Andrew Wiggins has gone from draft disappointment to NBA Finals X-factor
One D.C. stop-sign camera brought in $1.3 million in tickets in 2 years
Virginia lawmakers to delay vote on NFL stadium for Commanders
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Monday, May 30, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-30
Opinion It’s time for Biden to strongly attack the White-grievance industry - "Now is the time for precise language. 'Forces' are not the problem; one political movement encased within the Republican Party is. 'Ultra-MAGA' ideas are not the problem; Republicans spouting anti-American ideas that threaten functional democracy are.
"It’s not the plague of 'polarization' or 'distrust,' some sort of floating miasma, that has darkened our society. Bluntly put, we are in deep trouble because a major party rationalizes both intense selfishness — the refusal to undertake even minor inconveniences such as mask-wearing or gun background checks for others’ protection — and deprivation of others’ rights (to vote, to make intimate decisions about reproduction, to be treated with respect)."
The Uvalde shooting ‘stirred something’ in him. So he gave up his gun.
Opinion What the U.S. military needs is an infusion of immigrants
Opinion Dear grads: This is how to write a real thank-you note
Saturday, May 28, 2022
Friday, May 27, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-27
Police slow to engage with gunman because ‘they could’ve been shot,’ official says
Southern Baptist leaders release sex abuser database they kept secret for years
Key takeaways from the bombshell sex abuse report by Southern Baptists
Slain teacher’s husband dies of heart attack days after school shooting
Opinion The secret planning that kept the White House a step ahead of Russia - "Germany was a reluctant but essential ally, and the Biden administration made a controversial decision last summer that was probably crucial in gaining German support against Russia. Biden gave Germany a pass on an initial round of sanctions against a company building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in exchange for a pledge from Chancellor Angela Merkel that if Russia invaded, Nord Stream 2 would be scrapped. When the invasion came, Merkel was gone but her successor, Olaf Scholz, kept the promise.
...
"The Group of 20 nations were meeting at the end of October in Rome, and Biden pulled aside the leaders of Britain, France and Germany and gave them a detailed readout on the top-secret evidence."
Opinion Kevin McCarthy’s coverup for Trump just got much more alarming - "Consider McCarthy himself. He’s refusing to divulge information about his direct communications with Trump at the very moment Trump was essentially weaponizing a mob to intimidate his vice president and GOP lawmakers into subverting the electoral count, to keep himself in power illegitimately."
Tennis has an anger-management problem, and it’s getting worse
‘Diablo Immortal’ aims to be a breakthrough hit for AAA mobile games
The options for a Commanders stadium site: Bad, worse and nonexistent - "The Washington Commanders badly need a new stadium, and they should have their pick of the three jurisdictions from which they draw the bulk of their fans. More than that: They should have those three jurisdictions elbowing one another out of the way.
"Their reality is this: The club is looking at far-flung sites in Virginia, which has a state legislature that is preparing to sour its offer, not sweeten it. Maryland officials are so indifferent to the Commanders’ presence in Prince George’s County that they’re pledging to pump $400 million into developing the area around FedEx Field even if the team doesn’t stay, a municipal shrug of the shoulders."
Thursday, May 26, 2022
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-25
This soldier fought for Finland, Nazi Germany and U.S. Special Forces
5 GOP candidates in Michigan ineligible after fraud, election office says
Jan. 6 panel is told that Trump indicated support for hanging Pence during insurrection
Opinion Why Trump’s private comment about hanging Mike Pence really matters
Opinion As Trump loses kingmaker status, he becomes more dangerous
D.C. elections: Where the Democratic attorney general candidates stand
As offices stay empty, downtown D.C. looks for post-pandemic identity
Concerns about traffic, transit emerge in potential Commanders move
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-24
Climate worries galvanize a new pro-nuclear movement in the U.S. As states race to keep plants open, California becomes a test case of how much the tide has shifted - "The World Health Organization concluded that radiation exposure from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster could ultimately lead to 4,000 deaths, even as the official death toll stands at fewer than 50." [ed. note: that is way, way less than deaths caused by fossil fuel particulates]
Perdue makes racist remark about Abrams: She’s ‘demeaning her own race’
D.C. elections: What mayoral candidates say about housing, schools, crime
Monday, May 23, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-23
‘Ashamed’ Russian diplomat resigns over Putin’s ‘aggressive war’
Zelensky calls out a ‘state of war criminals’ and Davos ‘Russia House’ makeover
The reinvention of a ‘real man’: In cowboy country, a father and husband troubled by suicide reimagines American masculinity, one conversation at a time - "Bill, who is 59 years old and White, is working out his own theory. It has to do with the gap between the expectations men have for their lives and the reality of their individual experiences, worsened by cultural norms that discourage them from expressing any emotions besides anger."
Sunday, May 22, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-22
In coal country, a new chance to clean up a toxic legacy: Waste from abandoned and bankrupt mines has contaminated more than 12,000 miles of waterways. Now states are looking at how to extract critical elements from those waters to try to offset the high cost of cleanup. - "After decades when coal states struggled to pay for the costs of cleaning up contaminated rivers and lakes, recent scientific advances and new technology make it far more feasible to recycle the highly acidic and mineral-rich liquid coal waste known as acid mine drainage (AMD), these researchers say.
...
"Across the country, waste from abandoned and bankrupt coal and metal mines has contaminated more than 12,000 miles of waterways. This legacy pollution — the toxic byproduct from over half a century of mining — threatens drinking water, corrodes infrastructure and devastates aquatic life."
Living With The Far-Right Insurgency: In Idaho A radical GOP faction, in open alliance with extremists, is seizing power and targeting its opponents with cruelty. Some wonder: Is it time to leave? - "'The message at the heart of the Seder is 'don’t oppress the stranger because you know the heart of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt,'' he said. 'So if you want to talk about the core message of the holiday, it would be naive to not look around you. The Hebrew word for Egypt, used in the Torah, is Mitzrayim, and it means a 'narrow place,' a place that’s narrow-minded, narrow and small in spirits, and dangerous, narrow and pressing, and that’s what these folks would have this state be.”
"'We’re in real danger of that here,' he said. 'Serious danger of it.'"
Saturday, May 21, 2022
Thursday, May 19, 2022
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-17
Buffalo shooting suspect wrote of plans 5 months ago, messages show
Christian nationalism is shaping a Pa. primary — and a GOP shift: Doug Mastriano, a retired Army colonel and Jan. 6 marcher who is running for governor of Pennsylvania, represents a more explicit push for Christian dominance - "There were lots of references to the Constitution and liberty and freedom, but when asked for specifics, people cited things like a child’s professor teaching them about Black Lives Matter or someone they knew who ran a day care and came into contact with LGBT parents or a child who was nonbinary."
Monday, May 16, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-16
A rural county in Iowa that supported Trump turns to Latinos to grow - "During one meeting in Jefferson, a man who lives just outside the county questioned whether Latinos would be here legally. 'Are they going to bus them in from Texas?' he asked, referring to the influx on the southwest border.
"Other residents are enthusiastic, aware that Latino residents and businesses have revitalized other Iowa cities such as Storm Lake and Denison.
"'I’m glad that it’s getting done,' said Marilyn Schwartzkopf, 73, a Democrat who has been practicing her Spanish to help newcomers, as she volunteered at the county’s historical museum in Jefferson. 'We need some diversity here. We’re all too old and White.'"
Ukraine: The spy war within the war
A civil war among neighbors over Confederate-themed streets
Ten Tips for Visiting Gardens with Non-Gardeners
Why Turkey dissents on Finland and Sweden joining NATO and why it matters
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-14
THE COLORADO RIVER IS IN CRISIS, AND IT’S GETTING WORSE EVERY DAY - "As temperatures rise, the mountain snowpack that feeds the Colorado river is diminishing over time and melting earlier. That decreasing runoff is more quickly soaking into Western Colorado’s parched terrain and evaporating into its hotter air. Less water is flowing downriver, depriving the ranchers, rafters, anglers and animals who depend on it.
...
"For Mark Harris, general manager of the Grand Valley Water Users Association, a job that once was about supplying Colorado River water to farmers and returning some to the river has become a whirlwind of competing interests. Endangered fish need protection. Outdoors enthusiasts and environmentalists want a cleaner, healthier river. 'Explosive growth' is generating more thirsty golf courses and subdivisions. Farmers require more water to produce the same yield on drought-stricken land."
Friday, May 13, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-13
The faux outrage that Biden is stockpiling baby formula for undocumented immigrants
How the addition of Finland and Sweden would change NATO
Biden pivots to Asia as Ukraine war rages on - "'The ASEAN approach is not a matter of colonialism or historical hostility or sentimentality, it’s a classic balance of power game,' Renato Cruz de Castro, an academic at De La Salle University in Manila, told Politico. 'China’s economic presence is growing, but ASEAN countries are generally suspicious of China.'"
Why some Black churches aren’t elated about the possible end of Roe
Opinion J.D. Vance, migrant babies and the unhinged GOP enemy hunt - "Just when you thought our politics couldn’t get any dumber, this week brought two new GOP attacks that spectacularly defied expectations. The Biden administration, we were told, is redirecting scarce infant formula to migrant babies and might be deliberately importing fentanyl to kill virtuous heartland-dwelling supporters of Donald Trump.
...
"Of course, these claims aren’t meant as empirical depictions of policy problems. They are stories, ones featuring villains and victims. The key here is the relentless, never-ending search for ever more creative ways to stoke resentment, victimization and alarm about leftist enemies around every corner."
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-12
The healthiest oils for home cooking
Ukraine regains territory, and crime scene investigators move in
DA moves to dismiss a murder charge against a Texas woman accused of a self-induced abortion
The Anglosphere is saving Ukraine while the EU is saving itself: It’s the military support provided by the US and Britain in particular that’s protecting European democracy. - "But while European Council President Charles Michel talks of the EU’s 'unprecedented' response to Russian aggression, saying the EU is 'determined to do everything we can to support Ukraine,' the sad reality is that beneath all the rhetoric, the photo ops and recycled pledges, the EU continues to prevaricate while it is the Anglosphere that’s busy helping Ukraine save itself."
Reading archive 2022-05-11
Fox News is upset about protesters outside judges’ homes and apparently has no idea what’s been going on for the last 40 years [ed. note: TheDailyShow insta]
"It's become pretty clear the leaks about internal Court deliberations (if not the draft opinion itself) are from the Thomas-Alito camp, and are designed to weaken the Chief Justice and intimidate any of the newer justices from joining him for fear of seeming weak or unprincipled." [ed. note: Bill Kristol tweet]
In Texas, abortion laws inhibit care for miscarriages - "As the Supreme Court appears poised to return abortion regulation to the states, recent experience in Texas illustrates that medical care for miscarriages and dangerous ectopic pregnancies would also be threatened if restrictions become more widespread."
Hong Kong arrests 90-year-old cardinal on foreign collusion charges
Opinion We’re in danger of losing our democracy, but most Americans are in denial
INSIDE THE NEW RIGHT, WHERE PETER THIEL IS PLACING HIS BIGGEST BETS: They’re not MAGA. They’re not QAnon. Curtis Yarvin and the rising right are crafting a different strain of conservative politics. - "And the way conservatives can actually win in America, he has argued, is for a Caesar-like figure to take power back from this devolved oligarchy and replace it with a monarchical regime run like a start-up. As early as 2012, he proposed the acronym RAGE—Retire All Government Employees—as a shorthand for a first step in the overthrow of the American 'regime.' What we needed, Yarvin thought, was a 'national CEO, [or] what’s called a dictator.'
...
"'I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left,' he said. 'And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.'
"'I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,' he said. 'I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.'
"'And when the courts stop you,' he went on, 'stand before the country, and say—' he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—'the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'
"This is a description, essentially, of a coup."
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Monday, May 9, 2022
Sunday, May 8, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-08
Clarence Thomas says he worries respect for institutions is eroding
Opinion Kevin McCarthy is a shining symbol of democratic decay - "Let’s take a moment from the lightning pace of the news cycle to reflect on a disturbing fact of American life: The likely next speaker of the House of Representatives is a liar, a hypocrite and an enabler of democratic decay.
"Trump’s main moral damage to the country is not his incitement of the MAGA faithful. It is his extraordinary talent for turning regular GOP pols into hollow men."
Opinion Russia’s top propagandist in Latin America has a change of heart
Friday, May 6, 2022
Thursday, May 5, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-05
The new Supreme Court’s iron fist: If the right of a woman to decide whether to have a baby won’t qualify as a guaranteed right, then neither will most of the rights you have long assumed are yours. - "If the right of a woman to decide whether to have a baby — a right that arises from the simple idea that everyone owns their own bodies — won’t qualify, then neither will most of the rights you have long assumed are yours.
D.C. mayor’s race: Robert White proposes boarding schools for at-risk students
Those flamingos aren’t the first National Zoo animals to come to grief
Muriel Bowser takes on her challengers in latest D.C. mayoral debate
Reading archive 2022-05-04
THE AMAZON, UNDONE: DEVOURING THE RAINFOREST - "Cattle are not tracked individually in Brazil, as they are in neighboring Argentina and in Europe. All that ranchers with embargoed land have to do is ship their cattle to properties with clean environmental records. Once the animals reach a ranch that doesn’t have a history of deforestation, they are effectively born again — cleansed and ready to be sold to producers such as JBS for slaughter and shipment.
...
"Every time cattle are moved in the country, a shipment log called a 'Guide of Animal Transport' is created. The purpose of the document is sanitary: to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and ensure proper cattle vaccinations. But those records, current and former government officials say, can be used to create a cattle-tracking tool and illuminate even the murkiest sections of the supply chain.
"Researchers have done it. But not the federal government."
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-03
Collins and Murkowski are put on defensive after leaked Roe draft
Opinion How Russia’s grim demographics could thwart Putin’s global ambitions
In the capital of Blue State America, a new ferment over homelessness - "But there is something happening here where two major California rivers converge, currents placing Democrats of various shades of blue against each other. One approach is being promoted by the state and local governments, which want to focus more resources on the mentally ill, the most visible and defining characteristic of the crisis.
"Another is being advocated by business leaders, neighborhood groups and angry voters, who have watched the expanding homeless population fill in the city’s public spaces and now want local officials to force people to accept housing, getting them off the streets. Those who decline an offer of an available bed, of which there are none now, would no longer be allowed to live on the street. The proposal, highly popular with the public, will come before voters in November."
Monday, May 2, 2022
Reading archive 2022-05-02
The ‘Ghost of Kyiv’ was never alive, Ukrainian air force says
Trump makes closing pitch for Nebraska candidate accused of groping: The former president is campaigning for Charles Herbster for governor with less than two weeks until the primary - "He mentioned his preferred candidates in other states including Ohio, which is holding a closely watched Republican Senate primary Tuesday. Trump recently endorsed author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance but on Sunday appeared to momentarily conflate his name with Josh Mandel, a rival Republican candidate. 'We’ve endorsed J.P., right? J.D. Mandel,' said Trump, who in the same rally mocked President Biden for stumbling over his words."
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