Sunday’s news (9/17/2017)

International

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is poised to dissolve the country’s Lower House in order to hold a snap general election. He needs a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Diet in order to revise the pacifist constitution General Douglas MacArthur imposed on Japan during the postwar U.S. occupation. Constitutional revision is needed to assure Japan’s security in the wake of North Korean nuclear missile threats and China’s rising military power.

Islam is not only divided between Sunni and Shiite. Fundamentalist Sunni Islam is also divided between a ultra-conservative wing, based in Saudi Arabia, and a Muslim Brotherhood revolutionary wing, supported by Qatar and Turkey. This is the context of the Saudi and Gulf States’ boycott of Qatar and the recent wave of arrests in Saudi Arabia.

Propaganda wars

The Russian military exercise Zapad 2017 menacing NATO’s Baltic members is a hollow propaganda effort, according to some commentators. Voice of America, once the United States’ premier propaganda voice, is run by Obama holdovers sympathetic to communism.

Major media bias

The Associated Press, the supposedly politically neutral source of factual news to the local U.S. press, is now openly propagandizing for the Democratic Party. Yesterday it ran as its “Top News” feature a piece headlined “Doubts arise on whether corporate tax cut would boost growth.” Another media outlet, ESPN, is also proving to be a hotbed of Trump haters. Today, the Wall Street Journal news staff joined the crowd by publishing a report that the U.S. will consider renegotiating the Paris climate Accords that Trump withdrew the U.S. from in June. The White House quickly issued a denial of the WSJ report.

How to put together an effective governing coalition?

Republican strategist Ed Rollins is skeptical that President Trump’s dealing with Democrats “will be productive.” But help from the Republican side won’t be easy either. The House has downsized Trump’s biggest budget cuts and libertarian Republicans in the House are also pushing back against some administration initiatives.

The Special Counsel

Special Counsel Mueller has brought another Democratic Party contributor onto his team of prosecutors probing alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia. This is proving very expensive to those being investigated.

Gut science

Bacterial populations in a mother’s digestive tract during pregnancy may increase the odds that she has an an autistic child, two mouse studies indicate. Inflammatory bacteria in the intestinal flora may also trigger multiple sclerosis in individuals genetically predisposed to it.

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