Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar (or simply Breaking Points) is an American political news and opinion series created and hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti. It was launched in June 2021 by Ball and Enjeti, both former hosts of The Hill's Rising web series. They publish an audio-only podcast and the video program is available on YouTube, Rumble, and Spotify. Its format includes one anchor representative of the political left (Ball) and one right-of-center anchor (Enjeti), who provide news and commentary with a populist view from divergent sides of the political spectrum.[4][5][better source needed][6]
Breaking Points features commentary and analysis of political news and current events, in-studio interviews with journalists, politicians, campaign staff and surrogates, political advisors and strategists, and members of the news media, and occasional live-analysis segments. Ball and Enjeti, the primary hosts, usually publish on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Journalist Ryan Grim and culture writer Emily Jashinsky co-host on a show on Wednesdays and Fridays called Counter Points with the Friday segment hosting political and cultural debates between guests.
Ball and Enjeti each produce, write, and deliver a monologue each episode highlighting an important topic in current events. The hosts analyze the topic, usually organized into three or four bullet-points. This is followed by an open discussion with the other host, available to premium subscribers.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled
along ideological lines on Monday that former President Donald Trump is
entitled to "absolute immunity" for "official acts" taken while he was
in office, a decision that liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned makes
any occupant of the Oval Office "a king above the law."
Writing for the majority in the 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that Trump "may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts."
But Sotomayor countered in her dissent that the majority distorted the concept of core constitutional powers "beyond any recognizable bounds," effectively granting Trump the sweeping immunity he demanded as he faces charges for attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election in a failed last-ditch bid to remain in power.
"When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution," Sotomayor wrote. "Orders the Navy's SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."
"In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law," the justice added. "With fear for our democracy, I dissent."
The New York Timesnoted that the high court "has remanded the case to the federal district court judge overseeing the matter, Tanya Chutkan, to determine the nature of the acts for which former President Trump has been charged—which are unofficial ones he undertook in his personal capacity and which are official ones he undertook as president."
The high court's ruling, which came after months of delays, all but forecloses the possibility of Trump facing trial for election subversion charges before the November presidential contest. The progressive advocacy group MoveOn said the conservative supermajority's decision to punt the case back to the lower court makes the justices "complicit in Trump's plan to delay any legal accountability until after the election."
Two of the court's right-wing justices—Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—faced calls to recuse from the case but rejected them.
"Donald Trump incited the deadly January 6 insurrection and the MAGA Supreme Court continues to do everything in their power to stop him from facing accountability for attempting to overthrow our government," said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn Political Action. "Nobody is above the law, especially not Trump. MAGA extremists in Congress and the courts have made it clear there will be no checks or balances on Trump and the only hope for American democracy is the people coming together to defeat him in November."
Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president at Public Citizen, added in a statement that "Trump versus the United States is a fitting name for this case."
"There is no better way to characterize Trump's attempt to upend the Constitution and rule of law as we know it," Gilbert said. "Today's ruling is a blow to U.S. democracy. But it's not a final blow by any means. Trump can and should still be held accountable for his role in the violence on January 6 in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election and stop a peaceful transfer of power."
Israel’s evacuation order from the east of Khan Younis shows its inability to achieve its goal of eliminating Hamas and its intent to exhaust the population, says Luciano Zaccara, a professor of Gulf politics at Qatar University’s Gulf Studies Center.
“This demonstrates that they cannot win the war because they wanted to eliminate Hamas physically and politically but so far the group is still there, this is why they need to move people, in order to chase them,” Zaccara told Al Jazeera.
“It also proves that Israel wants to win this war by exhausting the people,” he said, referring to several previous evacuation orders from different locations in the past nine months of war.
“In this way, it creates much more trouble and harm for Palestinians who cannot stay for more than one month or 15 days in one place,” he added.
The idea that there are safe places to move people to, Zaccara said, “is not true because every time there has been a displacement there were also attacks”
The head of Gaza’s largest hospital has claimed he was repeatedly tortured during his seven months in Israeli detention, following his sudden release Monday, in a move that highlighted growing rifts in the Israeli establishment.
Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of the Al-Shifa medical complex, who was arrested in late November during the first of two Israeli raids on the facility in Gaza City, was released along with 50 other Palestinian detainees.
Israeli forces seized Abu Salmiya from a United Nations convoy on
November 22. They took him to court three times while in detainment but
brought no charges and allowed him no lawyer, Abu Salmiya said.
His detention in November followed an Israeli siege of Al-Shifa hospital, which Israeli officials said had become a Hamas control center. Though weapons were found at the hospital, an investigation by The Washington Post in December showed that the evidence fell short of revealing a command center, and that key claims the Israelis had made to justify the siege turned out to be incorrect.
Israeli forces attacked the hospital again in late March, killing hundreds and leaving the facility mostly destroyed. Several mass graves were discovered near the hospital site in the weeks that followed.
At a news conference Monday, Abu Salmiya alleged Palestinian detainees suffered “severe torture” and had medical treatment denied.
“My little finger was broken. I was repeatedly subjected to hitting on the head, causing bleeding multiple times. There was almost daily torture in the Israeli prisons,” he told reporters.
“The doctor there beats the detainees, and the nurse beats the detainees. This is in violation of all international laws.”
A soldier found guilty of using a military dog to terrorize inmates at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison was sentenced Wednesday to 179 days confinement and will be discharged for bad conduct.
Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith also will be demoted to private, and his monthly pay will be reduced by $750 for three months, making his paycheck about $1,523 a month.
Smith, 25, was convicted Tuesday of five counts in what began as a 13-count court-martial. He was charged with using his canine, Marco, to terrify prisoners -- allegedly for amusement and in competition with other soldiers.
He also was convicted of allowing the dog to participate in the lewd acts of licking peanut butter off of a woman's chest and a man's genitalia.
After deliberating six hours Wednesday, the jury consisting of four officers and three enlisted soldiers returned with the verdict. Smith faced a maximum penalty of more than 8 years in prison.
In May the Guardian reported allegations of widespread abuse at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert in Israel’s south, based on whistleblowers’ accounts.
Other media have also documented multiple descriptions of abuse at the camp, where thousands of detainees from Gaza have been held since the beginning of the war.
“Our detainees have been subjected to all kinds of torture behind bars,” he said. “There was almost daily torture. Cells are broken into and prisoners are beaten.” He said guards broke his finger and caused his head to bleed during beatings, in which they used batons and dogs.
He said the medical staff at different facilities where he was held had also taken part in the abuse “in violation of all laws.” He said some detainees had limbs amputated because of poor medical care.
All victims of gross human rights violations in Palestine and Israel are owed reparation, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch on June 26 submitted recommendations to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. The rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, had invited input to inform her October 2024 report to the United Nations General Assembly on the ongoing hostilities.
Under international law, governments responsible for abuses are obliged to provide effective remedies for human rights violations, including through truth, justice, compensation, memorialization, and guarantees of non-recurrence. Non-state armed groups also have responsibilities to provide reparation. Reparation processes should center on the rights of victims and be carried out after meaningful and effective consultations with them. Other countries that have, or whose businesses have, supported one side or the other should contribute to reparations and all other countries should press the parties to the conflict to commit to provide reparations.
“The parties to the conflict need to repair the harm they have caused to victims in the ongoing hostilities,” said Clive Baldwin, senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch. “Governments supporting Israel and Palestinian armed groups should not only use their leverage to stop further abuses, but also to ensure that victims and survivors receive meaningful reparations.”
Gaza remains under assault. Day 270 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "At least 37,925 people have been killed and 87,141 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, the Health Ministry in the Palestinian enclave has said. At least 25 were killed and 81 wounded in the 24-hour reporting period, the ministry added." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
At least 8,572 Palestinian pupils have been killed in Gaza and 100 in the occupied West Bank since Israel began its war on Gaza, the Wafa news agency reported citing the Palestinian Education Ministry.
The ministry added that at least 497 teachers and administrators were killed and 3,402 wounded in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Read our long read feature on how Israel’s destruction of schools and universities will set Gaza back decades.
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