Repeal the Logan Act It’s never yielded a conviction but invites abuse by prosecutors, cops and presidents. By Charles Lipson

https://www.wsj.com/articles/repeal-the-logan-act-11588629596?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Congress passed the Logan Act in 1799, and it’s long past time to repeal it. Only two people have been prosecuted under it, in 1802 and 1852, and both were acquitted. But the law invites political abuse, as we’ve seen recently in the case of Mike Flynn.

The act makes it a crime for citizens to engage in unauthorized “correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government . . . in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.” Since the U.S. has disputes with every other country, its reach stops just short of lunar orbit.

Since the law is hardly ever enforced, why not leave it alone? Because while the law is still on the books, it can always be trotted out and used selectively, even maliciously. That’s exactly what happened to Mr. Flynn when James Comey’s Federal Bureau of Investigation wanted to destroy him and undermine the president.

The Logan Act is a devilish temptation—to bad cops at the FBI, to bad lawyers at the Justice Department, and to bad policy makers in the White House. The law is so broad and vague it can be used to investigate almost any opponent at almost any time. If anybody can be threatened, enforcement is bound to be selective and discriminatory, not uniform and blind as law enforcement should be. These endemic problems mean the Logan Act would probably be found unconstitutional, if it faced such a challenge. It hasn’t, because no one has been convicted under it. So it lurks on the books, a tool for political mischief.

Boris and Bibi Ride Coronavirus Pandemic Popularity Covid-19 confirmed the ideas they’d been advancing, but other politicians struggle. By Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boris-and-bibi-ride-coronavirus-pandemic-popularity-11588629245?mod=hp_opin_pos_3

The Covid-19 pandemic is, among other things, a test of leadership around the world. For some—Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, for instance—the pandemic has been a major political setback. Others, such as Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, have seen their popularity soar. Then there are those like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who have exploited the pandemic to expand their sweeping powers.

Prime Ministers Boris Johnson of Britain and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are the two world leaders who have been most successful at strengthening their positions amid the pandemic. This isn’t because they have both succeeded in stopping the spread of the disease. While Israel has, so far, contained the disease with fewer than 300 fatalities at press time, Britain trails only Italy among European countries in number of lives lost to Covid-19. Many more deaths are likely to come. Messrs. Johnson and Netanyahu are succeeding because the pandemic drives home their core messages.

National leaders acquire and hold power in part by offering a “theory of the case”—a vision of what their country needs and why a particular leader and particular program are the solution. In 2016 Donald Trump’s theory of the case was that a broken and corrupt establishment was driving the country into the ground. In 2020 former Vice President Joe Biden’s theory of the case is that America needs a president who will bring “normal” back.

President Trump was preparing to run on “the strongest economy in world history.” The pandemic crushed that argument, and although his base continues to support him, Mr. Trump is struggling to reinvent his re-election campaign. President Vladimir Putin’s core message for 2020 was that a stable and respected Russia was becoming more secure economically. A referendum scheduled for this month would have sealed his grip on power. But thanks to the pandemic and the resulting oil price implosion, the referendum has been postponed, and Mr. Putin must find a new message.

For Bibi and Boris, the pandemic reinforced the arguments they have been making to the public. In Mr. Netanyahu’s case, his response to the pandemic enabled him to split the opposition, postpone his trial on corruption charges, and continue his reign as Israel’s longest-serving and most effective prime minister since David Ben-Gurion. His core message is that in a dangerous world Israel needs a decisive prime minister and government with a real majority, and that the opposition, whose fissures are becoming deeper, is incapable of providing it. Mr. Netanyahu must survive a ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court about whether a person under indictment can serve as prime minister, but the strength of his new Knesset majority shifts the odds in his favor.

The Huffing and Puffing of Lindsey Graham Robert Ringer

https://selfreliancecentral.com/2020/05/02/state-of-the-nation-robert-ringer/ 

I’ve learned to like Lindsey Graham over the years.  Sure, he’s corrupt, just like everyone else in Congress, but he’s a cute little guy with a charming personality.  He also makes for an entertaining interview.

My only problem with Lazy Lindsey is that he likes to blow off steam for the cameras, but, in the end, he can always be counted on to do absolutely nothing.  How well I remember feeling hopeful a year ago when Lindsey huffed and puffed and angrily told the world that he was going to get to the bottom of how the Russia hoax got started.  You could just picture Brennan, Comey & Co. shaking in their boots in anticipation of their criminal operation being exposed.

They soon realized, however, that Lindsey had gone into hibernation.  As is always the case with the little senator from South Carolina, he apparently thought it was best to let the professionals (Barr and Durham) handle things.

So, when Graham recently told Sean Hannity that the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn “reeks of criminal misconduct” and that there was “a lot more coming in the case and in related criminal investigations,” it was almost enough to make me yawn.  Don’t get me wrong.  I still think he’s a cute little guy with a charming personality.  It’s just that he’s worthless.

BORIS JOHNSON’S REMARKABLE WEEK: JOHN O’SULLIVAN

Let me fuse two tales of resurrection — the PM’s medical ordeal and his party’s return from death’s door — into a single narrative in which the hero, an outcast Tory rebel, ends up as a Prime Minister who dominates British politics more completely than anyone since Margaret Thatcher. Better still, the voting public come to realise just how much they like him.

The story begins a month before the 2019 European elections when Tory constituency associations began passing motions of no confidence in Prime Minister Theresa May. That rebellion, which spread rapidly, signified that the Tories were a party with a clear Leave majority—something like 70 per cent of activists and 55 to 60 per cent of Tory MPs (if the latter had taken a truth serum).

Those no-confidence votes were important, but national political correspondents treated them as marginal. That was partly because they’re overwhelmingly Europhiliac. Also, they shared a deeply rooted collective sentiment that Tory activists shouldn’t be important, which slid imperceptibly into thinking they couldn’t possibly be important. As a result they were consistently mistaken in predicting that May would eventually get her non-Brexit bills through the Commons and, more generally, that Brexit would be lost in the quicksands of a Remainer House of Commons.

Those calculations, like much else, were shattered by the European elections, in which the triumph of the Brexit Party under Nigel Farage could only have been achieved with the support of both Tory voters and Tory activists. (When a Tory canvasser asked my sister to vote Tory in local elections, she agreed to do so but added she would vote for the Brexit Party in the Euro-elections. He replied: “So will I.”) But the 8 per cent national vote, amplified by more association votes of no confidence and the looming prospect of one by the National Conservative Convention of 800 senior Tories, led in quick succession to May’s resignation, a Tory leadership election, and Johnson’s clear victory on a promise to achieve a real Brexit.

An ICU Doctor Reports From the Frontline In London by George Godfrey

https://quillette.com/2020/05/03/an-icu-doctor-reports-from-the-frontline/

I had been out of clinical medicine for a couple of years but felt a calling to return to the intensive care unit (ICU) to help my local area in London cope with the additional burden presented by this pandemic. Like everyone, I had read that the National Health Service (NHS) needed a dramatic increase in capacity to save lives—beds, ventilators, and staff. I was a little scared. Would there be enough Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)? Would my new colleagues accept me? Would I survive, or become another face on the news of a frontline staff member who had succumbed to the virus? I felt a little deflated when I contacted four local London hospitals to offer my help, my time, possibly my good health, only to have my emails either not replied to or batted around various HR departments. Hospital administrators struggled to process a volunteer who was an ex-intensive care doctor with 11 years’ experience. Classic NHS, I thought. The national institution that all we Brits know: at times loved, at times hated, full of wonderful people, but not always well-run. This was part of the reason I had left my UK clinical work to become a doctor in the global pharmaceutical industry.

I cycled up to the hospital on an unseasonally warm day before the Easter weekend. My first day back. What immediately struck me was that the corridors of the old Victorian hospital were empty. Where was everybody? Where was the pandemic? There seemed to be no patients, no staff, no one about at all. Had this all been media hype? I expected the hospital to be a hive of bustle. The front line. This was where the rubber met the road of tackling COVID-19, I thought.

Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution Saved Millions Scripture tells us that we are all sinners—even the saints. Apparently, according to PBS, Borlaug’s sin is that he saved too many lives.

Regarding your editorial “Battering Norman Borlaug” (April 25): Shortly after becoming the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, I was made aware that desperate, starving people in Zambia had broken into a convoy of trucks carrying U.S.-donated sacks of food out of their country. I was dumbfounded, and found a Jesuit missionary in Zambia to speak with about this unbelievable occurrence. He said: “Yes, ambassador, that cable was correct—that food was a product of GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds, and if they allow it into Zambia the people here will want to grow it, and they would never after be able to export food to Europe.”

I couldn’t accept that food technology was being used to deny food to starving people. This led me to Dr. Borlaug. I arranged a conference and many meetings in Rome for this man to explain the wonders of new food technology and its promise to thwart the curse of starvation and malnutrition in Africa. This was in 2002 and people there were dying at the rate of 25,000 a day.

The controversy over GMO food persists today, although there is still no proof that it causes anyone ill effects. The credibility of Dr. Borlaug in Rome convinced the Holy Father to task the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the question of GMO food. After exhaustive research, the Academy of Sciences reported to the pope that they found no harmful effects to people who ate GMO food, and that it offered great promise to end world food shortages.

One senior member of the Roman Curia, who came to know Dr. Borlaug through this experience (he came to Rome twice at my request, at his own expense), said, “This man is a saint!”

Scripture tells us that we are all sinners—even the saints. Apparently, according to PBS, Borlaug’s sin is that he saved too many lives.

May he rest in peace.

R. James Nicholson

Washington

Mr. Nicholson was ambassador to the Holy See 2001-05.

We had the pleasure of meeting Norman Borlaug and filming his receipt of the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007, which led to the production of a one-hour PBS documentary about his life and work.

Borlaug saw the famine conditions in several parts of the world as a human emergency and knew very well that his high-yield strains of wheat and accompanying farming methods were only buying time. But poor farmers all over the world were very quick to adopt his hybrid seeds and farming strategies when they saw the results, and this kind of transformation continues in Africa and many other places to this day. Before his death, Borlaug was very active in helping smallholder growers vastly improve their lives through modern seeds and growing methods. Your editorial is spot on.

Philip Courter

Crystal River, Fla.

I heard Borlaug give a speech late in his career where he addressed criticism of his work. His position was simple—he had met many, many well-meaning (and well-fed) critics over the years, but had never met any willing to starve to death for their beliefs.

Joe Bouton

Athens, Ga.

Coronavirus Sweeps Across Brazil, a Land Ill-Equipped to Fight It Cases and deaths pass China in South American behemoth with dense favelas, little testing and a leader dismissive of the virus

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-sweeps-across-brazil-a-land-ill-equipped-to-fight-it-11588603847?mod=hp_lead_pos5

In the tiny, stifling home she shared with seven relatives in the Amazon, Maria Portelo de Lima began coughing, started feeling weaker and, over a week, got sicker and sicker.

Her family tried to get the 61-year-old to a hospital in Manaus, a city of 2.2 million in the heart of the rainforest. They were told no ambulances were available or hospital beds free because of a flood of coronavirus patients.

Ms. de Lima died April 26. With so many other Covid-19 victims in the city, it took 30 hours for an ambulance to pick up her body. She was buried in a mass grave, her identity marked by a wooden cross that cost $22.

Covid-19, which has focused its fury most heavily on wealthier countries, now is hammering Brazil. Brazil has just passed China, the origin of the pandemic, both in confirmed cases, 101,147, and in deaths, 7,025, becoming the hardest-hit country in the developing world.

Unlike in China, which corralled the virus through stern restrictions, things in Latin America’s largest country are expected to get much worse. Infections are rising by more than 5,000 a day and deaths by nearly 500.

There is so little testing in Brazil that its real number of Covid-19 infections might be far higher than the official figure. One university study has estimated the total to date at higher than the U.S.’s world-leading 1.19 million.

A Rundown Of Major U.S. Corporate Media’s Business Ties To China It seems a number of major US media outlets have financial ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and it shows in their coverage. By Chrissy Clark

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/04/has-china-compromised-every-major-mainstream-media-entity/

Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) record of oppression, corporate media outlets are parroting the authoritarian government’s propaganda, even in the midst of an outbreak the CCP worsened through a cover-up. Many of those media outlets have financial ties to Chinese companies with intense oversight from the CCP.

“You often see representatives from American companies with financial ties to China naturally become defenders of the CCP’s policies and spreading the CCP’s propaganda,” said Helen Raleigh, an author and senior contributor at The Federalist who emigrated from China. “The financial tie means these Americans will be much less likely to challenge China’s human rights record or unacceptable demand such as technology transfer.”

We do not know the extent of editorial oversight from corporations and individuals with financial incentives to placate the CCP, if any. But we know the incentives exist, and that’s worth understanding. Below is a breakdown of financial ties between major U.S. media organizations and the CCP.

The New York Times

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim owns 17.4 percent of The New York Times through the company’s Class A shares. As the largest shareholder, his investment allows him to vote for approximately one-third of the company’s board.

In 2009, Slim loaned $250 million to The New York Times Company, the parent company of the New York Times. That same year, Slim purchased 15.9 million Class A shares of the company.

Slim has regularly conducted business with Chinese companies with overt ties to the CCP. In 2017, Slim’s Giant Motors joined ventures with China’s JAC Motors and began manufacturing cars in Mexico to sell in the Latin America Market. According to Forbes, the goal of selling to Latin America was to circumvent the Trump administration’s trade policies aimed at protecting American jobs — a move that benefited the Beijing in the Chinese-American trade wars.

The Media Is Blatantly Lying About Trump’s Coronavirus Response Conventional wisdom fueled by the media is that the White House ignored the coronavirus threat in January and February. It is absolutely false.  By David Marcus

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/04/the-media-is-blatantly-lying-about-trumps-coronavirus-response/

There are times in the life of a body politic when conventional wisdom grows out of falsehoods. The danger of such a situation is that once it takes hold few people will actually look beyond the deception to discover the truth. We are living through just such a moment as much of our news media perpetrates a lie that the Trump administration was doing nothing to combat the novel coronavirus during January and February.

Last week, The Federalist obtained the January timeline of virus response from the Department of Health and Human Services. What it showed was a robust response to the pandemic that was not yet a pandemic; that began well before China reported its first coronavirus death on January 11. In fact, on January 9 the Center For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had already begun work on diagnostic tests and a vaccine.

Mind, you this was happening while China was blatantly lying about the gravity of the virus and claiming it had all of 41 cases total, and that there was no human to human transmission. Throughout January the Trump administration would ramp up travel bans and free up 105 million dollars to fight the coronavirus while standing up its task force.

This brings us to February. In a tweet, Dispatch co-founder Jonah Goldberg conceded that the travel ban had bought the United States time, but then asked what did the administration do in February? White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah was happy to provide Goldberg with a rather comprehensive answer based on the February timeline. The whole thread is worth reading.

Stacey Abrams’s embarrassing campaign for the vice presidency

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/stacey-abramss-embarrassing-campaign-for-the-vice-presidency

No one has ever wanted to be vice president as much as Stacey Abrams.

The Georgia Democrat, best known for her failed gubernatorial candidacy in 2018, has launched a full-fledged campaign for the vice presidency in recent weeks, telling every news channel that will book her why she thinks she’s cut out for the job. And in doing so, Abrams has proved why she’s not.

Abrams’s media tour began back in February when Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, first mentioned his campaign was looking at Abrams. When asked if she’d want the job, Abrams didn’t shy away. “Of course, I want it,” she said at the time. And then, she left it at that.

But over the past month, Abrams’s attempts to get Biden’s attention have become more and more aggressive. When she realized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar were serious contenders, Abrams not-so-subtly suggested that choosing anyone but a woman of color would be a disservice to the African American community — a community that helped propel Biden to victory in South Carolina and several other states. The only other women of color rumored to be on Biden’s list are California Sen. Kamala Harris and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Abrams’s veiled threat earned a reprimand from South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, a well-respected leader in the African American community whose endorsement reinforced Biden’s candidacy when Biden needed it the most.

“I think having a woman on the ticket is a must,” Clyburn told NBC News this week. “I’m among those who feel that it would be great for him to select a woman of color. But that is not a must.”