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Monday, July 8, 2024

Posting this a day late, only partly because I tried slipping in the Afterthoughts post. Late Monday night, and I'm dead tired, pretty sure I didn't complete my rounds, but at this point if I fail to post I'll just waste another day. Expect Music Week on Tuesday, plus some late additions here (and maybe on the Sunday-dated but Monday-posted Afterthoughts as well). On the other hand, my mid-year jazz critics poll needs some work too, and should probably be considered a more urgent priority.

Nice to see elections leaning left in UK, France, and Iran. That should probably be a bigger story.

Initial count: 139 links, 7096 words. Updated count [07-11]: 163 links, 9377 words. -->

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): on music.

Top story threads:

Israel:

• Mondoweiss:

  • [07-04] Day 272: Israelis urge Netanyahu to accept US ceasefire deal as Hamas gives its response: "Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets on the Galilee after Israel's assassination of one of its senior commanders."

• Sam Biddle: Israel opposes rebuilding Gaza's internet access because terrorists could go online: Worse than that, they could report news.

• Tareq S Hajjaj: [07-03] Israel's starvation policy in Gaza is forcing people to eat tree leaves: "The state of hunger in Gaza has not ended. Its long-term health effects are starting to show."

• Jewish Voice for Peace: [07-01] Emergency statement on the health and human rights crisis in the West Bank: "Alongside the catastrophe in Gaza, another crisis is unfolding in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where the Israeli military has launched land incursions, conducted airstrikes, restricted access to resources, and targeted health infrastructure."

• Jake Johnson: [07-07] Israel bombs yet another UN school in Gaza as it enters month 10 of genocide: "The strike killed 16 and injured 75, including children. Israel has destroyed or damaged 80 percent of Gaza's schools."

• Hasan Khatib: [07-03] Why Gazans' extreme hunger could leave its mark on subsequent generations.

• Qassam Muaddi: [07-05] Why there is no uprising in the West Bank -- yet: "The West Bank remains unusually calm as Israel carries out its genocide in Gaza. But while Israeli repression has dissuaded an uprising in the streets, the tectonic plates underneath continue to shift."

• Haneen Odetallah: [07-03] The philosophy of Hamas in the writings of Yahya Sinwar: "The concepts of self-sacrifice, asceticism, and security awareness were crucial to Yahya Sinwar's philosophy of resistance. The revolt that culminated with October 7 was the direct application of his political thought." Like Theodor Herzl, Sinwar wrote a novel which can be read for philosophical depth and/or political strategy, but probably can't support the weight of either. If the comparison seems to trivialize Sinwar, that's probably my intention.

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

• Nicholas Kristof: [07-03] How Biden has gotten in the way of fighting starvation in Gaza.

• Blaise Malley: [07-03] By the numbers: US Gaza pier prject appears sunk.

• Robert A Pape: [06-21] Hamas is winning: He's some kind of counterterrorism guru, with books like Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005), and Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It (2010), following earlier tomes like Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, which was all the rage when it came out (1996). My wife wants me to listen to 11 minutes of his interview by Doug Henwood, but so far all I've found is this, with a link to an hour-long podcast that's supposed to be "wherever podcasts are" (like here?. I haven't read the article either, because it's paywalled behind a publication site that publishes crap like this:

  David Petraeus/Meghan L O'Sullivan/Richard Fontaine: Israel's war of regime change is repeating America's mistakes: "But Israel can still learn from America's successes." This was the source of an article I previously noted, but not the only thing he's been in the news for lately:

  • Gregory Daddis: [06-25] Stop listening to David Petraeus: "The self-promoting ex-general continues to rewrite history, suggesting that Israel deploy an Iraq-style 'surge' in Gaza.

  • Ukes, Kooks & Spooks: [07-02] 'This is where the presidents play': "Petraeus hosts neo-Nazi golf tournament at Joint Base Andrews.

  • Shalom Lipner: Israel is losing America: "Netanyahu should work with Biden, not against him.

  • Mohammad Shtayyeh: The best way to end Israel's war in Gaza: "Reviving the Arab Peace Initiative would resolve the conflict -- and build a new Palestinian reality."

  • Jens Stoltenberg: What NATO means to the world: "After 75 years, the alliance remains indispensable."

  • Andrew Byers/Randall L Schweller: Trump the realist: "The former president understands the limits of American power."

  Pape's article title (and for that matter his book titles) suggest he has a very naive, very addled concept of winning. Granted, I'm starting from the default position that nobody can ever win at war, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves, most likely by failing to recognize most of the costs one will eventually have to pay. Pape may well agree with much of this -- he certainly understands that Israel's collective punishment of Gaza is raising more opposition, and more desperate opposition, than they're able to kill off. It's not just that the violence could -- and sooner or later probably will -- rebound against Israel. It's just peculiar to think of either Israel's immediate offensive gains or its likely eventual denouement as winning for everyone.

  And especially for Hamas, which I'm inclined to believe -- admittedly with little evidence to back me up -- is no longer a real force, just a spectre conjured up by Israel as an excuse to continue genocide. I'm not saying that when Israel sends troops into some enclave in Gaza, they're not going to get fire returned. Just not much, and not from a coherent military or political force. Admittedly, I don't have much data to go on, so Pape might be helpful in that regard. On the other hand, how can he know much more than what Israel tells him? And why should he or we believe any of that?

• Brett Wilkins: [07-04] Senior Israeli lawmaker suggests nuclear attack on Iran: Avigdor Liberman, the guy who's not in Netanyahu's coalition because it isn't far-right enough for him. (Actually, it's probably just because he hates Netanyahu. While he has no other redeeming qualities, who can't sympathize with him on that?) Still, he's basically saying that the problem with Israel is that the government isn't stark-raving bonkers enough.

• Sharon Zhang: [06-28] Biden releasing part of bombs shipment to Israel that was paused over Rafah raid: "The administration appears to have totally thrown away its 'red line' on Rafah, two months after the invasion."

Israel vs. world opinion:

• Mohammad Jehad Ahmad: [07-07] Silenced at school: NYC public schools chancellor suppresses Palestinian voices: "New York City Public Schools has been suppressing Palestinian narratives and activism. NYC Educators for Palestine has attempted to meet with Chancellor David Banks for months, but he keeps dodging our meeting."

• Akbar Shahid Ahmed: [07-02] 12 Biden administration reseignees blast 'intransigent' Gaza policy: "Joe Biden 'has prioritized politics over just and fair policymaking' on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, former government officials argued in their first joint statement since quitting."

• Michael Arria: [07-04] The Shift: School's out, but attacks on student protesters continue.

• Muhannad Ayyash: [07-06] A hollow Palestinian state: "Spain, Ireland, and Norway recently made headlines for recognizing the State of Palestine. But the only effective policy for any state recognizing Palestine is also the diplomatic and economic isolation of the Israeli state. There is no other way." I would phrase this somewhat differently. There is no legitimate and/or sovereign Palestinian state to recognize, so it's an empty gesture -- admittedly, one that disrespects Israel, and may be worth doing just for that, but is insufficient to effect any change in Israel, which after all is the only place change can meaningfully occur.

• Helena Cobban:

  • [07-06] Chaos, collusion, and catastrophe: Biden and the genocide in Gaza.

  • [06-21] Israel's path to defeat: The implications.

• Ayça Çubukçu: [05-01] Many speak for Palestine: "The solidarity movement doesn't hav e a single leader -- and doesn't need one."

• Joseph Levine: [07-06] If you support Israel in the middle of a genocide, you're an awful person. I don't agree with this, but that's because I recognize that many basically good people subscribe to bad political opinions, mostly because they are misinformed and/or habitually focus on the wrong things (which makes them easily misled). I might even go so far as to say that there are no bad people: only people who believe bad things, often for bad reasons (like to dominate and demean other people). But it's almost always a mistake to reify bad politics into bad people -- only making sense when the politics totally consumes the person. This article led me to an older one worth noting:

  • Randa Abdel-Fattah: [2023-12-27] On Zionist feelings: "The feelings and fragility of Zionists are used as a rhetorical shield to deflect from the reality of Palestinian genocide. I refuse to provide reassurances to placate and soothe Zionist political anxieties." I'm more indulgent of Zionist feelings than most critics of Israel, and I have my reasons, but I also understand this viewpoint. Starts with a quote from Edward Said: "Since when does a militarily occupied people have the responsibility for a peace movement?" Since the more instinctive war movement has repeatedly failed against a massively more powerful oppressor? Fighting back, understandable and even inevitable, reduces you to their level, not that they don't respond by sinking even lower. A peace movement, on the other hand, gains moral high ground, and challenges them to do better. Admittedly, Israel has never taken that challenge. All they do is designed to provoke violence, because that's the level they want to fight on. And, to circle back around, those who want that don't just have bad politics but are fairly seen as bad people.

• Mitchell Plitnick: [07-05] Liberal Zionists answer the Gaza genocide by appealing for 'nuance': "Liberal Zionists are trying to rehabilitate Israel's image among young U.S. Jews after the Gaza genocide by appealing for 'nuance' and sending them to indoctrination camps. But these attempts ring more hollow than ever." Hard to scan for something as elusive as "nuance" in an article like this. As near as I can tell, the subjects here (Liberal Zionists in America) insist on being taken as fundamentally decent liberals, while excusing their distinctly illiberal views of anyone critical of Israel, mostly by treating "Arab nationalism" and "Islamic fundamentalism" every bit as rigidly as their opponents generalize about Zionism and Colonialism. Of course, they're right that their thought can be more nuanced than others appreciate, but the same is true for the others, who they reject with blanket generalizations -- like the syllogism that: Hamas is evil and can only be stopped with death; Hamas is an intrinsic tendency for Palestinians; therefore we will only be safe when all Palestinians are killed. That, in a nutshell, is current Israeli policy. Adding "nuance" may help obscure the issue, but won't change it.

  Plitnick, along with Marc Lamont Hill, is co-author of the book Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics (2022), which goes deep into why many good people on the left in America have a blind spot for Israel. I don't know whether this addresses the second group of people, those who started with left/liberal sympathies but snapped hard to the right, often triggered by some crisis over Israel. The neocons, who rose to power under Clinton and GW Bush, provide some prime examples, but there are many more.

• Richard Rubenstein: [07-02] Israel in Gaza: The Jewish break with Zionism: or, "Zionism as ethnic chauvinism."

• Barnett R Rubin: [01-04] False Messiahs: "How Zionism's dreams of liberation became entangled with colonialism."

• Philip Weiss: [07-07] Weekly Briefing: Normalizing genocide. The article itself briefly cites lots of other articles I've already cited. "Genocide" is such a hard, definitive term, so the idea is to break it up into smaller, softer, more ambiguous acts, spread out over time to lessen the shock, an aid to denial for those so inclined. But making it all seem normal is going to be a tall order. This article elicited a comment worth noting:

  The psychology of denial is important to understand: Jews tend to identify with Israel the way people identify with their families, says Joseph Levine. Well, many, many people eventually come to the realization that their father was an abusive drunk, their mother was manic-depressive and their siblings bullied them but they stuck around because admitting to themselves the real situation is just too painful -- I think that's the situation we're dealing with re Israel.

• Omar Zahzah: [07-07] Why Big Tech's control of social media cannot stop anti-colonial resistance.

Election notes:

• Nandika Chatterjee: [07-03] RFK denies eating dog but admits he has "so many skeletons in my closet": "Kennedy denied an allegation in a new Vanity Fair report but sidestepped sexual assault claims from ex-babysitter." Bad enough that he goes for policy views that are even more demented than Trump's, but thinking he can beat Trump out for misbehavior, and thinking that will help his candidacy, is real chutzpah. Still, he's probably earned it. After all, none of the wives Trump betrayed ever committed suicide.

  • Matt Stieb: [07-08] RFK Jr. says he loves, does not eat, dogs: More about what I didn't realize was even a story.

• Akela Lacy/Prem Thakker: Whether it's Biden or someone else, Gaza remains top priority for "uncommitted" voters.

Joe Biden (post-debate):

• Sasha Abramsky: [07-03] Running Biden against Trump is just plain irresponsible: "If American democracy is on the line, as Democrats have rightly insisted, why nominate someone who has trouble keeping up with his opponent." Or how about this: why nominate someone who is living proof that democracy is already lost?

• Zachary D Carter: [06-10] Inflation is not destroying Joe Biden; "But something is!" Pre-debate piece I've been meaning to mention, but re-read it given what you know now.

• Jonathan Chait:

  • [07-06] Biden's norm-shattering response to the post-debate crisis: "The problems are ethical, not just political." Chait cites two examples that while "not illegal" he finds ethically troubling: bringing convicted felon son Hunter in as one of his close family advisers (a circling of the family wagons that reminds Chait of Trump), and Biden's unwillingness to submit to cognitive screening. The thing is, you not only have to consider the literal merits, but how they will be spun, in a political media environment that quite frankly is not inclined to favor Biden.

  • [07-08] The Democrats who care more about their careers than beating Trump: "Biden bets his party doesn't have the guts to confront him." As long as you're talking politicians, that's probably a good bet, at least at first. But the people who decide who runs and who cannot are the big donors, and they'll still have careers either way. Politicians may be waiting for their signal. When they do, expect all the tails to wag.

• George Clooney: [07-10] I love Joe Biden. But we need a new nominee. This matters, both as personal observation from someone who has access very few of us can match, and as the author is not a "low cost" pundit but a high value donor -- one of the people I often claim are actually pulling the strings. Also see the letters, at least the first one (another close witness). The third (terrified Harris will lose) and the fourth (he's just an actor, so who cares?) not so much.

• Nate Cohn: [07-03] The debate hurt Biden, but the real shift has been happening for years. There's also this interview with Cohn:

  • Isaac Chotiner: [07-04] Nate Cohn explains how bad the latest polling is for Joe Biden. This is in in a nutshell:

    Joe Biden is a badly wounded candidate whom voters dislike, and who voters think isn't capable of handling the Presidency. And while Donald Trump isn't a political juggernaut by any stretch, and is maybe every bit as weak as he was four years ago, at least at the moment, Joe Biden does not have the broad appeal necessary to take advantage of it.

• Matthew Cooper: [07-05] If Biden quits the race, he should resign the presidency: "Being a lame duck for seven months would be far worse for him -- and us -- than leaving office and propelling Vice President Harris to the Oval Office." Sorry, but this is really stupid. Running for president and being president are two very different things, and really demand different skill sets (not that there's any way we can fix that). Running for president demands that be able to engage with public and press, being articulate and decisive in difficult circumstances, every day between now and November. You'll need to convince voters that you will serve them, and will be able to continue to serve, clearly and coherently, for another four years. Nobody believes that Biden can or even should do that. That's a tall order, maybe even an impossible one, for anyone. Even in his prime, Biden never had those skills. He only got elected thanks to a series of fluke circumstances: first as the least objectionable compromise to stop Sanders from winning the Democratic nomination, and then as the only alternative to Trump. And while it may have seemed plausible that he could repeat given similar circumstances -- above all, a rematch with Trump -- some critical elements have changed beyond repair (like Biden having to own his own record, battered as he's been by four years of relentless Republican villification, with his own skills clearly diminished in his 80s).

  On the other hand, what's so hard about finishing his term? As president, he needs to attend a few meetings, ask questions, sign orders he has staff to prepare, do the occasional meet and greet. He doesn't have to give speeches or press conferences. He doesn't have to fly overseas. If, as reported, his sweet spot is 10-to-4, why can't that be his work day? And if he ever does have to answer that 3AM call to start WWIII -- you may recall that as Hillary Clinton's "commander-in-chief test" -- just wake him up and brief him. That's a situation smarter people would never allow to happen, but if he did, how much worse could he be than Clinton or any of his predecessors?

  As for being called a "lame duck," that's something that stupid people (or opportunists trying to dupe stupid people) are going to do anyway. Ignore them. (Actually, the 22nd Amendment should have banned consecutive terms. They didn't think of that because there was a long tradition of major presidents serving two -- and until FDR only two -- terms, and because in 1947-51 presidential election campaigns only took up a couple months, as opposed to the billionaire-funded multi-year marathons of late. They also had no idea all the crap journalists would spread about "lame ducks.")

  Let's assume that Biden has to withdraw from the nomination. As far as the country is concerned, there should be no problem with him finishing out the term he was elected to. But if he did so, Kamala Harris would become president. As she is most likely his replacement as nominee, would becoming president help or hurt her candidacy? I don't see how it would help. It would give her a bigger plane to campaign from, and offer a few nice photo-ops (world leaders and such, look presidential). But it would put a lot of demands on time she needs to campaign. And it would saddle her more closely with Biden's legacy, which despite some real accomplishments remains pretty unpopular. I also suspect that a Biden resignation wouldn't spin well: it will be taken as a disgrace, affirming all the charges against Biden, and tainting his legacy -- a legacy that Harris will need to burnish in order to win.

• Chas Danner:

  • [07-05] What happened in Biden's high-stakes ABC interview? One of those "live updates" smorgasbords, so scattered views; e.g., "Biden was able to stay afloat, but only by treading water while denying he could drown."

  • [07-07] Frail, stressed, stiff, and blinking: an aging expert on Biden's "shocking debate": "Looking at him today versus a few months ago is very concerning." Interview with Steven N. Austad.

• Arthur Delaney: [07-05] Reps. Seth Moulton, Mike Quigley latest Democrats to call on Joe Biden to quit race: "The dam hasn't broken, but there's a steady drip of statements from Democrats skeptical of Biden being the Democratic nominee."

• Ed Kilgore: [07-08] Was Biden's debate worse than Access Hollywood? I suppose what he's trying to say is that candidates can win despite embarrassing incidents along the way. I don't know or care which was worse, but I can think of several reasons why this will cause Biden more trouble: Access Hollywood may have impugned Trump's character, but he didn't have much to lose in the first place; also it's an old story, not present, so something Trump might have matured out of (as opposed to something that only gets worse with age); and while most of us might prefer to have a president who's not an asshole, some people actually regard that as a plus. On the other hand, debating is supposed to be a core competency for presidential aspirants, and is suggestive of how a person might handle an unexpected crisis, as is almost certain to happen. Also, the debate was an explicit opportunity for Biden to show that years of suppositions and innuendos about Biden's mental agility, tied to his age, were wrong. Biden's performance would seem to have confirmed them -- with his ever-increasing age by far the most obvious cause. Perhaps worse still, this implied that Biden's past denials were also false, casting considerable doubt on his reliability and truthfulness.

  Trump recovered because the the DNC mail dumps changed the fickle media's story line, then came Comey's announcement that he was re-opening the Clinton email investigation, which itself might have faded had the Stormy Daniels story not been bought off. But henceforth, every time Biden debates, he will be haunted by this performance, and every time he doesn't debate, that too works against him. Either way, Biden is trapped. If he doesn't drop out, this is going to be very painful to watch.

• Ezra Klein: [06-30] This isn't all Joe Biden's fault.

• Paul Krugman: [07-08] Please, Mr. President, do the right thing.

• Chris Lehman:

  • [07-02] Democrats are running interference for Biden. Voters aren't convinced: "Party messaging since last week's debate has set out to convince the public that what they saw on television didn't really happen."

  • [07-03] The debate won Biden some new supporters: Republicans.

• Eric Levitz:

  • [07-05] In an ABC interview, Biden charts a course for Dems' worst-case scenario: "The president appeared too frail to defeat Trump and too delusional to drop out."

    No interview or stump speech can erase these revelations. The news media will not stop scrutinizing the copious evidence of Biden's senescence. The Trump campaign will not forget that it now possesses a treasure trove of humiliating clips of Biden's brain freezes and devastating quotes from the president's allies. Given this climate and the candidate's limitations, it is not plausible that Biden can surge in the polls between now and November. . . .

    The Biden who spoke with ABC News Friday night was enfeebled, ineloquent, egotistical, and intransigent. He was a man who appeared both ready and willing to lead his party into the wilderness. Asked how he would feel if he stayed in the race and Trump were elected, Biden replied, "I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that's what this is about."

    Wasn't that how Hillary Clinton felt after losing? I've never forgiven her for losing to Trump, and probably never will. Biden will be even worse, because doubts about him are so widely and deeply expressed, so far in advance of the actual vote.

  • [07-07] Biden is leading Democrats toward their worst-case scenario: Appears to be a slight edit of the previous article.

• Daniel Marans: [07-06] Voters had issues with Biden's age long before the debate. That's why Democrats are worried.

• Nicole Narea: [07-03] Forget four more years. Is Biden fit to serve now? Was he ever fit? What does that mean? Let's take care of the nomination first: that's the position that needs to be filled, with someone who can handle the immediate requirements and very probably continue to do so four years out. After that, if he can finish his term with dignity, shouldn't we show him that much respect? He'd certainly be under a lot less pressure and stress if he wasn't also running for a second term.

• Olivia Nuzzi: [07-04] The conspiracy of silence to protect Joe Biden: "The president's mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters."

• Evan Osnos: [07-06] Did Joe Biden's ABC interview stanch the bleeding or prolong it?

• Tyler Pager: [06-30] Biden aides plotted debate strategy for months. Then it all collapsed. "The Biden team gambled on an early debate and prepared intensively at Camp David, but advisers could not prevent the candidate's stumbles onstage." Pager also reported on:

  • Matt Viser/Tyler Pager/Nick Miroff: [07-04] Biden told governors he needs to get more sleep, avoid events after 8 p.m.

• Nia Prater: [07-08] Read Biden's I'm-not-going-anywhere letter to House Democrats. Following up:

  • Intelligencer Staff: Many congressional Democrats on Biden: "It's complicated.'

• Andrew Prokop: [07-03] Leaks about Joe Biden are coming fast and furious: "The recent reports about the president's age and health, explained."

• David Schultz: [07-03] Biden's abysmal debate.

• Nate Silver:

  • [06-28] Joe Biden should drop out: "Denying Joe Biden's decline has put Democrats in a terrible position." I had this open in a tab, but missed it in my article search.

  • [07-03] Doing nothing about Biden is the riskiest plan of all.

• Norman Solomon: [07-02] Who you gonna believe, Biden loyalists or your own eyes and ears?

• Brian Stelter: [07-03] Did the media botch the Biden age story? "Asleep at the wheel? Complicit in a cover-up? The real story is far more complicated -- and more interesting." Or "Sorry, Ted Cruz, there are more than two options."

• Michael Tomasky:

  • [07-05] It's 8:30 PM. Do you know where your president is? "Since his disastrous debate, Biden has done nothing to reassure America. Quite the contrary."

  • [07-08] OK, Democrats, this is the week to say what you really believe: "Want to replace Biden atop the Democratic ticket? It's now or never."

• Benjamin Wallace-Wells: [07-08] Joe Biden is fighting back -- but not against Trump, really: Then what the hell is he good for?

• Joan Walsh: Biden did not save his presidency on ABC: "An uneven interview with George Stephanapoulos was too little, too late -- and maybe a bit too churlish."

• Matthew Yglesias: [07-08] I was wrong about Biden: I followed Yglesias closely for many years, but after he won that "neoliberal shill of the year" contest (I think it was 2019), quit Vox, started buckraking at Substack, and wrote that opportunisticaly Friedmanesque book (One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger), about the only time I read him these days is when he gets one of his Bloomberg columns syndicated (and they're rarely much good). He's a smart guy who knows a lot, but he's also a calculating bastard who's especially adept at spotting trends and triangulating them with an eye toward profit. So it's no surprise that he (unlike his Vox-cofounder Ezra Klein, another smart triangulator) bought the Biden second term plan hook, line and sinker, or that Biden's debate performance, for once in his life he's eating crow. Or maybe twice: he started out as a big Iraq war booster.

  But enough with shooting the messanger. Let's try reading the message. It's long, methodologically sound, meticulously thought out, and damning. For instance, consider some facts:

  Biden isn't doing press conferences. He's using teleprompters at fundraisers. The joint appearances with Bill Clinton or Barack Obama look like efforts to keep attention off the candidate. It's not just that he's avoiding hostile interviews or refusing to sit with the New York Times, he isn't even doing friendly-but-substantive shows with journalists like Ezra Klein or Chris Hayes. It was a while ago now that I talked to him, and though it went well, I haven't heard recent rumors of many other off-the-record columnist chats. The seemingly inexplicable decision to skip the Super Bowl interview is perfectly explicable once you see the duck. In a re-election year, a president needs to do two different full-time jobs simultaneously, and Biden was really struggling with that. Apparently foreign governments were sitting on some anecdotes that have now leaked, which I wouldn't have thought possible.

  But the biggest data point that I blew off was a recent and totally unambiguous one.

  Five days before the debate, someone who'd seen Biden recently at a fundraiser told me that he looked and sounded dramatically worse than the previous times they'd seen him -- as recently as six months ago -- and that they were now convinced Biden wouldn't be able to make it through a second term. I blew that warning off and assumed things would be fine at the debate.

  That goes a bit beyond the facts I wanted to show, but you can see where he's going. The next paragraph begins: "Now that Biden apologists like me are discredited in the eyes of the public," then segues into a good point we needn't dwell on here. The next section is more important: "The media climate is going to get worse." He offers some details, but if you at all understand how the media works, you can imagine the rest, and then best double it for what you're too decent to even imagine the media doing. [Insert shark metaphor here.]

  Yglesias moves on to a "What comes next?" section, where he reminds us what a calculating bastard he is:

  Columnists calling on Biden to step down provide, in my view, are a small boost to Trump's election odds and a minuscule increase in the odds that Biden actually steps aside. I think we have to say it anyway, because this is journalism and we owe a duty of truth to our audience. But in narrow cost-benefit terms, the public criticism of Biden has negative expected value.

  Elected officials have a different set of responsibilities. I've seen some people express frustration that Barack Obama came out with such a strong statement of support for Biden. But Obama slagging Biden in public would have been a boon to Trump and accomplished nothing. Same for Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi and everyone else who matters. These are politicians, and they do not share journalists' obligations of candor.

  But what they do in private does matter, and I hope they do the right thing.

  The main thing I would add to this is that the election isn't until November (or, with early voting, mid-October?), so even if it takes until the Convention to replace Biden, there will still be plenty of time to unite behind the nominee and the ticket before anything real happens. Until then, it's just hot air (or maybe just tepid). The media cares, because they want you to think that every moment, every minute shift and sway, portends great importance, but that's just their business model. There are good reasons to replace Biden sooner rather than later -- it's painful to watch Biden and his cadres squirm, and we would be much happer spending the time exposing and deprecating Trump and the Republicans -- but it's a process, and that takes time. (I'm not even bothered by it not being a very democratic one, although it does mean that the elites who control this process will be held responsible should they fail.)

  Let me close here by quoting a reader comment:

  So long as Biden remains the nominee, we're going to keep getting hammered on age and mental decline.

  As soon as Harris is the nominee, we can hammer Trump on age and mental decline.

  I'd rather play the second game.

  Indeed, as long as Biden is the nominee, this is going to be one long, miserable election, where we're stuck playing defense, on grounds that aren't really defensible. Sure, we still might eek out a win, but best case is it's going to be close, which means that the administration will be hobbled for four more years, its leadership decrepit, while getting blamed for disasters that have been brewing for decades. On the other hand, replace Biden, and you reverse the tide, and go on the offense: throw the whole anti-Biden handbook (not just age and imbecility, but cronyism and corruption, egotism, vanity, the whole ball of wax) back at Trump, and go after all the Republican toadies fawning all over him. Wouldn't you rather kick some ass? We have time, but we won't have it forever.

Trump:

• Margaret Hartmann: [07-08] What the Jeffrey Epstein documents reveal about Donald Trump.

• Jeet Heer: [07-05] Why aren't we talking about Trump's fascism? "Joe Biden has created a distraction from the existential question that should define this election." I don't see this as a problem. Some people understand what fascism means, especially historically. Most of them are fascinated enough to debate the fine points, but all of them already have weighed Trump out on the F-scale, so there's no real need to engage them on the issue. (Most are opposed, even ones who dismiss the charge on technical grounds, and none are likely to view Trump more negatively if you make them better understand the case that Trump is a fascist.) A second group of people only understand that aside from a couple of known and long gone historical examples, "fascist" is a slur, mostly used by people on the left to attack people not on the left. To convince people that Trump is a fascist and therefore bad, you first have to teach them what fascism is and why it is bad, which is a lot of excess work, and will probably wind up making them think that you are a Marxist (which if you actually know this stuff, you probably are). There are lots of more straightforward ways to argue that Trump is bad than that he specifically is a fascist, so for those people the effort ranges from inefficient to counterproductive. Then there are the people who will accept your analysis and embrace it, deciding that fascist Trump is even cooler than regular Trump.

  Heer's article is a good example of why we shouldn't bother talking about Trump and fascism. Heer is part of that first group, so he not only likes to talk about fascism, he sees fascism as the prism that illuminates Trump's myriad evils. However, once he introduces the terminology, we forget what the article was meant to about -- that Biden's incompetence has become a distraction from the real issue, which is the very real disaster if Trump is elected -- and fixate on the single word (which as I just said, is either understood but redundant, or misunderstood and therefore irrelevant, so in either case ineffective). So Heer's article doesn't expose Biden's distraction but merely adds to it.

• Nicholas Liu: [07-08] Trump runs from Project 2025, claims not to know what it's about: "The former president is trying to distance himself from a plan drafted by his own former aides."

  • Amanda Marcotte: [07-05] Project 2025 was supposed to boost Donald Trump's campaign -- but it may be backfiring instead.

• Shawn Musgrave: Trump camp says it has nothing to do with Project 2025 manifesto -- aside from writing it.

• Marc A Thiessen: How Trump can make NATO great again. No time to read this, but the fusion of author (aka "Torture Boy"), concept, and title blew my mind.

And other Republicans:

• Shawn Musgrave: Missouri's Attorney General isn't MAGA enough for Leonard Leo.

• Marin Scotten: [07-08] Former Trump aide slammed for calling Kamala Harris a "DEI hire." "Elected Republicans are increasingly using the term as a de facto racial slur." Sounds a lot like:

  • Griffin Eckstein: [07-05] Boebert's "DEI hire" remark towards Karine Jean-Pierre causes blowback.

And other Democrats:

• Sarah Jones: [07-03] A socialist's case for Kamala Harris: I'd tread carefully here. The decision on the Democratic ticket is going to be made by people who fear and hate socialists even more than Trump, and you don't want them to turn on Harris just because she's one of the less bad compromises available. She as much as admits this with her last line: "But if I can't get what I want this year, I'd rather settle for Harris."

• Osita Nwanevu: [07-08] Democrats don't just need a new candidate. They need a reckoning. "Democrats will be impotent messengers on democracy as long as they remain beholden to the feudal culture this crisis has exposed." Right, but it isn't going to happen, certainly not this year. The Democratic left didn't challenge Biden this year, basically for three reasons: it's nearly impossible to reject an incumbent president running for a second term; their relationships with Biden were engaging enough that they saw him as a path for limited but meaningful reform, which they valued more than just taking losing stands on principle; and they are more afraid of Trump and the Republicans than ever. Conversely, Biden is running not because he's uniquely qualified to beat Trump, but because he was uniquely positioned to prevent an open Democratic primary that could have nominated a Democrat who might be more committed to the voters than to the donors. But now that cast is set. Even if the convention is thrown open, the people voting there are almost all beholden to Biden. So while Biden will not survive as the nominee, he and his big donors will pick his successor, and when they do, every Democrat who doesn't want to risk Trump will line up, bow, and cheer. The reckoning will have to wait, probably until crisis forces it.

• Prem Thakker: Every Democrat other than Joe Biden is unburdened by what has been: "As voters look for another option, alternative Democratic leaders poll similarly or even better than Biden -- even without name recognition."

Legal matters and other crimes:

• Ian Millhiser: [07-08] The supreme incompetents: "The justices are awful at their jobs, and they don't know that they are awful at their jobs."

• Nandika Chatterjee: [07-02] Rudy Giuliani disbarred "effective immediately": His misconduct "cannot be overstated," court says.

• Griffin Eckstein: [07-05] Kansas Supreme Court strikes down second-trimester abortion ban, affirms right to abortion.

• Nia Prater:

  • [07-08] Did the Supreme Court kill every case against Trump?

  • [07-08] It's been another very bad day for Boeing. Boeing agreed to a deal with the DOJ, where the company pleads guilty of conspiracy to defraud, and will pay a $487.2 million fine, plus will be on probation for three years, during which they will be "overseen by a government-appointed independent compliance monitor and be required to invest a minimum of $455 million in its compliance and safety programs, as well as making Boeing's board of directors available to meet with the families of crash victims."

• Laurence H Tribe: [07-08] How the US Supreme Court shredded the Constitution and what can be done to repair it.

Climate and environment:

• Ian Livingston: [07-08] Severe heat wave in the West is making history. How much longer will it continue?

• Washington Post:

  • Beryl strengthens to hurricane status as it heads toward Texas coast.

  • 4 dead, millions without power as Beryl leaves Houston.

Economic matters:

Ukraine War and Russia:

• Blaise Malley: [07-05] Diplomacy Watch: Ukraine, West prepare for an uncertain future: "Zelensky warily watching world events, planning for possibility of less enthusiastic support."

• Mikhail Klimentov: [7-08] Russian missile attack kills 37 in Ukraine, hits children's hospital.

• Jim Lobe: [07-03] Zelensky's star fading among NATO countries: "After two and a half years of war, a growing number wonder whether Ukraine's leader is doing 'the right thing'.

America's empire and the world:

• Hekmat Aboukhater: [07-04] That's militainment! Big Hollywood succumbs to the Pentagon borg: "Experts explain how 2,500 films and shows have been weaponized to promote war." About a documentary film, Theaters of War, created by (among others) Roger Stahl, author of Militainment, Inc.: War, Media and Popular Culture (2009).

• Heather Ashby: [06-20] How the 'war on terror' made the US Institute for Peace a sideshow: "Forty years ago, Congress thought it was a good idea to fund peacemaking, but it was no match for War Inc." One item on Marianne Williamson's presidential platform was to establish a Department of Peace. Turns out the US already had one, but nobody ever heard of it, probably because it didn't do anything.

• Zack Beauchamp: [07-08] The real lesson for America in the French and British elections: "The European elections tell us little about Biden's chances -- but a lot about his choices."

• Julia Cagé/Thomas Piketty: [07-03] France's 'hard left' has been demonised -- but its agenda is realistic, not radical: "The New Popular Front will improve ordinary people's lives -- and it's an effective, economically sound alternative to the far right." More on France:

  • Eloise Cassier: [07-05] French president Macron in the desperate hours: "His insistence on a bold pro-Ukraine strategy turned out to be tone-deaf and now his power is on the line."

  • Ellen Ioanes: [06-08] France's elections showed a polarized country: "France held back the far right. No One knows what's next."

  • Harrison Stetler: [06-12] In France's snap elections, can a "popular front" hold off the far right?

• Juan Cole: [07-02] Another American war in the Middle East?: "Turning the Red Sea redder."

• William Hartung: [07-03] Silicon Valley USA: Are these 'patriots' mere harbingers of doom? "Young, hot upstarts want to shorten the kill chain with AI weapons."

• Ellen Ioanes: [07-05] What the Labour Party's big win in the UK will actually mean: "The UK is getting a new government. What is it promising to do?"

  • Joshua Keating: [07-05] Why Britain's Conservatives were wiped out by Labour: "A historic defeat brings in new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer as the Tories pick up the pieces."

• Michael Klare: [07-04] Early signs of the failure of American global power? "The Anglo-Saxonization of American foreign policy and its perverse consequences."

• Alex Little: [07-03] Washington should resist the urge to meddle in Moldova.

Other stories:

Margot Roosevelt: [07-07] Jane F. McAlevey, who empowered workers across the globe, dies at 59: "An organizer and author, she believed that a union was only as strong as its members and trained thousands "to take over their unions and change them."

Books

Jedediah Britton-Purdy: [07-02] The Creed: "How did Americans come to worship the Constitution?" Review of Aziz Rana, The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them.

• Aziz Rana: [05-30] Democracy was a decolonial project: "For generations of American radicals, the path to liberation required a new constitution, not forced removal." I ran across this essay slightly after finding the book review. While there is a common point, this goes in a different direction.

Leah Hunt-Hendrix/Astra Taylor: [07-02] For a solidarity state: "The state structures society. It can make us more prone to care for one another."

Sean Illing: [07-07] How the 1990s broke politics: "Inside the GOP's transition from the party of Reagan to the party of Trump." Interview with John Ganz, author of When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.

Osita Nwanevu: [03-11] The divided president: "Who's in charge in the Biden White House?" This is a bit dated, a review of Franklin Foer, The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future. I bought the book at the time, figuring it might shed some light on some things (mostly involving foreign policy) that I didn't adequately understand), but never got around to it, and I'm in no hurry these days.

Marshall Steinbaum: X thread: "There's a little book I recommend to anyone who's trying to get a handle on what's going on in American politics this week." The book is Nancy McLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America. The book is mostly about economist James Buchanan, and how his and similar careers have been sponsored by right-wing networks, especially that of the Kochs. I read the book when it came out, and thought it was pretty good. Buchanan's early ties to the anti-desegregation movement were especially striking -- how easily we forget how reflexively racist many people were in the 1950s -- and the Koch funding was something I was rather familiar with. (I even received some myself, back when I typeset reprints of a couple Koch-sponsored reprints of Murray Rothbard books.) I'm less clear on Buchanan's economic theories, which seemed rather trivial. Maybe "stealth plan" was a bit of an oversell: much of it was public, and some of it barely qualified as a plan -- throwing money at something could just as well be seen as another of those "irritable mental gestures" Lionel Trilling saw in most "conservative thought." Still, this kicked up a flurry of protest over McLean's book, including some from people I generally respect (e.g., Rick Perlstein), so I took some notes:

• Jonathan H Adler: [2017-06-28] Does Democracy in Chains paint an accurate picture of James Buchanan?

• David Bernstein: [2018-09-14] Another brutal review of Nancy McLean, Democracy in Chains: which touts an unavailable review by Jennifer Burns ("author of a well-written and, more important, informative and fair biography of Ayn Rand").

• Steven G Horwitz: [2017-07-09] Democracy in Chains: Thoroughly debunked. Followed by links to other critical reviews. Post evidently filed by Raheem "Rocky" Williams, whose "more from" other posts that are not ipso facto worth taking seriously, like "The myth of the racist conservative and the Uncle Tom" and "Capitalism is not exploitative."

• Henry Farrell/Steven Teles: [2017-10-09] Even the intellectual left is drawn to conspiracy theories about the right. Resist them. This is the review to take most seriously, both on the facts and the political messaging (last section hed: "If you believe your opponents work through secret cabals, your own strategic thinking gets distorted").

Music, etc.

Nick Paumgarten: [07-01] Alan Braufman's loft-jazz séance.

Midyear Lists:

• Album of the Year: Other 2024 lists: Tracks 19 (so far).

• Brooklyn Vegan: [07-05] 10 best rap albums of 2024 so far.

• Complex: [07-05] The best albums of 2024 (so far)

• Exclaim!: [05-31] Exclaim!'s 25 best albums of 2024 so far

• Louder Than War: Nathan Whittle: [06-10] Albums of the year . . . so far.

• Variety: [06-26] The 20 best albums of 2024 (so far). Article mentions a couple of albums, but I'm not seeing the list. AOTY has it here.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Back during my careerist, apolitical middle ages, I read a number of business/management books (also, more often, popular science, and sometimes science fiction -- those were the good ol' days), and one point that stuck with me was the observation that in and coming out of meetings, there are two kinds of people: those who give you their reactions immediately, and those who need a day or two to process and come up with better reactions. I quickly recognized that I'm one of the latter.

I'm pretty sure the book was Robert Townsend's Further Up the Organization, which I probably got more from than I did from The Communist Manifesto and Minima Moralia combined, although from Walter Benjamin's Illuminations and John Berger's Ways of Seeing would be close. Some major things I got from Townsend are the value of employee ownership, and a deep loathing for nepotism -- points that have repeatedly been reinforced by real-world experience. There's also a quote about the Ottoman Empire that I'd have to look up to do justice, but the gist is that when you lose your reputation for justice, you lose everything. That quote comes as close as anything to explaining why I spend so much time harping on how important it is that Israel and America have so thoroughly disgraced themselves in Gaza (and, sure, not just in Gaza).

Anyhow, before my digression, I just wanted to introduce this concept, which may or may not become a regular feature -- depends on how much free time I have, which if this week is any example is likely to be not much. It's been taking me so much time to round up my weekly Speaking of Which compendiums, often of late requiring an extra day (or two?), that I wind up just throwing them out, with no more than a quick, minimal spell check. Then I have to pivot for Music Week, which is mostly a matter of collecting bits I had written more leisurely (or carelessly) during the week, and that usually breaks the mood until Friday or so when I get going on the next Speaking of Which. Lately, Music Week day has given me a chance to fix the typos my wife always finds, and add a few items that slipped my net, but I never have the time and perspective I need to refine, clarify, and polish what I wrote in such haste.

That led me to the idea of doing a midweek "Afterthoughts" post, where I look back through the previous week's roundup with somewhat refreshed eyes, pick out a few salient items that I think could use more (by which I think I mean deeper) commentary. I could then add anchors and links to go back and forth between Speaking of Which and Afterthoughts. As I reread, I'll probably catch and fix a few mistakes, perhaps editing some particularly awkward passages. While Afterthoughts will offer the occasional link, I imagine that I'll add new ones I to the old file, or save them for the following week. That will entail keeping multiple files open (and raises the question of whether I should make the work-in-progress file visible).

Another digression (maybe I should invent some markup for these?): I have on occasion done that, and I'm usually rather pleased with what I find there. That gets me to imagining that someone could pull out a book's worth of particularly notable nuggets, but the only people who have given them a look so far have thrown up their hands in dismay (my wife and her publisher friends). When I do it myself, I'm tempted to edit, rarely for points but the writing can always be sharpened up. I've collected most of my post-2000 writings into book files, but they are pretty massive (the four political volumes up to 2020 total 2.86 million words; not collected there yet, Speaking of Which, since June 2021, would add another 800 thousand words).

Anyhow, that's the concept. Unfortunately, I wasted 2-3 days after coming up with the idea without actually doing the work. But I left a placeholder for this post when I opened the next Speaking of Which draft file, so I feel obliged to post something here. (It works this way for technical and historical reasons I won't bore you with, possibly because doing so might expose my inept design.) But as this is being written on Sunday, all I can hope for is make a quick pass and post tonight, with everything else delayed a day (or, perhaps like last week, more).

Zack Beauchamp: Sometimes I think I should write up an annotated list of books on Israel, but the number that I have read quickly becomes mind-boggling -- especially when you start thinking about the various angles and tangents. But this one cuts to the heart of the matter: not so much as to what happened -- which tends to be a long list of indictments -- as to what was going through Israeli when they acted as they did.

One imagines there could be a similar reading list for how Palestinians think, but they've had so few viable options that it really wouldn't tell us much. As Americans, we've been brought up to think that we have a large degree of freedom within which we can deliberately live our lives. Even here, much of that is illusion (or delusion), but Palestinians have never had any meaningful degree of political freedom: not under the Ottomans, or the British, or the Egyptian/Jordanian occupations of Gaza and the West Bank from 1948-67, or under Israel (in or out of the Green Line, with or without the gang rule of Fatah/Hamas), or for exiles in Lebanon, Syria, the Gulf, etc.

I dug out Ben Cramer's book a few weeks ago. I wanted to find a story I remembered him using -- one about teaching a dog to speak -- but so far it's escaped me. On the other hand, I have reread many passages, and I'm always struck by how easily he gets to unobvious but essential points. One of those is that of all the world's many problems, this conflict should be one of the easiest to solve -- pace Christgau, who throws up his hands in despair after declaring it "the cruelest and most gruesome international conflict of my adulthood." I pick my around that line, but Ben Cramer simply offers an answer: just start by showing Palestinians some respect, and see how they adjust. I have little doubt that they will, but that's because I'm aware that there are many more strands of thought among Palestinians beyond the only ones Israelis recognize: those who fight (like Hamas), and those who surrender (like Fatah, not that even they have so little self-respect that they can satisfy Israel).

I've read quite a bit on Israel over the years: enough that I can pull up a historical reference for almost any situation, so quickly that I frequently circle back instead of offering immediate reactions to atrocities that no understanding of historical context can excuse. But mostly I'm writing on the basis of models I've formed and refined over many years, that give me insight into things people say and do, and how they are perceived and reacted to. I suppose this started fifty years ago, when I was first smitten with philosophy, and through it psychology and sociology (and economics?).

It's been a long time since I ever attempted to articulate it, but I have been thinking more about stories and models lately: most people understand things through stories -- or so we're told by political and advertising consultants, who one suspects prefer them because they see them as ways to manipulate, and as such to compensate their clients and earn their premium. And, if you're interested in practical politics, that's often a game you have to play. Models are harder to sell, because they simply give you insight into how things actually work, and most importantly, that many of the things selfish people would pay for -- like riches, power, status, glamor, fame, notoriety -- come with hidden costs that make them worth much less than you'd like to think.

But read on. The models will come to you.

About last Thursday's debate: I collected a huge number of links, as most center-to-left pundits took the matter seriously and had an opinion to air (and often not just an axe to grind). I didn't bother much with right pundits, as what could they possibly say worth taking seriously? So while I started the post with a general idea of what was going on, and how it might play out, I was fine with letting this play out. And it did, pretty definitively. Biden is toast. He's lost all credibility as a candidate, and if the Democrat clique around him somehow manage to keep him as their candidate, they will lose all credibility and, as soon as possible, control of the party. Even if he sticks and wins, which given his opposition isn't impossible, he and they will get no credit for the feat. All they will get is condemnation for the risk they're running by sticking with a candidate who has clearly lost the faith and trust of his own voters.

That it isn't official yet is probably because the insiders haven't yet agreed on a succession plan. There's been very little reporting on this so far, because it's not the sort of thing inside power brokers dare brag about. But it's pretty obvious if you understand how things work. And what's happened is pretty simple. . . .

Changes I made to the file:

• Tareq S Hajjaj: missing link.
• Hoda Osman: botched link tag.
• Moved Prem Thakker under Blaise Malley's "craziest 'pro-Israel' budget amendments."
• Zack Beauchamp: bold-faced book authors.
• Andrew Prokop: typo.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

July archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42580 [42549] rated (+31), 29 [22] unrated (+7).

Nominally a day late (ok, two days), but last Music Week was two days late, so this is still a short week. I started off most days with old r&b in the CD player -- especially Scratchin': The Wild Jimmy Spruill Story, which combined a few minor hits with some major studio work, leading me to tweet up two singles (Bobby Lewis, Tossin' and Turnin', and Bobby Long, The Pleasure Is All Mine). Beyond that, what I got to was pretty haphazard, with a fair amount of old music left over from the William Parker research.

My piece was published by ArtsFuse, here: Celebrating bassist William Parker's lifetime of achievement. You can also find my 2003 CG, with its updated discography, and my notes file, which includes my full set of reviews of albums Parker. The former could still use some cleanup, especially to separate out the albums that Parker didn't play on -- the CG was originally focused on Matthew Shipp and the Thirsty Ear Blue Series he curated, until I started noticing how many more albums Parker played on and how central they were to the whole circle. The latter needs even more work, as most of it was cut-and-pasted from my book files (which are now several years out of date), with others copied with HTML markup (where they still have bold credits and letter grades). If I didn't fear getting sucked into a huge time sink, I'd go fix those, but for now I can only offer excuses.

Besides, I have a much more urgent website project to work on. I've decided to use my Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll contacts to run a Mid-Year straw poll. I explain this on the website (which still needs a good deal of work) and in the invite letter (which went out to approx. 200 critics on June 30). I'm asking for lists of up to 10 new releases (which can include newly discovered 2023 releases) and/or up to 5 "rara avis" (old music, recorded 10+ years ago, or reissues). Deadline is July 14, and ArtsFuse will publish the results, probably later that week.

The Poll is a quickie experiment. I've simplified the rules to make it easier on voters (and hopefully on he who counts), and I've saved myself a lot of work by only sending out one batch of invites without trying to vet new voters. The problem with the "one batch" approach is that I'm using a server and software that has been known to run afoul of some spam traps. I especially fear that people with gmail addresses may have their invites diverted or discarded. But it's impossible to test and verify these things. I made an effort to research this problem before, to little avail, and I will make another one soon, but in the meantime, please read the following, and follow up if anything seems to apply to you:

1. If you've ever voted before, or for that matter received an invite before, and haven't received an invite, please check your spam filter. If you find one, take steps to get your mail provider to recognize that the mail isn't spam. If you can't find one, assume you're eligible and use this one. Follow the instructions, and vote. Let me know if you want to be added to my list (jazzpoll [at] hullworks.net). Not everyone who has voted is on the list (various reasons, including sloth on my part), but I can add you. The advantage of being on the list is that I'll send you updates and further requests.

2. If you haven't received an invite, but think you should be qualified, look up the invite, follow instructions, and send me your lists. You need to have some real expertise in jazz (my first approximation would be listening to 200+ jazz records per year, but that's easy for me to say because I listen to 700+), have some verifiable credentials (you write about some of them, which can be on your own blog or mainstream or niche publications, and/or you broadcast about them, which obviously includes radio but I suppose could extend to podcasts), and construct lists that are focused on jazz (the occasional outlier or, as DownBeat likes to call them, "beyond"; by the way, "smooth jazz" is not jazz, at least for purposes of establishing credibility, although it may be acceptable as "beyond"). If this checks out, I will very likely accept your ballot, and you'll be on the inside track for future invites.

3. Check with your friends: make sure they got their invites, and let people you think should be voting know that they can vote, and how. They can always hit me up with questions, but we don't have a lot of time, so it's best to move fast.

4. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to publicize this wider, although bear in mind that I still see this as a forum of critics -- even though I recognize that there are lots of fans that have become pretty expert themselves, especially given how easy it's become to check out new music on streaming platforms.

Also, one key point to emphasize is that this isn't a big deal. I'm not asking you to exercise Solomonic (or Christgauvian) judgment over the jazz universe. Your list doesn't have to find the absolute best records (whatever that might mean). Nor does it have to be ranked. (Although blessed are the rankers, for they get slightly more points weighting for their efforts.) Nor does it even have to be a full list. Just jot down a few albums that you would like to recommend to other people. That's mostly how these lists will be used.

Given the late date, the short deadline, my various shortcuts, and the fact that we've never done this before, I'm not expecting much, but even if we just get 50 voters (as opposed to the 159 in 2023), I think the lists will be interesting and informative.

I started to track mid-year lists when they started appearing just before June 1 -- see my metacritic file, which is running behind at the moment, as the last couple weeks haven't allowed much opportunity to work on it -- and they both give me a broad sense of what's out there and a useful roster of prospects to check out. This also ties into my tracking file, which has a jazz selector (currently listing 400 jazz albums, of which I have 332; this list will expand as I receive your lists: from past experience, about 30% of the albums that show up in ballots are ones I hadn't previously tracked; there's also a no grade variant, for those who don't want to see my grades).

The website started off as a clone of last year's, with minor hacks. As I do more work to it this week, it should become a more useful source of information about the Poll and its progress. For instance, I need to revise things like the FAQ and the Admin Guide. I also hope to get some work done on the older parts of the website, especially to fill in information that predates my involvement (in administration; I've voted every year, from the founding).

I hope to make the website the best source for information about the Poll. But if you wish to follow, check my Music Week posts, and follow me on twitter (or "X" if you prefer; I haven't jumped ship yet, although at this point it's rare for one of my tweets to be viewed by as much as a third of my nominal followers, so the returns seem pretty slim).

Some other website work: I've done an update to Carola Dibbell's website, as her novel, The Only Ones is being reprinted, and she has an event later in July. I haven't done my database update to Robert Christgau's website yet, but have all of the CG reviews in my private copy. I still have to do some cross-referencing work, but should update the website in a couple days.

I have a question about Michael Brecker that I need to research a bit. Would be nice to have a couple more to gang it up with.

We've gone through more email tsuris, as Cox has dumped all of their email customers (or at least us) onto Yahoo. It appears to be stable now, but Yahoo has a pretty poor reputation, so we'll see.

I did post another food pic on Facebook, if you into that sort of thing: Indian chicken, potatoes, cabbage, eggplant, raita, and paratha.

I posted a massive Speaking of Which late Monday night (290 links is probably a record; 11720 words isn't, but is quite a lot). I've added a few more things today, and will probably add some more before I get this posted. I'm inclined to hold off on further complaints about the horrible Supreme Court, but would like to capture as much of the initial reaction to the Trump-Biden debate as may be useful. I'm grateful that I didn't bother with anything written in advance of the debate.

This particular post got delayed an extra day as I got stuck writing a long comment on Robert Christgau's Xgau Sez. And while I got that done by 5PM, the delay occasioned one last round of "addl" tags.

New records reviewed this week:

Arooj Aftab: Night Reign (2024, Verve): Pakistani singer-songwriter, born in Saudi Arabia, returned to Lahore when she was 10, on to US at 19, studied at Berklee, based in New York, fifth album, got some notice in 2023 whens he shared billing on Love in Exile with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismally. B+(***) [sp]

Alan Braufman: Infinite Love Infinite Tears (2024, Valley of Search): Saxophonist, had a few years in New York in the mid-1970s working around the lofts with Cooper-Moore and William Parker, then did something else until retirement age, when he reissued his one album (actually quite good) and some archival tapes, and started working on a new one. This follows up on the promise of 2020's The Fire Still Burns, with James Brandon Lewis (tenor sax), Patricia Brennan (vibes), Ken Filiano (bass), Chad Taylor (drums), and Michael Wimberly (percussion). B+(***) [r]

Ani DiFranco: Unprecedented Sh!t (2024, Righteous Babe): Folkie singer-songwriter, had a lot of edge when she emerged in 1990. This one doesn't particularly grab me, but probably deserves another listen. [PS: It does, as her critique is sharp as ever, but the music still doesn't grab me.] B+(*) [sp]

Dayramir González: V.I.D.A. [Verdad, Independencia, Diversidad Y Amor] (2024, self-released): Cuban pianist, based in New York, has a 2008 album with Habana Entrance, not sure what else. B [sp]

Morgan Guerin: Tales of the Facade (2024, Candid): Self-described "prolific multi-instrumentalist and visionary composer," born "right outside New Orleans," studied at New School and Berklee, based in New York, side-credits since 2019, appears to have three previous albums, plays sax and related, keyboards, electric bass, and drums, but I can't find any credits here, and I'm thrown by all the vocals. B+(*) [sp]

Goran Kajfeš Tropiques: Tell Us (2024, We Jazz): Swedish trumpet player, quite a few albums since his 2000 debut, quartet with Alex Zethson (keyboards), Johan Berthling (bass), and Johan Holmegard (drums), third group album. Has a wide, panoramic feel. B+(***) [sp]

Bill Laurance/The Untold Orchestra: Bloom (2022 [2024], ACT Music): British pianist, member of Snarky Puppy at least 2006-20, own albums since 2012, his keyboards leading an orchestra, conducted by Rory Storm, of 18 strings. Reflects his roots in classical music, and probably impressive as such, but quite enjoyable, too. B+(**) [sp]

Les Savy Fav: Oui, LSF (2024, Frenchkiss): Art punk band from Rhode Island, released five albums 1997-2010, return for another 14 years later. Still a potent combination of hooks and volume. Last song is triumphant: "We were there when the world got great/ We helped to make it that way." B+(**) [sp]

Grégoire Maret/Romain Collin: Ennio (2024, ACT Music): Swiss harmonica player, eponymous debut 2012, second album with the French pianist, backed by guitar-bass-drums, with flute (Alexandra Sopp) and heavyweight vocal guests Gregory Porter and Cassandra Wilson. B+(*) [sp]

Zara McFarlane: Sweet Whispers: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan (2024, Universal): British jazz/soul singer, fifth album, standards. I don't have a good feel for how representative they are, or even much of an idea how Vaughan sung them: I was so surprised by "Inner City Blues" I stopped the record to compare Vaughan's 1972 version. Vaughan's voice is unrivaled for stature and precision, but I rather like McFalane's softer, sweeter tone, and the loose swing of her arrangements. B+(**) [sp]

Ngwaka Son Système: Iboto Ngenge (2024, Eck Echo): Spinoff from Kinshasa (Congo) group Kokoko, emphasis on electrobeats. Six songs, 28:22. B+(**) [sp]

Normani: Dopamine (2024, RCA): R&B singer from Atlanta, last name Hamilton, formerly of the vocal group Fifth Harmony (3 albums, 2015-17), first solo album. B+(**) [r]

Carly Pearce: Hummingbird (2024, Big Machine): Country singer-songwriter from Kentucky, fourth album since 2017, found herself in her age-marking 29: Written in Stone. This sounds pretty good -- even the Levi's jingle. B+(***) [sp]

Dave Rempis/Tashi Dorji Duo: Gnash (2024, Aerophonic): Rempis plays his full range of saxophones (soprano/alto/tenor/baritone), with his usual fierce resolve, with Dorji pushing (and occasionally rivaling) on guitar. I'm impressed, as always, but doubt the harsh tone (or maybe the specific harmonics, or the lack of a drummer) will make this an album I return to. B+(***) [cd]

Sisso & Maiko: Singeli Ya Maajabu (2024, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Tanzanian DJ Mohamed Hamza Ally, "figurehead" of the Sisso Records label, with one of his producer/keyboardists, for a volume of high velocity, klang-and-squiggle-filled dance beats. B+(*) [sp]

Jason Stein/Marilyn Crispell/Damon Smith/Adam Shead: Spi-raling Horn (2023 [2024], Balance Point Acoustics): Bass clarinet player, has gotten steadily better since his 2007 debut, adds a stellar pianist to his recent bass-drums trio. A- [sp]

Thollem: Worlds in a Life, Two (2024, ESP-Disk): Pianist, goes by first name, last name is McDonas, nominally a solo album, but draws on samples from previous albums, so side credits for William Parker (bass), Michael Wimberly (drums), Pauline Oliveros (MIDI accordion), Terry Riley (vocals), Nels Cline (guitar, effects, Mega mouth). B+(**) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Alan Braufman: Live in New York City: February 8, 1975 (1975 [2022], Valley of Search): Saxophonist, aka Alan Michael or Alan Michael Braufman, recorded a 1975 album, Valley of Search, that he reissued to much acclaim in 2018, followed up by a new album, The Fire Still Burns, and reissue of some early tapes, like this one, a WBAI airshot with Cooper-Moore (piano), William Parker (bass), John Clark (French horn), Jim Schapperowe (drums), and Ralph Williams (percussion). B+(***) [r]

DJ Notoya: Funk Tide: Tokyo Jazz-Funk From Electric Bird 1978-87 (1978-87 [2024], Wewantsounds/Electric Bird): Not sure how much credit the presenter deserves here. The music is closer to disco than to funk, and has minimal value as jazz. B- [sp]

Charles Gayle/Milford Graves/William Parker: WEBO (1991 [2024], Black Editions Archive): Tenor sax, drums, bass, a major new find in the late drummer's archives, running just over 2 hours (2-CD, 3-LP). Gayle (1939-2023) was like the truest heir of Albert Ayler, pushed to extremes I found very difficult to take when I first ran into him, so my grades are scattered, and likely in need of revision -- e.g., I still have Repent (1992) as a B, but at least get Touchin' on Trane at A-. This is in the same ballpark, but perhaps better mixed to bring out the truly amazing bass and percussion. A- [sp]

Ron Miles: Old Main Chapel (2011 [2024], Blue Note): Cornet player, from Denver, albums since 1987, signed with Blue Note for a 2020 album, shortly before he died at 58 in 2022. This is a live album, dating back to the trio he recorded Quiver with: Bill Frisell (guitar), and Brian Blade (drums). A decade later, this is a lovely memento. B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Collective 4tet: Orca (1996 [1997], Leo Lab): Originally Heinz Geisser (drums), Mark Hennen (piano), William Parker (bass), and Michael Moss (reeds), for two albums 1992-93, before Moss was replaced by Jeff Hoyer (trombone), and they went on to record six more albums for Leo 1996-2009. Free jazz with chamber music intimacy. Several spots got me thinking this might be great, only to slip back into their framework. B+(***) [r]

Collective 4tet: Live at Crescent (1997 [1998], Leo Lab): Live in Belfast, no idea why. Loses a bit of edge, while retaining the complexity, which is not exactly how live albums are expected to excel. B+(**) [r]

Collective 4tet: Moving Along (2002 [2005], Leo): Recorded the same day as Synopsis. Three long pieces, in their zone, with trombone highlights. B+(**) [r]

Collective 4tet: In Transition (2008 [2009], Leo): One more album, the trombonist departed, replaced by Arthur Brooks (trumpet/flugelhorn), who plays this close to the vest, as pianist Mark Hennen takes a more pominent role. B+(***) [sp]

Marco Eneidi Quintet: Final Disconnect Notice (1994, Botticelli): Alto sax, second horn is Karen Borca's bassoon, an excellent pairing, especially when they get dicey, backed by two bassists (Wilber Morris and William Parker, who also plays some cello) and drums (Jackson Krall). B+(***) [yt]

Marco Eneidi/Glenn Spearman: Creative Music Orchestra: American Jungle Suite (1995 [1997], Music & Arts): Discogs gives title as Creative Music Orchestra, which cover and spine confirm, while other sources cite the title of the 69:05 piece the 21-piece big-band-plus-violins plays. Led by the two saxophonists (alto/tenor), Eneidi does most of the composing, arranging one piece from Cecil Talor, while Spearman wrote the final movement (26:48). Some great potential here, but could use a conductor. B+(**) [sp]

Marco Eneidi/William Parker/Donald Robinson: Cherry Box (1998 [2000], Eremite): Alto saxophonist (1956-2016), born in Portland, as a child took lessons from Sonny Simmons, moved to New York in 1981 to study with Jimmy Lyons, played with William Parker, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, and Glenn Spearman. Trio here with bass and drums. Fierce leads, holding back only to let the others show off their magic. A- [sp]

Marco Eneidi/Vijay Anderson: Remnant Light (2004 [2018], Minus Zero): Alto sax and drums duo, a home-recorded tape unearthed after the saxophonist's death in 2016. B+(**) [bc]

Marco Eneidi Streamin' 4: Panta Rei (2013 [2015], ForTune): Alto saxophonist, American, active in free jazz circles since the early 1980s, picks up a like-minded group in Poland, with Marek Pospieszalski (tenor sax), Ksawery Wojcinski (bass), and Michal Trela (drums). B+(*) [sp]

Heinz Geisser/Shiro Onuma: Duo: Live at Yokohama Little John (2007 [2008], Leo): Swiss percussionist, member of Collective 4tet, Discogs list 10 albums under his name (plus 37 side-credits), in a rare drums duo. B+(*) [sp]

The Ivo Perelman Quartet: Sound Hierarchy (1996 [1997], Muisic & Arts): Brazilian tenor saxophonist, debut 1989, had released four albums through 1995, three more in 1996, then nine in 1997, of which this one looks most impressive on paper: Marilyn Crispell (piano), William Parker (bass), Gerry Hemingway (drums). Flexes some muscle, but not all that interesting. B+(*) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Derek Bailey/Sabu Toyozumi: Breath Awareness (1987, NoBusiness) [05-27]
• Albert Beger/Ziv Taubenfeld/Shay Hazan/Hamid Drake: Cosmic Waves (No Business) [05-27]
• Karen Borca Trio Quartet & Quintet: Good News Blues: Live at the Vision Festival 1998 & 2005 (No Business) [05-27]
• Peter Brötzmann/Toshinori Kondo/Sabu Toyozumi: Complete Link (NoBusiness) [05-27]
• Alfredo Colón: Blood Burden (Out of Your Head) [06-14]
• Nick Dunston: Colla Voce (Out of Your Head) [04-26]
• The Sofia Goodman Group: Receptive (Joyous) [07-26]
• Monika Herzig's Sheroes: All in Good Time (Zoho) [07-22]
• Hyeseon Hong Jazz Orchestra: Things Will Pass (Pacific Coast Jazz) [08-23]
• Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre: Live From Studio Rivbea: July 12, 1975 [Rivbea Live! Series, Volume 1] (No Business) [05-27]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, June 30, 2024

After missing last week, I knew I had a lot to catch up on here. I also got interrupted several times. It took longer than expected to wrap up my piece on bassist William Parker (see: Celebrating bassist William Parker's lifetime of achievement). I had two other internet projects that required significant amounts of attention (one was an update to Carola Dibbell's website, announcing a new printing of her novel, The Only Ones; the other was setting up a framework for a Jazz Critics Mid-Year Poll, which still needs more work). We also had trips to the ER and various doctors (including a veterinarian). So no chance of getting done on Sunday night. I'm not really done on Monday, either, but I'm dead tired and more than a little disgusted, so this will have to do for now.

That will, in turn, push Music Week back until Tuesday, which is just as well.

Before I really got started, the debate happened -- I couldn't be bothered to watch, my wife got disgusted and switched to a Steve Martin movie -- and I haven't (yet, as of noon 06-28) read any reviews, but I wanted to grab these tweets before they vanish:

Rick Perlstein: The main argument on the left was that he was a bad president. That was incorrect.

Tim Price: The left is going to be in big trouble for being right too early again.

Another scrap picked up on the fly from fleeting social media:

Greg Magarian: [06-27] Democratic Party establishment, relentlessly, for eight months: "You stupid kids need to stop criticizing Biden! If we get four more years of Trump, it's all your fault!"

Democratic Party establishment, tomorrow morning, set your clock by it: "You stupid kids need to fix this! If we get four more years of Trump, it's all your fault!"

Because of course it's never their fault.

In a comment, Magarian added:

I don't know the best process for replacing Biden. There's no playbook for this. The biggest question is whether the party should essentially try to crown Harris, either by having Biden resign the presidency or by having him stay and endorse her. But this is kind of the point of my post: the onus here shouldn't be on Biden's critics. The party is supposed to exist to win elections. They're royally screwing this one up. I want to know what they're going to do.

Initial count: 290 links, 11720 words. Updated count [07-03]: 320 links, 16021 words.

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): on music, Christgau.

Top story threads:

Israel:

• Mondoweiss:

  • [06-20] Day 258: Threat of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah rises: "Hassan Nasrallah warned in a televised speech that Hezbollah would 'fight without restraints and without limits' in the event of an all-out war. Meanwhile, the first lawyer to visit Gaza detainees in Sde Teiman said they face 'unimaginable' abuse."

  • [06-24] Day 262: Netanyahu says he refuses to end the war on Gaza: "As Benjamin Netanyahu tells Israeli TV he is prepared to continue the war in Gaza indefinitely, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visits Washington D.C. to meet U.S. officials amid a possible all-out war with Lebanon."

  • [06-27] Day 265: UN agency says Gazans face 'catastrophic' food insecurity: "The UN has warned of 'imminent' famine in Gaza as starvation spreads due to border closures. Meanwhile, following Israeli war minister Yoav Gallant's visit to Washington, the U.S. and Israel have asserted they do not want war with Hezbollah."

  • [07-01] Day 269: Israeli leaders slam prison services over release of al-Shifa Hospital director: "Israeli forces killed three Palestinians, including a woman and a teenager in Tulkarem's Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank."

• Mariana Abreu/Aïda Delpuech/Eloïse Layan/Yuval Abraham: [06-25] How Israeli drone strikes are killing journalists in Gaza: "Survivor testimonies and audiovisual analysis reveal a pattern of strikes by Israeli UAVs on Palestinian journalists in recent months -- even when they are clearly identifiable as press.

• Shoug Al Adara: [06-20] A settler shot my husband. Then Israel bulldozed my childhood home: "Zakariyah has suffered immensely since being wounded by an Israeli settler. Yet his attacker roams free, and demolitions continue to devastate our communities in Masafer Yatta."

• Ruwaida Kamal Amer: [06-13] 'How is it reasonable to kill over 200 for the sake of four?' "Relentless bombing, hospitals overflowing, soldiers in aid trucks; survivors recount the massacre in Nuseirat refugee camp during Israel's hostage rescue."

• Tareq S Hajjaj:

  • [06-21] Gaza's hospitals are empty, and patients die in silence: "This genocidal war brings with it the systematic destruction of all of Gaza's health system. This has created a new category of people who die from preventable illnesses due to a systematic lack of access to medical care."

  • [06-28] The second invasion of al-Shuja'iyya is a war of attrition: "Israel has been forced into a war of attrition as the Palestinian resistance has reconstituted itself across Gaza. The scale of the horrors perpetrated by the Israeli army in these battles only emerges through testimonies after the fighting ends."

• Reem A Hamadaqa: [06-28] Stories of survival and suffering: Inside Gaza's Al-Aqsa Hospital: "Reem Hamadaqa spent 96 days in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza recovering from an Israeli attack that killed the rest of her family. Here are the stories of women and children she met while she was there."

• Shatha Hanaysha:

  • [06-22] Wounded Palestinian man strapped in front of Israeli army vehicle, used as human shield.

  • [06-27] Israeli officer killed, 16 other soldiers injured in Jenin refugee camp during army invasion.

  • [07-01] Tulkarem residents face Israeli airstrikes and assassinations: Note that Tulkarem is in the West Bank, nowhere near Gaza. Israel is escalating their war against Palestinians everywhere. Gaza and Hamas are just excuses for gullible outsiders.

• Arwa Mahdawi: [06-27] Nearly 21,000 children are missing in Gaza. And there's no end to this nightmare.

• Ibrahim Mohammad: [06-18] Children starving, parents helpless as famine consumes northern Gaza: "With aid blocked and stores empty of basic goods, dozens of Palestinian chjildren have been hospitalized with malnutrition and acute anemia."

• Qassam Muaddi: [06-27] Israel's leaked plan for annexing the West Bank, explained: "Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's plan to annex the West Bank would see over 60% of the territory becoming a part of Israel. But Palestinian experts say it is 'already happening.'" The 60% figure comes from the Oslo-era Area C, where the PA has no authority at present, so most of that change would be nominal. Israel has already set a model for this in their annexation of greater Jerusalem, which took land but didn't extend citizenship to the people who lived there. (They retained residency rights. Smotrich would prefer to force them out, which may be what the "plan" is really about.)

• Nicole Narea: [06-24] Israel isn't ending the war in Gaza -- just turning its attention to Hezbollah: "The next phase of Israel's war in Gaza, explained." I haven't put much thought into this, mostly because I consider it a feint. Fighting against Hezbollah has several big advantages for Netanyahu: for starters, they exist, hold territory, and have rockets which pose a credible (if not very significant) threat to northern Israel (as opposed to Hamas, which doesn't have much more than a PO box in Damascus, and isn't any kind of threat); that keeps Israelis fearful, which is the only thing keeping Netanyahu's government from collapsing, and fuels the pogroms in the West Bank; it also gives the Americans an excuse to keep the arms flowing, whereas in Gaza they're just shooting fish in a barrel (to use a more colloquial term than "genocide" -- the legal term which in theory requires the US to halt arms shipments); for their own part, Hezbollah's intent is defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression, not on attacking -- although they've bought into the silly notion that their missiles help to deter Israeli attacks, so Israel gets to push their buttons, elicit their kneejerk response meant to restore credibility to their deterrence, post facto justifying the Israeli attacks; because Hezbollah (and for that matter Syria and Iran) don't want war, Israel has complete freedom to tune the hostilities to a level that provides maximum propaganda value with very little real risk.

  • Paul R Pillar: [06-26] Is Israel-Hezbollah war inevitable?

• Jonathan Ofir: [06-18] The kibbutzniks blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza: "Complicity in genocide is not confined tot he Israeli right. Members of the liberal organization that spearheaded the anti-Netanyahu protests last year are now blocking aid to Gaza."

• James North: [06-25] The mainstream media is setting the stage for an Israeli war on Lebanon: "An unsourced article in the British Telegraph claiming Hezbollah is storing weapons in Beirut's airport is the latest example of the mainstream media setting the groundwork for an Israeli war on Lebanon."

• Hoda Osman/Firas Taweel/Farah Jallad: Israel's war on Gaza is the deadliest conflict on record for journalists.

• Léa Peruchon: [06-26] 'The livestream was critical evidence': Tracing attacks on Gaza's press buildings: "The Israeli army struck major media institutions in Gaza despite assurances of safety, and appears to have deliberately targeted camera that were broadcasting the military offensive."

• Meron Rapoport: [06-24] As Netanyahu abandons the hostages, Hamas may seek to extend the war: Given the balance of forces, I don't see any point in even suggesting that Hamas is even a conscious actor in this war. As long as Israel vows to "finish" every one of them, of course whatever's left of Hamas will fight back, because Israel isn't giving them any other option. On the other hand, if Israel chose to stop the war, would Hamas even have the wherewithal, even if they still harbored the ambition, to "extend the war"?

• Steven Simon: [06-28] Will drafting ultra-Orthodox to fight upend Israel's gov't?

• Baker Zoubi: [06-27] 'More horrific than Abu Ghraib': Lawyer recounts visit to Israeli detention center: "At Sde Teiman, Khaled Mahajneh found a detained journalist unrecognizable as he described the facility's violent and inhumane conditions."

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

• Spencer Ackerman:

  • [06-24] Netanyahu, as predicted, humiliates Biden.

  • [06-20] An unmissable Gaza documentary: "Al-Jazeera's 'Fault Lines' program has put together a crucial report called 'The Night Won't End.'"

• Nargol Aran: [06-29] In Tehran, Gaza rekindles the revolution: "For some in Iran, the West's relentless punishment has weakened the revolutionary fires of 1979. But for countless others, they are being rekindled by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza." I doubt the first part of that: revolutionary fires expire normally as past complaints fade into history, and changes become normalized. But "the West's relentless punishment" just adds more fuel, which boosts the hardest revolutionaries, while offering them excuses for any shortcomings. On the other hand, Israel's atrocities in Gaza are certain to inflame anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment everywhere, but especially where people's own identities and allegiances are most threatened. Iran has never been all that committed to the Palestinians, but Israel's relentless efforts to paint Iran as the mastermind of their enemy is bound to push them more and more into opposition. This provocation is just one of many ways Netanyahu is being very shortsighted and foolish.

• Michael Arria:

  • [06-20] The Shift: Under pressure from Biden, Meeks backs major arms sale to Israel. Gregory Meeks is top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, "making him one of just four lawmakers holding veto over foreign military sales."

  • [06-27] The Shift: What should we think about AIPAC's big win?: "Jamaal Bowman's loss is undoubtedly a massive victory for the Israel lobby, however, it would be a mistake to overstate AIPAC's power based solely on George Latimer's win." Also on AIPAC and Bowman:

    • Eli Clifton: [06-26] Bowman crushed by GOP-fueled AIPAC cash: "The pro-Israel lobby is effectively laundering campaign funds for Republican megadonors into Democratic primaries."

    • Ben Davis: [06-26] The AIPAC-funded candidate defeated Jamaal Bowman. But at what cost? $20 million, wasn't it? (Out of their $100 million war chest.)

    • Mitchell Plitnick: [06-26] What Jamaal Bowman's defeat means: "The Israel lobby's strong-arm tactics still work. But the amount of effort they needed to defeat Jamaal Bowman shows they won't work forever."

    • H Scott Presterman: [06-29] AIPAC's destructive reach in American politics: How it made an example of Rep. Jamal Bowman.

    • Richard Silverstein: [06-26] AIPAC: Has the pro-Israel lobby bribed and bought the US Democratic Party?

    • Alex Skopic: [06-30] The campaign against Jamaal Bowman was dirty politics at its worst.

    • Norman Solomon: [06-28] Bowman was defeated by a toxic blend of Zionism and militarism.

    • Philip Weiss: [06-25] For opposing genocide, Bowman is framed as antisemitic -- by liberal Zionists: "The Democratic establishment and Israel lobby are seeking to destroy the political career of Rep. Jamaal Bowman because he dared to criticize the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. And many liberals are joining right in."

    • Li Zhou: [06-25] Progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman just lost his primary to George Latimer. Here's what that means. Sure, it "sends a message about Israel," but that message is that Israel is a serious threat to democracy and decency in America. It further shows that Democrats who refuse to stand for decency and human rights in Israel cannot be trusted to defend those values in America.

    • Pamela Paul: [06-25] Jamaal Bowman deserved to lose: She offers some plausible reasons why Bowman lost beyond AIPAC and Hillary Clinton (a distinction but much of a difference?), including unfavorable redistricting, plus faux pas that a massive ad blitz could amplify into character flaws. But jumping from explanation to "deserved" make me wonder about her ulterior motives. Looking at her index suggests that she's one of those liberals who's much happier slamming the left than taking on the right, though she's not foolish enough to fall for Nikki Haley. I don't have time or interest to try to sort her views out. For instance, Progressives aren't liberal jumps through hoops to justify a particular misunderstanding of its terminology (as does Who you calling conservative?). But she also seems to have some depth and rigor that may be worth taking seriously, as long as the misguided clichés don't get in the way.

  • [07-02] The Shift, Election 2024: More calls for Biden to step down.

• James Carden: [06-24] Trump cabinet hopeful wants the 'Israel model' for US China polilcy: "Robert O'Brien just put forward a template, but it's a proven failure." I've often noted that neocons suffer from Israel Envy: the desire that the US should be able flex its muscles on a global scale with the same impetuousness and carelessness for consequences that Israel exercises in its neighborhood. They bound their ambitions to a global ideology -- ironically called "neoliberalism," as its initial advocates sought to entice rather than enforce compliance -- but the new, Trumpian variant brings its self-interested motivations closer to the Israeli model, or closer still to Alexander or Britain, who sought empire for the sustenance of tribute. These days, tribute is mostly collected through arms sales -- and as such is immediately shunted to private ledgers -- which is why America demands that its allies be customers, and defines its customers to be allies. Hence, O'Brien's plan is mostly devoted to arms sales, advanced under the hoary slogan "peace through strength," and advanced by magnifying recalcitrant hold outs like Russia and China into existential threats.

• Gregory Daddis: [06-25] Stop listening to David Petraeus: "The self-promoting ex-general continues to rewrite history, suggesting that Israel deploy an Iraq-style 'surge' in Gaza.

• Dave DeCamp: [06-30] US has sent Israel 14,000 2,000-pound bombs since October 7.

• Ben Freeman: [06-28] Israel's covert info bots targeting America met with hypocritical silence: "Will Tel Aviv get the same treatment as the Russians and Chinese? Likely not." Based on a Guardian report:

  • Lee Fang/Jack Poulson: [05-24] Israeli documents show expansive government effort to shape US discourse around Gaza war: This has been obvious since day one -- actually, for many years now -- but researchers are collecting receipts.

  • Sheera Frenkel: [06-05] Israel secretly targets US lawmakers with influence campaign on Gaza War.

  • Alex Kane: [06-24] Why ceasefire talks are stuck: "A breakdown of the political dynamics that have prevented a ceasefire in Gaza." One of those "dynamics," if you'll pardon the oxymoron, is Joe Biden.

  • Cade Metz: [05-30] OpenAI says Russia and China used its AI in covert campaigns: "Iran and an Israeli company also exploited the tools in online influence efforts."

• Blaise Malley:

  • [06-27] The craziest 'pro-Israel' budget amendments. For example:

    • Prem Thakker: 62 Democrats join 207 Republicans in vote to conceal Gaza death toll.

  • [06-28] Trump says Biden has 'become like a Palestinian' in debate exchange: "In a presidential debate marked by incoherence and lies, Donald Trump attacked Joe Biden, saying 'he's become like a Palestinian' for supposedly withholding total support for Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza." More on the debate below, but for here just note that Trump's solution is more war and more cruelty, not less, with no concern for the consequences. That he took this position in the debate doesn't just show us his true feelings, but that he thinks his pro-war, pro-genocide position is the one that most resonates with American voters.

• Mitchell Plitnick: [06-23] Republicans demonstrate their terrifying Palestine policy: "Two 'must pass' House of Representatives bills to fund the State and Defense Departments show how dangerous Republican Party views on Palestine are."

Israel vs. world opinion:

• Democracy Now!

  • [06-18] Holocaust scholar Raz Segal loses Univ. of Minnesota job offer for saying Israel is committing genocide. It's pretty sobering to realize that Segal had already figured this out less than a week after the eruption on Oct. 17, 2023:

    • Raz Segal: [2023-10-13] A textbook case of genocide: "Israel has been explicit about what it's carrying out in Gaza. Why isn't the world listening?

  • [05-17] "Resist the normalization of evil": Israeli reporter Amira Hass on Palestine & the role of journalism.

• Zack Beauchamp: [06-21] Why Israel acts the way it does: "Its catastrophic war policy is driven by a national ideology of trauma." I've recognized as much for a long time now. That's been clear as far back as Richard Ben Cramer's 2004 book How Israel Lost, and had significantly worsened by the time (2011) Max Blumenthal wrote Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. For further details on how this psychology was deliberately engineered, see Idith Zertal: Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood (2005), and Norman G Finkelstein: The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (2000; looks like there's a 2024 reprint). Of course, many other books touch on these issues, especially Tom Segev's histories, The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust (2000) and 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East (2006). Also, Rich Cohen, in Israel Is Real: An Obsessive Quest to Understand the Jewish Nation and Its History (2009) makes a very telling point about the exit from Yad Vashem, offering its panoramic view of Jerusalem.

  By the way, in looking up my links, I ran across this old piece on Segev's 1967:

  • David Margolick: [2007-07-15] Peace for land: After praising the book as invaluable for its coverage of the runup to the war, and complaining about being "way too long" but still lacking in character insight, he notes:

    By the time he gets to the Israeli occupation, which is what really matters now, even the indefatigable Segev has run out of gas. Crucial questions, like how the Six-Day War emboldened the messianic religious right and Ariel Sharon to build settlements, are all but overlooked. Nor is there anything about the electrifying effect the war had on Jews throughout the world, particularly in the Soviet Union and the United States. And there's no kind of summation or distillation at the end, describing the Israeli character then and now -- something that persevering readers deserve and that Segev, more than just about anyone else, is eminently qualified to give.

The books I just mentioned address the psychology at least within Israel, and touch on the rest, and there are other books that go into more detail on every tangent -- especially the occupation, which has gone through multiple stages of increasing brutality and carelessness. The thing that most struck me about 1967 was the how much terror Israel's political leaders instilled among their people, as compared to how supremely confident the military elites were. When the war so rapidly achieved its aims -- and make no mistake, it was Israel which deliberately launched the war with just those aims in mind, with the Arab states playing roles they had long been trained for -- their "victory" came with an immense sense of relief and swell of pride, which haunts us to this day. (Although, much like the US triumph in WWII, it has never since been replicated, despite continuing to animate the arrogance of invincibility.)

I imagine there is a good book on the reaction of American Jews to 1967, and the various reactions since -- if not, one is bound to be written soon. Meanwhile, it's worth reading this (which includes an excerpt from the Rich Cohen book above):

• Philip Weiss: [2017-06-08] How 1967 changed American Jews.

• Reed Brody: [06-06] Israel's legal reckoning and the historical shift in justice for Palestinians.

• Steve France: The myth of Israeli democracy died in Gaza and Israel's hasbara will never recover: Review of Saree Makdisi's recent book, Tolerance Is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial. "Israel today seems very far from finishing off the Palestinians but appears to have finally destroyed any hope that it will evolve toward honest history, or true democracy, diversity, or tolerance."

• David Goldman: [06-20] Wikipedia now labels the top Jewish civil rights group as an unreliable source:

  Wikipedia's editors declared that the Anti-Defamation League cannot be trusted to give reliable information on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and they overwhelmingly said the ADL is an unreliable source on antisemitism. . . . That means that the ADL should usually not be cited in Wikipedia articles on that topic except for extraordinary circumstances. Other generally unreliable sources, according to Wikipedia editors, include Russian state media, Fox News' political coverage and Amazon reviews.

  Michael Arria writes about this in his [06-20] Shift piece, cited above. He also refers back to this old article:

  • Sarah Lazare/Adam Johnson: [2020-07-21] Beware the Anti-Defamation League's efforts to partner with progressive orgs: "The Anti-Defamation League has a long history of smearing Black activists, working with police, and evoking 'hate speech' to demonize the peaceful BDS movement."

  • Ben Brasch: [06-26] Wikipedia defends editors deeming Anti-Defamation League 'unreliable' on Gaza.

• Yoav Litvin: [06-29] Liberal Zionism and the woke facade of Israeli genocide: "Instead of upholding a left-wing agenda and a critical lens, liberal Zionists are a mouthpiece for Israel's occupation and genocide."

• Mouna Madanat: [06-20] 'We're refusing to let ourselves live in comfortable complacency': Scenes from the Cardiff encampment for Palestine.

• Ayelet Waldman: [06-27] My father and the withering of liberal Zionism: "Was my family's dream of a Jewish socialist utopia all a lie?"

About last Thursday's debate:

When the Biden-Trump debates were announced, I jotted down the following:

Ed Kilgore: [05-24] Is Biden gambling everything on an early-debate bounce? My read is that the June debate is meant to show Democrats that he can still mount a credible campaign against Trump. If he can -- and a bounce would be nice but not necessary -- it will go a long way to quelling pressure to drop out and open the convention. If he can't, then sure, he'll have gambled and lost, and pressure will build. But at least it will give him a reference point that he has some actual control over -- unlike the polls, which still seem to have a lot of trouble taking him seriously.

I'm writing this before I go through the paces and collect whatever links I deem of interest, which will help me better understand the debate and its aftermath, but my first impression is that Biden failed to satisfy Democrats that he is really the candidate they need to fight off Trump in November. I'll also note that my expectation was to see a lot of confirmation bias in reactions. I'd expect people who dislike Biden and/or Trump, for any reason, to find faults that fortify their feelings, while people who are personally invested in their candidates will at least claim to be vindicated. Hence, the easy way to scan this section is to look for reactions that go against type.

• 538/Ipsos: Who won the first Biden-Trump presidential debate: Crunch some stats. First graphic compares expectations to results. Subhed there is "Biden performed even worse than expectations." Likely voters scored it 60.1% for Trump, 20.8% for Biden. Biden lost 1.5% (48.2% to 46.7%). Of that, Trump gained 0.4% (43.5% to 43.9%), and Kennedy gained 1.2% (17.3% to 18.4%).

• Intelligencer: The 'replace Biden' talk isn't going away after debate disaster: Live updates.

• Mike Allen: [06-29] Biden oligarchy will decide fate: The most basic fact in American politics is that people with money get to decide who gets to run for office. Bernie Sanders is about the only exception to that rule, since he figured out how to raise and thrive on small contributions, but everywhere else you look, it's absolutely true. Often, the number of people making those decisions is very small. I recall Newt Gingrich explaining his loss to Mitt Romney as simple arithmetic: Gingrich only had one billionaire backer, vs. four for Romney. As soon as a candidate's backer gets cold feet, that candidate is gone. I don't know who Biden's top backers are, but they're the ones who are going to be making this decision, and Biden, as usual, will do what he's told. I mean, isn't that why they backed him in the first place? The only reason for the delay at this point is that they're angling for the succession.

  Maybe they realized that Biden couldn't win all along. If you're one of Biden's oligarchs, this is the best possible scenario: no one serious runs against him in the primaries, so he wraps up all the delegates, at little cost, with no risk of the people thinking differently (you know, democratically). That also produced the benefit of Trump carrying the Republican Party: Biden made him look electable, even though he's extremely vulnerable and easily attacked, plus horrifying enough to keep the Democrats in line behind anyone they anoint. (I mean, if you're going to vote for Biden, literally any Democrats could fill in. [OK, maybe not Mike Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton, or Andrew Cuomo.])

  Then they nudge him out, replacing him with some maximally pliable substitute. I'm not sure who they will pick, but one thing for sure is that rank-and-file Democrats will have little to no say over the process. And frankly, given how ugly the oligarchs won in delivering their nominations to Clinton and Biden, I'm happy to have missed primary season.

• Zack Beauchamp: [06-28] The silver lining to Biden's debate disaster: "The president's performance prompted calls for a radical change. That might be just what America needs."

• Gabriel Debenedetti: [07-02] The Biden panic is getting worse: "Anxious lawmakers can't reach him. Donors are fighting over replacements. All of them are asking: When will it end?"

• Margaret Carlson: [06-28] We watched Joe Biden struggle: "The incumbent president's painful performance was no match for Trump's unabashed barrage of lies."

• Zachary D Carter: [07-02] The Democratic Party's double standard, or "Do not underestimate the danger of a second Biden term": "Trump is not the only person on earth who cannot be trusted with power."

• Jonathan Chait:

  • [06-27] At least no one is accusing Biden of using performance-enhancing drugs.

  • [06-30] Biden and Harris's absurd case for complacency: "The post-debate crisis isn't going away, and Democrats need to make some hard political choices if they want to avoid catastrophe."

  • [07-02] It's not just an age problem. It's a trust problem. "Why should we believe what the Biden campaign tells us about the candidate anymore?"

• Isaac Chotiner: [06-28] Ezra Klein on why the Democrats are too afraid of replacing Biden. Way back on [02-16] Klein posted his show on Democrats have a better option than Biden; also on [06-28] After that debate, the risk of Biden is clear. This led me to more Klein interviews from early 2024:

  • [01-16] A Republican pollster on Trump's undimmed appeal: Interview with Kristen Soltis Anderson, on "why Republican voters want stability -- and how Trump represents it."

  • [01-25] 'The strongest Democratic Party that any of us have ever seen': Interview with Simon Rosenberg, who says "things are looking up."

  • [02-01] 'Why haven't the Democrats completely cleaned the Republicans' clock?': Interview with Ruy Teixeira.

• Vinson Cunningham: [06-28] The writing on Joe Biden's face at the presidential debate: "The true locus of the President's humiliation onstage was not his misbegotten words but the sorry pictures he made with his face."

• Chas Danner: [06-29] What the polls are saying after the TrumpBiden debate: Democracy Corps/Greenberg Research/PSG Consulting's dial groups recoiled a bit at Biden; Data for Progress flash poll shows little if any advantage for Biden alternatives; Morning Consult poll suggests majority of voters want Biden replaced; Survey USA poll finds slight majority of Democrats think Biden should stay the course; 538/Ipsos poll of debate watchers found little impact on votes.

• David Dayen: [06-28] Biden's inner circle deserves some blame too: "Even with perfect delivery, the substance of the performance was not built for victory in our terribly flawed modern political environment." Dayen explains:

  Most first-term presidents lose the first debate of their re-election campaigns, and they lose it in largely the same way. They have spent nearly four years building a record, and they want to run on it. So they lay out a blur of information about what they've done. Some presidents trip over the details. Others just bore people with them. Still others act like they're offended that the president of these United States could be challenged on these points at all. Biden slammed into all three of these obstacles, while being 81 years old and rather feeble. . . . Biden was clearly fed way too many figures and had way too many points to hit on his script for someone with his difficulties in communicating.

• Gabriel Debenedetti: [06-28] Who can make Joe go? "Democrats watched the debate and stared into the abyss. Now they ask if he's a lost cause."

• Tim Dickinson: [06-28] America lost the first Biden-Trump debate: "We just witnessed the low-water mark in American electoral politics."

• Moira Donegan: [06-28] This debate was a disastrous opening performance for Biden.

• Adam Frisch: [07-02] Joe Biden should step aside now.

• Susan B Glasser: [06-28] Was the debate the beginning of the end of Joe Biden's presidency? "Notes on a disastrous night for the Democrats."

• Benjamin Hart: [06-27] Biden, Trump have mortifying exchange about golf handicaps.

• Jeet Heer: [07-01] Dear Ron Klain: We need to talk about Joe: "To preserve President Biden's legacy, the party has to find another candidate."

• Seymour Hersh: [06-28] Who is running the country? "Biden's decline has been known to friends and insiders for months."

• David Ignatius: [06-28] Why Biden didn't accept the truth that was there for all to see: "If he has the strength and wisdom to step aside, the Democrats will have two months to choose another candidate."

• Stephanie Kaloi: [06-30] Pod Save America hosts defend themselves from Biden campaign's thinly veiled 'self-important podcasters' attack. They had been among Biden's most committed supporters in 2020, but turned on Biden for their Thursday-night podcast. For more, see:

  • Eugene Daniels: [06-30] Biden camp lashes out -- and Obama alums push back.

• Ed Kilgore:

  • [06-27] Biden needed to focus the debate on Trump and failed.

  • [06-28] The biggest decision of Joe Biden's life.

  • [06-28] How can Biden be replaced? A guide to Democrats' next steps.

  • [06-28] If Joe Biden isn't the Democrats' 2024 candidate, Kamala Harris will be. Updated, as he wrote this piece a while back.

  • [07-02] Will the trickle of Biden defections turn into a flood?

• Robert Kuttner: [06-28] A tarnished silver lining: "Biden was so inept that the case for replacing him is now overwhelming." And: "If this had happened in September, the usual month of the first debate, or if Biden had been a little less pathetic and had landed a few punches, we truly would have been screwed. Now, there is still time for Biden to step aside, and little doubt that he must."

• Chris Lehman: [06-28] Biden's record won't win him the election if he can't make sense for 2 minutes at a time: "At last night's debate, the president could hardly get through an answer to a question without seeming to get confused."

• Rachel Leingang: [06-28] 'Defcon 1 moment': Biden's debate performance sends Democrats into panic.

• Eric Levitz: [06-27] Democrats can and should replace Joe Biden: "A comatose Joe Biden would make a better president than Donald Trump." "But Biden's senescence spoke louder than Trump's mendacity."

• Branko Marcetic: [06-28] Democrats can no longer pretend Biden is fit to be president.

• Harold Meyerson: [06-28] The Democrats must dump Biden. Here's how.

• Joe Navarro: [06-28] A body language expert watched the debate. Here's what he noticed. Subheds: Biden's age was clear from the first step he took onstage; Trump's tan made Biden look pale; What can I even say about Biden's body language?; Both candidates' eyelids fluttered -- but for different reasons; Trump has a tell: his lips; Trump's fake smile is his shield.

• New York Times: [06-28] To serve his country, President Biden should leave the race. A surprising lack of both-sides-ism from the "paper of record" this time.

  • Frank Bruni: [06-28] Biden cannot go on like this.

  • Michelle Cottle/Ross Douthat/Ezra Klein: [06-28] Is Biden too old? America got its answer.

  • Maureen Dowd: [06-29] The ghasty vs. the ghostly: "In his misguided quest for a second term that would end when he's 86, he has succumbed to behavior redolent of Trump. And he is jeopardizing the democracy he says he wants to save."

  • Thomas L Friedman: [06-28] Joe Biden is a good man and a good president. He must bow out of the race.

  • Michelle Goldberg: [07-01] There's no reason to resign ourselves to Biden.

  • Patrick Healy: [06-27] I'm hearing high anxiety from Democrats over Biden's debate performance: "Biden is only three years older than Trump, but he looked and sounded 20 years older." Quotes Frank Luntz: "If Trump talks less, he wins. If Biden doesn't stop talking, he loses." Luntz's verdict? "This is an unmitigated disaster for the Democrats."

  • Nicholas Kristof: [06-27] President Biden, I've seen enough.

  • Paul Krugman: [06-28] The best president of my adult life needs to withdraw.

  • Lydia Polgreen: [06-28] Kamala Harris could win this election. Let her.

• Heather Digby Parton: [07-01] The drop out debate: Biden has already lost a big part of the battle.

• Justin Peters: [06-28] The other disaster at the debate: "CNN has escaped much notice for its performance on Thursday. It shouldn't."

• Nia Prater: [06-27] Biden stalls out in particularly bad debate moment.

• Andrew Prokop: [06-28] 2 winners and 2 losers from the first Biden-Trump debate: "If the debate ends with your own party debating whether you should quit the race, you lost." Aside from the obvious, the other Loser was "Substantive issues," while for balance the other Winner was "Kamala Harris."

• David Remnick: [06-29] The reckoning of Joe Biden: "For the President to insist on remaining the Democratic candidate would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangement." Editor of The New Yorker and pretty staunchly in Biden's camp, breaks ranks but decided to both-sides this, by also publishing:

  • Jay Caspian Kang: [06-30] The case for Joe Biden staying in the race: "The known bad candidate is better than the chaos of the unknown." Hard not to laugh at this one. How much risk can their be in replacing Biden with a younger but seasoned and predictable political hack? The only "chaos of the unknown" (besides Trump) is never knowing when Biden is going to freeze up or flub some line or trip and fall, in certain knowledge that any time such a thing happens -- and it's almost certain to happen multiple times -- the media are going to fixate on Biden's age. On the other hand, take Biden out of the equation, and pretty soon Trump's going to look awful old, and the media are already primed to focus on that.

• Eugene Robinson: [07-01] Biden's 2024 survival requires a lot more than hope.

• Nathan J Robinson:

  • [06-28] Biden must go: "Joe Biden is simply not up to the task of taking on Donald Trump. Trump presents a major threat to the country, and Biden's insistence on running is risking a catastrophe."

  • [07-01] The Biden excuse machine kicks into gear: "There is a massive PR effort afoot to convince us to stay aboard a sinking ship."

• David Rothkopf: [06-28] It's time. Biden needs to say to Harris, "it's your turn now."

• Greg Sargent: [06-28] What Joe Biden really owes the country right now: "There's no sugarcoating the debate, which was a disaster."

• Walter Shapiro: [06-27] Joe Biden is facing the biggest decision of his political career: "Can he beat Trump and save American democracy? If not, he should step aside."

• Alex Shephard: [06-27] Ditch Biden. That debate performance was a disaster. "He failed on every level."

• Bill Scher: [06-28] A wasted opportunity for Biden (but still time for redemption): "Ronald Reagan overcame a bad debate that triggered panic about his age. Here's how Biden can do the same." He's long established himself as Biden's most devoted advocate among the Washington punditocracy, so any chink in his defense must be telling. He is surely right that if Democrats stick with Biden, he still might win the election. But the ticket to winning the election is to make it about Trump, and in order to do that, the one thing he really has to do is to not let it be about him. Moreover, if his ineptness is tied to age -- and that's by far the easiest explanation, one that most of us understand to be probable -- the expectation is that it will only get worse. It may have been unfair and unreasonable to obsess so much over Biden's age before the debate, but now that we've all seen him falter the way he did, every future stumble is going to be magnified even more: it's like the zit you never noticed before, but now you can't avert your eyes from. Reagan may have been the closest analogue, but his case isn't a very good one. Old as he was, he was still significantly younger than Biden. He was much more practiced at wearing makeup and delivering prefab lines. And he was just a front man for Evil, Inc., whereas Biden's cast as the leader in the valiant struggle to save democracy. So while Scher hasn't disappointed me in being the last rat to jump ship, that even he is sniffing the panic is surely telling.

• Rebecca Solnit: [06-28] The true losers of this presidential debate were the American people: No more substance to this review than in the debate she strained to lampoon, the sole point of comparison being their voices: Biden "in a hoarse voice said diligent things that were reasonably true and definitely sincere," vs. Trump "in a booming voice said lurid things that were flamboyantly untrue." For the latter, she cites the Guardian's Factchecked: Trump and Biden's presidential debate claims.

• Jeffrey St Clair: [07-03] Biden in the Bardo.

• Stuart Stevens: [06-29] Democrats: Stop panicking. Lincoln Project adviser, still a staunch "never Trumper."

• Matt Stieb: [06-27] Joe Biden's voice sounded horrible at the debate.

• Margaret Sullivan: [06-28] Even factchecking Trump's constant lies probably wouldn't have rescued Biden.

• Michael Tomasky: [06-28] Is there a good reason not to panic? Well, no, not really. "Sticking with Joe Biden always seemed like the least bad option. Last night, that changed."

• Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [06-28] Forget the old jokes, foreign policy was the real debate horror.

• Washington Post:

  • [06-27] Ninety minutes of pain: "The style of Thursday's debate threatens to overshadow the substance."

  • [06-28] Hiow Biden and the Democrats should think through what to do now.

• Democracy Now! [06-28] "Step aside Joe": After first pres. debate, Democrats reeling from Biden's missteps & Trump lies: Interview with Chris Lehman and Norman Solomon.

Debate tweets:

• Zachary D Carter: Donald Trump is delivering the second-worst presidential debate performance I've ever seen.

Election notes:

• 538/ABC News: [06-25] New York, Colorado and Utah primaries 2024: Bowman loses, Boebert wins.

• Karen J Greenberg/Julian Zelizer: [06-27] The threats to election 2024: the fragile state of American democracy. The authors edited a forthcoming [07-30] book on the subject: Our Nation at Risk: Election Integrity as a National Security Issue

• Ed Kilgore: [06-27] One good primary night doesn't signal a moderate comeback: Still he's happy a couple Trumpies lost their primary, and especially delighted to see Jamaal Bowman go down.

• Vox: [06-27] Facts on the ground: "We're here to help you understand the state of America on some of the most contested policy areas of the 2024 election." Articles:

  • Abdallah Fayyad: [06-27] Why do Americans always think crime is going up?

  • Eric Levitz: [06-27] The winners and losers of the Biden economy.

    1. Unemployment rapidly fell
    2. Real wages rose sharply for young workers, especially in low-wage sectors
    3. Homeowners prospered (at renters' expense)
    4. The stock market boomed
    5. The green economy swelled
    6. Many student debtors saw their loan balances shrink
    7. Fast food got pricier

    Conclusion: "The Biden economy works well (albeit not for everyone)."

  • Nicole Narea: [06-27] What two years without Roe looks like, in 8 charts.

  • Andrew Prokop: [06-27] Biden's border record: Trump's claims vs. reality.

Trump:

• Zack Beauchamp: [06-27] Donald Trump is getting away with it: "The debate proved that Donald Trump is still a threat to democracy. How have we lost sight of that?" Maybe because we've forgotten what democracy means, because we don't have one? What we have bears some resemblance to a market, but one very skewed towards wealth and their ability to manipulate consciousness through the media. Anyone can see that Trump would skew it even further toward his personal and partisan power, but the democracy he threatens is already gone -- so much so that lots of people just laugh when you whine about his specific threat.

• Jamelle Bouie: [06-11] There's a reason Trump has friends in high places.

• Jonathan Chait:

  • [06-17] Trump's tariff is a scheme to shift the tax burden to the non-rich: "Why do we keep calling this 'populism'?"

  • [06-18] Trump adviser admits he lost China trade war: "He's going to lose the next one, too."

  • [06-23] Why conservatives should vote for Joe Biden: "A liberal's plea to the rule-of-law right." Just found this in a tab I had meant to link to, or maybe I just mean ridicule? A lot of water over the dam since he wrote this. But even then law was never more than a nice-to-have-on-your-side for conservatives, who in any case much preferred force. And why does Chait think he has any cred with conservatives? Just because he's worked so hard to burn any bridges he had to the left?

• Dan Dinello: [06-26] Wooing MAGA billionaires, fascist felon Trump holds a fire sale on his potential presidency: Title language is a bit extreme, but the author opens with five paragraphs on the donor-funded rise of the Nazis in Germany, and you can't say that's irrelevant.

• Margaret Hartmann: The 6 most bizarre and baffling Trump-raly rants.

• Chris Lehman: [06-25] If leading CEOs aren't donating to Trump, it's because they don't need to.

• Will Leitch: [06-18] The Apprentice is the skeleton key to understanding Trump: Interview with Ramin Setoodeh, author of Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass.

• Li Zhou: [06-26] Trump's rumored VP shortlist, explained: "A rundown of the people auditioning for the job and what they bring to the ticket." Story updated from Feb. 9, still has seven candidates, although elsewhere I've just seen it whittled down to three (Burgum, Vance, Rubio; that omits the woman and three blacks). It's pretty clear Trump is shopping for dowry. Burgum has his own money. Vance is a front for Peter Thiel. Not sure who is behind Rubio, but it's pretty obvious he's a kept man.

And other Republicans:

• Zack Beauchamp: [06-18] Taking the right seriously: "On the Right tracks how the dreams of conservative intellectuals are becoming reality." This kicks off a newsletter, "On the Right," with one Jonathan Mitchell, thanks to whom "in just two years, the Comstock Act went from being a defunct 173 law to an existential threat to abortion rights in America." See this link:

  • Amy Littlefield: [04-26] The poison pill in the mifepristone lawsuit that could trigger a national abortion ban.

• Sidney Blumenthal: [06-25] Republicans have a ghoulish tactic to distract Trump's criminalilty.

• Colin Gordon: [06-25] The GOP attack on free lunch: "In an era of retrenchment in social policy, food assistance is becoming more generous and inclusive. But Republican politicians are attempting to gut one of the most popular programs: free school lunch."

• Sarah Jones:

  • [06-20] Christian nationalism marches on in Louisiana: They passed a law requiring schools to display the Ten Commandments.

  • [06-27] Hillbilly Shapeshifter: "Re-reading J.D. Vance's memoir."

• Kim Phillips-Fein: [06-04] The mandate for leadership, then and now: "The Heritage Foundation's 1980 manual aimed to roll back the state and unleash the free market. The 2025 vision is more extreme, and even more dangerous." This leads into a couple of related articles:

  • Robert L Borosage: [06-04] Why Trump's second victory would be worse: "There's now a real, organized effort to transform his resentments and impulses into policy. It's called Project 2025."

  • Gaby Del Valle: [06-04] Under a second Trump term, the DHS will be even harsher than before: "Project 2025 lays out a vision of a new immigration enforcement agency that will be more effective than ever in deporting, detaining, and denying entry to immigrants."

• Nia Prater: [06-18] Rudy Giuliani's financial woes are getting even worse.

• Jennifer Senior: American Rasputin: "Steve Bannon is still scheming. And he's still a threat to democracy." Article from 2022, dredge up, no doubt, to cheer him up in jail. Also, I guess:

  • Matt Stieb: [07-01] Steve Bannon is excited for his new platform (prison).

• Rebecca Traister: [06-17] How did Republican women end up like this? "The baffling, contradictory demands of being female in the party of Donald Trump."

Biden and/or the Democrats:

• Jonathan Alter: [06-28] How the Democrats should replace Biden: This seems ok to me, aside from the snootiness of dismissing Sanders and Warren out of hand and seeking to ban "anyone from the Squad." That they've already limited the electorate to Biden's hand-picked supporters is rigged enough without having to rub it in.

• Aaron Blake:

  • [06-28] 10 options if Democrats actually try to replace Biden: Ten names, none of which I see much reason to get excited about.

  • [07-03] A shift in how Democrats talk about Biden's dropping out: "It's subtle, but it's unmistakable."

• Abdallah Fayyad: [06-29] LBJ and Truman knew when to quit. Will Biden? "Some lessons from the two presidents who walked away."

• Margaret Hartmann: [07-01] All the gossip on the Biden family's postdebate blame game.

• David Klion: [06-19] The lifelong incoherence of Biden's Israel strategy: "The president's muddled policy course in the Middle East is angering voters across the political spectrum -- and it could usher Trump back into the White House."

• Eric Levitz:

  • [06-19] Biden's ads haven't been working. Now, he's trying something new. Written before the debate: "President Joe Biden's odds of reelection may be worse than they look. And they don't look great."

  • [06-28] How Democrats got here: "Democrats really need to choose electable vice presidents." This might have gone deep into the sorry history of vice presidents and vice-presidential candidates, few of whom could be described as "electable" -- at least as Levitz defines it to exclude Biden and Harris, which is the point of his article.

    Unfortunately, the last two Democratic presidents did not prioritize political chops when selecting their veeps.

    Barack Obama didn't choose Joe Biden because he thought that the then-Delaware senator would make a great Democratic nominee in 2016. To the contrary, by most accounts, Obama thought that Biden would be a totally nonviable candidate by the time his own hypothetical presidency ended. And he reportedly selected Biden precisely for that reason. . . .

    Biden's choice of Kamala Harris in 2020 was even more misguided. When he made that choice in August 2020, there was little basis for believing that Harris was one of the most politically formidable Democrats in the country.

    There's a lot that could be said about this, most of which comes back to the poor conception of the office (both in the Constitution and when revised after the emergence of political parties led to the 1800 fiasco and the 12th Amendment). The VP has to do three things, which require three very different skill sets, especially since the presidency has grown into this ridiculous imperial perch: they have to add something to the campaign (e.g., "Tippecanoe and Tyler too"); once elected, they have to behave themselves innocuously, for which they are sometimes given busy work (LBJ's Space Race, Pence's Space Force, Gore's Reinventing Government) or sometimes just locked in a closet (remember John Nance Garner?); and if the president dies, they're thrust into a role they were rarely prepared for, with no real, personal political mandate (some, like Tyler and Andrew Johnson, were wretched; a few, like Teddy Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, thrived; but most were just mediocre, including the two others who went on to win full terms: Calvin Coolidge and Harry Truman).

    I accept that Obama's pick of Biden was part of a deal to give the 2016 nomination to Hillary Clinton. The Clintons had turned the Democratic Party into a personality cult. Obama rode a popular backlash against that, but Obama was no revolutionary: he wanted to lead, but was willing to leave the Party to the Clintons. We now know that wasn't such a good idea, but after a very divisive primary, in the midst of economic and military disaster, it was at least understandable.

    The Harris nomination made at least as much sense in 2024. The "little basis" line is unfair and inaccurate. She won statewide elections in the most populous and most expensive state in the country. Her resume entering 2016 was similar to and every bit as strong as Obama's in 2008. She had enough financial backing to organize a top-tier presidential campaign. She floundered, because (unlike Obama) she was outflanked on the left (Sanders and Warren), while hemmed in on the right (Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Bloomberg, and Biden). But she wasn't incompetent (like Biden already was), and her position and standing made her the logical choice to unite the party. And sure, her affirmative action points may have helped a bit with the left -- at least she wasn't another Tim Kaine, or Al Gore -- without the tokenism raising any hackles with the donors.

    Sure, Harris polls poorly now, but that's largely because Biden never put her to good use: she could have taken a more prominent role in cajoling Congress, which would have given her opportunities to show her mettle fighting Republicans, and she could have spelled Biden on some of those high-profile foreign trips (especially confabs like G7 and NATO); instead, they stuck her with the tarbaby border issue. Having wasted those opportunities, I can see wanting to go with some other candidate, one with a bit more distance from Biden. But I'm not convinced that she would be a weak, let alone losing, candidate. And while I give her zero credit for those affirmative action tick boxes, I can't see holding them against her, either. And as for the people who would, well, they were going to vote for Trump anyway, so why appease them?

• Nicole Narea:

  • [06-18] What to know about Biden's new plan to legalize US citizens' undocumented family members.

  • [06-28] The Democrats who could replace Biden if he steps aside. Not a very long list here.

• Evan Osnos: [06-29] Biden gets up after his debate meltdown: Good. But are people talking about that, or the meltdown? Even if they could flip the message back to "Biden's really ok," that would still be a huge deficit. We need people talking about how awful Trump is. Even if you can't impress on many people how bad his policies are, he gives you lots of other things you can fixate on.

• Christian Paz:

  • [06-26] We rewatched the 2020 Trump-Biden debates. There's so much we didn't see coming. "The five most telling moments and what they foreshadow ahead of this week's rematch."

    1. Trump calls the 2020 election rigged and doesn't commit to accepting the results
    2. Roe v. Wade is nearly forgotten
    3. Trump gets defensive on immigration
    4. No one is worried about inflation
    5. Everyone is worried about Russia, Ukraine, or China, but for the wrong reasons

  • [06-26] What about Kamala? "The vice president has taken on an expanded role in the last few months. Now Biden needs her more than ever."

• Rick Perlstein: [07-03] Say it ain't so, Joe: "With democracy itself on the ballot, a statesman with charactger would know when to let go of power."

• Andrew Prokop: [06-28] Will Biden be the nominee? 3 scenarios for what's next.

• Bryan Walsh: [07-01] Democrats say Trump is an existential threat. They're not acting like it. "If the stakes of the 2024 election are as great as the party says, there's no excuse for inaction."

Legal matters and other crimes:

• Ian Millhiser: He is my first stop for whatever the Supreme Court does, so I figured I should list him first here, especially as the last couple weeks have been exceptionally dreadful, even for this Court. [PS: Note especially today's Trump immunity decision.]

  • [06-17] What can Democrats actually do about Thomas's and Alito's corruption? "Nothing, unless they win the election."

  • [06-20] The Supreme Court's new tax decision is great news for billionaires: "Most of the justices voted not to blow up the US tax code, but the opinion has bad news for progressive proponents of wealth taxes."

  • [06-21] The Supreme Court refuses to accept blame for its worst guns decision: "US v. Rahimi is completely incoherent, and it faults lower courts for the justices' own incompetence."

  • [06-24] The Supreme Court will decide if the government can ban transgender health care.

  • [06-25] Louisiana wants the Ten Commandments in public schools. Will the Supreme Court let it? "Probably."

  • [06-26] The Supreme Court hands an embarrassing defeat to America's Trumpiest court.

  • [06-26] The Supreme Court's new abortion decision, explained: "The leaked decision is not a victory for abortion rights."

  • [06-27] The Supreme Court just lit a match and tossed it into dozens of federal agencies: "SEC v. Jarkesy could render much of the federal government unable to function."

  • [06-28] The Supreme Court just made a massive power grab it will come to regret.

  • [06-28] Why the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of over 300 January 6 insurrectionists: "The rules governing statutory construction often allow judges to choose how they want to read a law."

  • [07-01] The Supreme Court's disastrous Trump immunity decision, explained: "The Court's Trump immunity decision is a blueprint for dictatorship."

  • [07-01] The Supreme Court also handed down a hugely important First Amendment cas today: "A few minutes before the Court held that Trump was allowed to do crimes, it did hand Republicans a meaningful loss."

• Meher Ahmad: [06-28] The Court forces America's homeless to stay awake or be arrested.

• Kate Aronoff: [06-28] This is why the Supreme Court shouldn't try to do the EPA's job: "Conservative justices this week confused nitrous oxide with nitrogen oxides and then insisted that they, not the EPA, were the final word on environmental regulations."

• Rachel Barkow: [06-29] The Imperial Court: "SCOTUS's decision to overturn Chevron amounts to a massive power grab."

• Rachel M Cohen: [06-28] What a big new Supreme Court decision could mean for homeless Americans: "The Grants Pass v. Johnson decision does not spell the end to fights over ten encampments in America."

• Moira Donegan:

  • [06-21] Rightwing cases built on made-up stories keep making it to the US Supreme Court: "Again and again, the conservative movement promotes cases based on inaccuracies, falsehoods and outright deceptions."

  • [06-27] The US supreme court just basically legalized bribery.

• Matt Ford: [06-28] The Supreme Court upends the separation of powers: "Killing off Chevron deference, the court moves power to the judicial branch, portending chaos."

• Steven Greenhouse: [06-28] Most Americans have no idea how anti-worker the US supreme court has become.

• Elie Honig:

  • [06-28] Why the Supreme Court just threw hundreds of January 6 convictions into doubt.

  • [07-01] 6 takeaways from the Supreme Court's decision on Trump and presidential immunity.

• Ed Kilgore: [06-18] Tax dollars are now funding Christian-nationalist schools.

• Ruth Marcus: [07-01] God save us from this dishonorable court: "An egregious, unconscionable ruling on presidential immunity from the Supreme Court."

• Anna North: [05-25] Pregnancy in America is starting to feel like a crime: "The ripple effects of the fall of Roe extend far beyond abortion."

• Alexandra Petri: [07-01] The Supreme Court rules to restore the monarchy. I've seen several people make this allusion, but I think the inaccuracies undermine its usefulness. If it sticks, I suppose I'll have to explain why.

• James Risen: The Supreme Court wants a dictator. Now this is more accurate. Much of the right wants a dictator. How to get there from a nominal democracy is what this is very much about. (That's why the Orban model looms so large among right-wing sophisticates.) Monarchies, on the other hand, are rarely anywhere near as dictatorial as the right wants, but they are hereditary (which, as far as I can tell, is attractive to Trump, but not on anyone else's agenda).

• Jeffrey St Clair: [06-28] The end of innocence: Railroading Marcellus Williams to death row.

• Jesse Wegman: [06-28] Businesses cheer their new freedom to violate regulations.

• Jason Willick: [07-03] Don't like the Supreme Court's immunity ruling? Blame Merrick Garland.

• James D Zirin: [07-02] This horrible Supreme Court term: "Kneecapping the administrative state, making bribery great again, immunizing presidents, and legislating from the bench -- the justices really earned their motorcoach and fishing vacations."

Climate and environment:

• Tom Engelhardt: [06-30] Welcome to heat-dome America: "The true catastrophe of our times."

• Ellen Ioanes: [06-25] Why this year's Hajj was so deadly: "More than 1,300 people died during the pilgrimage to Islam's holiest site -- but is's not just because of heat."

• Umair Irfan: [07-01] How Hurricane Beryl became exactly what scientists expected: "The storm spun into a Category 4 hurricane in less than 24 hours. It's a terrifying preview of what the season could bring."

  • Emiliano Rodriguez Mega: [07-01] Hurricane Beryl flattens Grenada's Carriacou Island.

  • Matthew Cappucci, et al.: [07-01] Hurricane Beryl at Category 5 strength after making landfall in Caribbean. The projected path is to continue west across the Caribbean, crossing Jamaica and the Yucatan Peninsula before entering the Gulf of Mexico.

  • Olivia Rosane: [07-03] Hurricane Beryl leaves 'complete devastation' in its wake.

Economic matters:

• Dean Baker:

  • [06-17] We can't have a new paradigm as long as people think the old one was free-market fundamentalism. He's on solid ground pointing out that most profits in our current economy are effectively rigged by monopolies (either government-minted, like patents, facilitated through favors, or just tolerated with lax enforcement), it's less clear to me what this is about:

    • Farah Stockman: [06-17] The queen bee of Bidenomics: On Jennifer Harris. Back when Trump started flirting with tariffs, I tried to make the point that tariffs only make sense if they are exercised in concert with a coherent economic development plan. Biden has, somewhat fitfully, moved in that direction, so that, for instance, tariffs and content rules can be seen as nurturing domestic production of EVs, helping the US develop them into world-class exports, as opposed to simply providing shelter for high prices (which was the net effect of Trump's corrupt favoritism). Whether this amounts to a paradigm shift is arguable, as government sponsorship of private industry has always been part of the neoliberal position (most obviously in arms and oil).

  • [06-20] NAFTA: The great success story: Compares Mexican-to-American GDP figures since 1980, showing that the gap has increased since NAFTA, putting Mexicans even more behind. What would be helpful here is another chart showing income inequality in both countries. It has certainly increased in the US since NAFTA, and probably in Mexico as well.

• Kevin T Dugan: [06-18] Nvidia is worth as much as all real estate in NYC -- and 9 other wild comparisons.

• Corey Robin: [06-29] Hayek, the accidental Freudian: "The economist was fixated on subconscious knowledge and dreamlike enchantment -- even if he denied their part in this relationships."

Ukraine War and Russia:

• Blaise Malley:

  • [06-21] Diplomacy Watch: Negotiations appear as elusive as ever.

  • [06-28] Diplomacy Watch: The slow drip of US escalation: "Will Biden deploy military contractors to Ukraine?"

• Andrew Cockburn: [06-25] In destroying Ukraine's power grid the Russians are following our lead.

• Ivana Nikolic Hughes/Peter Kuznick: [06-27] Prolonging the Ukraine war is flirting with nuclear disaster.

• Anatol Lieven: [06-19] Yes, we can reconcile absurd Russian & Ukrainian peace plans: "Details emerging about talks to end the war in 2022 highlight the fact that time isn't on Kyiv's side."

• Aaron Maté: [06-27] New evidence US blocked Ukraine-Russia peace deal, and a new Ukrainian excuse for walking away.

• Zachary Paikin: [06-26] US contractors in Ukraine: Another 'red line' crossing?

• Trudy Rubin: [06-26] Ukraine's head of military intelligence is behind Kyiv's biggest victories this year. He sees no point in peace talks. I rarely read her, because she's so ideologically pro-war, always flogging hawkish propaganda lines, sniping at anyone who doubts her causes or simply admits that they come with costs, disparaging any who even consider negotiation. So it was no surprise that she jumped on the Ukraine bandwagon. Nor am I surprised that she's going out of her way to find kindred warriors in Ukraine to champion. But I had to read this one, because I wasn't aware that Kyiv had any "biggest victories this year," or, well, any victories. But if you only care about war, and are utterly indifferent to costs, you can celebrate the sort of stunts Kyrylo Budanov claims credit for. At best, they are minor irritants that Putin should weigh in as one more reason to negotiate peace. On the other hand, to whatever extent Zelensky and Biden see them as "victories," they may harden their resolve to prolong the war and not negotiate, and they may also provoke further offenses by Russia.

America's empire and the world:

• Gordon Adams: [06-21] Time to terminate US counterterrorism programs in Africa: "They don't work, they don't achieve the projected goals, they waste funds, and they are counter-productive."

• Zack Beauchamp: [06-28] France's far right is on the brink of power. Blame its centrist president. "How Emmanuel Macron accidentally helped the far right normalize itself."

• David Broder: [07-01] Emmanuel Macron has handed victory to the far right: "Marine Le Pen's allies celebrated a major advance in the opening round of France's elections. Emmanuel Macron's snap election gamble was a miscalculation -- but the far right's rise is also a product of his whole presidency."

• Dan Grazier: [06-27] The US military chases shiny new things and the ranks suffer: "We were told the Osprey, LCS, and F-35 were cutting edge, but they turned out to be boondoggles and deathtraps." Possible saving grace here is that the pursuit of profits among US weaponsmakers is making their wares too expensive and inefficient to operate, even for nations that got snookered into buying them as some sort of tribute.

• Marc Martorell Junyent: [06-26] Europe: The onslaught of the far right.

• Stavroula Pabst: [07-01] Former NSA chief revolves through OpenAI's door: "General Nakasone was just appointed tot he board."

• James Park/Mark Episkopos: [06-19] Putin and Kim in Pyongyang, making it 'strategic'. More proof that even enemies want to have friends, and that the US is pushing all of its "enemies" into each other's arms. Really, how hard would it be to cut a deal with North Korea to isolate Russia? On the other hand, keeping North Korea hostile seems to pay off in arms sales to South Korea and Japan:

  • James Park/Artin Dersimonian: [06-21] South Korea hits back against Putin-Xi defense pact.

• Trita Parsi: [06-28] Iran elections hinge on price of meat not ideology: "Regardless of who wins, the election will not likely have a significant impact on Iran's regional policies." More on Iran:

  • Sina Azodi: [06-27] Iran's Khamanei rebukes candidates 'attached to America'.

  • Graham E Fuller: [07-01] Iran-Bahrain talks on horizon signal more sunset on US hegemony: "Evidence that Washington can no longer dictate the order of enemies in the Middle East."

  • Current Affairs: [06-26] What Americans don't know about Iran: Interview with John Ghazvinian, author of "the indispensable study" America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present.

• Ishaan Tharoor:

  • [06-28] The twilight of Macronism: "In the upcoming parliamentary elections in France, no realistic scenario looks good for French President Emmanuel Macron."

  • [06-21] Israel's Netanyahu is at war with almost everyone.

  • [06-19] Scorching heat waves test a climate-changing world's resilience: "In many ways, the climate disaster is already here."

• Nick Turse:

  Cheap and leathal: the Pentagon's plan for the next drone war.

  • After training African coup leaders, Pentagon blames Russia for African coups.

Other stories:

Noam Chomsky: Briefly in the news after false reports that he had died at 95 -- see Brett Wilkins: [06-18] Manufacturing Obituaries: Media falsely reports Noam Chomsky's death -- which led to a quick burst of posts, including a couple of his own, still vibrant and still relevant:

• [06-23] The eve of destruction: Reprint, originally from 2013.

• [05-05] Eyeless in Gaza: Reprint, originally from April, 2010.

William Hartung: [06-25] An AI Hell on Earth? Silicon Valley and the rush toward automated warfare.

Sean Illing: [06-23] What nuclear annihilation could look like: "The survivors would envy the dead." Interview with Annie Jacobsen, author of Nuclear War: A Scenario.

Joshua Keating: [06-16] The world is running out of soldiers: Good. Soldiering is a losing proposition, no matter what side you think you are on. I'm not sure that Keating is right that "wars are getting more common and militaries are building up." I'll grant that war business is booming, and that the costs -- both to wage and to suffer war -- are way up, but aren't costs supposed to be self-limiting? One cost, which is finding people dumb and/or desperate enough to enlist, certainly is, and that's a good thing. Somehow some related pieces popped up:

• Jack Hunter: [06-18] Congress moves to make Selective Service automatic: "Raising the specter of the draft, this NDAA amendment seems ill-timed." Actually, no one's advocating to bring back the draft. All the amendment does is simplifying the paperwork by leaving it to the government to sign people up, giving people one less awful thing to do. Simpler still would be to eliminate registration, and the whole useless bureaucracy behind it.

• Edward Hasbrouck: [06-29] A war draft today can't work. Let us count the ways.

Jacob Kushner: [06-23] The best plan to help refugees might also be the simplest: "More refugees live in cities. Could cash help them rebuild their lives?"

Dave Lindorff: [06-28] Assange is finally free as America, Britain, Sweden and Australia are shamed.

• Katharine Gun: [06-27] Julian Assange and the continuing threats to journalism.

• Ellen Ioanes: [06-25] Julian Assange's release is still a lose-lose for press freedom.

• James Risen: Like Julian Assange, I know how it feels to be prosecuted for acts of journalism.

• Ishaah Tharoor: [06-26] The joy and rage over Assange's released.

Also, some writing on music:

David A Graham: Doug Emhoff, first jazz fan: "The second gentleman gets the beauty and meaning of the genre."

Chris Monsen:

• [06-19] Midweek pick, June 19th, 2024: Okka Disk: A reminder of Bruno Johnson's Milwaukee-based avant-jazz label, noting that "perhaps a deep dive into their output would be in order at a later date." For what little it's worth, I started working on Ken Vandermark & Friends: A Consumer Guide back around 2004, as it seemed like a good follow up to my A Consumer Guide to William Parker, Matthew Shipp, et al., but I didn't get very far. My database does contain 66 albums released by Okka Disk, 55 with grades, of which the following rated A- or higher:

  • Jim Baker/Steve Hunt/Brian Sandstrom/Mars Williams: Extraordinary Popular Delusions (2005 [2007])
  • Peter Brötzmann/Toshinori Kondo/Massimo Pupillo/Paal Nilssen-Love: Hairy Bones (2008 [2009])
  • Caffeine [Ken Vandermark]: Caffeine (1993 [1994])
  • FME [Vandermark]: Underground (2004)
  • FME: Cuts (2004 [2005])
  • Triage [Dave Rempis]: Twenty Minute Cliff (2003)
  • Triage: American Mythology (2004) [A]
  • School Days [Vandermark]: Crossing Division (2000)
  • School Days: In Our Times (2001 [2002])
  • Steelwool Trio [Vandermark]: International Front (1994 [1998])
  • Ken Vandermark/Kent Kessler/Ingebrigt Håker Flaten/Nate McBride/Wilbert De Joode: Collected Fiction (2008 [2009])

• [06-26] Midweek pick, June 26th, 2024: Gayle, Graves and Parker's WEBO: What I'm listening to to calm my nerves while writing about Gaza and Biden.

Phil Overeem: June 2024: Halfway there + "old reggae albums I'd never heard before were my June salvation."

Robert Sullivan: [06-24] The Sun Ra Arkestra's maestro hits one hundred: "Marshall Allen, the musical collective's sax-playing leader, is celebrating with a deep-spacey video installation during the Venice Biennale."

Werner Trieschmann: [06-20] Fox Green score hat trick with excellent third album, Light Over Darkness.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, June 26, 2024

June archive (final).

Music: Current count 42549 [42503] rated (+46), 22 [22] unrated (+0).

Updated: look for change bar below.

I perhaps foolishly agreed to write up an article on William Parker, this year's deserving recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award, and a feature evening of performances, at the 2024 Vision Festival, in New York last week. I figured I could dust off the Parker/Shipp Consumer Guide I wrote up back in 2003, and add a few odds and ends about later albums. It turned out not to be not quite that simple.

For one thing, when I finally rounded up all the reviews I had written on albums he had played on, the count came to 249. I then had to go back and check for false positives (the 2003 CG also included albums with Shipp but no Parker, and a few extras by artists in their circle), and for omissions. In this, I was massively aided by being able to consult Rick Lopez's William Parker Sessionography, but I was also slowed by its completeness and accumulation of fascinating detail. Back in the notes for my 2003 CG, I collected a select but fairly extensive discogrpahy. As I needed something similar to keep track of what I was doing, I started to update it, and that wound up taking a lot of time.

By last Thursday, I had gotten so flustered and panicked that I decided I had to give up trying to multitask and just focus on the Parker essay. I had started to write some introductory comments for the week's Speaking of Which, so I stopped there, and vowed to do no more until the piece was done. (I'm belatedly posting that introduction today, but with no news links or comments. Second, I resolved to only play Parker albums until I finished. I later relaxed that to allow myself to play and review albums I hadn't heard before, which is where most of the albums below came from.

I finally sent the essay in yesterday. No word yet on when (or I suppose if) it will be published. I decided that the best way to proceed from here is to post the partial Speaking of Which intro (which already had a sequence number) along with the Music Week reviews, then start on new blog posts for the usual dates next week. Of course, it's never that simple. This also turns out to be the last Music Week in June, so I have to wrap up one month's Streamnotes archive, and open up another.

I also have a jammed up pile of other work I need to crack on with, more email problems, plus home tasks, health troubles, etc. More stuff in flux, but I've droned on enough for here and now.

New records reviewed this week:

Fox Green: Light Over Darkness (2024, self-released): Alt/indie band from Little Rock, third album since 2020, Wade Derden is the singer and co-writer with Cam Patterson, both on guitar (and mandolin), backed with keyboards, bass, and drums, the production detailed but not cluttered with bits of horns, strings, and backup singers. First take suggests a clear distillation of the Allmans, but that may just be for lack of comparable referents, for what they lack in guitar power they make up for ballad touch and song smarts -- the latter drawing on Jesus, the Devil, and Sleepy John Estes. A- [cd]

Joel Futterman/William Parker: Why (2020 [2024], Soul City Sounds): Piano and bass duo. Futterman started in Chicago, moved to Virginia Beach in 1972, and started recording in 1979, becoming increasingly prolific in the 1990s. He's a very distinctive pianist, and Parker is as robust as ever. B+(***) [sp]

Andrea Grossi Blend 3 + Jim Black: Axes (2023 [2024], We Insist!): Italian bassist, second group album with Manuel Caliumi (alto sax) and Michele Bonifati (guitar), plus a drummer this time -- a really good one. B+(***) [sp]

Jared Hall: Influences (2022 [2024], Origin): Trumper player, based in Seattle, third album, quartet with piano (Tal Cohen), bass (Michael Glynn), and drums (John Bishop), playing originals plus one tune from Gigi Gryce. B+(***) [cd]

Jihee Heo: Flow (2023 [2024], OA2): South Korean pianist, studied in Amsterdam before landing in New York, second album, mostly trio (Alexander Claffy and Joe Farnsworth), nicely done, with a bonus: Vincent Herring (alto sax) joining for two tracks. B+(**) [cd]

Arushi Jain: Delight (2024, Leaving): Based in Brooklyn, plays synths and sings, having trained in India as a classical vocalist, is interested in "instrument design and sonic experimentation with a focus on linking western and eastern musicology." Result is you're engulfed in thick layers of sonic texture, searching for even the faintest hint of beat, which is faint indeed. B- [sp]

Kneecap: Fine Art (2024, Heavenly): Bilingual Irish hip-hop group from West Belfast (Mo Chara, Móglai Bap, DJ Próval), billed as their first album (aside from an 8-song, 31:03, self-released mixtape from 2021). Sounded more post-punk at first, but the cadences eventually signify, and the energy is compounded. Words? Hell if I know, but they have a rep as political. A- [sp]

Jim Kweskin: Never Too Late: Duets With Friends (2024, Storysound): Folksinger and guitarist, best known for his 1963-70 Jug Band, which introduced us to Geoff & Maria Muldaur -- she is the first of his featured friends here to appear here. Lots of friends, lots of songs. B+(***) [sp]

Jon Langford: Gubbins (2023, self-released): This seems to be an "odds & sods" compilation -- "songs that fell between the cracks" -- but without further documentation we might as well treat it as a new album. Eleven songs, 45:29, all interesting, valuable, not quite essential. B+(***) [sp]

Jon Langford & the Bright Shiners: Where It Really Starts (2024, Tiny Global Productions): Nominally an Austin band (or maybe found in northern California), led by the peripatetic Welshman, offhandedly countryish. B+(**) [bc]

Joe McPhee With Ken Vandermark: Musings of a Bahamian Son: Poems and Other Words (2021 [2024], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Mostly as advertised, which is not something I often get into, but pretty interesting spoken word, with little bits of soprano sax by McPhee, or clarinet/bass clarinet by Vandermark, which are always welcome. B+(*) [bc]

Star Splitter [Gabriele Mitelli/Rob Mazurek]: Medea (2022 [2024], We Insist!): Trumpet players (alternatively cornet or pocket trumpet), also credited with electronics and voice, did an album together in 2019 called Star Splitter. Rather tough going. B [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Tony Oxley Quintet: Angular Apron (1992 [2024], Corbett vs. Dempsey): British avant-jazz drummer (1938-2023), his 1969 The Baptised Traveler is a Penguin Guide crown album, the piece here (64:42) dates from the early 1970s, this previously unreleased take from the Ruhr Jazz Festival, with Larry Stabbins (soprano/tenor sax), Manfred Schoof (trumpet/flugelhorn), Pat Thomas (piano/electronics), and Sirone (bass). B+(***) [bc]

Tomasz Stanko Quartet: September Night (2004 [2024], ECM): Polish trumpet player (1942-2018), well known even before the Iron Curtain fell, a spare live tape with what at the time was referred to as his "young Polish quartet," rather than stumbling over the names Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz, and Michal Miskiewicz. B+(***) [sp]

Mars Williams & Hamid Drake: I Know You Are but What Am I (1996 [2024], Corbett vs. Dempsey): The late saxophonist (1955-2023, credited here with "reeds"), started with Hal Russell and continued his NRG Ensemble after Russell's death, bringing in Ken Vandermark for reinforcements, leading to his work in the first edition of the Vandermark 5. Williams' avant-gardism branched out into rock and acid jazz (Liquid Soul), as well as more esoteric ventures (like multiple volumes of An Ayler Xmas). This tape with exceptional drums is just what friends and fans most remember him for. A- [bc]

Mars Williams/Darin Gray/Chris Corsano: Elastic (2012 [2024], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Leader credited with "reeds, toys," joined by bass and drums for an improv set (43:51). Peaks points are intense and thrilling. The same year Williams founded a similar trio, Boneshaker, with Kent Kessler and Paal Nilssen-Love. B+(***) [bc]

Old music:

Peter Brötzmann/William Parker/Hamid Drake: Song Sentimentale (2015 [2016], Otoroku): The bassist and drummer are inventive as ever, while the tenor saxophonist blasts away, even when he switches up on clarinet or tarogato. Nothing obviously sentimental about it. B+(***) [bc]

Rob Brown Trio: Breath Rhyme (1989, Silkheart): Alto saxophonist, first album as leader here (following a duo with Matthew Shipp), with William Parker (bass) and Denis Charles (drums). He has a distinctive tone and flow, which he would go on to use to great effect in Parker's quartets and other projects, in many other associated groups, and sometimes, as here, as a leader. B+(**) [r]

Rob Brown Quartet: The Big Picture (2003 [2004], Marge): Alto saxophonist, with Roy Campbell (trumpet), William Parker (bass), and Hamid Drake (drums). B+(**) [r]

Dave Cappello & Jeff Albert With William Parker: New Normal (2015 [2016], Breakfast 4 Dinner): Drummer, doesn't have much except for duo and quartet work with the trombonist (who I know mostly from a group he co-led with Jeb Bishop), but evidently he got started playing with guitarist Bern Nix (who goes back to the 1970s Loft Scene, but is best known for his work with Ornette Coleman, and maybe James Chance). So Nix, who died in 2017, might have provided a connection to Parker, who adds bass and wood flute, elevating everyone's game. B+(***) [sp]

Kevin Coyne/Jon Langford/The Pine Valley Cosmonauts: One Day in Chicago (2002 [2005], Spinney): An oddball British singer-songwriter from the early 1970s, I'm surprised to only find one of his albums in my database (1974's Marjory Razor Blade, a B+, but a memorable one) as I'm sure I've heard more. He never made it big, but recorded pretty regularly up to his death in 2004, and surely rates a compilation, even if one would be hard-pressed to agree on a "best of." At this point I have no idea whether it would improve on this delightful live set, with a band of fans he found in Chicago. B+(***) [sp]

Jeremy Danneman: Lady Boom Boom (2013 [2015], Ropeadope): Saxophonist, played alto, tenor, clarinet, and more in three sessions that produced as many albums, released on a label that appreciates a good groove and is careless about who played what when in which order. But the personnel could do that and more: William Parker (not just bass), Anders Nilsson (guitar), and Timothy Keiper (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Jeremy Danneman: Help (2013 [2015], Ropeadope): More from the same sessions. B+(**) [sp]

Jeremy Danneman: Lost Signals (2013 [2016], Ropeadope): Same group, same sessions for a third album, with groove appeal informed by third world interests. A- [sp]

Jeremy Danneman and Sophie Nzayisenga: Honey Wine (2015 [2017], Ropeadope): The saxophonist has an organization/project called "Parade of One," slogan "engaging the international community with street performance." He met Nzayisenga in Rwanda, where she plays inanga and sings, and arranged to bring her to New York to record. Visa problems delayed that until here, where they are joined by William Parker (bass) and Tim Keiper (drums). A groove delight. A- [sp]

Jeremy Danneman and the Down on Me: The Big Fruit Salad (2022, Ropeadope): One more album (so far), wrote and sung lyrics, which reduces the saxophone/clarinet. Also lost the bass and drums, so less groove to brag about, but Anders Nilsson returns on guitar, and Joe Exley's sousaphone saves with swing. For singer-songwriter comps, the first two that pop into mind are Thomas Anderson and Ed Hammel. He's not as good (or maybe I just mean as funny) as either, but he's interesting in similar ways. Choice cut: "Tomato." B+(*) [sp]

Die Like a Dog Quartet Featuring Roy Campbell: From Valley to Valley (1998 [1999], Eremite): Peter Brötzmann quartet, name derives from their 1993 album, originally with Toshinori Kondo (trumpet), William Parker (bass), and Hamid Drake (drums), but on this particular date -- recorded in Amherst, MA -- Campbell replaces Kondon on trumpet. B+(*) [sp]

Sophia Domancich/Hamid Drake/William Parker: Washed Away: Live at the Sunside (2008 [2009], Marge): French pianist, side credits start in 1983, with her first trio in 1991. Another trio here, as can happen when famous Americans wander about Europe. Set of three pieces: one joint credit, one from Mal Waldron, and no less than 36:37 of "Lonely Woman." B+(***) [sp]

Hamid Drake & Sabir Mateen: Brothers Together (2000 [2002], Eremite): Duo, Drake plays frame and trap drums, Mateen is credited with clarinets, flute, alto sax, tenor sax, vocals. Terrific. A- [sp]

Farmers by Nature [Gerald Cleaver/William Parker/Craig Taborn]: Love and Ghosts (2011 [2014], AUM Fidelity, 2CD): Drums-bass-piano trio, group name from their 2009 album, third group album, all pieces joint credits so presumably improvised, this from two days in France, 133 minutes. Long, some major high stretches. B+(***) [sp]

Peter Kuhn: Ghost of a Trance (1979-80 [1981], Hat Hut): Clarinet/saxophone player, was consistently excellent in William Parker circles 1978-81, vanished after that until 2015, when he released another series of superb albums. This combines two sessions, one fairly abstract 19:00 clarinet piece with Phillip Wilson on percussion and Parker on tuba, the other a more typical free jazz outing with Dave Sewelson on alto/bari sax, plus guitar, piano, and vibes (but no drums). B+(**) [yt]

Jon Langford & the Men of Gwent: The Legend of LL (2015, Country Mile): Mekons founder, moved from Leeds to Chicago in 1992 without severing his ties, but had already run through several side projects like the Three Johns and the Killer Shrews, adding the Waco Brothers and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts in Chicago. This group is described as "Newport-based" (but otherwise I don't know squat about them, but Newport seems to be Langford's original home town in Wales). This was their debut, and strikes me as not just fresher but wilder and woolier than their latest (which was first for me). A- [bc]

Jon Langford & the Men of Gwent: President of Wales (2019, Country Mile): If only the Waco Brothers had been Welsh. B+(***) [bc]

Jemeel Moondoc Quintet: Nostalgia in Times Square (1985 [1986], Soul Note): Alto saxophonist (1946-2021), his group Muntu made a splash in the late-1970s New York avant-garde, retains bassist William Parker here, joined by Rahn Burton (piano), Bern Nix (guitar), and Dennis Charles (drums). Title piece from Mingus. The others are credited to Moondoc, but "In Walked Monk" sounds kind of familiar (as in Monk's "In Walked Bud"), and "Dance of the Clowns" has at least a whiff of Mingus. B+(***) [r]

Jemeel Moondoc Vtet: Revolt of the Negro Lawn Jockeys (2000, Eremite): Alto saxophonist-led quintet, with Nethan Breedlove (trumpet), Khan Jamal (vibes), John Voigt (bass), and Cody Moffett (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Jemeel Moondoc & the Jus Grew Orchestra: Spirit House (2000, Eremite): The alto saxophonist conducts a strong group of horns here: trumpets (Lewis Barnes, Roy Campbell Jr.), trombones (Steve Swell, Tyrone Hill), saxophones (plus Zane Massey on tenor, Michael Marcus on baritone), with a guitar-bass-drums rhythm section (Bern Nix, John Voigt, Codaryl Moffett). Not quite a big band, but they pack a lot of power, fly free, and even swing some. A- [sp]

Jameel Moondoc With Dennis Charles: We Don't (1981 [2003], Eremite): Alto sax, with the drummer (1933-98, from Virgin Islands, also played with Billy Bang and Cecil Taylor). Challenging free jazz. B+(***) [sp]

Joe Morris/William Parker/Gerald Cleaver: Altitude (2011 [2012], AUM Fidelity): Guitar-bass-drums trio, with Parker switching to sintir (a Moroccan bass lute), live improv recorded one night at the Stone in NYC, four tracks stretched out to 72:27. B+(**) [sp]

William Parker & the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra: Mass for the Healing of the World (1998 [2003], Black Saint): The bassist's 15-piece big band, less brass and more sax, an explosive rhythm section (Cooper-Moore on piano, Susie Ibarra on drums, and Parker), plus vocalist Aleta Heyes for the mass-like bits (not many). A- [sp]

William Parker Quartet: Live in Wroclove (2012 [2013], ForTune): The bassist's "pianoless" quartet, which dates back at least to 2001's O'Neal's Porch, with two freewheeling horns -- Lewis Barnes' trumpet and Rob Brown's alto sax -- and great Hamid Drake on drums. So this is a great band, with some interesting music -- starting with a 47:33 set called "Kalaparusha Dancing on the Edge of the Horizon" -- but it's also a concert, where they pace themselves to set up the moments fans will recall. It's also kind of a big deal for a label that mostly documents the local scene -- in this case, better known as Wroclaw. But it's a tad less compelling than the group's studio albums. B+(***) [sp]

William Parker: For Those Who Are, Still (2000-13 [2013], AUM Fidelity, 3CD): By this time, Parker has become so prolific he's building boxes from scattered sets: this one is formally organized into three albums from five sessions: "For Fannie Hammer" from 2000; "Vermeer," with Leena Conquest, from 2011; "Red Giraffe With Dreadlocks," with Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, from 2012; a Charles Gayle trio, to open "Ceremonies for Those Who Are Still," with NFM Orchestra and Choir. A- [r]

William Parker/David Budbill: What I Saw This Morning 2014 [2016], AUM Fidelity): Budbill (1940-2016) was mostly a writer, posthumously named "the people's poet of Vermont," also wrote plays, two novels, a libretto, and recorded three albums of spoken word with William Parker providing the music, here mostly using his exotic instruments. Comparable to David Greenberger, but more intimate and personal. [Streamed 14/35 tracks.] B+(***) [bc]

The Cecil Taylor Unit: Live in Bologna (1987 [1988], Leo): Avant-pianist, group was his quintet (more or less, long defined by saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, who died in 1986, leaving a large gap for Carlos Ward to try to fill. Also with Leroy Jenkins (violin), William Parker (bass), and Thurman Baker (drums/marimba). Ward lurks until the rhythm drives him to deliver. A- [r]

The Cecil Taylor Unit: Live in Vienna (1987 [1988], Leo): Same group, recorded four days later, again one long piece, a bit longer at 71:21, but hacked up for the original 2-LP. While I understand that every performance is different, that doesn't make them all cost-effective, even at this level. B+(***) [r]

Cecil Taylor: Tzotzil Mummers Tzotzil (1987 [1988], Leo): The same group a week later in Paris, last stop on the tour, sandwiched between some poetry recorded a few days later in London. I find the poetry exceptionally hard to follow. B+(*) [sp]

David S. Ware Trio: Passage to Music (1988, Silkheart): Tenor saxophone great, started in the 1970s but didn't really take off until he organized this group, with William Parker (bass) and Marc Edwards (drums), soon to be a quartet with the addition of pianist Matthew Shipp. Already quite impressive. B+(***) [r]

David S. Ware Quartet: Cryptology (1994 [1995], Homestead): The one Quartet album that slipped past me, with Matthew Shipp (piano), William Parker (bass), and Whit Dickey (drums), as intense as any in a very remarkable series. This seems to have been where Steven Joerg entered the picture, before his AUM Fidelity label provided Ware and Parker a long-term home. A- [yt]

David S. Ware: Organica (Solo Saxophones, Volume 2) (2010 [2011], AUM Fidelity): Ware's kidneys started to fail in 1999, and he was near death ten years later when he was rescued by a kidney transplant. He died in 2012 of an infection fueled by immunosuppresant meds, but over his last couple years he recorded a wide variety of works, including two solo volumes -- Saturnian from late a late 2009 set, plus two sets here, each opening with a piece on sopranino sax, followed by one on tenor. Usual caveats apply, but interesting as these things go. B+(**) [r]

Grade (or other) changes:

Jon Langford & the Men of Gwent: Lost on Land & Sea (2023, Country Mile): The Waco Brothers return as a Welsh bar band. Multiple plays prove this to be tuneful and thoughtful but most of all consistent, so it's hard to fault the notion that this is a great album, but if it really was, wouldn't I have noticed by now? [was: B+(**)] B+(***) [bc]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Fox Green: Holy Souls (self-released '22)
• Fox Green: Light Darkness (self-released)
• Frank London/The Elders: Spirit Stronger Than Blood (ESP-Disk)
• Michael Pagán: Paganova (Capri) [07-19]
• Jerome Sabbagh: Heart (Analog Tone Factory) [08-30]
• Natsuki Tamura/Satoko Fujii: Aloft (Libra) [07-12]
• Thollem: Worlds in a Life, Two (ESP-Disk)

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Saturday, June 22, 2024

I woke up Thursday morning with my usual swirl of thoughts, but the one I most felt like jotting down is that I prefer to take an optimistic view of the 2024 elections, contrary to the prospect of doom and gloom many rational people fear. I find it impossible to believe that most Americans, when they are finally faced with the cold moment of decision, will endorse the increasingly transparent psychopathology of Donald Trump. Sure, the American people have been seduced by right-wing fantasy before, but Reagan and the Bushes tried to disguise their aims by spinning sunny yarns of a kinder, gentler conservatism.

Even Nixon, who still outranks Trump as a vindictive, cynical bastard, claimed to be preserving some plausible, old-fashioned normality. All Trump promises is "taking back" the nation and "making America great again": empty rhetoric lent gravity (if not plausability) by his unbridled malice toward most Americans. Sure, he got away with it in 2016, partly because many people gave him the benefit of doubt but also because the Clinton spell wore off, leaving "crooked Hillary" exposed as a shill for the money-grubbing metro elites. But given Trump's media exposure, both as president and after, the 2024 election should mostly be a referendum on Trump. I still can't see most Americans voting for him.

That doesn't mean Trump cannot win, but in order to do so, two things have to happen: he has to make the election be all about Biden, and Biden has to come up seriously short. One can ponder a lot of possible issues that Biden might be faulted for, and come up with lots of reasons why they might but probably won't matter. (For example, the US may experience a record bad hurricane season, but will voters blame Biden for that and see Trump as better?) But we needn't speculate, because Biden already has his albatross issue: genocide in Gaza. I'm not going to relitigate his failures here, but in terms of my "optimistic view," I will simply state that if Biden loses -- and such an outcome should be viewed not as a Trump win but as a Biden loss -- it will be well deserved, as no president so involved in senseless war, let alone genocide, deserves another term.

So it looks like the net effect of my optimism is to turn what may look like a lose-lose presidential proposition into a win-win. We are currently faced with two perilous prospects: on the one hand, Biden's penchant for sinking into foreign wars, which he tries to compensate for by being occasionally helpful or often just less miserable on various domestic policies; on the other, Republicans so universally horrible we scarcely need to list out the comparisons. Given that choice, one might fervently hope for Biden to win, not because we owe him any blanket support, but because post-election opposition to Biden can be more focused on a few key issues, whereas with Trump we're back to square one on almost everything.

But if Biden loses, his loss will further discredit the centrist style that has dominated the Democratic Party at least since Carter. There are many problems with that style, most deriving from the need to serve donors in order to attract them, which lends them an air of corruption, destroying their credibility. Sure, Republicans are corrupt too, even more so, but their corruption is consistent with their values -- dog-eat-dog individualism, accepting gross inequality, using government to discipline rather than ameliorate the losers -- so it comes off as honest, maybe even courageous. But Democrats are supposed to believe in public service, government for the people, and that's hard to square with their individual pursuit of power in the service of wealth.

So, sure, a Trump win would be a disaster, but it would free the Democrats from having to defend their compromised, half-assed status quo, and it would give them a chance to pose a genuine alternative, and a really credible one at that. I'd like to think that Democrats could get their act together, and build that credible alternative on top of Biden's half-hearted accomplishments. It would be nice to not have to start with the sort of wreckage Trump left in 2021, or Bush left in 2009, or that other Bush left in 1993 (and one can only shudder at the thought of what Trump might leave us in 2029). But people rarely make major changes based on reasoned analysis. It usually takes a great shock to force that kind of change -- like what the Great Depression did to a nation previously in love with Herbert Hoover, or like utter defeat did to Germany and Japan in WWII.

If there was any chance that a Trump win in 2024 would result in a stable and prosperous America, even if only for the 51% or so it would take for Republicans to continue winning elections, we might have something to be truly fearful of. But nothing they want to do works. The only thing they know how to do is to worsen problems, which are largely driven by forces beyond their control -- business, culture, climate, war, migration -- and all their lying, cheating, and outright repression only rub salt into the wounds. When people see how bad Republican rule really is, their support will wither rapidly.

The question is what Democrats have to do to pick up the support of disaffected Trumpers. One theory is to embrace the bigotry they showed in embracing Trump. A better one would be promise the grit, integrity, independence, and vision that Trump promised by couldn't deliver on, partly because he's a crook and con man who never cared, but largely because he surrounded himself by Republicans who had their own corrupt and/or deranged agendas.

I had more thoughts I wanted to write up, mostly involving what I like to think of as dialectics, but which can be defined as how seemingly stable states can suddenly be transformed into quite different states. One example was how Germans went from being Nazis to fawning Israelphiles, while Israelis became the new Nazis. Alas, no time for that here, but the theme is bound to recur.

I didn't get around to gathering the usual links and adding my various comments this week. Better luck next time.

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Monday, June 17, 2024

June archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42503 [42460] rated (+43), 22 [31] unrated (-9).

Going through a very busy stretch, but not sure what I really have to talk about here. I do have a fairly hefty bunch of records to report on, partly aided by recent consumer guides by Robert Christgau, Christian Iszchak, Brad Luen, and Michael Tatum. Still, I'm not sure I've caught up with any of them. I barely got through the I Am Three records Chris Monsen recommended -- their first album I previously had at B+(***) but it, too, sounds terrific, as is often the case with freewheeling Mingus.

The Jasmine In Session comps were recommended by Clifford Ocheltree. I resisted the Eddie Taylor until this morning, when I woke up with songs from it in my head. The recommendation list goes deeper, but so far that's all I've sprung for.

I have a request to write something about William Parker, on the occasion of his Vision Fest Lifetime Achievement Award. Back in 2003 I wrote a fairly extensive consumer guide to the work of Parker and/or Matthew Shipp (who was more my initial interest), and I've tried to keep up since then, including his two new albums below. So I figured: write 3-4 paragraphs of glowing intro, then tack on a dozen (or two) capsule reviews. Whether it's as easily done as said remains to be seen. All I've done so far has been to collect the reviews from the work files: current count is 249, but at the moment I'm listening to a 2009 record I had missed, and I'll probably come up with a few more. (RogueArt sent out email highlighting their 15 Parker albums, of which I've only heard 3 -- thanks mostly to Steve Swell).

What research I've done so far has mostly been humbling. Parker has four volumes of Conversations that I can't begin to get to. I just ordered a copy of Cisco Bradley's Universal Tonality: The Life and Music of William Parker, but won't have time to get very deep into. I do have a copy of Rick Lopez's marvelous The William Parker Sessionography (to 2014; also online, but only up to 2020). But I could easily fritter away all of my scant remaining time just checking items off -- although the annotation is so distracting I might never finish.

Meanwhile, I've burned up a fair amount of time with my metacritic file, to which I've started to add mid-year best-of ("so far") lists. It's still pretty spotty at present, and skewed toward the Christgau-friendly Expert Witness critics -- which has paid off in elevating Waxahatchee over Smile, with Billie Eilish and Beyoncé gaining ground, followed by Vampire Weekend, Adrianne Lenker, Hurray for the Riff Raff, and Maggie Rogers. I only have three A-list albums in the top ten, but Christgau has five in the top six (even though I haven't factored his grades in yet).

The mid-year lists I have are noted in the legend. While the first ones started showing up around June 1, in past years they've peaked in late June, with a few stragglers in July. I haven't noticed any jazz lists yet, so I'm thinking about running my own. I have the mailing list and software from the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll, and evidently have time to kill.

The biggest time-kill remains Speaking of Which, which again topped 10,000 words on Sunday, with minor additions today.

New records reviewed this week:

Actress: Statik (2024, Smalltown Supersound): British electronica producer Darren Cunningham, tenth album since 2008. B+(*) [sp]

Africatown, AL: Ancestor Sounds (2024, Free Dirt): Oral history from a neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama, which traces its ancestry back to a slave ship in 1807, conceived by producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Zomba Prison Project) and his wife, Italian-Rwandan filmmaker and photographer Marilena Umuhoza Delli. B+(**) [sp]

Bruna Black/John Finbury: Vã Revelação (2024, Green Flash): Brazilian singer, wrote some lyrics to Finbury's pleasantly engaging compositions, played by a star-studded group of Vitor Gonçalves (piano/accordion), Chico Pinheiro (guitar), John Patitucci (bass), Duduka Da Fonseca (drums), and Rogerio Boccato (percussion). B+(**) [cd]

Anthony Branker & Imagine: Songs My Mom Liked (2024, Origin): Original pieces, so Mom must really like her boy. Plenty of reason to. Group has six name musicians (Donny McCaslin, Philip Dizack, Fabian Almazan, Linda May Han Oh, Rudy Royston, Pete McGann) plus lightly used vocalist Aubrey Johnson. B+(***) [cd] [06-21]

Etienne Charles: Creole Orchestra (2018 [2024], Culture Shock): Trumpet player, albums since 2006 frequently refer to "creole," this a big band with lots of extras, including vocals, which I find rather hit-and-miss. B+(*) [cd]

Charli XCX: Brat (2024, Atlantic): British pop star, Charlotte Aitchison, sixth album since 2013, all hits but none huge, with this one getting extra hype and/or anticipation. That come with a big budget, which sometimes pays off, or offers a cushion to soften and blur out the weak spots, which my reticence suggests must be here somewhere, as I'm still on the fence after five plays. B+(***) [sp]

Devouring the Guilt: Not to Want to Say (2021 [2024], Kettle Hole): Free jazz trio, based in Chicago, of Bill Harris (drums), Gerrit Hatcher (tenor sax), and Eli Namay (bass). Two tracks (40:55). Hatcher has a couple of previous albums much like this one. B+(***) [sp]

DJ Anderson do Paraiso: Queridão (2023 [2024], Nyege Nyege Tapes): DJ from Belo Horizonte, "downtempo and dark baile funk," seems like a fair description, although it doesn't quite convey how gloomy this sounds. B [sp]

Ducks Ltd.: Harm's Way (2024, Carpark): Indie rock duo from Toronto, Tom McGreevy (vocals/rhythm guitar) and Evan Lewis (lead guitar), originally from UK and Australia, second album after a 2019 EP. B+(**) [sp]

Phillip Golub: Abiding Memory (2024, Endectomorph Music): Pianist, has a couple previous albums, quintet with guitar, cello, bass, and drums, leaving the piano very clearly in charge. Liner notes by Vijay Iyer. B+(**) [cd] [06-21]

Grandaddy: Blu Wav (2024, Dangerbird): Indie rock band from Modesto, California, principally Jason Lytle, eighth album since 1994, with a break 2006-17. Doesn't feel like there's much here. B [sp]

Alex Harding/Lucian Ban: Blutopia (2024, Sunnyside): Baritone saxophonist and pianist, they have several albums together going back to a quintet in 2002, and including one from 2005 where Blutopia was the group name. This is another quintet, with viola (Mat Maneri), tuba (Bob Stewart), and drums (Brandon Lewis). B+(**) [sp]

Hermanos Gutiérrez: Sonido Cósmico (2024, Easy Eye Sound): Brothers Alejandro (guitar/lap steel) and Estevan (guitar/percussion), names and much of their music deriving from an Ecuadorian mother, but their father is Swiss, and they at least grew up in and are based in Zurich. After four self-released albums, Dan Auerbach (Black Keys) signed them to his Nashville label, and released El Bueno y el Malo in 2022. More in this sequel, as calming as new age hoped for, with just enough Latin tinge and other cosmic exotica to keep it fascinating. A- [sp]

Mike Holober & the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters (2023 [2024], Palmetto, 2CD): Pianist, based in New York, mostly big bands, this perhaps his most grandiose project ever, certainly in terms of vocals. B [cd]

Homeboy Sandman: Rich II (2024, self-released): New York rapper Angel Del Villar II, lots since 2007, mostly short like this (11 tracks, 26:56) sequel to 2023's Rich. B+(**) [sp]

I Am Three: In Other Words (2022 [2024], Leo): Nikolaus Neuser (trumpet), Silke Eberhard (alto sax/percussion), and Christian Marlen (drums), song credits split 4-2-5. Group name comes from Mingus, the subject of their two previous albums: Mingus Mingus Mingus (2015) and Mingus' Sound of Love (2018, with Maggie Nichols). A- [sp]

Kaytranada: Timeless (2024, RCA): Haitian electropop producer, grew up in Montreal, sings, raps, fourth album since 2016 (including 2023's Aminé mashup, Kaytraminé). Grows on you. B+(***) [sp]

The Libertines: All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanada (2024, Casablanca/Republic): British rock group, seemed like they may be a big deal with their 2002 debut, folded after their 2004 follow up, returned for a 2015 comeback, and again for this fourth album, slowing down with age. B [sp]

Raul Midón: Lost & Found (2024, ReKondite ReKords): Guitarist, singer-songwriter, from New Mexico, father from Argentina, has done session work on Latin albums, dabbled in jazz, doesn't show much in either here. C+ [sp]

Andy Milne and Unison: Time Will Tell (2024, Sunnyside): Pianist, from Canada, based in New York, albums since 1997, previous group album from 2019 with John Hébert (bass) and Clarence Penn (drums), adding Ingrid Laubrock (tenor sax) and/or Yoko Reikano Kimura (koto) on several tracks here. B+(**) [sp]

Ol' Burger Beats: 74: Out of Time (2024, Coalmine): Norwegian dj/producer Ole-Birger Neergård, a dozen-plus albums since 2015, also released an instrumentals version, but this one features a dozen guest rappers, very underground (but mostly names I recognize, like Billy Woods, Tha God Fahim, Yungmorpheus, Quelle Chris, Fly Anakin, Pink Siifu), easy going over slacker beats. B+(**) [sp]

Alicia and Michael Olatuja: Olatuja (2022-24 [2024], Whirlwind): He plays bass and keyboards, composes, was born in London, raised in Lagos, is based in New York, married to her, the former Alicia Miles, from St. Louis, with a couple records each. B+(*) [sp]

One for All: Big George (2022 [2024], Smoke Sessions): Mainstream sextet, pretty much all stars: Eric Alexander (tenor sax), Jim Rotondi (trumpet), Steve Davis (trombone), David Hazeltine (piano), John Webber (bass), Joe Farnsworth (drums). Discogs lists 19 albums since 1997, open with three tracks for the first LP side, then George Coleman joins for more on the back side, with three George-less bonus tracks added to the CD. Coleman doesn't make much of a splash here. B+(*) [sp]

William Parker/Cooper-Moore/Hamid Drake: Heart Trio (2021 [2024], AUM Fidelity): Longtime collaborators, three-fourths of a quartet called In Order to Survive, where they played bass, piano, and drums. Here they focus on percussion and exotica, with Parker on doson ngoni, shakuhachi, bass dudek, ney and Serbian flute, with Cooper-Moore on his ashimba and hoe-handle harp, and Drake on frame drum as well as his usual kit. For world-class virtuosi, it's a bit underwhelming, but that seems to be the point. A- [cd] [06-21]

William Parker & Ellen Christi: Cereal Music (2024, AUM Fidelity): No recording dates given, but this feels like it was patiently assembled, starting with Parker's words, mostly spoken with some Christi vocals and whatever sound design she came up with, supplemented with Parker's bass and flutes, and a few other samples. B+(***) [cd] [06-21]

Rob Parton's Ensemble 9+: Relentless (2023 [2024], Calligram): Trumpet player, mostly big band records starting around 1991. Lists 19 musicians here, mostly in groups with two trumpets, three saxophones, and two trombones, plus various piano-bass-drums, but adds a third trumpet on 4 tracks, vocals on 2, with 7 arranger credits. Deft layering, less focus on solos, some Latin tinge. B+(*) [cd]

Porij: Teething (2024, Play It Again Sam): British electropop band, from Manchester, first album after a 2020 EP. B+(**) [sp]

Kenny Reichert: Switch (2023 [2024], Calligram): Guitarist, based in Chicago, has a couple previous albums, the first self-released in 2015, leads a quartet here with alto sax (Lenard Simpson), bass (Ethan Philion), and drums (Devin Drobka), plus a guest spot for Geof Bradfield (tenor sax) and voice (Alyssa Algood, 3 tracks, her lyrics, some spoken word). Has some very strong and/or appealing passages. B+(**) [cd]

Brandon Ross Phantom Station: Off the End (2024, Sunnyside): Guitarist, early side credits start in 1975 with Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, and Oliver Lake; group efforts as Harriet Tubman in 1998; and his own albums from 2004. Group here with Graham Haynes (cornet/electronics), David Virelles (keyboards), JT Lewis (drums), and Hardedge (sound design). B+(**) [sp]

Shaboozey: Where I've Been, Isn't Where I'm Going (2024, Republic/Empire): Singer-songwriter from Virginia, parents from Nigeria, original name Collins Obinna Chibueze, third album, slotted alt-country (got him a guest spot with Beyoncé). Not so obvious, but is closer than hip-hop (despite a rap) or afrobeat. B+(*) [sp]

Flavio Silva: Eko (2024, Break Free): Brazilian guitarist, based in New York, several albums, title means "lesson" in Yoruba, nice little quartet with keyboards, bass, and drums. B+(**) [cd]

Uncle Waffles: Solace (2023, Ko-Sign/Encore): Swazi-born DJ and amapiano producer Lungelihle Zwane, third EP, this one 7 songs, 42:52 (which makes it an album in my book). B+(**) [sp]

Kiki Valera: Vacilón Santiaguero (2024, Circle 9 Music): Trad Cuban music, leader plays cuatro, guitar, bass, and percussion, second US album, backed by more percussion, with lead vocals split four ways, and many guest spots involving trumpet. B+(***) [cd]

Matt Wilson: Matt Wilson's Good Trouble (2023 [2024], Palmetto): Drummer, originally from Illinois, studied at Wichita State, moved to NYC in 1992, and quickly established himself as a sideman and leader. I recall a DownBeat blindfold test where he not only grasped everything they threw at him, but went to extraordinary lengths to recognize and appreciate the mindset of whoever's music it was. His records can be very eclectic, but the best ones have featured edgy tenor saxophonist Jeff Lederer, as this one does, along with longtime ally Ben Allison on bass, and novel ingredients Tia Fuller (alto sax) and Dawn Clement (piano and some vocals, including the jazziest John Denver cover ever). Title is from a John Lewis quote. Not yet the group name, but they'll be welcome any time. A- [cdr]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Broadcast: Spell Blanket: Collected Demos 2006-2009 (2006-09 [2024], Warp): British electropop group, more or less, principally Trish Keenan (vocals/keyboards/guitar) and James Cargill (bass), produced three albums 2000-05, plus these demos for an unreleased fourth album. B [sp]

Love Child: Never Meant to Be 1988-1993 (1988-93 [2024], 12XU): NYC-based punk/no-wave band, singers Will Baum and Rebecca Odes on guitar/drums and bass, with Alan Licht (drums/guitar), self-released an album in 1988, got more attention with their 1991 album Okay?, released one more after that, which this 26-cut 2-LP sums up. B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Ducks Ltd.: Get Bleak (2019 [2021], Carpark, EP): Toronto indie rock duo, immigrants from Australia and UK-via-US, debut four-song EP, expanded to seven (21:48) to complement their 2021 debut. Open with jangly guitar, then a ballad, then more jangle. Go-Betweens comparisons aren't way off base, but not sufficient, either. B+(**) [sp]

Big Walter Horton: In Session: From Memphis to Chicago 1951-1955 (1951-55 [2019], Jasmine): Blues harmonica player and singer, born 1921 in Mississippi, grew up in Memphis, made his way to Chicago in the 1950s and died there in 1981. His discography is very scattered, with a 1964 LP, collabs and a Fleetwood Mac jam session in 1969, and more odds and ends in the 1970s. This picks up a couple early singles, fleshed out with side-credits with Johnny Shines, Tampa Red, Otis Rush, Sunnyland Slim, Jimmy Rogers, and others, the vocals varying but the unified by his exuberant, rowdy harmonica. A- [cd]

Floyd Jones/Eddie Taylor: Masters of Modern Blues (1966 [1994], Testament): Chicago blues guitarist-singers, the original LP "Volume 3" in the label's series, allocated one side each, with Taylor (guitar), Big Walter Horton (harmonica), Otis Spann (piano), and Fred Below (drums) on both sides, with Jones switching to bass on Taylor's side. CD expands from 11 to 16 tracks, offering alternates and mixing them up. B+(***) [sp]

Maggie Nicols/Silke Eberhard/Nikolaus Neuser/Christian Marten: I Am Three & Me: Mingus' Sounds of Love (2018 [2019], Leo): Multiple options for parsing this cover: the singer earns top billing, but the trio -- tenor sax, trumpet, drums -- has a previous Mingus tribute, Mingus Mingus Mingus (2015) under their Mingus-inspired group name, I Am Three. Nicols supplies one lyric, the rest attributed to the composer, including detailed instructions on toilet-training your cat. I always find vocals like this awkward -- arty and disjointed, which is what she does -- but the music is often amazing, and their take of "The Clown" is amazing and definitive. So while all Mingus always sounds great, this adds something new. A- [sp]

Shikamoo Jazz: Chela Chela Vol. 1 (1993-95 [1995], RetroAfric): Tanzanian group, formed 1993, its members veterans of "dance bands of the '60s and '70s," including Kenyan star Fundi Konde, playing their standards. No dates given, and no singles discography I can find. B+(***) [sp]

Shikamoo Jazz: East African Legends Live (1995 [2022], RetroTan): Only date given is July 1995, but the eleven tracks are credited to four permutations (Shilamoo Jazz, Fundi Konde & SJ, Bi Kidude & SJ, SJ + Fan Fan), although they flow together just fine, with oodles of that shimmering groove Earthworks immortalized in their famous Guitar Paradise of East Africa compilation. A- [sp]

Eddie Taylor: In Session: Diary of a Chicago Bluesman 1953-1957 (1953-57 [2016], Jasmine): Blues guitarist and singer (1923-85), up from Mississippi to Chicago, recorded a few albums from 1967 on, before that was best known playing for Jimmy Reed (just 3 tracks here), but also John Brim (4), Sunnyland Slim (4), Floyd Jones (3), Little Willie Foster (2), and John Lee Hooker (3), leaving 10 tracks under his own name -- a couple memorable, the rest pretty good. This took me a while, but I woke up with Reed and Hooker songs in my head, plus one of Taylor's ("Big Town Playboy"). A- [cd]

Eddie Taylor: I Feel So Bad (1972, Advent): Solid Chicago blues album, recorded in Hollywood. B+(**) [sp]

Jody Williams: In Session: Diary of a Chicago Bluesman 1954-1962 (1954-62 [2018], Jasmine): Joseph Leon Williams (1935-2018), originally from Mobile, moved to Chicago, where his guitar ("marked by flamboyant string-bending, imaginative chord voicings and a distinctive tone") got him studio work with Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Bo Diddley, and Jimmy Rogers -- to pick out the most obvious hits on the front half here -- as well as the occasional single (some as Little Joe Lee). That first half is remarkable enough, but the obscurities on the second half -- especially his "Lucky Lou" instrumental -- are the real payoff here. A- [cd]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Kim Cass: Levs (Pi) [06-28]
• Jon De Lucia: The Brubeck Octet Project (Musæum Clausum) [07-12]
• Mathias Højgaard Jensen: Is as Is (Fresh Sound New Talent) [05-31]
• Brian Landrus: Plays Ellington & Strayhorn (Palmetto) [07-12]
• Miles Okazaki: Miniature America (Cygnus) [07-19]
• Matthew Shipp: The Data (RogueArt) * [06-17]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, June 16, 2024

I picked up a couple new projects this week, which has put me in a dither, but I got up Sunday morning and stuck with this, making my usual rounds (though not much time on X), and figure I've collected and written enough. (Would be nice to add some more music mid-year lists, but I may add them in a Monday update.)

I'm reading Steve Hahn's Illiberal America: A History, well into the chapter on neoliberals who proved their "neo" by going "il" -- quite a bit of Bill Clinton there, but not so much Buchanan/Perot, who pop up in a book review toward the end here. No doubt there's still a lot of Trump to come.

PS: Laura Tillem reposted a poem she wrote for "a poetry slam, for international day of peace celebration in Wichita."

Initial count: 202 links, 9,929 words.

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): on music.

Top story threads:

Israel: This remains, as it has since the Hamas revolt on Oct. 7, 2023, our top story, both in terms of its overall impact and the extent and volatility of news coverage. After going through several permutations, I've found it useful to break the stories up into three groups. This one covers the political concerns and the conflicts within Israel (including Gaza, and neighboring areas like Lebanon that Israel is in direct conflict with). We should be clear that what the IDF is doing in Gaza is genocide, and is intended as such. We should also be clear that Israel practices systematic discrimination and sporadic terror against Palestinians outside of Gaza which, while not rising to the intensity of genocide, should be universally condemned.

The most common word for these policies and practices is "apartheid" -- a word used by South Africa to describe their peculiar implementation of racist segregation, drawn largely on the American example. While there are subtle differences in Israel's implementation, the word is good enough for practical use. One major problem with genocide in Gaza is that it provides cover for increasing violence in the broader practice of apartheid.

The second section concerns diplomatic relations between Israel and the US, and political directives regarding Israel within the US. Israel's ability to carry out genocide in Gaza is directly related to US military, political, and diplomatic support, and this extends to efforts to suppress free speech and to influence elections within the US. (It is, for instance, impossible to see AIPAC as an American interest group given that it operates in lockstep with Israeli foreign policy.)

Student demonstrations, on the other hand, fall into a third subject grouping, "Israel vs. world opinion." This also includes the ICC/ICJ genocide cases, world diplomatic activity aside from that by Israel and the US, and more general discussions of what charges of genocide and antisemitism mean.

• Mondoweiss:

  • [06-10] Day 248: Israel kills 274 Palestinians while freeing four Israeli prisoners in Gaza; Gantz resigns from war cabinet: "Blinken arrives in Cairo on his eighth tour to the Middle East since the beginning of the war in the hopes of pushing for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal."

  • [06-13] Day 251: Blinken and Hamas exchange accusations of obstructing ceasefire deal: "The World Health Organization warned of mass starvation in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have killed 12 people in the West Bank in 48 hours."

• Zack Beauchamp: [06-10] Israel's "war cabinet" just fell apart. What happens now? "Benny Gantz's departure from the war cabinet won't change much immediately. But it could end up mattering a lot." More on this:

  • Meron Rapoport: [06-11] What Gantz's exit reveals about Israel's failed Gaza strategy. Note that while Gantz quit because Netanyahu has no post-war plan, Gantz doesn't have much of one either. Cites this slightly older piece:

  • Menachem Klein: [04-09] Netanyahu isn't the only one interested in prolonging the war: "A broad coalition of political forces, from Israel's far right to the Zionist left, have different motivations for turning the war into the new normal."

• Peter Beaumont: [06-15] Eight Israeli soldiers killed in southern Gaza, military says: "IDF fatalities from the Gaza operation and immediate surroundings, which now stand at 307, have been hugely outnumbered by Palestinian deaths" (37,000 gives a ratio of 120-to-1). Still, these 8 are tragic and senseless, again showing the contempt, carelessness, and cruelty behind this war.

• Catherine Cartier: Israel's new air war in the West Bank: Nearly half of the dead are children: "Nearly 20 years after the Second Intifada, the Israeli military has resumed airstrikes in the West Bank -- and killed 24 children."

• Amos Harel: [06-05] Israel caught in a strategic trap on Lebanon border -- thanks to Netanyahu's scorched-earth policy: "Not only does the Israeli government not have a solution to the conflict raging on the northern border, but it's failing thus far could mean that many Israelis decide never to return to their homes there. And Ben-Gvir, more pyromaniac than firefighter, is always on hand to fan the flames."

  • Ali Rizk: [06-12] Hezbollah plays down Israel threat to full blown war: "But the group's use of anti-aircraft missiles and Tel Aviv's latest killing of a top commander reflect daily escalations in that direction." Most of the missiles were launched as a reprisal after Israel's assassination of Taleb Abdullah. While Hezbollah has little appetite for attacking Israel, they feel they have to respond when Israel attacks them, even though all that really does is encourage Israel to attack Lebanon again. This deterrence game only makes losers of both sides. For more details, see:

  • James McKenzie/Lalla Bassam: [06-12] Hezbollah fires most rockets yet in war after Israel kills a top commander.

• Raja Khalidi: [06-07] The financial destruction of Palestine. Note that this "economic strangulation" is happening in the West Bank, away from the genocide in Gaza (but overshadowed by it).

• Ezra Klein: [06-14] Israelis are not watching the same war you are: Interview with Amit Segal, who has a book (in Hebrew, but supposed to be coming out in English) on The Story of Israeli Politics. Such a book could be useful, but I doubt his is. The interview is mostly interesting as an illustration of how deeply embedded a supposedly astute Israeli political observer can be within the national paranoia. The idea that "we tried everything and nothing worked" is not just wrong but obscene. Also available, and probably no better, is: [05-07] Ezra Klein interviews Ari Shavit.

• Middle East Monitor: [06-15] Ehud Barak describes 'absolute victory' as empty slogan: 'We are closer to total failure.'

• Bar Peleg/Adi Hashmonai/Maya Lecker: [06-15] 'End the war, free the hostages': Tens of thousands of Israelis protest Netanyahu coalition, call to strike Gaza deal.

• Alon Pinkas: [05-13] This Independence Day, Israel has split into two incompatible Jewish states: "There are now two states here -- Israel and Judea -- with contrasting visions of what the nation should be." He describes the former as "a high-tech, secular, outward-looking, imperfect but liberal state" and the latter as "a Jewish-supremacist, ultranationalist theocracy with messianic, antidemocratic tendencies that encourage isolation."

• Aarushi Punia: [06-12] The mutilation of Palestine has been a strategy of Israel since its inception.

• Richard Silverstein:

  • [06-13] Growing US complicity in Gaza genocide: "US offers intelligence to assassinate Sinwar."

  • [06-06] Biden: Flim-flam man: "The president's ceasefire plan stands little chance of success."

  • [05-30] Mossad mafia threatens ICC prosecutors, journalists: "Netanyahu commands Mossad to spy on ICC chief prosecutors and threaten them."

• Jeffrey St Clair: [06-14] No way out in Nuseirat: the great hostage rescue massacre.

• Oren Ziv: [06-06] Chanting 'burn Shu'afat' and 'flatten Gaza,' masses attend Jerusalem Flag March: "Israeli ministers joined the annual celebration of East Jerusalem's conquest, where racist slogans and attacks on journalists have become mainstream."

• Baker Zoubi: [06-06] Facing war and incitement, is there any hope left for Palestinians in the Knesset?

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

• As'ad AbuKhalil: [06-11] Biden's Saudi deal.

• Michael Arria:

  • [06-12] 'Their message is, The Empire Strikes Back': Breaking down AIPAC's role in the 2024 election: "Political consultant Peter Feld unpacks AIPAC's strategy in the Democratic primaries, Jamaal Bowman's bad poll numbers, and whether Gaza will impact Biden's reelection."

  • [06-13] The Shift: Bowman's bad poll: "The Israel lobby is set to make an example of Jamaal Bowman. Even if they're barely talking about Israel as they do it."

• Ramzy Baroud: [06-15] America crawls further into global isolation by backing Gaza genocide.

• Jonathan Chait: [06-08] Why on Earth is Chuck Schumer inviting Netanyahu to address Congress? "It's hard for me to think of an explanation for Schumer's action other than sheer spinelessness."

• Isaac Chotiner: [06-11] Is Biden's Israel policy cynical or naïve? "Evaluating eight months of the President's attempt to moderate Netanyahu's bombing campaign in Gaza." Interview with Matt Duss, of the Center for International Policy, former chief foreign-policy adviser to Bernie Sanders. Worth quoting at length when asked "what can you imagine a different Democratic Administration doing?":

  Well, I think a different Democratic Administration could have taken this issue more seriously before October 7th. That's not to say we needed another round of the usual peace process. But there have been alarms sounded about Gaza for many, many years by international N.G.O.s; certainly by Palestinians, constantly; by Israeli security officials; by members of Congress, including my former boss. The idea that we could just kind of kick the Palestinians into the corner and manage the problem without any real consequences -- that was revealed as a fantasy on October 7th.

  After October 7th, I hope and think any Democratic Administration would've done immediately what President Biden did: show full support, full solidarity, and really spend time with what occurred on October 7th in all its horror, and stand by Israel as it defended its people.

  At some point though, and fairly quickly, it became clear that what was going to be carried out in Gaza was not just self-defense. It became clear very quickly that this was a war of revenge. We have countless statements from Israeli government officials, many of which have been collected in South Africa's case in the International Court of Justice, which includes accusations of genocide. And we can see with our own eyes the kind of tactics that are being used on densely populated civilian areas in Gaza. A different Democratic Administration might've taken that much more seriously and acted with much more urgency much sooner.

  It's hard to imagine what a different Democrat could have done pre-October 7th. Obama, who almost certainly knew better, managed next to nothing helpful in eight years. There have been ways for an American president to impress upon Israel the need to take some constructive steps, but there has been little political urgency to do so, especially given the influence of pro-Israel donors in our oligarchic political system. While Sanders certainly knows better, I doubt he would have risked whatever political capital he had to bang his head against against a very recalcitrant Netanyahu.

  The next two paragraphs fairly describe what Sanders did, but ineffectively without the portfolio of the presidency. The rush to rally to Israel's defense was nearly universal in Washington, although what was really needed was to lean hard -- starting in private -- against Israel's armed response, as it was instantly clear that the intent would be genocidal, and that would lock Israel into a disastrous public relations spiral while doing virtually nothing for Israel's long-term security.

  One more point to stress here: Biden's failure to anticipate and correct for Israel's horrific response -- indeed, his failure to comprehend the problem despite following Israel closely for over fifty years -- is not simply attributable to the corrupt influence of the Israel lobby. It is deeply ingrained in America's own habitual response to security issues, which especially with the neocons under Clinton and Bush took Israel as the model for managing the threat of terrorism.

• Zachary Cohen/Katrie Bo Lillis: [06-07] CIA assessment concludes Netanyahu is likely to defy US pressure to set a post-war plan for Gaza.

• Juan Cole: [06-15] How Netanyahu and fascists in his coalition shot down the Biden peace plan.

• Joshua Keating: [06-12] The perplexing state of Gaza ceasefire negotiations, explained: "The problem is that it's not clear either side wants a ceasefire." Beware of explanations that start off with a patently false subhed. Literally every single Palestinian, even ones claiming to represent whatever's left of Hamas, want a ceasefire, and have been pleading for one ever since the rupture on Oct. 7 was closed. It's Israel that doesn't want a ceasefire, which is due to three factors: the first is that they're doing well over 99% of the firing, and they like those odds; they also think that the more Palestinians they kill, and the more of Gaza they destroy and render uninhabitable, the closer they'll be to their goal, which is the complete the removal of Palestinians from Eretz Israel; and as long as the US is willing to provide ammo and run diplomatic cover, they see no need for restraint, let alone for disengagement. Much of Netanyahu's power in Israel is tied to the reputation he's built as someone who can cower American presidents, and in that regard, Biden has been a very dependable ally.

  The "negotiations" also involve hostages, but this, too, is very asymmetrical. Hamas took 250 during the Oct. 7 attacks, not so much to exchange them for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel (thousands of them, a number which has increased rapidly since Oct. 7) as to inhibit Israel's attacks. In short, their value was to press for a truce (Hamas likes the term "hudna"), but trades for temporary ceasefires and prisoners offer little respite and diminished protection. And now, after eight months, with half of the hostages exchanged, and many more killed by Israeli fire, the remaining hostages are down to about 80. And at this point, Netanyahu is unwilling to give up his war just to get hostages back. If anything, the hostages do Netanyahu more good if "Hamas" keeps them, as they give him an excuse to keep attacking. At this point, Palestinians would be better off just freeing the hostages, in the probably vain hope that doing so might generate some good will. But that's hard for "Hamas" to do, because without the hostages, do they even exist any more?

  More on Biden's proposal and the "negotiations":

  • Dave DeCamp:

    • [06-11] Hamas responds to Biden's ceasefire proposal, wants firm timeline for permanent ceasefire.

    • [06-12] Blinken slams Hamas response to ceasefire proposal.

  • Adam Hanieh: [06-14] Why the fight for Palestine is the fight against US imperialism in the region: There is a lot of useful history in this piece, but I don't particularly subscribe to its thesis and drift. US imperialism was real enough but has become increasingly incoherent, especially once it lost its Cold War compass in the 1990s, so that these days it's mostly a sleazy game of graft, with a hugely expensive logistics network but no coherent vision, at least beyond nursing a few old grudges (like Iran and North Korea). British colonialism is even more of a ghost. That you can find echoes and innuendos in Israel is no surprise, but these days it's the Israelis who are pulling American and British strings, for their own purposes, with hardly any regard for whatever the West may want. The article claims that Israel and the Gulf monarchies are "two pillars [that] remain the crux of American power in the region today." But they're really just playing their own games, as likely to trip the US up as to help it.

  • David Hearst: [06-14] Blinken is dragging the US ever deeper into Israel's quagmire.

  • Adam Johnson: [06-11] Media keeps playing along with fiction there is an "Israel ceasefire deal" "Don't squint too hard, one may notice Israel is clear they have no intention to 'end the war.'" By the way, Johnson also published an interesting piece by "a Palestinian-American quantitative researcher focusing on disinformation and censorship in mass media," under the pseudonym "Otto": [2023-11-15] "Massacred" vs "Left to Die": Documenting media bias against Palestinians Oct 7-Nov 7: "A quantitative analysis of the first month of conflict, reveals how dehumanization is baked into the ideoogical cake of cable news."

  • Fred Kaplan:

    • [06-12] Why there's so much confusion about the Israeli peace plan: Uh, because as articulated it's not actually an Israeli plan. Because there is no Israeli plan -- not for peace, anyway. And since permanent conflict with periodic acts of war doesn't much need forethought, there's no plan for that either.

    • [06-13] Hamas's counteroffer is neither realistic nor serious. But only if you start from the assumption that Israel's demands -- which, though never clearly articulated, are roughly: Hamas frees all the hostages, gives up its struggle for Palestinian rights, and surrenders its leader for summary execution -- are the very definition of serious and realistic. In any normal world, the argument that Israel should withdraw its military from Gaza and refrain from further attacks would be completely reasonable.

  • MEE Staff: [06-13] Hamas demands Israel end Gaza blockade as part of ceasefire deal.

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [06-15] Blinken's lies about Hamas rejecting a ceasefire reveal the Biden administration's true intentions: "The Biden administration is playing a shell game with the Gaza ceasefire that aims to trick the Democratic base into thinking meaningful action is taking place to end fighting while still allowing Israel to continue its genocidal campaign."

  • Ishaan Tharoor: [06-12] Israel shrugs at Palestinian civilian casualties. So does Hamas. "In new report, Hamas's leader in Gaza is said to describe Palestinian civilian deaths as 'necessary sacrifices.'" I'm inclined to dismiss anything attributed to Hamas, as I regard them as a spent force, one at present only being propped up by Israel in their need to identify an enemy not quite as inclusive as every Palestinian. But the idea that martyrdom is preferable to subjection and slavery runs deep in the human psyche, so we shouldn't be surprised to find it articulated by Hamas speakers (especially ones removed from the fray). We should reject such sentiments, of course, but also be clear that the blame for them, and for the sacrifices they demand, belongs squarely on those whose power has made only those choices seem possible.

  • Spencer Ackerman: [06-03] 'Phase 2': The shape of Israeli rejectionism to come: "Biden has declared that Israel's reasonable war aims have been achieved. Netanyahu is in no position to agree."

• Jim Lobe: [06-12] That stinks: Global opinion of US goes down the toilet.

• Blaise Malley: [06-14] GOP trying to drive wedge between Dems with Israel votes.

• Stephen Semler: [06-12] Washington is not telling truth about the Gaza pier: "They say food is 'flowing' to the people, but data shows the opposite."

  • Tareq S Hajjaj: [06-14] The story of the US 'floating dock' built from the rubble of Gaza's homes: "The U.S. said it was constructing a floating pier off Gaza's coast to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. However, the real reason it exists is to protect American interests in the region."

  • Ahmed Omar: [06-11] Gaza resistance sources say fear is rising US pier will be used for forced displacement of Palestinians: "Critics warn the U.S.-constructed pier off Gaza's coast is being used for military purposes. Now a source in the Gaza resistance says there are indications it will be used to facilitate the forced displacement of Palestinians." They have good reason to be fearful. Most of the Palestinian refugees in Beirut were stampeded onto British ships in Jaffa, as they fled the indiscriminate shelling by the Irgun in 1948, the Israelis having their preference for killing all Palestinians at Deir Yassin. With Egypt resisting their efforts to drive Gazans out through the Sinai, the pier and the ever-obliging Americans will increasingly look like some kind of final solution.

• Emily Tamkin:

  • [06-15] Elise Stefanik's fight against antisemitism is quite the exercise in chutzpah.

  • [06-13] Ritchie Torres vs. the Left: "Why the New York Democrat chose Israel over his progressive colleagues." Torres is also included here:

    • Sarah Jones: [06-14] The 'progressives' who left: Along with John Fetterman and Mondaire Jones.

• Prem Thakker: House votes to block US funding to rebuild Gaza.

Israel vs. world opinion:

• Tariq Ali: [06-13] How the West celebrated the Nuseirat massacre: "In the latest repellent display, western media are hailing the rescue of four Israeli hostages at the cost of 270 Palestinian lives." My impression was that they view the 270 Palestinians less as a cost than as a bonus.

• Roman Altshuler: [06-15] Right's crusade against antisemitism: It's a blatant effort to silence Jewish voices.

• Edward Carver: [06-06] Spain applies to join ICJ genocide case against Israel.

• Juan Cole:

  • [06-13] UN Commission of Inquiry: Israel guilty of crimes against humanity, Hamas guilty of war crimes.

  • [06-14] Israel joins ISIL, Taliban, Sudan on UN blacklist of violators of children, killing or maiming 20,000 last year.

• Jonathan Cook: [06-13] The day the West defined 'success' as a massacre of 270 Palestinians: "Israelis danced in the streets, the White House hails a 'daring' operation, Rishi Sunak expresses relief. How carnage in Gaza has become the new normal."

• Marilyn Garson: [06-11] The new Jewish international: taking back the power of definition: "The International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine began in opposition to the IHRA antisemitism definition and is now a worldwide network of organizations from 16 countries working as partners with Palestinians in pursuit of justice."

• Joshua P Hill: [04-22] Being afraid does not mean you're under attack: "On those condemning anti-genocide protests, but not genocide." Found this in a stray tab, meaning someone linked to it, but I haven't noted it before.

  Part of generating the mass movement to put a stop to these atrocities is addressing the way antisemitism is being dishonestly weaponized at this moment. Israel and Zionists continually try to turn antisemitism into both a cudgel and a shield, one they hide their at rocities behind to devastating effect. And Jews are uniquely positioned to disarm this cudgel and expose what lies behind the shield.

• Refik Hodzic: [06-13] Israel's onslaught recalls horrors of Bosnian genocide.

• Adam Horowitz: [06-16] Weekly Briefing: Losing the prophetic: "Jewish theologian Marc H. Ellis died this week at the age of 71. His work on the battle between Empire and the prophetic within contemporary Jewish life is more relevant today than ever."

• Sarah Jones: [06-13] The army officer who resigned over Gaza: Major Harrison Mann, who said, "We were never going to really make a big deal about the Israelis bombing hospitals again."

• Hans Kundnani: [03-15] "Zionism über alles": "The German political establishment has abandoned the belief that the Holocaust gave it a responsibility to humanity and replaced it with a responsibility to Israel alone."

• Erika Lopez/Tascha Shahriari-Parsa: [06-11] We watched Ivy League law reviews censor Palestinian scholars first-hand: "We are editors at Harvard and Columbia journals and saw bureaucracy weaponized to suppress a human rights lawyer's writing on Israel."

• Middle East Eye:

  • [06-12] UN finds at least 14 Israelis likely intentionally killed by own army on 7 October: "New report documents repeated use of so-called Hannibal Directive in which abductees were killed to prevent their capture." If you're wondering why Israel shows so little interest in negotiating for the freedom of hostages, it starts with their preference for killing them rather than letting them be captured in the first place.

  • [06-13] Israel uses medieval trebuchet weapons to ignite Lebanese bushes: "Military confirms use of ancient catapult to launch incendiaries aimed at thickets and vegetation in southern Lebanon."

• Jo-Ann Mort: [06-14] When protests cross into antisemitism, it hurts the Palestinian cause: Why? If something is so wrong as to merit protesting, that should be the end of it. No one should change their opinion on an issue because you like or dislike the protesters. At most, bad protesters create a second issue deserving reproach, but that should have no bearing on the original issue.

• Anna Rajagopal: [06-13] No need for 'Jewish values' in the fight for Palestine: No need, in the sense that one doesn't need to be Jewish to oppose Israeli genocide in Gaza, or that even if one is Jewish, it is still possible to prefer more universal secular grounds for one's opposition. Still, I don't see any harm; if anything, it seems like a useful corrective against supporters of genocide claiming their faith directs them. But the author goes on to argue that "doing so reinforces the very ideology we seek to dismantle," and that strikes me as dangerous nonsense. I also question the political wisdom of pushing "Palestinian liberation" ahead of a simple (and universal) end to genocide, violence, and injustice. We might be better off admitting that Ben Gurion's dictum that "it only matters what the Jews do" has never been more true than in Gaza today. No amount of Palestinian flag waving is going to change that. But convincing Jews that their faith does not command them to murder might actually help.

• Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Santa Cruz: [06-12] "We are going to hurt you": UC Santa Cruz chancellor unleashes police mayhem against student protesters.

• Prem Thakker: Columbia Law Review is back online after students threatened work stoppage over Palestine censorship.

• University of Edinburgh Students and Staff Divestment Movement: [06-16] Divestment at the University of Edinburgh: Breaking from Balfour's colonial legacy.

• Philip Weiss: [06-16] NYT's fatuous effort to preserve Black-Jewish coalition sweeps genocide under the rug.

Election notes:

• Aaron Blake: [06-12] Democrats' surprisingly close Ohio special election loss, in context: "Democrat Michael Kripchak lost by less than 10 points in a district Donald Trump carried by 29 in 2020. It's merely the latest Democratic over-performance, but what does it mean?" Looking at the difference in spending -- $571,000 to $7,000 -- is that Democrats are way too quick to write off districts as hopeless losers, rather than trying to figure out what it takes to win them.

• Nate Cohn: [06-15] If everyone voted, would Biden benefit? Not anymore. "Inside the unusual dynamic shaping the 2024 campaign." This follows up, and doubles down, on Cohn's [05-24] The shaky foundation of Trump's lead: disengaged voters. The assumption is that they won't think any harder in November than they did when they answered the silly pollster's question.

• Bob Dreyfuss: [06-16] The Middle East and election 2024: Trump or Biden on Israel? This is not a question I agonize over, but if you've ever been moved to rail against "Genocide Joe," maybe you should give Dreyfus a chance.

• Margaret Hartmann: [06-15] All the details on Trump & Biden's weirdly early 2024 debate.

• Ed Kilgore:

  • [06-12] Abortion rights look set to sweep again on November ballot: "Abortion referendums could be on the ballot in as many as ten states, and polls show a win for the pro-choice cause is possible in all of them."

  • [06-13] Southern Baptists' attack on IVF will likely backfire: "A resolution calling for restrictions on IVF treatments is far out of line with lay opinion. It may hurt Baptists more than it hurts IVF."

• Rick Perlstein: [06-12] Remembrance of ratf**ks past: "As Cornel West is receiving ballot access help from Republicans, 20 years ago Al Sharpton's campaign for president was largely orchestrated by Roger Stone."

Trump:

• Isaac Arnsdorf: [06-15] Trump portrays rampant crime in speech at Black church in Detroit: "The audience, which was not predominantly Black, cheered at the remark."

• Michelle Boorstein/Hannah Knowles: [06-13] Here's what the Christian right wants from a second Trump term. Mostly what you'd expect from sex-obsessed repressives, although politicizing the FDA to ban abortion drugs, and using the Comstock Act to prosecute their distribution, jump out.

• Nandika Chatterjee: [06-14] "Could not keep a straight thought": CEOs worry about Trump's mental decline after "meandering" talk. Steve M. wrote a comment about this story: [06-15] Did these CEOs only notice Trump's ignorance and incoherence now?

• Chauncey DeVega: [05-22] How Trump's hidden Nazi messages help conceal his open antisemitism.

• Griffin Eckstein: [06-13] House Republican wants to re-name the US coastline after Trump: Florida Rep. Greg Steube.

• Lisa Friedman: [06-14] Trump promised to revive goal. Now, he rarely mentions it.

• Susan B Glasser: [06-13] Happy seventy-eighth birthday, Mr. Ex-President: "If ever there were a case for age-related diminishment of a candidate, Donald Trump is it."

• Paul Kiel/Russ Buettner: [06-10] "He ripped off the tax system": IRS audit could cost Trump more than $100 million.

• Anna Massoglia: [06-16] Trump uses convictions to fundraise after millions of donations go to legal costs.

• Dana Milbank: [06-14] You have no idea how hard it is to be Donald Trump: "Decapitation, electrocution and expectoration are just a few of the emerging hazards."

• Gregory Nolan: [06-14] The legal case for sentencing Trump to prison.

• Heather Digby Parton:

  • [06-07] Worse than inflation: Let's remember Trump's real record in office.

  • [06-14] Republicans' Capitol Hill pep rally for Trump's return was a flop.

• Christian Paz: [06-14] How Trump gets away with being so old: Three theories, the most telling one is that with all the indictments, trials, and other scandals, Trump gives them other things to write about.

• Hafiz Rashid: Lindsey Graham's totally spineless birthday message to Trump.

• Sam Sutton: [04-10] Never mind: Wall Street titans shake off qualms and embrace Trump. Steve M. comments: [06-10] I hope you're sitting down for the shocking news that rich people want Trump to win:

  Trump and his supporters have argued that his indictments and recent conviction should make him more appealing to Black people. Maybe that's true -- not of Black people, but of plutocrats. After all, plutocrats regularly engage in skeezy behavior and use a lot of non-disclosure agreements. They generally think they should be above the law, and in this country they usually are. While Balzac didn't exactly say, "Behind every great fortune there is a crime," there's quite a bit of truth in that aphorism.

• Charlie Savage/Jonathan Swan/Maggie Haberman: [06-16] If Trump wins: I mentioned this piece in last week's update, but didn't comment. I thought maybe I'd do a bullet list version this week, but again find no time for that. This is a fair account of what Trump says he would like to do. It underrates many of the (in many cases worse) things that his Republican minions would do on their own if they had the power and opportunity. In all cases, much depends on how much power and opportunity they get, which is to say on how big they can win. Trump was somewhat restrained in 2017 because he didn't enter with much of a mandate (and lost the House in 2019), because he was out of synch with his Congressional leadership, because he relied on the Republican establishment for most of his personnel decisions, because much of government still functioned as usual, and because he understood very little of how government works and what he could and could not do about it.

  Assuming Republicans control Congress after 2024, which is at least as realistic as Trump winning, most of his past limits will be much diminished -- though some will continue to slow him down, as will inertia, plus business lobbies will continue to pursue their own agendas. There is also the problem that much of what he wants to do is profoundly unpopular, so he can expect grass roots opposition and mobilization, plus a somewhat less than fawning media. And as much of what he wants to do is not just unpopular but counterproductive and/or dysfunctional, he will soon find his administration mired in crises. And as it's unlikely he'll be able to prevent future elections, in due course he'll be out on his ass, probably even more rudely than in 2020. Imaging how this might all work out might make for an amusing parlor game, but living through it is going to be tough. Better to go with "an ounce of prevention" and let the Democrats try to fend their way through the crises and rubble. At least they will pretend to care, and try to do something to help out.

  By the way, the section on "Retreat from military engagement with Europe" is the least likely to happen, and not just because it's the only one that might actually be for the better. The military-industrial complex is the driving force here, and it has enormous depth and inertia in Washington, while Trump has very little desire to actually change the "deep state" he likes to deride. As with "the swamp," Trump's real goal is not to "drain" or change anything, but to capture its loyalty for his personal vanities. There's no reason to doubt that they can develop into some kind of mutual admiration society. (For a cautious explanation of how that would work, see Rosa Brooks On the military in a fascist America.)

And other Republicans:

• Ryan Cooper: [06-06] The Republican Party is coming for birth control.

• Robert Downen/Juan Salinas II: [06-13] "War on white America": Ted Cruz-linked Texas group hosting pro-Christian nationalism conference: True Texas Project.

• Anna North: [06-13] The Christian right is coming for divorce next: "Some conservatives want to make it a lot harder to dissolve a marriage." Filed under Republicans, because they're the de facto political arm of the Christian right, and it's through them that they seek to control every aspect of your life.

• Hafiz Rashid: Lara Trump's new election threat is proof irony is dead: "The RNC chair seemed to be missing one giant elephant in the room when making her threat."

• Lori Rozsa: [06-15] DeSantis rejects climate change rationale for record-breaking rain: Nothing to see, let alone think about, here.

• Li Zhou: [06-12] The House GOP's latest bid to make Merrick Garland a villain: "Republicans' vote to hold him in contempt, briefly explained."

Biden and/or the Democrats:

• Yasmeen Abutaleb: [06-16] Biden, Obama warn of Trump dangers in star-studded L.A. fundraiser.

• David Atkins: [06-07] Democrats should run against the Supreme Court: "And they should take on more than the overturning of Roe v. Wade. They ought to campaign against the whole Trump-enabled, rights-stealing, gift-taking conservative supermajority." Of course they should, and to some extent they clearly are, although their message hasn't been fully articulated yet. But it shouldn't be: if we win, we're going to pack the Court. It should be to win big in Congress and the Presidency, then pass popular laws, daring the Court to strike them down. Either the Court will back down, or discredit itself. Either way, win more elections, and appoint better judges. Eventually, like FDR, you will win.

• Zachary D Carter: [06-10] Inflation is not destroying Joe Biden.

• David Dayen:

  • [06-14] The speech FDR would give: "As economic royalists ally with Trump, we have already seen an example of a rhetorical counter that tells it like it is."

  • [06-12] Fighting corporate pricing schemes is incredibly good politics: "A bill in the House attacking junk fees gets broad bipartisan support."

• Chauncey DeVega:

  • [05-23] "The American Dream is dying": Democrats' main selling point "is not a winning message": Interview with M Steven Fish, who has a new book, Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge. He mostly thinks that Democrats need to become better story tellers, especially about themselves being "fearless leaders, tough fighters, and fierce patriots." This continues an interview that started here:

  • [05-21] "Trump is all dominance, all the time": New research reveals "his most formidable political asset": "M Steven Fish explains the way Trump's 'character defects manifest what looks like bravery.'" Or, more often I find, assholery.

  • [05-20] When Trump gets dark, Biden goes light: "What their campaign emails say about Joe Biden and Donald Trump."

• Pramila Jayapal: [06-03] The Congressional Progressive Caucus agenda for 2025.

• Eric Levitz: [06-13] Biden is on track to beat inflation and lose the presidency: "The data on prices is getting better, but the public's disapproval of the president remains unchanged."

• David Masciotra: [06-14] Hillary Clinton, truth teller: "Republicans, the media, and plenty of Democrats were shocked -- shocked! -- to hear her say anti-Israel protestors don't know Middle Eastern history and to suggest prejudice might animate a large swatch of Trump voters." As soon as I saw this title, my mind offered a quick edit to the title: "truth teller for sale." Of course, that's not totally accurate: she is so attuned to the whims and wishes of her donors that she doesn't have to wait for the checks to clear. But is what she says about those who protest against Israeli policies true? I don't doubt that she's a very smart person who has been thoroughly schooled in the fine arts of hasbara, but I'm pretty sure I know a lot more Middle Eastern history than she does, and for good measure I'd drop American history into the mix. (Actually, her quote seems to be "that most 'young people' don't know the history of 'many area of the world, including our own country.'")

  Or at least, I understand what I know a lot better than she does. Not for a minute did I ever think invading Iraq would be a good idea. As for other protestors, some may be less knowledgeable, but some know even more than I do: for instance, the author picks on Juan Cole ("an academic popular with the hard left who consistently defends the brutality of Iran and flirts with antisemitism" -- link on Iran, which actually goes to a 2006 article by neocon-convert Christopher Hitchens, but not on antisemitism), who has written many useful books on the region and who runs a website that has consistently earned its "Informed Comment" moniker for more than 20 years.

  While understanding history can help you sort out arguments, which side you take depends more on how you respond to one very simple question: does the sympathy/respect you feel for Jews in Israel allow for or deny sympathy/respect for Palestinians? Or you can reverse the question either way (swap the people, or swap the sentiment to "disdain/disinterest"). Any way you slice it, people who respect all others as people will recoil from the treatment of Israelis against Palestinians, and therefore be critical of the current Israeli regime. History may help you to understand why this particular state happened, and maybe even how it might be changed. It will certainly suggest much about what happens if the current hatreds are allowed to continue and fester. But whether you care depends more on what kind of person you are. And Hillary Clinton's insensitivity and arrogance tells you much about what kind of person she is, which is someone whose only guiding principle is the pursuit of power. The willingness to say unpleasant things in that cause doesn't make you an oracle. It may just mean you're an asshole.

  By the way, Masciotra doesn't stop with Clinton's shilling for the Israel lobby. He still wants to defend her 2016 campaign "basket of deplorables" gaffe, which even she apologized for at the time. He seems to think that if she hadn't spilled the beans, nobody would have realized that lots of racists supported Trump because they recognized in him a fellow racist. (Clinton didn't put it that precisely. She said "deplorable" instead of racist, a code that her fellow liberals recognized while it just seemed snobby to the racists. And by saying "many" she got taken for "most," leaving the rest free to take umbrage over the generalization.) He also bothers to quote and defend Clinton's "truth" about Bernie Sanders: "Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him. He got nothing done." You'd think that a truther would be more concerned with what Sanders was proven right about than with how much lobby-backed legislation he lent his name to, but evidently not. What did Clinton ever accomplish that wasn't in the service to well-heeled lobbyists? I mean, aside from losing an election to Donald Trump?

• Juan Cole: [05-11] Macklemore's understanding of Palestinian history beats Hillary Clinton's.

• Hamid Dabashi: [06-10] Hillary Clinton fails to grasp the moral power of this turning tide: "This is a symptom of her limited imperial imagination."

• John Nichols: [06-14] Hillary Clinton just made the wrong choice in one of 2024's most crucial races: She's endorsed the AIPAC candidate running against Jamaal Bowman.

• Hadas Thier: [06-13] Why so much depends upon Jamaal Bowman being AIPAC.

• Nicole Narea: [06-11] Biden's overlooked campaign to protect Americans from Big Business: "Many Americans are focused on inflation, but from Big Tech to junk fees, Biden is advancing a pro-consumer agenda." I think this sort of thing is very important, and a very stark contrast to the Trump embrace of kleptocracy, fraud, and business criminality (which, as should be clear by now, he not only enables and excuses, but has vast experience engaging in).

• Christian Paz: [06-12] Are LGBTQ voters about to abandon Biden? One of those things I refuse to worry about. If Democrats could ever figure out how to get most of the votes from all the people who would be better served by Democrats rather than Republicans winning, they wouldn't have to subdivide their message into constituent identity groups, many of which don't want to hear about each other, let alone what they perceive as pandering to others. On the other hand, if you do identify as a member of a group Republicans are orchestrating hate against, are you really going to hurt yourself just so you can spite Biden? At some point between now and November, you're going to have to wake up and smell the sewer, and decide whether drown in it or escape. Then do the grown up thing and vote.

• Stephen Prager:

  • [06-14] Moving right on immigration is both cruel and politically reckless. I'm pretty ambivalent, and not very interested, in this excessively noisy issue. But I have found that Republicans inevitably win any contest over who's the real right-wing asshole.

  • [06-16] Democrats, contempt will not win you the election: "Telling voters their opinions don't matter will not persuade them to vote for you." Pictured here: Hillary Clinton, John Fetterman.

• Michael Tomasky: [06-14] There's a new "silent majority" out there -- and it is not conservative: "Ever since Richard Nixon used the phrase, it's been a Republican thing. But the Republicans are the extremists now, and the Silent Majority isn't what it was in 1969." I think there's a lot to be said for this point, but it's hard to figure out how to use it.

• Dylan Wells: [06-15] Meet the 24-year-old trying to solve Biden's problems with young voters: "Eve Levenson, the Biden campaign's national youth engagement director, may have one of the hardest jobs in American politics." Maybe because it's defined by a meaningless artifact of polling?

Hunter Biden: The jury convicted him on all three counts, with a possible maximum sentence of 25 years in jail. I'm surprised that I find this as disturbing as I do. I never liked the father, and find the son to be nothing but nepotistic scum. But he was charged with a crime that shouldn't be illegal, and convicted on evidence that shouldn't be admissable, only because Republicans in Congress (and the Special Prosecutor's office, and evidently the courts) through a hissy fit when he agreed to plead the charge down to near-nothing (more of a compromise than he should have had to do). That the jury went along with this sham is just more evidence of how rigged the system is against defendants. Moreover, because the defendant isn't Trump, Democrats are biting their tongues and expressing their pride in a very corrupt justice system, while Biden won't consider a pardon because he believes that would look bad (like he's playing politics with justice) -- totally the opposite of what Trump has done all along.

• Jim Newell: [06-15] A scheming father's nefarious plot to convict his son in federal court. I wonder what the term is for the polar opposite of Ockham's Razor?

• Andrew Prokop:

  • [06-11] Hunter Biden's gun conviction, briefly explained.

  • [06-12] The truth about Hunter Biden's conviction: "Hunter Biden's trial may be over, but the political spin war over it is nowhere near ending." I don't see much truth here, just a catalog of possible spins, none of which are terribly convincing.

• Jennifer Rubin: [06-16] The Hunter Biden and Trump trials were a litmus test. Only the Bidens passed. About as gracefully as they usually pass. The dis that "Trump family members were conspicuously absent" isn't fair, either: Eric was by far the most supportive family member -- habitually overlooked, probably perhaps because he makes the chore look so pathetic.

• Alexander Sammon: You'll never believe how Fox News is responding to the Hunter Biden trial.

• Bill Scher: [06-11] Trump's "weaponization" narrative just got shot down: If anything, this case just proves how often and easily DOJ prosecutions can be used for political vendettas. The mechanism of using a "special prosecutor" was the same. In both cases the pretense of avoiding partisanship only reinforced it.

• Steve M.: [06-12] Sadly, after the Hunter Biden verdict, the GOP's justice-system paranoia is still alive and well.

Legal matters and other crimes:

• Shirin Ali/Braden Goyette: [06-14] Sonia Sotomayor points out how quickly the conservative justices will drop their stated principles when it suits them.

• Justin Elliott/Joshua Kaplan/Alex Mierjeski: [06-14] Senate probe reveals more Clarence Thomas trips paid by GOP donor Harlan Crow.

• Matt Ford: The Supreme Court just made future mass shootings even deadlier. Actually, they were pretty clear that Congress has the power to ban bump stocks through appropriate legislation, which they would honor. A fairly large Democratic win in 2024 could fix this problem quickly, and possibly much more.

• Judith Levine: [06-07] US state abortion ban exemptions aren't vague by accident. Uncertainty is the point: "Anti-choice statutes are designed to keep health providers fearful of running afoul of the law. Women suffer for it."

• Dahlia Lithwick/Mark Joseph Stern:

  • [06-13] The Supreme Court's abortion pill ruling should satisfy nobody.

  • [06-15] The group helping the Supreme Court rewrite America's gun laws is worse than the NRA.

• Ian Millhiser:

  • [06-10] Justices Sotomayor and Kagan must retire now: "I am begging the justices to learn from Ruth Bader Ginsburg's historic mistake." I hate this kind of thinking. Sure, it's cool that they browbeat Breyer into retiring early (like when he was 83) so Biden could appoint a much better replacement, but the assumption here is that Trump will win in 2024 and/or Republicans will take over the Senate and refuse to confirm any Democratic nominees, and that Sotomayor (69) and/or Kagan (64) will die before Republicans fall back out of favor, and also that protecting their loser 3-6 minority is very important. Maybe he's right, but even if he is, this is the least of our problems. FDR inherited a really lousy Supreme Court, but he fixed that by winning elections and holding on longer than his enemies. Democrats need to learn how to do that again.

  • [06-13] The Supreme Court's abortion pill case is only a narrow and temporary victory for abortion: "The decision is unanimous, but it leaves open two routes Republicans could take to pull mifepristone from the market."

  • [06-14] The Supreme Court just effectively legalized machine guns.

• Andrew Perez: [06-03] The most ridiculous, right-wing Supreme Court that dark money could buy.

• Reva Siegel/Mary Ziegler: [06-14] The Supreme Court just laid out a road map for Trump to ban abortion nationwide.

Climate and environment:

• Matthew Cappucci:

  • [06-13] Record rains hit South Florida, causing disastrous flooding.

  • [06-16] Eastern US braces for extreme, long-lasting heat wave: How hot it will get.

• Ian Livingston: [06-14] Tropical storm could form in the Gulf of Mexico next week.

• Olivia Rosane: [06-16] From western fire to eastern heat, fossil-fueled extremes menace US.

Economic matters:

• American Prospect: Their June 2024 issue promises to expose: "How Pricing Really Works: The many innovations corporations have devised to get you to pay more." Here are some articles:

  • [06-14] The underbelly of the grocery store: "Nothing you see on the shelves is there by accident." How "junk fees, price-fixing, shrinkflation, personalization, and data collection -- come together at the grocery store. Every product's placement, every advertisement, every coupon is a function of marketing wizardry and hardball tactics, in a bid for the eyes and wallets of consumers."

  • [06-14] Lina Khan: Extraction exterminator: "The Federal Trade Commission chair plays a key role in preventing exploitative pricing schemes from taking root." An interview.

  • Bilal Baydoun: [06-14] Taming the pricing beast: "The government has a variety of strategies to protect the public from price-gouging and information advantages over the consumer."

  • David Dayen: [06-04] One person one price: "Digital surveillance and customer isolation are individualizing the prices we pay."

  • David Dayen/Lindsay Owens: [06-03] The age of recoupment: "How power, technology, and opportunity have come together to gouge consumers."

  • Jarod Facundo: [06-12] War in the aisles: "Monopolies across the grocery supply chain squeeze consumers and small-business owners alike. Big Data will only entrench those dynamics further."

  • Luke Goldstein: [06-05] Three algorithms in a room: "A growing number of industries are using software to fix prices. Law enforces are beginning to fight back."

  • Sarah Jaffe: [06-07] The urge to surge: "Businesses are hiking prices to take advantage of consumers. They learned it from Uber."

  • Hassan Ali Kanu: [06-06] Loaded up with junk: "Extra profits are the only explanation for many fees businesses charge."

  • Robert Kuttner: [06-13] Fantasyland general: "Hospital pricing is impenetrable to consumers and regulators alike. The result: increased costs and profits, and wasteful reliance on armies of middlemen."

  • Joanna Marsh: [06-10] The one-click economy: "Digital subscriptions are here to stay. What should we do about that?"

  • Kalena Thomhave: [06-11] What we owe: "The big banks behind the rising cost of credit."

Ukraine War and Russia:

• Kyle Anzalone: [06-14] Putin makes public peace offer to Ukraine: He wants Ukraine to cede the four oblasts Russia has largely occupied since early in the war -- three of which Ukraine partially controls, so would have to withdraw from. Also to agree not to join NATO, and for US sanctions to end. A more realistic proposal would be to accept the current front lines (possibly with Russia withdrawing from recently acquired territory near Kharkiv, with future plebiscites to formalize the division, and the other issues depending on the further recession of threats and normalization of relations. Even that is way short of Zelensky's terms, which (not very realstically) assume he can fight as long as or longer than Putin.

• Nandika Chatterjee: [06-16] Trump criticizes US aid to Ukraine, promises to "have that settled" if reelected.

• Artin Dersimonian: [06-11] US lifts ban on neo-nazi linked Azov Brigade in Ukraine. I don't know that "easing the restrictions shows how desperate the battlefield situation has become," but this is hardly the first time the US has been willing to overlook a little fascism given a common enemy.

• Anatol Lieven: [06-14] What the Swiss 'peace summit' can realistically achieve: "Talks in Geneva this weekend won't end the war, particularly seeing that Russia wasn't invited, but they may prove useful."

• Blaise Malley:

  • [06-10] Congress: Let Ukraine hit more targets inside Russia with US weapons: "Getting us one step closer to a direct war with Moscow."

  • Blaise Malley: [06-14] Diplomacy Watch: At G7 summit, West works to reassure Ukraine: "Not much of the news coming out of Ukraine in recent months has been particularly positive."

America's empire and the world:

• Jess Craig: [06-12] We're in a new era of conflict and crisis. Can humanitarian aid keep up? "Utter neglect of displaced people has become the new normal."

  Last year, more than 360 million people worldwide needed humanitarian assistance. To cover the costs of aid, the United Nations appealed to global donors -- primarily governments but also philanthropic individuals and institutes -- for a record $56 billion.

  But even as humanitarian needs peaked, funding for aid dwindled to its lowest levels since 2019. Less than half of that $56 billion was raised. As a result, the gap between global humanitarian funding needs and donor contributions reached its highest level in more than 20 years.

  And that's not the worst part. What funding was available was not allocated equitably across the world's crises. Conflicts in the Global South went vastly underfunded. Last week, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), a major humanitarian organization, published its annual ranking of the world's most neglected displacement crises. Nine of 10 were in Africa.

• Ellen Ioanes:

  • [06-10] Why Europe is lurching to the right: "Far-right parties made big gains in EU Parliament elections -- and that's already having an effect." One thing I'll admit is that I've never had the slightest understanding of how the EU Parliament works or what, if anything, it is capable of doing. As near as I've been able to figure out, the EU seems to be a cloistered bureaucracy mostly concerned with economic matters, tightly controlled by a neoliberal oligarchy that is very well insulated against possible encroachments from the Democratic left -- who when they do manage to win elections, get beat down like Syriza in Greece. It is similarly unclear whether the right can have any real impact in the EU Parliament, although I suppose it might afford them an arena the one thing they specialize in, which is irritable gesticulating. Also on the EU elections:

    • Molly O'Neal: [06-15] How much did the right really gain in Europe? "The center will hold in Brussels after the parliament elections; the real story is France and Germany."

  • [06-13] The fracturing of South African politics, explained: "What the defeat of the party that ended apartheid means for South Africa."

• Hafsa Kanjwal: [06-13] How India is implementing the 'Israel model' in Kashmir.

• Peter Oborne: [06-11] Tory Britain is about to fall. But what follows could be far worse: "The Conservatives have traditionally acted as a buffer against fascist forces. But after the impending electoral defeat, Farage and the far right are poised to win control of the party."

• Vijay Prashad: [06-07] Migrating workers provide wealth for the world.

Other stories:

Erin Blakemore: [06-08] Tens of millions of acres of cropland lie abandoned, study shows: "The biggest changes took place around the Ogallala Aquifer, whose groundwater irrigates parts of numerous states, including Colorado, Texas and Wyoming."

Vivian Gornick: [06-06] Orgasm isn't my bag: A review of Trish Romano: The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture. If it seems like I'm collecting reviews of this book, perhaps that means I should write my own. I read it, and perhaps more importantly, I lived it -- starting as a clueless subscriber in the 1960s.

Balaji Ravichandran: [06-12] Imperialilsm isn't in the past. Neither is the damage it did. A review of Charlotte Lydia Riley: Imperial Island: An Alternative History of the British Empire. Few subjects are more deserving of "a withering indictment" than the British Empire. The "damage done" to the rest of the world has been extensively documented, although little of it has sunk into the Churchill-worshipping cliques in the US and UK. What's far less well understood are the lingering distortions within British politics, and not just for the feedback immigration, which has become conspicuous of late.

Nathan J Robinson: [2018-12-07] Lessons from Chomsky: "Some things I've learned from his writings . . ."

Becca Rothfeld: [06-13] Donald Trump didn't spark out current political chaos. The '90s did. Review of John Ganz: When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. Histories of 1990s US politics tend to feature the main event of Gingrich vs. Clinton, but I can see where focusing on fringe-crazy might offer some insights. Also on Ganz:

• Jennifer Szalai: [06-12] The 1990s were weirder than you think. We're feeling the effects.

Music and other arts:

David Hajdu: [06-11] Seeing ourselves in Joni Mitchell: Review of Ann Powers' "deeply personal biography of Joni Mitchell": Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell. For another review:

• Francine Prose: [06-16] What we think about when we think about Joni Mitchell.

Brad Luen: [06-16] Semipop Life: A very high shelf.

Michael Tatum: Books read (and not read): June 2024: I jumped straight to Trish Romano's The Freaks Came Out to Write, as that's the one I've actually read.

Midyear reports: I've been factoring these into my metacritic file.

• Esquire [Alan Light]: [05-20] The best albums of 2024 (so far).

• The Guardian: [06-12] The best albums of 2024 so far.

• Mojo: [06-13] The best albums of 2024 so far.

• Rolling Stone: [06-11] The best albums of 2024 so far.

• Ultimate Classic Rock: [06-13] Top 15 rock albums of 2024 (so far).

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, June 10, 2024

June archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42460 [42421] rated (+39), 31 [36] unrated (-5).

I published a pretty long Speaking of Which Sunday night (209 links, 12260 words). I fixed a couple typos, added a few more items, and a lot of words today -- the latter mostly came from extensive quotes of two articles I had flagged to include but didn't get to in time. I've also been including links to music pieces, which lately have mostly been mid-year lists I've factored into my metacritic file.

I lost a couple days of listening time when I fixed a couple of small dinners, one mostly Chinese, the second more Italian. I rarely cook, let alone entertain, these days, so it's nice to see that I still have some skills.

When I did manage to listen, I racked up records fast, possibly because I did more EPs than usual (7), and also because quite a few records inspired minimal commentary.

I mentioned it in Speaking of Which, but let me add an extra plug for the return of Michael Tatum's A Downloader's Diary, this one (52). In the aforementioned metacritic file, I'm giving his grades the same weight I give Robert Christgau's and my own's (although I haven't added many in yet).

New records reviewed this week:

Altus: Mythos (2024, Biophilia): Quintet, based in New York, inspired by "the Greek myth of Prometheus and the Yoruba myth of Oludumare," of Dave Adewumi (trumpet), Isaac Levien (bass), Neta Raanan (tenor sax), Nathan Reising (alto sax), and Ryan Sands (drums). B+(***) [cdr]

Oren Ambarchi/Johan Berthling/Andreas Werlin: Ghosted II (2024, Drag City): Australian guitarist, started as a drummer, very prolific since 1999, trio here with bass and drums, following Ghosted from 2022. Four pieces, from 7:36 to 13:15, "jazz-funk heads, polyrhythmic skeletons, ambient pastorals, post-kraut drones and shimmering soundtrack reveries." B+(***) [sp]

Bab L' Bluz: Swaken (2024, Real World): French-Moroccan "power quartet," second album. B+(*) [sp]

Evan Nicole Bell: Runaway Girl (2024, Humingbird, EP): Guitar featured on cover and, well, everywhere, kicking off with an Albert King blues, but that's probably not her destiny, just a kicking off point. Three songs plus a longer mix, 17:15. B+(*) [sp]

Blue Lab Beats: Blue Eclipse (2024, Blue Adventure): UK jazztronica duo, producer NK-OK (Namali Kwaten) and multi-instrumentalist Mr DM (David Mrakpor), fourth album, some sources have label as Decca or Blue Note. Guest vocals, some rapped. B [sp]

Aziza Brahim: Mawja (2024, Glitterbeat): Sahrawi singer and actress, born in a refugee camp in Algeria, got a scholarship when she was 11 to study in Cuba, eventually wound up in Spain. Fifth album since 2012, nice, steady flow. B+(**) [sp]

Cakes Da Killa: Black Sheep (2024, Young Art): Rapper Rashard Bradshaw, from New Jersey, got some notice for 2011-14 mixtapes, less so for later albums, this the third. B+(**) [sp]

Madi Diaz: Weird Faith (2024, Anti-): Singer-songwriter, born in Connecticut, mother Peruvian, father Danish (Eric Svalgård), home-schooled, went to Berklee, moved to LA, first album 2007, this is her sixth. I'm rarely so captivated by a set of confessional and meditative songs that I pay enough attention to gather in the details. The song that earned the album a replay was "KFM," for "kill, fuck, marry." One might also note the Lori McKenna co-credit, and the Kacey Musgraves feature. A- [sp]

John Escreet: The Epicenter of Your Dreams (2023 [2024], Blue Room Music): Pianist, albums since 2008, "a powerhouse band reflecting the thriving L.A. scene," with Mark Turner (tenor sax), Eric Revis (bass), and Damion Reid (drums). B+(***) [cd]

Maria Faust Jazz Catastrophe: 3rd Mutation: Moth (2023 [2024], Bush Flash): Alto saxophonist, from Estonia, based in Copenhagen, albums since 2008, Jazz Catstrophe released a big band album in 2013, this "mutation" appears to be a trio, with guitar (Lars Bech Pilgaard) and drums (Anders Vestergaard) but sounds bigger. Am I missing something? A- [sp]

Sierra Ferrell: Trail of Flowers (2024, Rounder): Bluegrass singer-songwriter from West Virginia, plays fiddle as well as guitar, self-released two albums before landing on Rounder for 2021's Long Time Coming. This one's nearly as good. B+(***) [sp]

Margaret Glaspy: The Sun Doesn't Think (2024, ATO, EP): Singer-songwriter with a strong track record, coming off her excellent 2023 album Echo the Diamond, with a new one scheduled for August. Meanwhile: five songs, 20:09. Practically demos, just guitar and voice, yet somehow enough. B+(***) [sp]

Ariana Grande: Eternal Sunshine (2024, Republic): Pop singer-songwriter, went platinum with her 2013 debut, seventh album, four years after her sixth. B+(**) [sp]

The Haas Company [Featuring Andy Timmons]: Vol. 1: Galactic Tide (2024, Psychiatric): Following the publicist's hype sheet, I originally had artist and title swapped. This makes more sense, although the cover typography is less than clear, and the spine is less than that. Leader seems to be drummer Steve Haas (first listed credit), and Timmons plays heavy fusion guitar, but keyboardist Pete Drungle is credited with "musical direction." Band also uses bass (Kirwan Brown or Al MacDowell) and sax (Pete Gallo), with a couple guest spots. Powerhouse fusion. B [cd]

Marika Hackman: Big Sigh (2024, Chrysalis): English singer-songwriter, sixth album since 2015 (after two EPs). No shortage of post-pandemic stress here, a slow start that gradually gains strength and stature. B+(**) [sp]

Jake Hertzog: Longing to Meet You (2024, self-released): Guitarist, leads a postbop quartet with sax (Matt Woroshyl), bass (Perrin Grace), and drums (Joe Peri). B+(**) [cd]

Home Counties: Exactly as It Seems (2024, Submarine Cat): British group, sextet, first album after an EP (or two). Pretty catchy, not that that matters much. B+(*) [sp]

Simone Keller: Hidden Heartache (2022 [2024], Intakt): Swiss pianist, side credits since 2009, including Kukuruz Quartet, first album on her own, subtitle "100 Minutes of Piano Music from the Last 100 Years in the Context of Social Inequality and Unequal Power Relations," which makes me wish I had followed it better, but I'm not that much into close, critical listening. Mostly solo, but scattered side credits for oud, bassoon, trombone, and toy piano. Composers include Julius Eastman -- Kukuruz did a whole album of his work -- and Lil Hardin Armstrong. B+(**) [sp]

Lola Kirke: Country Curious (2024, One Riot, EP): Born in London, raised in New York, she has much more on her acting resume (since 2011) than in her discography (four titles, most EPs like this, 4 songs, 12:13, leading off with an LA twist on "All My Exes." [PS: Where Have All the Cowboys Gone? adds the title song for 15:43. Discogs includes both EPs under the Country Curious title.] B+(*) [sp]

Jon Langford & the Men of Gwent: Lost on Land & Sea (2023, Country Mile): The Waco Brothers return as a Welsh bar band. B+(**) [bc]

The Bruce Lofgren Group: Earthly and Cosmic Tales (2024, Night Bird): Guitarist, has a Jazz Orchestra album from 1999, side credits back to 1972 (ranging from Buddy Rich to Loggins & Messina). Group includes clarinet, cello, vibes, bass, percussion, on eight originals plus covers of Van Dyke Parks and Stevie Wonder. Not unpleasant. B [cd]

Lucy Rose: This Ain't the Way You Go Out (2024, Communion): English singer-songwriter, last name Parton, fifth album since 2012. B+(*) [sp]

MIKE & Tony Seltzer: Pinball (2024, 10k, EP): Rapper Michael Bonema, born in New Jersey, grew up in the Bronx, has released quite a bit since 2015, first album with producer Seltzer, who also has credits back to 2015. Short album: 11 tracks, 21:29. B+(*) [sp]

Mk.gee: Two Star & the Dream Police (2024, R&R Digital): Singer-songwriter Michael Gordon, from New Jersey, plays guitar and piano, first studio album after two EPs and a mixtape. No obvious category here, the rhythm a bit funk, or maybe just a bit odd, with nothing sticking too far out, but he keeps you wondering. B+(**) [sp]

Willie Nelson: The Border (2024, Legacy): Age 91, 75th studio album, title song (plus an old one) by Rodney Crowell, four originals (with producer Buddy Cannon, who co-wrote one more). Voice seems a bit off, but the songs are first rate, especially the meta "How Much Does It Cost?" A- [sp]

Nubiyan Twist: Find Your Flame (2024, Strut): British jazz-funk group, fourth album since 2015. B+(*) [sp]

Yvonnick Prené/Geoff Keezer: Jobim's World (2023 [2024], Sunnyside): French chromatic harmonica player, based in New York, debut 2013, duo here with the pianist, playing five Jobim tunes, two more Brazilian standards, and two originals. B+(*) [sp]

Bruno Råberg Tentet: Evolver (2023 [2024], Orbis Music): Swedish bassist, first album 1976, steady since he named his label after his 1998 album Orbis. Tentet doesn't count "special guests" Kris Davis (piano/prepared piano on 6 of 10 tracks) and Walter Smith III (tenor sax on 4). B+(**) [sp]

Rapsody: Please Don't Cry (2024, Jamla/Roc Nation): Rapper Marlanna Evans, from North Carolina, fourth album since 2012. Much to enjoy here, but it's a long and winding road. B+(**) [sp]

Raze Regal & White Denim: Raze Regal & White Denim Inc. (2023, Bella Union): James Petralli, leader of the garage rock band White Denim (2008-21?), co-wrote this batch of songs with the guitarist, who was a childhood friend and has side credits since 2009 (Stalkers, Planes of Satori, Once & Future Band, Nolan Potter's Nightmare Band). B [sp]

A. Savage: The Loft Sessions (2024, Rough Trade, EP): Parquet Courts frontman, initial stands for Andrew, has a couple of solo albums other group fans like much more than I do. Four songs, 13:58, scattered covers I didn't recognize and don't know what to make of. B+(*) [sp]

Shygirl: Club Shy (2024, Because Music, EP): British dance-pop singer-rapper Blane Muise, has a 2022 album, several EPs since 2018, and remixes of most of them. Six tracks, 15:32. B+(*) [sp]

Ballaké Sissoko/Derek Gripper: Ballaké Cissoko & Derek Gripper (2024, Matsuli Music): Kora player from Mali, dozen-plus albums since 2000, surprised not to find him in my database so far. Duo here with the South African guitarist, who has a comparable career since 2003 (also under my radar). B+(***) [sp]

Connie Smith: Love, Prison, Wisdom and Heartaches (2024, Fat Possum): Country singer, had a string of hits on RCA from 1964-72 (although I can't recommend The Essential Connie Smith, from the label's usually dependable best-of series), continued with Columbia and Monument through 1978, dabbled a bit in gospel, had enough of a rep to get comeback shots in 1998 (on Warner Nashville), 2011 (Sugar Hill), and 2021 (Fat Possum). Second album on the latter, framed retro, twelve covers that probably go way back (the ones I recognize sure do, including "End of the World," "The Fugitive," "The Wayward Wind," and an obscure Loretta Lynn gem), sung and played right fine. B+(**) [sp]

Vince Staples: Dark Times (2024, Def Jam/Blacksmith): Rapper from Long Beach, sixth album since 2015, all hits but none huge, some critical rep as well but I've always found turn offs despite his skills. But no real annoyances this time. B+(***) [sp]

Oded Tzur: My Prophet (2023 [2024], ECM): Tenor saxophonist, from Israel, based in New York since 2011, fifth album, third on ECM, quartet with Nitai Hershkovits (piano), Petros Klampanis (bass), and Cyrano Almeida (drums). A warm tone against the ECM chill. B+(**) [sp]

Faye Webster: Underdressed at the Symphony (2024, Secretly Canadian): Singer-songwriter from Atlanta, self-released debut in 2013, fourth album since. Has a light touch I find appealing. B+(*) [sp]

Amber Weekes: A Lady With a Song: Amber Weekes Celebrates Nancy Wilson (2024, Amber Inn): Standards singer, has a couple previous, not especially compelling, albums. As for Wilson (1937-2018), I've only lightly sampled her work, and never been all that impressed. Still, when the song is up to snuff, Weekes can deliver it. B+(*) [cd]

Kelly Willis/Melissa Carper/Brennen Leigh: Wonder Women of Country (2024, Brooklyn Basement, EP): Most sources flip the group and title names, but this way makes more sense. Three country singer-songwriters, Willis produced a series of solid albums in the 1990s, the others started headlining recently (although Carper, who also plays bass, has credits back to 1996). Six songs, 17:57, no reason to doubt they could do much more. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

The Power of the Heart: A Tribute to Lou Reed (2024, Light in the Attic): Reissue label, has recently been sifting through Reed's archives, supplements their offerings with this collection of covers, presumably new versions although many of the artists go well back -- starting with Keith Richards, doing "I'm Waiting for the Man." Leads off with rockers, odder matches in the middle -- Mary Gauthier doing "Coney Island Baby" for 7:13 is actually pretty great -- then tails off toward the end. B+(**) [sp]

Old music:

• None

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Bruna Black/John Finbury: Vã Revelação (Green Flash) [05-14]
• Kiki Valera: Vacilón Santiaguero (Circle 9 Music) [05-31]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, June 9, 2024

I'm posting this after 10PM Sunday evening, figuring I'm about worn out, even though I've only hit about 80% of my usual sources, and am finding new things at a frightening clip. I imagine I'll add a bit more on Monday, as I work on what should be a relatively measured Music Week. There is, in any case, much to read and think about here. Too much really.

I thought I'd start here with a quote from Avi Shlaim, from his introduction to one of the first books to appear the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks from Gaza against Israel and Israel's dramatic escalation from counterterrorism to genocide (Jamie Stern-Weiner, ed.: Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm):

The powerful military offensive launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, or Operation Swords of Iron to give it its official name, was a major landmark in the blood-soaked history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was an instant, almost Pavlovian response to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. The attack caught Israel by complete surprise, and it was devastating in its consequences, killing about 300 Israeli soldiers, massacring more than 800 civilians, and taking some 250 hostages. Whereas previous Hamas attacks involved the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip on southern Israel, this was a ground incursion into Israeli territory made possible by breaking down the fence with which Israel had surrounded Gaza. The murderous Hamas attack did not come out of the blue as many believed. It was a response to Israel's illegal and exceptionally brutal military occupation of the Palestinian territories since June 1967, as well as the suffocating economic blockade that Israel had imposed on Gaza since 2006. Israel, however, treated it as an unprovoked terrorist attack that gave it a blank check to use military force on an unprecedented scale to exact revenge and to crush the enemy.

Israel is no stranger to the use of military force in dealing with its neighbors. It is a country that lives by the sword. Under international law, states are allowed to use military force in self-defense as a last resort; Israel often employs force as a first resort. Some of its wars with the Arabs have been "wars of no choice," like the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948; others have been "wars of choice," like the Suez War of 1956 and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Wars are usually followed by the search for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. When one examines Israel's record in dealing with the Arabs as a whole, however, the use of force appears to be the preferred instrument of statecraft. Indeed, all too often, instead of war being the pursuit of politics by other means, Israeli diplomacy is the pursuit of war by other means.

Also, a bit further down:

Deadlock on the diplomatic front led to periodic clashes between Hamas and Israel. This is not a conflict between two roughly equal parties but asymmetric warfare between a small paramilitary force and one of the most powerful militaries in the world, armed to the teeth with the most advanced American weaponry. The result was low-intensity (but for the people in Gaza, still devastating) conflict which took the form of primitive missiles fired from inside the Gaza Strip on settlements in southern Israel and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) counter-insurgency operations designed to weaken but not to destroy Hamas. From time to time, Israel would move beyond aerial bombardment to ground invasion of the enclave. It launched major military offensives into Gaza in 2008-09, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Israeli leaders used to call these recurrent IDF incursions into Gaza "mowing the lawn." This was the metaphor to describe Israel's strategy against Hamas. The strategy did not seek to defeat Hamas, let alone drive it from power. On the contrary, the aim was to allow Hamas to govern Gaza but to isolate and weaken it, and to reduce its influence on the West Bank. Israel's overarching political objective was to kep the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas government geographically separate so as to prevent the emergence of a unified leadership. In this context, Israel's periodic offensives were designed to degrade the military capability of Hamas, to enhance Israeli deterrence, and to turn the civilian population of Gaza against its rulers. In short, it was a strategy of managing the conflict, of avoiding peace talks, of using the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah as a sub-contractor for Israeli security on the West Bank, and of containing Palestinian resistance within the open-air prison of the Gaza Strip.

Shlaim opens the next paragraph with "This strategy lay in tatters following the Hamas attack," but that's just a momentary reflection of Israeli histrionics plus a bit of wishful thinking. The latter was based on the hope that Israelis would recognize that the old strategy had backfired, and needed to be revised. But the histrionics were at most momentary, and quickly evolved into staged, as Netanyahu and his gang realized the attacks presented a opportunity to escalate the conflict to previously unthreatened levels, and in the absence of meaningful resistance have seen little reason to restrain themselves.

Israel has a very sophisticated propaganda operation, with a large network of long-time contacts, so they sprung immediately to work, planting horror stories about Hamas and Palestinians, while pushing rationales for major war operations into play, so Israel's habitual supporters would always be armed with the best talking points. That they were so prepared to do so suggests they know, and have known for a long time, that their actions and programs aren't obviously justifiable. They know that their main restraint isn't the threat of other powers, but that world opinion will come to ostracize and shame them, like it did to South Africa. It's not certain that such a shift in world opinion will sway them -- the alternative is that they will shrivel up into a defensive ball, like North Korea, and there would certainly be sentiment in Israel for doing so (here I need say no more than "Masada complex").

Israel has, indeed, lost a lot of foreign support, including about 80% of the UN General Assembly. But though all of that, the US has remained not just a reliable ally to Israel, but a generous one, and a very dutiful one, even as Israel is losing support from the general public. Netanyahu is Prime Minister by a very slim and fractious coalition in Israel, but when he speaks in Congress, he can rest assured that 90% of both parties will cheer him on -- a degree of popularity no American politician enjoys.

Initial count: 209 links, 12260 words. Updated count [06-10]: 235 links, 15800 words.

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): on music.

Top story threads:

Israel: As I'm trying to wrap this up on Sunday, I must admit I'm getting overwhelmed, and possibly a bit confused, by the constant roll call of atrocities Israel is committing. There appears to be not just one but several instances of mass slaughter at Nuseirat refugee camp. There is also "late news" -- later than the earliest reports below -- including the Benny Gantz resignation, that are captured in various states of disclosure below. While I've generally tried to group related reports, that's become increasingly difficult, so my apologies for any lapses in order. These are truly trying times. And yet the solution of a simple cease-fire is so blindingly obvious.

• Mondoweiss:

  • [06-03] Day 241: Israel contradicts Biden over ceasefire proposal: "Israeli protests demanding a prisoner exchange deal continue in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as Blinken discusses the proposal with Gantz and Gallant. Meanwhile, Gaza authorities say that thousands of children face death from starvation."

  • [06-06] Day 244: Israel commits new massacre in strike on UNRWA school in Nuseirat: "The U.S. and 16 other countries urged Hamas and Israel to 'make concessions' to secure a ceasefire deal. Meanwhile, Israel killed 40 people in a bombing of an UNRWA school in the central Gaza Strip." [PS: Death toll from Israeli attack on Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza rises to 210.]

  • [06-08] Israel kills over 200 Palestinians to rescue 4 captives; US allegedly involved in operation. This was also reported by:

    • Middle East Eye: [06-08] US involved in Israeli rescue operation that killed over 200 Palestinians: "Four captives released and taken back to Israel from Gaza, as Israeli bombs pound central Gaza."

    • Steve Hendrix/Shira Rubin/Loveday Morris/Heba Farouk Mahfouz/Hajar Harb: [06-09] Inside Israel's hostage rescue: Secret plans and a deadly 'wall of fire': The bragging begins. On the other hand:

    • Isabel Kershner: [06-09] Israel's euphoria over hostage rescue may be fleeting.

    The Mondoweiss article includes a "hostages" tally from Prem Thakker:

    • 105 freed via temporary ceasefire
    • 4 released by Hamas
    • 3 with white flags killed by IDF
    • 4 Israeli rescue missions:
      • 1 hostage killed
      • 1 soldier saved
      • 2 hostages saved, at least 74 people killed
      • 4 hostages saved, at least 210 people killed
    • Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed an unknown amount of hostages in Hamas captivity & at least 36,800 people overall

• Wafa Aludaini: [06-07] Not just bombs: Israeli-caused hunger is killing Palestinian children in Gaza

• Ruwaida Kamal Amer: Doctors evacuate Rafah's last hospitals: "Almost no facilities to treat the wounded as doctors fear a repeat of Israel's attacks on hospitals across the Strip."

• Giorgio Cafiero: [06-04] Israel testing Egypt's 'weak hand' in Gaza conflict: "The IDF now has full control of the Philadelphi Corridor on the border, but there is very little Cairo can do to respond."

• Haidar Eid: [06-09] My Nuseirat: "I was born in the Nuseirat refugee camp and it made me who I am. The Nuseirat massacre will not be the last in Gaza, but like all massacres committed by colonialists, it will be a signpost in our long walk to freedom that will not be forgotten."

• Adam Gaffney: [05-30] Don't believe the conspiracies about the Gaza death toll: "The statistical evidence is clear: Civilians in Gaza have overwhelmingly borne the brunt of Israel's assault."

• Tareq S Hajjaj:

  • [06-05] Palestine Letter: What it's like to witness your own Nakba: "As a journalist I have listened to countless stories of Nakba survivors. They would always say, 'we thought we would return.' I never imagined that in my lifetime I would be witnessing another Nakba, and saying the same thing."

  • [06-09] 'I heard all of my friends' last breath': Testimonies from the Nuseirat massacre: "The Israeli massacre in Gaza's Nuseirat camp killed over 270 Palestinians and injured many more. Survivors say the horrors they witnessed will stay with them for the rest of their lives."

• Qassam Muaddi:

  • [06-07] The genocide in Israeli prisons: "Families of Palestinian prisoners are kept in the dark about the fate of their loved ones at a time when Israeli prison authorities are creating conditions unfit for human life."

  • [06-08] The invisibility of Palestinian Christians: "Palestinian Christians suffer from a crisis of representation, as some church leaders and community members disassociate from the Palestinian struggle and perpetuate the perception that they are a 'minority.'"

• Shira Rubin: [06-09] Moderates quit Netanyahu's emergency government, call for elections: By "moderates" they mean Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot. Gantz had joined the government after Oct. 7 in a "national unity" gesture, but threatened to leave if Netanyahu didn't come up with a "post-war" plan for Gaza by today, which he didn't. This leaves Netanyahu's original coalition majority intact, so has no real effect at the moment.

• Jeffrey St Clair: [06-07] Snatch-and-grab Israeli style: disappearing into the gulag.

• Oren Ziv: Chanting 'burn Shu'afat;' and 'flatten Gaza,' masses attend Jerusalem Flag March: "Israeli ministers joined the annual celebration of East Jerusalem's conquest, where racist slogans and attacks on journalists have become mainstream."

America's Israel (and Israel's America): The Biden administration, despite occasional misgivings, is fully complicit in Israel's genocide. Republicans only wish to intensify it -- after all, they figure racism and militarism are their things.

• Janet Abou-Elias: [06-06] Who's minding the stockpile of US weapons going to Israel? "Congress has further weakened constraints on a special DOD arms reserve, which is spread over multiple warehouses and lacks a public inventory."

• Michael Arria: [06-06] The Shift: Netanyahu is going back to Washington: "Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming speech to Congress will be his fourth, giving him the most of any foreign leader. He's currently tied with Winston Churchill at three. He was invited by the leadership from both parties. Who says bipartisanship is dead?" More on the Netanyahu invite:

  • Jonathan Chait: [06-08] Why on Earth is Chuck Schumer inviting Netanyahu to address congress? "Giving the flailing leader a lifeline isn't good for the US or Israel."

• Matthew Mpoke Bigg: [06-05] Here's a closer look at the hurdles to a cease-fire deal: "Neither Israel nor Hamas have said definitively whether they would accept or reject a proposal outlined by President Biden, but sizable gaps between the two sides appear to remain." NY Times remain masters at both-sidesing this, but Israel is the only side that's free to operate deliberately, so lack of "agreement" simply means that Israel has refused to cease-fire, despite what should be compelling reasons to do so. More on the Biden (presented as Israel) proposal:

  • Ali Abunimah: [05-31] Biden admits Israel's defeat in Gaza: Author seeks to poke Biden in the eye, but quotes Biden's actual speech, adding his annotation. Mine would differ, but the exercise is still worthwhile. I'd never say Israel has been defeated in Gaza, except perhaps to say that Israel has defeated itself (although I'd look for words more like degraded and debilitated, as I hate the whole notion that wars can be won -- I only see losers, varying in the quantities they have lost, but less so the qualities, which afflict all warriors).

    I haven't been following his publication, but I've been aware of Abunimah for a long time. He's written a couple of "clear-eyed, sharply reasoned, and compassionate" books on the subject: One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impassed (2007: not remotedly agreeable to Israel, but not wrong either, and would have "avoided all this mess" -- quote's from a Professor Longhair song, about something else, but hits the spot here); and The Battle for Justice in Palestine (2014; my Books note was: "tries to remain hopeful")

  • Fred Kaplan:

    • [06-04] The most remarkable thing about Biden's cease-fire speech: "And how the rhetorical gambit could work -- or not."

    • [05-21] Why Netanyahu's war cabinet is existentially divided: "The Israeli prime minister refuses to plan for life after the war in Gaza." I don't think I mentioned this piece when it came out, but it leads directly to the Gantz resignation, as well as Netanyahu's sand-bagging of the Biden-presented cease-fire proposal.

• Sheera Frenkel: [06-05] Israel secretly targets US lawmakers with influence campaign on Gaza War: "Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs ordered the operation, which used fake social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to fund Israel's military, according to officials and documents about the effort."

• Ellen Ioanes: [06-05] What happens if Gaza ceasefire talks fail. "Nearly 40 Palestinians in Rafah will die each day due to traumatic injuries if Israel continues its incursion, according to a new analysis." How they came up with that figure, which they project to 3,509 by August 17, boggles the mind. Israel has been known to kill more than that with a single bomb. And note how they're breaking out "traumatic injuries" into a separate category, presumably to separate them out from starvation deaths and who knows what else? For that matter, "traumatic" is about a pretty tame generic word for blown to bits and/or incinerated, which is what Israel's bombs are actually doing, as well as burying bodies under tons of rubble. When we commonly speak of trauma, usually we mean psychological injuries -- something which in this case no one has come close to quantifying.

  And can we talk about this passive-voiced "if talks fail." Biden announced what he called "Israel's plan," and Hamas basically agreed to it, so who is still talking? The thus-far-failing talks Ioanes alludes to here are exclusively within Israel's war cabinet, where failure to agree to anything that might halt the war is some kind of axiom.

• Alon Pinkas: [06-06] Biden wants an end to the Gaza war. But he is finally realising Netanyahu will block any attempts at peace. This has been more/less the story since about a month into the war. although it took Biden much longer to dare say anything in public, and he's still doing everything possible to appease Israel. If, after a few weeks of their savage bombing of Gaza, Israel had unilaterally ceased fire, no one would doubt their deterrence. Everyone would have understood that any attack on them would be met with a disproportionately savage response. They could then have turned their backs and walked away, simply dumping responsibility for Gaza and its people, which they have no real interest in or for, onto the UN. The hostages would have been freed, even without prisoner swaps. The ancillary skirmishes with Hezbollah and the Houthis would have ended. Months later, no one would be talking about genocide, or facing charges from the ICC. Israel's relations with the US would be unblemished. And Israel's right-wing government would still have a relatively free hand to go about its dispossession of and terror against Palestinians in the West Bank. This didn't happen because Biden didn't dare object to Israel's genocidal plans, because he's totally under their thumb -- presumably due to donors and the Israel lobby, but one has to wonder if he just doesn't have a streak of masochism. Even now that he's writhing in misery, he still can't bring himself to just say no.

• Mitchell Plitnick: [06-08] The Biden administration must stop Israel before it escalates in Lebanon: "There are dangerous signs Israel intends to escalate attacks on Lebanon and raise the stakes with Hezbollah. If it does, the risk of a regional war grows enormously. The only way out is to end the fighting in Gaza." More evidence that the theory of deterrence is a recipe for disaster. To rally American support, Israel has tried to paint its genocide in Gaza as a sideshow to its defense against Iran, the mastermind behind the "six front" assault on Israel -- because, well, Americans hate Iran, and are really gullible on that point. To make this war look real, Israel needs to provoke Hezbollah, which is easy to do because Hezbollah also buys into the theory of deterrence, so feels the need to shoot back when they are shot at. This is close to spiraling out of control, but a ceasefire in Gaza would bring it all to an abrupt close. A rapprochement between the US and Iran would also be a big help, as it would knock the legs out from under Israel's game-playing.

• H Scott Prosterman: [06-06] How Trump and Netanyahu are tag-teaming Biden on Gaza.

  Before these men served, no Israeli leader had ever dared to interfere in US electoral politics. Trump openly campaigned for Bibi. It's almost as if they ran on the same ticket in 2020. The political survival of both men is dependent on generating political outrage among their bases, because they have nothing else to run on.

• Philip Weiss:

  • [06-02] Weekly Briefing: The political and moral consequences of hallowing Trump's verdict while nullifying the Hague: "Joe Biden wants it both ways. He wants Democrats to stop criticizing genocide but he also wants the Israel lobby's support. Thus, he has a ceasefire plan in one hand, and an invitation to Netanyahu, a war criminal, to speak to Congress in the other." Pretty good opening here:

    Joe Biden is trying to end the war in Gaza. He's not trying that hard. But he's trying.

    Biden knows that the Democratic base is on fire. He knows that for a certain bloc of voters in American society -- Genocide is not acceptable. Sadly, most people will go along fine with a genocide. That's what history tells us and what the U.S. establishment is demonstrating right now. Samantha Power wrote a whole book about the Sarajevo genocide and launched a great career but now she's a top Biden aide and just keeps her head down. It's not fair to single her out -- because all the editorial writers and politicians have a similar stance. It's a terrible thing that so many civilians and babies are being killed by American weaponry in Gaza, but hey, look what Hamas did on October 7. That's the ultimate in whatabboutery. What about Hamas? While we are burning up civilians.

  • [06-09] Weekly Briefing: 274 Palestinian lives don't matter to the Biden administration: "A week culminating with the massacre of 274 Palestinians in Gaza provided further evidence -- though none is needed -- that anti-Palestinian bias is simply a rule of American politics, and today maybe the leading rule."

  • [06-09] 'Allow me to share a story that touched me deeply' -- Harry Soloway on Palestinian resistance.

Israel vs. world opinion:

• Yuval Abraham/Meron Rapoport: Surveillance and interference: Israel's covert war on the ICC exposed: "Top Israeli government and security officials have overseen a nine-year surveillance operation targeting the ICC and Palestinian rights groups to try to thwart a war crimes probe."

• Yousef M Aljamal: [06-07] Israel's progression from apartheid to genocide: "The unfolding genocide in Gaza is the latest chapter in Israel's attempt to remove Palestinians from their land. All those calling for a ceasefire should join in the longer-term efforts to dismantle Israeli apartheid."

• Michael Arria: [06-03] San Jose State University professor says she was suspended over her Palestinian activism: "Last month Sang Hea Kil, a justice studies professor at the San Jose State University, was placed on a temporary suspension because of her Palestine activism."

• Ramzy Baroud: [06-06] End of an era: Pro-Palestinian language exposes Israel, Zionism.

• Reed Brody: [06-06] Israel's legal reckoning and the historical shift in justice for Palestinians.

• Chandni Desai: [06-08] Israel has destroyed or damaged 80% of schools in Gaza. This is scholasticide: This is another new word we don't need, because it just narrows the scope of a perfectly apt word we're already driven to use, which is genocide. The lesson we do need to point out is that genocide isn't just a matter of counting kills. If the goal is to ending a type of people, it is just as effectively advanced to destroying their homes, their environment, their culture and historical legacy. Counting the dead is easy, but much of the devastation is carried forward by its survivors, and those impacts are especially hard to quantify.

• Connor Echols/Maya Krainc: [06-04] House votes to sanction ICC for case against Israeli settlers: "The bill, which is unlikely to pass the Senate, would punish US allies and famous lawyer Amal Clooney."

• Richard Falk:

  • [06-06] The ICC must seize this moment to hold Israel accountable.

  • [06-06] Civil ICC case against Ursula von der Leyen raises stakes on genocide complicity.

• Abdallah Fayyard: [06-05] It's not Islamophobia, it's anti-Palestinian racism: "Anti-Palestinian racism is a distinct form of bigotry that's too often ignored."

• Joshua Frank: [06-05] It's never been about freeing the hostages: "Israel's scorched-earth campaign will cruelly shape the lives of many future generations of Palestinians -- and that's the point."

• Philippe Lazzarini: [05-30] UNRWA: Stop Israel's violent campaign against us. How violent?

  As I write this, our agency has verified that at least 192 UNRWA employees have been killed in Gaza. More than 170 UNRWA premises have been damaged or destroyed. UNRWA-run schools have been demolished; some 450 displaced people have been killed while sheltered inside UNRWA schools and other structures. Since Oct. 7, Israeli security forces have rounded up UNRWA personnel in Gaza, who have alleged torture and mistreatment while in detention in the Strip and in Israel.

  UNRWA staff members are regularly harassed and humiliated at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank including East Jerusalem. Agency installations are used by the Israel security forces, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for military purposes.

  UNRWA is not the only U.N. agency that faces danger. In April, gunfire hit World Food Program and UNICEF vehicles, apparently inadvertently but despite coordination with the Israeli authorities.

  The assault on UNRWA has spread to East Jerusalem, where a member of the Jerusalem municipality has helped incite protests against UNRWA. Demonstrations are becoming increasingly dangerous, with at least two arson attacks on our UNRWA compound, and a crowd including Israeli children gathered outside our premises singing "Let the U.N. burn." At other times, demonstrators threw stones.

  PS: The day after this op-ed was published, Israel replied as directly and emphatically as possible: [06-06] Israel strike on Gaza school kills dozens. Israel claims "the compound contained a Hamas command post." Perhaps Netanyahu should brush up on The Merchant of Venice, where the "wise judge" allowed that Shylock could take his "pound of flesh" but could spill no blood in the process. Of course, Netanyahu is unlikely to get beyond the thought that Shakespeare was just being antisemitic. On the other hand, the notion that one wrong does not allow you to commit indiscriminate slaughter isn't novel.

• Natasha Lennard/Prem Thakker: Columbia Law Review refused to take down article on Palestine, so its board of directors nuked the whole website.

• Eric Levitz: [06-03] Israel is not fighting for its survival. I mentioned this piece in an update last week, but it's worth reiterating here.

• Branko Marcetic: [06-03] The corporate power brokers behind AIPAC's war on the Squad: Their investigation "reveals the individuals behind AIPAC's election war chest: nearly 60% are CEOs and other top executives at the country's largest corporations." I haven't cited many articles so far on AIPAC's crusade against Democrats who actually take human rights and war crimes seriously, but they are piling up. Bipartisanship is a holy grail in Washington, not because either side treasures compromise but because a bipartisan consensus helps to exclude critics and suppress any further discussion of an issue that those in power would rather not have to argue for in public. Cold War and trade deals like NAFTA are other classic examples, but support for Israel has been so bipartisan for so long it defines the shape of reality as perceived all but intuitively by politicians in Washington. But apartheid and genocide are unsettling this equation, disturbing large numbers of Democratic voters, so AIPAC is reacting like its Israeli masters, by cracking the whip -- the same kneejerk reaction we see when university administrators move to arrest protesters. Both are turns as sharply opposed to the basic tenets of liberal democracy as liberal Democrats routinely accuse Republicans of. That both are driven primarily by the extraordinary political influence of money only exposes the sham that our vaunted democracy has become under oligarchy.

  • Derek Seidman: [06-05] Some of AIPAC's biggest donors are also financing attacks against labor rights: "The movements for labor and Palestinian rights have common cause against the billionaires who aim to destroy them both."

• Qassam Muaddi: [06-03] Against a world without Palestinians: "If the world as it is cannot abide Palestinian existence, then we will have to change the world." This piece makes me a bit queasy, but I recognize that is largely because I've never accepted the conditions under which it was written, and always preferred to think of Palestinians as just another nationality, like all others, with its harmless parochial quirks. But the effort to deny them recognition, and to erase their memory, has been a longstanding project in Israel.

  In early days, this was done through pretense (see A land without a people for a people without a land and denial (see Golda Meir's oft-repeated There was no such thing as Palestinians). Norman Finkelstein wrote about all that in Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (1995; revised 2003), especially his critique of Joan Peters' 1984 book, From Time Immemorial.

  Another book that was very insightful at the time (2003) was Baruch Kimmerling: Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians -- reissued in 2006 with the new subtitle, The Real Legacy of Ariel Sharon. Kimmerling's precise meaning is still operative, although since then the methods have become much cruder and more violent. Sharon, of course, would turn in his grave at the suggestion that he engaged with tact. I'll never forget the expression on his face when Bush referred to him as "a man of peace." Even if you dispute that the Gaza war fully counts as genocide, it is impossible to deny that politicide is official policy.

  I'm sure there are more recent books on the subject, like Rebecca Ruth Gould: Erasing Palestine: Free Speech and Palestinian Freedom (2023), which deals specifically with the canard that "pro-Palestinian" statements should be banished as anti-semitic. But another aspect of this piece is the notion that the Palestinian survival is redemptive, potentially for everyone. I can't say one way or the other, but I will say that this reminds me of a book I read very shortly after it came out in 1969: Vine Deloria, Jr.: Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. As an American, I find it completely natural to think of Zionism as a settler-colonial movement, as was European-settled America. There are many aspects to this: if I wanted to launch a career as a scholar, I'd research and write up some kind of global, comparative study of how other settlers and natives viewed the American-Indian experience. (Sure, there's enough for a book just on Israel, but I'd also like to see some bit on Hitler's use of America's "frontier myth.")

  Suffice it for now to draw two points here. The first is that what permanently ended Indian violence against settlers was the US army calling off its own attacks, and restraining settlers from the free reign of terror they had long practiced. Indians were "defeated," sure, but they would surely have regrouped and fought back had they been given continued cause. The second is that "Custer died" is pretty damn generous given all of the sins it's been allowed to redeem.

• Jonathan Ofir: [06-02] Netanyahu is back and leading the polls, all thanks to the ICC: "In Israel, a potential arrest for crimes against humanity can help boost the popularity of a politician. That itself is a telling indictment."

• Edith Olmsted: [04-27] Pro-Israel agitator shouts 'kill the Jews,' gets everyone else arrested: "Around 100 protesters were arrested on Saturday at a pro-Palestine encampment at Northeastern University, but not the one whose hate speech got everything shut down."

• James Ray: [06-05] Do you condemn Hamas? How does it matter? This was a question every concerned thinking person was asked at the moment of the October 7, 2023 attacks, although there was never any forum by within which disapproval of Hamas could have affected their acts. There were, at the time, many reasons why one might "condemn Hamas," ranging from the pure immorality of armed offense to the political ramifications of provoking a much more powerful enemy, including the probability that Israelis would use the attacks as a pretext for unleashing much greater, potentially genocidal, violence of their own. But even acknowledging the question helped suppress the real question, which is whether you approve of the way Israel has exercised power over Gaza and wherever Palestinians continue to live.

  Many of us who have long disapproved of Israel's occupation were quick to condemn Hamas, only to find that our condemnations were counted as huzzahs for much more devastating, much more deadly attacks, a process which continues unabated eight months later, and which will continue indefinitely, until Israel's leadership (or its successors) finally backs off, either because they develop a conscience (pretty unlikely at present) or some calculation that the costs of further slaughter can no longer be justified. Given this situation, I think it no longer makes any sense to condemn Hamas, as all doing so does is to encourage Israel to further genocide.

  I'm not even sure there is a Hamas any more -- sure, there are a couple blokes in Syria who once had connections with the group, and who continue to negotiate to release hostages they don't actually have, but for practical purposes what used to be Hamas has dissolved back into the Palestinian people (as Israel makes clear every time they allegedly target "high value" Hamas operatives while killing dozens of "human shields" -- something which, we should make clear, Israel has no right to do). If, at some future point, the war ends, and Palestinians are allowed to form their own government -- which is something they've never been permitted to do (at least under Israeli, British, Ottoman, or Crusader rule) -- and some ex-Hamas people try to reconstitute the group, that would be a good time to condemn them. Otherwise, focus on who's responsible for the devastation and violence. It's not Hamas.

  In this, I'm mostly responding to the title. The article is a bit more problematical, as it does a little arm-chair analysis of "when armed struggle becomes material necessity." Clearly, a number of the Palestinian groups listed here decided that it did become necessary, and they proceeded to launch various attacks against Israeli power, of which Oct. 7 was one of the most dramatic (at least in a long time; the revolt in 1937, and the war in 1948, were larger and more sustained; the 2000-05 intifada killed slightly fewer Israelis over a much longer period of time). Still, before one can condemn the resort to armed struggle, one needs to ask the questions: Were there any practical non-violent avenues for Palestinians to redress their grievances (of which they had many)? It's not obvious that there were. (Short for a long survey of who missed which opportunities for opportunities for peace -- as the oft-quoted Abba Eban quip comes full circle.)

  I was thinking of a second question, which is how effective have all those efforts at armed resistance been? The answer is not very, and the prospects have probably diminished even further over time, but that's easier for someone far removed like myself to say than for someone who's directly involved. But in that case, the question becomes: how desperate do you have to be to launch a violent attack against a power that's certain to inflict many times as much violence back at you? If you've been following the political dynamics within Israel, especially with the rise of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, but also for the long decline of Labor (starting with the assassination of Rabin) through the rise of Netanyahu, with the marginalization of the corrupt and pliant PA and the exclusion of Hamas, Palestinian prospects for achieving any degree of decent human rights have only grown dimmer. During this period, I believe that most Palestinians favored a non-violent appeal to world opinion, hoping to shift it to put pressure on Israel through BDS. However, thanks to Israel's machinations, Hamas maintained just enough privacy and autonomy in Gaza to stage an attack, with nothing other than fear as a constraint, so they took matters into their own hands. I feel safe in saying that a democratic Gaza would never have launched such an attack. Which is to say that responsibility for the attack lay solely on Israel, for creating the desperate conditions that made the attack seem necessary, and for not allowing any other peaceable outlets for their just grievances.

  One should further blame Israel for post-facto justifying the Hamas attack. This is a point that Israelis should understand better than anyone, because they have been trained to celebrate the uprising of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto, even though it was doomed from the start. I don't want to overstate the similarities, but I don't want to soft-pedal them either. Such situations are so rare in history as to necessarily be unique, but they do excite the imagination. Although Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, they seem to be doing more than anyone to build Hamas up, to restore their status as the Palestinians who dared to fight back. Because Israel has never really minded a good fight. It's peace they really cannot abide -- and that is what makes them responsible for all of the consequent injustice and violence, the first of many things you should blame Israel for.

  And as Hamas -- at least as we understand it -- wouldn't exist but for Israel, when you do condemn Hamas, make sure it's clear that the blame starts with Israel.

• Hoda Sherif: [06-06] 'The generation that says no more': Inside the Columbia University encampments for Palestine: "Students at Columbia University continue to disrupt business as usual for Gaza and have birthed a radical re-imagining of society in the process."

• Yonat Shimron: [04-29] How unconditional support for Israel became a cornerstone of Jewish American identity: Interview with Marjorie N. Feld, author of The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism.

• Tatiana Siegel: [06-06] Hollywood marketing guru fuels controversy by telling staffers to refrain from working with anyone 'posting against Israel': The Hollywood "black list" returns.

Trump:

• Charlie Savage/Jonathan Swan/Maggie Haberman: [06-07] If Trump wins: Nothing new here that hasn't been reported elsewhere, but if you find the New York Times a credible source, believe it. (I should write more on this piece next week.)

• David Corn: [06-06] Trump's obsession with revenge: a big post-verdict danger.

• Michelle Cottle/Carlos Lozada: [06-07] The 'empty suit' of Trump's masculinity: With Jamelle Bouie and David French.

• Chas Danner: [06-06] Trump can no longer shoot someone on fifth avenue. Well, his "New York concealed carry license was quietly suspended on April 1, 2023, following his indictment on criminal charges," leading him to surrender two guns, and move one "legally" to Florida. If he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue, he could be charged with illegal possession of a firearm, but if he could previously get away with murder, it's hard to see him more worried now.

• Maureen Dowd: [07-28] The Don and his badfellas. She has fun with this, but seems to get to an inner truth:

  Trump is drawn to people who know how to dominate a room and exaggerated displays of macho, citing three of his top five movies as "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," "Goodfellas" and "The Godfather."

  As a young real estate developer, he would hang out at Yankee Stadium and study the larger-than-life figures in the V.I.P. box: George Steinbrenner, Lee Iacocca, Frank Sinatra, Roy Cohn, Rupert Murdoch, Cary Grant. He was intent on learning how they grabbed the limelight.

  "In his first big apartment project, Trump's father had a partner connected to the Genovese and Gambino crime families," said Michael D'Antonio, another Trump biographer. "He dealt with mobbed-up suppliers and union guys for decades.

  "When Trump was a little boy, wandering around job sites with his dad -- which was the only time he got to spend with him -- he saw a lot of guys with broken noses and rough accents. And I think he is really enchanted by base male displays of strength. Think about 'Goodfellas' -- people who prevail by cheating and fixing and lying. Trump doesn't have the baseline intellect and experience to be proficient at governing. His proficiency is this mob style of bullying and tough-guy talk."

• Abdallah Fayyad:: [06-04] Trump's New York conviction is not enough: "If the federal government wants to uphold democracy and the rule of law, it can't leave convicting Trump to the states."

Phil Freeman, in a [06-01] Facebook post, summed up Trump's post-verdict appearances almost perfectly (assuming you get what by now must be a very esoteric reference):

Donald Trump is officially in his "Lenny Bruce reading his trial transcripts to audiences that came in expecting jokes" era. Hope everyone's ready for five solid months of rambling, self-pitying speeches about how unfair everyone is to him, 'cause that's what's coming, from today till November 5.

• Matt Ford: [06-09] The right's truly incredible argument for weakening consumer safety: "A baby products company and an anti-woke activist group are trying to weaken a critical consumer watchdog agency. If one of their cases reaches the Supreme Court, we're all in trouble."

• Michelle Goldberg: [06-07] Donald Trump's mob rule: Starts with an anecdote from Peter Navarro, currently in prison for contempt of Congress, describing how his Trump ties "make him something of a made man," both with guards and inmates. "One of the more unsettling things about our politics right now is the Republican Party's increasingly open embrace of lawlessness. Even as they proclaim Trump's innocence, Trump and his allies revel in the frisson of criminality."

  There's a similar dichotomy between Trump and his enemies: He represents charismatic personal authority as opposed to the bureaucratic dictates of the law. Under his rule, the Republican Party, long uneasy with modernity, has given itself over to Gemeinschaft. The Trump Organization was always run as a family business, and now that Trump has made his dilettante daughter-in-law vice chair of the Republican National Committee, the Republican Party is becoming one as well. To impose a similar regime of personal rule on the country at large, Trump has to destroy the already rickety legitimacy of the existing system. "As in Machiavelli's thought, the Prince is not only above the law but the source of law and all social and political order, so in the Corleone universe, the Don is 'responsible' for his family, a responsibility that authorizes him to do virtually anything except violate the obligations of the family bond," [Sam] Francis [a white nationalist who has become posthumously influential among MAGA elites] wrote. That also seems to be how Trump sees himself, minus, of course, the family obligations. What's frightening is how many Republicans see him the same way.

• Sarah Jones: [06-06] The anti-abortion movement's newest lie: Are they going after contraception next?

  • Julianne McShane: [05-17] Dobbs had the opposite effect conservatives intended: "People are seeking abortions more than ever."

  • Donie O'Sullivan/Sean Lyngaas: [05-31] After Trump's guilty verdict, threats and attempts to dox Trump jurors proliferate online.

  • Grace Segers: [06-06] The mixed messages of the contraception war: "Democrats and Republicans have put forth dueling bills that would, to varying degrees, protect the right to contraception. Both are dead on arrival.">

• Ed Kilgore:

  • [06-06] GOP primaries prove Trump has thoroughly dominated the party.

  • [06-08] Trump doubles down on plan for huge spending power grab.

    But arguably some of the most important second-term plans involve Team Trump's dark designs on the so-called swamp of the federal bureaucracy. Their interest in tearing down the civil service system is well-known, along with a scheme to fill vacant positions created by mass firings of non-partisan professional employees and their replacement via a so-called Schedule F of political appointees chosen for all the top policy-making jobs in the executive branch. The purpose of placing these MAGA loyalists throughout the bureaucracy isn't just to ride herd on such bureaucrats as remain in federal departments and agencies. These new commissars would also serve as Trojan Horses charged with advising the Trump high command on how to eliminate or disable executive branch functions the new order dislikes or can do without.

• Ben Mathis-Lilley:

  • [06-06] Steve Bannon could have gone to jail for many things, but he's finally going to jail for one of them.

  • [06-06] Jared Kushner is back -- and his new scheme is just his kind of evil.

• Kim Phillips-Fein: [06-04] The mandate for leadership, then and now: "The Heritage Foundation's 1980 manual aimed to roll back the state and unleash the free market. The 2025 vision is more extreme, and even more dangerous." This is part of an issue on Project 2025, which includes pieces like:

  • Robert L Borosage: [06-04] Why Trump's second victory would be worse: "There's now a real, organized effort to transform his resentments and impulses into policy."

  • Gaby Del Valle: [06-04] Under a second Trump term, the DHS will be even harsher than before.

  • Erica Etelson/Anthony Flaccavento: [06-04] Paul Krugman may not know how to reverse the decline of rural America. But we do.

  • William D Hartung: [06-05] Conservatives are gearing up for a major military expansion under Trump 2.0.

  • Chris Lehman: [06-06] The theocratic blueprint for Trump's next term: "How the Christian nationalist vanguard would pursue unprecedented power over all branches of government."

• James Risen:

  • To understand the Trump verdict, look at the case against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov.

  • These convictions thwart Trump's plan to pardon himself.

• Greg Sargent: Trump's bizarre moments with Dr. Phil and Hannity should alarm us all.

• Alex Shephard: [06-06] The billionaires have captured Donald Trump.

• Matt Stieb: [06-09] The time Trump held a national security chat among Mar-a-Lago diners: "When he strategized about North Korea on a golf-resort patio, it was an early indication of how crazy his administration would get."

• Ishaan Tharoor: [05-31] Netanyahu and Putin are both waiting for Trump: "Some foreign leaders may be holding out for a Trump victory." It's not just that they can expect to be treated more deferentially by Trump. It's also that they have a lot of leverage to sabotage Biden's reëlection chances, which are largely imperiled by the disastrous choices Biden made in allowing wars in Ukraine and Gaza to open up and to drag on indefinitely.

• Michael Tomasky: It's simple: Trump is treated like a criminal because he's a criminal.

And other Republicans:

• Marina Bolotnikova: [06-04] Republicans want to put pigs back in tiny cages. Again. "House Republicans are working to make America's factory farms even crueler." They're trying to nullify California's Proposition 12, which passed "overwhelmingly" in 2018.

• Dion Lefler: [06-04] We need a senator, not a Trump Muppet: Local Wichita columnist on Sen. Roger Marshall.

Biden and/or the Democrats:

• Jeet Heer: Showing contempt for young voters is a great way for Democrats to lose in November: "Hillary Clinton's arrogance already lost one election. And if Joe Biden follows her example, it can easily cost another."

• Annie Linskey/Siobhan Hughes: [06-04] Behind closed doors, Biden shows signs of slipping: "Participants in meetings said the 81-year-old president performed poorly at times. The White House said Biden is sharp and his critics are playing partisan politics." My wife found this very disturbing, but I find it hard to get interested, beyond bemoaning the obvious obsession of much of the media and some of the public with his age. Perhaps some day I'll write out my thoughts on aging politicians, but I don't feel up to it now, and expect I'll have many opportunities in the future. But I do have a lot of thoughts, which lead to a mixed bag of conclusions: about Biden (who I've never liked, and am very chagrined with over certain key policies), Democrats (who are so terrified, both of Trump and of their own rich donors, that they're unwilling to risk new leadership), the presidency (where the staff matters much more than the head or face), and the media (which has turned that face into some kind of bizarre circus act, relentlessly amplifying every surface flaw), and maybe even the people (we suffer many confusions about aging). Also on this:

  • Angelo Carusone tweeted about this piece: "The person who wrote that deceitful WSJ attack piece on Biden age is the same reporter who a few years ago (while at WaPo) had to delete a tweet for taking a jab at Biden as he visited his late son, wife and daughter's graves."

  • Greg Sargent: [06-06] Sleazy WSJ hit piece on Biden's age gets brutally shredded by Dems: "After a new report that dubiously hyped President Biden's age infuriated Democrats, we talked to a leading media critic about the deep problems with the press this sage exposes."

• Blaise Malley: [06-05] 'We are the world power': Biden offers defense of US primacy: "In TIME interview, president talks up foreign policy record, offers few details on what second term would hold."

• Nicole Narea: [06-04] Biden's sweeping new asylum restrictions, explained: "Biden's transparently political attack on asylum put little daylight between him and Trump." Some more on immigration:

  • Jonathan Blitzer: [06-08] What's behind Joe Biden's harsh new executive order on immigration? "Neither the declining number of border arrivals nor the intransigence of congressional Republicans has improved the President's standing on the issue."

  • Matt Collette: [06-06] Our identity crisis on immigration: "Cities and states aren't waiting for the federal government to act."

  • Isabela Dias:

    • [06-07] Biden is gutting asylum. The right still called it "mass amnesty" for "illegals."

    • [06-06] What happens to a dream deferred? "The fate of Dreamers, once at the center of the immigration debate, has become a nightmare."

Legal matters and other crimes:

• Washington Post: Hunter Biden gun trial adjourns for weekend after Naomi Biden testifies: I figured I should at least note this "weaponization of the criminal justice system," but was surprised not to be able to find useful daily updates, like the Trump trial produced, so this will have to do.

  • Elie Honig: [06-07] Hunter Biden is probably guilty. But his prosecution doesn't make sense. "But in all honesty, I had never heard of this law throughout my 14 years as a prosecutor until the Hunter Biden case dropped last year." Also: "This is a penny-ante case that rests on a shaky legal foundation and a who-cares set of facts."

  • Julia Métraux: [05-30] Who can own a gun? Hunter Biden's trial highlights inconsistent, messy laws.

  • Jeremy Stahl: [06-06] The contrasts between Hunter Biden's trial and the Trump trial are already striking.

• Dahlia Lithwick/Mark Joseph Stern: Surprise! The worst judge in the country just landed another appalling abortion case.

• Ian Millhiser: [06-05] Trump wants the Supreme Court to toss out his conviction. Will they? "It's hard to see how they'd do it legally, but this Court has a history of reading the law creatively."

• Nia Prater: [06-06] Steve Bannon may spend most of election season in prison.

• Jordan Smith: Missouri's Attorney General is waging war to keep the wrongly convicted locked up.

• Matt Stieb: [06-07] Alex Jones is finally screwed: "The Infowars founder has just filed to liquidate his company after stalling for years on the payments in the billion-dollar Sandy Hook settlement."

Climate and environment:

• Ilana Cohen: [06-07] The Canadian wildfires are once again sounding the alarm about what's to come.

• Jeff Goodell:

  • [06-03] The heat wave scenario that keeps climate scientists up at night: Starts with the example of a storm ("derecho") that hit Houston recently, with 100 mph winds disrupting electricity to nearly a million households, then asks what would it have been like had it been a bit hotter, like it was over Memorial Day weekend.

  • [06-06] Air-conditioning gives us a false sense of security: "Why heat waves are the harbinger of what's to come."

• Umair Irfan: [06-05] How heat waves form, and how climate change makes them worse: "Heat domes, heat islands, mega-droughts, and climate change: The anatomy of worsening heat waves." This is a lead article in The Vox guide to extreme heat.

• R Jisung Park: [04-16] We don't see what climate change is doing to us.

• Nathaniel Rich: [0] Climate change is making us paranoid, anxious and angry: "From dolphins with Alzheimer's to cranky traffic judges, writes Clayton Page Aldern, the whole planet is going berserk." Review of Aldern's book, The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains.

• Jennifer Szalai: [06-08] Shrink the economy, save the world? "Economic growth has been ecologically costly -- and so a movement in favor of 'degrowth' is growing." Some books mentioned here:

  • Tim Jackson: Post-Growth: Life After Capitalism
  • Kate Soper: Post-Growth Living
  • Giogio Kallis: In Defense of Degrowth
  • Vincent Liegey/Anitra Nelson: Exploring Degrowth
  • Jason Hickel: Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
  • Daniel Susskind: Growth: A History and a Reckoning
  • Kohei Saito: Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto

• Paige Vega: [06-07] The hottest place on Earth is cracking from the stress of extreme heat: "If even Death Valley is in trouble, what does that mean for the rest of us?" Where it's already hit 121°F this year. Interview with Abby Wines, a spokesperson from Death Valley National Park.

Economic matters:

• Paul Krugman: Famed economist and New York Times token liberal columnist, I've paid very little attention to his columns of late, but thought a quick catch-up might be in order. His more wonkish pieces, especially on the recurring themes of inflation and budgets, are informative. And while he seems especially loathe to criticize Biden from the left, he is pretty clear when he focuses on the right.

  • [06-06] Why you shouldn't obsess about the national debt. Sure, it's a big number, but key point is "it's almost entirely a political problem," and "people who claim to be deeply concerned about debt are, all too often, hypocrites -- the level of their hypocrisy often reaches the surreal."

  • [06-04] Goodbye inflation, hello recession? "The landing is almost here, but will it be soft?"

  • [06-03] Should Biden downplay his own success? "A radical idea: The administration should just tell the truth." But at the end of the piece, he admits that's "what they've been doing all along," yet doesn't wonder why that hasn't been working so well for them.

  • [05-30] What if this is our last real election? What if our last real election is already buried deeply in the past? The primary threat to democracy is the corrupt influence of money, which is something American politics has never been truly free of, although it has certainly gotten much worse in recent years -- with Citizens United perhaps the tipping point, but the basic effect goes way back. Of course, this is a situation that can conceivably get even worse -- Trump plans to rig the system further, locking in unpopular control to do unpopular things, especially even more corruption. But it's naïve to think of Trump as a future threat given not just what he's already done but what was done to allow him to claim a win in 2016.

  • [05-28] On the dangers of inflation brain: "Is the Fed, among others, focused on the wrong problem?"

  • [05-27] The stench of climate change denial: "What overflowing septic tanks tell us about the future."

  • [05-23] America is still having a 'vicecession': "Most voters say that they're doing OK but that the economy is bad."

  • [05-21] Return of the inflation truthers: "Cutting through the misconceptions and conspiracy theories."

  • [05-20] What does the Dow hitting 40,000 tell us? "The stock market isn't the economy -- but its record high refutes conspiracy theories."

  • [05-14] Preparing for the second China shock: "Why the Biden administration is imposing new tariffs."

  • [05-13] Biden's approval is low, except compared with everyone else's: "Voters are grumpy all across the Western world."

  • [05-09] Give me laundry liberty or give me death! "MAGA Republicans' obsessions with woke washing machines." The House voted for what they called the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, promising more specific bills: "the Liberty in Laundry Act, the Refrigerator Freedom Act and more."

    One nice illustration of the culture war aspect was a 2019 petition circulated by FreedomWorks, a Koch-linked group, titled "Make Dishwashers Great Again." The petition claimed that "crazy environmentalist rules" had drastically reduced dishwashers' effectiveness -- a claim disputed by dishwasher manufacturers themselves.

    But it seemed pretty clear that what really bothered conservatives was the very suggestion that American consumers should take into account the adverse effects their choices might have on other people. That sort of consideration, after all, is what the right mainly seems to mean when it condemns policies as "woke."

    Even if consumers are free to ignore adverse effects, there is a pretty good case that government should at least price in the externalities that are currently free to polluters and other malefactors.

  • [05-07] If it bleeds it leads, inflation edition: "How negativity bias affects economic perceptions."

  • [05-06] Meat, freedom and Ron DeSantis: "A full plate of culture war and conspiracy theories." This does back to Florida's ban of "lab meat," which is the latest time their governor got much notice. (Although he tried when he proposed a law allowing convicted felons named Donald Trump to vote.)

  • [05-02] The peculiar persistence of Trump-stalgia: "Are you better off than you were four years ago? Yes."

  • [04-29] Trump is flirting with quack economics: "Beware strongmen who engage in magical thinking."

  • [03-07] Reminder: Trump's last year in office was a national nightmare: "And he made the nightmare much worse."

Ukraine War and Russia:

• Connor Echols: [06-07] Diplomacy Watch: What's the point of Swiss peace summit? It's not to negotiate with Russia, which won't be attending. Zelensky has a "10-point peace plan, which demands the full expulsion of Russian troops from the country and the prosecution of top Kremlin officials," which suggests he still thinks he can "win the war." I seriously doubt that, while I also see that Ukrainians have much more to lose if the war is prolonged.

  • Marco Hernandez/Jeffrey Gettleman/Finbarr O'Reilly/Tim Wallace: [06-03] What Ukraine has lost: "We analyzed every building across Ukraine that has been damaged or destroyed since Russia attacked two years ago. A vast area with some 210,000 buildings leveled across a jagged, 800-mile frontline and beyond. Even if the war ends tomorrow, in many places there will be nothing to go back to."

  • Fred Kaplan: [06-05] Ukraine just crossed what used to be America's "red line".

  • Reuters: [06-03] What to expect from Swiss summit on Kyiv's peace terms.

• Dave DeCamp: [05-30] France may soon announce it's sending troops to Ukraine for training.

• Joshua Keating: [06-05] The US tests Putin's nuclear threats in Ukraine: "Allowing Ukraine to fire Western weapons into Russia strengthens an ally, but risks violating an unknown red line." I thought the "red line" was pretty loudly proclaimed. They're basically testing whether Putin is serious (which has usually been a bad idea, but the idea of him escalating directly to nuclear arms is pretty extreme, even for him). Also, it really isn't obvious how taking occasional pot shots inside Russia "strengthens Ukraine." Russia has more capability to strike Ukraine than vice versa, so once you factor the reprisals in it's unlikely that there will be any net gains, or that such gains could actually be realized through negotiation. And since negotiation is really the only avenue for ending this war, that's where the focus should really be.

• Constant Méheut: [06-09] Ukrainian activist traces roots of war in 'centuries of Russian colonization': "One Ukrainian researcher and podcaster is a leading voice in efforts to rethink Ukrainian-Russian relations through the prism of colonialism." Mariam Naiem. I don't doubt that there is some value in this approach, but I can also imagine overdoing it. We tend to view colonialism through a British prism, perhaps with variations for France, maybe even Spain/Portugal, each of which varied, although the power dynamic was similar.

• Theodore Postol: [06-05] Droning Russia's nuke radars is the dumbest thing Ukraine can do: "Attacks on the early warning system actually highlights the fragility of peace between the world's nuclear powers."

• Reuters: [06-05] Russia to send combat vessels to Caribbean to project 'global power,' US official says: "Naval exercises spurred by US support for Ukraine are likely to include port calls in Cuba and Venezuela, says official." Nothing to be alarmed of here. (My first thought was how Russia sent its Baltic Sea fleet all the way around Africa in 1905, only to have it sunk in the Sea of Japan, an embarrassment that triggered the failed revolution of 1905.) But it does show that the era where only "sole superpower" US was arrogant enough to try to project global naval power is coming to a close. Also:

  • Guardian: [06-06] Russia nuclear-powered submarine to visit Cuba amid rising tensions with US. By the way, The Guardian remains a reliable source for news and opinion with an anti-Russian slant, as evidenced by:

  • Pjotr Sauer:

    • [06-05] Putin warns that Russia could supply arms to other countries to strike west: "Comments come after US senator confirmed that Ukraine has recently used US weapons to strike inside Russia."

    • [06-09] Putin's daughters and anti-western hawks rule at this year's 'Russian Davos': "St Petersburg summit hails good news on the economy as children of the elite step into spotlight.">

  • Léonie Chao-Fong: [06-05] Putin says Trump conviction 'burns' idea of US as leading democracy: Funny guy.

  • Patrick Wintour: [06-08] 'We're in 1938 now': Putin's war in Ukraine and lessons from history. The Guardian's "diplomatic editor," this could become a classic in the abuse of history for political ends, although he offers a nice feint in this:

    As Christopher Hitchens once wrote, much American foolishness abroad, from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq, has been launched on the back of Munich syndrome, the belief that those who appease bullies, as the then British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, sought to do with Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938, are either dupes or cowards. Such leaders are eventually forced to put their soldiers into battle, often unprepared and ill-equipped -- men against machines, as vividly described in Guilty Men, written by Michael Foot, Frank Owen and Peter Howard after the Dunkirk fiasco. In France, the insult Munichois -- synonymous with cowardice -- sums it up.

    But then he quotes Timothy Snyder, and reverts to the stereotype that Putin is Hitler's second coming, an expansionist so implacable that he will continue besieging us until we finally gather up our courage and fight back. The problem here isn't just that Putin is not Hitler, but that this isn't even a valid portrait of Hitler, who had specific territorial ambitions that were conditioned by his times and place -- when "the sun never sets on the British Empire," presided over by a country no larger or more developed than Germany, while the vast land mass to Germany's east looked to him like the American West, promising Lebesraum for the superior Aryan race. Putin may conjure up the occasional odd fantasy of Peter the Great or Vlad the Impaler, not something we can take comfort in, but in an unconquerable world, nationalism is a self-limiting force, which falls far short of the ambitions of Hitler or the inheritance of Churchill.

• Ted Snider: [06-04] Why Zelensky won't be able to negotiate peace himself: "The way out is to transcend bilateral talks to include moves toward a new, inclusive European security architecture."

America's empire and the world:

• Jess Craig: [06-08] World leaders neglected this crisis. Now genocide looms. "Already the world's worst displacement crisis, new battlefronts in Sudan could unleash ethnic violence and genocide." I don't doubt that civil wars in Africa are much worse than we (especially in America) credit, but it also bothers me to see how freely the word "genocide" is used here, as opposed to its extremely clear and precise application to Israel in Gaza. But the problem here is not just the world leaders who "neglected this crisis," but also the ones who contributed to it, either directly (UAE is clearly implicated) or indirectly (Russia and the US are major arms suppliers, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some Europeans, and maybe the Chinese, in the mix).

• William Hartung/Ben Freeman: [06-07] Navy admiral's bribery charges expose greater rot in the system: "When will members of Congress who place shilling for special interests above crafting an effective defense policy face the music?"

• Ellen Ioanes: [06-03] What to know about Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's next president. She won last week, with a mandate to continue and extend the policies of President Obrador. More on Mexico:

  • Kate Aronoff: How Claudia Scheinbaum could change Mexico.

  • Maya Krainc: [05-31] Claudia Scheinbaum wins Mexico election in a landslide.

• Joshua Keating: [06-04] India's election shows the world's largest democracy is still a democracy: "The biggest takeaways from Narenda Modi's political setback." Nearly every report over the last two months projected Modi's BJP party to win a landslide (as many as 400 of 543 seats), but the actual total was a plurality of 240 seats, plus 49 for other parties that have formed ruling coalitions with BJP. More on the elections in India:

  • Zack Beauchamp: [06-07] India just showed the world how to fight an authoritarian on the rise: "Three big lessons from Narenda Modi's shocking underperformance in the 2024 election.

  • Ellen Ioanes: [06-07] Modi won the Indian election. So why does it seem like he lost? "The BJP's poor performance shows the limits of his autocratic, Hindu supremacist policies."

  • Elmira Bayrasli: [06-07] People are not stupid: "On elections in South Africa & India. The incumbent parties leaned on identity politics, rather than bread and butter issues. They suffered setbacks."

• Eldar Mamedov: [06-06] European Parliament elections: Not quite a 'Trumpian moment': "Populists on the right are poised to win big this week but don't expect perfect parallels to what is happening here or a shift in Ukraine war support."

  • Katrina Bishop: [06-09] France's Macron calls for snap election after losing big to the far right in EU vote.

  • Ishaan Tharoor: [06-09] A right-wing Europe is here to stay: "The European Union, long hailed as a post-national bastion of liberal values, is not just hospitable to illiberal nationalism, but possibly a crucible for a new age of right-wing politics in the West."

• Nick Turse: After training African coup leaders, Pentagon blames Russia for African coups: "The US has trained 15 coup leaders in recent decades -- and US counterterrorism policies in the region have failed."

• Kathleen Wallace: [06-07] Narcissistic personality disorder in the USA: It's not just Trump any more.

• Zoe Williams: [06-05] 'How can they treat people like this?' Faiza Shaheen on Labour -- and why she's running as an independent.

Other stories:

Associated Press: [06-06] Charleston bridge closed as out-of-control ship powers through harbor: In South Carolina, another 1,000ft ship, narrowly avoided knocking down another major bridge, as happened in Baltimore recently.

Kyle Chayka: [05-29] The new generation of online culture curators: "In a digital landscape overrun by algorithms and AI, we need human guides to help us decide what's worth paying attention to." This isn't meant as an advertisement, but perhaps it is an idea for one:

The onslaught of online content requires filtering, whether technological or human, and those of us who dislike the idea of A.I. or algorithms doing the filtering for us might think more about how we support the online personalities who do the job well.

Ivan Eland: [06-03] Finding a foreign policy beyond Biden and Trump: "There has to be an option that would allow the US to engage and protect its interests without aggressive primacy."

Tom Engelhardt: [06-04] Making war on Planet Earth: The enemy is us (and I'm not just thinking about Donald Trump).

AW Ohlheiser: [06-06] Why lying on the internet keeps working. Reviews, or at least refers to, a forthcoming book: \ Renée DiResta: Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, with what I suppose is a second-order subhed: "If You Make It Trend, You Make It True."

Kelsey Piper: [06-07] Where AI predictions go wrong: "Both skeptics and boosters are too sure of themselves."

Tejal Rao: [06-07] His 'death by chocolate' cake will live forever: "The chief Marcel Desaulniers, who died last month, had an over-the-top approach to dessert, a sweet counterpoint to the guilt-ridden chocolate culture of the time."

Music and the arts:

Mike Hale: [06-05] 'Hitler and the Nazis' review: Building a case for alarm: "Joe Berlinger's six-part documentary for Netflix asks whether we should see our future in Germany's past."

Tom Maxwell: [04-12] How deregulation destroyed indie rock across America: "On the corporate capture of regional radio stations." What happened with The Telecommunications Act of 1996, enacted by Newt Gingrich and signed by Bill Clinton: "The act . . . became a checkered flag for a small number of corporations to snap up commercial radio stations across the country and homogenize playlists." Excerpted from Maxwell's book, A Really Strange and Wonderful Time: The Chapel Hill Music Scene: 1989-1999.

Michael Tatum: A Downloader's Diary (52): June 2024.

Midyear reports: I've been factoring these into my metacritic file.

• AV Club: [06-10] The 30 best albums of 2024 (so far).

• Complex: [06-05] The best albums of 2024 (so far).

• Consequence: [06-04] 30 best albums of 2024 (so far).

• Stereogum: [06-04] The 50 best albums of 2024 so far.

• Time: [06-10] The best albums of 2024 so far.

• The Times: The best albums of 2024 so far: Subscriber-only list. Mail me a copy?

• Treble: [06-03] The 42 best albums of 2024 so far.

• Uproxx: [06-04] The best albums of 2024 so far. Also:

  • Aaron Williams/Wongo Okon: [06-06] The best hip-hop albums of 2024 so far.

• Vulture [Craig Jenkins]: [06-05] The best albums of 2024 (so far).

My nephew Ram Lama Hull dredged up a 2016 Facebook "memory" where he wrote "I'm likely voting 3rd party, and encourage everyone in Kansas to do the same." He didn't say who, but had a libertarian streak as well as the family's left-leanings. However, this year he writes:

I've changed my stance. I still stand by this as a general principle, but I voted Democrat in 2020, and will do so in 2024: even if my vote doesn't shift the electoral college results, I want to do my part to push for a Democratic mandate in the popular vote.

I added this comment:

I moved back to KS in 1999. In 2000, I voted for Nader, figuring that the Gore campaign was so invisible he might not even get as many votes as Nader. Bush won bit (58.04%), while Nader only got 3.37%, less than one-tenth of Gore's 37.24%. I drew two conclusions from this: one is that Kansas has a very solid minority that will show up as Democrats no matter how little effort one makes to reach them. (You can also see this in Moran's Senate results, where he rarely cracks 60% despite outspending his opponents as much as 100-to-1.) And second, if you ever want to get to a majority, you have to first win over your own Democrats. I'm very upset with Biden at the moment over his foreign policy (not just but especially Israel), but by now I've become pretty used to lesser-evilism.

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