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The Unlikely Coalition Behind Biden’s Liquefied Natural Gas Pivot
Climate activists led the charge against LNG exports, but they’re not the only ones celebrating Biden’s pause. A broader, less-climate-concerned coalition, representing thousands of manufacturers, chemical companies, and consumer advocates, has also been quietly pushing for the pause — and stands to benefit if Biden curbs LNG exports.
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Congress Should Demote the DOE and Unleash LNG Exports
Late January’s Department of Energy (DOE) move to temporarily pause pending requests to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) outside the United States has elicited not only a firestorm of criticism, but also proposals in Congress to reverse the DOE action. At stake is a burgeoning industry with domestic and international significance, both economically and geopolitically.
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FBI Foils 2022 Plot by Militiamen to “Start a War” at the Texas-Mexico Border
A Tennessee man arrested Monday hoped to travel to the southern border with a militia group that allegedly plotted to go “to war with the border patrol,” believing that the country was being invaded by migrants.
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White House Plans to Improve Supply Chains Is Comprehensive, but Challenge Will Be in Execution
“Modern supply chains are global,” says an expert. “COVID-19 showed that our supply chains are also fragile, highlighting the need for resiliency. Deeper engagement with allies and partners is to recognize the role of multiple nations in supply chains and coordinate with them for ensuring resiliency.”
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The Iran Threat Geiger Counter: Reaching Extreme Danger
The Iran Threat Geiger Counter from the Institute for Science and International Security measures on a regular basis Iran’s hostile actions and intentions toward the United States and U.S. allies, and its capability to turn these hostile intentions into action through the potential or actual construction of nuclear weapons. As with the radiation levels measured by a Geiger counter, any level above zero represents a degree of danger. Since May 2023, the date of the last edition of the Counter, the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program has increased dramatically.
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U.S.-North Korea Arms Control Talks or Denuclearization? Analysts Are Divided
As Pyongyang continues to bolster its nuclear and missile programs while refusing to engage with Washington, analysts are divided on whether the U.S. should continue pursuing denuclearization or consider possible arms control options.
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Using AI to Monitor the Internet for Terror Content Is Inescapable – but Also Fraught with Pitfalls
This vast ocean of online material needs to be constantly monitored for harmful or illegal content, like promoting terrorism and violence. The sheer volume of content means that it’s not possible for people to inspect and check all of it manually, which is why automated tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), are essential. But such tools also have their limitations.
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If SCOTUS Won’t Enforce the 14th Amendment, We Should Worry How They’ll Handle the 22nd
Some voters complain that that the Colorado Supreme Court is limiting voters’ choices by denying Donald Trump a place on the Colorado ballot because of Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection. But if the Supreme Court refuses to uphold the Colorado court’s ruling, how would it rule if a popular president wants to run for a third term? It can be argued that enforcing the 22nd Amendment, which limits a president to two terms, also limits voters’ choices.
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Immigration Roars Back in Headlines. Time Finally Come for Reforms?
A recent surge in migrants at the border coupled with the heated politics of a presidential election year have once again pushed the decades-old debate over comprehensive immigration reform to the top of the agenda in Washington. Migration law scholar looks at history, and the prospects for breaking gridlock in election year.
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U.S. Raids in Iraq and Syria: How Retaliatory Airstrikes Affect Network of Iran-Backed Militias
Iran’s “forward defense” strategy – focused on addressing threats externally before they become ones within its borders – would suggest that Iran will continue to support proxies through weaponry, funding and tactical knowledge to reduce the influence and legitimacy of the U.S. and its allies in the region. This underscores the delicate balance required in responding to Iranian-backed aggression – aiming to safeguard U.S. interests while preventing an escalation into a wider regional confrontation.
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Two Scholars Revisit Trump’s Election Fraud Claims
Donald Trump’s ongoing claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him occupy a curious position in our current political discourse. They are plainly of the highest importance, and yet they are seldom scrutinized with much empirical or statistical care. For all the centrality of these fraud claims to the election coming up this year, they don’t get exposed to much ongoing critique of a detailed, systematic or rigorous nature. Until now.
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Case Closed: Trump’s Election Fraud Claims are Baseless, Empirical Analysis Confirms
Between the November 2020 election and the 6 January attack on the Capitol, Trump’s legal team filed 62 lawsuits contesting the election results, and each one of them was dismissed – in many cases, by Trump-appointed judges — or dropped. “In each instance, we find that these claims fail to provide any evidence of fraud, illegality, or even an abnormality. One reason that the claims fail is that they are not based on facts,” write two experts who examined the claims of election fraud by Trump and his legal team.
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Mexico’s Lawsuit Against U.S. Gunmakers Has Cleared a Big Hurdle
A federal law protects American gun manufacturers against most lawsuits, but an appeals court has allowed Mexico’s case to move forward. The Mexican government accusing America’s largest gunmakers of aiding and abetting the trafficking of weapons across the border.
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Police Departments Are Turning to AI to Sift Through Millions of Hours of Unreviewed Body-Cam Footage
Body camera video equivalent to 25 million copies of “Barbie” is collected but rarely reviewed. Some cities are looking to new technology to examine this stockpile of footage to identify problematic officers and patterns of behavior.
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Why Treason Is a Key Topic in Trump’s 14th Amendment Appeal to the Supreme Court
Someone who gives a weapon to a person knowing they intended to commit treason is a traitor, not an accessory to treason. Treason is treason, and a person either engages in treason or does not. In the Constitution’s Article III, and in the 14th Amendment, there are two ways a person can commit treason: by “levying war” – which in the 14th Amendment is replaced with “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” – or by giving “aid and comfort” to people determined to be “enemies” of the United States. The people Trump urged to march on the Capitol and said kind words to may have been enemies of democracy, but as American citizens, constitutionally speaking, they could not be enemies of the United States. Rather, they were insurrectionists, and the constitutional law of treason does not differentiate between supporting them and being among them.
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More headlines
The long view
How Quickly Could Iran Make Nuclear Weapons Today?
For Iran, two of the three poles in the tent of building nuclear weapons – fissile material and delivery vehicles — are essentially complete. It will take them one week to enrich enough uranium to 90 percent for one bomb (and one month to enrich enough uranium for six bombs). Iran also has a variety of delivery systems, including nuclear-capable missiles: the delivery pole is ready. Weaponization is the pole that needs more work. The accelerated weaponization program can be accomplished in a matter of six months.
Fifty-Five Hours of Risk: The Dangerous Implications of Slow Attack Attribution
Assuming that its foreign adversaries’ recent violent threats are to be taken seriously, and that the likelihood of a direct attack against the United States is, if not on the rise, at least significant enough to warrant serious attention, the United States has an urgent mandate to prepare effective cognitive defenses. Foremost among these is the ability to quickly and accurately attribute attacks to their originators, and to deliver that information to the public through a trustworthy vehicle.
Is Left-Wing Terrorism Making a Comeback in Germany? Analyzing the “Engel – Guntermann Network”
For Germany, the reemergence of more violence orientated left-wing extremist actors has diversified the threat posed by non-state actors even further. Violent left-wing extremism is also of growing concern across Europe. While left-wing violent extremism does not currently represent as acute a threat as currently manifested by jihadist and right-wing terrorist attacks, the recent concerning trend among German left-wing extremists is toward greater violence and transnationalism.
The True Dangers of Long Trains
Trains are getting longer. Rail companies had recently adopted a moneymaking strategy to move cargo faster than ever, with fewer workers, on trains that are consistently longer than at any time in history. Railroads are getting richer, but these “monster trains” are jumping off of tracks across America and regulators are doing little to curb the risk.
New Report Card to Assess, Rank Campus Responses to Antisemitism
In the face of growing antisemitism across U.S. college campuses, ADL announced that it is developing a new tool to evaluate the climate of antisemitism on individual campuses. The ADL will create comparative evaluation of how leading colleges and universities are responding to the surge of antisemitism and protecting their Jewish students.
Truth Decay and National Security
The line between fact and opinion in public discourse has been eroding, and with it the public’s ability to have arguments and find common ground based in fact. Two core drivers of Truth Decay are political polarization and the spread of misinformation—and these are particularly intertwined in the national security arena. Exposure to misinformation leads to increased polarization, and increased polarization decreases the impact of factual information. Individuals, institutions, and the nation as a whole are vulnerable to this vicious cycle.