Attention to the Unseen

Vanity Fair‘s Emily Jane Fox reports: During our conversation, [Trump’s former lawyer, Micheal] Cohen recalled a discussion at Trump Tower, following the then-candidate’s return from a campaign rally during the 2016 election cycle. Cohen had watched the rally on TV and noticed that the crowd was largely Caucasian. He offered this observation to his boss. “I told Trump that the rally looked vanilla on television. Trump responded, ‘That’s because black people are too stupid to vote for me.’” (The White…

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Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, writes: Trump’s rhetoric matters. He is the President of the United States and he has — at best — been grossly irresponsible and utterly reckless with his words. At worst, he has inspired violence targeting minority groups in a manner reminiscent of the darkest moments in history. Whether Donald Trump himself is an anti-Semite, racist, neo-Nazi or white supremacist is almost irrelevant. Those who align with these movements feel…

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The Hill reports: President Trump said Wednesday that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if billionaire philanthropist George Soros or someone else is funding the caravan of Central American migrants moving toward the U.S. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Trump told reporters outside the White House when asked if “someone” is paying for the caravan. “George Soros?” a reporter interjected. “I don’t know who, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” Trump said. “A lot of people say yes.” The unfounded conspiracy theory that Soros,…

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The Washington Post reports: U.S. archivists on Wednesday revealed one of the last great secrets of the Watergate investigation — the backbone of a long-sealed report used by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski to send Congress evidence in the legal case against President Richard M. Nixon. The release of the referral — delivered in 1974 as impeachment proceedings were being weighed — came after a former member of Nixon’s defense team and three prominent legal analysts filed separate lawsuits seeking its…

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As nationalism threatens the European peace project, six leading German thinkers write in an open letter: After the 55 million deaths caused by WWII, after centuries of nationalist and imperialist wars left Europe in ruins, the peoples and the national governments across the continent finally realized that European unity was the only way to stop this madness. Immanuel Kant had had this vision 150 years earlier in his philosophical treatise “On Eternal Peace.” So, at long last, Europe’s leaders set…

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The Washington Post reports: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a dangerous Islamist days after his disappearance in a phone call with President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and national security adviser John Bolton, according to people familiar with the discussion. In the call, which occurred before the kingdom publicly acknowledged killing Khashoggi, the crown prince urged Kushner and Bolton to preserve the U.S.-Saudi alliance and said the journalist was a member of the Muslim…

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Paul Mason writes: Once you’ve heard the words “Jair Bolsonaro, president of Brazil” you have to prepare yourself to hear, in the future, “Marine Le Pen, president of France”. We already have a far-right Italian deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, but Bolsonaro’s victory also signals that Salvini could one day rule without the restraint of a coalition partner. The Brazilian president’s victory was, in short, the first case study in how a financial elite responds when faced with a choice…

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Mike Duncan writes: What does a republic in decline look like? It’s an increasingly pressing question for the United States, where rising economic inequality is creating stress, anxiety and resentment. Endemic racism and ethnic prejudice are leading to clashes over citizenship and voting rights. Rampant corruption and ruthless ambition among elites are triggering political clashes that may crack the once-indestructible foundations of the American Republic — an unthinkable idea even a few decades ago, in the triumphalist aftermath of the…

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The Washington Post reports: Turkey’s public prosecutor said Wednesday that Jamal Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered upon arrival at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul earlier this month as part of a premeditated plan to kill the prominent journalist and dispose of his body. The statement, delivered as Saudi Arabia’s prosecutor left Istanbul for Riyadh, marked the most conclusive official description to date of what happened to the prominent journalist and Washington Post contributing columnist when he entered the diplomatic mission…

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The Washington Post reports: For just over two years, until June 2017, Mohammed bin Nayef was crown prince of Saudi Arabia, the designated heir to the throne. A grandson of the kingdom’s founder, with long experience at high levels of government, he was the first of his generation to reach the direct line of succession. Today, bin Nayef, 59, is rarely seen outside his palace in Jiddah, on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast. Usurped by an ambitious cousin barely half…

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