I’m eating ice cream. I don’t deserve it per se. But I’m eating it anyway. Because sometimes that’s what you do when you write Friday Links. You eat ice cream and watch weird shows on Netflix and half-ass your introduction.
We had a slow, anticlimactic week after the government shutdown went out like a heavily used light bulb. The government re-opened, Trump went to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, and things have been calm.
Nothing to do but get started.
Live Free or High.
Who knew New Hampshire loved opioids so much? When I think “New Hampshire,” I think fall foliage, the well-to-do, and wonky primaries. And yet, here we have a New York Times profile on a fella who has overdosed on heroin as many as 30 times, but keeps on keepin’ on. He’s clean as of the story, but his family is on pins and, heh, needles waiting for the relapse.
I’m not overly sympathetic to America’s drug-addicted population, but I’m not unsympathetic either. It takes way more than will power and character to beat heroin. The article is worth a read to see how these folks live and how they struggle.
Justice is Served.
Serial sexual abuser Dr. Larry Nassar is going to jail forever, after his decades of crimes against young women, particularly aspiring high-level gymnasts, came to light. Larry, under cover of medical exams, molested hundreds of young girls during his reign of terror. As many as 150 women testified at Larry’s sentencing hearing, and the Judge made him listen to every one despite his fervent pleas for the kind of mercy he never bestowed. Larry already drew 60 years for child porn, and the judge sentenced him to 40-175 additional years for his molestations.
While the sentencing judge drew some criticism for seeming to opine that she wished Larry would get raped in prison, I’m gonna sidestep that. Like Jerry Sandusky before him, Larry isn’t going to gen pop, so his odds of gang rape are virtually non-existent. It would be like cheering for sobriety at a frat party. Unlike Jerry, however, Larry doesn’t seem to be a particularly tough guy, so I expect we’ll find him swinging in his cell sooner rather than later. If you’re feeling particularly vindictive, root for that.
From my perspective, whether Larry offs himself is between Larry and God. As is what comes thereafter.
This can’t end with Larry, though. Larry doesn’t get to be Larry without some serious enabling by former employers Michigan State and USA Gymnastics. You simply don’t sexually assault hundreds of girls over decades (while getting paid handsomely in the process) with no one the wiser. Larry had help, and it’s time to dig down to the roots of this sordid tree and throw some more people in prison.
Old Bones.
Archaeologists found the oldest human bones outside of Africa in a cave in Israel. These bones are over 175,000 years old, and they belong to a member of our own species. This is significant because it pushes the time period in which humans ventured out of Africa back about 60,000 years from previous estimates.
Separate and Unequal.
Here’s a list of five things black children deal with that white children do not. True, most people who persist in the belief that America is some race-neutral utopia probably aren’t coming near this site anyway, but if I only reach one…
Here’s Jamelle Bouie with a long piece on the long-term impact of Trump’s race-baiting and race-based decision-making.
Doomsday for Doomsday Clock.
This week, the people in charge of such things set the Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight, indicating that the danger of nuclear war is greater than it has been in some time. I don’t know if that means anything or not. Seems arbitrary. And yet, at least two nuclear powers, America and North Korea, are run by narcissistic idiots with penchants for fiery rhetoric and melodrama.
So maybe?
DC Comics, currently publishing a mini-series called Doomsday Clock, decided to ride up into the sky on a mushroom cloud of free publicity. They published an ad referencing the news about the actual Doomsday Clock, and invited us to take a break from worrying about the real thing and read their comic.
And people got upset.
Because it’s America in 2018, and upset is the coin of the realm.
Look, maybe we all get blown to pieces. More likely, we don’t. But if people choose to approach the topic with a dour, humorless affect and scorn for people who aren’t shitting their pants with fear, then those folks should stay under their bed and leave the rest of us alone. DC was trying to sell product while introducing a bit of levity, and they shouldn’t be penalized by America’s hyper-sensitives.
This Week in Trumpville.
(1) Trump is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where, as Bloomberg radio put it this week, “Billionaires tell millionaires how the middle class is feeling.” Trump is an oaf compared to the financial geniuses who trek to Davos, but his tax cut for the rich has made him a celebrity nonetheless.
Vox populi? Et tu, Trumpus?
However, Trump is not an oaf when it comes to telling people what they want to hear. Astute as ever at talking out of both sides of his mouth, Trump has thus far been conciliatory at the WEF with respect to the global economic agenda (albeit a “buy American” global economic agenda). Trump even said, “I’ll give you a headline,” before proceeding to say that he would reconsider the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership if he thought the U.S. could get a good deal. Business news slobbered like Pavlov’s dog and dutifully reported this non-scoop.
Come on, media lemmings. Trump just wanted a headline (and told you so), so he said something that he knew you’d report with breathless ardor. And report you did, with breathless ardor. ALL DAMN DAY, and I know because I was in the car a lot yesterday listening to Bloomberg and CNBC. Trump knew he could get away with dropping some globalist economic agenda bread crumbs because the people who trek to his rallies and rail against globalism don’t listen to Bloomberg or CNBC, and couldn’t identify Davos, Switzerland if you showed it to them on a globe and read it aloud to them. So they’re not gonna call him on it, or even believe he said it. Plus, Trump doesn’t understand what the TPP is; he doesn’t understand what a good trade deal is; and he’s not going to join, rejoin, or endorse anything that his marks don’t like. But he says he might rejoin TPP under highly subjective and undisclosed conditions and standards that happen to be completely within his control, and you trip all over yourselves reporting it.
Morons.
(2) Let’s talk about the Ghost of Government Shutdowns past. I happened to be listening to the radio on Monday when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D- N.Y.) gave his Senate floor speech outlining the contours of the deal to re-open the government. I then got to the office and had to do work-work, taking only time to offer up an initial interpretation in response to a question/status on Facebook. Essentially, I went a good 2-3 hours after the speech before I read any analysis. These were my hot takes, and I stand by them 4 days later:
(A) Schumer is an asshole. Nobody needed to listen to his accusations or his blame game or his (disingenuous) scoreboarding from the Senate floor. I get that these speeches are designed to create sound bytes and market to each party’s most amygdala-dependent rubes, but it’s transparent as hell. No wonder I rarely listen live.
(B) I thought it was a good deal- certainly the best deal the Democrats were going to get for the following reasons:
(i) While committed lefties would certainly accuse the Democrats of caving (and did), moderates may still see them as adults in the room who showed a willingness to compromise.
(ii) The shut down had no staying power because the Republicans were going to gain the messaging advantage sooner rather than later. Closing the government over even sympathetic immigrants is a bridge too far for ordinary voters.
(iii) Accordingly, Schumer was almost certainly looking ahead to midterms and knew that center-left pick-ups in November are more important than the true believers (who will be over this by then, and who have other huge incentives to turn out at the polls). He made the smart play to know when to fold ’em in the short term to preserve long terms gains for later.
(iv) The Democrats got Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to agree that, if no deal is reached, a DACA immigration bill will be allowed to reach the Senate floor and be voted on as part of regular order, or the shut down can be resumed. So:
-if negotiations end in a deal in the next three weeks, no blood, no foul;
-if McConnell lied, he lied pretty publicly and can be tarred for it in all sorts of creative campaign ads; and the Democrats can resume the shutdown without looking like the bad guys- “We had a deal, you lied, what are we supposed to do?”;
-if a DACA bill goes to the Senate floor and loses, democracy did its job (unless the Democrats enact a sour grapes shut down, in which case they’re unequivocally the bad guys); and the Democrats have on-the-record votes they can use in campaign ads, for good or for ill.
-if the bill passes the Senate, but dies in the House, the Democrats have a very specific place to apportion blame, and cue the campaign ads.
-if the bill passes the Senate, gets a vote in the House and loses, democracy did its job; and the Democrats have on-the-record votes that they can use in campaign ads, for good or for ill.
-if the bill passes the Senate and the House and Stephen Miller tells Trump not to sign something he would otherwise sign, Democrats have a (less effective)* place to apportion the blame.
*(Frankly, if I were the Republicans in an important mid-term election year, I’d pass a DACA bill by a smidge in both Houses to provide cover to endangered Congresspeople, tell Trump to veto it, and have those vulnerable Congresspeople say, “We tried.”).
Either way, the Democrats kept DACA alive, moved the ball (ever so slightly), and did it in a way that kept the GOP from continuing to hold CHIP funding hostage. Is it an unequivocal win? Of course not. When you cut away the facade, the Democrats did their part to shut down the government because they were hoping Trump would do something stupid and give them the advantage/high ground. When he didn’t, they knew they had to give it up. But, with thousands of news cycles between now and November, they didn’t really cost themselves anything, and they marginally improved their position from a position of abject weakness. That’s a shrewder result than the media is reporting with headlines like this.
(3) Trump wants a trade war. His coal buddies wanted him to start one by slapping a tariff on Chinese solar panels. So he did. Since all the components of solar panels other than the panel surface are manufactured in the U.S., there’s no way this move doesn’t cost more jobs than it creates. And it will barely dent the Chinese.
Golf clap.
(4) Here’s Trump pretending to work.
(5) Russia rambles on. I’ve been saying for months that the obstruction of justice allegations against Trump have the most meat of all the accusations. But, in fairness, here’s an article that outlines some problems with those allegations- at least based on what the public knows. The biggest problem is that Trump’s state of mind and intent count. And there’s a small but definable hair to split between a President who impedes an investigation because he knows he did something wrong, and a President who impedes an investigation because he knows he didn’t do anything wrong and he’s annoyed by the distraction. The latter is politically unacceptable, and an offense against democratic transparency, but it may not be obstruction of justice.
And while, yes, it came out this week that Trump made moves to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller until White House Counsel Donald McGahn threatened to quit, that revelation still comes with the same problem. It demonstrates for sure that Mueller needs to be protected by Congress, but is it evidence of obstruction if there’s no underlying crime (and it’s starting to look like there isn’t)?
I remain convinced that innocent people don’t act the way Trump and company have acted. And Mueller’s team obviously has information to which the public has no present access. But people who think the Mueller investigation is a magic bullet need to temper their expectations.
Meanwhile, a category 5 tempest has settled into the teapot of the Congressional investigation into Russia’s alleged collusion with the Trump campaign. Several Congresspeople who care more about partisan advantage than the truth have been trying to smear the FBI for daring to investigate Dear Leader. Supposedly there’s a memo, written by the staff of Devin Nunes, one of Trump’s chief Congressional lackeys, that accuses the investigators involved in the Russian scandal of all manner of unsavory deeds. And now there’s a push to de-classify this memo. But to what end? If I authored a memo that said Aggressive Moderation is the greatest blog ever, it would only have so much value given the source. I agree with National Review that both political parties have credibility issues, and that the memo should be released because transparency requires it. But a Congressman with a manifest interest in protecting Trump writes a memo complaining about the people investigating Trump? I don’t see that moving any dials.
For purposes of countering the lesser informed when they get bent out of shape about these supposed conspiracies, here’s a Washington Post article breaking down the latest right-wing conspiracies and dusting them with grains and grains of salt.
Oh yeah, and here’s an article giggling at the lackwit Republicans complaining about supposed “secret societies” trying to take down the Trump Administration.
Music I’m Listening To This Week.
After a request for Bring It On Home Again by G (which he knows from the soundtrack of Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2), I invested in a Sam Cooke greatest hits album. I also listened to some Julie Byrne. Relaxing musical week.
Books I’m Reading This Week.
I’m continuing with The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell.
TV I’m Watching This Week.
More Dr. Who. There’s a lot of it, but it’s addictive. A lot of the episodes are tear-jerkers too. The Doctor’s fundamental decency is something we need more of in these times of trouble.
I’m presently, as in right this second, watching some weird Netflix show titled The OA.
I played trivia with some buddies at a sports bar last night and they had at least two TVs devoted to a channel replaying Super Bowl LI. You know, the one between the Falcons and the Patriots? The whole 28-3 thing? If there’s one city in the entire country where I would think no bar would ever show that game, it would be here. In Atlanta.
And yet…
Fortunately, trivia ended before the third quarter really got going and I didn’t have to see anything unpleasant. Still, what were they thinking?
Weekly Inspiration.
Last week, DC Comics published an excellent issue of Superman. Because it’s new, I don’t want to put pages on the internet and discourage purchase, but you can buy it digitally here.
The story, titled Goodnight Moon, is a Make-A-Wish Foundation-type story in comic book form. It starts with Superman pounding on some generic G-list DC bad guys who probably needed to appear in a comic for intellectual property reasons.
Superman wins of course (gah, spoilers!), and receives applause from kids in the cancer ward of a nearby hospital. This launches an effort by Superman to give these kids the best day of their young lives. Having secured permission from the parents, Superman loads the kids into a shuttle created by Green Lantern’s power ring, and they fly around in space and experience zero-gravity.
Afterward, the kids all get to go to the Justice League satellite and meet the team. Flash gives them all rides at super-speed, they swim in the aquarium with Aquaman, they get to play with Batman’s weapons and Wonder Woman’s lasso. Then they get to participate in a satellite-wide scavenger hunt. The final item they have to find makes the story. The comic ends the only way it can, given the title, with the kids in space suits collecting moon rocks.
Reading the story, it’s clear that many, if not all of these kids won’t make it to adulthood. And even though it’s a comic book, and the kids are as fictional as the super-heroes, the creators do a great job infusing genuine feeling into Superman’s efforts to give these kids the best day of their lives. Just imagine if real-world kids with cancer got to hang out with actual super-heroes, just for the purpose of having a great day? It’s a perfect story, reflecting real world sadness and joy and basic human decency. We need more comics like this.
Check it out.
Have a great week.
Aggressive Moderation 