The Weekly Sift

Two very hard-hitting articles about Israel appeared this week. One in The Atlantic described the conflict within the government about Netanyahu’s strategy in Gaza, in particular the lack of any day-after plan and how that makes the military’s job nearly impossible. Another in the NYT lays out the decades-long history of the Israeli government turning a blind eye to crimes against Palestinians by West Bank settlers, and how the one-time radicals of that movement have become the establishment. I’ll describe the two in a featured post with an uncreative title: “Two Significant Articles about Israel”.

That should be out shortly.

A second featured post is considerably less heavy. Like everybody else, I decided to weigh in on Harrison Butker’s commencement address to Benedictine College in Kansas. I am not calling for his cancellation, because I don’t want the Colin Kaepernick fiasco to become the standard for judging outspoken athletes. That post will be called “Wide Right: That kicker’s commencement speech”. It’s also mostly done and shouldn’t take that long to get out.

In the weekly summary, I’m going to avoid a lengthy discussion of the Trump trial, because there’s not that much to say: A lot hangs on what the jury is making of Michael Cohen, and there’s just no way to know. There’s also the Alito flag incident and a few other things to cover. That should be out by noon.

It’s another multiple-featured-post week, as attempts at short notes repeatedly got out of hand. Fortunately, all three featured posts will be relatively short.

The subjects are obvious: the student protests, Trump’s Manhattan trial, and the depressing Supreme Court discussion of Trump’s immunity claim.

The main thing I learned from the Manhattan trial so far is captured in the post’s title: “The Manhattan case against Trump is stronger than I expected”. In particular, two aspects of the case I expected to be problems are looking pretty solid: The jury isn’t going to be asked to trust Michael Cohen’s word for much of anything, and connecting Trump’s fraudulent business documents to another crime shouldn’t be that hard. That post should be out shortly.

Next, the student protests. I realized I had to write about this because the mainstream coverage has been all over the map. Is it true (as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu claims) that “antisemitic mobs have taken over the leading universities”, or are the pro-Palestinian encampments made up of peaceful students who just want the killing to stop? That post should appear by 10 EDT.

Finally, Thursday’s arguments before the Supreme Court were deeply disillusioning to the liberal legal experts on cable news networks. Most of them are institutionalists, and had been strongly committed to the idea that the Court’s recent behavior has been due to a difference in philosophies, rather than partisanship and corruption. That view was really hard to square with what we heard Thursday, particularly from Justice Alito. A lot of crow has been eaten on CNN and MSNBC these last few days, as people who have devoted their lives to the US justice system have had to admit that, no, the Supreme Court really is a bunch of partisan hacks. I’ll try to get that out by 11.

After diverting all those stories to separate posts, the weekly summary should be short. There are new 2020-election indictments in Arizona. Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction was overturned, but he won’t be going free anytime soon. There’s that bizarre story about Governor Noem and the dog. A few tidbits related to the Trump trials didn’t fit into the featured posts. And I’ll find a few other things. Hopefully that appears by noon.

I went kind of wild this week: Three short notes got out of hand a demanded to be featured posts. (I must be feeling better. I can even talk a little.)

The first spins out of a WaPo article by Monica Hess about the “tradwife” trend — the online influencers who post about their idealized 1950s-housewife lives. What I love about this article is that Hess doesn’t do the obvious (and dull) thing: take tradwives seriously and give a lecture about everything that was wrong with the actual 1950s and the few opportunities the decade offered women.

Instead, Hess looks at tradwifery as a fantasy, and asks why it’s attractive. What’s wrong with women’s lives today that might motivate this kind of escapism?

She got me thinking about how we might approach all kinds of conservative retro fantasies: not as workable options we need to knock down, but as symptoms of modern problems that need real (and liberal) solutions. That’s the theme of “A Different Take on Conservative Retro Fantasy”, which should be out shortly.

The other two featured posts have something to do with abortion, but didn’t combine easily into a single post. The first takes an unpopular position on the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling that reinstated the state’s draconian 1864 law: I think they got it right. It’s a horrible outcome, but that’s because the legislature created a horrible legal situation. It’s not up to the courts to invent better laws. “The Arizona Abortion Ruling” should post around 10 EDT.

The final featured post looks at the political gyrations Trump and other Republicans are performing as they try to come up with a viable political position on abortion. Trump’s leave-it-to-the-states statement looked smart last Monday, but the next day Arizona turned the clock back to 1864, pointing out what’s wrong with leaving the issue to the states. “Republicans Scramble to Contain Their Abortion Disaster” should post by 11.

Then we get to the weekly summary, which still has to cover Trump’s Manhattan trial, which starts today. There’s also the Israel/Iran attack and counterattack, OJ, and a few other things. I’ll try to get that out by noon.

This week’s Sift was assembled against a headwind. All week I’ve been battling a fairly heavy cold, which I kept falsely promising myself would be gone by Monday. As a result, the amount of quality brain-power available to sift the news has been limited this week, and what I produce today will undoubtedly suffer from that lack. It was not a week for subtle contemplation of whether I’ve been asking the right questions.

But I can testify to this: the “fever dream” is a real phenomenon. My slightly overheated brain, whose stamina was questionable all day long, devoted its nights to constructing Byzantine plots on elaborate sets involving characters ranging from Snoop Dogg to Loki to Doc Adams from “Gunsmoke”. My normal-temperature brain wouldn’t know how to do this.

Anyway, the news: The ridiculous case against the abortion drug mifepristone had oral arguments at the Supreme Court Tuesday. The conservative majority would love to give the anti-abortion movement what it wants here, but this particular case is too badly constructed to allow that outcome. Instead, I expect to see a ruling in June that dismisses the case, but provides the movement with a road map for constructing the next one: “Here, guys. This is what we need to see.” That’s going to be the topic of the featured post.

The summary has some Trump-trial news to plow through, beginning with the NY appeals court reducing Trump’s bond and giving him ten more days to come up with it. (Until Thursday, if I count right.) That happened just before I pushed the “Post” button last Monday, and we still have no explanation of what the court was thinking.

Meanwhile, Trump misbehaved in another case, the NY state Stormy Daniels case that starts jury selection in two weeks. The judge left himself and his family out of the gag order against Trump, so he proceeded to attack the judge’s adult daughter numerous times. I wish I spoke better simian, because this appears to be some kind of primitive assertion of dominance. But I can’t decide whether the right response is to dominate back, say by revoking Trump’s bail for some period of time, or if that’s exactly what the Orange One is trying to provoke. I could go on, but let’s leave that to the summary post.

In the physical world, the big event was the collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore. If this were happening in a red state full of “real” Americans, the next move would be obvious: Congress would quickly pass a bipartisan bill providing money to rebuild. But Baltimore is one of those nasty cities full of Black and Brown Democrats, so things can’t be that simple.

Easter happened, so of course we were treated to a round of accusations of how the Biden administration was insulting Christians, who are the most coddled people in America. But at least they have the new Trump Bible to seek comfort in. Ronna McDaniel was quickly hired and fired by NBC. Israelis demonstrated against the Netanyahu government. And a few other things happened, some of which I even noticed.

Everything will appear at its own pace this morning. I’m vaguely intending to get the featured post out by 9 EDT and the summary by noon, but don’t count on that.

This week lacked one single dominating story. So in the featured post I’ll take a step back and explain “The Other Reason I’m Optimistic” about the fall elections. Short version: Trump has gotten rid of anybody (including Ivanka) who can tell him he’s had a bad idea. That’s a recipe for disaster, and we’re already starting to see it play out. That post should appear shortly.

The weekly summary has a few things to choose from. Fani Willis got reprimanded and her ex-lover had to leave the prosecution team, but the case will go forward. Ron DeSantis suffered some major defeats in his war on woke. The House passed a TikTok ban. And Russia had what it called an election. There was a big flap over Trump’s “bloodbath” prediction, which I’ll unravel as best I can.

One other thing: One of my favorite observers of the tech scene, Cory Doctorow, has both a novel and a nonfiction book out. They’re worth a look.

I’ll try to get the weekly summary posted by noon EDT.