Inhumanity is policy on Day 1 Donald Trump and his MAGA followers find community in “rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them,” Adam Serwer wrote in 2018. If Republicans reoccupy the White House in 2025, they plan to make a formal project of it. The Biden-Harris campaign wants to be sure you don’t miss that. We are all horrified by Israeli policy in Gaza, and by President Joe Biden’s tardiness in issuing a “tense” ultimatum to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “protect Palestinian civilians and foreign aid workers” (Reuters): “There was always going to be a point at which the Biden administration felt that the domestic and international cost of supporting Israel’s campaign in Gaza outweighed the benefit of what Israel was able to achieve on the ground,” said Mike Singh, a former National Security Council official on the Middle East. “What is remarkable is not that this is happening but that it took so long.” “Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians.
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Rebecca Solnit speaks with Anand Giridharadas It’s a feature of our minds that we remember the coincidences, the little serendipities, and quickly forget events in life that, but for a second here or there, might have radically altered our lives, Brian Klaas writes in “Fluke.” We also too easily forget what’s accomplished and obsess over what’s not. “One thing I have taken to saying a lot is that amnesia leads to despair and it also leads to powerlessness,” Rebecca Solnit tells Anand Giridharadas. “People don’t trace the trajectory of change.” I find that a feature of some on the left, the humorless glass-half-empty set I sometimes refer to as left-wing fundamentalists. At The Ink, Solnit traces some of the many accomplishments progressive organizers have won over the last decade or so on human rights and on climate. But they are quickly forgotten as we tackle issues yet unresolved. “I think that a lot of American hopelessness, despair, cynicism, and defeatism is so tied to the inability to trace the arc of change,” Solnit says.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has twisted himself into a pretzel trying to please his fractious caucus and he’s starting to show the strain. Unfortunately, the people of Ukraine are currently paying the price as he struggles with what appears to be a cage match with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who is making it clear that she intends to blow up the House of Representatives in an election year if she doesn’t get her way. The state of play remains what it’s been for weeks now. The Senate passed a tortuously negotiated bipartisan bill that included funding for Ukraine and the border months ago which the House rejected upon orders from Donald Trump who openly admitted that his motives were purely to benefit his campaign. Since then Johnson has been running around in circles insisting one day that he won’t bring any Ukraine funding bill to the floor and the next suggesting that he has an agreement on Ukraine that would include a provision that would seize frozen Russian assets and categorize the Ukrainian aid as a loan, an idea floated by Donald Trump and S. Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
He’s selling out the country for personal gain … again Brian Beutler points out in his fantastic newsletter today (subscribe here) that Trump’s extracurricular foreign policy activity is almost certainly in service of his election in November and suggests that the Democrats take this seriously: President Biden may have reached his wits end, however belatedly, with Benjamin Netanyahu. A readout of their most recent conversation suggests that, in the wake of the World Central Kitchen killings, and the subsequent flight-to-safety of humanitarian workers, U.S. aid will be conditioned going forward on a rapidly implemented ceasefire (of uncertain length) in order to meliorate the catastrophe on the ground.
And that’s what they love about him.
It must be bad news for Joe Biden Steve Benen at MSNBC reports: Expectations heading into this morning showed projections of about 200,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in March. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market managed to do much better than that. CNBC reported: In addition to the top-line data, we also learned that wage growth continued to outpace inflation. As unemployment rate inched lower again, the jobless rate has now been below 4% for 26 consecutive months — a streak unseen in the United States since the 1960s. As for the politics, let’s circle back to previous coverage to put the data in perspective. Over the course of the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency — when the Republican said the United States’ economy was the greatest in the history of the planet — the economy created roughly 6.35 million jobs, spanning all of 2017, 2018 and 2019. According to the latest tally, the U.S.
He might be. His fundraising is anemic and he’s acting panicked It’s hard to imagine that he’s not going to be re-elected in Texas but he is the most unlikable official in politics (and that’s saying something) so maybe even the Texans are sick of him: THE WALLS ARE closing in around Ted Cruz, and the Republican senator is lashing out. Cruz, who has served two terms as Texas junior senator, is facing a tough reelection challenge from former NFL player and current U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who won Texas’ Democratic Senate primary in a landslide victory last month. On Wednesday, Cruz begged for donation on Fox News while complaining that Allred is out fundraising his 2018 challenger, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, by leaps and bounds. “The Democrats are coming after me, they are gonna spend more than $100 million this year, George Soros is already spending millions of dollars in the state of Texas,” Cruz told Sean Hannity. “My opponent a liberal Democrat named Colin Allred, is out raising Beto O’Rourke, my last opponent, 3 to 1.
Pygmy Slow Loris babies! Via Zooborns For the first time, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) is celebrating the birth of two pygmy slow lorises, an endangered species. Small Mammal House keepers reported for duty the morning of March 21 and observed that 3-year-old mother Naga had given birth overnight and was caring for two infants. She and the babies’ 2-year-old father, Pabu, received a recommendation to breed from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan (SSP). These babies are the first offspring for both parents. Keepers have observed Naga carrying, grooming and nursing the babies, which appear to be healthy and strong. Animal care staff will determine the babies’ sexes at their first vet exam, which will take place in a few months.
A “multipronged assault” Last week, I questioned the sufficiency of the “comically long” list of MAGA “nightmare scenarios” the Biden campaign is planning for that could arise leading up to and in the aftermath of the November election. We witnessed live on Jan. 6 the lengths to which MAGA Republicans would go to maintain power. Even then it took many months of investigation to uncover the plotting Trump’s confederates did not put on public display. It’s likely that people without criminal minds are not devious enough to anticipate all the ways Insurrection 2.0 might unfold. This time, the prospect of jail time if he loses increases Trump’s incentives for instigating mayhem. As with stochastic terrorism, his followers don’t require explicit orders from the chief to know what he wants. From Daily Beast (via Yahoo Finance): Maria Bartiromo didn’t even bother to wait for the 2024 election to pass before suggesting it could be stolen.
The MAGA minority means to impose its will ICYMI, the effort in Nebraska to change the state’s electoral vote allocation to winner-take-all failed last night. It is more evidence that the GOP is pulling out all the stops in seeking ways to tip the presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor, even for a single electoral vote. But do not lose sight of other places (and other 2024 races) where the MAGA GOP is hoping to place heavy thumbs on the scales. Pay attention (Bolts): The Texas supreme court closed out 2023 by blocking an abortion during a medical emergency, forcing a woman to flee the state. Just days before Christmas, Wisconsin justices struck down the state’s GOP-drawn gerrymanders. So far this year, Montana’s supreme court has stepped in to protect voting rights, while a decision in Alabama threatened in vitro fertilization treatments. In each of these states, unlike at the federal level, voters chose who sits on the bench and which judges get to dictate such profound consequences. And the 2024 elections may now reshape who holds power on supreme courts across the country.