www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/20/the-ghost-planes-still-flying-oligarchs-around-the-world/
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The Lincoln Project is asking advertisers to stop and consider this before buying commercial air time on CNN.
— Read on washingtonpress.com/2023/05/17/blowback-cnn-advertisers-get-a-serious-warning-about-branding/ -
UN Report Supports Allegations of Arms Trafficking by Erik Prince to Libya, Prompting Indictment In a significant development, Erik Prince, the prominent
— Read on bnn.network/breaking-news/erik-prince-founder-of-blackwater-faces-indictment-in-austria-for-trafficking-arms-to-libya-in-violation-of-un-arms-embargo/ -
the most imminent threat to Florida public employees’ retirement dollars appears to be the massive state pension investments that have gone to some of the Republican Party’s Wall Street donors under DeSantis’ watch.
— Read on www.levernews.com/desantis-allows-anti-woke-giveaway-to-big-wall-street-donors/ -
How the levers of state—and powerful friends—could help Erdogan win his toughest election.
— Read on www.foreignaffairs.com/turkey/erdogan-turkeys-resilient-autocrat -
FBI special agents descended on Trump Tower III on Collins to carry out a search of unit 4102. It’s owned by a shell company controlled by two Russians.
— Read on www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article275358451.html -
In early May, tensions between the Russian Defense Ministry and Wagner, the private military company close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, burst into the open.
— Read on www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/why-putin-needs-wagnerFor Putin, Wagner has also become a crucial means to rein in the military, which he has long viewed as a potential threat to his rule.
new department had been formed inside the GRU to supervise the activities of private military companies, including Wagner
For the GRU, Wagner provided a convenient deniability to its operations, at a time when Russia was publicly disavowing its direct involvement in eastern Ukraine.
Military contractors had been used by the United States in Iraq, for example, and Wagner bore some similarities to Blackwater, the U.S. military contractor.
started as a secretive, deniable proxy mercenary force, and gradually evolved into a large military unit with operations in several countries, its own artillery and air force, and finally, huge recruiting billboards on the streets of Russian cities, its own film production glorifying its deeds, and a big shiny tower in St. Petersburg for its corporate headquarters
Although Prigozhin has been incessantly promoting his fighters as the most capable fighting force on the Russian side, he has also made a special effort to keep his officers and field commanders anonymous.
Just as important for Wagner is the stance of the FSB, Russia’s main intelligence agency
The most important factor in Prigozhin’s continued role in Ukraine, however, is Putin himself.
the role of Wagner as a counterbalancing force to the military
Wagner is burning through more ammunition than any other Russian unit, which can be justified only as long as Wagner is doing what Prigozhin promised—making advances in Bakhmut
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www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/opinion/supremely-arrogant.html
It’s the greatest gathering of grievances we’ve ever seen on the high court. The woe-is-me bloc of conservative male justices is obsessed with who has wronged them.
It might be an opportune time to hire a Supreme shrink so these resentful men can get some much-needed therapy and stop working out their issues from the bench
Neil Gorsuch is settling a score for his mother.
The Times wrote in an editorial back then: “On becoming the head of the E.P.A., Anne Gorsuch inherited one of the most efficient and capable agencies of government. She has turned it into an Augean stable, reeking of cynicism, mismanagement and decay.”
Alito told The Wall Street Journal that he did not like the way the court’s legitimacy was being questioned. “We are being hammered daily, and I think quite unfairly in a lot of instances. And nobody, practically nobody, is defending us.”
Clarence Thomas, who is still bitter over being outed as a porn-loving harasser of women who worked for him — even though Joe Biden did his best to sweep the corroborating evidence under the Senate rug — was slapped with more revelations of ethics derelictions this past week.
Even though I’ve been writing since Bush v. Gore that the court is full of hacks and the bloom is off the robes, it is still disorienting to see the murk of this Supreme Court.
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Social scientists and other experts have repeatedly shown that the number of guns in a community are directly correlated with the rate of gun violence and gun deaths. Texas has some of the weakest gun laws in the United States.
— Read on www.salon.com/2023/05/09/when-a-mass-shooter-is-a-supremacist-does-it-even-matter/ -
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/05/wagner-russia-ukraine-discord-leak/
While Prigozhin has led Russia’s bloody campaign to capture the eastern Ukrainian city using soldiers of fortune and recently freed convicts, he’s also been locked in a public fight with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who he says have denied his forces ammunition and manpower.
