able to screw around a bit with Congress and perhaps even string them along to avoid fully complying with their subpoenas. You cannot, however, completely thumb your nose at them and expect to avoid prosecution. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at ankush.khardori@gmail.com .   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO APP: Stay in the know with the POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS  – DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID .     WHAT'D I MISS? — Pelosi will seek reelection: The San Francisco Democrat and first female speaker of the House told volunteers today that she would seek reelection in 2024 , extending a 36-year House career and freezing her would-be California successors in a long-standing holding pattern. Shortly before announcing on Twitter, Pelosi told volunteers she would run again at a breakfast for them near downtown San Francisco, at the lodge of a local union for plumbers and pipefitters. She chose that venue because she wanted to tell her “closest supporters” in labor first, according to a close adviser who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. She has no other public events planned today, the person added. — Alito rejects call to recuse in tax case: Justice Samuel Alito is emphatically rejecting calls for him to recuse himself from a closely watched tax case because he sat for interviews with a prominent conservative lawyer that became attention-grabbing articles for The Wall Street Journal opinion page. In an unusual four-page statement accompanying a routine Supreme Court order list Friday morning, Alito turned down the request from Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats that he step aside from the case the court has agreed to hear this term involving the constitutionality of wealth taxes. “There is no valid reason for my recusal in this case,” Alito wrote. “There was nothing out of the ordinary about the interviews in question.” — DeSantis-packed court skeptical of Florida’s long-standing abortion protections: The conservative majority on Florida’s Supreme Court today expressed skepticism that long-standing abortion protections, enshrined in the state’s Constitution, were intended to safeguard the procedure . The justices heard arguments in a legal challenge to Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which provides no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. The state’s GOP-led Legislature approved it and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law in 2022 — and have since approved an even more restrictive ban at six weeks of pregnancy. NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 SHAKY GROUND   — A number of Donald Trump’s allies are growing concerned that his lead in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses isn’t built to last , reports NBC News. Trump supporters are trying to beef up the campaign’s lean Iowa operation with more experienced hires. They are scrambling to fill roles handling regional political work around the state — jobs that “should have been filled six to eight months ago,” according to one Republican operative based in Iowa. And they are preparing for months of battle against Republican presidential opponents who trail badly in the polls but have built better machinery to find and secure votes, according to interviews with a dozen sources including longtime Trump campaign allies, state and local officials in Iowa and GOP strategists. ARM IN ARM — Not long ago, it looked like Kristi Noem’s star was flaming out. Following a turbulent first term, the South Dakota governor elected not to run for president, and the media turned its focus elsewhere. But if the 2024 primary is in part a tryout to be former President Donald Trump’s next running mate, Noem’s national standing appears to have been rekindled . She’s suddenly front and center in the veepstakes. Noem is running a $5 million national ad blitz — a taxpayer-funded effort backed by Covid aid designed to lure more workers to South Dakota, but with the benefit of increasing her profile. She is doing regular hits on Fox News. And, perhaps most important, she is avoiding any of the pitfalls of a presidential run of her own — no hardball questions about Jan. 6 or Trump’s indictments and no pressure to perform in a debate. Instead, at a sold-out GOP fundraiser in Rapid City, S.D. today, the governor will stand beside Trump as she introduces him in her home state. A person familiar with the plans told POLITICO on Thursday night that she would use the occasion to endorse the former president. THREAT ASSESSMENT — During his 2018 run for governor, Ron DeSantis not only pledged to protect Florida’s Everglades and waterways, he also acknowledged that humans played a role in exacerbating the climate change that threatened them , writes the New York Times. “I think that humans contribute to what goes on around us,” Mr. DeSantis told the editorial board of The Florida Times-Union, a Jacksonville newspaper. “The resiliency and some of the sea-level rise, we have to deal with that,” he added, although he pointedly said he was “not Al Gore,” referring to the former Democratic vice president who reinvented himself as a climate change activist. Now running for president five years later, the Florida governor no longer repeats his previous view that humans affect the climate, even as scientists say that the hurricanes battering his state are being intensified by man-made global warming. AROUND THE WORLD Supporters of Niger's National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland gather outside Niger and French airbase in Niamey on Sept. 3. | AFP via Getty Images HALF MEASURES   — The U.S. military is preparing to cut its presence in Niger nearly in half in the next few weeks, as troops move out of the capital of Niamey amid widespread protests, according to two Defense Department officials with direct knowledge of the move, writes Lara Seligman . DOD recently began repositioning a number of forces away from the airport at Niamey to a second, smaller base at Agadez, some 500 miles away, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday. As a result, the overall number of troops in Niger could drop from 1,200 before the July 26 coup to somewhere “right in the middle” of 500 to 1,000 in the next few weeks, said one of the DOD officials, who like others interviewed for this story was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive plans. This would be the first significant movement of U.S. troops out of Niger since a military junta seized power in late July. The Biden administration has yet to officially call the incident a “coup,” a label that would require ending military and other aid to the country. However, the Pentagon has suspended training operations with Nigerien forces. Meanwhile, flights out of Agadez, a U.S.-funded drone base key to hunting militants in the region, have been sporadic. Any major reduction in U.S. military presence in Niger would be a blow to the counterterrorism fight in the Sahel. The French military, which also has a major presence in Niger, is reportedly in talks with the military junta to withdraw its forces. The DOD officials cautioned that no final decision has been made on the exact number of U.S. troops that remain in Niger after the repositioning. That figure depends on how many can be accommodated at Agadez and how many Pentagon leaders decide are needed to continue the counterterrorism mission, said the officials.   Enter the “room where it happens”, where global power players shape policy and politics, with Power Play. POLITICO’s brand-new podcast will host conversations with the leaders and power players shaping the biggest ideas and driving the global conversations, moderated by award-winning journalist Anne McElvoy. Sign up today to be notified of the first episodes in September – click here .     NIGHTLY NUMBER 39 The number of people that the special grand jury investigating efforts by Donald Trump and others to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results recommended indictments against, more than twice the 19 people who have been indicted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office. Included in the names of people recommended to be indicted but who escaped prosecution was South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, according to the newly unsealed Georgia special grand jury’s report . RADAR SWEEP CUTTING THE CORD — For about 15 million Charter Spectrum customers in the United States, all channels associated with Disney — including ESPN, right as the football season starts and the U.S. Open is on — turned off abruptly recently. Contract disputes between cable companies and the channels they carry are not new, but this one is stretching on and has implications for the future of cable in general , given that many consumers use it largely to watch live sports. So, how did we get here? In his newsletter Stratechery, Ben Thompson explores the history of ESPN, the cable bundle and why we’re at these crossroads. PARTING IMAGE On this date in 1975: Amid applause, United Federation of Teachers president Albert Shanker takes the podium at the start of the teachers' contract vote in Madison Square Garden in New York. Twenty-five thousand union members jammed the auditorium to vote overwhelmingly to strike after 15,000 teachers were fired in New York City due to a fiscal crisis. The strike ultimately lasted five days. | Ron Frehm/AP Photo Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   FOLLOW US

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RSN: FOCUS: Tim Dickinson | A Little Attempted Murder Isn't Halting the GOP's Pelosi Bashing

 

 

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FOCUS: Tim Dickinson | A Little Attempted Murder Isn't Halting the GOP's Pelosi Bashing
Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone
Dickinson writes: "Republicans can't stop, won't stop their decades-long demonization of the Speaker of the House."

Republicans can't stop, won't stop their decades-long demonization of the Speaker of the House

When Rep. Steve Scalise (R. La.) was shot at a congressional baseball practice in 2017, then Speaker Paul Ryan stood on the House floor to insist — to bipartisan applause — that “an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.” Nancy Pelosi took her turn at the dais to put partisanship aside and insist: “I identify myself with the remarks of the Speaker.”

We are living in different times.

A violent, right-wing extremist broke into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home in the early hours of October 28. The intruder — who carried tape, rope, and a hammer — allegedly sought tie up and torture the Speaker of the House. She wasn’t home, so he instead fractured the skull of her husband Paul. The assailant, Paul DePape, now faces attempted murder and attempted kidnapping charges.

Far from suspending personal attacks on Pelosi, Republicans are doubling down on a decades-long campaign to demonize the Speaker. A review of Facebook and Instagram political advertising by Rolling Stone finds more than a dozen candidates and special interest groups continuing to blast the Speaker, using dehumanizing and inflammatory rhetoric that accuses Pelosi of being a danger to the nation. (This is in addition to more mundane spots criticizing Democratic spending on Pelosi’s watch, or calls for voters to “Fire Pelosi.”)

One GOP senator accused Pelosi of spending millions to “kill true American conservatives.” Even after the invasion of the Speaker’s home, the NRA continued to run an ad featuring a picture of her San Francisco residence, with a voiceover intoning: “Nancy Pelosi lives here.”

Such messages are coming from the top of the party. The Congressional Leadership Fund — the Superpac allied with GOP minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who seeks to replace Pelosi as Speaker — began running ads, after the attack on Paul Pelosi, on behalf GOP candidates with the message: “Biden, Pelosi, and Democrats are DESTROYING our country.” (CLF did not return a message seeking comment.)

An ad by Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Trump loving member of GOP House leadership, that ran through October 31st declared: “Nancy Pelosi only cares about furthering the RADICAL liberal agenda. Her policies will DESTROY our country and CRUSH hard-working Americans, like YOU.”

Through Oct. 31st, Sen. John Kennedy (R. La.) ran a fundraising ad that alleged “Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are spending millions and millions of dollars to try to kill true American conservatives.” Though he made no clarifying remarks, the folksy Kennedy appeared to mean on the airwaves, instead of literally. “I’m asking you to chip in a few of your hard earned dollars,” he added. “I promise it’ll go to fight the radical left.”

Republicans who chose not to respond to the news of the attack on Pelosi’s husband by pulling their attack ads, nonetheless launched time-sensitive spots — pegged to Halloween. Rep. Randy Feenstra of Iowa ran an ad with a darkened picture of Pelosi accusing her of: “Haunting Our Nation”

One pro-Trump congressional candidate from North Carolina, Sandy Smith, started running an ad on Oct. 31 that tarred the Speaker as an aggressor, decrying “despicable attacks by Nancy Pelosi.”

Special interest groups are also getting in to the ill-timed act. A group called Iowa Gun Owners targeted Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne claiming she’s “JOINED NANCY PELOSI’S WAR” against “law abiding gun owners.”

The National Riffle Association — to this day — is running an ad that seeks to foment resentment of politicians who can afford homes in wealthy enclaves — by showing an actual picture of the Speaker’s home, and telling viewers, “Nancy Pelosi lives here.”

While sexism is always a strong subtext of GOP attack ads against Pelosi, Heritage Action went head with an ad that makes it text, with a spot showing Pelosi in pearls, with the message: “Don’t give Nancy the credit card for another year.”

Despite relying on anti-Pelosi ads for decades to inflame the anger if their base, Republican leaders are now insisting that such propaganda has no real-world effect in triggering violence. RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel told Fox News Sunday: “You can’t say people saying, ‘Let’s fire Pelosi’ or ‘Let’s take back the House’ is saying, ‘Go do violence.’”

For her part, Pelosi spoke to Rolling Stone during the runup to the last midterm election in 2018, before she took the Speaker’s gavel back from Republicans, about her role as a partisan boogeywoman. “They come after me,” she insisted, “because I’m effective.”

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