I’ll open with a line Leon Neyfakh tweeted this morning:
That queasy mix of excitement, apprehension, and curiosity you’re feeling right now about Michael Flynn? Americans who lived through Watergate woke up with that every day. Find out what it was like on the new Slate miniseries Slow Burn: A Podcast About Watergate.
If you haven’t heard Slow Burn, don’t wait any longer. It’s in your Slate Plus feed now.
From Slate
Michael Flynn copped a plea today. “This moment will prove to be incredibly important, or not important at all,” writes Dahlia Lithwick, depending on “whether the law and legal conclusions continue to matter going forward, or whether they matter not at all.”
The Republican tax bill looks set to pass—indeed, it may be a fait accompli by the time you read this. It shows just how bankrupt and destructive the party in control of American government has become.
As of this week, North Korea can hit Washington with a missile. What happens now?
What’s it like to join the workforce in the shadow of allegations of ubiquitous sexual harassment? Crushing, writes Slate intern Lila Thulin.
Rex Tillerson is a terrible secretary of state, writes Fred Kaplan—but Tom Cotton as CIA chief would be even worse.
Also, there’s only one viable contender for Best Picture this year, and Julia Turner knows what it is.
Not From Slate
There was no digest last week due to Thanksgiving, so I didn’t get to share Adam Serwer’s Atlantic essay “The Nationalist’s Delusion,” which is the most important thing I’ve read so far on the fraught question of Trump voters and race.
Amid everything else that’s going on, spare some mental and emotional energy for the dismantling of the United States’ diplomatic corps.
Another remarkable personal description of sexual aggression, this one from screenwriter Jenny Lumet, about music-business executive Russell Simmons.
This story about a novelist, a break-up, and a lawsuit is bananas.
Coming on Facebook
Ask Jamelle Bouie and Rebecca Onion anything! On Monday at noon, Jamelle and Rebecca will field your questions about the Reconstruction era, the subject of our latest Slate Academy series, in a live chat in the Slate Plus Facebook group.
That’s all for this week. Good luck out there. Thanks, as always, for your membership.
Gabriel Roth
Editorial director, Slate Plus
