This time, authorities were more prepared, and made it more difficult for the rioters to do as much damage.
Most of the demonstrators have been peaceful. But the violent ones are determined to wreak havoc, and the Macron administration is determined to stop them.
I used to read memeorandum every day. But quite some time ago I stopped looking at it. It seemed that every single day I’d read the same headlines: Trump is finished and Mueller’s finally got him; Trump’s administration is in complete chaos; Trump is going to be convicted of this that and the other thing; Trump did something stupid.
Most of the headlines didn’t pan out and some of them were based on false premises or quotes taken out of context. Some of them were exaggerations, for example treating any turnover in personnel as a huge mutiny. Every now and then something had predictive value, but not reliably and not all that often. So it became a waste of time to look there and try to sort out the wheat from the chaff.
The same is true now. Today Ann Althouse shows a screenshot of the memeorandum page, and it’s filled with highly ominous headlines that would have you think Trump is only one step from going to prison. One of them that we’ve seen over and over again goes like this (in this case from the NY Times): “Is This the Beginning of the End for Trump?”
Who has the time and inclination to wade through it all at this point? I confess that I don’t. I’ll just read the writer I’ve found over time to be most trustworthy on the subject (although not infallible; but who can be that?): Andrew C. McCarthy. Right now the latest he’s written on the subject is this, from December 1:
Rght after Special Counsel Robert Mueller racked up yet another guilty plea to a false-statements charge on Thursday, a friend asked me, “Doesn’t this destroy Michael Cohen’s credibility as a witness?”…
Cohen would have to have some credibility before it could be destroyed…
…[T]he flaw in my friend’s question was not the assumption that Cohen had some smidgeon of value as a witness until it was extirpated by his plea of guilty to lying to Congress…The real flaw was the assumption that Special Counsel Mueller is lining up witnesses and building a criminal case, as prosecutors do…
As a prosecutor, you build a case by having your cooperating accomplice witnesses plead guilty to the big scheme you are trying to pin on the main culprit. After all, what makes these witnesses accomplices, literally, is that they were participants in the main culprit’s crime. That’s the scheme you’re trying to prove. So, on guilty-plea day, the cooperator comes into court and admits guilt to the same conspiracy on which you are trying to nail the lead defendant…
…[Y]ou build a case by first establishing the foundational criminal offense. Juries do not convict people because they like or trust the prosecution’s witnesses. They convict because they are persuaded that justice demands redress for a real crime.
Much much more at the link. Please read the whole thing.
It’s pretty clear there was no underlying crime here on which Trump conspired. What’s less clear, now that the House is about to become Democratic, is whether there will be an impeachment for that crimeless crime. The impeachment will have no teeth in the sense that—unless a real crime surfaces—there will be no conviction and removal. But that probably won’t stop the Democrats from trying.
There is a possibility that the Democrats may, however, enjoy talking about impeachment and writing about how awful Trump is more than they will actually like impeaching him and then not convicting him.
[NOTE: Andrew C. McCarthy has also written on the Barr appointment to become AG, which he calls a “home run” by Trump. And remember, McCarthy—although a conservative—is not basically a Trump supporter. But McCarthy’s a fair guy who gives him his due when he sees reason to do so.]
[ADDENDUM: This is also worth reading.]
I don’t speak French, but Ace has kindly translated this article from Le Figaro:
Fearing that an “enormous violence” will be part of “Act IV” of the mobilization of the “Yellow Jackets,” authorities have announced the mobilization of “exceptional measures” of more than 65,000 security forces deployed throughout France, and putting the finishing touches the security presence already in Paris.
As the fourth Saturday of mobilization of the “Yellow Jackets” approaches, l’Elyssee dreads that “an enormous violence” will explode in Paris this weekend. Throughout France, the calls to gather in Paris and demolish the current establishment rule are multiplying. Last week, a young man encountered by Le Figaro near the Saint-Lazare station was shouting: “This is not a protest, this is the Revolution!”…
“What is at stake, is the security of the French and our institutions,” pronounced the Prime Minister Edouard Philippe Tuesday.
I’ve noticed that in general there are two kinds of people who talk about a revolution. The first is self-aggrandizing Romantic (in this sense of the word “Romantic”) fools who have no idea what a revolution is or what it would entail. The second are those who are deadly serious.
Sometimes they’re even the same people. Sometimes not.
President Trump has chosen William Barr to be his next attorney general.
My first reaction was: Bill Barr? Is he still alive?
The answer, obviously, is “yes, very much alive”—and he’s not even all that old at 68. Barr was George H. W. Bush’s attorney general in 1991, close to thirty years ago, so he was quite a young man at the time.
Barr had been kicking around in various governmental roles till then, but afterwards he stayed mostly in the corporate world. Lo and behold, he’s back, and here’s a description of some of his current positions:
…[Barr] has previously supported Trump’s call to investigate his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, and has questioned the need for Robert Mueller’s special counsel probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election…
Late last year, after Trump called on the Justice Department to investigate Clinton, Barr told The New York Times there was “nothing inherently wrong about a president calling for an investigation,” though he cautioned that an investigation “shouldn’t be launched just because a president wants it.”
But he told the Times that he saw more of a basis for investigating Clinton’s involvement in a uranium deal as secretary of state than he saw for investigating possible collusion between Trump and Russia.
“To the extent it is not pursuing these matters, the department is abdicating its responsibility,” Barr told the Times.
Barr supported Trump during the campaign and wrote a piece for The Washington Post days before the election saying that then-FBI Director James Comey did the right thing by disclosing that the bureau had essentially reopened the Clinton investigation. Months later, after Trump fired Comey, Barr wrote that Comey had “sandbagged” the Justice Department and usurped its authority by making the initial announcement about the Clinton probe in the summer of 2016.
Barr seems to be a somewhat interesting and unusual combination of things: an old-time establishment Republican allied with the Bushes who was an early Trump-adopter and who seems fairly conservative in his beliefs. He also has the advantage of being well-liked and well-respected by a wide variety of people—at least, till now. Now that Trump has given him the Trumpian stamp of approval, Barr may suddenly become persona non grata with people who previously admired him.
Here are some opinions:
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is said to be “elated” by the choice of Barr and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions has always held his predecessor in high regard, a source close to both men said.
If confirmed this time around, Barr will be tasked with guiding the Department through battles on multiple fronts — not only with a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, but potentially overseeing a politically charged investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and answering to Trump, whose presidency thus fast has been marked by attacks on the DOJ and the FBI for a perceived failure to target his former political rivals.
I’m not sure who recommended Barr—perhaps the outgoing Sessions?—but it seems like a very creative choice and might even be a good one.
In other appointments, Trump has named State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to replace Nikki Haley as UN ambassador. Nauert used to work for Fox News. I expect she’ll continue in the vein of Haley, although perhaps with a bit less force and eloquence, but I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
Today is the seventy-sixth anniversary of the December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. The generation that reacted to it by mobilizing and fighting World War II is on its last legs. But they were the ones we still call “the Greatest.”
I was reminded of this while watching one of those Oliver North “War Stories” TV shows, about Pearl Harbor. It featured some of the elderly participants reminiscing about that long ago day. Before each one spoke, there was a photograph of him back in 1941: young, vibrant, handsome, full of life. Now they were ancient, and most only vaguely resembled their former selves. But they still transmitted great moral strength and a kind of Gary-Cooperesque stoicism and understated bravery as they told their stories.
One year ago there were still quite a few WWII veterans alive:
The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t have data on veterans of individual battles, and an alumni association for the battle disbanded in 2011, at the 70th anniversary, when it believed just 8,000 of the 84,000 uniformed Americans on Oahu during the attack remained alive. Since 2011, roughly half of veterans of World War II who were alive then have died, according to VA projections, leaving fewer than 700,000 alive today. Roughly 400 American WWII veterans die each day. The VA projects fewer than 3,000 veterans of WWII will survive to the 100th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and that may be optimistic…
That was written one year ago, and obviously the number of Pearl Harbor veterans alive has only gotten smaller—as it will every year until the number is zero. And then, we will still remember? In fact, do most of us remember Pearl Harbor now? Time marches on, and even 9/11 has faded into the background for most people.
A couple of facts: it’s become fashionable to believe that FDR knew about the attack in advance and let it happen anyway. But those 12/7-truthers are almost undoubtedly wrong. Roosevelt wanted to get us into the war, and he knew a Japanese attack was coming at some point, and informed his generals to that effect, but he knew none of the particulars in advance.
This idea of a government in cahoots with the enemy, willing to let innocent Americans die, keeps coming up again and again. A certain not insignificant segment of the population appears to favor such conspiracy theories, probably because we don’t like feeling vulnerable to sudden attack.
Here’s a post I published ten years ago on Pearl Harbor Day. It focuses on FDR’s famous speech afterward, and the will and resolve he amply demonstrated. Will and resolve in war remain extremely relevant these days.
Here is just a little bit of Roosevelt’s post-Pearl Harbor speech, in case we need reminding of what American resolve used to sound like:
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
Here’s the speech itself:
The memorable phrase that began FDR’s address, “a date which will live in infamy,” wasn’t in Roosevelt’s earlier draft. It reads “a date which will live in world history.” That sounds like a high school essay; Roosevelt crossed out “world history” and added “infamy” in his own hand. He also changed “simultaneously and deliberately attacked” to “suddenly and deliberately attacked.”
Wise choices.
[NOTE: This is a somewhat updated version of a previous post.]
[ADDENDUM: Somewhere, somehow, I lost a year. I originally labeled this day as being the 76th anniversary, which of course is incorrect.]
…have been skittish lately:
Stocks initially fell sharply as continuing fears over U.S.-China trade relations and concern over a possible economic slowdown kept investors on edge.
“There’s concern that the trade deal is not as good as [President Donald] Trump said it was,” said Mark Esposito, CEO of Esposito Securities. “Recession fears are also settling into the market.”
“It’s definitely safer to be in cash right now,” Esposito said. “I don’t think the fall is over.”
But isn’t it usually safer to be in cash, except for the possibilities of theft and fire and flood? The reason people ordinarily invest money, though, isn’t for safety, it’s about growing their money. The possibility of growth always involves the possibility of risk. The greatest growth possibilities often involve the greatest risk.
When I was married I let my husband do whatever investing we did. He was more interested in it and also more knowledgeable, and he had a greater tolerance for risk. We made some money and lost it and made it and lost it and I have to say that was one thing we never argued about. I just assumed the whole endeavor was risky; it made me nervous, but if I’d been in charge we never would have grown our money at all.
I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if the stock market were about to, as they say, “correct.”
This development is interesting on a lot of levels:
Wisconsin’s incoming Democratic governor is condemning moves by Republicans legislators to weaken his power.
Gov.-elect Tony Evers said Wednesday that Republicans have overridden the will of voters who chose Democrats in last month’s election. He says a handful of people desperately want to “cling to power.”
The Republican-controlled Legislature approved sweeping changes early Wednesday that weaken the governor’s ability to make rules that enact laws. The legislation also shields the state jobs agency from his control until September and cuts into the powers of the incoming Democratic attorney general.
What’s interesting about this is that it’s an example of Republicans doing what Republicans so seldom do: playing hardball. It’s also an example of Republicans doing what Democrats would do if they were in the same position—the position being that Republicans control the legislature and a Democrat is about to be sworn in as governor.
But is it right to do it? And is “right” even a consideration anymore, now that politics has become an almost completely non-cooperative and partisan affair?
Here’s what Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has to say about it:
Republicans have controlled both branches for eight years. Their concern about constitutional balance seems at the very least tardy. If that’s the reason, why not take it up before the election — or earlier, when it would have limited Scott Walker’s authority?
There are all sorts of outcome-based reasons for doing this, of course. Republicans will insist that Democrats wouldn’t have played fair with executive authority without those restrictions. As Evers notes, both he and incoming AG Josh Kaul ran on a platform of activism, so the impulse behind this effort may well be understandable. There is a need to protect a lot of good work done over the last eight years, especially from the GOP’s perspective.
That still doesn’t make this the right method, unless we’re now fully embracing a means-justifying-ends philosophy.
My questions would be the following:
What powers does the Wisconsin constitution give the legislature vis a vis the executive branch? Is this action by the legislature within their constitutional powers? Then they can do it. It does set a bad precedent, but it’s been a long time since Wisconsin Democrats have observed any niceties of the sort, particularly in their long and bitter fight against Scott Walker.
I also would like to know whether the powers they are limiting are powers that Scott Walker actively exercised as governor.
By the way, although this is technically a lame duck legislature, it’s not effectively so because after January the Republicans in Wisconsin will continue to be in the majority in the legislature and will continue to control it.
This article in The Sun has the following headline: “Beleaguered Emmanuel Macron predicts ‘major violence’ across France this weekend as approval rating crashes to record low of 18 per cent.”
That’s about as low as the approval for the MSM in this country.
And this is the sub-headline: “Protesters across France are set to take to the streets again on Saturday despite the government caving in over the controversial fuel price hike.” I would say that there’s no “despite” about it, since the protestors are protesting much more than the fuel price hike, and they intend to go on protesting until there is some sort of more fundamental change—although there may not be a lot of agreement among them as to what the change might be.
In addition, Macron’s caving in to the protestors isn’t going to make anyone respect him more; it’s more likely to make them respect him less. Weak horse and all that.
I’ve already written about the protestors and who they might be and what they might want, here and here. The Sun article mentions “disgruntled groups from Left and Right” as being involved, which is in agreement with what I’d learned earlier.
I don’t know whether this has any relevance at all, but the last time I can recall “disgruntled groups from Left and Right” uniting in huge protests, the result was the Iranian Revolution and the ascendance of the mullahs.
France is certainly not Iran. But I recall being puzzled by those Iranian demonstrations close to forty years ago, wondering how that alliance of Left and Right was going to play out. Now we know.
…and “was celebrated with high praise and loving humor.” It’s no surprise that his former enemies on the left are saying nice things about him now, because as Michael Goodwin points out, the only good Republican is a dead one, especially if he was against Trump in life, and in death can be used as a cudgel with which to beat Trump.
We saw it with McCain and now with Bush the Elder. But even before Trump, we saw it with Reagan, who was in some sense the Trump of his time and who the MSM excoriated while alive but loved when dead. What’s more, his death occurred during the Bush II era, and therefore could be used as a cudgel which which to beat Bush the Younger.
In Europe there’s a trend to criticize or even in some cases do away with the field of gender studies. Naturally, this makes the gender studies professors very very nervous:
The attacks take many different forms, including blacklists and harassment of individual scholars, the proposal of legislative measures to police classroom speech, and attempts to censor academic events. In Brazil the pioneering gender studies scholar Judith Butler was burned in effigy and accosted by protestors at the airport last year after far-right Christian groups objected to her visit to the country for a conference she’d helped to organize. As Butler told Inside Higher Ed in an interview at the time, her sense was that the protesters “who engaged this frenzy of effigy burning, stalking and harassment want to defend ‘Brazil’ as a place where LGBTQ people are not welcome, where the family remains heterosexual (so no gay marriage), where abortion is illegal and reproductive freedom does not exist. They want boys to be boys, and girls to be girls, and for there to be no complexity in questions such as these.”
David Paternotte, an associate professor in sociology at the Free University of Brussels and co-editor of the book Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), said less extreme attacks on gender studies often take the form of press articles criticizing the discipline. “People saying it’s ideological, it’s not scientific. This is what we hear the most — that it’s a waste of public money, it shouldn’t be a part of what is taught at universities.”
This reached a head recently in Hungary, a phenomenon I’ve written about previously. From that post of mine:
It does indeed appear, however, as though a sort of reverse cultural revolution might be taking place in Hungary, a campaign by Orban’s party to restore the older ways and stamp out some of the leftist/progressive cultural agenda…
Orban wants the Granscian march to go in the other direction for a change.
That first article I linked in this post—the one from Inside Higher Ed—is rather long. But I found it fascinating for several reasons, chief among them the condescending holier-than-thou tone of the gender studies professors cited. The gist of what they were saying was that the troglodyte right-wingers are politically motivated in their fight against gender studies, but there is absolutely zero acknowledgement of the gender studies profs’ own political perspective, a point of view that informs their every study and every utterance. “You’re political, but I’m just an objective, enlightened researcher” is the basic message, and it’s a false one.
And in fact, what a nation decides to teach is very often a political decision, particularly in its state-funded schools, as opposed to its private schools—with the possible exception of math and science, although, as the Soviets taught us, instructive in this area as in so many others, math and science can be made to be political as well. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
But some areas of study, especially those with “studies” in their name and which tended to spring up post-1960s, are more political and more deeply political than others. Not only that, but their science is shakier and more politically driven. Gender studies is one of those fields, although it’s not the only one.
That doesn’t mean it should be banned. Perhaps states are within their rights refusing to fund disciplines such as gender studies in state-funded schools, which preserves the right of private schools to offer courses. That’s highly unlikely to happen in the US at this point, anyway, because most state university systems are wholly dominated by the left, which champions gender studies. But in Europe things seem different, particularly in Hungary.
In Allan Bloom’s great work The Closing of the American Mind he dealt with the political aspects of education:
Every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain and that informs its curriculum. It wants to produce a certain kind of human being…In some nations the goal was the pious person, in others the warlike, in others the industrious…Aristocracies want gentlemen, oligarchies men who respect and pursue money, and democracies lovers of equality. Democratic education, whether it admits it or not, wants and needs to produce men and women who have the tastes, knowledge, and character supportive of a democratic regime. Over the history of our republic, there have obviously been changes of opinion as to what kind of man is best for our regime. We began with the model of the rational and industrious man, who was honest, respected the laws, and was dedicated to the family (his own family—what has in its decay been dubbed the nuclear family). Above all he was to know the rights doctrine; the Constitution, which embodied it; and American history, which presented and celebrated the founding of a nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”…
But openness…eventually won out over natural rights, partly through a theoretical critique, partly because of a political rebellion against nature’s last constraints. Civic education turned away from concentrating on the Founding to concentrating on openness based on history and social science.
Although that was written some time during the 1980s (his book was published in 1987 but it was based at least in part on lectures Bloom had given earlier), you can see that the foundation for the current situation (including that involving gender studies) had been laid by that time. Bloom’s book also contains a lengthy description of a late-1960s fight at Cornell over (among other things) the establishment of an Afro-American Studies department and who would control it. If you haven’t read Bloom’s work, you might want to look at Thomas Sowell’s rather brief account here.
Here’s some background of how Cornell 1969 was a sort of ground zero for the special “studies” departments and their spread throughout academia:
Only days before the Straight takeover, on April 10, 1969, the Cornell administration had approved $240,000 to create an Afro-American Studies Center and a director, James Turner, had been identified months earlier. “The students wanted an autonomous program; they wanted the center to have control of its own destiny,” said Eric Acree, librarian at the Africana Studies and Research Center.
But change did come even more quickly after the takeover. “You now have recognition that other people need to be studied — women, gays and lesbians, Latinos, Asian Americans — and all of that is an outgrowth of the black studies movement,” said Acree.
According to Robert L. Harris, professor of Africana studies, entire scholarly fields had been ignored. “The seriousness of Africana studies as an academic endeavor had been questioned, simply because the breadth and depth of existing scholarship was not widely known,” he said. “In the decades since, the field has been the source of vast quantities of indisputably serious, relevant, compelling work.”
Actually, I think that black studies and gender studies and all the rest are very legitimate fields to ponder and learn about—in other words, they are legitimate areas of study if those studies could be objective and present all sides of the questions involved.
The real problem is the extreme leftist slant that seems inherent in those departments, baked in the cake. There is also the question of whether separate departments are necessary or whether courses in these areas could be taught within existing generalized departments such as history. However, I wonder whether there’s any turning back at this point, at least in the US.
But be careful what you wish for.
At least in mice, researchers have had some success in targeting a gene for obesity:
…[S]cientists are working toward a drug that would allow patients to lose weight without exercising or making any changes to their diet.
Led by Prof. Damien Keating, researchers at Australia’s Flinders University started by identifying an obesity-related gene in rodents, known as RCAN1. The team then genetically altered a batch of mice, in order to remove that gene. Those animals were subsequently put on a variety of diets over time periods ranging from eight weeks to six months. In all cases, even when being fed high-fat foods, none of the mice gained weight.
It was found that with the RCAN1 out of the way, the animals’ bodies were much better at converting “unhealthy” energy-storing white fat into healthy energy-burning brown fat. This occurred even as the mice were resting.
Not all phenomena that occur in rodents are transferable to humans, of course, but some are. However, the article also states something extremely interesting:
[Scientists] will additionally have to take potential side effects into account, as the gene protects cells against stressors that can lead to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
That’s why the first sentence of this post is, “Be careful what you wish for.” I’ve noticed it’s often the case that something noxious, or seemingly noxious, in the natural world has unacknowledged benefits, and eradicating that thing (whatever it may be) can have unintended negative consequences.
For example, that’s true with predators or insects that are eliminated and then something else (often the thing they preyed on) grows out of control. Or drugs are invented that deal with one physical problem successfully, but the overall death rate of the population taking it doesn’t go down.
Curious, no?
Asylum has a specific purpose and rules that govern its granting, and the vast majority of the caravaners’ claims wouldn’t fit asylum’s definition.
But that may be somewhat moot, because (at least in the past) many asylum seekers haven’t shown up for their hearings (see this for the war of statistics on this matter).
Who suffers from this state of affairs? Why, the bona fide asylum seekers,, that’s who:
…[U]nless those looking for a better life have either suffered or have legitimate reason to believe they will suffer persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinions, they do not meet the legal baseline for refuge or asylum. Period.
Second, there is reason to believe that a majority of those claiming asylum from Central America do so with no intention of following through. According to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security regarding the migrant caravan:
“The low statutory requirements and legal loopholes in our laws encourage aliens to claim credible fear at our Southern border knowing they will be promptly released into the interior with work permits pending the determination of their full claim.”…
It’s a simple fact…that resources are finite, and when government agents spend time sorting out frivolous asylum claims from economic migrants at the border, it takes up time and resources that could be otherwise applied to other applicants who don’t have the geographic advantage of being able to form a caravan and travel over land.
I doubt very much that those championing the “migrants” in the caravan care very much if at all about bona fide asylum seekers or about the distinction between those who simply want to come here for economic reasons and those who are actually fleeing “persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinions.”
Asylum is a sort of fast-track system to accommodate those in special situations. For those who simply want to better their lives—a laudable and understandable goal—and who think America would be just the place to do it, then get in line and come in via the legal immigration route.
[ADDENDUM: Some “migrants” are impatient with the process.]