Armas Weekend Reader
This week: the 2024 Republican field accretes by one, the debt-ceiling crisis is an opportunity, the American defense-industrial base and the war in Ukraine, the new age of A.I., psychonauts should tread carefully, moon time, Brady exits, Siberian winters, hunting and the hunted in South Armagh, an Allied assault on Berlin, and more. Let’s go —
1) “Cementing what has been in the works for months, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will formally announce she is running for president and will seek the Republican nomination for her party’s 2024 ticket.”
2) “Despite outcries from Democrats and the media, using the debt ceiling to try to rein in spending is hardly a new idea … The logic of using the debt ceiling to respond to the growth in the national debt is inherently appealing to most Americans. What better time to call the family together, sit down around the kitchen table, get out the butcher knife and cut up the credit cards than when the bill collector has just knocked on the door demanding payment?”
3) “President Reagan used to say that government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem. Perhaps this basic insight was the reason he won two landslide presidential elections. Nearly four decades after the second of those landslide victories, a lot of Americans still agree with him.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/reagan-is-still-right-11675196168
4) “Over the past four decades, the percentage of white Democrats who identify themselves as liberal has more than doubled, growing at a much faster pace than Black or Hispanic Democrats … This shift raises once again a question that people have been asking since the advent of Reagan Democrats in the 1980s: What does it mean for a party that was once the home of the white working class to become a coalition of relatively comfortable white liberals and less-well-off minority constituencies?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/opinion/democratic-party-coalition.html
5) “After heavy criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the College Board released on Wednesday an official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies — stripped of much of the subject matter that had angered the governor and other conservatives.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/us/college-board-advanced-placement-african-american-studies.html
6) “So far in the war in Ukraine the tank forces on both sides have essentially been fighting with similar vehicles. Indeed, the Ukrainians are deploying large numbers of captured Russian tanks. The Western tanks introduce superior new technology. Unlike the counter insurgency wars that they have been deployed into since the early 2000s, where their record is mixed, a fight with Russian T-series tanks is what the Leopards, Abrams and Challengers were designed for.”
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