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November 2022

ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

Kimmel vs. Laxalt: Jimmy Kimmel’s uninformed ad shows he’s just a partisan Democrat willing to get ugly. By Ramesh Ponnuru

By on November 5th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/kimmel-vs-laxalt/

Jimmy Kimmel’s ad attacking Adam Laxalt, the Republican running for Senate in Nevada, is based on the idea that Laxalt is so “unbalanced” that even “his family” is opposing him. “Why? Because they know him.”

Fourteen Laxalt relatives endorsed the incumbent Democrat, Catherine Cortez Masto.

The opposition from some of his relatives isn’t new. In Laxalt’s 2018 race for governor, twelve relatives wrote an op-ed denouncing him. In that op-ed, the twelve said that they hardly knew Laxalt, a fact they tried to spin against him (saying he doesn’t count as a real Nevadan). They noted that they disagreed with him on abortion, same-sex marriage, and federal education funding.

At the time, 22 other relatives wrote an op-ed calling the initial one “vicious and entirely baseless.”

This year’s letter skipped the attacks on Laxalt and instead praised Cortez Masto.

I don’t think dueling op-eds from candidates’ relatives is something that we should encourage. But I’d note that Kimmel is wrong to say Laxalt’s “family” opposes him, to say the opposition is based on knowing him, and to insinuate that its opposition has something to do with the candidate’s being “unbalanced.” I doubt Kimmel has done enough homework to know that he is telling untruths. He’s just a partisan Democrat who’s willing to get ugly.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

‘The Big One Is Coming’ and the U.S. Military Isn’t Ready A U.S. flag officer talks candidly about the fading U.S. deterrent.

By on November 5th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-big-one-is-coming-china-russia-charles-richard-u-s-military-11667597291?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine revealed the fading power of America’s military deterrent, a fact that too few of our leaders seem willing to admit in public. So it is encouraging to hear a senior flag officer acknowledge the danger in a way that we hope is the start of a campaign to educate the American public.

“This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup,” Navy Admiral Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said this week at a conference. “The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested” for “a long time.”

How bad is it? Well, the admiral said, “As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. It is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are.” Sinking slowly is hardly a consolation. As “those curves keep going,” it won’t matter “how good our commanders are, or how good our horses are—we’re not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem.”

Note that modifier “near-term.” This is a more urgent vulnerability than most of the political class cares to recognize.

Adm. Richard noted that America retains an advantage in submarines—“maybe the only true asymmetric advantage we still have”—but even that may erode unless America picks up the pace “getting our maintenance problems fixed, getting new construction going.” Building three Virginia-class fast-attack submarines a year would be a good place to start.

The news last year that China tested a hypersonic missile that flew around the world and landed at home should have raised more alarms than it did. It means China can put any U.S. city or facility at risk and perhaps without being detected. The fact that the test took the U.S. by surprise and that it surpassed America’s hypersonic capabilities makes it worse. How we lost the hypersonic race to China and Russia deserves hearings in Congress.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

WISCONSIN:INCUMBENT RON JOHNSON (R) VS. MANDELA BARNES (D) FOR SENATE

By on November 5th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-taxes-that-must-not-be-named-11667581288?mod=hp_opin_pos_6#cxrecs_s
The Taxes That Must Not Be Named James Freeman

More than a decade after former Gov. Scott Walker signed into law reforms to protect Wisconsin taxpayers from the increasingly expensive burdens of government employee unions, Democrats still can’t stop talking about him—even if they can’t bring themselves to mention his name.

Mr. Walker left office almost four years ago and isn’t on the ballot this year. But at a Democratic rally in Milwaukee County’s West Allis on Thursday, several speakers angrily referred to “he who must not be named.” Mr. Walker’s signature law, Act 10, was described in tones one might reserve for a description of a heinous crime. After enacting this sensible 2011 reform that limited the collective bargaining power of government unions and made public employees cover more of the costs of their expensive benefit plans, Mr. Walker further enraged the left by making Wisconsin a right-to-work state. This also explains why he was a favorite villain on Thursday at the event hosted by the United Steelworkers at a local union hall.

***

As for the event’s headliner, Democratic Senate candidate Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, it seems there are also a few other things he isn’t eager to mention.

Mr. Barnes is challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and there is no race in the country that offers a sharper philosophical contrast. The New York Times recently reported that helping Mr. Barnes get elected is the top priority of Vermont’s socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has generously assisted with fundraising. During the Democratic primary, Mr. Barnes received endorsements from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and other prominent advocates for government expansion.

Mr. Johnson, on the other hand, is perhaps the most spirited and effective defender of the taxpayer in Washington—a town where there aren’t many of them. An accountant who used to run a manufacturing company, Mr. Johnson habitually annoys his congressional colleagues by pointing out the destructiveness of their spending habits.

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