Attention to the Unseen

The Washington Post reports: Smuggling gangs in Mexico have repeatedly sawed through new sections of President Trump’s border wall in recent months by using commercially available power tools, opening gaps large enough for people and drug loads to pass through, according to U.S. agents and officials with knowledge of the damage. The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with…

Read More Read More

Thomas Pepinsky writes: For decades, Republicans and Democrats fought over the same things: whose values and policies work best for American democracy. But now, those age-old fights are changing. What was once run-of-the-mill partisan competition is being replaced by a disagreement over democracy itself. This is particularly evident as the president and many of his allies crow about the illegitimacy of the House impeachment inquiry, calling it an attempted coup, and as the White House refuses to comply with multiple…

Read More Read More

The New York Times reports: With a neon-red backpack and white Adidas shoes, he looks like any other undergraduate on the campus of Sichuan University in southwestern China. But Peng Wei, a 21-year-old chemistry major, has a special mission: He is both student and spy. Mr. Peng is one of a growing number of “student information officers” who keep tabs on their professors’ ideological views. They are there to help root out teachers who show any sign of disloyalty to…

Read More Read More

Reuters reports: Iran has stepped in to prevent the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Abdel Abdul Mahdi by two of Iraq’s most influential figures amid weeks of anti-government demonstrations, sources close to both men told Reuters. Populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demanded this week that Abdul Mahdi call an early election to quell the biggest mass protests in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. The demonstrations are fueled by anger at corruption and widespread economic…

Read More Read More

Joshua C. Huder writes: On Thursday, five weeks after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump, the House adopted a resolution confirming that inquiry. The timing is somewhat confusing: The House has had success in several recent court cases, and there’s nothing in the Constitution or in House rules that requires it to adopt a resolution to conduct an impeachment inquiry. So why now? So far, the impeachment investigation has developed in mostly the same way…

Read More Read More

The Atlantic reports: More than a month into the House Democrats’ official impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump, Americans’ support for the inquiry still looks a bit fuzzy. While the most recent national polls show that roughly 50 percent of the country condones the effort, surveys in several key swing states have shown narrower margins of support. But across all the polling, one trend is strikingly clear: Women are much more likely than men to consider the president’s actions worthy…

Read More Read More