This is the fifth dispatch in a series from Jeff Goodell, who is inAntarcticainvestigatingthe effect ofclimate changeon Thwaites glacier. Aboard the Nathanial B Palmer, the research vessel and icebreaker I’ve hopped on for a two-month journey to Antarctica, there is much talk about how the fate of the civilized world …
Read More »Chris Christie's Agonizing New Memoir
Three years ago this week, on February 9th, 2016, Donald Trump won the New Hampshire primary in a landslide. There were immediate whispers about which “normal” GOP candidate would be craven enough to drop out and legitimize Trump’s candidacy with an endorsement. The man who made that historic decision, New …
Read More »Sen. Chris Murphy's Lonely Quest to End the War in Yemen
For Chris Murphy, the newly re-elected junior senator from Connecticut, Yemen is a byword for the failures of American foreign policy in the Middle East. For the past three years, he has been a consistent and often lonely voice in the government for ending United States military support for Saudi …
Read More »Trump's Defense Spending Is Out of Control, and Poised to Get Worse
A bipartisan commission has determined that President Trump’s recent record defense bill is insufficiently massive to keep America safe, and we should spend more, while cutting “entitlements.” The National Defense Strategy Commission concluded the Department of Defense was too focused on “efficiency” and needed to accept “greater cost and risk” …
Read More »Taibbi: New Thomas Friedman T-Shirt Contest!
Thomas Friedman goes to the movies, sees Crazy Rich Asians. What column is he inspired to write after two hours following the adventures of Rachel Chu and Nick Young? The New York Times Twitter caption about Friedman’s next column provides the answer: “Crazy Rich Asians versus Crazy Poor Middle Easterners …
Read More »Gavin Newsom's California Dream
“Fourteen people came up to me and said you should be president,” says Melissa Murray, the interim dean of the Berkeley Law School. She is talking to Gavin Newsom, who just delivered the school’s commencement address. Newsom has been the mayor of San Francisco, and he’s currently lieutenant governor of …
Read More »Women Showed Tremendous Courage in 2017 – Will It Make a Lasting Difference?
One of my earliest memories of this tumultuous year was the deep breath heard round the world: a defeated Hillary Clintontaking a second to compose herself before the inauguration of Donald Trump, the politician who had bullied, threatened and menaced her throughout the election. Whatever you think of Clinton politically, …
Read More »Trump Administration: Tillerson Out, Hawks In?
One of the few grown-ups in the Trump administration is on his way out, to be replaced by a super-hawk who’s seemingly been itching for war with Iran, if current, widespread reports are to be believed. The grown-up would be Rex Tillerson, the millionaire businessman and former ExxonMobil CEO who …
Read More »Democrats Try to Keep Puerto Rico's Disaster on the Radar in Washington
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz was in Washington this week, though you’d hardly know it. Cruz was scheduled Wednesday to testify alongside FEMA Administrator Brock Long in front of the House Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on the federal government’s response to Hurricane Maria, but that hearing was …
Read More »What the Supreme Court Says About Sitting Out the National Anthem
When the president uses what used to be called his “bully pulpit” – but now is called “Twitter” – to attack a person or an issue, of course it has much broader consequences. For instance, it’s no surprise that after campaigning on a travel ban focused on Muslims and selectively …
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