Music Week

Expanded blog post, December archive (complete).

Music: Current count 32538 [32491] rated (+47), 228 [230] unrated (-2).

Took an extra day to post Music Week this week. I figured I had one more day in the month to work with, or actually one more day to wrap up the year in calendar time, so I got in a little extra listening. Also used the time to add some lists to the EOY aggregate. Got up to Radio X in AOTY's list of lists. Haven't done anything from the NPR Jazz Critics Poll yet -- should be up in early January, not sure exactly when -- nor have a tracked down the JJA lists (that usually track JCP ballots). Hence, very little data so far on jazz (other than my own grades).

I did get an invite to join something called Village Voice Pazz & Jop Rip-Off Poll, and picked off a couple dozen ballots there. My rule there was to only count ballots from people I recognized, which mostly means members of the Expert Witness Facebook group.

This week's records were mostly things I took an interest in while compiling lists. The one major exception was that I resolved to listen to the last 2019 releases in my promo queue, including a couple I just got this week. The result is that, for now at least, the "pending" lists in my 2019 file are empty. On the other hand, I've tried not to accidentally delve into 2020 releases (looks like I have 18 records waiting).

Quite a few B+(***) records below (15). Probably means I moved too fast, at least on a few of them. (Kajfes is the one jazz record I'm most tempted to review, especially after his Nacka Forum record got an A-. But also I rarely give rap and electronica records anyway near enough attention, although that didn't stop YBN Cordae or Atom[TM], or for that matter Sault.)

All of this month's reviews have been rolled up in December 2019 Streamnotes, but I haven't done the usual indexing yet. Usually takes me 3-4 hours to do it all, and if I hold back for that I'll be even later. Sometime next week. More lists too. Maybe next week I'll be able to say a few things about the EOY Aggregate, and have some more general reflections on the year. Or maybe I'll just decide I'm due for a break.

New records reviewed this week:

• Abjects: Never Give Up (2019, Yippee Ki Yay): [r]: B+(**)
• Albare: Albare Plays Jobim (2019, Alfi): [cd]: B+(**)
• Backxwash: Deviancy (2019, Grimalkin, EP): [r]: B+(***)
• Philip Bailey: Love Will Find a Way (2019, Verve): [r]: B+(*)
• Barker: Utility (2019, Ostgut Ton): [r]: B+(***)
• Bonzo Squad: There's Always Tomorrow (2019, self-released, EP): [cd]: B
• Boogie: Everythings for Sale (2019, Shady/Interscope): [r]: B+(*)
• Peter Brötzmann: I Surrender Dear (2019, Trost): [r]: B+(**)
• Deep State: The Path to Fast Oblivion (2019, Friendship Fever): [r]: B
• Dumb: Club Nites (2019, Mint): [bc]: B+(***)
• EarthGang: Mirrorgang (2019, Dreamville/Interscope): [r]: B+(*)
• Emmeluth's Amoeba: Chimaera (2019, Øra Fonogram): [r]: B+(***)
• Gang Starr: One of the Best Yet (2019, TTT/Gang Starr): [r]: B+(*)
• Elena Gilliam/Michael Le Van: Then Another Turns (2019, Blujazz): [cd]: B+(***)
• Devin Gray: Devin Gray's Algorhythmica (2019, Rataplan, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
• Devin Gray GPS Trio: Blast Beat Blues (2019, Rataplan, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
• Jason Hawk Harris: Love & the Dark (2019, Bloodshot): [r]: C+
• The Hot Sardines: Welcome Home/Bon Voyage (2019, Eleven): [r]: B+(***)
• Insignificant Other: I'm So Glad I Feel This Way About You! (2019, Counter Intuitive): [r]: B+(*)
• Loraine James: For You and I (2019, Hyperdub): [r]: B+(**)
• Goran Kajfes Tropiques: Into the Wild (2019, Headspin): [bc]: B+(***)
• Ari Lennox: Shea Butter Baby (2019, Dreamville/Interscope): [r]: B+(*)
• Danny Lerman: Ice Cat (2019, Blujazz): [cd]: B-
• Haviah Mighty: 13th Floor (2019, self-released): [r]: B+(***)
• Nacka Forum: Så Stopper Festen (2019, Moserobie): [cd]: A-
• The New Pornographers: In the Morse Code of Brake Lights (2019, Concord): [r]: B+(*)
• Isabelle Olivier/Rez Abbasi: OASIS (2019, Enja/Yellowbird): [cd]: B+(**)
• Henrik Olsson/Ola Rubin: Olsson/Rubin (2019, Barefoot): [cd]: B+(**)
• Rozina Pátkai: Taladim (2018 [2019], Tom-Tom): [cd]: B+(**)
• Lee Scratch Perry: Heavy Rain (2019, On-U Sound): [r]: A-
• Lee Scratch Perry: Life of the Plants (2019, Stones Throw): [r]: B+(***)
• Sampa the Great: The Return (2019, Ninja Tune): [bc]: B+(**)
• Sault: 5 (2019, Forever Living Originals): [bc]: A-
• Sault: 7 (2019, Forever Living Originals): [bc]: A-
• Derek Senn: How Could a Man (2019, self-released): [r]: B+(***)
• Somersaults [Olie Brice/Tobias Delius/Mark Sanders]: Numerology of Birdsong (2018 [2019], West Hill): [bc]: B+(***)
• Svetlost: Odron Ritual Orchestra (2019, PMG): [bc]: B+(***)
• Thick: Thick (2019, Epitaph, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
• Ronnie Wood & His Wild Five: Mad Lad: A Live Tribute to Chuck Berry (2019, BMG): [r]: B+(***)
• Billy Woods: Terror Management (2019, Blackwoodz Studioz): [bc]: B+(**)
• YBN Cordae: The Lost Boy (2019, Atlantic): [r]: A-
• Young Nudy & Pi'erre Bourne: Sli'mere (2019, RCA): [r]: B+(***)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• AtomTM: Lassigue Bendthaus/Cloned (+ Singles) (1992, AtomTM Audio Archive): [bc]: A-
• Burial: Tunes 2011 to 2019 (2011-19 [2019], Hyperdub, 2CD): [r]: B+(*)
• Masahiko Satoh/Sabu Toyozumi: The Aiki (1997 [2019], NoBusiness): [cd]: A-

Old music:

• Olie Brice/Tobias Delius/Mark Sanders: Somersaults (2014 [2015], Two Rivers): [bc]: B+(***)
• Emmeluth's Amoeba: Polyp (2017 [2018], Øra Fonogram): [r]: B+(*)

Weekend Roundup

No intro. Didn't really feel like doing this in the first place, but had tabs I wanted to close.

Some scattered links this week:

• Zeeshan Aleem:

  • A new government study shows how Trump's tariffs have backfired.

  • What we know about a shooting at a White Settlement, Texas church.

  • What we know about the deadly car bombing in Mogadishu: "More than 70 people have been killed, and at least 100 people were wounded."

  • Mike Bloomberg has spent a staggering $100 million on campaign ads in a month. Just exercising his right to free speech, a right all of us share in "equally" (unlike his $50 billion).

  • Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wins party primary, weeks after indictments: I guess the Republicans aren't the only political party to value opportunism more than law.

• Eric Alterman: Trump's executive order on anti-semitism isn't about protecting Jews.

• Teo Armus: A NATO expert criticized Trump on Twitter. So a US ambassador barred him from speaking at a conference. Stanley Sloan. I meant to write some about this, at least after Robert Christgau endorsed and circulated a link to Sloan's talk notes. I can't go into it here, other than to note that I thought the talk was horrible. (The extent of Sloan's delusion can be gauged by his book title: Defense of the West: NATO, the European Union and the Transatlantic Bargain. You can see from that title why he's the sort of guy who gets invites to speak at NATO conferences.)

• Jonathan Chait:

  • Does the left have any better ideas than Obama's? "The Obama era produced the most sweeping combination of social reforms, economic rescue, and regulation of any presidency in half a century." That's bullshit hyperbole, depending on a very low bar, and overlooking the much more effective "reforms" of Reagan, the Bushes, and even Trump, just because they've nearly always been for the worse. Those 50 years include 40 since Reagan's "revolution," following what now looks like prefiguring by Nixon and Carter -- a period of Democrats trying to frame their policy objectives in Republican terms (e.g., as "market reforms"), to ever less avail. Chait wants to rail against recent re-evaluations of Obama's works, but I see those as necessary steps to clear the air of zombie ideas:

    • Alex Pareene: A decade of liberal delusion and failure.

    • Ganesh Sitaraman: The colapse of neoliberalism. Sitaraman also wrote After neolieralism: "The last 10 years have seen the collapse of neoliberalism. The question now is, what comes next?"

    • Libby Watson: The hell that was health care reform.

  • President Trump's dream is to become America's Viktor Orbán: "Why the president and his supporters are following the Hungarian autocrat's blueprint."

• Elizabeth Dias/Jeremy W Peters: Evangelical leaders close ranks with Trump after scathing editorial.

• Ben Ehrenreich: California is burning -- nationalize PG&E.

• Tom Engelhardt: Is Donald Trump the second 9/11?

• Kian Goh: California's fires prove the American dream is flammable: "If we want to keep cities safe in the face of climate change, we need to seriously question the ideal of private homeownership." Not the conclusion I would draw, even from only reading this article.

• Adam Gopnik: Behind the bewildering recent incidents of anti-semitism. Later, but related:

  • Chas Danner: 5 stabbed in Hanukkah attack in Monsey, New York.

• Dalia Hatuqa: "We are living in a touristic prison": Palestinians on life in the holy city of Bethlehem.

• Astead W Herndon: 'Nothing less than a civil war': These white voters on the far right see doom without Trump. E.g., "Mark Villalta said he had been stockpiling firearms, in case the 2020 election does not go in the president's favor."

• Daniel Immerwahr: A world to win: "Decolonization and the pursuit of a more egalitarian international order." Review of Adam Getachew's book, Worldmaking After Empire: Rise and Fall of Self-Determination.

• Umair Irfan: 2019 was a brutal year for American farmers.

• Nelma Jahromi: The hidden histories in the periodic table: "From poisoned monks and nuclear bombs to the "tranfermium wars," mapping the atomic world hasn't been easy."

• David D Kirkpatrick: How a Chase Bank chairman helped the deposed Shah of Iran enter the US: "The fateful decision in 1979 to admit Mohammed Reza Pahlavi prompted the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran and helped doom the Carter presidency."

• Carolyn Kormann: Is nuclear power worth the risk?

• Paul Krugman:

  • Big money and America's lost decade. "Yes, the rich have too much political influence." One might addd, "in both political parties," but the key event of the "lost decade" was the Republican takeover of the House in 2010, which shifted political focus away from merely serving the rich (which Clinton and Obama did more successfully, flamboyantly even, than any Republican) to impoverishing working Americans.

  • The cruelty of a Trump Christmas: "Republicans aren't Scrooges -- they're much worse."

• Nancy LeTourneau: Republicans are fiscally reckless and irresponsible: Of couse they are. But they benefit from a double standard, as the media only seems to take the charge seriously if directed against a Democrat.

• Eric Levitz:

  • The public option is politically superior to Medicare for All -- but only as a sound bite.

  • Why Trump vilifies whistle-blowers and venerates war criminals: "In Trump's authoritarian worldview, real heroes don't let the rule of law constrain their viciousness toward enemies of the cause."

  • GOP lawmaker plotted insurrections to establish Christian state.

  • Donald Trump's not-so-hostile takeover of the GOP: "Trump conquered the GOP by surrendering to its establishment."

    Trump began accommodating the GOP Establishment from the moment he secured the nomination. In the early weeks of his primary campaign, Trump endorsed universal health-care, tax hikes on hedge-fund managers, and a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. After Trump won the Republican primary -- and, thus, the hearts and minds of many previously adversarial GOP donors -- he either abandoned or de-emphasized such heresies. Once in power, he outsourced his agenda to Paul Ryan. Trump could have devoted his "honeymoon" to his (broadly popular) ambitions for improving U.S. infrastructure. Instead, he let the Randian speaker try and fail to take health-care from poor people, before successfully delivering (deeply unpopular) tax cuts to wealthy ones.

• Alan Lichtman: The 2010s were the decade that bent democracy to the breaking point.

• Eric Lipton/Maggie Haberman/Mark Mazzetti: Behind the Ukraine aid freeze: 84 days of conflict and confusion: "The inside story of President Trump's demand to halt military assistance to an ally shows the price he was willing to pay to carry out his agenda."

• Alex Morris: False idol -- why the Christian right worships Donald Trump.

• Holly Otterbein/David Siders: Democratic insiders: Bernie could win the nomination.

• Adam K Raymond: Thw world's 500 richest people increased their wealth by $1.2 trillion in 2019.

• David Roberts: The Trump administration just snuck through its most devious coal subsidy yet.

• Jay Rosen: The Christmas Eve confessions of Chuck Todd: "That disinformation was going to overtake Republican politics was discoverable years before he says he discovered it."

• Aaron Rupar: Future generations will look back on Trump's latest wind turbines rant in awe and horror.

• Greg Sargent: The massive triumph of the rich, illustrated by stunning new data.

• Christine Stapleton: Why did Trump ditch his church in Palm Beach on Christmas Eve for evangelical service? I predict that by election day he'll convert to Pentecostalism. That way his gibberish will be excused as "speaking in tongues."

• Katrina vanden Heuvel: Remembering Bill Greider: "Bill was an American heretic: inquisitive, unwilling to accept conventional dogmas, and always a voice for the people." A sampling of pieces by William Greider:

  • American hubris, or, how globalization brought us Donald Trump [2018-04-19]: "It was 'free trade' mania, pushed by both major political parties, that destroyed working-class prosperity and laid the groundwork for his triumph."

  • What killed the Democratic Party? [2017-10-30]: "A new report offers a bracing autopsy of the 2016 election -- and lays out a plan for revitalization."

  • Why American democracy has descended into collective hysteria [2017-09-28]: "We are a great power in decline -- but neither party has a clue what to do about it."

  • It's Groundhog Day in Washington, with Trump peddling the same old Reaganite snake oil [2017-04-28]: "Tax cuts for the wealthy didn't increase government revenue then, and they're not going to now. It's mourning again in America."

  • Here's what you need to know about the Federal Reserve [2017-03-17]: "We demand way too much from the central bank -- but that's because our elected politicians have done almost nothing to revive the economy."

  • Whom should we blame for our deranged democracy? [2016-09-20]: "Laying it all on Trump is too easy -- both political parties are out of touch and distant from the people."

  • How Trump dog-whistles the business establishment [2016-03-18]: "He cleverly woos the GOP base on issues like trade, but this working-class hero is actually a willing agent of the 1 percenters."

  • How Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton [2016-03-11]: "In the general election, he could win by running to her left -- and her right."

  • Vietnam is the war that didn't end [2015-05-05]: "Forty years later, we still haven't confronted the true lesson of Vietnam."

  • How the Democratic Party lost its soul [2014-11-11]: "The trouble started when the party abandoned its working-class base."

  • Why was Paul Krugman so wrong? [2013-04-01]: "Everyone's favorite Nobel-winning Keynesian is no longer gravely deluded on the global economy. How much can we trust him now?"

  • When big business needs a favor, George Bush gets the call [1984-04-12]: "Ronald Reagan's back-door man."

  • The education of David Stockman [1981-12].

  Other recent pieces on Greider:

  • Dean Baker: Bill Greider and secular stagnation.

  • Jessica Corbett: 'A stark loss for American journalism': Reporter and author William Greider dies at age 83.

  • John Nichols: William Greider knew what ailed the Democratic Party.

  • Ilana Novick: William Greider's blistering critiques of capitalism will be sorely missed.

  • Yves Smith: Links 12/27/19: "Depicting [Greider] as a journalist diminishes his importance. Let us not forget that Marx was a journalist too. I cited a key Greider observation often, that the US operates in a system not of free trade but of managed trade, and other countries have mercantilist objectives, namely seeking to run trade surpluses or at least not deficits so as [t]o boost domestic employment and savings."

• Matthew Yglesias:

  • The telling conservative backlash to a Virginia zoning reform proposal, explained.

  • Trump really doesn't want to talk about his health care record.

  • The nuanced political impact of wine cave fundraisers. "Democratic donors are generally to the left of rank-and-file voters." Is this really true? A chart shows they're more polarized, and in a nod to Sanders, he admits that "small Democratic donors are even more left wing."

• Li Zhou: Senate Republicans were laser-focused on confirming judges in 2019 -- even the unqualified ones.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, December archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 32491 [32466] rated (+25), 230 [226] unrated (+4).

Skipped last week, so this one covers two weeks, with a big hole in the middle. On. Dec. 12, I had surgery to open up my nasal passages, hopefully to breathe better. The surgery was fairly quick, and I was home by noon, but my recovery hasn't been anything to brag about. I did virtually nothing for over a week. Had a follow-up appointment after a week, with the PA poking around, pulling out scabs and clots of blood. During that week I checked email and processed a few late ballots for Francis Davis's NPR Jazz Critics Poll (we did finally match last year's total of 140), but couldn't work for more than 15 minutes at a time (even on something as mechanical as Noisey's EOY list, which took me 4-5 sessions). I didn't feel much better Friday, but found I could get some work done. I only played old jazz for a week, but started streaming some new music -- mostly hip-hop, as it turned out. Pretty much everything I heard landed at B+(**), and this week's reviews are even shorter and shabbier than usual.

Almost finished the week without a single A- record, but Trapline landed 10th on Phil Overeem's year-end list. I still can't tell you why, but three plays convinces me there's enough going on there to merit the grade. Almost added a second one, Emmeluth's Amoeba: Chimaera, from

While I was down, I missed three pieces (free, I think) from Robert Christgau's And It Don't Stop subscription newsletter, so I'll do penance for not announcing them in a timely manner here:

• Dean's List: The 2010s: The 25 best albums of the last 10 years.
• Xgau Sez: In praise of differenter things, suggestive titles and (relatively) unmediated aesthetic pleasure.
• Playing With (and Burying) the Big Boys: The Clash's London Calling at 40.
• Consumer Guide: December, 2019

Don't have much more to say at this point. The usual tracking files are in the usual places. I've added a few things to the EOY Aggregate, but it is nowhere near up to date (and while I'm likely to add to it, it may never try to make it as comprehensive as in recent years).

New records reviewed this week:

• Eric Alexander: Eric Alexander With Strings (2019, HighNote): [r]: B+(*)
• Gonçalo Almeida/Martin van Duynhoven/Tobias Klein: Live at the Bimhuis (2017 [2019], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(***)
• Rebecca Angel: Santa Baby (Timeless Grooves, 1): [cd]: B+(***)
• Atmosphere: Whenever (2019, Rhymesayers Entertainment): [r]: B+(***)
• Courtney Barnett: MTV Unplugged (Live in Melbourne) (2019, Mom + Pop Music): [r]: B+(**)
• Beck: Hyperspace (2019, Capitol): [r]: B
• Dopolarians: Garden Party (2019, Mahakala): [bc]: B+(***)
• Ras G and the Afrikan Space Program: Dance of the Cosmos (2019, Akashik, EP): [r]: B+(**)
• Lafayette Harris Jr.: You Can't Lose With the Blues (2019, Savant): [r]: B+(*)
• Hiromi: Spectrum (2019, Telarc): [r]: B+(**)
• Hot Chip: A Bath Full of Ecstasy (2019, Domino): [r]: B+(*)
• Brittany Howard: Jaime (2019, ATO): [r]: B
• Kaytranada: Bubba (2019, RCA): [r]: B+(**)
• José Lencastre Nau Quartet: Live in Moscow (2018 [2019], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(**)
• Jeff Lofton: Jericho (2019, self-released): [cd]: B+(**)
• Caroline Polachek: Pang (2019, Columbia): [r]: B+(*)
• Slayyyter: Slayyyter (The Mixtape) (2019, self-released): [r]: B+(**)
• Sly & Robbie/Roots Radics: The Final Battle: Sly & Robbie vs. Roots Radics (2019, Serious Reggae): [yt]: B+(**)
• Sly & Robbie: Dub Serge (2019, Taxi): [r]: B+(*)
• Snotty Nose Rez Kids: Trapline (2019, Fontana North): [r]: A-
• Stormzy: Heavy Is the Head (2019, Merky/Atlantic): [r]: B+(**)
• Dave Stryker: Eight Track Christmas (2019, Strikezone): [cd]: B
• Sudan Archives: Athena (2019, Stones Throw): [bc]: B+(**)
• Juan Vinuesa Jazz Quartet: Blue Shots From Chicago (2018 [2019], NoBusiness): [cd]: B+(***)
• The Who: Who (2019, Polydor): [r]: B

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Bobby Bradford/Frode Gjerstad/Kent Carter/John Stevens: Blue Cat (1991 [2019], NoBusiness): [cdr]: B+(**)

Weekend Roundup

I didn't feel like doing a Roundup this weekend, but found a piece I wanted to quote at length, and figured that might suffice: Andrew Sullivan: What we know about Trump going into 2020. I haven't been a fan of Sullivan's lately (well, ever), and don't endorse his asides on the moral superiority of conservatives, but his assessment of Trump hits a lot of key points, and is well worth reading at length (I am going to add some numbered footnotes where I have something I want to add):

So reflect for a second on the campaign of 2016. One Republican candidate channeled the actual grievances and anxieties of many Americans, while the others kept up their zombie politics and economics. One candidate was prepared to say that the Iraq War was a catastrophe, that mass immigration needed to be controlled[1], that globalized free trade was devastating communities and industries, that we needed serious investment in infrastructure, that Reaganomics was way out of date, and that half the country was stagnating and in crisis.

That was Trump. In many ways, he deserves credit for this wake-up call. And if he had built on this platform and crafted a presidential agenda that might have expanded its appeal and broadened its base, he would be basking in high popularity and be a shoo-in for reelection.[2] If, in a resilient period of growth, his first agenda item had been a major infrastructure bill and he'd combined it with tax relief for the middle and working classes, he could have crafted a new conservative coalition that might have endured.[2] If he could have conceded for a millisecond that he was a newbie and that he would make mistakes, he would have been forgiven for much. A touch of magnanimity would have worked wonders. For that matter, if Trump were to concede, even now, that his phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine went over the line and he now understands this, we would be in a different world.

The two core lessons of the past few years are therefore: (1) Trumpism has a real base of support in the country with needs that must be addressed, and (2) Donald Trump is incapable of doing it and is such an unstable, malignant, destructive narcissist that he threatens our entire system of government. The reason this impeachment feels so awful is that it requires removing a figure to whom so many are so deeply bonded because he was the first politician to hear them in decades. It feels to them like impeachment is another insult from the political elite, added to the injury of the 21st century. They take it personally, which is why their emotions have flooded their brains. And this is understandable.

But when you think of what might have been and reflect on what has happened, it is crystal clear that this impeachment is not about the Trump agenda or a more coherent version of it. It is about the character of one man: his decision to forgo any outreach, poison domestic politics, marinate it in deranged invective, betray his followers by enriching the plutocracy, destroy the dignity of the office of president, and turn his position into a means of self-enrichment. It's about the personal abuse of public office: using the presidency's powers to blackmail a foreign entity into interfering in a domestic election on his behalf, turning the Department of Justice into an instrument of personal vengeance and political defense, openly obstructing investigations into his own campaign, and treating the grave matter of impeachment as a "hoax" while barring any testimony from his own people.

Character matters. This has always been a conservative principle but one that, like so many others, has been tossed aside in the convulsions of a cult. And it is Trump's character alone that has brought us to this point. . . .

The impeachment was inevitable because this president is so profoundly and uniquely unfit for the office he holds, so contemptuous of the constitutional democracy he took an oath to defend, and so corrupt in his core character that a crisis in the conflict between him and the rule of law was simply a matter of time. When you add to this a clear psychological deformation that can produce the astonishing, deluded letter he released this week in his own defense or the manic performance at his Michigan rally Wednesday night, it is staggering that it has taken this long. The man is clinically unwell, preternaturally corrupt, and instinctively hostile to the rule of law. In any other position, in any other field of life, he would have been fired years ago and urged to seek medical attention with respect to his mental health.

Footnotes:

1. Restricing immigration is a favorite talking point of other "never Trump conservatives" (e.g., David Frum), one thing that helps them keep their identity distinct from liberals. There is a case to be made that low-wage immigrants undermine American workers, but Trump and anti-immigrant Republicans only frame the issue in racial and cultural terms.
2. Of course, this is sheer fantasy: the "conservative" mindset allowed Trump no room to maneuver toward giving even his white middle class supporters a break from the government, let alone more leverage against their employers and the predators who have been stripping wealth at every turn. They couldn't even imagine a government that helped balance the scales (although that's exactly what the New Deal did, with a bias for white people that Trump might admire). Thus, for instance, the infrastructure bill offered nothing but privatization measures.

Sullivan also has an appreciative piece on his old chum's win in the UK elections: Boris's blundering brilliance, including this bit:

The parallels with Donald Trump are at first hard to resist: two well-off jokers with bad hair playing populist. But Trump sees himself, and is seen by his voters, as an outsider, locked out of the circles he wants to be in, the heir to a real-estate fortune with no political experience and a crude sense of humor, bristling with resentment, and with a background in reality television. He despises constitutional norms, displays no understanding of history or culture, and has a cold streak of cruelty deep in his soul. Boris is almost the opposite of this, his career a near-classic example of British Establishment insiderism with his deep learning, reverence for tradition, and a capacity to laugh at himself that is rare in most egos as big as his. In 2015, after Trump described parts of London as no-go areas because of Islamist influence, Johnson accused him of "a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him, frankly, unfit to hold the office of president." Even as president, Trump is driven primarily by resentment. Boris, as always, is animated by entitlement. (The vibe of his pitch is almost that people like him should be in charge.)

Some scattered links this week:

• Sarah Almukhtar/Rod Nordland: What did the US get for $2 trillion in Afghanistan? Nordland also wrote: The death toll for Afghan forces is secret. Here's why.

• Robert P Baird: The art of the Democratic deal: "How Nancy Pelosi and her party navigated a historic week in the House of Representatives."

• Zack Beauchamp: The shamelessness of Bill Barr.

• Riley Beggin: Senate Republicans have already made up their minds on impeachment.

• Julia Belluz/Nina Martin: The extraordinary danger of being pregnant and uninsured in Texas.

• Katelyn Burns:

  • Trump promotes Putin's take on a "far-fetched" impeachment process.

  • Trump finally has his Space Force -- and it will make orbital security its priority.

  • "Wall Street Pete": Progressive protesters crash Buttigieg fundraiser.

• Jonathan Chait:

  • Trump's attack on Amazon may be his most egregious abuse of power yet. I seriously doubt it, but isn't it pretty strange that a major media mogul (Jeff Bezos) could even be in position to be punished by pulling a $10 billion Defense contract?

  • Trump writes insane letter to Pelosi showing why he's unfit for office.

  • Don't make impeachment partisan, warns party that impeached Clinton over sex.

  • Republicans are right. The impeachment investigation shouldn't end too soon.

  • Why Trump wants even more pollution than industry does. [08-29]

• Isaac Chotiner:

  • Why the editor of Christianity Today decided to rebuke Trump: Interview with Mark Galli.

  • India's citizenship emergency: Interview with Niraja Gopal Jayal.

• Jane Coaston: Christianity Today called for Trump's removal. Here's why that doesn't matter.

• Jennifer Cohn: How new voting machines could hack our democracy.

• Juliet Eilperin/Steven Mufson: The Trump administration just overturned a ban on old-fashioned lightbulbs.

• Adam Gopnik: The field guide to tyranny: Review of Frank Dikötter: How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century, and Daniel Kalder: The Infernal Library: On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of Literacy.

• Sean Illing: Why so many people who need the government hate it: Interview with Suzanne Mettler author of The Government-Citizen Disconnect. Pull quote: "If we become more and more anti-government, we're against ourselves. We're against out own collective capacity to do anything."

• Sarah Jones: No, evangelicals aren't turning on Trump.

• John Judis: The right and wrong lessons from Corbyn and Labour's defeat.

• Roge Karma/Ezra Klein: In 2020, Joe Biden and the "moderates" are well to Obama's left. Examples group Sanders/Warren and Biden/Buttigieg and compare both to Obama in 2008. Had they picked Klobuchar for their "moderate" sample, the waters might have been a good deal muddier. (Same for Bloomberg.) Lots of reasons for the shift left, not least that even in the rare cases Obama managed to fulfill a promise, his solutions were no way near adequate to address the problems. I'm actually surprised that no one has tried to claim the "moderate lane" by conceding that Sanders is right on where we want to go but wrong on tactics, offering instead shorter steps that point us in the right direction, ones that one can build momentum on. One obvious thing is to promote schemes to expand on Medicare for more and more people. Every time Buttigieg attacks Medicare-for-All he exposes the loss of a couple points from his IQ. Before long, he'll sink below Beto O'Rourke, maybe even John Delaney. By then he'll be finished.

• Tony Karon: What's Russian for 'I told you so'? How American exceptionalism suppressed the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. I have a few quibbles here, but the main point (referencing "the Afghan war's equivalent of the Pentagon Papers) is valid, and one could build even more on the similar US/USSR experiences there: both shared a list of stages, for much the same reasons:

  1. A rash decision to invade for purely internal political reasons, using excessive force, producing an illusion of instant success.
  2. The hubris of imposing a centralized political structure, defined by nothing more than elevating local cronies, who would be kept in line by tolerating corruption.
  3. The gradual development of a rural-based resistance, initially underestimated because the invaders and their cronies were so full of themselves.
  4. A massive military escalation to suppress the insurgency, because US/USSR political leaders (no matter how skeptical) couldn't say no to their military leaders.
  5. A gradual drawdown of occupying forces as escalation failed and the costs grew excessive.
  6. A final withdrawal combined with promises of material support, ultimately leading to collapse of the crony government (in the USSR case; the US is still fighting to forestall the inevitable).

  Karon is right that Americans failed to recognized these parallels because Americans think they're different and special, even when they're doing the exact same things. Of course, they rarely even realized they were doing the same things. For one, they took credit for the Soviet failures in the 1980s, and knew that they wouldn't have to face comparable subversion by a foreign power. They knew they had more force at their disposal, and much deeper pockets -- which kept them in the war for a decade longer than the Russians, not that it's done they any good.

  This is the first piece I've noticed from the Koch-funded Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Some other pieces from their website:

  • Andrew Bacevich: An alternative to US world dominance. Bacevich, who landed the job of President of the Quincey Institute, also wrote: Iran might be America's enemy, but Saudi Arabia is no friend.

  • Jessica Lee: Breaking the deadlock: Jumpstarting talks between the United States and North Korea.

  • Samuel Moyn/Stephen Wertheim: The infinity war.

  • Trita Parsi: Is Trump accidentally triggering reconciliation in the Middle East? Parsi has several earlier articles: America's confrontation with Iran goes deeper than Trump; and Could Obama's Iran playbook save Trump from war?

  • Paul R Pillar: Government lies aren't solely responsible for our misguided wars.

  • Nikhil Pal Singh: Enough toxic militarism. "This rosy narrative no longer bears the weight of the United States' staggering contribution to mass violence, regional destabilization, and ecological decay."

  • Stephen Walt: A manifesto for restrainers.

  • Adam Wunische: The real lesson from the Afghanistan Papers: Pull the US military out of the statebuilding business.

• Jen Kirby: The USMCA trade deal passes the House in a rare bipartisan vote: 385-41, "after Democrats secured changes to labor and pharmaceutical provisions." For background, Kirby also wrote: USMCA, Trump's new NAFTA deal, explained in 600 words. Also: Democrats -- and Trump -- declare victory on USMCA.

• Eric Levitz:

  • Trump's EPA agenda is wildly unpopular. Dems should make it a 2020 issue.

  • What the UK election does (and doesn't) teach Democrats.

  • Congress learns Pentagon wasted $1 trillion, promptly gives it bigger budget.

• Ian Millhiser:

  • What Trump has done to the courts, explained.

  • The Republican judges who were widely expected to kill Obamacare got cold feet: "Sometimes, people who stare into the abyss blink."

• Ella Nilsen: "We're looking for undecideds": Pete Buttigieg's campaign is pitting its public option against Medicare-for-all.

• Kelsey Piper: The Nobel went to economists who changed how we help the poor. But some critics oppose their big idea. Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee, Michael Kremer, and randomized control trials (RCTs).

• Andrew Prokop:

  • The drama over when Pelosi will send Trump's impeachment articles to the Senate, explained.

  • Democrats' new accusation that Trump violated federal bribery law, explained.

• Aaron Rupar:

  • The White House's defense of Trump's Dingell comments shows there's no bottom.

  • Trump attacks Greta Thunberg during record-setting Twitter binge.

  • Trump's speech in Hershey revealed a presidency off the rails.

• Theodore Schleifer: Pete Buttigieg is raising money from Silicon Valley's billionaires -- even as Elizabeth Warren attacks him for it.

• Matt Seaton: The strange death of social-democratic England.

• Jonah Shepp: Boris Johnson's 'radical' Brexit agenda.

• Emily Stewart: How Mike Bloomberg made his billions: a computer system you've probably never seen.

• Matt Stieb:

  • Trump's post-impeachment rally was his longest and strangest yet.

  • House Republicans liken impeachment to Pearl Harbor, say Trump treated worse than Jesus.

  • Trump suggests Adam Schiff be subject to Guatemalan justice for paraphrasing him.

  • Read President Trump's unhinged letter to Nancy Pelosi on impeachment.

  • UN climate talks fall apart over potential of Trump 2020 win.

  • Donald Trump Jr benefits from nepotism in foreign country by shooting endangered animal.

  • Trump expresses anti-semitic sentiments before a Jewish audience again.

• Matt Taibbi:

  • Michael Moore on 'Useful Idiots': 'If the election were held today, Trump would win'.

  • Five questions still remaining after the release of the Horowitz report.

  • Washington Post's Afghanistan story reveals core folly of American defense strategy: "Why are we still in Afghanistan? Because our policies make failure inescapable."

• Reis Thebault/Hannah Knowles: Georgia purged 309,000 voters from its rolls. It's the second state to make cuts in less than a week. The other is Wisconsin: see Marisa Iati: A judge ordered up to 234,000 people to be tossed from the registered voter list in a swing state.

• Emily Todd VanDerWerff:

  • The 18 best TV shows of 2019: I probably watched more TV this year than any since the 1960s. Took this as a checklist. Listed shows I watched:

    17. True Detective (HBO) [B]
    14. Chernobly (HBO) [A-]
    7. Barry (HBO) [B+]
    3. Succession (HBO) [B+]

    I watched previous seasons of (9) Mr. Robot (USA), but it got pretty disconnected from reality last time, so I haven't given it much thought this round. I watched one show each of (6) Lodge 49 (AMC) and (1) Watchmen (HBO). Commercial breaks killed the former, and I didn't see any point to the latter. No idea what I'd recommend in place of this list -- I'd have to rumage through a bunch of lists, as they're not coming readily to mind. I suppose watching 21 seasons of Silent Witness kept us away from lots of other series.

  • The 21 TV shows that explained the 2010s. Never even heard of the top pick here -- Nathan for You (Comedy Central) -- but more series I've watched substantial chunks of:

    3. The Leftovers (HBO) [B+]
    4. The Americans (FX) [A-] -- skipped part of first season, but got back into it later.
    7. Orange Is the New Black (Netflix) [A-]
    11. Hannibal (NBC) [B+]
    13. Girls (HBO) [B+]
    14. Mr. Robot (USA) [B] -- haven't watched latest season (but probably will; at least it's on DVR)
    19. American Crime Story (FX) [B+] -- only watched the first (O.J. Simpson) season)
    20. The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu) [B] -- only watched the first season
    21. Game of Thrones (HBO) [A-]
    22. Barry (HBO) [B+]
    23. Better Call Saul (AMC) [B+]
    24. Homeland (Showtime) [B+]
    25. Justified (FX) [A]
    26. Manhattan (WGN America) [A-] -- despite some of the fictions really bothering me.
    27. Rectify (Sundance) [A-]
    28. Silicon Valley (HBO) [B+]
    29. Succession (HBO) [B+]

    Watched small bits of (5) Halt and Catch Fire (AMC), (9) Atlanta (FX), (10) Bob's Burgers (Fox), Black-ish. There's also a list of "10 shows I loved that started in the 2000s and ended in the 2010s":

    • Big Love (HBO) [A-]
    • Breaking Bad (AMC) [B] -- missed a couple seasons in middle, when it was unbearably horrible.
    • The Good Wife (CBS) [B+] -- on average, sometimes better.
    • Mad Men (AMC) [A]
    • Parks & Recreation (NBC) [A]

• Alex Ward: Pentagon halts operational training for Saudi military students after Pensacola shooting.

• Craig Whitlock: At war with the truth: "US officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found." An introduction to "The Afghanistan Papers," with links to "more than 2,000 pages of interviews and memos" -- a collection widely compared to "The Pentagon Papers" (from the Vietnam War). Whitlock also wrote Part 2: Stranded without a strategy.

• Charlotte Wood: From disbelief to dread: the dismal new routine of life in Sydney's smoke haze. Related: Naaman Zhou/Josh Taylor: The big smoke: how bushfires cast a pall over the Australian summer.

• Matthew Yglesias:

  • Democrats' 2020 economy dilemma, explained.

  • Amy Klobuchar deserves a closer look from electability-minded Democrats. A lot of reporters thought Klobuchar got a boost from her performance at the December debate (e.g., see Amy Klobuchar made the biggest gains with voters at the debate), but from the bits I overheard -- I was working in a neighboring room -- I found her singularly annoying, and not just because her political stance has moved so sharply to the far right end of the Democratic Party spectrum. Yglesias cites her winning margins in Minnesota compared to other Democrats (that is, more liberal ones), although in my experience lopsided statewide margins most often reflect weak opposition campaigns -- something that doesn't happen in presidential contests. The more relevant "electability" question is how does she stack up directly against Trump? If the world neatly balanced on a left-right scale, being close to the right might be an advantage. But her centrism is a mix of "see no problems, broach no solutions" -- and who really cares about that? Trump at least sees problems, even if his answers are half-hearted and ill-reasoned. For another argument on electability, see Carl Beijer: Joe Biden will lose a general election to Donald Trump: but "there is one safe bet -- it's Bernie Sanders."

  • American democracy's Senate problem, explained.

  • To win reelection, Trump should try to deliver on his economic populist promises: But he won't, because the Republicans won't let him do anything significant on Yglesias's list (even as the Democrats give him minor victories on USMCA and drug prices). Still, every Democrat should memorize the section on "Trump's litany of broken promises" -- only problem there is that they never expected him to deliver on such promises, because they saw immediately how much of a fraud he is.

  • Air pollution is much more harmful than you know.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, December archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 32466 [32422] rated (+44), 226 [230] unrated (-4).

I have very little time to spare on this, so will keep it short. Spent much of the weekend counting ballots for NPR's 14th Annual Jazz Critics Poll, something Francis Davis started back when we were writing for the Village Voice. Deadline was last night, but there's a good chance that any ballots that arrive today will be counted. I have 132 at present, down a bit from 2018. Some surprises (for me at least) among the new album leaders. Less so among the other categories. This week's haul includes a bunch of records I discovered among the ballots. Still, two/thirds of this week's A- records came from my queue.

Results will probably be posted in about a week. I'm liable to fall out of the loop on that, as I'm scheduled for what should be minor surgery on Thursday, and I'm pessimistic about what I will be able to do the following week or so. In fact, I'm pretty down on getting anything done beforehand either.

Until I got swamped over the weekend, I did a fair amount of work on the EOY Aggregate, which has changed rather dramatically. Up to Thanksgiving, the list was dominated by first-half albums which showed up in mid-year lists -- Sharon Van Etten's Remind Me Tomorrow was leading Billie Eilish's When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go?. Eilish pulled back ahead last week, but the dramatic gains were from: (2) Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell; (4) Angel Olsen: All Mirrors; (5) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Ghosteen; and (11) FKA Twigs: Magdalene. Among first-half albums, (7) Weyes Blood: Titanic Rising is the one that has gained some spots, evidently because those who can stand it like it a lot.

I was fairly up-to-date before the weekend, but haven't added much since. Should see many more lists in the next week or two, but unclear whether I'll be able to keep up. At any rate, the file is doing most of what it needs to do. Still, not much jazz in it, other than my own grades. I'll add the JCP data when it goes public.

New records reviewed this week:

• Awatair: Awatair Plays Coltrane (2019, Fundacja Sluchaj): [bc]: B+(***)
• Bones [Ziv Taubenfeld/Shay Hazan/Nir Sabag]: Reptiles (2017 [2019], NoBusiness): [cdr]: B+(**)
• Anthony Braxton: Quartet (New Haven) 2014 (2014 [2019], Firehouse 12, 4CD): [r]: A-
• Patrick Brennan/Abdul Moimême: Terraphonia (2019, Creative Sources): [r]: B+(*)
• Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science: Waiting Game (2019, Motéma, 2CD): [r]: B+(**)
• Anthony Coleman: Catenary Oath (2018 [2019], NoBusiness): [cdr]: B+(**)
• Chick Corea/Christian McBride/Brian Blade: Trilogy 2 (2010-16 [2019], Concord, 2CD): [r]: B+(**)
• Rodney Crowell: Texas (2019, RC1): [r]: B+(***)
• Nina De Heney/Karin Johansson/Henrik Wartel: Quagmire (2018 [2019], Creative Sources): [r]: B+(*)
• Doja Cat: Hot Pink (2019, Kemosabe/RCA): [r]: B+(**)
• Marc Edwards/Guillaume Gargaud: Black Hole Universe (2019, Atypeek Music): [r]: B+(**)
• Andy Emler/David Liebman: Journey Around the Truth (2019, Signature Radio France): [r]: B+(*)
• Erin Enderlin: Faulkner County (2019, Black Crow Productions): [r]: B+(*)
• Gorilla Mask: Brain Drain (2019, Clean Feed): [r]: B+(***)
• Alex Harding/Lucian Ban: Dark Blue (2019, Sunnyside): [r]: B+(**)
• Eric Hofbauer's Five Agents: Book of Water (2018 [2019], Creative Nation Music): [r]: B+(***)
• Eric Hofbauer & Dylan Jack: Remains of Echoes (2019, Creative Nation Music): [r]: B+(**)
• Carl Ludwig Hübsch/Pierre-Yves Martel/Philip Zoubek: Otherwise (2018, Insub): [bc]: B+(*)
• Ill Considered: Ill Considered 8 (2018 [2019], Ill Considered Music): [bc]: B+(***)
• Katarsis 4: Katarsis 4 (2019, NoBusiness): [cd]: B+(**)
• Kimchi Moccasin Tango: Yankee Zulu (2018 [2019], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(**)
• Lee Konitz Nonet: Old Songs New (2019, Sunnyside): [r]: B+(***)
• Mat Maneri Quartet: Dust (2019, Sunnyside): [r]: B+(*)
• MC Yallah X Debmaster: Kubali (2019, Hakuna Kulala): [r]: B+(*)
• Tom McDermott: Meets Scott Joplin (2018 [2019], Arbors): [r]: B+(**)
• Camila Meza & the Nectar Orchestra: Ámbar (2019, Sony Masterworks): [r]: B
• Roscoe Mitchell Orchestra: Littlefield Concert Hall Mills College March 19-20, 2018 (2018 [2019], Wide Hive): [r]: B+(**)
• Qasim Naqvi: Teenages (2019, Erased Tapes): [r]: B+(*)
• Tomeka Reid Quartet: Old New (2018 [2019], Cuneiform): [dl]: B+(***)
• Michele Rosewoman's New Yor-Uba: Hallowed (2017-18 [2019], Advance Dance Disques): [bc]: B+(***)
• Bob Sheppard: The Fine Line (2019, Challenge): [r]: B+(**)
• Kalie Shorr: Open Book (2019, self-released): [r]: B+(*)
• Sonar With David Torn: Tranceportation (Volume 1) (2019, RareNoise): [cdr]: A-
• Tim Stine Quartet: Knots (2018 [2019], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(*)
• Steve Swell/Robert Boston/Michael Vatcher: Brain in a Dish (2018 [2019], NoBusiness): [cd]: A-
• Fay Victor: Barn Songs (2018 [2019], Northern Spy): [r]: B+(**)
• Bobby Watson/Vincent Herring/Gary Bartz: Bird at 100 (2019, Smoke Sessions): [r]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Dusko Goykovich: Sketches of Yugoslavia (1973-74 [2019], Enja): [r]: B+(*)
• Dadisi Komolafe: Hassan's Walk (1983 [2019], Nimbus West): [bc]: B+(**)
• Yusef A. Lateef: Hikima: Creativity (1983 [2019], The Key System): [bc]: B+(**)

Old music:

• Kristijan Krajncan: Drumming Cellist (2017, Sazas): [bc]: B+(*)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Ellen Edwards: A New York Session (Stonefire Music) [02-22]
• Amber Weekes: Pure Imagination (Amber Inn Productions) [01-08]

Weekend Roundup

No time for an introduction today. On the other hand, much reason to kick this out earlier than usual. Anyway, you know the drill.

Some scattered links this week:

• Zeeshan Aleem: Bloomberg's first TV interview showed him to be exactly who progressives feared he was. Yeah, but when you dig further, you'll find out he's even worse than that, and offensive not just to progressives. Someone asked me tonight whether there are any Democrats I wouldn't vote for against Trump. Bloomberg might be the one. Related:

  • Eric Levitz: Michael Bloomberg thinks you proles are stupid and ungrateful: "If you've ever grazed into the sweet, stupid eyes of a milk cow, then you've got a pretty good idea of what Michael BLoomberg sees when he looks at you." Also: "How could Trump possibly paint this Democrat as a lying, out-of-touch elite?"

  • Jack Shafer: Mike Bloomberg just made Trump look reasonable: "Their spat makes the case against moguls running our civic life."

    Bloomberg's cavalier relationship with Bloomberg News, his willingness to kick the can down the road and make up new justifications as he goes along, reminds us why tycoons and moguls make terrible national leaders. They're rich, they think the world revolves around them and they don't routinely encounter anyone who disagrees.

  • Peter Wade: Of course Bloomberg thinks just about anyone could run for President.

• Julia Belluz/Nina Martin: The extraordinary danger of being pregnant and uninsured in Texas: "The state's system for helping the uninsured thwarts women at every turn and encourages subpar care."

• Ben Burgis: Sorry Mayor Pete, means-testing is not progressive. Progressive is taking things that are currently rationed via the market (and therefore preferentially to the wealthiest) and turning them into public rights, shared equally by all. If you still feel that the rich aren't paying their fair share, taxing them more is a much preferable to restricting their benefits. I'll add that I suspect one reason Buttigieg is hounded for his McKinsey past is that means-testing is the sort of pet idea so favored by corporate consultants.

• Gabriel Debenedetti: Kamala Harris's long road to an early exit. Also on Harris:

  • Perry Bacon Jr: Why Kamala Harris's campaign failed.

  • Eric Levitz: Kamala Harris dropped out because the party doesn't decide.

• Ben Ehrenreich: Welcome to the global rebellion against neoliberalism.

• Brendan Fischer: How America's system of legalized corruption brought us to the brink of impeachment.

• Joshua Holland: What if Democrats have already won back enough white working-class voters to win in 2020? I see so much crap like this in The Nation, I responded to this by tweeting:

  I generally resist the notion that the left is full of morons, but "The Nation" keeps promoting them. We don't have enough votes anywhere. We should seek more and win bigger, e.g. on equality/environment issues we can all rally around:

• Sean Illing: A former Republican Congress member explains what happened to his party: "And why it belongs to Trump now." Interview with David Jolly.

  The reason Trump won was because he brought in populism, not conservatism. I don't see who follows that. Who's the populist in the Republican Party that comes next? I don't see one. I think it's a return to conservatism and largely white male flyover state conservatism, which statistically just isn't going to put Republicans in office a decade from now.

• Alex Isenstadt: Loeffler will cut huge check for Georgia special election: She'll start off with a $20 million headstart.

• Sarah Jones:

  • Do Americans want choice, or do they just want health care?

  • Labour to Brits: You don't want to end up like the Americans, do you?

  • Work or starve, Trump administration tells poor people.

• Ed Kilgore: Nikki Haley says Dylann Roof 'hijacked' confederate battle flag. She almost seemed thoughtful and principled when she decided, after Roof's racist mass murder, to take down the Confederate flag Roof had embraced, but now she wants you to know that was only a momentary lapse. Also, it was the media who misconstrued Roof's actions as racist:

  • Matt Shuham: Haley blames media for making Charleston massacre 'about racism'.

• Naomi Klein: Forged in fire: California's lessons for a Green New Deal.

• Eric Levitz:

  • Jobs, jobs everywhere, but most of them kind of suck.

  • Democrats can reduce third-party voting in 2020 by getting high on weed.

• German Lopez/Katelyn Burns: Pensacola, Florida, Naval Air Station shooting: what we know.

• Ian Millhiser:

  • The Supreme Court just handed the Trump administration a rare rebuke: "Attorney General Bill Barr suffers a loss in a death penalty case."

  • The Supreme Court considers a $12 billion plan to sabotage Obamacare.

• Ella Nilsen: The House has passed a bill to restore key parts of the Voting Rights Act.

• Andrew Prokop: Why Democrats are moving so fast on impeachment.

• Aaron Rupar:

  • Rudy Giuliani just blew up Trump's "no quid pro quo" talking point: "Posting from somewhere in Ukraine, Trump's lawyer tweets the quid pro quo."

  • The Trump campaign's boast about impeachment polling is actually an own goal: "45 percent of voters in a red Oklahoma district supporting impeachment isn't as awesome for Trump as his campaign thinks."

• John Quiggin: Virtue signalling and vice signalling.

  So, the intellectual apologists of the right can only resort to tu quoque, making the claim, in various forms, that the left is just as bad as their own side. This started with the Republican War on Science, but is now virtually universal.

  The point of "virtue signalling" is to make this claim, without having to say what is wrong with the virtue being signalled.

• Stephanie Saul: Elizabeth Warren's days of defending big corporations. Saul had previously written The education of Elizabeth Warren.

• David K Shipler: The pitfalls of political trash talk: "If Biden tries to beat Trump at his own game, he will lose. . . . Besides, Biden's not very good at it."

• Manisha Sinha: Donald Trump, meet your precursor: "Andrew Johnson pioneered the recalcitrant racism and impeachment-worthy subterfuge the president is fond of." Related:

  • Jamelle Bouie: Andrew Johnson's violent language -- and Trump's.

• Ramesh Srinivasan: Democratize the Internet: An interview with the author of Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow.

• Emily Stewart: The attacks on Ilhan Omar reveal a disturbing truth about racism in America.

• Emily Stewart/Ella Nilsen: Pete Buttigieg's McKinsey problem, explained. I know just enough about the management consulting company to give his employment with them all sorts of unsavory resonances. There's a Robert Townsend quote somewhere which sums up McKinsey perfectly: something to the effect that a sure way to panic your underlings into doing something is to threaten to hire McKinsey consultants if they don't perform. There is an incredible amount of formulaic bullshit in consulting, and few firms have raised that to the level of art as they have. Moreover, it's easy to imagine the appeal and utility of form of bullshit for a politician, especially one like Buttigieg. Related:

  • Trent Spiner: Buttigieg confronted by voters over work for McKinsey.

  • Michael Forsythe: When Pete Buttigieg was one of McKinsey's 'whiz kids'.

  • Ian MacDougall: How McKinsey helped the Trump administration carry out its immigration policies: "Newly uncovered documents show the consulting giant helped ICE find 'detention savings opportunities' -- including measures the agency's staff sometimes viewed as too harsh on immigrants."

• Laurence H Tribe: Why care about the Trump impeachment? Your right to vote in free elections is at stake. "The Trump impeachment is about protecting our freedom and right to vote from lawless foreign election manipulation invited by a dangerous president." Yeah, but even if successful it won't have that effect, other than perhaps to advance a principle that Congress should do something (or many things) to ensure the integrity of elections. And that means reining in all forms of manipulation, starting with the billions of dollars that are spent by all manner of interested parties to game the system -- foreign agents are a tiny fraction of that pool. The point about Trump being "a dangerous president" is more pointed, but again the problem is caused mostly by the extraordinary powers we've allowed presidents to collect. Removing Trump would help, but every president since FDR has been dangerous, and the trendline has been increasing -- electing someone as unstable and deranged as Trump has only made the danger more obvious. Unfortunately, none of these problems will be addressed seriously and soberly as long as one party sees advantage in continuing the current system (and biasing it even further toward the rich and powerful). Some more general links on impeachment:

  • Lawrence Lessig: This impeachment is different -- and more dangerous.

  • Charles Sykes: Democrats are speeding to defeat on impeachment.

• Peter Wade:

  • There's one less con man in Congress, as Rep. Duncan Hunter resigns: After pleading guilty to campaign finance violations.

  • Biden angrily issues push-up challenge to voter who criticized him.

• Alex Ward: Julián Castro explains his vision for a "progressive" foreign policy as president. Better, but he still earns the caveat quotes.

• Matthew Yglesias:

  • Joe Biden still needs a better answer on Hunter and Ukraine. Related:

    • Robert Mackey: Even Hunter Biden admits his work in Ukraine was a mistake. Why can't his father say that?

  • Joe Biden's plan to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, explained

    But strikingly, even though Biden's proposals on this front are much more moderate, they are almost identical in their orientation -- raising money from a similar group of people for mostly similar reasons. Despite the disagreement about how far to go, all Democrats these days are basically reading from the same playbook, one that says Reagan-era conventional wisdom about the relationship between taxes and growth is wrong.

  • "No malarkey," Joe Biden's unabashedly lame new slogan, explained: "Boldly unafraid to be uncool."

  • What Trump has actually done in his first 3 years: "A big tax cut, unprecedented environmental degradation, Wall Street unleashed, and a whole lot of judges." Actually, a good deal more than that, and hard to find anything good in the mix.

• Julie Rodin Zebrak: What the heck happened to Jonathan Turley? The sole law professor who opposed impeaching Trump on the first day of House testimony.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, December archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 32422 [32388] rated (+34), 230 [221] unrated (+9).

I have 52 ballots counted for Jazz Critics Poll. Deadline is December 8, but I'm finding very little reason to shuffle the top of my EOY Jazz List, so I might as well file my own ballot sooner rather than later. This is what I'm handing in:

New music:

1. Steve Lehman Trio/Craig Taborn: The People I Love (Pi)
2. Heroes Are Gang Leaders: The Amiri Baraka Sessions (Flat Langston's Arkeyes)
3. Dr. Mark Lomax, II: 400: An Afrikan Epic (CFG Multimedia -12CD) **
4. Moppa Elliott: Jazz Band/Rock Band/Dance Band (Hot Cup, 2CD)
5. James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto (Relative Pitch)
6. Dave Rempis/Brandon Lopez/Ryan Packard: The Early Bird Gets (Aerophonic)
7. Rich Halley: Terra Incognita (Pine Eagle)
8. Quinsin Nachoff's Flux: Path of Totality (Whirlwind, 2CD)
9. Per 'Texas' Johansson/Torbjörn Zetterberg/Konrad Agnas: Orakel (Moserobie)
10. Liebman Rudolph & Drake: Chi (RareNoise) *

Historical music:

1. Eric Dolphy: Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Studio Sessions (Resonance, 3CD)
2. Ran Blake/Jeanne Lee: The Newest Sound You Never Heard (1966-67, A-Side, 2CD)
3. Stan Getz: Getz at the Gate: The Stan Getz Quartet Live at the Village Gate Nov. 26 1961 (Verve, 2CD) **

Miscellaneous categories:

• Vocal: Heroes Are Gang Leaders: The Amiri Baraka Sessions (Flat Langston's Arkeyes)
• Debut: Javier Red's Imagery Converter: Ephemeral Certainties (Delmark) **
• Latin: Miguel Zenón: Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera (Miel Music)

One consideration I had was whether to omit records that I didn't receive (or obtain) physical copies of. In recent years, I've done that for historical releases (which have gotten to be hard to come by) but I allowed streamed new releases to slip onto my ballot. After I slid Ill Considered 6 down a couple notches, the only streamed item in my New top ten was the Mark Lomax mega-production. I decided to keep it on the ballot because I had rated it a full A (only three this year, although the top two A- records are good candidates for promotion), and because a couple other critics had voted for it, with a high enough points-per-ballot to move it into the top-30. Among historical records, I decided to keep Getz on the ballot because I didn't have a satisfactory alternative: the next two records I have physical copies of are samplers by Bill Evans and Wes Montgomery, but I'm rather chafed that I haven't been able to hear those artists new-old records (Evans in England and Back on Indiana Avenue), which are the ones other critics are voting for. (The other big set from the same label that I haven't been able to hear yet is Nat "King" Cole's Hittin' the Ramp, currently running 3rd in the poll.) I do have CDs of six more records further down the list, and I'm especially appreciative of the Sam Rivers and Horace Tapscott sets, but they are well down the list, barely over the cusp.

This week's haul is nearly all records suggested by counting JCP ballots. Also noticed a few things from recent lists by Phil Overeem and Chris Monsen, and scrounging through Tim Niland's recent reviews.

My EOY Aggregate was close to up-to-date until today, when we were hit with an avalanche of new lists. Main ways I track these things are through AOTY and Acclaimed Music's EOY 2019 forum. I'll catch up eventually, although lots of things aren't making it easy (slow recovery from illness, anticipation of surgery, visitors, my mind's inability to process it all).

New records reviewed this week:

• Stefan Aeby: Piano Solo (2018 [2019], Intakt): [r]: B+(*)
• Rodrigo Amado/Dirk Serries: Jazzblazzt (2018 [2019], Raw Tonk): [bc]: B+(**)
• The Big Yes: The Big Yes (2018 [2019], Nakama): [bc]: B+(**)
• Johnathan Blake: Trion (2018 [2019], Giant Step Arts, 2CD): [bc]: A-
• Jane Bunnett & Maqueque: On Firm Ground/Tierra Firme (2019, Linus Entertainment): [r]: B
• Daniel Carter/Patrick Holmes/Matthew Putman/Hilliard Greene/Federico Ughi: Electric Telepathy, Vol. 1 (2018 [2019], 577 Records): [r]: B+(***)
• Cochemea: All My Relations (2019, Daptone): [bc]: B+(**)
• John Dikeman/George Hadow/Dirk Serries/Martina Verhoeven/Luis Vicente: Ideal Principle (2016 [2018], Raw Tonk): [bc]: B+(***)
• Petter Eldh: Koma Saxo (2018 [2019], We Jazz): [r]: B+(**)
• Ellery Eskelin/Christian Weber/Michael Griener: The Pearls (2018 [2019], Intakt): [r]: B+(***)
• Georg Graewe/Ernst Reijseger/Gerry Hemingway: Concertgebouw Brugge 2014 (2014 [2019], Fundacja Sluchaj): [bc]: B+(**)
• Joel Harrison: Still Point: Turning World (2019, Whirlwind): [r]: B+(**)
• Jazzmeia Horn: Love and Liberation (2019, Concord): [r]: B+(***)
• Keith Jarrett: Munich 2016 (2016 [2019], ECM -2CD): [r]: B+(*)
• Guillermo Klein: Los Guachos Cristal (2019, Sunnyside): [r]: B+(***)
• Kokoroko: Kokoroko (2019, Brownswood, EP): [r]: B+(*)
• Ingrid Laubrock + Aki Takase: Kasumi (2018 [2019], Intakt): [r]: B+(**)
• Metropolitan Jazz Octet Featuring Dee Alexander: It's Too Hot for Words: Celebrating Billie Holiday (2019, Delmark): [r]: B+(**)
• Van Morrison: Three Chords & the Truth (2019, Exile/Caroline): [r]: B+(***)
• Evan Parker/Barry Guy/Paul Lytton: Concert in Vilnius (2017 [2019], NoBusiness): [cd]: B+(***)
• Junius Paul: Ism (2016-19 [2019], International Anthem): [r]: B+(*)
• Ken Peplowski/Diego Figueiredo: Amizade (2018 [2019], Arbors): [r]: B+(*)
• Javier Red's Imagery Converter: Ephemeral Certainties (2019, Delmark): [r]: A-
• SEED Ensemble: Driftglass (2019, Jazz Re:freshed): [r]: B+(*)
• Christian Meaas Svendsen + Nakama + Rinzai Zen Center Oslo: New Rituals (2017-18 [2019], Nakama, 3CD): [bc]: B+(*)
• Pat Thomas/Dominic Lash/Tony Orrell: Bley School (2018 [2019], 577 Records): [bc]: B+(***)
• Trigger: Pull (2019, Shhpuma): [r]: B
• Jennifer Wharton's Bonegasm: Bonegasm (2018 [2019], Sunnyside): [r]: B+(*)
• Yong Yandsen/Christian Meaas Svendsen/Paal Nilssen-Love: Hungry Ghosts (2018 [2019], Nakama): [bc]: B+(***)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Joseph Daley: The Seven Deadly Sins/The Seven Heavenly Virtues (2010-13 [2019], Jodamusic): [r]: B+(**)
• Sam Rivers: Zenith [Sam Rivers Achive Project, Volume 2] (1977 [2019], NoBusiness): [cd]: A-
• Makoto Terashita Meets Harold Land: Topology (1983 [2019], BBE): [bc]: A-

Old music:

• Johnathan Blake: Gone, but Not Forgotten (2014, Criss Cross): [r]: B+(***)
• Joseph Daley: The Seven Heavenly Virtues (2013, Jodamusic): [r]: B+(*)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Rebecca Angel: Santa Baby (Timeless Grooves, EP)
• Benny Benack III: A Lot of Livin' to Do (LA Reserve) [01-24]
• Bones [Ziv Taubenfeld/Shay Hazan/Nir Sabag]: Reptiles (NoBusiness)
• Bobby Bradford/Frode Gjerstad/Kent Carter/John Stevens: Blue Cat (NoBusiness)
• Anthony Coleman: Catenary Oath (NoBusiness)
• Katarsis 4: Katarsis 4 (NoBusiness)
• Evan Parker/Barry Guy/Paul Lytton: Concert in Vilnius (NoBusiness)
• Sam Rivers: Zenith [Sam Rivers Achive Project, Volume 2] (1977, NoBusiness, 2CD)
• Masahiko Satoh/Sabu Toyozumi: The Aiki (1997, NoBusiness)
• Steve Swell/Robert Boston/Michael Vatcher: Brain in a Dish (NoBusiness)
• Juan Vinuesa Jazz Quartet: Blue Shots From Chicago (NoBusiness)
• The Westerlies: Wherein Lies the Good (Westerlies) [01-31]

Didn't do a Weekend Roundup last week, but I had a couple of links cached away, seed for today. Didn't much want to do one this week, either, but here goes.

First, a few links on the Democratic presidential debate (not many, as I started looking late, or maybe there wasn't much to find?):

• Aaron Bycoffe, et al. (538): Who won the fifth Democratic debate?

• Shane Goldmacher, et al. (New York Times): 5 takeaways from the November Democratic debate.

• Dylan Matthews, et al. (Vox): 4 winners and 3 losers from the November Democratic debate: Winners: Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Stacey Abrams. Losers: Joe Biden, asylum seekers, health care.

• Trent Spiner: New Hampshire voters to Steyer: Make it stop! Advertising blitzes, what's a billionaire to do?

In "this week in senseless violence," note that a couple people were stabbed in London in what's being taken as a "major terrorist incident" (What we know about the London Bridge stabbings), 11 were shot in New Orleans (New Orleans shooting: What we know), and A Mexican cartel gun battle near the Texas border leaves 21 dead).

Other scattered links for the last two weeks:

• Zeeshan Aleem: Bolivia's coup is still happening. More on Bolivia:

  • Marjorie Cohn: US is again complicit in an illegal coup, this time in Bolivia.

  • Vijay Prashad: After Evo, the lithium question looms large in Bolivia.

• Martin Belam: Republican committee bought Trump Jr book Triggered in bulk: "Reports claim title hit No 1 in bestseller list thanks in part to $94,800 advance purchase." More on this:

  • Elena Sheppard: Donald Trump Jr.'s New York Times bestseller 'Triggered' sparks literary list controversy. Literary?

• Carl Boggs: The grand illusion: On climate change, referring to David Wallace-Wells: The Uninhabitable World.

• Jonathan Chait:

  • Rudy's scheme to line his pockets in Ukraine keeps getting shadier.

  • Report: Trump business more fraudulent than previously known.

  • Devin Nunes sues over another news story, won't even deny it's true.

  • Trump's retribution against the Washington Post owner is his gravest abuse of power. You mean Trump's lobbying against the richest guy in the world?

• Zak Cheney-Rice: In the 2010s, white America was finally shows itself: Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates on "Obama's decade," reparations, and Kaepernick.

• Nicholas JS Davies: Iraqis rise up against 16 years of 'Made in the USA', corruption. Related:

  • Patrick Cockburn: The resignation of the Iraqi Prime Minister may not halt the protests.

• Gabriel Debenedetti: Bill de Blasio's case against Michael Bloomberg 2020.

• Ross Douthat: The case for Bernie: Given his track record, one suspects he's merely trolling. Still, he makes some sound points about Bernie's appeal to diverse groups of Democrats, and shows a certain shrewdness in his claim that "he's the liberal most likely to spend all his time trying to tax the rich and leave cultural conservatives alone." Douthat may figure that the rich can take care of themselves, and can even afford to lose a little.

• Masha Gessen:

  • Conan, the gender-fluid hero dog: "Like most people, Donald Trump thinks that all dogs -- especially big dogs that look ferocious enough to threaten journalists -- are male."

  • The immigrant witnesses of the impeachment hearings: "Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, and Marie Yovanovitch showed that no one takes the promise of this country as seriously as immigrants do."

• Fred M Hechinger: Class war over tuition: Mike Konczal recommended this piece, written in 1974, as "one of the smartest and most prescient things I've read about current higher education."

• Adam Hochschild: When America tried to deport its radicals: "A hundred years ago, the Palmer Raids imperilled thousands of immigrants. Then a wily official got in the way." Louis F. Post.

• John Hudson: Trump official who suggested dropping nuclear bombs on Afghanistan now responsible for arms control issues.

• Umair Irfan: UN: The world has backed itself into a treacherous corner on climate change.

• Ed Kilgore:

  • Christian right leaders suggest Trump critics are possessed by demons.

  • Perry says Trump is the 'Chosen One'.

• Colbert I King: It's a good bet Trump pardons his felon allies. Here's when that's most likely.

• Markos Kounalakis: King Trump: "The impeachment inquiry is testing us: Do we live in a nation of laws or a nation of men?" Funny thing, I was just thinking of contrasts between Trump and Washington, and it occurred to me that we've gone full circle from the revolutionary who overthrew George III to his the King's closest kin in American history.

• Paul Krugman:

  • Trump and his corrupt old party: "For Republicans, there is no bottom."

  • Doing the health care two-step: "Medium-size reform creates the conditions for bigger things." He's been saying this all along, and the record is mixed. It's probably true that the modest success of Medicaid expansion helped Democrats in Kentucky and Louisiana, but wouldn't more substantial reforms have fared even better?

  • Trump and his party of pollution: "Environmental destruction may be their biggest legacy."

  • Bursting the billionaire bubble: "No, America isn't waiting for a tycoon savior."

• Alexandra S Levine/Nancy Scola/Steven Overly/Christiano Lima: Why the fight against disinformation, sham accounts and trolls won't be any easier in 2020.

• Eric Levitz:

  • Americans are dying younger, having fewer babies, studies find.

  • Trump and Xi are bending the moral arc of history toward barbarism.

• Dahlia Lithwick: America's descent into legal nihilism: "The president would like to be president forever. And he's bending the law to his will do to so."

• Jane Mayer: The inside story of Christopher Steele's Trump dossier. Review of Glenn Simpson/Peter Fritsch: Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump.

• Ian Millhiser: Brett Kavanaugh's latest opinion should terrify Democrats.

• Pankaj Mishra: Liberalism according to The Economist. Reviews Alexander Zevin: Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist.

• Ella Nilsen: House Democrats have passed nearly 400 bills. Trump and Republicans are ignoring them.

• Anna North: New Trump administration rules on sexual assault could keep survivors silent.

• Charles P Pierce: Democrats must get a handle on what 'unity' means when taking on a renegade presidency*: "The tale of Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and this anonymously sourced tale of Barack Obama, are instructive."

• Wendell Potter: Why Trump's health care cost transparency drive doesn't actually help anyone. Author is a former VP at Cigna, wrote a book (Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans), now runs an outfit called Business for Medicare for All.

• Andrew Prokop:

  • Rudy Giuliani tried to score big bucks in Ukraine as scandal unfolded.

  • The latest news about SDNY's investigation into Rudy Giuliani, explained.

  • The new details about Trump blocking aid to Ukraine, explained.

• Robert Redford: President Trump's dictator-like administration is attacking the values America holds dear.

• Nathan Robinson: Progressives, trust your gut: Elizabeth Warren is not one of us. I'll note this, but add that nothing here particularly bothers me, except perhaps his "Sanders is far from a perfect candidate" aside. Warren took a different path than most leftists did, but she's wound up far more committed to our basic principles than is the norm for Democrats, let alone for Americans overall. No president is going to be able to do much more than Congress and the courts allow, so I'd be happy with anyone who would lead in the right direction, and not make many blunders along the way. Even some of the "moderates" might qualify (although Obama's mix didn't amount to much). I'll also note that while Warren isn't as grounded a leftist as Sanders, she may have a political advantage as more rooted in America's progressive/liberal tradition. Granted, that tradition's track record is profoundly flawed, but it's still what many Americans aspire to. (Jill Lepore has tried most recently to promote that viewpoint. Robinson probably hates her too.)

• Philip Rucker: Trump's photo op play: Facing impeachment, the president strives to look hard at work. Advising Trump "to focus on governing and travel frequently" is none other than former Clinton strategist Mark Penn.

• Darren Samuelsohn: Justice's election-year conundrum: How to probe team Trump.

• Michael S Schmidt/Julian E Barnes/Maggie Haberman: Trump knew of whistleblower complaint when he released aid to Ukraine.

• Adam Serwer: The war-crimes president: "When violence is directed at those Trump's supporters hate and fear, they see such excesses not as crimes but as virtues."

• Katie Shepherd: An ad smeared a Kansas Democrat for sexual harassment. The main charge actually described a Republican. By the way Brandon Whipple has since won his election to become Mayor of Wichita. It's nominally a non-partisan election, but Republicans worked hard to make it partisan.

• David K Shipler: The mythology of American virtue: "Impeachment supporters don't need to act like we're a perfect country to make the case against Trump."

• Emily Stewart:

  • Tom Steyer's impeachment group is missing its big moment because he's running for president.

  • Trump's made-up war on Thanksgiving, explained.

• Matt Stieb: House conspiracist Devin Nunes may be subject to ethics investigation for reported Ukraine meddling.

• Charlie Sykes: Devin Nunes' impeachment defense of Trump -- and possible Ukraine collusion -- redefines partisan hackery. Sure, but didn't Nunes set the previous standard during the Benghazi! hearings?

• Matt Taibbi: Michael Bloomberg, presidential candidate, just killed the Bloomberg News Agency.

  For Mike Bloomberg to own a media network for as long as he has without understanding or caring about this is astonishing. He's been a presidential candidate for just a few days now, and he's already done tremendous damage by telling voters he thinks it's OK to buy the free press. And this is the guy who's going to rescue democracy?

• Sabrina Tavernise/Aidan Gardiner: 'No one believes anything': Voters worn out by a fog of political news.

• Simon Tisdall: Benjamin Netanyahu's toxic legacy will haunt Israel long after he goes.

• Erick Trickey: San Francisco's quest to make landfills obsolete.

• Alex Ward:

  • "A terrible idea": Experts blast Trump's plan to label Mexican drug cartels "terrorists": "It would increase fears of a US military intervention in Mexico."

  • The controversy over Navy Secretary Richard Spencer's ouster, explained. Also see:

    • For Spencer's own explanation: I was fired as Navy secretary. Here's what I've learned because of it.

    • Fred Kaplan: Trump is dangerously undermining the authority of military commanders; and Trump's war crimes pardons show how little the Commander in Chief understands the military.

    • Danny Sjursen: America will never live down Trump's war crime pardons.

  • Sondland's testimony shows Mike Pompeo was far more central on Ukraine than we knew.

• Matthew Yglesias:

  • America needs to hear -- under oath -- from Pompeo, Perry, Pence, and Bolton.

Nov 2019