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Anne Applebaum: The Biggest Tent

To defeat autocracy in America, we need as many different people campaigning in as many different places as possible
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Ezra Klein has argued this week that the Democratic party should embrace the Spanberger and Sherill victories, not in opposition to the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayor race, but alongside it. In his New York Times video essay, Klein argues that winning back the House or even Congress in the midterms next year—and the White House in 2028—is not about moving left or right, but about expanding the party’s tent to make room for radically different candidates who can win in both urban America and rural America.

I agree. In fact, I would add that when countries have successfully beaten back authoritarianism, they have often done so by building wide coalitions. …
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Marisa Kabas: The voices of SNAP

Recipients have become political pawns. They explained, in their own words, what Trump withholding funds has been like.

Stephanie boarded a city bus Monday morning to make the 90 minute trek from one end of Mesa, Arizona to the other. It was a long journey just for groceries, but they didn’t see any other choice: They’re a current recipient of SNAP benefits, and because the Trump administration has refused to fund the essential food program during the government shutdown, they were willing to travel wherever necessary to access fresh fruits and vegetables. A few farmers markets were participating in a program called Food Bucks, and for $30 she was able to stock up for now. “So even if it’s stressful to navigate and took all morning, I’m grateful for it,” Stephanie said. “But it shouldn’t have to be like this, of course.”
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Reuters: US intel found Israeli military lawyers warned there was evidence of Gaza war crimes, former US officials say

WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. gathered intelligence last year that Israel’s military lawyers warned there was evidence that could support war crimes charges against Israel for its military campaign in Gaza – operations reliant on American-supplied weapons, five former U.S. officials said.

The previously unreported intelligence, described by the former officials as among the most startling shared with top U.S. policymakers during the war, pointed to doubts within the Israeli military about the legality of its tactics that contrasted sharply with Israel’s public stance defending its actions.
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Steve Vladeck: Five Questions About “Extrajudicial Killings”

There is no obvious legal argument to support President Trump’s expanding campaign of strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. And the implications are even scarier.

… the post that follows explains why this is a serious underreaction—and why there is, especially as of this past Monday, no viable legal basis under U.S. law for what the Trump administration is doing.

Worse than that, whatever the internal legal rationale for these strikes is (and the Trump administration has pointedly refused to share it with anyone other than a handful of Republican members of Congress), there’s no publicly obvious reason why it would be limited to non-citizens and/or targets outside U.S. territory. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was absolutely right to describe these strikes as “extrajudicial killings,” a term that has come to be used to refer to targeted uses of force by the state against specific individuals. But they’re even worse than that, for they are, near as I can tell, blatantly unlawful as a matter of U.S. domestic law—and a quickly spreading stain on whatever is left of the executive branch’s commitment to the rule of law.1
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James Eagle: Solar power keeps proving the experts wrong

Every revolution begins quietly, then suddenly looks inevitable. Solar power was once dismissed as expensive and unreliable, but it has spent the past decade proving every sceptic wrong. Forecasts that once looked bold now look timid. With more than 600 gigawatts added in 2024 alone, solar has become the fastest-growing and cheapest source of electricity on the planet.

Nowhere is that transformation more visible than in Europe. Spain’s vast sunlight and Germany’s relentless investment have pushed both countries to record solar generation. Even in the cloudier north, solar is becoming central to the power grid rather than a marginal addition. It’s proof that technology, policy and persistence can bend the limits of geography itself.
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Closer to the Edge: Jessica Denson

Her name first appeared in the public record as a plaintiff, not a pundit. In 2016, she worked inside Trump’s campaign. When she reported harassment and discrimination, the campaign responded with a $1.5 million arbitration demand designed to bury her. It didn’t. Representing herself, she challenged the campaign’s NDA, won, and freed hundreds of former staffers who’d been forced into silence.

That case could have been her curtain call. Instead, it became her starting gun.

In 2025, Denson has remained one of the most persistent presences in Washington’s ongoing standoff between power and accountability. Her activism isn’t built on outrage—it’s built on procedure, law, and follow-through. She’s been in the streets since January: organizing, lobbying, and pressing lawmakers to enforce the Constitution they swore to defend.
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Nature: 7 basic science discoveries that changed the world

Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government.

Under President Donald Trump, the US government is gutting scientific research. The National Institutes of Health has cut almost US$2 billion of grants that were already approved, and the National Science Foundation has terminated more than 1,400 grants. And the president has even bigger plans to eviscerate science. His proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 would cut non-defence-related research and development by 36%.

“They have cancelled wholesale a wide variety of research efforts in midstream,” says John Holdren at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was the science adviser to former president Barack Obama during both his terms. “They intend to now solidify it with cuts in the budgets.”

The cancelled and threatened research is a mixture of ‘applied’ work that has stated applications, which can be commercial in nature, and ‘basic’ or ‘blue skies’ research, intended to develop new knowledge.
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Inside Climate News: Climate Change Made Hurricane Melissa Four Times More Likely, Study Suggests

Fueled by unusually warm waters, Hurricane Melissa this week turned into one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever recorded. Now a new rapid attribution study suggests human-induced climate change made the deadly tropical cyclone four times more likely.

Hurricane Melissa collided with Jamaica on Tuesday, wreaking havoc across the island before tearing through nearby Haiti and Cuba. The storm, which reached Category 5, reserved for the hurricanes with the most powerful winds, has killed at least 40 people across the Caribbean so far. …
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Adam Chandler: SNAP benefits feed essential needs while still leaving many hungry for more

On Friday afternoon, two separate federal judges ordered the Trump administration to continue funding SNAP—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program often referred to as “food stamps”—hours before benefits would lapse. …

… While right now it’s not clear whether the Trump Justice Department will appeal the ruling or if the funds can be dispersed quickly enough to avoid an interruption to benefits, let’s seize on this brief moment where SNAP is getting some attention to talk a little bit more about this program. It’s easily one of the most politicized, important, and misunderstood federal social programs that we have.
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Bulwark: Trump’s Targeting of ‘Narcoterrorists’ Is a Crime in Itself

THE UNITED STATES IS ENGAGED in summary executions on the high seas. That bald fact is being obscured by talk of drug interdiction and war powers and whether we’re certain the drugs on those boats were headed for the United States or somewhere else.

Let’s be clear. Even if we knew for certain that the boats being destroyed in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific 1) contained illegal drugs; 2) those drugs were headed for our shores; and 3) all on board were criminals, it would still be grossly illegal and immoral to blast them out of the water as we have now done some 14 reported times, killing 61 people. This is not drug enforcement. This is murder.

Drug trafficking is bad. It is a crime. But it is only very rarely a capital offense. In fact, no criminal in the United States has been sentenced to death for drug crimes that did not also include homicide since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1988. But the crucial thing to keep in mind is that the criminals involved were captured, charged, and tried. That’s what a law-abiding nation does.

The only time you can legally use lethal military force is when Congress has specifically granted authority against an enemy state or entity, or when American forces are attacked and act in self-defense. It was not illegal for American sailors to shoot back at Japanese planes on December 7, 1941. But we are not at war with “narcoterrorists.” That simply isn’t a thing, even if President Donald Trump has stated that the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. Those words are without legal effect.

The “war on drugs” is a metaphor. Or was. …
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