On Our "Virtual Route 66" : Reflecting Upon the Week That Was

 

As a new week dawns, we present a snapshot of the week that was with thoughts courtesy Crooked Media, The Financial Times, Fortune, The Economist, The National, Heather Cox Richardson  and GLobalSecurity.Org as we look forward to serve: 

Riding high The lessons from America’s astonishing economic record The world’s biggest economy is leaving its peers ever further in the dust

Related  America’s economic outperformance is a marvel to behold, and to squander

Non-alignment Can the West win over the rest? In a more transactional world the price of influence is going up

Related  How to survive a superpower split   HEATHER COX RICHARDSON APR 17   There is more news about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his misreporting of his financial connections. This morning, Shawn Boburg and Emma Brown of the Washington Post reported that for twenty years, Thomas has reported rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a real estate firm that was shut down in 2006. The misstatement might be dismissed as a problem with paperwork, the authors note. “But it is among a series of errors and omissions that Thomas has made on required annual financial disclosure forms over the past several decades, a review of those records shows. Together, they have raised questions about how seriously Thomas views his responsibility to accurately report details about his finances to the public.” The cascade of stories about Thomas threatens to continue to undermine the legitimacy of this Supreme Court. Last night, the nation suffered one mass shooting in Dadeville, Alabama, that killed four people and wounded twenty-eight others, and another in Louisville, Kentucky, that killed two and wounded four. On Friday, Republican hopefuls for the 2024 presidential nomination courted members of the National Rifle Association, the NRA, at the organization’s 2023 annual convention, promising looser gun laws. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem complained about liberals who “want to take our guns,” and boasted that her granddaughter, who is not yet two, has a shotgun and a rifle. Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to focus on rebalancing the Indo-Pacific to counter China. Just two weeks after the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and nearly thirty years after the restoration of diplomatic ties in 1995, the U.S. has broken ground on a new $1.2 billion embassy compound in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh yesterday and vowed to “broaden and deepen” relations between the two countries. Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, U.S. Agency for International Development administrator Samantha Power, and members of Congress have all visited Vietnam recently as part of a long-term strategy to help area friends and allies counterbalance China in the Indo-Pacific region. Yesterday, Blinken emphasized how the U.S. and Vietnam, working together, “can advance a free and open Indo-Pacific, one that is at peace and grounded in respect for the rules-based international order.” But, as Vietnam has a one-party communist government, he explained, “When we talk about ‘free and open,’ we mean countries being free to choose their own path and their own partners and that problems will be dealt with openly; rules will be reached transparently and applied fairly; and goods, ideas, and people will flow freely across land, the seas, the skies, and cyberspace.” Vice President Harris spoke yesterday at a march for reproductive rights in Los Angeles, where she emphasized how deeply our international standing depends on our commitment to freedom at home. “I’ve been traveling around the world as your Vice President,” she said. “When we, as Americans, walk in those rooms around the world, we have traditionally walked in those rooms, shoulders back, chin up, having some authority to talk about the importance of rule of law, human rights. “But here’s the thing we all know about what it means to be a role model: People watch what you do to see if it matches what you say. So let us understand that what is happening in our nation right now, by extension, can impact people around the world who dare to say, ‘I want my country to be like the United States and protect rights.’ And those autocrats and those dictators might look at those folks and say, ‘What are you pointing to as the example?’” “We are seeing, around the country, in a myriad of ways, those who would dare to attack fundamental rights and, by extension, attack our democracy,” Harris said. “Around our country, supposed so-called extremist leaders…dare to silence the voices of the people.” “A United States Supreme Court, the highest court in our land, that took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America. “We have seen attacks on voting rights; attacks on fundamental rights to love and marry the people that you love; attacks on the ability of people to be themselves and be proud of who they are. “And so, this is a moment that history will show required each of us, based on our collective love of our country, to stand up and fight for and protect our ideals…. [W]e have been called upon to be the next generation of the people who will help lead and fight in this movement for freedom and liberty based on our love of our country…. [W]e stand for our democracy. And we stand for foundational and fundamental principles that have everything to do with freedom, liberty, and equality for all people.” — The Khartoum skyline yesterday. AFP SUDAN Battles between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group in the capital Khartoum continued into a second day yesterday, as the international community called for an end to the deadly violence. Speaking in Abu Dhabi, former civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok said both sides were refusing to negotiate an end to the fighting. At least 97 civilians have been killed and 365 injured, the doctor's trade union said early today. Regional airlines have suspended flights to the country. YEMEN A group of detainees who had been held in Yemen's rebel-held capital Sanaa landed in Marib yesterday as prisoner swaps between the two dies of the civil war continued. Yemen's government and Houthi rebels freed more than 200 detainees, including four prominent journalists held by the rebels since 2015, to complete an exchange that has been hailed as a significant step towards ending more than eight years of war. IRAN In an exclusive interview with The National, US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said the US regards the new deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran as “a very important moment”. Iran has sentenced 10 members of the armed forces to prison after finding them guilty of involvement in the shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner, the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported. Former Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi will make a trip to Israel to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, he announced yesterday, amid tense Iranian-Israeli relations. ISRAEL A former commander in Israel’s elite Golani Brigade has told The National it is essential that his country forms a national guard, a divisive project led by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. IRAQ The already troubled relationship between the ruling parties in Iraq’s Kurdistan region have deteriorated further after an apparent Turkish drone strike near Sulaymaniyah airport on April 7, which struck near a convoy carrying Syrian Democratic Forces commander Mazloum Abdi and US military officials. SYRIA Suspected ISIS extremists killed at least 31 people foraging for truffles near the west-central Syrian city of Hama yesterday, a monitor said, in the latest such attack in the country. UAE The UAE’s investments in Brazil have risen to $5 billion as the country continues to deepen its trade and economic ties with Latin America’s largest economy, Abdulla bin Touq, Minister of Economy, said.

- Disgraced former president Donald Trump saying something so incoherent even Tucker Carlson couldn't find a way to spin it Well, well, well. If it isn’t our old nemesis: the economy.    According to the latest Labor Department report, consumer prices in the United States eased in March, with cheaper gas and food providing some further relief to the tens of millions of Americans struggling under the weight of inflation. The consumer price index rose just 0.1 percent between February and March, down from 0.4 percent between January and February. Analysts attribute much of the drop to declining prices for goods such as gas, used cars, and furniture, all of which skyrocketed last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.    A research note published on Wednesday signals that economists at Goldman Sachs no longer expect the Fed to raise interest rates in June based on data showing that consumer prices have fallen faster than expected in March. The company previously forecasted consecutive rate hikes at the upcoming May and June meetings, and they still expect yet another hike in May.    The meeting minutes of the latest assembly of Federal Reserve officials were released today, and the 12 voting members agreed that failures in the banking sector will slow U.S. economic growth, but remain uncertain about how significant the effect will be. Members pledged to continue to be “highly attentive” to inflation risks. The Federal Reserve’s staff now anticipates “a mild recession starting later this year with a recovery over the two subsequent years.” The minutes show that officials expressed a strong preference for pausing interest rate hikes, but more are expected next month. Speaking of the economic stress of bank failures…   The Swiss parliament rejected the government’s $120 billion aid package for a planned merger between the failed Credit Suisse bank and UBS. The lower house, the larger of the two chambers, pushed back on the deal, as it had already rejected the proposals in a late-night session on Tuesday. The funds have already been committed, and the government’s emergency pledge to back the merger cannot be overturned, but the vote is a strong symbolic rebuke of the nation’s executive leaders who chose to bypass the legislative bodies. Looks like we’re not the only ones tired of bank bailouts!   The International Monetary Fund’s deputy managing director, Gita Gopinath, stated that the IMF has been “surprised” by the strength and resilience of the U.S. economy in the face of the financial battering the world economy has taken in the past three years. Still, she said that a larger domestic economic downturn remains “within the realm of possibilities,” because of low growth numbers in the U.S., which could indicate “risks of a hard landing.” Millions of people are struggling to keep their heads above water during this period of economic uncertainty after a devastating worldwide pandemic. Just spitballing here, but maybe it would behoove those purported to be the world’s greatest economic minds to put their heads together and come up with a better solution than infinite interest rate hikes? Maybe put it up for a vote and let Republicans decide if they want pain to continue or not.

Global Economy How China changed the game for countries in default The fragile process for dealing with insolvent economies is now at risk of unravelling completely owing to a powerful and unpredictable force in sovereign debt APRIL 13, 2023 by Robin Wigglesworth and Sun Yu Global Economy UK economy set to shrink by 0.3% in 2023, says IMF Fund’s forecasts suggest Jeremy Hunt will miss two main fiscal rules as he seeks to move on from mini-Budget turmoil APRIL 11, 2023 by Chris Giles in Washington Global Economy Brazil’s Lula calls for end to dollar trade dominance Leftist president lends his voice to Beijing’s efforts to boost renminbi’s role in global commerce APRIL 13, 2023 by Joe Leahy in Shanghai and Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong World Arab foreign ministers hold talks on readmitting Syria to Arab League Possible thaw in relations comes despite continued opposition to Assad regime by some nations in region APRIL 14, 2023 by Samer Al-Atrush in Dubai Politics Alexei Navalny ‘seriously ill’ in Russian jail Aides suggest opposition leader may be being poisoned in ‘slow and methodical murder’ APRIL 14, 2023 by Polina Ivanova in London Annexation of Areas in Ukraine The British Defense Ministry said Sunday that having Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev deliver the main report at the recent full session of Russia's Security Council was an attempt to normalize the situation in the illegally annexed areas of Ukraine. ... Read More

US assessing impact of highly-classified documents leak on national security, allies: Pentagon The United States Defense Department says the country is assessing the impact of the recent online leak of highly-classified military and intelligence documents on the country's national security and its close allies. ... Read More

Kremlin: West Overreacting to Russian Plan to Station Tactical Nukes in Belarus The West is overreacting to Russia's plans to build storage facilities for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, while forgetting about the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday. ... Read More

Iran's IRGC successfully tests new homegrown suicide drone The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)'s Ground Force has successfully tested a new suicide drone, dubbed Me'raj 532, designed and manufactured by young Iranian experts. ... Read More

PLA conducts mock strikes on Taiwan island on 2nd day of encirclement drills The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command organized its multiple affiliated military services and branches and conducted joint precision strike simulations on the island of Taiwan on Sunday, the second day of its Taiwan Island encirclement combat alert patrols and "Joint Sword" exercises, continuing to pressure "Taiwan independence" forces and safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity. ... Read More

Upgraded F-16 rejoins 8th FW After receiving the first phase of one of the largest modernization efforts in U.S. Air Force F-16 program history, an upgraded F-16 Fighting Falcon rejoined the 8th Fighter Wing, April 4. ... Read More

Two Islamic State Militants Killed By Forces Of Taliban-Led Afghan Government An operation on April 9 carried out by forces of the Taliban-led Afghan government killed two Islamic State (IS) fighters and took a third militant into custody during an operation in the country's southwest, a regional official said. ... Read More

Saudis meet with top Ansarullah officials in Yemen's Sana'a ahead of ceasefire talks A Saudi delegation has reportedly met with a number of high-ranking officials from the Yemeni Ansarullah resistance movement in Sana'a as part of preparations for talks to reach a final ceasefire agreement to end the eight-year Saudi war. ... Read More

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Democratic state Reps. Justin Jones (Lower, L) of Nashville and Justin Pearson (C) of Memphis gesture to supporters during the vote in which they were expelled from the state Legislature on April 6, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. Pearson, Jones and fellow Democratic Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville were brought up for expulsion for leading chants of protesters from the floor in the wake of a mass shooting at a Christian school in which three 9-year-old students and three adults were killed by a 28-year-old former student of the school on March 27. Pearson and Jones were expelled while the vote against Johnson, who is white, fell one vote short. (Photo by Seth Herald/Getty Images)

1. Tennessee

I cannot recommend this essay by Tressie McMillan Cottom highly enough. It’s about the expulsion of Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the Tennessee House—but it’s really about why the rest of America should keep one eye on the South:

We like to look to the horizon instead of to the soil because we bury the people we do not care about in the South. It is where we have put migrants and poor people and sick people. It is where we put the social problems we are willing to accept in exchange for the promise of individual opportunity in places that sound more sophisticated. . . .

I keep my eyes on the South for a lot of reasons. This is my home. It is the geography of this nation’s original sin. Nothing about the future of this country can be resolved unless it is first resolved here: not the climate crisis or the border or life expectancy or anything else of national importance, unless you solve it in the South and with the people of the South. . . .

The South is not exceptionally racist. The South is quintessentially American in its racism. The distinction is clear in how, of the three representatives in question, Tennessee expelled the two Black men, while the third, a white woman, held onto her seat. The strategies of disenfranchisement are clearest where the racial animus is strongest.

And so I watch the South to keep my eyes on the Central Casting of the American democratic imagination and to know where the script our country is writing is going. We are obsessed with the protagonist Trump. If he can overcome his legal troubles. If he can maintain his hold on the G.O.P. . . .

But it’s not the story that we will look back on as the one that shaped our lives. That story is about historical forces, not character actors.

Looking at this, our friend Ted Johnson says, “As the South goes, so goes America. It's an unescapable truth as old as the nation itself.”

I’d never really considered this idea. But it’s almost certainly correct.

---

That’s one of my cultural blind spots. I’m a white guy who grew up in New Jersey.

My entire life I viewed the South as the past—the thing America was growing away from. The future was California. (This was the ‘80s; that’s a thing people said.) Or New York City. Or Seattle. Or Silicon Valley. The future was where the good stuff was happening.

The South was stagnant. In the South people still flew Confederate flags. Young me thought this was despicable and couldn’t understand it.

Old me thinks it’s despicable. But now I very much understand it.

If I had been a black kid, I’m pretty sure I would have understood it from the start.

---

Tennessee has been in the news because in the space of several days the state:

• Made the criminalization of drag shows a top legislative priority.

• Experienced a school shooting.

• Expelled two African-American elected representatives from the state legislature in a naked exercise of power which is—I’m sorry—impossible to explain as anything other than racism.

And what we’re seeing in Tennessee is not the past. It’s the politics of the future.

Let me ask you a question, and I mean it seriously:

If you were to look at the words and actions of Republican politicians across the country over the last two years and try to divine the party’s top three political priorities, what would they be?

Here’s my guess:

1. Reducing both legal and illegal immigration.

2. Gay/trans issues: drag shows; trans athletes; access to books touching on said issues in schools and/or public libraries.

3. ????

I guess you could put passing abortion restrictions or expanding access to guns in the three-hole. Or maybe “election stuff”—though that’s so nebulous that I’m not sure what the policy proposals are.

But whatever you want to put in that slot, all of these issues represent the priorities of the South.

Dubai special car number plate 7 sold for 55 millions AED in aid of One Billion Meals Endowment campaign, UAE. Pawan Singh/The National ISRAEL Jordan blamed Israel for the recent escalation in Palestine and said it expected the violence to worsen, after a series of rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Pope Francis expressed “deep concern” yesterday over the escalation in tensions between Israel and Palestinians during Easter ceremonies at the Vatican. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the mobilisation of police and army reserves after separate attacks that killed three people in the West Bank and Tel Aviv on Friday. Israel denied a leaked CIA report claiming that Mossad, the country’s intelligence service, encouraged protests in the country in recent months. SAUDI ARABIA-IRAN A Saudi technical team arrived in Tehran to hold talks with Iranian counterparts on key aspects of the China-brokered deal that will see the two countries revive diplomatic relations. SYRIA The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) confirmed late on Saturday that Friday’s drone strike on the airport in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq had targeted its commander. A landmine explosion in Syria killed at least six civilians yesterday, while foraging for truffles in the countryside, state media reported. YEMEN Houthi rebels said Saudi Arabia released 13 prisoners of war on Saturday as an Omani delegation arrived in the rebel-held capital Sanaa for talks on ending the country's years-long civil war. LEBANON Lebanon’s Syrian refugees have been facing a bleak Ramadan as their resources dwindle, with UN agencies saying that about 90 per cent of Syrian families in Lebanon require assistance to survive. TUNISIA At least two migrants have died and about 20 people are missing after their vessel sank in the Mediterranean between Tunisia and Italy, German aid group ResQship has reported. Meanwhile, a boat carrying around 400 migrants is adrift between Greece and Malta and taking on water, with those on board in urgent need of rescue. UAE The UAE marks the anniversary of Sheikh Zayed's death today, on the 19th day of Ramadan, 19 years ago. More than 150 ministers and senior officials took part in a Green Retreat setting out the UAE's crucial climate change goals on the road to the Cop28 summit in Dubai this year. A powerful call for peace infused with optimism emanating from Abu Dhabi has united thousands of people from the Abrahamic faiths in prayer, marking a special time on the spiritual calendar as Ramadan, Easter and Passover coincide. KUWAIT Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al Sabah has appointed a new finance minister, while other major Cabinet roles were unchanged, state news agency Kuna reported. EGYPT Brazilian researchers have digitally recreated what a man who lived in Egypt 35,000 years ago might have looked like, using a process known as photogrammetry. Museum-goers in Paris can gaze at Pharaoh Ramses II sarcophagus, estimated to be more than 3,000 years old. The ancient coffin has made a rare journey out of Egypt to the Grande Halle de la Villette, and where it will remain on display until September. In an exclusive interview with Pentagon Correspondent Jared Szuba, CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Kurilla expressed concern over China's inroads in the Middle East and Iran’s growing drone capabilities. He also discussed incorporating AI into US military systems. The recent online leak of intelligence materials has shed light on how the US spies on friends and foes around the world. Here’s a roundup of what they revealed about the Middle East. Last weekend, a presumed Turkish airstrike targeted SDF commander Mazlum Kobane while he was traveling with US forces in Iraq. The Syrian Kurdish leader spoke to Al-Monitor about the attempted assassination. With Turkey’s elections only a month away, it appears presidential contender Kemal Kilicdaroglu will receive crucial support from Kurdish voters. But a victory for the opposition leader is not secured yet. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under duress from new security threats, poor polling, and intense criticism from the White House. Will he abandon the judicial overhaul that got him in this mess?

Last year’s plunge of cryptocurrencies, the collapse of FTX, and the evaporation of a couple trillion dollars in value, left many people—myself included—wondering what was left in the wreckage. Is this really a revolutionary new technology that will change the way the world does business and finance? Or is it mainly a tool for speculators and scofflaws? U.S. regulators have gone on the attack, with the CFTC suing Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, and the SEC sending a Wells Notice to Coinbase, the number two exchange. Is there a pony in there somewhere? At Fortune, we’re still looking. Today, we are launching a new list, the Fortune Crypto 40, that identifies the companies doing the best work with blockchain. The list recognizes that “the industry, which was once defined by crypto trading, is now much broader,” says our seasoned Crypto Editor Jeff John Roberts, who has been covering crypto for nearly a decade. “We honor a wide range of industries, from VC firms to NFT shops to data companies to decentralized protocols, that have created major enterprises around blockchain technology.” The new list is based on a rigorous methodology, looking at an array of metrics and a survey of financial executives. It pinpoints eight different categories and chooses the top five companies and entities operating in each. You can find the list this morning here. We think it demonstrates that there is indeed interesting work going on in crypto and blockchain technology that will change the business world in many ways. One example: how NFTs are remaking the music industry. Spoiler alert: Binance is not at the top of any of these lists. If you want to understand one reason why, take a look at Shawn Tully’s analysis of the Binance business model here. And to understand the forces that shaped Binance’s founder and CEO, read this profile of Changpeng “CZ” Zhao by Roberts and Yvonne Lau. We close out with the following:   The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it. - Norman Schwarzkoff If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. - Desmond Tutu Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being. - Khalil Gibran Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. - Desmond Tutu When the rights of any group, no matter how small, no matter how marginal, are violated, your liberty, your freedom is put at risk. Let there never be a day when we cast about in horror and have to ask the question, "How did it ever come to this?" - Thomas Childers