Lazy Caturday Reads

Good Day!!

Tomorrow, May 10, is Mothers Day. My Mother is no longer alive, but I still talk to her frequently. I think of her every day and take comfort in remembering stories she told me and the many times she encouraged me.

Tomorrow is also the day I stopped drinking, way back in 1982. I can’t believe it will be 44 years! My mother was visiting me on those first days of sobriety. No one believed I could do it, but somehow I knew that day that I was really going to stop drinking this time. I think having my Mom there with me helped, even though she wasn’t sure I could do it either. I love you Mom.

In the “news,” Jeff Bezos’ newspaper, The Washington Post, has seen fit to publish an “opinion” piece, supposedly written by Melania Trump. Obviously, she didn’t write it, even though it’s incredibly simplistic. Here’s bit of it: Mothers are America’s strength.

A mother’s devotion to her child is unmatched. This love takes many forms: strength, compassion, wisdom, grace, joy, labor, humor and even grief, to name a few. The love between mother and child has helped shape America’s identity since the nation’s founding 250 years ago.

It is time to revisit the enduring American family traditions that have supported generations, while also recognizing the challenges for mothers of building both a career and a home. This balancing act reflects the realities women face today.

America’s strength is closely tied to the role mothers play in shaping character, education and moral order within families. From morning until night, mothers serve as the first teachers of empathy, aspiration and discipline. It is mothers who do so much to shape a child’s mind — how to think, how to distinguish right from wrong and how to persevere in challenging times.

The household is our nation’s smallest institution, yet it is the foundation of all others, including democracy itself. The values cultivated in homes often shape the moral voice of the next generation. Looking ahead, we must consider how to strengthen this vital role.

Being a modern mother demands the discipline and restraint to not disregard what came before us. In this spirit, the healthy evolution of the American family can best be achieved by preserving the elements of the past that have proved their worth. In doing so, America can restore the honor of motherhood after years in which feminism often placed career above family, with consequences to our nation.

Are they right?

But as Republicans and Democrats have both seen as they have waged a tit-for-tat battle this year to redraw districts around the country to their advantage, such changes do not always work out as planned. The true consequences of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling remain to be seen.

The G.O.P. may find it more difficult to win in more diverse districts of the kind that existed before the reshuffling of maps prompted by the Voting Rights Act.

And Democrats now must decide whether they want to maintain the predominantly minority districts they once demanded as a matter of basic fairness or try to turn the tables on Republicans in blue states and reconfigure them in an effort to threaten G.O.P. lawmakers in those states.

In the late 1980s, Republicans had been deep in the House minority for nearly 40 years. But growing dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party had begun moving white Southern conservatives into the Republican ranks, as illustrated by high-profile party switches in Washington. Then the redistricting initiated under a series of court decisions aimed at fostering more minority representation provided yet another opening that might have seemed counterintuitive at first glance.

Architects of the maps realized that if they could maximize Black and Hispanic representation in the new districts, they would simultaneously dilute Democratic strength in surrounding jurisdictions where coalitions of white and Black voters had elected white Democrats for decades. The shift would ultimately create dozens of openings for Republican candidates in what had formerly been known as Democrats’ “Solid South.”

Hulse’s argument is interesting. He also notes that

Some civil rights figures such as Representative John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat, warned at the time that the new maps could empower Republicans by weakening the partnership of progressive white and Black voters in the South. But others said the new districts were the only way to overcome centuries of institutional discrimination against minorities in the region.

“Gerrymandering was done to keep Black folks out,” Mr. Clyburn said. “If you gerrymander to keep them out, you’ve got to gerrymander to bring them in.”

Who was right? We may find out in November. Use the gift link to read the rest.

In other voting news, It seems Sam Alito cheated in his opinion on the Voting Rights case. Sam Levine, Will Craft and Andrew Witherspoon at The Guardian: Samuel Alito’s Voting Rights Act ruling cited misleading data from DoJ.

The claims Samuel Alito, a supreme court justice, made about voter turnout in Louisiana in a landmark Voting Rights Act case were based on a misleading data analysis, a Guardian review has found.

In his opinion gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act last week, Alito said that Black voter turnout had exceeded white voter turnout in two of the five most recent presidential elections, both nationally and in Louisiana. Alito’s claim was copied almost verbatim from a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the justice department. It was a critical data point Alito used to make the argument that the kind of discrimination that once made the Voting Rights Act necessary no longer exists.

“Vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, where many Section 2 suits arise,” Alito wrote in a majority opinion in the case, which concerned Louisiana’s congressional map, joined by the five other conservative justices on the court. “Black voters now participate in elections at similar rates as the rest of the electorate, even turning out at higher rates than whitJuson piece in The New York Times (gift article): Hegseth Says This War Has Cost $25 Billion. I Tallied Up the True Amount.

The Defense Department says the conflict with Iran has cost taxpayers $25 billion so far. But this tally significantly understates the true cost. By my calculations, the bill for a typical American household likely runs to thousands — or even tens of thousands — of dollars.

Yes, that’s a wide range; blame the economic fog of war. But what’s clear is that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is trying to obscure just how expensive this war will be.

The Pentagon’s stated number reflects only a narrow accounting of the tab that Operation Epic Fury is running up. It’s the price of the more than 2,000 Tomahawk and Patriot missiles already fired, the warplanes already flown and in some cases lost, and the rest of the gear already chewed through. It does not measure the true cost of the war — including the human toll. Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, acknowledged as much when he told the House Budget Committee on April 15, “I don’t have a ballpark for you.”

I do. Since the start of the war, oil markets have been disrupted, and consumer confidence has cratered. The global economy is groaning, and military budgets are growing. The toll from this upheaval must be counted in lives disrupted, jobs lost, companies shut down (see: Spirit Airlines), and the income and output sacrificed. The less easily quantified costs — death, disability and mental health — could become much more dramatic should President Trump send troops into Iran, which still can’t be ruled out.

Start with oil. While the White House is keen to tell you that oil markets will bounce back to normal, futures markets disagree. Futures prices for oil at the end of 2026, 2027 and 2028 are all still sitting well above where they were before the start of the war. Indeed, the November 2026 futures price of West Texas Intermediate hit a new high this week at $86.12 a barrel. It could be that oil traders are pricing in near-term disruption. Or perhaps they see the current episode as raising the risk of future disruption. Either would be expensive.

The rise in geopolitical risk is costly. Recent research by the Fed economists Dario Caldara and Matteo Iacoviello suggests that heightened geopolitical risk leads to lower investment and employment and dramatically raises the chances of an economic disaster. Their measure of this risk has skyrocketed, and their estimates of the effect of risk on the economy suggest a cost of about $200 billion, with a million fewer Americans working in a year.

The war has also pushed the Federal Reserve Bank into a corner. Back in February, many economists expected a couple of rate cuts this year; markets now think that’s unlikely. If the Fed raises rates, it may succeed at beating back a war-fueled burst of inflation, but only by destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs and edging the economy closer to recession. A reasonable guesstimate — informed by the Fed’s own models — is that this will cost the economy about $200 billion.

Use the gift link to read the rest.

One more on Iran from Jonathan Lemire at The Atlantic (gift article): Trump Is ‘Bored’ With the War He Started.

President Trump really, really wants the war with Iran to end. He has declared victory many times, including about three weeks ago, when Iran briefly reopened the Strait of Hormuz. He has repeatedly extended his cease-fire deadlines instead of following through on his (sometimes-apocalyptic) threats to resume hostilities. This week, his administration abruptly abandoned an effort to escort ships through the strait in part because of a fear that it could provoke violent, escalating confrontations.

Trump is tired of the war, which has proved far more difficult and lasted far longer than he had expected. His party is warily watching rising gas prices and falling poll numbers. He doesn’t want to be bogged down in a Middle East conflict like some of his predecessors were. He doesn’t want it to upend his high-stakes summit next week in China. He is ready to move on.

Trump is left with a vexing question: How do you end a war when your opponent won’t budge? And while Trump grasps for an exit, the hard-liners in Tehran have used the war to tighten their grip on power. Iran seems hell-bent on pulling off something it’s historically done well: humiliating an American president.

Trump never thought it would turn out like this. After the impressive military operation to snatch Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, the president set his eyes on Iran, telling confidants that it would “be another Venezuela,” a pair of outside advisers told me. They, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Trump believed that the U.S. military was unstoppable, and that he had a chance to topple Tehran’s theocracy, a prize that had eluded his predecessors. He was redrawing the world’s maps and expected a victory to come in days, a week or two at most. The initial U.S.-Israel onslaught killed Iran’s supreme leader and included waves of bombings that reportedly obliterated much of the country’s missile capabilities. But Tehran did not capitulate, and instead attacked its Persian Gulf neighbors and seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes. With a mix of mines, small attack boats, and drones, Iran effectively closed the waterway. Energy prices soared. The conflict settled into a stalemate and then a fragile cease-fire. One high-profile, official round of negotiations failed. No more are scheduled….

…the real question is the timing: A number of experts have forecast that Iran can withstand pressure from the blockade for months, not weeks. A U.S. intelligence assessment delivered to policy makers this week agrees, suggesting that Iran could make it at least three or four more months. If so, and Iran continues to keep the strait closed, then prices will continue to rise in the West, including in the United States during a midterm-election year. It then becomes a matter of pain: Which side can withstand the most economic hardship?

Use the gift link to read more.

The Hantavirus outbreak:

NBC News: 7 states prepare to receive Americans possibly exposed to hantavirus.

The U.S. has entered emergency response mode as a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak sails toward Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, where it will evacuate nearly 150 passengers on board, including at least 17 Americans.

State and local health officials in the U.S. are monitoring at least eight passengers who disembarked on April 24 and returned home. For the time being, those individuals are not being told to isolate, since they have not developed symptoms.

As early as Sunday, global health authorities will help transport passengers still on board the ship — all of whom are currently asymptomatic — to their respective home countries. Passengers will be taken to a “completely isolated, cordoned-off” area in Tenerife, then board guarded vehicles to transport them to a section of the local airport that will also be cordoned off, Virginia Barcones, Spain’s head of emergency services, said Thursday at a press conference.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday in a statement that it is sending a team of epidemiologists and medical professionals to the Canary Islands to meet the Americans on board, who will fly to Nebraska upon arrival.

“Because the disease status of the exposed passengers is unknown and responders will be in close contact with potentially symptomatic individuals, it makes sense for emergency responders to don gloves (rubber or latex), a respirator mask like an n95, a protective gown, and eye protection,” a CDC epidemiologist who did not speak on behalf of the agency said in a text message.

The flight will land at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. The repatriated passengers will then be transported to the National Quarantine Unit at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. It’s unknown how long the quarantine will last.

AP: Experts wonder ‘Where is the CDC?’ as a hantavirus outbreak unfolds on a cruise ship.

No quick dispatching of disease investigators. No televised news conference to inform the public. No timely health alerts to doctors.

In the midst of a hantavirus outbreak that involves Americans and is making headlines around the world, the U.S. government’s top public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been uncharacteristically missing in action, according to a number of experts.

To President Donald Trump, “We seem to have things under very good control,” as he told reporters Friday evening.

To experts, the situation aboard a cruise ship has not spiraled because, unlike COVID-19 or measles or the flu, hantavirus does not spread easily. It has been health experts in other countries, not the United States, who have been dealing primarily with the outbreak in the past week.

“The CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Not until late Friday did CDC actions accelerate.

Health officials confirmed the deployment of a team to Spain’s Canary Islands, where the ship was expected to arrive early Sunday local time, to meet the Americans onboard. They said a second team will go to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska as part of a plan to evacuate American passengers from the ship to a University of Nebraska quarantine center for evaluation and monitoring. Also, the CDC issued its first health alert to U.S. doctors, advising them of the possibility of imported cases.

There’s more at the link. I guess RFK Jr. doesn’t think this outbreak is that concerning. The scary thing is that it can take weeks for the symptoms to show up in a person who has been exposed, and 38 percent of people who get the disease die. And it can be spread person to person.

That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?