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Links 9/1/18

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Readers, we have now entered one of our two yearly comments holidays, beginning today and continuing through and including Sunday September 9.

Why Are Puffins Vanishing? The Hunt for Clues Goes Deep (Into Their Burrows) NYT (DG).

The surprising role cheese played in human evolution The Conversation

SEC “Best Interest” Proposed Rule Falls Short of Protecting Investors Better Markets, Medium

Aretha Franklin Funeral: Hundreds Gather to Honor the Queen of Soul Variety

The Manufactured McCain: Lifting Up A Bloodstained, Lying, Venal Servant of Capitalist Empire Black Agenda Report

Syraqistan

Tired:

Inspired:

Two Sweden Democrats kicked out of party for Nazi purchases, Hitler support The Local

EU Mediterranean migrant mission at risk of collapse Deutsche Welle

North Korea

Behind The Chaos Of Washington’s Korea Policy Tokyo Business Today

China?

Exclusive: U.S. accuses China of ‘super aggressive’ spy campaign on LinkedIn Reuters. So finally somebody got around to LinkedIn!

Trade war: China suffers three-month export downturn as Donald Trump’s tariffs bite South China Morning Post

Trade

NAFTA Notice: A Final Deal Must Be Judged on Whether It Will Stop NAFTA’s Serious Ongoing Damage (PDF) Lori Wallach, Public Citizen

Nafta Lives to Fight Another Day Even as U.S.-Canada Talks Stall Bloomberg

Trump threatens to pull US out of World Trade Organization BBC

New Cold War

Justice Department Discloses No FISA Court Hearings Held on Carter Page Warrants Judicial Watch

The Untold Story of Robert Mueller’s Time In Combat Wired. Grotesquely obsequious.

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #6 – The Meal and The Drink The Blogmire

Russia’s Empty Throne: Why Putin Manufactures Political Uncertainty Carnegie Moscow Center

The Terrifying Take-Away From Maduro Assassination Attempt The American Conservative

Trump Transition

Trump to skip summits in Singapore, Papua New Guinea; Pence to attend Reuters

Trump Signs Executive Order on Retirement Savings WSJ

Analysis: Trump seen as neglecting symbolic power of office AP

Behind Trump’s Tabloid King, a Connected and Flush Hedge Fund Bloomberg

Getting to Know White Voters Amy Walter, Cook Political Report

Breaking: Common Cause, League of Women Voters, and NC Democratic Party Oppose Redrawing North Carolina Congressional Districts for 2018, All But Assuring It Won’t Happen Election Law Blog

Arizona court strikes Invest in Ed initiative from November ballot Education Dive

Health Care

Public Opinion on Single-Payer, National Health Plans, and Expanding Access to Medicare Coverage Kaiser Family Foundation

More than half of Americans have received a surprise medical bill Modern Healthcare

A private Medicaid company that pulled out of Iowa has yet to pay thousands of medical bills Des Moines Register

The Crash Ten Years After

Have we learnt the lessons of the financial crisis? Gillian Tett, FT. By Betteridge’s Law…

The Myth of Secular Stagnation Joseph Stiglitz, Project Syndicate

Our Famously Free Press

The Village Voice Is Officially Dead Gothamist

Unlike Facebook, Twitter’s new ad rules give media outlets a free pass Columbia Journalism Review

Court Allows Admissions of Wayback Machine Screenshots as Evidence Pacedm

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

U.S. is denying passports to Americans along the border, throwing their citizenship into question WaPo

New lawsuit shows your phone is unsafe at American borders Engadget

Militarization of Local Police Isn’t Making Anyone Safer CityLab

Researchers show Alexa “skill squatting” could hijack voice commands Ars Technica

This Music Theory Professor Just Showed How Stupid and Broken Copyright Filters Are Vice

Net Neutrality

California passes strongest net neutrality law in the country The Verge

Imperial Collapse Watch

F-35 Program Cutting Corners to “Complete” Development Pogo

Class Warfare

30% of student loan borrowers can’t keep up with debt after just six years CNBC

Could Empty Stores in Malls Be Used to House the Homeless? Footwear News

After 24 years, Doom II’s final secret has been found! Rock Paper Shotgun

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus antidote (via):

Leveling up my dog game.

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.