Attention to the Unseen

The Washington Post reports: The peso is falling — and so, it seems, is the sky. Inflation and poverty rates are soaring. National reserves are shrinking fast. In short, Argentina — in a terrible deja vu of crises past — is hurtling once again toward the economic abyss. But on the bar stools and wooden chairs of Santa Evita, a grill house dedicated to Eva “Evita” Perón, the political heroine who died a Broadway-worthy death in 1952, the customers are…

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Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes write: In the spring of 1990, John Feffer, a 26-year-old American, spent several months criss-crossing eastern Europe in hope of unlocking the mystery of its post-communist future and writing a book about the historical transformation unfolding before his eyes. He was no expert, so instead of testing theories, he buttonholed as many people from as many walks of life as possible. The contradictions he encountered were fascinating and puzzling. East Europeans were optimistic but apprehensive….

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The New York Times reports: Nameless, faceless and voiceless, the C.I.A. officer who first triggered the greatest threat to President Trump’s tenure in office seemed to be practically the embodiment of the “deep state” that the president has long accused of trying to take him down. But over the last three weeks, the deep state has emerged from the shadows in the form of real live government officials, past and present, who have defied a White House attempt to block…

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The New York Times reports: At Austin Community College, civics is an unwritten part of the curriculum — so much so that for years the school has tapped its own funds to set up temporary early-voting sites on nine of its 11 campuses. No more, however. This spring, the Texas Legislature outlawed polling places that did not stay open for the entire 12-day early-voting period. When the state’s elections take place in three weeks, those nine sites — which logged…

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The New York Times reports: To Democrats who say that President Trump’s decision to freeze a $391 million military aid package to Ukraine was intended to bully Ukraine’s leader into carrying out investigations for Mr. Trump’s political benefit, the president and his allies have had a simple response: There could not have been any quid pro quo because the Ukrainians did not know the assistance had been blocked. Following testimony by William B. Taylor Jr., the top United States diplomat…

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Politico reports: What did Gordon Sondland know and when did he know it? The bombshell testimony of veteran diplomat William Taylor, President Donald Trump’s top envoy to Ukraine, has raised a crucial question of whether Trump admitted to Sondland that he was withholding military aid in exchange for an investigation into political rivals. Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the E.U., indicated as much in a phone call between the two in September, Taylor says. Sondland, however, had said previously he…

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