Reading archive 2018-12-30

He fled before his trial for allegedly killing a teen girl. A U.S. prosecutor thinks Saudi Arabia helped him.

Reading archive 2018-12-24

Inside Bernie-world's war on Beto O'Rourke: As the Texas congressman's star rises, Sanders supporters turn up the heat: "Reading Karl Marx is cool. Doing a livestream while you’re doing your laundry is a gimmick."

“THEY ARE SUSPICIOUS OF BETO”: WHY ARE DEMOCRATS TRYING TO ANNIHILATE AN O’ROURKE CAMPAIGN BEFORE IT HAS EVEN STARTED?: The howls about O’Rourke from the Chapo wing of the Internet say as much about Bernie Sanders’s diminished stature as they do about the golden boy from Texas. Is Beto the real deal, or just a Davos Democrat on a skateboard?

“THEY ALL KISS MY ASS”: AS TRUMP TEETERS ON THE BRINK, MAR-A-LAGO FEARS THE WORST: Trump perfected his political playbook by waging war against Palm Beach high society. But three decades later, according to the author of Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace, the island community Trump conquered is having its doubts.

Reading archive 2018-12-21

Russian Agents Sought Secret US Treasury Records On Clinton Backers During 2016 Campaign: Whistleblowers said the Americans were exchanging messages with unsecure Gmail accounts set up by their Russian counterparts as the US election heated up.

Reading archive 2018-12-20

North Korea says US must 'completely eliminate' its nuclear arsenal first as peace talks reach new low: Statement from Pyongyang says denuclearisation must include any US weapons that threaten wider region, and suggests Washington should ‘study geography’

Reading archive 2018-12-19

Being a boy: Age 8: Brian Campbell grew up stifled by his father’s expectations about masculinity. He wants something different for his own son.

Being a boy: Ages 11 and 12: Three friends navigate a middle school ecosystem that prizes alpha males over quirky kids

Being a boy: Age 17: In a landscape charged with questions about coercion, culpability and consent, Jayden Castillo just wants to be a ‘good guy’

Reading archive 2018-12-18

Hey Democrats, Fighting Fair Is for Suckers: Court-packing! Puerto Rican statehood! Votes for felons! Why—and how—the next Democratic majority should play dirty. - "This means that a strategy of Democratic norm-breaking is justifiable only if it can be reasonably expected to result in a lasting political realignment—to break the cycle rather than escalate it. It must so thoroughly disempower the other side that it forestalls serious reprisals. Put simply, the strategy that Faris and others on the left are proposing had better work—because the tit-for-tat conflict that would result from a halfhearted or incomplete attempt would be even worse than the status quo."

Reading archive 2018-12-17

It’s the beginning of the end for the gun lobby’s power

I voted for Trump. Now his wall may destroy my butterfly paradise.

‘You are a foul, disgusting liar’: Weekly Standard editors blast Steve King for celebrating magazine’s demise

Susan Collins and Republicans better have better answers on Obamacare

New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation’s scale and sweep: The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the first to analyze the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Michael Flynn’s business partner charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey

The signs are mounting: Trump has been badly weakened. It will get worse for him.

Reading archive 2018-12-12

Maria Butina’s boyfriend claimed he set up Trump-Russia NRA “conduit” as campaign funds flowed: Republican operative Paul Erickson claimed in an email he’d set up a private Russia-GOP channel through the NRA

Reading archive 2018-12-06

Republican officials had early warnings of voting irregularities in North Carolina

Documents Point to Illegal Campaign Coordination Between Trump and NRA: Trump and the gun group used the same consultants to spearhead their TV ad blitzes at the height of the 2016 election, likely in violation of federal law.

Reading archive 2018-12-05

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s $21 trillion mistake

Senators accuse Saudi crown prince of complicity in Khashoggi’s killing

Cracks appear in Trump’s claims of China trade agreement

Reading archive 2018-12-03

An artist suffered mysterious symptoms for years. Then she realized her sculpture was poisoning her.

Minneapolis police decorate Christmas tree with racial stereotypes in majority-black neighborhood

Athlete to Activist: How a Public Coming Out Shaped a Young Football Player’s Life

The Conscience of a Conservative: It should not fall to the only black Republican senator to block a man who spent his career seeking to disenfranchise minority voters from being appointed to the federal bench.