The Most Predictable Global Financial Crisis
The Most Predictable Global Financial Crisis
Though the impending emerging market debt crisis may be predictable, it may not be avoidable.
Leading The Bulwark…
The Most Predictable Global Financial Crisis
Though the impending emerging market debt crisis may be predictable, it may not be avoidable.
🎧 On the Pods… 🎧
Kim Wehle on Trump's Legal End Game
On today’s Bulwark podcast, Kim Wehle joins host Charlie Sykes to discuss the President’s legal team’s strategy to overturn the will of the voters, the brief Sidney Powell saga, and how Trump’s challenge is creating a new form of birtherism that will last for years.
Editor’s note: There will be no Beg to Differ podcast this week, and the Daily Podcast with Charlie Sykes will be dark on Thursday and Friday. Happy Thanksgiving!
We’re not going to have any “Cyber Week” deals, but you can give the gift of The Bulwark to somebody who might appreciate it! In these insane political times, giving them membership in Bulwark+ is something centrist righties and lefties can agree on:
From The Bulwark Aggregator…
Conservatives grumbling about censorship say they’re flocking to Parler. They told us so on Twitter. – Drew Harwell and Rachel Lerman, The Washington Post
Biden to spotlight CDC officials shunned by Trump – Alice Mirand Olstein and Adam Cancryn, Politico
Key GOP Michigan canvassing board member expected to vote against certifying results – Jake Tapper and Annie Grayer, CNN
Trump’s presidential library will be a shrine to his ego – Paul Musgrave, The Washington Post
I represented George W. Bush in 2000. Michigan must certify for Biden – Benjamin Ginsberg, The Detroit Free Press
Yes, the Senate is rigged for small states. But not for Republicans. – Jeff Greenfield, The Washington Post
In today’s Bulwark…
Why Won't Republicans Take the Next Step?
Jonathan V. Last: If what Donald Trump is doing now is dangerous and irresponsible then . . .
If you’re not yet a member of Bulwark+, you may have missed today’s Triad with JVL. Here’s a taste:
…if President Trump is committing a national embarrassment, making a bid for infamy, precipitating a constitutional crisis, then why did these people spend the last year stumping for Donald Trump and making the case for his reelection?
Aren’t Trump’s latest actions—which he promised he would take well before the election—proof of his unfitness for office?
Doesn’t Trump’s don’t-call-it-a-coup attempt that these people are now upset about prove that they were wrong to support him?
That’s all I’m looking for. Just one Trump defender—literally just one—to stand up and say, “Yeah, I was wrong. This guy is dangerous in ways I didn’t fully understand. I’m glad Joe Biden won. America dodged a bullet by not reelecting this man.”
Read the whole thing, which we’ve unlocked for all to see. And if you want more of JVL’s insights and observations, you can always join us:
The Centrist Rush to Blame the Left for the Closer-Than-Expected Election
Laura K. Field: Is it too much to ask moderates to stop playing into the hands of right-wing propagandists?
What President Biden Should Do about Hong Kong
Annie Boyajian: And what Congress can do to help.
🚨 OVERTIME 🚨
As a bit of housekeeping… Once we hit Thursday, you’re not going to get as much content from us until the following week. Two reasons: One, you should, of course, be resting, appreciating the Thanksgiving Holiday, and catching up with your family on Zoom or phone or whatever you use to stay in touch. Two: While we’ll be paying attention to the news even though we’ll be abiding by tenet #1, not a lot is likely to happen that would merit us bothering you over the holidays. If it does, we will bother you and tell you why.
Welcome, Mona! Mona Charen, the host of our Beg to Differ podcast, is expanding her role at The Bulwark as our Policy Editor. We’re very glad to have a renowned writer like Mona do more with us as we grow the site.
Why waste your time with this? It’s good that this guy stands a chance of being held accountable, but I have to question whether this is a constructive use of anyone’s time to protest outside the bad orange man’s golf club. But I do have questions about this man’s choice in protest attire. That poor inflatable…
An interview with Fr. Oscar Huber, C.M. My mother’s great uncle Oscar was the Catholic priest in Dallas who gave JFK the last rites. Here’s a very interesting interview he gave to Chicago’s WAAF station. There’s a bit of family controversy regarding the reporting that Fr. Huber allegedly told a reporter “He’s dead, alright.” In fact, a distant cousin of mine wrote an entire book about it, which, when I was a hill staffer, I was lucky enough to take out some of his early articles on the topic out of the Library of Congress (a perk) and read to learn his take on things. President Kennedy was assassinated 57 years ago last week.
Michigan certifies… Trump’s longshot case gets harder and harder, after an hours-long HOA-style Zoom meeting that took hours of feedback from all comers. It was over weeks ago, but these Trumpian Hail Marys are nearing end of days.
Selfish Covidiots. A 7,000 person wedding? Are you forking kidding me?
Accidental Thanksgiving… Five years ago, two Arizonans connected by an accidental text message set course on what would be a fruitful friendship. A grandson who changed his number, and a chill guy who asked the number’s former holder if he could still “get a plate” of her Thanksgiving food. That’s the story of Wanda Dench and Jamal Hinton. It went viral. Wanda’s husband, Lonnie, died as a result of COVID-19, but the two have tried to keep up the tradition every year since. I’m not crying. You’re crying.
North Dakota’s contract tracing is a mess. This WaPo story is very dispiriting to read.
We got ‘em! Missile defense is making some strides, as the Navy shot down a nuclear warhead with an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle. “Star Wars” is real.
The perfect exit… President Trump is threatening to veto a defense bill because it would require the military to stop honoring confederate leaders with ship and base names. You cannot make this up.
Can Trump pardon himself? I’ve been a critic of President Trump since day one, but after he won his improbable election, the first thing that opened me to straight up impeachment was his suggestion that he might be able to pardon himself. In The Atlantic, Eric L. Muller investigates…. can he?
Ask the wrong question, you get the wrong answer. Can Donald Trump pardon himself? Perhaps, but that’s not the question the Constitution requires us to ask. Can Donald Trump grant himself a pardon? The evidence, at least according to the text of the Constitution and its original meaning, says no.
Ivanka Trump was my friend… What happened to her? Lysanda Ohrstrom spills the beans.
A pick me up thread… About our potential next Secretary of State and what his step-father went through. God Bless America.
“The Road of Bones.” This NYT feature is chilling, but you should put yourself in a good place and read it.
Couldn’t they have used a helicopter? I get like nice, fast cars, Italy. I do. But given Italy’s contributions to flight, did you really have to use cops transporting organs in a Lambo driving 150mph to get where a helicopter could have gotten you faster, and much more safely? come on.
Speaking of Italy… Despite the fact that it’s dysfunctional, it’s probably (outside of Canada) one of the only other places I could conceivably enjoy living. Here’s a dispatch from n+1 about what it’s like in Rome during the pandemic from Francesco Pacifico:
Since then I’ve organized my work around the need to visit all three of my bars as close to daily as possible. The way things happen is through connection, of course, but mostly through money, and it’s shocking to me that recession is just a word for the moment in the free market when you can no longer get people to pass their money around. Yeah, no, sorry we’re not coming tonight, and we’re not coming tomorrow, we won’t give you our twenty euros, you’ll shut down. The money that’s not passed around is then vacuumed up by whatever outfit can withstand the pressure, while everybody else is at serious risk of bankruptcy, including the bartenders who have given me the best forties I could dream of.
I keep thinking about one year from now, when we regain our entire habitual freedom of movement and discover lots of places gone—places that are the reasons why we live where we live. I don’t want them gone!
I feel the same way. I’ve written about lost loves and haunts which were victims to COVID-19. American bars and dives and chains are not like… Rome. Or Milan. There’s an argument that their density helps them, but it also hurts them. Their economics and incentives are entirely different. A Pizza Hut next to the Quantico Marine base that I’d meant to get some take out from (but sadly didn’t) closed a few weeks ago. I found out yesterday.
A Pizza Hut in Dumfries, Virginia, where everyone drives, has a far different reality than L'Isola del Gusto pizzeria in Milan, Italy, where everyone walks. It’s interesting, and sad, to see how COVID-19 not only kills hundreds of thousands of peoples, but also their careers, or family businesses.
I think back on the last day I went on-base to take the VRE into D.C. and was chit-chatting with a teenager who worked at the Quantico train station coffee shop, telling her this was her generation’s 9/11, and nothing would ever be the same.
Assuming I start taking the train into work once COVID-19 is under control, I will find out if that coffee shop still exists. I hope it does. But for people like that young barista, and all of us, COVID-19 sure changed a lot of our lives, and it’s not going to go back to normal anytime soon.
Making America Weak… Bulwark reader Charlotte Roe has this op-ed in Daily Camera in Colorado:
Though Trump’s post-election carnival is ridiculous, it is no joke. He and his henchmen are robbing sovereign America of a sacred heritage. And those who participate in sullying that heritage — both politicians and the right-wing media — must be held accountable. As the poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote, “Though everyone bowed down before you. … Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. … The words are written down, the deed, the date.”
If you, dear reader, have op-eds you’d like me to share with others, you know how to reach me!
Why won’t Emily Murphy just do her job? In The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum writes:
Murphy is being asked neither to participate in Nazi crimes nor to administer electric shocks. To do her job correctly, all she has to do is follow the law, let the transition begin, and allow the next president of the United States to prepare for the economic and public-health disaster that has been left to him by the current occupant of the White House. She will not be jailed or imprisoned if she starts the transition; and because Joe Biden will be president, she is going to lose her job anyway.
The only explanation for her behavior is the most obvious one: She has bought the ideology; she has become a true believer; she has accepted the lies. If so, she can look in the mirror and see someone virtuous, brave, and dedicated—a good person, just like President Trump.
Update: As this email was scheduled to be sent. Ms. Murphy has ascertained the transition can begin.
Parler vs. Twitter. Mike Lee edition:
Well, that’s it for me for today. Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Drop me a line: swift@thebulwark.com.
If you haven’t joined as a member of Bulwark+, we’d appreciate your consideration:
If you’re already a member (thank you!), the gift of Bulwark+ makes a great holiday gift:
See you tomorrow.
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