AMERICAN STUDIES

MoA—That explanation has held up well. At the beginning of his regime Trump stuffed the White House with the military faction while the executive government -the deep state- waged a war against him. The corporate side of triangle of power was quite happy with his tax policies. But Trump soon discovered that the military faction did not concur with his ‘America first’ isolationist tendencies. The ‘grown ups’ and generals wanted to explain to Trump why they believe that the U.S. needs many allies and bases and why the many long wars the U.S. fights are sensible policy.

KITTY BLOCK—The charges filed today are an important outcome and they set a precedent for future cases of wildlife abuse. Before Libre’s Law went into effect, animal cruelty was largely a summary offense in Pennsylvania, and offenders received penalties that were the legal equivalent of a traffic violation. Even egregious acts of cruelty were not given penalties that matched the severity of the crime. Now, under Libre’s Law, aggravated cruelty is a felony. And although the law was inspired by and named after a puppy mill dog, Libre, it covers not just companion animals but all animals, including wildlife.

JON HELLEVIG—With the stock market at all-time highs, virtually no unemployment (or so they say), and brisk GDP growth (supposedly) in the last decade, economic analysts would declare that the US economy is in excellent shape. But, it isn’t. The stock market is a central bank inflated asset bubble, and what GDP growth there has been, is an illusion brought about by the very same financial bubble and by pumping the economy up with record federal borrowings to finance the deficits that America cannot afford. Rigged statistics showing artificially low inflation serve to hold together the Trumped-up American economic narrative.

DIEGO DIEZ—The most overreaching anti-Joker propaganda was how the movie was widely called a call-to-arms for “incels” (involuntary celibates), essentially the Japanese version of hikkomori shut-ins (the difference is that no family member in atomised US culture is going to bring food to a relative’s bedroom door, so incels actually have to go out to work, or work at home). The whole “incel” analysis turned out to be quite obviously a diversionary tactic: the Joker character proudly cares for his sick mother, has normal and non-violent romantic fantasies about women, and never displays misogyny.

ERIK SCHREIBER—the movie minimizes the reactionary, warmongering politics of Fox News (and of its main characters) and fails to examine how these politics enable the disgusting behavior of Ailes and others. Bombshell obscures the class-based politics of its characters and promotes the politics of gender. The film’s depiction of Kelly as a champion of women’s rights rings false.