#^d 2018-03-04 #^h Weekend Roundup
Once again having to cut this short because I'm running out of time. Didn't even watch the Oscars tonight, as I tried to gather these links. Nothing terribly new below if you've been reading all along, although the Putnam/Skocpol article might help, as well as Yglesias' near-weekly posts on Republican voting setbacks. I suppose one thing that slowed me down is that this has been an above-average week for palace intrigue, even given renormalization after that's been the case for about 50 weeks in the last year-plus-a-month.
Some scattered links this week:
Matthew Yglesias: The 4 stories that mattered this week in Washington, explained: Tariffs on steel; Trump went rogue on guns; Hope Hicks is quitting; Jared Kushner is under fire. Other Yglesias stories:
Jeff Sessions's dinner with Rod Rosenstein and Noel Francisco, explained.
A telling anecdote about Trump and the opioid abuse crisis: Trump is appointing Jim Carroll to run the Office of National Drug Control Policy, evidently because John Kelly didn't like having Carroll as his deputy chief of staff.
Trump's corruption deserves to be a central issue in the 2018 midterms. Well, it will be. The only real question is whether Democrats manage to tar the entire Republican Party with the corruption so evident in the Trump family. Right now this seems doable, given the prominent role of big money donors in the Trump administration and the stranglehold over Trump's agenda held by congressional Republicans, especially Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
Democrats just flipped 2 state legislative seats in Connecticut and New Hampshire. I still think that the main reason Democrats have done so well in interim elections is that the extent of the 2016 fiasco has motivated stronger and more energetic Democrats to run for office. I don't think we've seen much of an ideological shift thus far, and we may not for some time, as we gradually sink into the depths of disaster Republican rule is causing. Still, it won't take much more than a shift of enthusiasm to tilt generic elections to the Democrats, and that seems almost certain. Still, Republicans will have lots of money for the 2018 elections, and will pull out all stops in their efforts to whip up anti-Democrat hysteria. The question is how many times can you cry wolf before people realize that the wolf is you?
Eric Holthaus: Nor'easters are now just as dangerous as hurricanes. I haven't followed the news close enough to know how these pre-storm threats have held up.
Eric Lipton/Lisa Friedman: Oil Was Central in Decision to Shrink Bears Ears Monument, Emails Show. Previously I figured it was mostly about uranium mining, but I guess there's more to it. Still, both fall under the general rubric of corruption, as in political officials doing favors that benefit big campaign donors.
German Lopez: A new, huge review of gun research has bad news for the NRA: Nearly 39,000 people were killed by guns in 2016, yet the NRA has managed to keep the federal government from sponsoring any research into gun deaths, resulting in "a confusing empirical environment." RAND Corporation has been looking into this, and have released the report Lopez refers to. By the way, after Trump went off script on guns, he's evidently been brought back to heel: Trump met with the NRA -- and now we're back to not knowing what he wants on guns. By the way, when Trump said, "Take the guns first, go through due process second," it sounded to me more an attack on due process than on guns.
Andrew Prokop: Jared Kushner's many, many scandals, explained. The white albatross mortgage on 666 Fifth Avenue is obviously the top of Kushner's worry list, which makes you wonder why a businessman in so much hot water would go pff imtp public service unless he thought there was a lucrative business angle there. At the same time, note: Caitlin MacNeal: NYT: Trump Has Asked John Kelly to Push Ivanka Trump, Kushner Out of WH. Of course, not everything the New York Times reports is fake news, but this is especially suspicious. Prokop also wrote: This week's wild Trump White House chaos, explained, with more on Hope Hicks' resignation and various rumors that "Kushner, McMaster, Cohn, and Sessions are said to be on the ropes." Alex Ward delves further into the Sessions affair: The angry past 24 hours in Trump's fight with his own attorney general, explained.
Lara Putnam/Theda Skocpol: Middle America Reboots Democracy: "We spent months talking with anti-Trump forces -- and they're not who pundits say they are." Skocpol wrote an early book on the Tea Party movement and is quick to note that grass roots anti-Trump organizing is not some sort of "left-wing Tea Party." They also note how little the Democratic Party "professionals" grasp about what's going on, and what's producing dramatic results.
Emily Stewart: All of West Virginia's teachers have been on strike for over a week. West Virginia has trended Republican recently, taking a very hard turn against Obama, so this comes as a surprise, but also note: Avery Anapol: Oklahoma teachers planning statewide strike.
Stewart is evidently a staff writer at Vox. She had a busy week: Trump's trade war will hurt everyone -- the only question is how much: interview with Michael Froman, who was US Trade Representative under Obama (which means he negotiated the TPP, which Trump, Sanders, and ultimately Clinton opposed; indeed, he continues to defend TPP here); Trump says China's Xi is "president for life" -- and maybe America should try it ("probably a joke"); During a chaotic week in the White House, Trump quietly ramped up his 2020 reelection campaign. The most important of these is probably the one on the launch of Trump's 2020 campaign. In past times, the main reason for starting a campaign early was to make up for lack of name recognition, but that's obviously not Trump's problem. Even then, it was rare to do so formally until after the mid-term elections. That really only leaves one reason for Trump to get such an early start: campaigns can collect money, so his provides a way for supporters to stand up and be counted, while allowing Trump to hire full-time propagandists and stage events, something he seems to enjoy much more than actually fulfilling the everyday duties of being president.
However, tariffs and trade have gotten a lot more attention; e.g.: Zeeshan Aleem: Trump's trade tweets prove one thing: he doesn't understand trade; Alexia Fernandez Campbell: Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs have angered nearly every US industry. Note that the stock market fell 600 points the day after the announcement. Also note that Trump buddy (and fellow billionaire) Carl Icahn somehow got out in front of the stock crash -- see Cristina Cabrera: Ex-Trump Advisor Sold Steel-Linked Stocks Before POTUS Announced Tariffs. In case you're wondering about that "Ex-":
A longtime friend to Trump, Icahn served as a "special advisor" to the President before resigning in August 2017 ahead of an incoming New Yorker story that outlined his attempts to use his position to help his investments.