Here he comes: Robert S. Mueller III, who was recently asked by the Justice Department to serve as special counsel investigating the president’s connections to Russia, is an appointee sure to infuriate Trump, Leon Neyfakh writes. Mueller is patrician, technocratic, exacting … and friends with James Comey.
Tales from the replication crisis: Social psychologist Daryl Bem spent years trying to prove that ESP was real. The results of his study, Dan Engber writes, show that science truly is in trouble.
Rest in … something: Roger Ailes, former head of Fox News, is dead at 77. His legacy, Justin Peters writes, is “a diminished network, a paralyzed polity, and a country that is worse off than he found it.”
Give it up: Dahlia Lithwick’s inbox is full of hopeful emails asking whether she thinks the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could, if they chose, invoke Article 4 of the 25th Amendment to get Trump out of office. She’s got bad news: That’s not happening.
The Ivanka of newsletters: The Skimm, a breezy and unbearable subscription email targeting female readers, is bad for America. Christina Cauterucci brings the case.
For fun: Care and feeding of an idiot president.
Very handy,
Rebecca
*** Slate’s Dan Engber cover story this week was made possible by TNT’s new series American Race. Thanks, TNT! ***
