Happy Mother’s Day. I’m extremely fortunate that my mom is not just still around but hale, hearty and … well, still my mom.
She graduated valedictorian of her high school class, but never went to college. Instead, she married my dad in the brief interval between when his draft letter arrived and when he headed out for a couple of years in Europe. She went to work at a factory while he was away, and when he got back she just kept working. In fact, she worked from the age of 14 to her retirement, pretty much without a break.
When I was a kid, my mom was the only mom I knew who worked, but somehow it never struck me as odd. Working was what she did. She got up at 5AM every morning and headed out to Paradise Steam Plant, where she and a few hundred other folks from the Tennessee Valley Authority were busy building the world’s largest coal-powered plant right on the site that had been my great (and great-great, and great-great-great) grandfather’s home. When she got back at the end of a shift, she worked just as hard keeping a home that was unmatchably spotless. Dust is terrified to be in her presence.
For future reference, you can keep those “fluffy, layery” and downright tasteless things most people call biscuits. Real biscuits, my mom’s biscuits, have a crust. They have some heft. They have a structure that can handle homemade strawberry jam—which mom also makes—or a salty slice of country ham, or a piece of the fried chicken she cooks to perfection.
Just because my mom finally retired from TVA doesn’t mean she’s missed a beat. She can still outwork anyone. In fact, outwork everyone, leaving me and her grandson exhausted in her wake. She’s not lost an inch in answering the questions on Jeopardy, surrendered an ounce of her humor, or dropped one step of her quickness. She still does her daily crossword puzzles in ink. At 84, I cannot get her to stop mowing the yard before someone else gets to it.
We both lost my dad a decade ago, and we both think about him every day. Just over a year ago we talked her into moving up here with us, and I know she misses the only home town she knew and the house she and my father shared for four decades. I might have hinted that she needed to be closer to us for her sake. But I know the truth is the other way around.
Let’s go read some pundits.
Aisha Sultan on how America really treat’s mom.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The cruelest trick played on American mothers is how we’ve responded to the lip service political leaders and society give us.
We are lauded for sacrifices and our vital role in society. And yet, America’s government treats mothers like dirt. How have we responded to this system built to fail us? Instead of righteous anger, we’ve internalized guilt.
We’re the only high-income country in the world that doesn’t require employers to offer paid maternity leave. More than 50 nations provide six months of paid leave or more. Imagine that — six months of paid maternity leave. In the U.S., only 14 percent of workers had access to paid family leave in 2016. Even those with access to paid leave worry about how long they should take off.
And the staggering price of that sad lack?
One in four U.S. mothers return to work 10 days after giving birth.
That’s not just disdain for mothers. That’s how much the “culture of life” really values either the mother or the child.
Jonathan Chait in pundit on pundit action, as he takes on David Brooks.
New York Magazine
The archetypical David Brooks political column locates a position between the two parties and defends it against the unreasoning extremes. Maintaining this symmetry sometimes requires him to invent an extreme that does not exist, such as when he angrily flayed President Obama for allegedly failing to propose the exact thing that Obama was in fact proposing.
A good case study in the method can be seen in his latest entry. Brooks’s column, published yesterday, concedes that President Trump is making some very poor choices with regard to cooperating with congressional oversight. But, as happens to be the case with all situations, “Trump is far from the only villain in this showdown.” Brooks locates a corresponding sin on the other side in Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee chairman. Nadler’s sin is “declaring a constitutional crisis” solely over the minor issue of “the redaction levels of the Mueller report.”
Honestly, for all the times I’ve disagreed with Jonathan Chait, it’s a relief to find that we’re both on the same side of the David Brooks is a pointless jackass whose shtick wore out three decades ago argument.
In fact, if you just spend 90 seconds watching the interview from which Brooks plucked his quote, it is 100 percent clear that Nadler was not applying the “constitutional crisis” phrase solely to the Mueller redactions. He was describing the blanket refusal to comply with any subpoenas. Pressed about why he would call it a constitutional crisis, Nadler explained, “We’re in one because the president is refusing all information to Congress.”
Oh, wait both sides of the issue agree that David Brooks is a pointless jackass whose shtick wore out three decades ago. There is a tiny, tiny gap in the middle — it’s called David Brooks.
Paul Krugman on Trump’s concerted effort to destroy Ameria’s role in the world.
New York Times
As far as I can tell, [Trump] isn’t getting a single thing about trade policy right. He doesn’t know how tariffs work, or who pays them. He doesn’t understand what bilateral trade imbalances mean, or what causes them. He has a zero-sum view of trade that flies in the face of everything we’ve learned over the past two centuries. And to the (small) extent that he is making any coherent demands on China, they’re demands China can’t/won’t meet.
But Trump’s critics, while vastly more accurate than he is, also, I think, get a few things wrong, or at least overstate some risks while understating others. On one side, the short-run costs of trade war tend to be overstated.
Jumping in here to say that the trade war alone isn’t going to sink the economy, but it is doing a damn good job of sinking American agriculture and making some selective hits on American manufacturing. It hasn’t been enough to overcome the sweet, sweet sugar-water that Trump has doled out out companies through his perpetual tax holiday … yet.
On the other, the long-term consequences of what’s happening are bigger than most people seem to realize.
In the short run, a tariff is a tax. Period. The macroeconomic consequences of a tariff should therefore be seen as comparable to the macroeconomic consequences of any tax increase. True, this tax increase is more regressive than, say, a tax on high incomes, or a wealth tax. This means that it falls on people who will be forced to cut their spending, and is therefore likely to have a bigger negative bang per buck than the positive bang for buck from the 2017 tax cut. But we’re still talking, at least so far, about a tax hike that is only a fraction of a percent of GDP.
Krugman’s bigger point is that Trump’s trade policy is also a drain on the U.S.’ diplomatic position, one that makes allying with America on any subject less attractive.
Anne Applebaum has the same concern about America’s status, but a different angle.
Washington Post
Since January, the president has been happy to play along with his national security adviser, John Bolton, and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo; together they persuaded him to recognize Juan Guaidó, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, as the rightful president of Venezuela. But after Guaidó failed recently to bring the Venezuelan army over to his side, it seems the U.S. president, like Lord Copper, began to lose patience.
Now, according to The Post, he praises Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as a “tough cookie,” he suspects Bolton is trying to drag him into a war, and he is persuaded by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the foreign statesman he most admires, that the United States should not “get involved” in Venezuela, except maybe to offer some humanitarian aid. Never mind that Russia has extensive military contacts in Venezuela, or that the Russian army conducted joint exercises in December with the Venezuelan army, precisely the people who refuse now to abandon a regime that has driven the country into poverty and despair. Trump accepts Putin’s version of events partly because he admires the Russian president, partly because he is ignorant, and mostly because the story has dragged on too long, the victory hasn’t arrived, and there is no “colorful entry into the capital” to show on the evening news.
Honestly, I think Trump is keeping Venezuela in his back pocket. He likely doesn’t really want to go to war there … but he does want to talk about it. Say, sometime around September or October of 2020.
All over the world, the Trump administration is pursuing a range of policies: tweeting insults at Maduro, negotiating with a defiant North Korea, sending a small fleet of warships to the Persian Gulf to intimidate Iran. But the speed with which the president always sours on these efforts means they can never be part of any discernible strategy. Certainly they don’t reflect any coherent philosophy. Is the United States still in favor of promoting democracy, as some of the proponents of the Venezuela policy claim? Is the United States in the business of courting dictators, which is the essence of the North Korea policy? Does the United States want to flaunt its strength and make other countries afraid, which seems to be the point of the Persian Gulf fleet? Or is the United States now “isolationist,” which is why the administration is keeping silent about a new Russian offensive in Syria, the early stages of which Trump pushed back against in 2017?
The real question is why is anyone still talking about “the United States” as if Trump conceives that there is an national interest other than his own interest?
Art Cullen on finding a future for rural America.
Storm Lake Times
The population numbers since 2010 look bad for most rural Iowa counties: Pocahontas, down 7.8%; Sac, down 6.1%; Audubon, down 10%; Cass, down 7.3%; Adams, down 9.5%. A small sampling of isolated rural counties. They may have peaked in population in 1940 or before. The sad news is: Nothing is on the horizon to turn it around.
In his book A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson notes that on a hot summer day in 1840, Senator Daniel Webster drew a crowd of over 15,000 people when he spoke in an open field near the summit of a mountain in Vermont. A century later, that number of people didn’t exist within a fifty mile circle around the spot from which Webster spoke. Farms and homes stood abandoned, fields and walls swallowed up by woods. The cause in that case was that people had moved to Iowa. Or at least, Iowa and places like it. Compared to hardscrabble farming on the stony, sloping ground of the Appalachians, the plains were much more suitable to the new tractors and combines — or at least they were once transportation was available to bring food to market. People move for all kinds of reasons.
In the case of rural America … they don’t seem to be moving back.
We should get used to that and plan for it, [Iowa State University research economist Dave Swenson] says. His colleagues in Extension are doing a Shrink Smart program that helps communities transition into maturity. It strikes us as hospice for rural America — give us an IV drip to keep the sewer and water systems in repair, and give us a hospital nearby and a nursing home, and let nature sort of take its course. Not everyone can be saved. Let’s make them comfortable places, as rural Iowa mainly is. Seek stability. Hoping on growth can be futile.
Swenson evokes the Ghost Dance among native people that started in Utah and swirled up to Iowa among the Dakota in 1890. They had a vision where the white man would go away and the buffalo would return. “That’s what a lot of people are doing in rural development,” Swenson says. “For 35 years I have watched and witnessed, and it doesn’t work.”
As someone who grew up in a rural area, and lives in another rural area that survives now only as a bedroom community … I don’t have a great answer. Cullen takes a brief look at some of the plans put forward by 2020 candidates, but it’s clear he hasn’t really nailed down anything he thinks is a winner. Honestly, I’ve looked on the increased availability of digital jobs that can be done from anywhere — or at least, anywhere with an Internet connection — as something that should help stabilize, and even grow rural populations. Why should everyone live all piled up on top of each other when they don’t have to? But apparently my opinion is one that few others share.
Renée Graham on how Trump is causing more, and more lasting, damage than Nixon.
Boston Globe
When Representative Jerrold Nadler recently declared “We are now in a constitutional crisis,” I suddenly understood how my grandfather felt more than 40 years ago.
During what I recall as “Watergate summer,” he sat in his favorite living room chair, all of his attention focused on the television. Sometimes, I would sit on the couch across from him, and instead of watching TV, I watched him. While the Watergate hearings bored me, my grandfather recognized the gathering smoke of a not-so-distant fire threatening the nation.
Other than a New York Mets game, I don’t know that he ever watched anything as intensely.
The thing that amazes me more than the disaster that is Trump, is how accepting so many people seem to be of that disaster. I’m not talking about Trump supporters, I’m talking about the great mass of people still rolling their eyes at “politics” and apparently eager to buy some Brooksian vision of “both sides do it.”
Now I see my grandfather’s despair and uncertainty in my own face.
Nadler’s statement came after the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to provide the unredacted Mueller report. More than two years into this unnatural disaster of a presidency, it was always a question of when, not if, such a crisis would erupt.
“It’s the first administration you’ve ever seen where they say, we’ll deny all subpoenas from Congress, whether it’s on the Mueller investigation or on security clearances or in anything else,” Nadler said on “The Rachel Maddow Show” hours after the contempt vote that predictably fell along party lines. “They defy the law. We can’t have a situation where the president becomes a king or dictator.”
There’s a statement I’ve seen a thousand times … “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.” It’s usually attributed to Pericles, though … I kind of doubt it (for one thing, it’s too like a couple of other quotes that have been attributed to various authors or political figures). But whoever said it, it’s definitely true.
Oh, and read the rest of Graham’s piece.
Michael Tomasky has been thinking about a warning from Nancy Pelosi and Michael Cohen.
Daily Beast
Donald Trump joked at his Florida rally about staying in the White House for “10 or 14” years. Interesting that he didn’t say eight or 12. This after “joking” earlier that he deserved two extra years because all those nasty investigations had effectively cost him his first two. He’s clearly thought this through.
We’ve heard a lot of presidential humor along these lines, and we’re surely going to be hearing more. If you’re anything like me, you break out in a cold sweat waiting for the punchline to each new Trump gag about plotting against the Constitution.
Actually, I think I’m just perpetually sweaty at this stage. I tipped over into full time panic somewhere in 2017.
And sometimes, I hear or read something that happened in one of those countries we used to assume we could never be like, and a chill shoots through my body. This, I think; this is something Trump could and, if he thought he could pull it off, would do.
I had one of those moments in a big way this week reading about the coming re-run of the Istanbul mayoral election in Turkey. Because yes—this, or some version of this, could happen here.
If you’re going to read this, read it now. You don’t want this stuff on your mind at bed time.
Will Bunch on the qualifications that seem to, sadly, work for too many Democratic voters.
Philadelphia Inquirer
I just turned 60 in January, so as you might expect I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what to do with the few measly years I have left. Regrets? I have a few — OK, actually, there’s not enough space to list them all. I have a resume that’s long but spectacularly unspectacular. What I lack in charisma, I make up for in dullness. Taking long walks with my dogs Daisy and Bella and listening to the newest audiobook about the 1960s isn’t just my most interesting non-work activity — it’s my only non-work activity. Even my mediocrity is kind of mediocre.
Excuse me as I weep. My dogs are named Pi and Chi … but otherwise, yeah.
What possible Act II is there?
OK, I know what you’re thinking and to be perfectly honest I’ve been thinking the exact same thing. I should declare my candidacy for the presidency and enter the 2020 Democratic primary field. This is clearly my year! Democrats, I keep hearing, are looking for four basic things in their next nominee: A white man who is not Donald Trump and has a pulse.
Check, check, and an emphatic check! (I’ll have to get back to you on No. 4.) Therefore, I today am announcing that I have formed an exploratory committee to run for president ... yes, of the United States. Let me be perfectly clear — I don’t mean that I’m creating an “official” exploratory committee and filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. That would be waaaay too much work, and not in keeping with the low-energy “White Dude 2020” nature of my campaign. My exploratory committee consists of the editors off whom I bounced this column idea, who inexplicably refused to kill it.
I usually handle this issue by giving Barb my 9:00 AM article at 8:59. Plus 59 seconds. Or at 9:05. That second option really cuts back on the editorial requests for rewrites. However, I am not announcing my candidacy for anything.
Nancy LeTourneau on how the the media can’t get campaign finance issues straight.
Washington Monthly
Joe Biden held a fundraiser in Los Angeles Wednesday night that was sponsored by people like DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, executive and producer Peter Chernin, actor Rob Reiner, and Terry Press, the president of CBS Films. CNBC political finance reporter Brian Schwartz wrote a story about it and posted this tweet.
New York Magazine’s Intelligencer posted that tweet with this introduction: “Biden’s willingness to take this kind of money, as opposed to candidates on his left, is paying off so far.”
What do they mean by “this kind of money?” Is it because some of the luminaries in attendance were from Hollywood? That’s the kind of thing we can expect to hear from right wingers, who constantly harp about the so-called “Hollywood elite.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that any of the candidates on Biden’s left are refusing to take money from people who work in the film or entertainment industry.
LeTourneau does the math and explains how most of the reporting on this event and similar events, even when coming from supposedly progressive sources, is no less distorted than what’s being put out by the right.
Virginia Heffernan on just how close we are to something irrevocable and redefining.
Los Angeles Times
What is a constitutional crisis?
At its most elementary, it’s a government emergency in which some of a nation’s citizens — generally with political power, an arsenal, or both — decide that the republic’s fundamental principles are not binding on them. They’re above the law.
Bent on nullification, anarchy or megalomania, the group resolves that, damn the torpedoes, they’re going to defy the mechanisms that limit power in government.
Well on that front, check, check, checkitty-check.
A constitutional crisis is inestimably grave.
First, it can stalemate the administrative functioning of a state. That hardly sounds fatal, but this kind of paralysis erodes the daily life of citizens.
Eventually, a stalled government loses its legitimacy. Finally, a constitutional crisis can end in a government’s collapse — or, as we know from history, in civil war.
You could make an argument that we’re already in a slow-motion civil war, one whose battles take place in schools, and churches, and theaters, and whose causalities are almost all non-combatants. But Heffernan has in mind something not so slow. Read the rest.
Harry Litman on Donald Trump Jr’s familiar, and familial, reaction to being subpoenaed.
Washington Post
The reaction of the Trump camp to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s subpoena of Donald Trump Jr. nicely encapsulates several of the prime tenets of the Trump family playbook.
The first tenet: Feign cooperation and practice intransigence. Trump Jr. is reported to be “exasperated” and the president “surprised,” because ostensibly Junior already has cooperated extensively. More generally, the Republican talking point from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on down is, “The case is closed."
But that’s not accurate. Trump Jr. declined to be interviewed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about the Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer – the only campaign official who did so. That fact is in the Mueller report, and it is immediately followed by a redaction for grand jury material. Based on my prosecutorial experience, I believe it’s a reasonable surmise that the redacted material concerns Trump Jr.'s saying that he planned to invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before a grand jury.
Other experts have reached the same conclusion. Donald Trump Jr took every step to not talk to Robert Mueller. And now that the Mueller report is out, he seems to be taking every step not to talk to answer any of the questions that it raises — or to explain what now seem to be outright lies in his previous testimony.
Trump Jr.’s stance was of a piece with his father’s: trumpet full cooperation with the probe even while doggedly, and successfully, eluding all efforts to have him testify or even speak cooperatively with the special counsel.
Current reports are that Trump Jr. intends again to rebuff the committee by invoking the Fifth Amendment. That is of course his right, but only on the ground that his truthful answers would tend to incriminate him, not as a form of crass political resistance. Of course, if he truly believes the truth would incriminate him here, that puts his fine fury in a different light.
Does the combination of “Witch hunt!” and “I take the fifth” prove that Trump Jr is a witch? Wasn’t there some other test that could be done? Something involving stones, or a river? Or was it a duck.