Fun with AI:
European “conservatives” are not like American conservatives
The article is behind a paywall, but you can find a lengthy excerpt at Instapundit:
True American conservatism is not just a political leaning. It is a philosophy rooted in the preservation of individual liberty and our God-given inalienable rights. Meanwhile, European conservatism is mere branding. What passes for “conservatism” in Europe depends entirely on the alternative, which often makes it little more than a nationalistic version of its left-wing opposition with a half-hearted call for marginally lower taxes and a growing opposition to unfettered illegal immigration.
Many years ago, somewhere along the line in my early blogging career, I learned that the words “left” and “right” do not mean the same in Europe as in the US. Exactly what they mean in Europe I’m not completely sure, but the above may be as good a summary as any.
Europe has never placed the same sort of importance as the US has on free speech, for example. Vance was correct about that – and it’s not a new phenomenon. I learned about it as long ago as 2006, when I did some research on defamation law in France and discovered huge differences.
Sure, these European conservative parties might occasionally borrow from the American conservative playbook in terms of their rhetoric, speaking passionately of freedom or tradition or liberty, but they lack the ideological backbone and the political will to turn these words into action. Let alone the fact that American conservatism is tied to the ideology that birthed the nation itself. European conservatism is tied to nothing.
I don’t know if I agree with that last sentence. Perhaps European conservatism is no longer tied to anything. But traditionally, wasn’t it tied to the status quo – institutions such as the church, the monarchies of old, the state itself? Perhaps it’s now divorced from all that and searching for a guiding principle. The guiding principle at the moment, at least for conservatives in some European countries, seems to be nationalism and a retreat from globalism.
What were the Democrats thinking last night?
Something like this:
What they were thinking was if Trump is for it they’re against it – even if it’s supporting the aspirations of a kid with cancer or even if it’s trying to end a stalemated war.
They apparently conferred ahead of time on how to approach protesting Trump’s speech, but mostly what they did was sit stonefaced, hold up little signs, or – in the case of Al Green – yell and get themselves removed. They mostly looked childish and petulant. And they opened themselves up to ridicule even from leftists like Stephen Colbert:
Stephen Colbert also mocked the protests in a segment on his CBS’ “The Late Show,” sarcastically noting how the “Democrats are getting ready to fight back with their little paddles.”
“That is how you save democracy: by quietly dissenting,” Colbert added. “Or bidding on an antique tea set. It was hard to tell what was going on.”
It also gave Trump a golden opportunity to call them on it:
These people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand, and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements. They won’t do it no matter what. Five times I’ve been up here, it’s very sad. And it just shouldn’t be this way.
I wondered, though, about Fetterman. It turns out that he wrote this:
“A sad cavalcade of self owns and unhinged petulance,” Fetterman wrote Wednesday on social platform X. “It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained.”
“We’re becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to — and it may not be the winning message,” he added.
I can’t find anything that answers my question about whether Fetterman stood up for anything Trump said during his speech, however.
After Al Green was escorted out due to his disruptive behavior, he talked to the press and said this:
@RepAlGreen after being removed from Joint Session of Congress: “I’ll accept the punishment. It’s worth it to let people know that there’s some of us who are going to stand up to against this president’s desire to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”
Perhaps he’s talking about one of those 150-year-olds on the Social Security rolls – because Trump and other Republicans have said they have no intention of cutting those entitlements; only eliminating fraud and costly errors and inefficiencies to save taxpayer money.
However, the idea that Social Security, etc. will be eliminated or severely cut at the hands of Republicans has been a Democrat talking point for quite a while. I know at least one person who is terrified that Trump is going to do just that – cut or even end Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. I probably know plenty more people who believe it, but only one has explicitly mentioned it.
Democrats have lost their way. Or rather, the way they have chose from Obama on isn’t working for them these days. That way is: identity politics, fear-mongering, lawfare, and “anything Republicans and Trump are for we’re against.” However, the fear-mongering actually works for the Democrats with a lot of people. But it’s not working with enough people right now, and that’s why Trump was elected.
Last night in his speech, Trump trolled them about the lawfare – “How did that work out? Not too good.”:
SCOTUS rules that the government must pay the $2 billion …
… because the district court judge said so.
This is a disturbing ruling:
If you thought the Supreme Court would act to halt the propensity of District Court Judges to overstep their constitutional boundaries by substituting their own policy and political judgments for those of the Executive Branch — as I [Professor Jacobson] did — you would be wrong.
In a ruling that left Justice Alito “stunned,” Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett sided with the three liberals. …
The government decision being challenged was a pause in payment pending a review as to whether the payments were owed and the work had actually been performed. The District Court did not allow that review and ordered everything to be paid — even for services not rendered or for fraud, if that turned out to be the case — with the government left with the empty remedy of trying to recoup payment. Even contractors who were not parties to the case had to be paid, for contracts the court never identified – just a sweeping pay it all order. This represents a policy determination. If contractors believed they were owed money, there is an avenue to assert claims for payment, but not in the District Court.
This represents, according to Professor Jacobson, “an attempt to substitute the political and policy judgments of judges for those of the executive branch.”
Legally, it’s a bit complicated. The District Court judge had issued a temporary restraining order that prevented the government from halting the payments of the two billion dollars. Then SCOTUS had issued a temporary stay on the District Court order, and they are now lifting their own stay. This is the reason:
Given that the deadline in the challenged order has now passed, and in light of the ongoing preliminary injunction proceedings, the District Court should clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines. The order heretofore entered by THE CHIEF JUSTICE is vacated.
Justice Alito wrote in a dissent:
Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic “No,” but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned….
Unfortunately, a majority has now undone that stay. As a result, the Government must apparently pay the $2 billion posthaste—not because the law requires it, but simply because a District Judge so ordered. As the Nation’s highest court, we have a duty to ensure that the power entrusted to federal judges by the Constitution is not abused. Today, the Court fails to carry out that responsibility….
Open thread 3/5/2025
Did you ever hear Joan Baez do her Bob Dylan imitation?:
Here’s a thread for Trump’s talk this evening
Trump will be addressing Congress this evening, although it’s not a State of the Union Address.
The Democrats are trying to figure out how to protest. More here.
And here’s a thread for discussing it.
Tariffs again
Trump has imposed more tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China:
The extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl, constitutes a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
Until the crisis is alleviated, President Donald J. Trump is implementing a 25% additional tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% additional tariff on imports from China. Energy resources from Canada will have a lower 10% tariff.
President Trump is taking bold action to hold Mexico, Canada, and China accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country.
I guess whatever they did initially in response to the earlier threat of tariffs by Trump didn’t work, and now he’s doing this.
Canada has retaliated with tariffs of its own:
Today, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs, and the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced that in response to unjustified U.S. tariffs, the Government of Canada is moving forward with 25 per cent tariffs on $155 billion worth of imported goods, beginning immediately with a list of goods worth $30 billion. The scope of the Canadian counter tariffs will be increased to $155 billion if the current U.S. tariffs are maintained. The scope could also be increased if new tariffs are imposed. This was not the outcome Canada hoped for – but we must respond in order to protect our economy and Canadian jobs.
The first phase of Canada’s response includes tariffs on $30 billion in goods imported from the U.S., effective as of 12:01 a.m., March 4, 2025. The list includes products such as orange juice, peanut butter, wine, spirits, beer, coffee, appliances, apparel, footwear, motorcycles, cosmetics, and certain pulp and paper products.
Minister LeBlanc also announced that, should the U.S. continue to apply unjustified tariffs on Canada, the government intends to impose additional countermeasures on $125 billion in imports from the U.S., drawing from a list of goods open for a 21-day comment period, which would bring the scope of countermeasures to a total of $155 billion worth of products. The list includes products such as electric vehicles, fruits and vegetables, beef, pork, dairy, electronics, steel, aluminum, trucks, and buses.
It goes on.
I’ve said before that I don’t really understand this tariff business, especially in regard to Canada. Does Trump really think that this will cause Canada to get tougher about fentanyl? That doesn’t seem to be the way it’s going at the moment.
My gut feeling is that Trump wants to do this anyway, and although he’s sincere about wanting a reduction in fentanyl importation his real goal is that he thinks the tariffs will serve to further protect American businesses. His actions seem overly broad to me and needlessly antagonistic, and I don’t think they will accomplish his goals. But I’m open to being talked out of that notion. Help me out here, folks.
Ukraine deal: on or off?
Trump has paused military aid to Ukraine:
The United States is pausing all U.S. military aid to Ukraine until President Trump determines the Ukrainians show a commitment to good faith peace negotiations, a senior Trump administration official tells Fox News.
“This is not permanent termination of aid, it’s a pause,” the official emphasized. “The orders are going out right now.”
Meanwhile, Zelensky seems to be ready to deal [my emphasis]:
None of us wants an endless war. Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.
We are ready to work fast to end the war, and the first stages could be the release of prisoners and truce in the sky — ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure — and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same. Then we want to move very fast through all next stages and to work with the US to agree a strong final deal.
We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. And we remember the moment when things changed when President Trump provided Ukraine with Javelins. We are grateful for this.
Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive.
Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it in any time and in any convenient format. We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work effectively.
Of course, if Zelensky had said this when he was in DC and signed the papers, the parties would already be working on the next steps.
One of the many problems is that, according to Rubio (whom I believe), Zelensky has been playing a game something like Lucy with the football – promising to sign the deal and then pulling back, many times. The debacle last week was only the most prominent one of these events because it happened with Trump and Vance in attendance and the cameras rolling. I think that was part of Zelensky’s plan – to get more publicity for his dickering – but it backfired in a manner he probably didn’t quite expect when Trump and Vance called him on it.
I am concerned that Zelensky may have so alienated Trump that no such deal is possible anymore. Trump’s unpredictable nature is sometimes a tool he uses to get what he wants, and yet it’s sometimes just a result of his volatility. I have no idea what he’ll do next, but I doubt he’ll give Zelensky any more photo-ops if and when any deal is signed. Certainly, if a photo-op is in order, it would happen afterwards rather than before.
And use interpreters.
Ukraine War, Vietnam War
Two different countries, two different wars, two different times. And yet I keep thinking of comparisons and even parallels. Here are some of my thoughts.
(1) The US parties have switched sides since Vietnam days. At the end of the Vietnam War, it was the GOP – some members of the GOP, anyway, such as President Ford – who wanted to continue war aid for the ARVN. It was the Democrats who had originally escalated our military involvement there during the 1960s, but it was Democrats who led the drive to reduce the funding in the 1970s to the point where North Vietnam knew it could easily win. Many Republicans joined that effort, as well. You can read some of the history of the endgame in Vietnam here, but I’ll excerpt a small bit:
In January of 1973, President Richard Nixon approved the Paris Peace Accords negotiated by Henry Kissinger, which implemented an immediate cease-fire in Vietnam and called for the complete withdrawal of American troops within sixty days. Two months later, Nixon met with South Vietnamese President Thieu and secretly promised him a “severe retaliation” against North Vietnam should they break the cease-fire. Around the same time, Congress began to express outrage at the secret illegal bombings of Cambodia carried out at Nixon’s behest. Accordingly, on June 19, 1973 Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment, which called for a halt to all military activities in Southeast Asia by August 15, thereby ending twelve years of direct U.S. military involvement in the region.
In the fall of 1974, Nixon resigned under the pressure of the Watergate scandal and was succeeded by Gerald Ford. Congress cut funding to South Vietnam for the upcoming fiscal year from a proposed 1.26 billion to 700 million dollars. These two events prompted Hanoi to make an all-out effort to conquer the South. As the North Vietnamese Communist Party Secretary Le Duan observed in December 1974: “The Americans have withdrawn…this is what marks the opportune moment.”
The NVA drew up a two-year plan for the “liberation” of South Vietnam. Owing to South Vietnam’s weakened state, this would only take fifty-five days. The drastic reduction of American aid to South Vietnam caused a sharp decline in morale, as well as an increase in governmental corruption and a crackdown on domestic political dissent. The South Vietnamese army was severely under-funded, greatly outnumbered, and lacked the support of the American allies with whom they were accustomed to fighting.
The NVA began its final assault in March of 1975 in the Central Highlands. … The war officially concluded on April 30, as Saigon fell to North Vietnam and the last American personnel were evacuated.
(2) In both cases, war supporters subscribe to a domino theory – with Vietnam it involved the Far East, with Ukraine it involves the Eastern European countries that had formerly been part of the USSR, and even perhaps some portions of Western Europe. Zelensky indicated in his talk with Trump and Vance that his own domino theory involves Putin coming to US shores.
(3) One huge difference – in Vietnam, the US had expended not just US treasure but US blood. Quite a lot of it.
(4) The Vietnam hot war had gone on much longer than three years. Of course, that’s true of Russia and Ukraine, too, but until the Russian invasion in 2022 it had gone on at a much lower level.
(5) Unlike Ukraine and Russia, the Vietnam War involved parties that were not so lopsided in terms of population – unless you count the backing of China. And you should count the backing of China.
(6) Fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War we’re still arguing about whether the South could have won if we had continued with a larger amount of aid. A similar argument goes on with Ukraine now and it goes like this: does Ukraine have any chance of winning in the sense of regaining its lost territory, with US aid? Those who want to cut off military aid say no; many of those who want to continue it say yes.
(7) The Vietnam War so wearied the US that it subsequently caused many Americans to be very very wary of our own troops fighting someone else’s war, especially if that war lasts a long time. The Gulf War was short; the Iraq and Afghan wars were long, and ended with our disastrous withdrawals. The left campaigned against those last two wars from the start by comparing them to Vietnam.
(8) The Ukraine War seems to have coincided with a growing US reluctance to fund foreign wars. There’s a relatively small faction on the right among those who want to pull the plug on Ukraine who also would dearly love to do the same to Israel. Otherwise it’s the left, for the most part, who have turned on Israel.
Open thread 3/4/2025
Israel: what’s next for the remaining hostages and for the war?
Here’s an extremely touching and difficult interview with a recently released hostage. This man looks haunted, like a man come back from the dead. The first group of hostages never looked or sounded like this.
He also discovered, after his return, that his wife and two teenage daughters were murdered by Gazans on October 7. What a homecoming.
You probably are also aware that Israel is now saying that the second part of the deal is off, or postponed, because Hamas rejected the US’s Witkoff plan. Also, Israel has stopped aid to Gaza. However, the latter hardly matters for now, because Gaza has gotten tons of aid recently and has enough supplies to last for months.
Your guess is as good as mine – or anyone’s, really, on what will happen next. So sorry – I can’t answer the question I posed in the title of this post.
Video and the shaping of the propaganda narrative, on Trump and Ukraine and otherwise
What could be more real and more true than video as a record of what happened? And now that video is so ubiquitous, shouldn’t it mean that we get closer to the truth?
Well, yes and no. Obviously, if AI fakes get so prevalent and so good that we can’t tell the difference, the answer will be “no.” And there’s also Pallywood, which stages events with fake characters to push, often very successfully, the angle that Palestinians favor. The latter is all the more convincing because it has the appearance of being a truthful account of real events and is shown on cooperative news stations.
But even with real video of real events that happen to real people, the answer is often “no” because truncated video can be used to shape whatever narrative the press (or other dispenser of information) wishes to highlight. In fact, for the most part, truncated video must be used because the vast majority of people will not be willing to watch the whole thing, unedited. So what story gets out about an incident depends, for the majority of watchers or listeners, on what the media or the commentators decide to show and how they decide to describe it.
Needless to say, the recent meeting among Zelensky, Trump, and Vance is a case in point, and a rather powerful one. By the time the proceedings fell apart in anger and cross-talk – which they did – it was the last ten minutes or so of a much longer event. And that event was only the most recent episode in a much longer series of events. This was supposed to be a meeting around the signing of an agreement that had been a while in the ironing-out, with quite a few back-and-forth reversals by Zelensky along the way. Obviously, no such signing ended up happening around this meeting, and the press has run with the story ever since, in hopes of conveying and deepening two perceptions of both Trump and Vance: they are clumsy bullies, and they are pro-Putin.
Here’s a pretty good – and fairly short – discussion of some of the backstory about the meeting:
And you would also do well to watch or read what Rubio has to say on the subject; I already wrote a post about that. For example, he said the following:
[Y]ou guys only saw the end. You saw what happened today. You don’t see all the things that led up to this, so let me explain. The President’s been very clear; he campaigned on this. He thinks this war should have never started. He believes – and I agree – that had he been president it never would have happened. Now here we are. He’s trying to bring an end to this conflict. We’ve explained very clearly what our plan is here, which is we want to get the Russians to a negotiating table. We want to explore whether peace is possible. They understand this. They also understand that this agreement that was supposed to be signed today was supposed to be an agreement that binds America economically to Ukraine, which, to me, as I’ve explained and I think the President alluded to today, is a security guarantee in its own way because we’re involved; it’s now us, it’s our interests.
That was all explained. That was all understood. And nonetheless, for the last 10 days in every engagement we’ve had with the Ukrainians there’s been complications in getting that point across, including the public statements that President Zelenskyy has made. But they insisted on coming to D.C. This agreement could have been signed five days ago, but they insisted on coming to Washington and there was a very – and should have been a very clear understanding: Don’t come here and create a scenario where you’re going to start lecturing us about how diplomacy isn’t going to work. President Zelenskyy took it in that direction and it ended in a predictable outcome as a result. It’s unfortunate. That wasn’t supposed to be this way, but that’s the path he chose, and I think, frankly, sends his country backwards in regards to achieving peace, which is what President Trump wants at the end of the day – is for this war to end. He’s been as consistent as anyone can be about what his objective is here. …
. But again, when you have comments that deliberately – appear to be deliberately – I mean, after having discussed this repeatedly, deliberately appear to be geared towards making the argument that peace is not possible.
What percentage of people know any of that? Rubio has gone on several news programs to explain, but I very much doubt most people who will see the videos of the arguments at the meeting will hear Rubio’s background information. Those who already hate Trump and believe he’s been “Putin’s puppet” from the start will see the video as more evidence and Rubio’s efforts just an attempt at coverup and damage control. And even many people who are willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt may conclude something similar. This was also a golden opportunity for the press and the Democrats to tar Vance with the same brush.
How many people will watch the full video? Relatively few, I believe. Here’s an interesting take on the full video, by a guy who does body language analysis. However, here it’s not just body language being analyzed, although there’s that -but there’s also a lot more. I actually watched the whole thing even though it’s long. You can just watch just the parts that interest you, of course, but the whole thing is quite riveting IMHO:
I don’t think it’s clear what will come of this entire episode. It may end up being just a blip on the radar screen. Will Zelensky ultimately sign on the dotted line? Will Trump keep the offer open? What of Putin? Are Europe’s promises of backing empty, or meaningful? Just to take the example of Britain, two days ago Starmer warmly welcomed Zelensky and said he has “”full backing across the United Kingdom.” Today Starmer said:
In a statement to MPs, Sir Keir said ‘nobody wants to see’ the kind of clashes that happened between Volodymyr Zelensky and Mr Trump on Friday.
But he made clear that the US president’s desire for peace was ‘sincere’, saying it is now for Western allies to come up with a realistic plan and ‘win the peace’.
Asked about claims Mr Trump is discussing axing military aid for Ukraine, Sir Keir said: ‘As I understand that is not their position.’
What more, from Zelensky:
Mr Zelensky has … [moved] to cool the feud, heaping praise on the support the US has given up to now.
He also told reporters after the summit that Ukraine was still ‘ready to sign’ the minerals deal, and he is ready to return to the Oval Office for discussions.
But the original meeting occurred because he said, after much back-and-forth, that he was ready to sign. He obviously was not; he was ready to tell the world why he wouldn’t sign. One thing I assume is that, if such a deal were to be signed in the future, Trump would make sure to have it happen before any ceremonious celebration of the signing.
NOTE: I don’t believe Zelensky was especially influenced by some talk with people on the left shortly before the meeting that convinced him to do this. I think, if such talk did occur (and it might have), it was in line with what he had already wanted to do and planned to do.