The Sunday Subject — August 14, 2022
The FBI carried out a search warrant of Mar-A-Lago, and found classified documents relating to America’s nuclear program.
Former President Donald Trump, who had previously been found flushing official documents down the White House’s toilets, has now been found to have removed classified and top-secret documents, and hid them in a safe in his Mar-A-Lago country club. The Washington Post reported that the stolen documents included classified materials relating to nuclear weapons. In response, Trump made a baseless accusation that the FBI—led by lifelong Republcan and Trump appointee Christopher Wray—had somehow planted the material. It is not yet clear what the repercussions will be for Trump, as a President stealing nuclear secrets is not a scenario America’s legal system has ever had to deal with.
President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act.
The landmark bill aims to reduce the federal deficit and lower inflation, but its real importance isn’t covered by the title. A smorgasboard of Democratic priorities, the bill will close tax loopholes used by corporations, lower prescription drug prices, restore staffing cuts to the IRS made under the previous administration, and most significantly, set aside $369 billion to fight climate change, with an aim of reducing carbon emissions by 40% by the end of the decade.
Author Salman Rushdie was stabbed while speaking at the Chataqua Institution.
New Jersey man Hadi Matar rushed the stage where the 75-year-old author was speaking and stabbed him in the neck and abdomen, and injured interviewer Ralph Henry Reese, before being subdued by the crowd and arrested. Matar’s motive is still unknown, but Rushdie has been living with death threats since his 1989 novel The Satanic Verses angered many Muslims by fictionalizing parts of the Prophet Muhammad’s life. Then-Iranian-President Ayatollah Khomeini called for Rushdie’s death at the time, and in 1991 the book’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death.
Surgery on Rushdie was successful, but his literary agent told the press that he’s likely to lose an eye, his liver is severely damaged, and nerves in his arm were severed.
