Links 9/12/17

Politics: 

So many things, so horrifyingly hard to keep up with things. 

But first of, here's Sean Kelly on Marriage Equality becoming law in Australia: 

But while it is easy to become distracted by disillusionment, we shouldn�t always succumb. All of the above is about disenchantment with politics as it is practised in Canberra � and as we head into summer and away from this brutal parliamentary year, we should, briefly at least, try to give our focus in its entirety to the great change that occurred this week in Australia. It is a wonderful change, one that has already brought � and will continue to bring � joy to millions, and the various political frustrations of this week are, in comparison, nothing at all. 

The Monthly: Remember This Moment, December 8, 2017

It's a victory that should remain untarnished by the way it was won: the wrongness of the idea that a majority should get to vote on the civil rights of a minority, a campaign of hatred by the no side, protagonists claiming the victory for themselves and patting their own shoulders when all they did was try and appease the homophobic elements in their own party. Malcolm Turnbull doesn't get to claim this as his own - it's all of ours, and not because, but in spite of the current Australian government (and it is not the final hurdle, and anyone who thinks so only reveals their deliberately limited and privileged conception of what this community is). 

And none of this should distract from what is happening on Manus. After the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court found the detention centres to be unconstitutional, instead of finding a solution for the people trapped there, Australia left them to their own devices in an increasingly hostile climate. 

It�s important to understand that willful negligence has always been a central philosophy in Australia�s offshore detention regime. The nation has outsourced its responsibilities and pitted one marginalised group against another. It is a former coloniser of Papua New Guinea, has weaponised much needed aid, has pressured the PNG government with directions straight from Australian immigration and border force personnel, and failed to deliver many logistical upgrades that they promised Manusians. After over four years of indefinite detention, it�s obvious that the regime�s underlying ideology is an act of neocolonialism.
From the beginning, Australia has stoked the fires between both the local Manusian people and the men unlawfully detained on the island. The refugees have become a symbol of outside meddling, intrusion and danger. And while some locals have tried to assist the men, there have been numerous incidences of violence and tension between the two groups. 

Meanjin: Human Rights and Political Wrongs, November 23, 2017

Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist, has documented the situation on Manus for the Guardian. 

Yemen's former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed by former Houthi allies that he only recently broke with in the now three-year old civil war which is a proxy of the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led alliance has been fighting Houthi rebels in the country but has failed to make a military breakthrough.

Meanwhile, in the never-ending horror show that is United States politics - I think this year has felt so incomprehensible because as much as all these revelations come together in an emerging story about corruption and incompetence, none of it seems to go anywhere. Every single new revelation on its own feels like it would have ended any previous presidency, and yet, all of these scandals disappear into a black void. It's "party before country", but on a much more massive scale: an entire political party well-aware of how much of its political future is now linked to a ticking time bomb of an administration. 

In Alabama, Republicans are backing Roy Moore, who is facing sexual assault allegations against minors. 

In Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential elections, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to "telling four lies to the FBI" - and the fact that these are relatively minor charges was widely interpreted as a sign that Flynn had started to cooperate with the investigation. Statements by Donald Trump regarding Flynn's contact with the Russian ambassador are contradicted by Flynn's admission. One of the prosecutors working for Mueller stated that a "a very senior member of the transition team" directed Flynn to make contact with the Russian ambassador. Another revelation is the fact that the transition team seems to have actively undermined US foreign policy. 

Pop Culture: 

TIME magazine decided to make the #MeToo movement the Person of the Year, and Donald Trump, who recently boasted he was invited for a photo shoot, is named in the accompanying article as an example of the misogyny that this movement is exposing with every new revelation of sexual misconduct and abuse. The conversation isn't just about the men who have profited from industries that are built on skewed power differentials and male privilege, but also about the very culture that has collaborated and been complicit in allowing these men to thrive regardless of the countless allegations that were, more or less, public knowledge years before 2017 (how long have the rumours about Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer been around?). How come this misplaced reverence for cultural figures like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski still outweighs any consideration for the damage they have done? 

Anyway, here's Maureen Ryan talking about her favourite television this year. "We can either get to the root of the interlocking problems arising from the rampant abuse of power, and we can make sure that promising creative people are not driven out by predators, toxic bullies and harassers."

The point of white supremacy

To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies. The repercussions are striking: Trump is the first president to have served in no public capacity before ascending to his perch. But more telling, Trump is also the first president to have publicly affirmed that his daughter is a �piece of ass.� The mind seizes trying to imagine a black man extolling the virtues of sexual assault on tape (�When you�re a star, they let you do it�), fending off multiple accusations of such assaults, immersed in multiple lawsuits for allegedly fraudulent business dealings, exhorting his followers to violence, and then strolling into the White House. But that is the point of white supremacy�to ensure that that which all others achieve with maximal effort, white people (particularly white men) achieve with minimal qualification. Barack Obama delivered to black people the hoary message that if they work twice as hard as white people, anything is possible. But Trump�s counter is persuasive: Work half as hard as black people, and even more is possible. 

The Atlantic: The First White President, October 2017 Issue

Not great Bob

North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.

The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country�s atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts think the number is much smaller. 

The Washington Post: North Korea now making missile-ready nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say, August 8, 2017 

�North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,� Trump told journalists at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey. �They will be met with fire and the fury like the world has never seen.�

Experts on North Korea have warned that aggressive rhetoric could backfire on Trump, convincing Kim Jong-un that his regime is in imminent jeopardy and triggering what he sees as a pre-emptive attack.

�It is dangerous and reckless and counterproductive for Donald Trump to threaten the annihilation of North Korea,� said Daryl Kimball, the head of the Washington-based Arms Control Association. �What we need is a dialogue to reduce tension and avoid catastrophic miscalculation. We are currently on the road to a conflict and we have to get to the off-ramp.� 

The Guardian: Trump vows to answer North Korea's nuclear threats with 'fire and fury', August 9, 2017

A Tarantino remake of The West Wing

This whole thing feels like a descent into madness. 

�They�ll all be fired by me,� he said. �I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I�ll fire tomorrow. I�ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus�if you want to leak something�he�ll be asked to resign very shortly.� The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn�t been invited. �Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,� Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: � �Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.� � (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.)"

[...]

�The swamp will not defeat him,� he said, breaking into the third person. �They�re trying to resist me, but it�s not going to work. I�ve done nothing wrong on my financial disclosures, so they�re going to have to go fuck themselves.�

Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. �I�m not Steve Bannon, I�m not trying to suck my own cock,� he said, speaking of Trump�s chief strategist. �I�m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I�m here to serve the country.� (Bannon declined to comment.) 

The New Yorker: Anthony Scaramucci called me to unload about White House leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon, July 27, 2017

Links 20/6/17 compact edition

Politics: 

This long profile of Chelsea Manning is moving and an important read.

The Grenfell tragedy is a political tragedy.  

A summary of the crisis unfolding between Qatar and its neighbours.

A summary of all the other things apart from Russian connections that are worth investigating when it comes to Donald Trump (for example, fake charities and breaking the law a lot). 

What are the implications of Donald Trump blocking people on his twitter account?

Yet those who fear that our society had ceased to care about language might take comfort in the committee�s strenuous attempt to parse what Trump meant by two seemingly simple words: �I hope.� 

The New York Review of Books: Words Still Matter, June 13, 2017

A conversation between Naomi Klein and Michelle Alexander, hosted by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. 

It's also the case that throughout history, every time there has been even the appearance of racial progress, there has been a severe backlash -- as Van Jones termed it, a "whitelash." This happened over and over again throughout our history. After the Civil War, we saw that backlash that helped to birth convict leasing. After Reconstruction, we saw white "Redemption" and the backlash that undid Reconstruction, and we saw the birth of Jim Crow laws. And following the formal dismantling of the old Jim Crow by a courageous civil rights, human rights, Black freedom struggle movement, we saw a backlash yet again that manifested itself as a "get tough" and "law and order" movement that helped to birth mass incarceration in the United States. And so, in many respects, Trump's election was yet another backlash against the perception of racial progress. 

Truthout: "People Were Resisting Before Trump": Michelle Alexander, Naomi Klein and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in Conversation, June 18, 2017

Pop Culture: 

Nina Simone in Liberia.

Motherboard profiles Mallory Ortberg: "Ortberg concludes that she wants to be useful. Then again, "I feel like I have said 'useful' a thousand times," she adds, folding one leg under the other."

Vulture has a long interview with Jordan Gavaris of Orphan Black.

Revisiting Jenny Holzer's most powerful works.

"Those were lies, plain and simple"

Former FBI director James Comey testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday. He made a statement available to the public prior to his witness testimony which was analysed in great detail by Lawfare: 

Throughout the document, Comey reports extreme discomfort with Trump�s behavior generally, and this aspect of it particularly. At that dinner, Comey felt compelled to tell the President that he was not �reliable� in the way politicians expect. He reports that the President�s efforts to engage him in a �patronage� relationship �concerned me greatly, given the FBI�s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.� He describes the interaction as a �very awkward conversation.�

Remarkably, even before that meeting, Comey was so uncomfortable with Trump that he had already begun writing memos recording every interaction he had with the President and sharing them with the FBI�s senior leadership.  

Lawfare: Initial Comments on James Comey�s Written Testimony, June 7, 2017

In the hearing itself, Comey gave more details regarding what he thought were the reasons for his firing (not the initial justification by Trump - his handling of the Clinton emails - or that he had lost the trust of the FBI, which prompted the line quoted in the title) and his decision to write memos (and make them available to the public) about his meetings with Trump. A sidenote to his testimony regards that he was approached during Clinton email server investigation by then-Attorney General Lorette Lynch and asked to refer to the case as an investigation, but as a "matter".

Beyond the question of whether President Trump has broken any laws, Comey's testimony reveals that he considered his actions to break with the norms of how the President of the United States approaches the FBI and investigations: 

But the question of what went wrong in that White House encounter is at heart not a legal one. What�s most insidious here is the president�s violation not of any law, but of norms�what we collectively define as acceptable behavior by those entrusted to lead.
No law stops the president from discussing a criminal investigation with the head of the FBI. No law stops him from ordering the end of an investigation, or from firing an FBI chief. As Comey himself said in his testimony, �As a legal matter, the president is the head of the executive branch�I think he has the legal authority.� But, as Comey also said, �we have important norms against this.� 

Quartz: The big takeaway from Comey�s testimony is the awesome and arbitrary power of the president, June 8, 2017

In its report on the hearing the New Yorker sets the stage with Comey's outrage over what he considered to be defaming: 

From his opening words, Comey made clear that, as a private citizen, he is no longer confined to the narrow, self-edited comments that defined his years at the Justice Department and the F.B.I. He delivered an opening statement that offered a full-throated defense of the thirty-five thousand men and women at the F.B.I., in effect calling on them, from beyond the professional grave, to carry on their work without fear of White House intimidation. Comey also bluntly framed the Trump White House as a duplicitous agent of political obfuscation. Of his firing, Comey said, �The Administration chose to defame me and, more importantly, the F.B.I. by saying the organization was in disarray, that it was being poorly led, that the workforce had lost faith in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple.� 

The New Yorker: Comey's Revenge: Measuring Obstruction, June 8, 2017

And then goes on to outline the possible legal consequences of the testimony - which include both the option of obstruction of justice, when Trump told Comey "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go", to trading an official act for personal gain, for Comey's description of Trump's actions as trying to draw him into a "patronage" relationship. The Atlantic outlines the lines of defense that were open to Trump supporters against Comey but failed. 

In one reaction to the testimony, Benjamin Wittes writes for Lawfare that the main issue here is what it says about Trump as the President of the United States: "we have a president about whom the FBI director, after meeting him once, began writing memos to file, because he did not trust him to tell the truth about their interactions or to respect the functioning of law enforcement". 

Links 2/6/17

Politics: 

Donald Trump is withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement - here's Brookings on what it means, the reaction by former President Obama - "The nations that remain in the Paris agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created.", a theory as good as any by Noah Smith about why the Republicans oppose any kind of action on climate change in spite of the fact that a majority of voters supports the climate deal, and an astonishing reaction by US cities to commit to the Paris Accord regardless of what their Federal Government is doing. 

Rebecca Solnit, beautifully, on Donald Trump - 

"A man who wished to become the most powerful man in the world, and by happenstance and intervention and a series of disasters was granted his wish. Surely he must have imagined that more power meant more flattery, a grander image, a greater hall of mirrors reflecting back his magnificence. But he misunderstood power and prominence. This man had bullied friends and acquaintances, wives and servants, and he bullied facts and truths, insistent that he was more than they were, than it is, that it too must yield to his will. It did not, but the people he bullied pretended that it did. Or perhaps it was that he was a salesman, throwing out one pitch after another, abandoning each one as soon as it left his mouth. A hungry ghost always wants the next thing, not the last thing." 

Lit Hub: The Loneliness of Donald Trump, May 30, 2017

A report by Data Society on misinformation and manipulation online, particularly how it pertains to right-wing radicalisation online (in short, maybe one of the most important things to read these days, considering how emboldended and dangerous right-wing terrorists are) - "The far-right exploits young men�s rebellion and dislike of �political correctness� to spread white supremacist thought, Islamophobia, and misogyny through irony and knowledge of internet culture." Full report here. 

And here's some information on the dark history of Portland, and a historical context to the horrifying attacks. 

Matt Taibbi eulogises Roger Ailes, founder of FOX news, who shaped the US newscape and the right-wing into what it is today: 

"And when Ailes died this morning, he left behind an America perfectly in his image, frightened out of its mind and pouring its money hand over fist into television companies, who are gleefully selling the unraveling of our political system as an entertainment product.
The extent to which we hate and fear each other now � that's not any one person's fault. But no one person was more at fault than Roger Ailes. He never had a soul to sell, so he sold ours. It may take 50 years or a century for us to recover. Even dictators rarely have that kind of impact. Enjoy the next life, you monster." 

Rolling Stone: Roger Ailes Was One of the Worst Americans Ever, May 18, 2017

In Australia, where treaties between the Indigineous communities and the settlers were never signed, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are asking for sovereignty instead of merely symbolic constitutional recognition. Here is the original statement. Here is the historical context. And a beautiful essay about what it means to have stories told about you but not being allowed to tell your own stories, in Meanjin.

Migrating from Central America is becoming increasingly precarious. 

Pop Culture: 

Sad news all around - WGN has cancelled Underground, which has proven to be one of the best current television shows in its second season (allegedly because the network was purchased by conservatives who are "changing the direction"), and Netflix literally waited until the first day of Pride month to give Sense8 (which oscillated wildly, as it did in its first season, between joyful and profoundly problematic) the boot. Both didn't have anything close to a resolution at the end of their respective second seasons, so lets hope someone gives them a second life in a different network/shape and form. 

Not only has the ever-elusive Runaways tv series been cast, the original cast will also make a return after an endless hiatus in comic book form. IT'S BEEN ONE THOUSAND YEARS.  

Ghost World is receiving a director-approved remastered Criterion edition, so Atlantic looks back on it. 

Aeon on our obsession with humanity's fragility and disaster narratives. 

An interview with John Waters, with many very good quotes: 

Well, now you should be like Valerie Solanas when she told women to get jobs and unwork until you get caught, and then get another job and unwork, which means you go and you act normal but you fuck up every single thing you can while you work there. This is a good time in the Trump White House to get somebody in there to unwork. 

Lenny: John Waters: I Love Women Who Hate Men and Hate Men Who Hate Women, May 26, 2017

Links 25/5/17

Politics: 

This is just one of many stories that would have very likely ended any previous presidency, and yet. Last week, the Washington Post reported that President Trump had disclosed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister, putting both an asset embedded with ISIS and the intelligence sharing relationship between the US and other countries at stake. 

Robert Mueller, former FBI-director, has been selected as special counsel in the Russia investigation. This Politico article outlines the connection between James Comey and Mueller (and one of those stories that feel like they will be turned into a movie in the coming years): 

President Trump impulsively fired Comey in the hope that it would shut down the Russia investigation; one week later, though, he finds himself facing not just one esteemed former FBI director but two: the first a wronged martyr for the bureau, and the second a legendary investigator without a hint of politics. 

What unfolds ahead will be territory all too familiar to both Comey and Mueller�the field of play where they have made their careers and risen to the highest levels of government�yet the way that a Washington scandal takes on a life of its own amid independent investigations and looming prosecutions is deeply unfamiliar to Trump and many associates around him. Few in Washington know this landscape better than Comey, who as deputy attorney general appointed his friend Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor to lead the leak investigation surrounding Valerie Plame, a case that ultimately led to the dethroning of Cheney�s top aide, Scooter Libby.

Politico: What Donald Trump Needs to Know About Bob Mueller and Jim Comey, May 18, 2017

And this is a very detailled look into how the FBI handled the first and second Clinton email investigation, and looks at Comey's actions with regards to the emails and the issue of Russian interference in the election. 

Some of the most withering criticism of Comey focused on his refusal, before the election, to disclose the FBI�s investigation into the possibility of collusion between the Russian government and Trump associates � even as he spoke at length about Clinton�s emails. In late March, quoting two anonymous sources, Newsweek reported that Comey had actually wanted to talk about the Russian political meddling, through a personal, bylined newspaper column, but the White House had blocked him from doing so. People familiar with the matter told me that the Obama administration had wanted to respond in a more direct way, through an official finding. That came on Oct. 7, through a statement about Russian hacking from the secretary of Homeland Security and the director of National Intelligence. Comey declined to be included on the statement, telling administration officials that he believed it was too close to the election. 

ProPublica: The Problems With the FBI�s Email Investigation Went Well Beyond Comey, May 11, 2017

A summary of the Trump administration's strategy in Syria, specifically a criticism of the decision to rely on the YPG, the military arm of a Syrian Kurdish party, to seize Raqqa. 

The Global Seed Vault on Svalbard - meant to be a failsafe against man-made destruction - is under threat from climate change. 

Taiwan is the first Asian country to legalise marriage equality.

The struggle of influence between Russia and China in Central Asia: 

China�s expansion into Central Asia over the past decade was primarily driven by economic opportunism rather than by diplomatic strategy�by the promise of oil, gas and new markets for Chinese goods. But Xi Jinping�s vision of a Silk Road Economic Belt marks a diplomatic step-change: China is now actively seeking to increase its clout over its western borders. In time, it is logical that China�s deepening economic presence will translate into greater political leverage, whether Russia likes it or not. This will surely test the China�Russia relationship, which Beijing�s ambassador in Moscow claims is now �as close as lips and teeth��a phrase once used by Chairman Mao to describe China�s relationship with North Korea. 

Zed: It�s the Euroasian Economic Union, Stupid, February 7, 2017

This is a small but relevant story about how Cloudflare, an internet company that provides services to right-wing extremist websites, disclosed information (including email addresses) about people complaining about these sites to the people behind Stormfront, The Daily Stormer etc. 

Pop Culture: 

Star Trek Discovery, which will be set about 10 years before TOS (we will never get an answer about Captain Sisko in the wormhole, will we) and features amongst others Michelle Yeoh, Sonequa Martin-Green and Rekha Sharma. 

Missy Elliott's work doesn't deny death, or poverty, or bad times, but it pushes for recovery. In her most recent single, "I'm Better (feat. Lamb)," which was released in January, the chorus circles around and gets repeated with a robotic flow: "I'm better, I'm better, I'm better /?It's another day, another chance?/?I wake up, I wanna dance?/?So as long as I got my friends /...I'm better, I'm better, I'm better." This is not a boast from her to her fans; it is a mantra to them from her, even if there is a self-help quality to it. What matters more is that it feels determined, and that is what her fans depend on her to provide�the good news. 

Elle: Her Eyes Were Watching the Stars: How Missy Elliott Became an Icon, May 15, 2017

Katie and Allison Crutchtfield of Waxahatchee cover Sleater-Kinney's Modern Girl. 

On the road with Warpaint. 

A reading list inspired by PJ Harvey's Let England Shake. 

Links 12/5/17

Politics: 

South Korea (and South Korea's President) are growing more concerned about American politics than North Korean ones. 

Watch out for gerrymandering now that the director of the US Census Bureau has stepped back. 

Masha Gessen on Russia's mafia state: 

Autocratic power requires the degradation of moral authority because moral authority is the only thing you can�t buy and you can�t come by through your title. You earn it, or you don�t. And what makes it even more confusing is that you can�t set out to earn more moral authority. It�s almost an externality of consistent and very long-term moral behavior. And that�s why it�s such a threat to autocratic power. It wields power through instruments that are inaccessible to autocrats. Moral authority can�t be bought, captured, or declared. 

World Policy Journal: Stay Outraged. A Conversation with Masha Gessen, May 2017

A few ways in which Russia is struggling.

What does it mean to have a European Identity? How does having spent time in other European countries affect people's conception of a European Identity? (as mentioned previously, I've thought a whole lot about this since living in a country with no borders to other countries). 

Some incredible highlights from a talk that poet Claudia Rankine gave at BAM. 

There�s a phrase called �moral injury.� Does anybody know that phrase, moral injury? It�s a phrase they use for the military, and it�s when a soldier goes into war, goes into battle�and the things that they�re forced to do, the things that they�re forced to see, don�t line up with who they are as human beings. And so they experience a break in themselves. That�s what�s called the moral injury: their moral idea of how they are in the world has been broken, and they�ve become broken because of it. I almost wish that we didn�t have the capacity to stave that off, as citizens. That it didn�t have to be that we went to a war zone to get there. That we could understand as human beings that certain things should not be acceptable. That they don�t line up with us as human beings. Not as women, or white people, or black people, or Asian people, or Hispanics, or whatever�as human beings. And that when we are confronted with that, at that moment, does he have a birth certificate for example, at that moment, not this moment, that moment, that we would have understood that that was a moral injury. 

Literary Hub: Claudia Rankine: "I Think We Need to Be Frightened", May 11, 2017

Pop Culture: 

Is the Gig economy working? This article traces the gig economy in a very interesting way, from niche to niche.

Longreads on Locol's argument that a good cup of coffee shouldn't cost more than $1.

I loved this article about writing about Chinese food as a Chinese writer: "In a weird turn of events, people were making money and becoming famous for eating the things I had grown up with and had been bullied for."

Blowing the lid

Comey�s dismissal is likely to raise questions about whether the White House is interfering in that investigation. In a letter from Trump informing Comey of his firing, the president suggested Comey had privately assured Trump he was not being scrutinized. �While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau,� Trump said.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News Tuesday night that Comey�s firing wouldn�t affect the Russia investigations by either Congress or the FBI. �But I think the bigger point on that is, when are they going to let that go?� she then added. �It's been going on for nearly a year. Frankly, it's kind of getting absurd. There's nothing there.� 

The Atlantic: Trump Fires FBI Director Comey, May 9, 2017 

If Comey wasn�t about to blow the lid off of something � and the White House had the luxury of time � its handling of the firing is astounding in its incompetence. The administration�s official narrative is that this decision came from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein assumed his post only two weeks ago, and so his arrival on the scene helps explain the otherwise baffling timing of Comey�s firing. The idea being: This Rosenstein guy showed up and made an impassioned case for Comey�s mishandling of the Clinton email case, and Trump yielded to his judgment.

A competent White House would have put Rosenstein front and center; leaked the memo days before the final decision; kept the president at a distance from the whole affair; and given Comey the opportunity to resign.

Instead, Trump mentioned the Russia investigation in the second paragraph of his letter to Comey; had his surrogates call for an end to the Russia investigation last night (instead of keeping the focus on Rosenstein�s indictment of Comey); tweeted incendiary attacks on various Democrats; and let Comey learn of his firing from a row of televisions, as he gave a speech in Los Angeles.

Is it really better to have a president that didn�t collude with Russia � but is so intolerant of hostile media coverage, so incompetent, and so unable to anticipate the consequences of his actions that he would have fired Comey in this manner, anyway?

More to the point: Is it acceptable for the United States to have such a president? 

New York Magazine: Trump�s Firing of Comey Is Scarier If He Has Nothing to Hide, May 10, 2017

The Doomsday Clock

It is important not to separate the Trump administration�s environmental policies from its broader attack on civil rights. Environmental policy in the U.S. has always disproportionately hurt nonwhite communities. In one sense, Trump is merely picking up where his predecessors left off, taking advantage of a GOP-dominated government to lock in an extremist agenda. Repressive governments around the world have used access to basic resources like water as a political weapon. Manipulating access to environmental resources has long been a way for repressive powers to keep restive populations in line, and the United States is unfortunately not an exception. 

Teen Vogue: Why We Should Fear Environmental Destruction Under Trump, April 25, 2017

Links 20/4/17

Politics: 

On the double-bind of claiming moral superiority for bombing Syria but also turning away Syrian refugees. And Lawfare on the difficulty of justifying intervention morally when they can't be justified legally: 

Here lies the problem with these types of moral-based use of force decisions: they are inherently subjective and, consequently, easily abused. For example, why is there an obligation to stop the use of chemical weapons in Syria but not to stop the daily atrocities committed in North Korean work camps? When does the moral responsibility that justified an intervention end? Why do certain states have a moral imperative to act while others do not? This lack of clarity empowers states to make these determinations unilaterally and results in divergent views on the appropriate use of force. Even more dangerously, this ambiguity allows a state with nationalistic goals to act with aggression under the pretext of a moral obligation. 

Lawfare: The Problem of Morally Justifying the United States Strike in Syria, April 11, 2017

Russia isn't going to break with Assad: "Assad�s survival has become the measure of Putin�s influence.", but Russia is trying to figure out what President Trump's doctrine is (which may be hard to do).

Iran's role in Syria.

This is an odd connection to make - between Sean Spicer's comment that Hitler didn't use chemical weapons against his own people (therey playing right into the heinous part of Nazi ideology where Jewish people, and people with differing political opinions, and gay men, weren't truly German) - but gay men are being imprisoned, tortured and killed in Chechnya, and one of the reactions to deny this on part of the Chechnyan authorities was to say that �if there were any gay people in the region, they would have been dealt with by their own relatives.� In short, this is how the logic works: Chechnyan's aren't gay, so no gay people are being imprisoned, tortured and killed. It also made me think of what Jacob Clifton has written about The Handmaid's Tale - how it is about what happens when someone claims someone else's body as theirs (and this idea doesn't just apply to imprisoning, torturing and killing, it's the same with denying reproductive healthcare to women, and arguing that LGBTQI people shouldn't be allowed to get married).

Human rights after Hitler. 

In a time where there's a lot of focus placed on North Korea, here's an investigation into the idea that North Korea's provocations are the actions of a rational actor and why that may be. 

After a short conversation with the Chinese President, President Trump changed his view of the complexicty of North Korea situation (and also committed a light diplomatic plunder when he claimed that Korea had been "actually part of China").

The guy who founded The shady Armed Security Firm Formerly Known As Blackwater is helping China to build a modern Silk Road. 

I really enjoyed reading this long article about how difficult it would be legally to undo all of the environmental protection progress that was made during the Obama presidency.

A profile of Kirsten Gillibrand and what Democratic opposition may look like in the next four years. 

Pop Culture: 

A couple of months ago I reposted an article about Daniel Patterson and Roy Choi's attempt to reinvent fast food (as a reaction to the fact that fast food is often the only choice in economically deprived neighbourhoods). This is a status report of how they're going with Locol (I particularly enjoyed this for a very honest portrayal of a near-failure, and that the article doesn't glance over the fact that Patterson is an outsider with a lot of privilege).

How to trick people into saving money.

In addition to the shows I mentioned last time, Line of Duty is having a pretty good fourth season (shh, I'm rooting for Roz in this one), Pretty Little Liars is back for the second half of its final season, and Better Call Saul is slow-burning in its fantastic way again.