#^d 2019-09-22 #^h Weekend Roundup
I had an idea for an introduction based on the book I've been reading: Tim Alberta's American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump. I never really got the title until it appeared in the text 400+ pages in, and it wasn't anything like what I would have guessed. The line comes from Trump's inaugural address, where it climaxes a series of assertions that have virtually no connection to reality. I'd need to find the quote and unpack it a bit, but it basically confirms my suspicion that the Republican campaign in 2016 was basically an extortion racket. They had remarkable success at spoiling eight years of Obama, and they clearly intended to treat Hillary Clinton even worse should she win. The only way Americans could save themselves from the wrath of the Republicans was to elect one -- in which case, the downside was limited to incompetence and corruption. Of course, a better solution would have been to beat the Republicans so badly they couldn't do any real damage, but that was too much to hope for -- especially with Hillary as your standard bearer.
Some scattered links this week:
Zack Beauchamp: Israel's election results show Netanyahu is in serious trouble: "No one outright won. But Netanyahu did worse than he hoped and may lose office because of it." More on this:
David M Halbfinger/Isabel Kershner: Arab parties back Benny Gantz as Israeli leader, to end Netanyahu's grip. Also see Ayman Odeh's statement: We are ending Netanyahu's grip on Israel.
Benjamin Hart: Benjamin Netanyahu is running out of options.
Yardena Schwartz: How Netanyahu's campaign against Israel's Aragb citizens backfired.
Richard Silverstein: Israeli elections: Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Alexia Fernández Campbell: The house just passed a bill that would give millions of workers the right to sue their boss.
Jane Coaston: Defending Kavanaugh has become personal for conservatives, not ideological.
Rather, the idea of Brett Kavanaugh is that he is a stand-in for conservative men, a blank slate upon which fears of liberal overreach ruining the lives and reputations of right-leaning heterosexual men can be projected. He's not Brett Kavanaugh -- he's your son, or your brother, or even you. . . . For many on the right, particularly those increasingly concerned about the potential weaponization of accusations of sexual assault against conservatives, that's enough.
Justin Davidson: The challenges of constructing New York's tallest apartment building: Interview with architect Gordon Gill.
Atul Gawande: Letting go: "What should medicine do when it can't save your life?"
Tara Golshan: Bernie Sanders wants to put credit reporting companies like Equifax out of business.
Umair Irfan: Greta Thunberg is leading kids and adults from 150 countries in a massive Friday climate strike. Other links:
Ella Nilsen: Greta Thunberg is not alone in her climate activism.
Somini Sengupta:
Climate protesters and world leaders: same planet, different worlds.
'We will never back down': Scenes from the global climate protests.
Who's speaking at the UN Climate Summit? Several champions of coal.
How one billionaire could keep three countries hooked on coal for decades (w/Jacqueline Williams/Aruna Chandrasekhar).
David Wallace-Wells: It's Greta's world: Aka "The extraordinary rise of Greta Thunberg and her Hail Mary climate movement." One piece in the author's Welcome to the State of the World series. Other pieces:
Gallery: City by city, the world turns out for the climate strike.
Green New Deal's Rhiana Gunn-Wright: 'You don't see this sort of change this rapidly'.
Chris Hayes and Ali Velshi talk the state of climate journalism (and state of the planet).
Naomi Klein: 'Our future is radical. The present is pretty radical too.' Klein has a new essay collection, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal.
I think climate is bringing out barbarism. I don't think it's creating it, and I don't think it's the only factor. But I think there's a subconscious understanding, even among climate-change deniers, that we are entering an era of scarcity. . . . I also wouldn't have necessarily predicted Jair Bolsonaro. I think the extent to which, in country after country, we're seeing the worst people in the world being elevated to the most powerful positions is pretty startling. Boris Johnson -- these are people that are ready to just burn it down, and I think [we need to] understand what is behind that, and I don't think we really have understood what the commonalities are between the Trumps and the Bolsanaros and the Dutertes and the Modis.
Bill Gates: 'I don't see anything worthy of the word plan' to fight climate change.
Sarah Jones: The future is ours for the taking: Interview with Ann Pettifor, author of The Case for the Green New Deal.
Jen Kirby: Boris Johnson had a really bad day in Luxembourg. The Incredible Hulk was involved.
Jill Lepore: Edward Snowden and the rise of whistle-blower culture: Review of Snowden's memoir, Permanent Record.
Steven Levitsky/Daniel Ziblatt: Why Republicans play dirty: You probably recall their examples, and it wouldn't take much head-scratching to come up with their two analogues (post-Reconstruction southern Democrats, pre-WWI German conservatives -- although post-WWI were arguably even worse). I'd quibble with this claim: "Republicans leaders are not driven by an intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy. They are driven by fear." But they wouldn't fear losing so much if they hadn't started out with their belief in a rightful socioeconomic hierarchy (with themselves at the top), a belief that starts with fear and loathing of what they take to be the lower orders. There may be cases where conservatives are willing to respect democracy, but doing so is not something that come naturally to those accustomed to ruling.
Actually, there are other things to quibble with here. "As the collapse of democracy in Germany and Spain in the 1930s and Chile in the 1970s makes clear, these escalating conflicts can end in tragedy." Democracy didn't "collapse" in Spain or Chile: it was murdered by right-wingers who refused to accept popular election results, aided by malign foreign powers (Nazi Germany in Spain, the US in Chile). Germany was a local affair, where the traditional conservative powers backed the Nazis, not least because Hitler promised an end to what they really feared: a government of, by, and for the people. With their "dirty tricks," Republicans have revealed that they're no better nor even different from reviled conservative regimes of the past. Also, like their predecessors, they won't stop until they're stopped. Hopefully, we can do that with a peaceful election, before they manage to bring us all to ruin.
Related, with many of the same examples, expressed more pointedly: Paul Krugman: Republicans don't believe in democracy.
Eric Levitz:
David Brooks: Politics is too uncivil -- and anyone to my left is un-American. You might think that someone stepping forward to read and expose Brooks' inanity is a good thing because it saves us from having to do so, but does anyone really care anymore whatever Brooks is thinking (or in this case fantasizing) about?
Nancy Pelosi's drug plan pits Trump's base against GOP orthodoxy: Two problems I see: one is that in trying to balance off competing business interests, this still leaves a fair amount of slop as the various parties try to game the system; the other is that Trump's base has voted against its own best interests so regularly it's hard to imagine they'll punish Republicans for protecting drug monopoly profits.
Ernesto Londoño: Imagine Jair Bolsonaro standing trial for ecocide at The Hague. Sure. I've often thought that the ICC was poorly designed, mostly because it's more important to expose world-class criminals than it is to actually incarcerate them. Also, any system of justice needs to be fair, even-handed, and consistently and universally applied. To do the latter, you need to be able to indict and trial people in absentia, but to do the former, you need to provide them with a defense, whether they participate in it or not. One way to do this would be to build up a list of certified judges, prosecutors, defenders, and expert investigators. Anyone can approach the court to bring a case, which would then be developed through stages, each with aimed at a degree of certainty in its verdict, mitigated by defense arguments, including limits to information and extenuating circumstances. All verdicts would remain tentative, subject to further litigation as more evidence is made available. The court would in theory be able to order punishment, but few trials are likely to get to that stage (as, indeed, few are now). But the court proceedings would also be publicly available, so other jurisdictions can build their own cases on them. But the key thing is that you would have a common standard and process for charging individuals with crimes against humanity (including war crimes), and we'd know just where any given culprit stands. This article shows how a case against Bolsonaro in such a court might proceed. You can probably think of a few dozen more such obvious candidates. Henry Kissinger would probably top my list, followed by GW Bush and Dick Cheney, with Donald Trump rising fast.
Dylan Matthews: How a wealth tax could totally remake charity in the United States.
Ian Millhiser: The astounding advantage the Electoral College gives to Republicans, in one chart.
Bob Moser: Mitch McConnell: The man who sold America.
Nicole Narea: The US just signed a deal that could send asylum seekers back to El Salvador.
Delia Paunescu: The 51st state? Interview with Sean Rameswaram, Derek Musgrove, and Eleanor Holmes Norton on the movement for DC statehood. Related: Tara Golshan: House Democrats held the first hearing on DC statehood in 25 years: "Republicans are unified in their opposition."
Daniel Politi: Pence took an eight-car motorcade to a Michigan island where vehicles are banned: Another little something to add to that list of norms being trashed by the Republican administration. Related: Erica L Green: US orders Duke and UNC to recast tone in Mideast Studies.
Andrew Prokop:
The polls are in: here's who won -- and lost -- last week's debate.
Corey Lewandowski's chaotic congressional testimony, explained.
The latest news about the whistleblower complaint over Trump and Ukraine, explained: "Details remain murky. But there's been a scandal unfolding in plain sight." Previously wrote: What we know about the whistleblower complaint about President Trump, back when we knew even less. The week's most irritating story: one shouldn't assume that Trump is always in the wrong any time he does something contrary to the deep security state, as some Democrats do. Indeed, when this story first broke, it mentioned an unnamed "foreign leader," which was all it took Colbert-Kimmel-Myers to finger Putin or Kim. More links as this story unfolded:
Jonathan Chait: Trump's Ukraine scandal is hiding in plain sight.
Richard L Hasen: Trump's Ukraine gambit could be another campaign finance crime.
Fred Kaplan: The most serious clash over presidential power since Watergate: "If initial reports are true, Trump committed a blatantly impeachable offense and the administration is challenging the entire concept of congressional oversight."
Lisa Lerer/Reid J Epstein: Ukraine and whistle-blower issues emerge as major flashpoints in presidential race.
Robert Mackey: Reporters should stop helping Donald Trump spread lies about Joe Biden and Ukraine.
Renato Mariotti: Trump didn't bribe Ukraine. It's actually worse than that.
Tom Nichols: If this isn't impeachable, nothing is.
Aaron Rupar:
Anya van Wagtendonk: A whistleblower alleges Trump requested 2020 election interference. Pelosi still says she won't pursue impeachment.
Matt Viser: Scrutiny over Trump's Ukraine scandal may also complicate Biden's campaign.
Brian Resnick: More than a quartet of all birds have disappeared from North America since 1970. Related: Jeff Sparrow: This isn't extinction, it's extermination: the people killing nature know what they're doing.
David Roberts:
Aaron Rupar:
Trump's feud with California over emissions standards and homelessness, explained. Related: Ella Nilsen: Trump just started a huge legal battle with California over lowering car emission standards; also: Dana Goodyear: Trump's war on California and the climate.
The controversy surrounding the Times's handling of the latest Kavanaugh allegation, explained.
Stephanie Savell: The imperial debris of war: "Why ending the Afghan War won't end the killing." Literally, as untold tons of unexploded munitions still wait their destiny. Other TomDispatch links:
William Astore: A wasteful weapon for America's forever wars: The F-35 program, as long-lived and as much a hopeless waste as America's war in Afghanistan.
Tom Engelhardt: Pyromaniacs, Inc.
Michael Klare: A formula for catastrophe in the Arctic: aka, "The Pompeo Doctrine."
Danny Sjursen: Living at war (forever).
Dylan Scott: Bernie Sanders's plan to eliminate medical debt, explained.
Mark Joseph Stern: The right's latest attack on academic freedom might actually work.
Emily Stewart: "Corruption is breaking our democracy": Elizaeth Warren's case for the White House.
Andrew Sullivan: When the ideologues come for the kids: Looks like a rant about "woke" people attempting to imposing their beliefs on impressionable children, I expected this piece to be borderline-awful, and it comes close. Still, reminded me that I've long thought that, while I fully support the rights of adults to adopt any religious beliefs they like, it's long struck me as cruel to impose those beliefs on their children. I don't see a way to prevent that from happening, although recognition that such harm is inevitable might spur us to providing helpful counselors, as well as practicing more tolerance. Still, in my experience, it's rarely the people who respect diversity who are the problem.
Emily Todd VanDerWerff: The West Wing is 20 years old. Too many Democrats still think it's a great model for politics. My wife was a fan, but I never got into it, usually getting irritated and leaving the room after a few minutes. Two things stand out in my memory: how President Bartlett always had an appropriate Bible verse to quote for every occasion, and how often he went to his default distraction strategem (bombing Iraq). I found those trait horrifying, but some Democrats regard them as the magic recipe for political success. West Wing showrunner Aaron Sorkin went on to produce The Newsroom, which we rather quickly gave up on -- unfortunately watching a whole episode on the good cheer and excitement of everyone on hearing the news of Seal Team 6 killing Osama Bin Laden. PS: From Wikipedia on The West Wing:
The show's ratings waned in later years following the departure of series creator Sorkin after the fourth season (Sorkin wrote or co-wrote 85 of the first 88 episodes), yet it remained popular among high-income viewers, a key demographic for the show and its advertisers, with around 16 million viewers.
Alex Ward: The week in US-Saudi Arabia-Iran tensions, explained. More links on this:
Peter Baker/EricSchmitt/Michael Crowley: An abrupt move that stunned aides: Inside Trump's aborted attack on Iran.
Patrick Cockburn: The Saudi Arabia drone attacks have changed global warfare. If the attacks proved anything, it's that Saudi Arabia, despite all its super-expensive American firepower, is remarkably vulnerable to relatively cheap weapons. Cockburn usually writes on the Middle East, but applies some of what he's learned there to his homeland here: Boris Johnson's coup is eerily reminiscent of Erdogan's rise to power.
Karen DeYoung/Missy Ryan/Paul Sonne: US to send additional troops to Saudi Arabia after attacks on oil facilities.
Robert Mackey: Threatening new war for oil, Donald Trump calls his own offer of Iran talks "fake news".
Matt Taibbi: On Iran, Trump is all talk, and thank God: "For whatever reason, Donald Trump seems reluctant to go to war -- and in moments like the Iran crisis, we should be glad."
Mahal Toosi: Trump's deference to Saudi Arabia infuriates much of DC. Probably because much of DC is insufferably arrogant and conceited, a combo trait known as hubris. Still, Trump couldn't very well retaliate for Saudi Arabia without Saudi Arabia's approval, could he? And as much as you might want to slam Trump for showing weakness by backing off from his initial deranged lunatic posture, it's just possible that Saudi Arabia is the one getting cold feet, as they have the most to lose if larger-scale war breaks out.
Anya van Wagtendonk: US officials say their pressure on Iran is working -- and that's why tensions are getting worse: Pompeo and Mnuchin try to claim that the poisoned chalice is half full.
Robert F Worth: The end of Saudi Arabia's illusion: "Time to face reality: The United States doesn't want to go to war with Iran to protect its Arab allies."
Robin Wright: In Saudi Arabia, world oil supplies are in flames; also: Iran entrenches its "axis of resistance" across the Middle East. Wright gets most of her info here from Israel, a source with its own reasons for projecting Iran as a long-term "strategic" foe. Still, even this view suggests that would be to try to normalize relations with Iran, reducing Iran's supposed need for proxy conflicts, while giving Iran a positive stake in the world economy.
Matthew Yglesias:
Bernie Sanders's housing-for-all plan, explained. The thing I'm most struck by here is the extent to which Sanders wants to federalize housing (most specifically renting) policy, so the same policies apply everywhere. This runs counter to decades of pro-market doctrine, and also to the custom of local control over housing (especially through zoning) that has long been the bread-and-butter of local politics.
Trump's weird ideas on the US-Saudi relationship, sort of explained: "Saudi Arabia pays cash."
This drawing explains a surprising amount about your political views.