| | | | After Mueller, Russia Questions Linger | | Assuming Attorney General William Barr's summary is correct, the Mueller report provides an indisputable boost to the president, but The Economist reminds us that some Russia-related questions remain unanswered.
One is why Russia wanted President Trump to win the 2016 election in the first place; another is whether "American voters think it acceptable that their president continues to deny the existence of an attack on their democracy by a hostile power, which he has consistently lied about his links to, may owe his job to, and which he has done hardly anything to deter from continuing its assault."
The latter question may have nothing to do with "collusion," but it speaks to norms of presidential conduct, which NYU law Prof. Bob Bauer says have eroded amid the Mueller saga: From the president's misrepresentation of the Trump Tower meeting to his attempts to discredit Mueller, the investigation revealed or prompted demagogic behaviors, he argues. | | Brexit isn't unique, the Financial Times' Gideon Rachman points out, but a symptom of broader European disunion, as Europe's largest countries are all struggling with internal divisions. And Brexit could spill over, exacerbating that trend, Rachman argues, as a hard Brexit would "deepen Europe's economic and political crisis, and therefore ultimately strengthen left and rightwing populist forces across the continent."
That puts European leaders in a tricky spot: They don't want to be blamed for a catastrophic no-deal Brexit, but as an anti-Brexit, pro-European movement grows in Britain, attempting to influence British politics could backfire. | | ISIS Lives On, Financially | | | We shouldn't expect ISIS "to go out of business anytime soon," David Kenner writes at The Atlantic: After the collapse of its territory, the group is sitting on an untold sum of cash—hundreds of millions of dollars, by some estimates—and although it no longer controls oil wells or collects taxes, it has plenty of ways to make more money. It's a "giant" in the Islamic world's informal-banking industry, has invested in legitimate businesses run by middlemen, can extort people living in its former territory, and stands to profit from corruption as Iraq and Syria rebuild its former strongholds.
And that's only one reason why ISIS may live on: As Charles Lister wrote last week for Politico Magazine, the group could benefit from a legacy of instability in Syria, tens of thousands of interned fighters and former citizens whose fates are unclear, and a generation of children it radicalized in the areas it held. | | Why Silicon Valley Should Fear Brussels | | While the US has let big tech firms like Google, Amazon, and Facebook develop relatively unfettered, Europe has taken a different approach, slapping them with billions in fines.
Those fines are now simply the "cost of doing business" for major tech companies, The Economist writes, as Silicon Valley's giants should be wary of regulators in Brussels. Europe, much of which has lived under dictatorship in the past century, treats privacy with the importance Americans give to free speech; at the same time, Europe is wary of anti-competitive trusts. The EU is going at tech firms with those dual concerns—privacy and competition—and one possible outcome is that Brussels could address both by allowing consumers to "move data about their Google searches, Amazon purchasing history or Uber rides to a rival service," forcing tech companies to share data with competitors and giving consumers more control.
That idea may be frightening to tech firms, as user data have fueled profits, and it's being floated as Facebook lobbyists have struggled to sway European regulators. | | President Trump's recognition of Israeli control of the Golan Heights is "undoubtedly a boon" to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a competitive reelection campaign amid the specter of corruption charges (he has denied wrongdoing), and a "clear attempt by the US president to tilt the election in Netanyahu's favor," Neri Zilber writes at Foreign Policy.
Though Trump has denied any political motivation, he's made no secret of his support for Netanyahu's candidacy—Trump reposted to Instagram his own appearance on a pro-Netanyahu billboard—and Zilber points out that Trump holds unique sway in Israel. While citizens of many US allies seem to disdain Trump, Israelis support him: In an October Pew survey, 69% of Israeli respondents expressed confidence in Trump.
Compare that with figures for other US allies, like Germany (10%), Canada (25%), and Japan (30%), and one can see how Trump's appearance on a billboard—or proclamations regarding Israeli territory—could move the needle. | | | | | | |
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