Word: pretext
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...culture to respond to these with violence." Jemilev, who spent 15 years in prison camps during the Soviet period for campaigning for Tatar rights, contends that Russia is handing out Russian passports in the Crimea and could try to provoke the Tatars into providing a pretext to "protect" Russians, as it did in the Georgian enclave of South Ossetia last year. That invasion led many political analysts to suggest that Russia's next target would be Crimea, with its largely pro-Russian population. The Tatars, on the other hand, are vocal supporters of closer ties to Europe. "Many in Crimea...
...politics would work pretty well, also. Because it solely benefits workers making $106,800 or less, it should be a no-brainer for congressional Democrats. Yet Obama could very conspicuously present it as a Republican idea. Would the Republicans run from it on the pretext that we are now too covered in red ink for it to be “fiscally responsible”? Or will they pose for those smiling photographs with Obama that will do little for their own political standing and make Obama seem even more above the partisan fray? Either way, Obama will emerge...
...flow from a landmark trial underway in Istanbul. The case pits the state against a shadowy ultra-right-wing network allegedly led by retired generals. Prosecutors accuse the group of staging bomb attacks and assassinations in a bid to overthrow the ruling Justice and Development Party and create a pretext for military rule. Turkey is no stranger to coups - the military has stepped in to push the government this way or that three times in as many decades. As recently as 2007, a veiled threat prompted early elections...
...prominent conservative at Harvard Law School and former Solicitor General under President Reagan, dismissed the criticism by some Republican Senators as political posturing that followed a long line of right-wing opposition to the Obama administration’s nominations and characterized their disapproval as “a pretext from the beginning to the end.” “She was at least as forthcoming as anybody, and she was as forthcoming as she ought to be,” Fried said. Fried and other former Solicitor Generals submitted a joint letter to the Judiciary Committee endorsing...
...such events, far from home and with few if any independent eyewitnesses, can quickly escalate into more serious confrontations - as in the case of the Gulf of Tonkin "attack" by North Vietnamese patrol boats against a pair of U.S. Navy destroyers that President Lyndon B. Johnson used as a pretext to win congressional support for his war in Vietnam. (See pictures of China's border war with Vietnam...