november 1966

1. The Aristocracy Is Dead …

For about a week every year in my childhood, I was a member of one of America’s fading aristocracies. Sometimes around Christmas, more often on the Fourth of July, my family would take up residence at one of my grandparents’ country clubs in Chicago, Palm Beach, or Asheville, North Carolina. The breakfast buffets were magnificent, and Grandfather was a jovial host, always ready with a familiar story, rarely missing an opportunity for gentle instruction on proper club etiquette. At the age of 11 or 12, I gathered from him, between his puffs of cigar smoke, that we owed our weeks of plenty to Great-Grandfather, Colonel Robert W. Stewart, a Rough Rider with Teddy Roosevelt who made his fortune as the chairman of Standard Oil of Indiana in the 1920s. I was also given to understand that, for reasons traceable to some ancient and incomprehensible dispute, the Rockefellers were the mortal enemies of our clan.

On a soundstage in Queens, New York, the crew for Marti Noxon’s new TV series Dietland has built an extremely realistic replica of the offices of a modern women’s magazine. Covers from previous issues decorate the hallway, featuring an array of beautiful young white women and taglines such as “Scarves That Slim.” The kitchen wall, a violent, appetite-diminishing shade of green, is painted with the words try harder. The beauty closet, a serene, cathedral-like space, has floor-to-ceiling shelves labeled dark spot corrector, stretch mark reduction, skin lightener, buffing cream. The products on set seem to number in the thousands.

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The sheer volume of Trump scandals can seem difficult to keep track of.

There’s the ongoing special-counsel investigation into whether the Trump campaign aided a Russian campaign to aid Trump’s candidacy and defeat his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton; there’s the associated inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice when he fired former FBI Director James Comey, whom he had asked not to investigate his former national-security adviser; there are the president’s hush-money payments to women with whom he allegedly had extramarital affairs, made through his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and facilitated by corporate cash paid to influence the White House; there is his ongoing effort to interfere with the Russia inquiry and politicize federal law enforcement; there are the foreign governments that seem to be utilizing the president’s properties as vehicles for influencing administration policy; there’s the emerging evidence that Trump campaign officials sought aid not only from Russia, but from other foreign countries, which may have affected Trump’s foreign policy; there are the ongoing revelations of the president’s Cabinet officials’ misusing taxpayer funds; there is the accumulating evidence that administration decisions are made at the behest of private industry, in particular those in which Republican donors have significant interests.

Donald Glover fans have taken control of a popular Trump fan page on Reddit.

The subreddit, thedonald, which has about 17,000 subscribers, is not to be confused with Reddit’s much larger and more famous Trump fan page, The_Donald, which has over 600,000 subscribers.

The takeover began on Monday when fans began posting photos and memes of the acclaimed actor and recording artist. “The One True Donald,” one user posted on Monday, along with a black-and-white head shot of Glover. The post received over 45,000 upvotes.

“Not a racist. Not a rapist. Can read. Was never bankrupt. Likes Mexicans. Talented. Pays his taxes. Handsome. Loves immigrants. Not a puppet for Russia. Doesn’t want to [redacted] his daughter. Must be the real one true Donald,” another posted above a picture of Donald Glover. Others posted artwork of Glover and calls to vote for Donald Glover for president.

The former education secretary says it’s time for American families to boycott school to fight for stricter gun laws.

Over the weekend, Arne Duncan, who served in the Obama administration, replied approvingly to a radical suggestion from a former colleague. “Maybe it’s time for America’s 50 million school parents to simply pull their kids out of school until we have better gun laws,” tweeted Peter Cunningham, another Obama-era education official. Duncan’s reply: “This is brilliant, and tragically necessary. What if no children went to school until gun laws changed to keep them safe? My family is all in if we can do this at scale. Parents, will you please join us?”

After Duncan tweeted, Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America, said she was on board. So did Jim Manly, the superintendent of KIPP public charter schools in New York City.

The package came in a small black box, covered in tape. It had no return address. Under layers of packaging, there was a box labeled Smart Watch, with no brand name. Inside the box was the watch itself, which looked nothing like the inexpensive Apple Watch I’d hoped it would be. Instead, the large digital face featured icons for Twitter, Facebook, a pedometer, and a photo-taking app called “Camina” rather than “camera.” It was about what you’d expect for a smart watch that cost less than $20.

I ordered the watch from Wish.com, one of a growing number of sites that allows consumers from around the world to buy deeply discounted goods from China, directly from sellers or manufacturers there. After receiving promotional emails from Wish offering bikinis for $4 (marked down from $75!), camera drones for $29 (down from $1,399!), and, for some reason, a spoon that says “My Peanut-Butter Spoon” for $1 (down from $12), I could no longer resist. I ordered the smart watch, advertised as “Hot Sell New product Q18S Smart Wrist Watch” for $18, marked down, supposedly, from $896. The product had more than 8,000 reviews in dozens of languages, averaging four stars. “Its cool I like it for the price,” read one.

Roughly one year ago, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was charged with investigating any links or coordination “between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” as well as any “matters” or “federal crimes” that “may arise directly from the investigation.”

That probe now divides the right.

Conservatives like David French believe that the facts continue to justify its existence. As he noted last week in National Review, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee have now confirmed that Russia attempted to aid Trump in the 2016 election, that Donald Trump Jr. “received a direct and unambiguous invitation to collude with Russia,” and that “he took the meeting.” What’s more, members of his campaign team, including Paul Manafort, George Papadopolous, Carter Page, and Michael Flynn, all interacted with Russia in ways that, at the very least, cry out for further inquiry. That demands a thorough probe that sets all relevant facts before the public.

Every afternoon around 4 p.m., when school lets out, Brandon, an 18-year-old high-school senior in Los Angeles who asked to be referred to only by his first name, goes “Bird hunting.” He heads for his minivan and, on the drive home, he’ll swing through convenient neighborhoods, picking up about 13 Bird electric scooters along the way, tossing them into the back of his car.

“I have a whole system,” he says. “I’ll go home, put the 13 I initially caught on the chargers. They’ll charge for about three hours until around 7 or 8 p.m.”—when Bird makes more scooters available for charger pickup. “Then I’ll go back out.”

Over the course of the next few hours, Brandon loops around his Santa Monica, California, neighborhood collecting as many scooters as possible. He brings back his bounty and, as his parents sleep, neatly sets them up to charge in batches overnight.

The title and timing of To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment might lead the unwary reader to expect a polemic. But no. Inside these covers is a learned, judicious, and surprisingly cautious study of the impeachment power by Laurence Tribe, who ranks high among America’s leading constitutional scholars, and his former student, Joshua Matz. Their message: Impeachment is a very, very dangerous thing. Proceed with caution.

Worse: “Well-justified calls to impeach the president can simultaneously empower him, harm his political opponents, and make his removal from office less likely … Because removing a truly determined tyrant may unleash havoc, the risks of impeaching a president are apt to be most extreme precisely when ending his tenure is most necessary.”

The 17-year-old who killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School, in Texas, allegedly used his father’s shotgun and .38 revolver. After a firefight with police, he surrendered, saying he did not have the courage to kill himself, as he had planned, Governor Greg Abbott told reporters.

In the hours after the May 18 attack, some students were shocked that Dimitrios Pagourtzis felled his classmates and two substitute teachers with buckshot. He played defensive tackle on the football team. He made honor roll. He is not known to have a criminal record, according to Abbott. Just the day before, he had been joking around with friends on a field trip to a waterpark. Others found him disturbing, often wearing a trench coat, said his classmates, and, on that day, a black T-shirt with the haunting message BORN TO KILL.