#^d 2018-04-08 #^h Weekend Roundup
Meant to write an intro, but ran out of time. So let's cut to the chase.
Some scattered links this week:
Matthew Yglesias: The week's main political stories, explained: The trade war with China heated up: Trump announced tariffs on a wide range of Chinese exports; China responded with tariffs on US exports; the stock market panicked, then bounced back. Scott Pruitt is suddenly in ethics trouble. Teachers are on strike in Oklahoma and Kentucky. Democrats scored a big win in Wisconsin. More Yglesias pieces:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court election shows the blueprint for a Democratic wave.
Trump on trade war with China: "When you're already $500 Billion DOWN, you can't lose!" "And while so far nothing Trump has actually done on trade is all that significant in the grand scheme of things, perpetually making policy on the basis of a total misunderstanding of the issue is potentially quite dangerous."
Donald Trump's Twitter feud with Amazon, explained: "A frightening plunge into authoritarianism, or maybe more meaningless nonsense."
Conservatives a have no solution for the increasingly bleak economics of raising kids: isn't that just a subset of the general problem that conservatives have no solutions for anything?
Tom Hundley: India and Pakistan are quietly making nuclear war more likely: "Both countries are arming their submarines with nukes."
Umair Irfan: 5 lies Scott Pruitt told this week about his mounting scandals. Irfan also wrote Scott Pruitt's bizarre condo scandal and mounting ethics questions, explained. For Pruitt's background, see David Roberts: Tribalism put Scott Pruitt in power. It may not be enough to save him. Roberts means several different things by "tribalism," ranging from the belief that following conservative ideology is doing God's work to simple service to America's "resource industries":
Tribalism explains why Pruitt hired an enormous security team, built a $43,000 security phone booth, avoids flying coach, hires political cronies without Senate confirmation, exiles anyone who questions him, boxes out career staff, works to diminish the influence of scientists, meets almost exclusively with industry groups, and has issued agency talking points playing down the threat of climate change.
However deluded Pruitt may be, a perhaps simpler explanation would be he's simply corrupt. Also: Rebecca Leber: Making America Toxic Again; Margaret Talbot: Scott Pruitt's Dirty Politics. It shouldn't be a surprise when Trump's underlings get caught up in scandals: their whole belief system celebrates naked and brutal greed, so while they toil to make the rich richer, they can't help but feel entitled to their share of the spoils. I suppose what's unique about Pruitt is the siege mentality he brought to the job -- hence the millions he's spent on isolating himself from the public and his own department. He clearly knows that his agenda to reverse fifty years of clean air and water regulations is vastly unpopular. He's clearly bracing for revolt. One example is Matt Shuham: Collins: Pruitt Is 'Wrong Person' to Lead EPA 'On Policy Grounds Alone': Of course, I've been saying that all along, but it's good to see anyone (especially a Republican senator) able to see the fire through the smoke.
At the same time Pruitt is likely to be fired for his scandals, there's a curious effort -- possibly promoted by Pruitt himself -- to promote him to Attorney General. See Andrew Prokop: The Scott Pruitt for attorney general rumor Trump just angrily tweeted about, explained.
Dahlia Lithwick: Secret Handshake: "The depressing truth at the center of the O'Reilly and Trump settlement agreements."
Anna North: What would America look like without Roe v. Wade? These teenagers are finding out: Article doesn't really live up to its title, but the story it tells is tragic and shows how stupid some government bureaucrats can be when they let rigid political beliefs dictate policy. You'd think that even ardent Trump nativists would see some merit to allowing teenage refugee girls to get an abortion rather than give birth to new citizens. One of the more chilling stories I've read about the Trump administration. North also wrote: How Trump helped inspire a wave of strict new abortion laws, and Plenty of conservatives really do believe women should be executed for having abortions.
Mark Perry: Steve Coll's Directorate S is Disturbing Account of U.S. Mistakes After 9/11: I'm about 200 pages into Coll's book, which thus far isn't nearly as disturbing as it should be. I've noted several key points so far: the US categorically rejected any sort of negotiations that might have shorted the rush to war; the CIA, which got the jump over DOD by being able to move into Afghanistan quicker, favored cash deals with warlords over state-building with Karzai or anything that might have reduced stress or aided development; the CIA introduced a torture regime which they had no experience with, and which almost immediately backfired; the US made no effort to reduce tensions between Pakistan and India, which ultimately were the main driving force behind Pakistani "duplicity" -- the tendency to salute the US flag while pursuing their own interests; meanwhile, Rumsfeld was preoccupied with invading Iraq, while totally hand-waving the problem of what to do following "catastrophic success." That brings us to about 2004, before American involvement in Afghanistan really fell apart. The book goes much further, and no doubt more problems will become clearer. The one common denominator among every American involved -- even Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad. ambassador 2003-05 before moving on to Iraq -- was their total indifference to how the occupying American warriors were perceived by locals.
By the way, one tragic side story. When Hillary Clinton and Jack Reed, US Senators, came to Afghanistan to support the war (and talk about all the great things Americans were doing for Afghan women), they were met by a VIP support convoy, which on their way had hit and killed an Afghan woman pedestrian (and didn't stop, per security protocol).
Emily Stewart: Trump threatens a "big price" after reports of deadly chemical attack in Syria: Just a week or two ago, Trump was talking about withdrawing American troops from Syria following the dissolution of ISIS as its capital in Raqqa was captured. But ever since Obama declared that use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a "red line" warranting US armed response anti-Assad forces have promoted reports of chemical weapons use to goad the US into further involvement. Obama backed down after Assad agreed to destroy all of his chemical weapons, which should have been the end of the issue. However, in April 2017 Trump bit on another report and ordered punitive cruise missile strikes. I've never been convinced that Assad directed the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, but hawks were conveniently able to keep the US pinned down in the Syrian Civil War for another year afterward, and that history is clearly being repeated here. Lindsey Graham, in particular, is going out of his way to goad Trump into further bombing. As for the effect of last year's salvo, see Fred Kaplan: Lost in Syria: "One year after Trump launched missiles at Syria, we still don't know what he's trying to accomplish there."
By the way, I'm sure you've heard all about the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skirpal in London -- especially how the UK and US have decided to retaliate against Russia's "chemical weapons attack" by chucking dozens of Russian diplomatic personnel out. Less likely that you've seen this: Jason Ditz: Ex-Spy Skirpal Recovering Rapidly, Hospital Confirms. American media is so slanted that it's easy to get the ball rolling on a story that blames the Russians, and nearly impossible to reverse it. I don't doubt that there is much to be critical of Putin and his country for, but often the point of such stories here is to advance a (Neo) Cold War agenda that threatens world peace.
Alexia Underwood: Sisi won Egypt's election. That doesn't mean he's safe. People complain about Putin rigging the Russian presidential election, but at least he had opposition and Russians had a choice. (Not very good choices, as at least one potential opposition candidate was excluded from the ballot.) But there's nothing fair about Egypt's election, where Sisi got 97% of the vote, defeating "the only other candidate, Mousa Mostafa Mousa, who was publicly known to be a strong supporter of the president."