Nuclear Disarmament

Pope Francis wants it—completely, totally, for any purpose, even deterrence (assuming, for now, that this can be done verifiably and verifiably maintained).  The Pope thinks an arms race involving nuclear weapons adds to the danger of their existence, never minding the race, at least on the US’ part, is for self-defense and the defense of our friends and allies—the very purpose of NATO stationing nuclear weapons in Europe, for instance.

The Pope, though, avoided addressing how a non-nuclear nation with a small conventional military establishment would defend itself against an aggressively acquisitive non-nuclear nation with a large military establishment.  Like, say, the Soviet Union against the nations of Europe, individually or collectively. Or like, perhaps, the People’s Republic of China against the Republic of Korea or Japan—or us.

He appears unconcerned that this might lead to a conventional arms race and conventional military building-up race, a race whose deterrence exists only in the ability to conduct a follow-on mobilization race to the frontier—sort of like what turned out to be the first steps of European wars in the latter half of the 19th century and of two global wars in the first half of the 20th.

Of course, in the case of the PRC, the Pope already has abjectly surrendered control of the Catholic Church and of Catholicism—the Universal Church and universal religion—to the PRC government inside the PRC.

Maybe he expects the rest of us to meekly surrender politically, like he has done religiously.

No, I’m not going to turn the other cheek to conquerors and slavers. Not even St Augustine suggested that, for all that he decried preemption.

The People Have Spoken

The tally is nearly completely in for Hong Kong’s Sunday vote for local offices.

Local broadcaster RTHK reported that pro-democracy parties took 390 out of 452 seats in the district council, or nearly 90%.
The polls closed with 71.2% of eligible voters casting a ballot, the election commission said, easily surpassing the figure of 47% in the last such vote in 2015.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam suggests

The government will certainly listen humbly to citizens’ opinions and reflect on them seriously[.]

Yeah. She’ll think about it.  But will it act accordingly? Keep in mind, as you cogitate on that question, that the Lam government is nothing but a Beijing satrap.

Gordon Chang, who often writes for The Wall Street Journal and contributes to Fox News, is optimistic:

This is political annihilation for Beijing and it’s going to have consequences that are going to reverberate not just in Hong Kong itself, but perhaps in China as well….

He has a warning, though:

Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong chief executive, she reports directly to Xi Jinping. She no longer has any freedom of action. If he tells her not to give ground, which is what he’s been doing for the last several months, then you’re going to see Hong Kong erupt because, you know, people have expressed their will.
If the political establishment doesn’t make concessions, then we don’t know where this will go, but we know that will become probably much more violent and the protests will become even larger[.]

Are Xi and his Communist Party of China government listening?  Yes, most carefully.  But they’ll likely draw the wrong lessons.  I think we do know where this will go, and it won’t be pleasant, although it will be brief. Tanks rolling against a fundamentally unarmed civilian population will see to that, as was demonstrated in Tiananmen Square a little bit ago.

The US and our putative allies need to become more overt in supporting the good people of Hong Kong.  The PRC has already welched on its handover commitment and its pretense of a one country, two systems policy.

The Republic of China is watching the degree of our resolve, too.

Outside…Commentary

It turns out that Navy Secretary Richard Spencer tried to cut a deal with Trump without authorization to do so, a deal that would have allowed a Navy board follow through on its desire to review whether CPO Edward Gallagher would be able to remain a SEAL, and then Gallagher would retire with his Trident. SecDef Mark Esper fired Spencer over his insubordination.

I am deeply troubled by this conduct shown by a senior DOD official[.]

In the end, the Navy will not hold its board, and Gallagher and the Navy seem to be done with the matter.

The Dalily Kos concluded its news article by quoting Eric Carpenter, a Florida International University Professor of Law and former military lawyer:

The Navy leadership is saying they need to get back to basics and that outside interference undercuts that.

This is the other matter of importance in this affair, at least to me: that outside commenter, a professor with experience as a military lawyer, needs to answer the following questions:

Trump is the Commander-in-Chief of our military. In what way is a boss telling the organization of which he’s the boss what it must do “outside interference?” Is Carpenter saying, or saying that the military is saying, that the military’s legal system not part of the organization of which Trump is CINC?

Lying to a Court

Press rumor has it that the DOJ’s IG report will call out an FBI lawyer for falsifying an email used by the FISA court to authorize the FBI to spy on monitor a Trump 2016 campaign advisor. Press rumor further has it that the IG report also will say the court would have authorized the…monitoring…regardless.

Let’s assume that first rumor is true. This is no minor matter; this is no loaf of bread stolen to feed the man’s family, in which some compassion might be felt for the felon.  This was a loaf of bread stolen because the man could.  This was a loaf of bread stolen explicitly to hurt someone else.  And in the end, this was a far more serious crime than merely stealing a loaf.

The FBI lawyer will have lied on a government form.  This FBI lawyer will have lied under oath when he swore to the authenticity of his document submittal.  This FBI lawyer will have lied to a court, altering the data on which the court relied—of necessity—as it reached its ruling.

The second rumor may well be plausible, but it remains speculation—there’s no way to evaluate the fact of the matter of such counterfactual surmise.  Even if accurate, though, even if the court would have reached the same decision had the FBI lawyer not lied, or even not submitted the document (altered or not) at all, the fact remains the FBI lawyer will have lied.  Under oath.

If the first rumor is true, the sanction must begin with the permanent loss of his law license, in all jurisdictions, include jail time, and then proceed from there.

Rule of Law and Roe

There’s a Letter to the Editor in a recent Wall Street Journal that “explains” why his DAGA organization is against Pro-Life Attorneys General.  The man’s letter centers on the proposition that

Roe v Wade is settled law.

Wow. The hysteria is strong in this one. Of course, no law is “settled.” Not even our Constitution, in which Sean Rankin, the letter-writer, so piously cloaked himself, is settled; that’s clear in and from the existence of Article V and all those Amendments.

Regarding the relationship between AGs and the rule of law—absolutely, upholding the rule of law is the core of their role. Notice that, though: their role, their duty, is to uphold the rule of law, not blindly uphold any particular law—because no particular law is settled.  With respect to the present case, a subset of the rule of law is supporting the universal and inalienable law of the right to life of babies.

What Rankin also so carefully ignored is that Roe was a technologically oriented ruling, based entirely on the viability of the fetus outside the womb. Roe suggested, those decades ago, that the threshold for viability was the start of the third trimester. Medical technology advances have pushed that threshold sharply earlier in pregnancy. Defending additional restrictions on abortion, protecting babies’ lives, easily can be done from within Roe.

Beyond that, upholding the rule of law also includes challenging any particular law when facts come to light that alter, if not outright obviate, the conditions under which that law was written.  That includes challenging Roe.

Pro-Life AGs do far more for upholding rule of law than does any “settled law” AG; the latter obliviously puts laws above the rule of law.