Loose Tabs [Draft File]

On [08-23] I moved previous contents moved to here, which will eventually be renumbered to post.

This is a safe space for collecting items that may eventually go into a Loose Tabs post.

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically (12 times from April-December 2025, not much more often in 2026). My previous one appeared ? days ago, on August 1.

By the way, I've been trying to write some more in-depth pieces on major issues (and/or personal peccadillos), using Substack as an email agent. I call this series Notes on Everyday Life. I used to have a pinned list of pieces here, but as they've grown, I've moved them into separate index.

I also have a Notes feed there. While I've done very little with it so far, it occurs to me that I might be able to use it to publish Loose Tabs items and Music Week reviews as I write them, instead of having to wait for a long compilation post.

Table of Contents:

New Stories

Most stories fit into well-established categories, organized below as Major Threads. Some sources I lean on so regularly they have their own Regular Columnists section. I also have an End Matter section for dealing with regular occurrences like books, obituaries, and tweets. Stories that don't fit into any regular category appear under Miscellaneous Stories. However, occasionally a short-term story blows up to where it needs extra attention, in which case I included it here.

Examples from last time: Trump's War on Canada; Data Centers; Meta Settles Lawsuit.

Data Centers: This exploded as a separate story last month, and is likely to continue at least through the election, but is still too big to bury under the Electoral Politics section. Data centers are big, highly automated buildings, which demand a lot of electricity, but otherwise are relatively benign. What troubles people about them is the AI they are designed to serve, and even more so the business plans behind that AI, and how those business plans are creating a tiny number of mega-oligarchs. It's hard to imagine that people who crave that much wealth and power are going to achieve it without impoverishing the rest of us, but even those who have limited imagination of sci-fi villains are increasingly exposed to the hubris of real world examples. Halting development of technology is probably hopeless, but how it is used, who profits from it, and who gets hurt are political questions, and they are up for grabs.

  • Ryan Cooper [08-31]: Big Tech crashes headlong into American democracy: "The AI oligarchs thought they could stuff data centers down the throats of the American people. They thought wrong."

The 25th Anniversary of 9/11:

  • Robert Wright [09-11]: Always forget: My own personal takeaway from 9/11:

    But if I were in charge of US foreign policy, the message I'd try to get out is: "Forget! Forget! Forget!" Dwelling on 9/11 is what initiated and helped sustain a disastrous quarter century of American adventurism abroad.

    I mean, sure, if America's leaders had rationally assessed the causes of the 9/11 attack, dwelling on it could have been productive. They might have started by looking into the conditions that gave birth and subsequent energy and direction to al Qaeda, and pondered the following possibilities: (1) Maybe the US shouldn't have staged a proxy intervention in Afghanistan two decades earlier that flooded the place with weapons and created the cauldron that enticed, shaped, and revved up a young Osama bin Laden (and also created the violent chaos that allowed the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan — a position the Taliban used, during the runup to 9/11, to provide safe haven for bin Laden and al Qaeda). (2) And maybe, after the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the US shouldn't have established an enduring military presence in the Islamic holy land, Saudi Arabia — a presence that became a persistent and powerful bin Laden grievance and helped direct his belligerence toward America.

    Conceivably, such reflections on the past could have led to such ideas about the future as: Maybe what the US should avoid after 9/11 is further military adventures in Muslim countries. After all, such adventures might continue to be conducive to the creation or growth of militantly anti-American groups — and might also prove a godsend for any terrorist recruiters who wanted to focus their efforts on young alienated men already living in America.

    If the memory of 9/11 had set in motion trains of thought like this, I'd be OK with remembering.

    • Major Threads

    War on Iran:

    Israel:The focus here is on Israel's wars, especially against their own people, and on internal Israeli politics. A second section will address Israel's relations with the world, especially the US.

    Israel-American-World Relations: This section deals with Israel's relations with the world, especially the US, both at the state level and regarding public opinion.

    Ukraine, Other Hot Spots, and World Politics: A catch-all, where the focus is away from, but not unaffected by, Trump's wars.

    Trump's War Department: I set this section up to deal with Trump's threats of war. We're obviously beyond that now, so see the section on Iran for more on that.

    Trump vs. Law and/or Law vs. America: From ICE to the Supreme Court and the assault on democracy.

    Trump's Administration: Trump can't remake America in his own image (i.e., destroy the country, culture, and civilization) just by himself. He needs help, and having largely purged the government of civil servants and replaced them with his own minions, this is what they are doing — whether he's paying attention or not, and that it's mostly not is no excuse: he sets the tone, then distracts the media with his own insanity.

    Donald Trump: The cult (or should I say sinkhole?) of personality. While most of the bad things he has done and is doing are the work of his administration, and many of their bad ideas are deeply ingrained in the Republican Party, he hogs the spotlight, giving them a uniquely pungent odor.

    • Harold Meyerson [08-24]: Clone Natalie Harp! "Every insecure American deserves a Natalie."

    • John Ganz [08-24]: Trump's third-worldism: Some interesting notes here on Trump's use of tariffs:

      Trump's tariffs increasingly function less like uniform rules than as the opening bid in negotiations between firms and the state. For instance, Pharmaceutical companies can obtain tariff exemptions by reaching pricing and investment agreements with the administration. An even clearer example comes from the polysilicon sector: Trump imposed new Section 232 tariffs, but simultaneously authorized Commerce to approve company-specific "onshoring plans." If Commerce approves a firm's plan, that firm can import covered products and production equipment without paying the tariff, in quantities Commerce judges commensurate with the firm's investment. Commerce can vary the benefits and later rescind them if it decides the company has not lived up to its commitments.

      To sum up, the government first creates a rent by restricting market access, then acquires the power to distribute that rent through exemptions and carve-outs. Under such circumstances, cultivating political access can become as important to profits as lowering costs or developing better products. . . .

      It's worth noting here that this is not really protectionism per se, which can be quite regular and boring: you have some rationalized system of tariffs — a clear-cut policy — that's supposed to end up with a specific result. This is more like something you might call a "discretionary economy," where things move at the personal discretion of the Big Boss or one of his plenipotentiaries. The developmentalist pretext, where the regime is defending domestic industry, is conveniently compatible with the needs of corruption.

    Electoral Politics: Pieces on US elections (recent and future) and, more generally, inter-party politicking. Party-specific pieces in following sections.

    • Ed Kilgore:

      • [09-06]: Three ways the 2026 midterms could reshape Washington: Nothing interesting here at all: either party could sweep both houses of Congress, or they could split (Republicans hanging onto the Senate, Democrats taking the House). The assumption is that under each of these scenarios, everyone will act as expected (except maybe Trump, unless you've already normalized his tantrums).

    • Michael Tomasky [09-04]: Donald Trump as no idea of the tidal wave that's coming for him: "There are three groups of voters who matter in this election, and each of them is going to punish the president." He justifies this by having been right once before (1998?), so that's not terribly convincing. His three groups:

      1. "people like you and me — the people who always thought he was a fascist goon and an imbecile"
      2. "swing voters who were naïve enough to believe that Trump could lower prices and fix the economy"
      3. "Betrayed MAGA Pigeons . . . [who thought] Trump would improve the economy; that he was right on immigration and heads needed to be cracked; that Kamala Harris was the real warmonger, and Trump would calmly keep the peace. Well, that defense against reality has been crushed like a grape under a tire." He thinks it's more likely that this group will simply not vote, than that they will turn and vote for a Democrat.

      In a rational world, he's right. In ours?

    Other Republicans:

    • John Ganz [08-31]: The Milo and Loomer fall out: "Funny and scary." Loomer claims she alerted ICE to deport former MAGA-darling Milo Yiannopoulos. As it happens, I just noticed tweets by Loomer calling the Democratic Senate candidate in Florida a "ghetto bitch," after which she started to get really nasty (something about ebonics and dogs).

    • Amanda Marcotte:

    Democrats:

    Economists and the Economy:

    • Paul Krugman:

    • Dean Baker: For more, look here.

    • Marina Bolotnikova [08-05]: Renting in America can suck. Tenants deserve better solutions than rent control.

      Renting offers many benefits — flexibility, far lower upfront costs, never having to figure out what a "sacrificial anode rod" is — and homeownership is overrated as a savings vehicle.

      But being a renter in America (as roughly one in three people here are) can also be a very undignified experience. In most states, your landlord can kick you out when your lease ends for no reason at all, even if you haven't done anything wrong. Many tenants live in fear of receiving their next lease renewal, not knowing if they'll be displaced by the next rent hike.

      I'll add that moving is expensive, and can be traumatic, so one can easily feel like a prisoner, and landlords can take advantage of that feeling.

    Technology (Including AI):

    Climate and Environment:

    Media:

    Regular Columnists

    Sometimes an interesting columnist writes often enough that it makes sense to collect their work in one place, rather than scatter it about (especially if they cover a range of topics).

    Tom Carson:

    Current Affairs: Including interviews by Nathan J Robinson.

    Jeffrey St Clair:

    • [09-04]: Roaming Charges: America First, Americans Eventually: I'm shocked to say this, but he's more optimistic than I am. Starts with the story of Brian José Morales Garcia, a US citizen who was snatched up by ICE and deported to Mexico. Further down he quotes a more famous deportee:

      + Milo Yiannopoulos on his arrest and deportation (apparently it's funny when it happens to Haitians, Salvadorans, and Mexicans and an outrage when they come after you): "I didn't really understand the physical reality of how institutionalized the brutality is in America. The manner in which they arrest you, they put you in manacles; everybody is arrested like an MS 13 gang member. It was physically degrading. It was frightening. I don't think I've ever been frightened like that before. I was weeping like an old woman for an hour. I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

      + As they kicked 5 million American families off of food aid, the Trump White House is offering white South Africans $4500 in living expenses to move here . . .

      + Norman Mailer: "Will the time come when we can cease concerning ourselves with the fiction that the rich need large profit incentives in order to keep our economy going? Just as a poor man does all he can to survive under the most wretched circumstances, so will the rich continue to be rich (although less so) if their profits are reduced by the recognition that a modern society cannot take an honest breath until it manages to provide for all of its citizens."

      Unfortunately, I think the answer to this, thirty years after said this during his Chubb Lecture at Yale, is no . . . Not this society, anyway.

      + A new Reuters poll finds that 89% of Americans believe that corruption in government is "widespread." But how many of them think, to rework the line from Wall Street, that "corruption is good," as long as your guy's the one doing the grifting?

      + Trump continued to buy and sell oil and gas stocks throughout his war on Iran. Trump's one-third Roy Cohn, one-third Jay Gould and one-third Baby Huey . . .

    Tom Engelhardt/TomDispatch: Editor Tom Engelhardt has retired, which ironically gives him more time for writing. Meanwhile, former intern Nick Turse has taken over, while remaining The Intercept's primary critic of American militarism.

Miscellaneous Pieces

The following articles are more/less in order published, although some authors may have collected pieces, and some entries may have related articles underneath.

Books: Multiple reviews are grouped under book.

Music:

  • Rob Sheffield [09-05]: CDs are back, and we think we know why: "Data shows that Gen Z fans are listening to music from the Nineties and earlier on those shiny round discs." Also BTS, whose Arirang is the top-selling CD this year.

Other media:

Obituaries: I had been using the New York Times, but they're giving me aggravation these days, so I'll switch over to Wikipedia August), which is probably better anyway. Roughly speaking, since my last report on August 1:

Some other names I recognize:

Tweets: I've usually used this section for highlighting clever responses and/or interesting ideas.

  • Corey Robin: [07-31:

    Maggie Haberman, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, "says 70 percent of the president's mind is dedicated to White House renovations." And they say I got Trump wrong. Pff.

    Robin goes on to offer a quote from his book, The Reactionary Mind:

    The attention to external detail, to the surface of things, is not confined to Trump's business career; it informs his political judgments as well. One of Trump's most heartfelt criticisms of Obama was that rather than hosting a celebration of foreign dignitaries in a lavish ballroom, he served dinner to them in "an old, broken, rotten-looking tent" on the White House lawn. "That's no way for America to host important meetings and dinners with world leaders and dignitaries. We should project our nation's power and beauty with a proper facility and ballroom." So enraged was Trump at this failed aesthetics of power that he called the White House and, patched through to Obama senior strategist David Axelrod, offered to build a ballroom there for free: "If there's one thing I know how to build, it's a grand ballroom." Axelrod never got back to him on his offer — yet one more sign, wrote a bitter Trump, of "what's wrong with this country."

    Now in office, Trump has set things right. . . . [quote clipped off scan]

  • Kim, Bestie of Bunzy [08-13]:

    I have a working hypothesis that 98% of people feel incredibly lonely because it's inherently the safest position in an aggressively predatory society.

Current count: #^c