Category: NEWS
‘They burned everything’: Israeli settlers torch Palestinian homes, cars after West Bank attack
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Monday counted the cost of deadly violence and arson by Israeli settlers targeting a town where two Israeli brothers were killed.
Pro tip: Don’t quote Martin Luther King Jr. when you announce layoffs via email
Email layoffs can insult those who lose their jobs and hurt the morale of remaining employees and the broader company culture.
Meet the ‘tough as nails’ Texan trying to keep the GOP in line on spending
Mere hours before the expiration of government funding last fall, the House took up a short-term spending patch that Kay Granger helped write. And the Texas Republican voted no on it anyway.
Granger, at the time the House GOP’s senior member on the powerful and purse-strings-wielding Appropriations Committee, then largely sat out bipartisan talks on a longer-term $1.7 trillion government funding deal that she ultimately voted against. Her absence disappointed some Senate Republican colleagues, who ended up carrying the massive bill to passage past a parade of furious House conservatives who’d hoped to wield greater leverage over the federal purse from their newly won majority.
Now Granger has the Appropriations panel gavel — once a storied prize on the Hill, lately as much a political burden as a gift thanks to Congress’ endless partisan wars over government funding. Which means she must not only lead House GOP appropriators in drafting a dozen annual spending bills, but also sell those proposals to the rest of a Republican conference that often can’t agree on far more basic fiscal issues.
In short, the 80-year-old former mayor has almost no room for error. And this time, she’ll have to support any tough spending compromises her committee tries to reach from the majority. Four women lead Congress’ appropriations panels from both parties for the first time in history, but it’s Granger with the biggest challenge ahead. She says she’s ready.
“I was a school teacher, taught for nine years — high school — then I had my first child, and two years later I had twins,” Granger said in an interview. “And so if I can get through that, believe me, I can get through writing this bill.”
The promises Kevin McCarthy made last month to finally lock in the speakership will make Granger’s job much harder. House conservatives demanded standalone floor votes on each of the 12 spending bills, a feat the chamber hasn’t accomplished since summer 2009. Additionally, the Californian granted their calls for unlimited amendments — which will make it even more difficult to rally enough support to pass the full dozen.
The GOP’s internal hostility over earmarks and demands to cut spending will add to Granger’s burden, as the debt limit raises the stakes in the debate to fund the government before a shutdown strikes in September.
“The lift could get a little heavy,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), an appropriator who split with the panel’s top Republican in supporting the government funding package last December. But he added that Granger is “very strong, in the sense that she’s not going to be rolled by anybody. And that’s an important quality to have.”
Granger won’t have the luxury of largely sitting out spending talks this year, as she did in 2022, and will have to work with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), her opposing-party counterparts atop the appropriations panels.
DeLauro called Granger a “trailblazer” who made history even before becoming the first Republican woman to chair Congress’ spending committee. The Texas Republican was the first woman elected mayor of Fort Worth, in 1991, and then the first woman to chair the elite defense spending subpanel on Appropriations.
Over the course of her long career, Granger once aligned with her Democratic counterparts on some social issues, supporting abortion access and Roe v. Wade until reversing her stance in 2020. She has sometimes declined to take a stance on hot-button topics, such as treatment of LGBTQ troops.
Learning where Granger draws her personal lines will be key to striking a broader funding agreement later this year, Murray said.
“I think all of us have a big challenge ahead of us this year, but I think the four women at the top of this committee have a commitment to themselves and to each other to do our best to get it done,” the Senate Appropriations chair said in an interview.
Democrats learned more than a decade ago how exhausting it can be to allow the amendment free-for-all that House Republicans are embracing this year for each of their 12 funding bills.
“It is mayhem,” Granger acknowledged, recalling what she observed in 2009 as Democrats gave up on the laborious process, halting floor action mid-debate and forcing through stricter amendment constraints well after midnight.
She said she plans to minimize similar pandemonium by communicating early with members “on both sides of the aisle” to win buy-in for her bills well before they hit the floor.
Indeed, Granger is clear about her plans to try to win Democratic votes where she can — hardly a given, since she voted against major spending bills when they ruled the chamber — and she’ll have some help in that department with the return of earmarks, albeit with new constraints.
But the often-derided practice of directly aiming federal dollars toward home-state projects could rouse the ire of the House’s rebellious fiscal conservatives as Republican leaders work to fund the government this year. About a quarter of the chamber’s GOP lawmakers voted in December to pass on earmarking.
That’s not to mention the long line of Republicans demanding spending cuts as a condition for voting to raise the debt ceiling. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and others are calling for overall funding levels to essentially fall back two years, reverting to the totals Congress passed for the fiscal year that began in the fall of 2021.
Any proposal to reduce military funding in that process is a non-starter for Granger. “I don’t support cutting defense,” she said. “That’s the one that I’m really, really hard-core on.”
And while she doesn’t project a hard-core image, Granger is “tough as nails,” as former Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) described his successor atop Appropriations in an interview.
“She has a deep respect for the history of the committee,” said Frelinghuysen, who chaired the panel until 2018. “But she’ll do her best to protect Republican interests and the new majority’s priorities.”
Her ability to balance institutional awareness with intra-party self-protection came into full view when she beat three challengers for the Appropriations chairmanship five years ago. When the committee’s GOP top spot opened up, Granger’s seniority didn’t guarantee her the post. She ultimately won after a dramatic, monthslong drive to court a select group of her peers.
As is typical of those leadership races, she benefited from a quiet campaign to leverage influence within the caucus. And McCarthy, himself trying to ascend the leadership ladder at the time, was seen as a key ally of Granger’s.
Looking back, she recalls staying out of the closed-door drama. “I literally just kept my head down and kept doing our work,” she said. “I wasn’t going to spend my time trying to convince people to elect me to that position.”
But she had boosters who wouldn’t leave her race to fate.
Texas Republicans, the largest GOP delegation in the House, talked privately back in 2018 about a strategy for locking in McCarthy’s support despite the Californian’s close friendship with then-Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.), one of Granger’s opponents in the committee race. Their proposed offer to McCarthy: back Granger, and every Republican lawmaker from the Lone Star State would support your leadership ambitions.
“There’s no doubt that, when Texas is united, our state has enormous influence here on Capitol Hill. And Kay’s chairmanship is an important part of that,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Whether that Texas alliance with McCarthy was secured is a closely held secret. (And it technically unraveled after the 2018 election of Roy, an initial McCarthy skeptic from Texas who later came around.) All Granger acknowledged is that her race to lead the party on Appropriations helped build “relationships that are going to be extremely important as we write” government spending bills.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/27/kay-granger-gop-spending-00083795
Toddler points out hiding spot of fugitive to Kentucky police
“It is good to be honest… we shouldn’t lie,” the small child told officers before pointing out where the suspect was hiding.
https://nypost.com/2023/02/27/kentucky-police-praise-toddler-for-pointing-out-hiding-fugitive/
Two Ukrainians tell us how a year of war has changed their lives
Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, putting millions of people in danger and forcing 8 million Ukrainians to flee their homes and millions more to turn to bomb shelters to avoid the bombardments. We spoke to two of our Observers to see how their lives have changed during this year of war, inside Ukraine and out.
China’s youth unemployment: Young people shun new rat race
Youth unemployment in China hit nearly 20% last year as lockdowns took their toll. Many young people are rejecting a return to the daily grind, while those seeking security in the public sector have hit a dead end.
Hong Kong model’s ex husband, in-laws charged with murder
The dismembered body parts of Abby Choi were found days after she was reported missing in a house rented by her ex-father-in-law.
The biggest election of 2023 reaches final sprint
Millions of dollars are flowing into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, as the state rockets toward an election that could decide the future of abortion rights, redistricting and more in the key battleground state.
The court has a 4-3 conservative majority, with one swing conservative justice who has broken with the rest of the ideological bloc on some major cases. The April 4 election could flip that dynamic to a liberal-leaning majority.
The contest is poised to be the most expensive state Supreme Court race ever, with major outside groups — particularly those focused on abortion — rushing in funds. The previous record was over $15 million for a 2004 Illinois contest, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. In Wisconsin, $10.4 million was spent on advertising alone in the runup to the primary, according to data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact.
“This election is off the charts,” said Ben Wikler, chair of the state Democratic Party. “It’s off the charts in terms of the stakes, it’s off the charts in terms of how much money is likely to be invested on both sides, it’s off the charts in terms of the number of people who are voting.”
The election, he added, “is the hinge on which Wisconsin’s political future will swing. And Wisconsin is the hinge on which national politics swings.”
The race is a full-on sprint between Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal judge from Milwaukee County, and conservative former state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly. The two were, respectively, the first- and second-place finishers in a four-way primary on Tuesday. Protasiewicz and another liberal-leaning judge in the race combined for nearly 54 percent of the vote, while Kelly and another conservative-leaning judge were at 46 percent.
The contest has significant implications for the future of abortion access in Wisconsin. State Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has sued to overturn the state’s 1849 abortion law, which prohibits the procedure in almost all circumstances. Providers have stopped performing abortions as the legal challenge winds its way through the court system, where it is expected to eventually come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
And the state Supreme Court could also wade into the battle over political boundaries — and ultimately political control — in the state. Republicans have a basically unbreakable control over the Statehouse despite statewide races being close to 50-50.
Turnout was also high for this year’s primary — 960,000, crushing the previous record from the 2020 February primary — and those in the state expect April’s election to follow suit, despite it being an off year.
“I think we are going to see high turnout from both sides, and why wouldn’t we?” said Mark Jefferson, executive director of the state Republican Party. “Everything is on the line.”
Jefferson dismissed reading too much into the numbers from Tuesday, arguing that Republican strongholds that didn’t turn out as much as the rest of the state in the primary will do so in the general. Wikler, for his part, said he didn’t think the vote share total was particularly predictive, but was encouraged by the high turnout in Democratic-leaning areas in an off-year primary.
Protasiewicz and her supporters have signaled they would target Kelly on the issue of abortion and his past as a defense attorney. Her first two general election TV ads, which were released on Wednesday, call him an “extremist” on abortion“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2FTz5FwPvE&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=JanetforJustice”,”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0000″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0001″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}’>call him an “extremist” on abortion and say he “won’t keep our communities safe”“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDMO3JtgveQ&ab_channel=JanetforJustice”,”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0002″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0003″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}’>“won’t keep our communities safe” for defending “child sex predators who posed as ministers.” And a Better Wisconsin Together, a liberal group that spent millions in the primary attacking Jennifer Dorow — the conservative judge eliminated in the primary who some Democrats saw as a tougher opponent over Kelly — has already booked TV time for the general election.
And in an interview, Protasiewicz raised Kelly advising the state Republican Party on a “fake electors” scheme in 2020. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported earlier this month“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/02/17/wisconsin-supreme-court-candidate-dan-kelly-was-paid-120000-by-gop/69912903007/”,”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0004″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0005″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}’>Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported earlier this month that the former state GOP chair told the Jan. 6 U.S. House select committee that he and Kelly had “pretty extensive conversations” about the fake electors. Kelly has also served as a paid consultant to both the Republican National Committee and the state party.
“Look at what happened in the 2020 presidential election, and how the results of the Wisconsin election landed in the Supreme Court chamber,” she said. “I think it’s more likely than not that the results of the 2024 presidential election could also end up in the Supreme Court chamber.”
Kelly’s campaign did not make him available for an interview. But in a recent, pre-primary interview with The New York Times“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/us/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-race.html”,”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0006″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0007″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}’>interview with The New York Times, Kelly declined to say how he would have ruled on a Dec. 2020 state court case in which Donald Trump tried to overturn the state’s election results.
He did, however, tell the Times he had “no reason to believe” the state’s 2020 election wasn’t decided properly, and a spokesperson previously told the Journal Sentinel that Kelly believed “Joe Biden is the duly elected president of the United States.”
Ben Voelkel, a senior adviser to Kelly’s campaign, said he thought it was “incredibly shortsighted” that Democrats were trying to turn the race into a “single-issue” contest on abortion. He said conservatives would rally against Protasiewicz because of the threat she posed on issues like charter schools and gun rights, and signaled they would lean into hitting her judicial record. Conservative-leaning groups had attacked her during the primary as soft on crime, highlighting a case“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://host2.adimpact.com/admo/#/viewer/0547be11-5886-4745-b735-64c393792e6c”,”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0008″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000186-92c9-dc1d-a1fe-f7d9390c0009″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}’>highlighting a case in which she gave “probation for a child rapist.”
“She had very, very lenient sentences for some people who committed very heinous crimes,” he said. “There’s going to be more that comes out about what exactly her judicial track record is.”
Kelly’s campaign has yet to unveil any general election TV ads. But Fair Courts America, a conservative group backed by GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein, spent millions on TV boosting Kelly in the primary, and those in the state are anticipating it will continue its spending barrage.
And those on both sides of the abortion rights debate are already gearing up for an intense general election fight. On the pro-abortion rights side, Planned Parenthood is planning to spend seven-figures on the race in conjunction with its local affiliate, which has already hired staff in several cities to support its get-out-the-vote effort.
Steven Webb, executive director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, said that in addition to fieldwork, it is spending on digital advertising, radio and direct mail campaigns as well — its largest investment in any judicial race.
Students for Life is also planning to engage in the race with digital media and outreach to activists on the ground in Wisconsin, while Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which made a six-figure investment into the primary election, is planning to make another six-figure investment into the general election focusing on mail, texts, live calls and potentially digital.
“This is Wisconsin’s Roe moment. This is the most impactful election from a pro-life perspective that we have had since pre-1973,” said Gracie Skogman, legislative and PAC director of Wisconsin Right to Life, a third anti-abortion group. “That’s our case to voters: If they are pro-life, lives are on the line, we have a law saving lives, but that law’s effectiveness will be determined by this court.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/27/wisconsin-supreme-court-election-00084406
Western Leaders Privately Admit Ukraine Can’t Win The War
Western Leaders Privately Admit Ukraine Can’t Win The War
Authored Joe Lauria via ConsortiumNews.com,
Western leaders privately told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine can not win the war against Russia and that it should begin peace talks with Moscow this year in exchange for closer ties with NATO.
Élysée Palace where Macron and Scholz told Zelensky to seek peace. (U.S. State Dept.)
The private communications are at odds with public statements from Western leaders who routinely say they will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes until it achieves victory on the battlefield.
The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the private remarks to Zelenksy, said:
“The public rhetoric masks deepening private doubts among politicians in the U.K., France and Germany that Ukraine will be able to expel the Russians from eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014, and a belief that the West can only help sustain the war effort for so long, especially if the conflict settles into a stalemate, officials from the three countries say.
‘We keep repeating that Russia mustn’t win, but what does that mean? If the war goes on for long enough with this intensity, Ukraine’s losses will become unbearable,’ a senior French official said.
‘And no one believes they will be able to retrieve Crimea.’
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Zelensky at an Élysée Palace dinner earlier this month that he must consider peace talks with Moscow, the Journal reported.
According to its source, the newspaper quoted Macron as telling Zelensky that “even mortal enemies like France and Germany had to make peace after World War II.”
Macron told Zelensky “he had been a great war leader, but that he would eventually have to shift into political statesmanship and make difficult decisions,” the newspaper reported.
A Return to Realism
Macron at the Munich Security Conference last week. (Kuhlmann/MSC)
At the Munich Security Conference last week, Gen. Petr Pavel, the Czech Republic’s president-elect and a former NATO commander, said:
“We may end up in a situation where liberating some parts of Ukrainian territory may deliver more loss of lives than will be bearable by society. … There might be a point when Ukrainians can start thinking about another outcome.”
Even when he was a NATO commander Pavel was a realist in regard to Russia. During controversial NATO war games with 31,000 troops on Russia’s borders in 2016 — the first time in 75 years that German troops had retraced the steps of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union — Pavel dismissed hype about a Russian threat to NATO.
Pavel, who was chairman of NATO’s military committee at the time, told a Brussels press conference that, “It is not the aim of NATO to create a military barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment suggests such a thing.”
The German foreign minister at the time, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also embraced realism towards Russia, saying: “What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmongering. Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken.”
Instead of an aggressive NATO stance towards Russia that could backfire, Steinmeier called for dialogue with Moscow. “We are well-advised to not create pretexts to renew an old confrontation,” he said, saying it would be “fatal to search only for military solutions and a policy of deterrence.” Under U.S. leadership NATO clearly did not follow that advice, as it continued to deploy more troops to Eastern Europe and to arm and train Ukraine (under cover of pretending to back the Minsk Accords).
Before its intervention in Ukraine, Russia cited NATO’s eastward expansion, the deployment of missiles in Romania and Poland, war games near its borders and the arming of Ukraine as red lines that the West had crossed.
After a year of war, Western leaders appear now to be turning to a realist approach. Macron, for instance, at the Munich Security Conference dismissed any talk of regime change in Moscow.
No US Reaction
Left to Right: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at Munich Security Conference. (Schulmann/MSC)
Washington has not commented on the Journal‘s story about the peace talks-for-arms proposal.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month discussed with The Washington Post arming Ukraine post-war but he did not say that Ukraine should seek peace talks.
“We have to be thinking — and we are — about what the postwar future looks like to ensure that we have security and stability for Ukrainians and security and stability in Europe,” Blinken told the conference in Munich.
The proposal to bring Ukraine even closer to NATO than it already is, with greater access to weapons after the war, should be on the agenda at NATO’s annual meeting in July, said Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, at the Munich conference.
“The NATO summit must produce a clear offer to Ukraine, also to give Zelensky a political win that he can present at home as an incentive for negotiations,” a British official told the Journal.
The deal with NATO would not include membership with its Article 5 protection, the newspaper reported. “We would like to have security guarantees on the path to NATO,” Zelensky told a press conference on Friday.
In the meantime, Macron, according to the WSJ report, said that Ukraine should press forward with a military offensive to regain territory in order to push Moscow to the peace table.
There has been no reaction from Moscow about the proposal. Political analyst Alexander Mercouris, in his video report on Saturday, said Russia would likely be incentivized to continue fighting rather than enter peace talks with the knowledge that Ukraine would be heavily armed by NATO after the war.
“The Russians are never going to agree with something like this,” Mercouris said.
“They must be saying to themselves that instead of agreeing to this plan, it actually makes more sense … to continue this war because one of [Russia’s] objectives is the total demilitarization of Ukraine.”
What the Western powers are proposing is the opposite, he said. Given that Russia considers it is winning and “there seems to be a general acknowledgment amongst Western governments that Ukraine can’t win this war, …where is the incentive for … Russia to even consider this plan?”
For Moscow, Mercouris said, Ukraine’s demilitarization is an “absolute, existential matter.”
If Ukraine is going to get even more advanced weapons from NATO after the war as opposed to what it would get “whilst the war is still underway, then it makes even less sense” for Russia “to stop the war and agree to this plan.”
Russia is facing a “weakening adversary now,” Mercouris said, and Moscow clearly prefers that to facing a “strengthened adversary later.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/27/2023 – 03:30
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/western-leaders-privately-admit-ukraine-cant-win-war
New Yok City police give warning about thieves stealing Apple AirPod Max headphones off victims’ heads
Listen up! At least 21 people in New York City have had their fancy Apple headphones stolen right off their heads by a roving team of moped-riding bandits, police say.
The thefts started on Jan. 28 and have typically involved four people on two mopeds riding up to victims from behind, snatching their Apple AirPods Max headphones and then speeding off. The noise-canceling devices currently retail for $549 a piece.
The sonic swipers have struck all over Manhattan, including one incident in Central Park, with victims ranging in age from 18 to 41, police said. The bulk of the thefts happened in mid-to-late afternoon. Five headphones were stolen on Feb. 8 and eight were taken on Feb. 18.
5 NEW APPLE PRODUCTS POSSIBLY COMING IN 2023
The thieves remain at large, and no arrests have been made.
Police this week released a photo of suspects riding mopeds and a video showing one of them getting off a moped carrying two AirPod Max headphones and walking into Washington Square Park.
Unlike AirPods and AirPods Pro, which are small and fit inside the ear, AirPods Max headphones rest over the ears and have an adjustable headband connecting the right and left sides.