Defense Secretary Says He “Didn’t See” Intel to Back Up Trump’s Latest Iran Claim
Defense Secretary Mark Esper on “Face the Nation.”Screenshot of CBS’s “Face the Nation” President Donald Trump’s evolving rationale for the killing of a senior Iranian general continues to raise eyebrows, and now the Pentagon’s chief says he did not see evidence Trump cited on Friday about threat from Iran. On Friday during an interview on…
White Flight Never Happened in Texas
Today in the New York Times, Dana Goldstein compares the California and Texas versions of the same high school history text and mostly concludes that the California versions like to emphasize LGBTQ issues while the Texas versions like to downplay the effects of racism. Here’s my favorite excerpt: Even the California textbook can’t quite bring…
Memo by Secret Memo, the University of Texas Kept Segregation Alive into the 1960s
Mother Jones illustration; Getty; Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas Sixty-six years ago, Marion Ford, an ambitious Houston teenager who had been set to become one of the first African American undergraduates at the University of Texas, received a terse letter returning his $20 deposit to room in an all-Black…
Trump’s Latest Environmental Rollback Is a Middle Finger to Common Sense
The proposal would be the first major update to the law in more than four decades. The rules are certain to face legal challenges. NEPA has long been a target of industry groups, developers and Republican lawmakers who say it places unnecessary burdens on business and is used as a tool to block and delay…
White House Official Calls Matt Gaetz’s Efforts to Limit War Powers “Super Uncool”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly via ZUMA A few days ago, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) broke with most members of his party to support a House resolution that seeks to restrict Donald Trump’s use of military force against Iran unless the president obtains congressional approval. Gaetz’s support was noteworthy, because he has (proudly) built a reputation…
Bloomberg Is Saying All the Right Things About Party Unity—For Now
Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press Michael Bloomberg hasn’t been a Democrat for long. The billionaire White House hopeful began his adult life in the party of FDR, but he switched to the GOP when he ran for mayor of New York City in 2001, winning the endorsement of Rudy Giuliani. Bloomberg later became an independent…