News Burst: September 13, 2017 (Patreon)

Hey All!

I hope this week’s News Burst finds you very well, and that all is going swimmingly in your lives.

I’m starting to get back on track here in LA. My dad was here for four days, and it was great spending time with him, but, as always, that threw my work off course, so I’m playing a bit of catch-up. (Speaking of which, for all of you $10+/month Patreon subscribers, the monthly Q&A video is going live today, likely right around the time this posts, so keep an eye out.)

There’s not much else to report, other than to keep in mind that the 9/11 episode is the only episode of the show this week (I was originally going to split it into two, but decided against it, so you have a full hour of content to watch and enjoy, uninterrupted). Next week, I’ll be rolling out a two-part episode of The Hypothetical Presidency of Colin Moriarty, so as they say in Japan, please look forward to it.

Here’s the news!

5.) New iPhones

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-iphone-x-iphone-8/

This is the first time since I rejiggered the News Burst to be a weekly countdown that I really had to whittle down some stories. I was going to talk about Hurricane Irma; then I figured that would be three weeks in a row of depressing hurricane stories, so I struck it from the list. I was going to talk about how Ted Cruz’s Twitter profile “liked” a porn video, but honestly, who gives a fuck. I settled here, instead, because not only is this a bit of a cultural event -- particularly here in the States -- but because Apple’s new phones also signal a real need to look backwards at the ecosystem they largely built with their own two hands (as it were). Nearly a decade on, the smartphone -- largely pioneered and popularized by Apple’s iPhone -- has completely changed the way we do everything, the way we interact with each other and the world around us, and, for purposes of what we do here, it’s also altered the political landscape, for better or for worse.

I think that what’s often lost in the fuss over the progression of technology, and how miniaturized, powerful, and ubiquitous this nature of tech has become, is how it’s completely blown apart and reassembled our economy, our relationships, and our vision of the world. Sure, the iPhone X sounds like an absolute beast (link below), and iPhone 8 doesn’t sound like much of a slouch, either (link below), but it’s what these phones -- these amazing devices -- have allowed us to do in just the past 10 years that is truly staggering. In today’s world, 10 years is practically a lifetime. Think back to what you were doing a decade ago, where you were a decade ago, what you thought 10 years from then would look like. Are you living in that world? I’m not.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we need to take a moment to breathe and let it all in. 10 years ago, I had just moved to San Francisco to work at IGN. I was fresh out of school. I had virtually no money in my bank account. I had a flip phone that I called people with (yes, I used a phone to talk to people with my voice!), and would occasionally text on it. No one went on the Internet with their phones. No one watched video with their phones. No one knew what an “app” was. No one knew what “social media” would become. Now look at us. Look at our world, as symbolized by these new, powerful devices. And imagine where we’ll be 10 years from now. What our world will look like. How we’ll speak to one another. How we’ll interact with the world around us. Pretty tasty food for thought, I’d say, all wrapped up in the anniversary launch of a smartphone.

Related Story | iPhone X is a Beast: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/13/16302170/apple-iphone-x-vs-iphone-8-features-camera-price

Related Story | iPhone 8 is a Nice Step Up: https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/12/iphonex-vs-iphone8-vs-iphone7/

4.) Ben Shapiro Does Berkeley

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/13/ben-shapiro-at-uc-berkeley-what-you-need-to-know/

By the time some of you find the time to read this week’s News Burst, this would have already happened, but it’s the fact that it’s so newsworthy before anything occurs that is truly of note. Ben Shapiro -- famous conservative commentator, podcast and radio host, author, and lawyer -- is headed to UC Berkeley in Northern California to give a speech about so-called “campus thuggery” that is being put on by the Berkeley College Republicans. It’s set to be two hours long, and the couple of thousand tickets to the event have long since been spoken for. Of course, what’s happening within the auditorium at Berkeley is only half of the equation. The other half of the equation is what will happen outside of the auditorium, as Berkeley seems primed for yet another round of screeching over people with different ideas having the audacity to speak.

Shapiro’s appearance at Berkeley, and the preemptive response to it -- regardless of what is said by Shapiro or done by the protesters when Thursday actually rolls around -- is absolutely, positively guaranteed to further an evermore dangerous relationship between freedom of speech and political violence. People are so afraid of hearing ideas that they’ve never heard before, or -- God forbid -- hear a person speak who doesn’t agree with them, that we’re slowly seeing play out the logical conclusion to all of it: Increased tension around every corner, regardless of who is saying what, when, and why. It’s a situation run completely amok. I don’t agree with all of what Shapiro says, but precisely zero percent of what comes out of his mouth is extreme. Literally zero percent of it is outside of mainstream thought in some way, shape, or form.

I think it’s a real shame that academia has fallen so far, and as I’ve noted in the past, I’m so pleased that I got my degree from a great school before that school inevitably ate itself (and, as we saw at Northeastern when Chick Fil-a had the audacity to try to open a franchise there, Northeastern isn’t above the Bullshit Fray). Berkeley was once the proudest, loudest, brightest free speech beacon in all of America, and, indeed, the entire world. In 50 years, it has turned into a caricature of itself, a caricature of everything people make fun of when it comes to American progressivism. People afraid of their own shadows, nonetheless scared of the words being uttered by others. Can you believe it? Words! Even the New York Times knows it’s all such a farce (link below). Shapiro and Berkeley are another stark reminder that we all need to wake up and protect what’s most important to us and to our society and way of life, before these cretins ruin it for everyone.

Related Story | A Conservative Goes to Berkeley: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/opinion/conservative-berkeley-ben-shapiro.html

3.) Steve Bannon’s Interesting Interview

https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/steve-bannon/

As soon as I heard that Steve Bannon was giving an interview to 60 Minutes, I knew that I had to watch it. I love 60 Minutes -- it’s one of the few shows left on network TV truly worth a damn -- but beyond that, I knew that I had to hear what this man had to say for himself. For those that don’t know, Bannon was one of the masterminds behind Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, and a man who, in the earliest dawn hours of the Trump presidency, held the most power in his circle of advisors. Bannon’s populist, protectionist, nationalist approach could be heard in every other word that was coming out of Trump’s mouth in the campaign’s final months -- not to mention after he won -- and so it would be fascinating to hear what Bannon was ready to say now that he left the White House to go back to a leadership position at Breitbart.

The interview, as you can see in the link above, wasn’t a disappointment. I found Bannon to be what I always thought he was: Smart, quick, callous, a little thin-skinned. And I found his interviewer, Charlie Rose, to be surprisingly combative, though there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. In the mix, though, was this real feeling that Steve Bannon understands what brought Trump to victory more than he does, that Bannon holds at least some of the keys to the kingdom that unlocked Trump’s presidency. And I was especially fascinated by one thing in particular: Steve Bannon has every intention of continuing the fight back in the publishing world. To some degree, I support what he says and how he feels, particularly when it comes to the nature of Washington D.C. as a business that creates no value and yet seeps up all of the economic benefit (link below). In other ways, Bannon and I have some distinct disagreements.

I think what I learned most of all, though, was how shrewd Bannon is. That’s not a huge surprise, I guess, considering he hails from a fairly Machiavellian presidential campaign and administration that ate plenty of its own, but seemed to leave him intact, albeit dejected and probably separated from the center of power that revolves around Trump and his immediate family (think Ivanka, Jared, Don Jr., et cetera). And I also think that Bannon continues to play with fire with Breitbart’s unholy alliance with completely unacceptable people (link below). I know that he overtly criticizes the racist, bigoted, and exclusionary elements of Trump’s support base, and I believe that he’s likely none of those things himself. But associations come at a cost. Regardless, I highly recommend everyone take the time to at least watch the interview and draw your own conclusions. I’ll say what I said this past fall: He’s a smart dude. I’m fascinated by him, even if I don’t agree with him fully. There’s something so interesting about a former banker and Hollywood mogul with no political experience whatsoever driving modern history’s most pronounced underdog campaign to victory. Anyone who says otherwise is likely the occupant of a pronounced echochamber.

Related Story | The Inconsistent Philosophy of Steve Bannon: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/steve-bannon-is-a-swiss-cheese-philosopher/2017/09/12/3a45f43c-97e7-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html

Related Story | Steve Bannon Has A Problem: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/steve-bannon-has-a-nazi-problem

2.) Sanders’ Medicare For All Plan

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/sanders-will-introduce-universal-health-care-backed-by-15-democrats/2017/09/12/d590ef26-97b7-11e7-87fc-c3f7ee4035c9_story.html

On its face, it’s not a huge surprise that Bernie Sanders introduced a universal health care bill today, one that will basically expand America’s Medicare structure to ultimately be available to each and every citizen of the country. What’s more surprising is that 15 fellow Senators -- a full 15% of the upper house of the legislature -- have officially signed-on to the legislation. That’s not nearly enough to get it passed (and we should be very clear that this bill is going precisely nowhere), but there’s deep symbolism embedded in a move like this. It’s a sign of changing times, but more than that, it’s a sign of changing liberalism. There’s been a fight in the Democratic party (which Sanders isn’t even a member of) that Clinton lost to Trump because she wasn’t liberal enough, wasn’t progressive enough. I think that’s demonstrably insane, but nonetheless, Sanders and his group aren’t alone in that thinking. Other Democrats -- some up for election soon, others with presidential aspirations -- agree with him. Signing onto this bill is a sure sign of that.

Sanders’ proposal is this, in a nutshell (link below): A fully tax-funded medical system with no copayments whatsoever. Everyone would have a “Universal Medicare Card” that would at first be grandfathered in. That is to say, Medicare’s age would simply lower each year until all are included (except children under the age of 18, who would gain immediate access once the hypothetical legislation was passed and signed). Prescription drugs would come with some additional costs attached, and dental work, as well as elective surgeries, would obviously not be included. It’s unclear how much this will all cost, but Sanders swears it’ll be cheaper than all of us paying insurance premiums. All we know is that, when he was running against Clinton, he proposed a similar idea with a base cost of $1.4 trillion a year, paid for with a 2.2% income tax increase on each and every American, further tax increases on wealthy Americans, and a devastating 6.2% tax on employers.

Bernie Sanders is no fool. He controlled the left wing debate during the 2016 election, and as I said in a recent video, I don’t care how old he is, or how old he will be in 2020: He’s running again. This is the first of what I assume will be several legislative maneuvers to get his ideas into the forefront of the American debate, not only for the 2018 midterms, but for the Trump reelection (or lack thereof). He’s a skilled politician (link below) who seems to be dragging the American left further and further away from the middle. Whether or not that’s good for the party, for the movement, and for their midterm and presidential aspirations remains to be seen. The electorate will determine that. What I do know is that the Republicans are going to have a field day with this one, and I sure hope Sanders understands that he may have just given his adversaries a bow-topped, beautifully wrapped present.

Related Story | The Nuts and Bolts of Sanders’ Proposal: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/politics/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-plan-details/index.html

Related Story | The Politics of Medicare For All: https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-politics-of-bernie-sanderss-medicare-for-all-bill

1.) Reflecting on 9/11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZvDxRDKV_w

I just want to make sure you all saw this interview. Please, if you haven’t, take the time to watch it, share it with friends and family, and reflect on it. I think we can all learn from my dad, who spun the ultimate negative into the ultimate positive. I will try to work that lesson into my life far more often. I hope we all will.

Any week that contains the 9/11 anniversary will obviously be dominated by talk of September 11th. I suspect, as we move forward in time, that will become less pronounced. But let’s always carry the memory of that day forward with us, and try to live better lives with the time that we were all given, when so many other flames were extinguished.

There’s nothing else to say.