Pope Francis Buried: The Newsletter
Introduction
Welcome to The Cameron Journal Newsletter! This week, it’s all about Trump Tariffs and the reverberations around the world from what can only be described as an economic reset.
The World is Hard, This is Not
Each week I send out the latest headlines, the latest videos from The Cameron Journal and commentary about the week’s events. If you’re new here, my name is Cameron Lee Cowan M.A. MFA, and I’m the Creative Director here at The Cameron Journal. You can learn more about me on the about page. I do research and commentary on politics, culture, and the world around us. Remember, The World is Hard, This is Not.
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Updates
Normally I don’t work on my birthday but I forgot to write the newsletter this week until I woke up today and everyone was wishing me a happy birthday and I realized that I had not gotten to it on Friday. So, here we are. Happy Birthday to me!
This week was crazy for me and crazy in the news. This week I was on a great panel show with David Beckemeyer (see below!) at Outrage Overload. We had a great conversation on how to bridge political and ideological divides. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t start until 9 pm because they are all in California and so it was a late night for me and that just set a tone for the rest of the week that included a lot of great work but much exhaustion.
Obviously one of the big stories that dropped right after this went out last week was the death of Pope Francis I. The leader of 1 billion catholics was known for his progressive views and being a pope of the people that stood in stark contrast to Benedict XVI who proceeded him but retired and only died a few years ago. A conclave to select a new Pope will follow the funeral beginning in early May. The list of potential Cardinals is already being circulated on social media with early favorites including Cardinals from Africa and Cardinal Tagle from the Philippines. Someone pointed out that in 2013, social media was a different place and this would be the first pope selected with the modern social media environment.
I’m going to keep this short because I’m only in a mood to hang out today but there are some important news stories.
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The Latest
Let’s dive into the stories I’m following this week!
India v. Pakistan
You will be seeing quite frightening headlines about this shortly but the decades long conflict between India and Pakistan is heating up again as Pakistan moves troops and equipment to its border with India. Both nations are nuclear powers and there is a non-zero risk of a nuclear exchange between the two countries. India only uses nuclear weapons for defensive purposes which would indicate that it is likely the first shot would come from Pakistan. It would be the first exchange of nuclear weapons since 1945.
Tensions are already rising with India shutting off the taps (literally) this morning. Pakistan gets most of its water from India and India has restricted their water supplies. If this goes on for long, there will be a terrible humanitarian crisis and Pakistan could resort to extreme measures. Thirsty people get desperate quickly.
As a side bar, there’s a report this morning of an explosion at a Revolution Guard HQ in Iran. One of my contacts (who will be on the show soon!) messaged me this morning with the wire story. No explanation so far but he described it as a developing situation. Of course, suspicion will immediately fall on Moussad (Israel) for the attack but the number and frequency of attacks against Iran has increased since Iran has given its full-throated support to Hamas in Gaza and has fired missiles at Israel over the past year.
Trump Meets with Zelensky at Vatican
The funeral for Pope Francis is still happening as I write these words. The White House released an image of Trump and Zelensky sitting in golden chairs at the Vatican across from each other at a very close distance and meeting eye to eye. The photo is quite stark. I can’t post it for copyright reasons but you should give it a Google. It was their first meeting since the last kerfuffle at the White House where J.D. Vance complained that Zelensky wasn’t grateful enough for the support. Back then Trump claimed he held no cards and that the U.S. had all the cards. Times have changed a bit. With Europe getting serious about defense and the Germans opening the taps with money, Zelensky has emerged as the last line of defense for Europe as a whole and that might be just the boost he needed to keep the weapons flowing from the U.S.
Trump has been a harsher critic of Russia this week with him complaining that Putin is not earnest for peace in Ukraine and floating the idea of secondary sanctions to tighten the grip on Moscow. That is quite a different stance than just a few weeks ago.
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