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      Durham disclosures further undermine Gabbard’s claims of plot against Trump

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      Tulsi Gabbard, the director of US national intelligence, hoped to uncover evidence that Barack Obama and his national security team conspired to undermine Donald Trump in a slow-motion coup.But if her crusade was aimed at proving that Obama embarked on a “treasonous conspiracy” to falsely show that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election to help Trump, Gabbard made a mistake. A previously classified annexe to a report by another special counsel, John Durham – appointed towards the end of Trump’s first presidency – has further undermined Gabbard’s case.It was a quixotic enterprise from the start.After all, the 2019 report from Robert Mueller, the original special counsel appointed to investigate the Russia allegations, and a bipartisan five-volume report the following year from the Senate intelligence committee – then chaired by Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state – both affirmed the offending January 2017 intelligence community assessment, which expressed “high confidence” in Russian interference.Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, seemed to validate the intelligence’s premise in 2018 when, standing beside Trump at a news conference in Helsinki, he admitted wanting him to win.The newly unclassified 29-page document from Durham, made public this week, contains a deflating conclusion for Gabbard. It confirms that Russian spies were behind the emails that were originally released as the result of a Russian cyber-hack of internal Democratic information channels and which Trump supporters believed showed the campaign of Hillary Clinton, his 2016 opponent, conspiring to accuse him of colluding with Moscow.“The office’s best assessment is that the July 25 and July 27 emails that purport to be from Benardo were ultimately a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the US-based thinktanks,” Durham writes. He is referring to Leonard Benardo, of the Open Society Foundation, funded by George Soros, a philanthropist and bete noire of Trump’s Maga base.One of the emails purportedly from Benardo proposes a plan “to demonize Putin and Trump” and adds: “Later the FBI will put more oil on the fire.”That message and others, including from a Clinton foreign policy aide, Julianne Smith, became part of the so-called “Clinton Plan intelligence”. Benardo and Smith disputed ever writing such emails.In his 2023 report annexe, released on Thursday in heavily redacted form, Durham at least upholds Benardo’s disavowal – concluding that it has been cobbled together from other individuals’ emails to produce something more incriminating than the actuality.For Gabbard, who is feverishly trying to prove the existence of a “deep state” determined to sabotage Trump, emails suspected to have been confected by Russia is hardly a brilliant look in her evidence package.Some former intelligence insiders find that unsurprising – dismissing the idea as a Trump-inspired fiction. “Trump is lying when he speaks of a ‘deep state’,” said Fulton Armstrong, a retired CIA analyst who served under Democratic and Republican administrations. “But if there were one, it would not be Democrat. The culture of that world is deeply Republican.”The national intelligence director – who has never served in the intelligence services or sat on its eponymous congressional committee when she was in the House of Representatives – is likely to see Durham’s finding as immaterial to her quest to put Obama officials on trial for “manufacturing” intelligence.But Gabbard’s insistence – echoing her boss’s view – on the existence of a plot to torpedo Trump was dismissed on Friday by John Brennan, the CIA director under Obama, who told the New Yorker that Obama issued instructions that intelligence showing Russian meddling to be kept hush-hush, at least until polling day, to ensure a fair election.“He made very clear to us [that] he wanted us to try to uncover everything the Russians were doing, but also not to do anything that would in any way interfere in the election,” Brennan said.Gabbard has cited a 2020 House of Representatives intelligence committee report – endorsed only by its Republican members – challenging the assertion that Putin wanted to Trump to win.However, Michael Van Landingham, one of the CIA authors of the 2017 intelligence assessment now in her crosshairs, said credible intelligence cast the Russian leader’s motives in an unambiguous light.“The primary evidence to get to Putin’s mindset was a clandestine source that said, essentially, when Putin realized that Clinton would win the election, he ordered an influence campaign against Hillary Clinton,” Van Landingham told PBS News Hour.“Then we saw a series of events that happened with the hacked US materials by the Russian special services or intelligence services to leak those materials similar to the information a clandestine source had provided. At the same time, we saw lots of members of the Russian media portraying Donald Trump in a more positive light.“There was other information … collected by the US intelligence community … over time, having a high-quality, clandestine source telling you that Putin was counting on Trump’s victory, having members of the Russian state saying Trump would be better to work with because of his views on Russia that don’t represent the US establishment, all of those things gave us high confidence that Putin wanted Trump to win.” More

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      India to still buy oil from Russia despite Trump threats, say officials

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      Indian oil refineries will continue to buy oil from Russia, officials have said, before threatened US sanctions next week against Moscow’s trading partners over the war in Ukraine.Media reports on Friday had suggested India, a big energy importer, would stop buying cheap Russian oil. Trump later told reporters that such a move would be “a good step” if true.“I understand that India is no longer going to be buying oil from Russia,” he said. “That’s what I heard. I don’t know if that’s right or not. That is a good step. We will see what happens.”However, official sources in India, quoted by the news agency ANI, rebutted Trump’s claim, saying Indian oil companies had not paused Russian imports and that supply decisions were based on “price, grade of crude, inventories, logistics and other economic factors”.Trump’s remarks came a day after the White House announced tariffs of 25% on all Indian goods, along with a penalty for buying arms and energy from Russia amid the war in Ukraine.Trump has given an 8 August deadline for Vladimir Putin to stop the war or risk further sanctions on tariffs on countries that import Russian oil.Earlier this week, Reuters reported that Indian state-owned refineries had suspended Russian oil purchases amid the tariff threats and narrowing price discounts.But on Saturday, the New York Times cited two unnamed senior Indian officials who said there had been no change in Indian government policy related to importing Russian oil. One said the government had “not given any direction to oil companies” to cease buying oil from Russia.“These are long-term oil contracts,” one of the sources said. “It is not so simple to just stop buying overnight.”The sources cited by ANI said Indian oil refineries operated in full compliance with international norms, and that Russian oil had never been directly sanctioned by the US or EU. “Instead, it was subjected to a G7-EU price-cap mechanism designed to limit revenue while ensuring global supplies continued to flow.”They added: “India’s purchases have remained fully legitimate and within the framework of international norms.”The sources also noted that if India had not “absorbed discounted Russian crude combined with Opec+ production cuts of 5.8 mb/d [millions of barrels a day], global oil prices could have surged well beyond the March 2022 peak of US$137/bbl [a barrel], intensifying inflationary pressures worldwide”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRussia is the top oil supplier to India, responsible for about 35% of the country’s supplies. India says that as a major energy importer it must find the cheapest supplies to protect its population against rising costs.On Friday, India’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said: “We look at what is available in the markets, what is on offer, and also what is the prevailing global situation or circumstances.”Jaiswal added that India had a “steady and time-tested partnership” with Russia.This partnership has been a point of contention for the White House, with Trump posting on Truth Social on 30 July that while India was “our friend”, it had always bought most of its military equipment from Russia and was “Russia’s largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE – ALL THINGS NOT GOOD!”In a second post, Trump added: “I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care.”Ukraine’s military said on Saturday it had hit oil facilities inside Russia, including a refinery in Ryazan, causing a fire on its premises. The strike also hit an oil storage facility, a military airfield for drones and an electronics factory. More

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      Ghislaine Maxwell: could talking about Epstein be her get out of jail free card?

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      Since Ghislaine Maxwell met with federal prosecutors last week, the imprisoned British socialite’s legal team has portrayed her as a beacon of truth willing to discuss all matters related to her child sex-trafficking co-conspirator Jeffrey Epstein’s many crimes. “Ghislaine answered every single question asked of her over the last day and a half. She answered those questions honestly, truthfully, to the best of her ability,” attorney David Oscar Markus told reporters. “She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question.”Maxwell’s highly unusual two-day sit-down with the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche – who served as Donald Trump’s criminal defense attorney before working for his justice department – came as the US president tiptoes through a political minefield related to Epstein and his own social links to the disgraced former financier.But Blanche’s meeting – held amid rumors and denials of a pardon for Maxwell shortly before her sudden move on Friday to a Texas prison – did not just show Trump’s flagging efforts at damage control over the Epstein scandal. Maxwell is simultaneously pursuing several other strategies to be freed from her 20-year federal prison sentence.And, some experts believe, Maxwell’s ultimate aim is probably not really revealing the whole truth and everything she knows about Epstein, Trump and other powerful figures. Instead, it is all about earning her freedom.Maxwell’s team is pushing the US supreme court to consider her appeal, which contends that she was shielded from prosecution in Epstein’s controversial 2007 plea agreement – an argument that has been opposed by the same justice department that has now met with her.Maxwell is also trying to make the most of a congressional subpoena, threatening to invoke her fifth amendment right against self-incrimination unless she is given immunity. Her legal team has also suggested clemency – which Trump could grant immediately.This broad-spectrum approach, which several longtime defense attorneys said represented sound legal strategy, has prompted skepticism about whether any discussions reflect an actual desire to reveal truth. More, Maxwell’s track record of alleged lying undermines whatever truths Trump officials claim they want to reveal in highly publicized meetings.“If I were representing her, I would be doing exactly the same thing. The supreme court petition has virtually no chance of success. The issues raised are not novel or of general relevance to other cases,” said Ron Kuby, a longtime defense attorney whose practice focuses on civil rights.Kuby told the Guardian that the supreme court agrees to take on “only the smallest fraction” of petitions. “Filing a supreme court petition is akin to playing the lotto, you can’t win unless you play, but your likelihood of winning is slim, so it’s a last-ditch effort that defendants use when they have enough money for full due process.”The parallel strategy of actively pursuing clemency with the Trump administration is sound because Trump could commute her sentence or issue a pardon, Kuby said. “Because these are all federal convictions, he can let her out of jail tomorrow,” he added.As for why Maxwell would seem willing to shed light on Epstein despite a low likelihood of a positive outcome, “she has nothing to lose.“The question isn’t ‘why would she meet with them’? She’ll do anything for people who can help with this,” Kuby said.Eric Faddis, a trial attorney and founding partner of the Colorado firm Varner Faddis, voiced similar sentiments about Maxwell’s strategy.“For anyone who’s been sentenced to 20 years in prison, it would behoove them to explore all potential avenues to try and better their legal position, and it looks like that’s what Maxwell is doing here,” Faddis said.Other legal experts agree.“Maxwell’s attorneys are doing everything they can to keep her out of prison,” said John Day, a former prosecutor in New Mexico who founded the John Day Law Office.The Epstein controversy swirling around Trump may prove an excellent opportunity that few could have foreseen.“This is a moment in time that wasn’t there before, where she suddenly has an opening to try to get a change in her situation,” Day said. “Up until the Epstein case resurfaced and the Epstein-Trump issues came to the forefront of people’s attention, Maxwell was just doing her time.“Suddenly, she is trying to make the case that she has information, and she has information that’s worth trading for, and she’s hoping, her lawyers are hoping, that somehow someone is going to decide that it’s worth giving her a break.”Should Maxwell receive any favorable outcome, it might do little to promote truth and much to foment uncertainty.“If there is some kind of a deal that came out of the nine hours that Todd Blanche met with her, then any information that comes out of that is always going to be seen in the context of ‘what was the deal?’” Day said.Indeed, Trump’s handling of the Epstein files has done little but sow doubt. The Trump justice department released a memo insisting there was no Epstein client list, and decided not to release extensive case files, despite his campaign promise to do so.This backtracking on releasing documents helped fan the flames of controversy that came after the publication of a Wall Street Journal article claiming that Trump contributed a “bawdy” letter to a birthday present for Epstein – compiled by Maxwell.Shortly after the story ran, Trump announced that he had directed his justice department to request the unsealing of grand jury transcripts in Epstein and Maxwell’s criminal cases.This purported push for transparency, vis-a-vis Bondi’s request for unsealing, does not appear to have quelled backlash against Trump. The Wall Street Journal on 23 July reported that Bondi told Trump his name appeared in the Epstein files on multiple occasions.Epstein, whom prosecutors stated abused girls as young as 14, had long enjoyed the company of numerous high-profile men in his circle – among them Trump and Britain’s Prince Andrew. Epstein killed himself in jail awaiting trial six years ago.Trump’s camp has insisted that a pardon is not in the works, with a senior administration official saying: “No leniency is being given or discussed. That’s just false. The president himself has said that clemency for Maxwell is not something he is even thinking about at this time.”But at other times, Trump’s comments on the issue have raised eyebrows, with him saying: “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.” He has also remarked: “Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it” and that “Right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.”Top congressional Republicans are toeing the line when it comes to the idea of potential presidential relief, including the House speaker, Mike Johnson. “Well, I mean, obviously that’s a decision of the president,” Johnson said on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I won’t get in front of him. That’s not my lane.”The political benefit for Trump from a pardon – however unlikely – remains nearly nil, as it would do little to support his prior claims about wanting the truth revealed.“The giant problem here – although what we have seen is that people are capable of believing all kinds of things if Trump says they are true – I don’t think there’s anything that Ghislaine Maxwell can say that will put any of this to rest,” Kuby said. “Certainly, the optics of giving an actual convicted child [abuser] clemency does not easily align with the right wing’s purported concern about child abuse.” More

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      The simple way Democrats should talk about Trump and Epstein | Peter Rothpletz

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      Democrats must not let Jeffrey Epstein die.They must highlight how this saga exposes the president for who he has always been.In the decade Teflon Don has spent on the national stage, no scandal has stuck to and haunted him quite so viscerally as the Epstein affair. He’s never before appeared so flustered, forced to answer question after question about the women and girls whose lives were destroyed by his former “best friend”.The world may never know what is inside the so-called “Epstein files.” What is clear is that the contents are damaging enough for the president and his human flak jackets to call the whole affair a “hoax”, recess Congress to prevent a vote on releasing the materials and send the deputy attorney general to visit Tallahassee, Florida, to speak to the convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, who was subsequently moved to a “cushy”, celebrity-riddled minimum security prison in Bryan, Texas.As the conservative pundit Bill Kristol noted over the weekend: “[Richard Nixon] said of Watergate, ‘I gave them a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish.’ Trump may have given us a sword. We should use it.” Kristol is right, to a point. Liberals, progressives and never-Trump Republicans must not let voters forget Trump’s festering, open wound without neglecting the kitchen table, cost-of-living matters that hurt them last fall.In 2007, a far sharper and far more spry Joe Biden delivered a quip so clever and cutting that it ended another man’s entire political career. Rudy Giuliani was never able to recover after Biden observed how it seemed “there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11”. The line was funny because it was true; it was lethal because it exposed the emptiness behind the former New York City mayor’s tragedy-fueled candidacy.This is the challenge for Democrats: how do they maintain a spotlight on a scandal that reveals Trump for who he is in a way that finally resonates with his base without appearing to exploit a tragedy , à la Giuliani? They must ground the abstract conspiracy in everyday terms relatable to the average American.It goes like this: Trump protects elites.Say it in every stump speech, vent about it in vertical videos and keep it alive as a dominant narrative in the zeitgeist. Do not back away. The modern media environment rewards repetition and omnipresence, so Hakeem Jeffries should promise an Epstein select committee, Chuck Schumer should make Republicans release the Epstein files in return for votes to fund the government, and every leftwing activist in the country should be burying Pam Bondi’s justice department in a blizzard of Freedom of Information Act requests.In doing so, recognize that the response to the scandal is an encapsulation of a deeper truth that voters already feel. The president and the GOP protect the elite at the expense of ordinary Americans.Savvier Democrats get this. Some of the party’s best communicators have already been grasping for a message along these lines, as seen in the focus on Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders’s nationwide Fighting Oligarchy tour. But while those efforts have paid some political dividends, they have not come close to capturing the public imagination to the degree the Epstein files have.For at least some portion of the Maga movement, the past three weeks have finally managed to expose Trump for the hobnobbing, name-dropping, pompous ass that he’s always been. Why is this one particular story so effective – especially as most voters have known Trump to be a plutocratic wannabe for decades? Maggie Haberman’s hypothesis is noteworthy: New York high society operates in two concentric circles. The Big Apple has a glittering “elite” with status at the center of a broader ring that wields power.Trump has always tried to straddle those rings, painting himself as the renegade billionaire. The Epstein affair shatters that mythos. It casts him not as a brash, bull-in-a-china-shop outsider but as the ultimate insider, rubbing shoulders with the very aristocracy his campaign rhetoric promised to upend.Democrats must lead with Epstein. Then they need to connect it to the president’s myriad failures. Why did Trump cut taxes for the richest Americans while cutting Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? For the same reason he is protecting Epstein and his buddies. Why is Trump risking union jobs in auto manufacturing so he can have a trade spat with Mexico and Canada? For the same reason he is protecting Epstein and his buddies. Why is Donald Trump talking about firing the head of the Fed? For the same reason he is protecting Epstein and his buddies.Mallory McMorrow of Michigan, a Democratic Senate candidate, is already reading from this script. In recent weeks, she has demonstrated mastery in pairing Epstein with broader anti‑elite rhetoric. In one vertical video, she emphatically declared:
      This is exactly why there’s eroding trust in our institutions, because until we confront the rot that exists in our institutions, until we hold everyone, everyone accountable under the same set of rules and laws, we will keep living in a country where there are two systems of justice, one for the rich and powerful, and one for everybody else. We deserve better. Release the files now.
      Trump’s friendship with Epstein is a proof point for elite favoritism and all of us who oppose the orange god king must use it to condemn inequality and unaccountable power within the GOP ecosystem.The Epstein scandal has captured our attention not just because it’s a lurid horror story, but because it confirms a truth people already believe: the rich view them as objects for exploitation. And if there’s one thing Trump has successfully messaged to all Americans, it’s that he’s very, very rich.Epstein is the story. But he is also a stand-in for every closed maternity ward in a rural county, for every mom choosing between insulin and groceries and for every veteran battling the Department of Veterans Affairs while Silicon Valley billionaires buy senators. Democrats’ message is simple enough, actually: “Trump and the GOP protect the elite. They abandon you.”Think this messaging can be overdone? Look no further than Benghazi, a truly made-up scandal, which Republicans turned into a true political liability with Hillary Clinton’s emails. That story stuck because of repetition and omnipresence, but also because it struck a chord with something Americans already believed: that the Clinton family viewed themselves as above accountability.Even Trump’s own supporters are asking hard questions. Where are the files? Why is there a two-tiered system of justice? Why is Trump more interested in protecting his friends than releasing the truth? The Democratic response should be a noun, a verb and Jeffrey Epstein, and then the rot at the core of the American system. Deployed effectively, it can be as impactful and as memorable as Trump’s cruel but devastating 2024 attack line: “Kamala is for they / them, President Trump is for you.”Trump protects elites.That’s why Trump is protecting Epstein’s circle.But who’s protecting you?

      Peter Rothpletz is a Guardian contributor More

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      The US is complicit in genocide. Let’s stop pretending otherwise | Mehdi Hasan

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      Can we finally stop pretending that what we have been witnessing in Gaza over the past 22 months is a “war,” a “conflict,” or even a “humanitarian crisis”? Many of the world’s leading human rights and humanitarian groups – including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders – agreed months ago that what is being livestreamed to our phones on a daily basis is indeed a genocide.This week, Israel’s own leading human rights group announced that it had reached “the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip”. In other words, said B’Tselem, “Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.The debate over whether or not Gaza is a genocide is, effectively, over. So can we now also stop pretending that we are mere bystanders to this genocide? That our sin is one only of omission rather than commission? Because the inconvenient truth is that the US has not just looked the other way, as tens of thousands of Palestinians have been besieged and bombed, starved and slaughtered, but helped Israel pull the trigger. We have been complicit in this genocide, which is itself a crime under article III of the Genocide convention.As retired Israeli Maj Gen Yitzhak Brick acknowledged in November 2023: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”In fact, given Brick’s assessment, I would argue that what we have witnessed in Gaza from the US government is worse than complicity. It is active participation in an ongoing genocide.Donald Trump has given Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and his far-right government not only the green light to “clean out” Gaza and “finish the job”, but also the arms, intel and funds to do so. When Netanyahu launched his blockade of all food and aid going into Gaza in March, he emphasized it was done “in full coordination with President Trump and his people”. “Over the past six months,” Axios reported in late July, “Trump has given Netanyahu an almost free hand to do whatever he wants in Gaza.” An Israeli official told the site: “In most calls and meetings Trump told Bibi: ‘Do what you have to do in Gaza.’”Trump’s Republican allies in the House and Senate are even more gung-ho. Forget complicity; Congress is filled with GOP cheerleaders for genocide, from Senators Tom “bounce the rubble in Gaza” Cotton to Lindsey “level the place” Graham. The newest member of the House, Randy Fine, a Republican representative of Florida, has called for the nuking of Gaza and said just days ago that Palestinians in Gaza should “starve away” until the Israeli hostages are all released. (A reminder that incitement to genocide is also a crime under Article III of the Genocide convention.)But we cannot let Democrats off the hook either. The first 16 months of this mass slaughter unfolded on a Democratic president’s watch. From the get-go, Joe Biden gave Netanyahu and his cabinet of génocidaires everything they needed – 2,000-lb bombs to drop on refugee camps filled with Palestinian children? Check. UN security council vetoes to prevent the passage of resolutions calling for a permanent ceasefire? Check. The burial of internal US government reports warning of war crimes and famine in Gaza? Check.It wasn’t just Biden. The vast majority of Democrats in Congress spent much of 2024 casting vote after vote to keep arming, funding and whitewashing the mass killing of Palestinian civilians. Even now, in the summer of 2025, seven high-profile Democratic senators were happy to take a smiling photo with Netanyahu, including the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who claims talk of genocide is antisemitic and says his job “is to keep the left pro-Israel”.Then there is the US media’s complicity in this genocide. It isn’t just the Radio Rwanda wannabes over at Fox, where the morning host Brian Kilmeade has said it was hard “to separate the Palestinians from Hamas” and the primetime host Jesse Watters has said “no one wants” Palestinian refugees and “demographically [Palestinians] are a threat”.There are also genocide enablers in the liberal media. Those who repeatedly insist Israelis have a right to defend themselves while never asking whether Palestinians do. Those who parrot Israeli government talking points while sanitizing the violence inflicted on Gaza. Palestinians, remember, are not killed by Israeli bombs or bullets; they just “die.”US newsrooms have bent over backwards to present “both sides,” even when one side has been deemed genocidal by some of the world’s leading scholars on genocide. The New York Times, per an internal memo obtained by the Intercept, instructed journalists covering Gaza to limit the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when referring to the West Bank and Gaza.One study of media coverage, also published by the Intercept, found that “highly emotive terms for the killing of civilians like ‘slaughter’, ‘massacre’, and ‘horrific’ were reserved almost exclusively for Israelis who were killed by Palestinians, rather than the other way around”. Another study, published in the Nation, found that “with one exception the Sunday shows covered and debated [Gaza] for 12 months without speaking to a single Palestinian or Palestinian American”.Go beyond the media. Elite US institutions are also disgracefully complicit in the annihilation of Gaza, from the Ivy League universities that punished anti-genocide protesters on campus; to the white-shoe law firms that disqualified anti-genocide applicants for jobs; to the big tech companies accused by a UN special rapporteur of profiting from the genocide.Most Americans, of course, don’t want to believe that our country is helping commit one of the 21st century’s worst atrocities. But, again, we must stop pretending. Our complicity and collusion are clear. As my Zeteo colleague Spencer Ackerman has written: “This is an American genocide as much as it is an Israeli one.”The US supplied and then resupplied the bombs and bullets used to kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians; the US facilitated the destruction of homes and hospitals; the US signed off on the starvation of children. These are the undeniable facts.And so to the Biden and Trump administrations, to Democrats and Republicans in Congress, to the US media, I say this: history will judge you. For the bombs you sent, the votes you cast, the lies you told. This will be your shameful legacy when the dust finally settles in Gaza, when all of the bodies have been pulled from the rubble. Not defending your ally or fighting terrorism, but non-stop complicity in a genocide; aiding and abetting the crime of crimes.

      Mehdi Hasan is the founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of the media company Zeteo. More

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      Good, mad and ugly: the US economy’s performance under Trump – in charts

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      According to Donald Trump’s White House, the US economy is booming, inflation is dead and jobs are surging. A blizzard of economic reports has cast a pall on such claims in recent days.This week’s data on Trump’s early economic record was mixed – good, mad and ugly – with jobs numbers so weak he reached for the catchphrase he once used to build himself into a reality TV star: you’re fired.The picture is chaotic, with robust headline growth in the world’s largest economy, wild swings in trade, and a remarkable slowdown in the labor market.For six months, Trump has staged an extraordinary campaign to overhaul the global economy and extract concessions from Washington’s allies and rivals by threatening and imposing steep tariffs on their US exports.But the unpredictable, erratic rollout of this strategy has already had bizarre consequences.Resilient-ish growthOn the surface, at least, this week’s deluge of data opened with good news: the US economy returned to growth in the second quarter, with gross domestic product (GDP) – a broad measure of economic health – expanding at a rate not seen since last summer.But this followed an unexpected contraction in the first quarter, and underlined some more concerning figures, such as a 15.6% drop in private domestic investment. Businesses have been struggling to keep up with the hour-by-hour jerks and jolts on sweeping economies policies.Yes, there was good growth in the last quarter but in the first six months, the US economy grew at a mediocre 1.2%. The Wall Street Journal called it “the weirdest GDP report ever”.Imports surge and plungeDelve a bit deeper, and you start to see how the US economy is grappling with a series of extraordinary forces as Trump hammers out his trade strategy.Firms spent much of the first quarter waiting for the president to reveal his plans for tariffs: which countries would be targeted, at what rates, and when. They stockpiled, triggering an unprecedented surge in imports that pushed growth into the red.In the second quarter, however, as Trump started to ramp up his economic attacks, imports tumbled at an equally astonishing pace. Net exports – how much a country exports more than it imports – boosted GDP.Interest rates on holdThis is Trump’s least favorite chart. Despite his many public demands, threats and attacks, the Federal Reserve has not yet cut interest rates this year.Why? Jerome Powell, the central bank’s chair, has repeatedly argued it should wait and see the impact of the president’s trade strategy before moving. Fed officials are worried that inflation – despite Trump’s claims that it has collapsed on his watch – has actually remained stubborn, and might rise as a result of his tariffs.This has gone down extremely poorly in the White House, where officials are counting down the weeks until Powell’s term as chair ends next May.Jobs growth stallsData released on Friday fundamentally changed the way US policymakers and politicians think about the economy. Until then, many inside the Fed thought everything was broadly ticking over nicely – and Trump administration officials claimed they were overseeing a boom in activity.But July’s employment report revealed far fewer jobs were created that month than economists had expected, and revised down estimates for May and June by an astonishing 258,000. Job creation has stalled.“Look, this jobs report isn’t ideal,” Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House council of economic advisers, told CNN, before suggesting that fading uncertainty around trade and fiscal policy would lead to significant improvement.“It’s all going to get much, much better from here,” he added. More

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      The inside story of the Murdoch editor taking on Donald Trump

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      Trump news at a glance: ‘credibility’ of US economics data at risk, say experts, as president fires labor official

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      After Donald Trump ordered the firing of a federal government official in charge of labor statistics, experts and opposition politicians have expressed alarm that the “credibility” of US economic data was at risk.The US president claimed without evidence that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, had “rigged” job numbers “in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”, after data showed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that the president was “firing the messenger”.Bill Beach, a former Heritage Foundation economist who was picked by Trump in 2018 to oversee labor statistics, denounced what he called the “totally groundless firing”.“Politicizing economic statistics is a self-defeating act,” said Michael Madowitz, the principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute’s Roosevelt Forward, who added that “credibility is far easier to lose than rebuild, and the credibility of America’s economic data is the foundation on which we’ve built the strongest economy in the world”.Senate Democrat Ron Wyden said “this is the act of somebody who is soft, weak and afraid to own up to the reality of the damage his chaos is inflicting on our economy”.The move came as markets around the world were roiled by Trump’s latest tariff announcement, which left more than 60 countries scrambling to secure trade deals.Here are the key US politics stories of the day:Trump orders firing of jobs report official after hiring slowsDonald Trump ordered the firing of the federal government official in charge of labor statistics, hours after data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that he was “firing the messenger”.The US president claimed that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, had “faked” employment figures in the run-up to last year’s election in an effort to boost Kamala Harris’s chances of victory.Trump later claimed: “Today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”He produced no evidence for these allegations and insisted that the US economy was, in fact, “BOOMING” on his watch.Read the full storyTrump moves nuclear submarines after ex-Russia leader’s menacing tweetDonald Trump has said that he deployed nuclear-capable submarines to the “appropriate regions” in response to a threatening tweet by Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting that he would be ready to launch a nuclear strike as tensions rise over the war in Ukraine.In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote that he had decided to reposition the nuclear submarines because of “highly provocative statements” by Medvedev, noting he was now the deputy chair of Russia’s security council.Medvedev had earlier said that Trump’s threats to sanction Russia and a recent ultimatum were “a threat and a step towards war”.Read the full storyDozens of countries scramble to cope with latest tariffsDonald Trump unleashed global chaos with sweeping new tariff rates, triggering a wave of market jitters and fears for jobs in some of the poorest countries, as rates were signed off ranging from 10% to 50%.There was a minor reprieve that opened the door to further negotiations, after the White House said the updated tariffs would take effect on 7 August, not on Friday, the deadline previously set by Trump.Read the full storyTrump steps up attacks on Fed’s independence amid interest rates rowDonald Trump called on top Federal Reserve officials to seize control from its chair, Jerome Powell, if he fails to cut interest rates, stepping up his extraordinary attacks on the central bank’s independence.The US president called Powell “a stubborn MORON” in a series of critical social media posts on Friday, days after the Fed held rates steady for the fifth consecutive time.Read the full storyAmericans blame Trump for high cost of living, says pollAmericans are struggling financially, grappling with debt and the rising cost of living, and are blaming the Trump administration and corporate interests for worsening economic outlooks for working families, according to a new poll.Read the full storyClimate report a ‘farce’ full of misinformation, scientists sayA new Trump administration report that attempts to justify a mass rollback of environmental regulations is chock-full of climate misinformation, experts say.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The US economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far lower than expected, amid ongoing concerns over Donald Trump’s escalating trade war.

      Poverty and hunger will rise as a result of the Trump administration’s unprecedented cuts to the US federal “food stamps” program, according to experts. Low-income workers who rely on the aid are braced for dire consequences.

      California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, may call a special election in November to begin the process of redrawing the state’s congressional maps in response to Texas’s plans to change its own maps to help Republicans keep their majority in the House of Representatives.

      Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, has been transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security facility in Texas, the US Bureau of Prisons said on Friday.

      Kamala Harris has said she currently has no desire to re-enter “the system” of American politics because it is “broken”.

      Sixteen states are suing the Trump administration to defend transgender youth healthcare access, which has rapidly eroded across the US due to threats from the federal government.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 31 July 2025. More