Georgian Protests Try to Reverse Russian Pivot

Happy Monday! It’s literally our job to stay up-to-date on the news, so maybe that’s why Declan kept sending us play-by-play updates of the ongoing rap battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar over the weekend.

Editor’s Note: My note was intended more as a public service announcement—don’t get on Kendrick’s bad side.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Israeli government officials on Sunday raided the offices and seized the equipment of the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera, hours after the government ordered the outlet closed on the grounds that it posed a national security threat. “It’s time to remove the Hamas mouthpiece from our country,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
• The Canadian government on Friday charged three Indian men for their alleged involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an Indian-born Sikh nationalist whose murder last year Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested was orchestrated by “agents of the government of India.” The CBC reported that the three men were members of an Indian criminal gang and that police were actively investigating their connection to three other murders in Canada, among which one victim was an 11-year-old boy. Canadian investigators said they are looking into possible connections between the three men and the Indian government.
• The Justice Department unsealed an indictment on Friday alleging that Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from oil companies owned by the Azerbaijani government and the Mexican bank, Banco Azteca. In the 54-page, 14-count indictment, federal prosecutors say Cuellar attempted to influence policy to strip funding to Armenia–a rival neighbor to Azerbaijan—and sought to change federal money laundering laws. Cuellar and his wife pleaded not guilty in court on Friday and were released on a $100,000 bond.
• Politico reported Saturday that the Biden administration has approved $60 million in military aid to Haiti to help the effort to quell gang violence that has recently crippled the island nation. The assistance reportedly includes small arms and armored vehicles sent to the Haitian National Police and other countries supporting Haiti. Kenyan security forces are expected to deploy to the Caribbean country by the end of this month. 
• U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said Friday that it paused construction of a floating pier off of Gaza for the delivery of humanitarian aid, citing “unsafe conditions” caused by stormy weather. The pier will be further assembled in Israel’s Port of Ashdod until it is safe to install in Gaza. “Once in place, the temporary pier in Gaza will allow for the delivery of additional humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in need,” CENTCOM said. As many as 1,000 U.S. troops are involved in building the pier, which officials had hoped would be completed by the end of last week. The project came under mortar fire by terrorists late last month. 
• Virginia state police on Saturday arrested at least 25 anti-Israel protesters who had set up an encampment at the University of Virginia (UVA). University administrators called in the state police after what UVA President Jim Ryan called protesters’ “repeated and intentional refusal to comply” with university policy and “physical confrontation and attempted assault” of university police. As part of the ongoing protests across the country, demonstrators disrupted the University of Michigan’s graduation, and some students walked out of their own Indiana University graduation to join the protests on Saturday. Police have arrested or detained some 2,300 people on more than 40 campuses since April 18.
• Republican National Committee (RNC) chief counsel Charlie Spies resigned last week after less than two months in the position. A spokeswoman for the RNC said that Spies’ departure stemmed from “potential time commitment conflicts.” However, NBC News reported on Saturday the longtime Republican election lawyer—who formerly worked with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and has criticized election fraud conspiracies—was “pushed out” of the position he accepted in early March to head the RNC’s legal team.
• Mystik Dan—led by trainer Ken McPeek and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr.—won the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, narrowly edging out Sierra Leone and Forever Young in the first three-horse photo-finish ending since 1947.

Protests Rock Georgia

The last time we wrote about protests in Georgia—the country, not the state, in case there’s any confusion—we explained how Georgians turned police sirens into the soundtrack for a street rave. Just as they did last year, Georgia’s ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD), this spring advanced a Russian-style security law designed to squash civil society organizations, sparking renewed demonstrations over the last month with tens of thousands of Georgians taking to the streets, and yes, continuing their dancing. 

Protesters and opposition groups say GD is continuing to pivot away from the European Union (EU) and America and toward Russia and a more authoritarian system of government. As GD leaders become more vocally hostile to the U.S. and turn to repressive laws to help maintain their power, Georgians are calling for the West to impose sanctions on government leaders before elections this fall.

The Georgian Parliament, controlled by GD, voted last month to advance legislation that would require any organization that receives 20 percent of its funding from abroad to register as a foreign agent, effectively allowing the government to gut independent media and government watchdog groups. The law closely resembles a 2012 Russian foreign agents law that provided the pretext for a government crackdown on civic organizations. “If passed, a foreign agents law would …

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Worth Your Time

• Who’s funding the ongoing anti-Israel protests across college campuses? A report by Politico paints a politically complicated picture. “President Joe Biden has been dogged for months by pro-Palestinian protesters calling him ‘Genocide Joe’—but some of the groups behind the demonstrations receive financial backing from philanthropists pushing hard for his reelection … include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker,” Shia Kapos reported. “Two of the organizers supporting the protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros and was previously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. … Another notable Democratic donor whose philanthropy has helped fund the protest movement is David Rockefeller Jr., who sits on the board of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. In 2022, the fund gave $300,000 to the Tides Foundation; according to nonprofit tax forms, Tides has given nearly $500,000 over the past five years to Jewish Voice for Peace, which explicitly describes itself as anti-Zionist. … The trail of donations shows a series of blurred lines when it comes to liberal causes and Democratic politics. Often those missions are aligned, but they also sometimes have different and—particularly when it comes to Gaza—conflicting agendas and tactics.”
• There’s been a rash of congressional retirements from the 118th Congress, and a handful of those heading for the door are ready to talk about it. Twelve members of Congress leaving office gave video exit interviews to the New York Times, discussing topics ranging from “corruption, money, perks, frustrations, [and] solutions” in our nation’s capital. “When I became a member of Congress, I was conscious of the fact that I was joining an organization that, according to recent polling, is less popular than head lice, colonoscopies, and the rock band Nickelback,” said Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer of Washington. Asked to describe today’s Congress in one word, former Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado replied: “dysfunctional.”

Presented Without Comment

New York Times: At Donor Retreat, Trump Calls Biden Administration the ‘Gestapo’

Also Presented Without Comment

National Review: MIT Scraps Diversity Statements in Faculty-Hiring Process after Discovering ‘They Don’t Work’

Also Also Presented Without Comment 

Politico EU: [Russian President] Vladimir Putin Cut Out the Heart of a Deer and Gave It to [Then-Italian Prime Minister] Silvio Berlusconi

In the Zeitgeist 

It’s apparently a big year for movies about photojournalists named “Lee.”

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics crew covered Biden’s handling of the campus protests, Nick suggested (🔒) the demonstrations are elite students’ attempt to atone for their undeniable privilege, Jonah dove back into some Kristi Noem and Ron DeSantis punditry, and Chris crunched (🔒) the numbers to understand how the electorate is different now than it was in 2020.
• On the podcasts: Jonah ruminated on Robert Kagan’s criticisms of conservatism on this weekend’s episode of The Remnant. Today, CBS News correspondent Robert Costa joins Jamie on the Dispatch Podcast to discuss what a second Trump administration could look like. 
• On the site over the weekend: Michael Lucchese reflected on the American Revolution as displayed in Apple TV+’s Franklin, Tim Rice critiqued Lyndsey Stonebridge’s portrayal of Hannah Arendt in her new book, and Scott Salvato penned an ode to the Catholic-Jewish neighborhood on Long Island in which he grew up.