BRINGING NORTH KOREA’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM TO THE POINT OF NO RETURN: My latest Creators Syndicate column.
Chapter Two of my new book, Cocktails from Hell, surveys the Korean War and the Kim regime’s nuclear weapons quest. The book comes out in December.
BOOM: Facebook shareholders back proposal to remove Zuckerberg as chairman.
Several public funds that hold shares in Facebook Inc on Wednesday backed a proposal to remove Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg as chairman, saying the social media giant mishandled several high-profile scandals.
State treasurers from Illinois, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, co-filed the proposal. They joined hedge fund Trillium Asset Management, which bought it to the table in June.
The proposal, set to be voted on at Facebook’s annual shareholder meeting in May 2019, is asking the board to make the role of chair an independent position.
This is probably a fruitless effort because of the way Zuckerberg structured the company’s voting shares.
TOTALITARIANS ON CAMPUS: Are the Sex Police Putting a Leash on Campus Newshounds?
SHRINKAGE: President Donald Trump says he’ll ask Cabinet to cut department budgets by 5 percent.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would cut the federal budget with the help of his Cabinet, a proposal that analysts said was aspirational at best and unlikely to affect the skyrocketing federal deficit.
“We’re going to ask every Cabinet secretary to cut 5 percent for next year,” Trump said before a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
The president’s request is likely for his fiscal 2020 budget proposal, which is due to Congress early next year.
It’s a low bar, admittedly, but Trump is a more libertarian, and more conservative, president than any in my lifetime.
IT’S A GOOD START: Trump smashes regs, cuts $33 billion vs. $245 billion added by Obama.
SLATE: Republicans Aren’t Running on Taxes Anymore. They’re Running on Bigotry.
This schtick was played out in 2012 at the latest, but Jamelle Bouie keeps going back to it.
IS THE U.S. NAVY TOO SMALL TO PROTECT CONVOYS?
I had some related thoughts here.
TROUBLE IS, SPENDING GREW FASTER: Go Figure: Federal Revenues Hit All-Time Highs Under Trump Tax Cuts.
GOOD QUESTION: What Do We Really Know about Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia ought to be easy to figure out. It’s one of the few extant monarchies that seem serious about keeping the mon in their archy. In is, in theory, an absolute regime under the unquestionable and unified power of the royal family. King Salman may have been sidelined by dementia, but Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has given every indication of being in command of the kingdom — in theory.
In reality, it’s a platinum-plated Shakespearean succession drama in the desert, with schisms within the royal family and between the royal family proper and other centers of power. In the immediate aftermath of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, one observer with considerable on-the-ground knowledge of Saudi affairs suggested that there were multiple possible explanations for the case: It could have been a straightforward hit on a critic of the regime ordered by Mohammad bin Salman himself; it could have been a straightforward hit on a critic of the regime carried out without the knowledge of Mohammad bin Salman; it could have been a hit carried out by rivals of Mohammad bin Salman, such as Mohammad bin Nayef, who had been next in line to the throne until Mohammad bin Salman pushed him aside, or Mutaib bin Abdullah, one of the Saudi princes arrested last year on corruption charges, who was fined $1 billion and removed from the government, for the purpose of messing with the crown prince’s life. It’s even possible that the Erdogan regime in Turkey was mixed up in this, he suggested.
Khashoggi wasn’t just a troublesome journalist; he was, as the New York Times puts it, a man who had had “a successful career as an adviser to and unofficial spokesman for the royal family of Saudi Arabia.” A businessman who has spent many years working in the Middle East says: “I don’t think the Saudis would send 15 assassins to chop up a ‘mere’ journalist, but they would send 15 assassins to settle some internecine family feud.” He also cautions that the Middle Eastern tendency to resort to conspiracy theories to explain complicated relationships is likely to muddy the water.
I do not have any special knowledge of Saudi affairs and cannot speak to the plausibility of the scenarios mentioned above.
Serious question: Do we have somebody who can?
The Khashoggi affair has been a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, covered in sand.
IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN YOU ACCUSE A DEMOCRAT: Ellison Accuser: Why Won’t Anyone Believe Me — When I’ve Provided Corroboration? (Bumped).
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE LEGAL WORLD: Trial Lawyer Climate Lawsuits Against Big Oil Aren’t Very Popular.
Democrats have been waiting for that wave to crest for a long time, at least since the 2002 publication of “The Emerging Democratic Majority” by John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. That book’s modest thesis suggested that demographic trends would increase traditional Democratic constituencies while slowly shrinking the GOP’s base, as long as Democrats could find a way to hold their then-current coalition together.
By 2016, many saw that as prophecy: All they needed to do was wait for the GOP’s atavistic denizens to die off, leaving the country to those on the right side of history.
Yet salvation keeps failing to arrive.
Yeah that “emerging Democratic majority” stuff was the best disinformation op ever.
CHANGE: Global list of charity sex predators to be launched.
Britain is to pioneer a worldwide register of suspected sexual predators working in the aid sector, the international development secretary will announce tomorrow.
The database of suspects is part of the “concerted global effort” to clean up the charity world after The Times’s exposure of sexual misconduct by Oxfam workers in Haiti.
The project, which will be kickstarted with £2 million of British aid cash, will harness Interpol’s green-notice system, which issues international alerts over those “considered to be a threat to public safety”.
Overdue.
BUT IT DOESN’T COUNT WHEN IT RESULTS FROM CAPITALISM INSTEAD OF GOVERNMENT COERCION: US CO2 EMISSIONS PLUMMET UNDER TRUMP WHILE THE REST OF THE WORLD EMITS MORE.
THIS IS NOT WHAT FASCISM LOOKS LIKE: Yale professor Jason Stanley in the New York Times: If You’re Not Scared About Fascism in the United States, You Should Be. Blustery quotes from Trump aren’t “fascism.” You know what actual fascism looks like? A judiciary controlled by the executive, militarization of civilian life, rubber-stamp legislature, no free elections, government control of industry, severe restrictions on press freedom, and cooptation of religious entities by the state. You know how many of these we have now? None. Nor is there any real threat of any of these occurring. Even if we were to accept Stanley’s claim that Trump uses fascist-style rhetoric, fascism is not looming in America. This sort of nonsense should be beneath a serious academic, but, hey, it’s 2018, and everyone has gone crazy.
UPDATE: Stanley defended the fascistic Yale student activists who launched the infamous campaign of defamation against the Christakises over their suggestion that students not freak out over Halloween costumes. Stanley wrote, “But didn’t Erika Christakis, and most though not all of her defenders, express their views in a much more reasonable tone of voice than the students protesting? Yes. But sounding reasonable can be a luxury.” He followed up with some academic goobleygook explaining why “oppressed people” (a rather odd description of Yale students of any background) should be held to a different standard of behavior than the “privileged.” This is the state of the Ivy League, folks.
SOMEONE FINALLY FOUND A WAY TO MAKE ME READ HIS BOOK. HE SENT ME AN AUDIO OF IT WHEN I WAS DOING HOUSE RENOVATIONS. AND WEIRDLY, I LIKED IT. IT’S A HARD SCIENCE FICTION THRILLER, WITH A BIT OF ROMANCE THROWN IN: It starts with a black hole en route to the solar system. How does humanity get out of that one? With difficulties (many.) And the book is on sale for 99c this week. Primordial Threat.
THIS TIME OF YEAR I MISS STREET VENDORS OF ROAST CHESTNUTS: Nut, bread, or Meat? Forest or Cultivated Woods?
SOME OF YOU MIGHT NEED TO HEAR THIS: Blind Nobility.
YES, SURE, BUT REMEMBER CRAZY TACTICS WORK ON THE INSANE AND DON’T GET COCKY: The Democrats Must Be Defeated.
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