The Backlash Politics of Dobbs May Come to Haunt Republicans in November

I have to own up to it: At the time of the Court's decision in June inflation and the economy were so bad I thought the Dobbs decision would fade as an important issue for voters in the midterms. Actually, not at all. Inflation's now easing a bit --- and gas prices especially --- and we certainly aren't falling into the much predicted recession amid Federal Reserve rate hikes.

Republicans are still expected to take the House majority, but it's not likley to be a tsumami wave election.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Abortion issue has deflated Republicans’ hopes for November; question now is how badly":

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade and ending the nationwide guarantee of abortion rights achieved a goal the Republican Party had pursued for more than four decades. Now, the bill has come due, at a price much higher than many Republicans expected.

Since the ruling in June, Democrats have done significantly better than expected in special elections, culminating Tuesday with a victory in a race for a vacant congressional seat in upstate New York that strategists on both sides thought the Republican would win.

Combine those results with polls that show Democratic Senate candidates leading in a half dozen swing states plus a surge of women registering to vote this summer in several states, and you have the evidence that has caused nonpartisan analysts to drastically scale back their expectations for GOP victories this fall.

Democrats, despondent over President Biden‘s dismal job approval ratings, had feared a wipeout this fall. Now, they have a strong chance of keeping narrow control of the Senate, perhaps even adding a seat to their majority. The House still seems likely to flip to the GOP, but the prospect of Republicans sweeping to a big majority has dissipated.

The possibility of Democrats saving their current tiny majority is “not out of the question,” David Wasserman, whose forecasts for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report have a wide following in both parties, said Wednesday on Twitter.

None of that means Democrats can start popping Champagne corks — Biden remains unpopular, inflation and the economy still top voters’ list of concerns and the political climate could shift again before November. For now, however, the evidence for a resurgence of Democratic fortunes is strong.

A closer race for the House

For the House, few polls look at specific races this far in advance of the election. Instead, surveys frequently ask people which party’s candidate they would vote for if the election were held now. That question, referred to as the generic ballot, has provided a fairly reliable tool to forecast elections for many years.

Before the Supreme Court decision, Republicans had just over a two-and-a-half point lead on that question, according to the average of polls produced by the FiveThirtyEight web site. The GOP’s standing began to decline shortly after the court’s ruling, and Democrats now lead the average by about a half point. In many recent polls, the Democratic lead has been larger, ranging as high as eight points among registered voters in a recent survey by the Republican firm Echelon Insights.

Caveats: Because of gerrymandering, the overall House map tilts slightly Republican. Because of that, if the two parties were to split the nationwide vote for the House evenly, Republicans would be almost certain to take the majority. In 2020, Democrats won the overall House vote by about three percentage points, which yielded their current four-vote majority.

Moreover, the generic ballot is just that, generic. It can give a rough guide to the vote for the House nationwide, but isn’t designed to say anything about specific congressional districts. Out of the country’s 435 congressional districts, only about 50-60 are competitive. Republicans need only increase their numbers by five seats to take the majority, and Democrats are defending a lot more competitive turf than the GOP this year. The political forecasting site run by Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia lists 27 House races as tossups, including three in California. Of those, Democrats now hold 21.

Special elections this summer have bolstered the polling evidence. Before the Supreme Court decision, Republican candidates in special elections ran well ahead of the mark that former President Trump had set in their districts in 2020 — results that boosted GOP hopes for a big wave.

Since the abortion decision, the picture has flipped. In four contests this summer, Democrats consistently have out-performed what Biden did in their districts two years ago.

Abortion isn’t the only issue helping Democrats: Inflation likely peaked in June, and gas prices have dropped all summer. Biden’s job approval has rebounded a bit. Democrats succeeded this month in passing major legislation on climate change and healthcare, which could help mobilize their voters. Biden’s announcement of debt relief for millions of student-loan borrowers could similarly motivate a large Democratic constituency, although it could also rile up Republican opponents.

But abortion rights were the center of the campaign waged by Pat Ryan, the Democratic candidate in Tuesday’s New York special election, and Democratic candidates nationwide likely will copy what he did. Meantime, some Republican candidates have begun scrubbing their websites to remove previous statements supporting abortion bans.

The issue could have its strongest effect in 22 competitive districts in six states — California and Michigan, where abortion referendums will be on the ballot, and Texas, Wisconsin, Georgia and Ohio, where sweeping bans have been enacted that a majority of the state’s voters oppose, according to Natalie Jackson, director of research at the Public Religion Research Institute, who has closely studied public opinion on abortion.

Democratic advantage in the Senate

Individual candidates matter more in Senate races than in the House because voters tend to know more about them. That’s added to Republican difficulties this year.

“Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome” in Senate contests, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell ruefully noted in recent comments in his home state of Kentucky in which he sought to lower expectations for what his side could accomplish.

In Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Republicans have picked Senate candidates backed by Trump who have significant problems.

They’re likely to do the same in New Hampshire when that state holds its primary in mid-September. The leading Republican candidate in the state, retired Gen. Don Bolduc, has defended Confederate emblems as a “symbol of hope,” fanned anti-vaccination theories and repeatedly made false claims about the 2020 election...

 

Student Loan Plan Will Feed Inflation, Hurt Dems Politically

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "Student Debt Forgiveness Is Biden’s Bluto Moment":

His plan will feed inflation and hurt him politically.

If political moves received letter grades, Joe Biden’s student loan “forgiveness” mark might rank down there with the Deltas of “Animal House.” Think of it as the president’s Bluto moment.

In case the White House missed it, Democrats had recently been getting it together. After an 18-month food fight over the Biden agenda, the party finally united to pass the Inflation Reduction Act. It suckered spend-happy Republicans into passing a semiconductor bill that vulnerable Democrats could brag about back home. The left has successfully fanned fears on abortion, putting GOP candidates on the back foot. And Donald Trump is in the headlines—right where they want him.

Then along comes Blutarsky, and seven years of college down the drain. It would be hard to fashion a program that carries more political risk for less political reward. In the name of paying off that powerful voting bloc known as “overeducated and underemployed deadbeats,” Mr. Biden is dumping on his own inflation message, dividing his party, and insulting any American who has ever worked, saved or paid a bill.

Inflation remains voters’ biggest worry, and they understand Washington’s role in feeding it. Only recently they watched General Motors and Ford hike the prices of electric vehicles by $6,000 to $8,500—roughly pacing the $7,500 tax credit the Biden “inflation reduction” law bestows. Cause, effect. Millions of American parents read Mr. Biden’s Wednesday loan announcement as news that they will be paying $10,000 more for tuition next year (and the year after that, and after that) as colleges reap the loan windfall.

Inflation remains voters’ biggest worry, and they understand Washington’s role in feeding it. Only recently they watched General Motors and Ford hike the prices of electric vehicles by $6,000 to $8,500—roughly pacing the $7,500 tax credit the Biden “inflation reduction” law bestows. Cause, effect. Millions of American parents read Mr. Biden’s Wednesday loan announcement as news that they will be paying $10,000 more for tuition next year (and the year after that, and after that) as colleges reap the loan windfall.

It won’t stop with college inflation, even Democratic economists warn. Every $20,000 of loan forgiveness is $20,000 the favored college forgiven can blow on urban loft refits or Hawaiian vacations. “Pouring roughly half [a] trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless,” Jason Furman, the Obama administration’s top economist, tweeted. Americans already doubted Mr. Biden’s new climate and health law would do much to lower prices, but they’ll draw a direct line from the loan bailout to further price hikes. A CNBC poll says nearly 60% of Americans fear this handout will make inflation worse.

The plan rips a new fissure in the Democratic Party, as nonsuicidal members run for cover. Maine Rep. Jared Golden called loan forgiveness “out of touch.” New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas said this is “no way to make policy.” Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet noted that the plan doesn’t address the underlying problem of rising tuition. Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, running for the Senate, said the forgiveness “sends the wrong message to the millions of Ohioans without a degree working just as hard to make ends meet.”

What unites these Democrats? Each is in a competitive race, and they clearly already see the potential to alienate large cross-sections of the American electorate. Sure, loan forgiveness may benefit up to 40 million people, and energize Gen Zers and some millennials to vote for the Democrats they were going to support anyway. What about the other 220 million voting-age Americans who are being asked to float the upper crust’s seminars on gender identity and social justice?

Democrats desperately need suburban voters this fall. Those would be the same suburban parents who are already furious over school closures and woke education, who scrimped and saved to pay through the nose for college, and who now look like chumps as they prepare to pay more. The CNBC poll finds that 65% of those 35 to 64—prime college-parent age—feel loans should be forgiven for no one or only for those in need (the Biden plan favors top earners). That share is even higher—78%—for those over 65.

Party leaders have fretted for years over how to handle Democrats’ cratering support among the working class. This is the answer? The loan handout is a thumb in the eye to every American who went to trade school, got an apprenticeship, took out private loans to start a small business, or simply went to work—and now must not only grind out a living and keep up with inflation but cover the poor financial decisions of the college elite...

 

The Mar-a-Lago Affidavit: Is That All There Is?

At the Wall Street Journal, "The redacted 38-pages add to the evidence that the FBI search really was all about a dispute over documents":

A federal judge on Friday released a heavily redacted version of the FBI affidavit used to justify the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and we can’t help but wonder is that it? This is why agents descended on a former President’s residence like they would a mob boss?

It’s possible the redactions in the 38-page document release contain some undisclosed bombshell. But given the contours of what the affidavit and attachments reveal, this really does seem to boil down to a fight over the handling of classified documents. The affidavit’s long introduction and other unredacted paragraphs all point to concern by the FBI and the National Archives with the documents Mr. Trump retained at Mar-a-Lago and his lack of cooperation in not returning all that the feds wanted.

A separate filing making the case for the redactions, also released Friday, focused on the need for witness and agent protection from being publicly identified. That filing also contains no suggestion of any greater charges or a larger investigation than the dispute over his handling of the documents.

As always with Mr. Trump, he seems to have been his own worst enemy in this dispute. He and his staff appear to have been sloppy, even cavalier, in storing the documents. Classified records found in boxes were mixed in with “newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous print-outs, notes,” and presidential correspondence, the affidavit says. This fanned suspicion that important documents were still floating around the house, where bad actors hanging around the Mar-a-Lago resort might pilfer them.

The affidavit also contains references to comments by Mr. Trump and his associates that didn’t tell the truth about what was classified or what he had turned over to the National Archives before the search. This appears to have frustrated the bureau enough that it felt he might be guilty of obstruction of justice by his lack of cooperation. To put it another way, the FBI thought Mr. Trump was behaving badly, as he so often does.

But that didn’t mean the FBI and Justice Department had to resort to a warrant and federal-agent search that they knew would be redolent of criminal behavior. They had to suggest probable cause of criminal acts to get their extravagant warrant, which they knew would create a political firestorm.

Instead they could have gone to a district court and sought an order for the proper handling and storage of documents. It surely would have been executed. If Mr. Trump then failed to comply, he could have been held in contempt. On the evidence in the warrant and the affidavit, and even based on the leaks to the press so far which all focus on the demand for documents, the search on Mar-a-Lago was disproportionate to the likely offense...

 

Keilah

On Instagram:

Reuben Jonathan Miller, Halfway Home

At Amazon, Reuben Jonathan Miller, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration.

Republicans, Once Outraged by Mar-a-Lago Search, Become Quieter as Details Emerge

 At the New York Times: 

In the minutes and hours after the F.B.I.’s search of former President Donald J. Trump’s residence in Florida this month, his supporters did not hesitate to denounce what they saw as a blatant abuse of power and outrageous politicization of the Justice Department.

But with the release of a redacted affidavit detailing the justification for the search, the former president’s allies were largely silent, a potentially telling reaction with ramifications for his political future.

“I would just caution folks not to draw too many conclusions,” Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a Republican, said on Fox News. It was a starkly different admonition from his earlier condemnations of what he said were “politically motivated actions.”

Some Republicans will no doubt rally around Mr. Trump and his claim that he is once again being targeted by a rogue F.B.I. that is still out to get him. His former acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, said on Twitter that “this raid was, in fact, just about documents,” which he called “simply outrageous.” Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona and an ardent Trump ally, was on the right-wing broadcaster Newsmax denouncing the F.B.I. as politically biased, though he notably did not defend the former president’s possession of highly classified documents.

But generally, even the most bombastic Republicans — Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Jim Jordan of Ohio — were at least initially focused elsewhere. Ms. Greene was posting on Friday about border “invasions.” Ms. Boebert noted on Twitter the anniversary of the suicide bombing of U.S. service members at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Mr. Jordan was focused on an interview with Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder. None tweeted about the affidavit.

The accusations against Mr. Trump have become increasingly serious. Classified documents dealing with matters such as Mr. Trump’s correspondences with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were stored in unsecured rooms at Mar-a-Lago, The New York Times reported this month. The untempered attacks on the F.B.I. after the initial search led to threats against federal law enforcement, opening up Republicans — long the self-proclaimed party of law and order — to charges from Democrats that they were trying to “defund” the agency.

And voters are again distracted by Mr. Trump in the political spotlight, even as Republicans try to direct their attention toward the economy and soaring inflation on a day when the Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said efforts to control rising prices would exact pain on Americans.

All of this could mean that enough Republican voters grow weary of the division and drama around Mr. Trump and are ready to move on...

 

Washington State Patriotism

On Twitter:

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Smears Republcans as 'Fascists'

On Twitter:

If this is what they believe—and they do—how do they allow “fascists” and “attackers of our democracy” to vote at all? Do you understand that this is where it’s going? https://t.co/7ndezQC9HQ

— David Reaboi, Late Republic Nonsense (@davereaboi) August 27, 2022

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, Revolution and Dictatorship

At Amazon, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism.

Corrina K.

She's beautiful.

On Instagram.

Biden, Without Congressional Authority, Announces He's Forgiving Student Loans For His Voters -- And Claiming That the 'Emergency' Powers He Has Due to Covid Allow Him to Act As a Tyrant, Apparently Forever

PREVIOUSLY: "Biden's Student Loan 'Forgiveness' Is an Abuse of Power."

At AoSHQ, "Note that Biden already declared an end to the covid emergency when he canceled Trump's Remain in Mexico policy, and his CDC just announced that we're effectively back to normal. But Biden won't formally say the "emergency" is over -- so he can continue acting as tyrant when he finds it politically useful to do so."

Biden's Student Loan 'Forgiveness' Is an Abuse of Power

PREVIOUSLY: "Outrage! Biden to Cancel $10,000 in Student Debt for Those Making Less Than $125,000 or Less Per Year."

From Dave Harsanyi, at the Federalist, "… not to mention a moral hazard, counterproductive, and fundamentally immoral."

Outrage! Biden to Cancel $10,000 in Student Debt for Those Making Less Than $125,000 or Less Per Year

This is fucking outrageous.

My grad school loans are just now nearly paid off --- 23 years after I finished my Ph.D. at UCSB. Is Old Joe going to make the debt relief retroactive, for the millions upon millions of judicious and hard-working Americans who made good on the debt they took out? 

Completely un-American, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed debt cancellation as "socialist."

At the Los Angeles Times, "Biden will cancel $10,000 of student debt for many borrowers":

Individuals earning less than $125,000 annually would qualify for relief and those who received Pell grants could receive an additional $10,000.

WASHINGTON — President Biden moved Wednesday to cancel $10,000 in student debt for individuals earning less than $125,000 annually while extending a pause on loan repayments for all borrowers through the end of the year, all as part of a broader effort to overhaul the federal system and ease financial burdens for the middle class.

Biden’s action will also make people who received Pell grants to help cover the cost of college eligible for up to $20,000 in loan relief. And a new income-based repayment cap will ensure borrowers pay no more than 5% of their monthly income toward their undergraduate loans as long as they aren’t behind on payments. Some analysts believe that change may prove even more significant than the debt forgiveness.

Lamenting that “an entire generation is now saddled with unsustainable debt” because the cost of higher education has skyrocketed in recent years, Biden described his action as a matter of economic fairness that will “provide more breathing room for people” and boost America’s competitiveness.

“My plan is responsible and fair. It focuses the benefit on middle-class and working families. It helps both current and future borrowers and it will fix a badly broken system,” Biden said. “It’s about opportunity. It’s about giving people a fair shot.”

The overall package, which Biden said will benefit 43 million Americans, is a win for activists who have pushed for such action as a matter of economic fairness. But the amount of debt Biden has decided to erase is less than many activists had sought, complicating an issue the White House hopes will boost Democrats in the midterm election and drawing criticism from both parties. While progressives had hoped Biden would go even further, Republicans and some moderate Democrats bristled at the price-tag, asserting that spending an estimated $400-600 billion to cover the forgiven loans would exacerbate inflation.

“This announcement is gallingly reckless — with the national debt approaching record levels and inflation surging, it will make both worse,” said Maya McGuinness, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington organization that opposes the student loan forgiveness program.

Biden, who returned from a two-week vacation Wednesday morning, had vowed to act before Aug. 31, when the latest pandemic-driven moratorium on federal student loan payments runs out. He said this extension would be the last one and that payments would resume in January 2023.

“It’s time for the payments to resume,” he said.

President Trump first suspended payments in March 2020, and Biden has granted four extensions. So far, the suspensions have cost the federal government more than $100 billion. More than 40 million Americans owe a collective $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.

A fight over student loans could slow the Democrats’ recent momentum and threaten their coalition’s cohesion. The president and his party have seen their poll numbers rise in recent months, buoyed by a series of events that have altered the political landscape in their favor.

The Supreme Court’s late June decision overturning Roe vs. Wade alienated women across political lines. The high-profile hearings further illuminating Trump’s key role inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection received broad television coverage and hardened perceptions of Republicans as the more extreme party. And Democrats’ passage of three major bills — a climate, prescription drug and tax overhaul, new funding to boost domestic manufacturing of microchips and enhanced healthcare for veterans exposed to toxic chemicals on the battlefield — has shown the public that Biden is far from a do-nothing president.

Before the abortion decision, the Jan. 6 hearings and the flurry of new legislation, some senior Biden aides believed significant student loan debt forgiveness was one of the few measures that could excite the Democratic base and help the party survive a tough election cycle. Despite public and private pressure from Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Biden has long questioned whether forgiving as much as $50,000 in debt would be prudent.

Schumer spoke by phone with Biden on Tuesday night “to make a final push to the president to cancel as much student loan debt as he can,” according to a Democrat familiar with the conversation. On Wednesday, Schumer and Warren sought to quell criticism from the left, issuing a joint statement heralding Biden’s final decision as a historic first step.

“With the flick of a pen, President Biden has taken a giant step forward in addressing the student debt crisis by cancelling significant amounts of student debt for millions of borrowers. The positive impacts of this move will be felt by families across the country, particularly in minority communities, and is the single most effective action that the President can take on his own to help working families and the economy,” their statement said. “No president or Congress has done more to relieve the burden of student debt and help millions of Americans make ends meet. Make no mistake, the work — our work — will continue as we pursue every available path to address the student debt crisis, help close the racial wealth gap for borrowers, and keep our economy growing.”

Some activists also cheered the announcement. “Today, with President Biden’s announcement, 12 million American borrowers have had their educational debts erased,” said Melissa Byrne, executive director of We the 45 Million, a group that advocates for student debt forgiveness. “This is a historic first step — establishing the clear authority that the president has to cancel student debt — but this should just be the beginning.”

But key Democratic constituencies, including young voters, Black Americans and civil rights groups like the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, have pushed hard for more forgiveness, and may be disappointed.

Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, had blasted Biden in a statement Tuesday, stating that if reports of the president having settled on $10,000 in debt forgiveness are correct, “we’ve got a problem,” likening the decision to past federal policies that have been detrimental to Black people...

I took out zero loans for my Bachelor's degree. I worked, and hard. At Fresno State, where I took my B.A. political science, I worked 35 hours a week pumping gas at the local Chevon station, not far from my dad's house. It was 2:00 to 9:00pm Sundays through Thurdays, and 4:00pm to Midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. I started that job at $4.25 miniumum wage, only getting bumped once with a raise to $4.75. On my days off I'd stay on campus all day, after classes, going to the cafeteria, the library, and the student union to hang out and study. My time was completely taken up and I had little for nightlife. I met my future wife in my last year, and she moved to Santa Barbara with me (before we were married) after I was accepted into the Ph.D. program. 

I paid my dues. 

In graduate school I ended up taking out about $65,000 to $70,000 total. I could have borrowed much, much more, but I was careful. I worked weekends (again at a Chevron station in downtown Santa Barbara) my first year in the program. I could've borrowed more, but my (future) wife and I didn't want to get too deep into debt. We had no idea I'd get a full four-year ride starting in my second year, the U.C. Regents Fellowship, which paid for everything. That was merit based, by the way. I fucking earned that fellowship by kicking ass that first year. I have great memories and wouldn't take back a thing.

I know, though, my story is like so many others, folks who themselves and their families scrimped and saved just for the chance to attend college, much less a Ph.D program. *That's the American way.* If Republicans don't campaigh the hell out of this issue they're bloody stupid. LOTS of folks will be pissed that their working- and middle-class tax dollars are going toward debt bailouts for college graduates who make more than they do, and will make way more in the future. 

It's class warfare. It's a fundamental violation of society's social contract, and bitterly unfair. 

Still more at that top link.

MusclePharm--COMBAT--100% Whey Protein

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Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning

Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya.

Vicki and Randy Weaver

The FBI killed Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge in 1992, on August 22nd, the second day of an 11-day siege.

Randy Weaver died earlier this year.

On Twitter, a thread:

This is Randy and Vicki Weaver.

Randy and Vicki were married in 1971, and lived with their children until 30 years ago today, when federal agents murdered her as she held their infant daughter. pic.twitter.com/YghbPRSGKF

— Spike Cohen (@RealSpikeCohen) August 23, 2022

The day before, agents had murdered their 14 year old son Samuel.

They also shot Randy, smeared his name to the public and put him on trial.

Why did they do this?

Because ATF agent Kenneth Fadeley pressured Randy into selling him two sawed-off shotgun.

Their case was so bad that jurors exonerated Randy of everything but a failure to appear charge.

But the damage was already done.

This is a federal surveillance photo of Vicki shortly before she was murdered.

Snipers were ordered to kill any armed male who left the Weaver home.

When they killed Vicki, she was in her home, holding their infant daughter.

All of this over the length of a shotgun barrel.

The Weaver family did not deserve to be destroyed.

Sadly, they are just another casualty of the federal police state, and yet another example of why it must be dismantled.

Abolish the ATF, the FBI, and every other agency that government uses as weapons against peaceful people.

Rest in peace to Randy, Vicki and Samuel Weaver, and my condolences to the Weaver family.

*****

NOTE: if you advocate for gun control, you de facto advocate for many more families being destroyed by police and federal agents.

Many more children and mothers murdered.

Your advocacy for gun control is advocacy for massive amounts of gun violence against innocent people.

Miranda's Thick Season

Not sure what that is exactly, though I love the photo.

On Twitter.

Plus, more on video. 

Chris Stirewalt, Broken News

At Amazon, Chris Stirewalt, Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back.

Anne Hathaway for Interview

Man, she's as hot as ever.

See, at Interview, "Anne Hathaway Answers 20 Questions From Her Friends and Fans."

Conservatives Obsessed With Mar-a-Lago Raid Got Rolled on Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act

Oops! 

At Politico, "‘We got rolled’: How the conservative grassroots lost the fight with Biden because it was focused on Trump":

The former president’s presence on the political landscape is making it harder to launch a modern day Tea Party movement.

In years past, it would have been a political Waterloo moment for Republicans: President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats racing frantically to finalize sweeping legislation to hike taxes on corporations and spend trillions on climate change and health care subsidies.

But instead of mounting a massive grassroots opposition to tank or tar the Inflation Reduction Act, conservatives and right-wing news outlets spent the past week with their gaze elsewhere: the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion.

Hundreds of them gathered instead outside Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida to protest what they viewed as an egregious example of federal government overreach. Back in Washington, conservative activists did rally against the bill and targeted vulnerable Democrats in ads. But even the main organizers conceded that they had little time to muster the opposition-party gusto of years past.

“Everything was moving so fast, the tax provisions were being debated on the fly, so there was very little time for groups to do that in-depth grassroots pushback like we saw during Obamacare,” said Cesar Ybarra, vice president of policy at conservative grassroots organization FreedomWorks. “To create buzz in this town and for it to penetrate across America, you need more time. So yeah, we got rolled.”

Far from a singular lapse, last week’s split-screen of the Mar-a-Lago search and the passage of the IRA provided a telling portrait of pistons that move modern Republican politics. Whereas conservative activism has, in past cycles, been driven by opposition to Democratic-authored policies or actions — from Obamacare to TARP— the modern version has been fed by culture-war issues and, more often than not, Trump himself.

“I think anytime you have FBI agents setting a new precedent by raiding a former president’s home, that’s going to get a lot of attention, compounded by Liz Cheney getting annihilated in her primary,” said former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who set the prior template for policy-centric midterm catapults with the GOP’s famed Contract with America in 1994.

For Democrats, the current paradigm is a boon, politically. The party hailed the passage of the IRA as a major victory they plan to capitalize on moving into the midterms. They argue that uniform Republican opposition to the bill was hypocrisy — Trump once championed several of its provisions. They view the popularity of the IRA and absence of sustained pushback as a guarantee that this won’t be an electoral albatross like Obamacare was for the party in 2010.

“You’re not having town halls with people screaming about Medicare drug negotiations. It’s very hard to object to a bill that invests a lot of money in clean energy,” said Matt Bennett, the executive vice president for public affairs at the Democratic centrist think tank Third Way.

Republicans argue that the bill will prove more beneficial to them in November, specifically the provision to hire and retain more IRS agents. And they quibble with the idea that the right wasn’t outraged or organized, arguing that the bill was pared back precisely as a result of activist pushback. Far from being two separate threads, they see the IRA and the Mar-a-Lago search as intertwined.

“The timing of the bill happening the same week as the former president’s residence was raided, and you had the split screen of, well, if they could do that to him, they could do that to you, and here’s this bill with 87,000 IRS agents being funded,” said Jessica Anderson, the executive director of the conservative Heritage Action for America. “I think we’re going to look back and see that it really lit a match for people with the distrust for government at an all-time high.”

Merissa Hamilton, an activist with FreedomWorks, said the increase in funding for the IRS has already been energizing grassroots efforts. Before the bill was passed, Hamilton organized protests with dozens of activists in front of the Phoenix office of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz), one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats.

“We feel even more detached from our representation than we ever have before because there was no time to get any public input,” said Hamilton. “It’s a big deal when you’re doubling the size of a federal agency. It screams something that’s designed to be punitive against people.”

But others in the party conceded that policy fights are no longer driving activism, at least to the degree they once did. In a Twitter thread, Brian Riedl, an economist with the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, said the right’s more recent apathy on economic policy “is partially a focus on culture & troll wars, partly a post-Trump identity crisis. And a lot of Democrats simply learning to avoid the economic policy prescriptions that most drive conservative rebellions.”

The money flow may tell an even more compelling story about a grassroots movement more geared toward Trump than congressional Republicans.

In the wake of the FBI’s search of Trump’s home, Trump’s Save America PAC reportedly raked in millions in the following days, according to The Washington Post. Elsewhere, meanwhile, the main Republicans running in marquee Senate races have struggled to build small-dollar donor networks, forcing the National Republican Senatorial Committee to slash ad spending and campaigns and operatives to panic.

Ohio Democratic Senate nominee Tim Ryan has brought in more than $9.1 million compared with GOP challenger J.D. Vance’s $1 million. Just over 9 percent of the money Vance raised for his primary campaign account between April and July came from contributions from individuals, and less than a fifth of that amount was from un-itemized small-dollar donors (those who gave less than $200). Of Ryan’s donations, 46 percent came from small-dollar donors.

In Pennsylvania, GOP nominee Mehmet Oz has largely self-funded his campaign, with less than 30 percent of his total receipts last quarter coming from individual contributors. Of that amount, just 18 percent came from small-dollar donors, compared with more than half for Democratic nominee John Fetterman, who brought in more than twice what Oz did.

And in Arizona, donations from individuals made up about 75 percent of GOP nominee Blake Masters’ total haul between April and July, versus 95 percent for Kelly. More importantly, the Democratic incumbent outraised Masters by more than $12 million last month, with 45 percent of the amount he raised from individuals coming in the form of small-dollar donations...

Keep reading. 

The Underappreciated Risks of Catastrophic Escalation

From Johm Mearsheimer, at Foreign Affairs, "Playing With Fire in Ukraine":

Western policymakers appear to have reached a consensus about the war in Ukraine: the conflict will settle into a prolonged stalemate, and eventually a weakened Russia will accept a peace agreement that favors the United States and its NATO allies, as well as Ukraine. Although officials recognize that both Washington and Moscow may escalate to gain an advantage or to prevent defeat, they assume that catastrophic escalation can be avoided. Few imagine that U.S. forces will become directly involved in the fighting or that Russia will dare use nuclear weapons.

Washington and its allies are being much too cavalier. Although disastrous escalation may be avoided, the warring parties’ ability to manage that danger is far from certain. The risk of it is substantially greater than the conventional wisdom holds. And given that the consequences of escalation could include a major war in Europe and possibly even nuclear annihilation, there is good reason for extra concern.

To understand the dynamics of escalation in Ukraine, start with each side’s goals. Since the war began, both Moscow and Washington have raised their ambitions significantly, and both are now deeply committed to winning the war and achieving formidable political aims. As a result, each side has powerful incentives to find ways to prevail and, more important, to avoid losing. In practice, this means that the United States might join the fighting either if it is desperate to win or to prevent Ukraine from losing, while Russia might use nuclear weapons if it is desperate to win or faces imminent defeat, which would be likely if U.S. forces were drawn into the fighting.

Furthermore, given each side’s determination to achieve its goals, there is little chance of a meaningful compromise. The maximalist thinking that now prevails in both Washington and Moscow gives each side even more reason to win on the battlefield so that it can dictate the terms of the eventual peace. In effect, the absence of a possible diplomatic solution provides an added incentive for both sides to climb up the escalation ladder. What lies further up the rungs could be something truly catastrophic: a level of death and destruction exceeding that of World War II.

AIMING HIGH

The United States and its allies initially backed Ukraine to prevent a Russian victory and help negotiate a favorable end to the fighting. But once the Ukrainian military began hammering Russian forces, especially around Kyiv, the Biden administration shifted course and committed itself to helping Ukraine win the war against Russia. It also sought to severely damage Russia’s economy by imposing unprecedented sanctions. As Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin explained U.S. goals in April, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” In effect, the United States announced its intention to knock Russia out of the ranks of great powers.

What’s more, the United States has tied its own reputation to the outcome of the conflict. U.S. President Joe Biden has labelled Russia’s war in Ukraine a “genocide” and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being a “war criminal” who should face a “war crimes trial.” Presidential proclamations such as these make it hard to imagine Washington backing down; if Russia prevailed in Ukraine, the United States’ position in the world would suffer a serious blow.

Russian ambitions have also expanded. Contrary to the conventional wisdom in the West, Moscow did not invade Ukraine to conquer it and make it part of a Greater Russia. It was principally concerned with preventing Ukraine from becoming a Western bulwark on the Russian border. Putin and his advisers were especially concerned about Ukraine eventually joining NATO. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the point succinctly in mid-January, saying at a press conference, “the key to everything is the guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward.” For Russian leaders, the prospect of Ukrainian membership in NATO is, as Putin himself put it before the invasion, “a direct threat to Russian security”—one that could be eliminated only by going to war and turning Ukraine into a neutral or failed state.

Toward that end, it appears that Russia’s territorial goals have expanded markedly since the war started. Until the eve of the invasion, Russia was committed to implementing the Minsk II agreement, which would have kept the Donbas as part of Ukraine. Over the course of the war, however, Russia has captured large swaths of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, and there is growing evidence that Putin now intends to annex all or most of that land, which would effectively turn what is left of Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state.

The threat to Russia today is even greater than it was before the war, mainly because the Biden administration is now determined to roll back Russia’s territorial gains and permanently cripple Russian power. Making matters even worse for Moscow, Finland and Sweden are joining NATO, and Ukraine is better armed and more closely allied with the West. Moscow cannot afford to lose in Ukraine, and it will use every means available to avoid defeat. Putin appears confident that Russia will ultimately prevail against Ukraine and its Western backers. “Today, we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield,” he said in early July. “What can you say? Let them try. The goals of the special military operation will be achieved. There are no doubts about that.”

Ukraine, for its part, has the same goals as the Biden administration. The Ukrainians are bent on recapturing territory lost to Russia—including Crimea—and a weaker Russia is certainly less threatening to Ukraine. Furthermore, they are confident that they can win, as Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov made clear in mid-July, when he said, “Russia can definitely be defeated, and Ukraine has already shown how.” His U.S. counterpart apparently agrees. “Our assistance is making a real difference on the ground,” Austin said in a late July speech. “Russia thinks that it can outlast Ukraine—and outlast us. But that’s just the latest in Russia’s string of miscalculations.”

In essence, Kyiv, Washington, and Moscow are all deeply committed to winning at the expense of their adversary, which leaves little room for compromise. Neither Ukraine nor the United States, for example, is likely to accept a neutral Ukraine; in fact, Ukraine is becoming more closely tied with the West by the day. Nor is Russia likely to return all or even most of the territory it has taken from Ukraine, especially since the animosities that have fueled the conflict in the Donbas between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government for the past eight years are more intense than ever.

These conflicting interests explain why so many observers believe that a negotiated settlement will not happen any time soon and thus foresee a bloody stalemate. They are right about that. But observers are underestimating the potential for catastrophic escalation that is built into a protracted war in Ukraine...

Still more.

'Quiet Quitting'? This Is Not Good

Young people are generally inclined towards slacking anyways, but post-lockdown/pandemic, the lackadaisical sloth cohort is downright indolent. 

At the Wall Street Journal, "If Your Co-Workers Are ‘Quiet Quitting,’ Here’s What That Means":

Not taking your job too seriously has a new name: quiet quitting.

The phrase is generating millions of views on TikTok as some young professionals reject the idea of going above and beyond in their careers, labeling their lesser enthusiasm a form of “quitting.” It isn’t about getting off the company payroll, these employees say. In fact, the idea is to stay on it—but focus your time on the things you do outside of the office.

The videos range from sincere ruminations on work-life balance to snarky jokes. Some set firm boundaries against overtime in favor of family. Others advocate coasting from 9-to-5, doing just enough to get by. Many want to untether their careers from their identities.

Of course, every generation enters the workforce and quickly realizes that having a job isn’t all fun and games. Navigating contemptible bosses and the petty indignities that have always been inflicted on the ranks of working stiffs has never been easy. And many people who say, when they’re young, that they don’t care about climbing the corporate ladder end up changing their minds.

The difference now is that this group has TikTok and hashtags to emote. And these 20-somethings joined the working world during the Covid-19 pandemic, with all of its dislocating effects, including blurred boundaries between work and life. Many workers say they feel they have power to push back in the current strong labor market. Recent data from Gallup shows employee engagement is declining.

Clayton Farris, 41 years old, said that when he recently heard about the new term circulating on social media he realized he’d already been doing it by refusing to let work worries rule over him the way they used to.

“The most interesting part about it is nothing’s changed,” he said in his TikTok video. “I still work just as hard. I still get just as much accomplished. I just don’t stress and internally rip myself to shreds.”

Across generations, U.S. employee engagement is falling, according to survey data from Gallup, but Gen Z and younger millennials, born in 1989 and after, reported the lowest engagement of all during the first quarter at 31%.

Jim Harter, chief scientist for Gallup’s workplace and well-being research, said workers’ descriptions of “quiet quitting” align with a large group of survey respondents that he classifies as “not engaged”—those who will show up to work and do the minimum required but not much else. More than half of workers surveyed by Gallup who were born after 1989—54%—fall into this category.

One factor Gallup uses to measure engagement is whether people feel their work has purpose. Younger employees report that they don’t feel that way, the data show. These are the people who are more likely to work passively and look out for themselves over their employers, Dr. Harter said.

Paige West, 24, said she stopped overextending herself at a former position as a transportation analyst in Washington, D.C., less than a year into the job. Work stress had gotten so intense that, she said, her hair was falling out and she couldn’t sleep. While looking for a new role, she no longer worked beyond 40 hours each week, didn’t sign up for extra training and stopped trying to socialize with colleagues.

“I took a step back and said, ‘I’m just going to work the hours I’m supposed to work, that I’m really getting paid to work,’” she said. “Besides that, I’m not going to go extra.”

Ms. West said that she found herself more engaged during meetings once she stopped trying so hard, and she received more positive feedback. She left the job last year and is now a full-time freelance virtual assistant making about 75% of her previous salary. She adjusted by moving back to her home state of Florida.

Zaid Khan, a 24-year-old engineer in New York, posted a quiet quitting video that has racked up three million views in two weeks. In his viral TikTok, Mr. Khan explained the concept this way: “You’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond.”

“You’re no longer subscribing to the hustle-culture mentality that work has to be your life,” he said.

Mr. Khan says he and many of his peers reject the idea that productivity trumps all; they don’t see the payoff.

Some online commenters pledged to relax on social media when they had downtime at work. Others say they will follow their job descriptions to the letter, instead of asking for additional assignments.

A new crop of quiet-quitting videos is starting to pop up, denouncing the move as a cop-out, not a cure-all for burnout or discontentment at work.

People who coast have been fixtures of the office for decades, but many of today’s less-invested employees have been able to skate by thanks to remote work, said Elise Freedman, a senior client partner at consulting firm Korn Ferry.

If the economy sours, Ms. Freedman said, less-engaged workers may be more at risk of layoffs. “It’s perfectly appropriate that we expect our employees to give their all,” she said...

Workers showing up and doing the *absolute* minimum fucks up everyone else on the job. Lowering stress is fine, but if people are just skating all day for a paycheck, being personal totally checked out and completely disengaged from their required tasks, that's no good.

My son notes, on top of that, there's not enough workers on the job in the first place. Nobody wants to work anymore, or barely so. Employers can't find enough employees. Those who do want to do well have no support and end up schlupping extra hard for the same base pay. 

Fuck this youth generation. We're doomed.

American Taxpayers Are Funding Ukraine War to the Tune of $10.6 Billion (VIDEO)

Here's Batya. She lays it out grimly.

What is the U.S. interest in propping up Zelensky and his stalwart defense of Ukraine? 

WATCH:

Gallup: Poor Life Ratings Reach Record High

We're in a Carteresque malaise.

The chart below tells a lot. 

Life evaluations dropped to 46.4 of Americans as "thriving" during the Great (Crash) Recession of November 2008, and during late 2020, during a coronavirus pandemic, in December of that year.

See, "In U.S., Poor Life Ratings Reach Record High":

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The percentage of Americans who evaluate their lives poorly enough to be considered "suffering" on Gallup's Life Evaluation Index was 5.6% in July, the highest since the index's inception in 2008. This exceeds the previous high of 4.8% measured in April and is statistically higher than all prior estimates in the COVID-19 era. Across extensive measurement since January 2008, the suffering percentage has reached 4.5% or higher on a handful of occasions.

The most recent results, obtained July 26 to Aug. 2, 2022, are based on web surveys of 3,649 U.S. adults as a part of the Gallup Panel, a probability-based, non-opt-in panel of about 115,000 adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

For its Life Evaluation Index, Gallup classifies Americans as "thriving," "struggling" or "suffering," according to how they rate their current and future lives on a ladder scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10, based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. Those who rate both their current and future lives a 4 or lower are classified as suffering. Those who rate their current life a 7 or higher and their anticipated life in five years an 8 or higher are classified as thriving.

The percentage of U.S. adults estimated to be thriving has steadily declined since it reached a record high of 59.2% in June 2021. The latest estimate of 51.2% is an 18-month low. The lowest recorded thriving rate of 46.4% was measured twice -- first, in November 2008 amid the Great Recession, and second, in late April 2020, during the initial economic shutdown associated with the outbreak of COVID-19 in the U.S...

 People are stressing. It's sad. 

Still more.

John Agresto, The Death of Learning

At Amazon, John Agresto, The Death of Learning: How American Education Has Failed Our Students and What to Do about It.

Is Israel An Apartheid State?

It's Olga Meshoe, for Prager University:

SFSC Honey

A sweet young lady from South Florida State College, on Twitter.

California Voters Say Biden Shouldn't Seek a Second Term

 Heh. 

California's the looniest leftist state. That voters here reject Bident for 2024 is something. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "California voters favor Newsom over Harris, don’t want Biden to run again, poll finds."

Ukraine's Southern Forces Wage a Slow Campaign to Wear the Russians Down

The war in Ukriane is inching back up in the news. Ukrainian forces launched mysterious bombing strikes in the Crimea, taking out a number of Russia warplanes. 

More at the Wall Street Journal, "Ukraine’s Southern Forces Wage a Slow Campaign to Wear the Russians Down":

A VILLAGE IN KHERSON REGION, Ukraine—Until recently, Russian artillery pounded Ukrainian forces on the front lines of the war in the south.

But today, just 3 miles from the Russian line, incoming shells have become far less frequent since Ukrainian forces started taking out Russian ammunition depots and bridges in the Kherson region and Crimea.

“There’s about half as much incoming as three or four weeks ago,” says Yevhen, a Ukrainian infantry squad commander, who hasn’t fired his rifle in more than a month.

This is what Ukraine’s offensive to retake occupied territory in the south of the country looks like: not a dramatic ground assault, but a series of artillery strikes designed to cut Russian supply lines and isolate Russian troops in the region.

Using U.S.-supplied long-range Himars rocket systems, Ukrainian forces have disabled several bridges across the Dnipro River and the smaller Inhulets River in recent weeks. The Ukrainians have also taken out a series of ammunition depots, including one this week in Crimea, the peninsula in southern Ukraine that Moscow seized in 2014 and has used as a staging ground for its assault on the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

As a result of these strikes, Russian troops west of the rivers are now being resupplied by ferries and pontoon bridges, military analysts say, and keeping them supplied is already a challenge. Ammunition depots are being moved further away, out of artillery range, meaning supply trucks now run longer routes than they were designed for.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command, said the Russians pulled their command centers back to the east side of the Dnipro River several days ago.

By starving the Russians of supplies, she said, the Ukrainians hope they can force an army with far more troops and greater firepower to retreat.

“There are more of them. They have more weapons. They’re more powerful in the air,” Ms. Humeniuk said. “So we have to find a way to beat them under these conditions. It’s not easy, but it’s doable.”

Kherson is the only regional capital that Moscow has taken since the full-scale invasion began in February, and the Kremlin has signaled its intention of holding on to the city. Russian-installed officials in Kherson and other occupied territories indicated they plan to hold a public vote on joining the Russian Federation as early as September. Kherson is also crucial to achieving what Western officials say was one of the Kremlin’s original aims: to take the coast from the Kherson region all the way to Odessa, thereby cutting off Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea.

When an ammunition depot is hit, a Ukrainian special-operations commander in the south said, the special-operations teams inside Russian-held territory work to pinpoint where the Russians moved their bases. “We’ll say, ‘Soldiers come between 6 and 8. Hit it then,’” he said. “Then we see who from the Russian side comes to check, and how they’re going to regroup.”

Partisans inside Russian-occupied territory have also helped the Ukrainian cause, Ms. Humeniuk said, sending the military information about logistics centers they want to target. On Tuesday, an ammunition depot in Crimea, more than 100 miles from the front, was blown up by Ukrainian saboteurs, according to both Russian and Ukrainian officials—a tactical blow and a warning to Moscow that even logistics centers far from the battlefield could be at risk.

Military analysts say the Ukrainian strategy takes advantage of existing weaknesses in the Russian military. The Russian army, they say, is far more reliant on rail transport than other modern militaries. As a result, it has a smaller fleet of trucks equipped to move ammunition and heavy weaponry. And with trains no longer able to get close to the front, those trucks are having to travel further than they were designed for to resupply troops west of the river.

Earlier this month, the Ukrainians hit an ammunition train, disabling the primary train line between Crimea and Kherson, according to the British Defense Ministry... Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, said international sanctions have also put pressure on Russian supply lines, because the occupying forces can’t order replacements for certain parts and precision weapons. “The Russian logistics system is exhausted—it was never designed to sustain a long conflict outside of Russia,” he said. Gen. Hodges said the Russians would eventually have to pull back from their positions west of the Dnipro River—including the city of Kherson, which sits near where the narrow Inhulets River joins the wider Dnipro River, which Russians must cross to resupply the city. “If you can’t keep the required inflow of supplies, at some point you have to give ground,” said retired Maj. Gen. Edward Dorman, the former director of logistics and engineering for U.S. Central Command. “Wars have been lost because of logistics.” Along the southern front line, Ukrainian troops say they can feel the Russian supply problems. “Before we blew the bridges, when we’d hit their artillery positions, they’d replace it in the next moment,” said Roman, an infantry company commander in the same regiment as Yevhen. But in a sign of how difficult the Ukrainian campaign remains, he said there was still more incoming artillery from Russian forces than outgoing Ukrainian fire...

Beth Macy, Raising Lazarus

From the author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America.

See Beth Macy, Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis.

Rhian on Holiday

On Twitter.

"Really, the Word You're Using to Fight Antisemitism is 'Jewface'?"

Wait for it, from Bill Maher, on Real Time:

'Conservatism' Is No Longer Enough

At the American Mind, "All hands on deck as we enter the counter-revolutionary moment":

Let’s be blunt. The United States has become two nations occupying the same country. When pressed, or in private, many would now agree. Fewer are willing to take the next step and accept that most people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.

I don’t just mean the millions of illegal immigrants. Obviously, those foreigners who have bypassed the regular process for entering our country, and probably will never assimilate to our language and culture, are—politically as well as legally—aliens. I’m really referring to the many native-born people—some of whose families have been here since the Mayflower—who may technically be citizens of the United States but are no longer (if they ever were) Americans. They do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people. It is not obvious what we should call these citizen-aliens, these non-American Americans; but they are something else.

What about those who do consider themselves Americans? By and large, I am referring to the 75 million people who voted in the last election against the senile figurehead of a party that stands for mob violence, ruthless censorship, and racial grievances, not to mention bureaucratic despotism. Regardless of Trump’s obvious flaws, preferring his re-election was not a difficult choice for these voters. In fact—leaving aside the Republican never-Trumpers and some squeamish centrists—it was not a difficult choice for either side. Both Right and Left know where they stand today… and it is not together. Not anymore.

Those who wanted to Make America Great Again may refer to themselves as Republicans, though many realize that, apart from Trump, the party does not really care about them. Many may also, in some loose way, consider themselves conservatives. But among these plumbers, insurance salesmen, gym owners, and factory workers there’s one question you can pretty much guarantee they never discuss with their family and friends: “What kind of conservative are you?” This question has virtually no bearing on the problems that overshadow their lives.

It is still a question, however, that occupies intellectuals, journalists, and the world of think tanks. And this matters, unfortunately, because however sensible and down to earth the voters may be, an effective political movement needs intellectual leadership to organize and explain the movement’s purposes and goals. This leadership is still divided into—to name a few—neocons, paleocons (not to be confused with paleo-libertarians!) rad-trads, the dissident right, reformicons, etc. A lot of these labels are a distraction. But before I reject these disputes as mostly irrelevant, let me make a couple of points about why we can’t immediately leave this debate behind—and so why an essay like this is necessary.

“The conservative movement” still matters because if the defenders of America continue to squabble among themselves, the victory of progressive tyranny will be assured. See you in the gulag. On the off chance we can avoid that fate, it will only be if the shrinking number of Americans unite and work together. But we can’t simply mandate that conservatives “set aside” their differences, no matter how urgent it is that they do so. So my goal here is to show why we must all unite around the one, authentic America, the only one which transcends all the factional navel-gazing and pointless conservababble.

Practically speaking, there is almost nothing left to conserve. What is actually required now is a recovery, or even a refounding, of America as it was long and originally understood but which now exists only in the hearts and minds of a minority of citizens.

This recognition that the original America is more or less gone sets the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy apart from almost everyone else on the Right. Paradoxically, the organization that has been uniquely devoted to understanding and teaching the principles of the American founding now sees with special clarity why “conserving” that legacy is a dead end. Overturning the existing post-American order, and re-establishing America’s ancient principles in practice, is a sort of counter-revolution, and the only road forward...

Keep reading.

It’s Inevitable: Trump Will Be Indicted

From Julie Kelly, at American Greatness, "Americans should prepare for the spectacle of Donald Trump pleading not guilty to charges brought by the Biden Justice Department."

Umm, You Would Think: Germany to Keep Last Three Nuclear-Power Plants Running in Policy U-Turn

Leftists are so stupid, and they're proving with their disgusting, hypocritical u-turn on nuclear energy, which is obviously one massive key to reducing so-called climate changing emissions, though it's reallly not about that in the end. Leftists, like Germany's Greens and Socialists, want power and control. I mean, *everyting* is caused by climate change now, like making kids fat. 

I can't.

At WSJ, "Move prompted by the mounting economic war with Russia marks the first departure from a two-decade policy to abandon nuclear energy":

BERLIN—Germany plans to postpone the closure of the country’s last three nuclear power plants as it braces for a possible shortage of energy this winter after Russia throttled gas supplies to the country, said German government officials.

While temporary, the move would mark the first departure from a policy initiated in the early 2000s to phase out nuclear energy in Germany and which had over time become enshrined in political consensus.

The decision has yet to be formally adopted by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet and would likely require a vote in Parliament. Some details are still under discussion, three senior government officials said. A cabinet decision would also need to wait on the outcome of an assessment of Germany’s energy needs that will be concluded in the coming weeks but which the officials said was a foregone conclusion.

Still, while a formal decision could be weeks off, the government believes two key conditions allowing a temporary extension of the life of the three remaining plants, now expected to close on Dec. 31, have been met: Germany is facing a likely shortage of gas and letting the reactors operate longer poses no safety concern, the officials said.

“The reactors are safe until Dec. 31, and obviously they will remain safe also after Dec. 31,” a senior official said.

The plan underlines how deeply Moscow’s attack on Ukraine has scrambled politics in Europe, and particularly in Germany, which long enjoyed close economic relations with Russia and whose economy had grown highly dependent on Russian natural-gas supplies.

Shortly after the invasion, Mr. Scholz moved to ramp up military spending and deliver arms to Ukraine, breaking with years of pacifism and a legal ban on the delivery of offensive weapons in conflict zones. The nuclear move, while limited and temporary, would break a third long-held taboo in German politics.

Mr. Scholz hinted at the decision last week, saying for the first time that it could make sense to keep Germany’s last three nuclear reactors online.

A spokeswoman for the Economy Ministry, which oversees energy, denied that the government had made a decision on extending the life of the plants, adding that it would depend on the findings of the continuing assessment of Germany’s power needs.

Extending the life of the three plants beyond their current closing date is no panacea for Germany’s looming energy bottleneck this winter. The country is mainly missing natural gas, which is used primarily for heating and manufacturing.

Yet by allowing the plants, which together account for around 6% of the country’s electricity production, to stay online, Berlin would remove the need to replace them with gas- or coal-powered plants, allowing gas to be used in areas where it can’t be replaced by other fuels.

Mothballed coal plants have already been brought back online to prevent energy blackouts after Russia slashed gas supplies in June, a decision that will complicate Berlin’s plans to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and reduce air pollution. The government has also drafted two executive orders outlining measures to reduce gas and power consumption in the country over the next two years, including by lowering the temperature in public buildings. The country’s energy regulator estimates that gas consumption will need to be cut by 20% if Germany is to avoid a gas shortfall this winter and next.

It is unclear for how long the reactors will continue to operate past the December deadline. The three officials said the extension would only be for a few months. Leading figures in the Free Democratic party, the government’s third coalition partner, have said the plant should run into 2024.

Several officials said that the extension would only affect the three plants that still operate today and that Berlin wasn’t considering reopening plants decommissioned earlier, including three that were shut down last winter.

The nuclear extension is fraught with technical, legal and political hurdles. Laws may need to be amended to allow for the reactors to remain online and obtain fresh fuel rods. Complex certification as well as insurance and nuclear-waste disposal procedures could be required.

It is also politically sensitive. The nuclear phaseout was initiated by the Social Democrats and Greens, the leading parties in the current coalition, and has become part of the parties’ identities, particularly for the Greens, a party that was born out of the antinuclear movement.

Leading Green politicians have already accepted a short extension of the nuclear-power generation. Ludwig Hartmann, the Greens’ parliamentary floor leader in the state of Bavaria, said that the life of reactors could be prolonged for a “few months” if the region faced the risk of power shortages.

The opposition conservatives, the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who greatly accelerated the phasing-out of nuclear energy following the Fukushima disaster in 2011, now also favors extending the plants’ lifespan.

“Not everyone [who keeps using nuclear energy] in the world is stupider than us,” Friedrich Merz, chairman of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, said in a recent radio interview.

While the phaseout has for years enjoyed overwhelming popular support, a recent survey by the Forsa Institut polling group showed three quarters of Germans wanted the planned reactor closures to be postponed. Forsa said it had recorded a gradual shift in public opinion in favor of keeping the plants online since Russia invaded Ukraine in February...

TikTok Influencers Push to Unionize Amazon

These people are kids with millions of followers on social media.  And they're demanding Amazon pay its workers $30.00 an hour. Right. Fucking brats. 

At WaPo, "Gen Z TikTok creators are turning against Amazon":

A coalition of top TikTok stars is pledging to cease all work with Amazon — including shutting down storefronts and halting new partnerships with the e-commerce platform — until the company meets the demands of the Amazon Labor Union.

Boasting a combined following of over 51 million, the group of 70 TikTok creators says that the campaign, called the “People Over Prime Pledge,” is designed to pressure Amazon to meet the requests of its workers, which include a $30 minimum wage, increased paid time off and halting activities the group considers “union busting.”

“Amazon’s widespread mistreatment of their workers and blatant use of union busting tactics will no longer be tolerated by the TikTok Community,” reads a statement from Gen Z For Change, an advocacy group that coordinated the pledge and works frequently with creators.

Amazon Labor Union, which did not help organize the People Over Prime Pledge, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The campaign is a public setback for Amazon, which has sought to develop tighter relationships with young influencers in recent years. In 2017, the company launched the Amazon Influencer Program, allowing creators to earn revenue by recommending products in personalized Amazon storefronts. Earlier this year, Amazon flew more than a dozen Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok stars to a luxurious retreat in Mexico to encourage influencers to grow their presence on the platform. In June, Amazon built a massive VIP lounge at VidCon, an annual conference for online video stars, where influencers could learn about ways to work more closely with the company.

Instagram knows you don't like its changes. It doesn't care.

“I think their method of offering influencers life-changing payouts to make them feel as if they need to work with them while also refusing to pay their workers behind the scenes is extremely wrong,” said Emily Rayna Shaw, 24, a TikTok creator with 5.4 million followers who has partnered with Amazon in the past. “I want to feel comfortable recommending Amazon products to my community because it is so reliable, but I can’t do so until I know that they are treating their workers fairly.”

Many of the creators behind the People over Prime Pledge have done promotional deals with the company but plan to shut down their storefronts and decline future partnerships because of concerns over worker treatment. Creators who have worked with Amazon say that the company requires them to sign nondisparagement agreements, so that they can’t speak negatively about the platform even when the deals are over.

Amazon — which is the second-largest private employer in the U.S., where it has a higher rate of worker injuries than its competitors — has increasingly become a target for organized labor. In April, the independent Amazon Labor Union won an election at a large fulfillment center in Staten Island, marking a major union victory. Amazon workers are also organizing facilities in Bessemer, Ala.; Garner, N.C.; Albany, N.Y.; Campbellsville, Ky., and San Bernardino, Calif.

But the company has cracked down on these efforts, disciplining, firing, and even calling the police on some workers who show support for unions. The National Labor Relations Board has said some of the company’s conduct violates labor law, but the agency has limited resources to police a company of Amazon’s size. Even at the warehouse where Amazon Labor Union won the election, the company has successfully delayed the start of the contract-bargaining process, which itself could take months or years to complete.

[Amazon could stymie unions for years by going to the courts.]

Jackie James, 19, a TikTok creator with 3.4 million followers said that she will not be doing deals with Amazon until they change their ways. “As an influencer, it’s important to choose the right companies to work with,” she said. “I don’t think that workers should be treated the way they are under Amazon.”

Yet as labor organizing efforts within Amazon have hit speed bumps — Amazon Labor Union lost a second election in Staten Island in May — the movement has remained high profile, attracting support from Sen. Bernie Sanders and President Biden. Amazon Labor Union president Chris Smalls appeared on a prominent Twitch stream last week, and the hashtag #hotlaborsummer has popped up on Twitter.

Amazon has previously denied discontent among its workers, arguing turnover is a function of the company’s flexibility. “A large percentage of people we hire are re-hires, showing that they will choose to work for us when they want to,” Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, told The Post in June. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.

“We’re demanding that Amazon listen to their workers and make changes to provide a healthy workplace environment,” said Aidan Kohn-Murphy, founder of Gen Z For Change, who also posts on TikTok. “Until Amazon institutes these changes, we as creators will block Amazon from monetizing one of the largest social media platforms in the world.” ...

Michael Beckley and Hal Brands, Danger Zone

At Amazon, Michael Beckley and Hal Brands, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China.

In Wyoming, Likely End of Cheney Dynasty Will Close a Political Era (VIDEO)

Stick a fork in her. She's done.

At the New York Times, "If Representative Liz Cheney loses her primary on Tuesday, as is widely expected, the Cowboy State’s conservative tilt will take on a harder edge":

CODY, Wyo. — At an event last month honoring the 14,000 Japanese Americans who were once held at the Heart Mountain internment camp near here, Representative Liz Cheney was overcome with emotions, and a prolonged standing ovation wasn’t the only reason.

Her appearance — with her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as former Senator Alan Simpson and the children of Norman Mineta, a Democratic congressman turned transportation secretary who was sent to the camp when he was 10 — was part of a groundbreaking for the new Mineta-Simpson Institute. Ms. Cheney was moved, she said, by the presence of the survivors and by their enduring commitment to the country that imprisoned them during World War II.

There was something else, though, that got to the congresswoman during the bipartisan ceremony with party elders she was raised to revere. “It was just a whole combination of emotion,” she recalled in a recent interview.

As Ms. Cheney faces a near-certain defeat on Tuesday in her House primary, it is the likely end of the Cheneys’ two-generation dynasty in Wyoming as well as the passing of a less tribal and more clubby and substance-oriented brand of politics.

“We were a very powerful delegation, and we worked with the other side, that was key, because you couldn’t function if you didn’t,” recalled Mr. Simpson, now 90, fresh off being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and as tart-tongued as ever about his ancestral party. “My dad was senator and a governor, and if I ran again today as a Republican I’d get my ass beat — it’s not about heritage.”

He was elected to the Senate in 1978, the same year that Mr. Cheney won Wyoming’s at-large House seat, and they worked closely together, two Republicans battling on behalf of the country’s least populated state in an era when Democrats always controlled at least one chamber of Congress.

It’s not mere clout, however, that traditional Wyoming Republicans are pining for as they consider their gilded past and ponder the state’s less certain political and economic future. Before Tuesday’s election, which is likely to propel Harriet Hageman, who is backed by former President Donald J. Trump, to the House, the nostalgia in the state is running deeper than the Buffalo Bill Reservoir.

Mr. Cheney and Mr. Simpson were not only in the leadership of their respective chambers in the 1980s; they, along with Senator Malcolm Wallop, a Yale-educated cold warrior whose grandfather served in both the British House of Lords and the Wyoming Legislature, got along well and often appeared together as a delegation in a sort of road show across the sprawling state (“A small town with long streets,” as the Wyoming saying goes).

Even headier was the administration of President George Bush. Mr. Cheney became defense secretary, and his wife, Lynne, served as chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, while Mr. Simpson was both the second-ranking Senate Republican and one of the president’s closest friends. On top of that, the secretary of state at the time, James A. Baker III, spent summers on his Wyoming ranch, meaning two of the country’s top national security officials could be found doing unofficial promotional work for the state’s tourism industry.

“You’d have Army choppers snatching Cheney and Baker from fishing holes,” recalled Rob Wallace, who was Mr. Wallop’s chief of staff.

As conservative as the state was on the national level — Lyndon B. Johnson is the only Democrat to carry Wyoming in the past 70 years — the Wyoming Republican delegation worked effectively with two well-regarded Democratic governors in that same period, Ed Herschler and Mike Sullivan.

Now, Ms. Cheney hardly even speaks to the two other Wyomingites in Congress — Senators John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, both Republicans — and has little contact with Gov. Mark Gordon. Ms. Lummis has endorsed Ms. Hageman. But Mr. Barrasso and Mr. Gordon, who are mainline Republicans in the Cheney tradition, have sought to maintain neutrality in hopes of avoiding Mr. Trump’s wrath.

“They’ve got to make their own choices and live with the choices that they make,” Ms. Cheney said about the two men, before adding: “There are too many people who think that somebody else will fix the problem, that we can stay on the sidelines and Trump will fade.”

Asked about the Cheney legacy in Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso and Mr. Gordon both declined to comment...

 

We Ignored Salman Rushdie's Warning

From Bari Weiss, "Words are not violence. Violence is violence":

The words are violence crowd is right about the power of language. Words can be vile, disgusting, offensive, and dehumanizing. They can make the speaker worthy of scorn, protest, and blistering criticism. But the difference between civilization and barbarism is that civilization responds to words with words. Not knives or guns or fire. That is the bright line. There can be no excuse for blurring that line—whether out of religious fanaticism or ideological orthodoxy of any other kind

Today our culture is dominated by those who blur that line—those who lend credence to the idea that words, art, song lyrics, children’s books, and op-eds are the same as violence. We abore so used to this worldview and what it requires—apologize, grovel, erase, grovel some more—that we no longer notice. It is why we can count, on one hand—Dave Chappelle; J.K. Rowling—those who show spine.

Of course it is 2022 that the Islamists finally get a knife into Salman Rushdie. Of course it is now, when words are literally violence and J.K. Rowling literally puts trans lives in danger and even talking about anything that might offend anyone means you are literally arguing I shouldn’t exist. Of course it’s now, when we’re surrounded by silliness and weakness and self-obsession, that a man gets on stage and plunges a knife into Rushdie, plunges it into his liver, plunges it into his arm, plunges it into his eye. That is violence.

Read the whole thing.

 

Salman Rusdie, The Satanic Verses

From earlier, "Author Salman Rushdie Attacked During Speech in Chautauqua, New York: 'Multiple Stab Wounds'."

And at Amazon, Salman Rusdie, The Satanic Verses.