Armas Weekend Reader
23-24 April 2022
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This week: Democratic nightmares, the steelworks of Mariupol, cognitive overload, things Finnish, and Seinfeld at the movies. Let’s go —
1) “There's something much worse than losing the House, and possibly the Senate, that's rattling top Democrats who are studying polling and election trends.”
https://www.axios.com/democrat-senate-trump-republicans-ce402871-8dd3-4a52-8843-0673377b78df.html
2) “The problem with Paul Ryan’s vision was that it involved a misunderstanding about who bears the cost of bloating entitlements—and this misunderstanding led the GOP astray.”
https://www.city-journal.org/paul-ryans-ill-fated-plan-to-reduce-social-spending
3) “If you think inflation is bad, wait until the rest of the commodity markets really heat up. Although prices for basic materials like copper, aluminum, nickel and steel—used to build everything—have already inflated, they haven’t yet escalated as much as fuels and energy-driven commodities like food. But they will if European and U.S. policy makers have their way. Buckle up.”
4) “The fallout over HMP’s endorsement of Carrick Flynn comes at an inopportune time for Democrats. At a time when Republicans are making gains with Latino voters, the blowup serves as a reminder of the ongoing challenges and internal Democratic party debate over the efficacy of its outreach to Latino voters.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/17/house-dems-super-pac-latino-00025694
5) “[W]hen nation-states see a dominant country’s technological prowess coupled with the will to defend its way of life, they will not act in a way that hurts the country’s interests. For 80 years, beginning with the end of World War II, this was mostly the case. American deterrence and seriousness were in some ways synonymous—an undeniable force for growth and prosperity in business, in technology and in culture, making this country’s achievements the envy of the world. But as the century began, the loss of American seriousness accelerated just as our adversaries, Russia and China, became more serious about their own alternative projects.”
