Monthly Archives: August 2025

“Security” and “Guarantee”

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US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff says that in return for an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine Russia would accept a US-led security guarantee.

Witkoff suggested the guarantees could be modeled on NATO’s principle of collective defense, which is codified in Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which says that an enemy attack against one member would be viewed as an attack against all.

But then the question becomes, what is the response to this attack against all? This is the text of that Article 5 [emphasis added]:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

Such action does not mandate use of armed force; it easily could be simply firm finger-wagging, stern speeches, and strong letters. All while the barbarian rolls on.

Keep in mind, too, that in the present invasion, the invader sits on the UN’s Security Council and so can block entirely any meaningful UN (leaving aside the contradiction internal to that phrase) response.

This is a guarantee without teeth. It seems Russian President Vladimir Putin has a better understanding of Article 5 than anyone in the West. That’s a mismatch as dangerous as the mismatch of wills between the barbarian and the West.

Disingenuous

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The Canadian government has ordered binding arbitration in the dispute between Air Canada and its flight attendants union, the latter which struck the airline a week ago last Saturday. The union is crying foul over not having gotten its way, accusing the airline, in typical union fashion, of sandbagging (the union’s term) the negotiations.

On the other hand, there’s this, also, from the union regarding those negotiations.

The airline said it offered its flight attendants a 38% increase in total compensation over a four-year period. The proposal also offered a 12% to 16% rise in hourly pay in the first year. The union said the pay offers failed to help its members recover after historically-high inflation this decade.

Leave aside the minor fact that the airline didn’t cause the inflation, the Canadian government’s response to economic factors did, so the union’s beef regarding the effects of inflation is properly between it and the government.

What the union is choosing to ignore in its inflation beef is that the airline suffers just as much from that historically-high inflation and must also deal with the resulting price increases and current elevated price levels.

Lack of Message, Lack of Followers

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The Progressive-Democratic Party is illustrating its failure to say what it is for, only its skill at saying what (who, really) it is against, and that is showing up in its lack of overt support among us Americans.

For instance:

Crowds on Demand CEO Adam Swart told Fox & Friends on Friday that his company has received 400% more paid protester requests this year than during the same period last year.

Crowds on Demand brags openly that it’s

your home for impactful advocacy campaigns, demonstrations, PR stunts, crowds for hire, and corporate events. Services available nationwide.

Apparently, Party is having so much trouble selling its non-message—and has been for some time—that it can’t even put together a protest of its own consisting of supporters or even of spontaneous Leftist joiners. It must hire artificially enthusiastic pretend supporters to flesh out even its protests in support of what it’s against.

Yes and No

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Just one example on the matter of drug approvals.

A case in point is Replimune’s melanoma treatment, which the FDA rejected last month. About a third of patients who hadn’t responded to prior immunotherapy showed a strong response to Replimune’s in a clinical trial.
Tumors shrank in nearly all patients, and responses proved durable over three years. Serious side effects were rare. Oncologists who treated patients in the trial hailed the results.

These are responses in absolute terms. The drug was safe, and it worked.

The FDA blocked its release into the market though:

[T]he FDA said the trial was “not considered to be an adequate and well-controlled clinical investigation that provides substantial evidence of effectiveness.”
Its quibble is that the trial lacked a control group.

This is a demand for a relative outcome—whether the drug worked better or worse, and whether it was safer or less so, than the status quo. The status quo is what a control group presents.

The answer, though, is not to stop “quibbling” about control groups when assessing drug trial efficacy. Instead, it’s necessary for the FDA to get out of the business of requiring, as a condition of approval, that a drug work. FDA’s role should hold out only for assessing a drug’s safety. The market, formed by patients and their doctors, will do a perfectly fine job of assessing the drug’s effectiveness, with no more exceptions than are extant in any other market. That Replimune’s drug was shown to work in absolute terms is a happy additional outcome and should not represent even this much of an acceptance criterion.

This is where FDA Commissioner and medical doctor Marty Makary can—and should—make the changes to the FDA’s approval processes. A doctor’s primary injunction is “first, do no harm.” So it should be with the FDA. A doctor continues, with his patient, actively to treat the medical problem. The FDA, on the other hand, should stop at the do no harm part. Let the practicing doctors and their patients do the rest.

Raise Those Taxes

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Progressive-Democrat-run States are looking at ways to cover putative budgetary shortfalls.

  • Minnesota State Representative Aisha Gomez, a Democrat…sponsored legislation that would implement a higher tax rate for joint filers in Minnesota making over $1 million a year if federal Medicaid cuts take effect
  • Connecticut legislators have proposed a bill that would raise income-tax rates on couples making at least $500,000 and individuals making at least $250,000
  • Washington Governor Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, in May signed into law a budget that includes an increase in the capital-gains tax, among other things
  • Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat, in May signed into law his tax proposal, which includes higher income-tax rates for state residents making more than $500,000 a year
  • Rhode Island in June imposed a new tax on certain vacation homes valued at $1 million or more

And this:

Many states face projected budget deficits after increasing spending and cutting taxes in the flush postpandemic years….

Notice that. Profligate spending leads to revenue shortfalls, so—raise those taxes, especially on the rich, who Owe Us. That’s akin to a business losing money, so it raises the prices it charges for its products.

Nowhere in there is any Progressive-Democrat-run State reallocating its spending to stay within existing revenues, much less cutting spending to do so.

I repeat a long-standing challenge of mine: can any Progressive-Democratic Party politician even say the words, “Cut spending?”