Sunday, July 2, 2017
Week Links
Last week I contemplated suspending Weekend Roundup. Partly I was
having grave computer problems that made surfing the web ever more
painful, and partly I was just disgusted with all the insane things
Trump and the Republicans are doing. Since then I tried Google's
Chromium browser and it's working better (although not perfectly,
and without NoScript I'm seeing a lot of annoying JavaScript I
never had to deal with before).
So I figured I'd compromise by just jotting down a few links
without comments, although sometimes I couldn't help myself.
Also because shit's happening so fast, I figured I should jot
down a date for each linked page (when I remembered to do so).
Then I wrote an introduction.
Meanwhile, I slogged through Noam Chomsky's essay collection,
Who Rules the World? I didn't learn a lot I didn't already
know, but I started out in a bad mood about America's many wars,
so I didn't mind Chomsky being even harsher than I would be.
Still, I wanted something lighter next, and settled for Bernie
Sanders' post-campaign book. Only about 100 pages into it --
still pre-Iowa, when he was a very longshot, yet still no more
improbable than the mess we wound up with. I talked to a friend
last week who was still complaining about "Bernie or bust" --
people who held out for something more while most of us were
willing to settle for much less (damn near nothing).
Five months in, I think we can draw some clear conclusions about
Donald Trump as President. One is that he's a lot more ignorant about
everything a national political leader does (or should do) than pretty
much anyone imagined -- including those of us who have long feared
what we thought would be the worst. One manifestation of this is that
he has no clue how to get anything done, and his ideas about what to
do rarely rise above his sociopathic prejudices.
The second, which was easier to predict from his campaign, is that
his shameless disregard for truth is orders of magnitude beyond anything
Washington -- a notorious haven for dissemblers -- has ever encountered.
The media literally have no idea where to begin, because there are no
fixed points to navigate by.
The third is that Trump has belied every intimation he made on the
campaign trail that he might break with Republican Party orthodoxy and
forge a new direction: nationalist, for sure, but giving government a
more humane role at home and a less aggressive one at home. This not
only didn't happen; as many of us suspected, it never had a chance.
Trump's trifecta of ignorance, incompetence, and dishonesty (for lack
of a better word -- mendacious implies he's somewhat clever, and even
bullshit suggests a hidden agenda) has left his administration in the
malevolent hands of Republican apparatchiks and their billionaire
masters.
His only authentic (in the sense of things he personally decided)
moves so far have been hiring relatives and touring his personal
properties -- things he's been doing for decades. And when he's not
indulging his oversized ego, he's doing what he's always tried to do:
make money. He's not responsible for creating Washington's ubiquitous
culture of graft, but he exemplifies it, especially by making sure
he's getting his cut.
Still, since Mitch McConnell unveiled his hitherto secret health
care bill (the BRCA, like the breast cancer gene -- it seems immune
to adding a "Care" suffix because it clearly doesn't), Trump's own
personal garishness has taken a back seat (despite eruptions like
the Mika Brzezinski flap) to his adopted party's crusade not just
to coddle and elevate the rich but also to demean and hurt the poor
(and anyone else they can organize their disdain against). This
should have been clear years ago, but centrist Democrats and the
bought-and-aid-for media have perpetuated the myth that they can
work with moderate counterparts among the Republicans. But while
Clinton and Obama never pointed to the obvious, Trump inadvertently
made the point when he complained of not having a chance to get a
single Democratic vote for his "repeal-and-replace Obamacare" bill.
At least this answers the thought experiment: how bad does a bill
have to be to not get a single sell-out Democrat?
Still, Republicans are using their thin Congressional margins,
the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, and anything that can be
done through executive orders (or not done by turning a blind eye
to enforcement on matters like civil rights, environment, and
antitrust), to push its anti-popular (and frequently downright
unpopular) agenda through. Just this last week, Trump's travel
ban order got a reprieve from the Supreme Court, and the House
passed two anti-immigrant bills (certain to fall short of the 60
votes the Senate used to require, but McConnell may still get
creative there).
It's hard to say whether Trump's chaos (for lack of a better
word, although I was tempted by "insanity") is making their
efforts easier or harder. Matthew Yglesias sums this up in
Why Donald Trump can't make deals in Washington:
It seems paradoxical that you could combine the party discipline needed
to push controversial and unpopular legislation through on a party line
vote with total disengagement on the part of the party's top leader. But
the Trump administration seems to feature just the right mix of chaos
and conventionality to make it work. Both Vice President Mike Pence and
Chief of Staff Reince Priebus are very conventional Republicans with
deep ties to the congressional party. That seems to be good enough to
ensure that Trump will take his cues from Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell
regardless of his personal instincts. Trump triumphed over the GOP's
leadership during the 2016 primary, but he has largely surrendered to
them on policy questions.
The result is that deals get done -- or not -- by the party's
congressional leadership. The ability to legislate hinges on Ryan and
McConnell being able to agree among themselves. Trump serves as an
ineffectual figurehead, talking tough but not really being able to
engage with the policy details enough to properly negotiate an
unprecedented rollback of the welfare state.
Here's another writer who understands that no matter how
personally noxious Donald Trump may be, his administration is
doing pretty exactly what any Republican administration would
be doing given the same powers:
Alex Pareene: This Is Normal:
What most of the worst people in Donald Trump's administration have
in common is that they are Republicans. This simple fact is obscured
sometimes by the many ways in which Trump is genuinely an aberration
from the political norm -- like his practice of naked nepotism rather
than laundering the perpetuation of class advantage through a
"meritocratic" process -- and by the fact that many of the most vocal
online spokespeople for "the resistance" ignore the recent history of
the Republican Party in favor of a Trump-centric theory of How Fucked
Up Everything Is.
But it is necessary for liberals, leftists, and Democrats to actually
be clear on the fact that the Republican Party is responsible for Trump.
The Democrats' longterm failure to make a compelling and all-encompassing
case against conservatism and the GOP as institutions, rather than making
specific cases against specific Republican politicians, is one of the
reasons the party is currently in the political wilderness. . . .
Next time you boggle at the sight of the president's unqualified
son-in-law flying to Iraq to get briefed by generals on the facts on
the ground, remember that George W. Bush sent a business school chum
to privatize Iraq's economy and a 24-year-old with no relevant experience
to reopen the Iraqi stock market.
The worst members of Trump's cabinet -- Jeff Sessions, Scott Pruitt,
Betsy DeVos -- are Republicans. Their analogues in any possible alternate
Republican presidency would've been basically identical in how they
carried out their work. Jeb Bush would've signed the AHCA. Marco Rubio
would've sold arms to Saudi Arabia. John Kasich would've abided the theft
of a Supreme Court seat and selected a justice just as conservative as
Neil Gorsuch, if not Gorsuch himself.
None of those men would've lobbed crude personal insults at cable show
hosts. They wouldn't have been as cartoonishly, personally corrupt in
their business dealings (though scores of their appointees would have
been). But even the most consequential way in which Trump differs from
a hypothetical alternate Republican president, his blatant obstruction
of the investigation into whether or not he is somehow compromised by
or in league with the Russian government, has almost no real-world
consequences, compared to his (bog-standard Republican) international
and domestic policy agendas. When Mitch McConnell's underhanded
legislative maneuvering is included in a list of ways in which Trump is
normalizing authoritarianism, you give the president far too much credit
and the Republican Party far too little.
Meanwhile, here are links (mostly without comments) to some
stories I noticed:
Zeeshan Aleem: Trump just made a humiliating economic error in front
of South Korea's president [06-30]: Confusing trade deficits with
national debt. The bigger problem -- assuming confirmation of Trump's
duncehood is no surprise -- is that US has historically bought South
Korean alliance by supporting its export-driven economic growth, a
strategy undercut by Trump's "America First" demagoguery -- oddly at
a time when Trump's blundering has triggered another confrontation
with North Korea. Also see:
Jason Ditz: Trump: North Korea Should Be Dealt With Rapidly:
but how? "South Korea and China had both been said in recent weeks
to have presented the Trump administration a diplomatic resolution,
but to have been dismissed out of hand, with the administration
ruling out any deal that reduces the 'military pressure' on North
Korea."
Zack Beauchamp: This chilling NRA ad calls on its members to save
America by fighting liberals
Ari Berman: The Trump Administration Is Planning an Unprecedented Attack
on Voting Rights
Aaron Blake: Kellyanne Conway would like to question the media's patriotism --
because Mika Brzezinski questioned President Trump's [06-30]
Esme Cribb: No Staff Members Left in Science Division of White House
Office [07-01]
Chas Danner: Christie Shuts Down New Jersey Government, State Beaches
and Parks Closed [07-01]
David A Farenthold: A Time magazine with Trump on its cover hangs in his
golf clubs. It's fake. [06-27]
Michelle Goldberg: Trump No Longer Seems Able to Hide His Raw
Misogyny.
Richard Goldstein: Jupiter Rising: On Macron and France.
Glenn Greenwald: CNN Journalists Resign: Lastest Example of Media Recklessness
on the Russia Threat
William Greider: Worried About Those Global Cyber Attacks? They Were
Started by Washington
Alex Isenstadt/Josh Dawsey: Senate GOP seethes at Trump impulsiveness
[06-27]: Sour grapes about Trump's inadvertent mucking with 2018 Senate
prospects; e.g., his PAC attacks against Dean Heller (R-NV), who must be
one of the most endangered Republican incumbents (otherwise why would he
break with Trump over gutting of ACA?).
Annie Karni/Nahal Toosi: Tight circle of security officials crafted
Trump's Syria warning [06-27]: Curious that Trump's claim that
"new intelligence" indicated that Syria was planning on launching a
chemical weapons attack appeared almost immediately after Seymour
Hersh reported that US intelligence agencies didn't believe reports
of a previous attack that Trump used as pretext for his cruise missile
volley against a Syrian Air Force base (see:
Trump's Red Line). Also note that Trump and company claimed their
warning had worked a mere two days after it was issued (see:
Michael D Shear: White House Warning Halted Syria Chemical Attack,
Officials Say [06-28].
Jeremy Kryt: Inside Trump's Disastrous 'Secret' Drug War Plans for Central
America [07-01]
Martin Longman: And Now the Trump Presidency Begins to Fail for Real
[06-29]: Well, Trump has settled on a strategy of trying to pass everything
with straight party votes, further angering Democrats by using executive
power to reverse virtually everything associated with Obama -- in effect,
he's not only set out to erase the last eight years, he's more explicit
about that than any president ever. (Too bad Obama did just the opposite,
even though GW Bush left him a lot that should have been rolled back.)
Health care is merely the most obvious example, because Republicans made
it one eight years ago, leaving Democrats with no option other than to
pass the ACA on a straight party vote. But this dynamic applies to lots
of things, and there's no reason to think taxes, infrastructure, or
immigration will turn out any different. And note that a big part of
Trump's problem with pressing his partisan majority is that he can't
win without support of the tea party faction (or whatever they call
themselves these days) and those guys have learned to leverage their
numbers, basically to block anything that isn't extreme enough. Thus,
the House AHCA initially failed, only to pass after the leadership
made it more hurtful and even less popular. Needless to say, that
just encourages the extreme right to become even more aggressive.
On the other hand, Trump closed off the option (if it ever existed)
of moving toward the center when he staffed his administration and
started his Obama purge. So, yeah, getting things done is going to
be difficult for Trump. On the other hand, his capacity to wreck our
world is still quite extraordinary, so I wouldn't start celebrating
yet.
German Lopez: Trump's "election integrity" commission wants every voter's
name, party ID, and address [06-30]: This is Kris Kobach, a reach
which far exceeds anything Russia has been accused of trying to hack.
Such a database would be very useful for political operators. Article
has much background info on Republican voter suppression efforts, which
is what "voter fraud" is really all about. Aside from the politics,
another obvious problem is noted here:
Eric Geller/Cory Bennett: Trump voter-fraud panel's data request a gold
mine for hackers, experts warn. Meanwhile, instead of backing away
from such an obviously bad idea, Trump is doubling down:
Esme Cribb: Trump Rails Against States Rejecting His Shady Election
Commission's Requests.
Hugh Miles: Al-Jazeera, insurgent TV station that divides the Arab world,
faces closure: Shutting down the closest thing the Arab world has
to a free press is one of Saudi Arabia's key demands before they will
consider calling off their blockade of Qatar, and the one that's most
clearly offensive to anyone in any country that has a relatively free
press.
Mark Perry: Tillerson and Mattis Cleaning Up Kushner's Middle East
Mess [06-26]
Brad Palmer/Nadja Popovich: As Climate Changes, Southern States Will
Suffer More Than Others: Florida, of course, but Texas and Arizona
are conspicuously red on this map. Authors argue that the poorest
counties will suffer most, but it seems obvious to me that relatively
rich individuals will be hardest hit -- e.g., it's not poor people
who own all that beachfront property soon to be submerged. Another
article notes
Carbon in Atmosphere Is Rising, Even as Emissions Stabilize.
Alex Pareene: Donald Trump Is Getting Played Like a Sucker by His Own
Budget Guy [05-26]: "Democrats dream of running against budgets
like the one drawn up by Mulvaney. It neuters Trump's single greatest
political advantage, which is that a sizable number of whites in the
Rust Belt convinced themselves that Trump was something other than a
Mitt Romney-style plutocratic Republican." I had lost track of Pareene,
but looks like he's been at
Fusion for some time. Some older posts that caught my eye:
Maybe We Need That Hillary Clinton Dark Money Group Now [06-21];
Alex Pareene: Stop Enabling the Nihilist Republican Shrug [06-01];
Actually, Why Not Cancel the White House Press Briefing? [05-12]
("A room full of people who know the man answering their questions cannot
possibly truthfully answer their questions makes for great TV, but it does
not make for meaningful coverage of the White House");
Airlines Can Treat You Like Garbage Because They Are an Oligopoly [04-11];
I Don't Want to Hear Another Fucking Word About John McCain Unless He Dies
or Actually Does Something Useful for Once [02-17]. Perhaps best is
The Long, Lucrative Right-wing Grift Is Blowing Up in the World's Face
[04-05]; e.g.:
Trump was always venal, dishonest, genuinely deluded about his financial
acumen and business success, and, you know, a wildly misogynistic accused
rapist and sexual harasser. But for most of his public life, he also
clearly knew the right sorts of things to say to sound like a reasonable
person, albeit a mostly ridiculous one. Donald Trump the deranged believer
of bizarre untruths about the world at large is actually a fairly recent
development. . . . Trump learned what to think about the world at large
from the media, and for most of his life, he was a consumer of the
mainstream media.
Donald Trump today is a cruel dolt turned into a raving madman by cable
news and Breitbart.com. You could see the descent happen during the Obama
era, in concert with the broader maddening of the GOP. The major difference
between Trump and the other old white men who've been radicalized by the
conservative press is that his was a strangely self-directed conversion,
based on his desire to make himself known as a plausible Republican
presidential candidate. . . .
Now, and for the foreseeable future, the grifter-in-chief sits alone
in the White House residence every night, watching cable news tell him
comforting lies -- that he's a hugely popular president, that responsibility
for his myriad setbacks and failures lies with the many powerful enemies
aligned against him a grand conspiracy -- in between the ads for reverse
mortgages and "all-natural male enhancement." There's an image of America
in the age of the complete triumph of bullshit. You spend a few years
selling lousy steaks to suckers, then one morning you wake up and you're
the sucker -- and the steak.
Frank Rich: Nixon, Trump, and How a Presidency Ends: More on Nixon
than on Trump, but the relevance is clear. One note I wasn't aware of
is that the House impeachment committee considered charging Nixon with
violating the "emoluments clause," which Trump has flagrantly violated
since taking office. Another is a Gary Wills quote about Nixon's help:
"a world of little men using large powers incompetently from a
combination of suspicion and panic." As I recall, Nixon and his "little
men" were less worried about what was being investigated than what else
the investigators might find, and that's surely true of Trump too.
Corey Robin: If Republicans lose the healthcare fight, it's the beginning
of the end: One note here is that in 1977, 1983 and 1993 "the federal
government launched a major retrenchment of Social Security" -- all three
were bipartisan efforts, two signed by Democratic presidents, but this
time Democrats aren't going to give Republicans cover for their cuts and
the misery they cause. This makes me think Republicans should worry more
about passing their bill, but they're pretty locked into their delusions.
Still, note this:
One reason the Republicans are having such a hard time of it is that the
public is overwhelmingly against the Senate bill. As Politico recently
reported, Senate phones have been ringing off the hook -- almost entirely
from citizens opposed to what the Republicans are doing.
A staffer for Mississippi senator Thad Cochran claims his office
received 226 constituent calls over a four-day period: two in favor of
the Republican bill, 224 against. And, yes, you read that correctly.
Not Massachusetts. Mississippi.
Jordan Rudner: Donald Trump's Supreme Court Justice Did a Lot of Horrible
Things Today [06-26]: Subheds: He opposed a ruling that gave same-sex
parents equal rights; He made it clear how he'll side on Trump's travel
ban; He helped vote to send a man to death in Texas; He tried to take on
a case that could further weaken gun control laws; He voted to strike
down a barrier between church and state
Christopher Sellers: Trump and Pruitt are the biggest threat to the EPA
in its 47 years of existence [07-01]
Matt Taibbi: With CNN Flap, Media's Trump-Era Identity Crisis Continues
[06-28]: "Donald Trump's great talent as a politician -- some might call it
an anti-talent -- is his ability to bring everyone down to his level." Also
Megyn Kelly Vivisects Bloated Conspiracy Hog Alex Jones [06-20].
Jeffrey Toobin: The National Enquirer's Fervor for Trump: "Throughout
the 2016 Presidential race, the Enquirer embraced Trump with
sycophantic fervor. The magazine made its first political endorsement
ever, of Trump, last spring." Related:
Gabriel Sherman: What Really Happened Between Donald Trump, the Hosts
of Morning Joe, and the National Enquirer [06-30].
Matthew Yglesias: The most important stories of the week, explained
[06-30]: CBO released its analysis of Senate GOP health bill; Trump's
travel ban finally went into effect; the EU slapped Google with a $2.7
billion fine; Elizabeth Warren endorsed single-payer health care;
Donald Trump held his first Trump fundraiser at the Trump hotel. Google
was found in violation of EU antitrust laws for perverting its search
results in favor of its advertisers. That should be illegal here, too.
The fundraiser may have struck people as odd given that he famously
self-financed his 2016 campaign. Yglesias writes:
While some politicians would go the extra mile to avoid even the
appearance of personally profiting from the presidency, this was
the clearest sign yet that Trump revels in it -- donors know they
are putting money directly in Trump's pocket via the hotel fees,
Trump knows it too, and the donors know that he knows it.
Yglesias also wrote:
Republicans' health bill saves its most severe Medicaid cuts for
outside the CBO's scoring window;
The 3 leading conservative cases for the Senate health bill,
explained. Needless to say, those "cases" range from bad to fraud.
From the second article:
One key thing to understand is that even though the bill would set
Medicaid on a course that makes cuts to coverage and services inevitable,
it defers all the actual decision-making to governors and state
legislatures. The effect is that the political pain for making the
cuts will probably fall on state-level actors rather than congressional
ones, letting the members of Congress whose actions made the cuts
inevitable evade accountability.
Note: It was impossible for me to follow various links that loooked
interesting due to aggressive gatekeeping. This included
Business Insider,
Forbes,
The Wall Street Journal.
Also annoying:
The Guardian,
The Nation. I subscribe to The Nation, so should be able to work
around that, but the new browser doesn't have the right account info.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
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