Sunday roundup

 Michael Tolhurst of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, writing at Discourse, says there are three values that, were we to embrace them, could lift our discussions about how to teach civics and history out of their present dismal state. They are optimism, inclusion and honesty.

Of optimism, he says

When the greatest generation—the generation that went on to lead America through World War II and the Cold War—was in school, the curriculum was very big on American potential and American freedoms. We do want people to feel good about the country and their community. We do not want people to feel alienated from their society. We also want Americans to feel hopeful about the future. A teaching of civics and history that paints our country as irredeemably bad is going to be rejected by citizens who like their country.

History’s Missing Players

Not surprisingly, these books don’t feature many Black people, and it is hard to feel good about your country and hopeful about the future when you’re left out of the picture. The photos in a civics textbook from the 1930s, for example, feature only white children exhibiting the virtues of daily exercise. Immigration is looked upon with suspicion. Native and Black Americans are treated at best with a stiff politeness or with demeaning compliments. A history of Virginia textbook from the 1890s clearly limns out the tropes of the Lost Cause, which rejected Reconstruction and obscured the causes of the Civil War. So, optimism alone can lead to an unthinking jingoism, and is not a sure guide for a better approach to education.

Inclusion - -real inclusion, not perfunctory demographic quota-filling - has to be part of the picture as well: 

Granted, what constitutes “people like me” is murky—it should not be restricted to the arbitrary categories of race, class or gender popular with some theorists, though these characteristics can’t be ignored either. 

And, lastly, we have to keep it real:

If what we are looking for is an inclusive and optimistic rendition of history, we also need one that is as close to true as possible, and we arrive at that truth by checking our interpretations with others. We arrive at that truth by comparing our perspective with the perspectives of others. This is not to say all perspectives are of equal weight—empirical facts put hard constraints on what is plausible to believe.

The recent passing of Joan Didion brought her husband, John Gregory Dunne, some momentary renewed attention. Kevin Mims, writing at Quillette, takes a fresh look at his brother, Dominique Dunne. The arc of his career and life are pretty remarkable in their own right.

David Rose, writing at UnHerd, sheds light on the degree of excuse-making Western climate activists indulge in for the Chinese Communist Party:

A few blocks away from Tiananmen Square, amid the cavernous splendour of the Beijing Hotel Convention Centre, an array of senior Communist Party officials gathered in September to proclaim a clear message: by “focusing on cutting carbon emissions… China will promote green development, and continuously improve its ecology”. The annual general meeting of the China Council for International Co-operation on Environment and Development (the CCICED) was in full swing.

Rapturous applause filled the room, though that was hardly unexpected. Conferences run by the CCP are not usually marked by dissent, especially when they’re attended by the likes of Xie Zhenhua, who led China’s delegation to Cop26, and vice premier Han Zheng, one of the seven standing committee members of the Politburo, the Party’s supreme elite. Indeed, as the room fizzled with optimistic eco-rhetoric, you could almost forget that China is the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gases — and that the new coal-fired power stations in its construction pipeline alone have a greater capacity than Britain’s entire generation fleet.

What was remarkable about this meeting, though, was the surprising presence of an external delegation: joining the CCP apparatchiks on a collection of screens dotted around the room were a number of enthusiastic Britons and other Westerners. According to the official conference report, the “foreign committee members and partners lauded China’s ecological civilisation building and its new and greater contributions to promoting the construction of a clean and beautiful world”.

Who were these people? Strange to tell, they consisted of a veritable Who’s Who of British, European and American climate activists.

Here, for example, was Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, Chairman of the Grantham Centre on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, and a longstanding government adviser who wrote a reportfor Blair’s Labour government on the need to go green. He told the meeting the world is beginning a “new growth story” that “fits well with China’s vision of an ecological society”.

Here too was Kate Hampton, chief executive of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), which is mainly bankrolled by the billionaire Sir Christopher Hohn, a key financial backer of Extinction Rebellion and one of the world’s biggest sources of green largesse. During the meeting, Hampton said she “supported Chinese leadership on setting the global path for fulfilling Paris goals” — the attempt to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — and praised China for “supporting green Covid-19 recovery”.

Others were equally fulsome, including Laurence Tubiana, France’s former climate ambassador and now chief executive of the European Climate Foundation, which also gives millions to British green campaigns, such as UK100, an alliance of local authorities pledged to turn Net Zero by 2030; and the Conservative Environment Network.

Also present were representatives from ClientEarth, a law firm that tries to block development in Britain and other countries on environmental grounds in the courts; the Worldwide Fund for Nature, whose president is Prince Charles; and representatives from rich and influential organisations based in America including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the World Resources Institute and the Energy Foundation.

And yet in the weeks since the CCICED meeting, Cop26 has come and gone; and largely thanks to China, any hope of a meaningful deal has evaporated. On the last day, British minister Alok Sharma was reduced to tears when India and China refused to promise to phase out coal. Back in the real world, President Xi Jinping has said China will increase annual coal production by 220 million tonnes.

But they got the Western tree-huggers to sell them enough rope:

. . . Qiushi, the CCP’s theoretical journal, published an article in Chinese this year which explores how foreign environmentalists can be utilised. The idea of ecological civilisation, it says, is “Marxist and scientific by nature”, and will have a big role in spreading the China Model’s appeal.

None of this is hidden. This article uses Chinese documents, but all are available on the Mandarin web. Yet climate change activists continue to blindly give China a free pass on its emissions and continued use of coal.

Recently, LITD has posted fairly frequently about the mounting threats to the US from China and Russia. Lest anyone forget that Iran is part of the mounting-threats club as well, its Quds Force head provides a bracing reminder:

Delivering a speech to a ceremony in Mashhad marking the second anniversary of martyrdom of General Soleimani and remembering Martyrs of the "Resistance Front"Defending the Holy Shrines, The IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmaeil Qaani underlined that the Islamic Republic will take revenge for General Soleimani’s assassination in its own way.

“We will prepare ground for the hard revenge against the US from within their homes, as we do not need to be present as supervisors everywhere, wherever is necessary we take revenge against Americans by the help of people on their side and within their own homes without our presence,” Commander Qaani said.

The senior Iranian commander highlighted that Iran will deal with the enemies and the people who committed the crime of assassinating General Soleimani with its own tactics, behavior, style and manner.

Qaani went on to say that it would be much wiser for the US to deal with the criminals who assassinated General Soleimani on their own, as it would be much costlier for the them if “the children of the Resistance Front” are to take the matter in their own hands and take revenge from the Americans by themselves.

“This revenge has begun. Americans will be uprooted from the region,” IRGC Quds Force Commander concluded.

 

Which is why, as Quin Hilyer explains at the Washington Examiner, the US had better take an unflinching look at its preparedness - or, rather, lack thereof - to deal with the mounting-threats club:

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, no combination of foreign threats to the United States and the West has been as dangerous as that which we face in 2022 and immediately beyond. The Chinese designs on Latin America, part of which have been described as “buying an empire,” are just a small portion of leader Xi Jinping’s not-so-secret scheme for world domination. Russia’s Vladimir Putin not only continues to ramp up his anti-Western aggressiveness but also now works militarily with its onetime rival China. Iran moves ever and ever closer to nuclear-weapons capacity. 

Indeed, it is sobering to know that nonstate terrorism of the ISIS and al Qaeda variety, which the State Department still labels “a persistent and pervasive threat worldwide,” arguably is now just the fourth most pressing danger facing the West. This is only in small part because of the decline of terrorists’ capabilities, but in larger part a result of the growth in practical menace from China, Russia, and Iran. 

At times of such peril, domestic political crusading and hyper-partisanship ought to be shunned. Of course philosophical differences will always exist, but patriotic leaders should be stressing areas of unity rather than discord. A polity as bitterly divided as the United States is now will be hard to rally. And a nation as financially indebted as today’s U.S. will be hard-pressed to ramp up greater spending for security. 

Consider that in 1941, on the eve of U.S. entry into World War II, this nation was coming off three straight landslide presidential elections. There was no hint of democratic illegitimacy in the air. And despite nine years of New Deal spending, the ratio of U.S. debt to gross domestic product stood at an eminently manageable 44%, rather than today’s economically frightening, unsustainable 122% (not to mention a mind-boggling $123 trillion in unfunded liabilities). 

All of which is to say that political leaders for now should abjure grand, expensive visions and utopian dreams. Stop trying for “transformational,” systemic change and instead seek collaborative and bipartisan reform. Re-adopt “regular order” procedurally, embrace incrementalism (on all sides), seek consensus even amid philosophical tensions, and put country ahead of party.

A tall order given the shift in attitudes among a chillingly large swath of our populace. Tom Hogan at The Bulwark:

year after supporters of Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn his election defeat, a new survey has found that a small but significant portion of his devotees believes he should be reinstated by any means, including armed revolt.

More generally, the survey, which I sponsored, finds that, although Americans remain strong believers in liberty, there is a powerful undercurrent of potential support for authoritarianism.

The survey of 1,000 American voters was conducted online and by phone between Christmas and New Year’s by political scientist David B. Hill of Hill Research Consultants. Respondents were asked a battery of 21 agree-or-disagree questions—indicators of possible support for or opposition to authoritarianism. The results were then weighted to match national demographics. (The poll results and an explanation of the methodology can be found here.)

The responses showed solid majorities of support for liberty, democracy, and the rights of protesters.

However, nearly half the respondents (49 percent) agreed with the assertion that “Once our leaders give us the go-ahead, it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the decay that is poisoning our country from within.”

More than half (56 percent) agreed with the sentiment that the “only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put a tough leader in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading radical ideas.”

Yeah, that's where we are. For real.

I highly recommend "In Defense of Elite Film Criticism" by Hannah Long at The Dispatch. It speaks to one of my preoccupations: standards:

Uncritical enthusiasm—and absolute insistence that lowbrow entertainment is high art—is the order of the day. We don’t just need to enjoy superhero movies, we need them to be up for Best Picture. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—flailing for relevance—floated a “popular film” category for the Oscars before outcry forced a reversal. Meanwhile, Black Panther and Joker both received Best Picture nominations. A ripoff of Taxi Driver about a comic book character’s antagonist isn’t exactly Citizen Kane, is it?

Look around you: We don’t need more subjectivism. We need more standards. Better standards. Good critics are necessary to help us achieve that. And yes, that means some elitism, because they’ll need to push back on the current populist cinema craze. It means standards.

But aren’t movies about making us feel good? Martin Scorsese may be a great director, but who really wants to rent a Fellini film when the new Spider-Man is playing at the multiplex? As someone with tastes that include plenty of populist pulp content, I’m sympathetic to that argument. And the viewing of art is inescapably an emotional experience, for beauty is not the same as an empirical formula. But it’s too easy to let our emotions run away with us here.

The late British conservative philosopher Roger Scruton wrote that beauty is something which engages both our heart and our mind—our passions and our intellect. Beauty, far from merely being “in the eye of the beholder,” is something which can bear objective analysis. Animals can only chase their appetites. We have the ability to remove our self-interest from the equation and appreciate a thing for itself—not for its “survival value” but because it gives survival value, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis.

I can't remember where I came across this piece at Plough by Wheaton College English professor Richard Hughes Gibson.  It's a little over a year old. Maybe someone on social media referred to it. Anyway, it's entitled "In Search of Charitable Writing: Christian Authors Should Not Discard Christian Virtues In Their Political Writings" and it speaks to the harsh landscape of our political discourse and how it's reflective of our broader societal brittleness, and how there's no avoiding the fact that changing it starts with individual cultivation of traits that add to the light, not the darkness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can't foresee voting again until I have some kind of choice other than garbage

 The big question being bandied about on this first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol insurrection is about the proper perspective in which to place it.

It is a tricky bit of business to avoid taking a position for opportunistic reasons. 

From the left comes the narrative that that day's events demonstrate that there is no substantive reason to oppose the collectivist, identity-politics-driven and climate-alarmist progressive agenda. In this telling, the fact that Trump supporters had to resort to the tactics they employed shows that they they had no policy proposals or well-thought-out vision of an American essence that withstands the push and pull of momentary shifts in the cultural winds. 

What the leftists have going for them is that theirs is the proper perspective on Trumpism - which, allow me to reiterate once again, is an entirely different animal from what was recognizable as conservatism prior to 2015. An ongoing offering of essays in American Greatness, The Federalist and the Claremont Review of Books notwithstanding, there is no consistent core to Trumpism. It's a hodgepodge of protectionist economics, world-stage swagger about nothing, complete disregard for the degree of character - or complete absence thereof - of its stars and icons, and use of actually pressing problems as tools for grift and brand reinforcement (witness the endless stream of fundraising emails with throbbing headlines about stopping socialism). 

Trumpists are approaching today's anniversary with the lamest sort of whataboutism, reaching back to Democratic attempts to perpetuate falsehoods about Russian collusion in the 2016 election cycle, or Stacey Abrams's unfounded whining about her 2018 Georgia governor's-race defeat. Mollie Hemingway is out with a piece today (look it up yourself; no linky love) that's preoccupied with the role of "powerful tech oligarchies" and states' attempts to compensate for the effects of an unprecedented pandemic as preparations were made for fair and efficient elections in 2020. Whether there's any appreciable degree of validity to anything she's bringing up, the fact remains that 60 courts, including a Supreme Court on which sit three Trump nominees, dismissed claims that the election process had been fishy anywhere in the country. (And this points up just how quick post-Americans in our day are to foul their own nests - that is, sully the validity of legitimate arguments they make by conflating those situations with their pet obsessions. For instance, Hemingway wrote a thoroughly researched and important book on how horribly Brett Kavanaugh was treated during his vetting for his SCOTUS seat. The public understandably has difficulty separating her defense of that good man's character from her out-to-lunch Trumpism.)

Then there's the historical-comparison angle. Was January 6 worse than, or not nearly as bad as, the 1812 British burning of the Capitol, the formation of a separate nation consisting of slaveholding states in 1860 for the purpose of waging war on the Union, the 1954 shoot-up of the House by Puerto Rican nationalists, the entire tumultuous year of 1968, or the racially charge civil unrest that has beset the country over the last eight years or so.

I don't much care for that way of approaching it. It's a lazy way to justify either dismissiveness or obsession. 

If we isolate January 6 in order to examine just what was awful about it, we see that Trump was orchestrating the climate needed for its occurrence. His 2:30 AM statement on November 4, the lawsuits, the hourlong January 2 I-need-you-to-find-11,000-votes call to Brad Raffensperger, the "be there, will be wild" tweet, and his speech to his followers on the Ellipse. And I'm not interested in any kind of smokescreen about how he used the term "peaceably." He told those people that the election had been stolen and that the prospects for the country's continued existence was on the line. He stoked that crowd to maximum frenzy. 

He also tried every trick in the book to pressure Mike Pence into behaving unconstitutionally. And pathetic lapdog that Pence had become, the Vice President had to hear from friend, mentor and veep predecessor Dan Quayle that avoiding his duty to oversee the electoral vote count was impossible. Pence just took it when Trump said that, if Pence didn't come around, Trump didn't want to be his friend anymore, and posed the choice of being a "patriot or pussy" as the one before Pence.

There's also the war room set up at the Willard Hotel and the Peter Navarro plan to keep Trump in office.

In this light, can there be any question that the select House committee looking into the events of a year ago is of supreme importance?

But I would not want to leave the discussion at the level of the facts herein presented. They can't be isolated from the larger problem that made this hot mess possible: Donald Trump's utter unfitness to be president. National Review sounded the alarm at the outset of 2016. In October of that year, the newly surfaced Access Hollywood tape came close to being a deal-breaker for Larry Kudlow, but he swallowed hard and stayed on the team. Karen Pence was so disgusted she tried to get Mike to withdraw his vice-presidential candidacy. On election night, she said, "Well, Mike, you got what you wanted" and refused to give him a congratulatory kiss, telling Mike to leave her alone.

Then the Trump presidency got underway, and along came the stream of outrages documented in the plethora of books written since: calling a roomful of generals dopes and babies, insulting leaders of allied nations to their faces and by phone, the utterly fruitless appeasement of Kim Jong-un, the imposition of tariffs on a wide range of goods the US buys from various trading partners, the kicking to the curb of any Republican political candidate who did not expressly declare unwavering personal loyalty to him. 

January 6 was the most effective shining of the spotlight of truth about people's character - or lack thereof- with regard to the Trump phenomenon to date. Lindsey Graham, who has honed expressions of righteous indignation to an art form, has gone from saying "enough is enough" about support for Trump to saying that he deals with Trump's 'dark side' because Trump has a 'magic' lacking in other Republicans.  It did not take even a month after Kevin McCarthy's January 6 call from the House floor to Trump, in which Trump, who, as we now know, was watching the insurrection live on TV and resisting pleas from family members to act decisively, toyed with McCarthy, casually telling him that maybe the insurrectionists were more upset about the election that McCarthy was, to which McCarthy had to respond by screaming, "Do you know who the fuck you're talking to?" for McCarthy to make the ring-kissing pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago.

The binary-choice argument that the Republican Party has used to justify its pathetic existence keeps getting refined to fit the times. Republican activists, apparatchiks and politicians will tell us that the vast majority of party members are grown-up, sensible, policy-steeped citizens who comprise the party's real lifeblood. They're still the ones who give the keynote addresses at Lincoln-Reagan Day dinners, who tap precinct-committee talent from the ranks of loyalists with the pedigree of sometimes several generations of party involvement. They're the ones who are focused on their communities' economic development and basic good government. 

Oh, really? Is that how the likes of Liz Cheney in Wyoming, Ben Sasse in Nebraska, Tom Rice in South Carolina, Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, and Doug Ducey in Arizona came to be censured by their state parties?

The ones who most nakedly display their desperation to shore up this rotten party play the "move on" card. The American people expect their elected representatives to be about addressing the very real issues on the nation's plate and all that horses---. 

No, the Republican Party is not deserving of one American's vote for any office, federal, state or local, unless it eradicates every last vestige of Trumpism. Since that's an impossible task, the conservatives and moderates who have remained on board must have nothing to do with it.

And going over to the Democrat side is no answer. A party that demonizes the likes of Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema is as fatally infected with its own nihilism as the Republicans.

So, no, there will be no yard signs at my house this year. 

If your conclusion at this point is along the lines of "Wow, this guy has really given himself over to a sense of hopelessness about our political situation," you would not be wrong.

It is so very late in the day. 

Joe Manchin

 There are several kinds of possible takes on his announcement on Fox News Sunday that he "cannot vote to continue with" the Build Back Better package. We're already seeing some of them play out. 

Lefties are howling, of course. A common theme among their expressions of outrage is that it was a mistake for Capitol Hill Dems to de-couple the infrastructure bill from BBB. But wasn't the point of doing so that the American public wouldn't swallow a price tag like that was going to entail? The ongoing - and ever worsening -debt-and-deficit problem may not ordinarily be a front-burner issue for most citizens, but in a year of a dramatic rise in inflation, its insidious nature has been easier for people to see. More basically, while some of BBB's provisions poll favorably (more on that in a bit), the portion of the public on board with such a massive imposition of collectivism, identity-politics militancy and climate alarmism is relatively small.

The administration, via Jen Psaki, took the line that Manchin's announcement constitutes a betrayal of goodwill. That's to be expected. 

Haven't really seen much response from the Trumpists yet, but I'll predict that the basic tone will be along the lines of glee at a defeat for Dems without much analysis.

Actual conservatives are understandably heartened by this development, because it's a significant stymying of the general progressive agenda.

The case that Manchin might have been more comfortable as a Republican over the course of his career is fairly easy to make. I find the preponderance of his activity laudable. (Not that I consider myself a Republican anymore, but a lot of his moves happened back when the GOP was the repository for conservative principles.)

He voted to confirm Scott Pruitt for EPA head. While Pruitt later demonstrated some poor judgement, going into his nomination, the salient point about him was that he understood that the EPA was all about overreach and halting human advancement. Manchin's first bill in the Senate was the EPA Fair Play Act, intended to address the agency's monkeying with the rules after permits for a project had been granted.

He supported the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have greatly enhanced the nation's energy outlook.

He voted for Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. He seems to have understood that they were serious jurists with a fealty to the Constitution as written. 

He was a founder of No Labels in 2010. While the idea naturally arouses skepticism (at least for me), it indicates a desire to distinguish himself from what the Democrats had become.

He's said he doesn't see the need for DC statehood, which is a no-brainer for anyone who's motivated by anything other than instantly adding a bunch of Dem voters to the rolls. 

He's on record as being skeptical that single-payer health care has any appreciable merit.

He seems to understand that marriage, as defined by all cultures all over the world throughout history until the last couple of decades at the outset, is between a man and a woman. Hence, his lone stance as the only Democrat not to cosponsor the Equality Act.

He opposed hiking the minimum wage to $15 per hour, although he's not quite as immovable on this one, having then floated the idea that a lesser hike might be okay. I personally wish he'd said something like minimum wage being bad and wrong as a matter of principle, but that's probably too much to ask for. 

So why has he remained a Democrat through the years? The intertwining of family tradition and party affiliation may be a factor. He comes from a politically prominent West Virginia family.

There are also going to be the disinterested-analysis takes, which will largely state the obvious: He represents a state that went for Trump over Biden, which necessitates him balking at BBB's glaring problems, and Biden surely knows that with the Senate comprised as it is, BBB was likely to mostly be a lot of big talk.

There will be cynical takes as well. From the left, they will take the form of characterizing Manchin's motivation as being getting a kick out of wielding this unusual amount of power. 

And now for my opinion. I'm absolutely delighted. Manchin's announcement has indeed prevented a ratcheting-up of the progressive vision's imposition that would have rendered the country even less recognizable that it already is. But I'm not gloating. "Ha-ha-we-sure-owned-the-libs" is not the point of my delight. 

The messiness attendant to the way things are done in America will continue. 

As I mentioned above, while polls show that the American populace remains, overall, center-right, several of BBB's features have great appeal to lots of people. Subsidized child care and target dates for moving away from fossil fuels sound great to a public that has little acquaintance with the concept of economic freedom. People have vague notions of what policies are preferable based on not much more than "yeah, that sounds like it would make life better," not considering the price: government omnipresence in their lives. 

I'm not a cynic. I think Joe Manchin is a decent man with his head basically on straight who had no desire to accelerate his country's headlong rush to decline. 

The Republican Party must be entirely replaced if actual conservatism is to have any shot at viability - today's edition

 The prospects for each of post-America's two major political parties remain what they were when I wrote the introductory paragraphs to this post on November 16:

I don't doubt the findings of a Washington Post/ABC News poll showing Republicans having the widest margin of advantage over Democrats in a generic poll concerning how respondents would vote re: their districts' House candidates. 

Not surprising at all. Democrats are increasingly recognized as the party of wealth redistribution, climate alarmism and wokeness. And there are even more than a few progressives who are put out with the administration for being completely inept at seeing through its leftist aims. Mediocrity and incompetence characterize the way it operates. Voters know it.

So it's all wrong for the nation and doesn't deserve your vote.

But, you see, this is exactly why I long ago (as in mid-2016) eschewed the binary-choice argument. 

The Republican Party's status as a cult can't be reversed. Its leadership has either convinced itself of the rigged-election narrative or signed on to the we-need-to-move-on-and-be-about-a-forward-looking-agenda set of talking points. In any event, there's no room for the only remaining Republicans who refuse to indulge the delusion. 

That was well-established already, but with the 38-page memo now in the hands of the public, the dangerousness of this cult should be plain to every citizen who is not caught up in it:

A 38-page plan for overturning President Joe Biden's electoral victory reportedly involved declaring a nationwide national security emergency and invalidating all electronically-cast ballots.

Mark Meadows shared a PowerPoint presentation dated January 5 with the Capitol riot committee, titled 'Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN,' as part of the trove of documents he was compelled to hand over in the House's ongoing probe.

Its existence was revealed by Committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, the lone Democrat representing Mississippi in Congress, in a letter informing Meadows' lawyer that the panel had 'no choice' but to move forward with a criminal referral for the ex-White House Chief of Staff for refusing to appear for a deposition.

This thing leaves no room for doubt that comparisons of  the final lineup of Trump-administration personnel to Latin American strongman operations is no exaggeration. 

Portions of that presentation shared by The Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell detail a series of 'recommendations,' apparently for Trump, to follow ahead of the planned electoral vote certification the next day.

They include declaring a national security emergency over accusations that China 'gained control over our election system,' claiming US electronic voting systems were 'under foreign influence and control,' and briefing federal lawmakers on the alleged 'foreign interference.'

It also calls for Trump to declare all electronically-cast ballots invalid and instructing Congress to undergo a 'legal & genuine' count of paper ballots or other 'Constitutional remedy.'

Another slide features three recommendations for ex-Vice President Mike Pence, who it's now known told Trump on January 5th that he wanted no part of his efforts to overturn Biden's win:

'VP Pence seats Republican Electors over the objections of Democrats in states where fraud occurred,' the first point states.

'VP Pence rejects the electors from States where fraud occurred causing the election to be decided by remaining electoral votes.

'VP Pence delays the decision in order to allow for a vetting and subsequent counting of the all the legal paper ballots.'

It appears to be in line with a memo written by John Eastman, a law professor who advised Trump on how to overturn the election and was also subpoenaed by the committee. 

Eastman took part in a January 4 Oval Office meeting where participants debated whether Pence had the authority to not accept votes certified by states that ultimately made Biden president when Congress met to count votes on January 6. 

Another slide in the PowerPoint allegedly linked to Meadows refers to all non-paper ballots as 'counterfeit.'

It claims that electronic voting machines 'are shifting votes from Trump to Biden' and therefore only paper ballots could be counted, which would 'almost certainly' hand victory to Trump. 

By eliminating mail-in ballots, a majority of which went to Democrats in 2020, 'US Senators, US House Races, State, and Local races now turn to Republican,' the presentation states.

It also appears to call for all urban-area votes to be rendered invalid, claiming without evidence that foreign actors changed votes 'in traditionally Republican strongholds in order to deliver a Biden win because they could jam no more into the major cities (fraud votes).' 

The purported plan goes on to outline a recount scenario in which the remaining paper ballots would be 'locked and physically protected' by Trump's government and the vote count would happen under the National Guard's watch.

'A Trusted Lead Counter will be appointed with authority from the POTUS to direct the actions of select federalized National Guard units and support from DOJ, DHS and other US government agencies as needed to complete a recount of the legal paper ballots for the federal elections in all 50 states,' the presentation details. 

Thompson's Tuesday letter to Meadows' lawyer reveals the Trump ally was exchanging emails about the lengthy presentation up until the day before the Capitol attack and it was intended for presentation 'on the hill.'

The letter also revealed further bombshell details about communications that the former North Carolina congressman did send over to the committee. 

One of the most damning appears to be a text exchange between Meadows and an unnamed federal lawmaker that took place after the November 2020 election.

The letter refers to a 'November 6, 2020, text exchange with a Member of Congress apparently about appointing alternate electors in certain states as part of a plan that the Member acknowledged would be "highly controversial" and to which Mr. Meadows apparently said, "I love it"...'    

If, God forbid, he were to win the 2024 election, think about what the whole world would know right off the bat about the value system, if you want to call it that, that informs Trumpist foreign policy. During his 2016-2020 term, he was rightly lauded for overseeing a pro-Israel foreign policy, and he reveled in having established a buddy relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu. But what's transpired regarding that bond over the course of this year reveals two things: one, that Trump is truly nuts and believes this whole scenario he's concocted in his head. and, two, he hadn't the slightest understanding or regard for the reason for the US-Israel alliance: Israel is the only Western nation in the Middle East and the only one with a diversified, advanced economy. For the Very Stable Genius, it was all about personal loyalty and betrayal. He had no use for Netanyahu when the latter took the same view of the US election that 60 courts where Trump zombies filed lawsuits did. 

Don't doubt this:

Former President Trump accused Benjamin Netanyahu of disloyalty after the former Israeli prime minister congratulated President Biden on his presidential win earlier this year. 

"I haven’t spoken to him since," Trump said, according to comments released from an interview taken by Israeli journalist Barak Ravid. "F--k him," he added.

Trump accused Netanyahu of speaking up too quickly following what the former president has still yet to concede was a legitimate election. 

"Nobody did more for Bibi. And I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi," he said, referring to the former prime minister by his nickname. "But I also like loyalty. The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape."

Despite Trump’s condemnation of Netanyahu, the then-prime minister was not amongst one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden for securing the presidential win.

Netanyahu waited roughly 12 hours after the election had been called to congratulate Biden on his election. 

Okay, so there's a - what? - 15 percent chance the VSG won't run. There are a few variables that could dictate a different turn of events from what is likely. 

Who gets the mantle? Some drool-besotted throne sniffer like this?

• NIKKI HALEY finally landed a one-on-onewith DONALD TRUMPafter he rejected her request for a sit-down in February, following her condemnation of his actions on Jan. 6. While Haley faced the prospect of being one of Trump’s sworn enemies ahead of a potential 2024 presidential campaign, she praised him during a recent speech in Iowa and said she won’t challenge him in a primary (something Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS hasn’t done). 
• So last week, nearly 10 months after the first snub, Trump finally granted her a visit to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring. “He doesn’t see the point in making enemies,” a source close to Trump said, adding that the former president is still skeptical of Haley because of her back-and-forth statements about him. “He likes teasing people,” another aide said.

 

 

It will have to be, won't it? Won't the vast majority of Pub voters demand it? 

By a 74%-to-25% margin, Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters (who we'll call potential Republican primary voters) say that Biden didn't win enough votes to win the 2020 election legitimately. 

But it's not just that there are a lot of them. They look to be the ones who are going to be the most likely to cast a ballot next year. 

The margin grows to 86% to 13% that Biden didn't win legitimately among potential Republican primary voters who are extremely enthusiastic about voting next year. Compare that to Republicans who are not enthusiastic about voting in 2022: They believe Biden didn't win legitimately by a 62% to 38% margin. 

Either way, there are a lot of Republicans who don't think Biden won fairly in 2020. 

Importantly, a lot of Republicans are going to prioritize their feelings about 2020 in how they vote in 2022. That is, it's not likely going to be an afterthought when casting a ballot. 

A majority (61%) of potential Republican primary voters say believing Trump won the 2020 election is important to what being a Republican means to them. Only 39% disagreed.

Again though, primaries are often about turnout. The potential Republican voters who are extremely enthusiastic about voting in 2022 say that believing Trump won is important to what being a Republican means to them by a 77% to 23% margin.

This is outside the bounds of any previous consensus on normal. This ought to be on the nation's front burner.  

 

 

 

 

 

There is no compelling reason for humanity to convert en masse to play-like energy forms

 This move is positive, not only in and of itself, but because it come from a newly elected non-Trumpist Republican governor. He's not grandstanding or kowtowing to a cult. He's just a guy who understands the basic economic flaws in an agreement his state had entered into:

This week, Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin announced his intention to withdraw the Commonwealth of Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a pact of 11 states requiring power plants inside those states to purchase “allowances” to emit a determined amount of carbon dioxide.

Governor-elect Youngkin said, “RGGI describes itself as a regional market for carbon. But it is really a carbon tax that is fully passed on to ratepayers. It’s a bad deal for Virginians. It a bad deal for Virginia businesses.”

Would that more leaders around the globe understood this. 

The Biden administration clearly doesn't, pressing ahead as it is with its $5 trillion (yes, that's the figure the CBO has calculated for the cost once everything is taken into consideration) climate alarmism-driven Build Back Better plan even as the Associated Press's feet turn cold given our present inflation reality. 

Most of Europe has yet to get a clue:

Germany's new traffic-light political coalition—the red SPD, the yellow Free Democrats, and the Greens—is making the Paris climate agreement its top priority. In April, Germany's constitutional court ruled that its 2050 net-zero target was so distant that it violated the freedoms of young people. So, along with Sweden, Germany became the first country to legislate a 2045 net-zero target. Yet the new German government's net-zero plan, as outlined in the coalition agreement, may as well have been designed to worsen Europe's current energy crisis and sink its largest and most successful economy.

Under the timetable inherited from the Merkel government, zero-emitting nuclear power—which only a decade ago accounted for one-fourth of German electricity generation—will be phased out by the end of next year. To make matters worse, the new coalition is bringing forward the closure of all Germany's coal-fired power stations from 2038 to 2030 and at the same time raising the share of renewables to 80 percent. Notes energy expert Lucian Pugliaresi, Germany's energy policy initiatives "will not be sufficient to meet demand for electricity in Germany in 2030."

Germany's loss is Vladimir Putin's gain—burning more natural gas will be the only way for the country to keep the lights on. That means higher natural gas prices across northern Europe, and a continent more dependent for its energy on a dangerous geopolitical rival.

The biggest disappointment among would-be climate leaders so far has been the host of the recent U.N. climate conference: Britain and its prime minister, Boris Johnson. Britain made its bid for climate leadership in the waning days of the premiership of Johnson's predecessor in the summer of 2019. Theresa May had already announced her decision to step down when she latched on to net zero as her prime ministerial legacy. After a 90-minute debate in the House of Commons, with no cost estimates and no vote, Britain became the first major country to write net zero into law.

A small clique of politicians close to the outgoing prime minister seized on the prospect of Britain winning the presidency of the 2020 UN climate conference (later pushed back to 2021 because of COVID-19) to save face post-Brexit. One of them, former energy secretary Amber Rudd, told Politicothat she thought it would "help bind the U.K. closer to the EU" on climate and energy. It amounts to a reverse case of Boris Johnson's famed cakeism—instead of having your cake and eating it, Britain would have the disadvantages of being tied to the EU without the benefits of EU membership.

Having gotten into the business of climate leadership, Britain made "keeping 1.5 alive"—the maximum temperature rise of 1.5°C that net zero is meant to deliver—the main goal of the Glasgow conference. The result was humiliation. By its end, UN secretary general António Guterres had declared 1.5 "on life support" and the British president of the conference was fighting back tears.

The facts don't bear out this headlong rush to move away from normal-people energy forms:

What the UN report and the underlying scientific literature do say is that, even as natural and growing human influences have warmed the globe 1.1 C since 1900, most extreme weather events have remained within natural variability. The UN’s best estimate is that we’ll see an additional 1.6 C warming by 2100, an increase that is expected to have minimal net economic impact. That’s quite plausible since the 20th century saw a quadrupling of the global population and the greatest improvement ever in human wellbeing, even with the 1.1 C rise.

Science also confirms that we have time. As first recognized in the Nobel prize–winning work of William Nordhaus, an optimal path to “net zero” emissions would balance the disruption of too-rapid a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions (or decarbonization) against a growing risk of detrimental climate impacts. While there are many uncertainties in estimating that balance, future impacts appear to be small, thus suggesting that today’s mitigation plans are too hasty. To enable a graceful and economically viable energy transition in the coming decades, we must better observe and understand the changing climate and develop better emissions-lite technologies.

The alarmists are wont to exploit every natural disaster of newsworthy magnitude, but the fact is that natural-disaster deaths have been in sharp decline for a century:

Not that you’d know it, if you had half an eye on the headlines this summer. The floods, fires and heatwaves that plagued the world were, for many observers, proof that the impacts of climate change have already become catastrophic. In Europe, more than 150 people died in flooding. In the United States, wildfire season started earlier and lasted longer, razing hundreds of thousands of acres. Around the world, hundreds died from heatwaves.

But again, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the facts: there has been a 92% decline in the per decade death toll from natural disasters since its peak in the 1920s. In that decade, 5.4 million people died from natural disasters. In the 2010s, just 0.4 million did. Globally, the five-year period ending in 2020 had the fewest natural disaster deaths of any five-year period since 1900. And this decline occurred during a period when the global population nearly quadrupled — and temperatures rose more than 1°C degree centigrade above pre-industrial levels.

You see, there's an important factor in all this that must be taken into account: human ingenuity:

What determines whether people die in heat waves is not whether temperatures rose to 110°F — or even 115°F— instead of 109°F. It is whether or not they have air conditioning. Heat-related deaths have halved in the US since 1960 — even as the population expanded and heat waves grew in frequency, intensity, and length — because more and more people did.

Though climate alarmists steadfastly ignore it, our capacity to adapt is extraordinary. We are very good at protecting people from natural disasters — and getting better. To take just one example, France in 2006 had 4,000 fewer deaths from a heat wave than anticipated thanks to improved health care, an early-warning system and greater public consciousness in response to a deadly heat wave three years earlier. Even poor, climate-vulnerable nations like Bangladesh saw deaths from natural disasters decline massively thanks to low-cost weather surveillance and warning systems and storm shelters.

Climate alarmists have been wildly off the mark with their predictions for over 50 years.  The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times were, with a straight face, reporting Paul Erlich's prognostications of famine by 1975 and humanity's disappearance "in a cloud of blue steam" within twenty years in 1969. In the early 1970s, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe ran stories taking alarmists' (scientists, doncha know) claims that an ice age would be upon us by the end of the twentieth century seriously. Acid rain had its run as the star crisis of the 1980s, until the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program said "never mind" in 1990. James Hansen's drought predictions were proven to be a lot of hooey. And, of course, there's the polar ice cap disappearance that wasn't. 

Still, the overlords will not brook any suggestion that some reconsideration might be in order:

Take the experience of statistician and sceptical environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg. Earlier this year he was invited to give a public lecture at Duke University, only to be met by high-profile calls for it to be cancelled from Duke professors and assorted climate activists. Duke held its nerve, and the lecture went ahead, but not without Lomborg being denounced as a ‘professional climate denier’ – and all because he questions the economic wisdom of certain aspects of climate-change policymaking. 

Or take the decision of the BBC in 2018 to ban, effectively, any debate over climate change. This decision followed activists’ outcry over its 2014 decision to allow Lord Lawson, a former chancellor of the exchequer and a critic of climate alarmism, to appear on Radio 4’s Today programme. The BBC said it had got its coverage of climate change ‘wrong too often’ and told staff: ‘You do not need a “denier” to balance the debate.’ 

Now even those who are concerned about climate change, but who ‘downplay’, as the Independent put it, ‘the need for immediate and radical cuts to greenhouse gas emissions’, are being accused of denialism. Apparently, ‘delay is the new denial’.

Indeed, influential climate scientist Michael Mann argues that anyone who inhibits the need for drastic action right this very moment, perhaps by talking hopefully of ‘adaptation’, ‘geoengineering’ or ‘carbon capture’, is just a climate denier in optimist’s clothing. ‘The greatest threat’, concludes one politician, ‘is now posed by those who purport to accept the scientific consensus, but refuse to respond at the pace science demands’.

Let's speak plainly. Climate alarmism is one piece of a larger impetus that has seen to it that Western civilization declines to the point of being  unrecognizable. Human advancement that has made possible the safety, comfort, convenience and variety of modern life, and lifted millions out of poverty over the last two centuries, is, in this reading, a negative, an arrogant assertion of privilege by our species, which, since, in this reading, is no better than any other in this relativity-governed universe.

It is such a glaringly off-base vision that it will surely play itself out someday. The question is how much harm it will do in the meantime. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Russia ups the stakes

 A little something to keep on the radar screen as you go forth onto the busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style:

The Kremlin has been moving troops toward the border with Ukraine while demanding Washington guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO and that the alliance will refrain from certain military activities in and around Ukrainian territory. The crisis has provoked fears of a renewed war on European soil and comes ahead of a planned virtual meeting next week between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

“The Russian plans call for a military offensive against Ukraine as soon as early 2022 with a scale of forces twice what we saw this past spring during Russia’s snap exercise near Ukraine’s borders,” said an administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. “The plans involve extensive movement of 100 battalion tactical groups with an estimated 175,000 personnel, along with armor, artillery and equipment.”

Applying some pressure, no? "Make a firm commitment to keep Ukraine out of NATO and make it fast" is the clear message. 

It's being conveyed diplomatically as well:

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a testy exchange over Ukraine at a dinner with dozens of their colleagues this week, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The verbal tension erupted as the U.S. and its European allies seek ways -- including possible sanctions -- to counter the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine after President Vladimir Putin’s troop buildup on the neighboring country’s border.

Lavrov took the floor at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe dinner in Stockholm on Dec. 1 to revisit Russia’s view that the collapse of a pro-Moscow administration in Ukraine in 2014 was a coup, according to two of the people. He also alleged that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union were suppressing dissent and threatening Russia.

Blinken responded by recapping the 2014 events, including that forces loyal to then-President Viktor Yanukovich fired on peaceful protesters in Kyiv, killing more than 100 people, before he fled and surfaced in Russia. Blinken also told his Russian counterpart that NATO is a defense alliance.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed reports that Blinken had shut down Lavrov during the exchange at the 57-nation forum. She was responding on Facebook to Ukrainian reports that Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Blinken had put Lavrov, one of the world’s most senior diplomats, in his place.

Rather reminiscent of the March meeting in Alaska between top US and Chinese diplomats:

Top diplomats from the U.S. and China had a public blowup in front of reporters Thursday as the two global powers met in Alaska to discuss policy and attempt to restore ties that have become increasingly strained in recent years.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was joined in Anchorage by Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, to meet with their Chinese counterparts, State Councilor Wang Yi and Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi, for two days of talks in their first face-to-face meetings.

The atmosphere was expected to be tense because days earlier the U.S. had slapped sanctions on China for Beijing's crackdown on political freedoms in Hong Kong. But the contentious on-camera exchanges that followed were a clear departure from the light pleasantries traditionally offered before diplomatic discussions.

Blinken opened his remarks by saying Beijing needed to return to a rules-based system, lambasting China for violating international norms through their crackdown on Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang, cyber attacks against the U.S. and “economic coercion.”

“Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability," Blinken said. "Our intent is to be direct about our concerns, direct about our priorities, with the goal of a more clear-eyed relationship between our countries moving forward.”

Sullivan added, "We do not seek conflict but we welcome stiff competition, and we will always stand up for our principles for our people, and for our friends."

China’s Yang Jiechi replied with a lengthy lecture against the U.S. that went on for so long the subsequent translation took 17 minutes. According to a senior official, there had been an agreement that each side would speak for two minutes at a photo opportunity before the session began.

"China is firmly opposed to U.S. interference in China's internal affairs. We have expressed our staunch opposition to such interference, and we will take firm actions in response of human rights. We hope that the United States will do better on human rights,” he said, referring to the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. “China has made steady progress in human rights."

He added, "And the United States has United States-style democracy. And China has Chinese-style democracy. It is not just up to the American people, but also the people of the world, to evaluate how the United States has done in advancing its own democracy in China's case, after decades of reform and opening up, we have come a long way in various fields."

Blinken then signaled for the news cameras to stay so that he could rebut the criticism of U.S democracy, noting the Chinese officials’ lengthy remarks. Sullivan followed suit. Blinken then attempted to dismiss the press pool but the Chinese officials insisted they be given the chance to offer their own second round.

This spat turned a four-minute photo-op into a diplomatic spat that lasted more than an hour.

You'll note that this was five months before the utter debacle of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

A new tone has been set for world-stage dynamics.

In a Washington Examiner piece that I can't get out of my head, Matthew Continetti puts it thusly:

China builds up its nuclear weapons cache as it sails a submarine through the Taiwan Strait. Russia shoots down a satellite as it builds up forces on the border of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s recent comments about Russia’s strong relationship with China are the most disturbing and underreported aspect of rising tensions in Eastern Europe. Putin and Xi Jinping seem to have assessed that America has become so decrepit, so inward-looking, so guilt-ridden and risk-averse that the moment has arrived to make the world safe for autocracy. Biden’s response is weak sauce. Holding a summit of democracies may be worthwhile. But it certainly is not a deterrent.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between the world as it really is - tangible, right in front of our noses, unfolding faster than explanations of it can be formulated - and the less concrete ways we're comfortable dealing with it: analysis, revisiting of our ideals, speculation.

Human history has been unfolding for some time, but it seems that we're still learning lessons from it afresh, and usually in the form of rude awakenings.