Music: Wolfert Brederode Quartet — ‘Inner Dance’
John McCain tried ‘to inspire young Americans to devote themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest’
The cynicism with which most Americans view most politicians, has long made it difficult to believe a claim such as John McCain’s stated goal during the 2000 presidential race — that he wanted ‘to inspire young Americans to devote themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest’ — and yet while travelling with the candidate, David Foster Wallace couldn’t ignore McCain’s moral authority — a very rare commodity on the campaign trail. In October of ’67 McCain was himself still…
The prosecutors who have declared war on Trump
Noah Feldman writes: In essence, by making [Michael] Cohen say he acted at Trump’s direction, the Southern District [of New York] declared war on the president. Then there’s the Weisselberg immunity grant. Although the reporting so far indicates that Weisselberg’s deal was limited to testimony about Cohen’s conduct, it seems likely prosecutors have bigger things in mind. To convict Cohen, the Southern District didn’t need the CFO’s testimony. There was already plenty of documentary evidence against Cohen. And Cohen’s guilt…
Everyone and everything Trump touches rots
Peter Wehner writes: There’s never been any confusion about the character defects of Donald Trump. The question has always been just how far he would go and whether other individuals and institutions would stand up to him or become complicit in his corruption. When I first took to these pages three summers ago to write about Mr. Trump, I warned my fellow Republicans to just say no both to him and his candidacy. One of my concerns was that if…
How Trump broke into the White House
The Washington Post reports: The nation heard this week accusations that Donald Trump was personally involved in the decision to offer two women money shortly before the 2016 election to keep them from sharing stories of alleged affairs. Trump’s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, admitted under oath to having been instructed by Trump to work with David Pecker, chairman and chief executive of American Media Inc., to arrange a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. He also admitted to…
America’s never-ending culture war
Michael Kazin writes: On the evening of Aug. 26, 1968, I was arrested on a street corner in Chicago for a dubious crime: protesting a political event. This was, of course, the Democratic National Convention, which was about to nominate as its presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, the vice president, who had staunchly supported the decision to send half a million troops to pursue a deeply immoral and doomed mission in Vietnam. I joined hundreds of others in jail that night….
‘Iraqis aren’t spiritual. They like to party’
The Washington Post reports: It’s nearing midnight on a Thursday and the streets are jammed with traffic. There are people heading home after dinner with family and friends, and people for whom the night has just begun. At the newly opened Ibrahim Basha club, the party is just getting going. A Syrian singer with waist-length blond hair and sky-high pink heels is singing Arabic hits, accompanied by a talented Iraqi musician alternately playing the saxophone, the piano and the oud….
The hidden injuries of the age of exposure
Rochelle Gurstein writes: What do we lose when we lose our privacy? This question has become increasingly difficult to answer, living as we do in a society that offers boundless opportunities for men and women to expose themselves (in all dimensions of that word) as never before, to commit what are essentially self-invasions of privacy. Although this is a new phenomenon, it has become as ubiquitous as it is quotidian, and for that reason, it is perhaps one of the…
Music: Joan Bibiloni — ‘Sa Fosca’
Big oil asks government to protect it from climate change
The Associated Press reports: As the nation plans new defenses against the more powerful storms and higher tides expected from climate change, one project stands out: an ambitious proposal to build a nearly 60-mile “spine” of concrete seawalls, earthen barriers, floating gates and steel levees on the Texas Gulf Coast. Like other oceanfront projects, this one would protect homes, delicate ecosystems and vital infrastructure, but it also has another priority — to shield some of the crown jewels of the…
White House obstructs legislation that would protect U.S. elections
Yahoo News reports: A bill that would have significantly bolstered the nation’s defenses against electoral interference has been held up in the Senate at the behest of the White House, which opposed the proposed legislation, according to congressional sources. The Secure Elections Act, introduced by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., in December 2017, had co-sponsorship from two of the Senate’s most prominent liberals, Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., as well as from conservative stalwart Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and consummate…
The microbiologist who fundamentally changed the way we think about evolution and the origins of life
David Quammen writes: On Nov. 3, 1977, a new scientific revolution was heralded to the world — but it came cryptically, in slightly confused form. The front page of that day’s New York Times carried a headline: “Scientists Discover a Form of Life That Predates Higher Organisms.” A photograph showed a man named Carl R. Woese, a microbiologist at the University of Illinois in Urbana, with his feet up on his office desk. He was 50ish, with unruly hair, wearing…
Music: Mathias Eick — ‘Oslo’
How Trump betrayed his supporters
The conventional wisdom accepted both before Trump got elected and perhaps even more so since then is that there is virtually nothing he could do nor any new revelation that would shock his supporters and turn them against him. Trump’s support has never hinged on voters remaining ignorant about the multiplicity of his moral failings — or so the argument goes. Trump himself reinforced this self-serving perception by claiming during the presidential election that he would be able to get…
Can Trump be indicted while still in office?
Dylan Matthews writes: The conventional wisdom is that even if Trump committed federal crimes, only Congress can address that wrongdoing by impeaching him. The prevailing view, embraced by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and many legal academics, is that the president is immune from routine criminal prosecution by someone like a US attorney or a local district attorney. He could be charged for wrongdoing as president after leaving office, but not until after impeachment and removal, or resignation….
Wildfires causing air quality to worsen across much of the western United States
Vox reports: Ash and smoke are choking Seattle’s air for the second week in a row, as wildfires smolder in the Cascades and in British Columbia. The air quality in Seattle this week has been worse than in Beijing, one of the world’s most notoriously polluted cities. As of Wednesday morning, the Air Quality Index in Seattle was at 190, a rating classified as “unhealthy.” In parts of the city, the index rose as high as 220, which is “very…