I teach an undergrad class on Latin American politics that incorporates films as a supplement to the readings. Since it's course prep time, I'll share the films I assign, by country, and links where currently available here: First, a caveat: these are not necessarily the best, or most representative films of each country or region. I choose them for having some political content that fits into the broader themes I try to cover in the class e.g. migration, political economy, corruption, gender, race..

Whenever I point to double standards about treatment of Ukrainian vs. Central American asylum seekers, the pushback is always “of course they’re not the same” or “those people are obviously refugees and those other people obviously are not.” How do they know? They just *do* (🧵) 1 response is that whether someone is a real asylee isn’t up to you. It’s up to an immigration judge. There’s a system, however backlogged, to process and evaluate asylum claims. Applying for it is a legal right, doesn’t mean they’ll get it, but also doesn’t mean they’re illegal

The House Appropriations Committee's report on the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs bill is out. This is the main way Congress influences US foreign policy. I'll summarize some takeaways as related to Latin America, esp. Central America. appropriations.house.gov/news/press-rel… Development assistance: bill recommends $575m increase in development assistance over last year, $388m of which is for Latin America. Bulk of that goes to Northern Triangle of Central America. Guatemala gets more than any other country, $113m. El Salvador and Honduras $95m each.

El Salvador will be the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender but would not be the first country to use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions. North Korea and Venezuela have done the same, to varying degrees of success... President Bukele’s announcement is aimed to impress tech investors, and it appears to be working. But it comes as US-ES relations are hitting nosedive due to Bukele’s authoritarianism, State Dept. naming officials to corruption lists, and Treasury likely preparing sanctions.

https://twitter.com/tyler/status/1401324319502782465

Why are Senate Republicans undertaking a quixotic mission to block Biden’s election? There could be lessons from Mexico...🧵 In 2006, left candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PRD narrowly lost to right candidate Felipe Calderón of the PAN by less than 1 percentage point. AMLO cried foul, which was not a crazy thing given a precedent of rigged elections in Mexico

I read the Venezuela chapter of John Bolton’s book, which covers the first few months of 2019, from the January declaration of Juan Guaidó as acting president, to the failed April 30 coup/uprising. Some highlights (thread): Trump’s attitude toward Venezuela policy vacillates between eagerness for a full on military invasion (opposed by his advisors) and open admiration for Maduro and disdain for Guaidó.

“Why are Trump’s approval ratings for his response to COVID-19 so high when he’s (clearly messing up/spreading misinformation/exploiting it for partisan purposes)?”

See political science research... 1. Politicians get far more political payoff for responding to disasters than for preventing them - @namalhotra washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…

Did you know

Everything in this tweet is wrong?

Thread: (1/)

https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1015292377907519488

1.Nearly all the heroin (and cocaine and meth) that enters the US today comes in through official ports of entry, i.e. legal border crossings and airports. It isn’t snuck in across the desert. Building a wall would do nothing to change this. See @adam_wola wola.org/analysis/four-…