Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief, April 19, 2019
The Weekly Brief - April 19, 2019
Notre Dame
Words fail me to articulate the sense of loss I felt at news of the Notre Dame fire this week. It's something to be mourned that I cannot say much about. Suffice to say, this a loss to France, Europe, Western civilization, and world culture. It's a gut-punch of the soul in a manner of speaking.
It’s here… The Mueller Report
After delays, speculations, whispered conspiracies and everything else that goes with Washington politics it is finally here: the redacted Mueller report is now published.
You can read the full report at Lawfare, or if you just want to get the executive summaries you can see them there as well. Vox has a very useful breakdown of the amount of the report that is redacted and the reasons why those redactions occur.
Those are really just the three things you need to know. All the other ink and hot takes seem to come from the left and right wings political blogosphere who are ironically in agreement that the report says everything they thought it would say... which means they're full of it.
Rather than being a complete vindication Trump or egg in the face of the media as conservatives would see it, or damning proof of criminal misconduct as progressives would see it, the Mueller report is more of a mixed bag.
Vox lists some winners and losers (no it doesn't break along partisan lines), and the National Review provides a little more nuance on how to read what is anything but a black and white document.
Jokowi who?
Sneaking in under the radar of all the election watching that I like to do, Indonesia held its presidential elections where Joko Widodo won a second presidential term this last week.
The Council on Foreign Relations breaks down the results and what to expect from Widodo’s second term.
Brookings Institution notes that Widodo’s electoral victory indicates some significant shifts in the voting populations in the country. And, if you didn't know that much about Indonesia before I just mentioned it, Brookings also provides a little brief on Indonesian politics.
North Korea wants some love
With Mueller dominating the news cycle in the United States it seems someone felt a little left out. This week, Kim Jong Un oversaw a new missile test and Axios reports on detected activity around a North Korean nuclear site that had been quiet since the North Korea-American rapprochement had begun.
Upping the ante, North Korea demanded this week that Mike Pompeo be replaced as the American Secretary of State. So, apparently the Bromance is over.
Popping the China bubble?
China and the United States are getting ever closer to an agreement on to end the trade war, but the American Enterprise Institute remains critical of the Trump administration's method of handling the trade war as economic policy.
China’s apparent rise to power, though, could be obscuring deeper systemic problems for China. War on the Rocks argues that China may have had a rapid rise, but may have an equally rapid decline.
Our World in Data corroborates this on one important metric: by 2024, it is expected that India will replace China as the world's most populous country.
The Bernie and Biden show
This week, it was all Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination. Bernie Sanders is coming off of an excellent showing at a Fox News town hall where he was able to make a persuasive pitch to former Trump voters and the Atlantic reports that Bernie Sanders is feeling pretty darn confident that the presidency is his for the taking.
That might be what's spooking some Democratic leaders as Nancy Pelosi went on record this week rejecting socialism as the Democratic Party's ideology of choice and snubbing the progressive caucus of her new Democrat House as being of minimal importance.
Early polling on the presidential race says otherwise, but that might all change as Joe Biden officially (finally) announced that he would be joining the presidential race. No doubt it's going to become a race between Biden and Sanders absent any total meltdown by either of them. But will it be enough to unseat Donald Trump?
Conrad Black, writing at the National Review, argues that the Democratic Party is heading for a reckoning between it's left wing and it's more moderate left-center leadership. Moreover, that reckoning is going to be running up against a Donald Trump who is looking more and more like an established incumbent.
Despite the drama surrounding the Mueller investigation the Council on Foreign Relations reports that the Trump Administration is actually racking up an impressive foreign policy record. Vox reports that Trump's early fundraising is rapidly outdistancing the divided Democratic field, and the Atlantic notes that Trump’s incumbency advantage is also building on a strong economy.
While many seem to think that Trump will be a one-term president, a lot of the early indicators suggest that should not be a foregone conclusion.
Recalibrating Israeli foreign policy
Following his election victory last week and American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Benjamin Netanyahu is riding high as he heads into a new term as Israeli Prime Minister.
Attention now turns to the effects of his election victory and American moves to solidify its relationship in support of Israel. One possibility is a cooling of Israeli-China relations.
The Council on Foreign Relations considers what future peace prospects look like in the new geopolitical terrain. Al-Monitor reports that with the election results coming so soon after the Golan declaration by the United States many Palestinians fear that there is nothing standing between Israel and full annexation of the West Bank.
However, Pat Buchanan at the American Conservative notes that despite the apparent closeness between Trump and Netanyahu there are some notable points at which the interests of Trump’s America and Netanyahu's Israel could collide.