ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Are We Rolling Downhill Like a Snowball Headed for Hell? The kernel of wisdom in the “declinism” impulse. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

Country music legend Merle Haggard released “Are the Good Times Really Over” in 1982. Like his earlier songs “Okie from Muskogee” and “Fightin’ Side of Me,” Haggard was looking back to simpler times, before the sixties revolution began the two-bit Nietzschean “transvaluation of all values,” especially the disdain for traditional virtues like patriotism and faith. Progressives and leftists dismissed Haggard as a naïve hillbilly at best, and a white racist pining for his lost privilege at worst.

But the question in Haggard’s chorus still persists in our culture and politics, with prophecies of doom coming from both ends of the political spectrum. So, are “the good times really over”? Or is anxiety over declinism misplaced?

After all, worrying over decline is universal. In constitutional governments, much of it comes from the melodramatic hyperbole of political rhetoric. Ever since ancient Athens, prophesizing doom is a way to frighten voters into choosing one party and set of policies instead of another. After the disappointment of 1968, the left-leaning Democrats particularly turned to hysteria and hyperbole to salve their wounds and jump-start the “fundamental transformation of America.” Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and his son were all cast as portents of the coming doom: the destruction of civil liberties, the dismantling of the democratic order, nuclear annihilation, the creation of a plutocracy––these are just a few of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse predicted by Dems.

The ongoing attacks on Donald Trump are just a more hysterical and hyperbolic version of this age-old staple of electoral politics. From Robert Kagan’s “this is how fascism comes to America,” to Thomas Friedman’s looming “constitutional crisis,” bipartisan disappointment seasoned with class prejudice conjures up these signs of imminent doom that only the elite political class can ward off. Yet for now, the resilience of the Constitutional order has made theses Jeremiads mere sound and fury.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Columbia Instructor: Going Vegan Fights Racist Violence By Katherine Timpf

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

According to an instructor at Columbia University, eating a vegan diet can help fight racist violence.

The adjunct lecturer, Christopher-Sebastian McJetters, made the comments during a lecture for Cornell Students for Animal Rights, according to the Cornell Daily Sun.

“I want to talk about the psychology that goes into why we do this, the way that we do this, and the ways that animal violence and exploitation manifests itself outside of our food system,” he said.

According to McJetters, “what we do to other animals informs how we treat one another on this planet, and it is always — always — someone who doesn’t have institutional power, and they’re usually brown.”

“Whiteness has analyzed us and decided that we are not worthy of our individual selves and our individual bodily autonomy and that we get to be objectified and used,” he said. “Both of us, black people and animals.”

McJetters’s perspective is particularly interesting to me because lately I’ve been seeing people complain that aspects of veganism are racist. In January, a sociologist claimed that veganism had strong connections to “white masculinity” because the male vegans she interviewed used facts rather than emotions to explain the reasons behind their veganism. That same month, two professors wrote an article about how Beyoncé’s support for veganism “reproduces existing patterns of discrimination and inequality.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

Yes, There Is a Never Trump Delusion By Rich Lowry

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

Jonah and Ramesh have written a response to my column last week titled, “The Never Trump Delusion.” It always pains me to disagree with them. But the good news is that, judging by their response, we don’t disagree much. The bad news is that we are apparently talking past each other.

I made several points in the column: I. Trump deserves to be criticized in many ways; II. That there is unlikely to be a serious primary challenge, and that Trump’s welfare at this point is caught up with the party’s. III. He has delivered for his coalition and achieved some significant conservative policy victories; IV. We need to take account of his populism and nationalism, which have very often been part of a successful Republican politics. Not wanting to acknowledge points II. and IV. is what I call “the delusion.”

Jonah and Ramesh dwell a lot on I., address II. somewhat glancingly, ignore III., and even more glancingly address IV.

Forgive me for being pedantic and quoting a lot, but it’s necessary to disentangle some of the agreements that are presented as disagreements or corrections, and clear up some misunderstandings.

First, there is the definitional issue. Jonah and Ramesh say that Never Trump is hard to define. I agree and that’s why I said this coterie of critics is “loosely referred to as Never Trump.” I could have spent more time delineating who they are and distinctions among them, but as Jonah and Ramesh know, space goes fast in a column, even a longer one of 950 words.

The lines are obviously a little fuzzy. I’d say Never Trumpers tend toward a totalist critique of Trump, are very reluctant to praise him for anything, and give a sense — perhaps unfairly — of being emotionally committed to their opposition. Never Trump gave us Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot.

Yes, there are many judicious critics of Trump out there and some who are fully aware of the need for a more populist direction in the GOP (I’m colleagues with many of them, obviously), but it’s not true that it’s only Jeff Flake and John Kasich who exemplify the attitude I was criticizing in the column, as Jonah and Ramesh imply. I direct you, for instance, to George Will’s columns, Morning Joe, and Bill Kristol’s Twitter feed, for starters. None of them, nor do many former Bushies who are anti-Trump, give much of a sense of wanting to take Trump’s populism seriously and learn anything from it.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Senator Kamala Harris jokes about killing Trump, Pence, or Sessions By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

Remember when, in early 2011, in the wake of the massacre that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed 6 others, President Obama called “for a New Era of Civility in U.S. Politics”?

The scene inside McKale Memorial Arena was a mix of grief and celebration, where a capacity crowd of 14,000 gathered beneath championship banners for the University of Arizona Wildcats. The service, which was televised nationally on the major broadcast and cable news networks, gave the president an opportunity — and burden — to lead the nation in mourning during prime time.

Aides said Mr. Obama wrote much of the speech himself late Tuesday night at the White House. Laden with religion nuance, the speech seemed as though Mr. Obama was striking a preacher’s tone with a politician’s reverb.

That was when blame was being heaped on Sarah Palin for issuing a map with targets on congressional districts that were believed to be possible wins for the GOP. There mere visual metaphor of a target was an outrageous incitement, according to the theory of the moment, because clearly insane people like the perp, Jared Loughner, could be so suggestible.

That was before the Left began its campaign to incite an assassination attempt on President Trump. The campaign has encompassed publicity-seeking entertainers as well as the ostensible guardians of high cultures, such as Shakespeare in the Park.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

15 Attorneys General, Chicago Sue EPA Over Not Controlling Methane Emissions By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

Fifteen attorneys general and the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Thursday charging that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has violated the federal Clean Air Act by stalling implementation and enforcement of the mandate to regulate methane emissions from oil and gas operations.

The lawsuit comes as Pruitt is under fire for renting a $50-per-night D.C. condo from the wife of an energy lobbyist and reportedly cutting a member of his security detail for refusing to use lights and sirens to cut through D.C. traffic to get to a French restaurant on time. A top Pruitt aide, Office of Policy senior counsel and associate administrator Samantha Dravis, also just resigned, with a friend telling The Hill that the agency was a “shit show.”

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who is leading the methane lawsuit, said in a statement that the EPA “has a clear legal duty to control methane pollution from oil and gas operations, one its largest sources,” and “its continued refusal to do so is not only illegal, but threatens our public health and environment, and squanders savings of over $100 million annually.”

“Our coalition has made clear: when the Trump administration thumbs their nose at the law and endangers New Yorkers, we’ll see them in court,” he added. CONTINUE AT SITE

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Rochester Institute of Technology Students Demand Transgender Drugs By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

On Monday, students at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) protested to demand the school’s on-campus health center provide transgender drugs, which it stopped providing last spring.

The on-campus student health center had briefly provided hormone replacement therapy (HRT) under Dr. Annamaria Kontor, who was fired last May for exceeding her authority in providing these drugs. Kontor had reportedly ignored several notices urging her to stop the practice.

“HRT is not a luxury that people just want — they need this. It’s a medication,” Natasha Amadasun, a student at the protest who identified as non-binary and transgender but does not take HRT, told the Democrat and Chronicle. Amadasun works at the Q Center, an LGBT establishment on campus.

“A lot of students come into the Q center with questions (about access) and we can’t really help them because we don’t have much information,” Amadasun, who goes by the pronoun “they,” told the paper.

Since the on-campus center no longer provides HRT, students who identify with the gender opposite their birth sex go to either Trillium Health or the University of Rochester Medical Center, both of which have long wait lists and can be difficult to access without vehicles, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.

Kenji Vann, a biological woman identifying as a man, reported on relying on parents and friends to drive him to Strong Memorial Hospital for HRT appointments. Having hormone treatments available on campus “would be so much more convenient for scheduling,” Vann said.

“Students are tired of waiting and feeling kind of invisible, especially on a campus with such a large queer presence,” Taryn Brennan, president of the LGBT group OUTspoken, which organized the protest, told the Democrat and Chronicle. The protest also complained about the policy on gender-neutral bathrooms on campus, and demanded more accessible information for LGBT students.

Perhaps ironically, RIT has a reputation for championing LGBT identities, including offering “gender-inclusive” housing.

Despite this stance, the school insisted that Dr. Kontor did not have the proper authority to provide HRT. In a letter firing Kontor, Dr. Wendy Gelbard, the college’s associate vice president of Student Health, Counseling and Wellness, wrote, “The Student Health Center’s practice prohibits prescribing hormone therapy for the purpose of gender transition.”

Gelbard later repeated that administering and monitoring HRT for the purpose of gender transition was “beyond the scope of practice of the Student Health Center.” She also wrote that Kontor had ignored several notices not to provide hormone therapy to transgender students — notices Kontor denied receiving. CONTINUE AT SITE

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

The Vanishing ‘Caravan’ You can relax about that invading horde of poor Central Americans.

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-vanishing-caravan-1522970881

President Trump can’t seem to decide if his border-control plan is a success or an imminent national crisis.

Not long ago he was touting fewer apprehensions at the Southwest border. Then he jumped on the story, from BuzzFeed and Fox News, that an immigrant “caravan” was heading from Central America through Mexico for the Rio Grande. He treated this like a Russian invasion, first saying he’d send “the military” to the border and then signing an order to deploy the National Guard.

There was no need. By Thursday the invading horde had largely dispersed before it reached even Mexico City. It isn’t clear most were even heading to the U.S. Mr. Trump conceded on Twitter that “The Caravan is largely broken up” and he credited Mexico’s “strong immigration laws,” which he usually derides.

He was also back to touting his border-control success: “Because of the Trump Administrations [sic] actions, Border crossings are at a still UNACCEPTABLE 46 year low.”

Apprehensions were down in fiscal 2017 to 310,531, the lowest since at least 2000. But they were up year over year in February and March, and our guess is that’s due to the strong U.S. economy pulling in more migrants coming for work.

This underscores the contradiction in Mr. Trump’s economic agenda. Faster growth from tax reform and deregulation means a tighter labor market that attracts more migrants. Mr. Trump would be wise to trade border security for reform that allows more legal immigration to meet the economy’s needs. Then he wouldn’t have to pull stunts like hyping a band of poor migrants as an invading army.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s Pruitt Test The President needs to show some loyalty to his leading reformer.

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-pruitt-test-1522970943

Donald Trump demands loyalty up the chain of command, but loyalty down has been another matter. The latest test of loyalty down will be whether Mr. Trump stands behind Scott Pruitt as Washington’s green political machine tries to oust the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator for supposedly grave ethics offenses.

Mr. Pruitt’s real sin is that he is one of Mr. Trump’s most aggressive reformers, taking on green idols that others would bow before. In a year he has rescinded the waters of the U.S. rule that sought to regulate every pond in America; proposed to repeal the Clean Power Plan rule that sought to put coal out of business; urged the President to withdraw from the Paris climate pact; made a priority of cleaning up genuine pollution problems like Superfund sites; and this week began revising the destructive Obama-era fuel-economy standards.

If there has been a more consequential cabinet official, we haven’t seen him.

All of this has made Mr. Pruitt a target of the ruling iron triangle of bureaucrats, interest groups and the press. They’re creating smoke about his spending and ethics to get him fired because he is a political liability, as if they care about Mr. Trump’s liabilities.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

5 Things to Watch in the March Jobs Report The unemployment rate could reach a new low, but the pace of hiring is expected to coolBy Eric Morath

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2018/04/05/5-things-to-watch-in-the-march-jobs-report-4/

The Labor Department releases its broadest look at the U.S. job market for March on Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect employers added 178,000 jobs during the month and see the unemployment rate ticking down to 4.0%. Here are five things to watch in the report.

1. A fresh low

Economists project the jobless rate will fall to 4% for the first time since 2000. (They expected it to happen in February, too, but the rate held at 4.1% for the fifth straight month.) An unemployment rate of 4% or less is extremely rare in the past 70 years of modern record-keeping. It has only occurred in the immediate aftermath of World War II, again when young men were being drafted into wars in Korea and Vietnam, and briefly at the end of the 1990s tech boom. The question, if the rate falls, is can a pattern be maintained for several years? Or is it a sign the economy is starting to overheat?

2. Still-hot hiring?

Employers added 313,000 workers to payrolls in February, the best month for hiring since July 2016. Despite a low unemployment rate suggesting a shortage of available workers, employers are hiring at a faster rate–adding more than 200,000 workers in four of the prior five months. Watch to see if employers can maintain that pace, even as economists project hiring to slow.

MEDIA Comments turned off

The New York Times’ Dangerous Missile Defense Delusion Andrew Harrod

Posted By on April 6th, 2018

“Missile defense needs to be part of the United States’ strategy” against North Korean nuclear threats, conceded even a February 11 New York Times editorial in an incoherent anti-missile defense rant. Yet the Times still derided vital missile defense efforts like Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), a continuation of the leftist Gray Lady’s longstanding dangerous folly of opposition to protecting America’s homeland from nuclear attack.

The Times probably would have preferred that President Donald Trump had kept his initial Fiscal Year 2018 budget request with the missile defense spending levels of his predecessor, Barack Obama. However, growing North Korean nuclear threats prompted Trump and legislators to add $368 million to missile defense, reflecting a growing missile defense commitment noted on March 7 before Congress by undersecretary of defense John C. Rood. The Alaska- and California-based GMD is central to these missile defense efforts. As the Center for Security and International Studies (CSIS) notes, GMD “is currently the only U.S. missile defense system devoted to defending the U.S. homeland from long-range ballistic missile attacks.”

Nonetheless, the Times simply repeated decades-old sophistries about missile defense’s futility, something that “will never provide a foolproof, comprehensive shield against a nuclear adversary.” “After more than 30 years of research and more than $200 billion, the nation’s ballistic missile defense program remains riddled with flaws, even as the threat from North Korean missiles escalates,” the Times wrote. The Times cited a 2016 Pentagon report that supposedly “faulted” missile defenses (it actually describes GMD’s “limited capability to defend the U.S. Homeland”).