One of the big stories this week was the saga of a Chinese weather balloon that at 60,000 feet got caught up in the jet stream and drifted across Alaska and western Canada, dipping into Montana and cutting a path through North Carolina and into the Atlantic. There, having completed its spy mission (if that's what it was), Biden ordered it blown up -- an act of pure spite and bloody-mindedness. Reports say he didn't act earlier because he was worried about debris landing on Americans, but odds of that happening in eastern Montana were pretty slim. Rather, he gave Republicans and the press three days to play up their China loathing -- fueled in part by Blinken canceling a visit to Peking in protest -- then jumped to the head of the line.
As you may recall, this incident comes about a week after Air Force General Mike Minihan predicted war with China in 2025, a prospect he (and therefore the United States) is currently planning for -- a plan that House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul heartily endorses. With so much sabre-rattling in the background, you'd think that Biden would work harder at smoothing over the tensions, but having been taunted into action, he scarcely had the resolve to resist.
Some further reading:
Lolita C Baldor/Tara Copp: [02-05] China balloon: Many questions about suspected spy in the sky.
Chas Danner: [02-05] Did China's Alleged Spy Balloon Mission Backfire?: Not the original title: as a "live updates" piece, this changes as it adjusts to the media spin, with a David Ignatius op-ed that I read and decided not to bother with offering this particular title take, and a Noah Smith piece claiming the incident as "the death knell of any potential U.S. reengagement with China." But earlier entries offer a chronicle of the nonsense others spouted as it all unfolded.
David Edwards: [02-05] ABC host pops Marco Rubio's balloon rant: It 'happened three times' under Trump.
Charles P Pierce: [02-03] No, We Would *Not* Like You to Spy in Your Beautiful Balloon: "Everybody shouting 'Chinese spy balloon!' while ignoring years of spy satellites -- it says a lot." Later on: "Ah, cooler heads, which are often said to prevail. However, cooler heads are on a terrible losing streak right now."
Jake Werner: [02-03] Washington inflates the China balloon threat.
Edward Wong/Helene Cooper/Chris Buckley: [02-04] Furor Over Chinese Spy Balloon Leads to a Diplomatic Crisis.
Sometimes it's hard to find the right lead-in piece for what you know will be a cluster of links.
Debt Limit: Stealing a page from 2011, Kevin McCarthy (or whoever's pulling his strings) is willing to crash and burn the economy just to watch Biden squirm. So far, Biden's not falling for it:
Li Zhou: [02-01] The lessons of the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, explained by the negotiators who were there: "Democrats and Republicans took different, sometimes contradictory, lessons from the last standoff." Democrats realized that Republicans couldn't be trusted, and didn't care how much damage they'd do, confident that the media would blame Obama. Republicans thought they had won a victory, not so much in imposing their will as in turning the discussion in their favor, by making debt and spending seem like bigger problems than the sluggish economy they were helping to stall. Pretty much the same calculation this time, except that in the meantime Trump's tax cuts blew a hole in the budget, and Biden is less inclined to give debt reduction the oxygen it needs to derail every other issue he has campaigned for.
As it happens, right after linking to this piece, I read this from Ryan Cooper's How Are You Going to Pay for That?, where he minces fewer words on the 2011 doomsday negotiations:
All told, this gruesome incident was a world-historical episode of moronic policy incompetence. It's as if your house were on fire, and the mayor and the fire department were arguing furiously about which grade of gasoline should be sprayed on the blaze.
Cooper's book is very good, but I don't care for his coinage of the term "propertarianism" as a substitute for terms commonly used on the new left ("neoliberalism") and old left ("capitalism"). All of these terms refer to the notion of putting property rights ahead of human needs, but the problem is not so much property itself as a particular form of property: capital (as opposed to personal property, which means something you have exclusive use of, but not necessarily that produces income or rent). Neoliberalism is slightly different: an ideology aligned with capital, but couched in the idea of individual freedom, with contempt for notions of labor and society. Also note that neoliberalism was another neologism, designed at cross purposes: its advocates wanted to lay claim to tenets of classical liberalism, yet dispose of elements like New Deal support for unions (same tactic used by New Democrats and New Labour).
Trump: I'm sorry to inform you that as the only declared candidate so far for president in 2024, he's back in the news, and already stimulating horserace coverage for primaries that supposedly face him off with this year's favorite media goon, Ron DeSantis.
Maggie Haberman: [02-03] 2016 Trump Campaign to Pay $450,000 to Settle Nondisclosure Agreements Suit.
Margaret Hartmann: [02-03] Trump Could End the Ukraine War 'Immediately,' But It's a Secret: Note that I'm filing this under Trump, not Ukraine, because it's his fantasy boast, not something revealing about the war. This is also where he talks about how "Joe Biden has brought us to the brink of World War III." Once again, only Trump knows how to save the day.
Charles P Pierce: [01-27] Trump's Brings Back 1950s Paranoia with Modern Twist: No "Pink-Haired Communists" in Schools!: "The general Republican assault on public education isn't slowing down."
Andrew Prokop: [01-31] Remember the Stormy Daniels "hush money" case against Trump? It's back. "New York prosecutors are pursuing charges."
Isaac Arnsdorf: [02-05] Koch network to back alternative to Trump after sitting out recent primaries. This sounds bad for Trump, but AFP's strong suit is getting out the vote against Democrats, and that message gets muddled in a Republican primary, especially against Trump. Still, they could buy a lot of advertising to harp on the theme that Trump's a loser, and as such a stalking horse for the evil socialist front party.
Other Toxic Republicans:
Ed Kilgore: [01-31] RNC Tells Republican Politicians to Stay Extreme on Abortion.
Charles P Pierce: [02-04] House Republicans Still Want Us Jumping at 100-Year-Old Skeletons and Bogeyman: So they passed a "Resolution to Denounce Socialism," but also one to put Democrats on the spot, forcing most of them to sign on to prove that they are not socialists. The wording reads: "That Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America." This follows a long list of whereases that struggle to link Venezuela and Nicaragua to the legacies of Stalin and Mao, then contrast that with a couple of slaveholders (Jefferson and Madison) expounding on the sanctity of property. No specific linkage is made to social democratic policies common in Europe and New Deal America that Republicans as far back as Benjamin Harrison have been condemning as communist or socialist. The key logic in all this is the first whereas, asserting that "socialist ideology . . . has time and again collapsed into . . . totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships." No wonder that most Democrats didn't recognize themselves as the target of this denunciation, but few Republicans could have missed the point -- not did the 86 Democrats who voted against the resolution. Leftists like Liza Featherstone -- [02-04] Democratic Leaders Join House Republican Attack on "Socialism" -- and Brett Wilkins: -- [02-03] "They're going to call you socialists anyways": Progressives slam 109 Dems for backing GOP stunt -- were quick to fault the Democrats who voted for the resolution. But I don't see much value in faulting given that the resolution was designed to humiliate Democrats regardless of how they voted.
Li Zhou: [02-02] Republicans kicked Ilhan Omar off the Foreign Affairs Committee to get revenge on Democrats. For more on this, see Richard Silverstein: [02-03] Republicans Expel Ilhan Omar With False Anti-Semitism Charges.
Ukraine War (Continued):
Blaise Malley: [02-03] Diplomacy Watch: Second thoughts on Ukraine retaking Crimea? Very little to report here. Elsewhere, there is a story that Biden Offered Putin 20% of Ukraine to End War, but all sides deny that (no one wants to look reasonable).
Helene Cooper/Eric Schmitt/Thomas Gibbons-Neff: [02-02] Soaring Death Toll Gives Grim Insight Into Russian Tactics. "The number of Russian troops killed and wounded in Ukraine is approaching 200,000, a stark symbol of just how badly President Vladimir V. Putin's invasion has gone, according to American and other Western officials." These figures are clearly wild guesses, exaggerated for propaganda purposes. I referred back to these number after reading much smaller figures cited by Jeffrey St Clair below. The difference is that to St Clair, the numbers (which focused more on civilians) demanded a ceasefire and negotiated settlement; here they're just another excuse for further punishing Russia, even when suggesting that Ukrainian losses are comparable.
Bruno Marcetic: [02-03] Diplomatic Cables Prove Top US Officials Knew They Were Crossing Russia's Red Lines on NATO Expansion. Of course, one could argue that the "red lines" were stupid. One could also argue that the US was daring Russia to do something stupid. The one thing that's inarguable is what Putin finally did was profoundly stupid.
Israel: As the Palestinian Authority, despite its legendary corruption, has found it impossible to do business with the new fascist government, Biden sent Secretary of State Blinken to kiss the ring, to reassure Netanyahu that nothing he can do will shake American fealty to the Zionist regime. Meanwhile, efforts in the US and UK are heating up to police any discussion of Israel's crimes. One of the few sources still reporting on Israel is Mondoweiss.
Paul R Pillar: [02-02] Israel's free pass to more violence: "Washington's reluctance to criticize Tel Aviv enables regional aggression, which in turn harms US interests." Depends on what you mean by "US interests": about the only one that seems to matter in Washington is selling arms, and cranking up conflicts is good business there.
Mitchell Plitnick: [02-03] In latest visit Blinken offers nothing to Palestinians.
Richard Silverstein: [02-01] Israeli News Anchor and Netanyahu Pitbull Insults Blinken: As Shai Golden put it: "Keep you nose out of our business." He needn't have bothered.
David Ignatius: [01-26] The US-Israel military simulation is a show of force to Iran. It's also a demonstration of Nixon's "madman" principle: it is meant to suggest that the US may be crazy enough to attack Iran, and may indeed prefer that course to negotiation and coexistence.
Naim Mousa: [02-05] The rise of Israel's far right is good for Palestinians: Mousa is a Palestinian living in New York, so maybe his perspective is a bit warped. The far right will definitely help his organizing, but the costs on the ground in Israel/Palestine are only mounting up. Another attempt to find hope among the ashes is Jamal Juma: [02-01] The Palestinian struggle at the crossroads between barbarism and hope.
DAWN: [01-31] US: Destruction of Khan al-Ahmar Should be Tipping Point for 'Special Relationship' with Israel: Should, but won't, because the American political establishment in both parties have surrendered any pretense to independent judgment.
Alice Speri: [02-02] Memphis Police Chief Trained With Israeli Security Forces.
Kate Aronoff: [02-03] The Biden Administration Has Been Very Good for Big Oil: "Despite climate legislation passed by Democrats last year, oil companies are securing loads of drilling deals and posting huge profits."
Rachel DuBose: [01-31] What can the world learn from China's "zero-Covid" lockdown?
Constance Grady: [02-03] The mounting, undeniable Me Too backlash: This has less to do with the ebbing of the "Me Too" moment a few years back than with the long reaction against the women's liberation movement in the 1970s, which has scored some recent purely political wins recently, like overturning Roe v. Wade. Hence, re-reading Susan Faludi's 1991 book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. I will note that while this reaction is inflicting real damage, it is not especially popular. So perhaps instead of relitigating points that have sense become common sense and embedded in popular culture, we should look at the political anomaly that has given such power to, well, Republicans -- one can add adjectives to reinforce one's sense of disgust, but doing so suggests that there are other, more decent Republicans, and there's little to no practical evidence of that.
Ezra Klein: [02-05] The Story Construction Tells About America's Economy Is Disturbing: Declining productivity, ever since the 1970s.
Paul Krugman: [01-30] Will Americans Even Notice an Improving Economy? That's a good question. Part of the problem is statistics: few people are aware of them, and fewer still have any idea how they relate to their own lives. (Statistics are the only way to make sense of massive amounts of data, but we'd prefer anecdotes we can relate to. But also there is the problem of gauging the significance of variations that are smaller than we normally perceive. This is a big problem with climate change: each degree warmer is a really big deal, but every day we experience temperature swings 10-20 times as great.) Part of the problem is the political bubbles we all live in: as far as I'm concerned, the Bush and Trump economies were disasters, even if the nature varied from time to time; Republicans, with far greater experience at denying reality, thought those times were peachy keen, only to be devastated by Obama and Biden (despite much higher top line statistics). But one other source of confusion is that under both parties, fortune favors the already rich. This is especially true with the Fed, which supposedly tries to manage employment and inflation, but actually implements its policy decisions to giving rich people (via bankers) more or less money at any given point. So it's quite possible that the economy is going gangbusters, but none of it is trickling down to you. Conversely, the vacuuming up, whether through inflation or taxes, is something everyone feels personally, which makes it relatively easy to exploit politically.
Eric Levitz: [02-03] The Fed Can Stop Choking the Economy Now: But they keep missing Powell's target figures for unemployment (er, reducing inflation).
Megan McArdle: [01-29] The $400K conundrum: Why America's urban rich don't feel that way: Refers back to the Todd Henderson case, the guy who in 2010 claimed that it's hard to get by on a meager $450,000 per year. I wrote a bit about this back then. The thing that struck me about Henderson's budget was that most of the money went for things that a decent modern social democracy would provide for most people: health insurance, schooling, retirement. Of course, for his extra money, he's also getting exclusivity: private instead of public schools. And maybe his children need the extra leg up his high income provides. McArdle refers to such people as "broke 2-percenter" -- so close to the 1-percent, yet they keep coming up just short.
Louis Menand: [01-30] When Americans Lost Faith in the News. "The press wasn't silenced in the Trump years. The press was discredited, at least among Trump supporters, and that worked just as well. It was censorship by other means." Menand tries to sketch out the origins of public distrust in the press. Those origins weren't in the 1950s, when journalists were all too happy to shill for the CIA, but the more "bad news" -- riots and anti-war protests -- they reported, the more suspect they became. Nixon may not have coined the phrase "fake news," but as so often in arts Trump perfected, Nixon was the originator, his practice of shooting the messenger only ending when the messengers shot back. Menand wades through various books, finally Margaret Sullivan's "memoir slash manifesto" Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) From an Ink-Stained Life.
Ian Millhiser:
[01-30] Ron DeSantis wants to make it much easier for the government to kill people.
[02-02] It's now legal for domestic abusers to own a gun in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
Eve Ottenberg: [02-03] Egalitarian Paradise Lost: David Graeber and the Pirates of Madagascar. Review of the late anarchist anthropologist's second posthumous book, Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia.
Eric Reinhart: [02-05] Doctors Aren't Burned Out From Overwork. We're Demoralized by Our Health System. It's a big slide from the heyday of the AMA, when doctors organized as a business racket, to today, when doctors are talking about the need for unions.
Dylan Scott:
[02-01] Biden is ending the Covid public health emergency. Here's what that means for you. "A hidden experiment in universal health care is about to end." The problem is not just that a lot of people are still getting severely sick (hospitalized daily average on Feb. 2: 31,394) and dying (462, which is over 168,000 per year). It's also that a number of worthwhile public health policies were temporarily tied to the emergency declaration, and as such are likely to end soon (or as Republicans insist, the sooner the better).
[02-01] Insulin in way too expensive. California has a solution: Make its own.
Jeffrey St Clair: [02-03] Roaming Charges: See No Evil: "There have been at least 52 people killed by police in the US since the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols on January 7th. In 2021, there were 1055 people killed by police in the US. In the same year, 31 people were killed by police in all of Europe. . . . Most of the people killed by police in 2022 were killed by officers responding to mental health calls, traffic violations, disturbances, other *non-violent* issues and situations where no crime was alleged." Examples follow. Behind a paywall, St Clair also wrote: [01-29] The Murder of Tyre Nichols and the Death of Police Reform.
Zeynep Tufecki: [02-03] An Even Deadlier Pandemic Could Soon Be Here: Actually, H5N1 avian flu is already here. It just hasn't broken out as a pandemic in humans yet. In 2005, Mike Davis took the threat seriously enough to write a book: The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu. We should have learned from our Covid-19 experience how better to face such threats, but a powerful bloc of nihilists (aka Republicans) drew the opposite lessons, and are working hard to make sure public health officials never again have the tools to protect public health. Note that David Quammen, who has followed these threats for decades and recently wrote Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus, wrote a piece about this back on [2022-10-31]: A Dolphin, a Porpoise and Two Men Got Bird Flu. That's a Warning to the Rest of Us.
David Wallace-Wells:
[02-02] Why Are So Many Americans Dying Right Now? Covid, but that only explains about half of "excess deaths" since April 2022. The author, by the way, has written extensively about the pandemic: e.g., [01-04] 9 Pandemic Narratives We're Getting Wrong (although it's not always clear what he's debunking, let alone whether he's right -- my takeaway from the Operation Warp Speed narrative is that the economic incentives that motivated Pfizer and Moderna aren't very trustworthy, and probably aren't the best approach in the long run), and [2022-12-01] China Has an Extraordinary Covid-19 Dilemma (China is often viewed through strange political blinders; I'm not sure this piece is immune, but it's far from the worst).
[01-25] Britain's Cautionary Tale of Self-Destruction: Starts off talking about the death toll from Covid-19, then noting how the entire post-Brexit economy and political system are ailing. For instance, economists were asked whether the slowdown in productivity was unprecedented. They did manage to find a worse case, but that was 250 years ago. Then there's: "Liz Truss failed to survive longer as head of government than the shelf life of a head of lettuce." Part of this problem was touched on by Eshe Nelson [01-09]: Britain's Economic Health Is Withering With Sick Workers on the Sidelines. Also: Ellen Ioanes: [02-04] The labor strikes in Britain are years in the making: "Austerity, Brexit, wage stagnation and a cost of living crisis have pushed British workers to the brink."