RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/house-passes-bill-to-sanction-icc-over-arrest-warrants-for-netanyahu-gallant/

The House passed a bipartisan bill to sanction the International Criminal Court on Thursday after the body issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant in November.

The bill passed the House by a vote of 243–140, with 45 Democrats in support. Many lawmakers were absent for the vote, which coincided with former president Jimmy Carter’s state funeral in Washington, D.C.

Thursday’s vote marks the second time that the House has passed the measure, which went nowhere last year in the Democrat-dominated Senate. Republican lawmakers revived the bill now that they control both chambers of Congress.

The ICC accused Netanyahu and Gallant, as well as Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, of war crimes during Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza, which was sparked by the Palestinian terrorist group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The Jewish state claimed responsibility for the death of Deif, one of the reported masterminds behind the terror attack.

The warrants prevent Netanyahu and Gallant from traveling to 125 countries that are party to the ICC. The pair would be arrested if they were to step foot in any of those jurisdictions.

Congressional Republicans and moderate Democrats, who ally themselves with Israel, sharply criticized the ICC for seeking the arrests of the Israeli leaders. As such, they backed legislation to punish the court.

“A kangaroo court is seeking to arrest the prime minister of our great ally, Israel, which is not only responding to an enemy which conducted a genocide, but an enemy who still holds 100 hostages,” Representative Brian Mast (R., Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on the House floor ahead of the vote.

https://tomklingenstein.com/making-sense-of-trumps-mandate/

Anti-Trump conservatives struggle to interpret our current political moment. Some are the unfortunate victims of extreme cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome which, at this point, have permanently impaired their ability to perform political analysis. But there are others, still worth reading from time to time, who remain surprisingly blinkered by the stubborn march of history. These unfortunate conservatives seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge that the long twentieth century has come to an end. A new political analysis is needed for a moment altogether new.

Consider one scholar from whom I have learned much: Yuval Levin, who has in the past employed his background in political philosophy to explore the deep sources and undercurrents of contemporary politics. In 2014, he treated Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke as the distant founders of contemporary progressivism and conservatism, respectively. In 2016, he channeled Alexis de Tocqueville to diagnose the “fracturing of the American republic.” During the Age of Trump, he has written on the importance of renewing the fundamental institutions of American society and, most recently, on the prospects for a recovered constitutionalism to restore unity to the American polity despite our inevitable political disagreements.

For all his erudition, Levin seems unable to grasp the significance of the 2024 election. In a post-election essay for the Dispatch, he emphasizes “the continuity of our peculiar political era,” characterizing Trump’s victory as “a relatively narrow win owed almost entirely to negative polarization.” Levin dismisses the possibility that “Trump’s eccentric mix of interests and priorities” is “well aligned with the public’s hopes and fears.” In fact, he charges, “Most of what Trump himself is most eager to do, from mass deportations to steep tariffs, would likely prove fairly unpopular when actually put into practice.” 

Levin also expresses a contemptuous lack of curiosity about “the motley crew surrounding Trump, whose political instincts add up to an especially incoherent jumble.” He specifically disparages Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for his alleged fixation on “tak[ing] fluoride out of our drinking water.” Levin concludes by insisting on the continued relevance of his own brand of conservatism: Trump’s “victory does not mean that Trumpian populism alone will now own the right for good.”

https://www.thefp.com/p/paradise-lost-karen-bass-los-angeles-fires?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The burning of L.A. is not just a natural disaster. It’s a man-made catastrophe.

The first job of the government is to keep people safe. Failing that, its job is to show that someone is in charge when crisis erupts. On 9/11, there was nothing then–Mayor Rudy Giuliani could do to keep the World Trade Center from falling. Yet he became, in that long-ago era, the most popular person in America by staying on the scene and leading at his city’s moment of greatest danger.

That brings us to the fires in Los Angeles—the most devastating in the history of the city, with a reported 27,000 acres burned and the fires mostly uncontained. There, authorities have failed not only at protecting its residents but at inspiring confidence that they had the situation in hand.

We start with Mayor Karen Bass. As the Palisades fire began to consume wide swaths of America’s second-largest city, she was in Ghana to watch the inauguration of that country’s new president.

Bass left Los Angeles on Saturday—two days after the National Weather Service warned that strong winds and “extreme fire weather conditions” would soon threaten the city. On Sunday, the NWS announced a fire weather watch. By Monday, the warnings had become much more urgent, with the NWS tweeting in all-caps that “A LIFE-THREATENING, DESTRUCTIVE, Widespread Windstorm” would hit L.A. imminently.

Yet Bass remained halfway around the world, effectively leaving the crisis to her deputies. They, in turn, insisted Bass could run the city from anywhere via phone and tablet.

https://swtotd.blogspot.com

Many Americans bemoan a decline in culture. But what do we mean by culture? Are we speaking of the arts, religion, traditions, or a shared history? Are we referring to behavior? In a review of Eliot Stein’s Custodians of Wonder, Brandy Schillace wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Our lives are connected to the land and the animals. Yet we are also threads in the tapestry that stretches back into prehistory, a part of a superorganism that is culture itself.”

So, what is culture? Definitions have changed. Noah Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, defined the word according to its etymological roots: “The act of tilling and preparing the earth for crops.” Forty-three years later, Edward Burnett Tyler, in Primitive Culture, defined the term in words we better understand today: “Culture…is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” From the Oxford English Dictionary: “Culture –The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.” In 1952, U.S. anthropologists A.L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, cited 164 definitions of culture. I think of culture, first as a system of shared beliefs, values, behavior and practices – based on our Judeo-Christian heritage and embedded in our founding documents – and second as works of art, literature and music.

For most of our nation’s history differences ruled. Rural and immigrant communities were often distinct entities. Until the mid-19th Century, most Americans never ventured far from their homes. But from the mid 19th Century on, technological advances unified us in a way unknown to earlier Americans. First we had steam ships, trains and then, later, the automobile, which allowed people to experience the size of our country. Radio then television brought other parts of the country and the world into our lives. The number of newspapers began to shrink. So that by my generation, people read the same news, listened to the same music, watched the same TV shows, saw the same movies, and heard the same nightly newscasts. In 1956 (in a country half the size it is today), Elvis Presley sold 10 million copies of a single song, “Hound Dog.” According to Pew Research, every evening during the 1960s between 27 and 29 million people listened to Walter Cronkite’s news on CBS, an audience greater than today’s combined daily audiences for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/09/the-fall-of-the-house-of-mouse/

The legendary Walt Disney, watching from above, must be disgusted with what’s happened at the company he founded more than 100 years ago, October 16, 1923, to be exact. Under the leadership of Bob Iger for most of the past 20 years, the company has recently floundered, abandoning its roots in providing wholesome entertainment across its many platforms (theme parks, cruise lines, movies, broadcasting, streaming entertainment) and is now seen for what it has become, a woke institution dedicated to indoctrinating children. And parents have rebelled.

100 years ago, Walt Disney had a vision: to provide wholesome entertainment for families and “children of all ages.” He oversaw the creation of endearing classic movies, theme parks that allowed visitors to enter a whole new world, and his namesake brand of quality kid-safe content. It became world-famous for its uniquely “Disney” way of entertaining everyone. From his unabashedly patriotic content generated during World War II to the “Wonderful World of Disney” that brought families together in front of the TV beginning in the late 1950s, Walt’s world was shaped by his “America First” beliefs.

But all that has changed under the leadership of current CEO Bob Iger. Iger, who joined ABC (the American Broadcasting Company) in 1974, earning $175 a week, has steadily risen through the ranks at ABC through a series of positions at Capital Cities/ABC before it was acquired by Disney in 1995. His rise up toward the C-suite continued unabated until 2005 when the Walt Disney Board selected him to succeed the unpopular Michael Eisner as its CEO.

Since then he has presided over a period of rapid growth in its theme parks division as well as masterminding the acquisition of several intellectual property portfolios—Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel, to name a few—to bolster its standing in Hollywood and become a dominating force in the entertainment industry.

But as of late, since the late 2010s, the company has become a leading force in the woke movement, which has caused problems for the company. It has run into a buzz saw of criticism over its forced introduction of LGBTQIA+ themes and characters into its TV programming and films.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/09/america-and-europe-can-hang-together-or-hang-separately/

Consider these European and American binaries.

On December 20, 2024, a terrorist, Taleb Al-Abdul Mohsen, rammed his SUV into a Christmas crowd in Magdeburg, Germany. He killed 6 pedestrians and injured 299 others.

Eleven days later, on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, Louisiana, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar smashed his pickup into a festive crowd. He murdered fifteen and hurt over 35.

Germany’s fertility rate is scarcely above 1.4—about average for a shrinking European Union. About 20 percent of the country is now foreign-born, a record high.

American fertility has precipitously dived to 1.6. The foreign-born now represent 15 percent of the American resident population, the highest in both actual numbers (50 million) and percentages in history.

The German military is a shell of its former self, with fewer than 200,000 soldiers and a shortage of almost all types of weapons.

The U.S. military, after being humiliated in Afghanistan, is currently down some 40,000-plus recruits. It faces shortages of anti-tank weapons, artillery shells, ships, and logistical support.

Germany may finally manage to spend 2% of its GDP on defense; the United States is heading downward below 3%—the lowest in over 80 years since the Great Depression.

Last year, the German economy shrank; this year, it will scarcely grow, in part because of shortages of affordable fossil fuels.

Germans pay four times what Americans on average do for electricity. Yet the Trump administration has promised an oil and natural gas renaissance, hoping to expand both production and exports with envisioned new pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21298/trump-crazy-ideas

Why is it that people are always calling for someone to think “outside the box,” then when someone does, say, “Aaaak! He thought outside the box!”

In that view, President-elect Donald J. Trump has already committed (at least) three heresies: Buy Greenland, stop China from controlling the Panama Canal and deepen America’s affiliation with Canada.

All three ideas are neither crazy nor even new.

President Harry S. Truman looked at acquiring Greenland in 1946. Thomas Jefferson, after the Louisiana Purchase, proposed buying Cuba – just think how the Cubans would be prospering now, politically and economically, if that deal had gone through. Those acquisitions didn’t take place but in 1917, the US did acquire Denmark’s Virgin Islands for $25 million. As historian Stephen Press writes,

“As secretary of state, John Quincy Adams arranged debt relief for Spain in exchange for Florida. Secretary of State William Seward acquired Alaska. What Mr. Trump proposes is consistent with this American tradition—and with our current borders. Sovereignty purchases are responsible for more than 40% of U.S. land…

“History suggests the benefits of being open-minded about this. Inhabitants of Alaska wouldn’t be better off under Russian sovereignty. Bringing Greenlanders into closer affiliation with the U.S., and sweetening the deal with economic subsidies, could conceivably prove beneficial to all parties”

As for the Panama Canal, President Jimmy Carter handed it to Panama for $1, but on the condition that it permanently remain a neutral zone – not one controlled at both ends by China. “We gave the Panama Canal to Panama,” Trump has pointed out. “We didn’t give it to China. They’ve abused that gift.”

The US built the Panama Canal in the first place to be able to avoid having commercial and military sea traffic avoid the long journey around South America’s southernmost sea route, the Strait of Magellan – where the Chinese Communist Party also located a base.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-maga-elon-musk-tech-industry

With Donald Trump set to take office later this month, it’s worth considering how his coalition has changed.

The source of the president-elect’s power—his voting base—is populist in nature. This was evident from the beginning. Trump rallied a new political cross-section and has, over the past decade, transformed the GOP into a multiracial, working-class party. He managed to draw tens of thousands of people to stadiums and arenas and to command a fervent social media following that propagates his message.

Trump’s populist appeal came with a downside: his voters and his vision lacked elite champions who could capably administer the White House and advance the MAGA agenda. There was Trump the president and Trump’s voters, but nothing in between. He lacked the necessary middle layer to control the bureaucracy and negotiate with outside power brokers.

Now Trump has a second chance, and his coalition has seen a major shift: a growing segment of the technology industry has committed itself to the MAGA agenda. The most notable representative of this development is the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk. Hundreds of other tech leaders have followed suit, donating to Trump and backing his 2024 presidential campaign.

Some of this is doubtless self-serving. Technologists fear taxes, regulation, antitrust, and other restrictions that would likely have been part of Kamala Harris’s agenda. But part of it is ideological. Many figures on the right, including Musk, have a genuine distaste, even disgust, for “woke” politics and would like to see an innovative, free, and growth-oriented American economy. Some tech leaders were early adopters in supporting Trump, while others have emerged more recently, after it became safe. But the overall message is clear: the tech industry gambled on Trump and, with his election victory, looks to benefit not only financially but ideologically.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/still-suicidal-and-surreal/

Since the Democrats’ shellacking at the polls on November 5, the party has been undergoing a fractious discussion about what went wrong. A whole roster of the usual suspects has been mooted, including neglect of the working class. But that accurate assessment still doesn’t get that the problem is leftism per se, not bad candidates, polling, tactics, or whatever, no more than New Coke failed for those reasons. It was just a bad product.

Take Vermont Socialist, er, Independent Bernie Sanders’s scolding of his party: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. . . .  And they’re right.”

We know what Sanders means: “changing” to a full socialist planned economy managed by the state, rather than the over-regulated hybrid we now have. But those features of our dirigiste economy have created conditions, dysfunctions, and moral hazards––the tax, spend, print, borrow, hyper-regulate, and redistribute money that during the Biden-Harris administration unleashed inflation and wage stagnation that drove voters, including traditional Democrat constituencies, to vote for Trump.

Nor is the problem that “real” socialism has “never been tried.” History is littered with attempts to create a successful socialist or communist economy, and every one we know of has failed––not because it wasn’t properly managed or had a bad “messaging strategy,” but because unlike free-market capitalism, it has been predicated on unreal assumptions about human nature and motivation, as well as ignoring the power of freedom and choice.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/01/trump_s_arctic_policy_is_no_folly.html

On Sunday, December 22, President-elect Donald Trump reiterated his desire for America to take control of Greenland, saying it is an “absolute necessity.” The very next day, Greenland’s prime minister, Mute Egede, said the autonomous island, part of the Danish kingdom, was not for sale. But Trump’s plan—like that of William H. Seward, who, as secretary of state, oversaw the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867—is not without tremendous geopolitical advantage to America.

It’s all about gaining greater American control over the Arctic, where Russia and China are cooperating to build a strong presence. Fears that such cooperation will extend to include North Korea and Iran are not unfounded. Many pundits believe that Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran have aligned themselves into a new Axis of Evil. According to Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation, they are in “expansionist mode,” seeking “much more land and power” and “coordinating their efforts to benefit each country’s goals.”

However, the immediate worries for America are from the Sino-Russian efforts, which have significantly expanded over the past decade. China’s northernmost point is 13 degrees of latitude from the Arctic Circle—that’s 1,443 km or roughly 900 miles. Yet, in 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping audaciously proclaimed China a “near-Arctic state,” launched an “Arctic strategy,” and resolved to make his country a “polar power.”

Cut to 2024. In July, four Chinese and Russian strategic bombers, all taking off for the first time from an airbase in northeast Russia, flew over the Chukchi and Bering Seas. In October, Chinese and Russian coast guard fleets conducted their first joint patrol of the Arctic. These forays followed joint naval exercises in the Bering Strait in 2022 and 2023. The two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding on maritime law enforcement in 2023.