Weekly News Roundup - 3/22/24
Tensions between the U.S. and Israel are growing; Bloodbath is this week's partisan Rorsarch test; an eye-opening Tik Tok briefing
Welcome to the eleventh weekly news roundup of 2024. The archive for all weekly news roundups is here. If you notice stories or issues you’d like to see mentioned in these roundups, let me know. In 2024, the Border Stalkers Substack is featuring one news update a week, and one book a month, with weekly posts on each book. The book of the month schedule is here.
Some wisdom from Ian Leslie this week in his essay "In Praise of Slow Learners":
Speed kills understanding. The secret of improving your intelligence, and your judgement, is knowing when to choose the slow route; when to look at the primary data yourself rather than accept a second or fifth-hand summary of it; when to take three months to read one great book rather than trying to read twenty mediocre ones; when to admit that you haven’t grasped a problem, rather than generating a plausible but superficial take on it; when to ask the stupid question that everyone’s wondering about but nobody wants to verbalise; when to push those around you or just yourself to more precisely define what you’re arguing about.
Slow learners are more likely to do things the hard way, because they haven’t been pampered by their own brain. They’re very familiar with the feeling of not-understanding, and have learned to welcome it as a spur.
Big Stories This Week
Donald Trump held a rally last Saturday in Ohio and warned of a "bloodbath" if he is not elected president this fall. The Biden campaign accused him of encouraging "political violence." Trump claimed afterward that his comment referred specifically to the auto industry. FactCheck.org deemed this explanation "the most plausible." Sam Kahn, at Persuasion, wrote that "in context, it was clear that, in the most controversial line of the speech, he was talking about an economic 'bloodbath.' ... Trump didn’t, in the Ohio speech, actually predict a violent bloodbath, as the editors of The New York Times, Guardian, Washington Post, etc. very strongly implied he did in their choice of headline ... If Trump is to be defeated and Trumpism overcome, the mainstream will have to maintain its realism and its dignity, and the adults in the room will need to avoid being sucked into loose play with the facts. What Trump actually is, and what he stands for, is bad enough."
Tensions grew between the Democratic party in the U.S. and the Netanyahu government in Israel. The week began with Netanyahu criticizing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and ended with the U.S. sponsoring a resolution at the United Nations calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was in Israel to meet with Netanyahu.
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady but also signaled that three rate cuts are still expected to take place this year.
Sports fans rejoice as March Madness kicks off, with 330 wrestlers competing in the first round of the NCAA Wrestling Championship, across 10 weight classes, in Kansas City. College basketball games are also played across the country ... I kid! I kid! (Although basketball players don't know nothing about toughness compared to wrestlers). Jack Gohlke and the Oakland Golden Grizzlies, a 14 seed, knock off 3 seed Kentucky and are the NCAA tournament's first Cinderella team, Gohlke's protestations notwithstanding.
How many times have we already this year seen Congress racing to avoid a shutdown and passing a short-term deal to kick the can down the road a few weeks or months? Well they were at it again this week, trying to pass a six-month patch ahead of a deadline Saturday at which point government funding would run out. The planners at the Pentagon and across agencies are increasingly hamstrung by this instability.
Week in Review:
Friday, March 15
Former Vice President Mike Pence says in an interview that he cannot "in good conscience" endorse Donald Trump for president.
A New York judge delays Donald Trump's trial for purported hush money payments to a porn star using campaign funds, until at least mid-April.
The National Association of Realtors reaches a class action settlement that the Dispatch says will result in "policy changes that could lower agent commissions, open up competition, and decrease housing costs."
Saturday, March 16
Donald Trump holds a rally in Ohio and warns of a "bloodbath" if he is not elected president this fall.
President Biden speaks at the Gridiron Dinner in D.C.
Sunday, March 17
There are signs of protest against Russian dictator Vladimir Putin during a non-democratic election held to show the pretense of democracy in an authoritarian state. Putin is "elected" to another six-year term, his fifth.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears on Fox News and criticizes Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, who called last week for new elections in Israel. "We’re not a banana republic,” he said. “The people of Israel will choose when they will have elections, and who they’ll elect, and it’s not something that will be foisted on us," Netanyahu says.
Monday, March 18
About a third of those in Gaza are facing starvation, says a new report. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, finds that "virtually everyone in Gaza is struggling to get enough food, and that around 677,000 people — nearly a third of the population of 2.3 million — are experiencing the highest level of catastrophic hunger. That means they face extreme lack of food and critical levels of acute malnutrition," according to the AP.
Most of the Supreme Court justices, in arguments, "appeared convinced that government officials should be able to try to persuade private companies, whether news organizations or tech platforms, not to publish information so long as the requests are not backed by coercive threats," reports the New York Times. I wrote about this issue last summer and Casey Newton covers it here.
Lawyers for Donald Trump say in a court filing that the former president has been unable to secure a bond for the nearly half a billion dollar penalty imposed on him in a New York trial, a week before it is due. A New York judge found Trump guilty of inflating the value of his real estate properties to gain more favorable loan terms.
An interview of Elon Musk by Don Lemon is posted to Twitter. Some people find this interesting.
Tuesday, March 19
Former car dealer Bernie Moreno wins the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Ohio, and advances to face incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, in the fall general election. Moreno was backed by Trump over two other candidates.
In a presidential primary that is no longer competitive, Donald Trump still lost 15% of the Republican vote to Nikki Haley, and President Biden still lost 12% of the Democratic vote to another candidate or no candidate.
Wednesday, March 20
Senators are briefed by national security officials about China's ability to use TikTok to spy on Americans and track their behavior. "Their ability to track, their ability to spy is shocking," Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) told Axios. The Senate is considering whether to pass a House-approved bill that would ban TikTok from the U.S. unless Chinese-owned company Bytedance sells the company.
The Environmental Protection Agency issues what the New York Times calls "one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, a rule designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032." The Dispatch has a good substantive rundown of the details and different reactions.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signals that the U.S. central bank still expects to cut interest rates three times this year, despite some persistent signs of inflation early in 2024.
European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde gives a more cautionary speech in Frankfurt, signaling less certainty about the prospect of rate cuts in the EU.
Congressional Republicans say they plan to invite Netanyahu to address Congress, and a number of Democrats say they would not attend.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar unexpectedly announces his resignation.
Thursday, March 21
The NCAA men's wrestling championship, and the NCAA men's basketball tournament, kick off. There are 16 basketball games across four cities and in Kansas City, the first day of competition sees 330 wrestlers compete in the first two rounds, with quarterfinals and semifinals coming Friday, and championships across 10 weight classes on Saturday evening.
The Justice Department and 16 state attorneys general sue Apple, accusing the tech giant of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the smart phone market.
A federal judge completes sentencing six former Mississippi police officers to sentences between 10 and 40 years for torturing two black men and shooting one of them in the jaw, and then covering up their crimes. The officers, white men who called themselves the "goon squad," told the two black men to "stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson." Rankin County is the majority white county east of Jackson, the capital city of Mississippi, which is home a majority black population.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-NJ, who is facing federal corruption charges for using his power to help foreign governments, says he won't run in the Democratic primary for reelection this year.
Congress releases a six-month funding plan to avoid a government shutdown ahead of Saturday's deadline.
Home prices rose for the eighth month in a row, the National Association of Realtors announces.
Friday, March 22
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrives in Israel, after stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt earlier in the week, for talks with Netanyahu at a fraught time in the relationship between the Biden and Netanyahu administrations.
Day two of March Madness commences, as the NCAA women’s basketball tournament begins. Work productivity across the U.S. declines by another significant margin.
Interesting Reads
Senators get "shocking" look at TikTok's spy potential, by Stephen Neukam and Stef W. Kight for Axios
We’re Falling Into Trump’s Trap… Again by Sam Kahn for Persuasion
"It is time to kill the special counsel institution." - Jack Goldsmith (when Goldsmith talks, I listen)
Russian disinformation is about immigration. The real aim is to undercut Ukraine aid, by David Klepper for The Associated Press
Germans thought they were immune to nationalism after confronting their Nazi past. They were wrong, by Kirsten Grieshaber for The Associated Press
How Does Paris Stay Paris? By Pouring Billions Into Public Housing by Thomas Fuller for The New York Times
how many different ways do we have to say it by @amypeterson for Making All Things New
How Trump’s Allies Are Winning the War Over Disinformation, by Steven Lee Myers and Jim Rutenberg for The New York Times
‘Welcome to the family’: How Donald Trump learned to love the January 6 prisoner movement, by Shelby Talcott for Semafor
Border Enforcement in Disarray as Courts Debate Texas’ Power to Arrest, Deport Immigrants, by Jess Bravin and Elizabeth Findell for The Wall Street Journal