Matthew Whitaker plays to an audience of one

Matthew Whitaker plays to an audience of one

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Natasha Bertrand writes: It took about five minutes of questioning for the acting attorney general to provoke gasps and jeers in the congressional hearing room. “Your five minutes is up,” Matthew Whitaker, an ex–U.S. attorney turned toilet salesman, told the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic chairman, Jerry Nadler. Nadler cracked a smile, but from that point on, the rules of engagement seemed clear: Whitaker, with just days remaining in his legally dubious role as the interim head of the Justice Department,…

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London pushes to take Saudis off EU dirty money blacklist, say officials

London pushes to take Saudis off EU dirty money blacklist, say officials

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Reuters reports: Britain is leading a group of European Union states who are trying to block an EU plan to include Saudi Arabia and 22 other jurisdictions on a blacklist of countries that pose money-laundering and terrorism financing threats, sources said. The EU’s executive commission adopted last month a draft list that adds Saudi Arabia, Panama and small Pacific and Caribbean islands to the existing list of 16 states, which currently includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and North Korea….

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Your life choices aren’t just about what you want to do; they’re about who you want to be

Your life choices aren’t just about what you want to do; they’re about who you want to be

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Joshua Rothman writes: In July of 1838, Charles Darwin was twenty-nine years old and single. Two years earlier, he had returned from his voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle with the observations that would eventually form the basis of “On the Origin of Species.” In the meantime, he faced a more pressing analytical problem. Darwin was considering proposing to his cousin Emma Wedgwood, but he worried that marriage and children might impede his scientific career. To figure out what to do, he…

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With the Green New Deal, Democrats present a radical proposition for combating climate change

With the Green New Deal, Democrats present a radical proposition for combating climate change

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Osita Nwanevu writes: When Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined members of the Sunrise Movement and the Justice Democrats at a sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office pushing a Green New Deal in November, she framed the proposal, which few had then heard of, as the only way for the Party and the country to seriously address climate change. “We do not have a choice,” she told them. “We have to get to one hundred per cent renewable energy in ten years. There…

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Ronan Farrow says he also faced ‘blackmail efforts from AMI’ for reporting on the National Enquirer, Trump

Ronan Farrow says he also faced ‘blackmail efforts from AMI’ for reporting on the National Enquirer, Trump

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The Washington Post reports: Ronan Farrow said Thursday that he and “at least one other prominent journalist” who had reported on the National Enquirer and President Trump received blackmail threats from the tabloid’s parent company, American Media Inc., over their work. Farrow’s allegation came just hours after Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos published a remarkable public post on Medium accusing the National Enquirer of attempting to extort and blackmail him by threatening to publish intimate photos unless he stopped…

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From Costa Rica to New Jersey, a pipeline of illegal workers for Trump goes back years

From Costa Rica to New Jersey, a pipeline of illegal workers for Trump goes back years

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The Washington Post reports: At his home on the misty slope of Costa Rica’s tallest mountain, Dario Angulo keeps a set of photographs from the years he tended the rolling fairways and clipped greens of a faraway American golf resort. Angulo learned to drive backhoes and bulldozers, carving water hazards and tee boxes out of former horse pastures in Bedminster, N.J., where a famous New Yorker was building a world-class course. Angulo earned $8 an hour, a fraction of what…

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Today’s threats to global democracy are coming from democracies themselves

Today’s threats to global democracy are coming from democracies themselves

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Joshua Keating writes: When it comes to the threats to global democracy, the call is coming from inside the house. U.S.-based NGO Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World report, released Monday, found that for the 13th straight year, global freedom has declined. (The report scores countries on 25 indicators—factors like rule of law and freedom of the press—and categorizes them as “free,” “partly free,” or “not free.”) For much of this period, which political scientist Larry Diamond has called…

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A deadly welcome awaits Syria’s returning refugees

A deadly welcome awaits Syria’s returning refugees

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Anchal Vohra writes: As the Syrian war draws to an end and the barrel bombs stop terrorizing the country, Syrians are being encouraged to return home by the countries to which they have fled. Those who do so, however, are finding the persecution that caused them to flee has not gone away. Some Syrians who have returned have disappeared into the country’s notorious prison system, a stark reminder of the dangers the country’s former refugees face. Foreign Policy has spoken…

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White House refuses to meet Senate deadline on Khashoggi killing

White House refuses to meet Senate deadline on Khashoggi killing

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Politico reports: President Donald Trump has missed a deadline imposed by a bipartisan group of senators to identify the killers of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and to determine if the U.S. should impose sanctions on them. “Consistent with the previous Administration’s position and the constitutional separation of powers, the President maintains his discretion to decline to act on congressional committee requests when appropriate,” a senior administration official said Friday. The group of lawmakers, led by Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.),…

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The Green New Deal is an opportunity for America to get right with the world

The Green New Deal is an opportunity for America to get right with the world

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Eric Holthaus writes: There’s an inescapable truth when it comes to climate change: Through its historical emissions and political role throughout history, the United States is responsible for this problem more than any other country on Earth. The unveiling of a sweeping Green New Deal resolution by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey, along with several leading presidential candidates and dozens of other co-sponsors, is a legitimate effort to right those wrongs and repair our standing in the world…

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A huge climate change movement led by teenage girls is sweeping Europe. And it’s coming to the U.S. next

A huge climate change movement led by teenage girls is sweeping Europe. And it’s coming to the U.S. next

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BuzzFeed reports: A huge student protest movement led almost exclusively by teenage girls and young women is sweeping Europe, and it’s on the brink of breaking through in the US. So far this year, tens of thousands of high school–age students in Belgium, Germany, and Sweden have boycotted class and protested against climate change. The loose movement’s inspiration, a 16-year-old girl who began a solitary picket last year outside the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm, has compared the protests to the…

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How Russian-style kleptocracy came to America

How Russian-style kleptocracy came to America

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Franklin Foer writes: For two years, in the early 1990s, Richard Palmer served as the CIA station chief in the United States’ Moscow embassy. The events unfolding around him—the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the rise of Russia—were so chaotic, so traumatic and exhilarating, that they mostly eluded clearheaded analysis. But from all the intelligence that washed over his desk, Palmer acquired a crystalline understanding of the deeper narrative of those times. Much of the rest of the world…

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Why disaster capitalists are praying for a no-deal Brexit

Why disaster capitalists are praying for a no-deal Brexit

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George Monbiot writes: Part of me wants to smash it all up. I want to see the British bubble burst: the imperial nostalgia, the groundless belief in the inherent greatness of this nation; the casual dishonesty of those who govern us; the xenophobia; the intolerance; the denial; the complacency. I want those who have caused the coming disaster to own it, so that nobody ever believes them again. No-deal Brexit? Bring it on. Such dark thoughts do not last long….

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In Venezuela, all eyes — the opposition’s as well as the government’s — are on Trump

In Venezuela, all eyes — the opposition’s as well as the government’s — are on Trump

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Robert Malley and Robert Fadel write: It’s hard for the two sides in Venezuela’s political conflict to agree on virtually anything, what with dueling presidents, competing institutions, and diametrically opposed visions. But in a brief visit to Caracas this week, we found broad consensus on one point: It all depends on Donald Trump. The Venezuelan crisis is not new. President Nicolás Maduro and those immediately around him bear primary responsibility: They’ve badly mismanaged the country, trampled its democratic institutions, stage-managed…

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