1. The biggest problem with the way my colleagues are handling COVID is that they’re publishing too many incredible articles for me to keep current. Here are a few from the last couple days that are worth your time:
2. Remember that strange 19th century obsession with miasma, the idea that “bad air” could make you sick? Well, yeah. As @sarahzhang points out, maybe they were on to something: theatlantic.com/health/archive…
@sarahzhang 3. The U.S. has screwed up so much of its response to COVID, you might be forgiven if you haven’t noticed—but we’re actually way ahead of Europe on the race to vaccinate, as @olgakhazan writes: theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
1. A short thread for followers, readers, and interested United States senators about what impeachment is for, and how it actually works.
2. The first point—one I made at length two years ago—is that impeachment is not just an outcome, but a process. Specifically, it functions as a public inquest, pulling facts into view and allowing allegations to be tested and debated: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
3. What does it mean that impeachment is a public inquest? Two sitting Vice Presidents wrote to the House *demanding* that it open impeachment proceedings against them. They understood it to be a process of discernment, and were hoping to clear their names of allegations.
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.
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/…
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/…