Avoiding a war with China

It is a safe rule of thumb that at any given time, the US needs a external threat that requires a heavy military response. That is how the military-industrial complex keeps the gushers of money flowing their way. They can never allow a time when people say to themselves “Hey, I feel safe!” because then they might ask why the country spends vast amounts of money on the military and its adjuncts when so many other pressing needs exist. So we went from the Cold War to the war of drugs to the wars in the Middle East to the war on terrorism and now some are urging that the US is facing a resurgent threat from Russia. There was even a time when Nicaragua and Grenada were portrayed as existential threats. China was initially portrayed as a threat after the Communist revolution and during the Vietnam war, then faded for a while but has recently risen in the charts as a result of its rapid economic growth that will soon make it the world’s largest economy.
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The Brexit crisis is more about the UK and less about Europe

The veteran Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole argues that the Brexit mess is less about Europe and more a reflection of internal problems within the UK, and that Brexit is a symptom of its ills rather than a cause. And the main issue is that its current four-nation composition cannot function within its present structure.

Yet in Theresa May’s humiliation on Tuesday, there were prizes for almost everybody else: a glimpse of opportunity for her rivals in cabinet; a revival of their sadomasochistic no-deal fantasies for the zealots; the hope of a second referendum for remainers; proof of the near-collapse of the Westminster order for nationalists; the hope of a general election for Jeremy Corbyn. But in truth nobody has won anything – it is a losing game all round.
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Even if May were a political genius – and let us concede that she is not – Brexit was always going to come down to a choice between two evils: the heroic but catastrophic failure of crashing out; or the unheroic but less damaging failure of swapping first-class for second-class EU membership. These are the real afterlives of a departed reverie.
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The visible collapse of the Westminster polity this week may be a result of Brexit, but Brexit itself is the result of the invisible subsidence of the political order over recent decades.
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Louis C. K. has decided to embrace his inner jerk

None of us are wholly good or wholly bad. We all have our good and bad sides. If we are lucky, we are self-aware enough to know that we have bad sides and work to suppress it. But sometimes it escapes our control and reveals itself to others and we receive criticism. What happens next is the decisive thing. We can acknowledge that we did something wrong, apologize, make amends as much as possible, and vow to try and keep our bad side under greater control. Or we can decide that the revelation of our bad side means that we can give ourselves over completely to it and even revel in it.

It seems like Louis C. K. has decided on the second option. After receiving criticism for the things he said in an earlier return to stand up last month, Stacey Solie reports that he seems to have doubled down, to show that this is who he really wants to be.

So be it.

Learning from the pros

Members of the Democratic party have realized that there is a lot they can learn from the millennials in their ranks.

The House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee is hosting a session Thursday morning with Ocasio-Cortez of New York (@AOC – 2.42 million followers) and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut (@jahimes – 76,500 followers) “on the most effective ways to engage constituents on Twitter and the importance of digital storytelling.”
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“The older generation of members and senators is pretty clueless on the social media platforms. It’s pretty clear that a lot of members have 25-year-olds in their offices,” running their social media, Himes said.

“For younger members, they think of social media as every bit of an established form of communication as print or television or radio,” said Josh Hawley, who, at 39, is the youngest U.S. senator.
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Taking the fight to Republicans

Matthew Chapman writes about the weird right wing obsession with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and how their attempts to discredit her (such as posting a fake photo supposedly of her in a bathtub) are really pathetic and backfiring badly, as she knows how to respond aggressively and they are only serving to increase her profile, way beyond that of any new member of Congress. I think they are so used to Democrats trying to defend and explain themselves from attacks that they are not used to some who responds by gleefully mocking them.
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Nancy Pelosi knows Trump’s weaknesses

Nancy Pelosi has written to Donald Trump saying that it would be best to postpone his State of the Union address to the joint session of Congress, scheduled for January 29, until after the government shutdown ends or that he could give it in writing as presidents once used to do. She is effectively withdrawing the invitation for him to speak and since the Speaker is the one who controls the event, she has the right to do so. Trump is realizing that no longer having his obedient puppy Paul Ryan as Speaker has real consequences.
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Product ads are a guide to the zeitgeist

It is hard to gauge where public sentiment lies on social issues. But one indicator is the commercials that big companies put out. These companies are seeking to maximize their customer base and so anything they do has to have taken into consideration its impact in terms of sales. When they take a stance on hot-button issues, they have likely calculated that the people who will respond favorably to it will be greater than the people who are offended. That Nike’s ad featuring Colin Kaeprnick ended up boosting sales for its product showed that they gauged the zeitgeist correctly even though Donald Trump had been whipping up anti-kneeling sentiment among his base.
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Surprise! Republicans actually take some action against King

To my surprise, the Republican party has actually taken some action against Iowa congressperson Steve King for his comments that suggested that there was nothing wrong with being a white nationalist or a white supremacist. My surprise was because King has been openly saying awful things for the longest time without the party taking action, so I expected them to continue turning a blind eye or issue just pro-forma criticisms. But yesterday, Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy said that King would not be appointed to any committees. This is a pretty serious move because it is by being on congressional committees that members get a platform for their views and, more importantly, many of them get much of their campaign funding because lobbyists for various interest groups target members of the relevant committees and donate to them and wine and dine them in order to curry favor and promote their agendas. A congressperson who is not on any committee might as well be invisible.
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