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2016

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Trump Snubs D.C. as Millions Cheer Downgrading Washington’s importance is one of the few good ideas Trump has had. By Kevin D. Williamson

By on November 20th, 2016

I do not agree with Donald Trump about much of anything. Early in the primary season, I wrote a little book titled “The Case against Trump.” I believe him to be morally unfit and intellectually unprepared for the office to which he has been elected. Which is why one of the most annoying of my tasks for the next four (one assumes!) years is going to be pointing out that while Trump may not be right about very much, his critics often are wrong.

Example A: Trump apparently does not want to live in Washington, and this has inspired a chorus of discord and dissonance to rival the oeuvre of Yoko Ono.

There is no particular reason for Trump to live full-time in Washington. Washington is a dump, one of the least attractive and least inspiring American cities. Trump Tower is a dump, too, a big vertical void in the middle of one of the least interesting parts of Manhattan, but Trump apparently likes it, and he has gone to the trouble of gold-plating his toilets, which you do not do unless you are really planning to plant yourself in place.

Trump’s hesitation to set up housekeeping in our nation’s hideous capital is not causing klaxons of alarum because people are concerned about good government. A nation genuinely concerned about good government would not have entrusted its chief administrative post to Donald J. Trump, a frequently bankrupt casino operator and game-show host. Rather, this is about Trump’s implicit declaration — one shared by his enthusiasts — that Washington is not the most important American city, much less the center of the world, which is where Washingtonians often mistakenly believe themselves to be.

About that much we can agree. National Review has kept its headquarters in New York for much the same reason: Politics should not be the central activity in our lives, or even in our shared public life, and consequently the political capital should be subordinate to the financial and cultural capitals. (Also, I suspect that while William F. Buckley Jr. was one of the most persuasive men of his generation, he’d have had an impossible time convincing his wife to live in Washington, even if he had thought it necessary.) Washington may desire to dominate our lives, but that desire can and should be resisted.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Merkel to Stand for Fourth Term as German Chancellor German Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided to run for a fourth term next year, launching her re-election campaign at one of the most challenging times the chancellor has seen in her 11 years in office. By Ruth Bender

By on November 20th, 2016

BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday she will run for a fourth term next year, launching her re-election campaign at one of the most challenging times the chancellor has seen in her 11 years in office.

Ms. Merkel seeks to lead the conservative ticket at the next general election in the fall of 2017, she told reporters after announcing her decision to leaders of her Christian Democratic Union in Berlin.

“I have thought about it endlessly,” Ms. Merkel said. “After 11 years, the decision about a fourth candidacy is anything but trivial for the country, the party and for me personally.”

The chancellor will also run for a new term as CDU chairman next month. Her nomination as candidate for chancellor still needs to be approved at a joint meeting of the CDU and its sister party, the Christian Social Union.

Ms. Merkel’s candidacy ends months of speculation within her own party, which widely expected her to run again as there is no clear alternative candidate who could fill her shoes.

“She has no choice now,” said Frank Decker, political scientist at the University of Bonn. “Changing horses so close to the election simply would have left her party in great distress.”
Germany in the Age of Populism

German approval for Chancellor Angela Merkel has eroded amid concern about her handling of the refugee crisis and general anxiety about the future, fueling support for an anti-immigrant political party.

The chancellor acknowledged that she would enter an election campaign that will be tougher than any of the three previous contests.

“We will face opposition from all sides,“ Ms. Merkel said, citing both populist and left-wing opponents at home and abroad who “threaten our values and way of life in Germany.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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Nicolas Sarkozy, in Upset, Is Knocked Out of Race for French Presidency The former president’s elimination and François Fillon’s surprise surge upends a conservative primary race that is set to have big consequences in next year’s election By By William Horobin

By on November 20th, 2016

PARIS—Former President Nicolas Sarkozy was knocked out of the first round of the French conservatives’ primary, marking a significant upset in the race to become France’s next president.

Mr. Sarkozy, who centered his campaign on pledges for hard-line security measures and a clampdown on immigration, was hobbled by a late, surprise surge in support for his former prime minister, François Fillon, who ran on a pledge to deliver a shock to the French economy with deep spending cuts and labor overhauls.

Results from 8,890 of the 10,228 polling stations across the country showed Mr. Fillon won 44.1% of the votes, ahead of the 28.3% received by Bordeaux Mayor Alain Juppé, who recent polls showed had been the favorite to win the primary. Mr. Sarkozy, by contrast, won just 20.9% of votes.

The former French leader’s elimination in the first round upends a conservative primary that is set to have sweeping consequences in France. Polls show the winner next Sunday would be best placed to win the presidential election in May against the far-right National Front’s Marine Le Pen.

Mr. Fillon and Mr. Juppé will now advance to a runoff next Sunday. Mr. Sarkozy, who conceded defeat late Sunday, said he would throw his support behind Mr. Fillon. “It is time for me to attempt a life with more private passion and less public passion,” Mr. Sarkozy said.

Until last week, polls had shown Mr. Sarkozy would easily reach the second round and go head-to-head with Mr. Juppé in a second-round race centered on questions of French identity and security in the aftermath of a string of terror attacks in France.

Mr. Sarkozy shifted to the right in his campaign in a bid to reach out to Ms. Le Pen’s supporters. He advocated suspending the right of immigrants to bring their families to France and locking up people of watch lists deemed dangerous by intelligence services. Mr. Juppé, meanwhile, tacked in the other direction, centering his campaign on a pledge to reforge a “happy identity” that respects differences and overcomes tensions in French society.

Mr. Fillon’s progression to the second round significantly changes the dynamic of the campaign. CONTINUE AT SITE

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The EU’s New Bomb Is Ticking in the Netherlands A referendum law has given Dutch euroskeptics a powerful tool to block deeper European integration, and then some Simon Nixon

By on November 20th, 2016

THE HAGUE—If the European dream is to die, it may be the Netherlands that delivers the fatal blow. The Dutch general election in March is shaping up to be a defining moment for the European project.

The risk to the European Union doesn’t come from Geert Wilders, the leader of anti-EU, anti-immigration Party for Freedom. He is well ahead in the polls and looks destined to benefit from many of the social and economic factors that paved the way for the Brexit and Trump revolts.

But the vagaries of the Dutch political system make it highly unlikely that Mr. Wilders will find his way into government. As things stand, he is predicted to win just 29 out of the 150 seats in the new parliament, and mainstream parties seem certain to shun him as a coalition partner. In an increasingly fragmented Dutch political landscape, most observers agree that the likely outcome of the election is a coalition of four or five center-right and center-left parties.

Instead, the risk to the EU comes instead from a new generation of Dutch euroskeptics who are less divisive and concerned about immigration but more focused on questions of sovereignty—and utterly committed to the destruction of the EU. Its leading figures are Thierry Baudet and Jan Roos, who have close links to British euroskeptics. They have already scored one significant success: In 2015, they persuaded the Dutch parliament to adopt a law that requires the government to hold a referendum on any law if 300,000 citizens request it. They then took advantage of this law at the first opportunity to secure a vote that rejected the EU’s proposed trade and economic pact with Ukraine, which Brussels saw as a vital step in supporting a strategically important neighbor.

This referendum law is a potential bomb under the EU, as both Dutch politicians and Brussels officials are well aware. Mr. Baudet believes he now has the means to block any steps the EU might seek to take to deepen European integration or stabilize the eurozone if they require Dutch legislation. This could potentially include aid to troubled Southern European countries such as Greece and Italy, rendering the eurozone unworkable. CONTINUE AT SITE

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Can Ax the Clean Power Plan by Executive Order The aggressive legal positions in Obama’s most controversial rules makes them easier to rescind. By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew M. Grossman

By on November 20th, 2016

President Obama pledged to wield a pen and phone during his second term rather than engage with Congress. The slew of executive orders, enforcement memorandums, regulations and “Dear Colleague” letters comprised an unprecedented assertion of executive authority. Equally unparalleled is the ease with which the Obama agenda can be dismantled. Among the first actions on President Trump’s chopping block should be the Clean Power Plan.

In 2009 Congress rejected a cap-and-trade scheme to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency then devised a nearly identical scheme to mandate shifting electricity generation from disfavored facilities, like those powered by coal, to those the EPA prefers, like natural gas and renewables. No statute authorized the EPA to seize regulatory control of the nation’s energy sector. The agency instead discovered, in an all-but-forgotten 1970s-era provision of the Clean Air Act, that it had that power all along.

To support its preferred policy, the agency was compelled to “interpret” the statute in a way that contradicts what it acknowledges is the “literal” reading of the text and clashes with decades of its own regulations. It also nullifies language blocking regulation for power plants because they are already regulated under an alternative program. By mangling the Clean Air Act to intrude on areas it was never meant to, the regulation violates the constitutional bar on commandeering the states to carry out federal policy.

These defects are why the Supreme Court put the EPA’s plan on hold while an appeals court in Washington, D.C., considers challenges brought by the energy industry and 27 states. These legal challenges now appear to have been overtaken by events. President Trump can immediately issue an executive order to adopt a new energy policy that respects the states’ role in regulating energy markets and that prioritizes making electricity affordable and reliable. Such an order should direct the EPA to cease all efforts to enforce and implement the Clean Power Plan. The agency would then extend all of the regulation’s deadlines, enter an administrative stay and commence regulatory proceedings to rescind the previous order. CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Steve Bannon on Politics as War The Trump adviser talks about the winning campaign and says the political attacks against him and Breitbart News are ‘just nonsense.’ By Kimberley A. Strassel

By on November 20th, 2016

It’s hard to think of Steve Bannon as a low-profile guy. He has garnered about as many headlines over the past week as Donald Trump—no small feat. He is the executive chairman of the hard-right Breitbart News, among the most aggressive voices online, its website an attack machine against Democrats and “establishment” conservatives. President-elect Trump chose Mr. Bannon this week as his chief strategist and senior counselor, a slot usually filed by someone eager to play a presidential surrogate on TV.

Yet Mr. Bannon—who joined the Trump campaign in mid-August to propel its thunderbolt victory—professes no interest in being the story. “It’s not important to be known,” he says in a telephone interview Thursday night, among his first public comments since the election. “It was Lao Tzu who said that with the best leaders, when the work is accomplished, the people will say ‘We have done this ourselves.’ That’s how I’ve led.”

Nor does he profess to care that Democrats and the media are portraying him as a “cloven-hoofed devil,” as he puts it. “I pride myself in doing things that matter. What mattered in the campaign was winning. We did. What matters now is pulling together the single best team we can to implement President-elect Trump’s vision.

He continues: “How can you take anything seriously from a media apparatus—paid the amount of money you people are paid—that systematically missed something that was so obvious, that missed Brexit, that missed the Trump revolution? You’d have thought they’d have learned their lesson on November 8.”

Slight pause. “They clearly haven’t.”

Here are a few things you’ve likely read about Steve Bannon this week: He’s a white supremacist, a bigot and anti-Semite. He’s a self-described Leninist who wants to “destroy the state.” He’s associated with the “alt-right,” a movement that, according to the New York Times, delights in “harassing Jews, Muslims and other vulnerable groups by spewing shocking insults on social media.”

You’ll have seen some of Breitbart’s more offensive headlines, which refer to “renegade” Jews and the “dangerous faggot tour.” You maybe heard that Breitbart is gearing up to be a Pravda-like state organ for the Trump administration.

Mr. Bannon is an aggressive political scrapper, unabashed in his views, but he says those views bear no relation to the media’s description. Over 70 minutes, he describes himself as a “conservative,” a “populist” and an “economic nationalist.” He’s a talker, but unexcitable, speaking in measured tones. A former naval officer, he thinks in military terms and likes to quote philosophers and generals. He’s contemptuous of the media, proud of Breitbart, protective of the “deplorables,” and—at least at the moment—eager to work with everyone from soon-to-be White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to House Speaker Paul Ryan.

At first Mr. Bannon insists that he has no interest in “wasting time” addressing the accusations against him. Yet he’s soon ticking off the reasons they are “just nonsense.”

Anti-Semitic? “Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States of America. I have Breitbart Jerusalem, which I have Aaron Klein run with about 10 reporters there. We’ve been leaders in stopping this BDS movement”—meaning boycott, divestment and sanctions—“in the United States; we’re a leader in the reporting of young Jewish students being harassed on American campuses; we’ve been a leader on reporting on the terrible plight of the Jews in Europe.” He adds that given his many Jewish partners and writers, “guys like Joel Pollak, these claims of anti-Semitism just aren’t serious. It’s a joke.”

He blames the attacks on a lazy media, noting for instance that the “renegade Jew” line wasn’t Breitbart’s. Conservative activist David Horowitz (also Jewish) has taken responsibility for writing the headline himself, in a piece about Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol.

The Lenin anecdote came from an article in the Daily Beast by a writer who claimed to have spoken with Mr. Bannon in 2013: “So a guy I’ve never heard of in my life claims he met me at a party, and then claims I said something about Lenin, and this is taken as gospel truth, with nobody checking it.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s Nuclear Deterrence Challenge America’s nuclear triad is sorely out of date, left to age by a president who saw it as a relic of the Cold War. By Franklin Miller and Keith B. Payne

By on November 20th, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump will soon be working with his national security team to establish priorities on security and defense policy. Two challenges will demand immediate and unrelenting attention.

Throughout the campaign Mr. Trump emphasized the need to destroy Islamic State, also known as ISIS, as a functioning terrorist organization. Since there is no way to negotiate with or reliably deter medieval zealots willing to murder and die for their misbegotten cause, military force is the only answer at this point. The next president also must keep the defense and intelligence communities focused on preventing the remnants of ISIS from obtaining weapons of mass destruction—particularly nuclear weapons.

But Mr. Trump has inherited the even greater threat of an increasingly precarious nuclear balance. All three elements of America’s nuclear triad—land-based and sea-based missiles, and bombers—are now approaching obsolescence. A hostile Russia that miscalculates U.S. will and deterrence capabilities poses a mortal nuclear threat to our existence.
President Vladimir Putin has set out to re-establish Russia’s domination of the lands previously under the Soviet Union, changing European borders by force and occupying neighboring territories militarily. Russia has also made explicit threats to initiate nuclear war against the U.S., our allies and even neutral European states.

Nuclear first-use—a policy that includes the threat of initiating a nuclear war and the option of doing so—is a key part of Mr. Putin’s expansionist political and military strategy. First-use is emphasized in open Russian military statements, at least as far back as the official 2003 Russian military doctrine. Backing up this doctrine, Russia is deploying new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles, ballistic-missile submarines and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles launched from the ground, sea and air.

Russia also is developing a new ICBM that will carry “no fewer than fifteen” nuclear warheads each, according to Russian descriptions. Its size and payload suggest the missile is specifically designed for nuclear first strikes. Mr. Putin has overseen “snap,” i.e., sudden, nuclear exercises to demonstrate the ability of his nuclear forces to strike instantly. Moscow has even begun to practice Cold War-style nuclear-survival drills on a massive scale.

Mr. Putin also has allowed his most-senior officials to issue threats of nuclear attack not heard since the days of Nikita Khrushchev. A chilling example came on March 16, 2014, two days before Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Dmitry Kiselyov, the Putin-appointed head of the government’s international news agency, boasted on his TV show that “Russia is the only country in the world capable of turning the U.S. into radioactive ash.” Subtle.

Early this month, in response to the planned deployment in 2017 of 330 U.S. marines to Norway, Frants Klintsevitsj, a deputy chairman of Russia’s defense and security committee, said, “This is very dangerous for Norway and Norwegians. . . . We have never before had Norway on the list of targets for our strategic weapons. But if this develops, Norway’s population will suffer.”CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s Supreme Court Priority An early nomination is important to deal with Obama’s regulations.

By on November 20th, 2016

Donald Trump spent a busy weekend meeting potential cabinet picks, including such admirable school reformers as Michelle Rhee and Betsy DeVos and longtime economic opportunity crusader Bob Woodson. We hope amid all the other decisions that someone is also moving fast to name a replacement for Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court.

Apart from the national-security and Treasury jobs, the next Justice may be the most important to move on quickly. While Mr. Trump won’t be inaugurated until Jan. 20, the new Congress convenes in the first week of January. With the continuity from the current to the new Senate, the GOP-led Judiciary Committee could begin vetting Mr. Trump’s nominee as soon as it gets the name. A vote could take place soon after the President-elect is sworn in and can formally submit the nomination.

While the Supreme Court can function with eight Justices, there’s good reason Mr. Trump should want a ninth Justice soon. Numerous cases challenging the Obama Administration’s dubious rule-makings are moving through the federal courts, which President Obama has moved sharply left over eight years.

The circuit courts of appeal might be inclined to rubber stamp those regulations, which means they would become law in those circuits unless the Supreme Court takes the cases. A 4-4 High Court ruling means the lower-court decision stands. Knowing a new Supreme Court is ready for review could give some lower-court judges pause before they issue rulings likely to be overturned.

An early nomination could also get ahead of the game if Mr. Trump’s choice runs into confirmation trouble. The political left will throw everything it has to defeat the next nominee, and the GOP’s Senate majority will only be 51 or 52 (the race in Louisiana will be decided next month in a runoff). Mr. Trump released a list of 21 potential nominees during the campaign (we’d add appellate judges Jeff Sutton and Brett Kavanaugh to the list), and the White House ought to have them vetted and ready to take off like planes at O’Hare.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MY SAY: ON THE HIGH DUDGEON OF THE CAST OF “HAMILTON”

By on November 20th, 2016

In 1978 the actress Vanessa Redgrave, an outspoken enemy of Israel and supporter of the PLO, won an Oscar for the movie “Julia”one of Lillian Hellman’s self aggrandizing fictions. Redgrave plays “Julia” -an anti-Nazi activist. There were protesters outside. In accepting her Oscar Redgrave said:

“You should be very proud that in the last few weeks you stood firm and you refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and to their great and heroic record against fascism and oppression. I salute that record and I salute all of you for having stood firm and dealt the final blow against that period when Nixon and McCarthy launched a worldwide witchhunt against those who tried to express in their lives and their work the truths that they believed in.”

Paddy Chayefsky, author of the highly acclaimed movie “Network” who presented the writing awards, chastised Redgrave:

“I’m sick and tired of people exploiting the occasion of the Academy Awards for the propagation of their own political propaganda. I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple ‘Thank you’ would have sufficed.”

I saw, enjoyed, and admired “Hamilton” very much. The democratically elected Vice-President Pence was in the audience. A simple bow from the cast would have sufficed instead of their preachy preening. rsk

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BOOKS Comments turned off

ANOTHER LOOK AT HERBERT HOOVER BY SONJA WENTLIN AND RAFAEL MEDOFF

By on November 20th, 2016

This illuminating book provides many new insights into Herbert Hoover’s political career. It examines his responses to the horrific pogroms in Poland immediately after World War I and to the Arab slaughter of Jews across Palestine in 1929. Most importantly, the book documents how Revisionist Zionists persuaded prominent Republicans, including former president Hoover, to join them in pressing for U.S. government action to rescue European Jews during the Holocaust. Hoover’s role administering European food relief sensitized him to Jews’ intense suffering after World War I, the result of savage anti-Semitic persecution and severe economic distress.

He enabled the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC) to evade Polish government restrictions on Jewish organizations sending aid to Polish Jewry by having his own relief organization funnel AJJDC funds into Poland. Hoover’s Jewish aide Lewis Strauss praised him as “the only U.S. government official to effectively press Poland and its prime minister to act against the pogromists” (14). The authors also show that Hoover’s empathy for Polish Jews was limited by his fear that they were not sufficiently enthusiastic about Polish nationalism. Hoover maintained an isolationist stance during the 1929 Palestine pogroms, the first serious foreign policy crisis of his presidency.

He neither intervened to protect Palestinian Jewry nor pressured the British to do so. The authors note, however, that he at least “remained steadfast in his support for the upbuilding of Jewish Palestine” (58). In 1928, Hoover extolled the work of Zionist settlers in transforming Palestine, which, in his words, had remained “desolate and neglected for centuries” (48). As president, he sent statements of support to the Zionist Organization of America and to the American Palestine Committee, a Christian Zionist organization, when it was established. Notably, days before leaving the White House, Hoover instructed U.S. ambassador to Germany Frederick Sackett “to exert every influence on the Hitler regime” to stop the persecution of German Jewry (64).

Although hundreds of thousands of Americans had already staged massive street demonstrations and rallies to protest Nazi anti-Semitism, President Roosevelt told his ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, appointed in June 1933, that Nazi persecution of Jews was not a matter with which the U.S. government should be officially concerned. After Kristallnacht, ex-president Hoover moved away from his earlier support for immigration restriction and endorsed the Wagner-Rogers bill to admit 20,000 refugee children from Germany into the United States, above the annual quota for Germany. He lobbied members of the House Immigration Committee to support the bill, which President Roosevelt did not endorse.

Hoover’s most important contribution during his post-presidential career was the backing he gave the Revisionist Zionists in their campaign to persuade the U.S. government to initiate immediate measures to rescue as many European Jews as possible from annihilation and to mobilize the public in that effort. Leading this effort was Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson), head of the Bergson Group, and Eliahu Ben-Horin and Benzion Netanyahu, directing the New Zionist Organization of America. President Roosevelt’s lack of interest in rescuing Jews led the Revisionists to turn to prominent Republicans for assistance. Roosevelt’s indifference was dramatized at the Bermuda Conference in April 1943, ostensibly called to address refugee issues.

The Roosevelt administration made no effort to relax immigration quotas for countries whose Jews were being annihilated. It would not even use troop ships returning empty from Europe to transport Jewish refugees to the United States. Hoover was willing to challenge the Roosevelt administration publicly on the refugee issue. As the nation’s only living ex-president during World War II, his views drew attention. Hoover’s contribution to the rescue campaign included signing an appeal that the Bergson Group placed in newspapers denouncing the Bermuda Conference as a “cruel mockery” and calling for immediate action to rescue as many European Jews as possible from the “Nazi Death-Trap.” He served as honorary chairman of the Bergson Group’s Emergency Conference to Save the Jewish People of Europe. The ex-president delivered one of the conference’s keynote addresses, in which he endorsed the Bergson Group’s drive to find temporary havens for Jewish refugees.

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