Reading archive 2026-10-08

What Is Zionism?: To understand what the word means today, you have to go back to the beginning of the story. - "No nation is without enmities and rivalries, yet somehow no Ukrainian has ever bombed a Russian Orthodox Church in the U.S., the way a Lebanese émigré drove a truck full of gasoline and explosives into a synagogue in Michigan in March. No sympathizer with Tibet or Taiwan has ever murdered people at a China-sponsored event in the U.S., the way an American killed two Israeli-embassy workers at a diplomatic reception at the Capital Jewish Museum in 2025. 

"To inspire this kind of hatred, the policies of a foreign government are insufficient. It requires an idea-an evil principle that must be eliminated for the good of humanity. The word anti-Semitism is now used to condemn prejudice against Jews, but it was invented in Germany, in the late 19th century, as the name of a proud political movement. Members of anti-Semitic parties wanted to distinguish themselves from old-fashioned Jew-haters; their target wasn't religion but 'Semitism,' which sounds like the name of an idea. If defeating 'Semitism' meant exiling or killing the millions of Jews who lived in Europe, so be it; the disease was so bad that any cure was justified. Today, anti-Zionism follows a similar logic. Opposition to an ism cloaks a desire to exile or kill the millions of Jews living in Israel, and to punish Jews in other countries who object to this prospect.

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It's widely believed that Israel was created as reparations for the Holocaust. That's one reason the country's opponents have found it politically effective, since long before the war in Gaza, to characterize it as a genocidal state: If a country that exists as compensation for genocide is actually an agent of genocide, the rationale for its existence is negated. This is often paired with the charge that Israel is a product of colonialism-just another example of white Europeans stealing land from an Indigenous people. 

"A closer look at the events leading up to Israel's declaration of independence shows that neither of these interpretations fits the facts. The revelation of the Nazi death camps did not lead Britain to hand over Palestine, or any part of it, to the Jews. Hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors remained in displaced-persons camps in Europe for years after the end of World War II because the British continued to restrict immigration to Palestine, and no other country-including the United States-was willing to let them in. In a notorious episode in July 1947, a ship carrying 4,500 Holocaust survivors to Palestine was intercepted by the Royal Navy, and the passengers were sent back to an internment camp in Germany. 

"What finally convinced Britain to withdraw from Palestine was a Jewish national-liberation movement employing the same tactics that drove European empires out of Asia and Africa - including terrorism. After World War II, the Revisionists' military wing, known as the Irgun, embraced terrorism to pressure the British into withdrawal. In 1946, the Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where the British had their administrative headquarters, killing 91 people. The head of the Irgun, Menachem Begin, became prime minister of Israel in 1977; the political party he founded, Likud, is now headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.

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"Zionism was born as a reaction against European bigotry and violence, but unlike other peoples victimized by Europeans, the Jews mostly lived in Europe, so their self-emancipation required leaving to create a new country somewhere else. The place they fixed on was their indigenous homeland, from which the Jews had been largely expelled centuries earlier by a genocidal empire. But the land of Israel was now Palestine, and the Jews could make a home there only against the will of its Arab inhabitants. Zionism was able to take root with the support of the British, but that support lasted barely 20 years, and then the Jews had to fight both the British and the Arabs."

Waiting on Marco: Nine months ago, regime change in Cuba appeared imminent. Then reality set in.

One of America’s Last Chestnut Groves Is About to Be Destroyed for a Data Center: Developers and conservationists clash over 200 blight-surviving trees in Mason County, with site boundary records still undisclosed

Sens. Merkley and Daines: Our bipartisan plan would reform the U.S. Senate: For too long, both parties have been hamstrung by the Senate's tangled rules.

Number of teens who identify themselves as gay or bisexual is in ‘free fall’: Conservatives have trumpeted the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but researchers say the reasons for the decline are unclear.

Reading archive 2026-10-07

Kamala Harris has a 2028 opening — and a 2024 problem: The former Democratic standard-bearer retains considerable respect in the party, but there’s an undercurrent of anxiety about her return to the political conversation.

3 science-backed ways to help your brain clear out waste: If the brain’s plumbing doesn’t work properly, research shows, cellular garbage accumulates, and a cleaner brain may be a healthier one.

Will Texas turn blue? Here’s what voters told me at a Buc-ee’s.: Talarico leads Paxton, while a Democrat has also made the governor’s race competitive.

D.C. Council approves $305M for Metro, bus upgrades near RFK Stadium site: The council also passed a bill that allows businesses and other organizations to pay for off-duty parking enforcement officers to target trouble spots. - "On Tuesday, the council also passed a bill that allows businesses, universities and other organizations to pay for off-duty parking enforcement officers to target spots around the District where illegal parking is a problem. It also allows university police to enforce parking on streets within and adjacent to their campuses.

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Seven council members voted 'yes' on the bill. Council member Janeese Lewis-George (Ward 4), the Democratic nominee for mayor, voted 'present.' Council member Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large) tried to pass an amendment that would have cut the fines for parking tickets in half, but that effort failed."

D.C. wants to build a 15-acre wellness resort on the Anacostia. Some are skeptical.

Maryland offers grants to struggling businesses as Purple Line nears completion

The Republican senator who’s fed up with presidential family sleaze: Sen. John Curtis urges hearings and subpoenas for Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden. [ed. note: embarrassing false equivalence]

The border counties that swung to Trump are now short of workers. They may swing back.: Labor scarcity tied to ICE arrests could shake up a trio of battleground House races along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tear the frat houses down: ‘I have grown tired of waiting for boys to grow up’: In the wake of the Cornell Chi Phi allegations, Malavika Kannan asks whether fraternity culture can really ever be reformed - "If people in power were actually committed to ending sexual violence – which I am not, truthfully convinced they are –- they would challenge the structures that enable it, especially when men are young. Ending fraternities is an obvious, overdue step: they are a place of concentrated male power and minimal accountability, where boys control access to alcohol and parties and can use that power to exclude, exploit, and sexually assault women."

D.C. Woman Sentenced in Kidnapping and Violent Armed Robbery of Two Women Lured for a Fake ‘Babysitting’ Job

Reading archive 2026-10-05

U.S. officials seeking details of reported Russian plague death, quarantines: Officials said they need to learn more about the evolving situation before determining the potential threat to the United States.

Measles can erase up to 73 percent of your immune system’s memory: “Immune amnesia” is a little-known — and potentially devastating — consequence of measles. - "Researchers have found that within two months of infection, measles wiped out 11 to 73 percent of the range of antibodies children had acquired over their lifetimes. Think about it: all those years of stomach bugs and colds, and within weeks, your immune system forgets how to defend against them."

An election chief lost. Then he padlocked the ballots and called the FBI.: Shasta County, California, where election doubts run so deep that some don’t trust results even when their choice prevails, offers a glimpse of what happens when distrust in voting systems takes root. - "Independent reviews have found no widespread fraud in voting, by machine or otherwise. But those studies didn’t satisfy Curtis, who suspects the 2016 election was rigged in Trump’s favor and that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump."

Trump’s opponents are planning efforts to reverse his changes to presidency: As the midterms approach, Democrats are working to ensure his aggressive approach to executive power doesn’t outlast him. - "'The president and the courts are staring at one another over the mostly supine body of the Congress of the United States, and it’s very dangerous for constitutional government,' Galston said."

A Reckoning in Springfield: A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become.

The GOP’s Culture-War Hail Mary: Will it work?

Is There Anything Kash Patel Won’t Do for Trump Before the Midterms?: “The president wants indictments. He wants people in handcuffs.”

Reading archive 2026-10-02

Proposed 110-foot parking garages draw scrutiny at RFK planning meeting

Why Is Russia Manufacturing a Story About NATO Preparing to Blockade Kaliningrad? - "Months ago, I warned that if Russia decides to attack NATO, it likely wouldn’t begin with a direct attack. Moscow would need a pretext, and Russia is more than capable of manufacturing an attack on its own territory, playing the victim, and claiming it was forced to respond. This is their decades-long playbook. Now Moscow is building a story that NATO is preparing to blockade Russian territory, while European intelligence agencies are warning about possible false flags and military incursions. We don’t know what comes next, but we may be watching Russia write the narrative and prime the information space."

A Western Mass. lesbian bar required KN-95 masks. When it changed the rules, all hell broke loose.: Last Ditch Bar in Greenfield wanted to build community. They got a firestorm instead.

The D.C. Housing Authority faces a major budget gap. A $52 million error could make it worse: The public housing agency is considering cost-cutting measures that could lead to major changes for the 20,000 residents it serves.

Metropolitan Branch Trail Closure for Resurfacing Between Brookland and Fort Totten

The THAAD Delusion: The story of a missile system placed in a role for which it was never intended illuminates the broader challenges facing the U.S. military. - "But the war with Iran has exposed the flaw in this scheme. The THAAD was never designed to protect an entire country. As capable as the system might be, it was created with a narrow mission in mind: to protect U.S. troops in combat for an extremely limited time. The Army, which oversaw air-defense systems like the THAAD, had wanted a system that could fend off an initial wave of missile attacks long enough for U.S. fighter jets and naval destroyers to fully respond. 'What you needed to do was just survive the first salvo, right? Protect your high-value military deployments, the ports, right from the initial salvo, and then we just go destroy them, and the war's over,' John Ferrari, a retired Army major general who supervised the THAAD system when he was the commander of the White Sands Missile Range, told me.

"In the war with Iran, the THAAD has worked precisely as designed-but not at all as promised. The system performed well in the early days of the conflict, intercepting Iranian ballistic missiles with impressive accuracy. But the U.S. has not destroyed many of Iran's missile launchers, and the war is far from over. And despite planning for just such a conflict for two decades, the U.S. failed to take the steps necessary to convert the THAAD into a system that could provide protection for as long as it would be relied upon to do so."

Reading archive 2026-10-01

Mississippi Democrats dare to wonder whether Senate seat is in reach: A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race in the state since 1982, but a young district attorney has a message for party officials and donors: “If we try, we win these voters.”

Cyclists renew call for bike lanes on Connecticut Ave. in DC: WABA says the lack of protected bike lanes along Connecticut Avenue is a missing piece to the city's cycling infrastructure.

Lost in daydreams? Enraged by chewing sounds? Psychiatry is taking a closer look.: Maladaptive daydreaming, obsessional jealousy and misophonia are now topics of study as social media trends force psychiatrists to rethink their diagnostic “bible.”

Trump’s playing his greatest hits. They don’t work as well as they used to.: With midterm elections a month away, the president is turning the audacity up to 11 as he labors to reverse his party’s decline in the polls.

DC awards new contract to Lyft for Capital Bikeshare operations

D.C. Could Start Issuing a Lot More Parking Tickets Under New Proposal: The bill would let groups hire off-duty DPW officers to issue parking tickets.

Council, WMATA Still at Odds Over Metro for New RFK Stadium: Councilmember Charles Allen worries if transit concerns go unheeded, they may never get addressed.

How D.C. Made Lime Bikes Into a Menace: Micromobility platforms are reforming. It should never have gotten this far. - "To operate in the District, Lime and its competitors have been required to provide poorer customers with unlimited 30-minute rides for a low monthly fee. It’s a well-meaning initiative. But because the services’ age and ID checks have been so porous, it has almost certainly allowed teens and tweens to borrow accounts from their parents, older friends and relatives, then tear through streets for hours on end at no cost."

Trump is taking on D.C.’s mosquitoes: The bloodsuckers have pained city residents for decades. The president announced plans for reducing the population.

How to Destroy a Lesbian Bar: The scourge of COVID led to drive-by whinings disguised as activism. - "This was the moment when I realized that social media had empowered drive-by whinings by sociopaths, and that progressive politics had allowed them to cloak themselves in righteousness. What might once have been recognized as narcissism, jealousy, the result of a personality disorder - or just plain boredom - was now transfigured into 'calling out' those who had erred. The people pointing fingers usually did nothing themselves, apart from complaining, which had the happy side effect that they could never be accused of committing an impure act."

Reading archive 2026-09-30

Some DMV pediatricians are kicking out unvaccinated patients

I’m a Republican. This woman tried to do everything right — and was deported.: Can America still differentiate between those who endanger and those who strengthen it? [ed. note: your party hates nonwhite, people, dude. It's not news]

The three most chilling words in the Cornell rape case texts: She’s not a “shop.” She’s a person.

Why Trump might finally fire Pete Hegseth: The Pentagon would have to rebuild expertise, trust and stability if the secretary is forced out.

Trump’s upscale golf plan could destroy a D.C. haven for cyclists, runners: The president wants to eliminate the public road that loops around the Hains Point peninsula, allowing the golf course to stretch to the water’s edge.

A novel form of mosquito birth control comes to the D.C. area: When male mosquitoes are infected with a naturally occurring microbe called Wolbachia, the eggs laid by their female mates don’t hatch.

A past FBI inquiry complicates Susan Collins’s campaign message in Maine: News of a probe involving political contributions and federal contracts has some in a shipyard town raising questions about her influence.

Ospreys are disappearing along the East Coast. Scientists think they know why.: At the center of a widening crisis for one of the nation's great wildlife comebacks is a fish most Americans would hardly recognize. - "At the center of that widening crisis is a fish most Americans would hardly recognize. Atlantic menhaden are silver, oily and generally less than a foot long. Rich in fat and calories, they are the principal prey of Chesapeake ospreys and the nucleus of a food web extending far beyond the bay, including the fish humans do eat. Striped bass, bluefish, whales and seabirds feed on them; Maine lobstermen put them in traps."

This U.S. city boosted homelessness spending fivefold. Is it too little or too much?: A Washington Post review of 12 cities found combined spending rose more than 75 percent in the past five years. Some say it doesn’t address the root of the problem.

James Talarico is catching big breaks in Texas: The Democrat could actually win a U.S. Senate seat. Let me count the ways.

Reading archive 2026-09-25

4 reasons why everyone is talking about the lesbian bar mask drama in Massachusetts: The story was really about common problems with LGBTQ+ and leftist communities that many of us are tired of.

#NotAllLesbians – we can’t let the Massachusetts bar drama turn us all into a punchline: The Last Ditch Bar saga is a case of ridiculous lefty infighting. But well-meaning people often have to tolerate nonsense - "But while there is a lot of absurdity in the Last Ditch saga, I think it’s worth stressing that it is still ultimately a story about a woman who tried to create an inclusive space where some of the most vulnerable people in society could feel accepted. It’s easy to laugh at all the shenanigans, but the world would be a lot better if it had more people like Jackie Matellian in it: kind, well-meaning people who try to live their values. Of course, the problem with people like Matellian is that, because they are kind and well-meaning, they can sometimes tolerate too much nonsense. Narcissists who use a marginalized identity as cover for bad behaviour can find themselves drawn to places like Last Ditch because it’s the only space in which they will be indulged."

Philadelphia teacher admits to lying about being Palestinian and Black: ‘I hid the truth’: Local advocacy groups say they have cut ties with Hannah Gann, who ‘fully lied about her identity and background’ - "Meanwhile, a former University of Pennsylvania classmate told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Gann was known in college 'as a self-proclaimed white Jewish woman with family in the occupied West Bank. I watched her sudden transformation after she returned to Philly from the Peace Corps [in Rwanda]. She was clearly making herself look darker using makeup and fake tan, and speaking using [African American Vernacular English.]'"

Final RFK Stadium Master Plan to Include Gold Line, Parking Garages and Green Space: The D.C. Council will vote to adopt the land use plan in the coming weeks.

Two deaths from e-bike collisions occur within days of each other in D.C.: At least 32 people have been killed in traffic crashes in D.C. so far this year, according to city data.