3. In June, Gen. David Petraeus explained why he had decided the bases must be renamed—the Army "should not brook any celebration of those who betrayed their country,” he wrote: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
4. In 2018, Gen. Stanley McChrystal explained why he’d thrown away his once-prized picture of Robert E. Lee:
1. A brief thread about a truly obscure episode in American constitutional law that may well become all-important in the days ahead.
2. No president has ever issued a self-pardon. But in 1857, territorial Governor Isaac Stevens in Washington State clashed with the judiciary in an extraordinary episode. Stevens had ordered some settlers arrested.
3. Federal Judge Edward Lander tried to hold a habeas hearing. Stevens declared martial law, and had Lander arrested. When he released him, Lander convened a new hearing—issuing writs of habeas and holding Stevens in contempt, sending Marshalls to arrest him.
1. A short thread of @TheAtlIdeas authors on the president’s fondness for, and propensity to extend pardons to, war criminals:
@TheAtlIdeas 2. "Being no different from or better than our enemies has not been the aspiration of previous presidents, nor of our military," writes @KoriSchake
3. “Trump is a war-crimes enthusiast,” writes @AdamSerwer, adding that the president seeks to "forge the [military] into a partisan weapon for himself to wield against his enemies, using the promise of impunity for crimes against the weak or despised.”
1. Five perspectives on what’s happening right now, as most House Republicans join most GOP attorneys general in asking the Supreme Court to set aside the election.
@GrahamDavidA 2. "Republican officeholders appear more concerned about provoking a backlash from the right if they don’t support Trump than pushback from the center or left if they do,” writes @RonBrownstein
1. Biden has named Jake Sullivan his national-security adviser. In 2019, Sullivan laid out a vision for reviving American foreign policy in @TheAtlantictheatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
@TheAtlantic 2. More recently, Biden’s newly named national-security adviser has been working on a Carnegie project, aimed at reorienting foreign policy around the middle class. What does that mean, in practical terms? Former Deputy SecState Bill Burns lays it out here theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
3. Biden’s orbit contains two competing visions of foreign policy, argues @thomaswright08—with the restorationist and reformist impulses battling against each other: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
1. If Texas turns blue this cycle—and that’s a huge and somewhat improbable “if”!—what’s happening right now in Harris County could be incredibly consequential for voting rights across the country.
2. The county has been aggressive about expanding access to voting, and turnout has surged. The partisan valence of that remains unclear. (A good breakdown here: houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/…) But by week’s end, there could be 1 million ballots cast—against 1.3m in all of 2016.
3. There’s an interesting set of incentives baked in here—if a particular metro area can boost turnout by liberalizing access, other areas will have to keep pace or risk losing relative clout in future elections.
1. For five years, Donald Trump has survived politically by embracing a simple truth. The damaging scandals are those politicians seek to conceal; any revelation, no matter how damning, can be overcome if they insist they are actually proud of it.
2. The best illustration of this principle was the president’s phone call with Ukraine. Hiding it on a secret server betrayed cognizance of guilt, and provoked impeachment. Then the president insisted it was “perfect,” and the GOP Senate lined up to support him.
3. Today’s episode is the president’s 60 Minutes interview. By any objective standard, it’s a train-wreck. But rather than allow the network to define the story, the president insists it shows him in a favorable light, and posts it online.