Monetary Damages

Powell Fed to the Wolves, Marco-Dependent

Donald Trump’s weaponized Justice Department has its latest target, as the administration attempts to feed the Fed to the wolves. It’s a particularly dangerous gambit that hinges on some particularly ridiculous, trumped-up charges. Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “The Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on grounds so flimsy and transparently hypocritical that it is difficult to know whether anybody is supposed to take the charges at face value. When a respected public servant is being accused of wasting taxpayer dollars and lying to Congress by a president whose extravagant White House renovation has already doubled in cost in just three months, and whose inexhaustible capacity for lies has essentially broken every fact-checking medium, one almost wonders if the criminal allegation was chosen for its absurdity, to demonstrate that Donald Trump can make the law mean whatever he wants it to.” A criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will test whether Republican loyalty to the president has any limits. In this rare case, there may actually be a limit. As Chait explains, “Every affluent Republican, from the tech right to fossil-fuel owners to heirs managing their inherited portfolios, has a direct and visible interest in stable and competent monetary policy.” And we’re already seeing a backlash from a handful of Republicans, and members of the administration are pointing fingers, many suggesting they knew nothing about the impending charges against Powell. Of course, there’s a broader economic story here. Healthy capitalism requires a sane adherence to the rule of law. That’s a reality that corporate leaders have been conveniently ignoring for a year, betting that they could weather (and even thrive during) the Trump storm through placation and sycophancy, taking what they see as the good parts of Trumponomics while avoiding the bad. For the sake of our portfolios and the future of the American economy, many of us have been hoping that this strategy would work out. But with Trump, the lawless envelope never just gets pushed, it gets obliterated, and sooner or later, kissing ass turns into the kiss of death. Maybe with Trump weakened and something as sacred as the Fed’s independence at stake, corporate America will finally get fed up. As Powell himself stated in response to the phony charges: “Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do, with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.” There was a time, not that long ago, when that statement would not have seemed at all radical.

2

Regime Changing

“A fiscal crisis, divided elites, a diverse oppositional coalition, a convincing narrative of resistance, and a favorable international environment. This winter, for the first time since 1979, Iran checks nearly all five boxes.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Is the Iranian Regime About to Collapse? “Still, one group of elites remains united: the country’s security forces.”

+ “Israeli strikes across Iran destroyed much of its military leadership, and the follow-on U.S. bombing campaign struck a heavy blow against Iran’s nuclear program. It was a humiliation for a regime that had invested so much of the country’s national wealth into a proxy network that was designed to deter exactly this sort of assault on the homeland.” WSJ (Gift Article): Weakened by War, Iran’s Regime Faces Its Toughest Challenge Yet.

+ Iran was shown to be a paper tiger when challenged by strong militaries. But the regime is still plenty strong enough to murder its own people. Time: Death Toll in Iran May Already Be in the Thousands. Here’s the latest from CNN.

3

Tunnel of Gov

“The one-lane tunnel, which carves 2.5 dark, musty, bumpy miles through a glacial mountain, opens for two 15-minute periods every hour, once for each direction; the troopers caught the 10 a.m. window heading east. On the other side, Whittier’s punishing microclimate—more snow than Aspen, Amazon-level rainfall, and almost nonstop wind—greeted them with cold, wet bluster. This small port town was built by the military during World War II, as the U.S. warred with Japan. In the 1950s during the Cold War, the military constructed two gigantic housing structures, one of which is still in use: The 14-story complex, set back a few blocks from the waterfront, houses nearly all of Whittier’s roughly 300 residents. Inside this tower, people shop for groceries, get mail, attend church, exercise, and gather in community.” How did some of America’s more obscure voting rights laws (that people in Whittier, including law enforcement officials, were ignorant of) lead to arrests in this tiny corner of the country? And how did the American Samoans at the center of the dispute end up there in the first place? Bolt Magazine with an interesting story, and one that shows how deeply our political dysfunction has seeped into every corner of society. Americans by Name, Punished for Believing It.

4

A Job Not For the Faint Hearted

“On the day she transplanted the heart of a 6-month-old infant, Dr. Maureen McKiernan awoke, as always, to a 4:30 alarm. In the dim light of her apartment, she moved through her morning routine: a spin on her rowing machine, some mat Pilates, a hot shower, the usual breakfast of yogurt and granola. It was a practical meal — one she could eat half standing, spoon in one hand, phone in the other, scrolling through her upcoming cases. After breakfast, she took the A train to New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in northern Manhattan. There, in a thicket of acronyms and surgical jargon, Dr. McKiernan typed up the 16-point procedure she would use to save Baby Luna, whose new heart would be flown in that night. Step 9: Plane lands —> cross-clamp, cardiectomy.” NYT (Gift Article): 90 Minutes to Give Baby Luna a New Heart. “After eight years of training, Dr. Maureen McKiernan made her debut as the lead surgeon on an infant heart transplant — an operation on the edge of what’s possible.”

5

Extra, Extra

This is Not a Drill: Trump says he might keep Exxon out of Venezuela after its CEO called it ‘uninvestable.’ But does Exxon (or any other oil company) really want to be in Venezuela right now? “Executives need to feel confident that a country won’t suddenly descend into civil unrest, military conflict, or armed revolution. But at the moment, nobody knows what the political situation will be in Venezuela a week from today, let alone in a year or a decade.” And there are more challenges, including the oil itself. “Current oil prices—about $60 a barrel—are historically low. And they are well below the roughly $80-a-barrel cost of extracting and refining Venezuelan oil—much of which is the kind of thick, low-quality petroleum (known within the industry as ‘heavy sour crude’) that requires extensive processing.” Big Oil Knows That Trump’s Venezuela Plans Are Delusional.

+ Marco Dependent: “By most standards, Rubio occupies a privileged post: his desk in the White House is just a few steps from the Oval Office. But it is not the position that he hoped to occupy. In 2016, Rubio ran for President and lost to Trump in the primary. He now serves his former opponent—an unstable leader who regularly traduces institutions that Rubio spent his career supporting. ‘Ultimately, he has to be a hundred per cent loyal to the President, and when the President zigs and zags Rubio has to zig and zag, too,’ a former Western diplomat told me. ‘He’s had to swallow a lot of shit.’” Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker: How Marco Rubio Went from ‘Little Marco’ to Trump’s Foreign-Policy Enabler.

+ A Good Read: “Mississippi has gone from 49th in the country on national tests in 2013, to a top 10 state for fourth graders learning to read — even as test scores have fallen almost everywhere else.” NYT (Gift Article): How Mississippi Transformed Its Schools From Worst to Best (or at least, very improved.)

+ The White-ing Was on Wall: “Mr. Trump’s comments were a blunt distillation of his administration’s racial politics, which rest on the belief that white people have become the real victims of discrimination in America.” NYT: Trump Says Civil Rights Led to White People Being ‘Very Badly Treated.’

+ Protein Kills: It seems like it’s only a matter of time before we learn that protein is the silent killer. Such are the ebbs and flows of nutritional guidance. In the meantime, America Has Entered Late-Stage Protein. “In some ways, protein is just the latest all-consuming nutritional fixation. For decades, the goal was to avoid fat, which meant that pretzels were good and peanut butter was bad and fat-free Snackwell’s devil’s-food cookie cakes were a cultural phenomenon. Then Americans rediscovered fat and villainized carbs. But protein is different. Whatever your dreams are, protein seems to be the answer.” (It seems meaningful that this article was written by someone named Sugar...)

+ Playing in the Band: A few minutes after I learned of Bob Weir’s death, I heard the Grateful Dead blaring through the speakers in my corner grocery store. He was a national treasure and also a local legend. “A member of the Dead for its first three decades, and a keeper of the flame of the band’s legacy for three more, Weir helped to write a new chapter of American popular music that influenced countless other musicians and brought together an enormous and loyal audience.” Bob Weir, guitarist and founding member of the Grateful Dead, has died at 78. Once, when “asked if success had changed him, he said, ‘You know those pistachios that don’t have the little crack in them to get you started? I don’t bother with those anymore.’”

+ Around the Globes: One Battle After Another and Adolescence took home some of the top awards at the Golden Globes. Here are all the winners, the snubs and surprises, and Nikki Glaser’s opening monologue, wherein she mocked CBS News on CBS. “Yes, CBS News: America’s newest place to See BS news.” (That pun is a pretty clear indication that Nikki is a NextDraft reader...)

6

Bottom of the News

“Their popularity isn’t from winning expensive prizes, or because competitions pay big. Claw machines are still difficult to win and many believe they’re rigged by operators. It’s because claw machines — in their own way, nostalgia personified — have become an unlikely and effective modern vehicle for monetizable content.” The competitive claw machine boom.

+ An injury-riddled 49er team upset the Eagles in Philly over the weekend (in case you were wondering about those screams of joy that could be heard by everyone within a mile of my living room). Sadly, the team lost yet another star player, the enormously popular George Kittle. After he tore his achilles, “Kittle’s wife Claire and 49ers owner Jed York came down from their luxury suites to meet with the tight end in the training room.” York asked Kittle if he needed anything. A few minutes later, a bottle of tequila was delivered to the locker room.