Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
By Jordain Carney @ TheHill.com, Aug. 10
The Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Friday that it will hold its confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh early next month. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee's chairman, announced the hearing for President Trump’s nominee to replace former Justice Anthony Kennedy will start on Sept. 4 and last three to four days [....]
The timeline means that the lawmakers will hold a hearing — and potentially full Senate vote — before the National Archives is able to fulfill Grassley’s request for documents from Kavanaugh’s time as a White House lawyer. The agency wrote to Grassley that it wouldn’t be able to complete the request, which it expects will total more than 900,000 pages, until late October. The documents would still need to go through a final review before being turned over to the committee.
But Republicans have brushed off the setback, arguing that a legal team for President George W. Bush is reviewing the same documents and will be able to hand over the documents at a faster pace. Democrats counter that the Bush legal team is cherrypicking which documents will be publicly released based on what is political advantageous [....]
Op-ed by David Ignatius @ WashingtonPost.com, Aug. 7
ASPEN, Colo. Will the Pentagon, with its 30-year planning cycle for building ships, still be launching aircraft carriers in 2048 — even though they’re highly vulnerable to attack today?
That’s an example of the military-modernization questions that kept nagging participants at last weekend’s gathering of the Aspen Strategy Group, which annually brings together top-level current and former national security officials, along with a few journalists, to discuss defense and foreign policy. This year’s focus was on “Maintaining America’s Edge” in the dawning era of high-tech combat, and the big takeaway was this: The future of warfare is now, and China is poised to dominate it [....]
“We have a small number of exquisite, expensive, manned, hard-to-replace systems that would have been familiar to Dwight D. Eisenhower. They are being overtaken by advanced technology,” argued Christian Brose, staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Instead, he said, the Pentagon needs a large number of inexpensive, unmanned, expendable, autonomous systems that can survive in the new electronic battlespace and overwhelm any potential adversary.
“It is not that we lack money. It is that we are playing a losing game,” Brose contended in a paper presented to the group. “Our competitors are now using advanced technologies to erode our military edge. This situation is becoming increasingly dire.”
Future needs are being drowned out by past practices, because of what Brose’s boss, Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), has called the “military-industrial-congressional complex.” Brose calculates that in the Pentagon’s initial request for $74 billion in new defense spending in fiscal 2019, only 0.006 percent was targeted for science and technology. The National Science Foundation estimates that in fiscal 2015, only 18 percent of the Pentagon’s research and development budget went to basic, applied and advanced research. Major systems claimed 81 percent [....]
"Democrats Should Get Real With White Working-Class Voters" by Ed Kilgore @ NYMag.com, Aug. 11
[....] At the Washington Monthly, an acknowledged expert on the white working class, Andrew Levison (he is also a longtime colleague of mine at the Democratic Strategist website), tackles the subject head-on, and argues that neither “progressive” or “centrist” viewpoint is dealing with the essential question:
[T]here is a compelling argument that both the progressive and moderate-centrist views are based on an inadequate conception of how voters in many districts across the country are actually making their political choices today. In many white working-class and red-state districts, Democratic policies and proposals, regardless of whether they are “progressive” or “moderate,” never get seriously debated or even considered. In these districts, neither strategy can be relied on to elect Democrats.
That’s because to a large element of this demographic, both the Democratic Party and the federal government lack basic credibility. Regaining a baseline level of trust is essential before that portion of the white working class that is open to Democratic policy arguments will hear them.
Recognizing that there are parts of the Trump-supporting white working class that are and aren’t reachable by Democrats is an important first step, says Levison [....]
By Alan Rappeport @ NYTimes.com/Business, Aug. 10. Filed From Sturgis, S.D.
A move by the company has put one of the country’s most iconic brands in the uncomfortable position of clashing with a president who is popular with most of its customers
Analysis finds prejudice-motivated attacks down in major American cities
By Masood Farivar @ VOANews.com, Aug. 10
WASHINGTON — After four years of sharp increases, hate crimes in most major American cities fell during the first half of 2018, preliminary police data show.
The total number of hate incidents in the country’s six most populous cities declined by nearly 15 percent from January through June, according to police department data collected by Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the California State University at San Bernardino.
Among the six major cities, four — New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Phoenix — posted sharp declines, while Houston and Philadelphia reported higher numbers. Hate crime data collected from eight other large cities showed a similarly mixed picture, with an overall slight downward trend.
The declines are significant if they hold, because they follow four years of increases in hate crimes in the nation's top 10 cities, an uptrend many experts expect to continue amid an increasingly polarized political environment and a rise in white nationalism, among other factors [.....]
By Jamie Dettmar @ VOANews.com, Aug. 7
China appears poised to fill the gap in Iran left by French automakers who closed their Iranian operations before the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Tehran.The Chinese move could open yet another dispute between Washington and Beijing, adding to the acrimony between the two, which are locked in an escalating trade dispute.
European automakers French automaker Renault, which had an eight percent share of the Iranian automotive market, the 12th largest in the World, announced last month that it would join more than 100 international companies that have pulled out of Iran to comply with U.S. sanctions, reimposed beginning Tuesday, despite the fact Renault has no operations in the United States.
Peugeot announced its departure in June, it had a 34 percent market share in Iran, selling about 500,000 cars a year [.....]
A U.S. federal grand jury has indicted a U.S. citizen for attempting to join the Islamic State group.
The grand jury in Chicago charged Faress Shraiteh with conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State and other crimes. Shraiteh is a U.S. citizen who used to live in Chicago and now lives in Israel.
According to the indictment [....]
By Sabrina Saddiqi @ The Guardian.com, Aug. 10
Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran who made history in 2012 as the first Hindu elected to the US Congress, has cemented herself as a rising star within the Democratic party.
She has the support of Bernie Sanders [....] and boasts of endorsements from a string of liberal-friendly groups. The environment-focused Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters, labor unions such as the AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood and National Nurses United have all given Gabbard, a three-term congresswoman, their blessing as she seeks re-election in the November midterm elections.
But Gabbard’s stated progressive bona fides have been called into question by her opponents, who are waging an ambitious challenge from the left in the hopes of pulling off an upset in Saturday’s Hawaii congressional primary. Although their prospects are grim, Gabbard’s critics say her views on foreign policy and tolerance for dictators such as Bashar al-Assad deserve another look.
As one of the few Democrats to meet with Donald Trump following his election, Gabbard’s unorthodox positioning has drawn scrutiny at a time when progressives have rallied their midterm messaging around opposition to the president. Her highly controversial visit last year to Syria, where she met with Assad, also raised eyebrows both nationally and at home [....]
By Annie Correal & Emily Cochrane @ NYTimes.com, Aug. 10
President Trump has repeatedly and vehemently denounced what he calls “chain migration,” in which adult American citizens can obtain residency for their relatives.
On Thursday, his Slovenian in-laws, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became United States citizens in a private ceremony in Manhattan by taking advantage of that same family-based immigration program.
Asked if the Knavses had obtained citizenship through “chain migration,” their lawyer, Michael Wildes, said, “I suppose.” He said chain migration is a “dirtier” way of characterizing what he called “a bedrock of our immigration process when it comes to family reunification.” [.....]
As told by an anonymous woman diagnosed with psychopathy
By Katie Heaney for "The Science of Us" column @ TheCut.com, Aug. 10
An interview preceded by a roundup of the current science. Found it especially fascinating on things like emotions: empathy, fear, romantic love, etc.
By Noah Culwin @ NYMag.com, Aug. 10
A decade now after the 2008 financial crisis, the cultural and psychological imprint that it left looks almost as deep as the one that followed the Great Depression. Its legacy includes a new radical politics on both the left and the right; epidemics of opioid abuse, suicides, and low birthrates; and widespread resentment, racial and gendered and otherwise, by those who felt especially left behind. This week, New York continues our retrospective on the crash and its aftermath by publishing interviews with some of those who were closest to the events. Here, Steve Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker turned face of Trump-era populism, on how the bailouts led directly to the 2016 election, why we need to break up the banks, and his goal to turn the GOP into a worker-based party.
I was hoping we could talk about the legacy of the financial crisis. How would you characterize it?
The legacy of the financial crisis: Donald Trump. The legacy of the financial crisis is Donald J. Trump. And I can give you the specific moment: When they put Lehman in bankruptcy, and the geniuses didn’t understand that it was inextricably linked to the commercial paper market. Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, and Ben Bernanke, the head of the Federal Reserve, they went to see Bush three days later. They told him, ‘We need a trillion dollars in cash, and we need it by five o’clock.’”And in a profile of courage, President Bush says, “Not my problem. You gotta go to Capitol Hill.” They go up to Capitol Hill, they put everybody in a room. They make them all put their BlackBerrys outside, and they walk in, and Bernanke, who’s not an alarmist, says, “If we don’t have a trillion dollars by today, the American financial system will melt down in 72 hours. The world financial system will melt down in two weeks, and there will be global anarchy.”
And by the way, this was completely brought on by the elites of the country and Wall Street. When I got to Harvard Business School in 1983, a bunch of professors were coming up with a radical idea that’s had a horrible negative consequence on this country and to the fabric of our society: the maximization of shareholder value; this was preached as High Church theology [....]
With patented angst, Noam Chomsky opined on President Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua to an agreeing Amy Goodman: “But there’s been a lot of corruption, a lot of repression. It’s autocratic, undoubtedly.”
By Helene Cooper & Julian E. Barnes @ NYTimes.com, Aug. 9
[....] The rushed machinations to get the policy done, as demanded by John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, have not been previously reported. Described by European diplomats and American officials, the efforts are a sign of the lengths to which the president’s top advisers will go to protect a key and longstanding international alliance from Mr. Trump’s unpredictable antipathy.
Allied ambassadors said the American officials’ plan worked — to a degree. Mr. Trump did almost blow up the two-day meeting in Brussels that began on July 11. He issued a vague threat that the United States could go its own way if allies resisted his demands for additional military spending. After the gathering, he also questioned a pillar of the alliance: that an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all.
But the approval of the communiqué — renamed for the meeting as a declaration — was critical for the alliance. It ensured that, despite Mr. Trump’s rhetorical fireworks, NATO diplomats could push through initiatives, including critical Pentagon priorities to improve allied defenses against Russia.
“The president’s national security team did a good job of salvaging a minimally successful outcome to the NATO summit,” said James G. Stavridis, a retired four-star admiral who also once served as the supreme allied commander for Europe [....]
By Reid Wilson @ TheHill.com, Aug. 9
[....] The ballot measure is at the heart of an expensive fight over the future of Nevada’s energy market, a contest between two of America’s wealthiest men — Sheldon Adelson and Warren Buffett — who want more control over the power source that fuels the billions of lights and hundreds of neon screens that dominate the mega-casinos just a mile from the mall.
Nevada law gives utility companies the right to establish and control monopolies in the state, regulated by the Nevada Public Utilities Commission. Under the current system, NV Energy controls about 90 percent of the energy market.Now, a group led by casino owners and data centers, which use tremendous amounts of energy, wants to prohibit energy monopolies. Their efforts have led to a measure, known as Question 3, for the November ballot that would overhaul the state’s energy market.
If voters approve the measure on Election Day, the state legislature would be required to write new regulations to establish open and competitive electricity markets by 2023. Changes to the state constitution require voters to approve the same ballot question in two successive elections. Residents backed the change the first time it was on the ballot, in 2016, by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, a contest in which NV Energy hardly engaged.
But now, with its monopoly under siege, the fight is on — to the tune of more than $30 million so far [....]
Orders plane back! And suggests Sessions could be held in contempt?!
By Ted Hessen @ Politico.com, Aug. 9
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the deportation of eight asylum seekers who claimed to have experienced domestic violence or gang threats in their home countries. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said in court Thursday that it was unacceptable that the Trump administration had placed plaintiffs in the case — a mother and daughter — on a flight to Central America, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the asylum seekers.
Sullivan, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the plane apparently carrying the family to be rerouted back to the United States, the ACLU said in a related statement.
The Washington, D.C.-based judge also suggested that Attorney General Jeff Sessions could be held in contempt over the deportation, according to the ACLU.
The case centers on a June decision by Sessions to deny asylum claims from alleged victims of domestic violence and gangs [....]
The evidence reminds us that the attempt to attach a motive to mass killing—as with many individual murders—is, as often as not, a mistake.
By Adam Gopnik @ Daily Comment @ NewYorker.com, Aug. 9
A document, recently released—“LVMPD Criminal Investigative Report of the 1 October Mass Casualty Shooting,” to give it its official name—offering the local-police-department summary of the Las Vegas gun massacre of last year, makes for reading that is both hallucinatory and tragic, and in another way absurd [....]
The report takes on the supposedly baffling question of Paddock’s motive, and what comes through is that—unless some astonishing new connection or fact appears in the future—his intention appears to have been purely nihilistic. Paddock wanted to kill a lot of people because he wanted to kill a lot of people. Feelings of frustration and insufficient power, the frequent ignition of such killings, may have moved him, too, and yet they seem to have been more unrooted than such feelings usually are among mass killers [....]
t’s hard for us to accept that it was as inconsequential as this, but all the evidence suggests that it was. And it reminds us that the attempt to attach a motive to mass killing—as with many individual murders—is, as often as not, a mistake. Killings, whether their perpetrators are fairly called “mentally ill,” can be motiveless in significant ways. Many of the most famous assassinations in our history were so strangely under-motivated that there’s still an odd imbalance between the reason and the act, including Lee Harvey Oswald’s killing of John F. Kennedy. Pure opportunism seems to count for a lot for a man with a weapon [....]
By Robin Wright @ News Desk @ NewYorker.com, Aug. 8
By social-media standards these days, a tweet sent last Thursday by Canada’s Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, was hardly surprising—or a deviation from what other Western governments have said for years about Saudi Arabia’s egregious human-rights record. Her tweet addressed the case of siblings—Samar Badawi, a women’s-rights activist honored by the Obama Administration as a “woman of courage,” and her brother, Raif, a blogger who has been imprisoned since 2012, after chastising the Saudi monarchy for things like banning Valentine’s Day. Freeland tweeted, “Very alarmed to learn that Samar Badawi, Raif Badawi’s sister, has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. Canada stands together with the Badawi family in this difficult time, and we continue to strongly call for the release of both Raif and Samar Badawi.” The Canadian Foreign Ministry followed up with a tweet that called for the release of “all peaceful #humanrights activists” held by the Gulf monarchy. The Canadian Embassy in Riyadh then tweeted the message in Arabic.
The desert kingdom erupted in fury. Over the weekend, it expelled the Canadian Ambassador, recalled its own envoy, froze all new trade and investment, suspended flights by the state airline to Toronto, and ordered thousands of Saudi students to leave Canada and get their education in other countries. Its Foreign Ministry counter-tweeted [....] Further, it issued a warning: “Any further step from the Canadian side in that direction will be considered as acknowledgment of our right to interfere in the Canadian domestic affairs.” [....]
The flap underscores the volatility—and potentially even the fragility—of the Saudi government under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the youthful and increasingly autocratic leader [....]
Sonneborn leaned back into a cozy beige sectional and began to dictate while Burgess took notes on a yellow legal pad.
It was a perfectly normal campaign meeting except in one important way: Sonneborn is 14 years old. And so is his senior staff (although, to be fair, Yaggy will turn 15 on primary day.)