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The speech that helped a new generation of Germans face the Nazi past honestly

The speech that helped a new generation of Germans face the Nazi past honestly

Helmut Walser Smith writes: On 8 May 1985, West Germany’s president Richard von Weizsäcker delivered something akin to the Gettysburg Address – not for a nation in the midst of war, as was the case for the United States’ president Abraham Lincoln in 1863, but for a country working through the memory and the meaning of a lost war 40 years after its end. There were, of course, vast differences in the two speeches. Given on a grey day on…

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The unusual origins behind the splashiest, newest political news site

The unusual origins behind the splashiest, newest political news site

Politico reports: The launch of the website Grid earlier this month represented the latest bet that the market for explainer journalism still exists in the digital space. But unlike others in the field, Grid has a unique origin story, one that involves early ties to a global consulting firm best known for its crisis communications management and lobbying work on behalf of foreign governments, most notably the United Arab Emirates. Months before Grid brought on board any writers or staff,…

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Putin has the U.S. right where he wants it

Putin has the U.S. right where he wants it

Fiona Hill writes: We knew this was coming. “George, you have to understand that Ukraine is not even a country. Part of its territory is in Eastern Europe and the greater part was given to us.” These were the ominous words of President Vladimir Putin of Russia to President George W. Bush in Bucharest, Romania, at a NATO summit in April 2008. Mr. Putin was furious: NATO had just announced that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually join the alliance. This…

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Anger over departure of U.S. diplomats from Kyiv

Anger over departure of U.S. diplomats from Kyiv

BuzzFeed News reports: Ukrainians expressed confusion and anger Monday over Washington’s decision to authorize the voluntary departure of government employees from Kyiv and order the mandatory withdrawal of family members of US embassy personnel. The decision announced by the Department of State cited ​the “threat of Russian military action.” It comes as a staggering number of Russian soldiers with heavy weaponry continue to arrive at areas along the Ukraine border, moves that President Joe Biden has warned may be preparation…

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No, democracy isn’t about to die

No, democracy isn’t about to die

Timothy Noah writes: Trump did not win his war on American institutions; he lost reelection. He went to truly appalling lengths to try to overturn the results, but he never got close. He and his allies filed 62 lawsuits. They won exactly one, a minor scuffle in Pennsylvania over whether voters could provide necessary identification after, rather than before, they mailed in their ballots. Not a single electoral ballot was changed. Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution tallied pro-Trump votes…

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New MAGA emails reveal plot to hand Arizona to Trump

New MAGA emails reveal plot to hand Arizona to Trump

Andy Kroll reports: The technology was complicated, but the plan was simple: Scan mail-in and absentee ballots in populous Maricopa County, remove the “invalid votes,” and recertify the state’s 2020 election count, surely declaring then-President Donald Trump the rightful winner. This scheme to subvert the election outcome in Arizona is laid out in newly released emails obtained by Rolling Stone. Sent in early December 2020, the emails cover a critical moment when the post-election push by Trump and Republican allies…

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How Larry Summers became the preeminent critic of the Biden era’s economic consensus

How Larry Summers became the preeminent critic of the Biden era’s economic consensus

Eric Levitz writes: There’s a story that progressives like to tell about Larry Summers. The doyen of Establishment economics is dining out with a populist politician. The two have made it through the meal with minimal awkwardness — their ideological tensions eased by booze and food — when Summers leans back in his chair and offers his left-wing foil a hard-won insight. There are two kinds of political actors in this world: insiders and outsiders. Outsiders are free to speak…

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The case for impeaching Justice Clarence Thomas

The case for impeaching Justice Clarence Thomas

Michael Tomasky writes: In a sane world, Jane Mayer’s excellent piece on Ginni Thomas in The New Yorker would set off a series of events that would lead to her husband Clarence Thomas’s impeachment and removal from the Supreme Court. Ginni is involved with numerous far-right organizations and schemes that take very public positions on court decisions across a range of social and political issues, such as last week’s 8–1 holding that Donald Trump could not block the release of…

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How one man changed the meaning of past present and future

How one man changed the meaning of past present and future

Emily Thomas writes: Events happen in order – you whisk icing before decorating a cake. Some events seem to be present, while others are future or past. A birthday party lies in the future, approaching slowly. When the big day arrives, the party is present; afterwards, it slips into memory and the past. Pastness, presentness and futurity seem to be real features of the world, but are they really? Philosophers disagree, and this debate pervades books such as Time and…

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Confusion over UK claim that Putin plans coup in Ukraine

Confusion over UK claim that Putin plans coup in Ukraine

The Observer reports: The Foreign Office has said that it had exposed evidence of a plot to install a pro-Moscow government in Ukraine, and Boris Johnson promised to “ramp up pressure on Russia”, as his own domestic political troubles deepened. Saturday’s rare reference to intelligence-gathering went into almost no detail about a conspiracy that, if accurate, could mean a serious escalation in the threat to Ukraine. Politicians there were sceptical that the government could be replaced without a full-blown invasion…

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Germany’s reliance on Russian gas limits Europe’s options in Ukraine crisis

Germany’s reliance on Russian gas limits Europe’s options in Ukraine crisis

The Wall Street Journal reports: Germany’s dependence on Russian gas has left Europe short of options to sanction Moscow if it invades Ukraine—and itself vulnerable should Russia stop gas exports to the West. A two-decade-old decision to phase out nuclear power and more recent moves to cut reliance on coal in an effort to bring down CO2 emissions mean Germany is now more reliant on Russian gas than most of its neighbors, not just for heating but also for power…

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How Russia decides when to invade suggests it might not move on Ukraine

How Russia decides when to invade suggests it might not move on Ukraine

Eugene Chausovsky writes: In its decision-making process on whether to intervene militarily in the former Soviet sphere, Russia’s calculus uses a strategic framework that rests primarily on five variables: 1) a trigger; 2) local support; 3) anticipated military reaction; 4) technical feasibility; and 5) relatively low anticipated political and economic costs, especially when it comes to nonmilitary responses to invasion such as sanctions or diplomatic restrictions. If any one of these conditions is insufficient or nonexistent, then Russia is unlikely…

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Covid will continue but the end of the pandemic is near

Covid will continue but the end of the pandemic is near

Christopher J L Murray writes: The world is experiencing a huge wave of infection with the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Estimates based on Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) models suggest that on around Jan 17, 2022 there were 125 million omicron infections a day in the world, which is more than ten times the peak of the delta wave in April, 2021. The omicron wave is inexorably reaching every continent with only a few countries in eastern Europe,…

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How the worst attack on American democracy in generations has mutated into an emblem of resistance

How the worst attack on American democracy in generations has mutated into an emblem of resistance

The New York Times reports: There were moments when Paul Davis questioned his decision to join the crowd that marched on the United States Capitol last January. When he was publicly identified and fired from his job as a lawyer. When his fiancée walked out. But then something shifted. Instead of lingering as an indelible stain, Jan. 6 became a galvanizing new beginning for Mr. Davis. He started his own law practice as a “lawyer for patriots” representing anti-vaccine workers….

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