Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief, February 8, 2019
The Weekly Brief - February 8, 2019
Religion in the Public Square
Most of the focus in this week's news cycle was on the Trump administration, the state of the union, and several spin-off stories that are oddly connected to it. However there's been a trend of stories in the last couple of weeks looking at the role of religion, and Christianity specifically, in the public square.
It's been a story that's largely been covered by conservative media with concerns being raised over what is seen as anti-christian bigotry within the mainstream culture.
However, in that context it might be helpful to actually address the bigger question: Is religion a social good? Does it make a positive contribution to a national culture? Pew Research has undertaken to study this question on the global level and initial findings suggest that, yes, religion is a social positive. Stay tuned, I’ll be keeping track of this developing and important conversation.
SOTU
When the President’s State of the Union speech is the slow point of the new cycle this week you know it was crazy one. But, yes, on Tuesday the president gave his delayed State of the Union speech and by all accounts made a pretty good show of it. AEI notes that President Trump’s speech was one of the most disciplined and more polished speeches he’s given and speculates that that is because he's making a play for the more or less homeless political center.
And while a lot of attention was understandably on the Democratic Party's response by Stacey Abrams, a few Democrats were willing to acknowledge that Trump’s proffered olive branch (coming on the back of the government shutdown and the taking of the House by the Democrats last November) was a welcome respite and something worth pursuing.
Rand Corp provides additional insights into the state of the union and what the next steps might be for the Trump agenda moving forward and how feasible it might be. And to see just how well Trump's speech might have played to the voting populace you might want to take a look at Pew Research’s rundown of some of the major issues that are of concern to the American people as we head into a new presidential election cycle.
Investigation Station
Though President Trump offered an olive branch and suggested that investigations were not a way to move the country forward, that hasn't stopped the Democratic House from sharpening their knives and preparing for an onslaught of investigations and hearings in the coming weeks.
Daily Kos reports that the Democrats are about to do a complete overhaul of the Russia investigation, which more less suggests that we're starting from square one and House Dems are also working to get a look at Trump's taxes. While there's a lot of energy towards investigating the Trump administration, after two years of inconclusive results FiveThirtyEight suggests that caution should be the order of the day if the Democrats don't want to alienate themselves, or lose the opportunity to pass meaningful legislation like a Green New Deal.
Deal or Green New Deal?
For Democrats, the new election cycle seems like it's going to be dominated by the Green New Deal. The much-anticipated piece of legislation was officially put forward as a resolution by Representative Ocasio-Cortez and her Senate co-sponsor Senator Markley. The legislation quickly garnered a lot of attention as both conservative and liberal media outlets started contemplating what such a plan might do.
Considering its vast scope, there is much still to be determined in terms of the details something that both National Review and AEI see as fundamental weaknesses: It’s not focused on climate change.
Additionally, it seems that even the Democratic Party is willing to wait and see how it develops. House Speaker Pelosi was noticeably cool on the anticipation of the bill which didn’t exactly win her a bunch of support from the Ocasio-Cortez fanbase, but it shouldn't be a surprise that older leadership might be taking a wait-and-see standpoint. Going all the way back to Occupy Wall Street, Pelosi and the older leadership of the party have been burned more than once by strong activist pushes.
It might be different this time around with that strong activist base having a charismatic leader in Congress as opposed to outside it, and some are already suggesting that Ocasio-Cortez could make this the litmus test for a number of Presidential hopefuls. If that's the case, it could become a de-facto plank or more than one plank in the upcoming Democratic platform.
Vox does a great job covering both the document itself as well as the the main details and themes of the resolution. However, if you want a Reader’s Digest version, you can take a look at axios as rundown of the bill.
New Scandals in Old Dominion
It's not just the Green New Deal that Democrats are prepping for a fight over. In a bizarre story that developed faster than a Trump tweet, Virginia's Democratic leadership was rocked over what started out to be a furor over inopportune comments related to an abortion bill.
What began as a hatchet job on Democratic governor Ralph Northam turned into a scandal-ridden week for the Virginia government as first the governor and then his attorney general both admitted to racially insensitive actions and practices in their college days. This was followed by the lieutenant governor, also a Democrat, being nailed with a sexual assault accusation in the middle of the week as well.
The upshot is that the governor and the next two state leaders in line to take the governor's position should he be forced out of office (all Democrats) all have their positions in question due to activities of the past. Democratic presidential hopefuls Senators Gillibrand and Harris were quick to call for investigations on the sexual assault charges, but other than that there's been a fair amount of quiet from party leadership both national and within Virginia.
It remains to be seen how this might affect the Democratic Party in the state and beyond, but for a state that only recently turned blue it's hard to imagine Republicans not making hay out of this five alarm fire.
Reviewing the Trump Foreign Policy
The State of the Union was mostly focused on domestic policy issues and casting a vision for a greater America, but there's much to be said for Trump's foreign policy both good and bad.
The Council on Foreign Relations brings us up to speed on where American-North Korea relations stand as President Trump confirmed in the State of the Union that he will be meeting Kim Jong Un for another summit in Vietnam at the end of this month.
Hudson Institute provides an update on US-China trade negotiations which are ongoing and have many people hoping that there will be a breakthrough soon.
However, Lawfare notes that the Justice Department has just released two indictments against the Huawei company, a Chinese conglomerate accused of a lot of lawbreaking which has become a major bargaining chip in the trade negotiations.
And, in an apparent attempt to restart peace talks in the Middle East, Jared Kushner is on his way to the Middle East to make another try at it.
There's a lot of activity on the foreign policy front for the Trump administration so it should be a fairly busy year. The question, though, is the Trump Administration in a strong bargaining position? Walter Russell at the Hudson Institute seems to think so, arguing that the Trump foreign policy has largely been successful in most of its major endeavors.
Pressure on Big Tech
With much of the focus being on the State of the Union, Virginia and all things happening in the Beltway two significant stories on the technology front almost came and went this week.
In a somewhat amazing turnabout, Twitter publicized a daily active user count for the first time.
This might be because social media companies are under increasing pressure to become more transparent. Twitter may have received a major wake-up call after Facebook got pressured in German court to limit the user data they collect as a way of upholding user privacy.