Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief, March 1, 2019
The Weekly Brief - March 1, 2019
Kashmir KaBoom?
What started last week with a suicide bombing in Indian-administered Kashmir escalated into a tit-for-tat shelling and mini air war between Pakistan and India in the restive region. The border province of Kashmir has been fought over between the two countries for decades and flare ups, while not routine, are not exactly new.
However, this recent flare-up takes place in the context of a Pakistan that is drawing closer to China and an India that is seeking to deepen ties with America even as America and China warily eye each other. The fact that India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers also adds to the tenseness of the situation.
Trading salvos reached fever pitch with the shooting down of an Indian fighter jet and the capture of the pilot by the Pakistanis. As of today, Pakistan is returning the pilot and it seems cooler heads are prevailing.
Hanoi Hoedown
Cooler heads and prevailing didn't exactly typify the Kim-Trump Summit in Hanoi this week. In fact, the summit started and stopped before I could even get this newsletter pulled together so a lot of the information I was planning to add is almost outdated. In what the editors of National Review call a “welcome failure” the two day Summit ended early and abruptly as Trump walked away from the bargaining table.
Team Trump claims the North Koreans want a total removal of sanctions without total denuclearization something the North Koreans flatly deny. It could have just as easily been Trump seeking to assert a degree of control and domination in the negotiations, especially considering that most people have painted Trump as the lesser mind in this battle of wits.
It's not a loss, however. Brookings Institute notes that having the summit in Hanoi allowed a spotlight to be shined on a communist success story with Vietnamese economy and trade relations with the US acting as an important illustration of how a communist regime can relate to the United States.
Nigeria Election (we're done with alliterations for now)
We've been tracking the Nigerian presidential election for the last few weeks and the update is that as of last Saturday incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari won a second four-year term in office.
The election was punctuated by violence and a lack of coordination with the Nigeria police. Opposition also saw the election as largely a sham, but there hasn't been a lot of international validation or support for the election results. There has not been a lot of denunciation either so it seems like it's business as usual in Abuja. It's just business as usual is not good business.
Cohen Plays Coy...ish
In Washington DC, the long-awaited testimony from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was greeted with all the anticipation of a high stakes sporting event. Given the frenzy surrounding Cohen's seemingly tell all testimony and the anticipation of the Mueller report, it seemed to some that this was going to be one of the final nails in Trump's coffin.
However, even though Cohen made clear that he has no love lost for Trump, he flatly denied meeting with Russians himself during Trump’s presidential campaign and denied that there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
While Cohen definitely offered some new insight into the Trump campaign and Trump, it doesn't seem like Trump's opposition really got everything they wanted and there's not a whole lot of groundbreaking information that wasn't already known or assumed to be the case.
Pushback at the border
House Democrats introduced a measure this week to block Trump's efforts at declaring a national emergency at the US-Mexico border and accessing special funds to finish building the border wall. The anticipated move doesn't surprise anyone, but it doesn't settle the debate over the need and nature of the emergency either.
Daily Signal reports that the border patrol chief actually shares Trump's assessment that there is a crisis on the border. On the political side, FiveThirtyEight reports that while the national emergency declaration is unpopular it's not so unpopular as to incense American voters.
That's significant because as we head into a Democratic primary season where the Democrats are seeking to identify what the winning formula is going to be to defeat Trump, policy questions (or lack thereof). Beyond politics, though, immigration policy does need to be fixed. The American Interest shares a few ideas on how to fix what it terms is a self-defeating immigration policy.
The Dems
There's already talk about who might be on the chopping block. The Atlantic reports that the Iowa caucus is going to be critical for Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris. If they can’t put in good showings there they might be some of the first contenders to exit.
But it's not just identity politics and the oversized field that's making the Democratic primary interesting. Axios reports than a Marist poll finds that there is almost an even split between pro-life and pro-choice Americans. Daily Signal reports on the same poll that the number of Democrats identifying as pro-life jumped by more than 10 points!
In a party that has been making some very strong moves on late term abortion laws in several states and in Congress over the last few weeks this is a very interesting development and I'll be interested to see the degree to which that poll and finding would move the needle either on Democrats position on abortion or the voting behavior of pro-life Democrats.
Fun Facts
Finally, a rapid fire selection of developments that haven't quite become major developments, but should be kept an eye on.
At the Warsaw conference last week, observers noted that there is a growing rapprochement between Israel and its Arab Neighbors.
The California Republican Party appointed a new leader who is Hispanic, millennial and female. This new face of the party, as the LA Times reports, is critical to rehabilitating the Republican brand in the Golden State.
Colorado joins a group of 12 states to pool their electors in the next presidential election to mirror the popular vote in an effort to eliminate the Electoral College.
Cuba received a new Constitution and Americas Quarterly lays out some of its major features.