News Burst: May 02, 2017

Hey All,

I hope you’re doing well! As I mentioned in my earlier note, this is (very) late today because of moving stuff. Erin and I have been running around buying what we need, and it’s… well… it’s annoying. But we found a really, really good Italian restaurant, and now I’m certain I’m going to be morbidly obese.

Let’s delay no further, though. Here’s the news! (I'll make tomorrow's News Burst similarly late so we don't have these on top of one another, and then we'll get back on schedule after that.)

Could Abstention Deliver Le Pen A Win?: https://www.yahoo.com/news/frances-le-pen-fights-plagiarism-charge-macron-camp-113010815.html

My Take: Probably not. Political polling has been catastrophically wrong these last few years -- and I also said that I won’t believe Le Pen will actually lose until Le Pen actually loses -- but everything I’m seeing in this race has Macron up like 25 points at minimum. If the polling is THAT wrong, we might as well stop using polls for anything, ever again.

So, yeah, I’m sure lots of folks are going to abstain -- passion is central to politics, after all, and Macron is apparently as vanilla and politically soulless as it gets -- but he should walk away with a double-digit victory. Le Pen has a fiery fanbase, but it’s not big enough. It’s just math. Polling has planned abstention near 30 points, when considering those who voted in the first round, which is gigantic (that would be like 30% of Americans who voted in a primary somehow not vote in the general election, which would never remotely happen), but I’m not convinced it’ll be enough to give Le Pen the win.

Tomorrow, Le Pen and Macron face-off in a debate, which I hope to watch in translated form at some point. Should be fireworks-heavy, I’m sure.

Hillary Clinton Still Blames Everyone But Herself: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-02/hillary-clinton-i-was-way-winning-until-comey-and-russian-wikileaks

My Take: I went to Barnes & Noble today with the intention of buying that new book Shattered, which is all about the Clinton campaign and how it fell apart. The book is apparently so popular -- unexpectedly so -- that massive chains like Barnes & Noble significantly under-ordered the book. So much so that they got two copies this week, and both were spoken for. So I just bought it on Amazon. You fucked up, Barnes & Noble.

I tell you that just because there’s clearly so much interest, months later, into the utter nuclear catastrophe that was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run. It is the most glorious, the most heinous, the most ridiculous presidential loss in post-war American history, and I’d say one of the craziest election outcomes in American history, period. There will never again be a more beatable presidential candidate than Donald Trump in 2016. Ever. And she still lost to him. It boggles the mind, and it always will… which is why I’m desperate to read Shattered and get some perspective. (It doesn’t arrive until Monday, indicating that even Amazon is having supply problems. Lucky publisher.)

Hillary Clinton didn’t lose because of James Comey, or Russia, or Wikileaks. She lost because she was an awful presidential candidate, widely look at as an opportunist, a liar, and part of a royal American family no one asked for or wanted. The sooner she realizes that she lost because of herself, and because of her shockingly inept campaign staff that should never get within a million miles of an election ever again, the better off she’ll be. Because we already know that.

Stephen Colbert Makes Reportedly-Homophobic Remark: http://decider.com/2017/05/02/stephen-colbert-donald-trump-cock-holster/

My Take: Except, he really didn’t. Listen: I don’t like Stephen Colbert. I’ve never liked Stephen Colbert. I think he’s a snide try-hard, and I think he was long allowed to hide behind his Comedy Central character in such a way that it obscured many of his true feelings and allowed him to dodge criticism. I know he’s since owned his politics and his stances, but that always stuck with me. He was an extreme version of Jon Stewart in that way.

But I knew even before watching the video of his supposed “homophobic joke” about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that he did nothing wrong. And, lo-and-behold, I watched the video, and I was surprised by how tame it was, even under the assumption that there was something there that set some people off. I don’t get it. Joking about a guy sucking another guy’s dick is as American as apple pie, and the joke doesn’t even have to revolve around the sexual orientation of the act itself.

The outrage represents two things to me. First of all, it’s another example of the left eating itself alive. But I think the bigger thing it represents is some forced -- and false -- need for right wing folks to come out and be like, “imagine if we did that!” The witch hunt mentality, even if its perceived to be reflexive and retaliatory, doesn’t look good on anybody. Stephen Colbert is perhaps the most unlikable person on television, but he didn’t do anything wrong here.

Health Care Shows the Rise of GOP Centrism: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-losing-votes-on-health-bill-imperiling-its-chances-1493742778

My Take: Donald Trump and Congress, in a somewhat surprising (but simultaneously not all that surprising) move, are trying to revive health care reform. After some ups-and-downs over these last few days, it seems like everything might be going pear-shaped again. The GOP is fractured even after Trump’s win -- maybe it’s even more fractured than it was -- and while the conservative Freedom Caucus killed the bill the first time around, it could be the moderate, Rockefeller wing that’s destroying it the second time around.

I never really realized why the GOP was so intent on pushing this through first, and it makes a little more sense now: They need the money from Obamacare that would be saved to help pay for tax reform. I never put two and two together, which could be a form of my own ignorance, but nonetheless, the push makes a little more sense now. But this is a numbers game in a different way: Even with a massive majority in the House, the GOP can only let off certain members from voting Yes, or it simply will not pass. And this isn’t a safe bill for moderate Republicans.

The magic number is 22. If the GOP loses more than 22 votes on health care, it cannot pass without Democrats supporting it, and it’s not going to get a single Democratic vote in a Trump-dominated ecosystem. That’s bad news for Trump and the GOP, who can’t move forward with tax reform without the money. I’m personally proud of the moderates for trying to take control again. Don’t give up.

The US May Leave Paris Climate Agreement: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paris-agreement_us_5908f524e4b05c397683d404?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

My Take: There’s nothing binding about the Paris Agreement -- the US actually has the legal right to withdraw from it right up until 2019, without penalty -- but there is something significantly symbolic about it, since both the United States and China were signatories to it, a rarity for two countries renown for their carbon emissions. Much like the trouble with the EPA, I’m not entirely sure why we’d leave the Paris Agreement, even if we ultimately don’t reach the carbon reduction goals set in it. International agreements like this are ultimately toothless.

That said, the administration doesn’t agree, at least in regard to possible legal troubles it can get into in the United States in regard to the agreement, other environmental (or non-environmental) issues on the agenda, and more. Donald Trump promised to leave the agreement when he got into office, but like everything else, I think he was surprised by what was really going on.

Anyway, just a story to keep an eye on. From a political perspective, it could be perilous for Trump, since he already has an anti-environmental slant (or perception, anyway). Why exacerbate it?

The NSA is Still Out of Control: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/us/politics/nsa-phone-records.html?_r=0

My Take: Of course they are. This New York Times article reports that, even in its neutered form, the NSA collected more than 150 million phone records last year. The article notes that this is a small fraction of what the agency used to do -- in which it would collect billions of so-called records A DAY -- but it still shows, nonetheless, that there’s mass, indiscriminate collection of data happening. There’s no way there were 150 million phone calls in the US in 2016 that would have required a warrant to look into, or anywhere close to that. Perhaps a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of those calls. Maybe.

The NSA is a scary governmental body. It was before we knew what it was really doing, it was while the information came out, and it still is today. I feel like a lot of people have simply forgotten what the NSA is all about, and how they’ve infringed on the privacy of all of us. I will always hold them in disdain. There’s not much else to say.

Is Liberalism Killing ESPN?: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/02/did-too-much-caitlyn-jenner-doom-espn-215093

My Take: This is an interesting read (as are some of the articles it links off to). I won’t get too deep into it here, other than to say that the liberal turn at ESPN hasn’t bothered me per se, but it sometimes makes me feel alienated. I watch the channel way, way, way less than I used to, but I can’t say it’s politically-motivated. Sports are just so ubiquitous on social media and elsewhere on the Internet that ESPN has lost its charm and utility. Still, the Caitlyn Jenner shit, and other political over-the-topness has undoubtedly turned off many of the 12 million subscribers ESPN has shed in recent years.