SO YEAH, DONALD TRUMP

Since taking a week off for Christmas - and my holidays were great, thanks, hope yours were good, or at least did not suck - Donald Trump went to new levels of Donald Trump not yet seen. I know this is the sort of thing the regular ol’ news media says extremely often, but it is occasionally true (the rest of the time, it’s just the news media pretending to be shocked that the corrupt incompetent bully continues to be a corrupt incompetent bully) and this was definitely one of the times where it was true.

First, Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned. This is a big deal because Mattis was widely regarded as being the last of the “adults in the room” (following the departures earlier this year of Rex Tillerson and H.R. McMaster, who were both quite bad at their respective jobs, but at least existed within the general sense of “understand the point of the job in the first place”) capable of restraining Trump from doing stupid and dangerous things, which Trump wants to do practically all the time because, you know, corrupt incompetent bully.

What specifically seems to have prompted Mattis’ resignation was that he had strongly opposed Trump’s decision to pull American troops out of Syria, where they had been serving as military support to Syrian military units and militias engaged in battle against ISIS militias coming out of Iraq. In particular, Mattis understood that the USA had made very specific promises of protection to the Kurdish minority in the region that was fighting ISIS most intensely.

None of this should be taken as me saying that Mattis is some great human being; I don’t particularly think he is. In 2004 he commanded troops in Fallujah which shot at civilians and aid workers, and a year later he used his rank to ensure that Marines under his command would not be tried for abusing and massacring Iraqi civilians. There’s lots about his preferences in foreign policy (and he has written plenty about the subject) that I think range from counterproductive to downright cruel. And, of course, he didn’t feel the need to resign over, say, Trump’s Muslim refugee ban or Trump’s concentration camps for refugees.

All of that said, though, Mattis isn’t stupid, and he takes very seriously the idea of American victory and American moral superiority, and betraying promises to key military allies is exactly the sort of thing one would expect to cause him to resign in protest. Which he did. And then the Syrian Kurd militias started very publicly suggesting that maybe they would just free the 3,000-plus ISIS fighters they’ve captured, because what’s the point of fighting ISIS if the USA doesn’t have your back? And so he resigned, releasing his resignation letter (which was a very politely worded but extremely emphatic fuck-you letter) to the public, stating that he would keep working through into February to allow Trump to find a replacement for him. A few days later, Trump made it clear Mattis would be only be working into the first week of January - presumably because this was how long it took him to figure out that Mattis’ letter was not, in fact, a respectful letter of praise.

Anyway, everybody was freaking out for a while because who the hell is going to stop Trump from launching nukes now (and if you’re thinking “well, somebody will stop him,” please understand that there is literally nobody with the power to stop him from unilaterally launching a nuclear weapon; Mattis’ entire strategy to keep Trump nuclear-free was to order Strategic Command to put him in the loop regarding any potential nuclear event scenario well before the President was informed, so that he would be able to influence and massage the situation so that nukes wouldn’t even occur to the President as an option, because Mattis couldn’t stop Trump from ordering a nuclear strike, because, and I really want to stress this, nobody can legally stop the President from ordering a nuclear strike) … and then the American government shut down!

A lot of people don’t understand American government shutdowns, because - like most things in politics - they are borne out of a very bad idea, and in this case it is that America does not operate like most countries, which is to say “decide what you want to spend money on, and then spend the money and get it.” America, instead, works on the principle of “decide what you want to have, and then later decide if you will spend the money for it.” This way, when it comes time to vote to pay for the things America has already decided to pay for, American politicians can then repeatedly play chicken with public spending to try and get their way, which is a terrific way to run a country. It also means that sometimes, some parts of government are funded for months or years in advance, while others can be held hostage. And, to be clear, when we say “American politicians,” we actually mean “Republicans,” because Democrats, as a rule, like the country to actually function at least a little.

This particular shutdown is happening because the Republican party is incompetent. You might have heard that this is about Democrats refusing to fund the wall, which is sort of true, except for the part where the Republican party does not presently need the Democrats to pass spending bills to keep the government open, because despite the midterm election results from two months ago, those new Democrats aren’t in office yet. This particular shutdown is happening because, despite having majorities in both houses of Congress and the Presidency, the GOP is unable to get its shit together and pass simple keep-the-lights-on legislation.

This has actually happened a few times over the past two years, and most of those times the Democrats have stepped in and provided the necessary votes so that the government can continue to function. However, this time the Democrats have made clear that they’re not going to vote for any bill which contains funding for the Mexican border wall, because they see it as a tremendously stupid waste of money which is also pretty racist in its intent. This viewpoint happens to have the benefit of being obviously correct. (At least, this is the position of Nancy Pelosi; Chuck Schumer, speaking for Senate Democrats, has a long track record of caving at every opportunity and was willing to offer $1.6 billion for partial border wall construction, because the obvious compromise between no stupid wall and a stupid wall is part of a stupid wall.)

Since the Democrats weren’t willing to help the Republicans act like a big-boy political party, the American government has since shut down. Well, partially. Soldiers are still getting their paycheques and military and veterans’ installations still have the lights on, because the USA isn’t stupid enough to let those services lapse; they’re paid up in advance (except for the Coast Guard, for some reason). Social Security and Medicare are likewise paid up for a good long while, and there are other services still operating, like certain types of farm inspection, child school nutrition programs, and federally managed energy plants and inspectors. But there’s currently about eight hundred thousand government workers either furloughed without pay or being forced to work without pay, and that really can’t last forever.

Of course, most previous Presidents would care about this on some level other than being perceived as the winner, but then again, most previous Presidents weren’t Donald Trump.

Oh yeah and the whole Russian agent thing - look, that one’s long and involved, but the short short version is “he is obviously already guilty of numerous federal crimes” and it’s just gonna get worse as more and more people start to flip on him, and yeah the legendary “pee pee tape” of Trump cavorting with Russian prostitutes in urinary fashion probably exists in some form, so expecting that story to get less sordid is probably a bad bet.

SHIT IS GOING DOWN IN BANGLADESH

Bangladesh, like most countries with at least nominal democracy, has basically two main parties: one center-left and the other center-right. Bangladesh’s parties are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (“the BNP,” the conservatives) and the Bangladesh Awami League (“the BAL,” the liberals). These two parties are led by two women: Sheikh Hasina for the BAL and Khaleda Zia (sort of, more on this in a bit) for the BNP. These two are the only Prime Ministers Bangladesh has had since 1991, which is really sort of impressive. Of course, this is a third-world democracy, so it’s not just a friendly rivalry.

Zia was arrested in 2007 following the end of her most recent term as Prime Minister on corruption charges, and the Bangladeshi army put a caretaker government in place to run things until the scheduled 2008 elections, which Hasina and the BAL won in a landslide. Zia and the BNP, however, claimed that the 2008 election was rigged, and then boycotted the 2014 elections on that basis (along with several other parties), while also claiming that Hasina’s government was, in fact, the corrupt ones. Zia was found guilty of those corruption charges earlier this year and is currently in prison, so she isn’t technically the leader of the BNP any more - but, realistically, she still is, because the BNP doesn’t consider her imprisonment legitimate.

(The answer to the question of “which one is actually corrupt,” if you are wondering, is “probably both of them.” Zia is almost certainly guilty of massive corruption, but Hasina’s most recent term as Prime Minister has been marked by numerous scandals, most notably one where the Bangladeshi government accepted what appear to be numerous bribes from Canadian construction giant SNC-Lavelin in order to award them the contracts to build a large bridge. Hasina wasn’t directly personally implicated in that one, but most of her senior staff were.)

Despite the fact that the BNP should have a lot of sympathy after the 2014 elections, where the BAL appears to have coordinated attacks on BNP supporters and BNP-friendly organizations and temples, the BNP have actually lost some public support recently because, well, they were obviously corrupt. So the main opposition to the BAL in this election came from the recently-formed Jatiya Oikya Front, a five-party alliance comprised of the BNP, several smaller parties and finally the secular-nationalist Gono Forum, whose leader, Kamal Hossain, was the alliance’s candidate for Prime Minister if they won this week’s elections.

Spoiler alert: they did not win this week’s elections.

There was a spate of “election-related violence” similar to what happened in 2014. The Front is claiming that thousands of its supporters were arrested leading up to the elections, including six parliamentary candidates, and that over a hundred more were pressured to abandon their races on the day of the election. Hossain has called upon the national Election Commission to declare the election void and call a fresh election, which they will not do, but what he’s really asking for is for the army to step in and order a fresh election.

Will that happen? Probably not. Hasina is probably corrupt as hell, but under her leadership Bangladesh’s economy and human development have been advancing much faster than they have under most governments, and although the population clearly wants civil rights and fair elections, the overriding wish of most voters seems to be for “more development.” To be fair, there isn’t a whole lot of confidence that were the BNP or proxy-BNP in charge that they’d be any less corrupt or interfere any less with elections; frankly, given recent history, it’s not unfair to argue that there might be more of it under their reign.

And if you’re wondering why this matters to you, go ahead and count the number of times the word “Bangladesh” shows up on your clothing labels. Ripple effects and all that.

I CONSIDERED A PET-THEMED PUN FOR THIS NEXT ITEM ABOUT CALIFORNIA PET SHOPS BUT DECIDED IT WOULD BE IN PURR TASTE

California has now passed a law, set to take effect in the new year, which prevents - well, with fines, but you get my point - pet shops from selling cats, dogs and rabbits purchased from breeders. Now, pet shops will only be allowed to sell rescues. The basic idea here is that pet shops enhance the power of puppy mills and the like - high-volume breeders who don’t care about the health of the dogs and cats they sell (and rabbits, I guess? I didn’t know rabbits were in such demand).

Is this a good law? I honestly don’t know. On the one hand, like all pet lovers, I am totally in favour of more people buying rescue pets, because there are always a lot available who need happy homes - but on the other hand, rescues can be finicky pets and prospective owners need to be coached and taught a rescue’s particular needs fairly often, and I am not sure whatever the California equivalent of PJ’s Pets is going to bother doing so.

More importantly, the law doesn’t prevent puppy mills from simply advertising on Craigslist for direct sale, which is what they all do already anyway. Sure, legislating out the pet shops gets rid of their biggest sales vector, but there’s always going to be a market for people who want to buy a cute puppy for only $200 and who aren’t going to ask careful questions like “has this puppy been dewormed” or “were this puppy’s parents related because I don’t want to spend $2000 on its eventual genetic diseases” or “you know, this puppy looks a lot like a raccoon, is this just a raccoon” or other important questions like that. It’ll probably hurt some of the less-successful mills, but the bigger operations should be just fine - especially since they can still sell across state lines.

On balance I think it’s probably a good law, but that it won’t be as impactful as people hope.

THE ENTERTAINMENT SECTION

Movies watched or rewatched in the past two weeks:

The Candidate (1972, Michael Ritchie, Hoopla) - 4/5

The Family Man (2000, Brett Ratner, Netflix) - 2/5

Ratatouille (2007, Brad Bird, Blu-Ray) - 4.5/5

A Christmas Carol (1938, Edwin L. Marin, TCM) - 3/5

Aquaman (2018, James Wan, theatre) - 3.5/5

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2018, Jake Kasdan, rental) - 2.5/5

Support The Girls (2018, Andrew Bujalski, Google Play rental) - 4/5

Ralph Breaks The Internet (2018, Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, theatre) - 3/5

More details at my Letterboxd, as per usual.

We also finished season three of Mozart in the Jungle, a show I enjoy despite some obvious flaws (huge plot contrivances, occasional obvious-even-to-non-musical-types bad lip syncs, et cetera), but the third season is interesting because it finally does a lot of what the show needed to do in the first season - namely, explain to laymen how conducting works and why conductors are so important to the orchestral experience and what they contribute. I mean, speaking as a layman I know they’re important, but I couldn’t tell you why exactly, if that follows.

That’s all for this week; see you next week, when hopefully this goes out on Saturday rather than early Monday morning.