RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3733409-silver-linings-to-the-gops-midterm-shortfall/

Are there any silver linings to the disappointing midterm elections for Republicans? Yes, at least three: President Biden wants to run again, Donald Trump has been dethroned and the GOP cannot be blamed for the recession that looms over 2023. Put together, the results might oddly have given the GOP better odds of winning in 2024 than if the much-anticipated “red wave” had materialized.

Does this sound absurdly Pollyannish? Maybe, but it is also true.

First, Biden seems to think the midterms were a positive referendum on his performance. In his follow-up press conference, he exulted that “we lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than any Democratic President’s first midterm election in the last 40 years.”

He rattled off his many supposed accomplishments, including: “creating” 10 million new jobs, “taking on powerful interests to lower…energy bills” and making “historic investments” to encourage building new semiconductor factories. All that “while lowering the federal deficit in the two years by $1.7 trillion….No administration has ever cut the deficit that much.”

The report card is dishonest. But give Biden credit for convincing voters that the economy was actually in tatters when he took over (it was growing at 6 percent, thanks to large stimulus spending and because it was in great shape before COVID-19 hit), that he engineered a dramatic drop in the federal deficit (actually, he pumped it way up before by law it began to recede) and that he somehow drove oil companies to lower prices, while in fact he recklessly drew down our Strategic Petroleum Reserves.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2022/11/28/bodies-politic/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=top-of-nav&utm_content=hero-module

Confronting biological reality on the campaign trail

In May, John Fetterman was on his way to a Democratic-primary campaign event in Pennsylvania when it became clear to his wife that he needed urgent medical attention. Later, doctors confirmed that Fetterman had suffered a stroke — a life-threatening condition in which the blood supply to the brain is temporarily blocked or reduced.

According to the CDC, strokes can “cause lasting brain damage, long-term disability, or even death.” Annually, about 700,000 people in the United States have strokes. For any of them, it would be uncontroversial to recommend that they not pressure themselves with high-stakes performance in the months that follow. But Fetterman’s campaign and the entire Democratic apparatus — and perhaps the candidate himself — had a strong incentive to prioritize his political career instead.

Whether a person is fit to return to work after a stroke depends on both the degree of damage and the nature of the work. Given the objectively grave diagnosis, as well as the responsibility of the office of senator, it was reasonable for voters to demand necessary assurances. But Fetterman refused to release his medical records, instead offering a one-page doctor’s letter saying he “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.” He maintained a conspicuously low profile.

In early October, Fetterman gave an interview to NBC reporter Dasha Burns using closed captioning to compensate for his problems with auditory processing. Burns observed that during their small talk before the closed captioning was turned on, “it wasn’t clear that he could understand what we were saying.” For this, she was attacked by Fetterman’s wife as an “ableist.” The American Association of People with Disabilities likewise complained that coverage of the Burns interview was “riddled with ableism.” A disability activist, Charis Hill, told BuzzFeed News that “the way Burns handled that interview will only worsen attitudes and violence towards disabled people.”

The Center for Disability Rights defines “ableism” as “a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities and often rests on the assumption that disabled people need to be ‘fixed’ in one form or another.” Insofar as disability-rights advocates focus their efforts on fighting unfair discrimination — for instance, how assisted suicide targets those with disabilities — this is a noble cause. But in the context of employment, not every disability can be adequately adjusted for in every situation.

https://www.city-journal.org/the-other-imaginary-red-wave

Well, that was a dud. Not the abortive “red wave,” but the Democratic expectation (read: ill-disguised hope) that “election deniers” would disrupt polling places on Tuesday with violence and intimidation. In October, a national security bulletin had warned that poll workers were at physical risk from homegrown election terrorists. The Justice Department let it be known that it was monitoring threats against election employees. Illinois officials installed panic buttons and security locks in election offices. People using ballot drop-off boxes were said to be at risk of violent intimidation from crazed MAGA supporters. Michigan anticipated that right-wing poll watchers would disrupt ballot tabulation in Detroit. Election-deniers who had run for office and lost would allegedly refuse to concede defeat, putting “democracy,” in establishment parlance, at further risk. “We could be six days away from losing our rule of law,” warned historian Michael Beschloss, who wondered “whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed.”

None of these predictions panned out. There was no electoral violence or intimidation. No one mobbed ballot boxes or election offices. As of this writing, political election-deniers who lost their races have accepted defeat.

We have been through this hysteria before. Predictions of right-wing violence are now a standard feature of Democratic rhetoric. In the lead-up to January 6, 2022 (the one-year anniversary of the 2021 Capitol riot), the media, politicians, and the Biden national-security apparatus warned that “domestic violent extremists” were likely to strike again. Washington, D.C., was reportedly on edge in anticipation of the MAGA rebels. As it turned out, January 6, 2022, was notable only for the maudlin theatrics of newly patriotic Democrats, who softly sang “God Bless America” in a candlelight vigil on the Capitol steps, as calm engulfed them.

During the previous year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security had issued regular warnings about election-denying terrorism. The summer of 2021, August 2021, September 2021—all provoked a satisfying increase in alerts and in precautionary barricades and bollards. And still, the right-wing terrorists did not strike. However loathsome and despicable the mob violence of January 6, 2021, it has proved to be a one-off perpetrated by ill-informed hotheads who got lamentably carried away during one very particular historical moment. (The Paul Pelosi attack is one possible exception to this no-repetition rule.)

https://www.city-journal.org/stochastic-terrorism-is-about-suppressing-free-speech

I browsed the news recently only to discover that, according to a popular science magazine, I was responsible for the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi, husband to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In an opinion piece for Scientific American, writer Bryn Nelson insinuated that my factual reporting on Drag Queen Story Hour was an example of “stochastic terrorism,” which he defines as “ideologically driven hate speech” that increases the likelihood of unpredictable acts of violence. On the night of the attack, Nelson argued, I had appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to discuss my reporting, and, hours later, the alleged attacker, David DePape, radicalized by “QAnon” conspiracy theories about “Democratic, Satan-worshipping pedophiles,” broke into the Pelosi residence and attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer.

This is a bizarre claim that, for a magazine supposedly dedicated to “science,” hardly meets a scientific standard of cause and effect. There is no evidence that DePape watched or was motivated by Tucker Carlson’s program; moreover, nothing in my reporting on Drag Queen Story Hour encourages violence or mentions Nancy Pelosi, QAnon, or Satan-worshipping pedophiles. My appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight and DePape’s attack against Paul Pelosi are, in reality, two unrelated incidents in a large and complex universe. And Nelson, a microbiologist specializing in human excrement, is full of it.

But Nelson isn’t trying to prove anything in a scientific sense. Under the concept of “stochastic terrorism,” logic, evidence, and causality are irrelevant. Any incident of violence can be politicized and attributed to any ideological opponent, regardless of facts.

The scheme works like this: left-wing media, activists, and officials designate a subject of discourse, such as Drag Queen Story Hour, off-limits; they treat any reporting on that subject as an expression of “hate speech”; and finally, if an incident of violence emerges that is related, even tangentially, to that subject, they assign guilt to their political opponents and call for the suppression of speech. The statistical concept of “stochasticity,” which means “randomly determined,” functions as a catch-all: the activists don’t have to prove causality—they simply assert it with a sophisticated turn of phrase and a vague appeal to probability.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/13/tragically-trump/

“Yet for a variety of reasons, both personal and civic, their characters not only should not be altered, but could not be, even if the tragic hero wished to change, given his megalomania and absolutist views of the human experience. In the classical tragic sense, Trump likely will end in one of two fashions, both not particularly good: either spectacular but unacknowledged accomplishments followed by ostracism when he is out of office and no longer useful, or, less likely, a single term due to the eventual embarrassment of his beneficiaries, as if his utility is no longer worth the wages of his perceived crudity.”   —The Case for Trump (2019)

After the midterms, the Republican Party and half of the conservative movement are now furious with Donald Trump. Their writs are many—even though the party establishment shares much of the blame. More importantly still, American elections have radically shifted to mail-in/early/absentee voting rendering Election Day a minor event. The predictable result is that any close race undecided on Election Day in subsequent days usually is won by the Democrats. 

On the eve of the midterm, Trump gratuitously attacked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was up for reelection, while all but announcing he would run for president. 

That preview could have waited until the elections had passed. The pizzazz may have galvanized some Trump-haters to go to the polls. It might even have alienated perhaps a few thousand DeSantis Republicans who were not thus inclined to vote for Trump-stamped candidates. 

Trump’s frantic fundraising efforts had amassed a huge sum in his PAC, geared to his future primary fights. But many felt he was far too parsimonious in spreading his largess to his own cash-strapped and outspent MAGA candidates. That stinginess might have helped contribute to their defeats in close House and Senate elections. 

Those earlier rumblings were only amplified after the unexpectedly anemic Republican midterm performance. Trump sent out a disjointed, almost unhinged letter damning DeSantis as disloyal, without gratitude (to Trump), mediocre, and overrated. 

The indictment was ill-timed to DeSantis’ landslide victory over Charlie Crist. DeSantis’ long Florida coattails fueled the only red tsunami of the entire evening. If Trump thought he would employ the battering-ram tactics of his first presidential debate of 2020, then he should remember they failed (in contrast to his effective second debate against Biden). And in reaction, DeSantis’ rope-a-dope silence is effectively designed to let Trump punch his way out and down to the low 30s in approval.

Trump further blamed some of the losses of his endorsed candidates on either their own shortcomings and lack of loyalty, or the bad advice from those who had persuaded him to back losers. New Hampshire U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc was deemed insufficiently denialist and so, according to Trump, was crushed in the New Hampshire race. 

Former First Lady Melania Trump, of all people, was reportedly to blame for convincing the ex-president to back Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race. 

Yet Oz turned out to be a tireless worker and a rookie but solid candidate. Still, he was easily outspent—and was fatally injured by the balloting blowback against the mediocre Trump-supported gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. The latter’s wipeout injured Oz and Republican congressional candidates once thought likely to win. 

Worse still, Trump highlighted his self-obsession over party concerns by weirdly celebrating the loss of fellow Republican senatorial candidate Joe O’Dea of Colorado. His RINO crime was spurning Trump’s support. Stranger still, Trump attacked popular Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin for supposedly having a “Chinese”-sounding name.

But these were sins of commission. There were also those of omission. Trump had not issued an ecumenical call to head to Georgia, to forget intramural squabbles, and to rally money and time on behalf of Herschel Walker—Trump’s own endorsed candidate. 

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19111/tiktok-ban

The Biden administration rolled back its predecessor’s efforts to ban TikTok and is currently in negotiations with the company through the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). According to published reports, a draft agreement would require exclusive US storage for all TikTok data, monitoring of TikTok’s powerful content recommendation algorithms, and create an oversight board comprised of cyber-security experts. The terms of the draft agreement would not require ByteDance to sell TikTok, as the Trump administration previously demanded.

The danger of this approach is obvious – that the app and all the collected data remain under the ownership of a Chinese company which, according to Chinese law, is required to provide this data to the Communist government upon request, at any time.

The draft agreement, which has not been announced or made public, has not satisfied TikTok’s critics. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a longtime critic of TikTok, renewed his call earlier this month for the US government to ban the app from Apple’s and Google’s app stores over the national security risks posed by its ties to China.

[T]he app circulated false information about the COVID-19 virus during the pandemic and [technology experts] believe China could potentially do so again as part of broader propaganda efforts to influence public discourse within the US.

At a time when an invasion of Taiwan by Communist China looms ever larger, why worry about TikTok?

Targeted at American teens, TikTok is a mobile app for sharing short videos, owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance. After five short years on the market, it has more than one billion users worldwide. The app has lived under deep suspicion for much of that time, as American cyber-security and counter-intelligence experts have warned about its enormous reach and direct connections to the Chinese Communist Party.