Their avenues for staying relevant are getting fewer

 More people and institutions are getting it all the time.

The New York Post gets it:

You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing. To take just two examples: Your campaign paid $3 million for a recount in two Wisconsin counties, and you lost by 87 more votes. Georgia did two recounts of the state, each time affirming Biden’s win. These ballots were counted by hand, which alone debunks the claims of a Venezuelan vote-manipulating Kraken conspiracy.

Sidney Powell is a crazy person. Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.

We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost. But to continue down this road is ruinous. We offer this as a newspaper that endorsed you, that supported you: If you want to cement your influence, even set the stage for a future return, you must channel your fury into something more productive.

Stop thinking about Jan. 6. Start thinking about Jan. 5.

Louie Gohmert and Josh Hawley still don't get it.

Michael Flynn . . . well, just what is going on with that cat?

Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is going all in on the QAnon conspiracy theory, promoting an online store to sell QAnon hats and T-shirts, the proceeds of which will benefit his partnership with a prominent QAnon booster.

Flynn’s drawn-out legal battle with Special Counsel Robert Mueller turned him into a hero for QAnon believers. Many QAnon supporters, who rely on mysterious online clues to construct a worldview where the Democratic Party and other institutions are controlled by a cabal of pedophile-cannibals, claim that Flynn is “Q”, the anonymous figure behind the conspiracy theory. They also took a previously obscure Flynn quote about the American military’s “digital soldiers” as their banner, adopting the phrase to refer to QAnon believers themselves.

Flynn started to more aggressively court his QAnon fans this year, taking the “QAnon oath” in July and appearing on QAnon podcasts after receiving a pardon in November. Along the way, Flynn once again became an adviser to Trump, reportedly urging the president to impose martial law in a recent, heated Oval Office meeting.

The Very Stable Genius obviously still doesn't get it. True to form, he disseminates an utter falsehood because he can't be bothered with a simple fact check:

Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger does not have a brother named Ron who works for a Chinese tech firm, regardless of what the president of the United States says.

In a late-night tweet, President Donald Trump attacked Gov. Brian Kemp and Raffensperger for failing to overturn election results in his favor and claimed that "Brad R's brother works for China." Except, that's not true.

On Dec. 23, GPB News reported on the "Battleground" blog and on social media that Brad and Ron were not related, that Raffensperger had two sisters and no brother in debunking the claims made by the Gateway Pundit and other right-wing media outlets seeking to allege nefarious actions that somehow altered election results.

And the VSG clearly has Georgia on his mind lately. He's calling for this:

President Trump called for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) resignation on Wednesday, hammering him for refusing to back up the president’s claim that he carried Georgia in the November presidential election — despite his loss by 12,000 votes, a result that has survived multiple recounts and court challenges.

“@BrianKempGA should resign from office,” Trump tweeted. “He is an obstructionist who refuses to admit that we won Georgia, BIG! Also won the other Swing States.”

I mean, look, buddy. You're still getting paid to hold the office. It would be a damn sight better for your legacy for you to earn your keep by leading on the pandemic and the Russian cyber-attack than to whine your way into complete irrelevance. 

Are you listening to me? 

 

 

The VSG insists you notice him

 He's pulled several noteworthy stunts in the last day or so, all pursuing invariably the same object: keeping himself in the spotlight, reminding one and all that he still has official presidential power, as well as plenty of adulation from his cult, and he will not be overshadowed.

When Senator John Thune said to CNN that any attempt to get the Senate to vote to overturn election results on January 6 is DOA, he got this:

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Republicans in the Senate so quickly forget. Right now they would be down 8 seats without my backing them in the last Election. RINO John Thune, “Mitch’s boy”, should just let it play out. South Dakota doesn’t like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!

7:54 PM · Dec 22, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

I'm on record as not being too keen on the COVID relief bill that came out of Congress after weeks of tortuous attempt at bipartisan compromised, but it's a done deal. The next Congress is perfectly free to work on another one. But the general feeling among the post-American public is that it's time to get some relief to people badly impacted by the pandemic. 

So what does the VSG come along and do? Disparage the $600 direct payments. Recommend $2000. After the fact. Why the hell wasn't he chiming in on this in September if he felt that strongly about it?

It's just his feeble attempt to look like a good guy. he knows he'll still get some mileage out of having spoken up and juxtaposed himself against that stingy lower figure. That is, unless, he causes such chaos from this that it delays dragging this thing over the finish line. 

Then there are the pardons. George Papadopoulos, Duncan Hunter, Chris Collins. The whole point of those was to serve notice that there are still a lot of things he can't be stopped from doing in the next four weeks.

This is what the Trump phenomenon was always destined to devolve into. 

UPDATE: Now he's vetoed the military spending bill. All so he can whine about privately owned social media platforms being able to control what content gets published. 

The COVID relief bill has lots of silly stuff in it, and precious little actual relief

 This is what we get for waiting months and months for Capitol Hill knuckleheads to respond in real time to a pandemic that has wreaked economic havoc on the nation.

Government reacts to straightforward, elegantly simple moves the way a vampire reacts to garlic. 

What Pelosi, Mcconnell et al have come up with is 5,593 pages long. 

Here are the provisions dealing with what the damn thing is supposed to deal with:

The bill contains $600 stimulus checks for most Americans with another $600 per child, a $300 weekly unemployment supplement and $284.4 billion in forgivable small-business Paycheck Protection Program loans.

The stimulus checks are means-tested, with people earning more than $75,000 — or $150,000 per married couple filing jointly — getting less money, and people earning over $95,000 getting nothing.

It could have been considerably shorter and less expensive had they not included funds for a museum to offer programming about women, a section dealing with administering painkillers to race horses, "gender programs" in Pakistan, assistance for Tibetan refugees, new penalties for unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content, creating a commission that will educated consumers about proper storage of fuels, and $440 million for the operation, maintenance and security of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. 

Now, the two most recent posts here at LITD have had to do with how the Democrats are once again, with renewed vigor, putting climate stuff front and center among their areas of policy focus. 

That crud shows up in this behemoth plenteously: 

Chief among some of the massive bits of hot garbage that are completely unrelated to the pandemic were a raft of provisions dealing with climate change. Yes… I know. The Associated Press highlights some of these new laws that were never mentioned in public while the bill was being negotiated but were somehow crammed down everyone’s throats in the interest of looking like they were doing something about pandemic relief. 

The energy and climate provisions, supported by lawmakers from both parties, were hailed as the most significant climate change law in at least a decade.

“Republicans and Democrats are working together to protect the environment through innovation,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

“This historic agreement includes three separate pieces of legislation that will significantly reduce greenhouse gases,″ Barrasso said, citing measures that promote technologies to “capture” and store carbon dioxide produced by power and manufacturing plants; reduce diesel emissions in buses and other vehicles; and authorize a 15-year reduction of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, that are used in everything from cars to air conditioners. HFCs are considered a major driver of global warming and are being targeted worldwide.

You’re going to see the phrases “promoting technologies” and “creating jobs” quite often in that portion of the bill. The technologies in question involve carbon capture, emission reduction and replacements for the hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used as coolants in air conditioning and refrigeration systems, among other things.

You see, that’s how they like to describe such “initiatives” to put a pleasant spin on them. A better translation of those passages would be to say that taxpayer money will be shoveled into “green energy” and carbon reduction companies who will ostensibly be working to achieve those goals while (just coincidentally) making a ton of money for a small number of people. A closer look into how those people donate to political campaigns and focus their job creation on the states represented by the politicians pushing these plans will no doubt be very instructive.

Cynical wisecracks about Congress being ineffectual and out of touch go back to Mark Twain. It was a staple of Will Rogers's material. 

But this strikes me as a new level of absence of seriousness. At a juncture like our present one in post-America, is it really that difficult for our national legislators to filter out concerns other than the public-health crisis gripping the nation and address it?

Both of the elected branches of our federal government are complete embarrassments. 

 

Democrats intend to put climate alarmism front and center again

 Here's an excellent example of why our political choices this year - a Republican Party that had become a cult of personality for a charlatan, or a Democratic Party wholly given over to coercive collectivism and identity-politics militancy - were about as dismal as could be imagined.

It's also why, as unappealing as Loeffler and Perdue are, it would be far better for the nation and for human freedom if they beat Ossoff and Warnock in the Georgia runoff on January 5.

The incoming Biden administration intends to bring climate alarmism back to the fore in the national discourse. 

There are the appointments of Gina McCarthy and John "Great Reset" Kerry to "climate" posts. There are Biden's own statements.

And now comes a Washington Post op-ed by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley entitled "How Joe Biden Can Act Boldly To Address the Climate Crisis." It's behind a paywall, but the part I want excerpted is included in a National Review piece by Andrew Stuttaford:

Our ability to take on the climate crisis through legislation will be challenged by the realities of the Senate. If Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) emerges as the majority leader following the runoff elections in Georgia, no serious climate bill will ever get a hearing in committee, much less get to the Oval Office. And even if Democrats win the Senate, passing adequately ambitious legislation will be a struggle with such a razor-thin margin and the need for filibuster reform.

But we cannot wait. We need bold executive action that treats this crisis — quite literally — as the emergency it is.

The National Emergencies Act (NEA) and the Defense Production Act (DPA) give the president broad powers to act in the national interest during grave national emergencies. While President Barack Obama used the DPA to purchase green transportation fuels, neither of these acts has been fully used to address the climate emergency.

Declaring the climate crisis a national emergency under the NEA would not only send a powerful signal about the urgency of bold action, it would unlock powers that allow our nation to take significant, concrete actions regardless of congressional gridlock. Examples include redirecting spending to build out renewable energy systems, implementing large-scale clean transportation solutions and financing distributed energy projects to boost climate resiliency — all of which would help safeguard our communities and slash harmful pollution.

Invoking the DPA would complement a national emergency declaration and help address the national security threats posed by our climate crisis. These powers would allow the Biden administration to take essential steps toward strengthening our emergency preparedness, such as constructing resilient energy infrastructure and mobilizing domestic industry to ramp up manufacturing of clean energy technologies. These are necessary steps to protect Americans from the deluge of violent storms and extreme weather events that are on the horizon. Plus, spawning a robust clean energy industry could generate millions of high-quality American jobs vital to rejuvenating our post-covid economy.

"Unlock the powers." My God, what a bone-chilling phrase. Whenever someone in government speaks of unlocking its powers, the hair on the back of your neck ought to stand straight up. 

And then there's "mobilizing domestic industry."

Listen up, you totalitarian, "domestic industry" is comprised of particular companies owned by particular shareholders and having particular customers. What the hell they decide to do in the way of offering particular products or anything else about conducting business is none of the concern of government.

One reason it would be good to get the whole Trump post-election meltdown dealt with and removed from center stage is that there's going to need to be adequate focus on what Democrats intend to impose on the nation in the name of a "climate crisis."

And I don't mean to borrow trouble, but I can easily foresee the Left conflating the controversy surrounding measures to address the pandemic with the bundle of truth and lies surrounding the global climate. "You're the crowd that militantly refused to wear masks or modify business practices" and such.

Be ready to respond. They are two different matters. The COVID pandemic is real, as demonstrated by hard statistics over the last nine months. It's been unprecedented and we've been feeling our way through. The extension of grace is warranted. Rigid and extreme takes are not. But the climate situation is shot through with bad-faith falsehoods that truly are intended to curb human freedom and stunt human advancement. 

 

Way out in uncharted territory

 That Oval Office meeting on Friday was apparently a doozy:

 . . . a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn's more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.

The Very Stable Genius asked about the possibility of acting on the idea Flynn had floated during a Newsmax interview recently - namely, of declaring marital law. That got shot down by someone who apparently has sufficient influence over the VSG to convince him to do or not do certain things.

(Fortunately, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff General McConville quickly put out a statement saying "There is no role for the US military in determining the outcome of an American election.")

By the way, Flynn's recent behavior has me rethinking my whole inclination over the past four years to give him the benefit of the doubt. His inner compass has clearly not been working right for some time.

And then the VSG floated the idea of hiring Sidney Powell - who, like Flynn, was in the room - as special counsel to look into the role of technology in how the recent election went. On the basis of that being put out there for consideration, Rudy Giuliani contacted the Department of Homeland Security about finding some legal way to seize voting machines.

That idea, thankfully, got shot down, too.

Keep in mind the context. The COVID pandemic continues to rage across the nation, not only killing people in record numbers, but continuing to wreak economic and sociocultural havoc. 

We've now discovered that the many federal departments and agencies, as well as NGOs and corporations, have been under cyber-attack for months. It's of an unprecedented scale. It's traceable back to a hacking group with Russian government ties. Even Mike Pompeo says so. 

The only person who doesn't say so - who, with no substantiation, suggests China might be behind it - is the VSG.

This situation screams for an intervention. Where is someone with the courage to set it in motion?

The nation's always vulnerable during transitions from one administration to the next; it appears to be particularly so this time

 This Russian hack is really serious:

A Trump administration official tells Axios that the cyberattack on the U.S. government and corporate America, apparently by Russia, is looking worse by the day — and secrets may still be being stolen in ways not yet discovered . . .

The hack is known to have breached the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Treasury, Commerce, and Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration — plus the National Institutes of Health.

In unusually vivid language for a bureaucracy, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of Homeland Security, said yesterday that the intruder "demonstrated sophistication and complex tradecraft."

The agency said the breach "poses a grave risk to the Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations."

Which adds to the urgency with which we need an answer as to why this is happening:

Pentagon officials have been left "stunned" after acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a "Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation" with President-elect Joe Biden's transition, Axios reports.

Miller, according to the report, on Thursday night ordered officials to cancel transition meetings that had previously been scheduled, "which stunned officials throughout the Pentagon." Officials reportedly were not clear on what led to the decision, and Axios says a top Biden official wasn't aware of the order.

If national security is everyone's first priority, shouldn't the briefings get more frequent and focused the closer we get to January 20, given the circumstances? 

Or is there some element that has something else as its highest priority?

 

 

 

Two now-that-Biden's-election-is-official news items and LITD's take on them

 First up, Pete Buttigieg's nomination to be transportation secretary.

To begin with, nobody's claiming he's some kind of expert on transportation. It's pretty clear that this was a groom-the-next-generation-of-Democrat-up-and-comers move. Well, he did say that he enjoyed riding home from college on Amtrak and that he proposed to his fella in an airport terminal, so we have his generally favorable outlook about the transportation field as a plus of sorts.

The counter-argument is that cabinet-level positions are not the place for farm-team aspirants to the big leagues to hone their chops. You get a portfolio on that level, you're supposed to be ready to handle serious stuff. Oh, well, at least it's not a mega-serious post like Attorney General or National Security Advisor. 

What do we even have a Department of Transportation for, anyway? It strikes me as one of those federal behemoths like the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Labor, Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development that is fertile ground for pointy-heads who want to implement programs without their germinating in that pesky legislative branch. James Madison is having seizures in his grave.

But in the Biden vision of things that's shaping up, Transportation is going to be a useful tool. Central planning is going to be back on steroids and climate stuff is one of the main areas of focus. Pete did have a record as a guy for whom central planning and climate stuff were turn-ons, and that's no doubt a factor in his being selected. 

He'll definitely be on the same page as John Kerry, who is chomping at the bit to get post-America all involved in the Great Reset, a vision that is incrementally taking shape at meetings of the UN, the World Economic Forum, the Business Roundtable and other organizations of similar odor. Oh, and if you needed further indication of how determined this bunch is to push the utter fiction the the global climate is in some kind of trouble necessitating massive government intrusion into the free market and people's freedom to chose the energy forms that suit them, Gina McCarthy is going to be the "climate czar." (I'm not clear as of yet how that differs from Kerry's lane as "climate envoy.")

The second new item is the dust-up over Joseph Epstein's Wall Street Journal op-ed about Jill Biden's PhD.

Joseph Epstein is an essayist and short story writer of uncommon depth and insight. He's frequently contributed short stories to Commentary that are among the best I've ever read. In 2004, he wrote an essay for The Weekly Standard entitled "The Perpetual Adolescent" that has rightly figured into our ongoing national conversation about the decline of our collective maturity. 

Is it possible, in hindsight, that he would have been better advised to hold off on writing the piece on Mrs. Biden in the form and at the time that he did? Sure. The way he starts out is definitely not lacking in attitude:

"Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter," Joseph Epstein wrote. "Any chance you might drop the 'Dr.' before your name? 'Dr. Jill Biden' sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic."

But the inevitable cases of the vapors exploded on the scene immediately. And of course, the charge of misogyny the main point of the outrage.

The back-and-forth goes on. I'm particularly impressed with Kyle Smith's take at National Review. Smith doesn't mince words, and they're words I resonate with. 

There's this tidbit regarding her motivation for getting the degree:

Insisting on being called “Doctor” when you don’t heal people is, among most holders of doctorates, seen as a gauche, silly, cringey ego trip. Consider “Dr.” Jill Biden, who doesn’t even hold a Ph.D. but rather a lesser Ed.D., something of a joke in the academic world. President-elect Joe Biden once explained that his wife sought the degree purely for status reasons: “She said, ‘I was so sick of the mail coming to Sen. and Mrs. Biden. I wanted to get mail addressed to Dr. and Sen. Biden.’ That’s the real reason she got her doctorate,” Joe Biden has said.

Smith has taken the time to actually read Mrs. Biden's dissertation. He has come away underwhelmed and then some:

Jill Biden’s dissertation is not an addition to the sum total of human knowledge. It is not a demonstration of expertise in its specific topic or its broad field. It is a gasping, wheezing, frail little Disney forest creature that begs you to notice the effort it makes to be the thing it is imitating while failing so pathetically that any witnesses to its ineptitude must feel compelled, out of manners alone, to drag it to the nearest podium and give it a participation trophy. Which is more or less what an Ed.D. is. It’s a degree that only deeply unimpressive people feel confers the honorific of “Doctor.” People who are actually smart understand that being in possession of a credential is no proof of intelligence.

My friends, I have read this document in its entirety and it is so equally lacking in rhetorical force, boldness of conception, and original research that it amounts to a triple null set, a vacuum inside a blank inside an abyss. If Ingmar Bergman were alive and hired to make a film about this paper, he would say, “I can’t do it, there’s so much emptiness even I cannot grasp it,” and it would sound so much worse in Swedish that suicide hotlines would have to hire extra staff. Gene Simmons has a better claim to be a Doctor of Love than Jill Biden to be a Doctor of Education; after all, Simmons has spent a lifetime demonstrating mastery of his field. As for Biden, she has spent a lot of time teaching remedial English to slow learners in community colleges. Which is like being a rock musician who’s in a bar band. That plays covers. At mixers. Held in assisted-living facilities. Mrs. Biden’s dissertation emits so much noxious methane the EPA should regulate it, Greta Thunberg should denounce it, and Hollywood celebrities should hold a telethon to draw awareness to its dangers.

The point of those who have troubled themselves to get into this matter (and, again, I'm not sure I would have) is that lowering of standards is a major problem in general in our culture. If we kow-tow to those who argue that just  because she spent a lot of time banging away on the keyboard her credential is the equal of anyone else's bearing the honorific "doctor," we further dilute our sense of rigor and make room for a notion of equality that winds up extolling the mediocre.

Taken together, these two items give us a taste of the tone we can expect in media treatment of this new regime. 

Those with viewpoints outside the parameters of that tone had best give some thought to withstanding the slings and arrows that are certainly headed their way.  

 

 

Is it too much to hope that Paul Mitchell is starting an avalanche?

 The House member from Michigan sent Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel a letter the essence of which is this:

It is unacceptable for political candidates to treat our election system as though we are a third- world nation and incite distrust of something so basic as the sanctity of our vote. Further, it is unacceptable for the president to attack the Supreme Court of the United States because its judges, both liberal and conservative, did not rule with his side or that "the Court failed him." It was our Founding Fathers' objective to insulate the Supreme Court from such blatant political motivations.

If Republican leaders collectively sit back and tolerate unfounded conspiracy theories and "stop the steal" rallies without speaking out for our electoral process, which the Department of Homeland Security said was "the most secure in American history," our nation will be damaged. I have spoken out clearly and forcefully in opposition to these messages. However, with the leadership of the Republican Party and our Republican Conference in the House actively participating in at least some of those efforts, I fear long-term harm to our democracy.

The stability and strength of our democracy has been an ongoing concern for me. I expressed strong concerns about the president's response to Charlottesville, the anti-immigrant "send them back" rhetoric, and even the racist comments of my own colleagues in the House.

I believe that raw political considerations, not constitutional or voting integrity concerns, motivate many in party leadership to support the "stop the steal" efforts, which is extremely disappointing to me. As elected members of Congress, we take an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States," not to preserve and protect the political interests of any individual, be it the president or anyone else, to the detriment of our cherished nation.

As a result, I am writing to advise you both that I am withdrawing from my engagement and association with the Republican Party at both the national and state level. I will support,

contribute to, and fundraise for individual candidates who reflect the principles I hold dear. Further, by copy of this letter I am also advising Ms. Laura Cox, Chair of the Michigan GOP of this decision.

I am also requesting that the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives change my party affiliation to Independent for the remainder of my term in office. While admittedly symbolic, we all know that symbols matter.

Sincerely,

Paul Mitchell

Earlier in the missive, he notes that he tried to be supportive as long as he could:

As you well know, my voting record in Congress over the past two terms has been in line with President Trump and the administration's policies more than 95 percent of the time. Further, I voted for President Trump in the 2020 General Election despite some reservations about four more years under his leadership. I felt that many policies achieved during the Trump administration had been positive for our nation, whereas the policies espoused by the Democratic Party were too radical and did not reflect my principles.

I have also worked hard to support each of you and your efforts. Ronna, you may recall that I spoke with you several times as you considered undertaking the role of RNC Chair. It was my strong belief that you could help lead our party and support its core principles, and I encouraged you to undertake the position. Kevin, I worked diligently with you as part of the Republican Leadership Team for both the 115th and 116th Congresses. I fervently whipped votes for our policies during both terms on some tough issues.

As an active supporter of the national GOP, the state GOP, the NRCC and individual candidates, I raised almost $800k in just 2 1/2 years for the NRCC to support Republican candidates supported by leadership. I have contributed personal funds, not simply PAC funds, to innumerable candidates at the Federal and state levels.

Among conservatives - and that's my term of choice to distinguish right-of-center citizens who are driven by principles from Trumpists of any stripe, from Mike Pence to the Proud Boys - there is now a conversation going on about whether the Republican Party can be rescued from its very public suicide. 

Maybe the likes of Paul Mitchell will answer the question for us. 

 

 

Saturday roundup

 Focus on the Family's Glenn T. Stanton, writing at Quillette, says, "Knock off the climate alarmism and start making more babies": 

How is the world going to end? Polls consistently show that most believe the cause will be environmental. “Climate anxiety” has reached such a fevered pitch among young people across the globe that the Lancet recently issued a special “call to action” to help with the problem. Clinicians have even created “climate anxiety scales” to measure the runaway angst spreading through our children, and the rest of us.

But what if the best, emerging science is actually telling us quite firmly that such fears are not only deeply misplaced, but that the most realistic cause of our collective human demise is likely the precise opposite of what most assume? This is the conclusion of a very interesting body of highly sophisticated and inter-disciplinary research. The greatest threat to humanity’s future is certainly not too many people consuming too many limited natural resources, but rather too few people giving birth to the new humans who will continue the creative work of making the world a better, more hospitable place through technological innovation. Data released this summer indicates the beginning of the end of humanity can be glimpsed from where we now stand. That end is a dramatic population bust that will nosedive toward an empty planet. New research places the beginning of that turn at about 30 years from today.

This means that Thomas Robert Malthus, and his many influential disciples, had it precisely wrong. More people are not only not the problem, but a growing population is the very answer to a more humane future in which more people are living better, healthier, longer lives than they ever have in our race’s tumultuously dynamic history.

Pop voices like those of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg and countless Hollywood celebrities have warned that unless drastic action is taken at once, we face irrevocable global catastrophe. The Climate Clock in Manhattan’s Union Square pegs the start of the Earth’s deadline at a little more than seven years from today. But this is not science. The most sophisticated examination considering the Earth’s eco-deadline was just published in August in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Drawing upon 36 meta-analyses, involving more than 4,600 individual studies spanning the last 45 years, nine ecologists, working from universities in Germany, France, Ireland, and Finland, explain that the empirical data simply does not permit the determination of any kind of environmental dooms date, or “thresholds” as scientists call them.

These scholars state frankly: “We lack systematic quantitative evidence as to whether empirical data allow definition of such thresholds” and “our results thus question the pervasive presence of threshold concepts” found in environmental politics and policy today. They explain that natural bio-systems are so dynamic—ever evolving and adapting over the long-term—that determining longevity timeframes is impossible. Talk of a ticking eco-clock is simply dogma. 

The American Enterprise Institute's Frederic Hess, writing at The Hill, says contemporary public-school civics education needs more solid grounding in foundational principles and less wokeness:

Civic education today tends to focus on voting, protest, and the need to combat “injustice.” This is all to the good. But it leaves little room for stodgy notions of obligation, complexity, or the importance of respecting processes even when you don’t like the results.

Indeed, in a national survey of social studies teachers, the RAND Corporation found that barely half think it's essential that students understand concepts like federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances, and a third don’t think it’s essential that students embrace civic responsibilities like voting and jury duty.

As a one-time high school civics teacher, I firmly believe that it’s vital to promote democratic participation. The past few weeks, though, have been a stark reminder that democratic government is about much more than who wins. It’s also about respect for rules, magnanimity, patience, and a bevy of other old-fashioned values.

There would be a lot of competition for the title of World's Most Ate-Up Trumpist, but Eric Metaxas would surely be a top contender. It gives Rod Dreher, writing at The American Conservative, no pleasure to say so, but he feels it's important to point it out:

Before I get started here, let me say clearly that Eric Metaxas has been a friend for over 20 years. He is a dear man, very kind and sincere, and loves God with all his heart. Nothing I say here should be interpreted as a personal attack upon him. I am criticizing his words and his opinions, which, as a Christian and as a conservative, alarm me greatly. The fact that Eric is not a cynic, that I have every confidence that he 100 percent believes what he says, only intensifies the tragedy. I would prefer not to write about Eric’s views, out of respect for our friendship. But I cannot stand to see what is happening to what is broadly my tribe, without saying something. He is influential, and he speaks not only to a lot of people, but for them as well.

To start, and for readers who haven’t been following me: I am an Orthodox Christian and a political conservative (registered as an Independent). I did not vote for Joe Biden, and have never associated myself with Never Trump. I have praised Trump when he has done things of which I have approved, and I have criticized him when I thought he deserved it. I don’t “hate” Donald Trump, nor do I hate people who voted for him. I dread the Biden presidency, but I believe the man won the race. I think it’s possible that there was election fraud in some places in this big country of ours, but based on Trump’s performance in court since election day, I don’t believe that it is provable, if it existed at all.

Metaxas was a guest on Charlie Kirk's podcast recently and Dreher found their conversation jaw-droppingly appalling:

In characterizing the election result, it is hard to be more lurid than Eric in this interview. He believes that Donald Trump won the election “by a landslide” (in fact, Biden won 7 million more votes than Trump, and even if Trump had won the Electoral College vote, it would have been close, not anything like a landslide).

“It’s like stealing the heart and soul of America. It’s like holding a rusty knife to the throat of Lady Liberty,” Eric says, of the election.”

“You might as well spit on the grave of George Washington,” he says.

“This is evil,” he says. And: “It’s like somebody has been raped or murdered. … This is like that times a thousand.”

This. Is. Hysterical. But there’s more.

“This is trying to kill the American people. This is everything.” And he says to believe otherwise is listening to “the voice of the Devil.”

Think about that. An Evangelical broadcaster is saying that Donald Trump’s election loss is a thousand times worse than rape and murder, equivalent to the murder of a nation. And if you don’t believe it? You are demonized.

 

It gets wilder:

Well, here’s news: Eric Metaxas doesn’t care what the courts have said. In a clip that starts right here, he says,

“So who cares what I can prove in the courts? This is right. This happened, and I am going to do anything I can to uncover this horror, this evil.”

Evidence, or the lack of it, does not matter. He is declaring as a matter of faith that Donald Trump won the election. How can you argue with that? You can’t. It is a statement of faith.

So, when he talks about doing “anything” he can to fight this thing that is a thousand times worse than rape and murder, what does he mean? Quote:

“We need to fight to the death, to the last drop of blood, because it’s worth it.”

There is no way around it, and it grieves me to say it: Eric Metaxas is calling for violent bloodshed to defend Donald Trump’s presidency, and he doesn’t care that Trump’s lawyers have not been able to prove in court that Trump had the election stolen from him. He told Charlie Kirk that he is willing to kill or be killed for a political cause for which there is not enough evidence to advance a court case, even among friendly judges.

This is fanaticism. But according to Eric, to disagree with him is to be under the sway of the Devil. Actual quotes:

“This is sacred. … Every American should say I really don’t care what it takes, we will not let this happen in America.”

“The fact that Republicans would shrug, it’s just despicable, it’s very clarifying, and I just believe God is in this, what can I say?”

“I still feel that those of us who know this is massive fraud, we have no choice but to fight.”

He knows because … he just knows, is all. God is in it, after all. It’s holy war. He says too:

“Everything’s at stake. America’s at stake.”

“If we don’t get our people in … we go over the cliff, and we don’t come back.”

If you really believed that, then of course you would be willing to kill and be killed for the cause. My God.

Eric says that America is God’s instrument, one that he has used to spread “liberty” around the globe. The Christians of Iraq could not be reached for comment, most of them dead or displaced as the result of America’s unjustified invasion of that country, but what are facts to a Christian nationalist who just knows things. He says “I believe it is God’s will that we would continue to do that, at an increased level, for a long time… .”  Manifest destiny, I guess.

At this point in the interview, Kirk asks Metaxas — who has, recall, just called for fighting to the death to defend Trump’s sacred case — where he thinks Trump’s legal strategy stands. Know what Eric says?

“I am thrilled to be too ignorant of the details to answer that question in any substantive way.” 

I’m not kidding. Click on that link to see and hear it for yourself. He says that the courts are irrelevant, that America is in the crucible, that we have a fight to the death on our hands, and that anybody who disagrees is no better than Germans who stood by and let Hitler come to power … but he cannot give even one detail of the actual court cases, and is “thrilled” to be ignorant of the cause for which he is urging people to shed blood and die! 

AOC did the righteous-indignation schtick after Senator Mike Lee explained why her proposal for demographics-based history museums is a toxic idea:

On Thursday Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) blocked a bill that would approve two proposed Smithsonian museums, the National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women’s History Museum. The bill, presented on a bipartisan basis by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), already unanimously passed the House. But, Sen. Lee believes the museums would "further divide an already divided nation."

"My objection to the creation of a new Smithsonian museum or series of museums based on group identity, what Theodore Roosevelt called hyphenated Americanism, is not a matter of budgetary or legislative technicalities," Lee explained. "It is a matter of national unity and cultural inclusion.”

"The so-called critical theory undergirding this movement does not celebrate diversity; it weaponizes diversity," he continued. "I understand what my colleagues are trying to do and why. I respect what they're trying to do. I even share their interests in ensuring that these stories are told. But the last thing we need is to further divide an already divided nation with an array of segregated, separate-but-equal museums for hyphenated identity groups."

Sandy from Westchester's tweet:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

@AOC

No movement on COVID in the Senate but good to know Utah Sen. Mike Lee is spending his time today giving speeches about why Latinos shouldn’t have a national history museum and oh, while we’re at it, why there shouldn’t be a women’s history museum either

For damn cogent reasons that you don' care to address, toots. 

 

At least a couple of Republican Senators, Susan Collins and John Cornyn, think such museums are a good idea which is really disappointing, but that kind of kow-towing to leftist firebrandery is the equivalent of 126 House Republicans endorsing that stupid Ken Paxton lawsuit that the SCOTUS gave the thumbs-down to last night. That's just where we are. Both of post-America's major political parties are garbage.

Politico's John Harris has a reassuring piece today called "Relax, A Trump Comeback in 2024 Is Not Going To Happen." He cites three reasons:

Most important are the abundant precedents suggesting Trump does not have another important act in national politics. The perception that Trump will remain relevant hinges on the possibility that he is a unique historical figure. Trump, however, is singular in one sense only: No politician of his stripe has ever achieved the presidency. In multiple other ways, he is a familiar American type, anticipated by such diverse figures as Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, and Ross Perot.

Like Trump, they all possessed flamboyant, self-dramatizing personas. They tapped into genuine popular grievance toward elites, and had ascendant moments in which they caused the system to quake and intimidated conventional politicians of both parties. In every case, their movements decayed rapidly. Cults of personality in American politics are quite common. But they never live long, and Trump has offered no reason to suppose he will be an exception.

That’s the second reason Trump is not well-positioned to retain his hold on public attention: He has largely abandoned any pretense that he thinks about anything other than his personal resentments, or that he is trying to harness his movement to big ideas that will improve the lives of citizens. When he vaulted into presidential politics five years ago, Trump’s still-potent gifts — for channeling anger, for mockery, for conspiracy theory — were once channeled to an agenda that fellow Republicans were largely neglecting, over trade, immigration, globalization, and perceptions of national decline. These days, no one can follow Trump’s Twitter feed and believe that he cares more about the public’s problems than his own, and that is not a recipe for sustaining political power.

Here is the third reason to be bearish on Trump’s future: Politics never stands still, but Trump largely does. As he leaves the White House, Trump should be haunted by a stark reality — if he had any capacity for self-calibration, he wouldn’t be leaving the White House at all. He’s got one set of political tools. When things are going well, his instinct is to double down on those. When things are going poorly, his instinct is to double down on those. In political terms, the pandemic demanded modulation of Trump’s blame-casting brand of politics — but also would have lavishly rewarded him if he had done so.

Susan Wright has a great piece at Patheos called "Yes, It's Really Over." She speaks for me here:

Am I thrilled to have Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, along with whatever motley crew of liberal thinkers they surround themselves with in office?

I am not. I know there will be a lot to rail against, and I’m prepared to blast them on every point.

That being said, I am absolutely thrilled to see our system still works. 

Let's end on an uplifting note: 2.9 million doses of Pfizer's vaccine will be distributed in the US over the next week. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glimmers of hope that not every last Republican office-holder in post-America is up to his or her eyeballs in Kool-Aid

 The ruinous side of the divide among Republicans regarding shady-as-hell Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's bizarre and futile lawsuit seeking to overturn election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin has been getting the preponderance of the attention so far. The 16 other attorneys general who have signed on, the 106 House members who have endorsed it, and this weekend's Stop The Steal rally in Washington, headlined by Michael Flynn - the Michael Flynn who retweeted the call for martial law.

There are now signs of principled opposition to this madness coming from figures with Rs behind their names, or established connection to what was once recognizably the Party of Lincoln and Reagan.

Some attorneys general are speaking out.

Such is the case in Idaho, where the AG is not at all on board:

Idaho's Republican attorney general, Lawrence Wasden, issued a statementdistancing himself from Paxton's case, saying: "I am declining to join this effort. As is sometimes the case, the legally correct decision may not be the politically convenient decision. But my responsibility is to the State of Idaho and the rule of law."

Down in Texas, Senator John Cornyn's stance puts him at odds with Paxton and the state's other Senator (Ted Cruz, someone I once greatly admired and regarded as the hope for the GOP's future, but who has since those days proven himself to be a coward and a boot-licker):

On Wednesday, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas signaled a contrast with the Texas attorney general and Cruz. Cornyn told CNN: "I read just the summary of it, and I frankly struggle to understand the legal theory of it."

Cornyn added, "Number one, why would a state, even such a great state as Texas, have a say-so on how other states administer their elections?"

Among House members from Texas showing some spine is Chip Roy:

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said he wouldn't sign on and publicly called the brief "a dangerous violation of federalism" that he said "will almost certainly fail."

The Very Stable Genius tried to strong-arm the Georgia AG for his stance:

Georgia's attorney general, Chris Carr, split with the Trump camp as well, telling The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the lawsuit was "constitutionally, legally, and factually wrong." The paper reported that his public stance Wednesday was met with a fiery 15-minute phone call in which Trump asked Carr not to rally other Republicans against the suit.

The Orlando Sentinel got one of those reality checks like the above-mentioned on I got concerting Ted Cruz: 

We apologize to our readers for endorsing Michael Waltz in the 2020 general election for Congress.

We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy.

During our endorsement interview with the incumbent congressman, we didn’t think to ask, “Would you support an effort to throw out the votes of tens of millions of Americans in four states in order to overturn a presidential election and hand it to the person who lost, Donald Trump?” 

Our bad.

 Waltz, to our horror, was one of the 10 Florida Republican members of Congress who, on Thursday, signed up to support a lawsuit brought by Texas in the U.S. Supreme Court that’s attempting to throw out the election results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — all states where Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden. 

Trust us, some variation of that question will be asked of anyone running for Congress in the future, particularly Republican candidates whose party is attempting to upend the way we choose a president.

Now, a couple of items that are not about the immediate subject at hand, but demonstrate that, as hard as it tried, Trumpism did not stomp out sound reasoning among Republicans and conservative thinkers.

Townhall.com, which has, in the last five years nearly completely given itself over to Very Stable Genius cult worship, every one in a while runs a column by a sane grownup, surely still contractually able to state clear truths that run counter to the narrative about various matters. Such is the case with Veronique deRugy's latest, exposing Trump's protectionism for the garbage economic policy that it is:

President Donald Trump may soon be departing Washington, so now is a great time to assess his protectionist trade policies. From tariffs to his hectic bullying of other governments to renegotiate trade agreements to his support for American export subsidies, the Trump years were more than infuriating on trade matters; they were destructive.

This harsh conclusion is no surprise to those of us who understand international trade. We realized from the start that the president's trade philosophy is the mercantilist one that Adam Smith debunked nearly 250 years ago.

For instance, Trump believes that the success of U.S. trade policy is best gauged with a trade-balance scorecard -- the notion that trade deficits are bad and trade surpluses are good. For this reason, he believes that the ultimate benefit of trading lies in the amounts that we export, while imports are to be feared and kept to a minimum. But Trump's understanding is backward. After all, exports are what we produce for foreigners, while imports are what foreigners produce for us.

 

Early on in his administration, Trump raised tariffs. The Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome describes the president's trade war as having "implemented five different tariff actions on almost $400 billion in annual U.S. imports (as of 2018) under three different laws with different rationales: 'safeguards,' 'national security,' and 'unfair trade.'" We were promised ever-more jobs thanks to the tariffs. But as numerous academic studies have shown, the people who shouldered nearly all of the burden of these import taxes were not foreigners but, rather, Americans.

Protectionism reduces the overall wealth of the nation. Aside from a few favored and protected producers, Americans, in general, are made poorer. Consumers have to spend a higher share of their incomes to buy goods that they could otherwise get for less. As a result, ordinary Americans save less and have less to spend -- even on nontariffed goods and services. The American producers of goods that use tariffed foreign inputs also see their production costs driven up, which drives their ability to compete down. 

Unsurprisingly, the administration's belligerent trade policies disturbed our trading partners. They retaliated with their own tariffs on American exports (to the detriment of their consumers). Adding insult to injury, the president's erratic behavior, threats and contradictory tweets about his trade policy likely spooked investors. The overall uncertainty and negative effects of the trade disputes surely dampened the beneficial effects of the president's few good fiscal policies and regulatory reforms. 

And, getting back to signs of clear thinking and integrity in the Senate, Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe is not feeling the giddiness over the latest peace agreement between Israel and an Arab nation:

Sen. Jim Inhofe berated the Trump administration Thursday for recognizing Morocco’s claim over the disputed Western Sahara region, as part of a broader deal to normalize relations between Israel and Morocco. 

In floor remarks and a written statement, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee described the White House’s decision as “shocking and deeply disappointing,” adding that he was “saddened that the rights of the Western Sahara people have been traded away.”

“The president has been poorly advised by his team,” Inhofe said. “He could have made this deal without trading the rights of a voiceless people."

I don't know that we can conclude from all of the above that the Republican Party can be salvaged, but these are voices that ought to be welcomed into the conversation about how conservatism repairs itself after the Trumpist infection has been neutralized.