Searchable News & Info From Reliable Online Sources.
- Why Trump Is Afraid of International Law
President Donald Trump and his aides rarely go easy on their perceived enemies. But their attacks on the International Criminal Court — describing it as, among other things, filled with “lunatics” and pledging to destroy it — are hyperbolic enough that you have to wonder: Are they afraid the court will prosecute them? That’s the conclusion many former government officials and legal scholars are reaching. They point not only to Trump’s anti-ICC campaign but also his administration’s broader efforts to defund, abandon or otherwise damage a range of global mechanisms that enforce human rights laws, from treaties to United Nations organizations. Those moves come as the Trump administration is accused of a series of abuses, from killing Iranian schoolchildren to deporting asylum-seekers. At the same time, Trump is going to great lengths to protect his backers from domestic justice, including through his extensive use of pardons. “They’re doing everything they can to evade accountability as they attack the very institutions and advocates charged with holding rights abusers to account,” said Uzra Zeya, a former Biden administration official who is now president of Human Rights First. Spokespeople for the White House and the State Department deny such assertions. In statements to me, they reiterated complaints that the ICC threatens U.S. sovereignty and cast their campaign against it as squarely within Trump's America First agenda. “All of the administration’s actions are lawful and in line with the agenda that President Trump was elected to implement,” stressed Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the White House. But when it comes to the ICC in particular, Shakespeare might say the administration “doth protest too much.” By wildly overstating the court’s power, it is feeding the notion that it is genuinely worried. The ICC has almost — almost — no ability to prosecute U.S. citizens. The U.S. has never joined the court, which operates under severe jurisdictional limits. One sensitive ICC case, involving Americans in Afghanistan, was shelved years ago. And Trump has already repeatedly penalized court officials for investigating U.S. ally Israel. Yet, when I asked one Trump administration official whether they thought some of their colleagues could be prosecuted under international law, they replied: “Maybe.” The official also accused the court of being “insane” and “woke.” Bill Cortese, a GOP operative close to the White House, was more direct, telling me some administration officials are truly worried about prosecution. “There is a concern that,… [TheTopNews] Read More.4 weeks ago - Rahm Emanuel on Why Democrats Keep LosingCHICAGO — There are a few people in American politics who, as with Cher and Madonna, only require one name. Rahm is one of them. Rahm I. Emanuel tiptoed into Illinois politics after a youthful flirtation with ballet and a less-dainty encounter with an Arby's meat-cutter that took off half his right middle finger. That accident, as the subsequent joke went, left the pugnacious Rahm half mute. But the Myth of Rahm — the ballet, the half-finger, cursing nearly as often as he breathes — is as well-established as you'd expect from a first-name-only public figure. Which is why, when we sat down over tavern-style pizza (the Wednesday special: sausage, mushrooms, onions, hold the green pepps) in his native North Side, I wanted to steer him toward other terrain. Think of it this way: The Rahmbo you know (he once sent a dead fish to a rival consultant!) is Chicago's deep-dish pizza. Fine for the tourists, but not something you'd seek out on your 11th visit here. And you, On The Road viewer, I think want something… tastier. So my goal was to go deeper with Rahm, to pull off the interview version of thin-crust pizza. We discussed the number of phone calls he makes in a given day, how both parties have failed the country and, get this, his insistence that he's never cursed on camera. Yes, Rahm claims he's never dropped an F-bomb in an interview. Rahm got feisty when I pressed him on whether the self-declared "raging moderate" was playing catch-up with the left on Israel and other issues. And he was equally short when I asked if I was wasting my time with somebody with universal (first) name ID with the political class but little relevance in early presidential polling. Isn't this a glittering resume and cover letter posing as a presidential candidacy? And isn't he doing all this to land one final major job in government? By the end, in classic Impatient Rahm mode, he was standing up and eager to wrap as I kept asking him questions. But he didn't immediately bolt. He went behind the counter to ask each of the workers at Michael's Original Pizzeria and Tavern which neighborhood they lived in this city of neighborhoods. The former mayor is still a pol, and he wants you to know that he still knows from retail. As he would demand, jabbing that half-finger… [TheTopNews] Read More.4 weeks ago
- As Bombs Fall in Iran, Trump Bombs in WashingtonThere’s a familiar explanation for the rise of Donald Trump that dispenses with ideology or sociology in favor of something more relatable in human terms: Let’s face it, the guy can be very funny. Or so some people believe. I’ve heard it often, including from folks who voted for him grudgingly or not at all. It’s a brand of humor that is not to everybody’s taste, to put it mildly. But it did seem uniquely well-suited for a nihilistic age of politics, in which old standards and restraints were obsolete. By these lights, Trump’s raucous irreverence, his fluency in mockery and insult, his defiance of liberal pieties, his willingness to say aloud things that many people think but dare not utter — all delivered with gleeful delight in his own showmanship — are an essential engine of his appeal. So this past weekend was a Washington mystery: How did one of the great performers of the age, the guy who is supposed to be funny, flop so vividly at an occasion — the rescheduled White House Correspondents Association dinner — in which presidents are judged precisely on their ability to be funny? Trump bombed because it was evident during his hour-plus remarks that he was winging it. Some of his lines were shadows of jokes that would have worked well with crisper delivery. This suggested that some collection of people had worked hard on his material — but Trump was plainly not part of that group. With a rambling, zig-zag tour of his own pet obsessions and grievances, the president seemingly believed that just Trump being Trump was enough to get the job done. The result was mild laughter here and there but one that cumulatively represented one of the most awkward shift-in-your-seat, check-your-phone, avert-your-gaze performances in recent decades of presidents coming to the dinner. Honestly, who cares? The annual dinner at best (and at worst) is a frivolous and inconsequential event. Trump’s clumsy patter, however, is actually a decent window into the larger state of his presidency and his movement in its late stages. Let Trump be Trump is the essence of the Republican strategy for the mid-term elections. Trump being Trump — a cascade of threats, actions, pronouncements of illusory ceasefires followed by new conflict — has defined the U.S. strategy in the war with Iran, the most consequential matter on the president’s agenda this year. Improvisation —… [TheTopNews] Read More.4 weeks ago
- Big Tech’s Money Men Don’t Care About the Backlash
In the AI political universe, Zac Moffatt and Josh Vlasto are at the helm of the Death Star. As the top political operatives at Leading the Future, they oversee a network of pro-AI industry super PACs and nonprofits that friends and foes alike describe as an aggressive, well-funded machine attempting to obliterate their opponents much like the Star Wars superweapon. Their goal: to defeat candidates who support the strictest AI regulations and champion those who want to unleash the development of the industry. The PAC launched with over $100 million in the bank from some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names, including $25 million checks from a16z’s co-founder Marc Andreessen and OpenAI’s president Greg Brockman. Moffatt and Vlasto are little known to the public, but they’re familiar figures in Washington and the world of political campaigns. They have decades of experience on the political battlefield and bring bipartisan bona fides; Moffatt’s a Republican, Vlasto’s a Democrat. And they’re now guiding one of the biggest pots of money flowing into the midterms. Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Andreessen’s venture capital firm, is the biggest known donor in midterm politics so far this cycle, and its single largest chunk of cash has been directed to Leading the Future. How they choose to spend their mountain of money in the coming months and beyond is likely to have a major impact on the makeup of American government — and will determine how lawmakers grapple with a technology that has the potential to transform society and our way of life. Their record so far is formidable. Leading the Future’s political arms — American Mission, which has operated in Republican primaries, and Think Big, which has operated in Democratic ones — have sent money to 30 candidates, and only one of their picks has lost so far. They’ve spent almost $25 million and still have over $30 million in cash on hand, according to an FEC filing through June 30. Their latest primary victories came Tuesday, when their preferred candidates won House GOP and Democratic primary races in Arizona. Their strategy appears to include both carrots and sticks. Sometimes they wade into races with modest sums of money in a bid to build a bench of friendly lawmakers; but they’ve also signaled that they’ve got a bazooka ready to deploy against adversaries where needed.Yet to hear Moffatt and Vlasto tell it, they’re actually the little guy. If they’re… [TheTopNews] Read More.4 weeks ago - They Gave MAGA a Safe Haven. Now They’re in Retreat.
BUDAPEST — Not too long ago, Balázs Orbán was one of the most powerful men in Hungary. The 40-year-old lawyer worked at the center of the former prime minister’s government and helped oversee Hungary’s courtship of the American right. MAGA celebrities like Tucker Carlson and JD Vance made appearances at events sponsored by the institute he chaired, in some cases, more than once. This morning, however, he arrives alone to meet me. His government power is gone, and the institution he once chaired is fighting for survival. The former prime minister, Viktor Orbán (no relation) was defeated in a landslide in April elections. In the months since, pressure has built not only on his own Fidesz party but on an extensive web of think tanks, talent programs and conferences that turned Budapest into a hub for the international right, especially MAGA adherents and pro-Trump intellectuals. One of those, arguably the most influential of the bunch, was the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, and Balázs Orbán was its chairman. MCC and the rest of the network really took off when President Donald Trump was out of office after his first term and Hungary offered American conservatives a political role model and a welcoming base abroad, and it remained one after Trump returned to the White House in 2025. Now the MAGA-Hungary relationship faces a test of reciprocity: Will MAGA continue to support the Hungarian partners who stood by it in the political wilderness? Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party were in power for 16 years, and the loss was not a narrow one. Péter Magyar’s Tisza party won 141 of parliament’s 199 seats, securing the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution. A few days ago, his new government raided Fidesz party offices as part of what appears to be a corruption investigation. It is 8 a.m. on a July morning in Budapest, already oppressively hot under a steel-blue sky. Balázs Orbán has suggested meeting at the House of Hungarian Music, a striking contemporary building near Heroes’ Square, which commemorates the founding of Hungary. It does not open until 10 a.m., so we sit outside at an empty table. “Hungary remains important for conservatives everywhere because we have developed a language and a way of governing that offers an alternative to the supranational and hyper-liberal mainstream,” he says. Fidesz is trying to evolve from being a ruling party to being an ordinary, out-of-power opposition party. For his part, Balázs Orbán is set to take up a seat in the European Parliament and says he will now focus on the struggle over the future direction of the EU. If Balázs Orbán feels diminished by the setbacks, he does not show it. “Our fight continues,” he says. “It is no longer just for Hungary, but for Europe.” Trump first received Viktor Orbán at… [TheTopNews] Read More.1 month ago - Can This Man Save Democrats?Ben Wikler wanted to lead the Democratic Party after his party’s disastrous 2024. But Wikler, the former Wisconsin Democratic chair, may ultimately help Democrats even more with his new book: This Is the Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy. Equal parts memoir, political history and how-to guide, Wikler does what Democrats desperately need — he grabs them by the proverbial lapels and demands they pay as much attention to their structural and long-term challenges as they do Donald Trump’s latest outburst. He also has some fun along the way. You may not agree with all his proposals. Some run the risk of deepening the cynicism he wants to thwart. But Wikler, who as a youthful Democrat was shaped by the 2010 Republican wave and subsequent effort by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to neutralize public unions, grasps what too many of the hobbyist class in his party miss. Namely that while presidential elections and the biennial battle for Congress matter, Democrats will not attain enduring power unless they get serious about down-ballot elections. In our conversation, Wikler and I discussed what about his party literally makes him nauseous, how “trifecta” is slowly moving from a horseracing term to a staple of the political nerd lexicon and how 2030 is the year that Democrats should actually be worried about. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Your book talks about Wisconsin history and the Wisconsin present a great deal. What does this governor's primary in Wisconsin tell us about your party — and your party in this cycle? The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is neutral in primaries resolutely; it doesn't put its thumb on the scale. It works to prepare the general election grassroots organizing army for whoever becomes the nominee, and then it locks in with the nominee to fight through the finish. And right now, we have this playing out in a very vivid way. There's a highly contested five-way primary for governor. There are big differences in message and approach between different candidates. We don't know how it's going to play out. What we do know is that the day after the primary, we're going to have a network of neighbor-to-neighbor organizers in every community in Wisconsin, in every county, in every small town, in every big city and suburb that are going to be ready to go to ensure that the nominee can… [TheTopNews] Read More.1 month ago
The Searchable USWebDaily.com and TheTopNews NewsBank Helps You Be Better Informed, Faster! Spread The Word.
