Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

How the Republican Party is gradually killing American democracy

How the Republican Party is gradually killing American democracy

Comments 0 Comment

Christopher R. Browning writes: As a historian specializing in the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, and Europe in the era of the world wars, I have been repeatedly asked about the degree to which the current situation in the United States resembles the interwar period and the rise of fascism in Europe. I would note several troubling similarities and one important but equally troubling difference. In the 1920s, the US pursued isolationism in foreign policy and rejected participation in international organizations like…

Read More Read More

Was the White House afraid of Kavanaugh lying to the FBI?

Was the White House afraid of Kavanaugh lying to the FBI?

Comments 0 Comment

David Corn reports: [T]he standard operating procedure for any investigation would include questioning the accuser and the accused. Forgoing these interviews undermines the FBI’s report and makes it easy for critics to contend that this has been a sham investigation. So why would the White House take such a step? The Democrats on Senate Judiciary Committee have a theory: Trump White House officials blocked an interview with Ford because they were worried about the FBI questioning Kavanaugh. According to Democratic…

Read More Read More

FBI report provides key Republicans the fig leaf they were looking for

FBI report provides key Republicans the fig leaf they were looking for

Comments 0 Comment

The Washington Post reports: A pair of key Republican senators expressed satisfaction Thursday with a new FBI report, increasing the odds of Senate confirmation this weekend of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee who has faced sexual misconduct allegations. Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), one of three Republicans who had not indicated how they plan to vote, said Thursday that “it appears to be a very thorough investigation, but I’m going back later to personally read the interviews.”…

Read More Read More

FBI avoided talking to witnesses who could corroborate allegations against Kavanaugh

FBI avoided talking to witnesses who could corroborate allegations against Kavanaugh

Comments 0 Comment

The New Yorker reports: Frustrated potential witnesses who have been unable to speak with the F.B.I agents conducting the investigation into sexual-assault allegations against Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, have been resorting to sending statements, unsolicited, to the Bureau and to senators, in hopes that they would be seen before the inquiry concluded. On Monday, President Trump said that the Bureau should be able to interview “anybody they want within reason,” but the extent of the constraints placed…

Read More Read More

National Council of Churches calls for Kavanaugh’s nomination to be withdrawn

National Council of Churches calls for Kavanaugh’s nomination to be withdrawn

Comments 0 Comment

The Hill reports: The nation’s largest coalition of Christian churches on Wednesday called for the withdrawal of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court. The National Council of Churches, which has membership from more than 40 denominations including most major Protestant and Eastern Orthodox denominations in the U.S., wrote in a statement on their website that they believe Kavanaugh has “disqualified himself from this lifetime appointment and must step aside immediately.” The statement cited a number of reasons for the…

Read More Read More

Over 1,000 law professors (and counting) call on Senate not to confirm Kavanaugh

Over 1,000 law professors (and counting) call on Senate not to confirm Kavanaugh

Comments 0 Comment

Judicial temperament is one of the most important qualities of a judge. As the Congressional Research Service explains, a judge requires “a personality that is even-handed, unbiased, impartial, courteous yet firm, and dedicated to a process, not a result.” The concern for judicial temperament dates back to our founding; in Federalist 78, titled “Judges as Guardians of the Constitution,” Alexander Hamilton expressed the need for “the integrity and moderation of the judiciary.” We are law professors who teach, research and…

Read More Read More

I was Brett Kavanaugh’s college roommate. He lied under oath

I was Brett Kavanaugh’s college roommate. He lied under oath

Comments 0 Comment

James Roche writes: In 1983, I was one of Brett Kavanaugh’s freshman roommates at Yale University. About two weeks ago I came forward to lend my support to my friend Deborah Ramirez, who says Brett sexually assaulted her at a party in a dorm suite. I did this because I believe Debbie. Now the FBI is investigating this incident. I am willing to speak with them about my experiences at Yale with both Debbie and Brett. I would tell them…

Read More Read More

As midterms approach, proposed U.S. Navy show of force would escalate tensions with China

As midterms approach, proposed U.S. Navy show of force would escalate tensions with China

Comments 0 Comment

CNN reports: The US Navy’s Pacific Fleet has drawn up a classified proposal to carry out a global show of force as a warning to China and to demonstrate the US is prepared to deter and counter their military actions, according to several US defense officials. The draft proposal from the Navy is recommending the US Pacific Fleet conduct a series of operations during a single week in November. The goal is to carry out a highly focused and concentrated…

Read More Read More

Most American soldiers are overweight and underslept

Most American soldiers are overweight and underslept

Comments 0 Comment

Military Times reports: A 2018 RAND report on health promotion and disease prevention has painted a grim picture of the military’s physical fitness and sleep standards. The study, featuring roughly 18,000 randomly selected participants across each of the service branches, showed that almost 66 percent of service members are considered to be either overweight or obese, based on the military’s use of body mass index as a measuring standard. While the number of overweight service members is a cause for…

Read More Read More

White male power controls every branch of our government

White male power controls every branch of our government

Comments 0 Comment

Bonnie Mann writes: The uproar over the Kavanaugh hearings — even more powerful than the one that followed the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape during the presidential campaign, on which Donald Trump boasted about committing sexual assault — has plunged the nation into a sort of civil war. As a philosopher, I am inclined to see this as a war between two epistemic worlds. By “epistemic world” I mean a broadly shared framework for knowing in which emotions, moral…

Read More Read More

Cruelty is the social glue that unites Trumpworld

Cruelty is the social glue that unites Trumpworld

Comments 0 Comment

Adam Serwer writes: The Trump era is such a whirlwind of cruelty that it can be hard to keep track. This week alone, the news broke that the Trump administration was seeking to ethnically cleanse more than 193,000 American children of immigrants whose temporary protected status had been revoked by the administration, that the Department of Homeland Security had lied about creating a database of children that would make it possible to unite them with the families the Trump administration…

Read More Read More

Don’t expect Federalist Society members, Wray and Rosenstein, to protect the FBI this time

Don’t expect Federalist Society members, Wray and Rosenstein, to protect the FBI this time

Comments 0 Comment

Nelson W. Cunningham writes: In President Donald Trump’s long and strange war on the FBI and Justice Department, we have become accustomed to the sight of FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein bravely standing up to the president. Again and again, these men have been objective tribunals standing up for independence, thoroughness and freedom from political interference. Now it seems they might have another reason to speak up, as reports swirl that political figures at the…

Read More Read More

I know Brett Kavanaugh, but I wouldn’t confirm him

I know Brett Kavanaugh, but I wouldn’t confirm him

Comments 0 Comment

Benjamin Wittes writes: [I]f I were a senator, I would vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. I would do it both because of Ford’s testimony and because of Kavanaugh’s. For reasons I will describe, I find her account more believable than his. I would also do it because whatever the truth of what happened in the summer of 1982, Thursday’s hearing left Kavanaugh nonviable as a justice. A few days before the hearing, I detailed on this site the advice I would…

Read More Read More

How New York Times journalists uncovered the original source of Donald Trump’s wealth

How New York Times journalists uncovered the original source of Donald Trump’s wealth

Comments 0 Comment

The New York Times reports: In the three years since Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy for president, there has been plenty of investigation into his financial history — especially because he broke with tradition and declined to release his tax returns. In 2016, David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times obtained his 1995 tax returns, showing that he could have avoided paying taxes for nearly two decades. And for their article on Wednesday’s front…

Read More Read More

Most Americans are too ignorant to pass a citizenship test

Most Americans are too ignorant to pass a citizenship test

Comments 0 Comment

Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation: Only one in three Americans (36 percent) can actually pass a multiple choice test consisting of items taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test, which has a passing score of 60, according to a national survey released today by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Only 13 percent of those surveyed knew when the U.S. Constitution was ratified, even on a multiple-choice exam similar to the citizenship exam, with most incorrectly thinking it occurred in 1776….

Read More Read More