#^d 2020-02-23 #^h Weekend Roundup
Mike Bloomberg had his coming out party at the Nevada Democratic debate, and the response was harsh -- e.g. (including a few extra Bloomberg links):
The 7 most dramatic, eye-popping moments from the Democratic debate in Las Vegas.
'A bland, clueless billionaire with feet of clay': Comments on the debate from 14 observers, including: "Bloomberg was totally unready"; "Bloomberg failed miserably"; a reference to "the emperor has no clothes"; but some of these pundits were also pretty clueless (e.g., "the winer may have been Tom Steyer, for missing a particularly hostile debate marked by personal attacks").
Gabriel Benedetti: How beating up Bloomberg has reinvigorated the Democratic field.
Benjamin Dixon: Michael Bloomberg's campaign is an insult to democracy.
Matt Flegenheimer/Alexander Burns/Jeremy W Peters: How Bloomberg bungled a debate that he had been prepared for.
Joshua Frank: Bloomberg is a climate change con man.
Sheera Frenkel/Davey Alba: Digital edits, a paid army, Bloomberg is 'destroying norms' on social media. Social media has norms?
Ed Kilgore: Bloomberg walks onto the stage and into a buzzsaw.
Eric Levitz: Love wanting to die? Then check out Bloomberg's anti-Trump billboards. At first I suspected a spoof; I mean, is this really the work of a human brain? One billboard message: "DONALD TRUMP EATS BURNT STEAK." Smaller print: "Mike Bloomberg likes his medium rare." I'm partial to medium rare myself, but I can't imagine that working as a litmus test -- not least because I come from a family (of farmers) where no one wants to see red oozing out of their meat. Nor does this one do anything for me: "DONALD TRUMP CHEATS AT GOLF. Mike Bloomberg doesn't." I don't have enough experience with golf to even have an opinion on that, but I don't think Bloomberg wouldn't cheat if all it took was money.
German Lopez: Mike Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk problem, explained.
Harold Meyerson: Why Bloomberg can't beat Trump: "It's hard to imagine a Democrat less able to win working-class votes."
Anna North: "I'd like to do that piece of meat": The sexism allegations against Bloomberg, explained.
Alex Pareene: Michael Bloomberg's polite authoritarianism.
Monica Potts: Bloomberg: The 'Democrat' who treated minorities as inherently criminal.
Rebecca R Ruiz: The Bloomberg campaign is a waterfall of cash.
Michael Sainato: Michael Bloomberg's troubling record on unions and workers.
Nate Silver: The debate exposed Bloomberg's downside -- but it was there all along, and visible to anyone who cared to look, not that anyone close to Bloomberg might dare point that out.
Emily Stewart: Elizabeth Warren's evisceration of Mike Bloomberg should make Donald Trump nervous.
Matt Taibbi: The Bloomberg myth exploded on live TV.
Bloomberg stood in mute fury as his $400 million campaign investment went up in smoke. His contempt for democracy and sense of entitlement surpass even Donald Trump, who at least likes crowds -- Bloomberg's joyless imperiousness makes Trump seem like Robin Williams.
That Bloomberg has been touted as a potential Democratic Party savior across the top ranks of politics and media is an extraordinary indictment of that group of people.
Some endorsements were straight cash transactions, in which politicians who owe their careers to Bloomberg's largess repaid him with whatever compliments they could muster. How much does a man who radiates impatience with the idea of having to pretend to equal status with anyone have to spend to get someone to say something nice?
California Congressman Harley Rouda called him a "legendary businessman": Bloomie gave her more than $4 million. New Jersey's Mikie Sherrill got more than $2 million from Bloomberg's Independence USA Super PAC, and in return the Navy vet said Bloomberg embodies "the integrity we need."
Georgia's Lucy McBath, a member of the congressional black caucus, got $4 million from Bloomberg PACs, and she endorsed him just as an audio clip was coming out of the ex-mayor talking about putting black men up "against the wall" in stop-and-frisk. News accounts of the endorsement frequently left out the financial ties.
That's fine. If you give a politician $2 million or $4 million, it must be expected that he or she will say you approximate a human being.
But how does New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman excuse writing "Paging Michael Bloomberg"? (Well, Bloomberg philanthropies donated to Planet Word, "the museum my wife is building," says Friedman, so there's that.) How about Jonathan Chait at New York, who wrote, "Winning the election is starting to look hard. How about buying it instead?" Or John Ellis in The Washington Post, who declared Bloomberg the "dream candidate"?
These pundits clung to a triumvirate of delusions: Bloomberg "gets things done," he's more electable than a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren because he can spend unlimited amounts, and he has the "toughness" to take on Trump.
Far from showing "toughness," Bloomberg on Wednesday wilted under attacks from his five Democratic opponents.
Alex Ward: Mike Bloomberg tweeted a doctored debate video. Is it political spin or disinformation?
Matthew Yglesias: Mike Bloomberg is a disaster: "He's bad at politic and running scared from his own record."
The Nevada caucuses were held on Saturday. Results came in much faster than in Iowa, but 24 hours later we still only have 87.47% reporting (see Nevada Democratic caucuses: Live results. As with Iowa, there are three sets of results. The first-round votes are: Sanders 34.27%, Biden 17.86%, Buttigieg 15.18%, Warren 12.76%, Klobuchar 9.25%, Steyer 9.12%. Bloomberg wasn't on the ballot, and no write-in votes have been reported, so he's currently 123 votes behind Michael Bennet, and 12 behind John K Delaney. As in Iowa, there's also a "realigned vote", as most "unviable" candidates lose votes to "viable" ones (Bennet drops to 12 votes, but somehow Delaney got a boost to 16): The top six held place, but Sanders gained the most, to 40.73%, vs. Biden 19.69% and Buttigieg 17.14%. But the most commonly reported results were "County Convention Delegates: Sanders 47.08%, Biden 20.94%, Buttigieg 13.63%, Warren 9.71%, Steyer 4.65%, Klobuchar 3.89%. (This week's best humor article: Klobuchar congratulates herself for 'exceeding expectations' as early Nevada results show her in distant 5th.)
Unlike Iowa, it was clear early on who the winner was. Dylan Scott came up with 3 winners and 2 losers from the Nevada caucuses, but the only candidate on the list was Sanders (winner), and two of the other items were clearly Sanders wins (winner: Medicare-for-all; loser: Culinary Union Local 226). Sanders' win was so complete that Vox republished Matthew Yglesias: Mainstream Democrats shouldn't fear Bernie Sanders. Also on Nevada (and Sanders):
Sarah Frostenson: Bernie Sanders is the front-runner
Ryan Lizza: Sanders eviscerates conventional wisdom about why he can't win.
David Roth: Bernie Sanders is no Donald Trump.
Greg Sargent: Don't look now, but Bernie Sanders's coalition is expanding.
Peter Wade: Blowback hits MSNBC after Chris Matthews compares Sanders' win to Nazis conquering France.
The last few days have produced an avalanche of Sanders articles -- hysterical attacks on him, defenses (including some meant to reassure mainstream Democrats, like Yglesias above, and Paul Krugman here -- although not without lamenting that Sanders may have no use for "center-left" wonks like Krugman), promotions, and good old fashioned horse race handicapping, but little I cared to get into.
Some scattered links this week:
Justin Baragona/Asawin Suebsaeng: Trump grants clemency to another round of crooks he saw on Fox News. Rod Blagojevich gets the most press, but Bernard Kerik and Michael Milken are nearly as famous (and, if anything, more extravagant criminals).
Julian E Barnes/Adam Goldman/Nicholas Fandos: Richard Grenell begins overhauling intelligence office, prompting fears of partisanship. Following up:
Isaac Arnsdorf: Trump's new spy chief used to work for a foreign politician the US accused of corruption. Who says Trump doesn't vet his appointees?
Matt Gertz: The Foxification of the intelligence community follows the DOJ script.
Josh Kovensky: Grenell brings in ex-Nunes loyalist and starts digging into raw intel on Russia. Previously wrote: Why Richard Grenell is such a 'dangerous' pick for acting DNI.
Jonathan Blitzer: How Stephen Miller manipulates Donald Trump to further his immigration obsession.
Sarah Chayes: This is how kleptocracies work: "Trump's pardons were shocking to some, but to me they were eerily familiar -- straight out of the kleptocratic playbook I've studied in a dozen other countries."
Igor Derysh: Multiple studies show Medicare for All would be cheaper than public option pushed by moderates.
Marc Edelman: How capitalism underdeveloped rural America.
Tom Engelhardt: The war in questions: "After 18-plus years of our forever wars, where are all the questions?" I'll quote his questions, but they probably need more context (see the article, not that it fully works):
John Ganz: Finding Neverland: "The American right's doomed quest to rid itself of Trumpism."
The fact of the matter, then as now, is that ideas on the right are not so much irreconcilable as they are irrelevant. More than principle, the presence of threat and an enemy is the most important driver of right-wing energy, and since the end of the Cold War, the hunt for enemies has become ever more desperate. That's especially been the case from the moment since the wars on terrorism and Iraq failed to coalesce the movement -- let alone the country -- into any viable political coalition for any sustained interval beyond the moment they launched.
You may recall how often we were lectured in the 1980-90s that all the good new ideas were coming from the right, but at this point Lionel Trilling's admonition has never been more accurate that all that's left of conservative thought are "irritable mental gestures."
Anand Giridharadas: The billionaire election: "Does the world belong to them or to us?" Quote from Alexander Theodoridis, when asked "if any scholarship could shed light on Mr Bloomberg's method of campaigning," answered: "Most of the work on buying votes is about the developing world, which perhaps the US is joining."
Michael Isikoff: Rohrabacher confirms he offered Trump pardon to Assange for proof Russia didn't hack DNC email.
Fred Kaplan:
Ed Kilgore: Yes, Trump's job-approval ratings are finally rising. Well, up to 43.3% according to FiveThirtyEight, from 41.8% on Jan. 10, a low of 39.5% on Jan. 23, 2019, a record low of 36.5% on Dec. 15, 2017 (or 36.6% on Aug. 7, 2017). That's still well below his 52.2% disapproval rate. His approval rate never came close to 50%, and was above the disapproval rate only for about his first week after inauguration (crossover was Feb. 2, 2017, at 44.8% each). Of course, any change in his favor is disturbing, as it makes you doubt the sanity of your fellow citizens.
Michael Klare: A military perspective on climate change could bridge the gap between believers and doubters. I doubt it, but it is true that the Pentagon has been uniquely free to consider the issue, and they're likely to buy into anything that could result in larger budgets, so their interest could disturb the convictions of some doubters. Klare has a new book, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change.
James Russell Kretschmer: I was sexually abused as a Boy Scout. Thousands like me deserve a reckoning. Well, I was just abused (if there was anything sexual to it, I was too naive to recognize it). I can't even imagine what a proper reckoning might entail. But I have for many years referred to "a proto-fascist organization of my youth."
David Kroll: The shadow cabinet: How a group of powerful business leaders drove Trump's agenda.
Paul Krugman:
Warren, Bloomberg and what really matters: "Dems should be talking about fiancializatio and fraud."
Have zombies eaten Bloomberg's and Buttigieg's brains? Krugman has a new book of old essays to flak, called Arguing With Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future. As you may know by now, "zombie ideas" are ideas which have been repeatedly proven to be false and bankrupt, but which keep getting resurrected by people whose interests they seem to support. John Quiggin either invented or popularized the idea with his 2010 book, Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us.
Anita Kumar: Trump seeks deal on foreign workers that could anger base: Looks like "guest workers" are back on the Republican agenda.
Robert Kuttner: Green New Deal: The urgent realism of radical change.
Branko Marcetic: The making of Joe Biden's conservative Democratic politics: An excerpt from the author's "forthcoming" book, Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. Seems likely to me that the publisher missed the window on this one.
Ian Millhiser: Justice Sotomayor warns the Supreme Court is doing special favors for the Trump administration.
Nicole Narea: Trump's expanded travel ban just went into effect for 6 new countries.
Danielle Ofri: Why are nonprofit hospitals so highly profitable?
Cameron Peters: The reports about Russian meddling in the 2020 election, and Trump's response, explained.
Andrew Prokop: Roger Stone was just sentenced to 40 months in prison.
Joe Ragazzo: There's no resurgence in American manufacturing. It's a myth.
Corey Robin: The tyranny of the minority, from the Iowa Caucus to Electoral College.
Aaron Rupar:
Trump is making a mockery of Bill Barr: "Barr asked Trump to stop tweeting about DOJ cases. Trump responded by posting a bunch of tweets about DOJ cases." Not that Barr hasn't been making a mockery of his office, his department, and the law, in acting as "Trump's personal fixer."
Trump's Colorado rally featured an extended meltdown over 30 seconds of critical Fox News coverage: "It was one of his pettiest displays yet."
"Lock her up!" In Phoenix, the signature Trump rally chant was especially ironic. Final section: "The rest of the stuff was normal stuff from a deeply abnormal president."
Trump's latest pardons show how quickly he's normalizing corruption: "They're aimed at the very sorts of obstruction of justice and financial crimes he's been implicated in."
Austin Sarat: Why Trump's post-impeachment actions are about vengeance, not retribution.
Theodore Schleifer: She's Pete Buttigieg's top fundraiser. He's the founder of Nest. And they're Silicon Valley's new power couple. Swati Mylavarapu and Matt Rogers. What kind of person says this? "I would love to see the billionaires of Silicon Valley spend at least as much on giving back as they do on their yachts." Probably the kind that thinks hiring Buttigieg to defend and promote neoliberalism is "giving back."
Avi Shlaim: Palestine and the West: A century of betrayal.
Danny Sjursen: Why no retired generals oppose America's forever wars.
Keith A Spencer: Why does the "BernieBro" myth persist? Because pundits don't understand how the internet works.
Emily Stewart:
Mike Bloomberg and his billions are what Democrats need to beat Trump: Part of Vox's series where their various writers try to make the "best case" for each of the Democratic candidates. The case for Bloomberg is he has a lot of money, and that could be helpful -- although I'm unsure how helpful in an election where a major issue will be the overwhelming corruption of money. Less impressive is "Bloomberg has a strong record from City Hall." An even bigger stretch is "Bloomberg has spent years lifting up the Democratic Party and building an apparatus around him." No mention is made of his numerous contributions to Republicans. (Vox "does not endorse candidates," but note that founders Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein started the series off by claiming Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, leaving Joe Biden to Laura McGann, Pete Buttigieg to Dylan Matthews, and Amy Klobuchar to Kay Steiger.)
America's monopoly problem, explained by your internet bill. "In 2017, the average monthly cost of broadband in America was $66.17; in France, it was $38.10, and in South Korea, $29.90."
Andrew Sullivan: Trump's presidency isn't a dark comedy -- it's an absurd tragedy. Headline reminds me of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi, but even that play is more generous than Trump deserves.
David Wallace-Wells: Jeff Bezos's $10 billion climate pledge is actually tiny: "Judged by the standards of the climate crisis, the sum is, practically speaking, almost nothing." And that's even before you discount the amount of graft it's likely to attract.
Alex Ward: What the mass shooting in Germany tells us about its far-right extremism problem.
Robin Wright: The one war that the human species can't lose: The "battle" to keep Antarctica frozen solid.
Matthew Yglesias:
How the good economy is benefiting workers with disabilities.
It's deficits as far as the eye can see, and it's been paired with a low interest rate policy from the Fed that Trump has very much encouraged that has helped people get jobs without sparking inflation.
This formula of bigger deficits plus a supportive Fed is exactly what progressives spent the years from 2011 to 2016 calling for. Trump delivered a version of it (although a progressive administration would obviously have used the money for different things) and it's basically working. As a result, the long-term unemployed, the disabled, the discouraged, and even some early retirees are hopping back into the labor force with no need to cut anyone off from benefits.
The mutually beneficial war between Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg, explained.
Kenji Yoshino: A Supreme Court for the rich: A review of Adam Cohen's book, Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court's Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America.