Category Archives: politics

Naïve

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Holman Jenkins wrote this, regarding a peace deal for the barbarian’s invasion of Ukraine, in his Tuesday op-ed:

Even with Russian troops still on Ukrainian territory, NATO would be stronger, Russia would be thwarted, and the lesson would percolate globally.

Jenkins is naïve to the point of idiotic.

The only part of Jenkins’ remark that’s accurate is the first. NATO most assuredly would not be stronger in any material way, even with the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance. The European member nations have been so woefully and for so long neglecting their national defense establishments in parallel with their NATO solemn commitments that neither the alliance nor the member nations in their aggregate can mount a large enough force supplied for long enough to resist the continued Russian advance into the prior fallen Soviet empire that Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised he would be going after.

Fully a third of the member nations, now including Canada, continue overtly to refuse to honor their 2% of GDP financial and equipment commitments to NATO—an amount far short of the now-recognized need of 5% of GDP just to catch up. Germany, the economic powerhouse of the EU until very recently, does not even have enough soldiers on active duty to train replacements, much less expansion, and the nation does not have more than a regiment of combat ready armor.

Russia will not at all be thwarted. Putin wants to reconstitute the erstwhile Russian empire, and that includes recontrolling, if not outright reconquering, Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, Moldova, and more. Even the heavily depleted Russian military can overmatch the NATO nations, especially with the ample and upgraded resupply from Iran, the People’s Republic of China, and northern Korea, along with soldier reinforcements from the latter two.

The lesson that will—and is already, to an extent—percolate globally is that the West, now including the US—does not have the stomach for fighting, if the sort of deal described by Jenkins goes through. That lesson puts eastern and central Europe at severe risk, and it puts the Republic of China at immediate risk, along with longer term risks to the Republic of Korea, Japan, Australia…and the US.

They Don’t Have to Accept the Deal

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The Trump administration has frozen $2.2 billion in funds for Harvard, out of some $9-ish billion in progress, over Harvard’s refusal to rid itself of the antisemitic bigots and terrorist-supporters in its student, professor, and school management populations. The editors at The Wall Street Journal object, but they’re missing the point.

Stipulate that the feds have a duty to enforce civil-rights laws, and Harvard failed to protect Jewish students during anti-Israel protests. But the university agreed to strengthen protections for Jewish students in a legal settlement with Students Against Antisemitism, which praised it for “implementing effective long-term changes.”
The Trump Administration nonetheless demanded last week that Harvard accede to what is effectively a federal receivership under threat of losing $9 billion. Some of the demands are within the government’s civil-rights purview, such as requiring Harvard to discipline students who violate its discrimination policies. It also wants Harvard to “shutter all diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, under “whatever name,” that violate federal law.
But the Administration runs off the legal rails by ordering Harvard to reduce “governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization.” It also orders the school to review “all existing and prospective faculty…for plagiarism” and ensure “viewpoint diversity” in “each department, field, or teaching unit.”

Leave aside the underlying premise that the words of “the university” have any value given the ongoing assaults against Jewish students, interference with their getting to class and the ability to participate in class/hear the lecture of those who do make it, interference with their ability to speak at all, and the ongoing disruptions by the terrorist supporters.

Stipulate that Harvard is a private institution, and it can do pretty much what it wants concerning “governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization,” “plagiarism,” and “viewpoint diversity.” As long as the school takes Federal dollars, the Federal government gets to specify how those dollars get used, just as any other donor can do.

Harvard doesn’t have to accept the deal on offer. Harvard also doesn’t have to get Federal dollars. The one is intrinsic in the school’s status as a private enterprise. The other is not at all intrinsic in it. Those Federal donations are nothing more than that—a privilege being received by Harvard, not anything to which Harvard has any right, in any sense of that term.

Disingenuosity in our “Elite” Universities

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Recall that the Department of Energy has frozen or cut Federal funding to a number of our allegedly elite universities over their refusal to deal with the antisemitic bigots and terrorist supporters in their student bodies and professor work force, and recall the Department’s decision to cap at 15% what those universities skim off the top of the research grants the Department sends for what those universities are pleased to call indirect costs. Now, MIT, Brown University, Cornell University, and Princeton University among others, are suing DoE over the cuts.

Per their lawsuit:

The pace of scientific discoveries in the national interest will be slowed. Progress on a safe and effective nuclear deterrent, novel energy sources, and cures for debilitating and life-threatening illness will be obstructed. America’s rivals will celebrate, even as science and industry in the United States suffer.

This is disingenuous. The universities do not have an inherent right to those Federal—our tax-remitted—dollars, which is the only rational reason for that claim. To the extent the pace will be slowed, to the extent that progress will obstructed, that’s entirely on these universities, and their demand for continuing the Federal spigot flow. These universities each have large and burgeoning endowments that would support their programs for decades, which would be plenty of time into which to shoehorn in the weeks required for the required reforms.

To the extent our national rivals—the universities’ cynical lumping in of our enemies with our competitors—will celebrate, that’s also on these universities and their desperation to continue receiving the…donations…these enemy nations and competitors pay over.

A Mistake

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The Trump administration may be getting soft on Iran, at least relative to past positions by then- and now-President Donald Trump (R).

US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that the Trump administration is prepared to allow Iran to enrich uranium at a low level if it is subject to stringent verification, a significant shift from the White House’s initial demand that Tehran’s nuclear program be dismantled.

Witkoff said

They do not need to enrich past 3.67%. This is going to be much about verification on the enrichment program and then ultimately verification on weaponization.

This is the mistake. Iranian insistence on enriching past 3.67%–to 60% and above, with that 60% level just a kitten’s whisker way from bomb-grade purity—and its history of requiring weeks to months of advance notice on inspections, interfering with inspections, outright barring inspectors’ access, and its development and maintenance of secret sites outside the reach of inspectors demonstrate that the Iranian government cannot be trusted with uranium at any level.

The only appropriate level for Iran’s uranium enrichment program is 0.00%, with no notice inspections at any location the inspectors choose. Otherwise, the only legitimate solution is kinetic obstruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons—and its nuclear, generally—programs.

Responsibility

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The Republican caucuses in the Senate and House are considering restrict[ing] the [provider] taxes’ use to finance state Medicaid contributions entirely, which would have the effect of putting more of a State’s expenditures under Medicaid on the State itself: overall, the restriction would save the Federal government—which is us taxpaying citizens writ nationwide—some $600 billion over 10 years.

There are objections, of course, by those whose money tree would be severely pruned. Ryan Cross, Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System’s Government Affairs VP:

If you end provider taxes, you’re going to shift that burden to the state, either harming Medicaid patients and healthcare-provider reimbursement, or leading to higher state and local taxes[.]

This is disingenuous. Any harm done Medicaid patients, who as citizens of their State are the responsibility of that State, and of healthcare providers, who as operators in that State also are the responsibility of that State, is done by that State through its own decisions regarding the tax remittals of that State’s own citizens. Regarding those decisions, it apparently is inconceivable to Cross and the rest of the Leftists that the State could reallocate its spending to cover the costs rather than just knee-jerk and willy-nilly raise its taxes.

These are $600 billion dollars for which us taxpaying citizens of our nation have better use.