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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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Op-ed analysis by Leonid Bershidsky @ Bloomberg.com, Jan. 7
Qassem Soleimani’s death may force a change in the Russian calculus involving Syria, Iran and Turkey.
Guest op-ed by Sean McElwee and Brian F. Schaffner @ NYTimes.com. Jan. 6 (The authors are political data experts.)
They don’t have to lose their souls to do it. Just the opposite.
By Reade Pickert @ Bloomberg.com, "Markets", Jan. 6
American companies and consumers are paying almost the full cost of U.S. tariffs, and the impact of those duties on import volume magnifies over time, according to a paper circulated Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Traditional trade theory would suggest tariffs levied by the U.S. should cause foreign firms to lower prices and thereby force them to shoulder the cost of the duties. However, the study by Federal Reserve Bank of New York researcher Mary Amiti and professors Stephen Redding of Princeton and David Weinstein of Columbia shows the levies haven’t had a major impact on foreign export prices, suggesting American firms and consumers bear almost all the burden in most sectors as companies work to reorganize supply chains.
“Among goods that continue to be imported, a 10% tariff is associated with about a 10% drop in imports for the first three months, but this elasticity doubles in magnitude in subsequent months,” the authors wrote. That suggests “the 2018 tariffs - many of which were applied in October - are only now having their full impact on U.S. import volumes.” [....]
I'd recommend to keep in mind that there's no business like show business!
"Ideas" essay @ The Atlantic by Conor Friedersdorf, publ. Jan. 6, going to cause some ruckus in history world
By Hansi Lo Wang @ NPR.org, Jan. 5
More than a year after his death, a cache of computer files saved on the hard drives of Thomas Hofeller, a prominent Republican redistricting strategist, is becoming public.
Republican state lawmakers in North Carolina fought in court to keep copies of these maps, spreadsheets and other documents from entering the public record. But some files have already come to light in recent months through court filings and news reports.
They have been cited as evidence of gerrymandering that got political maps thrown out in North Carolina, and they have raised questions about Hofeller's role in the Trump administration's failed push for a census citizenship question.
Now more of the files are available online through a website called The Hofeller Files, where Hofeller's daughter, Stephanie Hofeller, published a link to her copy of the files on Sunday after first announcing her plans in a tweet last month [....]
Reform proposals offered by progressive Democrats miss the point, says Princeton professor
By Greg Robb @ Marketwatch.com, Jan. 5
SAN DIEGO — The opioid crisis in the United States is not the result of poverty. It wasn’t caused by income inequality, the financial crisis or globalization either.
The clear villain is the healthcare industry.
That’s the conclusion of two Princeton University economists, Angus Deaton and Ann Case, who have been studying opioid addiction [....]
By Kyle Rempfer @ MilitaryTimes.com, 2 hrs. ago
A company of Army Rangers, about 150-200 soldiers, is deploying to an undisclosed location in the Middle East.
A contingent of soldiers from the 75th Ranger Regiment is deploying to the Middle East as part of the buildup of forces in the region, a military official confirmed on background.
The official did not say where the Army Rangers were headed in the region, but they add to an already large deployment of 3,500 paratroopers from 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. U.S. officials previously said that the paratroopers will act as a response force to regional threats from a base in Kuwait.
Politico first reported the move, noting the deployment involved a Ranger company comprised of 150 to 200 troops.
Rangers are known for airfield seizures and direct action raids. During airfield operations, Rangers assault and secure airports and terminals for follow-on operations, including mass airdrops of paratroopers and equipment, until eventually aircraft can land and unload equipment and supplies on the ground.
The deployment of Rangers isn’t entirely surprising, as they often work hand-in-hand with paratroopers during airfield seizures, which is a core competency of both units. The official did not say what role the Rangers would play in the region. The 75th Ranger Regiment is also known for conducting direct action raids to capture or kill high value targets [....]
As the project investigating hate in America comes to an end, we look back at reporting highlights and the impact of our work.
By Rachel Glickhouse @ Propublica.org, Jan. 2
[....] Over the course of the project, we worked with more than 180 professional newsrooms, around 20 college papers and many journalism schools. All told, we collected more than 6,000 reporting tips and thousands of pages of police records on hate crimes, and together we produced more than 230 stories. In addition to stories we produced directly, our journalism had a ripple effect [....]
We found a number of patterns in the tips we received and the police records we gathered. “Go back to your country” or “go back to X country” was one of the most common phrases we encountered in both hate crimes and bias incidents. We saw a large number of hate incidents in schools, particularly after the 2016 election. Latinos have been targeted based on the (often erroneous) belief that they are immigrants or for speaking Spanish. People of color reported being victimized by people who referred to the president or his border and immigration policies. We found people of color harassed by their neighbors and targeted in hate incidents at superstores. We heard from Muslims and people of Arab descent targeted in road rage incidents [....]
The reporting ProPublica and our partners did varied widely. We dug into how law enforcement agencies investigate and track hate crimes, looking at the many reasons hate crimes are falling through the cracks. We looked into how police are trained (or not) to deal with bias crimes, and why hate crimes are so difficult to prosecute. And we reported extensively on white supremacist groups, investigating members in the military and those who engaged in violence and even murder [....]
By Reuters via NYTimes.com, Jan. 5, 2020, Updated 12:57 a.m. ET
NAIROBI — Somalia's Islamist group al Shabaab on Sunday attacked a military base in Lamu county in Kenya that is used by both U.S. and Kenyan forces, a source and al Shabaab said.
"They have attacked Manda airstrip in Lamu, which is just next to the military camp that hosts military personnel from many countries including Kenya and the U.S. We are informed that fighting is still ongoing," the military source told Reuters. He said the fighters were trying to access the base from the airstrip [....]
They’re not synonymous with Midwestern, white or conservative. They care about the news. They’re not the only “real” America.
By Christopher Ingraham @ WashingtonPost.com/Business, Jan. 3
[....] The near-singular focus on Donald Trump has yielded a body of discourse that views rural Americans primarily through a white, conservative Republican lens. This is somewhat understandable as a matter of raw numbers — its residents do tend to be whiter and more conservative than people living in more densely populated areas.
But that focus also has perpetuated a number of myths, blurring out much of the messiness and complexity of rural life.
As a Washington Post reporter who has resided in a northwest Minnesota farming community since 2016 — I wrote a book about it — I’ve had the opportunity to watch those perceptions solidify in real time, as well as compare them to the on-the-ground reality.
As the 2020 campaign season gets underway in earnest, here are five myths to keep in mind when you read sweeping pronouncements about rural America [....]
While senior officials argue the drone strike was warranted to prevent future attacks, some in the administration remain skeptical about the rationale for the attack.
WASHINGTON — In the chaotic days leading to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most powerful commander, top American military officials put the option of killing him — which they viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq — on the menu they presented to President Trump.
They didn’t think he would take it. In the wars waged since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents to make other possibilities appear more palatable.
After initially rejecting the Suleimani option on Dec. 28 and authorizing airstrikes on an Iranian-backed Shia militia group instead, a few days later Mr. Trump watched, fuming, as television reports showed Iranian-backed attacks on the American Embassy in Baghdad, according to Defense Department and administration officials.
By late Thursday, the president had gone for the extreme option. Top Pentagon officials were stunned.
Mr. Trump made the decision, senior officials said on Saturday, despite disputes in the administration about the significance of what some officials said was a new stream of intelligence that warned of threats to American embassies, consulates and military personnel in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. General Suleimani had just completed a tour of his forces in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and was planning an “imminent” attack that could claim hundreds of lives, those officials said [.....]
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg saw a 6-point bump in the latest Hill.TV survey of the Democratic presidential primary.
The nationwide poll, which was released Friday, shows Bloomberg up from 5 percent to 11 percent support for the nomination nationally. The former New York City mayor is now in a dead heat for third place with top-tier candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who also received 11 percent support.
Biden, meanwhile, continues to lead the Democratic field with 28 percent followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 16 percent [....]