#^d 2017-09-17 #^h Weekend Roundup

This has been another week when I could have spent every waking hour compiling stories and still not covered it all. There is nothing below on Korea, where there have been new missile tests, new even more vicious sanctions, and the usual threats of nuclear annihilation -- one story I was tempted by was on how the new UN sanctions attempt to choke off North Korean exports of clothing (evidently one of their major sources of foreign currency). Nothing on Nikki Haley's bluster, nor on Trump's forthcoming UN speech. Nothing on Burma's attacks on the Rohynga. (Wasn't opening up Burma Hillary Clinton's big coup as Secretary of State?) Nothing on US threats to close the embassy in Cuba. Only the most general comments on Yemen-Syria-Iraq. Nothing on Israel/Palestine, which ever deeper into an abyss of inhumanity, even while Netanyahu and family are in legal trouble. Nothing on the latest ISIS bombing in London, nor on Trump's inane tweets about it. Very little on the big hurricane season, other natural disasters, and how well (or more likely miserably) the feds are dealing with them. Nothing on voter suppression (although Kris Kobach has been busy on that front). Nothing on Jeff Sessions refusal to investigate civil rights abuse in St. Louis, nor on protests against same, nor on Missouri's governor's preference for meeting protests with a show of military force. Nothing on Harvard's failed chemistry experiment, where they tried to mix Mike Pompeo and Chelsea Manning. Nothing on the Russia investigation, where an interesting side-story has developed over Facebook advertising. Very little on so-called tax reform. Nothing on rape on college campuses, although Betsy De Vos seems to be set on making it more difficult to punish. Nothing on DACA, not even Trump's alleged DACA deal with Democrats nor the way Republicans blew up after it was reported. And I'm sure there were dozens of other stories I could have found worthy.

On the other hand, maybe there's too much on Hillary Clinton's campaign memoir, What Happened, and also on the Democrats' intra-party struggles. Perhaps that has something to do with our preoccupation with talk-about-talk. But most other stories just add to the cumulative weight of moral rot in the Trump regime. The new books by Clinton (in her backhanded way) and Sanders (much less reviewed, probably because it's much less gossipy) point forward -- as does Sanders' new "Medicare for All" bill (please stop calling it "Berniecare").


Just before posting, I noticed this piece by Jay Rosen: Normalizing Trump: An incredibly brief explainer. It offers a short list of things "most every journalist who covers Trump knows:

  1. He isn't good at anything a president has to do.
  2. He doesn't know anything about the issues with which he must cope.
  3. He doesn't care to learn.
  4. He has no views about public policy.
  5. Nothing he says can be trusted.
  6. His "model" of leadership is the humiliation of others.

He adds: "If nothing the president says can be trusted, reporting what the president says becomes absurd." That reminded me of a piece I noticed but didn't figure was worth pursuing -- until it became perfectly illustrative: Elliot Hannon: A Ranking of Trump's Sunday Morning Tweets From Least to Most Insane.


Some scattered links this week: