Saturday roundup

You may have heard that former Secretary of State Global-Test is going behind the US government's back, talking to Iran in an attempt to undermine current US policy about the JCPOA. Scott Johnson at Power Line poses an important question:

Isn’t this the kind of thing for which then Acting Attorney Sally Yates sicced the FBI on Michael Flynn? Because it allegedly violated the Logan Act? Why, yes, it is. 

Johnson reminds us that G-T got his start as a foreign-policy gadfly in 1971, as a representative of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, peddling lies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and even heading off to Paris to meet with America's Marxist-Leninist enemy. He could have also included a trip G-T took right after becoming a Senator himself. He hightailed it down to Nicaragua to meet with that country's Marxist-Leninist FSLN leadership - and undermine US policy.

FNC personality Neil Cavuto let the Very Stable Genius have it yesterday:

Even a Fox News host who’s unleashed has to be a *little* careful about how he addresses Trump, though. At one point here Cavuto says, “Now, I’m not saying you’re a liar — you’re president, you’re busy — I’m just having a devil of a time figuring out which news is ‘fake.'” Spoiler: He is, in fact, saying that Trump is a liar. A big one.

As did the WSJ editorial board:

What makes this extra interesting is the fact that another influential news outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch, the Wall Street Journal, also let Trump have it in an editorial last night. Headline: “The Stormy Daniels Damage: Does Trump want Americans to believe him in a genuine crisis?”

Mr. Trump’s public deceptions are surely relevant to his job as President, and the attempted cover-up has done greater harm than any affair would have. Mr. Trump asked Americans, not least his supporters, to believe his claims about the payments. They were false and conveniently so in putting the onus on Mr. Cohen. Now, as more of the story has emerged, he wants everyone to believe a new story that he could have told the first time.

Mr. Trump is compiling a record that increases the likelihood that few will believe him during a genuine crisis—say, a dispute over speaking with special counsel Robert Mueller or a nuclear showdown with Kim Jong Un. Mr. Trump should worry that Americans will stop believing anything he says.

It's come to this: consent apps.

Type in the sex act you want to perform with your potential hookup. Remember to be as graphically specific as possible to avoid all your weird fantasies being revealed later in court documents. (Much better to reveal them only to a total stranger in the bathroom of a nightclub which you stumbled into by mistake thinking it was the men’s room.) Then read what you wrote aloud (for optimal humiliation). Your partner types her answer to your request into her phone and a barcode is created. Tap your phones together (in an imitation of the act you are about to perform) and the information is stored to a secure cloud-based database (to be accessed at a later date by a potential employer).

We may need to stay in touch with China about various matters, but it is not our friend:

The Pentagon has confirmed that American military aircraft have been targeted by a "high power laser" when operating near China's military base in Djibouti. 

I don't know about you, but I could use an uplifting story. The government of Iowa provides us with just that:

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Friday signed a law banning most abortions if a fetal heartbeat can be detected, or at around six weeks of pregnancy, marking the strictest abortion regulation in the nation — but setting the state up for a lengthy court fight.

The Republican governor signed the legislation in her formal office at the state Capitol as protesters gathered outside chanting, “My body, my choice!” Reynolds acknowledged that the new law would likely face litigation that could put it on hold, but said: “This is bigger than just a law, this is about life, and I’m not going to back down.”

Reynolds signed the law surrounded by children from a local Christian school and children related to supporters.

Glory to God!

If there's a must-read in today's roundup, it's this week's G-File by Jonah Goldberg at NRO. It asks the question, what would the MAGA crowd have us actual conservatives do?

 Life isn’t binary — and neither is politics. If you are adrift in the ocean, your enemy isn’t just sharks; it’s thirst, hunger, drowning, and despair itself. If you face your predicament assuming the only thing you have to worry about is being eaten by a shark, you might fend off the sharks, but you will also probably die. Indeed, by ignoring other threats, you’d probably make yourself more vulnerable to a shark attack.

I have no problem conceding that progressivism poses a greater threat to America than Trumpism. What I oppose are the conclusions people such as “John Ericsson” [a Federalist essayist writing under a pseudonym] draw from that. Those conclusions rest on a raft of unproven assumptions, starting with the idea that if only the Kristols, Ericksons, Goldbergs, Frenches, et al. stopped pointing out the manifest flaws, lies, trade-offs, and moral compromises inherent to 100 percent Trumpism, it would make a difference in Trump’s battle with progressivism. Would that it were true. In my more cynical moments, I sometimes suspect their real goal is not to guarantee a Trump victory but rather to guarantee that any defeat will be usefully shared and that no one will be able to say, “I told you so.”

But it goes deeper than that. Ericsson says that “ideas and persuasion” are almost comically insufficient in this war. What is required is a Colonel Kurtz–like will to do what is necessary. Maybe that’s true. But what, specifically, does he think I should be doing? Does he want me to lie? Sign up as an assistant to Sarah Huckabee Sanders so she can more artfully spin and prevaricate? Should David French radically reinterpret his Christian faith and defend shtupping porn stars while you have a wife and newborn at home? Must I rush to defend this deranged carbuncle [shown in a video clip inserted in Goldberg's piece] in his bid to send “Cocaine Mitch” packing? 

Does Ericsson think that, if literally every conservative went Full Gorka, Republicans would attract more voters? I’m going to need him to show his work.

More to the point, if the argument is that there’s no room on the right for people who want to stay in their lanes, make arguments, and try to persuade people, then the Right is doomed, and deservedly so. I have very little disdain for the paid GOP operatives trying to sell the main ingredients of sh** sandwiches as pâté. That’s their job, not mine. Nor do I condemn people who work in this administration trying to advance conservative policy. I applaud them, for the most part. But some people — like this guy — apparently think that everyone must mimic the worst tactics of the Left, grab the nearest club to hand, and fight for the leader of our tribe.

And let me be clear: This isn’t simply some Ivory Tower argument. I’ve been engaging in the arena for most of my adult life. I have no problem with the suggestion I should have the future of the conservative movement or even, to some limited extent, the future of the Republican party in mind. I work for a magazine that endorses politicians regularly. But another faulty assumption inherent to this binary-war jaw-jaw is that it will be better for the Republican party if everybody on the right gets on board and rows as one to the beat of Trump’s drum. This thinking assumes that Trump is the solution to the problems Ericsson lays out and that if you’re not part of Trump’s solution, you’re part of the problem. I think that’s silly and unserious. 

The US is set to overtake Saudi Arabia nest year as the world's top oil exporter.