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The Trump First Doctrine Putin respects strength but Trump showed weakness.

Posted By on July 17th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trump-first-doctrine-1531781061

Donald Trump left for Europe a week ago with his reputation enhanced by a strong Supreme Court nomination. He returned Monday with that reputation diminished after a tumultuous week of indulging what amounts to the Trump First Doctrine.

Mr. Trump marched through Europe with more swagger than strategy. His diplomacy is personal, rooted in instinct and impulse, and he treats other leaders above all on how much they praise Donald J. Trump. He says what pops into his head to shock but then disavows it if there’s a backlash. He criticizes institutions and policies to grab headlines but then claims victory no matter the outcome.

The world hasn’t seen a U.S. President like this in modern times, and as ever in Trump World everyone else will have to adapt. Let’s navigate between the critics who predict the end of world order and the cheerleaders who see only genius, and try to offer a realistic assessment of the fallout from a troubling week.

• NATO. The result here seems better than many feared. Mr. Trump bullied the allies with rhetoric and insulted Germany by claiming it is “totally controlled” by Russia. But his charges about inadequate military spending and Russia’s gas pipeline had the advantage of being true, as most leaders acknowledged.

The 23-page communique that Mr. Trump endorsed is a solid document that improves NATO’s capabilities to deter and resist a threat from Russia. Mr. Trump’s last-minute demand that countries raise military spending to 4% of GDP was weird, but he is right that more countries are likely to meet the 2% target.

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The President Turns the Tables on China He imitates Beijing’s mercurial approach to negotiation. By Jeff Moon

Posted By on July 17th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-president-turns-the-tables-on-china-1531778651

An overlooked irony of the American trade dispute with China is that Donald Trump is the first U.S. president to fight back using Chinese tactics. This time, it’s the Chinese officials who are frustrated over the lack of clarity in demands, the sudden changes in negotiating positions, and the unpredictable escalation of tensions.

Usually it’s the other way around, as U.S. negotiators in government and business can attest. Chinese officials often blame the foreign counterpart for any number of problems. The foreigners then have a duty, according to the Chinese, to make things right. An old proverb often cited is that a man who drops a stone on his own foot must take responsibility for picking it up.

But instead of specifying the terms for a resolution, the Chinese officials wait for foreign concessions. When the proposal arrives, the Chinese reject it as inadequate, forcing the foreigners to negotiate against themselves, offering more in each successive round. In the end, the foreigners are relieved when the struggle concludes, but they regret settling on terms much less favorable than they had planned. A 1995 Rand Corp. study traced these techniques to 1971, when Premier Zhou Enlai reportedly blamed tensions over Taiwan on the U.S. as he pressed Henry Kissinger for favorable terms normalizing U.S.-China relations. CONTINUE AT SITE

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A Union Scam Could Be About to End Home health workers get ‘organized’ without their knowledge or consent. Janus makes that harder.By Red Jahncke

Posted By on July 17th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-union-scam-could-be-about-to-end-1531778546

One of the worst public-sector union scams is about to end. “Partial public employee” unions represent in-home health aides, paid by states with Medicaid money to care for disabled beneficiaries—often the aides’ own children or elderly parents.

In recent decades, PPEs have typically come into existence when Democratic governors order union-certification elections with loose rules, usually including a participation rate of only 10%. Many workers are unaware that they have become union members. They remain ignorant, as the state deducts union dues and fees before sending payments. Such payments are usually made through direct deposit and often without an itemized pay stub.

The unions have no incentive to inform the workers—who in turn have no idea they need to contact the union to opt out. Thus money keeps flowing to these unions even though the Supreme Court, in Harris v. Quinn (2014), imposed on PPE unions a ban on forced nonmember “agency fees.” This year, in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the court extended that rule to all public-sector unions.

Janus struck a second blow by requiring affirmative consent before collecting money from public workers.

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The Russia Indictments: Why Now? The point of the hacking appears to have been to hurt President Clinton, not elect President Trump. By Michael B. Mukasey

Posted By on July 17th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-russia-indictments-why-now-1531778599

The indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence agents last week, on charges they hacked into Democratic National Committee and other servers during the 2016 campaign, raises questions about the timing of the announcement and the work of the hackers themselves. The news came on the eve of the Trump-Putin summit. Why then?

The president was told of the indictments before he traveled. Yet the plain effect of the announcement was to raise further doubts about the wisdom of the meeting—and perhaps to shape its agenda. Neither is the business of the special counsel or anyone else at the Justice Department. The department has a longstanding policy, not directly applicable here but at least analogous, that candidates should not be charged close to an election, absent urgent need, lest the charges themselves affect the outcome. The general principle would seem to apply: Prosecutors are supposed to consider the impact of their actions on significant events outside the criminal-justice system, and to act with due diffidence.

From a law-enforcement standpoint, there was nothing urgent about these indictments. All 12 defendants are in Russia; none are likely ever to see the inside of a U.S. courtroom.

Alternative strategies were available. In 2008 Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, known to law enforcement as the “Merchant of Death” and the defendant in a sealed indictment, was lured in a sting by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Thailand, where he was seized. The Thais, to their great credit, resisted heavy Russian pressure to release him. Instead they fulfilled their treaty obligations and granted a U.S. extradition request.

It has been argued that the objective of last week’s indictments was not to prosecute the defendants but to “name and shame” them. They were named, and even their military intelligence units disclosed—but shamed? In 2006 Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian defector to the U.K., was poisoned in London with polonium from a Russian nuclear facility. Litvinenko had charged that Vladimir Putin was directly responsible for bombing a Moscow apartment building in 1999, an event used as a pretext for the invasion of Chechnya. CONTINUE AT SITE

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8 Times Obama Sold Out America to Russia Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on July 16th, 2018

As sure as sunshine in Southern California, the media was just waiting for President Trump to meet with Russia’s Putin to begin shouting, “Traitor.”

Here’s the voice of the Amazon resistance, the Washington Post, taking up the clamor.

Greg Sargent / Washington Post: – Trump is now repaying Putin for helping him win the presidency

And here’s the New York Times.

Charles M. Blow / New York Times:- Trump, Treasonous Traitor

Journalism.

Oddly enough the media had no problem with Obama running on a reset with Russia. The reset blamed the bad relationship on Bush and the Iraq War. That wasn’t treason.

And here’s what happened when Obama met with Putin.

“I’m aware of not only the extraordinary work that you’ve done on behalf of the Russian people … as president, but in your current role as prime minister,” Obama said during a breakfast meeting at Putin’s country home on the outskirts of Moscow. “We think there’s an excellent opportunity to put U.S.-Russian relations on a much stronger footing.”

Where were the same media trolls shrieking now about praising dictators? Or a failure to defend America?

Obama met with Medvedev at the Kremlin, while Putin received him at Novo-Ogaryovo, where a sumptuous breakfast with caviar was laid out. Trying to make conversation, Obama began by asking rhetorically, “How did we get into this mess [in U.S.-Russian relations]?” In response, Putin gave him an hourlong lecture as to how precisely it had happened. Obama listened without interrupting.

What did Putin get from Obama?

1. A free hand in Georgia

2. A free hand in Syria

3. The betrayal of Poland vis a vis the missile shield

4. The betrayal of Ukraine by refusing to provide its governor with useful weapons

5. A whole bunch of our uranium via Uranium One

6. A deal allowing Russia’s Iranian allies to go nuclear

7. Failure to do anything about the same Russian actions that the media is now blaming Trump for. Instead his administration actually issued a stand down order.

What has Trump given to Putin? Nothing. He’s come to the defense of Poland and Ukraine when Obama wouldn’t.

If this is the media’s metric for treason, then Obama is a traitor. He not only praised Putin, he promised to make a sweetheart deal with Russia after the election was over.

That’s number 8.

President Obama was running for re-election in March 2012, when a live microphone picked up his whispered conversation with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Obama told Medvedev it was important for incoming President Vladimir Putin to “give me space” on missile defense and other difficult issues and that after the 2012 presidential election he would have “more flexibility.” Medvedev said he would “transmit” the message to Putin.

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Ocasio-Cortez’s Factually Challenged Position On Israel Is Embarrassing It also tells us something about the future of the Democratic Party. By David Harsanyi

Posted By on July 16th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/16/ocasio-cortezs-factually-challenged-position-on-israel-is-embarrassing/

How can someone know so little about a topic yet be so passionate about it? That’s what I kept asking myself while re-watching a clip of media darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussing Gaza and Israel.

After dramatically defeating Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley, there was a rush to proclaim the young, dynamic socialist Ocasio-Cortez the future of the Democratic Party. Well, if she portends the future, then it’s worth taking her words seriously. Even if we overlook the fact that Ocasio-Cortez’s self-identified ideology has led to more suffering and death than any other in history, her propensity to embrace positions she knows absolutely nothing about is, well, curious.

This week on the new “Firing Line” on PBS — a program claiming to be a reboot of the famous debate show, where William Buckley once politely dismantled his guests’ weak arguments — Ocasio-Cortez was asked about Israel. A few months ago, she claimed that Israel Defense Forces was mass murdering civilians, and that Democrats should not silent on the crimes of Israel anymore.

Ocasio-Cortez: Well, yes, but I also think that what people are starting to see in the occupation of Palestine is just an increasing crisis of humanitarian conditions and that to me is just where I tend to come from on this issue.

Margaret Hoover: You use the term the “occupation of Palestine,” what did you mean by that?

Ocasio-Cortez: Oh, I think, what I meant is that the settlements that are increasing in some of these areas and places where Palestinians are experiencing difficulty in access to housing and homes.

Hoover: Do you think you can expand on that?

Ocasio-Cortez: Yeah I think … [laughing] I am not the expert on geo-politics on this issue. You now, for me, I’m a firm believer in finding a two-state solution in this issue. And I’m happy to sit down with leaders on both of these… for me, I just look at things through a human rights lens, and I may not use the right words– I know this is a very intense issue.

Hoover nods and smiles through Ocasio-Cortez’s string of barely coherent platitudes, without challenging her in any genuine way.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one very low-information voter on Israel and Palestinians By Monica Showalter

Posted By on July 16th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/alexandria_ocasiocortez_is_one_very_lowinformation_voter_on_israel_and_palestine.html

Twenty-eight-year-old socialist sensation Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t all that, you know, ummm, up on the news.

Good thing she never met Bill Buckley, because on PBS’s current version of his old show, Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, she came out looking like an idiot.

Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra spotted the embarrassing exchange, writing:

New York socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacked Israel in a recent interview on PBS’s “Firing Line,” calling them the occupiers of Palestine and later admitting that she has no idea what she is talking about regarding Israel.

Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks came in response to a question from host Margaret Hoover, who asked her to explain comments she made about Israel after she attacked them for defending themselves against an attack from Hamas terrorists.

Ocasio-Cortez, who called the shooting a “massacre,” said that she thinks that Israel has the right to “exist,” adding, “but I also think that what people are starting to see, at least, in the occupation of Palestine, is just an increasing crisis of humanitarian condition. And that, to me, is just where I tend to come from on this issue.”

It got worse when she got asked what she thought was going on, until the point where the Boston University graduate with the economics degree said she isn’t an “geopolitical expert.”

A couple of conclusions can be drawn from this.

One: She’s just like most typical Millennials in that she doesn’t know anything at all about the news, having come from a generation that never read newspapers. Her “umms” and “duhs” and hesitations make that embarrassingly clear.

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John O’Sullivan Trump’s Rules, Trump Rules

Posted By on July 16th, 2018

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/trump-rules-trumps-rules/

Dislike Trump all you will and as many do, but it’s a fantasy to see the sackful of squabbling ferrets which passes for Europe’s leadership challenging or replacing the US on anything, let alone the defence of the liberal democratic world.

As I write, Donald Trump is enjoying something of a triumph at the US–North Korea summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore. It looks as if he has obtained the agreement of the Hermit Kingdom to complete de-nuclearisation in return for quite modest American concessions. There are qualifications, of course, and the media report this success through gritted teeth, adding the kind of “warnings” of Pyongyang perfidy that used to be the currency of despised hard-liners. But if President Obama had achieved the same kind of breakthrough the world would be cheering him and declaring that, see, he really did deserve that Nobel Prize.

That’s not to dismiss reasonable criticisms of the agreement from, for example, my colleagues at National Review. In an initial checklist of arguments for and against it, Jonah Goldberg makes what I think are three especially serious ones: (1) The North Koreans have reneged on promises of de-nuclearisation before; (2) Maintaining pressure on the Pyongyang regime was a correct policy; (3) An American president heaping praise on an evil dictator in exchange for worthless promises is grotesque.

All these points have force, but they also invite reasonable rejoinders. Let me deal with them in reverse order

3. While it is indeed grotesque that a US president should heap praise on a murderous despot (whether in return for worthless promises or not), it is the standard diplomatic accompaniment to new strategic alliances between old enemies. See Churchill’s comment that if Hitler invaded Hell, he would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.

2. Likewise, what was the purpose of the policy—which I agree was correct—of maintaining pressure on Pyongyang? Surely it had two purposes: either bringing the regime down or persuading it to disarm and reform to stay afloat. The first hasn’t yet happened and is essentially unpredictable (by which I don’t mean very unlikely) until it happens. The second is now being attempted. It may fail, but if it does, we can resume the pressure.

1. The most important criticism, therefore, is that the North Koreans might renege on denuclearisation as they have done before. But as Trump showed them a month ago when he responded to their foot-dragging by cancelling the first summit, he is quite capable of halting the peace process and even putting it into reverse. They must bear that in mind—and also that America’s concessions, including the last-minute offer to cancel US–South Korea military manoeuvres, can be easily reversed.

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Paul Collits Australia, It Vanished While We Slept

Posted By on July 16th, 2018

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/07/australia-vanished-slept/

Like the concerned locals of Britain and, increasingly, of Europe, who every day must confront a new world not of their making, many Australians also feel something fundamental has changed. To put that sentiment in a few words, ‘We have lost our country.’

Two current must-reads are Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe and Sir Roger Scruton’s Where We Are: The state of Britain now. Each in its own way, and with a very British focus, speaks to the current malaise afflicting much of the West, and certainly Australia.

Setting aside muddled and weak leadership (with the now notable exception of the United States); universal cultural and moral decline; confusion over shared and, increasingly, disagreement over non-shared values; awful corporate behaviour, now revealed on a regular basis; gangs in suburbia; the disgrace that our national parliament has become; the bullying and non-platforming of opinions disagreeable to the elites; and fawning political correctness by the comfortable yet “woke” inner-city trendoids and their cheer squads – setting all this aside – there is something else at work that is creating a sense of deep and broad malaise among the so-called Deplorables and Dis-cons among us.

That something is the growing sense that “our country isn’t ours any more”.

The markers are there and all around us – the unease at China- linked companies buying land and key infrastructure assets (a concern shared, extraordinarily, by both Clive Hamilton and the National Civic Council); whole suburbs of our cities becoming ghettoes, often violent and unsafe; that feeling of walking into the public reception area at Sydney Airport and wondering, “Where am I? Is this Australia?”; being forced by our politicians and cultural elites to bow and scrape before the religion and religion-related regulations, objectives and lifestyles of our recent Middle Eastern arrivals. And so on.

Douglas Murray speaks to this unease, as does Roger Scruton. Murray hones in on the sudden and, for Britain, unprecedented mass migration that has occurred in the UK since the late 1990s, initially championed by Tony Blair’s Government and pursued in a bi-partisan way thereafter. He also claims, in particular, that this sudden new policy was justified in very dubious ways, and was effected without the permission of the public. The push-back, as seen in the Brexit vote, has been palpable.

Scruton has provided what will one day become the go-to conservative case against rampant globalisation, with its free movement of capital across borders and the mass movement of people around the globe. These developments, were allowed, indeed encouraged and championed, by governments in the West, andc they took place largely without anyone’s explicit, democratic permission and subtly, piece by piece, without even the knowledge of most of the public. Scruton refers in particular to the decision taken by the UK Government of the day to allow the ownership of land by foreigners as a critical development – but merely one – in a chain of events that has seen, ultimately, the dismembering of communities, regions, traditions and sub-cultures.

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Setting a Bloody Century in Motion One hundred years ago, the Bolsheviks’ slaughter of the Romanovs prefigured seven decades of Communist tyranny.Seth Barron

Posted By on July 16th, 2018

https://www.city-journal.org/html/killing-of-the-romanovs-16030.html

The family was roused early in the morning and told to dress in preparation for an immediate change of location. They were brought to a dingy basement room and ordered to wait, while their killers fortified themselves with liquid courage. One hundred years ago, in the early hours of July 17, 1918, the abdicated Czar Nicholas II and his immediate family, along with four retainers, were murdered, and buried in haste under cover of night.

Studying the years that led to that savage night, it’s hard not to want to shout across time at the last Romanov, to wake him from his walking stupor. His feckless rule was marked by indecision and half-steps at political reform, the necessity of which was obvious to everyone. Sergei Witte, the brilliant diplomat and reformer who engineered Russia’s first constitution, warned Nicholas in 1905 that “Russia has outgrown its existing governmental forms. . . . You must give the people their constitution; otherwise, they will wrest one away.”

Nicholas dithered, while also imploring his cousin Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich to become dictator. The Grand Duke (known as “Tall Nicholas,” for his imposing height) took out his pistol and said that he would shoot himself in the head if the czar refused to sign the decree authorizing the formation of a parliament. Nicholas, himself incapable of dramatic, decisive gestures, signed.

From the outset of his reign, Nicholas was as detached from authority as he was captivated by the weight and romance of its history. His own mother told Witte, years before the premature death of her husband, Czar Alexander III, that Nicholas was incapable of ruling and lacked the character and will to become emperor. His rule bears out this judgment. Inspired by the ideal of the mystical union of the “people and the czar,” Nicholas possessed the political worldview of an early-modern absolutist, along the lines of King James I of England. He tried to convince himself, while revolt and turmoil boiled around him, that the 300-year legacy of the divinely inspired Romanov rule could not possibly end with him.