Friday, July 06, 2018

Weekend Reading: The Summer Is Here Edition

We're having our first summer heat wave, which is nothing compared to the heat wave other parts of the US has been having but is making Mr. Snarky feel pretty good about having got a whole house fan installed on Monday. So summer is here.

Mr. Snarky and I both had yesterday off. Both kids still had camp, and both kids are loving their camps this week so there was no question of them skipping. This means that Mr. Snarky and I got a day off with just the two of us! We went for a long walk on the beach and had lunch at a favorite old spot in Mission Beach (a restaurant called Guava Beach, for anyone who's curious: they have delicious guava-ritas and a coconut crusted chicken sandwich that is quite good).

I had to work today, but Mr. Snarky still had the day off (his company shuts down for the week of July 4), so we're taking advantage of the fact that he will be home to head out for some Friday evening summer fun with the kids, too.

This is my new strategy for not getting despondent over the mess in our country right now: Lots of summer fun to distract me. (Don't worry, I'm still writing postcards and supporting campaigns, too.)

Anyway, let's have some links.

You may not have heard about this amidst all the other news this week, but the House once again failed to pass any sort of immigration bill. I think there is no path to a bill that involves the Freedom Caucus, and since the moderate Republicans don't seem to want to work with the Democrats (who I think would compromise with them)... we're stuck. This Vox piece has a good explanation of the sad recent history of attempts to fix our immigration system.

Vox's The Weeds podcast did an episode on open borders (and the fact that despite what Trump and other immigration hard liners keep saying, no elected Democrat is actually pushing for open borders). It is a good and interesting episode, but like many The Weeds episodes, I was unsatisfied at the end because they didn't talk about one specific thing I think should be discussed - namely, that if our interest is in ending illegal immigration, whatever system we move to must have a legal and realistic path for low skill immigration. Otherwise, the combination of our really long border and the large number of low skill jobs that employers struggle to find Americans to fill will continue to pull people in without documentation. Maybe in some future immigration episode....

Still on immigration: This story about the informal, migrant-run system to keep track of whose turn it is to go and seek asylum is really upsetting to me. We are being so callous.

An independent journalist (who seems really well-respected in the online law/national security circles) wrote about deciding to become an FBI informant and the risk that puts her in right now.

Josh Marshall on the whether the calls to abolish ICE will backfire on Democrats. (My opinion on this one is that I don't know, but that we're not going to stop the calls for it at this point, so I guess we'll find out.) Jamelle Bouie wrote about the same topic, and argues that Democrats shouldn't worry about "swing voters" because they increasingly don't exist.

Josh Marshall also had a good podcast episode about some of the outrageous stuff that is going on and that a Democratic House might be inclined to investigate.

Matt Yglesias on our period of Constitutional hardball and what that means for the next time Democrats have power.

San Diego's current approach to homelessness got a favorable write up in Mother Jones. A lot of local homeless advocates are less positive on this approach. I don't know what I think about it yet, other than that we need to build more housing.

This is really interesting: The Texas Observer republished Molly Ivins' piece from when the Roe v. Wade was made.

Truth:


This is wonderful. Let's build the monuments these kids suggest.



This is cool:



Bunnies!



Have a good weekend, everyone!

1 comment:

  1. EarthSciProf5:16 AM

    Great links as always. I thought the Yglesias article (and a Klein article linked to in it) were particularly good. Also, I sent my wife the link to your post on what you're doing in the current political climate.

    Sorry, tried commenting a few days ago but the internet ate my comment.

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