Attention to the Unseen

The Washington Post reports: A trove of documents released on Friday evening provide the clearest glimpse yet into how President Trump’s inaccurate statements, altered forecast map and tweets regarding Hurricane Dorian’s forecast path rattled top officials along with rank and file scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in September. The documents, released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from The Washington Post and other media outlets, show that the No. 2 official at the agency,…

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Peter Hamby writes: The Bernie bed-wetting has reached full-blown rubber sheet mode. With Bernie Sanders hanging on to a slim polling lead in Iowa and an even bigger one in New Hampshire, panicked Democrats are sounding the alarm that Bernie Sanders could surf a wave of unstoppable momentum all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. Nominating Sanders to run against Donald Trump would be an “Act of Insanity,” according to New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait. “Dems Tormented…

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BuzzFeed reports: After days of arguments and questioning in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, many Republican senators have come to the same conclusion: The president did it, and they don’t care. House Democrats voted to impeach Trump on claims he abused his power by withholding military aid to Ukraine in exchange for an announcement the country would investigate political rival, Joe Biden. Democrats also argued the president stonewalled the House’s investigation leading to the second article of impeachment, obstruction of…

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The New York Times reports: More than two months before he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate his political opponents, President Trump directed John R. Bolton, then his national security adviser, to help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton. Mr. Trump gave the instruction, Mr. Bolton wrote, during an Oval Office conversation in early May that included the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney,…

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The Guardian reports: Emmanuel Macron warned Europeans that Brexit was an “alarm signal” of huge historic significance as the EU flag was hauled from the flagpole outside the UK government’s main office in Brussels, marking the end of Britain’s membership of the bloc. Speaking in Paris, the French president referenced the defining nature of the British decision to turn its back on 47 years of membership. “There is a long history between France and Britain, one made of blood, freedom,…

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Daniel Levy writes: From the mid-1990s to the early noughties, much of my professional life was spent in a rather niche pursuit that came flooding back to me with yesterday’s release of President Trump’s “Peace Vision.” The drafting of Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements became my thing—sometimes in uniform serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), sometimes as a concerned citizen in informal and often clandestine talks, and sometimes as an adviser in the offices of the Israeli prime minister and then…

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The Washington Post reports: Ten days before Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman dined with President Trump at his Washington hotel, they were part of a small group of Republican Party donors who met with the president at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, a new recording shows. The two men — who later assisted Rudolph W. Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine — were part of a gathering held in an ornate room of the property and also attended by Republican National Committee Chairwoman…

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Politico reports: Democrats are bracing for the possibility that if President Donald Trump loses the 2020 election, he and his aides will bungle a smooth handover of power — and maybe even try to outright sabotage the transition. At least one outside group that works with the 2020 Democratic campaigns has quietly launched a transition-related effort designed to offer an early look at the landscape that awaits them if they oust Trump. Separately, a prominent good government organization, the Partnership…

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