Issue July 6-13, 2018 - The Week Magazine (2024)

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Main storiesEditor’s letterShunning is now back in fashion. Are the stocks and pillory next? As our nation’s political discourse takes on the tone of a religious schism, Trump supporters and opponents can no longer break bread under the same roof. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia (see Controversy), while hecklers shouted “Shame!” at Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and “Fascist!” at senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who were both dining in Mexican restaurants. (For Miller, it’s Mexican food, sí! Mexicans, no!) On the left, these acts of uncivil disobedience have prompted an internal debate over whether shaming and shunning Trumpists is strategically wise, given that it feeds the persecution narrative the president so expertly exploits. Among the shunned, there is wounded shock at such…3 min

Main storiesThe chaotic effort to reunite migrant familiesWhat happenedThe Trump administration struggled this week to reunite thousands of children separated from their parents at the border, after officials conceded they had no coordinated system between federal agencies to track and return children scattered around the country in government shelters and foster homes. Citing “a chaotic circ*mstance of the government’s own making,” a federal judge in California ordered children under 5 to be returned to their parents within 14 days, and children over 5 returned in 30 days or fewer. Approximately 500 children recently held at CBP facilities have been reunited with their parents, but Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday his agency still held 2,047 children—only six fewer than in HHS custody a week ago, and that most could not be reunited with parents…5 min

Main storiesSupreme Court OKs Trump’s travel banWhat happenedThe Supreme Court this week upheld President Trump’s travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, delivering a victory to the White House in its first major ruling on a Trump administration policy. The court voted 5-4 in Trump v. Hawaii, with conservative justices in the majority, rejecting arguments that Trump’s executive order exceeded his lawful powers and violated constitutional protections against religious discrimination. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Trump has ample authority to restrict the entry of certain noncitizens on national security grounds. Roberts also rebuffed the contention that Trump’s past comments—including his call during the presidential campaign for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the U.S.—proved that the order was motivated by religious bias. “The text says nothing about religion,” Roberts wrote. The day…3 min

Main storiesIt wasn’t all badSoon after taking off from Boston for Portland, Ore., flight attendants on an Alaska Airlines plane asked if anyone on board knew sign language. Clara Daly, 15, put her hand up. She soon discovered that the attendants were struggling to communicate with a deaf-blind passenger, 64-year-old Tim Cook. The teenager, who’d been signing for a year, signed into his hand with her fingers and found out what he needed: water, flight information, and simple conversation. The two chatted for more than an hour. “Everything happens for a reason,” Clara says. “I got put on a flight where I had purpose.”In the run-up to her 107th birthday, Myda Lewis was asked by her hospice nurse if there was anything she’d ever dreamed of doing. The Oklahoman replied that she’d always wanted…1 min

Controversy of the weekPolitics: Liberal anger and the new incivility“Whatever happened to ‘When they go low, we go high?’” asked Melissa Braunstein in TheFederalist.com. Michelle Obama’s oft-repeated maxim sounded nice, but since Donald Trump moved into the White House, partisan debate has become “coarser, cruder, more disheartening and inflammatory” than ever. But last week the Left reached “a new low point for civility,” with the harassment of White House staffers in restaurants. First, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Trump adviser Stephen Miller were hounded out of (different) Mexican restaurants by protesters furious over the family-separation policy. Then, the owner of the Red Hen restaurant in Virginia refused to serve White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and asked her to leave the premises, because of a moral objection to Trump administration policies on immigration and LGBT issues. This…3 min

Controversy of the weekGood week/bad weekGood week for:Work-life balance, after the mayor of Warren, Mich., advised constituents that he is not “obligated” to stop and talk to them about their problems when he’s out running. Mayor Jim Fouts, 70, said he’s “available 24/7 but NOT when I’m jogging.”Changing your luck, after Alex Bregman of the Houston Astros shaved off his mustache between innings of a game against the Kansas City Royals, apparently in hopes it would break his batting slump. “I just shaved it,” Bergman told baffled sportswriters.Hippies, with the announcement by archaeologists that after a five-day excavation of a field in upstate New York, they are close to pinpointing the exact location of the stage at 1969’s Woodstock musical festival. “It’s some science, it’s some guesswork,” said archaeologist Paul Brown. “You hope that you…1 min

Issue July 6-13, 2018 - The Week Magazine (2024)

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