George Packer's Blog, page 121

Jared Kushner’s Trumpian Divestment Strategy

If you need confirmation that much of the American establishment is lining up behind the Trump Administration, and is purposely overlooking the break it represents with democratic norms, you should read a story in Tuesday’s Times about the appointment of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, as a senior White House adviser.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Sessions Hearing’s Inconclusive First Day
Will Trump Avoid a Constitutional Crisis?
Senate Republicans Gut the Confirmation Process

Will Trump Avoid a Constitutional Crisis?

In 1785, when Benjamin Franklin, then the U.S. Ambassador to France, was set to return home, King Louis XVI presented him with a snuffbox decorated with a diamond-encrusted painting of the king. While gift-giving of this sort was common in European diplomacy, the expensive present caused a minor scandal in America. One of the corrupting practices that the founders were trying to prevent from taking root was the European habit of subtly buying off foreigners with gifts. Franklin, who fell in love with France during his service there, was viewed by some of his American colleagues as an easy mark.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Sessions Hearing’s Inconclusive First Day
Jared Kushner’s Trumpian Divestment Strategy
Senate Republicans Gut the Confirmation Process

Postscript: Ciro Roberto Bustos, 1932–2017

After Ernesto Che Guevara was murdered by the Bolivian Army, on October 9, 1967, his body was exhibited in the laundry house of a hospital run by nuns. Photographs were taken of his corpse in classical repose, his torso bare; in some, his eyes were slightly open. The inestimable art critic John Berger, who died last week, at ninety, wrote that the photographs of Che dead reminded him of Andrea Mantegna’s “Lamentation of Christ”: “If I see the Mantegna again in Milan I shall see in it the body of Guevara. But this is only because in certain rare cases the tragedy of a man’s death completes and exemplifies the meaning of his whole life. I am acutely aware of that about Guevara, and certain painters were once aware of it about Christ.” Berger was also one of the first to note this:

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Most Intimate Photograph
Trump and Celebrity Approval: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
When John Berger Looked at Death

Senate Republicans Gut the Confirmation Process

Ladies and gentlemen, proud, hardworking fellow-Americans, good people who just want to play by the rules and believe that people should get a fair shot in life, there is no gentle way to put this: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President-elect Donald Trump think you are very, very stupid.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Sessions Hearing’s Inconclusive First Day
Jared Kushner’s Trumpian Divestment Strategy
Will Trump Avoid a Constitutional Crisis?

Elon Musk Has Delivery Issues

Just before President-elect Donald Trump met with leaders from Apple, I.B.M., Amazon, Facebook, and other tech companies in mid-December, the transition team made a somewhat puzzling announcement: Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity, who would be attending the session in Trump Tower, had been named to the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a new committee intended to advise the President on economic policy. The appointment seemed odd chiefly because Musk’s political views—he has been pro-immigration and against the Keystone XL Pipeline while supporting a carbon tax on businesses and expressing passionate concern about climate change—would seem to veer far from Trump and his party.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Sessions Hearing’s Inconclusive First Day
Richard Rorty’s Philosophical Argument for National Pride
The Most Intimate Photograph

The Obama Legacy on Jihadism

One of the most memorable moments of the Obama Presidency was his abrupt appearance on nationwide television, shortly before midnight, on Sunday, May 1, 2011. The press pool, which had been given a “lid” to stand down for the night almost six hours earlier, received an e-mail alert from the White House to get positioned for a statement. Many had to scramble to get ready before President Obama walked down the red carpet to a podium set up in the East Room. “Tonight,” he announced, “I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda.”

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Obama’s Economic Record: An Assessment
Trump and Iran: Yet Another Hostage Crisis
A Beacon in Berlin

Suspending the Rules: How Congress Plans to Undermine Public Safety

A handy rule of thumb in Washington is that the more pernicious the act, the more high-minded the title. Thus, last week, the House of Representatives approved the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017, also known as the REINS Act. The bill would strip the executive branch of the power to issue significant new rules on topics ranging from air quality to food safety. In normal times, such a power grab by Congress would surely face a veto threat from the President, but, of course, these are not normal times.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Obama’s Economic Record: An Assessment
Trump and Celebrity Approval: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes

Obama’s Economic Record: An Assessment

This seems like a good time to review President Obama’s economic record. On Tuesday, Obama will deliver a farewell address in Chicago. Last Friday, the Labor Department released its final employment update of his Administration.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Suspending the Rules: How Congress Plans to Undermine Public Safety 
Trump and Celebrity Approval: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes

The iPhone Turns Ten

As a young reporter writing about technology in the mid-nineteen-nineties, I got my hands on a Nokia phone. It was small, gray, and a bit heavy, with the usual twelve-button keypad that was part of every phone interface. From a crowded New York street, I made a call to my mother in India. It was expensive—a few dollars per minute—but the fact of that call was life-changing. I walked back to the office, pondering the possibility of work and communication anywhere, not chained to the phone in our homes or at our desks.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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The Humble Elevator and the Rise of Modern Civilization
The Best Time-Wasting of 2016
Cell-Phone Obituaries

Nick Saban, College Football’s Uncharismatic Conservative

Men who spend a great deal of time on television tend to cultivate hair styles that look ridiculous in any other setting. This is true of game-show hosts and chatty morning anchors; it is equally true of college football coaches. The iconography of coach hair styles has been varied: Jimmy Johnson’s silver side part, concretized by gel, at the University of Miami, or Pete Carroll’s happy-dude pompadour, at the University of Southern California. But today the essential coif in the game is the imperturbable brown tuft of the University of Alabama’s Nick Saban, which appears on CBS just about every Saturday during the fall, the individual hairs pulling up and away from the coach’s face, as if keeping their distance.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Hating Top-Ten Lists: 2016’s Best TV
“Westworld,” Episode 9: Brother, Can You Spare a Time Line?
Why Blind Americans Are Worried About Trump’s Tech Policy