Thursday roundup

Cliff May of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies on the outcomes of recent elections in Turkey and Pakistan.

Turkey:

In Turkey, votes cast in June gave President Recep Tayyip Erdogan powers he has long coveted. He is now, effectively, head of state and government, the military and the judiciary. For quite some time now, he also has been censoring the media, instructing private industry and filling his jails with enemies and dissidents.

Brick by brick, he is dismantling the legacy of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, who founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923 following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and whose goal was the creation of a modern and secular nation-state.

Mr. Erdogan is increasingly allying with anti-American autocrats, in particular Russian President Vladimir Putin, notwithstanding Turkey’s membership in NATO, and the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran, whom he has helped evade sanctions.

Adding insult to injury, Mr. Erdogan has been holding an American citizen hostage. Andrew Brunson, pastor of a small Christian church, has been accused of “Christianization using religious beliefs and sectarian differences to divide and separate the Turkish people.”

What the Turkish president apparently wants is to trade Pastor Brunson for Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, a political rival living in exile in the U.S. The fact that Mr. Gülen appears to have broken no laws is just one reason it would be awkward for American authorities to acquiesce.

Pakistan:

Farahnaz Ispahani, a former Pakistani legislator now at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, is not alone in believing that last week’s elections were marred by “media censorship, arbitrary disqualifications of leading candidates, manipulation of political parties by intelligence services, and the mainstreaming of terrorists.”

The winner was 65-year-old former cricket star Imran Khan and the political party he founded in 1996, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Ms. Ispahani characterizes Mr. Khan as “the Pakistani equivalent of Turkey’s Erdogan.” She adds that he has “earned the military’s trust.” She is not paying him compliments.

The worldview of Mr. Khan, writes Sadandand Dhume, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, “blends the laziest leftist clichés with absurd Islamist fictions.” Mr. Khan “supports fundamentalist positions, including a cruel blasphemy law that leaves religious minorities vulnerable to lynch mobs.”
Mr. Khan’s “signature economic idea,” Mr. Dhume adds, “to turn Pakistan into an Islamic welfare state, belongs in a fairy tale,” given the debilitated state of the Pakistani economy after generations of mismanagement and corruption.

During the campaign, Mr. Khan said: “Pakistan must detach itself from American influence and pull out of the ‘war on terror’ in order to create prosperity and achieve regional peace.” 

Excellent piece by Steve Berman at The Resurgent entitled "It's Difficult to Be  Conservative in a World That Worships Personality."

Contrary to everyone's perception, people like (and I'm naming names) Jonah Goldberg, David French, Caleb Howe, and Erick Erickson are not rich. Yes, they do okay--as white collar workers in their educational and skills bracket. David and Erick are lawyers. Jonah is a policy pundit raised in a family steeped in punditry and weened on obscure dictionaries and Strunk & White. But none of them are wealthy like the Kochs or the Trumps (the Kochs could buy and sell all the Trumps and not miss dinner, by the way).

In a world where people follow other people, it's difficult to be a true believer in conservative values.

There are two misconceptions that feed the public's ignorance here. First, the differences between media entertainment, journalism, advocacy, and political philosophy. These lines have been so blurred as to be nonexistent. When CNN can trot out a high school graduate with wet ink on his diploma to talk about 3D gun printing, we have lost all control of what would be referred to as "lanes."

When the president gets crowds to boo CNN, he's out of his lane. Way out of it.

The second misconception is that somehow, there's a lot of money in conservative causes, because people like the Kochs have a lot of money. Totally untrue.

And he articulates exactly the raison d'être for LITD (although he obviously doesn't know that):

 It doesn't make anyone rich.

But it's worth holding the torch. Values matter more than personality. Being civil matters more than "owning the libs." Compassion matters more than security. Earning and worth matters more than equality of outcome. Charity matters more than winning. And truth matters more than feelings, to borrow a phrase from Ben Shapiro (who isn't particularly rich).

We live in a world of pussy-hat vs. MAGA hat, CNN vs. Fox, Marvel vs. DC. Everyone finds it easy to be a follower, and to demonize those on the other side. Conservatism includes everyone, because it's based on tried and tested truths of human history, experience, and our nature.

Sadly, people won't pay much for truth these days. So we soldier on in our day jobs and write when we can. 

Today's flying-pigs moment: a leftist with a bit of sense:

A self-described liberal, feminist attorney named Lisa Blatt has written a piece for Politico in which she argues that Judge Kavanaugh is a “superstar” who deserves to be confirmed to the Supreme Court despite her political differences with him. Blatt says she expects blowback for publicly backing Kavanaugh but believes there’s no real doubt he’s qualified:

I have argued 35 cases before the Supreme Court, more than any other woman. I worked in the Solicitor General’s Office for 13 years during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. Because I am a liberal Democrat and feminist, I expect my friends on the left will criticize me for speaking up for Kavanaugh. But we all benefit from having smart, qualified and engaged judges on our highest court, regardless of the administration that nominates them…

Unless the Democrats want to stand on the principle of an eye-for-an-eye—and I don’t think they should—folks should stop pretending that Kavanaugh or his record is the issue. He is supremely qualified. Although this fact is distressing, Republicans control both the White House and Senate. In comparable circumstances, when President Barack Obama was in office, our party appointed two Justices to the Supreme Court…

Democrats should quit attacking Kavanaugh—full stop. It is unbecoming to block him simply because they want to, and they risk alienating intelligent people who see the obvious: He is the most qualified conservative for the job.

Blatt specifically says she’s concerned about the future of Roe v. Wade and yet she believes any decision Kavanaugh would make would be one made based on legal principles, not politics. Meanwhile, she’s all but saying that Chuck Schumer is doing exactly the opposite, i.e. he and other Democrats are pretending there might be some legitimate reason to block Kavanaugh when they already know he’s qualified.

The new HHS rule has provided Dems the occasion for hanging out their "we hate economic freedom" banner:

On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services issued rules allowing people to buy "short term" insurance policies that last 12 months. These short-term plans don't have to comply with ObamaCare's massive array of rate regulations. They can charge the sick more than the healthy, and can deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. They also don't have to comply with ObamaCare's costly benefit mandates.

But those who buy these plans will pay far lower premiums, will often have access to a much wider network or providers, and can renew the plans for three years without having their rates change because of health issues that crop up after initially enrolling.

For millions of Americans who've been priced out of insurance because of ObamaCare, this opens the door to their getting some form of affordable health insurance. Obama tried to kill off the short-term insurance market entirely by limiting the plans to just three months.

As Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar explained: "These plans aren't for everyone, but they can provide a much more affordable option for millions of the forgotten men and women left out by the current system."

Or as HealthPocket and Agile Health Insurance CEO Bruce Telkamp put it, "one-year short-term plans will bring immediate relief to consumers needing low premiums and unrestricted provider network coverage so they will not join the ranks of the uninsured."

To Democrats, however, this choice shouldn't be available at all. They say that letting people buy skimpy short-term plans will result in fewer people buying ObamaCare-approved insurance. That, they say, will lead to higher premiums for ObamaCare plans.

This is poppycock. ObamaCare premiums have been spiraling upward from the get-go, even after Obama tried to kill the short-term market.
What's more, this year's premium increases are coming in lower than many expected, and in some cases much lower than in previous years.

The leftist Center for American Progress predicted that 2019 premiums for a "benchmark" ObamaCare plan in Colorado would be 27% higher than 2018 because of Trump's "sabotage" efforts. But rate requests from insurers have averaged under 6%, according to the state insurance commissioner, who called it the "smallest increase in years."

CAP claimed premiums would shoot up 20% in Michigan because of ObamaCare "sabotage." The average rate increase requested by insurers in that state for 2019: 1.4%. Compare that with last year's increase — before any "sabotage" took place — of 26.8%. And the year before that — when Obama was still president — the average hike in ObamaCare premiums in Michigan was 16.7%.

The truth — which Democrats will never admit — is that ObamaCare was failing long before President Donald Trump took the keys to the White House. It was failing because it was a horribly designed, centrally planned health care system built on regulations that had already failed in various states that previously experimented with them. 

I first saw this discussed last night on television, and my immediate thought was, in a normal-people world, these plans, which a lot of people are going to find very attractive, would be the kind of thing that truly competitive insurance companies would be selling a lot of.

 Pope Francis has exceeded his authority with his statement on the death penalty.