On Wednesday, Ben Carson took the lead over Donald Trump in the Real Clear Politics polling average (though Trump had regained a small lead by Saturday). Probably not coincidentally, Carson had two runs of bad publicity this week: One of them (the exaggerations in his autobiography) makes me shrug, while the other (Joseph built the pyramids) points out exactly why I think Carson is the scariest candidate in the race. I’ll talk through my thought process in this week’s featured post “I’d rather have Trump”. It just needs a proofreading, so it should be out soon.
The weekly summary will discuss the off-year elections, developments in the so-called “war on cops”, and another in the weekly series of guns-make-us-safer stories, before closing with a highly amusing (and very effective) video about sexual consent from a British police department.
I haven’t yet decided what to do with one of the week’s most interesting stories: a study showing that middle-aged whites who haven’t been to college are dying at a surprising rate, but only in the United States. It’ll either be a few paragraphs in the summary or spin out into a short article. Either way, the weekly summary will probably be late this week.
At 5 a.m. I realized that the hardest clock to reset is my body’s. Oh well, early start.
In this week’s featured post, I’ll try to explain why we say “Black lives matter” rather than “All lives matter” by making an analogy to one of Jesus’ most famous parables. I call it “Samaritan Lives Matter”, and I hope readers will use it to start conversations with their conservative Christian friends. It’s almost done, so it should be out before too long.
The weekly summary has a lot to cover. It looks like we’re going to have ground troops in Syria after all, which I’m not happy about. But on the positive side, we’ve got a budget-and-debt-ceiling deal that could end Congressional hostage-taking for the rest of the Obama presidency. The third Republican debate turned into a whine-fest about the “liberal” media and its “gotcha” questions. (Have they ever watched CNBC? It’s not liberal.) WHO’s announcement about processed meat causing cancer got sensationalized; I’ll try to put it in better perspective. There was another highly-publicized example of police violence against unarmed black people, this time against a girl sitting in a desk in a classroom. And a bunch of other stuff. Expect to see that before noon, or maybe 11 since I’m up already.
Again this week, it’s obvious what to write about: The Benghazi Committee’s attempt to break down Hillary Clinton in a marathon session of hostile questioning. The results were predictable, but somehow Chairman Trey Gowdy couldn’t stop himself or his committee from playing right into Clinton’s hands: The hearing turned into a free 11-hour commercial about how presidential she is. I’ll cover all that in the featured article, “Notes from Hillary’s Benghazi Showdown”. That should be out around 9 EDT.
That’s far from the only thing that happened this week: Joe Biden announced he’s not running, Canada went liberal, Paul Ryan announced his candidacy for Speaker, Obama vetoed a major defense bill, and a bunch of other stuff. That will be in the weekly summary, which I hope to get out around 11.
The Democrats finally debated this week, and from my point of view it went well. The candidates as a group looked thoughtful and civil, and the debate highlighted the issues Democrats around the country want to run on, rather than focusing on who insulted who and whether that was over the line. Observations spinning out of the debate will take up most of the weekly summary — along with the continuing chaos in Congress, the Russians in Syria, the continuing good news about the deficit (which nobody seems to know), and a few other things, concluding with a cartoon illustrating the problems when Christmas starts in encroach on Halloween.
The featured post this week is a book review of Jason Stanley’s How Propaganda Works. The book makes at least two really important points: It explains why some beliefs are impervious to evidence, and observes that your propaganda doesn’t have to lie if your audience already believes something false.
It’s another week where it’s obvious what to cover: The chaos in the effort to replace John Boehner as speaker. Ever since Boehner announced his resignation, everyone I talk politics with has been asking me what’s going on (as if I know), and that only intensified after Kevin McCarthy’s surprise withdrawal from the race.
Naturally, I don’t have any inside information about what Paul Ryan is going to do or how quickly the speaker-selection process will play out, but after taking a step back and looking at the broader context, I think the story is being mis-covered in the mainstream media: For the Far Right, I don’t think the issue is who the Speaker will be, it’s whether they can get a commitment to back their next attempt to blackmail Obama with a government shutdown or debt-ceiling crisis.
“What the Speakership Battle is About” probably will post around 9 EDT.
In the weekly summary, there’s the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the continuing arguments about guns, anticipating tomorrow’s Democratic debate, and a few other things. I’m running a little late on that, so it probably won’t post before noon.
I’m back from my week off (which wasn’t really a week off; I gave a talk in the Midwest which I’ll link to in the weekly summary). A lot happened: the Pope came and went; Speaker Boehner announced his resignation; not coincidentally, the government shutdown got delayed until December, when it’s the new speaker’s problem; we had yet another mass shooting; two big corporate-greed stories broke: the VW diesel-emissions fraud, and the jacking-up-drug-prices story; the witch-hunt against Planned Parenthood continued; and Alabama made the boldest voter-suppression move yet.
Meanwhile, I have a promise to keep from two weeks ago: reviewing Bernie Sanders’ speech at Liberty University. So maybe I’ll get on with that and leave the rest to the weekly summary. So “Bernie’s Epistle to the Falwellites” should come out by 8 EDT, and the weekly summary around 11.
I wanted to write about Bernie Sanders speaking at Liberty University — I really did — but I couldn’t stay away from the bright shiny object of the Republican debate. Watching it was one of those what-color-is-the-sky-on-your-planet experiences for me, a departure from reality that ordinary fact-checking just can’t cope with. So this week’s featured article is “Three Hours in Bizarro World”. It should be out around 8 EDT.
The weekly summary has a lot to cover: Ahmed Mohamed’s clock-that-wasn’t-a-bomb, of course; the escalating attacks on Black Lives Matter; Jade Helm 15 ending as the simple military exercise the Pentagon always said it was, without overthrowing democracy-as-we-know-it; a few notes on Bernie Sanders in lieu of a full analysis of his message to Evangelical Christians; and a bunch of other stuff, before closing with a harrowing escape from California wildfires. I still have a lot of paragraphs to finish and references to check, so let’s guess that appears around noon.
BTW, I won’t be sifting in the coming week. But if you happen to be in west central Illinois (or across the Mississippi in northeastern Missouri or southeastern Iowa) Sunday morning, you can hear me talk at the Unitarian Church of Quincy.
This week the Sift’s 2016 speech series gets to Ben Carson, who might be the most interesting of the Republican candidates. Without much attention from the mainstream media (but plenty of attention from conservative and Christian talk radio), he has moved into a solid second place in the polls behind Donald Trump. Like some 21st-century revision of the famous Teddy Roosevelt dictum, he speaks softly but says wild things. He embodies the conservative fantasy that government doesn’t require any special knowledge or skill, but only common sense and a good heart. If Trump implodes, he might be the one to pick up the pieces.
The Carson article should be out around 9 EDT. The weekly summary will discuss the Iran deal’s survival in the Senate, the 9-11 anniversary, Mitch McConnell’s attempt to sabotage the Paris climate summit, the Jeb! tax plan, and Kim Davis’ prospects for staying out of jail. It should appear around 11.
Of course I had to write about Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for contempt of court when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Religion, gay rights, the law, competing ways of framing the same event — a bunch of the topics I care about intersect in that story. Expect “Is Kim Davis a Martyr?” to appear around 9 EDT.
And what better time than Labor Day to write a somewhat wonky article on employment statistics? So, the monthly employment report just came out, saying that the unemployment rate fell to 5.1%. Meanwhile, people to both the right and left of the Obama administration claim that the “real” unemployment rate is double that: 10.3%. Where does that number come from, what does it mean, and does it undermine the administration’s things-are-getting-better talking point? (Spoiler: No, it doesn’t.) Expect “Damned Lies and Employment Statistics” around ten or so.
Also in the weekly summary: Denali, the backlash against Black Lives Matter, refugees in Europe, and startling new theory about the origins of Willy Wonka. (I mean, wasn’t that elevator a dead giveaway? Who else has a magical little box that can go into space?) That should be out before noon.
This week I’ll have two featured posts.
One adds a little of my own experience and insight to a great article David Roberts wrote this week about tech nerds and their alternating disdain and naiveté towards politics. His article is “Tech nerds are smart. But they can’t seem to get their heads around politics.” Mine is “Hey, Nerds! Politics is a System. Figure it Out.” Nerds have respect for facts and a way of getting their heads around complex systems — two things the world needs a lot of right now. They just can’t seem to grasp that politics is exactly the kind of system that deserves their hyper-focused attention.
Ben Carson’s critique of Black Lives Matter inspired the second featured article, which I’m calling “Protesting in Your Dreams”. I find it fascinating how the people who aren’t actually protesting anything always think they know best. The Powers That Be love it when the fantasies of people on the sidelines draw public concern away from the protests that are actually happening.
The weekly summary still needs a quote and a name. It covers the Katrina anniversary, this week’s horrifying shooting on live TV, my disgust with the coverage both Sanders and Clinton are getting, and the dangerous vagueness in Trump’s message, before closing with a mistake that will put your various screw-ups in perspective.
The nerds article should be out sometime in the next hour, and the Carson article by 10 EDT. The weekly summary should appear about 11.
The Weekly Sift 