Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief, December 13, 2019
The Weekly Brief - December 13, 2019
Wow! What a week this has been. Brexit, an increasingly authoritarian India, trade deals galore and the growing pains of democracies in the Middle East, and the only thing American media seemed to have time for was the impeachment proceedings. Yes, I find that irritating.
Impeachment goes to the House
That’s not to minimize the importance of articles of impeachment. After all, you don’t get those every year for every president. However, as noted in last week’s newsletter, House Democrats seemed to have succeeded in not pleasing anyone with the final outcome. The two charges outlined in the articles of impeachment and approved by the Judiciary Committee have been panned by both conservative and liberal publications.
In the defense of the House Dems, it seems like cooler heads have prevailed in at least narrowing the scope of the charges to what they believe they can win on. The only question that remains is, will a majority of the Senate think so? That seems to be a foregone conclusion as Senate Republicans aren’t about to call witnesses in a Senate trial, and some House Dems are already floating a face-saving measure should the thin charges founder on a lack of substance.
A generally pedestrian outcome was only the beginning of what appears to have been a rather good week for the President.
China: Deal or no deal? We got a deal...ish
After so many fits and starts, we have the first part of a trade deal with China nailed down. The agreement to halt raising tariffs at the end of the year was a win-win for both countries as America is in the middle of it’s Christmas shopping season and China has, well, been feeling the pinch of all this upheaval.
Stocks roared to new highs on the news of a deal (via Trump tweet), but the official inking of the deal should sustain those gains at least into 2020.
Getting business done… bipartisanly
A deal with China wasn’t the only news on the trade front as House Democrats announced their approval of Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA deal (known as USMCA). The November jobs report also outperformed expectations bringing unemployment to new lows just in time for the holidays.
The cherry on top for team Trump was a spending bill agreed on in the House that will avoid another December government shutdown.
Additionally, a bipartisan majority in the House passed a bill to legalize undocumented agricultural workers, giving them legal work status and a path to citizenship. The bill still has to pass through the Senate and be signed by the president, but it is an excellent example of a constructive bipartisan approach to immigration.
A mandate for Brexit
Beyond huge. Boris Johnson’s gambit to secure something of a mandate to complete the Brexit process paid off in spades with the conservative Tories winning a clear majority at the expense of Labor. In the third general election that has happened since the 2016 Brexit vote, Tory majorities have only increased in response to Johnson’s pitch to British voters to get Brexit done. There’s little reason to think that Brexit will not happen in the very near future now.
India citizenship bill
Things are getting hot in India where Modi’s Hindu nationalist government is set to enact a citizenship bill many critics have panned as anti-Muslim (because it is). The bill essentially creates citizenship rules for immigrants to India for every major religious group except Muslims. Predictably, the bill has not sat well with India’s Muslim minority and rioting has broken out across the nation, leaving some protesters dead, and pushing the Modi government to call in the army to restore order.
Other elections (Algeria and Israel)
Britain isn’t the only country with a significant election this week. Algerians also went to the polls yesterday to choose what many hope to be a reform-minded government. Those hopes seem to have dimmed in the run up to the election as many see the presidential candidates as being more of the same pro-military regime types, and there have been some reports of opposition intimidation. Even if the election goes off well, Algeria still has a long way to go to get out from the shadow of military rule.
Speaking of long shadows, Israel’s democracy is having its own ongoing struggle to get out from under the shadow of Netanyahu. With an indictment hanging over him, Bibi’s attempt to form a coalition government with the Blue and White opposition party failed this week, which will trigger Israel’s third election in a year. That may seem like a hamstrung democracy, but al-Monitor argues that it actually demonstrates stability.
WaPo's "Afghanistan Papers"
Washington drama went far beyond impeachment this week as the Washington Post published a damning indictment of America’s Afghanistan war. Citing a trove of Pentagon reports, WaPo’s reporting suggests that the American public has been the victim of a concerted campaign of deception regarding progress being made in the Afghanistan conflict.
I’ll admit, the report sounds more sensationalist than anything; a major newspaper wanting to have its own Pentagon Papers moment. Certainly in the think tank and foreign policy professional world, the stagnating conflict in Afghanistan has long been discussed as a failed policy without a good exit strategy.
That’s not to say that there hasn’t been official duplicity keeping the war going, maybe that’s so, but if you’re going to read the WaPo report, context and grain of salt (or two) may be required.
The domestic terrorism you (mostly) didn’t hear about
Two mass shootings in the last week have brought domestic terrorism back into the headlines, but there’s a twist here. The shooting on a Pensacola naval air station was done by a Saudi national training at the station, and the shooting in New Jersey targeted a Jewish store and was carried out by a couple, one of whom was formerly connected to the Black Hebrew Israelites.
The shootings couldn’t be more different in their respective perpetrators, targets, and motives. However, they both have one thing in common: They seemed to enter the news cycle and exit it without any massive public debate on gun control. That’s odd to me.
The Pentagon has suspended flight training for all Saudi students during its investigation of the Pensacola incident, and the FBI is treating the New Jersey incident as a domestic terror attack. We’ll probably hear more on these in the coming weeks.
Other news
And those were just the big ticket news items. There were also numerous other stories that were significant but didn’t occupy the airwaves as long, but will probably do so in 2020.
The Senate passed a unanimous resolution officially recognizing the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. Why would it take so long to recognize a historical fact? Because Turkey is the villain in this drama.
The US Supreme Court upheld a Kentucky law requiring doctors performing abortions to show mothers ultrasound images of the baby prior to making a final decision.
In a huge blow to national prestige, Russia has been banned from the next World Cup and the next two Olympics due to widespread doping.
Iran signaled a (very) slight thaw in its US diplomacy by signaling a readiness for a “comprehensive” prisoner swap.
A report indicated that only 10% of charitable giving to the Catholic Church actually makes its way to directly helping the poor…. Literally a tithe of a tithe.
Niger reports that 71 soldiers have been killed in an ambush by jihadist guerillas. Look for West Africa to become an emerging front for counter terrorism in 2020.