Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: Zimbabwe’s collapse under Robert Mugabe. The fall of the Soviet Union. Cuba’s disastrous unraveling in the 1990s. The crumbling of Venezuela’s economy has now outpaced them all. Venezuela’s fall is the single largest economic collapse outside of war in at least 45 years, economists say. “It’s really hard to think of a human tragedy of this scale outside civil war,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University and former chief economist at the…

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Jonathan Chait writes: Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi has taken the brave and lonely stance that William Barr was wise and correct in his presentation of the Mueller report and decision not to charge the president with obstruction. (“It was Mueller, not Barr, who concluded there was no underlying crime,” concluded Taibbi, “so if the next stage of this madness is haggling over an obstruction charge, that would likely entail calling for a prosecution of Trump for obstructing an investigation into…

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Vox reports: On Wednesday, President Donald Trump followed through on a campaign promise he made to Conrad Black, a former media mogul and business partner, by pardoning him for fraud and obstruction of justice convictions. In late 2015, Black — who was convicted in 2007 and spent more than three years in prison before being released in 2012 — wrote a piece for National Review headlined “Trump Is the Good Guy.” “It is time to look more seriously at the…

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Lili Loofbourow writes: Shouts broke out on the Alabama Senate floor last Thursday when Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth tried to rush through a motion without a roll-call vote. If that sentence bored you—even with the shouting—you’ve already grasped something basic: The dullness of these procedures is why most of us have trouble understanding them or paying attention, even when there’s cheating involved. We should try. In this case, the motion would have removed an amendment—supported by some Republicans—to exclude cases…

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The Washington Post reports: Late last year, in a Miami conference room, a consultant for President Trump’s company said business at his prized 643-room Doral resort was in sharp decline. At Doral, which Trump has listed in federal disclosures as his biggest moneymaker hotel, room rates, banquets, golf and overall revenue were all down since 2015. In two years, the resort’s net operating income — a key figure, representing the amount left over after expenses are paid — had fallen…

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Gershom Gorenberg writes: Before dawn, in a Ukrainian village on a day in May 100 years ago, an 18-year-old Jewish woman and a 20-year-old Jewish man had a hurried marriage ceremony. Then they fled. A gentile neighbor had warned them that there would be great trouble for the Jews of Obodovka that day. The bride’s name was Ettl. The groom was Itzik. The neighbor was right. Four of Ettl’s brothers and a young nephew were among the Jews murdered in…

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