Weekend Reads 2/15/20

Tribal leaders call Bears Ears opening an 'unlawful action'

Native American Rights Fund attorneys say Bears Ears is “one of the densest and most significant cultural landscapes in the United States. Abundant rock art, ancient cliff dwellings, ceremonial sites, and countless other artifacts provide an extraordinary archaeological and cultural record that is important to us all …”

‘The tongue is a fire’: Southern Baptist church fractures over secrets and spiritual abuse

In 2000, Foose was convicted and jailed for molesting an underage relative. He resigned from his role as principal of a Christian school, and Pennsylvania’s Department of Education stripped him of his teaching license, deeming him “a danger to the health, safety and welfare of students.” Under state law, Foose can’t even drive a school bus, and were he convicted after 2012 he would have been required by law to register as a sex offender.

But Foose still became a pastor at Oakwood, then superintendent of the Oakwood Baptist Day School. Church leaders who were aware of his past concealed it from the congregation.

'A lying, dog-faced pony soldier': just what was Joe Biden talking about?

Biden’s spokespeople said the line comes from a John Wayne film – but it’s not clear it does. There is a 1952 western called Pony Soldier, but it does not star John Wayne, and no one is called a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier” in it, according to Slate. There is, reportedly, a line in the film in which a chief says: “The pony soldier speaks with a tongue of the snake that rattles.”

Hey Moderates, It’s Time to Compromise—with Yourselves

The big moderate divide in 2020 is not about any major policy dispute, but between those who respect insider experience and those who are inspired by outsider energy. Biden and Klobuchar routinely cite their records of accomplishment navigating the corridors of Congress, while Buttigieg and Bloomberg sell themselves as mayoral problem-solvers who can rescue a broken Washington.