#^d 2019-08-11 #^h Weekend Roundup
Again, spent a little over two days collecting what seems to be a bottomless series of links that show various aspects of the same basic fact: that Donald Trump is like all other conservatives in the sense that he believes some people (like himself) are innately superior to other people, and that the political system should be rigged to favor superior people over inferior ones, but even among conservatives, as an individual he is exceptionally ignorant, abusive, vain, and corrupt. Most weeks I take pains to remind you that what's wrong with him is just a reflection of his political beliefs, and we need to focus on the broader right-wing and not just on him. Still, this week he was such a flaming asshole that it's hard to get beyond the horror and disgust he reeks of.
Some scattered links this week:
Gary Abernathy: Trump is not a racist. His voters aren't either. Nothing here convinces me of the title, and I doubt that's even the author's intent. Rather, he's saying that Trump and many of his voters don't think of themselves as racists, but the more they're called racists, the more likely they are to start identifying that way. I can see the logic here, even relate it to a personal incident. I had a boss once who complained that I had a "bad attitude" and, well, my attitude got much more pronounced after that. Still, we have a fair amount of empirical experience with calling Trump and Republicans racist, and thus far their response is almost always to deny rather than embrace it. Sure, they get upset and irritated, and some try to turn the tables and paint themselves as victims of racists, but as long as they're defensive they aren't that much of a threat. Moreover, the real problem with racism isn't that some people identify as racists. It's that lots more people practice racism, often without giving it much thought. Those people need to know that they're going to get called out on their racism when it's evident -- something that even the President hasn't been immune to lately. For more on Trump's history of being called racist, see Philip Rucker/Ashley Parker: The brand label that stokes Trump's fury: 'Racist, racist, racist.'
Josh Barro: The Trump boycotts pose a grave danger to the Equinox and SoulCycle businesses. Also: Alex Abad-Santos: SoulCycle instructors are as mad about its investor's Trump fundraises as its riders are; Lizzie Widdicombe: Equinox members take a stand against Trump (sort of); Ilana Novick:. Billionaire Trump supporter Stephen Ross can't have it both ways.
Jo Becker: The global machine behind the rise of far-right nationalism.
Julie Bosman/Kate Taylor/Tim Arango: A common trait among mass killers: hatred toward women.
Perrie Briskin: Why we should let more foreign doctors practice in America.
Jason Burke: Norway mosque attack suspect 'inspired by Christchurch and El Paso shootings'.
Cristina Cabrera: CBP chief forced to explain why ICE raids haven't targeted Trump's companies.
Alexia Fernández Campbell:
The Mississippi ICE raids expose the biggest problem with US immigration laws: "They ignore the high demand for workers to fill low-skill jobs in America." I don't know. Maybe those jobs should pay more? Related: Angela Stuesse: The poultry industry recruited them. Now ICE raids are devastating their communities.
Trump described an imaginary "invasion" at the border 2 dozen times in the past year.
John Cassidy:
Jonathan Chait:
Trump calling his white nationalist fans crazy is not the defense he thinks it is.
Biden: If elected President, I'll let Mitch McConnell block everything. What he actually said was "ending the filibuster is a very dangerous move," but that's a fair translation. I doubt he'll actually put "No We Can't" on his posters, but if that's what people hear, he'll lose.
Zak Cheney-Rice: The sleight of hand at the heart of Trump's appeal.
Helena Cobban: On "humanitarian intervention".
William Cummings: 'Only in the Panhandle': Trump chuckles when audience member suggests shooting migrants.
Cora Currier: Pushing out the border: How the US is waging a global war on migration.
Chas Danner/Margaret Hartmann: Everything we know about Jeffrey Epstein's death: A news blip I would barely have noticed until I needed somewhere to hang the extra links:
McKay Coppins: Why conspiracy theorists will never believe the 'official' Epstein story/a>.
Margaret Hartmann: What the unsealed Jeffrey Epstein documents reveal about Donald Trump.
Harry Litman: Jeffrey Epstein's apparant suicide is unfathomable.
Dylan Matthews: The conspiracy theories about the Clintons and Jeffrey Epstein's death, explained.
Anna North: Jeffrey Epstein is dead. His story isn't over.
Charlie Warzel: Epstein suicide conspiracies show how our information system is poisoned.
David Frum: The shame and disgrace will linger: Still trying valiantly to be shocked by Donald Trump (here "accusing the Clintons of murdering Jeremy Epstein," but really, could be anything any week).
Brady Dennis/Andrew Freedman: Here's how the hottest month in recorded history unfolded around the world.
EJ Dionne Jr: On guns and white nationalism, one side is right and one is wrong.
Kayla Epstein: Climate change isn't an intangible future risk. It's here now, and it's killing us.
Steven Erlanger: Are we headed for another expensive nuclear arms race? Could be. Main problem with this "logic" is that the fix is already in: the intent to spend more than a trillion dollars to stockpile new bombs, regardless of whether anyone else shows up for the race.
Helena Bottemiller Evich: 'It feels like something out of a bad sci-fi movie': "A top climate scientist [Lewis Ziska] quit USDA, following others who say Trump has politicized science."
Mary Fitzgerald/Claire Provost: The American dark money behind Europe's far right.
A recent openDemocracy investigation found that America's Christian right spent at least $50 million of "dark money" to fund campaigns and advocacy in Europe over the past decade. (By the measures of US political financing, this may not seem like a vast sum, but by European standards it's formidable. The total spend on the 2014 European elections, for example, by all of Ireland's political parties combined was just $3 million.)
Ben Freeman/Nia Harris/Cassandra Stimpson: The military-industrial jobs scam: $750 billion for the Pentagon, a record haul, but the "stubborn truth" is that more money begets fewer jobs. Also at TomDispatch:
Aviva Chomsky: How the Green New Deal is changing America.
John Feffer: How to decide the fate of the planet: "Is China or the Green New Deal the answer to climate change?"
Karen Greenberg: What the child detentions at the border really tell us.
Adam Hochschild: America's real war: "Trump's venom against the media, immigrants, 'traitors,' and more is nothing new." Remembering xenophobia 1917-23.
Robert Lipsyte: A comic stands up to racism: "When comedian Dick Gregory tried to bust the word."
Conor Friedersdorf:
National service is a terrible idea: "John Delaney's plan amounts to forced labor."
Grace Gedye: Can journalism be saved from the tech giants? There's a problem here -- advertising revenues that previously supported newspapers and magazines have been sucked up by Google and Facebook, undermining the business viability of a free press -- but I don't see this "solution" as helping much. The proposal is to allow content-providers to band together to negotiate better terms with the tech giants. Seems to me that the real problems are deeper than revenue distribution, starting with the very model of depending on advertising to support journalism. We're actually going through a period where the marginal distribution cost of journalism has dropped to virtually nothing, which should make it cost-effective to dramatically expand production, but we're stuck with a business model (advertising + subscriptions) that drags both consumers and content-producers into a death spiral. The obvious way out of this is to free distribution while finding some other way to pay for content creation. In the long run, that way needs to be public funding, the trick being to come up with schemes that are responsive to diverse consumers, that are professional, and that are fair and as free as possible of corruption. That's a tough sell in a period when virtually everything is politicized, but we've tried commercializing everything, and have the present political mess to show for it.
Shirin Ghaffary: Trump's executive order on social media bias is a distraction: "Trump is reportedly drafting an executive order on tech bias against conservatives, even though there's no proof this bias exists."
Tara Golshan: Joe Biden accidentally said "poor kids" are just as bright as "white kids": "The former vice president immediately corrected himself to say "wealthy kids." Or, as Jim Newell put it: In Iowa, Joe Biden's mouth keeps getting away from his brain; also Matt Stieb: Joe Biden gaffes his way through Iowa.
Constance Grady: The Dayton, Ohio, shooter reportedly kept a "rape list" of potential victims.
Joan E Greve: New York Times changes front-page Trump headline after backlash. On Trump's Monday teleprompted speech, original headline read "Trump urges unity vs. racism." Later changed to "Assailing hate but not guns." Trump objected to the change: Allyson Chiu: Trump lashes out after New York Times amends 'bad' headline about his response to mass shootings. Both articles have scans of both cover pages, and various tweets. As Jamil Smith put it: "This is the 'Dewey Defeats Truman' of racism." For more: Aaron Blake: Why the New York Times's Trump headline was so bad.
Jeff Halper: The meaning of Israel's massive housing demolitions in East Jerusalem.
Mehdi Hasan: These 7 prominent conservatives have nothing i common with white supremacists, nothing at all: What we used to call "satire." FYI: Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Donald J Trump, Stephen Miller, Laura Ingraham, Candace Owens, John Cornyn.
Fred Kaplan: Trump's new arms race makes the Cold War era look rational and restrained. "The secretary of defense is keen to test a type of missile that no one has requested for more than 30 years, without knowing where it would be stationed or why it's particularly needed."
Ed Kilgore:
Is beating Trump the best Democrats can hope to achieve in 2020?: I don't mind some prudent skepticism, but this guy is trying hard to be a major killjoy. People, especially Democrats, need to understand that the difference between even the minimal Democratic agenda and Trump/Republicans is something that matters a lot, and they have to get serious about implementing that agenda. That means: first of all they have to win big, they have to make aggressive use of the power they gain, and they have to make the Republicans the shadow government of the super-rich own their failures, so they can build and run again and again until they succeed. The Democratic candidate should be the one who makes the strongest case for doing all that, as opposed to someone who's just marginally better than Trump.
Nadler makes it clear House is already in 'impeachment proceedings'. Related: Quinta Jurecic: Impeachment, but without the moral clarity.
Jen Kirby: The Trump administration adds even more sanctions to try to push out Venezuela's Maduro.
Ken Klippenstein: Leaked FBI documents reveal Bureau's priorities under Trump.
Josh Kovensky: In new interview, Bill Barr sees Dirty Harry, Death Wish as justice done right.
Paul Krugman:
China tries to teach Trump economics: "If you want to understand the developing trade war with China, the first thing you need to realize is that nothing Donald Trump is doing makes sense."
Tariff tantrums and recession risks: "If the bond market is any indication, Donald Trump's escalating belligerence on trade is creating seriously increased risks of recession."
Trump, tax cuts and terrorism: "Why do Republicans enable right-wing extremism?" I would say it's because they've found a successful political strategy in provoking strong, irrational responses from their base, and they have few if any scruples about anyone acting on those impulses. Race is just one of those nerve points, but it's been successfully exploited by Nixon (his "Southern strategy"), Reagan ("welfare queens"), Bush I ("Willie Horton"), and no one's hit it harder than Trump. It's not the only one, but when you play it and follow with guns and war and general contempt for law and civility, it's not hard to figure out what happens next.
But racism isn't what drives the Republican establishment, and my guess is that a majority of the party's elected officials find it a little bit repugnant -- just not repugnant enough to induce them to repudiate its political exploitation. And their exploitation of racism has led them inexorably to where they are today: de facto enablers of a wave of white supremacist terrorism.
Michael Kruse: How San Francisco's wealthiest families launched Kamala Harris.
Jason Lemon: Nearly all of Mexico's gun violence is committed with illegal firearms coming from US, officials say.
Helen Lewis: To learn about the far right, start with the 'manosphere': "The sexist world has become a recruiting ground for potential mass shooters."
Jonathan Lis: The only way to stop the catastrophe of a no-deal Brexit? Revoke article 50.
PR Lockhart: Ferguson changed how America talks about police violence. 5 years later, not much else has changed.
German Lopez:
Elizabeth Warren has a new plan to reduce gun violence by 80 percent: "Warren's plan combines various policies, from universal background checks to licensing to police reform, to bring down US gun violence."
Guns are the problem: "America doesn't have a monopoly on hate or mental illness. What is has is a lot of guns."
Sebastian Mallaby: How economists' faith in markets broke America: Review of Nicholas Lemann's Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream, and Binyamin Appelbaum's The Economist's Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society.
Dylan Matthews: Stop blaming mental illness for mass shootings: "It's about the guns."
Dana Milbank: A worried nation wonders: How can we keep Wayne LaPierre safe?
The longtime head of the National Rifle Association, it turns out, is worried sick about his personal safety in this gun culture.
After the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, he and his wife bravely waited out the uproar on the pink-sand beaches of the Bahamas, part of $542,000 in private jet trips and personal items the NRA bought for him. And now, thanks to some delightful reporting by my Post colleagues Carol D. Leonnig and Beth Reinhard, we know that last year's Parkland massacre left LaPierre so fearful for his personal safety that he tried to have the NRA buy him a $6 million French-chateau-style mansion with nine bathrooms in a gated Dallas-area golf course community.
He told associates he was worried about his safety and thought his Virginia home was too easy for potential attackers to find.
Ultimately, the financially stressed NRA didn't buy LaPierre the mansion. That's too bad, because, as the saying goes: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a French chateau."
Rani Molla: Trump says Google is biased against conservatives. Here's how search actually works. One thing that remains unmentionable here is whether or to what extent advertisers influence Google search results. That's certainly my impression as a long-time user.
Robert Myers: The 'warspeak' permeating everyday language puts us all in the trenches.
John Nichols: Beto O'Rourke is doing what Donald Trump is simply incapable of: "The Texan is demonstrating real leadership in the wake of a horrific mass shooting by unequivocally condemning racism." I'm less impressed. I've seen his expletive-filled clip responding to "What can Donald Trump do?" several times, and while he's fumbling on, the only answer I can think of is "resign."
Ella Nilsen: Trump's sudden push for a possibly doomed background check bill, explained.
Helaine Olen: Trump's speech was like a hostage video.
Mark Osborne: Florida white supremacist arrested for threatening shooting at Walmart, police say. Also: Tom Winter/Dennis Romero: FBI arrests Las Vegas man who allegedly wanted to shoot Jews, LGBTQ bar patrons.
Keith Payne: The truth about anti-white discrimination: "Many white Americans feel that discrimination against whites is on the rise. Experiments suggests otherwise." By the way, I took a semester of psych during my brief tenure in high school, and learned a few things there. One key concept was projection: the tendency people have to impute their own beliefs and feelings to other people. We see projection everywhere. Especially we see white racists assuming that non-whites are racist against them. In 50 years since then, I've seen non-whites who were wary and cautious and sometimes even bitter, but I've never seen any say or do the sort of things I've seen white racists do hundreds of times.
Jeremy W Peters/Michael M Brynbaum/Keith Collins/Rich Harris/Rumsey Taylor: How the El Paso killer echoed the incendiary words of conservative media stars.
Daniel Politi: Elderly Washington couple dies in murder-suicide blamed on worries over medical bills: Another shooting guns weren't responsible for.
Andrew Prokop:
Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok are both suing the Justice Department: "The two former FBI officials filed separate lawsuits this week, alleging improper political retaliation."
The polls are in, and here's who won the second Democratic debate: The most interesting of the polls was one by HuffPost/YouGov, which offered separate percentages for whether the debate performance improved or worsened opinion on the candidate. The difference produce a net change: Warren (+44), Buttigieg (+24), Booker (+20), Castro (+17), Yang (+13), Sanders (+12), Klobuchar (+8), Gillibrand (+7), Inslee (+4), Gabbard (+3), Biden (+2), Bennet and O'Rourke (-4), Harris (-5), Bullock and Williamson (-6), de Blasio (-14), Hickenlooper (-15), Ryan (-17), Delaney (-30). Compare this to last week's pundit rankings, which accorded wins to Biden (for not doing as poorly as last time) and Delaney (for talking a lot even though no one much liked what he had to say).
Democrats' confusing debate over an "impeachment inquiry," explained.
Jennifer Rubin: Democratic candidates grasp the moral seriousness of this moment.
Aaron Rupar:
Sigal Samuel:
Trump wants to "detect mass shooters before they strike." It won't work.
Facebook is building tech to read your mind. The ethical implications are staggering. Offhand, I'd say this is impossible. On further thought, you might be able to approximate it by subliminally planting thoughts in luser heads, then pretending they're authentic. That's something that Facebook has the vision and ethics (i.e., lack thereof) to aim at.
Rosa Schwartzburg: The 'white replacement theory' motivates alt-right killers the world over.
Somini Sengupta/Welyl Cal: A quarter of humanity faces looming water crises. This strikes me as an even more acute threat to humankind than climate change, not that the latter doesn't have something to do with it. Also: Christopher Flavelle: Climate change threatens the world's food supply, United Nations warns. Also by Sengupta: Earth's food supply is under threat. These fixes would go a long way.
Matt Shuham: 'Ruthless': How it feels when the Trump administration guts your agency.
Richard Silverstein: Expanding fight against Iran, Israel opens new military front in Iraq.
Ali H Soufan: I spent 25 years fighting jihadis. White supremacists aren't so different.
Emily Stewart:
The drama over Mitch McConnell's Twitter account, explained.
Why Joaquin Castro's tweet of a list of Trump donors is so controversial: "Take note: If you donate to a political campaign, some of your information will probably be made public." Well, it wouldn't be so controversial if showing public support for Trump wasn't something to be ashamed of. Castro's list of 44 Trump donors in San Antonio makes me want to see the comparable list for Wichita (not that I can't guess a few).
David Swanson: Long after Hiroshima: Last week marked 74 years since the people charged with "thinking about the unthinkable" cavalierly went ahead and just did it. Maybe the bigger number next year will motivate some attention, like the 75th anniversary of D-Day (although it's harder to spin Hiroshima as a day to celebrate American chauvinism). Maybe the scuttling of arms control treaties and the trillion dollar scam to "renovate" America's nuclear bomb arsenal will bring out some protest.
Matt Taibbi: Who's afraid of Tulsi Gabbard?.
Giacomo Tognini: Here are the Democratic presidential candidates with the most donations from billionaires: Buttigieg (23), Booker (18), Harris (17), Bennet (15), Biden (13), Hickenlooper (11), O'Rourke (9), Klobuchar (8), Inslee (5), Gillibrand (4), Delaney (3). Warren has 2, tied with Bullock. Sanders has 0 (tied with Castro, De Blasio, and Ryan). One each for Gabbard, Yang, and Williamson. Not listed is Tom Steyer, who like Donald Trump is his own billionaire. (See: Jessica Piper: Billionaire Tom Steyer spends more than $7 million on ads in first month.)
Peter Wade:
Trump blows up over report on his dismal performances in Dayton and El Paso: Leads off with what may be the creepiest photo-op of his presidency. By the way, Dahlia Lithwick agrees (although she uses a less pointed term): Trump's photo-op with the orphaned El Paso baby was the smallest moment of his presidency; also Graeme Wood: Trump's El Paso photo is obscene.
Walmart takes action to stop mass gamings: "The company will continue to sell the guns and ammunition needed to conduct mass shootings."
Alex Ward:
Narendra Modi tells India that "a new era has begun" after Kashmir power grab.
The latest crisis between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, explained in under 600 words. By the way, more on Kashmir:
Richard Silverstein: India joins China and Israel as world's leading ethnic cleansers. Author previously (April 18, 2017) wrote: Kashmir-Palestine: India and Israel both use human shields to maintain military occupation.
Sameer Yasir/Suhasini Raj/Jeffrey Gettleman: Inside Kashmir, cut off from the world: "A living hell' of anger and fear.
Richard Wolffe: Trump could renounce white nationalism -- but he can't pretend he cares. Personally, I couldn't care less whether "a president can offer comfort at times like these." I think it's stupid and wasteful for the president to scurry around to disaster zones -- in fact, that it causes more problems than it solves. Of course, it's even worse with a guy who's stupid, arrogant, and incapable of empathy. Embarrassing is the word -- one that applies to Trump literally every day.
Matthew Yglesias:
Trump's Twitter rant about the Federal Reserve and the dollar, explained.
Billionaire Trump donor explains he's in it for the tax cuts, not the racism.
Trump's designation of China as a currency manipulator, explained.
As is typically the case with Trump administration moves, it's not entirely clear what the administration is trying to accomplish here, in part because the administration doesn't do briefings in a well-organized way and in part because various players in the administration are often not on the same page. . . . And in this particular case, it's extremely unlikely the IMF will do anything, because China is not, in fact, manipulating its currency in any traditional sense. It's essentially a policy of the US government stamping its feet while it figures out what it wants to do next.
Joe Biden's rivals should attack him with some "Republican talking points": Obviously, not the one about Biden being too far to the left, but: "Joe Biden is old"; "Joe Biden is very establishment"; "the Biden family has made money off of politics."
Video games don't cause violent crime: "Research indicates that, if anything, it's the opposite."
Stephen Zunes: Biden is doubling down on Iraq War lies.
Not news, but let me note in passing a few more historical links on intellectuals who had some influence on me:
Johanna Fateman: The power of Andrea Dworkin's rage.
Peter E Gordon: The utopian promise of Adorno's 'open thinking,' fifty years on.
Tom Holland: America is not Rome. It just thinks it is.
Judith Shulevitz: Kate Millett: 'Sexual Politics' & family values.