Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: They think pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan would be a debacle. They think North Korea cannot be trusted. They think the Islamic State is still a threat to America. They think Russia is bad and NATO is good. The trouble is their president does not agree. More than two years into his administration, the disconnect between President Trump and the Republican establishment on foreign policy has rarely been as stark. In recent days, the…

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The Washington Post reports: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that a Democratic bill that would make Election Day a federal holiday is a “power grab,” sparking a fierce backlash online. McConnell was speaking about H.R. 1, legislation that Democrats have made a centerpiece of their agenda since retaking the House earlier this month. In remarks on the Senate floor, McConnell (R-Ky.) said Democrats “want taxpayers on the hook for generous new benefits for federal bureaucrats and government employees,”…

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Reuters reports: Two weeks after leaving her position as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. National Security Agency in 2014, Lori Stroud was in the Middle East working as a hacker for an Arab monarchy. She had joined Project Raven, a clandestine team that included more than a dozen former U.S. intelligence operatives recruited to help the United Arab Emirates engage in surveillance of other governments, militants and human rights activists critical of the monarchy. Stroud and her team, working…

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Simon Wren-Lewis writes: If you talk to almost anyone overseas, except those at the right-wing extreme (like Trump) or part of a tiny minority of the left, their reaction to Brexit is similar that of the former prime minister of Finland. What the UK is doing is utterly, utterly stupid. An act of self harm with no point, no upside. Sometimes outside opinion is based on incomplete or biased information and should be discounted, but on Brexit it is spot…

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Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK, writes: At this point, it is virtually impossible to legislate the seven complex Acts and hundreds of Statutory Instruments required by the withdrawal agreement in the 32 parliamentary workdays scheduled before March 29. But, most worryingly of all, the UK not only has a government that is unable to lead, but also a public that now seems unwilling to be led. At no point in this grim…

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James Bloodworth writes: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, few on the left have had much real idea as to what a contemporary socialist economic program would—or should—look like in practice. Twenty-first century socialism in Venezuela was supposed to offer hope, but it turned out to represent yet another mirage, this time built on the back of exorbitantly high oil prices. As prices dropped, mismanagement of the state-run oil company, PDVSA, by the Chávez and Nicolás Maduro governments saw…

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‘It feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water.’ — This historian wasn’t afraid to confront the billionaires at Davos about their greed pic.twitter.com/TLHZQPMIwI — NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 29, 2019

Nick Cohen writes: The secret history of modern Britain is made in obscure corners between men and women taken seriously by no one but themselves. A good time to begin it would be in the winter of 2013/14 when the Institute of Economic Affairs, a rightist outfit that won’t reveal where its money comes from, offered a €100,000 prize to whoever could devise a means of leaving the European Union. The reason why politicians are now stumbling towards disaster like…

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