Newsbits for July 22

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This is remarkable in several ways:

Trump’s message of fear stood in sharp contrast to speeches earlier in the night, which offered a much more cheerful view of politics. Tech businessman Peter Thiel said Trump would make America great again by returning the government to the research spending that gave us the space program and the internet.

Thiel also called for an end to the culture wars and became the first openly gay person to address a Republican convention. Ivanka Trump, the nominee’s daughter, celebrated her father as a progressive on gender and racial issues, and called for a childcare program and equal pay for equal work (neither policies that the Republican Party or her father have articulated).

Trump’s “Law and Order” Speech Was Full of Lies. It Just Might Work. | New Republic

Much of this goes directly against the government is the problem, not the solution mantra and social conservatism that are such mainstays of the Republican Party. Perhaps there is hope yet..

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Six months after Ryan took the Speaker’s gavel, the barn is dirty again, and he’s shown himself to be a demonstrably worse leader than Boehner. Not only has the entire agenda he laid out at the beginning of the year fizzled, but Ryan cannot get agreement on emergency measures, which even the most gridlocked Congresses of the past could manage. The difference between Boehner’s and Ryan’s approaches boils down to one key thing. By the end, Boehner had come to hate the House Freedom Caucus, the far-right cabal that brought on his ouster through its relentless opposition to compromise. But Ryan merely fears the Freedom Caucusers, unwilling to cross them by championing legislation they don’t like. And with the extreme right flank having an effective veto on the process, nothing of consequence can move.

Paul Ryan Is Making John Boehner Look Like a Legislative Genius | New Republic

Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, a key source of financing for conservative Republican causes along with his brother, said Democrat Hillary Clinton might make a better president than the candidates in the Republican field. Koch, in an interview to air on Sunday on ABC's "This Week" program, said that in some respects Bill Clinton had been a better president than George W. Bush, who Koch said had increased government spending.

Charles Koch says 'it's possible' Hillary Clinton might be a better president - Business Insider

Ryan, who lost his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all to heart attacks in their fifties, often emphasizes protecing quality time with his family. But by betting all of his political chips to get tax reform passed before the next midterm elections, Ryan will earn himself the ability to spend as much time as he wants with his family while he considers his next political move, be it the governor's mansion in Madison or seeking to move directly to the White House.

Paul Ryan is about to spend all his political power...to get ousted—commentary

It's long been clear that Ryan's goal is to implement a major overhaul of federal fiscal policy. He wants to reshape Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and greatly slow the rate of growth in spending on them. He also wants to sharply reduce tax rates. Whether you think this agenda is good or bad is immaterial to this analysis. My point is only that Ryan cares genuinely about implementing it, and he has shaped his political career around doing so. Ryan's theory of how he would make such sweeping policy changes was that he would get legislation through Congress, and a like-minded Republican president would sign it. Or at least that was his theory as of a few months ago. Now, Trump has ruined Ryan's policy-change strategy. He's overwhelmingly likely to lose the November election to Hillary Clinton. And even if he somehow won, he has expressed strong opposition to the sort of entitlement cuts Ryan wants. Because of this, Trump has little to offer Ryan in exchange for his support.

Paul Ryan is having a YOLO moment - Business Insider

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the GOP has transformed itself since 2009 into an increasingly radical political party, one built on complete and total obstruction. It’s a party designed to make governing difficult, if not impossible, and one that plotted seven years ago to shred decades of Beltway protocol and oppose every inch of Obama’s two terms. (“If he was for it, we had to be against it,” former Republican Ohio Sen. George Voinovich once explained.)

They’re radicals, pure and simple: The GOP has finally destroyed the political press’ most destructive narrative - Salon.com

Mann and Ornstein wrote in The Washington Post in 2012. “In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.” They continued: The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

They’re radicals, pure and simple: The GOP has finally destroyed the political press’ most destructive narrative - Salon.com

And what was the Beltway media’s response when Ornstein and Mann squarely blamed Republicans during an election year for purposefully making governing impossible? Media elites suddenly lost Mann and Ornstein’s number, as the duo’s television appearances and calls for quotes quickly dried up. So did much of the media’s interest in Mann and Ornstein’s prescient book.

They’re radicals, pure and simple: The GOP has finally destroyed the political press’ most destructive narrative - Salon.com

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It’s hard to imagine that there are any actual airline passengers who fly coach who would oppose Schumer’s amendment. In recent years, the average width of a seat in coach has shrunk from 18 to 16.5 inches, while the average pitch—the space between one point on a seat and the same point on the seat in front of it—has shrunk from 35 to 31 inches. To get a seat with more legroom—with a 35-inch pitch—you now have to pay extra for what used to be the standard. The collapse of oil prices may have fattened the airlines’ coffers, but those profits haven’t been invested in any fatter seats.

Republicans Against Legroom

Many liberal Zionists, like Sanders, find this unsatisfying. They argue that Israel is headed on a self-destructive course, expanding settlements in the West Bank and choking off the possibility for a two-state solution. Backroom arguments aren't good enough anymore; the US needs to warn Israel away from its current path. This is the meaning of Bernie's sharpest dig in the debate: "There comes a time when if we pursue justice and peace, we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time." Sanders is far from a perfect champion for the liberal Zionist position. Just hours before the debate, he suspended his Jewish outreach coordinator, Simone Zimmerman, for being overly harsh in her criticism of Netanyahu (disclosure: Zimmerman is a personal friend).

Bernie Sanders just shattered an American taboo on Israel - Vox

A 2013 paper by Stephan Lewandowsky and colleagues investigated the links between ideology and science denial. The study similarly found no evidence of symmetrical science denial between liberals and conservatives on different issues. The authors concluded that conspiratorial thinking and free market support - both prevalent on the political right - were most strongly related to science denial: Free-market worldviews are an important predictor of the rejection of scientific findings that have potential regulatory implications, such as climate science, but not necessarily of other scientific issues. Conspiracist ideation, by contrast, is associated with the rejection of all scientific propositions tested.

Can the Republican Party solve its science denial problem? | Dana Nuccitelli | Environment | The Guardian

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The American Unity Fund, a Singer-backed nonprofit, underwrote the gathering as its members strategized how to strip anti-gay language from the Republican Party’s official platform. The effort would be a spectacular bust. Calls to overturn gay marriage remained. Provisions opposing transgender bathrooms were inserted. “Natural marriage” was hailed. Pro-gay rights Republicans tried to insert language condemning Islamic terrorists for targeting LGBT individuals a month after the attack in Orlando, and Rachel Hoff, the first openly gay platform committee member, challenged her fellow Republicans, “Can you not, at the very least, stand up for our right not to be killed?” The measure lost.

Inside the GOP’s Shadow Convention - POLITICO Magazine

Ryan favors free trade deals, has backed comprehensive immigration reform and wants to rein in entitlement programs. Trump is a trade protectionist, whose immigration policy centers on building a mammoth wall and a deportation force, and he wants no cutbacks to entitlements.

Inside the GOP’s Shadow Convention - POLITICO Magazine

If Trump exploited a divide between the elite GOP agenda and the electorate, Peter Wehner, a senior adviser in the Bush White House, said, “Republicans have to find how much of it is Trump, how much of this is Trumpism.”

Inside the GOP’s Shadow Convention - POLITICO Magazine 

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More than 182,000 people have signed a pledge to boycott Target after the retailer said it would welcome transgender customers to use any bathroom or fitting room that matches their gender identity. The boycott pledge was started by the conservative American Family Association (AFA).

Target boycotted over transgender bathroom policy - Business Insider

The electorate senses the "secular stagnation" in the economy that Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary and longtime Clintonite, has been talking about the past three years. Summers and other economists have been discussing radical ideas to spur growth and foster equality that go beyond the usual establishment trinity of trade, technology and transfer payments. Clinton needs to embrace them.

Lessons of Iowa | RealClearPolitics

The pattern of confrontation with Obama has turned the Republican base's anger back on their own leaders, who voters perceive as stringing them along with promises they won't fight to keep, such as repealing Obamacare and cracking down on illegal immigration.

The Week the Republican Party Melted Down - Bloomberg Politics

The share of wealth owned by the middle class declined in every part of the world on a relative basis

Why Voters Will Stay Angry

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[T]he water crisis was an unintended consequence of the state's takeover of Flint in 2011, after which a series of four emergency managers were given near-dictatorial powers so they could cut the city's budget and bring the books in line. Among the cost-saving measures: Change the city's water supply and do it on the cheap. Snyder was aware by fall 2014 that using the Flint River for the city's water was causing serious water-quality issues. But, for the next 12 months, he and his administration saw fixing Flint's finances as the higher priority.

A New Investigation Confirms Your Worst Suspicions About Michigan Leaders and the Flint Water Crisis | Mother Jones

The day after a rifle similar to an AR-15 was used to massacre 49 people at an LGBT club in Orlando, Tennessee state Rep. Andy Holt is standing by his decision to give away an AR-15 as a door prize at an upcoming campaign fundraiser and turkey shoot. In fact, he's now giving away two. Holt, a Republican, told a reporter who asked if the prize was insensitive in light of the recent shooting, "absolutely not." Holt told The Tennessean that the only problem with the assault rifle is that "it's black and it looks real scary."

Tennessee Lawmaker Insists On Giving Away a Rifle Similar to the One Used in the Orlando Massacre | Mother Jones

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The coronation week kicked off on Monday with sniping between Donald Trump's top adviser and popular hometown Republican governor John Kasich. At a Bloomberg Politics breakfast Monday, Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort accused Kasich of being "petulant" in refusing to speak at the convention, and said his decision was "dumb." Kasich's team responded with a wave of fierce attacks, with chief adviser John Weaver labeling Trump's convention a "clown show."

The 10 Most Jaw-Dropping Moments of the Republican Convention - Bloomberg Politics

This was the most shambolically mis-run convention in memory. A normal party is united by a consistent belief system. For decades, the Republican Party has stood for a forward-looking American-led international order abroad and small-government democratic capitalism at home. Trump is decimating that, too, along with the things Republicans stood for: NATO, entitlement reform, compassionate conservatism and the relatively open movement of ideas, people and trade. There’s no actual agenda being put in its place, just nostalgic spasms that, as David Frum has put it, are part George Wallace and part Henry Wallace. Trump’s policy agenda, such as it is, is mostly a series of vague and defensive recoils: build a wall, ban Muslims, withdraw from the world. This is less a party than a personality cult. Law and order is a strange theme for a candidate who radiates conflict and disorder. Some rich children are careless that way; they break things and other people have to clean up the mess.

The Dark Knight - The New York Times

Scheduling, a central part of the campaigner’s art, was a disaster. Conventions are all about the primetime hour between 10pm and 11pm, when the networks tune in. What viewers would have heard Monday night at that hour, besides Melania Trump, was Scott Baio, child star of a 1970s sitcom, who had earlier tweeted a message that attached the c-word to Hillary Clinton, and Antonio Sabàto, an underwear model who believes Barack Obama is a Muslim. In April, Trump spoke of his determination to “put some showbiz into [the] convention, otherwise people are going to fall asleep.” Initial TV ratings, which were tepid, suggested viewers had not exactly thrilled to the first episode of Cleveland’s Trump show.

Reality TV in Cleveland by Jonathan Freedland | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books

It’s no accident that the evening was one long memento mori, a reminder of death. Citing psychological studies, John Judis persuasively argued in Vox that being reminded of death makes people more likely to support order-promising right-wing leaders

The GOP Is the Party of Death | New Republic