Exception to the rule: Why does Trump ignore the human rights violations committed by most autocrats, only to condemn what’s going on in Venezuela? Josh Keating says the double standard could be due to a few factors: anti-leftism. Oil. And, in a roundabout way, Cuba.
Not relaxing: Canvassing Republican senators heading home for their insanely long five-week August break, Jim Newell finds some glum faces. It’s been a rough stretch, and it’s not like September is going to be any smoother.
Do-over: In order to correct a huge black spot on his record, Anthony Kennedy needs to push to reverse Garcetti v. Ceballos, David L. Hudson Jr. writes. The decision regularly denies whistleblowers their First Amendment rights.
He’s doing it: Randy Newman, for one, isn’t retiring from satire in the age of Trump. Carl Wilson reviews the singer’s new album and finds it “self-aware, mature, and almost indecently musical.”
For fun: It was all a reality show, after all.
We wish,
Rebecca
