News-roundup: War in Europe, Nazi Art Theft, Terrorist Assassinated, Supreme Court Pick.
Guess who's back?
What’s this?: The Stringer publishes every other week with a roundup of news items that you may have missed, often with a strongly global bent.
Guess Who’s Back: This is our first edition after taking some time off. I paused the newsletter upon entering into negotiations for a position that would have required me to stop it altogether. In a nice twist, I turned it down.
RIP: “Uncle” Paul, a South Sudanese expat who spent his final days in Arizona, died the other week. Paul and I were involved in a peace and reconciliation effort in South Sudan in the summer of 2016.
The story right now:
‘Me ne frego’: Anti-war protests have picked up in Russia. The “special military operation” into Ukraine was justified by Vladimir Putin as a way to “protect” the people of Donbas from genocide at the hands of the Kyiv, as well as to demilitarize and to “denazify” the region. The invasion of Ukraine has also proven unpopular at home. “No to war!,” protestors say. “Hands off Ukraine!”
Some brief notes about the invasion:
A historical note: Russia has decided to plunge Europe into what may be the largest conventional conflict it has seen since the Second World War.
A peak into the crystal ball: It may drag Putin and his inner circle into a quagmire and cause blowback.
Autocrats are from Venus, Democrats from Mars: What does Putin want? Russia’s incursion into Ukraine has left experts struggling for answers about Putin’s “end game.” But, in short, Putin wants to break Kyiv, politically and militarily. The prevailing theories are that this is a revanchist attempt to rebuild the Russian empire, or it’s a revanchist attempt to restore the “Yalta-esque” sphere of Russian influence… or it’s irrational. *shrugs shoulders
How we learned to yearn the bomb: Internationally, the move will likely be bad for nuclear nonproliferation. In 1991, Ukraine had decided to give up its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal—something it regrets.
Spillover effects: In the U.S., there has been a stark increase in chauvinism against Russians and, privately, even casual advocation for nuclear genocide as people ask why we don’t just drop the bomb. It’s also swollen gas prices which may have political implications.
Some other items that might have slipped past your attention from the last few months while we’ve been away:
Suicide by Bombing: The U.S. says ISIL Leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi was killed in a raid in Syria (the raid also felled women and children). Officials say that al-Qurayshi blew himself up during the raid, giving an ironic turn to the phrase “suicide bomber.” The kill received much less fanfare than President Obama’s assassination of Osama bin Laden, which triggered cheering in the streets; and it seems to have done little, comparatively, to prop up President Biden’s image. It seems that America’s war against terrorism is less popular in the polls than it once was.
Supreme Court Pick: Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, not wanting to be the next Ruth Bader Ginsberg, announced his retirement, presumably in the hopes that President Biden will be able to ram through nomination in case the Democrats lose the Senate in the midterms (they can’t afford any defections). For Democrats, Breyer’s replacement will keep the court at a disconsolate 6-3. Biden has nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, a federal appeals judge, who will be the first black woman to sit on the high court, provided she’s confirmed.
Nazi schmatzi: Nazi art theft went on trial in the U.S. Supreme Court. The court is inspecting the provenance of Camille Pissarro’s painting “Rue St Honoré, apres-midi, effet de pluie” (1897), currently held by Spain’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation. In Germany, in 1939, the suit says, Lilly Cassirer Neubauer was forced to sell the painting to a Nazi for $360, “a sum that, as a Jew, she was barred from accessing.” A decision about whether the painting should be returned to Neubauer’s heirs will come in June, according to coverage.
The ‘Heart of Dixie’ Still Beats: The Supreme Court, in Merrill v. Milligan and Merrill v. Caster, voted 5-4 upholding the Alabama’s current redistricting maps despite the fact that the lower court had ruled that they violate the Civil Rights Act, making it illegal racial gerrymandering. Ultimately, Kavanaugh and Alito kicked the decision back until after the election which means, even under their own logic, that they're allowing the upcoming election to take place under a suit that points out it possibly violates the VRA. There are currently lawsuits in North Carolina and Texas that allege that their state legislatures have done the same thing. But the point is that the state legislature (with the Supreme Court's tacit approval) is taking away the right to have one's vote count in a national election. In short, not everyone's vote matters equally.
Make ‘Build Back Better’ Great Again: The ambitious Democrat agenda has stalled out since the last edition of this newsletter. Scrambling, the Biden Administration has claimed it can salvage the early childhood education and the climate portions of the Build Back Better Bill. But we’ve yet to see it. Press coverage holds that it’s dead in all but name.
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