House Democrats need to learn some key lessons from Watergate

House Democrats need to learn some key lessons from Watergate

Jonathan C. Rose, special assistant to President Nixon from 1971 to 1973, writes: At its inception in February 1973, the Senate Watergate Committee had only a June 1972 burglary and the well-publicized “dirty tricks” to investigate. However, soon after the committee’s creation, evidence began to emerge of a White House–orchestrated cover-up of the Watergate burglary. As evidence implicating the White House mounted, the administration displayed no inclination toward negotiation or accommodation with the Senate Watergate Committee. On March 15, 1973,…

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The White House is much more afraid of impeachment than it’s letting on

The White House is much more afraid of impeachment than it’s letting on

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s lawyers insist they don’t need to form an impeachment defense team. Yet here’s what they have: At least 30 White House and Justice Department attorneys who have worked on related issues. Several personal lawyers for the president dealing with the subject. A lurking presence at Capitol Hill impeachment-focused hearings. Aggressive legal briefs and countersuits foiling efforts to gather fuel for potential proceedings. Near-daily media appearances discussing the topic. This technically nonexistent yet omnipresent force has been…

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FBI arrests Army soldier who allegedly discussed plans to bomb major American news network

FBI arrests Army soldier who allegedly discussed plans to bomb major American news network

ABC News reports: The FBI has arrested a U.S. soldier who allegedly discussed plans to bomb a major American news network, planned to travel to Ukraine to fight with violent far-right group Azov Battalion and allegedly distributed information online on how to build bombs. He also allegedly suggested targeting Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. According to charging documents in the case, Jarrett William Smith, who transferred to Fort Riley, Kansas, in July, joined the U.S. military only after first expressing…

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Climate protesters and world leaders, on the same planet but in different worlds

Climate protesters and world leaders, on the same planet but in different worlds

Somini Sengupta writes: This is the world we live in: Punishing heat waves, catastrophic floods, huge fires and climate conditions so uncertain that children took to the streets en masse in global protests to demand action. But this is also the world we live in: A pantheon of world leaders who have deep ties to the industries that are the biggest sources of planet-warming emissions, are hostile to protests, or use climate science denial to score political points. That stark…

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Trump didn’t bribe Ukraine — it’s worse than that

Trump didn’t bribe Ukraine — it’s worse than that

Renato Mariotti writes: What Trump is alleged to have done is not a garden variety crime; it’s worse. It involved misusing $250 million in aid appropriated by Congress for his benefit—the kind of gross misconduct that easily clears the bar of high crimes and misdemeanors set by the Constitution when impeaching a president. Which means the best way to hold Trump accountable for that misconduct isn’t a criminal trial; it’s for Congress to impeach him. Pursuing criminal cases that won’t…

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Leader of Arab Palestinian Joint List: We are ending Netanyahu’s grip on Israel

Leader of Arab Palestinian Joint List: We are ending Netanyahu’s grip on Israel

Ayman Odeh writes: The Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel have chosen to reject Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his politics of fear and hate, the inequality and division he advanced for the past decade. Last summer, Mr. Netanyahu declared that Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up a fifth of the population, were to be second-class citizens, officially. “Israel is not a state of all its citizens,” Mr. Netanyahu wrote on Instagram after passing the Nation-State law. “According to the…

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Russian trolls love targeting U.S. veterans

Russian trolls love targeting U.S. veterans

The New Republic reports: The post popped up in select Instagram feeds shortly before the election in 2016. Its photo depicted an anonymous black-clad woman on an airport tarmac, crying over a metal casket covered in an American flag. “Killary Clinton will never understand what it feels like to lose the person you love for the sake of your country,” the caption began. “Honoring the high cost paid by so many families to protect our freedom. Buy a T-shirt—help a…

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The right’s latest attack on academic freedom might succeed

The right’s latest attack on academic freedom might succeed

Mark Joseph Stern writes: The Trump administration has threatened to withdraw federal funding from the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies because it does not portray Christianity or Judaism in a sufficiently “positive” light. A letter from the Department of Education—sent on Tuesday and reported by the New York Times on Thursday—directed the program to emphasize “positive aspects” of these and other non-Islamic religions in the Middle East. If it refuses, the department may strip the program of hundreds of…

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Should the story of early humans’ dispersal out of Africa be rewritten?

Should the story of early humans’ dispersal out of Africa be rewritten?

By Richard Kemeny Giancarlo Scardia was in Jordan in 2013 as the Syrian Civil War ground on. He recalls seeing refugees gathered in giant camps and military aircraft moving toward the border. But Scardia, a geologist based at São Paulo State University in Brazil, wasn’t there to observe the conflict—his interest was in a much older story. Buried within layers of sediment in the Zarqa Valley in northern Jordan was a large cache of chipped rocks. Scardia and his colleagues,…

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One skill that doesn’t deteriorate with age

One skill that doesn’t deteriorate with age

Reading and writing can prevent cognitive decline. AJP/Shutterstock.com By Roger J. Kreuz, University of Memphis When Toni Morrison died on Aug. 5, the world lost one of its most influential literary voices. But Morrison wasn’t a literary wunderkind. “The Bluest Eye,” Morrison’s first novel, wasn’t published until she was 39. And her last, “God Help the Child,” appeared when she was 84. Morrison published four novels, four children’s books, many essays and other works of nonfiction after the age of…

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This isn’t extinction, it’s extermination of nature

This isn’t extinction, it’s extermination of nature

Jeff Sparrow writes: We know that, as far back as the late 50s, researchers for the oil industry understood the effects of carbon on the atmosphere but did nothing about it. In 1988 George HW Bush promised on the campaign trail to fight climate change. “I am an environmentalist,” he declared. “Those who think we are powerless to do anything about the greenhouse effect are forgetting about the White House effect.” There was, of course, no White House effect. In…

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If this isn’t impeachable, nothing is

If this isn’t impeachable, nothing is

Tom Nichols writes: The president of the United States reportedly sought the help of a foreign government against an American citizen who might challenge him for his office. This is the single most important revelation in a scoop by The Wall Street Journal, and if it is true, then President Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office immediately. Until now, there was room for reasonable disagreement over impeachment as both a matter of politics and a matter of…

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Scrutiny over Trump’s Ukraine scandal may also complicate Biden’s campaign

Scrutiny over Trump’s Ukraine scandal may also complicate Biden’s campaign

The Washington Post reports: Joe Biden intended to spend Friday talking about climate change and his long-standing support for the gay and lesbian community. Instead, he was thrust into the center of the latest White House scandal — that President Trump allegedly urged the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden’s son Hunter. Suddenly, Biden faced two dueling realities: The president he is hoping to defeat next year — and who he describes as morally unfit for office — is under scrutiny…

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Frederick Douglass photos smashed stereotypes. Could Elizabeth Warren selfies do the same?

Frederick Douglass photos smashed stereotypes. Could Elizabeth Warren selfies do the same?

Hannah Natanson writes: They look nothing alike. Frederick Douglass — a black man campaigning for the abolition of slavery in the 1840s — appears alone in almost every photograph, staring down the camera in isolated, thoughtful splendor. Elizabeth Warren — a white woman campaigning for the presidency in 2019 — features today in countless iPhone photos and Instagram feeds, her arm around voter after voter, always bearing the same wide grin. The two are separated by race, gender and more…

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