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November 2017

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why I Have Given Up on Trumpism Roger Kimball

By on November 14th, 2017

“In the course of that press conference, Kelly described Donald Trump as a “decisive” and “thoughtful” man of action. I think his record to date corroborates that description even if his style (those tweets, those off-hand remarks) offend the delicate sensitivities of those who have not gotten over the fact that someone not of their tribe had the temerity to garner the support of enough people to be elected to the Presidency without their permission. I am a supporter of Donald Trump, but “Trumpism,” I conclude, is just a name. ”

I have given up on Trumpism. I realize this declaration will come as a surprise to some readers. I should mention, therefore, that it is a decision to which I came only after considerable reflection. It was not easy. I have plenty of friends who endorse Trumpism. I acknowledge that I did as well. I labored assiduously in those vineyards. But I have changed my mind.

Why?

A decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that I should declare the reasons that impelled me to this separation.

One factor was the increasingly surreal commentary that surrounds the whole enterprise of Trumpism. I have found that many of those discussing it would say the most bizarre things. At the end of the day, I simply could not reconcile what was being put forth under the banner of Trumpism with the political and social realities I saw operating all around me.

Everywhere I looked, I saw a vertiginous disconnection between what was described as Trumpism and what was actually happening. Eventually, the cacophony of cognitive dissonance was just too deafening. I realized that I could no longer support Trumpism.

In brief, I have concluded that “Trumpism” does not exist. Rather, it does exist, but only in the way a unicorn exists: in the dashing narratives of fabulists. “Trumpism” is an imaginary, mythical beast. Like the unicorn, it may be recognized from descriptions of its peculiar characteristics—for example, any self-respecting unicorn, as its name implies, has but one horn—and its exploits. But, again like the unicorn, it has only notional existence.

Just as there are many different stories about unicorns—some emphasizing its fierceness, some the magical healing powers of its horn—so there are different versions of that mythical figment, Trumpism.

To a large extent, “Trumpism” is a reflection or coefficient of disappointment. Donald Trump was not supposed to be President of the United States. Indeed, pundits, Hollywood celebrities, politicians from Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi on down assured us that the contingency was impossible. “Take it to the bank,” said Nancy Pelosi, “Donald Trump is not going to be President of the United States.”

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FALN TERRORIST OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA TO GET AN AWARD IN CUBA

By on November 14th, 2017

Maybe he’ll do the wave with Raúl and Joanne, too By Silvio Canto, Jr.

We just learned that Oscar Lopez Rivera will be going to Cuba to receive special recognition or an award, as reported by a state newspaper in the island:

According to a program prepared for the independence activist — the first after his release last May 17th — , the award will be giv

en to Lopez Rivera at the Jose Marti Memorial, located at Revolution Square in Havana.

According to the Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, ICAP, Lopez Rivera will assist in a political-cultural activity on Monday at th

e Havana entity that was host to many solidarity actions for his cause.

The agenda also includes an exchange with students at the University of Havana’s Master Hall, visits to provinces and to the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in eastern Santiago de Cuba where he will visit the memorials that hold the remains of National Hero Jose Marti and the leader of the Revolution Fidel Castro.

Isn’t that sweet? President Obama opened the U.S. embassy and now Cuba invites a terrorist. You can’t make this stuff up!

My guess is that President Obama got away with commuting his sentence because most Americans don’t know who this man is or was.

His story started in 1974 when the FALN was a deadly domestic terror group based in the US, as we saw in Politico:

The FALN was responsible for over 130 bombings during this period, including the January 1975 explosion in Manhattan’s historic Fraunces Tavern, which killed four and wounded 63. In October of that year, it set off, all within the span of an hour, 10 bombs in three cities causing nearly a million dollars in damage.

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Oh, No, a Pharma Exec As a businessman, Alex Azar raised drug prices. String him up.

By on November 14th, 2017

One reason men and women in business are reluctant to go to Washington is the reception accorded Alex Azar Monday after President Trump said he will nominate the former Eli Lilly & Co. executive to lead the Health and Human Services Department. Mr. Azar was immediately criticized for, well, knowing too much about health care.

“It’s a pharma fox to run the HHS henhouse,” a talking head from Public Citizen told the Washington Post, which headlined the same piece “Trump’s pick to lower drug prices is a former pharma executive who raised them.” It seems that when Mr. Azar was president, Lilly “doubled the U.S. list price of its top-selling insulin drug.”

Well, sure, pharma executives are paid by shareholders to make money selling drugs. Profits drive drug innovation, so there wouldn’t be better treatments without profits, which sometimes requires raising prices. Pardon the reality of market economics.

No doubt Mr. Azar’s record will be parsed by Senate Democrats, but it’s always possible that knowing the industry makes Mr. Azar the right man to regulate it. He can’t do any worse than the Obama Administration, which cut a political deal with Big Pharma on drug pricing to win its support for ObamaCare. Mr. Azar has been a critic of ObamaCare, which may be the real explanation for the instant opposition.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Higher Education’s Deeper Sickness Political imbalance causes intellectual degradation. Riots against free speech are only a symptom. By John M. Ellis

By on November 14th, 2017

The sheer public spectacle of near-riots has forced some college administrators to take a stand for free expression and provide massive police protection when controversial speakers like Ben Shapiro come to campus. But when Mr. Shapiro leaves, the conditions that necessitated those extraordinary measures are still there. Administrators will keep having to choose between censoring moderate-to-conservative speakers, exposing their students to the threat of violence, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on every speaker. It’s an expensive treatment that provides only momentary relief from a symptom.

What then is the disease? We are now close to the end of a half-century process by which the campuses have been emptied of centrist and right-of-center voices. Many scholars have studied the political allegiances of the faculty during this time. There have been some differences of opinion about methodology, but the main outline is not in doubt. In 1969 the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education found that there were overall about twice as many left-of-center as right-of-center faculty. Various studies document the rise of that ratio to 5 to 1 at the century’s end, and to 8 to 1 a decade later, until in 2016 Mitchell Langbert, Dan Klein, and Tony Quain find it in the region of 10 to 1 and still rising.

Even these figures understate the matter. The overall campus figures include professional schools and science, technology, business and mathematics departments. In most humanities and social-science departments—especially those central to a liberal education, such as history, English and political science—the share of left-of-center faculty already approaches 100%.

The imbalance is not only a question of numbers. Well-balanced opposing views act as a corrective for each other: The weaker arguments of one side are pounced on and picked off by the other. Both remain consequently healthier and more intellectually viable. But intellectual dominance promotes stupidity. As one side becomes numerically stronger, its discipline weakens. The greater the imbalance between the two sides, the more incoherent and irrational the majority will become.

What we are now seeing on the campuses illustrates this general principle perfectly. The nearly complete exclusion of one side has led to complete irrationality on the other. With almost no intellectual opponents remaining, campus radicals have lost the ability to engage with arguments and resort instead to the lazy alternative of name-calling: Opponents are all “fascists,” “racists” or “white supremacists.”

In a state of balance between the two sides, leadership flows naturally to those better able to make the case for their side against the other. That takes knowledge and skill. But when one side has the field to itself, leadership flows instead to those who make the most uncompromising and therefore intellectually least defensible case, one that rouses followers to enthusiasm but can’t stand up to scrutiny. Extremism and demagoguery win out. Physical violence is the endpoint of this intellectual decay—the stage at which academic thought and indeed higher education have ceased to exist.

That is the condition that remains after Mr. Shapiro and the legions of police have left campus: More than half of the spectrum of political and social ideas has been banished from the classrooms, and what remains has degenerated as a result. The treatment of visiting speakers calls attention to that condition but is not itself the problem. No matter how much money is spent on security, no matter how many statements supporting free speech are released, the underlying disease continues to metastasize.

During the long period in which the campus radical left was cleansing the campuses of opposition, it insisted that wasn’t what it was doing. Those denials have suddenly been reversed. The exclusion of any last trace of contrary opinion is not only acknowledged but affirmed. Students and faculty even demand “safe spaces” where there is no danger that they will be exposed to any contrary beliefs. CONTINUE AT SITE

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The ABA Jumps the Shark Why did the group ask where a judicial nominee’s children went to school?By William McGurn

By on November 14th, 2017

Looks as if the American Bar Association picked the wrong judicial nominee to play politics with. If Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are smart, they will use the ABA’s appearance at a hearing Wednesday to call the group out.

The object of the ABA’s attention is Leonard Steven Grasz, a former Nebraska chief deputy attorney general who’s been nominated for the a seat on the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ABA has slapped Mr. Grasz with a “not qualified” rating, saying he’s too biased and too rude to be a judge. Given that much of this rating is based on accusations that are not detailed and from accusers who remain anonymous, it reveals more about the organization that issued it than it does about Mr. Grasz.

“The ABA is running a smear campaign based on the idea that Steve is a kale-hating, puppy-kicking monster,” says a fellow Nebraskan, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse. “But no one in Nebraska on either side of the aisle recognizes that man.”

The ABA says its ratings are based on neutral and professional criteria, much the way a medical board might evaluate a doctor. Since President Eisenhower “first invited the ABA into the process,” the group says, it’s been standard practice for presidents to submit their judicial candidates to the ABA for vetting before announcing a nomination.

Well, yes and no. In just one indication of how politicized the ABA ratings have become, Democrats and Republicans long ago diverged on the ABA’s role in the nominations process. In 2001, George W. Bush halted the practice of giving the ABA first crack at vetting potential nominees; in 2009 Barack Obama revived it; and this year President Trump halted it again.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Climate Song and Dance Two years after Paris, the UN enviro-crats continue their charade. Oren Cass

By on November 14th, 2017

Good news is hard to find at this year’s United Nations climate conference in Bonn, Germany. Diplomats from nearly 200 countries have gathered to review progress made on the “historic” Paris climate accords, signed two years ago. But as the champagne-fueled self-congratulation of Paris recedes into memory, the agreement’s underlying fraud is becoming obvious.

In theory, international discussions, negotiations, and agreements on climate change aim to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions and thus lessen the expected warming of the climate. In fact, the Paris accord does not even attempt to achieve this goal, except nominally. Instead, countries can pledge as much or as little climate action as they see fit, and no enforcement mechanism ensures that they deliver on their commitments. A country unhappy with its pledge can simply change it.

Operating in this framework, countries have pledged very little. Back in 2000, before all the clean-energy investments and cap-and-trade programs and carbon taxes and landmark international deals, the UN’s projection for emissions this century pointed toward a planetary warming of 3.4°C by 2100. On the eve of the Bonn summit, the UN acknowledged that, with all pledges, projected warming by 2100 still comes out to 3.2°C—and even that miniscule reduction in warming assumes compliance, which is in short supply. None of the major powers are on track to meet their pledges, and developing countries are failing to even get started. Angela Merkel, “climate chancellor” and host of this year’s conference, has been an outspoken critic of President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris accord, but her own nation’s emissions are rising. Germany’s environmental ministry believes that the country will miss its targets badly and warns of “a disaster for Germany’s international reputation as a climate leader.”

None of this should be surprising, given what the Paris agreement actually contains, as opposed to how it was advertised. “This agreement is ambitious, with every nation setting and committing to their own specific targets,” President Obama said in 2015. That was then. Now, the New York Times explains, “many of the Paris pledges remain fairly opaque, and most nations have been vague on what specific policies they will take to meet them. There is no official mechanism for quantifying progress.”

In 2015, leaders signing the agreement felt confident that the momentum and good feeling of Paris would surmount the gaps between rhetoric and reality. The agreement, Obama said, “sends a powerful signal that the world is firmly committed to a low-carbon future,” which would help “unleash investment and innovation in clean energy at a scale we have never seen before.” But investors could read the agreement, too. Global clean-energy investment fell by 18 percent in 2016, the worst performance on record; in developing countries, the decline was 27 percent. And First World investment in Third World countries, considered critical to global progress, fell 26 percent.

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OPEN THE BOOKS A LECTURE IN HARVARD

By on November 14th, 2017

America needs a “Transparency Revolution!” Recently, we made the case at HARVARD LAW SCHOOL… please watch our presentation here.

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman,” wrote Louis Brandeis in 1914.

Today, the Freedom of Information Act and internet make it possible to post online all spending at the federal, state, and local levels. This kind of radical transparency can transform U.S. public policy.

Since 2011, American Transparency, a nonprofit, has built and operated OpenTheBooks.com, the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. The ultimate goal: post “every dime, online, in real time.”

To date, OpenTheBooks has captured 4 billion government-spending records, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending since 2001; 47 of 50 state checkbooks; and 15 million public employee salary and pension records across America.

In 2016, OpenTheBooks.com exposed the $20 million luxury-art procurement program at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which forced a public apology from the V.A. Secretary and the adoption of new rules to stop the abuse.

In 2017, OpenTheBooks launched the following oversight reports:

Sanctuary Cities – $27 billion in federal payments flowed into America’s 106 ‘Sanctuary Cities’ during fiscal year 2016. Covered by NBC News, CNN, and FOX News.
Ivy League, Inc – $42 billion in government subsidies, special tax treatment, and payments were captured by the eight Ivy League colleges during a six year period. Covered by The Wall Street Journal, FOX News and C-SPAN.
National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities – $8 of every $10 in federal arts and humanities grants flows to asset rich ‘nonprofit’ organizations. They should pay back the taxpayer. Covered by The Wall Street Journal and C-SPAN.
‘Gender Hiring Gap’ – in the top-paid positions of federal government, congress and the five largest states, it’s still a man’s world. Politicians decrying the private sector for a ‘war on women’ are hypocrites. Covered by COX News – Washington Bureau, Real Clear Politics, and the New York Post.

OpenTheBooks.com’s discovery of many other government corruption scandals has led to congressional hearings, subpoenas, accountability audits, and corrective legislation.

Many thanks to Harvard Law School’s GOP Club and Casey O’Grady for hosting our event on campus!

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

How the Quakers Became Champions of BDS A century-old religiously based pacifist organization transformed itself into one of the leading engines for the Palestinian cause By Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander Joffee

By on November 14th, 2017

In a not-so-earth-shattering move, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has appointed a Palestinian-American, Joyce Ajlouny, as its new Secretary General. Ajlouny is a native of Ramallah and formerly the head of the Quaker school there, a “passionate” advocate for Palestinians and for “evenhandedness.”

Ajlouny may be the perfect candidate to run the AFSC, the leading American Quaker organization, which over the years has cultivated its image as peaceful and supremely benign. Few suspect, much less know, that one of their central missions these days is promoting the BDS movement that opposes Israel’s existence.

How did a century-old religiously based pacifist organization transform itself into one of the leading engines for the Palestinian cause? Part of the answer lies in the AFSC’s evolution, which has gone from trying to save Jews to vilifying them. Its Quaker theology has similarly gone from emphasis on the “Inner Light” that guides individual conscience to something like old-fashioned Christian supersessionism, where Jews deserve to be hated. The result is that the organization is now effectively captive to progressive Israel-hatred.

Founded during World War I to provide alternative forms of “service” to pacifist Quakers, the AFSC quickly became one of the foremost refugee relief organizations of the early 20th century, with operations around the world. A favorite of Eleanor Roosevelt’s, the AFSC was also active within the US during the Depression, teaching skills across Appalachia and the South.

With the rise of Nazism, AFSC became involved with what would be the greatest refugee crisis in history. But the experience also demonstrated the organization’s approach to religious diplomacy and relief efforts, where naïve idealism alternated with practicality. Shortly after Kristallnacht in November 1938, AFSC leaders traveled to Germany to personally investigate the suffering of the Jews and pled their case with Reichsführer-SS Reinhard Heydrich to bring relief aid. They were unsuccessful.

But the AFSC’s post-war record in refugee relief was so exceptional that along with a British Quaker group, it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. By the late 1940s, the AFSC had a distinctive place in American and international society, a well-established Christian NGO with global reach. But it was also a universalist organization that went against the grain to unpopular causes. Its humanitarian ethic and pacifist ideology were radical both in the American and Protestant contexts. These tensions would ultimately undo the AFSC.

The shift began when the AFSC was invited by the United Nations to run Palestinian refugee relief in Gaza in late 1948. Quakers had been in the Holy Land for over a century, running schools and hospitals for local Christians. But the refugee program was a turning point. Relief workers had never encountered refugees who did not want to be taught new skills or to be resettled elsewhere, only to be maintained at someone else’s expense until Israel disappeared.

So traumatic was this for the AFSC that after 18 months it refused to be part of any future Palestinian refugee program, citing among other things the “moral degeneration” of the refugees brought on by becoming welfare recipients. This view was prescient—almost seventy years later, the Palestinians remain the world’s largest recipients of international welfare through UNRWA and the UN system.

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Moderation in the Realm of Politics Sydney Williams

By on November 14th, 2017

When considering moderation in politics, we must differentiate between outcomes and process – ideologies versus behavior. The French political philosopher Montesquieu claimed humans naturally migrate toward the center – that policies are best that accommodate the greatest number. On the other hand, Adam Smith, in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, suggested it is moderation in social interactions, regardless of political opinions, which allow people to relate to and understand one another.

Most Americans believe in a mixture of government and personal independence – an equilibrium allowing the country to prosper, while preserving the obligations society demands. Politics is the search for that balance, but it is a Sisyphean struggle that never satisfies everyone. Polarization is today’s political nemesis. Mainstream media argues that extremism, especially from the right, has made people yearn for moderation. As well, blame is laid on social media that gives expression to myriad views and inspires populist politicians to take advantage of the resulting (seemingly) broken system. Blame is also attributed to media outlets like C-SPAN, venues for posturing politicians playing to their ideological bases.

Those desirous for moderation in politics often hark back to the 1950s, a period seen as relatively quiet – a time of normalcy, to borrow a word from the 1920s. But that era of uniformity, in the long history of our country, was atypical. The number of newspapers had declined, and was still falling. Talk radio did not exist. Television was in its infancy, with only three network television stations, each with fifteen-minute or half-hour news segments. There was little difference between John Chancellor of NBC, Walter Cronkite of CBS and John Daly of ABC. There were no forums for alternative views. We were trapped in a monolith, with little option but to conform. But that is not as it always was. Pamphleteers and writers of broadsheets, in the early years of our republic, provided thousands of people the opportunity to vent individual opinions, much like bloggers today.

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The Saudi Dilemma By Herbert London President, London Center for Policy Research

By on November 14th, 2017

Recent events in the Middle East confirm the observation that very little in the Middle East is easily understood. A day after Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a palace purge by arresting several of his fellow royals, a high ranking prince mysteriously died in a helicopter crash. State media did not reveal the cause of the crash, albeit any suggestion of motive would be entirely speculative.

There are conditions that have been established. Dozens of princes, ministers and a billionaire tycoon were arrested as Bin Salman, age 32, attempts to consolidate his power. It would appear as if the Crown Prince wants to eliminate any trace of dissent prior to the formal transfer of power from his 81 year old father who is suffering from a terminal illness.

One of those detained by authorities is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an investor who owns a major stake in Twitter, Citigroup and News America. He has also contributed to Middle East Studies programs from Columbia to Yale and points in between. His arrest suggests no one is beyond the reach of the Crown Prince.

Over the last two years Bin Salman has taken over most of the key economic and security posts and is unquestionably the most important figure in government. The Crown Prince is also deputy prime minister (the king is prime minister) and minister of defense. Clearly this seizure of power has given rise to the resistance inside and outside the royal family. In the Saudi system, power has been passed among the sons of the founder of the modern Saudi Kingdom, Idn Saud. Crown Prince Mohammed is putting an end to all of that as political power is migrating to his branch of the family, including all military authority.

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