John Blake writes: Cutting taxes for the rich helps the poor. There is no such thing as a Republican or a Democratic judge. Climate change is a hoax. Some political myths refuse to die despite all evidence the contrary. Here’s another: When White people are no longer a majority, racism will fade and the US “will never be a White country again.” This myth was reinforced recently when the US Census’ 2020 report revealed that people who identify as White…
Ed Kilgore writes: The House select committee’s investigation into the Capitol Riot and the various media ticktocks explaining what Donald Trump and his allies were doing in the days immediately leading up to it are casting new light on an important threat to American democracy. But the intense focus on a few wild days in Washington can be misleading as well. Trump’s campaign to steal the 2020 presidential election began shortly after the 2016 election, and arguably the moment of…
The New York Times reports from Whitefish, Montana: Richard B. Spencer, the most infamous summer resident in this town, once boasted that he stood at the vanguard of a white nationalist movement emboldened by President Donald J. Trump. Things have changed. “I have bumped into him, and he runs — that’s actually a really good feeling,” said Tanya Gersh, a real estate agent targeted in an antisemitic hate campaign that Andrew Anglin, the founder of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi…
Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the ADL writes: Around the world Jews are celebrating the High Holy Days. During this time, Jews focus on the need for Teshuvah, or self-examination and repentance. But self-examination need not be limited to individuals. Institutions, especially century-old institutions like ADL, also can commit to the practice of self-examination and Teshuvah. And it is in this spirit that I have been reflecting on a stance ADL took 11 years ago when we…
The New York Times reports: Taliban fighters violently suppressed a women’s protest Saturday in Kabul, while 70 miles to the north ex-Afghan army and militia members battled the Islamist group in Panjshir Province, as pockets of anti-Taliban resistance continued to flare up. Several of the women, who were demanding inclusion in the yet-to-be named Taliban government, said they were beaten by Taliban fighters — some of the first concrete evidence of harsh treatment of women by the group. Since they…
Steve Coll writes: At the end of last week, all of Afghanistan’s airports remained closed to commercial flights. Neighboring countries had shut their borders. Long after the world’s attention turns away, the great majority of the population will “remain inside Afghanistan,” Filippo Grandi, the current U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said. “They need us.” Drought, economic collapse, and covid have left millions of Afghans “marching towards starvation,” David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Programme, warned. On 9/11,…
Mary Ziegler writes: The five justices who upheld Texas’s anti-abortion law in the middle of the night this week insisted that their hands were tied: Texas had invoked sovereign immunity, and abortion providers had not proved that the state was wrong. Above all, the majority warned people not to overreact. Women in Texas might not be able to get an abortion anymore, and abortion providers might have already shut down, but worry not. The Supreme Court had not drawn “any…
Laura Bassett writes: Last night, the Supreme Court quietly green-lit the most extreme abortion ban the United States has seen in half a century: a Texas law that prohibits abortions at six weeks from a woman’s last period, even in cases of rape or incest, and that deputizes citizens to spy on women and sue anyone who helps someone obtain a prohibited abortion. The rest of the states now have a road map to ban abortion almost entirely and put…
The New York Times reports: In Louisiana and Mississippi, nearly one million people lack electricity and drinking water after a hurricane obliterated power lines. In California, wildfire menaces Lake Tahoe, forcing tens of thousands to flee. In Tennessee, flash floods killed at least 20; hundreds more perished in a heat wave in the Northwest. And in New York City, 7 inches of rain fell in just hours Wednesday, drowning people in their basements. Disasters cascading across the country this summer…
RFE/RL reports: Hundreds of Afghans stand along dusty roadsides in the capital, Kabul, desperately trying to sell their meager possessions. Many offer used pots, plates, and cups that are piled up on bedsheets. Others sell tattered mattresses and old rugs or hope someone will buy their television or refrigerator. “There are no jobs and we don’t have any money,” says Haji Aziz, an unemployed cook who stands by a heap of kitchen utensils for sale along a busy road in…
CNN reports: Stephen Miller seemed floored by the idea, raised during a fall Cabinet meeting in 2018, of keeping open the doors for Afghan allies and other Middle East refugees to enter the US. “What do you guys want?” Miller, then a top adviser to President Donald Trump, asked incredulously, according to one person in the room. “A bunch of Iraqs and ‘Stans across the country?” His words stunned many in the meeting, but they were no accident. Under Miller’s guidance, several…
The Washington Post reports: A new study of user behavior on Facebook around the 2020 election is likely to bolster critics’ long-standing arguments that the company’s algorithms fuel the spread of misinformation over more trustworthy sources. The forthcoming peer-reviewed study by researchers at New York University and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France has found that from August 2020 to January 2021, news publishers known for putting out misinformation got six times the amount of likes, shares, and interactions on…
Janet Reitman writes: By the end of September 2001, [Robert] Mueller told President Bush that Al Qaeda had 331 potential “sleeper” operatives inside the United States. By the following October, intelligence officials were estimating that anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 Al Qaeda terrorists might be hiding within various Muslim communities across the United States. Virtually all of these supposed terrorists turned out to be nonentities — “ghost leads,” as they were called. The U.S. response to terrorism would eventually take…
Dahlia Lithwick writes: Thinking about a nondecision that never came down via the so-called shadow docket in the middle of the night that allowed the second-largest state in the country to overturn a 50-year-old precedent without the Supreme Court writing a word is a bit like dancing between the raindrops. By doing nothing at all on Wednesday night, the Supreme Court largely evaded top-of-the-fold coverage or glaring headlines even as—for all intents and purposes—abortions after six weeks simply stopped in…
Vice News reports: For months now, we all thought we knew that the bogus Arizona audit was a clown show. But a new data dump of more than 22,000 emails, texts, and documents show just how wild it really was. On Tuesday the Arizona Senate finally complied with a court order to hand over its private communications with the people involved in running the audit. The massive trove includes communications that suggest former President Trump wanted to fund it, that…
Gabriel Sherman writes: On the evening of July 19, several dozen Republican donors gathered for dinner in a private room at the St. Regis Aspen to hear Nikki Haley deliver a speech. The former South Carolina governor had been invited by the Republican Governors Association, which was holding its typically drama-free summer meeting at the exclusive Rocky Mountain resort. It would be a prime platform for Haley to court 27 red-state governors as she lays the groundwork for a future…