Weekend Reads 1/11/20

Sense of foreboding darkens Democratic primary

Democrats have fretted for more than a year about how to choose a nominee. And for those who loathe Trump, the imperative to remove him from office has remained high since the minute he won election in 2016.

But many Democrats did not suspect a year ago that the final stage of the campaign would begin with open conversations about the prospect of a World War III. Or an impeached president.

‘Christianity Today’ Pro-Impeachment Editorial Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means

To many normal people, what Galli did is what they’d expect from white evangelical Christians. If what Clinton did was deserving of impeachment and removal, then surely what Trump did is deserving of the same. But that’s not how most white evangelical Christians see it. Most of them are authoritarian to the marrow of their bones.

Elizabeth Warren’s new plan to reform bankruptcy law, explained

In 2005, federal law was changed to make it harder for middle-class families to discharge debts in bankruptcy. That was good for credit card companies and others that want to collect those debts, and was said by its proponents to have the secondary consequence of making cheap credit easier to obtain (in practice, credit card interest rates went up rather than down so this rationale seems dubious anyway).

Origin of Deep-Space Radio Flash Discovered, and It's Unlike Anything Astronomers Have Ever Seen

The problem concerns a class of blink-and-you'll-miss-them heavenly events known as fast radio bursts (FRBs). In a few thousandths of a second, these explosions produce as much energy as the sun does in nearly a century. Researchers have only known about FRBs since 2007, and they still don't have a compelling explanation regarding their sources.