LastStandMedia

News Burst: May 26, 2017 (Patreon)

Published:

2017-05-27 01:18:05

Imported:

2022-01

Content

Hey All,

I hope this News Burst finds you well, and that you’re as excited for the weekend as I am. I’m fucking exhausted. I just wanna curl up, read, eat, and hang out. Erin’s mother is here through the weekend (she’s hilarious), so having a visitor around always keeps me busy, too.

Anyway, not much else to report. If you were at the $50+/month level in April, all postcards are now mailed, so keep an eye out for those, if you haven’t already received one.

Okay, here we go!

Bodyslammer Wins Montana House Seat: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/335299-five-takeaways-from-the-montana-special-election

My Take: I suppose this isn’t a huge surprise. Montanans (is that the term?) voted early by mail in this special election in huge numbers, and with Greg Gianforte’s WWE move on a journalist happening to close to the actual day of the election (the night before, in fact), there was little way to move the needle. In case you’re lost, Greg Gianforte, a Republican, was running against a man named Rob Quist, a Democrat, for Montana’s House seat left open by Ryan Zinke, who held that Seat for only a single term before becoming the Secretary of the Interior.

You can read the related link for more on this, but I see some good signs for Democrats in these special elections, even if they aren’t actually winning any of them (the Georgia House seat up for grabs should go their way, I would suspect). Trump won Montana by a significant margin; Gianforte won Montana’s lone House seat by a fraction of that (although still in a relative landslide, if we’re judging things based on established political standards). The numbers are narrowing. If this House seat was in suburban Illinois, for instance, the Democrat would have easily won, whether or not one of the candidates went all Hulk Hogan on a journalist.

Still, I think the bigger takeaway here is for the Democrats not to take anything for granted. I think they’re being mighty ambitious thinking they will claw the House back from the Republicans in 2018, considering how gerrymandered the map is (both sides do it), how big the majority is, and how safe many GOP House members are. I also think trying to take the Senate back in 2018 is ambitious, even with a small gap, since the states up for re-election lean so significantly towards Republicans. Can we read much into these early races? No. Knowing how this cycle is going so early on, it’s safe to say the landscape will have changed 20 times between now and the Fall of 2018.

(Related Story | Liberals Wanted A Fight in Montana: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/montana-special-election.html?mtrref=www.drudgereport.com&_r=0)

Trump Does Europe: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/26/trump-europe-ineraction-world-leaders-238871

My Take: After a couple of stops in the Middle East, Trump has found himself in Europe, surrounded by countries and leaders far more liberal on virtually every front than he is, in charge of societies far more liberal than the United States is. So, this is obviously going to put him into a bind. I was reflecting yesterday to Erin that the unfortunate thing about Trump is that he seems completely unable to get out of his own way. I thought he gave a good speech concerning NATO, for instance, speaking on an important point -- everyone pulling their weight and paying for themselves fairly -- but then he pushes the President of Montenegro out of the way. It’s just bizarre how he hurts his own good PR, time and time again.

Now, we’re onto the G-7, some climate talks, and more. As you can see in one of the related stories below, a so-called “honest exchange” happened with Trump at a G-7 meeting, particularly concerning climate change and the Paris Accords, which Trump had lambasted, but now seems to be softening on (this is becoming a trend). Fact is, our part of the agreement will hurt our economy, but I don’t think there’s any reason to withdraw completely. I just think we have to aim downward with carbon goals. As the story below notes, no one seems to really even understand how binding or nonbinding the entire agreement is.

I feel like I beat up Trump a lot, so I want to say something more positive about him: I feel like, all things considered, by his own metrics where even small things are successes, he’s done okay overseas. He was well received in Saudi Arabia (blah), Israelis are obviously going to side with his more aggressive foreign policy initiatives in the area, and whatever else. But, knowing how much Europe and European leaders hate him, I give him props for putting on a brave-ish face and doing what needs to be done. It’s just too bad no one will ever take him seriously, no matter how he tries to turn things around (if he ever even does). Then again, he has no one to blame for that but himself. That hard truth will haunt him for the rest of his tenure as POTUS. There’s no going back for him with all of his nonsense, no matter how admittedly entertaining so much of it is.

(Related Story | Six to One Against Trump on Climate Change: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-26/merkel-says-it-was-six-to-one-against-trump-on-climate-change)

(Related Story | Trump Ends Overseas Charm Offensive: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4544536/Trump-ends-charm-offensive-Italy-G7-meeting.html)

Turning Up the Heat on Jared Kushner: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/335382-kushner-wanted-secure-line-with-kremlin-before-inauguration-report

My Take: I was so pleased that we got a little bit of a break this week on the never-ending Trump/Russia nonsense that’s been occupying so much of our polity and our media lately. It’s fucking exhausting, and it’s everyone spinning their wheels about the same shit over and over again, whether it’s true or not (we just don’t know yet). Trump leaving the country gave us that reprieve, I think, so as he prepares to return, get ready for it to kick back up, especially with investigations being actively undertaken before, during, and after his return to the States.

Speaking of which, there was one notable exception to the “quiet” we experienced this week (relatively speaking, of course): Jared Kushner, a Trump Senior Advisor and husband to his daughter, Ivanka (<3), seems to be a person of interest in an ongoing investigation. This has been chattered about for a couple of days now, but now we seem to know what investigators might be targeting, specifically: Private communications between the Trump transition team (after he beat Clinton) and Russian agents or representatives of some sort. Why is this bad? Because Kushner apparently was interested in keeping the communication channel closed, shielding whatever was being said, done, and/or executed.

If true, it’s undoubtedly shady, and certainly worthy of a raised eyebrow and further investigation. The days in question being investigated were in early December, and there’s little else we know about what’s going on right now. It’s strange, because with all of this talk about Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Roger Stone, and that cast of characters, I never would have expected (and still don’t necessarily believe) that anyone super close to Trump would have been tarnished. But it seems I may have been wrong. We’ll have to see what comes of it.

Will ISIS Target Las Vegas Next? https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/credible-islamic-state-propaganda-video-features-short-clip-of-las-vegas-strip/

My Take: Possibly. Following the gruesome and despicable attack in Manchester, England some days ago, ISIS released a “credible” video that seems to indicate the caliphate may target the home of American debauchery: Las Vegas. Targeting the city (a city I adore) would make sense for the terrorist organization, as it’s a loose, live-and-let-live, totally wild place, full of tons and tons of people from all over the United States and, more curiously, from all over the world. That latter point could give ISIS cover, but it also raises the specter that an attack there may not make much sense if Americans, and Americans alone, are your targets. (I’m not saying that’s ISIS’ lone goal, of course, but still.)

The piece linked above notes how strange the video is because of how long it is, coming in at 44 minutes. This stands in stark contrast to shorter, snappier propaganda videos ISIS releases regularly. The scary thing is -- and I’ve been reflecting on this a lot lately -- it’s simply a math problem. How does the FBI and related authorities really stop something like this from happening? It’s truly surprising to me that more attacks don’t happen, and it makes me ponder two conflicting possibilities. Either the authorities are great at breaking this shit up before it happens, or there simply aren’t that many people willing to undertake attacks. In other words, it’s hard to sometimes know whether to take ISIS (or any terrorist threat) seriously, or if we simply have to play the math game, knowing that these things will happen, and that there’s little we can ultimately do about it.

Make sure to check out the related story below, by the way, referring to words spoken by John Kelly, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in which he said, “if [a guy] knew what I knew about terrorism, he’d never leave the house in the morning.” That, to me, sounds like there’s a ton of chatter and little activity. Either way, these are scary times, and I’m hoping nothing terrible happens over the Memorial Day holiday. Stay safe out there!

(Related Story | DHS Chief on Security Threats: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/335272-dhs-chief-youd-never-leave-the-house-with-my-terror-info)