#^d 2019-09-08 #^h Weekend Roundup
Hurricane Dorian, which last weekend was still wreaking unimaginable damage in the Bahamas while trudging slowly toward the Florida coast (or, for one poor soul with a rigidly linear flat-Earth imagination, Alabama), and a week later still exists, albeit downgraded to to post-tropical cyclone status, as it threads the strait between Newfoundland and Labrador, expected some time Monday to pass off the south coast of Greenland. The eye never crossed land on the east coast of the US, but came close enough to produce hurricane-force winds, storm surges, and scattered tornadoes from Florida to North Carolina. When it finally made landfall in Nova Scotia, it was still producing Category 2 winds, and Category 1 as far north as Newfoundland. It is officially tied with a 1935 "Labor Day" hurricane as the strongest ever recorded in the Atlantic.
Since Dorian formed in the tropical Atlantic on August 23, three more named storms have come and gone: Erin, which formed over the Bahamas ahead of Dorian, proceeded northeast to Florida then out into the Atlantic, eventually producing heavy rains in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; Fernand, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico and landed in Mexico; and Gabrielle, which formed in the mid-Atlantic and is now headed toward Ireland and Scotland. The Atlantic hurricane season continues to November 30, with Humberto the next name.
The Atlantic put a paywall on their website this week, limiting readers to 5 "free" articles per month, so I probably won't bother with them any more. They've moved to the right over the past year (although not especially toward Trump -- David Frum and Conor Friedersdorf are regulars), which cuts down on their utility. My wife subscribes to a bunch of things, and I take advantage of that, but haven't added to her list myself. Back when we bought a lot of magazines, I recall liking Harper's more than Atlantic (at least when Lewis Lapham was editor), but I haven't read them in ages. Looks like they offer a better subscription deal than Atlantic.
My own website remains free in every sense of the word (including free of advertising and pitches for money), so I feel entitled to my high horse. Of course, I realize the need publications have to raise money to continue operations, and I understand that it's generally good for writers to get paid, especially for serious work. But I also recognize that few people have the wherewithal (much less the interest) to read everything of likely interest. In this world, paywalls help balkanize public discourse, helping to herd us into isolated, self-selected hives. This isn't a good system. Nor is advertising a good answer. Nor do we have the political will to support a development system that would make public goods (like, but not limited to, news) universally accessible. But that's the sort of solution we should be thinking about.
Some scattered links this week:
Riley Beggin:
Trump cancels an imminent US-Taliban peace deal over a deadly attack: "Peace between US and the Taliban could have been announced as early as next week. Now it is off the table." For more on this, see AP explains: How Trump upended US-Taliban peace talks. Also note: Cristina Cabrera: Republicans criticize Trump's planned meeting with the Taliban scheduled days before 9/11. The Republican pictured there is Liz Cheney, whose father had much to do with starting America's longest-running (and first multi-generational) war. Among other things, this shows us how easy it is for warmongers to demagogue the debate.
GOP presidential hopeful Mark Sanford is running against Trump to talk about the national debt. Cristina Cabrera notes that South Carolina has "cancelled the GOP presidential primary for this election cycle."
The US military may have spent millions to help prop up a Trump resort.
The House Judiciary Committee plans to finally define its impeachment inquiry. Also note: Steve M's sage advice: Put Russia on the back burner and focus on Trump's self-dealing. Note that Pence and Barr were also recently implicated in feathering Trump's nest. Another thing they should consider writing up impeachment charges on is Trump's diversion of money allocated for Defense to his wall project, even if the money was going to be wasted where it was allocated. PS: Nicholas Fandos: Democrats to broaden impeachment inquiry into Trump to corruption accusations.
Hurricane Dorian gains strength again as it heads toward Canada.
Jonathan Blitzer: The Trump administration's sustained attack on the rights of immigrant children.
James Bruggers: Dorian one of the strongest, longest-lasting hurricanes on record in the Atlantic. Related: Bob Berwyn: Why are hurricanes like Dorian stalling, and is global warming involved?
Jonathan Chait:
Democrats need to plan right now for Republican fiscal sabotage: "Lock in stimulus for the next recession while Republicans are still interested in stopping recessions."
Trump's most feared opponent: whichever Democrat is on TV right now: "Inside the Trump campaign brain trust's highly scientific model."
Trump somehow replaces unqualified Mideast envoy with even less qualified one. Out with Jason Greenblatt (see Ward below), in with Avi Berkowitz ("a 29-year-old Jared Kushner friend who graduated from law school in 2016").
Hitler parodies are gone but now Trump has made them real life.
Why Mike Pence is lining Trump's pockets with taxpayer dollars.
David Daley: The secret files of the master of modern Republican gerrymandering: Thomas Hofeller, who died in August 2018. Daley wrote Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy (2016).
Tom Engelhardt:
Garrett Epps: The Electoral College was terrible from the start: "It's doubtful even Alexander Hamilton believed what he was selling in "Federalist No. 68."
Eric Foner: The lost promise of Reconstruction: "Can we reanimate the dream of freedom That Congress tried to enact in the wake of the Civil War?" Foner has written much about the Civil War and Reconstruction over the years. He has a new book: The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.
Jonathan Franzen: What if we stopped pretending: "The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can't prevent it." I've been thinking along these lines for a long time now (despite being on the slow side in picking up on global warming). As an engineer, I've always understood that it's a lot cheaper to prevent problems than to have to fix them later, but I've also seen so much breakage that I've had to put even more thought into repair, not least in planning for future repairs. So while I've been reading about how important it is to cut back greenhouse gas emissions, it's long been clear to me that we need a parallel effort to cope with the disasters we can't manage to prevent. One thing I had to give Clinton credit for was elevating FEMA to cabinet level and making sure it was well-managed and effective -- gains Bush's cronyism reversed, most visibly with Katrina, a combination of ineptness and corruption that Trump has only added to. There is much to be said for competent, responsive government, even if it's not competent enough to prevent problems from arising in the first place.
All-out war on climate change made sense only as long as it was winnable. Once you accept that we've lost it, other kinds of action take on greater meaning. Preparing for fires and floods and refugees is a directly pertinent example. But the impending catastrophe heightens the urgency of almost any world-improving action. In times of increasing chaos, people seek protection in tribalism and armed force, rather than in the rule of law, and our best defense against this kind of dystopia is to maintain functioning democracies, functioning legal systems, functioning communities. In this respect, any movement toward a more just and civil society can now be considered a meaningful climate action. Securing fair elections is a climate action. Combatting extreme wealth inequality is a climate action. Shutting down the hate machines on social media is a climate action. Instituting humane immigration policy, advocating for racial and gender equality, promoting respect for laws and their enforcement, supporting a free and independent press, ridding the country of assault weapons -- these are all meaningful climate actions. To survive rising temperatures, every system, whether of the natural world or of the human world, will need to be as strong and healthy as we can make it.
Other links at the bottom of the article: a 2015 piece by Franzen: Climate change vs. conservation (original title: "Carbon Capture"); also Rachel Riederer: The other kind of climate denialism. In December, 2018, she also wrote: The not-so-uplifting year in the animal kingdom.
Elaine Godfrey: Why Steve King's supporters are staying loyal: "The Iowa Republican's racist comments have made him a pariah among Democrats and Republicans alike. Buth is voters may be more devoted to him than ever."
Julie Hirschfeld Davis/Michael D Shear: Trump Administration considers a drastic cut in refugees allowed to enter US.
Masha Gessen: A summer of unprecedented brutality in Moscow. I don't doubt that the repression has been severe, but "unprecedented"?
Maggie Haberman: Trump campaign manager sees President's family as political 'dynasty'.
Dhar Jamail: Alaska's sea ice completely melted for first time in recorded history.
Ed Kilgore:
What if Trump supporters love chaos as much as he does? I doubt if they think of it in those terms. But they hate the people who criticize Trump enough to take their opposition as vindication. And I doubt they worry about Trump's contribution to increasing chaos because they see that everywhere, perhaps as inevitable. (On the other hand, I do know at least one guy who explicitly explained his support for Trump as causing chaos.) Related: Thomas B Edsall: The Trump voters whose 'need for chaos' obliterates everything else. I don't regularly follow Edsall -- I found his 2006 book, Building Red America: The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power useful, but found him more respectful of the American right than deserved -- but he's been developing this theme through a number of articles:
We aren't seeing white support for Trump for what it is: Aug. 28, 2019.
Trump needs his base to burn with anger: July 3, 2019.
The deepening 'racialization' of American politics: Feb. 27, 2019.
The paranoid style in American politics is back: Sept. 8, 2016.
Trump congratulates Poland for the catastrophe of its invasion by Germany. Add this to the not-so-short list of Trump's most tone-deaf utterances.
Yes, I know, "congratulating" people he doesn't know anything about is one of the president's tics to cover his ignorance, much like his promiscuous use of modifiers like "great" or "greatest" for every phenomenon he dimly understands. But this particular example shows that the man and our nation would be better served if occasionally he just replied to some questions with: "Huh?"
Jen Kirby: The week in Brexit drama, explained. Related: Mark Landler: Boris Johnson finds his party loyalists aren't as loyal as Trump's.
Eric Lipton/Annie Karni: Checking in at Trump Hotels, for kinship (and maybe some sway): "To ethics lawyers, the most extraordinary aspect of the daily merging of President Trump's official duties and his commercial interests is that it has now become almost routine."
Michael Mann/Andrew E Dessler: Global heating made Hurricane Dorian bigger, wetter -- and more deadly.
Dylan Matthews: "Unions for all": the new plan to save the American labor movement.
Dana Milbank: Sticks and stones break bones, but words hurt McConnell's feelings. Follow-up to Milbank's Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset. I don't doubt that he's someone's asset, but I doubt you'd have to look as far as Moscow. More on McConnell:
Jennifer Rubin: Mitch McConnell, the 'do nothing' Senate leader.
Greg Sargent: Mitch McConnell sinks to new lows in enabling Trump's corruption. Sargent also wrote: Behind Trump's craziness, there's always corruption. Here's the latest.
Nolan Peterson: Pompeo says US 'delivered' on mission in Afghanistan. As the tweet that directed me to this exclaimed: "Unbelievably good news! We won! Who knew?" For more on Pompeo, see: Richard Silverstein: Pompeo: Israel's errand boy.
Charles P Pierce:
Several states plan to cancel Republican primaries in favor of Donald Trump's re-election: South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, Kansas. Trump won three of those in 2016, finishing 2nd in Kansas way behind Cruz (23%-47%).
The State Department appears to have adopted the mob's negotiating strategies.
William Rivers Pitt: Donald Trump is a category 5 liar.
Katha Pollitt: Almost everything bad that Trump did this summer. Subhed says "Here's what you missed," as opposed to what she missed -- that "almost" covers a lot of ground. Related: Philip Rucker/Ashley Parker: Trump's lost summer: Aides claim victory, but others see incompetence and intolerance.
Andrew Prokop:
David Roberts: A beginner's guide to the debate over nuclear power and climate change.
Stephanie Savell: When is America going to end its shadow war on Somalia?
Dylan Scott: The problem of medical det, and the wonky fight behind Bernie Sanders's plan to eliminate it, explained.
Heidi Schierholz: Lawmakers must empower unions to combat growing inequality in US.
Emily Stewart: The incredibly absurd Trump/CNN SharpieGate feud, explained. This may be the ultimate preaching-to-the-choir story, a fairly minor gaffe which developed legs only because Trump tripled down, reinforcing the easiest of all Trump critiques: that he's a moron. Other Sharpiegate links:
John Cassidy: "Sharpiegate" and Donald rump's perpetual cone of uncertainty.
Robinson Meyer: NOAA politicized the weather report.
Frank Rich: Sharpiegate and Trump's escalating war on reality.
Matt Stieb/Margaret Hartmann/Chas Danner: Trump won't rest until we accept his Sharpie-doctored hurricane map.
Summer Concepcion: Trump campaign is now selling markers as Hurricane Dorian map saga stretches on.
Jeffrey Toobin: Trump's plan to host the G-7 revives the issue of emoluments.
Alex Ward:
Iran is to blame for its recent aggressive actions. But so is Trump. Funny how foreign policy wonks ignore the aggressivenes of US economic sanctions, which is the provocation at the root of whatever countermeasures Iran has taken since then.
Trump's top Middle East peace envoy is quitting. There's still no Israel-Palestine deal. Jason Greenblatt, came in "with no foreign policy experience beyond holding staunch pro-Israel positions."
Trump is taking money from Puerto Rico's recovery and European security to fund his wall.
Trump is diverting $3.6 billion from the US military to build his border wall.
Sheldon Whitehouse: The Supreme Court has become just another arm of the GOP.
Jon Wiener: The White Power movement from Reagan to Trump: Interview with Kathleen Belew, who "explains the links among 'lone wolf' white supremacist attacks like those in Charleston, Christchurch, and El Paso."
Graeme Wood: Robert Mugabe died too late: "Mugabe died yesterday in Singapore at the age of 95, far from the country he first liberated from white-minority rule, then laid waste to over a 37-year rule that began brutally and ended in pathetic squalor." Related: Steven Gruzd: Robert Mugabe's journey from freedom fighter to oppressor.
Matthew Yglesias:
The constitutional change at the heart of the UK Parliament's endless deadlock.
The wild corruption of Trump's golf courses deserves more scrutiny:
But I'm hung up on the Pence story and on Trump's habit of staying at his own clubs at taxpayer expense because in comparison to the bribery side of Trump's corruption, the outright theft is just so straightforward. There is no holder of any office in America who would be allowed to steer public funds directly to entities he controls. . . .
But Trump has been stealing public funds out in the open from the beginning of his presidency which has tended to somewhat diminish the impact of the story relative to potentially secret scandals. There's nothing secret about his push to host the next G7 summit at his own luxury resort in Florida, for example, but it's extraordinarily scandalous.
There have been some worthy attempts in the media at tracking this abuse. NBC calculated that Trump spent 295 days of his first 956 days in office at his own hotels. HuffPost put the overall tab on the president's golf outings at $102 million as of May, with a majority of that seemingly going directly to clubs he owns.
Li Zhou: Elizabeth Warren blasts the plastic straw debate as a fossil fuel industry distraction tactic.