| | | | Obstruction-of-Justice Case Against Trump a "No-Brainer" | | The Washington Post broke the news yesterday that President Donald Trump is under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for possible obstruction of justice. Former prosecutors examined the case for the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza:
"'Comey's testimony in a grand jury would be enough to get an indictment,' Julie O'Sullivan, who was part of the team that investigated Whitewater, the Clinton land deal that attracted a special prosecutor in the early nineties, said. To O'Sullivan, Comey's detailed account of the Oval Office meeting in which Trump cleared the room and then told Comey to let go of the investigation of Michael Flynn, whom Trump had fired, the previous day, was especially damning because it showed that Trump knew that what he was doing was wrong," Lizza writes.
"To be sure, there is some disagreement among former prosecutors. 'I think it is very reckless for any former prosecutor to say an obstruction-of-justice case can or can't be made based on one witness's testimony,' Matthew Whitaker, a former U.S. Attorney who was appointed by President George W. Bush, and who ran as a Republican Senate candidate in Iowa, in 2014, said… But, among former prosecutors, Whitaker appears to be in the minority."
-- Mueller has assembled a top-notch group to help him on the probe, Garrett Graff reports in Wired:
"It's a team that contains some of the nation's top investigators and leading experts on seemingly every aspect of the potential investigation—from specific crimes like money laundering and campaign finance violations to understanding how to navigate both sprawling globe-spanning cases and the complex local dynamics of Washington power politics," Graff writes.
"From the list of hires, it's clear, in fact, that Mueller is recruiting perhaps the most high-powered and experienced team of investigators ever assembled by the Justice Department."
| | Domestic Violence and
Mass Shootings | | In the New Yorker, Jane Mayer points to a trait shared by many mass attackers, from James Hodgkinson, the gunman in Virginia, to Omar Mateen, the shooter at the Pulse nightclub, to Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the truck driver in Nice: a history of domestic violence.
"Obviously, not everyone accused of domestic violence becomes a mass shooter. But it's clear that an alarming number of those who have been accused of domestic abuse pose serious and often a lethal threats, not just to their intimate partners but to society at large."
"[M]any domestic-violence suspects, like Hodgkinson, are arrested only to have the charges dropped later, which leaves them armed and dangerous," Mayer writes. "The National Rifle Association and its allies have successfully argued that a mere arrest on domestic-violence charges—such as Hodgkinson had—is not sufficient reason to deprive a citizen of his right to bear arms."
| | Single-Payer Back on the Table? | | | As Senate Republicans work in secrecy to replace Obamacare, they should consider a possible unintended consequence of the bill they're crafting, argues Ezra Klein in Vox. Namely, making it more likely that Democrats "establish a single-payer health care system — or at least the beginnings of one — when they regain power."
"If Republicans wipe out the Affordable Care Act and de-insure tens of millions of people, they will prove a few things to Democrats," Klein writes. "First, including private insurers and conservative ideas in a health reform plan doesn't offer a scintilla of political protection, much less Republican support. Second, sweeping health reform can be passed quickly, with only 51 votes in the Senate, and with no support from major industry actors. Third, it's easier to defend popular government programs that people already understand and appreciate, like Medicaid and Medicare, than to defend complex public-private partnerships, like Obamacare's exchanges."
"Mitch McConnell may prove the best friend 'Medicare for all' ever had," Klein concludes.
| | Hotter Temps Could
Mean Less Coffee | | One set of losers in Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord: coffee drinkers, according to Mike Hoffman in Fortune. (H/T to The Week.)
"Most coffee is grown near the equator, but increasing temperatures, new pests, droughts, and intensive rainfall are taking their toll on the crop," Hoffman writes. "Coffee varieties are sensitive to even slight changes in temperature, which affect both yield and flavor. There is also a new pest, the coffee borer, which seems to enjoy the changing conditions and is spreading worldwide."
"Growing food is already risky, but it will only become riskier as climate change impacts intensify. If we persist on our current trajectory, the potential for temperatures to increase in the next few decades could reduce the global area suitable for production of coffee by as much as half by 2050."
| | Delegating on Troop Levels:
Good or Bad? | | The White House's decision to give the Pentagon more say in deciding troop levels in Afghanistan is ill-advised, argues Micah Zenko in Foreign Policy:
"This latest transfer of commander-in-chief-like powers from the White House to the Pentagon is unprecedented for such a consequential decision," Zenko writes. "Trump is not simply further delegating authority in line with his boasts of giving military commanders 'total authorization.' Rather, the president is dispersing his own responsibility to an extremely popular and colorful retired Marine general. The buck for war and peace no longer stops in the White House Oval Office but in the Pentagon E-Ring."
-- But Max Boot in Commentary praises the move:
"This is good news—as is the fact that the Trump White House is refusing to engage in the kind of micromanagement of military operations that was characteristic of the Obama White House," Boot writes. "One consequence of this approach was a rigid troop cap of 100,000 personnel during the surge that forced military commanders to break up units, keeping troops at home instead of sending them to do their assigned jobs, while relying heavily on civilian contractors."
| | The New Face of Russian Protests: Teenagers | | Russian writer Masha Gessen, a critic of Vladimir Putin's, describes in the New York Review of Books one of the forces behind the country's recent anti-corruption protests:
"The new face of Russian protest is barely pubescent. Reports from the June 12 demonstrations, which brought hundreds and sometimes thousands of people into the streets of just about every Russian city, feature teenagers: a boy in shorts being tackled by police in riot gear, a girl charging a police line, and a paddy wagon full of adolescents."
"[A]s long as some Russians, including some very young ones, are willing to brave streets filled with riot police, they keep an unreasonable hope alive, and they increase the chances that [opposition leader] Alexei Navalny will survive and stay out of prison," Gessen writes. "That's not nothing."
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