Oppenheimer’s tragedy — and ours

Oppenheimer’s tragedy — and ours

Robert Jay Lifton writes: In 1954, Robert Oppenheimer was subjected to what was rightly called “an extraordinary American inquisition” (Stern 1969) under the name of a security hearing. Despite having served his country so devotedly in heading the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos, he was now publicly humiliated, condemned as a security risk, stripped of his security clearance, and forced to step down from his government consultancies. Those hearings were skewed and manipulated in McCarthyite fashion. But while extremely…

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‘We are damned fools’: Scientist who sounded climate alarm in 80s warns of worse to come

‘We are damned fools’: Scientist who sounded climate alarm in 80s warns of worse to come

The Guardian reports: The world is shifting towards a superheated climate not seen in the past 1m years, prior to human existence, because “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis, according to James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s. Hansen, whose testimony to the US Senate in 1988 is cited as the first high-profile revelation of global heating, warned in a statement with two other…

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Trump’s conspirators are facing the music, finally

Trump’s conspirators are facing the music, finally

Norman Eisen and Ryan Goodman write: We’ve reached a turning point in the effort to ensure there are consequences for those who deliberately attempt to undermine our democracy: Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, charged 16 Republican leaders in her state on Tuesday for their role as fake electors working to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The charges, coming on the heels of news that the special counsel Jack Smith has informed Donald Trump that he’s a target of…

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Michigan beats DOJ to bring first charges against Trump’s ‘false electors’

Michigan beats DOJ to bring first charges against Trump’s ‘false electors’

Shan Wu writes: Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is apparently tired of waiting on the U.S. Department of Justice to act on the ‘false electors’ scheme that occurred in December of 2020. The scheme allegedly consisted of a plan to submit fake certificates stating that former President Trump had won seven battle ground states. The plan was simple but audacious. As described by Professor Ryan Goodman, co-director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School,…

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Judge confirms: Trump is indeed a rapist

Judge confirms: Trump is indeed a rapist

Aaron Blake writes: After Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, his legal team and his defenders lodged a frequent talking point. Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse. “This was a rape claim, this was a rape case all along, and the jury rejected that — made other findings,” his…

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Robert Kennedy Jr’s racist, antisemitic and xenophobic views go back decades, report says

Robert Kennedy Jr’s racist, antisemitic and xenophobic views go back decades, report says

The Guardian reports: Robert Kennedy Jr, a long-shot Democratic candidate for US president, has a long history of racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, and should be denied a national platform, according to a damning report [PDF] seen by the Guardian. Kennedy, who provoked anger last week when he was filmed falsely suggesting that the coronavirus could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, is due to testify at the US Capitol in Washington on Thursday. The Congressional…

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Senators propose ban on U.S. lawmakers, executive branch members owning stock in individual companies

Senators propose ban on U.S. lawmakers, executive branch members owning stock in individual companies

The Wall Street Journal reports: Two U.S. senators are set this week to introduce bipartisan legislation to bar members of the federal executive branch and lawmakers from owning stock in individual companies, as new polling shows broad public support for such a measure. The bill from Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) would permit the president, vice president, lawmakers, Capitol Hill aides and employees of the executive branch to own mutual funds and broad industry and…

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‘A wild goose chase’: Giuliani associate urges House GOP to abandon Biden probe

‘A wild goose chase’: Giuliani associate urges House GOP to abandon Biden probe

NBC News reports: Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian businessman who figured prominently in Rudy Giuliani’s effort to dig up dirt on Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election, said Tuesday that a GOP-led House committee should end its probe into the Biden family. In a 10-page letter obtained by NBC News, Parnas told House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., that there is “no evidence” that the president or his son Hunter interfered with Ukrainian politics, “and there never has been.”…

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The revolutionary Republicans who are determined to establish a Judeo-Christian theocracy in Tennessee

The revolutionary Republicans who are determined to establish a Judeo-Christian theocracy in Tennessee

Anne Applebaum writes: Drive along the outer rim of the exurbs north of Nashville, past structures that might be barns or might be wedding venues, around developments called Vineyard Grove or New Hope Village, and eventually you will arrive at what is meant to be the new headquarters of the election commission of Sumner County, Tennessee. A featureless one-story brick warehouse with some makeshift offices attached, it has just enough space for the tiny handful of election-commission employees, the 275…

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Special counsel’s Jan. 6 target letter to Trump mentions conspiracy, tampering

Special counsel’s Jan. 6 target letter to Trump mentions conspiracy, tampering

Rolling Stone reports: The special counsel’s letter to Donald Trump related to Jan. 6 listed the federal statutes under which Trump is expected to be charged, including conspiracy, obstruction, and civil rights violations, according to a source with knowledge of the contents of the target letter. Special counsel Jack Smith sent the letter to Trump on Sunday, informing him he was a target of the Justice Department. Trump on Tuesday announced he’d been sent the letter via a post on…

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Judge Aileen Cannon signals 2024 election won’t be deciding factor on Trump trial date

Judge Aileen Cannon signals 2024 election won’t be deciding factor on Trump trial date

The Messenger reports: “We feel it is very important that we have a trial date to work from, realizing that the trial date may not be set in stone,” said Jay Bratt, the Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. Such a schedule may depend on whether the cases against Trump and Nauta are labeled complex, a designation that the government has opposed. Cannon appeared inclined to find that it was, pressing…

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Ukraine adopts slow approach to counteroffensive: ‘Our problem everywhere is the sky’

Ukraine adopts slow approach to counteroffensive: ‘Our problem everywhere is the sky’

The Wall Street Journal reports: Six weeks into Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Capt. Anatoliy Kharchenko and his reconnaissance company were supposed to be wreaking havoc miles behind Russian defensive lines pierced by Western-supplied armored vehicles. Instead, after many of the vehicles got bogged down in minefields, Kharchenko and his men are training how to advance methodically on foot, moving from one line of trees to another, faced with the prospect of taking back their country one field at a time. “We’ve got…

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The biggest obstacle to Ukraine’s counteroffensive: Minefields

The biggest obstacle to Ukraine’s counteroffensive: Minefields

The Washington Post reports: In a painstakingly slow process that has come to define the speed of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, small groups of sappers on the front lines are crawling across minefields — sometimes literally on their stomachs — to detonate Russia’s defenses and clear a path for troops to advance. The long buildup to the counteroffensive, which began about a month ago across multiple segments of the battlefield in the country’s east and south, gave the Russians time to…

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Putin’s military supply routes blocked by Russian tourists; he encouraged them to vacation in Crimea, report says

Putin’s military supply routes blocked by Russian tourists; he encouraged them to vacation in Crimea, report says

Insider reports: Russian tourists are snarling up crucial military supply routes as the Kremlin continues to encourage civilians to visit the occupied Crimea peninsula despite it being a war zone, a report says. The traffic jams caused by tourists were made worse this week after an explosion tore through the Kerch road bridge on Sunday, with Russia blaming the attack on drones launched by Ukraine. Ukraine Monday claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack forced the temporary closure of the…

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