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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
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@ NYTimes Live Coverage ongoing At least 120 people died and another 100 were injured when they were crushed in a Halloween crowd in Seoul on Saturday night
An audit by the California Attorney General shows private foundation giving to donor-advised funds is surging.
.By Nahal Toosi @ Politico.com, 10/25/2022
President Joe Biden faces growing calls from activists and even a former crown prince to openly back regime change in Iran as the country’s Islamist rulers face a wave of protests. But Biden and his aides are unwilling to go that far.
Instead, the administration is charting a middle path — one that voices support for the Iranian protesters and helps them through both easing and imposing some sanctions, but which falls short of an all-out pressure campaign to isolate Iran’s government or abandon nuclear talks with the regime, according to six U.S. officials familiar with the issue.
[....] The overall strategy is likely to disappoint many in a complex constellation of activists whose voices are driving much of the public debate about the Iranian regime. It also could make crafting U.S. policy toward the Middle East even harder, especially if Iran’s regime snuffs out the protests and emerges more emboldened to pursue a nuclear program and cause trouble in the region.
But the Biden administration is unified on the approach, according to those involved in discussions. “There aren’t camps,” a State Department official said.
The U.S. officials said they must factor in everything from the human rights demands of Iran’s protesters — many of them young and female — to the U.S. preference for using diplomacy to keep Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Iran’s decision to sell drones and other weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine also is complicating the picture [....]
Both candidates are focusing on the Alaska Native population, which could be key to determining whether they return to Washington next year.
By Leah Ann Caldwell @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 24
ANCHORAGE — Speaking to a large conference room of Alaska Natives on Friday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) had only words of praise for Rep. Mary Peltola (D), the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, who is also up for reelection.
“Mary is a woman whose heart is as grounded in Alaska as anybody you’re going to find,” Murkowski told reporters after the event, wearing a gold-colored, paisley-patterned kuspuk, common Alaska Indigenous clothing Peltola gave her last year.
Asked if she would rank Peltola first on her ballot next month in Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system, Murkowski paused. After a full 18 seconds, she said, “Yeah, I am.” She then mumbled, “I’m going to get in so much trouble.”
Asked to respond to Murkowski’s de facto endorsement, Peltola said, “I’m voting for her, so we’re even-steven.”
Murkowski and Peltola represent different parties and different chambers of Congress, but both are embarking on the same difficult journey to win reelection in a red state. Both are running against more conservative candidates who have the backing of former president Donald Trump in a state he won by 10 points in 2020 [....]
Democratic lawmakers’ letter calls for direct U.S. talks with Russia
By Dickens Olewe @ BBCNews.com, Oct. 23
Uganda and Tanzania are set to begin work on a massive crude oil pipeline a year after the International Energy Agency warned that the world risked not meeting its climate goals if new fossil fuel projects were not stopped. The two East African countries say their priority is economic development.
SUMMARY:
- No 10 says Sunak will formally take over as PM tomorrow morning after meeting King Charles, and will give a statement at around 11:35
- That'll follow a final cabinet meeting chaired by outgoing PM Liz Truss at 09:00, and a statement from her at around 10:15
- In a brief address earlier, Sunak warned the country faced "profound economic challenges"
- He will become the UK's first British Asian PM and at 42, the youngest leader in more than two centuries
- Labour has repeated calls for a general election, echoed by the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party
- But, immediately after being selected by Tory MPs, Sunak ruled out an early election and warned his party they had to "unite or die"
- The ex-chancellor, who oversaw the nation's finances during the Covid pandemic, was the only contender to gain enough support from MPs to stand for the job
Op-ed by Farhad Manjoo @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 20
[....] That's why I have been so impressed with the aggressive and creative way the Biden administration has gone about curtailing China’s alarming, decades-long effort to build a domestic semiconductor industry that’s independent from the rest of the world. This month, the Commerce Department announced a set of restrictions that prevent China from getting much of what it needs to establish a commanding position in the chip business. The government said the rules were meant to block “sensitive technologies with military applications” from being acquired by China’s military and security services. With few exceptions, the sanctions prohibit China from buying the best American chips and the machines to build them, and even from hiring Americans to work on them. Analysts I spoke to said the rules will devastate China’s domestic chip industry, potentially setting it back decades.
The rules “are an absolute historical landmark,” said Gregory Allen, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former director of A.I. strategy at the Department of Defense. In a recent report, Allen writes that Biden’s restrictions “begin a new U.S. policy of actively strangling large segments of the Chinese technology industry — strangling with an intent to kill.” Considering the ways China might use the advanced chips — including in expanding its dystopian, A.I.-powered surveillance and repression regime — the strangulation is justified.
Semiconductors are one of the few sectors for which China still depends on the rest of the world; the country spends more money importing microchips each year than it does oil. The Chinese government has invested billions of dollars to “indigenize” the industry, but its progress has been slow [....]
Oped by Megan McArdle @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 17
Brace yourself, Generation Xers: We may be about to receive some unwanted attention.
I see from a new New York Times poll that those age 45 to 64 — which is to say, mostly us — are far more likely than those in any other age group to support Republicans in the midterms. If that holds up, we should expect to take substantial incoming fire from the more liberal voting cohorts around us. Also expect extensive amateur psychologizing as political analysts get interested in us again.
[....] Almost immediately thereafter, we were forgotten — literally, by commentators who skipped blithely from baby boomers to millennials as if the years between 1964 and 1983 were under papal ban. That was probably inevitable, sandwiched as we were between two larger, more assertive generations that just assumed people ought to pay attention to them. Generation X, used to getting our own damn snacks in an empty home after school, had no such expectation.
[....] everything will change if we become the face of the new GOP. Believe me, people are going to pay attention to us again. So we should probably try to come up with some account for why we would end up particularly interested in the Republican Party, after so many of us cast our first votes for Bill Clinton [....]