Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Daily News writes—It's a wonderful world with Eagles as champs, so why are we building more nukes to blow it up?
Yes, it would be a shame if the nuclear Armageddon took place right as the Eagles are getting ready to parade the Vince Lombardi Trophy up Broad Street. Or before Carson Wentz comes back to lead them to a second consecutive title in the winter of 2019. Or … anytime, really. Indeed, why even talk about such a meshuggeneh idea as nuclear warfare during such a happy week?
Because while you were out there shimmying up a greased lamppost on South Broad, America under President Trump was taking new steps to bring the world closer to a place where nuclear weapons might be used once again, bringing a catastrophic loss of human life. At a time when the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists just advanced its Doomsday Clock of an atomic apocalypse to two minutes until midnight, the closest since the 1950s nadir of the Cold War, two not-good things are happening to inch that second hand a few ticks even closer.
This weekend, the Trump administration was unveiling a new U.S. weapons strategy that, in the words of a chirpy New York Times headline writer, “Signals Nuclear Arms Are Back in a Big Way.” As the accompanying article explains: “The Pentagon envisions a new age in which nuclear weapons are back in a big way — its strategy bristles with plans for new low-yield nuclear weapons that advocates say are needed to match Russian advances and critics warn will be too tempting for a president to use.”
Ruth Marcus at The Washington Post writes—Look at the picture:
Look at the picture. Really. Look at the picture. The woman’s eye socket is the sickly green-yellow of a healing bruise. Around the eyelid, and in a sickening swoosh underneath, there is the deep plum of blood pooling around broken capillaries. [...]
Explain how this man could have been allowed to work at the White House after his ex-wives described this abusive behavior to the FBI.
Explain how White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, who reportedly knew of the FBI reports, could assert, in a statement circulated before and after the abuse photos emerged, “Rob Porter is a man of true integrity and honor and I can’t say enough good things about him. He is a friend, a confidante and a trusted professional.”
Yes, true integrity. Take a look at that photo, Gen. Kelly, and tell me how a man of integrity behaves. Hint: he doesn’t wait until a dozen hours after that photo was released to assert he is “shocked” and that “there is no place for domestic violence in our society.”
Explain, finally, how the White House, with this information public, can allow a man such as this to continue, even for a single additional day, to work there.
Mark Kelly at The New York Times writes—Don’t Give Up on the International Space Station:
Over the past year, the United States abandoned its leadership position on the global stage in many ways. We stopped leading the effort to combat climate change. We stopped leading on trade and commerce, and raised questions about our continued commitment to multilateral organizations and military alliances. We stopped leading on human rights and the rule of law. If we fail to continue funding the International Space Station, America will sacrifice its rank as the global leader in space exploration and commercial space innovation.
It’s not perfect and it’s not designed to last forever, but what the International Space Station offers humans and nations is remarkable: an important opportunity to collaborate on shared scientific goals, mostly free from politics and almost entirely free from the influences of our planet.
Lucian K. Truscott IV at Salon writes—Trump’s big parade turns military tradition and honor on its head:
Growing up as an Army brat, I was given to understand that military parades had two purposes. Most often, they were a form of training and inspection. On weekdays at West Point, we used to form up in the area of barracks and then march out onto the Plain where we would come on-line in front of the reviewing stand. The cadet First Captain would take a report from the Cadet Adjutant that the Corps was all present and accounted for, and then he would receive the order from the commanding general to “pass in review.”
The West Point Band would strike up the march we called “The Thumper,” the Official West Point March written in 1927 by the West Point Bandmaster, First Lieutenant Phillip Enger, and off we would march, one battalion after another “passing in review” before the commanding general, who was there along with other officers of the Tactical Department inspecting our marching prowess to make sure it was up to the high standards of West Point.
On Saturdays, we would go through the whole thing again, but on the weekends the parade would be in honor of a distinguished visitor to West Point — say, the chancellor of the college we were playing in football that weekend, or a foreign head of state, or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff up from the Pentagon on an inspection tour, or maybe a congressman or senator on the armed services committee with jurisdiction over the Military Academy budget. In those cases, the “pass in review” was overseen by the distinguished guest, and the salute we registered as we passed in front of the colors was also to acknowledge his (or far less frequently) her honored presence. We all understood that parades were spectacles intended to kiss important asses. But we knew you didn’t have a parade to kiss your own ass.
Maddie Stone at Earther writes—Trump's Plan to Gut Clean Energy Research Is Misguided and Dangerous:
Foiled in his bid to slash the Department of Energy’s clean energy research programs in 2018, Trump is apparently going to try again: As reported by the Washington Post last week, a draft of the administration’s FY-2019 budget proposes cutting funding for the DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) programs by 72 percent.
Those are the sort of cuts that could have a chilling effect on jobs and the future of clean tech industries, from solar power to refrigerators. [...]
“When you’re trying to cut something 70 percent, you’re not just scaling back,” Robert Cowin, director of government affairs for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Earther. “You’re essentially trying to eviscerate that work.” [...]
“This is the type of research that builds the foundation for the commercializable technologies,” Luke Bassett, associate director of domestic energy and environment policy at the Center for American Progress, told Earther. “It doesn’t necessarily produce the type of investment that you turn a profit on in a year, but the effects are also much broader in terms of societal benefits.”
Sheelah Kolhatkar at The New Yorker writes—The Steady Alarming Destruction of the Consumer Finance Protection Board:
Part of what gave the C.F.P.B. its power was its independence; it had been designed to operate outside the bounds of influence of Congress and the White House, and it was difficult for a President to replace the person running it, which prompted its critics to argue that it had no accountability. Last week, a federal appeals court upheld the agency’s structure as legal and necessary. “Congress’s decision to provide the C.F.P.B. director a degree of insulation reflects its permissible judgment that civil regulation of consumer financial protection should be kept one step removed from political winds and presidential will,” Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote in the ruling. Supporters of the C.F.P.B. greeted the ruling as a major victory.
Still, with Donald Trump as President, the C.F.P.B. continues to be under existential threat. [...] he chose Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, who is on record as saying that he wanted to “get rid of” the C.F.P.B. altogether. Now Mulvaney is doing just that, using the levers he has available to him to essentially starve the C.F.P.B. of resources and let it wither. If there was ever any doubt that the Trump Administration would simply do the financial industry’s bidding, Mulvaney’s recent actions at the C.F.P.B. have cleared it up. And anyone with a bank account or a stake in the American economy should be concerned. [...]
Mulvaney has argued that it isn’t fair to subject businesses to rules and penalties from a federal agency that can operate completely independently. Yet even in this context some of his recent decisions haven’t made sense. The payday-lending industry often justifies itself by arguing that certain people can’t borrow money any other way—but this argument doesn’t counteract the demonstrable financial damage that exploitative loans can cause to people’s economic and mental health.
But there is another aspect to consider. Earlier this month, the Times, citing data from the Center for Responsive Politics, reported that payday lenders have contributed more than thirteen million dollars to members of Congress since 2010, most of it to Republicans. Mulvaney himself has received close to sixty-three thousand dollars in political contributions from the industry in his former incarnation as a congressman from South Carolina.
At New York magazine, Eric Levitz writes—Ron Johnson Is Very Bad at McCarthyism:
In casting spurious aspersions about subversion at the highest level of the federal government, Johnson has earned comparisons to another, historically infamous Wisconsin senator. But such analogies are deeply unfair — say what you want about Joseph McCarthy, at least his conspiracy theories had a shelf life longer than an open container of guacamole.
David Leonhardt at The New York Times writes—Democracy, on the March:
First, the Democrats’ excellent performance in special elections continues. In four Missouri state-legislature races last night, the Democrats ran an average of about 30 percentage points ahead of Hillary Clinton’s showing in those areas in 2016. The party also flipped one of those four seats in a major upset.
“Democrats would be fools to not contest every district possible in 2018,” writes the political analyst G. Elliott Morris. “Sure, special elections are more favorable to large swings than House generals, but if there were ever a sign that some ‘Safe’ seats aren’t that safe…”
Voting rights. Add Michigan and Florida to the list of states where democracy may actually be expanding.
Both places offer a reminder that President Trump’s various attacks on democracy and the rule of law shouldn’t make anyone despondent. They should inspire you to find ways to fight back on behalf of basic American values.
Ryu Spaeth at The New Republic writes—Who’s the Fearless Leader Now? What the Pyeongchang Olympics tell us about political theater in the era of Trump and Kim:
Trump has tweeted that the North-South talks “are a good thing” and claimed that he would “absolutely” talk to Kim on the phone, despite
previously mocking his own secretary of state for pursuing negotiations with the North. Pence, who will be representing the White House at the Pyeongchang Games, is now
open to a meeting with North Korean officials. This sudden reversal can be attributed to the usual claims about Trump: that he should be taken “
seriously, not literally,” that his off-the-cuff statements do not represent the actual positions of the United States. But, more troublingly, it also suggests that the reality-show president sees no distinction between policy and theater, between appearance and the truth. They are one and the same, making it unclear whether the American president is operating within the iron logic that guides even rogue states like North Korea.
This is well and good when the mask is meant to convey harmony and goodwill. It’s quite another thing when it’s meant to convey fire and fury.
Chris Lehmann at The Baffler writes—The Reboot of the Elites:
FOR A PARTY HEAVILY INVESTED in defining what’s normal for the rest of us, the Democrats have a rather distressing sense of how the concept applies to their own flagging political fortunes. Handed a golden opportunity to deliver a forward-looking message in response to a lackluster state of the union address by the least popular first-term president in modern history, lead strategists and consultants for our notional party of the people did what they always do: they coughed up the heir to an exhausted liberal-managerial brand, to assure a vast nationwide viewing audience that theirs is the American political franchise terminally resistant to new ideas.
Not that Massachusetts Rep. Joseph Kennedy III’s rhetoric or broad policy dictums were all that objectionable on their own terms. It’s good, and necessary, to sound a note of inclusion and compassion in the face of the racist slanders and authoritarian commands of Trumpism—and Kennedy was capable enough in delivering that very anodyne message and hitting his capaciously designated mark.
No, the designation of a third-generation scion of an insular dynastic clan as a “rising star” of the opposition party represents a deeper structural disorder—one that’s disfigured the Democrats’ anemic national strategizing for the better part of a generation. For the keepers of liberal consensus to rally to a global mood of populist discontent with a political brand name steeped in the New Frontier social mythology of the mid-twentieth-century is like trying to extinguish a prairie fire with a series of Scotch and gin shipments. It’s also to indulge a key Democratic myth that has long passed its plausible sell-by date: that as the party of our new digital managerial class, the Democrats are the country’s true and proper keepers of the credentials for legitimate political leadership.
In this context, the misguided selection of Kennedy as the future-of-the-party respondent to President Trump’s State of the Union speech last week is more than a passing one-off tactical error. It represents, rather, a full-blown social philosophy, one that carelessly assigns power on the basis of socio-economic networking, and imagines its lead exponents as the only body of gatekeepers who can channel populist discontent into reasoned social deference. [...]
Miriam Pemberton at OtherWords writes—Huge Military Budgets Make Us Broke, Not Safe:
The president and his party are now looking to add somewhere between $30 and $70 billion more in military spending to their budget for next year — on top of the increases for this year. Democrats seem willing to go along, with a few caveats.
Nobody seems worried anymore about adding to the financial hole we just dug for ourselves and our children with $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for the rich.
It’s true that the military needs predictability, which has been hobbled by politicians who can’t get it together to pass a real budget. Every enterprise, except maybe improv comedy, does. But it’s not true that the military needs more money.
The portrait of a “starved” military, which Trump and his secretary of defense like to complain about, airbrushes out a few facts.
We’re now spending more on the military, adjusted for inflation, than at any time since World War II — including during the Reagan and George W. Bush buildups. We spend more than the next eight countries put together.
Worse still, the military can’t even say what it’s actually spending — it’s still the only federal agency that can’t pass an audit. The brass says they’ll really try this year, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
William Astore at TomDispatch writes—Taking War Off Its Pedestal:
Whether the rationale is the need to wage a war on terror involving 76 countries or renewed preparations for a struggle against peer competitors Russia and China (as Defense Secretary James Mattis suggested recently while introducing America’s new National Defense Strategy), the U.S. military is engaged globally. A network of 800 military bases spread across 172 countries helps enable its wars and interventions. By the count of the Pentagon, at the end of the last fiscal year about 291,000 personnel (including reserves and Department of Defense civilians) were deployed in 183 countries worldwide, which is the functional definition of a military uncontained. Lady Liberty may temporarily close when the U.S. government grinds to a halt, but the country’s foreign military commitments, especially its wars, just keep humming along.
As a student of history, I was warned to avoid the notion of inevitability. Still, given such data points and others like them, is there anything more predictable in this country’s future than incessant warfare without a true victory in sight? Indeed, the last clear-cut American victory, the last true “mission accomplished” moment in a war of any significance, came in 1945 with the end of World War II.
Yet the lack of clear victories since then seems to faze no one in Washington. In this century, presidents have regularly boasted that the U.S. military is the finest fighting force in human history, while no less regularly demanding that the most powerful military in today’s world be “rebuilt” and funded at ever more staggering levels. Indeed, while on the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised he’d invest so much in the military that it would become “so big and so strong and so great, and it will be so powerful that I don’t think we’re ever going to have to use it.”
Jordan Haedtler at The Washington Monthly writes—The ‘Borking’ of America:
Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the court in 1987. Within hours, Ted Kennedy took to the floor of the Senate to deliver a blistering attack on Bork’s record and reactionary judicial philosophy. Kennedy painted a vivid picture of “Robert Bork’s America,” one “in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters…and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.”
The speech came to largely define mainstream perceptions of Bork’s long legal career, and the Senate’s rejection of his nomination permanently altered the Supreme Court confirmation process. But it was the now-forgotten testimony of Charles G. Brown, an obscure state official, that ultimately offered the more prescient vision of “Bork’s America,” one that had less to do with Watergate or civil rights and more to do with a fundamental economic shift toward gross inequality and concentration of wealth. Bork’s intellectual legacy set in motion policies that have ravaged the middle class, particularly in small-town and rural America. Those changes helped foster the resentment and despair that made a Trump presidency possible. Brown tried to warn us.
Brown, the West Virginia attorney general, addressed the Judiciary Committee on the twelfth day of Bork’s confirmation hearings. The danger in putting Bork on the Supreme Court, he testified, came from Bork’s radical views on antitrust—an esoteric but essential area of law that allows the government to prevent monopoly formation and anticompetitive business practices. Vigorous antitrust enforcement had thrived since the New Deal era. But in The Antitrust Paradox, published in 1978, Bork argued that everything about the doctrine was wrong. The only legitimate concern for antitrust enforcement, he claimed, was “consumer welfare,” meaning low prices. Consolidation was fine—great, even—as long as it led to greater efficiency, which would necessarily lead to lower prices or better service. There was little to fear from a monopolized economy, because if a monopoly ever abused its power, a new player would enter the market to undercut it. Other impacts of consolidation—on workers, on the political system, on entrepreneurship and innovation—should be ignored completely, sacrificed at the altar of efficiency. [...]
Afua Hirsch at The Guardian writes—When feminists advance, why do prominent women hold us back?
One of my personal low points came last week, in a TV debate about the Presidents Club – the all-men’s club that has now shut down after an undercover investigation revealed a pattern of abuse facing women who worked there as hostesses; men exposing themselves and groping women, women required to sign non-disclosure agreements to restrict their ability to speak out. In standing up for the right of women to operate in their workplace without harassment or assault, I was accused of being “against working-class women”. Middle-class women like me, the argument went, were looking for some high-and-mighty cause to pursue, and found it in removing jobs from working-class women who were happily earning a living being groped by men who were rich and powerful.
This is an inevitable consequence of the co-option of feminism by the mainstream that the writer bell hooks warned about more than 30 years ago, which has led to the struggle against sexism being depoliticised, and removed from its radical history in class struggle, socialism, antiracism and women’s solidarity. It’s too easy for women who don’t know what feminism is – for all the reasons I’ve outlined above – to assume it’s about BBC presenters wanting £300,000 instead of £150,000.
Kai Wright at The Nation writes—The Way We Talk About Immigration Is Profane:
It’s fashionable among people of color to say Trump can’t shock us. I’m proud to say I find him shocking. I cannot become inured to either his extreme politics or his boorish, bullying behavior. I feel the daily creep of actual fascism, and it still terrifies me. That said, I couldn’t muster much shock at the recent “shithole” incident. The president routinely hurls around both vulgar and racist remarks; we know that. The truly troubling thing wasn’t the slur, but the reaction to it.
Days of breathless debate followed the White House meeting at which Trump cussed Haiti, El Salvador, and all of Africa. And with each passing day, the discussion became more narrowly focused on the language itself, parsing the president’s gutter vocabulary. Did he really say “shithole”? Senators Jeff Flake and Tim Scott said that they had spoken with people in the room who had clearly heard him use the word. Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue insisted otherwise. And anyway, as Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen noted, everybody at the meeting was throwing around “tough language”—kind of like locker-room talk, but for the Oval Office.
Meanwhile, the utter profanity of everything about the meeting itself faded into the fog of white privilege.
Let’s start with the fact that a cabal of white men were sitting around negotiating the lives of millions of black and brown people. Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, a right-wing scion of the Cuban elite, was the only person in that room who might identify as a person of color. This fact seems like a mundane reality of American government, but that doesn’t make it any less profane.
Every word spoken in that meeting was a slur against racial justice.
