TrumpSpin Is Making Us Dizzy

Wait, Wait, Wait. Trump, Jr. Got An Email That Said What?: Remember the Seinfeld episode when everybody took a turn saying “These pretzels are making me thirsty“? Well, TrumpSpin is making us dizzy! Not just anyone can make this stuff up. This is PHD-level work–not the doctoral kind, the Piled Higher and Deeper kind. And you better believe, they’ve stepped in it now! Speed up that spin cycle, dear Trumps, because Monday night The New York Times broke the news that Donald Trump, Jr.’s music publicist buddy Rob Goldstone emailed him that the damaging Hillary Clinton information that Don Jr. was to receive if he took a meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was “part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy.”

Boom! Mic. Drop.

Maybe Jr. should have gotten that criminal defense attorney he hired on Monday before he gave several different tellings of the June 2016 meeting that he, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort held at Trump Tower, less than a week before it was reported that Russians had hacked into Democratic National Committee servers and stolen thousands of emails. Jr.’s new attorney, Alan Futerfas, has a whole new take on the Times reporting: “In my view, this is much ado about nothing.” Seriously?! Special Counsel Robert Mueller (investigating all things 2016 US election, Trump campaign, and Russia) probably disagrees with his characterization of these events, but could Futerfas’ tactic work? After all, he is a high-powered New York attorney with extensive experience as a top mob defense lawyer who has also represented Russians in cybercrime cases. And The Beat Goes On.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Grants FARC Members Amnesty:After more than 50 years of conflict and four years of talks, a peace deal was reached last year between the rebel group, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the Colombian government. President Juan Manuel Santos has now signed the third and final amnesty decree to bring the disarmament and reintegration process to a close. The rebels agreed to give up their armed struggle to become a political party, provided they could be reintegrated into civilian life. All FARC members who did not commit serious crimes will be granted amnesty. More than 7,000 rebels in total have been granted amnesty or released from prison as part of their reintegration into society. The 2016 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Santos for his peace efforts.

The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul, Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over ISIS in Mosul on Monday. Today, a report from Amnesty International stated that there is evidence of a pattern of warfare in the battle for Mosul by Iraqi forces and the US-led military coalition that violated international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes. The report, “At Any Cost – The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul, Iraq,” covers the conflict in west Mosul from January to mid-May 2017. Amnesty International researchers interviewed 151 west Mosul residents, experts, and analysts, and documented 45 attacks that killed at least 426 civilians and injured more than 100.

The report documents how ISIS militants moved civilians from neighboring villages into battle zones in west Mosul, trapping them in houses and preventing them from escaping in order to use them as human shields. Meanwhile, Iraqi and coalition forces failed to take adequate measures to protect civilians, instead subjecting them to a “terrifying barrage of fire from weapons that should never be used in densely populated civilian areas.”

Lynn Maalouf, Director of Research for the Middle East at Amnesty International, stated: “The scale and gravity of the loss of civilian lives during the military operation to retake Mosul must immediately be publicly acknowledged at the highest levels of government in Iraq and states that are part of the US-led coalition. The horrors that the people of Mosul have witnessed and the disregard for human life by all parties to this conflict must not go unpunished. Entire families have been wiped out, many of whom are still buried under the rubble today. The people of Mosul deserve to know, from their government, that there will be justice and reparation so that the harrowing impact of this operation is duly addressed.”

The Land of the Rising Sun and the Land of the Free Sail Into the Indian Ocean: The increasing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean has triggered the largest naval drills in the region (known as the Malabar exercises) since 1992. This time, the US, Japan, and India have deployed warships, submarines, and aircraft in the Bay of Bengal. Conducted every year since 1992, the so-called Malabar exercises have increased in size and complexity recently. According to a foreign policy specialist at Carnegie India, the drills are “symbolic reassurance that the US is committed to working with India to continue shaping the Asian security environment.” (Here’s looking at you, CHINA. Yeah yeah, you get it.) This year’s drill is only the second since 1992 in which Japan will participate, and the first to include aircraft carriers from all three navies. The buildup of naval power in the region comes at a time of increased tensions between India and China, and as the latter has been steadily building-up its naval presence throughout the Indian Ocean in recent years.

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