The Watergate Hotel, part of the complex that was the site of the break-in that brought down Richard Nixon and put a permanent dent in America’s trust in its government, is being reopened after a thorough revamp. Apparently the key cards will boast, “No Need to Break In.”
Jackie Robinson is the title and subject of documentarian Ken Burns’ newest work, a two-parter debuting on PBS on April 11, and he says it’s as much about the contemporary Black Lives Matter Movement as it is about baseball.
Dan Baum, writing in support of drug legalization at Harper’s, has unleashed a frank 1994 quote from former Nixon policy advisor John Ehrlichman, and as inadvertently salient an argument for legalizing drugs as any I’ve ever seen:
Depending on who you ask, former President Richard Nixon's legacy was either one of a paranoid megalomaniac or visionary of foreign policy realpolitik. Now, add another set of conflicting descriptors to the Tricky Dick's legacy — impassioned, inflamed penner of love notes.
Have you ever wanted a kid to be quiet and stop drawing on the drywall with their own poop? Well, according to one psychologist, you need to knock that off this instant, because your prejudice against children— or "childism"— is ruining everything.
A new purity test for Republicans seeking party support asks if potential GOPers support of the Defense of Marriage Act, are against government funding for abortion, and are ready to bow down and fellate the ghost of Ronald Reagan.
Tricky Dick 2.0 thinks Obama's foreign policy strategy is stupid, but Ben Smith points out the Nixon bowed to Mao, G.H.W. Bush bowed to the casket of WW2-era Emperor Hirohito, and, well, our nation still stands. [Politico, Politico, NY Times]
...as if you needed more reasons to love the late, great Paul Newman. [Yahoo]
• Richard Nixon apparently thought interracial pregnancy was grounds for abortion. On a newly released tape, he reportedly says, "There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white." •
'Tis the season for Oscar-bait and there is no better way to start it off than with Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon. The film is based on the play of the same name by Peter Morgan and stars Frank Langella and Michael Sheen in roles they originated for Morgan's play, which revolves around the five-part 1977 interview between…
I'm chilling out at Frankfurt Airport, desperately trying not to eavesdrop on any of the completely uninteresting conversations going on around me or gag from the smells of weird German lunch meats wafting up from the group of old people eating behind me. Luckily I have the redesigned Washington Independent's …
Seventy five thousand people showed up to see Obama's biggest yet speech in Portland, Oregon yesterday. Firstly, that represents something like one-seventh the entire population of Portland and undoubtedly the biggest-ever congregation of fixed-gear bicycles. In fact, the crowd was bigger than pretty much any outdoor…
Welcome back kids! How was el fin de semana? Because it sure sucked for a lot of our overseas amigos! A devastating earthquake on the scale of an earthquake that killed a quarter million people in 1976 just rocked China's Sichuan province; Burma's totalitarian military junta decided to grant itself unlimited…
