We can be eternally grateful we didn't get John Kasich as president

There was a time when the guy was considered a solid conservative. In 2016, he obliterated that notion to smithereens - right up to the present moment:

On December 27, 2016, Ohio Governor John Kasich vetoed House Bill 554, an energy bill designed to ease state restrictions on electric utilities. Currently, power companies in Ohio must meet increasingly strict annual standards for investing in renewable energy, such as solar, wind, etc., and for helping customers reduce energy use.

Environmental special interest groups are ecstatic over Kasich’s energy bill veto. They probably especially like the part where the state tells utility companies they have to fund their own suicide by showing customers how to use less of their services or products, a bad habit government is increasingly applying across many industries. Nevertheless, Kasich justified the veto by claiming it would have weakened the state's clean-energy standards, which in turn would have hurt the state’s near and long-term economic competitiveness.

The energy bill veto was joined by Kasich’s veto of Senate Bill 329, a bill that would have set up a process for lawmakers to regularly review certain state agencies for possible elimination. Kasich said Senate Bill 329 needlessly duplicates an aspect of the budget process.

When governments promote “clean” or “renewable” energy bills, you get neither the economic competitiveness of a free market or smaller government. And simply relying on the budget process to rein in government has little basis in history. Thus, Kasich’s reasoning for his vetoes falls under Orwellian logic, somewhere along the lines of “Ignorance is Strength.”

There's nothing surprising about this now, given his pronouncements about Medicaid expansion ("I'm sure when I get to the pearly gates they're gonna be less interested in what I did to shrink government than in what I did for my fellow man") and government coercing Christian wedding service providers to take the business of homosexual couples ("It's a done deal now. If it bothers you, say a little prayer for 'em on their way out the door.")

Jihad in our midst

The presence of jihadists in Minnesota has been noted for some time, but the area around  Washington, DC seems to be a hotbed of activity as well:

recent report issued by the Northern Virginia Regional Intelligence Center aims to instruct federal and local law enforcement officers how to spot Islamic State operatives who have otherwise blended into society and become difficult to detect.

In the report are nine arrests since 2014 of Northern Virginia residents charged with aiding ISIS through distributing propaganda, communications, traveling to Syria, and preparing for jihad, as The Washington Times report.

As is noted, Minnesota is the typical focal point as the terrorist hotbed in the United States. Many Somalis living there have been arrested by the FBI for making travel plans to join ISIS in Syria. However, it’s the ISIS sympathizers living near Washington D.C., as it turns out, who are prone to carrying out attacks on American soil.

The intelligence report revealed that the threat is among us and will be barely noticeable because of how “normal” they will appear:

Of the nine Northern Virginians who were arrested, all but one were in their teens and early 20s. They included a police officer, a Starbucks barista, Army soldiers, bankers and a cabdriver. Four of the nine graduated from Northern Virginia high schools, one with honors. Two attended Northern Virginia Community College.

In other words, all of them appeared to have opportunities via public education to become successful Americans but instead were charged with what amounted to a devotion to violent jihad.

Couple this with the fact that law enforcement has to walk on eggshells to avoid accusations of racial profiling and one can see the scope of the problem. Northern Virginia resident Robert Maginnis is a retired Army officer and researcher who has noted this particular difficulty:

“Local police are in a particularly difficult situation. They face a severe challenge by Islamists operating in the shadows of our open society. These mostly young male Muslims become radicalized either by Islamist imams at some of the thousands of mosques across America, at school, or over the ever-present internet sites that spew anti-West, anti-Christian hatred.”

“Given our open society, detached parents and politically correct schools, local police in Northern Virginia understandably hesitate to rigorously pursue young Islamist wannabes," Maginnis added.

And that’s exactly how Islamic radicals want us to be: unsuspecting, sitting ducks.

The linked article lists profiles of the arrested nine.

Thursday roundup

Readers of The Atlantic offer this hour's proof that this is still post-America and that it is still late in the day:

Atlantic asked readers to submit their choices for “Worst Leader of All Time.” It was the liberal magazine’s “big question” for its January/February 2017 issue. And while tyrannical leaders like Hitler and Pol Pot appeared in some of the responses, so did George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, and those American presidents were deemed fit to print.

This was the submission by author Laurence Leamer (The Price of Justice):

I was thinking of Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, when the goofy, smiling face of President George W. Bush appeared out of nowhere. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions, was a major factor in the dismemberment of nation-states, and the tally goes on.

Then, this from TV Land co-host Bryan Safi (Throwing Shade):

Ronald Reagan. Tens of thousands of gay men were wiped off the map simply because he refused to speak, much less act. What’s worse than ignoring a national health crisis while you stuff your face full of jelly beans and your wife reads her horoscope in the next room?

National Review’s David French took issue with The Atlantic’s decision to actually publish the "nonsense" some of its readers believe as in agreement:

Here’s a quick way to know if you’re unhinged. If someone asks you, “Who is the worst leader of all time?” and your response is any American president – much less presidents Reagan or Bush — you might need medication…

Why is the The Atlantic catering to this nonsense? It’s a serious journal that publishes some of the best content anywhere on the web, but it’s also susceptible to the broader trend of mainstreaming radicalism. 

Indeed, that’s one of the primary sins of the mainstream media writ large. It still produces well-reported and well-reasoned content, but in part because of its connection to fever-swamp academia and fringe Hollywood, it grants respectful hearing to incandescently idiotic ideas.

In other words, French continues: “In the age of Trump, watch for most of the Left to treat media responsibility as entirely one-sided. It’s up to conservatives to police their own, while the Left is free to unleash ‘provocative’ ideas. Fox News needs to watch itself, while The Atlantic grants a platform to extremism.”

Always love smackdowns of lefty pronouncements whose authors think they have penned the Last Word on whatever the subject is. Thus it was a delight to see Megan McArdle's refutation of Kevin Drum's assertion in Mother Jones that the problem with the "A"CA is that the Freedom-Haters didn't go bold enough on funding it.

Speaking of gummint spending, this one is pretty funny. It echoes Margaret Thatcher's famous quote about other people's money. Former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg spent $20 million of his own money to get an initiative about background checks for gun sales on the ballot in Nevada. And it passed! One little hang-up: the FBI, a federal entity as its name implies says, "we're not putting up the money to make it happen."

Putin and Erdogan spoke by phone to finalize details of a ceasefire in Syria. The respective countries over which they preside, Russia and Turkey, have decidedly different interests in Syria's civil war, with Turkey being preoccupied with keeping the Kurds from amassing more political power, and Russia seeking to strengthen its axis with Assad and Iran. Three noteworthy points: one, given the splintered nature of the forces opposed to Assad, who will represent the "opposition" in enforcing a ceasefire; two, what of those jihadist opposition groups that are not much interested in what anybody has to say, and three, once again, post-America is so sidelined as to not even be a party to what is going on.

Not sure how long it's taking you to get through this roundup, so we'll call this next item next hour's proof that this is still post-America and that it is still late in the day:

A university literally named after George Washington and located in the nation's capital just dropped its requirement for American history, for history majors. In order to graduate with a history degree from George Washington University (GW) in Washington, D.C., you do not have to study American history.

To make matters worse, the department said they made this stunning decision in order to kowtow to current trends and make history more popular. This change comes among other updates to the curriculum: history majors will no longer be required to take foreign language classes, can do an electronic capstone project instead of the traditional thesis, and will not have to study European, North American, or U.S. history.

"I think the main gain for students is that they have a great deal more flexibility than they had before, and they can adapt it to whatever their plans are for the future," Katrin Schultheiss, chair of the history department, told The GW Hatchet. "Whatever they want to do, there's a way to make the history department work for them."

In 2016, GW implemented a new funding formula, allocating money to the various departments based on the number of students enrolled in that major's classes. Each school receives $301 for every student in a class, incentivizing majors like history to offer classes that will be popular.

Indeed, enrollment in history has dropped since 2011, when there were 153 history majors. Only 72 undergraduate students majored in history in 2015, while 83 did so in 2016, the Hatchet reported.

Theodore Dalrymple at City Journal on the UK Guardian's truth-twisting headline "Far-Right Party Still Leading in Dutch Polls Despite Leader's Criminal Guilt." What Geert Wilders is "guilty" of is saying that the Netherlands should have "fewer Moroccans." In other words, his "conviction" was merely an attempt to stifle free speech.

Secretary Global-Test's final sprint toward a legacy of evil

The arrogance, the West-hatred and the ignorance of history's lessons in his speech about Israel yesterday were absolutely breathtaking.

Lots of talk about "settlement activity" (residential construction) and how Israeli politics have been given over to "right-wing extremism," but not a word about the 1967 or 1973 wars or their causes, not a word about the intifadas or the barrages of rockets into southern Israel since Israel gave Gaza to Hamas, not a a word about the maps in Palestinian classrooms on which the nation-state of Israel is absent, not a word about the town squares in Judea and Samaria named after "martyred" terrorists.

And the lecturing tone was rich indeed, particularly as manifested in the statement that if there is no two-state solution, Israel will have to decide between democracy and a Jewish identity.

Andrew McCarthy schools Global-Test on two fairly recent acts of participation by his own State Department in the crafting of documents that are predicated on nation-states being able to assume both democratic status and a religious identity:

I thought it might be interesting, then, to review the Constitution of Afghanistan, which the State Department had a major role in drafting. Here are Articles One through Three:

Article One: Afghanistan shall be an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Article Two: The sacred religion of Islam is the religion of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rituals.

Article Three: No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan.

Then there’s Article Six:

The state shall be obligated to create a prosperous and progressive society based on social justice, preservation of human dignity, protection of human rights, realization of democracy, attainment of national unity as well as equality between all peoples and tribes and balance development of all areas of the country. [Emphasis added.]

A “progressive society based on social justice” that is both Islamic and democratic? According to the State Department, no problem.

Then there is the Constitution of Iraq, the drafting of which the State Department similarly oversaw. Its preamble and first article assert that the nation is “looking with confidence to the future through a republican, federal, democratic, pluralistic system,” and that the Republic of Iraq’s “system of government is republican, representative, Parliamentary, and democratic.” There follows Article 2:

First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation:

A. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.

B. No law that contradicts the principles of democracy may be established.

C. No law that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms stipulated in this constitution may be established.

Second: This Constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights of all individuals to freedom of religious belief and practice such as Christians, Yazedis, and Mandi Sabeans.

Note that second clause carefully. It assures that Iraq will maintain its Islamic identity no matter what. It further reaffirms that, when it comes to an Islamic country, the State Department believes a country can be fiercely Muslim in character, yet be a democratic republic that respects the rights of religious minorities.

Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute lays all the areas in which the premise of Global-Test's speech is wrong, wrong, wrong:

 Intransigence: Who is holding up peace? After long and careful negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority brokered by the United States and the broader international community, Israeli leaders offered their Palestinian counterparts peace deals in 2000 and 2008. Both the late Palestinian chairman Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas rejected the offers and walked away, without offering a counter proposal. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze settlement construction upon Obama’s request, Abbas again refused for nine months to even talk to the Israelis.

Diplomacy: The Palestinian Authority was created as a result of the Oslo Accords. By walking away from that agreement, both in terms rejecting terrorism and acting unilaterally, the Palestinian Authority have done away with the foundational document which legalizes their existence. By acquiescing to unilateral Palestinian actions and revising the basis of Palestinian-Israeli peace, Kerry has shown that U.S. diplomacy and commitments can never be trusted.

Law: The West Bank and Jerusalem are technically disputed territories, rather than occupied Palestinian land. That is why the Oslo Accords called for bilateral negotiations. While Kerry talks about the “1967 lines,” he means the 1949 Armistice lines. (When complaining about Israeli resorts on the Dead Sea, Kerry appears not to realize the 1949 Armistice lines make Israel littoral to the Dead Sea). This reflects ignorance among diplomats rising to the very top. Kerry is also confused about settlements. If it is illegal to build on disputed land, then all building, be it by Israelis or Palestinians, should be treated similarly. To suggest Jews cannot live in disputed land, as Kerry does, is akin to supporting religious apartheid. Kerry’s notion of mutuality when it comes to “natural growth” is bizarre. Israel is a sovereign state. The Palestinians are not.

Demography: Underlying Kerry’s argument is that peace is necessary to keep Israel Jewish and democratic. To support this argument, Kerry appears to be relying on a false understanding of Palestinian demography. The numbers he appear to rely on are false: The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics double-counts Arabs in Jerusalem, continues to count emigrants, and regularly adjusts its counts across censuses to confirm to the Palestinian Authority’s arguments. Kerry also appears not to recognize that Israel does not occupy the Gaza Strip. And while Kerry is talking Gaza and its plight, remember how much better off it is than so many other places: Turkey, Bosnia, and Brazil, for example.

Context: Neither Obama nor Kerry are students of history. With last week’s U.N. Security Council Resolution 2234, Obama and Kerry for the first time have denied Israel’s rights to the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site. Kerry appears unaware that Jordan — which occupied the Old City of Jerusalem but whose possession was not internationally recognized — had blown up synagogues and religiously cleansed the city. What Obama and Kerry do is legitimize this.

Motivation for terrorism: Is terrorism caused by the Israel-Palestinian conflict? If so, why did the U.S. intelligence community identify Islamist ideology as motivating terrorism a year before the partition of Palestine and two years before Israel’s independence?

U.S. credibility: Everyone can see what a final agreement looks like — both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush helped negotiate it. Why can’t we impose that and just offer guarantees? Here’s the problem: It’s hard to talk about the ability of any state in the region to trust American security guarantees or red lines given Obama and Kerry’s reversal on the Syria chemical weapons red line.

We have seen, with the Most Equal Comrade's Christmas-week imposition of yet more coal-industry regs, his use of an obscure sentence in a 1953 law about offshore and outer continental shelf drilling to put large quantities of Arctic oil off-limits, and then Samantha Power's abstaining from a vote on the UN's vile condemnation of Israel, and now this speech by G-T, that this regime is on a hyper-drive damage spree in its remaining days.

These people hate America, Western civilization, human advancement and God.

Hopefully, this is as much of a top priority for the new administration as repealing the "A"CA, overturning environmental regs and appointing good judges

The necessity of squarely addressing Iran's violations of the JCPOA will become apparent sooner, not later:

The real problem with the Iran deal—despite it being loose, porous, and temporary nature—is that the Iranian government itself has no intention to abide by it. Put aside questions about Iran’s ballistic missile work—Kerry arguably conceded that against the backdrop of last-minute Iranian brinkmanship—and the refusal of Iranian officials to allow inspections of military sites, a red line international inspectors have chosen not to test.

Iran’s overproduction of heavy water is a violation that has now occurred twice. The international community has allowed Iran to sidestep the violations by exporting its excess heavy water, even if that meant U.S. taxpayers were essentially subsidizing and rewarding Iran’s illegal nuclear activity.

Now, Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, has said Iran will reduce its exports of heavy water even though there is no evidence that Iran will stop producing such large amounts of heavy water. This is worrisome, of course, because heavy water reactors can produce plutonium as a byproduct. The Iranian argument that limitson heavy water are a suggestion and not mandatory will have no traction once Kerry departs the State Department.

This means that the first Iran crisis of the Trump presidency is looming. Iran will, once again, be in violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It will now be up to Trump to determine whether he will ignore or rationalize the violation despite his campaign rhetoric or take action. If he follows the process laid out by the agreement, Russia and perhaps China will defend Iran despite the blatancy of Tehran’s violation. That leaves Trump with a choice: stand down and lose face—an action which will do as much harm to U.S. credibility as Obama’s decision not to abide by his own red lines in Syria—or punish Iran unilaterally. If the Iranian press is to be believed, the Islamic Republic has now thrown down the gauntlet and started the countdown to what may be the first diplomatic crisis of the Trump administration.

It is helpful that the agreement isn't a legally binding treaty. The US Senate didn't ratify anything.

Memo to Europe: if you're not going to experience defeat by jihadists, the first step is to heed warnings

And these were pretty recent:

A Moroccan security official says that his country's intelligence service warned Germany twice about the risk posed by Anis Amri, the radical Muslim who slaughtered 12 people at a Christmas market in Berlin earlier this month.

The official, who spoke to Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah, says that the Germans received two written warnings, one on September 19 and the other on October 1, about Amri's radical Islamic beliefs. He explains:

Correspondence from the Moroccan security agencies had a clear warning about the Tunisian man's desire to carry out a terrorist act.

The whole matter of taking heed of the real jihadist threat is one front on which the difference between the two basic world views - left and right - plays itself out. There is the desire to see the world conform to one's fondest wishes for peace and fairness, and the willingness to squarely look at just what kind of world this is and always has been.

Tuesday roundup

Lots of keystrokes are being wasted today over the death of George Michael. A full-on gush can be found at Rolling Stone, but it's really everywhere. Let me say something that applies to most of the pop stars who have died this year: Anyone who made his or her mark in any musical style that could be loosely classified as rock after about 1970 has made his impact on the basis of derivation. And spare me the argument that the Beatles basically brought Chuck Berry back to American shores through an English filter. The elements of the British Invasion acts' originality were obvious. What George Michael did was take a few compositional conventions - the propulsive, echo-laden Motown dance tune, the sultry ballad, and the funk-infused pean to sybaritic abandon - and give them "attitude," that is, a sheen of image-obsession, a fashion-layout celebration of self. And he was shooting heroin and hosting orgies right up until he died. That he is getting such reflective coverage just because he took the deep six is yet another indicator of how daunting the task of arresting our cultural rot is going to be.

Which leads me to the play Hamilton. No, I haven't seen it, but it's been made clear to me that it is basically historically accurate and actually celebrates the life of that remarkable Founding Father. But I knew something was fishy when I heard that the musical numbers were of the hip-hop genre and that those in charge of casting took one major liberty with historical accuracy: the racial identity of the story's figures.

Then there came the lead actor's diatribe after Mike Pence came to see the show. Then it came to light that said lead actor had a track record of social-media vulgarities and outrageous racial pronunciations.

Now comes this:

the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, is asking for donations to Planned Parenthood.

According to Lin-Manuel, you can enter for a chance to win a trip to see “Hamilton” by donating to the abortion giant.

Yep, if you win, we’ll fly you and a friend to all three cities next year to see all three productions AND you’ll get backstage meet-ups with the cast.

All it takes to win is a $10 donation to Planned Parenthood Federation of America. My mother, Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda Ph.D., is on the national board of directors of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the not-for-profit advocacy and nonpartisan political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and I’m urging you to make this critical donation and to go to PlannedParenthood.org to learn more about the work they’re doing.

Oh, goody. You might just win some coveted tickets, and all it takes is donating one of your Hamiltons to an organization that murders 323,000+ unborn lives per year. Gain tickets, trash your conscience.

Please read Kevin Williamson's NRO piece on the outrage being heaped upon the Whole Foods store on Columbus Circle in Manhattan for offering chopped cheese sandwiches. Cultural appropriation, doncha know:

There is, in the parts of New York City above 125th Street, something called the chopped-cheese sandwich, or, as one local calls it, the drug-dealer sandwich. As a former resident of the South Bronx who was before that a Philadelphia resident, I will let you in on a little secret: The chopped-cheese sandwich is a knock-off of the Philly cheesesteak sandwich, which is itself — how to put this gently? — garbage food. (Delicious garbage food, to be sure.) Just as Philadelphians get insanely tribal over their preferred cheesesteak vendor (the one you want is from Bella Italia in Ardmore, by the way), New Yorkers, or at least a certain subset of them, take a cultish attitude toward their chopped-cheese sandwiches. The item even shows up in rap videos as a sign of uptown authenticity.

Chopped-cheese fetishism is an extension of bodega fetishism (my local place in the Bronx was run by two very rage-y Egyptians who were always screaming at somebody on the phone in Arabic and hence was known as the “Bodega al-Qaeda”) which is itself only a sub-current of the worst and phoniest of all New York pretensions, i.e., complaining about how nice the city became once Rudy Giuliani put his boot on the neck of the squeegee man and all his little criminal friends. You hear this all the time, upscale Manhattanites who have never been so much as downwind of a mugging talking about how they miss the old days when Times Square was full of hookers and porn shops and the city was so much more “vibrant” and nobody wanted to live there.

“Vibrant” means poor and dirty and terrible, which is to say, the opposite of Whole Foods, which is expensive and clean and great. So when Whole Foods began selling its own version of the chopped-cheese sandwich — on Columbus Circle, no less, from a cart marked “1492,” for eight bucks — the culture warriors lost their damned minds. The usual noises were made: cultural appropriation, imperialism, etc., evil Corporate America selling a ghetto staple to white-bread tourists in an entirely anodyne corner of Manhattan.

But the real cultural appropriation here is being done by those black and brown critics of Whole Foods: If there is a definition of well-off white-people problems, it’s worrying about what’s for sale at Whole Foods. You think the poor and dispossessed and oppressed of this world care about whether that $25-a-pound roasted salmon is farm-raised or wild-caught? I think not. If you are close enough to a Whole Foods to get pissed about what’s in the deli case there, you are a 1-percenter, globally speaking. You have won the game of civilization, and if you aren’t happy with the state of your life, then you probably aren’t trying hard enough. 

And if you're not tired enough from peeling back the layers of cultural implication in the  above situations, there's the Drexel University professor and his tweet about white genocide. Was it a genuine call for racial obliteration? Was it satire? Do you need an aspirin?

And, in the midst of the ongoing insanity, the towering Thomas Sowell has decided to retire from column-writing. Do not miss his farewell piece:

There are words that were once common but that are seldom heard any more. The phrase “none of your business” is one of these. Today, everything seems to be the government’s business or the media’s business. And the word “risqué” would be almost impossible to explain to young people, in a world where gross vulgarity is widespread and widely accepted.

Back when I taught at UCLA, I was constantly amazed at how little so many students knew. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself from asking a student the question that had long puzzled me: “What were you doing for the last twelve years before you got here?”

Reading about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and the widespread retrogressions of Western civilization that followed, was an experience that was sobering, if not crushing. Ancient history in general lets us know how long human beings have been the way they are, and dampens giddy zeal for the latest panaceas, despite how politically correct those panaceas may be.

When I was growing up, we were taught the stories of people whose inventions and scientific discoveries had expanded the lives of millions of other people. Today, students are being taught to admire those who complain, denounce, and demand. 

Arresting the rot is going to be all the more daunting without the aid of Dr. Sowell's weekly reports on the lay of the land.

Roundup of takes on the Most Equal Comrade's shameful parting swipe at Israel

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air on the rank hypocrisy of the MEC acting like he's all concerned with the possibility of Russians trying to influence the recent US elections. His regime was overtly involved in trying to keep Benjamin Netanyahu from being re-elected Prime Minister:

The stunt at Turtle Bay is all the more self-serving, because Obama and John Kerry torpedoed any chance of working with Netanyahu. Obama has spent a lot of time and effort decrying alleged Russian influence in our election, but almost two years ago, the State Department under Obama and Kerry actively attempted to do the same thing in Israel to force Netanyahu out of office. A Senate probe concluded this summer that the State Department funneled cash through OneVoice to Victory 15, an Israeli group committed to defeating Netanyahu in the March 2o15 elections.

 It’s not as if OneVoice made a mistake. They actively worked to defeat Netanyahu, and still got State Department funding anyway:

All three of the State Department officials that the Subcommittee interviewed stated they first learned of OneVoice’s planned political activity when they read news accounts concerning its “partnership” with V15.109 The Subcommittee asked two State Department officials—a senior official with the NEA Bureau and former Consul General Ratney—what the State Department would have done if, during the grant period, OneVoice had informed State officials that it was planning to launch an anti-Netanyahu campaign to coincide with the next election. Consul General Ratney initially responded that it would have been a “red flag” and State would have stopped the grant if it had known OneVoice was making such plans during the grant period. To do otherwise would have been “crazy,” Mr. Ratney explained, given the State Department’s sensitivities about “messaging.”110 The senior official in the NEA Bureau responded that State likely would have ended the grant and the decision would have “gone up the chain, likely to the Ambassador.”111

The record is clear, however, that OneVoice did inform at least two State Department officials of its political plans, and it did so during the grant period. The Department took no action in response, although it is unclear whether the officials in receipt of the plans reviewed them. In September 2014, three months before the grant period was scheduled to end but after the final payment of U.S. funds to OneVoice Israel on August 25, 2014, Mr. Ginsberg exchanged a number of emails with Consul General Ratney, then the second-highest-ranking American diplomat in the region.112 In that exchange, Mr. Ginsberg said he was in the process of obtaining final PeaceWorks board approval of a “major strategy directed at centrist Israelis” after “quietly bouncing ideas off a lot of folks, including Martin [Indyk] in its preparation.”113 Mr. Ginsberg indicated that he did not “expect much help from the USG [United States Government] in its final phase,” but offered to share the strategy “for friendship sake.”114 Mr. Ratney responded that he would “love to take a look at the strategy.”115

The proposal sent to Mr. Ratney, “A Strategic Plan to Mobilize Centrist Israeli & Palestinian,” was the culmination of months of work and presented a “bold and definable” political option to “[l]aunch a major strategic campaign that could shift a key portion of the Israeli and Palestinian electorates in a direction that would marginalize the extremists on either side,” according to Mr. Ginsberg’s email.116 The proposal outlined the political goals of OneVoice in the next Israeli election, which was yet to be scheduled: “The [center-left] bloc has not been able to unify around a common message, a common agenda, or a strong leader. Our aim is to strengthen the bloc, rather than any one party, [and] in tandem weaken Netanyahu and his right wing parties.”117 Additionally, the proposal listed seven “Specific Israeli Tactical Objectives.”118 The second objective was clear: “Shift support within the Knesset from a Likud-centric coalition to a center left coalition through public education and grassroots mobilization initiatives.”119

The media coverage of this UN vote has almost entirely missed this particular point. They have noted Netanyahu’s defense of settlements and supposed intransigence on the peace process without ever noting that his US partner tried to push him out of office — the same partner who’s currently in high dudgeon over hostile governments attempting to do the same thing here. The purpose of this interference was to get an Israeli prime minister who would adopt Obama’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than one who represents the Israelis.
Instead, Netanyahu won a surprise victory, and Obama ended up with egg on his face. It’s difficult to see this stunt at the UN as anything more than a final, impotent, petulant tantrum. 

Andrew McCarthy at NRO on the pressure that Israel-haters have put on Israel over the years to accept their definition of its boundaries:

It is Islamist-leftist dogma that Israel’s millennia of attachment to its homeland count for nothing, and that the Jewish state owes its existence to a fit of remorse over Nazi barbarism — one of the reasons Holocaust denial is an Islamist pastime. Still, even under this skewed version of history, the occupation crowd has no case.

Israel’s foes claim that the settlements are illegitimate because Israel’s only lawful boundaries are the 1948 armistice lines. This is the so-called Green Line that was in effect right before Arab nations (including their Palestinian component, mainly in Jordan) commenced the invasion that began the 1967 Six-Day War.

I italicize “armistice lines” to highlight that the demarcations, even back in 1967, were not national boundaries. They were disputed even before the Arab war of aggression. The armistice lines merely reflect the position of Israeli and Arab forces when the cease-fire went into effect. They were not accepted as final boundaries by the affected countries. As we shall see, they could not be accepted as final boundaries by Israel. 

Nevertheless, Israel did not set out to conquer the disputed territory. The Jewish state took it fair and square when they won the defensive war against enemies that sought Israel’s destruction. Thus the unending pattern that the United States and Western European powers cravenly refuse to address: Islamic factions and nations are free to reserve the right to eradicate Israel, but Israel must pretend the aggression never happened and the continuing threat does not exist.

Regardless of how many resolutions the rabidly anti-Semitic U.N. rolls out, territorial sovereignty, like other disputed issues, will not be settled unless the parties directly affected by it, Israel and the Palestinians, arrive at an understanding. Obama, however, has schemed to impose an outcome unilaterally by rendering as illegitimate Israel’s side of the argument — which, to the contrary, is as justifiable legally as it is essential for Israel’s security.

That, alas, is Obama’s real legacy: There are no good-faith disputes with him; you either agree with him or you are an outlaw.

Jonathan Tobin at Commentary points out that the Palestinians aren't interested in a "two-state solution" in which they would just commence to run a functioning nation-state and leave Israel in peace:

The reason why a two-state solution has not been implemented to date is because the Palestinians have repeatedly refused offers of statehood even when such offers would put them in possession of almost all of the West Bank and a share of Jerusalem. The building of more homes in places even Obama admitted that Israel would keep in the event of a peace treaty is no obstacle to peace if the Palestinians wanted a state. Rather than encourage peace, this vote will merely encourage more Palestinian intransigence and their continued refusal to negotiate directly with Israel. It will also accelerate support for efforts to wage economic war on Israel via the BDS movement.

Elliott Abrams at the Weekly Standard on how this exposes the ridiculous disconnect between the attempt by the MEC's devotees to make him out to be pro-Israel and the stark reality:

Obama has done us one favor, which is to settle the long argument about his attitude toward Israel. No partisan of his, no apologetic Democrat, can henceforth say with a straight face what we've been hearing for years about him. In 2012, for example, Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times: "The only question I have when it comes to President Obama and Israel is whether he is the most pro-Israel president in history or just one of the most."

Sorry, Tom, but statements like that are now simply embarrassing. Obama has done what he could for eight years to undermine Israel's elected government, prevent its action against Iran's nuclear weapons program, and create as much daylight as possible between the United States and Israel. So when the crunch came yesterday, Israelis had to turn to Egypt to postpone a U.N. vote. Think about that: there is more trust between Israel and Egypt today than between either of them and the United States. That's the product of eight years of Obama foreign policy. Israelis can only wish American presidential terms were just four weeks shorter.

What else is the MEC going to do before January 20 to show his true colors?

 

The 2016 LITD Christmas Eve post

There was one last sticking point for me on my journey to a walk with Jesus Christ.

It wasn't overcoming the all-is-one view of God's nature that for decades made me bristle at the notion of His sovereignty and our existence on our own as His creatures. I finally was able to see that Love is necessarily relational, and involves at least two beings by definition.

It wasn't the relation between man and woman. I came to see that the broad sweep of human history makes clear the essential nature of each gender, feminism notwithstanding. It's just a fact that most leaders of empires, kingdoms and nation-states, all generals, most inventors, even most artists of note, and, for that matter, the founders of the world's great religions have been men.

It wasn't the business about bad things happening to good people. I came to understand that tornadoes, earthquakes and floods, and, for that matter, car and train wrecks, are just dramatic manifestations of the laws of physics and chemistry.

One thing about that last point, though: One has to account for situations in which one becomes a victim of evil.

And that leads us to what my final sticking point was.

To become a Christian, you have to accept the premise that the human being is sullied by sin from the get-go. Everyone is in need of grace.

And that struck me as a rigged game.  Almighty God gives us our second most precious gift, after our very lives: free will. But we are destined to use it to violate His laws, and thereby incur His wrath, and the only way out is to declare that one particular person, whose 33-year earthly existence transpired over 2,000 years ago, died to spare us that wrath.

For a long time, the primary aspect of this scenario that made me bristle was how it set God up as an absolutist. My stance was along the lines of, "I'm an alright guy. Maybe I mess up or cut little moral corners here and there, but I generally strive to be a person of virtue and good will. So off my case!"

But the more I thought about it, I wound up having to ask myself, would I really want a God that was anything less than an absolutist?

Think about it this way: Say you'd been raised by parents with impeccable standards. In your early childhood, they stressed virtuous living over and over: don't lie or steal, be generous and thoughtful, cultivate a sound mind and body. They set a great example in their own conduct. And then, suddenly, when you are, say, fourteen or fifteen, they start cutting corners, slacking morally. Not only that, but they start telling you, "Hey, don't sweat little violations. It happens. Don't let it keep you from having fun and gaining advantage in life."

Would you not lose respect swiftly and massively for such parents?

And here's the thing: God is the author of the standards those parents championed until they didn't anymore.

Any God worthy of the title is not going to set up an imperfect universe on purpose.

He could, though. He's God, after all. But, he didn't get the idea of creating it to be perfect from somewhere else. It's perfect because he decreed it that way.

Now, I'm no creationist. I agree with C.S. Lewis that the Adam and Eve story is an allegory. But what an exquisite allegory it is!

They knew nothing but perfection as they wandered that garden. Completely innocent. But God had told them one tree in the whole place was off-limits, because if you eat its fruit, you will acquire the knowledge of good and evil.

The story has its parallels, most notably the Greek myth of Pandora's box. It's the idea that curiosity morphs into temptation, and then into a willful violation of something the Most High specifically told you was verboten.

I rather think the serpent's spiel to Eve went something like this: "Oh, come on now. Do you see any difference between that tree and all the others around here? Anything different about the trunk, the leaves, the apples? Of course not. Plus, it's been a while since he has checked in with you. Aren't you the least bit curious as to whether there's really anything special about that one tree?"

Thus was planted in the human being's mind the notion that everything is ordinary, that nothing is sacred.

Which is why we're cool with the little sins we all commit daily. They don't amount to anything egregious in the overall scheme of things, we tell ourselves.

But then why is the world so broken?

Newspapers and history books exist because of sin. They are the record of what people have done to see to it that misery and chaos persist in this world. They are the story of what happens when we see the whole universe - without exception - as ordinary, lacking any sacred element.

So, in a sense, it is a rigged game, and now I'm cool with that.

Yes, we are bound to use our free will to violate God's absolute standards.

So we needed something to blow our minds, to jolt us back into an understanding that there is a sacred foundation to the created realm.

Hence Jesus.

There's a certain view of his life - the view that mainly focuses on his humanness - that could lead one to say, "He tried. He gave us sermons, parables and warnings for three years, but it brought up people's stuff, so they had to shut him up, and it required a humiliating, agonizing death."

But there's the little matter of his knowing all along how it was going to turn out. Digest that, and you can no longer see his ministry as merely trying to get us on a Godly path.

No, he was here to restore our spotlessness.

How does he do that? By extending an invitation to partake of his body and blood. By inviting us to live for Him, to be endlessly intrigued by Him, to study His words, to make room in our hearts for him.

I am now convinced it is the only hope for me and indeed for anyone who yearns to heal that brokenness - and let's knock off any attempt to intellectually deflect from it. You know you are broken and in need of His grace.

God truly doesn't accept just-alright souls into His kingdom. He insists that we be restored to - well, our factory settings, to use a modern characterization.

There is no way for that to happen unless and until we use our free will to turn and look full into His wonderful face.

God grant me the courage to overcome my inclination to kick and scream and resist.

Turn my heart of stone into one that is filled with love for Your only begotten Son.

In His name I pray.

Amen.

It was jihad

When I posted about the truck plowing into the crowd of Berlin shoppers the other day, while I knew I'd have been on solid ground calling it a jihadist attack, I held off, so as to not expose myself to that .000001 percent possibility that it was something else.

Now it can be confirmed:

Chilling footage has been released of Berlin truck terrorist Anis Amri pledging allegiance to ISIS in a video released just hours after he was gunned down in a dramatic shoot-out with Italian police.

The Tunisian, on the run for four days after murdering 12 people in a lorry attack in Berlin, rants about 'crusader' airstrikes and vows to 'slaughter infidels like pigs' in the two-minute clip, published by Islamic State's news agency Amaq.

Speaking on a bridge in the north of the city, Amri can be seen wearing a dark jacket and with headphones in his ears as he warns 'infidels' he will 'hunt them down' and pledges allegiance to ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Memo to what's left of Western civilization: you're asking for more of this if you don't rethink that multiculturalism nonsense.

Brack Obama, John Kerry and Samantha Power are moral cowards who hold Western civilization in contempt

The Most Equal Comrade has been working overtime in recent days to do as much damage to America as he can. Now it's Israel's turn:

In a stunning departure from its policy over the last eight years, the Obama administration abstained from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution Friday that demands an immediate halt to all Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, enabling the measure to pass.

Resolution 2334 was approved with 14 member states voting in favor, none voting against and one abstention — the United States. The passage of the resolution was met with applause in the packed chamber.

The text also calls on all states “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967” — language that Israel fears will lead to a surge in boycott and sanctions efforts, and that an Israeli official warned would provide “a tailwind for terror.”
Israeli minister Yuval Steinitz, speaking after the vote, said the US had “abandoned Israel, its only ally in the Middle East” and said its behavior was not that of a friend.

The Palestinian Authority hailed “a day of victory.”
Speaking at the Security Council after the vote, US Ambassador Samantha Power said the decision underlined the Council’s long-standing position that “the settlements have no legal validity.” She claimed the US position was “fully in line with the bipartisan history” of how US presidents have approached the issue for decades.

The US did not agree with every word of the resolution, she said, and therefore had not voted in favor. But “we cannot stand in the way of this resolution,” she said, in the quest for “two states living side by side in peace and security.”

“The settlement problem has gotten so much worse,” she said, that it was now endangering that solution. “One has to make a choice between settlements and separation,” she said.

Still, she stressed, peace would not be at hand were every settlement dismantled tomorrow. “We would not have let this resolution pass had it not also addressed counter-productive actions by the Palestinians,” she said, citing terrorism and incitement. She also said the vote did not diminish the United States’ unparalleled commitment to Israel’s security.

A succession of Security Council ambassadors similarly castigated settlement expansion as threatening the viability of a two-state solution.

Originally initiated by Egypt, the resolution was co-sponsored by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal, who stepped in a day after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi withdrew the measure amid pressure from Israel and President-elect Donald Trump.

Introducing the resolution, Malaysia said the move was made more urgent by Israeli moves to retroactively legalize outposts build on private Palestinian land in the West Bank.

Shortly before the vote, an Israeli official used unprecedentedly harsh language to accuse the Obama administration of scheming with the Palestinians to harm Israel with the resolution.

“The US administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel’s back which would be a tailwind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory,” the official said. (The draft resolution refers to East Jerusalem as “occupied Palestinian territory.)

Palestinian and Egyptian officials met earlier in the month with State Department officials in Washington, Channel 2 noted Friday evening, and it was in those talks, Israel believes, that plans were coordinated to push through the anti-settlements resolution. Hence the official’s reference to the US administration having “cooked up” the resolution.

“This is an abandonment of Israel which breaks decades of US policy of protecting Israel at the UN and undermines the prospects of working with the next administration of advancing peace,” the official added.

These people are determined to ruin as much as they can before relinquishing power.

 

Follow-up to Wednesday's post about the current juncture in Syria

That post quoted John Bolton as saying that the fact that the US wasn't invited to the current talks between Iran, Turkey and Russia about the Syrian situation is a "precise reflection of the serious diminution of American influence under the Obama administration."

Charles Krauthammer fleshes this out a bit more in a piece at NRO today, calling out the tried and true Leftist red herring that goes something like, "What would you have us do? Invade with a massive influx of ground troops?"

the U.S., at little risk and cost, could have declared Syria a no-fly zone, much as it did Iraqi Kurdistan for a dozen years after the Gulf War of 1991. 

The U.S. could easily have destroyed the regime’s planes and helicopters on the ground and so cratered its airfields as to make them unusable. That would have altered the strategic equation for the rest of the war.

And would have deterred the Russians from injecting their own air force — they would have had to challenge ours for air superiority. Facing no U.S. deterrent, Russia stepped in and decisively altered the balance, pounding the rebels in Aleppo to oblivion. The Russians were particularly adept at hitting hospitals and other civilian targets, leaving the rebels with the choice between annihilation and surrender.

They surrendered.

He then gets to the crux of the worldview embraced by the likes of the Most Equal Comrade that makes for a fading America on the world stage:

Obama has never appreciated that the role of a superpower in a local conflict is not necessarily to intervene on the ground, but to deter a rival global power from stepping in and altering the course of the war. That’s what we did during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Moscow threatened to send troops to support Egypt and President Nixon countered by raising America’s nuclear-alert status to Defcon 3. Russia stood down. 

Less dramatically but just as effectively, American threats of retaliation are what kept West Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan free and independent through half a century of Cold War.

It’s called deterrence. Yet Obama never had the credibility to deter anything or anyone. In the end, the world’s greatest power was reduced to bitter speeches at the U.N. “Are you truly incapable of shame?” thundered U.S. ambassador Samantha Power at the butchers of Aleppo. As if we don’t know the answer. Indeed the shame is on us for terminal naiveté, sending our secretary of state chasing the Russians to negotiate one humiliating pretend cease-fire after another.

Per the previous post, the emerging era is going to be characterized by a number of things, some of which we can foresee and some of which we can't, but it seems fairly certain that planned decline is about to be relegated to the trash heap of history.

Pointing out the venomous nature of leftist grandstanding against Trump and his family without necessarily supporting much about Trump himself

Kimberly Ross at Red State has an important post about some of the recent gestures and spewings of unhinged leftists regarding, in these recent examples, not even Trump himself, but family members and members of the administration he's forming.

She speaks for me when stating her position:

I, and many others, were #NeverTrump from the beginning. Many, including myself, believed he would lose. We were wrong.

Once President-elect Trump is inaugurated, we plan to hold him accountable. The bad decisions and shaky conservatism will be called out. The good decisions and solid leadership will be praised. This isn’t a cop-out but a logical, reasonable approach to a man who didn’t receive our votes but who will be our president. This plan of action doesn’t just apply to the guy in charge, though. It extends to those he has nominated for positions in his administration, those he has hired outright, and even his family.

She then cites as examples the JetBlue incident involving Ivanka and her kids, as well as hateful articles and hashtags about Kellyanne Conway.

Of course, other examples abound. There are the artists whose work Ivanka owns and displays in her home who are calling for her to take it down. I see that Anthony Bourdain is making a public show out of declaring that he'll never eat at the restaurant in the DC Trump hotel. Plans are underway for massive protests at the inauguration.

Here's where it gets sticky. Ironically, we who have been the #NeverTrumpers all along are actually in agreement with the leftists when it comes to matters like the conversations he's had about his sex life with the likes of Billy Bush and Howard Stern, as well as his vulgar bellowings about being very rich, having the "best words" and a "very good brain" and his basic incoherence.

What we must not stand for, however, are accusations that are not true. DJT is neither a racist nor a misogynist. His statements about illegal immigration are perfectly defensible, and there is no evidence that he views one race of human beings to be inferior to another. He is, like males in general, capable of simultaneously viewing women as sex objects and also human beings of depth and substance equal to that of men. It's patently obvious what the Left is up to in this regard: using him as a lightning rod for the perpetuation of identity-based polarization.

Why is that important? Because we are going to be very busy stressing the difference between the atmosphere of his administration and the conservative principles that will get a substantial airing in the emerging era, but are sure to also come in for distortions inherent in that atmosphere.

In short, we must not let the Left define this new era. It begins with a basic disappointment for conservatives - Trump, not Cruz, Walker, Rubio or Fiorina won - but it brims with exciting opportunities. As we repeal and replace the "Affordable" Care Act, as we reverse the insanity of the outgoing regime's energy-and-environment policies, as we abandon the Iran nuclear-program "agreement," as we lower corporate tax rates, as we shut off federal funds to sanctuary cities, as we call out the nation's universities and colleges for having become playpens for hordes of useless young "adults," we must refute, with the sharpest arguments we can craft, any notion that there is anything bigoted or nasty about what we are doing.

In a sense, the task is what it has always been, through all kinds of eras: pointing out that conservatism, whenever and to what ever degree it is tried, enhances the human condition.

Squirrel-Hair makes our task unusually challenging, but we have immutable truths on our side.

The world-stage fruits of planned decline

How far post-America has fallen from the issuing of red lines:

Serious discussions are being held over an approaching end to the bloody civil war in Syria. Russia, Turkey and Iran will be participating. The U.S., however, was not invited. 

Our exclusion, former UN Ambassador John Bolton told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, is "really remarkable" and is a result of the Obama administration's weak foreign policy, which has diminished our international clout.

"It's a sign of the times," Bolton said. "It is a precise reflection of the diminution of American influence under the Obama administration." 

The State Department, however, is insisting their absence is nothing out of the ordinary.

“It wasn’t about being kicked out of the party,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “There have always been multilateral discussions about Syria that we haven’t been a party to and this is another one. I totally understand that.” 

Kirby said the administration would welcome any better outcome in Syria – whether or not they’re part of the discussion.

The U.S., he said, is still going to be a leader in this effort. 

Well, the Most Equal Comrade told us in his last press conference as dictator of post-America that his rule has been a series of foreign-policy successes.

The Most Equal Comrade is one busy America-hater

Two posts ago, we looked at his 11th-hour decree putting Arctic oil drilling off-limits. The post right under this looks at his last-minute regs on the coal industry.

Check out who he is rushing to appoint to the US Commission on Civil Rights:

One of the appointees is Debo Adegbile, who was previously nominated to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division but was blocked by a bipartisan group of senators due to his defense of former Black Panther and convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Unlike that nomination, Adegbile’s appointment — which pro-police groups have described as a “slap in the face” — does not require congressional approval.

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey has already called on Obama to withdraw Adegbile’s nomination. 

“Mr. Adegbile did not simply defend a client. He supervised an effort to lionize unrepentant cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal, who cold-bloodedly murdered Philadelphia police officer Danny Faulkner 35 years ago,” Toomey said in a statement last week. “Mr. Adegbile supervised the effort to spread misinformation about the trial and evidence, fabricate claims of racism, malign Philly police, and organize rallies across the globe that portrayed this brutal cop-killer as the victim.

Police groups decried Adegbile’s appointment as well. John McNesby, president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, called the appointment a “kick in the teeth to the cops.”

Sam Cabral, president of the International Union of Police Associations, said Adegbile’s appointment is a “slap in the face to every law enforcement officer in this great nation.”
The other appointee is Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, who spearheaded the Obama administration’s transgender mandate currently the subject of litigation. Lhamon has close ties to left-wing activists and played a key role in the infamous Rolling Stone rape hoax.

The MEC has apparently decided to just let 'er rip for the remainder of his time gripping post-America's throat. One thing about it is that it confirms everything this blog has said about him from the outset.

More last-minute planned decline from the Most Equal Comrade

Yesterday, it was Arctic oil drilling. Today, the Advancement-Hater-in-Chief sticks it to his old nemesis the coal industry:

At the eleventh hour, the Obama administration on Monday rolled out regulations to crack down on coal mining across the country, a parting shot against the beleaguered industry as the president leaves office.

The regulations, designed to protect America’s streams and waterways from pollution produced during mining operations, will add significant costs to coal mining companies, many of which are struggling to operate.

The Interior Department estimates that it will cost the coal industry about $81 million each year to comply with the rule. The agency stressed that figure is just 0.1 percent of the coal industry’s “aggregate annual revenues.”

“We traveled the country, visited many mines and met with many of the people who work and live in coal country to make sure we wrote the best rule possible — one that is both economically achievable and protective,” said Janice Schneider, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for land and minerals management.

But critics, including leaders in the energy sector and Republicans on Capitol Hill, have said the proposal will be much more expensive and surely will lead to even more layoffs in the industry, which has been losing jobs each year during the Obama administration.
Top Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, said Monday that they intend to work with the incoming Trump administration and scrap the rule early next year.

“The Obama administration is fighting its war on coal to the bitter end. This one rule could have crushing consequences for coal miners, their families and many communities,” Mr. Ryan said in a statement. “If we are going to get America back on track, job-crushing regulations like this must stop. Our unified Republican government will act to provide coal country with relief.” 

Methinks he's going to be one busy totalitarian socialist between now and January 20.

The Most Equal Comrade makes haste while he still has his grip on post-America's throat

He intends to cement his legacy as the first US president to overtly hate human advancement:

Oh my. It’s beginning to seem as if someone could start an entire blog dedicated to nothing but the back alley maneuvers that the outgoing President is attempting in order to “cement his legacy” going forward. A better translation of that would be to say that he’s trying to plant as many landmines as possible to make any reforms intended by Donald Trump more difficult, if not impossible. Now Bloomberg is reporting that there’s a big one coming, though it hasn’t been announced by White House yet. Using a loosely worded provision from a law passed more than half a century ago, Obama is reportedly going to try to permanently ban offshore drilling and oil exploration in regions of the Arctic and off the Atlantic coast. 

President Barack Obama is preparing to block the sale of new offshore drilling rights in much of the U.S. Arctic and parts of the Atlantic, a move that could indefinitely restrict oil production there, according to two people familiar with the decision.

Obama will invoke a provision in a 1953 law that gives him wide latitude to withdraw U.S. waters from future oil and gas leasing, said the people who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been announced. Until now the law has been used sparingly to preserve coral reefs, walrus feeding grounds and marine sanctuaries.

Coming in the waning days of his administration, Obama’s move — which could come as soon as Tuesday — responds to a clamor from environmental activists who have looked for a way to lock in protections before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Related actions by Canada may be announced at the same time, the people said.

The plan is one that was hatched by drilling protesters earlier this year but didn’t gain any traction at the time. Some of their attorneys were combing through dusty old records and discovered a vague provision in the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. It deals with the procedures approved by Congress wherein the President could arrange for leases of offshore lands for energy exploration and how they would be awarded. Buried in that mountain of legalese is section 12(a) which reads as follows:

Withdrawal of unleased lands by President: The President of the United States may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the outer Continental Shelf. 

What does that mean, exactly? The lawyers who have looked at aren’t entirely sure because none of this has apparently ever been challenged in court. Up until now, the provision was only invoked to set aside small sections of the shelf for the protection of certain aquatic creatures and undersea habitats, but no president thus far has attempted to use it to shut down entire sections of the shelf from drilling.

If Barack Obama does this, couldn’t Donald Trump simply undo it with the stroke of a pen? Again.. nobody is exactly sure. 

As LITD readers of any length of time know, this blog is no fan of Squirrel-Hair, but it is hoped that he gets to work right away on this, consulting the best legal minds he can summon.

Barack Obama has been a horror for the United States of America.