|
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
|
By Dan Alexander @ Forbes.com, March 19
President Trump sold a $2.9 million New York City condo to a mysterious buyer on March 8, in a previously unreported deal laid out in public documents.
Officially, the buyer was an entity named Koctagon LLC. Limited liability companies, or LLCs, are often used to shield the identities of people purchasing real estate. When Trump is involved, they can make it difficult to see who is paying millions to the president of the United States.
An analysis of public documents suggests someone named Xiu Qong Li may be behind Koctagon LLC [....]
Op-ed by Bari Weiss @ NYTimes.com, March 19
TEL AVIV — Imagine if Joe Biden and Colin Powell announced that they were setting aside partisan politics and forming a new centrist party to save the country from Donald Trump. Then imagine that they were so serious about their goal that they promised to share power, rotating the roles of president and secretary of state.
Could they win?
That is the question Israeli voters are asking themselves. Last month, Benny Gantz, a former chief of staff of the army and a political rookie, and Yair Lapid, a former journalist and finance minister, came together to form Blue and White. (Mr. Gantz would serve as prime minister first, with Mr. Lapid as foreign minister.) The centrist party is named after the colors of the flag; its candidates are an all-star lineup of top military brass; and polls so far have put Blue and White neck and neck with Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud.
Over a week, I met many voters who say they will cast their ballot on April 9 for the centrists [....]
By Nerijus Adomaitis @ Reuters.com, March 18
OSLO - Norway has electronic proof that Russian forces disrupted global positioning system (GPS) signals during recent NATO war games, and has demanded an explanation from its eastern neighbor, the Nordic country’s defense minister said on Monday [....]
By Eboo Patell @ InsideHigherEd.com, March 19
Diversity progressives should be careful about the kind of activism that poisons the atmosphere, because soon even they will be choking on the fumes.
@ Axios.com, March 19. Large interesting graph along with summary of report.
The world's richest countries are full of people who don't feel economically secure, and they don't trust the safety nets their governments have set up, according to a survey of 22,000 people in 21 OECD countries.
Why it matters: It's evidence of a worldwide wave of economic anxiety at a time when people in these countries should be feeling more secure. Per Bloomberg: "People are unhappy with social policies even as evidence shows they are living safer, healthier and longer lives thanks to those very policies.
The big picture: The anxiety goes far beyond the U.S. People in these countries think they don't have enough access to benefits like health care, housing and long-term care.
- They're also resentful about public benefits, convinced that they don't get enough for the amount of taxes they pay and that other people are getting too much [....]
By Vasco Cotovio & Bukola Adebayo @ CNN.com, March 18
[....] "Officially, we have a record of more than 84 dead but everything indicates that we can have a record of more than 1,000 dead," Nyusi said, adding that "100,000 people are in danger." Nyusi was speaking after taking a flight over affected areas to view the destruction and rescue efforts. He called the situation a "real humanitarian disaster of large proportions. Waters from the rivers Pungue and Buzi have broken their banks, wiping out entire villages, isolating communities and we could see, as we flew above, bodies floating," the President said.
Cyclone Idai made landfall near Beira around midnight Thursday and moved through neighboring Zimbabwe and parts of Malawi. Initial assessments in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique suggested that more than 150 people have been killed in those three countries [....]
By Osama Al Sharif @ Al-Monitor.com, March 13
More than eight years after the Syrian refugees began pouring into Jordan and five months after a vital land border point was reopened between the kingdom and Syria, only a few thousand of the registered 600,000 have returned to Syria. On March 5, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi was quoted as saying that the number of Syrian refugees who have returned to Syria was no more than 13,000. He called on the international community to bear its responsibility toward Jordan as it continues to provide an “honorable life” to Syrian refugees despite the country's difficult economic situation [....]
Young Palestinians took to the streets despite violence, intimidation and Israeli attacks, to protest the dire economic situation. Hamas blames the PA for harming ‘resistance to the occupation’
By Amira Hass @ Ha'aretz.com, March 17
Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip violently suppressed demonstrations by hundreds of Palestinians who took to the streets across the Strip on Thursday and Friday, protesting the deteriorating economic situation under its rule. An independent Palestinian source estimates that some 500 people were held in detention on Saturday evening, after some detainees had been released.
Demonstrations were dispersed with live fire into the air, clubs, metal rods and pepper spray, Palestinian human rights organizations said. They reported journalists, some of whom were beaten and detained, were forbidden from documenting the demonstrations and had their phones confiscated, but some women watching the demonstrations from their homes documented the events [....]
President Vladimir Putin has signed legislation enabling Russian authorities to block websites and hand out punishment for "fake news" and material deemed insulting to the state or the public.
The two bills that critics see as part of a Kremlin effort to increase control over the Internet and stifle dissent were signed by the president on March 18, according to posts on the government portal for legal information. The new legislation allows the authorities to block websites or Internet accounts that publish what they deem to be "fake news" and penalizing those who post material found to be insulting to state officials, state symbols, or Russian society [....]
The center isn't socially liberal and economically conservative. It's the opposite. By Damon Linker @ The Week, March 5. Alerted by a couple of interesting recommends:
Ms. Yang, who attended the inauguration, started a company — GY US Investments — that promised Chinese businesspeople access to American politicians, including Mr. Trump. Clients were offered entry to events, including White House visits, “VIP activities at Mar-a-Lago” ..In total, the donations from Ms. Yang and the others came to at least $54,000....she built the chain of massage parlors and day spas in Florida, including the Orchids of Asia Day Spa & Massage, where Mr. Kraft and several other wealthy men were accused of soliciting sex...