The limits to being mercurial as a strategic asset

As of this writing, it doesn't appear that Trump's sudden change of mind about a military response to the RQ-4A Global Hawk drone has eased tensions between the US and Iran. The Iranian regime has executed an aerospace contractor it accused of being a CIA spy. Not much room for further discussion on that matter.

The president's explanation of why he called off the response after planes had taken off - that 150 Iranians would have died - has elicited hot takes among his cult followers along the lines of praise for  such a humane calculation at such a late moment. Another perspective deserving consideration, though, is that humanitarian guidelines will motivate Iran to move its assets into densely populated areas.

Another particularly curious uttering by Trump is his speculation that the drone-shooter was acting without clear command from higher up the chain, that he was being "loose and stupid." This has been countered by Iranian statements and photographs since the attack occurred.

Another element that has been added to the mix is the startling turn that Fox News host Tucker Carlson's show has taken in recent days. Carlson, once a solidly principled polemicist, has given indications of going off the rails for some time, but with his choice to focus on the Iran situation in the manner that he has - coming right out and saying Iran is no threat to the US, as he did last night - he's established his bona fides as one of FNC's lineup of out-and-out cranks, along with Sean Hannity and Sebastian Gorka.

If exerting some measure of influence over some swath of the American populace were all that Carlson was accomplishing, it would be a bit concerning, but no more so than the exertion of influence by a whole lot of commentators of even greater degrees of loopiness. However, The Daily Beast reports an item that ought to take our concern to a whole new level:

In the upper echelons of the Trump administration, hawkish voices on Iran predominate—most notably Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. But as tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated over the last few weeks, there’s been another, far different voice in the president’s ear: that of Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

A source familiar with the conversations told The Daily Beast that, in recent weeks, the Fox News host has privately advised Trump against taking military action against Iran. And a senior administration official said that during the president’s recent conversations with the Fox primetime host, Carlson has bashed the more “hawkish members” of his administration.

While some Fox News hosts have argued that a conflict with Iran would be justified, Carlson has consistently criticized U.S. military intervention abroad, particularly in the Middle East. In recent weeks, he has questioned whether war with Iran would be “in anyone’s interest.” Last month, he publicly chided Bolton, saying he was intentionally escalating tensions, and that a potential conflict would “be like Christmas, Thanksgiving, his birthday wrapped into one.”

During a Monday night segment devoted to the recent attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, Carlson invoked the faulty intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Fox News host compared Pompeo’s “misplaced certainty” that Iran attacked the tankers to former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s now-discredited claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“We’re still paying a price for that,” Carlson said.

Apparently, getting the Very Stable Genius's ear was fairly easy:

The president has made no secret of his affinity for Carlson.

Since taking office, Trump has live-tweeted episodes of Tucker Carlson Tonighton at least 20 separate occasions, often promoting or directly quoting the eponymous host or his guests. 

“Trump thinks Tucker is one of the sharpest minds on television—[Trump has said], ‘So smart, a thinking man’s show,’” one knowledgeable source told The Daily Beast in August.

So once again, as in the area of economics, where those with a solid understanding of the free market, such as Larry Kudlow and Stephen Moore, vie for influence on the rudderless chief executive even as protectionists like Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro do likewise, we have Pompeo and Bolton having to compete with a television host who has decided his career advancement lies in the perpetuation of a supremely dangerous delusion.

How are things going to go with the economy? How are things going to go with Iran, and rogue states in general? It seems that it would be a fool's errand to offer much in the way of predictions, given that such disparate sets of advisors are telling him what will make him look like a winner, which is all the Very Stable Genius really cares about.

Reparations grandstanding comes to Capitol Hill

The House Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee held a hearing yesterday about a bill that would establish a formal study on the supposed need for, as well as the feasibility of, reparations for slavery.

It was full of grandstanding and moral preening, as you'd expect, and the faces you'd expect led the sanctimony-fest: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Danny Glover, Corey Booker.

Fortunately, some voices with a different viewpoint chimed in as well.

Take it, Burgess Owens:

A former NFL player testifying before Congress on Wednesday spoke out against the concept of reparations.

Burgess Owens, formerly of the Jets and Raiders, spoke during hearings for H.R. 40, a bill designed to study how to implement reparations for black Americans. The question of what, if anything, America owes to the descendants of slaves is at the heart of H.R. 40, and it’s a question for which Owens, along with a long list of other notable figures, offered an answer.

Speaking for five minutes, Owens noted his own lineage traces directly back to slaves. But, he added, “this is not about black and white, rich or poor, blue collar white collar. We’re fighting for the hearts of our nation.” Owens emphasized that his ancestors battled their way out of their circumstances following emancipation by hard work.

“I do not believe in reparation, because what reparation does, it points to a certain race, a certain color, as evil, and it points to another race, my race, as one that has not only become racist, but also beggars.”

During a portion of his allotted five minutes, Owens took the discussion in specific political directions. “I used to be a Democrat until I did my history and found the misery that party brought to my race ... Let's pay restitution. How about the Democratic Party pay for all the misery brought to my race?”

Owens continued, “And every white American, Republican or Democrat, who feels guilty because of the color of their skin, you can pony up also. Then we can get past reparations and recognize this country has given us greatness.”

A Quillette columnist who, for some reason, is still a Democrat nonetheless also gave the idea a thumbs-down, for which he was roundly booed:

Quillette columnist Coleman Hughes said reparation payments to the descendants of slaves would insult black Americans, further divide the country, and make him and other descendants of slaves “victims without their consent.”

The public present for the Democrat-led hearing did not take his opinion well, prompting Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen to tell them to “chill.”

“Racism is a bloody stain on this country’s history and I consider our failure to pay reparations directly to freed slaves after the civil war to be one of the greatest injustices ever perpetuated by the U.S. Government,” Hughes said.

He added, however: “Black people don’t need another apology. We need safer neighborhoods and better schools. We need a less punitive criminal justice system. We need affordable health care. And none of these things can be achieved through reparations for slavery.” 

Members of the crowd booed at this point.

“If we were to pay reparations today, we would only divide the country further, making it harder to build the political coalitions required to solve the problems facing black people today,” Hughes added.

“We would insult black Americans by putting a price on the suffering of their ancestors, and we would turn the relationship between black Americans and white Americans from a coalition into a transaction, from a union between citizens, into a lawsuit between plaintiffs and defendants.” 

Hughes pointed out that while he is a descendant of slaves who worked on Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, he was born into a privileged home in the suburbs and attended an Ivy League School. Reparations would give him resources, although he is not struggling financially, and withhold them from other black Americans “with the wrong ancestry” who might be poor. 

“I understand that reparations are about what people are owed regardless of how well they are doing,” he said.

I understand that. But people who are owed for slavery are no longer here. And we’re not entitled to collect on their debts. Reparations, by definition, are only given to victims. So the moment you give me reparations, you’ve made me into a victim without my consent. Not just that, you’ve made one-third of black Americans who poll against reparations into victims without their consent.

And black Americans have fought too long for the right to define themselves to be spoken for in such a condescending manner. The question is not what America owes me by virtue of my ancestry, the question is what all Americans owe each other by virtue of being citizens of the same nation.

And the obligation of citizenship is not transactional. It’s not contingent on ancestry. It never expires, and it can’t be paid off. For all these reasons, bill HR 40 is a moral and political mistake. Thank you.

Hughes was booed again as he concluded his testimony, causing Cohen to bang his gavel and hush the crowd. “Chill, chill, chill, chill,” he said. “He was presumptive, but he still has a right to speak.”

Not only would it be poisonously divisive, as Hughes points out, but impossibly complex to implement:

The questions surrounding this very old debate about historical redress for slavery are even more practical: Who is owed what? Michael Knowles of Daily Wire spoke about this on his eponymous podcast yesterday:

The first formally recognized slaveholder in America was black . . . [H]e was named Anthony Johnson, he was a black Angolan farmer, he was captured in Angola by Arab slave traders, [who] sold him off. He ended up in Virginia, and he was a slave [there]. He was eventually emancipated after his indenture was over, he was freed, and he himself became a successful farmer. He also owned slaves; so, he owned a black slave named John Casor . . . [T]he question is: are the black descendants of Anthony Johnson, a slave owner, entitled to reparations for slavery? Doesn’t make a whole of sense, does it? Are the black descendants of John Casor- the slave owned by Anthony Johnson- entitled to reparations from the black descendants of Anthony Johnson? So that means, when we have reparations for slavery, that some black descendants of slave owners have to pay reparations to some black descendants of slaves? How are we going to work that- are we going to be taking DNA tests, and Ancestry.com is going to get hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants just to figure out who was descended from whom? What if you’re descended from a black slave owner and a black slave- does it cancel out? Or a white slave owner and a black slave- how are we going to adjudicate your culpability today in 2019?

Knowles continued, describing further complexities that arise from the legions of slaves held by American Indians, whose ownership of slaves persisted even after federal abolition of the practice. Are the living descendants of Native American slaveholders (and 1/1024 of Elizabeth Warren, just for sport) required to pay too?

For these reasons this is surely destined to die on the vine, but not before the identity-politics jackboots milk it for all it's worth.

 

 

 

In 2020, the choice will be even more stark

No, I didn't watch the Very Stable Genius's Orlando rally. Whenever I'm watching a news channel and I hear that one of those drool-fests is about to commence, I find a ball game or head over to Turner Classic Movies. Or catch up on my reading. Or go start dinner preparations with some music playing in the background.

The rally's only real significance was to make his second go-round at candidacy official. Elevator descent redux.

That, in turn, makes official what has been the plain fact for some time: He is the only viable alternative to whoever the party bent on obliterating Western civilization puts forth.

For about a year after the November 2016 election, I kept my vote to myself. I finally went public with what I'd done because I could see that I was going to find myself in situations in which I was going to have to make it clear that I didn't own any of the trappings of the Trump presidency that were obviously unacceptable to anyone of any persuasion who had not swallowed his Kool-Aid. The bombast. The insults. The petty resentments against various media outlets. The incoherence of his economic policy. His appeasement of Kim and his back-and-forth on whether Russia and China posed threats or not. The vulgar braggadocio. At a point in a tussle with a leftist at which, after I'd heartily endorsed the good moves - the judicial appointments, the regulation rollback, the move of the embassy to Jerusalem, the pullouts from the Paris climate agreement and the JCPOA - I'd have the toxic stuff tossed in my face, I'd be on solid ground asserting that none of that was mine.

I voted for Evan McMullen. Obviously, for neither reason that one, under most circumstances, votes for a presidential candidate. He had not a chance in a million, and he wasn't running on anything (besides being not-Trump).

It's not as if I dismissed the binary-choice pleadings of conservatives who had decided to cast their lot with the Very Stable Genius. They made a rather convincing case. Then, as now, we were either going to get a bad candidate who'd probably make some good moves, or we'd get a power-mad hard leftist.

But since late 2016, the Democrat party has become exponentially more rotten. I know, that would have defied the late-2016 imagination. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were the party's hard leftists in that era, and they were dangerous figures indeed.

But now, with several Democrat state legislatures endorsing infanticide, and with two of the party's three most influential freshman House members getting away with rank Jew-hatred, the stakes are even higher, as hard as that is to fathom.

In recent days, fresh evidence of this has poured in.

Kirsten Gillibrand has compared a pro-life position to racism. 

The New York legislature has passed a bill allowing driver's licenses for illegal aliens.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has publicly said that the United States is operating concentration camps on the southern border. 

This is the horrifying reality of what could, if all available forces aren't marshaled against it, be in control of whats' left of the United States of America.

To any Trumpists who have read this far, you can quit holding your breath that the next paragraph is going to be an official statement of support for your man. I can't see myself issuing anything like that, ever. I will go on record with this, though: I will conduct myself between now and the first Tuesday in November, and vote on that day, in accord with my understanding of the urgency of the task of ensuring that conservative principles and policies prevail to the extent possible and that leftism is dealt as thorough a defeat as can be administered. 

Take that how you'd like. We all know the lay of the land. There is not going to be any conservative savior riding into town to save the day. We will not have Dan Crenshaw, Nikki Haley or Ben Sasse as choices. And the Democrat candidate must lose.

I reserve the right to articulate my position as I have here, and it is what I will reiterate as necessary in conversations and dust-ups between now and post-America's next moment of decision.

Hey, all you celebrants of the extermination of fetal Americans, knock it off with the "women's health" smokescreen

If it were really about that, you wouldn't have a situation like this:

Planned Parenthood of St. Louis, the last remaining abortion facility in the state, has been unwilling to submit to reasonable health regulations and has a long history of egregious patient-safety and legal violations. Given this history, it is hard to surmise anything other than that Planned Parenthood places abortion before women’s health and safety. Missouri health officials have no choice but to let Planned Parenthood’s license expire. 

“Planned Parenthood has had ample time — more than two months — to address the identified deficiencies and allow state officials to interview abortion doctors. … And, for months during this process, Planned Parenthood has been reluctant to cooperate with health department officials,” Republican Gov. Mike Parson said during a recent press conference. “This should be concerning to all Missourians who support the safety and care of women’s health. Planned Parenthood has been actively and knowingly violating state law on numerous occasions.” 

Many serious deficiencies were reported after a routine, legally mandated inspection in March. These deficiencies, according to the state, include: “1) violations of Missouri law; 2) violations of applicable Missouri regulations; 3) standard care for patient safety as evidenced by, but not limited to, at least one incident in which patient safety was gravely compromised; 4) failed surgical abortions in which patients remained pregnant; 5) concerns about quality control and communication with a contracted pathology lab; and 6) failure to obtain informed consent.” 

Additionally in the recent past, this same St. Louis Planned Parenthood came under fire for allegedly mishandling the remains of aborted babies.  

One's first thought, upon taking this in, might be along the lines of, gee, why would it be so hard for an abortion clinic to adhere to sound practices for cleanliness and procedure?

Well, think about it. Utter disregard for human life is at the core of why they exist. The only reason they'd maybe show a little more consideration to the moms who come in to have their kids dismembered is because the moms can talk, and they're the paying customers. But everybody involved in the procedure - the moms and the kids - is really just a tissue mass. And I said "everybody," didn't I? So that means the abortionists, too. Way down inside, they don't have much in the way of even self-regard. How could someone and do what they do?

Iran thoughts

First, LITD has no hot takes on the recent tanker attacks. Too many uncertainties. The disparate assertions regarding whether a projectile hit the Norwegian tanker from the air or whether it was hit by something in the water, like a mine or torpedo. And the business about Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe being in Tehran when the Japanese tanker was hit.

But we can say for sure that the attacker didn't happen in a vacuum. Consider the aggressiveness of Iranian proxies in the region: Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, and Hezbollah's ever-increasing reach. Further back, there are the continued characterizations of the US as the enemy - after the JCPOA was signed - by Supreme Leader Khameini as well as leaders of the Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force. The taking of the crews of two US Navy boats as hostage on the day that Obama gave a State of the Union Address - and photographs of the crew members, distributed worldwide, on their knees with their hands behind their heads. And, of course, continued expansion of Iran's missile program.

What to do?

There are two pieces today, one by Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, and one by Vali R. Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, that differ mostly in nuance, but which both ask the same basic question: what does Donald Trump envision as the endgame of all this?

Many observers have pointed out the contrast between Trump's indications of where he wants to go and the indications given by national security advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Trump of late has started sounding, with regard to Iran, like he's been sounding toward North Korea since the era of summit diplomacy got going: dangling the prospect of vibrant economies for these countries that will in turn result in the populations of each admiring the leaders, and the international community conferring a new respect on them. The Bolton-Pompeo camp is often suspected of itching to find a way to overthrow the regime, something that those two figures at present deny. Are they being completely forthright, or tailoring their message to coordinate as much as possible with their boss's?

I'm uneasy with the extent to which Trump treats policy for rogue states as a matter of getting great deals. As we know, not only from the way he's dealt with other kinds of world leaders, particularly those of states in the adversary category, such as Russia and China, but from his pre-politics way of dealing with those from whom he wanted things in order to advance his brand, he has no qualms about switching from insults and threats to talk of beautiful letters at the drop of a hat. He assumes the other party in negotiations is going to do the same.

I'm not at all sure he's taken into full consideration the stakes, though, when dealing with radical regimes that have threatened out-and-out annihilation of the United States and the West generally. This is a unique level of interaction.

I'de be relieved to have my assessment proven to be overly dire. But the history of Iran - and North Korea - hating the United States goes back decades. It's baked into their entire orientation to the world in which they're situated.

Their determination to possess nuclear arsenals, and use them to render themselves immune to attempts to stop their support for terror and weakening of the West, must be kept front and center as the US proceeds.

Barney & Clyde - episode 8

Ah, there you are!  We saved you a seat at the libation station. We have a number of items on the national plate to dish from the libertarian and conservative perspectives: how the free market is the best cure for bigotry and racism, how tariffs have already eaten away tax cut benefits, the Oberlin College - Gibson’s Bakery situation, the fun Texas governor Greg Abbott has been having signing pro-freedom bills on social media, and the US Agriculture Department employees having a hissy fit about moving from DC to Kansas City. Along the way, an interesting array of figures make cameo appearances: Frederic Bastiat, Charles Grandison Finney, William Barrett Travis and Pee Wee Crayton, among others. 

The Bulwark is utterly worthless - and I say this as a conservative who finds Trump deeply objectionable

The regrouping of a number of Weekly Standard writers and editors under a new banner provided me with a hope-against-hope moment. I was uneasy with the involvement of Bill Kristol, who had already been showing signs of loopiness. I probably don't need to point out the most egregious of these to you: his March 2016 statement that he'd rather see Madame Bleachbit as president than the Very Stable Genius. Still, Charlie Sykes, who at that point had not demonstrate anything like that degree of coziness with the enemy, was another cofounder, and writers like Jonathan V. Last and Andrew Eggar, who had made cogent arguments for a position not far from my own were on board.

But things started getting really shaky with the hiring of Molly Jong-Fast, granddaughter of blacklisted Communist Howard Fast and daughter of Erica Jong, from whom she picked up the penchant for writing smirky autobiographical accounts of hedonistic episodes.

I have to say, though, that what bothers me even more is the frequent appearance of former Common Cause chairman Richard North Patterson (who also sits on the board of the Renew Democracy Initiative, which counts among its leadership Kristol, as well as such flakes / Democrats as Max Boot, Heidi Heitkamp and Anne Applebaum).

A while back, he wrote a piece on the virtues of reparations, if that gives you a clue.

Currently, on The Bulwark's front page, he has a lengthy argument for "progressive capitalism" that is pure silliness dressed up as erudition.

He  characterizes the Gilded Age, a period of astounding advancement and invention, in the worst possible light, quotes Michael ban-the-20-ounce-soda-pops Bloomberg, and lets loose with this disparagement of the ethos of the period from 1970 to the present:

This distemper was not inevitable. The quarter-century after World War II featured an implicit corporate compact with society: fair wages, a secure retirement, proportionate executive compensation, vigorous unions, and curbs on the size and power of big business. Rising opportunity and diminishing income inequality followed.

Four decades ago, this balance began shifting. Faced with increasing global competition and a flattening stock market, CEOs began practicing a “shareholder capitalism” which prioritized investor returns. This often required using government to help achieve a radical transformation in how capitalism worked. This gave rise to a new corporate agenda rooted in spurring deregulation, reducing taxes, fighting unionization, slashing benefits, vitiating antitrust enforcement, pursuing corporate consolidation, transferring the workforce overseas or into nonunion jobs, and incentivizing CEOs for maximizing shareholder value—if necessary, by suppressing wages or firing workers.

The stock market rose; CEOs and Wall Street dealmakers became celebrities; corporations amassed economic and political power; American capitalism dominated the world economy. As distilled by [Steven] Pearlstein, this sea change reflected three basic principles:

• That government regulation and taxation prevented corporate America from competing;
• That the sole purpose of public corporations was to optimize returns to investors;
• That moral or societal concerns about income inequality, worker insecurity, and the maldistribution of wealth were antithetical to economic growth.

Writes Pearlstein: “[A]lmost everything people now find distasteful about [our economic system] can be traced to these three flawed ideas.” A crucial additive was the comforting mythology of supply-side economics: the promise that cutting taxes would pay for itself by spurring economic growth.

This neo-Randian theology transmuted our view of capitalism and free markets—eventually warping our social fabric, Pearlstein contends, while enshrining “a morally corrupting and self–defeating economic dogma which threatens the future of American capitalism.”

That "compact with society" formulation is a telling touch, is it not? No Adam Smith microeconomic view of how it transpired for him. The "corporate" world and "society" made a "compact." It wasn't individual sovereign human beings making life choices based on assessments of their array of options. No, these amorphous entities got together and put their John Hancocks on the dotted line.

And he lauds Pearlstein's description of the essence of the free market (the understanding that "government regulation and taxation prevented corporate America from competing" and that "the sole purpose of public corporations was to optimize returns to investors") as "flawed." Tell that to Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. I mean, really let this sink in. This guy is implicitly endorsing regulation, taxation and "corporate responsibility."

How's this tidbit?

As Thomas Edsall notes, many conservatives believe unions hamper corporate America in global competition, while liberals often place the concerns of the educated urban professional class over those of blue-collar workers. This mutually reinforcing admixture of antagonism and indifference, Pearlstein argues, helps fuel a decline in worker morale and productivity as, rather than sharing profits, workers fear losing their jobs.

Yes, indeed, Thomas Edsall, there's a conservative thinker if there ever was one.

It goes on. And on. The to-be-expected bromides about the gap between CEO and average-worker pay. Disparagement of the 2017 tax cuts. 'Government's role in protecting the environment [and] investing in infrastructure."

This isn't conservatism by any definition. This is New Republic stuff.

To be putting this kind of thing up at a sight that purports to be the actually conservative alternative to Trumpism renders the whole undertaking an exercise in absurdity.

Thank God there are a number of sites (this one, for instance) that are actually fulfilling that function.

The Bulwark came out of the gate robust, went about twenty yards and dropped in its tracks. And now its carcass is rotting in the sun.

Friday roundup

Ilhan Omar was married to one guy but filed joint tax returns with another guy.

Andrew Napolitano's take on the I--think-I'd-take-it remark is pretty unequivocal:

Asked for his reaction to Trump's comments, Napolitano said on Fox News's "Shepard Smith Reporting" that Trump's remarks showed the president is "prepared to commit a felony to get reelected."

Some Fortune 160 CEOs speak plainly about the impact of tariffs:

US president Donald Trump’s trade wars are hurting American companies and threaten the stability of the global economy, a group of Fortune 500 CEOs told reporters in Washington, DC today.

Some companies are suffering more than others.

All of the gains that Indiana engine-maker Cummins received from Trump’s 2017 corporate tax cut will be lost this year to the extra tariffs the company now must pay, said Cummins CEO Tom Linebarger.

“The taxes from tariffs have now outgrown the benefits from the tax reform act,” Linebarger said at a meeting arranged by the Business Roundtable, an executive group that aims to influence policy. “Our net taxes are higher now.”

Linebarger spoke alongside JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty. Dimon called the gathering an attempt to “educate” politicians and voters about the impact of the trade tariffs, as well as other White House policy.

The CEOs openly criticized the president’s reliance on tariffs as a diplomatic tool, and said the White House wasn’t taking corporate America’s advice on the situation. Linebarger said he was particularly alarmed that the White House mingled security policy and trade policy. 

In the capital of soul music, a riot broke out last night because Memphis police, in their attempt to arrest a 20-year-old guy with several felony warrants, had to deal with and the dude ramming their patrol cars and then getting out of his own car and brandishing a weapon, shot him.

Let's not be coy here. The rioters were rioting because of the guy's skin color.

Which was the same card played in the Oberlin College - Gibson's Bakery case, but there the jury wasn't buying it:

Oberlin College in Ohio will have to pay a nearby bakery more than $11 million in damages because it libeled the store, tagging it as racist, and interfered with its business, a jury said on Friday.

Gibson's Bakery came under fire after Allyn Gibson, the owners' son, got into a physical altercation with a black student who reportedly tried shoplifting and using a fake ID at the store, The Chronicle-Telegram said. Two other black students got involved, appearing to prompt accusations of racial profiling.

The three students eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and read statements defending Allyn Gibson's right to detain them. They also read statements claiming that his actions weren't racially motivated, but within days of the incident, students were turning out for protests fueled by accusations of racist intent.

The jury found the school and Oberlin's vice president and dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, guilty of libel after Raimondo allegedly helped pass out flyers claiming that the bakery was "racist" and had a history of "racial profiling and discrimination."

And while we're on that subject, check out this in-depth look at Meredith Raimondo, Oberlin's dean of students, assistant to the president for equity, diversity and inclusion, and "comparative American studies" professor. She's a real humdinger. She checks off such social-justice jackboot boxes as antisemitism, defining triggers so as to include "a smell, song, scene, phrase," and "academic" exploration of "intersecting structures of race, gender, class, sexuality, ability and citizenship." From the accompanying photos, you can see that she's quite a fetching lass, too!

How far did the pathetic appeasement of Iran go in the run-up to the JPCOA? The UK Daily Telegraph says British officials hid a Hezbollah bomb plot from the public. 

Here's an example of what I was talking about yesterday. We must not permit ourselves to become inured to this kind of thing: The Cartoon Network is using the Powerpuff Girls to promote Pride Month. 

A shameful demonstration by some snot-nosed ingrate government workers

I'm writing this shortly after noon, so there's a pretty decent chance that you've already come across this news item, but in case it's still news to you, here goes:

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced today that two research agencies would be relocating to Kansas City. This makes perfect sense given that it puts the researchers much closer to the center of the industry they are supposed to be regulating. It also means the cost of living goes down for lots of these employees, which helps with wage adjustments later for the department. The overall cost of facilities and operations will drop as well.

The response of those gathered in the auditorium where he made his announcement? They turned their backs on him en masse.

If you have already seen any commentary on this, you'll have seen the following points made:

• If these people's top priority was to be near what they were researching, they'd applaud this move. 
• In any private company, the entire roomful of snot-nosed ingrates would have been fired on the spot.
• It has to be Acela Corridor snobbery. As the excerpt above points out, the cost of living will be lower for these people in Kansas. 

Consider this: You and I are really these people's ultimate bosses. Our taxes pay their salaries and benefits.

Now pack your bags for Kansas or find other jobs, you brats.

Why the concept of public accommodation does not apply to the current situation regarding Christian wedding-service providers

I've had my disappointments with Bookworm of late - namely, her enthusiasm for Trump to the point of saying flat out that she doesn't care about his sybaritic dalliances, and that she's come to find a certain charm in his rough edges. Still, she has a sharp mind and occasionally makes truly valuable contributions to a current national conversation.

Such is the case with the way she demonstrates that  the concept of public accommodation does not apply to the current situation for Christian wedding-service providers.

The QueerBorg, to advance its demand that all surrender before it, is trying to frame its battle as a civil rights battle and to liken Phillips’ refusal to bake a cake to the closed doors a black man would face in the Jim Crow South when he tried to rent a room for the night or dine in a restaurant. The way in which Congress broke that monopoly of closed doors was through the notion of “public accommodation,” something it enshrined in Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The relevant language states as follows:

(a) Equal access All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.

(b) Establishments affecting interstate commerce or supported in their activities by State action as places of public accommodation; lodgings; facilities principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises; gasoline stations; places of exhibition or entertainment; other covered establishments Each of the following establishments which serves the public is a place of public accommodation within the meaning of this subchapter if its operations affect commerce, or if discrimination or segregation by it is supported by State action:

(1) any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests, other than an establishment located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence;

(2) any restaurant, cafeteria, lunchroom, lunch counter, soda fountain, or other facility principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises, including, but not limited to, any such facility located on the premises of any retail establishment; or any gasoline station;

(3) any motion picture house, theater, concert hall, sports arena, stadium or other place of exhibition or entertainment; and

(4) any establishment (A)(i) which is physically located within the premises of any establishment otherwise covered by this subsection, or (ii) within the premises of which is physically located any such covered establishment, and (B) which holds itself out as serving patrons of such covered establishment. (42 U.S.C. § 2000a.)

The most obvious distinction between the LGBYOB+ and African-American situations, of course, is that the statute is directed at “race, color, religion, or national origin.” That’s why there’s such a big push on the Left to enact The Equality Act, which would raise sexual orientation and claims about gender to the same legal level of protection afforded race, color, religion, or national origin. The Equality Act, though, is another post entirely, and not a subject I wish to explore here. Instead, I’m interested in the monopoly of closed doors.

Keep in mind that, as I noted in passing above, the Civil Rights Act did not arise in a vacuum. It was a direct response to a very specific problem: The fact that Jim Crow laws in the South, backed by the personal preferences of bigoted people all over America, meant that places ostensibly held open for walk-in customers could arbitrarily refuse customers based upon the customers’ race (or color, or religion, or national origin). Under this all-encompassing regime, blacks theoretically could travel throughout the South without ever being able to obtain either food or lodging. (As the recent movie Green Book shows, blacks responded to this monopolistic denial of service by identifying hotels, restaurants, and other “open to the public” establishments that would serve them, but it was an imperfect solution and one that was both deeply offensive to human dignity and antithetical to the promise of our Declaration of Independence.) 

In other words, that portion of the Civil Rights Act relating to Public Accommodations was intended to break a monopoly that was driven by culture and backed by legislation. The legislation, of course, was the real kicker. As Milton Friedman famously noted, had Jim Crow not been legislated, it likely would have died away as hoteliers, restaurateurs, and the owners of entertainment establishments ended up competing for the only color that mattered: the lovely green of dollar bills. However, legislation, backed by societal prejudice, created an insupportable hurdle to free market sources, and created a monolithic wall that blacks could not breach.

Jack Phillips clearly does not fall into the category of a monolithic monopoly on all institutions open to the public. First, no one can deny that he held his doors open to all customers who walked into his store and sought to buy any of the products on display. He reserved only the right to withhold his services from specific ceremonies (not customers, but ceremonies) that offended his religious sensibilities. Second, Phillips was/is anything but a monopoly. The LGBTQLMAO+ community in Colorado has a lot of choices when it comes to custom baked goods prepared for QueerBorg ceremonies. 

Her mention of what Milton Friedman had to say on the subject is pretty much what I've said for some time. The free market and shifting zeitgeist were conspiring by 1965 - certainly by 1967 - to relegate boneheaded we-don't-serve-your-kind-here-ism to the dustbin of history. A few well-placed television commercials showing a black couple and a white couple enjoying a restaurant meal together would have finished it off. Alas, though, there were, as Bookworm says, bigoted laws on the books, so legislation was necessary.

And she understandably didn't want to muddy the waters with a digression into this Equality Act that is currently on the nation's plate, but that is as poisonous an idea as has come down the pike in some time and must be resolutely extinguished.

The lack of a filter between the VSG's brain and mouth sets off another cycle of hot takes and counter-takes

I guess you probably know what he said, but in case you've been busy so far today, here it is:

Asked by ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in the Oval Office on Wednesday whether his campaign would accept such information from foreigners -- such as China or Russia -- or hand it over the FBI, Trump said, "I think maybe you do both."

"I think you might want to listen, there isn't anything wrong with listening," Trump continued. "If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent' -- oh, I think I'd want to hear it."

Stop before you make it worse, Squirrel-Hair. Oh, sheesh, he's going to step in it some more:

"It's not an interference, they have information -- I think I'd take it," Trump said. "If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI -- if I thought there was something wrong. But when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research, 'oh let's call the FBI.' The FBI doesn't have enough agents to take care of it. When you go and talk, honestly, to congressman, they all do it, they always have, and that's the way it is. It's called oppo research."

Come on, man, this is your big chance to knock it off. Everybody's going to have a field day with what you've already said. Don't exacerbate the situation. Oh, crikey, here he goes:

"Somebody comes up and says, ‘hey, I have information on your opponent,' do you call the FBI?" Trump responded.

"I'll tell you what, I've seen a lot of things over my life. I don't think in my whole life I've ever called the FBI. In my whole life. You don't call the FBI. You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you do," Trump continued. "Oh, give me a break – life doesn't work that way." 

"The FBI director said that is what should happen," Stephanopoulos replied, referring to comments FBI Director Christopher Wray made during congressional testimony last month, when he told lawmakers "the FBI would want to know about" any foreign election meddling.

But on Wednesday, the president refuted Wray's sentiment. 

"The FBI director is wrong, because frankly it doesn't happen like that in life," Trump said. "Now maybe it will start happening, maybe today you'd think differently."

"It doesn't happen like that in life." That may be the most characteristic utterance in his whole discussion of the matter. It's the same mentality that has been on display when he's talked about paying politicians of both parties so as to hedge his bets when he wants to build a tower after an election, or when he leverages eminent domain to oust a little old lady from her house on land he wants for a casino.

And now, the turf-protection squads for the various brands involved are out in full force. Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi are calling him a national security threat. His shills are deep into the whataboutism. You know, "but the dossier," "but the FISA warrants." Hannity was on it right away last night. Yes, indeed, those are some standards to set.

I like the way Jay Caruso frames it:

Jay Caruso‏Verified account @JayCaruso

If you're doing the "But Obama" or "But Hillary" excuse for Trump's invitation for foreign governments to get involved in our campaigns, just stop. If you're going to use them as a benchmark, I'm not interested in what comes after that.

5:59 AM - 13 Jun 2019

It was refreshing to see Lindsey Graham's response:

Sen. Lindsey Graham sharply rebuked Donald Trump Thursday for saying he would likely take dirt on his 2020 opponents from a foreign government, though he also gave the president an out, calling it potentially a “mistake of law.” 

“That's not the right answer,” Graham told reporters Thursday. “A foreign government comes to you as a public official and offers to help your campaign giving you anything of value, whether it be money or information on your opponent, the right answer is no.”

(To be sure, Graham has gone on to say that this ought have been the way Dems behaved with regard to the Madame Bleachbit campaign and the Steele dossier, and rightly so. But he didn't use that as a means of going to bat for the Trump brand.)

Bottom line as far as LITD is concerned is that this is another of those completely avoidable instances of the Very Stable Genius increasing his political vulnerability with a poorly thought out off-the-cuff blurting.

One of the VSG's first-call bootlickers, Conrad Black, has called him "a president like no other." That's for damn sure - in ways I doubt Black is capable of fully considering.

Five short years ago, this guy would have been given the heave-ho in a microsecond

But now that drag-queens conducting library kiddie reading hours, and sports teams and music performers boycotting states that insist that males and females use restrooms designated for them, you have to expect a school district is going to sit on its cowardly hands when faced with this:

A male elementary school teacher identified himself in a video as “transgender” and called on his students to refer to him with the suffix “Mx.,” according to Liberty Counsel.

Previously known as Mark “Vince” Busenbark, the science teacher said on camerathat he is neither male nor female. He asked his students at Allis Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin, to use pronouns such as “them” and their” instead of “him” or “her” in reference to himself. According to Liberty Counsel, a non-profit law practice that specializes in religious tolerance cases, Busenbark’s video was shown to K-5 students on May 16.

Parents were neither informed in advance of the video nor offered the option to exempt their children from viewing it. Liberty Counsel alleges the video may be in violation of the school district’s policies that say "all instruction should be 'age-appropriate, medically accurate, non-stigmatizing, and inclusive for all students.”

Busenbark now calls himself “Vica Steel” and asked students to call him by the suffix “Mx.”, according to Liberty Counsel.

“You know me as Mr. Busenbark or Mr. B,” the long-haired, disheveled Busenbark says in the video. “You've known me as the person in the science room, as the person with the plants and the animals, as the person who builds and helps you build. Most of what you know is true. Most of what you know won't change. But there is one truth that I've hidden from you — until about a month ago from my fellow teachers and friends from family.

“I am transgender,” Busenbark said. “Do you know what that means? Maybe you don't. Maybe you've only heard those words through the filter of those who hate and fear.”
Busenbark referenced the book They Call Me Mix by author Lourdes Rivas, and comments: “This is really my story.” Reading from the book, Busenbark says, “Are you a boy? Or a girl? How can you be both? Some days I am both. Some days I am neither. Most days, I am everything in between. When I was born, everyone decided and agreed that I was a girl. So, they named me Lourdes … As a kid, I never felt like just a girl.” The character in the book has as a “non-binary teacher” who teaches respect for all “genders.”

At the end of the video, Busenbark said he hoped the book allowed his students to understand the word “transgender” better and to understand him as well.

“I am going to take my wife Stella Steel’s last name and I am going to use not ‘Mr.’ and not ‘Mrs.’ but ‘Mx.’ So you can call me Mx. Steel.” Finally, at the end of the video, captions appear that read: “I am not just a boy. I am not just a girl. I’m both! And I am everything in between. I am Mx. Steel!”

We must not become inured to this stuff. We must instantly refute any assertion that it's becoming normal.

Most of all, we must remember the level on which this is really playing out. This is spiritual warfare.

 

Why we won't be attending the parade

I recommend Michael Brown's piece at AFA.net today. I think he does a fine job of extending compassion of the type that is due, without compromising his Christian principles.

It's entitled "Why I Do Not Celebrate Gay Pride." He begins by looking at the situation from a homosexual person's standpoint, so as to understand why such a person would feel the need to form a "community" and a movement based on his or her sex life:

If you ask my detractors, they would tell you that the reason I do not celebrate gay pride is that I’m a bigot. A hater. A homophobe. A transphobe.

And I understand their perspective.

After all, no matter how Christian I claim to be, if I tell a gay couple I do not believe they are truly married in God’s sight, that feels like hatred to them.

If I tell a woman who identifies as a man that I still believe she is a woman, that feels like hatred to her.

From their perspective, I can understand how unchristian my position seems, how bigoted, how biased, how primitive.

After all, they would be quick to point out, there are gay parents who are more devoted to their kids than some straight parents.

There are transgender men and women who are kind, gentle, caring souls.

There are people all across the LGBT spectrum who help the poor, who care for the oppressed, who love the loveless, who are outstanding bosses or employees or friends or neighbors.

All well and good, but there are three specific reason's he can't celebrate their deviation from statistically normal sexuality:

First, I do not accept the categories of LGBT as fixed and definite categories, worthy of special recognition.

Put another way, why should there be a special month to celebrate people based on their sexual desires and romantic attractions? Or based on their gender identity perceptions?

The very fact that we’ve gone from G (as in gay) to LG, to LGB, to LGBT, to LGBTQ, to LGBTQI to LGBTQIP (and beyond) indicates that these are hardly fixed categories.
Or, to zero in on the letter B, why should I celebrate someone who is attracted to both males and females? Why should I put them in a special category (like Hispanic or Asian or Black)?

If the person happens to a courageous firefighter, I’ll celebrate them for that. If the person happens to be a cancer survivor with an amazing story, I’ll celebrate them for that. 

Reason Two:

If I’m convinced that homosexual practice is contrary to God’s design, why should I celebrate it?

If I personally know people whose same-sex attractions were the result of childhood sexual abuse and rape, why should I celebrate those attractions?

If I’m convinced that, ideally, a child should have a mommy and a daddy (rather than two mommies or two daddies), why should I celebrate a family setting that willfully deprives that child of either their mother or father?

Do we celebrate single parent pride? No, we say to those single parents, “It must be hard to raise your child on your own, but we’re standing with you to help.”

There’s quite a difference.

And why should I celebrate transgender identity? What is there to celebrate?
Why should I celebrate putting a child on hormone blockers? Why should I celebrate a 17-year-old girl having her breasts removed? Why should I celebrate a lifelong regimen of hormones? Why should I celebrate something that causes so many people so much pain, even after “transitioning?”

If you asked me to stand with those who identify as transgender and offer them support and compassion and hope, I would say, “Count me in.”

If you asked me to stand against their harassment and mistreatment, again I would say, “Count me in.”

But if you ask me to celebrate their transgender identity (and all the challenges that come with it), I would have to politely decline. 

Reason Three:

Third, and finally, I do not celebrate LGBT pride because there is an agenda attached to it.

In other words, this is not just a matter of me appreciating LGBT people as people, or recognizing their accomplishments for the sake of their accomplishments.

Instead, to celebrate LGBT pride is to recognize and embrace a larger cultural agenda.
As I explained in 2011, “the legitimizing of homosexuality as a perfectly normal alternative to heterosexuality also requires that all opposition to homosexual behavior must be delegitimized. At the very least, the gay agenda requires these three platforms (and let recognized gay leaders renounce this if it is not so).

“Whereas homosexuality was once considered a pathological disorder, from here on those who do not affirm homosexuality will be deemed homophobic, perhaps themselves suffering from a pathological disorder. 

“Whereas gay sexual behavior was once considered morally wrong, from here on public condemnation – or even public criticism – of that behavior will be considered morally wrong. 

“Whereas identifying as transgender was once considered abnormal by society, causing one to be marginalized, from here on those who do not accept transgenderism will be considered abnormal and will be marginalized.” 

And so we are at this strange unfortunate point at which LGBT people will not let Christians love them.

How advanced is the rot? two examples

This:

Seems like a ton of mansplaining is going on here, but 180 CEO‘s spoke out against abortion restrictions in a full page ad in The New York Times. Many of them are men, and based on some of the commentary, I wouldn’t want to work in any of their organizations. From CNN:

A letter endorsed by the business leaders appeared as a full-page ad in Monday’s New York Times, declaring “it’s time for companies to stand up for reproductive health care.

“They argue that limiting access to comprehensive care, “including abortion,” threatens “the health, independence, and economic stability of our employees and customers.” The letter says strict abortion laws are “against our values” and impede corporate efforts to build diverse workforces.

Okay, has anyone told them that abortion rates kill more African American and Hispanic babies per capita than any other demographic? And that approximately half of all babies aborted are women? How exactly does this pattern help promote diversity in the workplace?

Or is it they don’t really want working mothers in the workplace? In all honesty, given the language, this seems to be more of a motivator. Somewhere between feminism’s 2nd and 3rd wave, the ability to be a mother and have a career seems to have evaporated.

And this:

Enter “feminist theorist” Sophie Lewis. She’s a woman whose views on pregnancy, babies, abortion, women, and the family are so radical the word is scarcely an adequate descriptor. Lewis proudly picks up the “forgotten struggle” from Carl Marx’s Communist Manifesto to abolish the family. Yes, she is advocating the abolition of the family.

The Nation writes, “Her new book, Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family (Verso, 2019) specifically links family abolition to a radical reconceptualization of pregnancy itself.” This chilling interview and the worldview she espouses are devoid of love, joy, purpose, humanity, and beauty. This vision of the human person and family could only be conceived, pardon the term, in the pit of hell.

In this short video, Lewis fires off the newest euphemistic missiles. Her words reveal where the fight to preserve abortion “rights” is going next. Pregnancy is “gestational work.” A pregnant mother is a “gestational worker.”

She says the fetus, due to its hemochorial placentation, is inherently inflicting “violence” upon the gestational worker. Thus the gestational worker has every right to “go on strike.” The gestational worker can “exit the workplace” by responding with violence toward the fetus.

The violence the fetus inflicts is unacceptable. The violence the gestational worker inflicts is completely justified. 

A nation the throat of which is this tightly in the grip of Satan does not have good prospects.