Weekend Roundup [60 - 69]Sunday, November 10, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Another "going through the motions" week, so no introduction. I noted
a friend of a friend commenting that people don't realize how much time
it's going to take after the 2020 election to undo the damage Trump has
inflicted (and is continuing to, no doubt with a special flurry after he
gets beat, including a bunch of pre-emptive pardons). This person was
citing the difficulties Laura Kelly has faced since becoming governor
of Kansas, but it's a general rule. For me, the best election news last
week was the defeat of Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell, who spent his term
making shady deals with real estate developers. One of those was to wreck
McLean Boulevard, which used to hug the river from 13th North to Pawnee
(23rd South), but now will have its downtown passage moved so realtors
can offer exclusive river views. Unlikely that would ever have passed a
public vote, but it's also unlikely that the new mayor will be able to
undo the blight. Of course, a big part of Kelly's problem is that the
state legislature is still controlled by Republicans. The bigger the
Democratic wave in 2020, but more a new president will be able to do.
But still, the task list is daunting, and growing every day.
Some scattered links this week:
Sasha Abramsky:
Trump throws more red meat to nativists, polluters, and evangelicals.
Meher Ahmad:
Austerity blues: "After sixty years of IMF intervention, Pakistan has
little to show for it." Also: "The IMF bailout of today is far from what
Keynes had envisioned for his lender of last resort: it does less to lift
economies than break them in to be fit for Western interaction -- or
exploitation." Robert P Alvarez:
Republicans, not Russians, threaten our elections: "When turnout
climbs, Republicans lose. No wonder they're closing polling places and
purging voters all over the country." Jillian Ambrose:
Fracking halted in England in major government U-turn. Andrew Bacevich:
The Berlin Wall fell and the US learned the wrong lessons. It got us
Donald Trump. Zack Beauchamp:
What the right fears about Warren's wealth tax. Phyllis Bennis:
Trump has stolen the anti-war mantle. Here's how to get it back. Michael Birnbaum:
While Washington is checked out, Macron is pushing to lead the Western
world. Here's a cluster of articles on NATO, reflecting the decline
of American influence and interest. Others:
Ted Galen Carpenter:
What's really undermining NATO? Europe's yearning for neutrality. Jacob Heilbrunn:
Emmanuel Macron is right: NATO is over: Starts with Lord Ismay's
explanation that the purpose of NATO was to "keep the Russians out,
the Americans in, and the Germans down." One might make a sensible
argument that none of those things matter much these days, therefore
neither does NATO. On the other hand, this veers off into insanity:
The moment has arrived for France and Germany to adopt more than baby
steps to make Europe great again. This would require them to establish
a Franco-German condominium to assert their interests, including the
joint development of new nuclear weapons to deter Russia and China.
It would also allow Europe to win an independent footing from an
increasingly hostile United States.
Need I remind you that Europe's previous claim to greatness was
built on the rape and pillage of the rest of the world, starting with
the looting and extermination of the Americas and the enslavement of
Africans. I'm always struck by the fact that British rule reduced
India's share of world GDP from 20% to 5%. The post-colonial period
hasn't been much more generous, as political control was sub-contracted
to locals committed to preserving capitalism's property rights. Jonathan Blitzer:
The Trump administration's plot to end DACA faces a Supreme Court test.
Jonathan Chait:
David Daley:
Secret gerrymandering files can now be made public, court rules. Julia Davis:
Thanks to Rand Paul, Russian media are naming the alleged whistleblower.
Two caveats here: one is that Davis doesn't repeat the unmasking; the other
is that she seems to have cultivated a niche in painting Trump as Putin's
puppet. E.g., see:
Trump's Syria fiasco is part of Putin's to-do list. She filed that one
under the tag "Donald J. Subservient." Jason Del Rey:
Amazon tried to buy a new Seattle City Council. It doesn't look like it
worked. Barbara Ehrenreich:
The humanoid stain: "Art lessons from our cave-dwelling ancestors." Ben Ehrenreich:
California is burning -- nationalize PG&E. Benjamin Y Fong/Christie Offenbacher:
Medicare for All is a strategy. Constance Grady:
75 books from university presses that will help you understand the world.
Mehdi Hasan:
Bernie Sanders says denying aid because of Hamas is "part of an effort to
dehumanize Palestinians". Adam Hochschild:
When America tried to deport its radicals: Emma Goldman, for
instance, a hundred years ago.. Sean Illing:
Daniel Immerwahr:
The center does not hold: Review of Jill Lepore's books: These
Truths: A History of the United States, and This America: The
Case for the Nation. Umair Irfan:
Virginia Democrats campaigned on their Green New Deal and fighting climate
change. And won. Sarah Jones:
Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein:
The tears of the taxed: "Ignore the rich: tax opposition has never
been about liberty." Fred Kaplan:
Loyalty vs Democracy: "The impeachment transcripts say Republicans
have to choose between Trump and America's political future." No prizes
for hed writing here, as Republicans haven't trusted democracy for some
time now, and most would be happy if Trump were the future. Moreover,
while I'm not going to argue that Democrats shouldn't impeach Trump,
the fate of democracy in America depends much more on the outcome of
the 2020 elections and the build up of a political movement that is
strong enough to overcome Republican obstruction -- something the
currently constituted Congress is not able to do. Nicole Karlis:
Thanks to Trump, STD rates hit a record high: "Trump's pro-life
policies and attacks on reproductive health care are having repercussions
beyond the GOP's intent."
Titled "Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report," the report
noted that in 2018, there were more than 2.4 million syphilis, gonorrhea
and chlamydia infections combined -- an increase of more than 100,000
from the previous year.
There was also a 71 percent increase in syphilis cases since 2014,
along with a 22 percent increase from 2017 in the number of newborn
deaths related to congenital syphilis.
Ed Kilgore:
Bloomberg to follow the not-so-successful Giuliani strategy in the
primaries. The former New York City major, after months of first
flirting with running for president then publicly deciding not to,
filed last week to appear on the ballot in Alabama, just beating the
deadline there. Presumably he's just keeping his options open, as
opposed to making a strategic bet that there's serious interest in
him down there. Still, he got a ton of publicity, even if the bottom
line is that he has no chance, even if he floods the primaries with
money. That's basically because he's a DINO: maybe his support for
gun control makes him a non-starter in the Republican Party, but he
doesn't offer any reason for rank-and-file Democrats to give him a
moment's thought. His commitment to finance-based oligarchy is as
deeply seated as his membership in same. The media may slot him as
a "moderate," but his reaction to Occupy Wall Street was as rabid
as Bull Connor's to civil rights marches. Hmm, maybe that explains
Alabama? But doesn't he know that Connor's ilk are all Republicans
now? More links on Bloomberg here:
Three years later, Trump has lost the element of surprise: "Memories
of the shock of Election Night 2016 could become a strategic asset for
Democrats, who sure won't get over-confident in 2020."
House Dems want to give America impeachment for Christmas. Jen Kirby:
Sharon Lerner:
Top US toxicologist was barred from saying PFAS cause disease in
humans. She's saying it now. Nancy LeTourneau:
Trump hires a con artist to provide outreach to white evangelicals:
Paula White. Eric Levitz:
Leftism isn't very appealing to nonvoters. But Bernie Sanders is.
The GOP's opposition to impeachment is (terrifyingly) principled: "To
many conservatives, Democrats (and/or popular democracy) are a greater
threat to America than [XXX]." The actual quote said "Vladimir Putin,"
but you can fill that in with lots of things -- the author picks on Putin
because lots of liberals instinctively regard him as an actual threat,
even if the only concrete example they can give was the support Russian
hackers gave to electing Trump. The fact is that conservatives have never
trusted democracy, and have regularly done everything in their power to
game it in their favor. Martin Longman:
Alan Macleod:
Multi-millionaire Nancy Pelosi warns "fellow leftists": Medicare for All
is a very bad idea. She's also knocking the wealth tax. Amanda Marcotte:
Dylan Matthews:
Katie Mettler:
Nobody is buying Mark Halperin's book. The disgraced journalist's publisher
lambastes 'cancel culture.' First week's sales of How to Beat Trump:
America's Top Political Strategists on What It Will Take totaled 502.
Halperin gained some fame when he co-wrote (with John Heilemann) a big book
on the 2008 election (Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and
Palin, but he's now viewed as the very definition of a hack political
journalist -- qualities you can get for free any time you turn in a cable
news panel. "Disgraced" refers to his "#MeToo" reputation, which can't have
helped him, but he was a sinking ship anyway. Ian Millhiser:
Ellen Nakashima/Greg Bensinger:
Former Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia by digging
into the accounts of kingdom critics. Nicole Narea:
State Department officials warned Trump not to revoke protections for
immigrants. Ella Nilsen:
Jeff Sessions announces a Senate run -- by telling voters he's still loyal
to Trump. Also:
Hamilton Nolan:
Why did Amazon spend $1.5m in Seattle's local elections? Anna North:
Andrew Prokop:
Nathaniel Rakich:
What Virginia, Mississippi and Kentucky can tell us about 2020. Hope Reese:
The Cambridge Analytica whistleblower on how American voters are "primed
to be exploited". Jennifer Rubin:
How a former senator and defense secretary explains Republican
spinelessness: "I think it's either fear or complicity." He's being
too generous. Strikes me more as Führerprinzip. Having accepted Trump
as their leader, they now have no option but to follow. Aaron Rupar:
Louis Sahagun:
Trump team has a plan for national parks: Amazon, food trucks and no
senior discounts. Tim Shorrock:
South Koreans are pleading for a breakthrough in the US-North Korea
talks. Amy Davidson Sorkin:
Trump's frantic fight for immunity: "As public impeachment hearings
begin, Trump's Presidency is still defined by his belief that he cannot
be held to account." Keith A Spencer:
There is hard data that shows that a centrist Democrat would be a losing
candidate. This is largely based on a paper by Thomas Piketty, based
on French and British data as well as American, which is only one of many
reasons why the conclusions might not apply. More intuitively, I'd say that
centrist Democrats face two major risks: one is that they spend so much
time and effort discounting leftist proposals they're lose the ability
to convince voters to trust them; the other is that their "centrism" is
largely defined by their willingness to favor business, which makes them
appear corrupt. Leftists face other obstacles, but they do have an edge
in authenticity and integrity, which given Trump may be important. Emily Stewart:
We get it, rich guys are not into Elizabeth Warren: "From Bill Gates
to Jamie Dimon to Leon Cooperman, billionaires have lots of thoughts and
feelings about Elizabeth Warren." Jennifer Szalai:
In A Warning, anonymous author makes case against re-election:
New book attempts to expand on last year's
op-ed attributed to an anonymous but "senior Trump administration
official." The idea then was to reassure us that sane conservatives are
working stealthily to limit the damage of Trump's petulant insanity, but
a year later the author is more pessimistic, admitting that "just a wet
Band-Aid that wouldn't hold together a gaping wound." Related:
Res Thebault:
Visit to Arlington Cemetery reminded Donald Trump Jr of all his family's
'sacrifices,' he writes. He has a new book with his name on the
cover, under the ridiculous title Triggered: How the Left Thrives
on Hate and Wants to Silence Us. Jake Thomas:
Migrant children are being given to an adoption agency linked to Betsy
DeVos. Probably over the top to accuse DeVos of human trafficking,
but the anti-abortion movement has a long association with adoption
agencies, and the latter seem to be happy to take children wherever
they can find them. Yeganeh Torbati:
How Mike Pence's office meddled in foreign aid to reroute money to favored
Christian groups. Alex Ward:
Matthew Yglesias:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, November 3, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Late getting into this, and beset by more problems than I can cope with
these days, so no introduction. Nothing fundamentally different. Just lots
more of the same old shit.
Some scattered links this week:
Spencer Ackerman:
Jared Bernstein:
Medicare-for-all won't happen anytime soon, but Democrats should keep
talking about it. I've been wondering why we don't see more practical
half-measures advanced about health-care, as the debate between Medicare
for All and its opponents has basically devolved into a debate over whether
we can or cannot solve the most basic problem in the world's most expensive
(and relative to cost most inefficient and in many ways dysfunctional)
health care system. There were several such proposals early on, such as
adding a "public option" to ACA and/or allowing various constituencies
to buy into Medicare. But now that the race has boiled down to Sanders
and Warren vs. Biden and Buttigieg, the debate is between those who
understand the problem and are willing to present bold solutions vs.
those who deny that significant change is possible, who don't even
seem to understand the problem, and in any case won't put any serious
effort into changing anything. Which is say, health care has become a
proxy for the deeper division among Democrats: the rift between the
"radicals," who believe that government should serve the people, and
the "moderates," who believe that government should serve the donors,
preferably without most other people getting hurt too bad (at least
compared to Republican standards). Christopher Bertram:
Contempt for human life: Starts with case in UK where the bodies of
39 Chinese nationals were found dead in a parked lorry container. Charles Bethea:
After ICE came to Morton, Mississippi: "About one in ten of the city's
residents was jailed or fired after raids at local chicken plants." Alexia Fernández Campbell:
Jonathan Chait:
GOP leader has one chart showing why Republicans hate democracy.
Kevin McCarthy's tweet shows a county map of 2016 voting results, so
it heavily favors more rural, less populated counties. Head is: 63
million Americans put President Trump in office/ 231 Democrats are
trying to reverse the results." Top line ignores the fact that Hillary
Clinton got almost 3 million more votes than Trump, plus third party
candidates got another 2 million votes, so Trump's total share was
only 46.09% of the total. Second part ignores that impeachment would
not make Clinton or any other Democrat president (isn't that what
"reverse" means?). It would merely remove one spectacularly corrupt
and vile office holder, in accordance with the US Constitution.
Trump: The Soviet witch coup has found me innocent: Steve Scalise's
poster decrying "37 days of Soviet-style impeachment proceedings" shows
how little he knows about the Soviet Union -- also the US Constitution.
Also how little grasp he has of irony.
If Trump is impeached or defeated, conservatives will call it a 'coup'.
The White House's Godfather fantasy.
Stone's case underlines a principle that's long been clear: It is
impossible to understand the Trump administration's cast of characters,
their lingo, and their governing ethos without a working knowledge of
La Cosa Nostra and its Hollywood lore. If the Kennedy administration
created Camelot, the Trump presidency has built a kind of cultural
gangster state.
Chas Danner:
Trump has been booed at another major sporting event: Well, only
if you call "an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at Madison Square
Garden on Saturday night" a "major sporting event." Lisa Friedman:
EPA to roll back rules to control toxic ash from coal plants. Dan Gearino:
Coal giant Murray Energy files for bankruptcy despite Trump's support.
Masha Gessen:
How Trump's supporters distort Alexander Vindman's very American origin
story. Shirin Ghaffary:
Tara Golshan:
In Iowa, only 5 percent of Biden supporters are younger than 45. That
compares to Warren (62%), Sanders (55%), and Buttigieg (30%); Biden
also trails: Yang (12%), Harris (8%), and Don't Know/Refused (6%). Under
"no big surprise," Yang has the highest M-F ratio (7%-1%), followed by
Gabbard (3%-1%) and Klobuchar (7%-3%), skipping those with 0% F (Delaney
2% M, O'Rourke and Messam 1% M). Harris is the only candidate with a
major F-M skew: 5%-1%. More surprising, Yang also has the highest ratio
of High School or Less to Bach/Postgrad Degree, 10%-2% -- again, skipping
0% denominators for Delaney (4%) and Messam (2%); Biden is 35%-26%, and
Sanders is 25%-24%. Most candidates do better with college graduates,
like Booker 0%-5%, Harris 2%-7%, Klobuchar 4%-13%, and Buttigieg 9%-40%,
but by far the most extreme is Warren 3%-59%. Those with electability
concerns should be especially concerned about Biden's age skew. Most
polls show young people breaking strongly for Democrats, but they're
also the age group least likely to vote, and it stands to reason that
many fewer will vote if the Democrats nominate Biden, especially
compared to Sanders or Warren.
Kentucky's Republican governor is facing a tough race -- and he wants
Trump to save him. Jeff Hauser/Eleanor Eagan:
The impeachable offense that Democrats should stop ignoring: "A
constitutional violation worthy of an impeachment probe has been sitting
under Democrats' noses since Trump took office -- his efforts to undermine
Obamacare." Fred Kaplan:
The defeat of General Mattis: Review of Guy M Snodgrass: Holding
the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis, and Mattis'
own memoir (with Bing West): Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. Ed Kilgore:
Catherine Kim:
Trump stumps for himself during a Mississippi rally for a tight governor's
race. Jen Kirby:
The future of Brexit will be decided in December 12 elections. Ezra Klein:
Elizabeth Warren's plan to pay for Medicare-for-all, explained.
Let's group some more pieces on Warren's Medicare-for-all plan:
Michael Kruse:
The 5 people who could have stopped Trump: "Gambling regulators once
contemplated yanking Trump's casino licenses. Why they didn't holds a
lesson for lawmakers today." Eric Levitz:
Marie Lodi:
Tasteless 'Build the Wall' decor seen at White House kids' Halloween
party. Mike Lofgren:
'Republicans have become a cult run by crooks': "Former GOP congressional
staffer explains why the party 'has become a creepy mashup of grade B
totalitarianism' and 'Freudian manias.'" Martin Longman:
Hope for humanity as Trump's base begins to leave him. Denise Lu/Christopher Flavelle:
Rising seas will erase more cities by 2050, new research shows. Ian Millhiser:
The most important part of the Democrats' impeachment resolution.
The most significant provision in the resolution exempts the Intelligence
Committee's impeachment hearings from a rule that ordinarily limits
questioning of witnesses to five minutes per committee member. Though the
resolution leaves the five-minute rule in place for most members, it allows
Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff to extend his own question time to as much
as 45 minutes, so long as he gives equal time to Republican ranking
committee member Devin Nunes.
These are important changes because they will allow Schiff and the team
of lawyers working for him to focus their time on the impeachment hearings
and to spend significant amounts of time asking probing questions during
those hearings. The new rules help ensure that the hearing will not be a
disjointed process, constantly jumping from one questioner to the next,
without giving anyone time to build a coherent narrative.
Nicole Narea:
Olivia Nuzzi:
Inside MAGA Country's hottest club: The Trump-Pence 2020 Halloween Eve
witch-hunt party. Peter Osnos:
Editing Donald Trump: "What I saw as the editor of The Art of the
Deal, the book that made the future President millions of dollars and
turned him into a national figure." Thomas Pepinsky:
Why the impeachment fight is even scarier than you think: "Political
scientists have studied what our democracy is going through. It usually
doesn't end well." Andrew Prokop:
John Quiggin:
Arrogance destroyed the World Trade Organisation. What replaces it will
be even worse. David Roberts:
The radical reform necessary to prepare California's power system for
the 21st century. - Theodore Schleifer:
Silicon Valley billionaires keep getting richer no matter how much money
they give away.
Nathan Robinson:
Goodbye, Beto O'Rourke. What a sad end to a pointless campaign. Also:
Aaron Rupar:
Emmanuel Saez/Gabriel Zucman:
Make no mistake: Medicare for All would cut taxes for most Americans.
Michael D Shear, et al.:
How Trump reshaped the presidency in over 11,000 tweets. Jack Shenker:
This wave of global protest is being led by the children of the financial
crash. Katie Shepherd:
An ad smeared a Kansas Democrat for sexual harassment. The main charge
actually described a Republican. Wichita's nominally non-partisan
mayoral race makes the national news. Alan Singer:
Historian explains what binds Trump's extremely rich and economically
struggling supporters together:
What I struggle with understanding is how Trump, who is so self-evidently
incompetent, morally repulsive, and biased in favor of the rich, holds
onto his support among the white working-class and religious voters who
attend his rallies and cheer hysterically for their hero. . . . What binds
Trump's extremely rich and economically struggling supporters together are
their cynical beliefs about the motives of others. They think everyone
else is out to steal what is rightfully theirs.
Matt Stieb:
Matt Taibbi:
Baghdadi story reveals divided -- and broken -- news media. Alex Ward:
The White House's top Ukraine official confirms there was a quid pro quo:
"Tim Morrison tried not to make the president look bad. He failed." Matthew Yglesias:
Health care is on the ballot in state elections starting next week. Li Zhou:
The double standard at play in Katie Hill's resignation: Compared to,
e.g., Duncan Hunter (R-CA). Also on Hill:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Been distracted, so chalk this up as another week going through the
motions, keeping open the option of looking back at this presidential
term week-by-week as it unfolded. More time might have given me chance
to group links on the same basic stories, as well as to build a bit
more structure around everything. Started collecting on Saturday,
after which the Baghdadi assassination story broke, John Conyers died,
and Trump was greeted with boos and chants of "lock him up" at the
World Series.
Some scattered links this week:
Jared Bernstein/Dean Baker:
Blame the economic policies, not the robots. Ryan Bort:
Trump has officially weaponized the Justice Department to go after his
rivals. Hannah Brown:
A top Trump student loan official just resigned, calling for debt
forgiveness. Related: Sarah Jones:
Trump-appointed student loan official resigns: "Stop the insanity." Cristina Cabrera:
Alexia Fernández Campbell:
The GM strike has officially ended. Here's what workers won and lost.
Jonathan Chait:
Zak Cheney-Rice:
Republicans want victimhood without being victimized. Jane Coaston:
The right saw the outrage at Trump's "lynching" tweet as another example
of liberal hypocrisy. Patrick Cockburn:
The final outcome of the multiple Syrian wars is now in sight. By
the way, a letter here notes that:
Jeff Halper, in his 2015 book, suggested that people across the world
exercising their democratic right to challenge their governments'
misrule were becoming "Palestinianised" and the rulers were becoming
"Israelised."
For a case in point, the letter included a link to: Nasim Ahmed:
'Palestinanised' Chileans revolt against their "Israelised'
government. Jonathan Cook:
Tulsi Gabbard is right, and Nancy Pelosi wrong. It was US Democrats who
helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. Jessica Corbett:
Typhoon Hagibis kills dozens and causes "immense damage" in Japan. Max Fisher/Amanda Taub:
The global protest wave, explained: "It's not your imagination, and
the last few months are not an outlier: Mass protests are on the rise
globally." Subheds:
- Democracy is stalling out
- Social media makes protests likelier to start, likelier to balloon
in size and likelier to fail
- Social polarization is way up
- Authoritarian learning
For more, Fisher and Declan Walsh also wrote:
From Chile to Lebanon, protests flare over wallet issues. Fisher
also wrote:
The US turned Syria's north into a tinderbox. Then Trump lit a match.
More articles on various ongoing protests:
Quint Forgey:
Trump warns US 'may have to get in wars': "The president specifically
threatens to hit Iran 'like they've never been hit before' if the regime
provokes Washington." Masha Gessen:
Ryan Grim:
Bernie Sanders vows to revive criminal prosecutions of CEOs for unfair
trade practices. Sue Halpern:
The problem of political advertising on social media. Benjamin Hart:
President Trump is obsessed with stealing Syria's oil. Mehdi Hasan:
Everyone is denouncing the Syrian rebels now slaughtering Kurds. But didn't
the US once support some of them? Jeff Hauser/Eleanor Eagan:
House Democrats are failing to protect farmers from Trump: "The
administration is letting agribusiness monopolies run amok." Umair Irfan:
Californians face more blackouts as fire risk remains high. Fred Kaplan:
We can't actually keep Syria's oil, but Lindsey Graham wants Trump to
think we can: More paragraphs than I can quote here explain why
the scheme is "preposterous." Still, it was the one trick that moved
Trump to reverse his withdrawal, which is something Graham believes
in more than reason:
These geopolitical arguments didn't move Trump an inch. So Sen. Lindsey
Graham -- Trump's most loyal political defender but also a fervent
advocate for the Kurds -- shifted tactics to focus on something he
figured the president would understand: finances. According to NBC
News, Graham and Jack Keane -- an influential retired Army general
who, back in 2007, persuaded President George W. Bush to order a "surge"
of troops to Iraq -- brought maps into the Oval Office, showing Trump
the network of oil fields across the region, including in Syria.
The argument about oil was flimflam, and Graham and Keane knew it.
Citing a defense official, NBC noted that "while the emphasis on oil
in Syria is intended to convince the president that the U.S. military
is valuable, securing the oil fields is not a military strategy. U.S.
troops will not actually be guarding the oil fields."
The ruse was reminiscent of the time, early in the administration,
when Trump wanted to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, to the
alarm of several officials. Trump paid no attention to arguments about
counterterrorism or the balance of power, so the officials shifted
tactics. Pentagon officials started talking about "rare-earth metals"
in Afghan soil -- something that had never been in previous briefing
books. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, then the national security adviser,
showed Trump old photographs of Kabul in the 1970s, in which young
women were seen wearing miniskirts. See, McMaster told the president,
Afghanistan hasn't always been a graveyard of empires; it's been a
"normal" country in the past, and it can be again.
Trump not only reversed his decision to pull out -- he doubled
the number of troops that President Barack Obama, toward the end of
his term, had kept in.
Graham, Keane, and many others wanted to keep some U.S. troops in
Syria. Trump did not. So they made up a phony argument to get him to
change his mind. It worked.
The US has 50 nuclear bombs in Turkey. Why? Ed Kilgore:
Jen Kirby:
Markos Kounalakis:
Trump's four horsemen: "The president is unleashing autocrats to
create a Middle East apocalypse." Casts the "four horsemen" as Erdogan,
Assad, Khamanei, and Putin, but he missed a few, especially the leaders
of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and let's not forget Israel. Also Trump,
who get criticized for stepping back then overcompensates by plunging
forward, his "withdrawal" from Syria almost instantly reversed by an
invasion to seize Syrian oil fields, while sending more forces to Saudi
Arabia (once again, aimed at oil fields). Ivan Krastev/Stephen Holmes:
How liberalism became 'the god that failed' in Eastern Europe. Eric Levitz:
459,000 working-class white male Wisconsinites didn't vote in 2016.
An untapped potential Trump resource in what's currently the key
battleground state?
Recapping impeachment: Bill Taylor returns for one last mission.
Rudy and Hunter Biden both worked for the same Romanian kleptocrat.
USDA watchdog to investigate Department's alleged suppression of climate
science.
How centrist Democrats botched the 2020 primary. I'd put less
emphasis on the names than on bigger problems with the paradigm.
The inescapable fact is that centrist Democrats -- Clinton, Obama,
and their natural followers -- have failed on both fronts: they
haven't been able to deliver real gains to the party rank and file,
and even with their timid programs and compromises they haven't
been able to keep the Republicans out of power. The left offers
tangible answers to both problems: they promote real answers to
the real problems faced by the party base, and they work hard to
convince you that they'll follow through if given the chance.
Also, one more reason: from the 1980s through Hillary Clinton in
2016, successful Democrats (like Republicans) were the ones most
able to raise money from well-heeled donors. In 2016, Bernie
Sanders came up with way to raise money that doesn't depend on
PACs and fat cats, and Warren has followed his path. The whining
you hear from centrists these days is mostly because the left is
no longer dependent on their support. Of course, names do have
some impact. Aside from Hillary and Biden, the two best-known
pro-business centrists are probably Andrew Cuomo and Rahm Emmanuel,
but their failures and scandals have kept them from even running. Eric Lipton/Jesse Drucker:
Symbol of '80s greed stands to profit from Trump tax break for poor
areas. Josh Marshall:
TPM's deep dive on the conservative deep state: A series of articles
investigating right-wing political organizations, not necessarily within
the state but trying to align state policy with their political interests.
Some articles in this series:
Dylan Matthews:
US air pollution deaths increased by 9,700 a year from 2016 to 2018.
Nicole Narea:
Anna North:
Pennsylvania lawmakers want to ban abortion before many people know
they're pregnant. Olivia Nuzzi:
The zombie campaign: Joe Biden is the least formidable front-runner
ever." Kelsey Piper:
AI could be a disaster for humanity. A top computer scientist thinks
he has the solution: "Stuart Russell wrote the book on AI and is
leading the fight to change how we build it." Andrew Prokop:
The week in impeachment inquiry news, explained. Corey Robin:
The Obamanauts: Review of eight books on Obama in the White House,
asking the question: "What was the defining achievement of Barack
Obama?" Jonathan Chait thinks that's
a dumb question, and tries to construct a defense of Obama against
such "left-wing attacks." Aaron Rupar:
Team Trump's efforts to spin Mulvaney's quid pro quo confession are not
going well. Eugene Scott:
Trump's lynching comparison shows there's no bottom to his sense of
victimhood. Still, I take a certain gratification in that Trump
seems to be acknowledging that lynching is a bad thing, although more
likely with him it's more a matter of who's doing what to whom. (Same
with witch hunts.) Liam Stack:
Update complete: US nuclear weapons no longer need floppy disks.
You know, I still have a couple of 8-inch floppy disk drives in the
basement. Admittedly, I haven't used them since the 1980s. Also have
the S-100 bus Z-80 computer I bought them for, with 64K of no-wait-state
static RAM, and some orange plastic levers for toggling in binary boot
programs. Also have a 1998-vintage computer with a 3.5-inch not-floppy
removable disk drive. In between, there were 5.25-inch floppy disks. I
have a bunch of those, but no computer I can read them in. Probably
some marginally interesting baseball data on those. Maybe record lists,
occasional scraps of writing. Matt Stieb:
Trump's press conference announcing the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
is peak deranged Trump. Peter Stone:
William Barr, Trump's new Roy Cohn. Matt Taibbi:
Everyone is a Russian asset. Hillary Clinton and her close supporters
have been especially quick to make such charges. Taibbi doesn't talk about
his own experience as a target of such slurs, but I've noticed he gets it
a lot. Astra Taylor:
Out with the old, in with the Young. Anya van Wagtendonk:
Peter Wade:
James D Walsh:
'The force of Trump's lying has ruptured the space-time continuum':
Steve Schmidt on impeachment: Interview with Schmidt, an ex-GOP
(Never Trump) pundit at MSNBC, who says:
My perspective is that the Republican Party is profoundly corrupted by
Donald Trump and it has been corrupted by a tolerance for all and any
type of amoral and immoral behavior. Tolerance for astounding levels of
corruption and exposure of hypocrisy from the religious far-right leaders
like Falwell, to everybody who screamed and shouted about some perfidious
act that Obama or the Clintons allegedly committed. Trump has remade the
Republican Party into an isolationist, grievance-driven, resentment-driven
political party.
On the other hand, he still loathes the Democratic Party, and sees
them as doomed. He notes, I think correctly, "A debate about stupid
things benefits Donald Trump." He's specifically talking about Kamala
Harris' argument that Trump should be banned from Twitter, but I see
a much more pervasive example in the mass media, where every issue is
reduced to stupid. Alex Ward:
Sarah Westwood/Caroline Kenney:
Mayor and college officials in city where Trump spoke Friday give changing
numbers of student attendees at speech. Trump spoke in Columbia, SC, at
"historically black" Benedict College, by invitation only to a crowd of 200.
Note that: "only about 10 were actual students from the college." New York
Magazine linked to this under the title, "Man of the white people." Robert Wright:
What's good for Putin is not always bad for America: "Syria isn't a
zero-sum game between Russia and the United States, so let's stop talking
about it that way." Matthew Yglesias:
It's time to broaden the impeachment inquiry: "The House should be
asking questions about Trump's dealings with Turkey, Russia, Saudi Arabia,
and others." He's not broadening it much, and the three nations mentioned
are easy to demagogue on, because they resonate with recent and/or ancient
popular prejudices. But surely there's as much "smoke" around Israel, but
no one wants to look in that direction (even though they wouldn't have to
look much further than Sheldon Adelson).
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Half a week here, after my
Midweek
Roundup came out on Thursday. Still too exhausted to write an
intro.
Some scattered links this week:
Aaron Bady:
Jedediah Purdy has an idea that could save us from capitalism and the
climate crisis: Interview with Purdy about his latest book, This
Land Is Our Land. Article doesn't live up to its premise, not all
Purdy's fault, but I've never found his books all that satisfying. Riley Beggin:
Tulsi Gabbard calls Hillary Clinton "the queen of warmongers" in her
latest clash with top Democrats. A point which was pretty obvious
after Clinton called Gabbard "the favorite of the Russians." Clinton
is also still bear-baiting Jill Stein; see Tessa Stuart:
Green Party torches Hillary Clinton for claiming Jill Stein is 'totally'
a Russian asset. I've seen people attempt to defend Clinton on this
(e.g., Charles P Pierce:
Hillary Clinton is more than qualified to judge the effectiveness of
foreign-influenced candidates), but they're rubbing salt into a
still tender wound. Russian interference in 2016 is well established
as a fact, but neither explains nor excuses Clinton's loss to Trump,
nor does it make Trump unworthy (although lots of other things do)
let alone brand him as some kind of Russian stooge. Moreover, such
charges appear to have the intent of worsening US-Russian relations,
at a time when better relations with Russia would be helpful on many
issues. When Clinton attacks Gabbard and Stein as "favorites of the
Russians," she's really warning Democratic candidates that Russia is
bad and they should repeat her 2016 sabre-rattling mistakes. That the
net effect of her attacks has been to increase Gabbard's popularity
only underscores how irrelevant Clinton has become. For something
much deeper on Gabbard, see Kerry Howley:
Tulsi Gabbard had a very strange childhood. [PS: Robert Wright
on Clinton's attacks:
Virality and virulence. Another valuable Wright post:
How the New York Times distorts our view of Syria.] Max Blumenthal:
The US has backed 21 of the 28 'crazy' militias leading Turkey's brutal
invasion of northern Syria: "Former and current US officials have
slammed the Turkish mercenary force of 'Arab militias' for executing
and behading Kurds in northern Syria. New data from Turkey reveals that
almost all of these militias were armed and trained in the past by the
CIA and Pentagon." Hannah Brown:
Wildfires are raging in Lebanon. Experts say they saw this coming.
"Fires are burning across Lebanon during a record heatwave." Jonathan Chait:
Alvin Chang:
The man who rigged America's election maps: "How Tom Hofeller shifted
the balance of power by taking gerrymandering to the extreme." William D Cohan:
"There is definite hanky-panky going on": The fantastically profitable
mystery of the Trump chaos trades: "The president's talk can move
markets -- and it's made some futures traders billions. Did they know
what he was going to say before he said it?" Related: Jake Johnson:
Democrats demand federal investigation of 'suspicious' stock sales linked
to Trump's economy-shifting trade war moves. Also:
Hey Securities and Exchange Commission, if you are watching. Someone is
trading on insider info. Chas Danner:
Ocasio-Cortez credits Sanders for her political awakening at Bernie's
comeback rally in Queens. Warren Davidson:
Trump is right: Ending the endless wars starts in Syria. This is a
little mealy-mouthed, but not exceptionally so for a House Representative
(R-OH): I'd reject "after 9/11, America had a clear cause for war in
Afghanistan" and some of the chest-beating about America's military,
but this shows that some Republicans are eager to claim the mantel of
peace, especially when Democrats cede that ground. Also note:
Dhrumil Mehta:
Republican voters are largely backing Trump's withdrawal from Syria.
Also note:
Syria critic Lindsey Graham reverses stance, says Trump's policy could
succeed. It's getting really hard to overstate how completely Trump
has the Republican Party under his thumb. Anthony Faiola:
Socialism doesn't work? An emerging middle class of Bolivians would
beg to differ. Steve Fraser:
Existential threat versus existential crisis: "The Great Depression
and the Climate Crisis, New Deals then and now." Adam Goldman/William K Rashbaum:
Review of Russia inquiry grows as FBI witnesses are questioned:
After complaining about "witch hunts," Trump and Barr order up one
more to their liking. Fred Hiatt:
It's not news that Trump is corrupt. What's new is how he is succeeding
in corrupting our government. Sean Illing:
Christopher Ingraham:
For the first time, workers are paying a higher tax rate than investors
and owners: "The proximate cause of the shift was Trump's 2017 tax
cut, which dramatically slashed taxes on corporate profits and estates."
Sarah Jones:
Bernie Sanders hasn't killed identity politics: Maybe not, but he's
defined an identity that transcends the usual boxes that Democratic Party
proponents of "identity politics" like to tick off, partly because he's
revived an old identity "centrist" Democrats have been trying to wash
their hands of (the working class), and partly because he has no desire
to make those other distinctions. Mark Karlin:
Trump isn't bringing any troops home. In fact, he has sent an additional
14,000 troops to the Mideast since May. It's just another con. Ed Kilgore:
Jen Kirby:
The UK Parliament just blew up Boris Johnson's Brexit plans:
"Parliament just voted the make the prime minister seek a Brexit delay,
even if his deal passes." Kirby previously wrote:
The UK and EU have a new Brexit agreement. But it's not a done deal
yet. More on Brexit:
Jeff Klein:
Syria, the Kurds, Turkey and the US: Why progressives should not support
a new imperial partition in the Middle East. Anita Kumar:
Trump can't stop bragging to foreign leaders about his resorts. Eric Lach:
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez make a show of force in
Queens. Michael Laris:
Messages show Boeing employees knew in 2016 of problems that turned
deadly on the 737 Max. Eric Levitz:
Biden's attacks on Medicare for All undermine the entire Democratic
agenda. Eric Lipton:
Trump's choice to bring G7 to his own resort would violate conflict-of-interest
law, if he weren't President. Mujib Mashal/Thomas Gibbons-Neff:
Civilian casualties reach highest level in Afghan War, UN says. Aaron David Miller/Eugene Rumer/Richard Sokolsky:
What Trump actually gets right about Syria: First paragraph back
peddles a bit: "Trump's assessment of the situation [in Syria] is not
entirely wrong." Still, their main points are spot on, even if they
aren't flattering to the American ego: "The US-Kurdish relationship
was never going to last"; "Russia is the key power broker in Syria";
"Assad is here to stay"; "There won't be a second caliphate"; and
"Syria is not a vital US interest." Turns out that Miller wrote a
book back in 2014 (ergo, pre-Trump): The End of Greatness: Why
America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President.
From a note on the book: "Americans are adrift in a kind of Presidential
Bermuda Triangle suspended between the great presidents we want and
the ones we can no longer have. . . . Indeed, greatness is too rare
to be relevant in our current politics, and driven as it is by
nation-encumbering crises, too dangerous to be desirable." Good
thing he got this book written before Trump came around, else he
would have had to incorporate a twist too deranged to anticipate:
a "stable genius" with "unmatched wisdom" who blundered his way
into crisis only to find himself totally lacking in whatever it
takes for "greatness" to emerge. Ally Mutnick:
Why Republicans should be worried about their chances of retaking the
House. Adam K Raymond:
World's least self aware person, Donald Trump Jr, attacks Bidens for
nepotism. Jody Rosen:
Staring down Donald Trump, the same elephant in every room.
We are not "all Greta Thunberg," but all of us know what it's like to
be ambushed by Donald Trump. He pops up on your social media feed with
hateful words and impulsive policy announcements. He flickers on TV
screens in bus terminals and airport departure lounges, forever looming
over your shoulder. He barges unbidden into your dreams. It is a condition
of being alive in America in 2019. No matter who you are or what you're
trying to accomplish, whether you're a 16-year-old working to save the
planet or an ordinary citizen trying to make it through the day with
some peace of mind intact, you will inevitably confront the specter of
Trump, drifting into the frame in a cloud of disorder and bad vibes.
Even the president's most dedicated enablers scan the sky warily,
awaiting today's cyclone, the next reckless, capricious twist of the
plot. The door swings open, the president enters, all heads turn. The
camera whips around, and suddenly, everything else -- better angels,
higher ideals, common decency, common sense, beauty, truth -- blurs
into the background.
Matthew Rosenberg/Kevin Roose:
Trump campaign floods web with ads, raking in cash as Democrats struggle.
Aaron Rupar:
Alexander Sammon:
The miseducation of Mean Pete: "Once the Rhodes Scholar version of
Mister Rogers, Buttigieg has become the snarling incarnation of anti-left
rage." You know, I've long suspect that a big part of the pitch centrist
Democrats make to their donors, even if only implicit, is that they will
help business by, among other favors, keeping the left contained. That's
part of why Clinton and Obama hardly ever lifted a finger to help labor,
and it's part of why they felt few qualms about surrendering control of
Congress, thereby giving up any chance of implementing the progressive
platforms they successfully ran for president on. Buttigieg has done an
impressive job of raising money from those same donors, only he's having
to be much more explicit about carrying their water, and in 2019 those
donors are much more worried by the left than they are by Trump and
the Republicans. His eagerness to do that has made him a viable niche
candidate, but when it comes to converting money to votes he may find
himself pinned down way too narrowly. A related article from June 25:
Do Pete Buttigieg's donors know him better than we do?: "The South
Bend mayor has become a darling to Silicon Valley and Wall Street elite.
That alone is a red flag." Greg Sargent:
Jon Schwarz:
What I learned from the debate: Democrats still can't level with voters
about the American empire. Related: Alex Emmons:
Trump's chaotic Syria exit puts anti-war 2020 Democrats in a delicate
spot. Schwarz also wrote:
The US is now betraying the Kurds for the eighth time. Philip Shenon:
'A threat to democracy': William Barr's speech on religious freedom
alarms liberal Catholics. Gregory Shupak:
Media alarmed by US pullout from Syria -- which didn't actually happen.
David Smith:
US justice department resumes use of death penalty and schedules five
executions. Matt Stieb:
As Trump fumes, GOP advances real party goal of making federal judiciary
great again. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor:
When the dream of owning a home became a nightmare: "A federal
program to encourage black homeownership in the 1970s ended in a flood
of foreclosures." Jeffrey Toobin:
William Barr's wild misreading of the First Amendment. Paul Waldman:
A new report suggests Trump may have committed financial crimes. Benjamin Wallace-Wells:
The French economist who helped invent Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax:
Gabriel Zucman. Alex Ward:
Trump loves dictators. Erdogan is the latest to take advantage of that.
I don't think it's right to call Erdogan a dictator. He holds his office
due to winning a reasonably open election (although he has used surviving
an attempted military coup as an excuse for consolidating power in ways
that may undermine future democracy). Many of the other "dictdators" Trump
seems to admire were also elected, including Putin (Russia), Modi (India),
Bolsonaro (Brazil), and Duterte (Philippines), but so was the only one
Trump has actually called a dictator: Maduro (Venezuela). Clearly, he
has little appreciation of, or concern for, the democratic process -- no
surprise, given that he was elected with the flimsiest popular mandate of
any of the above, but also because right-wingers are always contemptous
of democracy, perhaps because even they suspect that their rule is
unwarranted.
The Syrian ceasefire the US brokered is already falling apart.
Top Trump official throws Giuliani under the bus in impeachment inquiry
statement. Matthew Yglesias:
Impeachment is too important to leave to Congress -- it's going to take
mass mobilization. I don't want to rain on anyone's desire to march,
but I don't really buy this, even before discounting the inapplicability
of various foreign examples. If impeachment happens, it's going to be
done on narrow legalistic grounds, and it's not going to change power
dynamics in any way. Mike Pence would replace Trump as president, he's
pretty much hand-picked the cabinet anyway, and Congress would remain
divided and ineffectual as at present. Sure, it's merited, and sure, it
would be a chastising lesson for future presidents. Most of all, it
presents an educational opportunity. But nothing significant can change
until the 2020 elections, so that's where most of that pent-up energy
should be directed. Well, that and keeping the frameworks for the rest
of the political struggle viable, because even if the Democrats win big
in 2020, we're still going to need a peace and social justice movement,
union organizing, environmental awareness, and so forth. Li Zhou:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Trump has gotten a lot of flack this week for his decision allowing
Turkey to invade Syria. Turkey's attack is directed not at the Syrian
government or ISIS but at the Kurdish militias in norther Syria, which
Turkish strong-man Erdogan regards as a potential security threat, as
presumingly giving aid and comfort to Turkey's own Kurdish minority.
The Kurdish militias had not only opposed the Syrian government, which
hardly anyone in America has a kind word for, but also operated as
allies or proxies in America's war against ISIS. Hence, the complaints
you hear most often are that Trump has abandoned a trusted US ally,
and that the invasion is likely to head to a humanitarian disaster --
the emphasis shifting from neocons to their liberal enablers. The
only support Trump has found has come from paleocons like Rand Paul
who want the US to draw back from foreign wars, but don't much care
if the rest of the world destroys itself.
One problem is that Trump (or for that matter Obama) has never had
a coherent strategy on Syria, or for that matter anywhere else in the
Middle East. A reasonable goal would be to maintain peace among stable
governments, biased where possible toward broad-based prosperity with
power sharing and respect for human rights. Obama might have agreed
with that line at the start of Arab Spring, but he soon found that ran
against the main drivers of American Middle East policy: Israel's war
stance, the Arabian oil oligarchies, Iranian exiles, arms merchants,
and scattered pockets of Christians (except in Palestine) -- forces
that had never given more than occasional lip-service to democracy and
human rights, and were flat-out opposed to any whiff of socialism.
Obama was able to help nudge Mubarak aside in Egypt, but when the
Egyptians elected the wrong leaders, he had second thoughts, and didn't
object to the military restoring a friendly dictatorship. Obama had no
such influence in Libya and Syria, so when their leaders violently put
demonstrations down, some Americans saw an opportunity to overthrow
unfriendly regimes through armed conflict. It is fair to say that Obama
was ambivalent about this, but he wound up overseeing a bombing campaign
that killed Qaddafi in Libya, and he provided less overt support to some
of the Syrian opposition forces, and this led to many other parties
intervening in Syria, with different and often conflicting agendas.
It's worth stressing that nothing the US has attempted in the
Middle East has worked, even within the limited and often incoherent
goals that have supposedly guided American policy, let alone advancing
the more laudable goals of peace and broad-based prosperity. Iraq and
Afghanistan have shown that the US is incapable of standing up popular
government after invasion and civil war. Libya suggests that ignoring
a broken country doesn't work any better. But Syria is turning out to
be an even more complete disaster, as the ancien regime remains as the
only viable government. Assad owes his survival to Russia's staunch
support, but also to the US (and the Kurds), who defeated his most
potent opposition: ISIS.
What needs to be done now is to implement a cease fire, to halt all
foreign efforts to provide military support for anti-Assad forces, to
reassert the Assad government over all of Syria, to convince Assad not
to take reprisals against disarmed opponents, and to start rebuilding
and repatriating exiles. Trump's greenlighting of the Turkish invasion
does none of this, and makes any progress that much harder -- not that
there is any reason to think that Trump has the skills and temperament
to negotiate an end to the conflict, even without this blunder.
The only American politician who begins to have the skills to deal
with problems like Syria is Bernie Sanders, because he is the only one
to understand that America's interests -- peace, prosperity, cooperation
everywhere -- are best served when nations everywhere choose governments
that serve the best interests of all of their own peoples (socialism).
Everyone else is more/less stuck in ruts which insist on projecting the
so-called American values of crony capitalism and militarism, the goal
to make the world subservient to the interests of neoliberal capital.
In this regard, Trump differs from the pack only in his reluctance to
dress up greedy opportunism with high-minded aspirations (e.g., Bush's
feminist program for Afghanistan). Trump's freedom from cant could be
refreshing, but like all of his exercises in political incorrectness,
it mostly serves to reveal what a callous and careless creature he is.
Short of Sanders, it might be best to concede that America is not
the solution to the world's woes, that indeed it is a major problem,
so much so that in many cases the most helpful thing we could do is
to withdraw, including support for other countries' interventions.
Syria is an obvious good place to start. On the other hand, replacing
American arms and aims with Turkish ones won't help anyone (not even
the Turks).
PS: After writing the above, Trump ordered the last US
troops out of Syria. That in itself is good news, but everything
else is spiraling rapidly out of control. Meanwhile, Syrian Kurds
are looking for new allies, and finding Assad (see Jason Ditz:
Syrian Kurds, Damascus reach deal in Russia-backed talks).
Some scattered links on this (some of which are just examples of
what I've been complaining about):
Some scattered links this week:
Andrew Bacevich:
High crimes and misdemeanors of the fading American Century. Jared Bernstein:
The climate crisis and the failure of economics. Jonathan Blitzer:
Why Trump's fourth Secretary of Homeland Security just resigned:
Kevin McAleenan, "acting" Secretary for six months now.. John Cassidy:
Jonathan Chait:
Nancy Cook:
Impeachment tentacles spread throughout Trump's team. Judy Fahys:
What the BLM shake-up could mean for public lands and their climate
impact. John Feffer:
Trump's undeclared state of emergency: "Trump is counting on his
base to endorse his increasingly open law-breaking." Tara Golshan:
Trump signed an executive order about how much he hates Medicare-for-all:
"The order's intent is to promote Medicare Advantage but it has a lot of
vague language" -- mostly intended to undermine the Medicare Trump claims
he defends. Constance Grady:
Ellen DeGeneres, George W Bush, and the death of uncritical niceness.
Umair Irfan:
Sarah Jones:
Fred Kaplan:
Ed Kilgore:
Jen Kirby:
US and China reach a "phase one" trade deal: "President Donald Trump
announced an agreement to delay tariffs and for China to buy agricultural
products." PR Lockhart:
"They murdered this woman": Texans outraged after an officer shoots a
black woman in her own home. German Lopez:
The case for prosecuting the Sacklers and other opioid executives.
Ian Millhiser:
Ella Nilsen:
Bernie Sanders takes aim at the DNC with his new anti-corruption plan.
Charles P Pierce:
Andrew Prokop:
Robert Reich:
Donald Trump: xenophobe in public, international mobster in private.
David Roberts:
This climate problem is bigger than cars and much harder to solve:
Heavy industry is responsible for around 22 percent of global CO2 emissions.
Forty-two percent of that -- about 10 percent of global emissions -- comes
from combustion to produce large amounts of high-temperature heat for
industrial products like cement, steel, and petrochemicals.
To put that in perspective, industrial heat's 10 percent is greater than
the CO2 emissions of all the world's cars (6 percent) and planes (2 percent)
combined. Yet, consider how much you hear about electric vehicles. Consider
how much you hear about flying shame. Now consider how much you hear
about . . . industrial heat.
Not much, I'm guessing. But the fact is, today, virtually all of
that combustion is fossil-fueled, and there are very few viable
low-carbon alternatives. For all kinds of reasons, industrial heat
is going to be one of the toughest nuts to crack, carbon-wise.
Aaron Rupar:
Basav Sen:
Dig beneath the world's far-right governments -- you'll find fossil
fuels. David K Shipler:
Punishing the poor for being hungry: "The Trump administration wages
war on food stamps." Jesse Singal:
Anti-free-speechers still aren't taking their own arguments seriously.
A critique of Andrew Marantz, author of Antisocial: Online Extremists,
Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation, as
excerpted in
Free speech is killing us: "Noxious language is causing real-world
violence. What can we do about it?" Matt Taibbi:
We're in a permanent coup. Getting a little paranoid here, arguing
that as bad as Trump is, the "U.S. intelligence community" that seems
out to get him is actually more sinister. Nick Turse:
The forgotten trauma of a forgotten war: "As the world looks away,
death stalks the Democratic Republic of Congo." Anya van Wagtendonk:
Kenneth P Vogel:
Giuliani's Ukraine team: In search of influence, dirt and money. David Walsh:
It took decades, but the anti-New Deal crusaders have triumphed:
"A decades-long campaign by a handful of well-heeled foundations has
succeeded in laundering ideas through academia into law." Alex Ward:
Matthew Yglesias:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Friday, September 6, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Once again, ran out of time before I could get around to an
introduction. The impeachment story rolls on, and Trump is getting
weirder and freakier than ever. Meanwhile, more bad shit is happening
than I can get a grip on. And what's likely to happen when the new
Supreme Court gets down to business. Once you tote up all the damage
Trump's election directly causes, you need to look up "opportunity
costs."
Some scattered links this week:
Zeeshan Aleem:
A second whistleblower on Trump and Ukraine is coming forward. Michael Amia:
Trump wants to shoot people in the legs. The United States' closest ally
already does that. It's long been clear to me that a big part of the
love US right-wingers have for Israel is envy: they wish their own country
to become as brutal, as imperious, as militarist as Israel has proven to
be. Alexia Fernández Campbell:
Jonathan Chait:
Michelle Chen:
The US border security industry could be worth $740 billion by 2023.
A shocking number, but it was already worth $305 billion in 2011. Jelani Cobb:
Why Trump, facing impeachment, warns of civil war. Andrew Cockburn:
Just how swampy are US-Saudi arms deals? Patrick Cockburn:
The post-Saddam Hussein settlement in Iraq is on the brink of collapse.
David Daley:
How to get away with gerrymandering. Ryan Devereaux:
Mining the future: Climate change, migration, and militarization in
Arizona's borderlands. Jason Ditz:
US test fires ICBM, declares it a 'visible message of national security'
("which flew 4,200 miles from California to the Marshall Islands"):
a non-story compared to North Korea test-firing smaller missiles or
China "showing off arms in a parade," despite being pointed toward
China and North Korea. Harry Enten:
Trump's impeachment polling is historically unprecedented. James K Galbraith:
This 50-year-old economic book helps explain the corporate republic we
live in: On James K Galbraith's The New Industrial State
(1967). David Gardner:
Donald Trump's 'maximum pressure' campaign against Iran has backfired.
Matt Gertz:
Team Trump's 2020 strategy is Clinton Cash all over again.
But wouldn't the likelihood of it working be dependent on the Democrats
nominating a candidate like Hillary Clinton? Masha Gessen:
The difference between leaking and whistle-blowing in the Trump White
House. Refers to a new book by Tom Mueller on the history of
whistle-blowing: Crisis of Conscience, and notes:
An effective whistle-blower stays below the radar while methodically
collecting information; staying power and an ability to remain
inconspicuous are key. The person who blew the whistle on Trump and
Ukraine appears to possess both of these qualities, and others: the
complaint is meticulously documented and worded with exquisite care.
By its very existence, the document blows the whistle on the Trumpian
style -- hasty, sloppy, overblown, and unsubstantiated.
Other opponents of Trumpism within the government have leaked rather
than blown the whistle. No sooner was the President inaugurated than
members of the White House staff told reporters that the President
acted like a "clueless child," had no interest in intelligence reports,
spent his time watching TV, and was largely kept out of the decision-making
process. These stories, which began in January of 2017, quickly grew
familiar, and the more bizarre the reality they described, the greater
their normalizing effect.
Tara Golshan/Ella Nilsen:
Elizabeth Warren's new remedy for corruption: a tax on lobbying. Dana Goodyear:
Trump's war on California and the climate. Conn Hallinan:
How the Saudi oil field attack overturned America's apple cart:
"For all their overwhelming firepower, the U.S. and its allies can
cause a lot of misery in the Middle East, but still can't govern
the course of events." Sarah Jones:
Peter Kafka:
The 2 companies that place all those ads at the bottom of webpages are
combining: "Taboola is buying Outbrain." Ed Kilgore:
Some impeachment-shy Democrats just fear it will backfire, as
do some impeachment-shy "progressive" pundits. One worry is no doubt
Trump campaign to drop bomb on Biden in early voting states:
Trump's reelection effort "will air over $1 million in anti-Biden
commercials in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Nevada" --
probably the most blatant attempt to influence other party primary
voting since Nixon's "dirty tricks" campaign against Edmund Muskie
in 1972. This almost looks like Trump baited the Democrats into
impeaching him, just for the free publicity.
What will Republicans do if Trump goes down? A rather silly
exercise in handicapping the Republican bench. Trump is more likely
to die suddenly or become debilitated than to be convicted by this
Senate, in which case Republicans could scramble but would probably
figure Pence the best shot at saving Trump's legacy. The fact is
that Trump not only owns the public perception of the Party, he's
the only one with proven ability to convince a significant bloc of
far-from-wealthy voters to cut their own throats. Kilgore also
contributed to
Is there any chance the GOP is about to turn on Trump?
Uh, no.
Here we go: Supreme Court accepts first big post-Kavanaugh abortion
case.
Will progressive Democrats 'move to the center' when facing Trump?
Could be, but Sanders and Warren have spelled out their platforms so
extensively that it will be hard for them to run on anything else --
at most, they'll concede that some things they want will be lesser
priorities as long as significant numbers of Democrats aren't on
board. Should they is another question. It looks to me like Trump's
going to try to run to the left of centrist Democrats, presenting
them as corrupt and himself as the champion of working people and as
the defender of Social Security and Medicare. Moreover, he'll make
mincemeat of any Democrat as hawkish as Hillary Clinton. Sure, it
will all be lies, but he's done it before, and it's not clear how
much credibility four years of broken promises has cost him. The
one Democrat he can't feint left of is Sanders, and in that case
he may not try, figuring red-baiting will do the trick. The big
advantage that Sanders has, even over Warren, is that no one doubts
his sincerity or his integrity, and up against Trump those are the
characteristics that matter most. Of course, compared to Trump, any
Democrat should be able to score those points, but moving to the
lame, corrupt, ineffective center won't help them. Only moving to
the left will.
Nixon's defenders claimed he was a victim of a 'coup.' So did Clinton's.
Only a story now because Trump's claiming that too -- started, in fact,
back during the Mueller inquiry. Carolyn Kormann:
How oceans rise and die on a warming planet: As Jane Lubchenco, a
former US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator,
puts it: "The ocean today is higher, warmer, more acidic, less productive,
and it holds less oxygen."
As a result, coral reefs are bleaching a ghostly white, and, although
some can recover, others are dying at a rapid rate. Monster storms are
persistent. Marine heat waves -- projected to increase fiftyfold if
current trends continue -- are depleting fisheries. Ocean acidification
is severely harming all sorts of species, which then harms people, too,
since many of these species are critical to local economies. Glaciers
are melting faster with consequences for people in the mountains and
on the coasts alike.
Anita Kumar:
A Trump hotel mystery: Giant reservations followed by empty rooms:
"The House is investigating whether groups tried to curry favor with
Trump by booking rooms at his hotels but never using them." Jonathan Lethem:
Snowden in the labyrinth: Review of Edward Snowden's memoir,
Permanent Record. Eric Levitz:
Dylan Matthews:
Why almost no one is guilty of treason, explained: "Adam Schiff isn't
guilty of treason, nor is Donald Trump, and neither is just about any
other person you can think of." Then why not just expunge the word from
our vocabulary? Jane Mayer:
The invention of the conspiracy theory on Biden and Ukraine. Ian Millhiser:
Trump's DOJ just escalated the fight over whether religion is a license
to discriminate. Jeremy Mohler:
This California highway boondoggle shows why we need more infrastructure
funding: And why "public-private partnerships are a poor replacement
for robust federal investment in infrastructure." Benjamin Mueller:
Jeremy Corbyn or no-deal Brexit? The UK might have to choose. Ella Nilsen:
Democrats have subpoenaed the White House in the next phase of their
impeachment inquiry.
Warren and Sanders raised significantly more money than Biden in the
third quarter. Biden came in fourth, also trailing Pete Buttigieg.
Or, as ABC put it,
Warren surpasses Biden in latest fundraising haul but falls short of
Sanders. I've seen a meme (probably from the Sanders campaign, but
I can't find a viable link) which lists the "top donors by profession"
for Biden (president of company, managing partner, real estate developer,
lawyer, investor), Warren (psychologist, scientist, editor, librarian,
psychotherapist), and Sanders (teacher, nurse, farmer, truck driver,
waiter/waitress, construction). For a similar breakdown along these
lines, see Karl Evers-Hillstrom:
Sanders or Warren: Why gets more support from working-class donors?
Toluse Olorunnpia/Amy Goldstein:
Trump attacks Democrats' health care plans and pledges to protect Medicare
during political speech to Florida retirees. The big lie is on,
but note that Trump is signaling that he intends to run to the left
of Democrats on health care, even though what he means is something
completely different.
President Trump blasted his potential Democratic presidential rivals
in a highly political speech here Thursday, telling a group of senior
citizens that "maniac" Democrats would rip away their health care,
decimate their retirement accounts and prioritize undocumented
immigrants over U.S. citizens.
"All of the Democrat plans would devastate our health care system,"
Trump said during a visit to The Villages, where he signed an executive
order designed to expand the private-sector version of Medicare that
Republicans favor.
Here's what Charles P Pierce wrote about the same Trump speech:
The President* is a blight, but watch what the conservative movement's
up to behind him: "They're coming for Medicare, folks." Pierce
blogs more often than I feel like citing, but some of his best
titles last week:
Brittany Packnett:
The real reason Amber Guyger was convicted. An off-duty white
police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man in his apartment
in Texas. Against odds, she was charged and convicted of murder.
Police officers have killed over a thousand people a year in recent
years: Of those killed by police since 2005, less than 100 officers
have been arrested, only 35 officers have been convicted -- and, as
of March, only three of them of murder. Less than 1 percent of all
officers are convicted when their victim is Black -- even though
Black people are three times more likely than white people to be
killed by police.
Packnett credits the verdict to a fully integrated jury. However,
before you start thinking that justice is starting to work in America,
note: Anya van Wagtendonk:
Joshua Brown, a key witness in the murder trial against Amber Guyger,
was fatally shot. Troy Patterson:
A new book argues that Trump is television in human form: On
James Poniewozik's Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television,
and the Fracturing of America.
Poniewozik almost wants to rate Trump as a great postmodern thinker,
but the problem is that Trump does not think. Nonetheless, Trump is a
great postmodern feeler, who intuits and responds to the stimuli of
electronic media with the dark brilliance of an idiot savant, in the
sure belief that only suckers care about objective truth. Poniewozik
calls Trump's daily performance qua Trump a manifestation of
"lizard-brain postmodernism -- the salesman's intuition that the
cartoon of a thing was more powerful to people than the thing itself."
William Rivers Pitt:
Trump is spreading fear because he fears impeachment: The one thing
about the impeachment inquiry that I find most perplexing is why Trump
has reacted with such crazed panic. Surely he knows that the Republican
Senate will never remove him from office. And given that there is zero
chance of the Republican Party denying him nomination for a second term,
the only contest that really matters is the 2020 election. Yet every day
he squirms, rants, raves, acting out in ways that not only don't offer
any practical defense against the charges but really make most people
question his competency and even sanity. Peter Pomerantsev:
Rudy Giuliani welcomes you to Eastern Europe: "So much about the
Trump administration seems pulled from the playbook of a post-Soviet
kleptocracy." Other Putin critics, like Masha Gessen, have said much
the same thing, most likely because that's what they're used to seeing.
I doubt Trump is consciously taking Putin as a model (no matter how
sympathetic he is). Rather, cynical oligarchs don't have many options
in how to spin their corruption. Andrew Prokop:
The incredibly damning Ukraine texts from State Department officials,
explained. Richard V Reeves:
Now the rich want your pity, too: "If the wealthy are so stressed
out, whose fault is that?" David Remnick:
"Stupid Watergate" is worse than the original. A game effort to
make the case, anyway, not least by pointing out that both scandals
started as efforts to rig elections and as such were attacks on our
faith in democracy. But even though I don't doubt that a Trump
dictatorship would be even more malign than a Nixon one, the only
dimension where Trump is way ahead of Nixon is stupid, and I don't
see how that makes it worse. What might make it worse is that most
Republicans today are so shameless and so desperate to cling onto
power that they've lost the capacity to understand when their
president breaks bad. Doyle Rice:
The Earth just had its hottest September on record: For what little
it's worth, Wichita bucked the trend all summer long, but got with the
program for September: possibly not a record, but hottest month we've
had all year, still above 90F on 9/30 (but 49F as I write this). David Rohde:
How disinformation reaches Donald Trump. Aaron Rupar:
Eric Schmitt/Maggie Haberman/Edward Wong:
Trump endorses Turkish military operation in Syria, shifting US
policy: What's the Kurdish word for people who are recruited,
used up, and carelessly discarded? Once "comrades-in-arms," now
more like "losers." Jeremy Singer-Vine/Kevin Collier:
Political operatives are faking voter outrage with millions of made-up
comments to benefit the rich and powerful. Case in point: 22 million
public comments submitted to FCC on net neutrality regulations. Danny Sjursen:
Impeach all presidents: Sure, it's hard to think of any recent US
president who hasn't committed high crimes along the way, especially
in using the US military to kill people in other countries. Even Nixon's
Watergate crimes paled in comparison to other things he did, like his
coup in Chile and his escalation in Indochina. Some Democrats will tell
you that Trump forced them to impeach, but it's always been a process
that has been selectively used for distinct political purposes. On the
other hand, when you can impeach, why not? The charges brought against
Clinton were bullshit, but at the time I urged convicting him, because
he had done other things that merited removing him from office (e.g.,
his bombing operations in Iraq, which his Republican foes usually
applauded). Jeff Stein/Tom Hamburger/Josh Dawsey:
IRS whistleblower said to report Treasury political appointee might have
tried to interfere in audit of Trump or Pence. Jonathan Swan:
Mulvaney predicts post-impeachment landslide. "Mulvaney also
believes that the longer the impeachment process drags on, the better
it is, politically, for Trump." Impeachment also seems to be spurring
small donors, which is not a resource Trump had in 2016. I don't doubt
that Mulvaney's attitude exists, especially among Trump's inner circle
of sycophants, but I think it's more likely that less-committed voters
will get sick and tired of all the noise, especially given how erratic
Trump has been acting. Matt Taibbi:
The 'whistleblower' probably isn't: "It's an insult to real
whistleblowers to use the term with the Ukrainegate protagonist." Anton Troianovski/Chris Mooney:
Radical warming in Siberia eaves millions on unstable ground. Anya van Wagtendonk:
Rick Perry's spent a lot of time in Ukraine. Now he's caught up in the
impeachment inquiry. For more on Perry, see: Chas Danner:
What we know about Trump's bizarre attempt to blame Rick Perry for the
Ukraine call. Alex Ward:
Robin Wright:
Trump's close-call diplomacy with Iran's President. Christopher Wylie:
How I helped hack democracy: An excerpt from the author's book,
Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytics and the Plot to Break America. Matthew Yglesias:
Li Zhou/Hannah Brown:
1999 vs. 2019: Senate Republicans' attitudes on impeachment sure have
changed a lot: Many examples, first two Lindsey Graham and Mitch
McConnell.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, September 29, 2019
Weekend Roundup
 I noticed
this image somewhere recently, and was reminded that I had used it every
Weekend Roundup for several months early in the Trump regnum. While I
eventually put the image aside, I have in fact done this every weekend
since the reign of terror started, so figured I'm entitled to resurrect
the image. You can find it in the notebook starting on
February 5, 2017, and scroll
up from there (the entries are last-in/first-out).
Last week's "whistleblower" story has, like a tropical depression
growing into a hurricane entering warm Carribbean waters, mushroomed
into this week's (and the rest of this year's, and most of 2020's)
impeachment extravaganza.
Many links follow:
David Atkins:
The impeachment probe should include all of Trump's crimes: I'm
sympathetic to this point of view, thinking it important to recognize
and challenge all of Trump's crimes and misdeeds, but that's a tall
order -- a lot of effort where you only need one conviction to send
the miscreant packing. Others, below, argue for keeping it simple
and moving fast, and I can't say they're wrong. On the other hand,
you could do that, advancing the most universally agreed upon charge,
then follow that up with additional articles of impeachment. Also
should be possible to identify additional targets (e.g., Pence,
Barr, Mnuchin). Related to Atkins, see Peter Certo:
The case for impeachment goes way beyond Ukraine. A bigger list,
still far from complete. Julian E Barnes/Michael S Schmidt/Adam Goldman/Katie Benner:
White House knew of whistleblower's allegations soon after Trump's call
with Ukraine leader: "The whistle-blower, a C.I.A. officer detailed
to the White House at one point, first expressed his concerns anonymously
to the agency's top lawyer." Zack Beauchamp:
The whistleblower memo details Trump's systematic attack on American
democracy. John Cassidy:
Jonathan Chait:
Sarah Chayes:
Hunter Biden's perfectly legal, socially acceptable corruption:
"Donald Trump committed an impeachable offense, but prominent Americans
also shouldn't be leveraging their names for payoffs from shady clients
abroad." Why not add "or from shady clients at home"? Eugene Scalia is
a pretty good example of the latter. On Biden, see: Michael Birnbaum/David
L Stern/Natalie Gryvynak:
Former Ukraine prosecutor says Hunter Biden 'did not violate anything'.
Jane Coaston:
"This is about Trump": 2020 GOP primary challengers endorse impeachment
in their first debate. Sean Collins:
Gabriel Debenedetti/Benjamin Hart:
How bad might impeachment be for Joe Biden's prospects? Daniel W Drezner:
The strategic case for impeaching President Trump.
So why impeach Trump? Because he will obsess about it. The moment it
becomes a live option, the moment a trial in the Senate seems conceivable,
he will talk about nothing else. He will rant to his staff and bore foreign
leaders about it. He loves a fight. And every moment Trump thinks about
impeachment is a moment he is not thinking about doing even more reckless
things.
Eleanor Eagan/Jeff Hauser:
House Dems must ramp up other oversight: "House Democrats' oversight
of President Trump has not been vigorous enough, and now is their opportunity
to hold the entire administration accountable." Noah Feldman:
A special counsel must investigate Rudy Giuliani and Bill Barr:
Safe to say, that isn't going to happen. Susan B Glasser:
"Do us a favor": The forty-eight hours that sealed Trump's impeachment.
David Greenberg:
Stop comparing Trump's impeachment case to Johnson's . . . or Nixon's . . .
or Clinton's. John F Harris:
Trump killed the seriousness of impeachment: "Impeachment proceedings
used to be news of unquestionable gravity. The week showed it's just
more fodder for the ideological and culture wars." Actually, by this
logic, it was the Clinton impeachment that led us to see the process
as nothing more than partisan treachery. I could argue that the charges
this time are graver and more urgent, and that the risks of letting
those charges slide unchallenged are greater, but probably not enough
to convince Republicans to disown their leader. Shane Harris/Josh Dawsey/Ellen Nakashima:
Trump told Russian officials in 2017 he wasn't concerned about Moscow's
interference in US election. Sarah Jones:
Turns out that impeachment might not scare voters after all. Ed Kilgore:
Jen Kirby:
6 key takeaways from the Ukraine whistleblower complaint. Josh Kovensky:
Top takeaways from the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower complaint. Paul Krugman:
Republicans only pretend to be patriots: One aspect of this particular
line of impeachment that I'm not looking for is how many Democrats will
try to frame themselves as the true defenders of American security, while
casting Trump and his Republican cronies not just as crass opportunists
and hypocrites only really concerned with their own power and money, but
as fools indebted to foreign powers:
The irony is that in the past few years this paranoid fantasy, in which
a major U.S. political party is de facto allied with an international
movement hostile to American values, has actually become true. But the
party in question is the G.O.P., which under Trump has effectively become
part of a cross-national coalition of authoritarian white nationalists.
Republicans were never the patriots they pretended to be, but at this
point they've pretty much crossed the line into being foreign agents. . . .
What an impeachment process would do now is get the truth about who
really cares about defending America and its values -- and who doesn't --
out into the open. By forcing Republicans to explicitly condone behavior
they would have called treason if a Democrat did it, Nancy Pelosi and
her colleagues can finally put an end to the G.O.P.'s long pretense of
being more patriotic than its opponents.
It's easy (often downright demagogic) to smear Russia and Saudi Arabia
for their associations with old enemies of America, but the real reason
Trump does their bidding is because they represent the global oligarchy,
a class that Trump belongs to and does regular business with.
The winners and losers of the latest Trump scandal.
Impeaching Trump is good for the economy: "It will slow down the
administration's war on competence." Michael Kruse:
'If he's not in a fight, he looks for one.': "Trump's Ukraine scandal
reflects his lifelong craving for a fresh enemy." Coincidence that the
Ukraine phone call occurred a mere 24 hours after Mueller's Congressional
testimony brought his special investigation story to a supposed close?
Steve M. comments
(Does
Trump Want to Be Impeached?):
Kruse's story has its share of macho quotes:
"Trump is a predator," Republican strategist Alex Castellanos asserted
last spring. "When something enters his world, he either eats it, kills
it or mates with it."
But although Kruse doesn't emphasize this point, a pattern emerges:
Trump fights until he loses. Then he moves on to another arena
and resumes fighting, until he loses again.
The problem for Trump is that now he can't move to a more important
arena. He's in the championship match. If he loses now -- if he has a
compulsion to fight until he loses -- then he has nowhere to go but down.
Health permitting, I'm sure he sees lots of money-raking opportunities
after his presidency ends, even by impeachment (and none beneath his
dignity). As a commenter notes:
I'm not convinced Trump sees his current job as the pinnacle of possible
jobs. First off, it requires a shit ton more work (and travel) than he
wants to give. Second, although he is certainly using it for some nice
grifting, there are way too many required activities that he can't
monetize. I can see him being happy to capitalize on 'having been president'
to sell his usual lines of crap (and charge directly for those rallies he
will keep doing, without having to funnel bits of that cash stream through
annoying campaign rules). Plus he'd like a big figure cash deal to call in
to whatever show/podcast, something he can do from his golden toilet.
Eric Levitz:
GOP divided over how enthusiastically to cover for Trump's corruption
on Ukraine. Martin Longman:
How a whistleblower accomplished what Mueller could not. Dylan Matthews:
The Trump-Ukraine scandal just got its Watergate-tapes moment. Ian Millhiser:
The 4 possible crimes in the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower scandal,
explained: Seems to me like a stretch to make a case that Trump
violated the letter of these laws, although he has certainly run
afoul of the ethical norms these laws are intended to embody. In
particular, I cannot disagree that the transcript
"reads more like a mafia shakedown".
- Did Trump or his associates violate campaign finance law?
- Does Trump's act constitute bribery?
- Did he commit extortion?
- Did he obstruct justice?
Ella Nilsen/Li Zhou/Matthew Yglesias:
9 things everyone should know about the impeachment process.
Generally Useful primer, but I have one bone to pick: When asking
"how many presidents have been impeached?" they answer: "The House
has initiated an impeachment inquiry for three presidents, through
it has only charged two with articles of impeachment." They're right
that the House only voted to impeach two presidents: Andrew Johnson
and Bill Clinton, with neither ultimately removed from office by the
Senate ("convicted" seems to be the favored term, but I'd say you're
not impeached until the Senate does so). But while remembering Nixon,
who dodged impeachment by resigning, and avoided jail by having his
successor pardon him, they forgot another prominent impeachment target.
See: Ronald G Shafer:
'He lies like a dog': The first effort to impeach a president was led
by his own party. Like Johnson, Tyler was given the VP nomination
by a party that wanted to broaden its appeal, was elevated after the
death of a popular president, and turned out to be anathema to that
party. If you know Tyler's name at all, it's probably via William
Henry Harrison's catchy campaign slogan, "Tippecanoe, and Tyler too."
On the other hand, see David Greenberg's argument above that historical
impeachment analogies aren't very useful. Still, they offer a typology:
Tyler and Johnson are cases where Congressional majorities tried to
impose their will on obstructionist presidents; Nixon was a cases where
a presidents overstepped his normal powers, with criminal contempt for
legal norms; Clinton was a case a thin House majority thought it would
be a good PR stunt to impeach with no chance of success. At this point,
impeaching Trump is like Nixon (if you're a Democrat) or like Clinton
(if you are a Republican). Jonathan O'Connell/David A Farehthold:
Trump's other Ukraine problem: New concern about his business. Delia Paunescu:
Here are the most damning parts of the whistleblower report against
President Donald Trump. Andrew Prokop:
David Remnick:
Nancy Pelosi: An extremely stable genius. Lousy title, but one a
weak mind might find hard to resist. There's an old Gandhi quote about
having to change his mind to stay aligned with his followers ("after
all, I am their leader"). Had Pelosi not flipped on impeachment, she
would have been lost as a leader. Now she's back in control of a much
more unified party. Frank Rich:
The case for a fast, focused Trump impeachment. James Risen:
Donald Trump's call with Ukrainian leader, one day after Robert Mueller's
Congressional testimony, shows the president is a brazen criminal. David Rohde:
The whistle-blower complaint is democracy at work, not the Deep State.
Aaron Rupar:
Steve Mnuchin's efforts to spin Trump's Ukraine scandal were a disaster.
Darren Samuelsohn/Quint Forgey:
How Mitch McConnell could give impeachment the Merrick Garland treatment.
Charlie Savage:
8 takeaways from the whistle-blower complaint. Nate Silver:
If this is Trump's best case, the Ukraine scandal is looking really bad
for him. Mark Joseph Stern:
William Barr hit a new low in his crusade to bury the whistleblower
complaint. Matt Stieb:
Andrew Sullivan:
The moment of truth for Brexit and Trump: Far from my favorite pundit,
but it's worth pointing out that Brexit and Trump are allied projects,
built on self-delusion, and fated for disaster -- something some of us
recognized full well at the time, while many of those who bought into
the fantasies have only buried their heads further. Plus this:
But I bet Trump does not even understand the high crime he committed --
leveraging national-security policy to get a foreign government to smear
a political opponent. Trump admires mafiosi, and always has. He has done
his best to emulate them his entire life. Why would he not continue to
do so? And a narcissist of Trump's proportions is simply unable to act
in the interest of something other than himself, or see his personal
interests as different than or subordinate to his public duties. So his
psyche is stopping him from seeing what a big deal this is, while his
eyes and ears see potential catastrophe. This will not end well. And it
didn't help that Rudy Giuliani kept popping up on cable news, like a
whirling dervish in a skull mask, digging his client into a deeper and
deeper political grave.
Another writer who has noted this US-UK crisis alignment: Amy
Davidson Sorkin:
Donald Trump and Boris Johnson: A tale of two crises. Margaret Sullivan:
Trump, the TV president, finally meets a media story he can't control.
Murray Waas:
Trump, Giuliani, and Manafort; The Ukrainian scheme. Benjamin Wallace-Wells:
How the security Democrats came around to impeachment. Alex Ward:
As an intro to everything, see Vox's
The 10 biggest stories you missed while you were glued to the Trump
impeachment drama:
- A new report finds humans have caused irreversible changes to the
Earth's oceans and places
- The UK's Supreme Court thwarts Prime Minister Boris Johnson's
Brexit ploy
- The Trump administration slams the door on refugees
- The WeWork implosion is sending shockwaves across Silicon Valley
- The fight over Joker rages on -- before the movie has even
arrived in theaters
- GM workers strike for second week
- Protesters in Egypt rise up against President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
- Greta Thunberg versus Trump and some right-wing trolls
- Hate speech online is apparently fine, so long as it's only from
politiians
- Spider-Man returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe
My own link picks on some of these stories (but adding a few more):
Jon Lee Anderson:
At the UN, Jair Bolsonaro presents a surreal defense of his Amazon
policies. Bernard Avishai:
Netanyahu gets a dubious presidential mandate. What happens next? Four
possible scenarios. James Bruggers:
Southern state energy officials celebrate fossil fuels as world raises
climate alarm. Cristina Cabrera:
State Dept escalates investigation into Clinton emails amid Trump's Ukraine
scandal. Alexia Fernández Campbell:
Juan Cole:
Yemen's Houthis say they invaded Saudi Arabia, captured thousands of troops
in Najran. But they also said they blew up Saudi Arabia's oil depot,
something the US would rather blame Iran for. Beginning to look like the
Saudis are getting some blowback for their savage intervention in Yemen.
Eric Foner:
The very soul of the republic: "Equality's vexed meaning in Gilded
Age America." Review of Charles Postel's book, Equality: An American
Dilemma, 1866-1896. Suzanne Gordon/Jasper Craven:
The Trump Administration is sabotaging veterans' access to health care:
"In its push toward privatization, the VA is actively thwarting Congressional
oversight." Steve Helling:
Honor student is struck in head by stray bullet while sitting at computer,
dies on her 12th birthday. Sarah Jones:
America's income inequality is reaching a tipping point. Anne Kim:
How 2020 Democrats are a missing the message on the economy: "The
candidates have yet to tackle the growing problem of regional inequality."
When President Obama took office in 2008, Republican and Democratic
districts enjoyed roughly the same median household income: $55,000
and $54,000, respectively. . . .
Since then, median household income in Democratic districts soared
to $61,000 in 2018, according to Muro and Whiton, while incomes in
Republican districts fell to $53,000. The annual economic output of
Democratic districts likewise skyrocketed, from $35.7 billion to $48.5
billion on average per district, while the economies of Republican
districts shrank. The average Republican district's GDP is now just
two-thirds that of the average Democratic district's GDP.
Related: Claire Kelloway:
How to close the Democrats' rural gap: "Forget Trump's tariffs.
Big Ag is driving a new farm crisis." Jen Kirby:
Naomi Klein:
The Green New Deal: A fight for our lives. Mike Konczal:
Jill Lepore:
Edward Snowden and the rise of whistle-blower culture: A review
of Snowden's memoir, Permanent Record. Marianne Levine:
Senate again rebukes Trump on national emergency declaration. Eric Levitz:
German Lopez:
More researh finds "stand your ground" laws lead to more homicides. Ian Millhiser:
George Monbiot:
For the sake of life on Earth, we must put a limit on wealth. Anna North:
America's abortion debate is being defind by Fox News. Kim Phillips-Fein:
The failed political promise of Silicon Valley. Reviews Margaret
O'Mara's book, The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America.
Charles Pierce:
How many future terrorists did we create yesterday? "The United States
bombed 30 farm laborers sitting around a campfire Wednesday. They surely
have brothers and sons and friends who will not forget." Brian Resnick:
Scientists: humans are rapidly turning oceans into warm, acidifying basins
hostile to life: "A new UN report warns changes to the oceans this
century will be "unprecedented." Related: Brad Plumer:
The world's oceans are in danger, major climate change report warns.
David Roberts:
Aaron Rupar:
"Liddle', not Liddle": Trump's latest tweets are among his most bizarre
yet. Reminiscent of the
snipe hunt my Boy Scout camp leaders roped us into, I tried looking
up the unrecognized word. All I found was
this,
which (apostrophe or not) is probably not what Trump was thinking. More
serious is the one where he suggests that the whistleblower should be
drawn and quartered. Robert J Shapiro:
Trump's economic program has left most Americans worse off. David K Shipler:
Interpreting Joe Biden is more complicated than you think. Chance Swaim:
Wichita's mayor steered multi-million-dollar water plant contract to
friends. The mayor is Jeff Longwell, who's also responsible for a
shady deal to tear down Wichita's venerable minor league ballpark and
practically give away adjacent city land, including a stretch of river
front. Deep within Longwell's water plant scheme is a plan to privatize
operation of Wichita's water supply. We fought against the first step
a couple years ago, and were unable to stop funding of a company to
do initial planning. Longwell's corruption built on that. Jennifer Szalai:
'The Enigma of Clarence Thomas' makes a strong case for its provocative
thesis. Review of Corey Robin's new book on Thomas. For an excerpt
from the book, see: Corey Robin:
Clarence Thomas's radical vision of race. Taylor Telford:
Income inequality in America is the highest it's been since Census
Bureau started tracking it, data shows. Maureen Tkacik:
Crash Course: How Boeing's managerial revolution created the 737 Max
disaster. I've been ranting about Boeing's management for decades
now. This cites a 2002 report, and before that the 1997 merger with
McDonnell-Douglas, and those indeed appear to be turning points. My
father, my brother, and many others I knew worked there, and what may
have passed as good jobs when I was young (I was never so sure) grew
steadily more troubled. One turning point was when Boeing moved their
headquarters from Seattle to Chicago, a city they had no presence in,
so management would never have to directly face the workers and the
communities they were screwing. Still, for a long time, they managed
to build planes that flew and landed safely. Then, even that changed:
And indeed, that would appear to be the real moral of this story: Airplane
manufacturing is no different from mortgage lending or insulin distribution
or make-believe blood analyzing software -- another cash cow for the one
percent, bound inexorably for the slaughterhouse. In the now infamous
debacle of the Boeing 737 MAX, the company produced a plane outfitted
with a half-assed bit of software programmed to override all pilot input
and nosedive when a little vane on the side of the fuselage told it the
nose was pitching up. The vane was also not terribly reliable, possibly
due to assembly line lapses reported by a whistle-blower, and when the
plane processed the bad data it received, it promptly dove into the sea.
Nick Turse:
Alex Ward:
Sean Wilentz:
The culmination of Republican decay: Review of Tim Alberta's book,
American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War
and the Rise of President Trump. Also see: Eric Alterman:
Making sense of Trump's rise, where he also reviews Alberta's book,
along with Brian Rosenwald: Talk Radio's America: How an Industry
Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States and
James Poniewozik: Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and
the Fracturing of America. I've been reading Alberta's book, finding
it a useful historical framework, although (as Wilentz points out) stuck
in a very narrow tunnel, where resistance to Trump never extends beyond
Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, and Paul Ryan (well, aside from quoting GW Bush's
"that was some weird shit" inauguration line). As such, he doesn't offer
any real insight into why many Republicans loved Trump before the election,
and still more embraced him since. Matthew Yglesias:
The Zelensky call also shines light on Trump's financial corruption.
The strange career of Rudy Giuliani, from US attorney to Trump bagman,
explained.
New claims that Trump failed to proect American journalists in Egypt
demand investigation.
To beat Trump, try running an outsider: "A veteran like Joe Biden
risks letting Trump off the hook for corruption."
Let me be clear: If you are a single-issue "don't let the president's
son do shady stuff" voter, and the choice on Election Day comes down
to Donald Trump or Joe Biden, the correct choice is still Biden. . . .
Specifically with regard to Hunter Biden and Ukraine, Trump was not
conducting some kind of good government audit, he was holding core US
foreign policy objectives hostage to his narrow self-interest. And this
is something he does not just on extraordinary occasions but routinely.
From Israel to India to Venezuela and beyond, Trump seems utterly
incapable of viewing the public interest as having any standing or
independent weight beyond his narrow politics. He quite openly believes
that the entire Justice Department should serve his personal interests,
rather than the interests of impartial justice, and his continued
presence in office is a national scandal. . . .
But by the same token, there's something perverse about moderate
and allegedly electability-minded Democrats lining up behind a guy
who was first elected to the Senate in 1972.
If "experienced Washington hand" were the best formula for winning
elections, then Hillary Clinton would have won in 2016, and veteran
senators would outnumber young governors among successful presidential
candidates. Voters don't like "the system," and the baggage that comes
with it. The best way, by far, to make Trump own his corruption is to
pick someone from outside the swamp to run against him, rather than
letting him continue to position himself as the scourge of the
establishment.
Democrats are stuck in a doom loop of premature polling. Li Zhou:
Trump claims he wants to lower drug prices. He'll have to convince his
own party to do it. But he won't convince his party, because they'll
always defend moneyed interests against people, and because he won't
really try, because he does too. But talk about it? Sure, he'll talk
it up.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Weekend Roundup
I had an idea for an introduction based on the book I've been reading:
Tim Alberta's American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican
Civil War and the Rise of President Trump. I never really got the
title until it appeared in the text 400+ pages in, and it wasn't anything
like what I would have guessed. The line comes from Trump's inaugural
address, where it climaxes a series of assertions that have virtually
no connection to reality. I'd need to find the quote and unpack it a
bit, but it basically confirms my suspicion that the Republican campaign
in 2016 was basically an extortion racket. They had remarkable success
at spoiling eight years of Obama, and they clearly intended to treat
Hillary Clinton even worse should she win. The only way Americans could
save themselves from the wrath of the Republicans was to elect one --
in which case, the downside was limited to incompetence and corruption.
Of course, a better solution would have been to beat the Republicans
so badly they couldn't do any real damage, but that was too much to
hope for -- especially with Hillary as your standard bearer.
Some scattered links this week:
Zack Beauchamp:
Israel's election results show Netanyahu is in serious trouble:
"No one outright won. But Netanyahu did worse than he hoped and may
lose office because of it." More on this:
Alexia Fernández Campbell:
The house just passed a bill that would give millions of workers the right
to sue their boss. Jane Coaston:
Defending Kavanaugh has become personal for conservatives, not
ideological.
Rather, the idea of Brett Kavanaugh is that he is a stand-in for
conservative men, a blank slate upon which fears of liberal overreach
ruining the lives and reputations of right-leaning heterosexual men can
be projected. He's not Brett Kavanaugh -- he's your son, or your brother,
or even you. . . . For many on the right, particularly those increasingly
concerned about the potential weaponization of accusations of sexual
assault against conservatives, that's enough.
Justin Davidson:
The challenges of constructing New York's tallest apartment building:
Interview with architect Gordon Gill. Atul Gawande:
Letting go: "What should medicine do when it can't save your life?" Tara Golshan:
Bernie Sanders wants to put credit reporting companies like Equifax out
of business. Umair Irfan:
Greta Thunberg is leading kids and adults from 150 countries in a massive
Friday climate strike. Other links:
Sarah Jones:
The future is ours for the taking: Interview with Ann Pettifor,
author of The Case for the Green New Deal. Jen Kirby:
Boris Johnson had a really bad day in Luxembourg. The Incredible Hulk was
involved. Jill Lepore:
Edward Snowden and the rise of whistle-blower culture: Review of
Snowden's memoir, Permanent Record. Steven Levitsky/Daniel Ziblatt:
Why Republicans play dirty: You probably recall their examples,
and it wouldn't take much head-scratching to come up with their two
analogues (post-Reconstruction southern Democrats, pre-WWI German
conservatives -- although post-WWI were arguably even worse). I'd
quibble with this claim: "Republicans leaders are not driven by an
intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy. They are driven by
fear." But they wouldn't fear losing so much if they hadn't started
out with their belief in a rightful socioeconomic hierarchy (with
themselves at the top), a belief that starts with fear and loathing
of what they take to be the lower orders. There may be cases where
conservatives are willing to respect democracy, but doing so is not
something that come naturally to those accustomed to ruling.
Actually, there are other things to quibble with here. "As the
collapse of democracy in Germany and Spain in the 1930s and Chile
in the 1970s makes clear, these escalating conflicts can end in
tragedy." Democracy didn't "collapse" in Spain or Chile: it was
murdered by right-wingers who refused to accept popular election
results, aided by malign foreign powers (Nazi Germany in Spain,
the US in Chile). Germany was a local affair, where the traditional
conservative powers backed the Nazis, not least because Hitler
promised an end to what they really feared: a government of, by,
and for the people. With their "dirty tricks," Republicans have
revealed that they're no better nor even different from reviled
conservative regimes of the past. Also, like their predecessors,
they won't stop until they're stopped. Hopefully, we can do that
with a peaceful election, before they manage to bring us all to
ruin.
Related, with many of the same examples, expressed more pointedly:
Paul Krugman:
Republicans don't believe in democracy. Eric Levitz:
David Brooks: Politics is too uncivil -- and anyone to my left is
un-American. You might think that someone stepping forward to
read and expose Brooks' inanity is a good thing because it saves us
from having to do so, but does anyone really care anymore whatever
Brooks is thinking (or in this case fantasizing) about?
Nancy Pelosi's drug plan pits Trump's base against GOP orthodoxy:
Two problems I see: one is that in trying to balance off competing
business interests, this still leaves a fair amount of slop as the
various parties try to game the system; the other is that Trump's
base has voted against its own best interests so regularly it's hard
to imagine they'll punish Republicans for protecting drug monopoly
profits. Ernesto Londońo:
Imagine Jair Bolsonaro standing trial for ecocide at The Hague.
Sure. I've often thought that the ICC was poorly designed, mostly
because it's more important to expose world-class criminals than
it is to actually incarcerate them. Also, any system of justice
needs to be fair, even-handed, and consistently and universally
applied. To do the latter, you need to be able to indict and trial
people in absentia, but to do the former, you need to provide them
with a defense, whether they participate in it or not. One way to
do this would be to build up a list of certified judges, prosecutors,
defenders, and expert investigators. Anyone can approach the court
to bring a case, which would then be developed through stages, each
with aimed at a degree of certainty in its verdict, mitigated by
defense arguments, including limits to information and extenuating
circumstances. All verdicts would remain tentative, subject to
further litigation as more evidence is made available. The court
would in theory be able to order punishment, but few trials are
likely to get to that stage (as, indeed, few are now). But the court
proceedings would also be publicly available, so other jurisdictions
can build their own cases on them. But the key thing is that you
would have a common standard and process for charging individuals
with crimes against humanity (including war crimes), and we'd know
just where any given culprit stands. This article shows how a case
against Bolsonaro in such a court might proceed. You can probably
think of a few dozen more such obvious candidates. Henry Kissinger
would probably top my list, followed by GW Bush and Dick Cheney,
with Donald Trump rising fast. Dylan Matthews:
How a wealth tax could totally remake charity in the United States.
Ian Millhiser:
The astounding advantage the Electoral College gives to Republicans, in
one chart. Bob Moser:
Mitch McConnell: The man who sold America. Nicole Narea:
The US just signed a deal that could send asylum seekers back to El
Salvador. Delia Paunescu:
The 51st state? Interview with Sean Rameswaram, Derek Musgrove, and
Eleanor Holmes Norton on the movement for DC statehood. Related:
Tara Golshan:
House Democrats held the first hearing on DC statehood in 25 years:
"Republicans are unified in their opposition." Daniel Politi:
Pence took an eight-car motorcade to a Michigan island where vehicles
are banned: Another little something to add to that list of norms
being trashed by the Republican administration. Related: Erica L
Green:
US orders Duke and UNC to recast tone in Mideast Studies. Andrew Prokop:
Brian Resnick:
More than a quartet of all birds have disappeared from North America
since 1970. Related: Jeff Sparrow:
This isn't extinction, it's extermination: the people killing nature know
what they're doing. David Roberts:
Aaron Rupar:
Stephanie Savell:
The imperial debris of war: "Why ending the Afghan War won't end
the killing." Literally, as untold tons of unexploded munitions still
wait their destiny. Other TomDispatch links:
Dylan Scott:
Bernie Sanders's plan to eliminate medical debt, explained. Mark Joseph Stern:
The right's latest attack on academic freedom might actually work. Emily Stewart:
"Corruption is breaking our democracy": Elizaeth Warren's case for the
White House. Andrew Sullivan:
When the ideologues come for the kids: Looks like a rant about
"woke" people attempting to imposing their beliefs on impressionable
children, I expected this piece to be borderline-awful, and it comes
close. Still, reminded me that I've long thought that, while I fully
support the rights of adults to adopt any religious beliefs they
like, it's long struck me as cruel to impose those beliefs on their
children. I don't see a way to prevent that from happening, although
recognition that such harm is inevitable might spur us to providing
helpful counselors, as well as practicing more tolerance. Still,
in my experience, it's rarely the people who respect diversity who
are the problem. Emily Todd VanDerWerff:
The West Wing is 20 years old. Too many Democrats still think it's a
great model for politics. My wife was a fan, but I never got into
it, usually getting irritated and leaving the room after a few minutes.
Two things stand out in my memory: how President Bartlett always had
an appropriate Bible verse to quote for every occasion, and how often
he went to his default distraction strategem (bombing Iraq). I found
those trait horrifying, but some Democrats regard them as the magic
recipe for political success. West Wing showrunner Aaron Sorkin
went on to produce The Newsroom, which we rather quickly gave
up on -- unfortunately watching a whole episode on the good cheer and
excitement of everyone on hearing the news of Seal Team 6 killing
Osama Bin Laden. PS: From
Wikipedia on The West Wing:
The show's ratings waned in later years following the departure of
series creator Sorkin after the fourth season (Sorkin wrote or co-wrote
85 of the first 88 episodes), yet it remained popular among high-income
viewers, a key demographic for the show and its advertisers, with around
16 million viewers.
Alex Ward:
The week in US-Saudi Arabia-Iran tensions, explained. More links
on this:
Peter Baker/EricSchmitt/Michael Crowley:
An abrupt move that stunned aides: Inside Trump's aborted attack on
Iran. Patrick Cockburn:
The Saudi Arabia drone attacks have changed global warfare.
If the attacks proved anything, it's that Saudi Arabia, despite all its
super-expensive American firepower, is remarkably vulnerable to relatively
cheap weapons. Cockburn usually writes on the Middle East, but applies
some of what he's learned there to his homeland here:
Boris Johnson's coup is eerily reminiscent of Erdogan's rise to power.
Karen DeYoung/Missy Ryan/Paul Sonne:
US to send additional troops to Saudi Arabia after attacks on oil
facilities. Robert Mackey:
Threatening new war for oil, Donald Trump calls his own offer of Iran
talks "fake news". Matt Taibbi:
On Iran, Trump is all talk, and thank God: "For whatever reason,
Donald Trump seems reluctant to go to war -- and in moments like the
Iran crisis, we should be glad." Mahal Toosi:
Trump's deference to Saudi Arabia infuriates much of DC. Probably
because much of DC is insufferably arrogant and conceited, a combo
trait known as hubris. Still, Trump couldn't very well retaliate
for Saudi Arabia without Saudi Arabia's approval, could he? And as
much as you might want to slam Trump for showing weakness by backing
off from his initial deranged lunatic posture, it's just possible
that Saudi Arabia is the one getting cold feet, as they have the most
to lose if larger-scale war breaks out. Anya van Wagtendonk:
US officials say their pressure on Iran is working -- and that's why
tensions are getting worse: Pompeo and Mnuchin try to claim that
the poisoned chalice is half full. Robert F Worth:
The end of Saudi Arabia's illusion: "Time to face reality: The United
States doesn't want to go to war with Iran to protect its Arab allies."
Robin Wright:
In Saudi Arabia, world oil supplies are in flames; also:
Iran entrenches its "axis of resistance" across the Middle East.
Wright gets most of her info here from Israel, a source with its own
reasons for projecting Iran as a long-term "strategic" foe. Still,
even this view suggests that would be to try to normalize relations
with Iran, reducing Iran's supposed need for proxy conflicts, while
giving Iran a positive stake in the world economy. Matthew Yglesias:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Weekend Roundup
No time (or stomach?) for an introduction.
Some scattered links this week:
Andrew J Bacevich:
What to know what's next for Afghanistan? Ask Vietnam. I have my
doubts about the analogy, but the final point about carelessness is
well taken. Related: Stephen M Walt:
We lost the war in Afghanistan. Get over it. Zack Beauchamp:
Jared Bernstein:
A generation of economists helped get us into this mess. A new generation
can get us out. Refers to Binyamin Appelbaum's book, The Economist's
Hour, for the first assertion. Jedediah Britton-Purdy:
A shared place: "Wendell Berry's lifelong dissent." Alexia Fernández Campbell:
Trump wants to cut the safety net. It kept 47 million people out of poverty
last year. Jonathan Chait:
What if the only Democrat who isn't too radical to win is too old?
Perhaps the reason neoliberals argue for Biden on electability grounds
is that they recognize their positive program has no real appeal beyond
the wealthy liberal donor class. At least with Biden, you get a cipher
who signifies no big changes without even trying to explain why.
Watch Liz Cheney and Rand Paul fight over who Trump loves more:
As befitting his very large ego and power and very tiny brain, Donald
Trump is constantly surrounded by people trying to manipulate him. . . .
On most issues, Trump does not know what to think, so he gravitates
toward whatever position is expressed more sycophantically. The
"debates" within the party therefore play out in the form of competitive
groveling for his favor. . . . The secret here is that Paul and Cheney,
while anchoring opposite sides of an intellectual debate within their
party, both consider Trump a moron, but each thinks he or she can gain
influence with him and his supporters by presenting the other one as
his enemy.
John Bolton era ends with no casualties except Bolton's dignity:
Talk about lowering the bar: "The fact we made it through Bolton's
17-month-long tenure without killing tens of millions of people
counts as a major win." More on Bolton:
How Trump learned to make 9/11 a racket. Related: Zak Cheney-Rice:
The uses of 9/11.
Trump has figured out how to corrupt the entire government. Given
what he had to start with, it couldn't have been that hard. Trump's
contribution was his venality and utter shamelessness, along with his
implicit guarantee that none of his minions would bear any risk for
doing business. (Note that Tom Price, Scott Pruit, and Ryan Zinke
managed to lose their jobs anyway. But nobody's holding their breath
waiting for Bill Barr to prosecute them.)
None of these stories by itself has the singular drama of a Teapot
Dome or a Watergate. Indeed, the mere fact that there is so much
corruption prevents any single episode from capturing the imagination
of the media and the public. But it is the totality of dynamic that
matters. A corrupt miasma has slowly enveloped Washington. For
generations, both parties generally upheld an assumption that the
government would abide rules and norms dividing its proper functioning
from the president's personal and political interests.
The norm of bureaucratic professionalism and fairness is a pillar
of the political legitimacy and economic strength of the American system,
the thing that separates countries like the U.S. from countries like
Russia. The decay of that culture is difficult to quantify, but the
signs are everywhere. Trump's stench is slowly seeping into every
corner of government.
Sean Collins:
Wilbur Ross's threat to fire NOAA officials over a tweet turns Sharpiegate
into a real scandal. Manny Fernandez/Miriam Jordan/Zolan Kanno-Youngs/Caitlin Dickinson:
'People actively hate us': Inside the Border Patrol's morale crisis.
Dexter Filkins:
The moral logic of humanitarian intervention: A writer I never expect
much from takes on a subject I'm not interested in (Samantha Power), least
of all by him. Still, this raises real questions, like what gives her the
right to decide who to "protect"? And how "humanitarian" is it really to
intervene with anything from Seal Team 6 to full infantry divisions? And
once you've done it so badly, what makes you think the next time will be
any different? As Filkins notes, "during her years in the White House, it
became clear that benevolent motives can have calamitous results." FiveThirtyEight:
What went down in the Third Democratic Debate: The "live blog"
transcript, followed by
Who won the Third Democratic Debate?. More links:
Lisa Friedman/Coral Davenport:
Trump administration rolls back clean water protections. Masha Gessen:
President Trump wages war on government and expertise, and our institutions
surrender. Tara Golshan:
Did Brett Kavanaugh perjure himself during his confirmation hearing?
"New allegations are raising questions about whether he met the very
high bar for perjury." Not the only Kavanaugh piece this week:
Heather Hurlburt:
Saudi oil attack prompts more incoherence from Trump administration.
Umair Irfan:
The best case for and against a fracking ban. Robert Kagan:
Israel and the decline of the liberal order. Ed Kilgore:
David Leonhardt:
The forces that are killing the American dream: Review of Nicholas
Lemann's Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of
the American Dream. For another review, see Robert Christgau:
To bust you shall return. Eric Levitz:
The Republican Party is (probably) not doomed. Refers to, and argues
with, Stanley B Greenberg:
The Republican Party is doomed, which starts:
The 2020 election will be transformative like few in our history. It will
end with the death of the Republican Party as we know it, leaving the
survivors to begin the struggle to renew the party of Lincoln and make
it relevant for our times. It will liberate the Democratic Party from
the country's suffocating polarization and allow it to use government
to address the vast array of problems facing the nation.
Levitz responds:
It's possible the GOP is on the cusp of maxing out its appeal with
rural voters and its capacity to bend election law to its own ends.
But any persuasive case for the party's imminent demise must explain
why the party's structural advantages will fail it. Establishing that
Republicans have alienated a majority of Americans is insufficient.
If this country were governed by popular sovereignty, the GOP would
already be dead.
Greenberg expands on his argument his new book: R.I.P. G.O.P.:
How the New America Is Dooming the Republicans. Also on Greenberg:
Michelle Goldberg:
Dare we dream of the end of the GOP? Goldberg, by the way, also
wrote:
Mazel tov, Trump. You've revived the Jewish left.
Jonathan Franzen's climate pessimism is justified. His fatalism is not.
I cited Franzen's article,
What if we stopped pretending, favorably last week, so I was surprised
to find the article widely attacked from the "left" -- I've lost track of
the tweets (Roxanne Gay is the one name I recall), but this riposte by
Jeet Heer seems typical:
Jonathan Franzen pens another environmental disaster story ("the famed
novelist is resigned to a global ecological catastrophe because his
imagination can't move beyond the status quo"). I'm generally dismissive
of complaints about "leftist thought police," but that pegs Heer pretty
well.has little more
to offer. Levitz is only marginally more sensible, conceding the facts
if not the attitude. Other articles (mostly against) Franzen:
Ryan Lizza:
Biden camp thinks the media just doesn't get it: "The vice president's
allies say neither detractors in the media, nor his rivals on the stump,
understand the root of his appeal." Ian Millhiser:
Nicole Narea:
The Supreme Court has delivered a devastating blow to the US asylum
system. Tom O'Connor:
US has spent six trillion dollars on wars that killed half a million
people since 9/11, report says: George Bush effectively responded
to Osama Bin Laden's 9/11 taunt with: "You think that's terror. I'll
show you terror." Bush and the political class brought America down
to Al Qaeda's level within weeks, and kept digging for 18 years and
counting. While Bush is gone, the politicians and pundits who backed
and blessed him have continued his path of destruction. Aaron Rupar:
Matt Taibbi:
Anya van Wagtendonk:
Matthew Yglesias:
Li Zhou:
Congress has only three weeks to avert another government shutdown.
More Notes
Tweeted this along the way:
Bush effectively responded to Bin Laden's 9/11 taunt with: "You think
that's terror. I'll show you terror." Bush and the political class
brought America down to Al Qaeda's level within weeks, and kept digging,
18+ years: [Link:
U.S. has spent $6 trillion on wars that killed 500,000 people since
9/11.]
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, September 8, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Hurricane Dorian, which last weekend was still wreaking
unimaginable damage in the Bahamas while trudging slowly toward the
Florida coast (or, for one poor soul with a rigidly linear flat-Earth
imagination, Alabama), and a week later still exists, albeit downgraded
to to post-tropical cyclone status, as it threads the strait between
Newfoundland and Labrador, expected some time Monday to pass off the
south coast of Greenland. The eye never crossed land on the east coast
of the US, but came close enough to produce hurricane-force winds,
storm surges, and scattered tornadoes from Florida to North Carolina.
When it finally made landfall in Nova Scotia, it was still producing
Category 2 winds, and Category 1 as far north as Newfoundland. It is
officially tied with a 1935 "Labor Day" hurricane as the strongest
ever recorded in the Atlantic.
Since Dorian formed in the tropical Atlantic on
August 23, three more named storms have come and gone: Erin, which
formed over the Bahamas ahead of Dorian, proceeded northeast to Florida
then out into the Atlantic, eventually producing heavy rains in Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick; Fernand, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico
and landed in Mexico; and Gabrielle, which formed in the mid-Atlantic
and is now headed toward Ireland and Scotland. The Atlantic hurricane
season continues to November 30, with Humberto the next name.
The Atlantic put a paywall on their website this week, limiting
readers to 5 "free" articles per month, so I probably won't bother
with them any more. They've moved to the right over the past year
(although not especially toward Trump -- David Frum and Conor
Friedersdorf are regulars), which cuts down on their utility. My
wife subscribes to a bunch of things, and I take advantage of that,
but haven't added to her list myself. Back when we bought a lot of
magazines, I recall liking
Harper's more than Atlantic (at
least when Lewis Lapham was editor), but I haven't read them in ages.
Looks like they offer a better subscription deal than Atlantic.
My own website remains free in every sense of the word (including
free of advertising and pitches for money), so I feel entitled to my
high horse. Of course, I realize the need publications have to raise
money to continue operations, and I understand that it's generally
good for writers to get paid, especially for serious work. But I
also recognize that few people have the wherewithal (much less the
interest) to read everything of likely interest. In this world,
paywalls help balkanize public discourse, helping to herd us into
isolated, self-selected hives. This isn't a good system. Nor is
advertising a good answer. Nor do we have the political will to
support a development system that would make public goods (like,
but not limited to, news) universally accessible. But that's the
sort of solution we should be thinking about.
Some scattered links this week:
Riley Beggin:
Jonathan Blitzer:
The Trump administration's sustained attack on the rights of immigrant
children. James Bruggers:
Dorian one of the strongest, longest-lasting hurricanes on record in
the Atlantic. Related: Bob Berwyn:
Why are hurricanes like Dorian stalling, and is global warming involved?
Jonathan Chait:
David Daley:
The secret files of the master of modern Republican gerrymandering:
Thomas Hofeller, who died in August 2018. Daley wrote Ratf**ked: The
True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy
(2016). Tom Engelhardt:
Garrett Epps:
The Electoral College was terrible from the start: "It's doubtful
even Alexander Hamilton believed what he was selling in "Federalist
No. 68." Eric Foner:
The lost promise of Reconstruction: "Can we reanimate the dream of
freedom That Congress tried to enact in the wake of the Civil War?"
Foner has written much about the Civil War and Reconstruction over the
years. He has a new book: The Second Founding: How the Civil War
and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. Jonathan Franzen:
What if we stopped pretending: "The climate apocalypse is coming.
To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can't prevent it." I've
been thinking along these lines for a long time now (despite being
on the slow side in picking up on global warming). As an engineer,
I've always understood that it's a lot cheaper to prevent problems
than to have to fix them later, but I've also seen so much breakage
that I've had to put even more thought into repair, not least in
planning for future repairs. So while I've been reading about how
important it is to cut back greenhouse gas emissions, it's long
been clear to me that we need a parallel effort to cope with the
disasters we can't manage to prevent. One thing I had to give
Clinton credit for was elevating FEMA to cabinet level and making
sure it was well-managed and effective -- gains Bush's cronyism
reversed, most visibly with Katrina, a combination of ineptness
and corruption that Trump has only added to. There is much to be
said for competent, responsive government, even if it's not
competent enough to prevent problems from arising in the first
place.
All-out war on climate change made sense only as long as it was
winnable. Once you accept that we've lost it, other kinds of action
take on greater meaning. Preparing for fires and floods and refugees
is a directly pertinent example. But the impending catastrophe
heightens the urgency of almost any world-improving action. In
times of increasing chaos, people seek protection in tribalism
and armed force, rather than in the rule of law, and our best
defense against this kind of dystopia is to maintain functioning
democracies, functioning legal systems, functioning communities.
In this respect, any movement toward a more just and civil society
can now be considered a meaningful climate action. Securing fair
elections is a climate action. Combatting extreme wealth inequality
is a climate action. Shutting down the hate machines on social media
is a climate action. Instituting humane immigration policy, advocating
for racial and gender equality, promoting respect for laws and their
enforcement, supporting a free and independent press, ridding the
country of assault weapons -- these are all meaningful climate actions.
To survive rising temperatures, every system, whether of the natural
world or of the human world, will need to be as strong and healthy as
we can make it.
Other links at the bottom of the article: a 2015 piece by Franzen:
Climate change vs. conservation (original title: "Carbon Capture");
also Rachel Riederer:
The other kind of climate denialism. In December, 2018, she also wrote:
The not-so-uplifting year in the animal kingdom. Elaine Godfrey:
Why Steve King's supporters are staying loyal: "The Iowa Republican's
racist comments have made him a pariah among Democrats and Republicans
alike. Buth is voters may be more devoted to him than ever." Julie Hirschfeld Davis/Michael D Shear:
Trump Administration considers a drastic cut in refugees allowed to
enter US. Masha Gessen:
A summer of unprecedented brutality in Moscow. I don't doubt that
the repression has been severe, but "unprecedented"? Maggie Haberman:
Trump campaign manager sees President's family as political 'dynasty'.
Dhar Jamail:
Alaska's sea ice completely melted for first time in recorded history.
Ed Kilgore:
Jen Kirby:
The week in Brexit drama, explained. Related: Mark Landler:
Boris Johnson finds his party loyalists aren't as loyal as Trump's. Eric Lipton/Annie Karni:
Checking in at Trump Hotels, for kinship (and maybe some sway): "To
ethics lawyers, the most extraordinary aspect of the daily merging of
President Trump's official duties and his commercial interests is that
it has now become almost routine." Michael Mann/Andrew E Dessler:
Global heating made Hurricane Dorian bigger, wetter -- and more deadly.
Dylan Matthews:
"Unions for all": the new plan to save the American labor movement.
Dana Milbank:
Sticks and stones break bones, but words hurt McConnell's feelings.
Follow-up to Milbank's
Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset. I don't doubt that he's someone's
asset, but I doubt you'd have to look as far as Moscow. More on
McConnell:
Nolan Peterson:
Pompeo says US 'delivered' on mission in Afghanistan. As the tweet
that directed me to this exclaimed: "Unbelievably good news! We won!
Who knew?" For more on Pompeo, see: Richard Silverstein:
Pompeo: Israel's errand boy. Charles P Pierce:
William Rivers Pitt:
Donald Trump is a category 5 liar. Katha Pollitt:
Almost everything bad that Trump did this summer. Subhed says "Here's
what you missed," as opposed to what she missed -- that "almost" covers a
lot of ground. Related: Philip Rucker/Ashley Parker:
Trump's lost summer: Aides claim victory, but others see incompetence
and intolerance. Andrew Prokop:
David Roberts:
A beginner's guide to the debate over nuclear power and climate change.
Stephanie Savell:
When is America going to end its shadow war on Somalia? Dylan Scott:
The problem of medical det, and the wonky fight behind Bernie Sanders's
plan to eliminate it, explained. Heidi Schierholz:
Lawmakers must empower unions to combat growing inequality in US. Emily Stewart:
The incredibly absurd Trump/CNN SharpieGate feud, explained. This
may be the ultimate preaching-to-the-choir story, a fairly minor gaffe
which developed legs only because Trump tripled down, reinforcing the
easiest of all Trump critiques: that he's a moron. Other Sharpiegate
links:
Jeffrey Toobin:
Trump's plan to host the G-7 revives the issue of emoluments. Alex Ward:
Sheldon Whitehouse:
The Supreme Court has become just another arm of the GOP. Jon Wiener:
The White Power movement from Reagan to Trump: Interview with Kathleen
Belew, who "explains the links among 'lone wolf' white supremacist attacks
like those in Charleston, Christchurch, and El Paso." Graeme Wood:
Robert Mugabe died too late: "Mugabe died yesterday in Singapore
at the age of 95, far from the country he first liberated from
white-minority rule, then laid waste to over a 37-year rule that
began brutally and ended in pathetic squalor." Related: Steven Gruzd:
Robert Mugabe's journey from freedom fighter to oppressor. Matthew Yglesias:
Li Zhou:
Elizabeth Warren blasts the plastic straw debate as a fossil fuel industry
distraction tactic.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
prev -- next
|
