domestic and international events
Another diary-type blog post to mark time. Oh boy, busy week.
Terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg and Stockholm (becoming unfortunately too regular worldwide). Bannon out of NSC (good). Xi visits Trump, with the meeting of the worlds 2 main leaders taking place in Mar-a-Lago (not DC!). US Senate uses “nuclear option” to permanently alter Senate rules, eliminating supermajority requirement for Supreme Court nominees. As a result, from now on we can expect US Supreme Court appointees will be even more politicized. Chemical weapons incident in Syria, anti-Assad media attributes it to Assad (against common sense, but hey, common sense left us long ago). Anti-rebel media attributes it to rebels and allies (not the first time – see Sy Hersh DIA leak circa 4/2014 detailing Nusra Sarin plot). Trump immediately accepts anti-Assad attribution, US Navy strikes Syrian airbase with cruise missiles. Russia withdraws from agreement with US forces in Syria, significantly increasing tensions. Replay of 2013, but this time with the Trump administration at the helm…
Pete's Politics and Variety 