Tuesday roundup

Check out Charles C.W. Cooke's "David Hogg is Fair Game for Critics" at National Review.  Hogg insists on being dealt with as an engaged citizen, so it's a gesture of respect to point out the falsehoods and horrid premises in what he's been saying.

At LITD, we sometimes look at US military under preparedness. It's nothing compared to the state of Germany's defense apparatus.  95 operable tanks. Less than 200 Armored Personnel Carriers. Roughly 40 operable jets. One submarine.

Helen Raleigh at The Federalist says that the accurate view of China's Xi is as a dictator.

Camile Paglia, writing at the Hollywood Reporter, says that classic movies appear to be the only possible cure for the "endless, bitter rancor [that] lies ahead" between the sexes in the stark post-American landscape.

A Catholic backlash to Norma Shearer’s free love frolics and Mae West’s wicked double entendres finally forced strict compliance with the infamous studio production code in 1934. But ironically, those censorious rules launched Hollywood’s supreme era, when sex had to be conveyed by suggestion and innuendo, swept by thrilling surges of romantic music.

The witty, stylish, emancipated women of 1930s and ’40s movies liked and admired men and did not denigrate them. Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Lena Horne, Rosalind Russell and Ingrid Bergman had it all together onscreen in ways that make today’s sermonizing women stars seem taut and strident. In the 1950s and ’60s, austere European art films attained a stunning sexual sophistication via magnetic stars like Jeanne Moreau, Delphine Seyrig and Catherine Deneuve.

John Ellis at PJ Media on "Tiffany" the "female Brazilian pro volleyball player:

Popular blogger and YouTube personality Joffre the Giant recently brought to my attention an example of how transgenderism continues to make a mockery of women's sports. This time, the charade is playing out in Joffre's native country of Brazil. A man named "Tiffany" Abreu is currently dominating and setting records in women's pro-volleyball in the South American country.

In a YouTube video, Joffre the Giant entertainingly and thoughtfully details the mess currently embroiling Brazilian women's volleyball. According to the video, "Tiffany" spent years playing at the lowest levels of men's club volleyball, eventually landing on a tier three club team, the lowest level, in Belgium.

The endgame here, according to Joffre, is the "death knell of women's sports." What say, you feminists of the world?

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has downgraded Jared Kushner's security clearance. 

Oakland's mayor needs to be arrested yet this morning

There's nothing nuanced about this. She is a criminal.

She was warning them of “credible information” she had received, indicating that the next big ICE sweep would be targeting illegals in her city. She was not seeking to induce any sort of “panic” there, mind you. She just wanted to keep people safe. (Fox News)

The mayor of a sanctuary city in California issued a warning that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could be conducting a raid in the area as soon as Sunday — ratcheting up tension with the feds while giving her constituents an early heads-up.

Libby Schaaf, the Democratic mayor of Oakland, shared the warning — which she said she “learned from multiple credible sources” — in a press release on Saturday, “not to panic our residents but to protect them,” Fox 2 reported.

The mayor said she didn’t know further details of the ICE operation, but claimed she felt it was her “duty and moral obligation as Mayor to give those families fair warning when that threat appears imminent.”

Here’s the thing. When you’re an elected official and you warn people about a flu epidemic, a wildfire approaching the city or a water main break, you’re responsibly protecting your residents. When you warn a criminal that law enforcement is coming for them you’re engaged in something known as “harboring.” (Specifically, to clandestinely shelter, succor, and protect improperly admitted Aliens.)

Is this some sort of general guideline or suggestion? No. It’s actually embedded in federal law and has been for as long as anyone reading this has been alive.

Do not permit yourself to become inured to this sort of thing. This is an instance where speaking plainly is urgently needed.

What's involved in taking China's agenda sufficiently seriously?

Two pieces I've come across so far this morning have me thinking about China.

One is a report in the Japan Times that the Communist Party's Central Committee has taken it upon itself to amend the Chinese constitution to scape term limits for president, allowing Xi Jinping to presumably stay in office indefinitely. It's pretty clear he is now the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao.

Xi, as the son of a famed Communist Party veteran, is known as a “princeling.” He rose through the ranks to the position of Shanghai’s party leader in 2007 before being promoted the same year to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee. A year later, in a sign that he would succeed then-leader Hu Jintao, he was tapped to be vice president.

Since his elevation to the presidency in 2012, Xi has overseen a wide-ranging crackdown on corruption that has helped him eliminate rivals and consolidate his grip on power.

As commander in chief of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Xi has also been at the helm of a military modernization campaign that poured cash into the country’s defense budgets while streamlining its forces.

He has also moved to shore up his legacy, last year taking on the mantle of “core” of the party leadership, elevating him above his predecessors to a position reminiscent of communist China’s founder, Mao Zedong.

Granted, the article goes on to cite a Rand Corp. scholar who says that such a cult-of-personality concentration of power actually indicates structural party weakness.

But consider the agenda that has culminated its cohesion in recent years, as outlined by Hal Brands at The National Interest:  

Beijing has never been willing to alter what it perceives to be its most crucial national-security interests to suit Washington’s concept of global order; witness the unending, and continually unavailing, U.S. efforts to obtain the desired level of Chinese cooperation in pressuring North Korea over its nuclear weapons and missile programs. Worse still, China does not seem to have moderated its behavior, or fundamentally bought into the U.S.-led international system, as it has grown more powerful. If anything, its expansionist tendencies in the South China Sea and East China Sea; its efforts to bully neighbors along its maritime and territorial peripheries; its increasingly frequent resorts to diplomatic, economic and paramilitary coercion; its harassment of U.S. military aircraft and vessels in international waters; its ongoing military buildup; and many other actions tell a different story. Such behavior, Aaron Friedberg observes, compels us “to re-examine the pleasing assumption that the country is fast on its way to becoming a status quo power.” Even where China has benefited from the existing system, in fact, it has frequently declined to play by the rules. Xi Jinping may be a rhetorical champion of free trade and globalization, but Chinese economic policies often tend toward the protectionist and mercantilist.

When Chinese commentators speak of “Asia for Asians,” when Chinese leaders demand that its neighbors show greater deference to Chinese prerogatives, when China continually seeks to undermine U.S. alliances and partnerships in the Asia-Pacific, one thinks not of a “responsible stakeholder” but of a proud and ambitious nation determined to bend the system to its liking. Nothing could be more normal; this is how rising powers usually behave. And so, as China’s power continues to grow relative to America’s, one should only expect Beijing to become less, rather than more, accommodating. U.S. leaders should certainly continue to engage China on issues where cooperation is possible. But the idea that China will simply accept the international order that America designed is an illusion that must be punctured.

Again, I think about the economic-development aims of the city in which I live. The world's premier diesel-engine maker is headquartered here. It has several plants in, and joint ventures with, China. Various high-tech spinoff companies are similarly involved with China. A team composed of city government officials and representatives of these companies, as well as Chamber of Commerce types, goes there for an annual junket. Local business journalism is one of my main beats as a writers, and I still have not found a way to crack the nut of getting anyone to candidly discuss the context in which all this activity takes place.

I'm going to keep trying. I'm intensely curious about the extent to which such considerations affect plans for further partnerships.

I'm no isolationist, nor am I a protectionist. But what is needed to ensure that economic benefits to our area aren't outweighed by wittingly or unwittingly abetting Chinese strategic advantage?

The question of government and the burden of proof

I'm big on what's-really-at-stake-level inquiries into the meanings of particular events that come onto our radar screen.

That assumes a high degree of importance in the matter of the Florida mass shooting and the renewed picking of the gun-policy scab in its aftermath.

Jenna Ellis, a constitutional law attorney and professor at Colorado Christian University, gets to the heart of the matter in an essay at The Federalist:

Fundamentally, this is about the government’s responsibility to prove I have committed a crime before taking away my rights. Let me explain.

The Second Amendment must be read in context of the entire law and the acknowledgement in the Declaration of Independence that our rights are pre-political, that our rights predate the Constitution and are therefore not grantedby government as mere privileges bestowed upon worthy individuals who satisfy some kind of government standard.

Our government does not have rights. Our government has limited powers carefully and specifically granted through the Constitution for the sole purpose of preserving and protecting all of the rights of the individual. What can the government constitutionally presume about me if I want to to own a firearm? Whose burden is it to show that I should or should not be able to possess a firearm?

This is why the whole Constitution matters and it matters in relation to the Declaration. Because your and my rights are pre-political. The government bears the burden of proving why I am an unfit gun owner, or an unfit parent, or have committed a criminal act, or any other accusation bearing legal consequences when my rights are at stake.

The government must presume that I am a fully fit citizen, meaning in legal terms that none of my rights can legally or properly be infringed upon unless and until the government shows proof by a legal standard that I have acted in some way contrary to the law and the sanction for my actions can result in the government denying certain rights, such as taking away liberty through imprisonment. The government cannot presume that I am going to act in an illegal manner just because my neighbor, my relative, or a 19-year-old in Parkland, Florida acted in an illegal manner. 

We care about how our government is allowed to treat us based on someone else’sactions. Each and every one of us has a right to be presumed competent, fit, and innocent. This is the heart of the matter for conservatives.

Even if the Second Amendment were to be repealed tomorrow, as some have suggested and called for, nothing about my legal status as a law abiding citizen would change. The government would not be able to change its legal presumption toward me and assume that I am a criminal before I commit criminal acts.

Once the government can shift the burden and make me prove my fitness and competency, then my government is treating me like a presumptive criminal. This isn’t problematic only when applied to arms ownership. It’s also problematic when applied to parental fitness, exercising religious freedom, speech, school choice options, economic choices, and any other legitimate action and choice that I as an American citizen am free and have the liberty to choose to do.

None of these rights or any others of the individual are severable from their status as unalienable or transformative by government whim into mere privileges. This is what conservatives mean by protecting liberty. We are preserving freedom from the government presuming we do not have legitimate free choice, without the government presuming without cause we are all criminals. 

Liberty means the government does not have authority to punish me before I have chosen to act contrary to law. The government does have legitimate authority to criminalize some conduct, but must prove that I have committed that criminal act before it may punish me.

Even in the midst of heartbreaking, terrible, atrocious tragedies, we cannot allow the government to remove our individual presumption of innocence collectively. Crimes and illegal acts unfortunately occur every day. So do wrongful prosecutions.

Just because my neighbor might have have committed domestic violence, doesn’t mean I should have to prove to the government I am not an abuser before I enter into a romantic relationship. Just because my neighbor might have committed child abuse, doesn’t mean I should have to prove to the government I am fit to parent before  I am allowed to have children.

In short government ought to have to puke all over itself to justify making that first encroachment on any individual's sovereignty.

The Very Stable Genius clearly doesn't understand free markets

Taylor Millard at Hot Air has a dismaying bit of news for us: Trump wants to slap 24 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. Not only would this raise the cost of innumerable goods, both of the end-use-consumer and industrial-supply-chain variety, but it would spark a trade war.

Indeed, some countries, including allies whose support we n need on a variety of fronts, are already expressing unhappiness:

So let me get this straight: the U.S. has to start subsidizing the steel industry because other countries are doing it. This logic is so antithetical to what an actual free market means, letting consumers decide which products they want to buy, which probably means the cheapest product out there. If a foreign company is offering goods at a lower price than a U.S. company, then the buyer will go for the lower price. A tax on foreign steel (yes, tariffs are taxes) will force buyers to pay more on steel and aluminum, especially if U.S. steel producers don’t lower their prices. One thing National Review’s Jibran Khan noted is how the expected tariff will hurt businesses, more than help (emphasis mine).

The move has sparked backlash from governments and businessmen across the world, including many American allies. The president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, threatens to complain to the World Trade Commission if the Trump administration imposes steel protectionism, and he has suggested expanding exports to Russia and Southeast Asia given the uncertainty of the U.S. market. Earlier this week the news emerged that the European Union is ready to respond to the Trump plan with tariffs on American products. It ought to embarrass Republicans that a GOP administration is proving less friendly to international trade than are some formerly Communist states.

Nice work, Mr. President.

Please, next time, let's select someone as president who actually does some thinking.

Trudeau in India

Three good takes on the Canadian Prime Minister's visit.

Megan Fox at PJ Media asks how, say, Ivanka Trump would be received if she not only deplaned in, but tromped around the country in brightly colored faux-ceremonial getups and clasped her hands prayer-like for every photo op.

A member of Trudeau's entourage has caught the attention of David Krayden at The Daily Caller:

. . .  the presence of Jaspal Atwal on the trip continues to generate outrage from the Conservative opposition, international attention and excuses from the Liberal government.

Atwal, who was convicted of attempted murder while a member of a Sikh terrorst organization, accompanied Trudeau and his retinue on the official trip to India this week. Atwal had attended two receptions and was slated to dine with the Trudeau at the Canadian embassy in Delhi Thursday night before news of Atwal’s past hit Canadian and international media.

One of Trudeau’s Liberal Members of Parliament (MP) has proclaimed a mea culpa in the incident. Randeep Sarai issued a statement following the media firestorm: “I alone facilitated his request to attend this important event. I should have exercised better judgment, and I take full responsibility for my actions.”
Trudeau promised Friday that he would “having a conversation with that MP in Canada next week.”

However, the Prime Miniser’s office was also presenting another narrative for the diplomatic blunder Friday morning. In a background briefing,  a senior government official spoke, on the condition of anonymity to reporters, saying Atwal was invited because of “rogue elements” in the Indian government who view Canada with distrust because they believe the Trudeau government is sympathetic towards Sikh separatists.

The official opposition Conservatives are buying none of this, asking how a convicted terrorist and would-be assassin could not be spotted by a routine security check.

Ontario MP and foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole told The Daily Caller that the incident is symptomatic of Trudeau’s diplomatic insouciance.

“This shows incredibly poor judgment by the prime minister and is a major setback to our relationship with  India and reputation around the world,” O’Toole said.

Mark Giller at The Resurgent reposts a number of reactions from Indians.

I guess this is the kind of thing to be expected from a guy who mansplains the use of the term "mankind" to a woman, admonishing her to instead use "peoplekind" in an irony-laden exchange earlier this month, who is adamantly and outspokenly pro-fetal murder, and who, upon Fidel Castro's death, called him a "remarkable leader." To be fair, he seems to understand the key role petroleum plays in human advancement, having approved two oil pipelines, but feels compelled to couch his support in terms of the kind of climate hooey that Europeans insist on hearing.

To return to the subject at hand, one wonders why he and his family didn't ditch the outfits when the social-media snickers started flooding in.

Mona Charen's courageous stand at CPAC

Over the years, CPAC has seen an increasing number of contenders for Big-Time Conservative Pow-Wow status. Red State Gatherings and Americans for Prosperity's Defending the American Dream Summits are replete with the big-name speakers, panel discussions and radio rows that are such big attractions at CPAC. Several magazines host cruises and retreats that feature big names and big ideas.

Still, CPAC's the oldest and the one that gets the most "mainstream" coverage. Since 2014, Matt Schlap has been the CEO of CPAC. His background is commendable enough - political advisor, Vice President for federal affairs at Koch Industries - but he's one of these people who became quite taken with the Very Stable Genius early on. The nature of the lineup of scheduled speakers, some later disinvited, at CPAC has skewed populist since he's been at the helm. This year the audience reveled in the presence of was subjected to the likes of David Clarke and Sebastian Gorka.

Now it's 2018, and the VSG is president and is said by his enthusiasts to have rocked the joint when he spoke. So this is a fired-up bunch of enthusiasts. 

Into that milieu waded Mona Charen of National Review and the Public Policy Center, and she had the guts to play the skunk at the garden party. She was asked, during a panel discussion, about the Left's treatment of women. Her answer didn't sit well with the Trumpists:

"I'm actually going to twist this around a bit and say that I'm disappointed in people on our side for being hypocrites about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in our party, who are sitting in the White House, who brag about their extramarital affairs, who brag about mistreating women," she said.

Declining to mention Trump by name, Charen said conservatives are guilty of "look[ing] the other way" when it comes to the president and other Republican men who have faced allegations of sexual misconduct.

"This was a party that was ready to ... endorse Roy Moore for Senate in the state of Alabama even though he was a credibly accused child molester," Charen said.

"You cannot claim that you stand for women, and put up with that," she told the crowd, as several members of the audience shouted, "Not true!"

Charen's comments were met with heavy boos inside the conference hall, and she was later spotted leaving the conference with a three-person security detail.

Earlier on in the panel, she issued a strong rebuke of Marion Le Pen, the niece of former French right-wing presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, whose own appearance at CPAC drew scrutiny from some conservatives who have accused her of enabling far-right groups with racist views.

"There was quite an interesting person who was on this stage the other day. Her name is Marion Le Pen," Charen told the crowd, suggesting Le Pen was only invited because of her surname.

"And the Le Pen name is a disgrace," she added. "Her grandfather is racist and a Nazi. She claims that she stands for him. And the fact that CPAC invited her is a disgrace," Charen said.

The parallels to the way the feelings-driven mob of adolescent public policy wannabes in Florida at CNN's town hall about guns treated Dana Loesch are striking. Inconvenient facts must not be brought up in settings ostensibly about the quest for truth, but in reality about mindless adherence to an emotionally gratifying set of presumptions.

I look forward to Charen's own observations about her experience.

Very first, tentative thoughts on the CNN Broward County town hall

Per my post about it yesterday, I genuinely and fervently prayed that this event would be constructive, open people's eyes and hearts, soften the lines of demarcation between the various camps.

So much for that.

Five years ago, we started to get alarmed that every day on US college and university campuses, the atmosphere resembled Columbia University in the spring of 1968. University of Missouri, Dartmouth, Yale. Really, one could see the way being paved even earlier. Conservative speakers were ducking thrown pies during the Bush 43 years.

Now it's filtered down to the high-school level.

Here's what Dana Loesch had to face while attempting to make her case:

Here’s her question in full:

Alright. Dana Loesch, I want to know that we will support your two children in the way that we will not — you will not. The shooter at our school obtained weapons that he used on us legally. Do you believe that it should be harder to obtain the semi-automatic and weapons — weapons, and the modifications for these weapons to make them fully automatic like bump stocks?

Showing true class, Loesch ignored Gonzalez’s smear and instead turned the other cheek by complimenting her “for standing up and speaking out.” She also firmly denounced the well-known conspiracy theories and attacks on the students (ex. Gateway Pundit) because “I don't think that anyone should deny you your voice or deny you your position because you are young.”

Loesch was booed seconds later, but — nevertheless, she persisted. 

“Now, I want to answer your question and I want to be allowed the opportunity, which is why I am here, to talk and have this discussion with you all and answer these questions. This is why I came down here. I don't believe that this insane monster should have ever been able to obtain a firearm. Ever. I do not think that he should have gotten his hands on any kind of weapon,” Loesch continued.

She added that, on behalf of the NRA, its millions of members do not believe that the gunman or anyone who was “crazy” should be able to purchase a gun.
She added that she was “fighting for my kids” and “all of you because I don't want anyone to ever be in this position again” and, to the rising boos, she correctly emphasized that it’s “not federally required for states to actually report people who are prohibited possessors, crazy people, people who are murderers” to the NICS database.

After enduring a slew of new jeers, Loesch told the NHL arena crowd to “let me answer the question”twice and “[y]ou can shout me down when I'm finished, but let me answer Emma's question.” It was here that someone shouted, “you’re a murderer” at the top of their lungs. Once again, Tapper did nothing to call out this behavior.

Loesch again showed class by not walking off stage but instead continuing to call out CNN for not covering this need to expand what’s reported to the NICS.
The “murderer” chants returned later in Loesch’s appearance while she was again attempting to seek common ground on background checks:

LOESCH: We had three lawmakers on this stage and only one of them hinted at reinforcing the background check system. It is only as good as the records submitted to it. Only one of them even got anywhere close to mentioning that. We have to have more than 38 states submit records. That's number one. 

HECKLER #1: Murderer! 

HECKLER #2: You’re a murderer!

HECKLER #3: Murderer!

LOESCH: Number two, we have to develop better protocol to follow up on red flags. This individual — this monster carrying bullets to school, carrying knifes to school, assaulting students, assaulting his parents, 39 visits in the past year. That should never have been allowed to get that far[.]

I still stand by what I said about Dinesh D'Souza's tweets. They were disqualifyingly insensitive. Their message was not even. close to being the main point at the time.

But now these kids have had the opportunity to participate in the great cultural conversation about a phenomenon that put them in genuine danger. And they handled it abysmally.

Fifty short years ago, a dean would have been on hand to yank those hecklers out of their seats by the shirt collars and scream to them, "Where did you get the idea that that is appropriate?"

Ordered liberty is the essence of the American experiment. If the "ordered" part is beyond shoring up, we're all in the kind of danger the little blank slates short on historical perspective but long on feelings at Stoneman Douglas High School were in the day the bullets were flying.

As I say, these are my initial, tentative thoughts. The above-excerpted account is all I've read so far this morning. But I wanted to weigh in before I exposed myself to a bunch of filtered lenses.

It is so very late in the day.

 

Billy Graham R.I.P.

He was the most recognizable face of evangelism in the world.

Any views he held on secular topics (some of which he later changed), any statements he made that might seem to contradict each other, were all reflections of his sincere desire to make the Lord the measure by which one decides anything. He never tired in his quest to more deeply understand what that meant.

He gained the trust of US presidents from Truman to Obama, as well as a long list of other public figures, because they knew, when talking to him, that they were in the presence of someone who, always and in all things, put Jesus first.

A finer human being this country has never produced.

Wednesday roundup

Justin Hohn, writing at Medium, has a great take on Parkland and its aftermath entitled "The Gun Control Problem That Isn't."

And while fully acknowledging the utterly boneheadedness of Dinesh D'Souza's tweet about high-school students engaging in activism in that aftermath, as I do in the post below, Michelle Malkin makes an essential point - namely, that ostensibly distinguished law professors should not be imparting some kind of readiness to fully participate in public discourse to hormone-driven adolescents. It's another case of putting feelings before reason.

Two adult men, occupying lofty perches as law professors, argued this week that the voting age in the U.S. should be lowered to 16 because some high school survivors of the Parkland, Florida, shooting who want gun control “are proving how important it is to include young people’s voices in political debate.”

That was the assertion of University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas on CNN.com. He praised some student leaders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who’ve been making the rounds on TV, shouting at President Trump, Republicans in Congress and the NRA “to demand change” — which Douglas defines obtusely as “meaningful gun control,” whatever that means.

Because these children are apparently doing a better job at broadcasting his own ineffectual political views, Douglas asserts, “we should include them more directly in our democratic process” by enfranchising them now.

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe similarly tweeted, “Teens between 14 and 18 have far better BS detectors, on average, than ‘adults’ 18 and older.” On what basis does distinguished Professor Tribe make such a claim? On a foundation of pure, steaming BS.

Undaunted, gun control advocate Tribe urged: “Wouldn’t it be great if the voting age were lowered to 16? Just a pipe dream, I know, but . . . #Children’sCrusade?”

This is unadulterated silliness. It’s hashtag hokum from a pair of pandering left-wing profs exploiting a new round of Democratic youth props. I have called this rhetorical fallacy “argumentum ad filium:” If politicians appeal to the children, it’s unassailably good and true.

This is not compassion, but abdication. America is not a juvenilocracy. It is a constitutional republic. There is a reason we don’t elect high school sophomores and juniors to public office or allow them to cast ballots. There are many, many reasons, actually.

Pubescents are fueled by hormones and dopamine and pizza and Sonic shakes. They’re fickle and fragile and fierce and forgetful. They hate you. They love you. They need you. They ignore you. They know everything. They know nothing. All in the span of 10 seconds. I know. I have two of them.

That said, I do applaud this move: The NRA is going to hold town hall with the Parkland students. It will be represented by Dana Loesch. House member from Florida Ted Deutsch and Senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio will also be there. I pray that this is as constructive as it has the potential for being. I pray that it gets emotion-driven students to consider a wider perspective. We shall see.

Remember the other day when, based on a Washington Examiner op-ed, I said that Idaho's alternative to the "A"CA seemed intriguing?  How did it come to such a different conclusion from that of Nicholas Horton at NRO? Will have to do some more digging on this one.

In the ongoing debate about whether Turkey is a good ally or not, let us remember the pastor and the NASA scientist the Ergodan regime has been holding in jail for well over a year.

Indiana is generally depicted as a red-as-red-can-be state, but something horrifyingly blue happened in its legislature yesterday. Recently, the state Senate had passed Senate Bill 65, which would have ensured that if kids in Indiana public schools are being fed the utter fiction that there are more than two genders, parents are going to be notified. Yesterday, the House Education Committee gutted it. Hop to, Hoosiers. Melt the phones.

On watching Dinesh D'Souza's self-orchestrated demise

He was a whiz kid from India who quickly became fluent in English, came onto the radar screen as a conservative activist at Dartmouth, wrote some great books, including The End of Racism and a Reagan bio, spent some time as an American Enterprise Institute scholar, and served as a college president for a while.

The first big lapse in judgement was the violation of campaign law by lining up straw donors to try to avoid exceeding the contribution limits in Wendy Long's run for a New York Senate seat in 2012. He pleaded guilty and served some time in prison.

Then came the movies. The first one was pretty good. He seemed to realize that his audience would be normal Americans who might avail themselves of some news - most likely FNC - but otherwise focused mainly on family, work and personal aspirations. He gave that audience a decent look at the philosophical underpinnings of both the Left and the Right, lining up some heavyweight scholars to bolster his case. The second one, though, went over the top with the song-and-dance scene. D'Souza, seated behind a grand piano, starts into a ditty not unlike something one would get from, say, the Capitol Steps or Mark Russell. As the song progresses, an entire orchestra appears behind him, and the atmosphere gets more circus-like from there.

His next book, The Big Lie, was an exercise in throbbing sensationalism bringing Nazis into the discussion, for crying out loud. That tribalism was creeping into his ideological framework was evident in such instances as saying, "Gorsuch is a good constitutionalist. I'm good with that. But is he a good Republican?"

Now comes his tweet in the aftermath of Lakeland. When the Florida legislature voted down an assault-weapons ban, he said of the high-schoolers who advocated for the ban, "Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs."

Thankfully, Matt Schlapp and his CPAC organizing team have dropped D'Souza from this year's roster of speakers. (Le Pen appears to still be on the schedule, but that's a discussion for another post.)

But you just know there are going to be people out there who say that the main point is that the kids who hopped on busses to go to Tallahassee and march with signs were grandstanding moral preeners.

That's a valid point, but a week out from the grisly massacre, it's far from a top-tier one.

It must be admitted that D'Souza's trajectory - from Dartmouth straight into the toilet - is a microcosm of the story of an unfortunately significant swath of what I guess can still be called the conservative movement. Laura Ingraham, with whom D'Souza attended Dartmouth, is another example. Her books got sillier and sillier, a trend culminating in Billionaire at the Barricades: The Populist Revolution from Reagan to Trump. Rush Limbaugh, whose indispensable contributions as a pioneer of real, modern conservative talk radio, has descended to the point of taking a stance of nonchalance toward the federal debt that once alarmed him. Other examples abound. The LITD archives are full of their documentation.

It stems, it seems to me, from failing to negotiate that tricky line between waging unrelenting war on a Left that most definitely is destroying Western civilization, and framing victory in that war as "our team no matter what." That, and a not insignificant dose of being fascinated by the trappings of celebrity. Getting TV and radio shows, and seeing your movies reviewed in the New Yorker, even if negatively, can make one's head swim with considerations of self-importance.

It's saddening to witness, and it's dismaying when one considers the damage it does to the effort to keep the right-of-center message in the realm of ideas and principles.

Years ago, D'Souza became a Christian. It may be time for him to revisit the teachings about humility he was surely exposed to. I doubt that there's any other way for him to recalibrate and move forward from the mess he's made.

Nikki Haley is a national treasure - today's edition

We've had Daniel Patrick Moynihan. We've had Jeane Krikpatrick, We've had John Bolton. But has any US ambassador to the UN ever put it this plainly?

Haley listed the incendiary situations in Yemen, Syria, and the strengthening of the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon; the remaining members of Islamic State, who still pose a threat; and last, the “terrorist-sponsoring regime in Iran, that initiates and encourages most of the troubles I just outlined.” She added, “These immense security and humanitarian challenges throughout the region should occupy our attention, rather than having us sit here, month after month, and use the most democratic country in the Middle East as a scapegoat for the region’s problems.”

She continued, “Israel has been forced to live under constant security threats like virtually no other country in the world. It should not have to live that way. And yet, Israel has overcome those burdens. It is a thriving country.”

Haley then turned to the Palestinians. “It is the Palestinian people who are suffering more. The Palestinians in Gaza live under Hamas terrorist oppression. I can’t even call it a government authority, as Hamas provides so little in the way of what one would normally think of as government services. The people of Gaza live in truly awful conditions, while their Hamas rulers put their resources into building terror tunnels and rockets.”

After noting that Abbas had left the room, Haley said the rest of her remarks would be directed to him, despite the fact that he had exited.

Haley ripped the infamous U.N. resolution 2334, which the Obama Administration could have vetoed in the Security Council in December 2016, but did not. She stated that while she would not go into detail, the fact that the resolution encouraged the notion that Israel could be pushed into a deal against its vital interests damaged the prospects for peace.
Haley than reached the summit, stating:

I sit here today offering the outstretched hand of the United States to the Palestinian people in the cause of peace. We are full prepared to look to a future of prosperity and coexistence. We welcome you as the leader of the Palestinian people here today. But I will decline the advice I was recently given by your top negotiator, Saab Erekat: I will not shut up. Rather, I will speak some hard truths.

The Palestinian leadership has a choice between two different paths: there is the path of absolutist demands, hateful rhetoric, and incitement to violence. That path has led, and will continue to lead, to nothing but hardship for the Palestinian people. Or there is the path of negotiation and compromise. History has shown that path to be successful for Egypt and Jordan, including the transfer of territory. That path remains open to the Palestinian leadership if only it is courageous enough to take it.

The United States knows the Palestinian leadership was very unhappy with the decision to move our embassy to Jerusalem. You don’t have to like that decision; you don’t have to praise it; you don’t even have to accept it. But know this: that decision? Will — not — change.

So once again, you must choose between two paths. You can choose to denounce the United States, reject the U.S. role in peace talks, and pursue punitive measures against Israel in international forums like the U.N. I assure you that path will get the Palestinian people exactly nowhere toward the achievement of their aspirations. Or you can choose to put aside your anger about the location of our embassy and move forward with us toward a negotiated compromise that holds great potential for improving the lives of the Palestinian people.

Haley concluded, “Our negotiators are sitting right behind me, ready to talk. But we will not chase after you. The choice, Mr. President, is yours.”

What makes her moral clarity and forthright means of expressing it so interesting is that she was an okay governor, but gave us no indication in those days that she had such an accurate inner compass. She had no previous formal background in world affairs, certainly not in Mideast affairs. She is a perfect case study in someone coming upon her calling in the course of doing what seemed fit to do at each juncture of life. If we're receptive - if we're really listening, a subject that LITD has had occasion to discuss recently - we just might get a message along the lines of, "This is what I've really been preparing for you to do."

 

Why we call them jackboots - today's edition

In a world at least a little less insane, these thugs would be out on their ears:

James Damore, the author of the widely-publicized Google memo, was interrupted during his remarks at Portland State University over the weekend. Activists planned a walk out and smashed sound equipment as they exited the event hall.

A group called the “Free Thinkers” hosted Damore, along with secular free-speech writer Helen Pluckrose and former Evergreen State College professors Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, to discuss the topic of diversity in the workplace. The panel was moderated by Peter Boghossian, an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State, who wrote the parody-style hoax academic journal entry “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct.”

Leading up to the event, Antifa made threats to the event organizers and posted flyers around campus.

“James Damore was fired from Google for going on a sexist tirade in a company memo… His misguided and anti-scientific rhetoric is not acceptable at PSU,” the flyers read in part.

But you see, the world is that insane. These goose-steppers were enabled by their own campus administrators:

College administrators also organized three counter events, totaling seven hours of programming.

Portland State spokesman Chris Broderick told Fox News that the university rejects Damore’s “ideas as sexist stereotypes.”

However, Damore mentioned during his remarks that his memo included ways to better women in tech and that failing to identify the problems only hurts the outcome of women in STEM fields.

His criticizing of the company’s internal gender diversity policies were an attempt to better diversity, not the other way around.

This did not sit well with protesters, however. A member of the audience screamed that the panel on diversity was not diverse enough.

Student organizer Andy Ngo says that he invited many professors from the women’s studies department at Portland State in hopes that they might present an opposing viewpoint, but none accepted his offer to contextualize the event. 

While it becomes increasingly hard to find something banality-free to say about these all-too-frequent stompings on free speech and thought, we must take care not to become inured.  This is a war for our civilization, and it's won or lost one such incident at a time.

A chilling new advance of our cultural rot

The Leviathan state deems it more important to indulge a child's mental illness than to respect the family unit:

Parents in Hamilton County, OH have lost their daughter. A judge has ruled that the grandparents must take custody of the girl because she wants to be a boy and the parents are not willing to embrace her mental illness as normal. Since they have refused to go along with it, the cannot be parents.

This is dangerous new legal ground. The parents do not recognize transgenderism as a legitimate issue. In fact, most Americans do not. To the extend various medical groups do, they only do so because they've been hijacked by the gender equivalent of the anti-vaccine movement.

That this is happening in the United States of America, as post-America is still officially known, signals the end of safety. As Ronald Reagan asked in October 1964, if freedom gets snuffed out here, where are those who cherish it supposed to go?

One of those author interviews that makes me want to read the book

Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review Online interviews Ulrich L. Lehner, author of God Is Not Nice: Rejecting Pop Culture Theology and Discovering the God Worth Living For. 

Some highlights:

Lopez: You write: “We may instinctively like a nice God — and even go so far as to ‘like’ him on social media. But will we make sacrifices for him and to him? Will we be willing to die for him? Will we make the effort to get out of bed early to praise his name?” Then you respond to your own question: “Probably not.” Ouch. That bad? What do we do about it?

Lehner: I think God is, for most people, just some glitter in their life, but he is not transforming them. That’s why so many are unfulfilled in their faith or abandon it. I am not excluding myself from that observation: There are plenty of times when I get carried away with my own work or this or that, but I am making an effort to come back and let his life ferment mine. It took me a long time to really appreciate Thomas à Kempis’s little book The Imitation of Christ. You can’t just read it; you must savor it and live it.

What can we do? I think the best thing is to live as if God really mattered. I have gotten to know many people, including my own relatives, who would rather go to the gym instead of Mass on Sunday but still believe they are Christian. Yet when you ask them what is specifically Christian about their lives, they can’t point to anything except a prayer they say once in a blue moon or a small donation they gave to charity.

What can we do? Live as if God matters and don’t pretend that living with God behind the wheel isn’t a struggle. Almost none of my students has ever heard this. Instead, they are taught that they shouldn’t think too much about their eternal destiny but should rather focus on their career, the next vacation, etc. They are told to focus on what is “practical” so that they can create their own meaning in life (and such created meaning is fictitious). This is preached in families, and until the families change, the Church won’t.

Remember the other day when I posted my reflections on the matter of listening for and to God? It was occasioned by Joy Behar's mockery of Mike Pence saying that Jesus talks to him, suggesting that that was a sign of mental illness. I think Lehner addresses that well:

Lopez: You write: “The journey to knowing God brings us to places we have not been, helps us notice unseen things, and opens our eyes to surprises and delights we didn’t know existed. Only the adventurer is able to see what nobody else sees — and it is this insight that we have lost when we think about God in conventional ways. And then we wonder why life doesn’t make sense — why we are so unhappy and why our existence bores us to death. Deep down, we want that challenge, that journey, that adventure.” What if such an adventure seems terrifying or impossible?

Lehner: It almost certainly will look terrifying! If you read conversion stories you frequently encounter that. Take, for instance, John Henry Newman and Robert Benson. They knew they would not enter a rosy, comfy church but would leave career and acceptance behind and enter a church where they would never really fit in. After I interviewed for my job at Marquette in 2005, I went to church at the Basilica of Saint Josaphat, and while I was praying it hit me that God wanted me there, although I did not feel comfortable about it at all; I did not want to go there and leave my homeland, but I knew it was the right thing to do. My best friend from college knew God was calling her to be a religious, so she visited a number of communities in Germany. While she was at a very strict Cistercian convent, she knew she was in the right place, although a part of her rebelled against the idea. Yet, there was also peace, despite the uproar inside.
Deep down, most of us would rather go with our own inclination than with God’s voice, and hearing the latter is a tricky thing that involves silence, listening with the ear of the heart, and discernment.

That discernment must be cultivated. Per Lehner's overall point, it's not something you get by putting in a requisition form with God and bingo! it falls in your lap. It's not like getting a Kit Kat bar out of a vending machine.

I'm coming up against this in my own life. I have some big matters regarding career and finances that I'm in close consultation with God about, and I keep running into an old sticking point that I've mentioned in some posts here. I generally put it thusly: Okay, so grace ensures that we'll spend eternity with God, the angels and all the loved ones we've known who availed themselves of grace. How does that help me with this challenging meeting I have scheduled for next Thursday? How does it help me come up with the money for a home repair I suddenly need? How does it resolve the  nuclear standoff with North Korea?

I'm starting to see - and this interview helped me see it more deeply - that maybe I'm not turning my life over to God in as all-encompassing a way as a deeper understanding is going to require. Maybe I'm still expecting a greater degree of the "God thing" to fit conveniently into the lifestyle I've crafted for myself. Maybe I'm assuming the set of concerns I've put front and center are my real issues when they're mere symptoms of areas where I still separate myself from Him.

Wow. Where do I get the courage to eliminate that separation? What is going to look different about the way I spend the minutes and hours of my days?

I guess one starts with the present moment. Do I pray, right now, about this, or do I email that certain someone whose correspondence with me I just remembered? Remember some household chore I'd better dash upstairs and take care of?

It's said that you can tell what's really important to a person by looking at what he's doing.

It's time to treat this relationship with God like the life-and-death matter it is.

Resolve to do so is a great way to kick off the week. Keeping that resolve front and center by Wednesday afternoon will require something new to me. It will require a certain kind of dying to myself. A sense of adventure, as Lehner puts it. Trust, at a level I've never before even contemplated.

Here we go.

Rex Tillerson's recent remarks about Hezbollah are deeply disturbing

This is close to just plain nuts. It runs counter to any attempt to present a unified face of anti-Iran policy on the part of the current administration:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in remarks during a trip through the Middle East this week, said the United States recognizes Hezbollah is part of the political process in Lebanon as global leaders gather to discuss the Middle Eastern country's future.

Despite the terrorist group's unhelpful influence, Tillerson said "we also have to acknowledge the reality that they also are part of the political process in Lebanon."

Tillerson's remarks raised eyebrows in Washington, D.C., where some foreign policy officials questioned how the United States would hold diplomatic discussions with Hezbollah as the Trump administration also works to dismantle the group and crush its financial networks.

I realize that any kind of broad view of how Lebanon fits into the fabric of the overall world stage must take into consideration the reverberations from its convulsive and multilayered 1975 - 1990 civil war. It is not the nation it was prior to that, with broad boulevards, fashionable social scene, bustling banking and tourism industries in its major cities, and an overall generally acceptable coexistence between its Druze, Maronite Christian, Roman Catholic, Shiite and Sunni Muslim population segments.

But to resign the US to the forcible insinuation of Hezbollah into anything that was left of that constellation of stability just doesn't fit with an overarching stance of regarding Iran as a mortal enemy. Hezbollah is Iran's proxy, and its influence in Lebanon is a key component of its Shiite crescent aims.

And it's reassuring that others at the cabinet level in the current US administration don't see it quite this way:

"Hezbollah is a terrorist organization responsible for the death of hundreds of Americans, "Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in a statement earlier this month announcing tough new sanctions on Hezbollah.

"It is also Iran's primary proxy used to undermine legitimate Arab governments across the Middle East. The administration is determined to expose and disrupt Hezbollah's networks, including those across the Middle East and West Africa, used to fund their illicit operations," Mnuchin said. "The Treasury Department will continue to sever Hezbollah from the international financial system, and we will be relentless in identifying, exposing, and dismantling Hezbollah's financial support networks globally."

Thank you, Secretary Mnuchin.

A Mideast policy wonk says it's high time for the administration to come to a coherent, consistent stance:

 Asked about the State Department's clarification, an Iran policy expert who has worked closely with the Trump administration on the issue said it shows signs that the administration is divided about how to approach the problem.

"The sad truth is the Trump administration doesn't have a coherent policy on Lebanon. The president knows what he wants, which is to aggressively roll Iran back. There are parts of the administration where people seem committed to carrying out his policy, like Treasury's sanctions division, which has been trying to sanction Hezbollah into the stone age," according to the expert.

"But then you've got the State Department, which seems committed to maintaining a role for Hezbollah, and therefore Iran, in Lebanon. It's from top to bottom. Even our ambassador in Beirut is an Obama holdover who sends along manufactured cables and papers about how Hezbollah is part of Lebanon's political process. They're barely even trying to hide it."

This needs to be straightened out fast.

Does the Vatican's acquiescence to China's Communists re: picking bishops indicate high-level institutional rot?

I've posted about this a couple of times lately, and neither of the pieces to which I've linked and commented on went this far. John Zmirak at The Stream sets niceties aside and spells out the strong odor of top-down leftism he's picking up from the Catholic Church:

s Pope Francis’ Vatican “surrendering” or “caving in” to Communist China? That’s the language many concerned Catholics are using. Pope Francis’ decision to turn against that nation’s underground church appalled them. So they try to explain it. They point to priestly naiveté. Or goofball hopes for Western-style reforms. I wonder, though. Francis and his appointees seem driven by something more. Namely by anti-American, illiberal politics. So I think it’s worth considering other words. Such as “strategic alliance.” Does that sound crazy? I wish it were. Read to the end before you decide.

The facts on the ground are clear: We’ve seen 60 years of conflict between the real, underground churches of China and the Communist front groups set up by its government to control them. Now the Vatican has announced that it’s switching sides. Believers, priests and bishops of the Catholic wing of that underground church must stand aside. They must go join the “Patriotic” church which they’ve been fighting for decades.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, who served prison terms at the hands of the Communist government, calls this capitulation. As The Wall Street Journal reported:

“You are telling them, ‘You are stupid for being loyal for so many years. Now surrender,’” Cardinal Zen said in an interview in the Hong Kong seminary he joined seven decades ago.

…

“They are appointing bad people to be the shepherds of the flocks. How can you do that?” he said in the interview, closing his eyes and shaking his fists. “You’re putting wolves before your flock, and they are going to make a massacre.”

A group of concerned Chinese Catholics issued an anguished open letter. It said, in part:

[T]he seven illicitly ordained “bishops” were not appointed by the Pope, and their moral integrity is questionable. They do not have the trust of the faithful, and have never repented publicly. If they were to be recognized as legitimate, the faithful in Greater China would be plunged into confusion and pain, and schism would be created in the Church in China. …

[W]e are deeply worried that the deal would create damages that cannot be remedied. The Communist Party in China, under the leadership of Xi Jinping, has repeatedly destroyed crosses and churches, and the Patriotic Association maintains its heavy-handed control over the Church. Religious persecution has never stopped. Xi has also made it clear that the Party will strengthen its control over religions. So there is no possibility that the Church can enjoy more freedom. In addition, the Communist Party has a long history of breaking promises. We are worried that the agreement would not only fail to guarantee the limited freedom desired by the Church, but also damage the Church’s holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity, and deal a blow to the Church’s moral power. The Church would no longer be able to have the trust of people. …

He looks at a few of Pope Francis's closest advisors, and gets the creeps.

There's Archbishop Marcelo Sorondo:

Like a gullible pilgrim to Moscow in 1936, he spoke of his visit to China in sophomoric, glowing terms. He spouted Party propaganda. And worse, as China expert and pro-life hero Steven Mosher explained at The Stream, Sorondo lauded the Chinese dictatorship for supposedly avoiding the evils leftist Catholics attribute to U.S. capitalism. He praised China for its environmental stewardship on “climate issues.” He outright said that China comes closer to “Catholic social teaching” than the United States does. Pope Francis did not contradict him.

Catholics should take that seriously. Sorondo is one of Francis’s front men on Catholic social teaching. He has told us what he thinks it amounts to. I’ve been warning for years that leftists were hijacking and distorting Catholic social thought, then trying to give their ideology the veneer of divine authority. Indeed, Sorondo once told a Vatican symposium that Francis’ opinions on climate change were as binding as the Church’s stance on abortion. Francis’ call for massive, centralized control over the world economy by global agencies? That forms part of the “ordinary magisterium,” Sorondo claimed. According to hi, Catholics cannot publicly dissent from it without sin (which is absurd).

Then there's Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga:

In 2013, another Francis protégé, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga explained Pope Francis’ inaugural document Evangelii Gaudium. It slams the free market as wicked and exploitative. Quoting Fidel Castro acolyte Jean Ziegler, Maradiaga denounced the

world dictatorship of finance capital. … The lords of financial capital wield over billions of human beings a power of life and death. Through their investment strategies, their stock market speculations, their alliances, they decide day to day who has the right to live on this planet and who is doomed to die.

In his own words, Maradiaga dismissed systems like America’s. He damned “neoliberal dictatorships that rule democracies.” He warned, “To change the system, it would be necessary to destroy the power of the new feudal lords.”

It’s not surprising that Maradiaga is peddling conspiracy theories. As Alan Dershowitz revealed, back in 2002 the cardinal denied that a clerical sex abuse crisis even existed. What did? A plot by Jews in the media to strike back at the Vatican. Why? For defending the Palestinians. So let’s revoke Spotlight‘s Oscar, okay? It was really just Zionist agitprop. 

Then there's Fr. Antonio Spadaro:

The Vatican-supervised Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica tipped its hand in 2016. It published a telling piece by close Francis associate Fr. Antonio Spadaro. In it, Spadaro denounced the Christian right in America. For what? Conspiring with certain rogue Catholic conservatives in a plot to impose a sharia-style theocracy. The proof? We oppose same sex marriage, abortion and attacks on religious liberty. Spadaro even coughed up the leftist talking point which smears American evangelicals as opponents of civil rights for black people.

Given the nature of those who have the pontiff's ear, one has to wonder if what's going on in China isn't less a matter of reluctant resignation to that regime's power and more enthusiasm for the views on economics and social organization that inform its policies.