Day: December 13, 2019

Sen. Bernie Sanders drew criticism this week after endorsing Cenk Uygur, a California congressional candidate with a history of using racial slurs and making demeaning comments about women.

Uygur is running for the seat left vacant by the resignation earlier this year of Rep. Katie Hill. On Thursday, Sanders called him “a voice that we desperately need in Congress,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

But others say Uygur has been using his platform for years to make offensive statements about women, Jews, Muslims, and other groups. In 2016, for example, he defended the Harvard men’s soccer team …

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will hear Trump v. Mazars, a case involving whether House investigators may obtain Trump’s financial records — most likely including his tax forms — from Trump’s accounting firm. Mazars will be heard alongside two other cases, Trump v. Vance and Trump v. Deutsche Bank, which also concern the scope of Trump’s immunity from investigation.

Deutsche Bank, like Mazars, concerns a congressional subpoena. Vance involves a Manhattan prosecutor’s effort to obtain Trump’s financial records.

The Court’s announcement is not surprising. Shortly before Thanksgiving, the Court stayed a lower court decision…

The books that stay with you are weird. I (Vox book critic Constance Grady) have read countless books in my life, and some of them were great books and some of them were terrible, but do I remember, say, The Sun Also Rises in as much detail as I remember the third volume in the Baby-Sitters Club series, The Truth About Stacey, where the truth is that she has diabetes? I do not.

The books that are most important to you personally are books that hit you at just the right moment, that manage to change your mind about …

There is something deeply unsettling about the word “eggnog.” The term has an unshakable grossness, and its etymology is unknown. According to Merriam-Webster, “nog” was a “strong ale formerly brewed in Norfolk, England.” Others say it was originally a beer-like drink from East Anglia. Some people think there might be a connection to the word “noggin,” which centuries ago referred to a type of serving mug. The “egg” part is less mysterious — there are, in fact, eggs in eggnog — but the idea of drinking them seems to go against the concept of what a beverage is even …

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Weinstein’s settlement offends victims and activists

• Harvey Weinstein looks to make a deal settling the accusations against him for a relatively unimpressive sum of $47 million. [LA Times / Stacy Perman]
• Tales of sexual abuse and assault perpetrated by Weinstein first broke in 2017 with a New York Times article that detailed nearly two decades of women’s stories. The discovery of