National News Roundup: Year 2, Week 26 (July 15–21)


This week I have ten stories in Constitutional Crisis Corner, two stories in the Weird, and one story each in The Bad and The Good. This is where we live now, folks; it’s just All Constitutional Crisis All the Time. I tried changing the country’s channel, but it didn’t do anything, so much like my current back issues I guess we’re stuck with it for now.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a Putin visit — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

There’s been so much wild news about Trump and Putin this week that I’m a creating a new section for it just to keep track of it all. Folks, I won’t candy-coat this; it’s looking like there are some serious issues of compromise at play. Here are the main things to know:

There was also still some Casual Disregard of Governing Norms this week, many of which appear related to Trump and Russia but are worth examining on their own. Here’s what happened:

The Russia Investigation is still overclocked and going strong, too — no quieter than it was last week, which is really saying something:

Your “Normal” Weird:

The Bad:

  • Iranian Aggression.* Not content to be fighting with China, North Korea, and half of Europe, Trump also picked a fight with Iran this week in apparent response to Iran trash-talking us on Sunday — but since even that appears to be in response to us withdrawing from the Iran Deal, I’m not sure we get to say they started it. At any rate, Trump took to Twitter to claim that the country would face “CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED” if Irani President Hassan Rouhani continued to threaten the United States. It’s unclear what he meant by that, and frankly, I’m not sure I want to find out, but I’ll keep an eye on this all the same.

The Good:

And that’s the news this week, and good job and my condolences for making it through the whole thing; your reward is Kate the Chemist teaching Steven Colbert how to Do Science and hopefully an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week, and I hope you will be too. In the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me a better-functioning lower back!

National News Roundup: Week 51 (January 7–13)

By gabriellah money (becca’s boots), via Wikimedia Commons

The news continues to be Spectacular Spectacular this week, and not necessarily in a positive way. On the plus side, however, that appears to include some spectacularly good news, so at least it’s balanced. I’m hoping next week will be better, because hope springs eternal.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not an FBI agent! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

It’s a bit quieter on the Russia Collusion Investigation front this week, but there’s still a lot happening. Here are the main highlights to know:

  • Fusion GPS Transcript Release.* Diane Feinstein posted the entire transcript of the closed-door testimony of Fusion GPS’s founder, Glenn Simpson, before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (You may recall Fusion GPS and their hired associate, Michael Steele, as heavily involved in the assembly of the Pee Tape dossier — not that official news sources will call it that.) It’s all very confusing, and I say that having read both the transcript and expert analysis of it (particularly recommending Elizabeth McLaughlin’s citation-heavy analysis, though the New York Times analysis has lots of useful info also). So though it’s not precisely my area, here’s my $0.02 summary: Despite a lot of efforts to discredit Fusion GPS as a company and Diane Feinstein for releasing the transcript, I think Fusion GPS and Simpson absolutely know what they are doing, have experience investigating Russian organized crime in particular, and through Steele may have found credible indications of potential blackmail as well as collusion. We don’t have enough information at this stage to know what on Earth has actually happened, but we absolutely should be investigating this more; there’s a very real chance that Russia does indeed have kompromat and semi-consensual cooperation from a sitting President. In other words: BRING ON THE SALACIOUS SUBPOENAS.
  • Steve Bannon Brouhaha.* Steve Bannon stepped down from his position at Breitbart this week, embattled after duking it out with Trump in the social media streets all week. This probably won’t mean much at the Breitbart end, since I’m sure they have an endless supply of snakes over there. But it’s great news for the House Investigation Committee, which is trying to get Bannon to testify right now. He’s hired an attorney to help him prepare, which might mean interesting things in the next few weeks. (Well, more interesting than watching Bannon and Trump sling mud at each other, which was admittedly pretty interesting before it got old.)
  • FISA Fights.* The House reauthorized the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act this week, rejecting reforms that would better preserve civilian privacy. The Senate has voted to begin debate, and is likely to vote in the upcoming week. But weirdly, the biggest point of resistance at the moment appears to be Trump himself, who is now questioning some of the provisions — in part because Fox News is questioning them, and in part because he thinks they were used in part to create the Steele dossier. In other words, disturbingly, Trump actually might object to a sketchy thing remaining law because the sketchy thing happened to him. (It’s a shame this rare exhibit is unlikely to result in him growing some empathy, because that would be a welcome respite and fascinating to watch.)

Your “Normal” Weird:

  • Guess Who’s Running Now. (No really, your guess is probably as good as mine.) This has been a weird and confusing week for discussing people’s plans to run for office. First Oprah Winfrey gave an excellent speech at the Golden Globes last Sunday, which somehow resulted in everybody talking about whether she should run for President (though Oprah herself has indicated no plans to run). In more concrete news, Chelsea Manning filed paperwork to run for the U.S. Senate seat in Maryland this week, but has firmly issued no comment about her plans to run. And never one to be left out, Arizona’s own anti-immigration sadist Joe Arpaio announced he’s running for the Senate now that Jeff Flake’s seat will be up for grabs — but he’s enough of a media hound that he might not have even filed paperwork. So… some famous people might or might not be running for things?
  • Hawaii Nuclear Scare.* A false alarm was raised on Saturday that Hawaii had an incoming missile threat. The statement was walked back within the hour it was released, though that still was more than enough time to scare the daylights out of lots of Americans, particularly given our recent history with North Korea. It’s unclear what exactly caused the false report, but I think it’s fair to say we’re all glad to hear that it wasn’t actually true.

The Bad:

The Good:

And thus continues our Extra Extra edition news — lots of news of pretty much every type, but that’s better than news that’s uniformly bad. I’m hopeful that we’ll get some more good news next week, but I guess we’ll all find out together! Until then, keep on keepin’ on.