June links

Negotiations with Iran. Trump does a U-turn because he wants something done. Also he might be trying to head off Bolton's push to war.

Hong Kong protests. China is trying to depress freedoms in Hong Kong, again. That's a difficult situation, and those are brave people.

Did tax cuts help the economy? Economists were in a race to check for the indicators before they were swamped by Trump's trade wars. The data is rather muddy.

Shaming Congress. Jon Stewart speaking with such humanity and passion to a bunch of butt-kissing politicians. This is the kind of person we need in Congress, not the ones we have now. (Scroll down for video of his full speech.) An economist tells Trump why too many sanctions are harmful.

Shaming a politically correct college. Oberlin College was hit with a massive judgment for abetting trumped-up demonstrations by students against a local business.

Special considerations when pregnant women are jailed. I have never considered this issue, but it seems that the jail and prison managers haven't either, and they have no excuse.

Forged videos and fake news. The fakers now have even better tools for the lies they may want to spread. Yikes!

The internet remembers everything. And Twitter rewards 'mean,' so you're screwed if you've used it, and you're nobody if you haven't.

Image: giphy.com

Republican accomplishments in 2017

The GOP had undivided power in the US federal government: presidency, House, Senate, and even a mostly sympathetic Supreme Court. They started the year with all kinds of bragging, but didn't manage to do some major pieces of legislation, including repealing Obamacare, overhauling immigration laws, defunding the horrid Planned Parenthood, reworking trade agreements, etc.

The misses have been well-discussed. What might be overlooked is what was accomplished by these latter day Keyston Kops. (A good summary is here. A summary from a conservative site here.)

Tighter enforcement on immigration. Many groups, including Haitians, have lost special status and are now subject to deportation. DACA for children brought to the US wasn't renewed. Flow across the border seems to be down (a trend over several years). Democrats are being pounded by their constituents over their failure to stop these immigration changes. But that just shows the unrealistic hopes of certain groups since the Dems have almost no power.

The tax reform/tax cut bill was passed, with major changes for both businesses, individuals, and households. It's hard for me to predict how this will affect the country in the long term. It may cause a big increase in deficits. However, if the increases are kept to around $100 billion a year, that's not too large in the scheme of things. So far businesses have responded in positive ways, so there is a chance that the economic benefits will outweigh the economic downsides. We'll have to wait to see, though not everyone agrees. Some are presuming it will be a failure, though partisanship is probably the motive.

Changes in regulations, and a big slowdown in new regulation. I personally think that the stability of much less new regulation is mostly a benefit. I'm not a business owner, but wonder how many are relieved with this change in particular. And I'm not talking about businesses that hope to drill in sea coasts or pollute.

No huge disasters. There haven't been any crises that have started and gotten worse. No blunders that ballooned into disasters. Does that count as an accomplishment? No, but I'm still grateful.

Image: magapill.com

Extras. Not a close fit except for the aspect of a roundup of 2017. The most underreported news stories.

December links 2

Sexual harassment in foreign policy circles. Dan Drezner, a smart, wonkish political writer, asks women in foreign policy circles what hurdles they face. Very readable in two parts.

Read between the lines in the Flynn indictment. Better yet, let law experts do it and read what they write. They think Flynn is giving very important information and cooperation to the Russia investigation. 

Tax cut dogma. Just when I needed to refute some jerk who thought the Laffer Curve was scientifically proven, I found this article about tax cuts and their effect on growth. Pretty concise.

Ramifications of US recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. It's been a fact on the ground, but a diplomatic minefield. Candidates for president have made and then broken promises. Trump finally seems to plan to pull that trigger, but how bad will it be? As this article notes, it won't derail talks because there are no talks. Background on the role of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who seems to have an ego as big as Trump's. Of course there were riots in the short term. The long term will have to be seen.

A day as President Trump. A close look at what it's like to be President Trump. Kelly has brought in more discipline and focus, and Trump appears to have learned a few productive coping mechanisms.

A Trump fallacy and its effect. Trump isn't able to hear and accept the truth about Russia, its intentions and its interference. His own ego and insecurity don't allow him. However, he also doesn't seem to be in charge of policy with regard to Russia. It's a bad situation and could get worse.

A lesson in post-Soviet history. I hadn't known this important bit of history, where the NATO countries broke an unwritten promise on expansion. One lesson--it's not any kind of promise if you can't write it down and publicize it. Secret agreements--they're probably broken again and again.

Big ideas: Clash of world powers. This column starts as a book recommendation, but the issue is huge: the future of the world. Is our future more relative peace or a big conflict? Mostly pessimistic, but not entirely.

Image: future.wikia.com

Short: 'Fix the Debt' is fixed

A great article from Jonathan Chait about a pro-deficit reduction group that is strangely biased towards whatever the GOP offers. Chait takes apart the GOP proposal and Fix-the-Debt's incongruous support of it.

The GOP gets credit for being deficit hawks, but it doesn't deserve 95% of this credit. Sure, they propose cuts here and there, but their major actions have been 1) to stymie systemic reform of the budget and 2) enact deficit-growing tax cuts.

The article has some pointed recent history. It's a good reminder, as history usually is.

New slogan, same old.

Image: yourhoustonnews.com