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Ruth King

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Why Do Progressives Reject Policies That Would Achieve Their Aims? How the Left’s toxic mix of nature-myths and anti-capitalism only causes more suffering. Bruce Thornton

By on March 5th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272993/why-do-progressives-reject-policies-would-achieve-bruce-thorntonhttps://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272993/why-do-progressives-reject-policies-would-achieve-bruce-thornton

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Sesame Street) has delivered yet another statement that bespeaks the progressives’ chronic myopia. This time she’s pondering the dilemma about whether or not it’s “still okay to have children,” given the apocalyptic future being created by climate change. The point has nothing to do with demography, as birth-rates in the U.S. are already starting to decline. The real point, of course, is to rouse the old progressive battle-cry of a “crisis” that “urgently” needs resolving, mainly by increasing the power and rapacity of bloated federal agencies and their growth-killing regulations.The solution championed by the warmists comprises various schemes to drastically reduce or eliminate energy derived from carbon. But everyone admits that the reductions, even if achieved, would not be enough to stop the alleged catastrophic warming, but would certainly devastate the economy. Meanwhile, the real solutions for progressives to get what they want lies with the free market that increases global wealth.

The scandal of alarmist climate change, of course, is that the policy prescriptions are useless for slowing warming. As environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg, who believes in human-induced global warming, writes,The IPCC says carbon emissions need to peak right now and fall rapidly to avert catastrophe. Models actually reveal that to achieve the 2.7-degree goal the world must stop all fossil fuel use in less than four years. Yet the International Energy Agency estimates that in 2040 fossil fuels will still meet three-quarters of world energy needs, even if the Paris agreement is fully implemented. The U.N. body responsible for the accord estimates that if every country fulfills every pledge by 2030, CO2 emissions will be cut by 60 billion tons by 2030. That’s less than 1% of what is needed to keep temperature rises below 2.7 degrees. And achieving even that fraction would be vastly expensive—reducing world-wide growth $1 trillion to $2 trillion each year by 2030.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

First They Came for Tommy… The British establishment strives to silence the voice of working-class Brits. Bruce Bawer

By on March 5th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273039/first-they-came-tommy%E2%80%A6-bruce-bawer

In recent months, even as a majority of the politicians in Britain’s two major parties have seemed to be doing everything they can to cancel or water down the EU exit for which the British people voted, the same establishment has been striving to stifle, and if possible destroy, the man who, more than anyone else in the country, articulates the rage and fear and hope of the British working class – and of no small number of middle-class Brits as well.

For years, British authorities have harassed, threatened, and imprisoned him, their objective plainly being to scare him into silence. Last summer they engineered an unjustified arrest, rushed him through a mockery of a trial, and shipped him off to prison, obviously hoping he wouldn’t come out alive.

Meanwhile, Britain’s mainstream media have demonized him, all of them singing from the same hymnal. Almost invariably, they prefix his name with the words “far-right.” Of course he is far from the only prominent figure in the Western world to be libeled in this way. You can be a liberal in pretty much every way, but if you are so consistent in your liberalism as to be a critic of the appalling illiberalism of Islam, then you are, in the lexicon of the mainstream media, “far-right.”

He’s also routinely identified as the founder of the English Defense League (EDL). Often this is combined with the term “far-right,” as in “founder of the far-right English Defense League” or “far-right founder of the English Defense League.” Very rarely is it mentioned in the mainstream media that he left the EDL years ago precisely because it was turning into a far-right organization and he didn’t want to have anything more to do with it.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

LEFTIST INDOCTRINATION IN MAINE CLASSROOMS GETS GREEN LIGHT FROM GOP LEGISLATORS What could happen if our side played offense for a change? Lawrence Lockman

By on March 5th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273053/leftist-indoctrination-maine-classrooms-gets-green-lawrence-lockman

Editors’ note: The following opinion piece is by Lawrence Lockman, a Republican currently serving his 4th term in the Maine House of Representatives. He is co-founder and President of the conservative nonprofit Maine First Project.

Should teachers in Maine’s public schools be allowed to push partisan politics and ideology in the classroom?

I don’t think so, and neither do many parents who have contacted me. That’s why I sponsored LD 589, proposed legislation directing the state board of education to draft a Code of Ethics for K-12 teachers.

Simply put, the Code of Ethics would forbid teachers from endorsing candidates as part of their classroom instruction, from introducing controversial material not germane to the subject being taught, and generally from using their classrooms as bully pulpits for political, social or religious advocacy. The bill I sponsored is based on model legislation drafted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

There’s abundant evidence that students in Maine’s K-12 government schools are being subjected to Leftist indoctrination in the classroom. “Progressive” teachers, administrators, and textbook publishers have been working overtime to ensure that students practice “correct thinking” on subjects such as racial guilt, gender identity, illegal immigration, and other controversial issues.

As soon as the Code of Ethics bill was referred to the Education committee for a public hearing in late February, all the usual suspects announced their opposition. The head of the statewide teachers’ union insisted that teachers never engage in political advocacy in the classroom, while the far-Left ACLU defended the right of teachers to do exactly that.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Schumer’s 2020 Problem By Matthew Continetti

By on March 5th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/chuck-schumers-2020-problem/

Chuck Schumer has a problem: The 2020 presidential election. Not only is 13 percent of his caucus on the campaign trail — so many Democrats are running for commander in chief that Schumer’s dreams of becoming Senate majority leader are in jeopardy.

Look at Colorado. Its Republican senator, Cory Gardner, is endangered thanks to the Rocky Mountain State’s increasingly blue hue. Schumer was hoping that former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper would challenge Gardner. But Hickenlooper announced today that he’s running for president. Not only does the governor’s move deprive Schumer of a top recruit, it also boxes out Colorado’s Democratic senator Michael Bennett, who was contemplating a presidential campaign of his own. Is the 2020 Democratic field large enough to hold two Colorado progressives? It already has a socialist and a Spartacus, so why not?

Then there’s Montana, where Republican senator Steve Daines is up in 2020. Schumer wants another governor, Steve Bullock, to run for Daines’s seat. But Bullock, like Hickenlooper, is also eyeing the presidency. Bullock could tout his record as a Democrat able to win in a state that turns dark red in presidential years. That’s a story the other candidates won’t be able to tell. If he enters the race, another top Senate challenger will be lost.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Is Realignment Coming to British Politics? By Madeleine Kearns

By on March 5th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/is-realignment-coming-to-british-po

In the U.K., a small group of Labour Members of Parliament joined by an even smaller group of Tory MPs have formed a politically centrist coalition, the Independent Group (TIG). Though the influence of these disgruntled and Europhile MPs is debatable, the fear of more defections may help explain why the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is now backing a second Brexit vote.

But beyond Brexit, it is also possible that TIG will preempt a more significant political realignment. After all, it’s happened before.

In 1981, a group of Labour MPs who were disgruntled by the increasing leftward lurch of their party broke away and formed the Social Democratic party (SDP). The SDP orientated itself as left-of-center, pro-European, and in support of a moderate and mixed economy. In 1983, under the hard-left leadership of Neil Kinnock, the Labour party set out an explicitly socialist party manifesto — in what one Labour MP famously called “the longest suicide note in history.”

That the Labour party’s explicitly socialist policies were unpopular was proven in the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the year that the Conservatives won with a 43-seat majority — which was the largest electoral swing since 1945. Thatcher’s election in 1979 also began 18 years of uninterrupted Conservative rule — the longest party ruling in British history.

Learning the hard way then, by the mid-’90s, the Labour party reoriented along more centrist lines, and at the 1994 Labour party conference, then leader Tony Blair heralded the arrival of “New Labour.” New Labour rejected socialism, conceded the most popular economic policies of Thatcherism — anti-inflation, low taxation, trade-union reforms, and free-market favorability — and added progressive social values and pro-European and anti-Unionist stances (e.g. devolution for Scotland).

Such a profound change in the party was, naturally, accompanied by a profound change in its base. Under Blair, New Labour consciously ceased to be the party of the working class — as it had been historically — and rather tried to appeal to highly educated, middle-class liberals where it saw its future. But from this, disillusionment with hypocrisy and elitism followed. The working class felt disaffected. Some voted Tory instead.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Allies Worry Over U.S. Public Opinion The gap between voters and foreign-policy elites shows little sign of closing. By Walter Russell Mead

By on March 5th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/allies-worry-over-u-s-public-opinion-11551741006There is no more important question in world politics than this: Will U.S. public opinion continue to support an active and strategically focused foreign policy? During the Cold War and for 25 years after, there was rarely any doubt. While Americans argued—sometimes bitterly—over the country’s overseas priorities, there was a broad consensus in both parties that sustained engagement was necessary to protect U.S. interests.

That consensus is more fragile today. Questions about the reliability of American commitments keep the lights burning late in foreign and defense ministries around the world. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insists, as he said in Manila last week, that a Chinese attack on Philippine forces or territory in the South China Sea would activate Article 4 of the U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty. But will the American people honor the check that Mr. Pompeo has written on their behalf?

The best answer appears to be “maybe.” A recent poll from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that 70% of Americans want the U.S. to take an “active part” in world affairs in the abstract. But in a 2018 Pew survey, only 32% said limiting China’s power should be an important long-term foreign-policy priority for the U.S.

Similarly, while a strong majority of Americans support membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, just over half of Americans would support military action in response to a hypothetical Russian invasion of Estonia, according to a recent Eurasia Group Foundation survey. The Kremlin studies such poll results carefully, and so do NATO allies on Russia’s borders.

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EDUCATION, P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Decline and Fall: Classics Edition By Roger Kimball On identity politics in classical studies.

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2019/3/decline-fall-classics-edition

For the study of classics, it is (if we may adapt Dickens) the best of times and the worst of times. It is the best of times because there are multiple popular initiatives, mostly outside the academy, introducing people young and old to the riches of Greek and Latin. There are even a few bright spots inside the academy, for example Princeton University’s new Latin 110, a course taught entirely in Latin: the students and teacher do not speak in English about Latin but instead conduct the entire class in the ancient but still-living language. Impressive.

But such bright spots are few and far between. Indeed, even that class at Princeton has been castigated on Twitter for catering to students who are too “fit,” too male, and probably too heterosexual. More and more, it seems, the study of classics—like the study of the humanities generally—has fallen under the spell of grievance warriors who have injected an obsession with race and sexual exoticism into a discipline that, until recently, was mostly innocent of such politicized deformations—largely, we suspect, because of the inherent difficulty of mastering the subject. (In this sense, classics is different from pseudo-disciplines like women’s studies, black studies, lgbtq studies, and the like, because classics can never be entirely reduced to political posturing. You actually have to know something.)

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The U.S. Is Ceding the Pacific to China While Washington’s focus is elsewhere, Beijing plays the long game—that means preparing for war.

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-is-ceding-the-pacific-to-china-11551649516

The way to deal with China, and thus North Korea, its naughty but wholly dependent vassal, is not by a failing and provocative attempt to weaken it, but by attending to America’s diminishing strengths. Unlike the short-focused U.S., China plays the long game, in which the chief objective is a favorable correlation of forces over time and the most important measure is military capacity.

As a dictatorship, it can continue military development and expansion despite economic downturns. With big data and big decrees, Xi Jinping has severely tightened party control in expectation of inevitable variations of fortune. The hatches are battened for a trade war that would adversely effect China and the world should the U.S. not blink first or fail to reject false or delaying assurances.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Ocasio-Cortez Declines to Denounce Maduro By Mairead McArdle

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ocasio-cortez-declines-to-denounce-maduro/

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday declined to denounce socialist Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, calling the country’s current crisis a “complex issue.”

At a press conference to mark the opening of her first congressional office in Queens, the freshman Democrat was asked about the “Venezuelan crisis” and her willingness to “denounce the Maduro regime.”

“Yeah, so I think that this is absolutely a complex issue,” Ocasio-Cortez began. “I think it’s important that we approach this very carefully.”

The congresswoman said she is “absolutely concerned with the humanitarian crisis that’s happening,” adding that it is important that “any solution that we have centers [on] the Venezuelan people and centers [on] the democracy of Venezuelan people first.”

“I am very concerned about U.S. interventionism in Venezuela and I oppose it,” she said, explaining that she particularly opposes the leadership of U.S. Special Envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams, who is known for pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress during the Reagan administration’s Iran-Contra scandal. President George H.W. Bush pardoned Abrams in 1992.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

An Executive Order on Campus Free Speech By Adam Kissel

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/donald-trumps-executive-order-on-campus-free-speech/

Thinking through how such an effort should work

President Donald Trump told a CPAC audience on Saturday that very soon he will unleash an executive order “requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research dollars.” If we concede that federal grants should exist and that the agencies themselves should exist (though they should not), what could the order do, and what should it do? It seems valuable to build these ideas from a theory perspective rather than merely react to the language of the order when it comes out.

Should the order apply to all institutions, including private religious colleges? What conditions should the order include? How could it be enforced, and how can alleged violations trigger enforcement? Having served in the U.S. Department of Education in 2017 and 2018, and having worked at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for five years, I can provide a basic guide to the legal boundaries and tradeoffs involved.

First, to which institutions should the order apply? Consider that federal research grants are for public benefit. The results of publicly funded research, from this perspective, do not even belong to the researcher or the college. Therefore, the government may put restrictions on the research dollars, even at private colleges and universities. (This logic also implies that the data and published papers that result from federal dollars should be free to the public and not fenced by subscription journals. Frederick Hess and Grant Addison of the American Enterprise Institute made a similar argument in 2017.)

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