Politics, Politics, Politics

            Are we fed up with politics yet? There are plenty of signs that Americans are suffering from a severe case of blather infection. Dismal TV ratings of the Impeachment trial should have been sufficient evidence that most people are just tuning out the noise coming out of Washington. And it’s not just inside the Beltway that lies and insults masquerade as heathy political discourse. It is a presidential election year, after all.

            There were once 20 or so Democratic candidates of some national stature trying to convince us of their superior ability to lead the nation.  Most of them, like Beto O’Rourke, Kamala Harris, Bill DeBlasio, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Spartacus Booker discovered early on that their outsize egos could not magically produce favorable polling numbers or donor enthusiasm. Others, like Julian Castro and John Delaney just didn’t know when to quit. Their charred candidacies soon joined those of Andrew Yang, Deval Patrick, and Michael Bennett littering the field of casualties after Iowa and New Hampshire.

            The list of survivors will continue to shrink. The next to go should be Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Steyer who have never been taken seriously, followed by Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren whose once-shining stars now look more like sputtering candles. Which leaves the Final Four.

            I like Amy Klobuchar. She’s strong on policy and would give Donald Trump a good fight, but her coffers are nearly empty. Mayor Pete did well in Iowa and New Hampshire but may not survive the coming attacks on his lack of experience and weak policy positions, not to mention his vulnerability on social issues. Bernie Sanders has deep pockets and a solid base of clueless young enthusiasts. He will also likely pick up what’s left of Warren’s supporters after she retreats to her Massachusetts teepee. That will bring the contest down to Bernie and multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

            I wonder where the mainstream media will come down on this. Its left leanings would favor Sanders, but the Democratic Party, which enjoys the full support of the media, is horrified at the prospect of Bernie at the head of the ticket in November. Will the Party direct its sycophants at the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC to abandon Sanders in favor of Michael Bloomberg, someone who is attempting to buy his way into the Oval Office?

            Meanwhile, President Trump should have clear sailing. Bolstered by a booming economy and a series of successes here and abroad, he is likely to pile up supporters all the way to November. He should win re-election in a landslide. Or will he? What could possibly derail his high-speed train to victory?

            I’ve always maintained that Donald Trump’s greatest enemy is Donald Trump. He is the reason Republicans lost control on the House in 2018, and he may end up causing Republicans to lose the Senate this year. Even if he stays in the White House, he will not be able to govern without the cooperation of a Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

            The president’s problem and ultimate vulnerability is his management style. His monumental ego has made it impossible for him to admit that sometimes he’s not the smartest person in the room.  He prefers giving impromptu press conferences to letting his press secretary handle them; he tweets rather than relying on his Communications staff; and he tends to follow his instincts rather than advisors who may be more knowledgeable than he is. That explains why he has lost so many good people and turned some frustrated White House staffers against him.

            The latest evidence of the president’s recklessness is his alienation of Attorney General William Barr to the point where Barr vented publicly that Trump’s constant Twitter commentary makes it impossible for him do his job. Barr, in my opinion, is the Trump administration’s single greatest asset. The president cannot afford to lose him. But he will if he doesn’t learn to keep his mouth shut and let his people do their jobs.

Papal Politics

            I like Pope Francis. He is “a good guy.” But he faces a host of problems. From the day he was elected in 2013 he has had to deal with the Vatican’s widespread misuse of Vatican finances and the financial mismanagement of its vast real estate holdings. The old guard in the Curia, the Vatican’s administrative body, has been plagued with evidence of greed, cronyism, and mismanagement as well. Worst of all, the pope himself has been accused of not dealing forthrightly with widespread sexual abuses in the church and cover-ups by, and even in some cases, among senior prelates.

            Of late, Pope Francis has found himself in the middle of quarrels between liberal and conservative factions that could go so far as to result in schism if not resolved. Sensitive issues include pastoral celibacy, married priests, and discriminatory treatment of women in the church. The pope himself has ruffled some traditionalist feathers by floating a proposal for ordaining married men in parts of the world that are suffering from an acute shortage of priests.

            If there is one area where the pope has shown superior sensibilities, it is in addressing extreme poverty in the world. Drawing on his experience of life in Argentina, a country with a wide gap between the wealthy and the poor, the pope has never been bashful, even now, about mingling with the poor. And he has always taken the lead in proposing solutions to poverty. Unfortunately, his proposals are too often at odds with reality.

            The pope believes that there is a widening gap between the extremely rich and the extremely poor. Poverty, in his view, is on the increase, and the poor are getting poorer. He places the blame squarely on the greed of the wealthy and concludes that the accumulation of wealth is a sin made possible by structures of sins, such as tax havens and tax cuts for the rich. 

            Francis sees wealth redistribution, therefore, as the essential solution to world poverty, a view shared by socialists around the world. But this solution rests on one basic and false premise, that there is a widening gap between the extremely rich and the extremely poor. The pope is simply wrong.

            Pope Francis does not know economics. If he took time to bone up on the facts, he would realize that the world is currently experiencing the lowest prevalence of extreme poverty ever recorded in human history, and that extreme poverty is falling rapidly and falling across every single poverty line. Data from the World Bank points to a dramatic increase in per capita income worldwide, a level three times higher today than it was in 1990.

            Moreover, according to the Brookings Institute, in free market economies that favor wealth creation such as the United States, extreme poverty has virtually been eradicated. Here, as in other countries with free markets, there is no such thing as a tiny sliver of extremely wealthy people at the top and a huge mass of very poor people at the bottom. The fact is that the vast majority of people are somewhere in the middle.

            It’s a pity the pope’s experience has led him to have a lasting antipathy for capitalism and an unwillingness to concede that it has benefitted the poor as well as the rich. In spite of his severe myopia when it comes to economics, I still think that Pope Francis is a good guy. I just hope that he will come to realize someday that capitalism is the solution to poverty, not its cause.

           

The Moral Dimension of Politics

          There is no debating the point: the Democrats are not having fun these days.  In just one week they had an embarrassing fiasco in Iowa, President Trump’s impeachment acquittal, and a blowback against Speaker Pelosi for her disgraceful insult of the president after his State of the Union address.

            The Iowa caucus exposed the incompetence of the Democratic Party, while focusing the nation’s attention on its effort to destroy Bernie Sanders, just as it did when he ran against Hillary four years ago. The Party, facing utter disaster in November with Bernie at the head of the ticket, is desperate. It even changed the rules so that Michael Bloomberg can participate in the next debate, standing on a box to do so.

            Mitch McConnell was right when he said that President Trump’s impeachment was an insult to the intelligence of the American people. The House prosecutors failed abjectly to prove their case. If they succeeded at anything, it was in putting television viewers to sleep. But look to Hollywood to award an Oscar to Adam Schiff for a lifetime achievement in raising the art form of prevarication to an entirely new level.

            And then Nancy tore up the speech. Maybe she was trying to energize the party’s base; the somnolent bunch surely needed a boost after sitting on their hands for an hour and a half. But I think it was more than that: she was demonstrating her anger and disgust at a president she hates. “A spontaneous expression of anger,” said CNN. “A small act of civil disobedience,” said another media apologist. That’s all it was.

            Nancy, for her part, said it was simply the courteous thing to do—and that after she had disrespectfully broken with tradition in the way she introduced the president to the assembled Congress. In truth, she hates the president. She hates him for winning—in 2016, in the exoneration of the Mueller Report, in the booming economy, in the impeachment acquittal, in refusing to shake her hand. And she hates him for lying. For one raised as good Catholic, lying is a moral failing. That’s why she says she prays for the president.

            The left goes one further on moral grounds: it calls the president evil. John Legend, Omarosa, Abby Huntsman, even U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu head a long list of accusers stretching from Hollywood to Washington.

            Is it any surprise then that our counter-punching president fights back? Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are horrible persons. They are evil and corrupt. Judge Kavanaugh’s critics were evil, too. And a mocking jab at Speaker Pelosi: “I don’t like people who say ‘I pray for you’ when you know that is not so.” He said this at a prayer breakfast last week with Pelosi sitting at the head table, grimacing and shaking her head. Probably because he didn’t bring a printed copy of his remarks for her to tear up.

           

Impeachment Distractions

            While the media’s attention is riveted on the Impeachment circus playing under the Senate’s big tent, it is paying little attention to four important developments elsewhere.

            Results in early primaries are driving Democrat party pooh-bahs into a panic at the increasing prospect of a Bernie Sanders coronation at July’s Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. They fear this will result in a disaster for the party, not only in the re-election of Donald Trump, but in the defeat of federal and state office holders down the line. If Sanders eliminates his rival candidates in the early primary states, the pooh-bahs may have no choice but to turn to Michael Bloomberg to save the party, even as Hillary continues to remind voters that the crown really belongs to her.

            If it weren’t for President Trump drawing attention yet again to his genius at deal-making, the public would hardly be aware of his meeting with Israeli party leaders Netanyahu and Ganz to announce the “latest and greatest” two-state solution to the intractable conflict in the Promised Land. Unsurprisingly, Palestinian authorities rejected the plan even before they knew what was in it. Perhaps they will reconsider. Among other things, the plan calls for a tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank. That alone should get the attention of Hamas, world experts at building tunnels under enemy territory.

            As happens in every presidential year, Democrats must renew their fealty to Big Labor to ensure that their biggest donors will shower them with generous contributions to their re-election campaigns. Traditionally, these contributions have been massive, drawn from dues extracted from union members who may not support union causes. Unfortunately, dues fell precipitously after 27 states adopted Right-to-Work laws that give workers the right to opt out of unions and thus deny union bosses the funds meant for Democrat candidates. Ah! But the House of Representatives, now controlled by a Democrat majority, has a solution. Look for the House to resurrect the Protect the Right to Organize Act (or PRO Act) that would essentially reverse all the benefits workers enjoy in Right-to-Work states. This may not be the smartest move. Not only will the PRO Act never pass a Republican-controlled Senate, it will give Republicans more ammunition to convince workers that incestuous relations between unions and Democrats do not benefit workers.

            The coronavirus epidemic is sucking all the wind out of news from China. The media no longer dwells on demonstrations in Hong Kong. It no longer stresses the importance and enormous consequences of Taiwan’s pro-independence elections. And it is silent about the on-going atrocities perpetrated by the Chinese government against the Muslim Uighur majority in Xinjiang. A million souls have been re-located into prison camps to be “re-educated.” Resistors are being deprived of sleep and food. Others are tortured. Worse, some are killed for the purpose of harvesting their organs. Massive crematoria eliminate all traces of those who do not survive. We have recently marked the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps, a worthy reminder of man’s inhumanity to man. Yet, I do not recall reading or seeing anything to demonstrate to us on this occasion that the Chinese are the Nazis of our time. In Xinjiang.

Trump - for Better of for Worse

            Some readers of this column have asked me why I have not commented on President Trump’s impeachment. I have my reasons, but I will set them aside for now and present my views, such as they are.

            I voted for Donald Trump in 2016. He was not the best Republican candidate at the time, but far better than the corrupt liar championed by the left. I believe a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been disastrous for this country, and I feel the same way about all the Democrats running for office now, even more so in the case of far-left candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. So, I will vote for Trump again, although I wish the head of the Republican ticket were someone else.

            Donald J. Trump, in my opinion, is ethically, psychologically, and intellectually unfit to be president. His failures and his weaknesses are well known. But his record of success with the economy, with deregulation, and with judicial appointments argues for a second term, especially when we consider what would inevitably result from the election of a socialist.

            His record on trade and foreign policy, on the other hand, has been spotty at best. I shudder when I think of the most powerful man in the world getting his intelligence briefings from Fox News and telegraphing his strategic decisions on Twitter. In fact, I’m convinced that his abusive, impulsive, and shallow tweets reveal the essence of the man. Moreover, his out-size ego makes it impossible for him to accept the counsel of others far wiser and more experienced than he is, which explains why outstanding people like James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, and John Bolton are no longer at his side. Tillerson sealed his fate when he called the president a moron, but he may not have been very far off the mark.

            But should President Trump have been impeached? Absolutely not. The charges against him are bogus, the latest result of an unremitting war that has sought to destroy him since the day he was elected. I was pleased to learn that the president had appointed Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr to his defense team. They have most clearly articulated the reasons why the articles of impeachment drawn up by the House do not meet the standards specified by the Constitution and why these charges should be summarily dismissed.

            That won’t happen, of course. Even though the president will not be convicted, Democrats will continue to do everything they can to drag out more witnesses to prolong their campaign of hatred and to further tarnish the president. In the end, there won’t be any winners, only losers: the presidency, Congress, the Constitution, and all Americans. We deserve better.

           

More Energy in 2020

            This is the year I become an octogenarian. One of the inevitable facts I must face in my advancing age is the loss of energy—my physical energy, to be sure, but also my mental faculties (some of my detractors insist the decline of the latter has been more acute). I admit my body and my mind just don’t work as well as they did when I was in my indefatigable twenties. Fortunately, waning energy is not a problem facing the United States. Just the opposite.

            As the world’s greatest consumer of energy, we have long relied on Middle East oil to supplement our own fossil fuel production. That is no longer the case. This blessed country of ours is now energy independent. Even better, we have become a major exporter of energy, an important factor in the administration of American foreign policy.

            This is no accident. It is largely the result of economic policies that have encouraged and rewarded the spirit of free enterprise. We have always had an abundance of natural resources, but it has taken people of genius and vision to exploit them and bring them to market. That genius is reflected, for instance, in the discovery of vast fields of shale oil and the development of methods like fracking to extract it.

            In spite of the opposition of radical environmentalists to fossil fuels, successive administrations have pursued balanced energy policies that rely on hydrocarbons to fill our gas tanks, heat our homes, and produce electricity to run our factories. These hydrocarbons account for 80% of our energy consumption (37% from petroleum, 29% from natural gas, and 14% from coal). The other 20% comes from nuclear power (9 %) and renewables (11%, including 3% from much-favored wind and solar). Imagine what would happen if we adopted the left’s Green New Deal and eliminated fossil fuels.

            Russia is one country that would love to see the United States go for the Green New Deal. This would guarantee Russia’s stranglehold on European countries that rely on Russian exports of liquid natural gas (LNG). Lithuania, for example, used to import LNG chiefly from Russia and paid through the nose for the privilege. No longer. Russia’s prices have dropped 40% since Lithuania started importing LNG from the United States.

            President Trump has been wise to let the outgoing Energy Secretary Rick Perry and his replacement Dan Brouilette pursue a sensible “All of the Above” energy policy that has achieved energy independence for this country and exported freedom in the form of LNG to 36 countries around the world. Much-maligned coal and nuclear will continue to generate about half of our electricity, while we supplement them with renewables that will play an increasing role in keeping our air clean.

            The United States is the largest energy producer and consumer in the world. But, of all the world’s advanced industrial nations, it is has also done the best job in controlling noxious emissions. That’s not a bad formula for 2020 and beyond. Signatories to the Paris Accord should take notice.

"All of the Above" Is the Right Answer

            This is the year I become an octogenarian. One of the inevitable facts I must face in my advancing age is the loss of energy—my physical energy, to be sure, but also my mental faculties (some of my detractors insist the decline of the latter has been more acute). I admit my body and my mind just don’t work as well as they did when I was in my indefatigable twenties. Fortunately, waning energy is not a problem facing the United States. Just the opposite.

            As the world’s greatest consumer of energy, we have long relied on Middle East oil to supplement our own fossil fuel production. That is no longer the case. This blessed country of ours is now energy independent. Even better, we have become a major exporter of energy, an important factor in the administration of American foreign policy.

            This is no accident. It is largely the result of economic policies that have encouraged and rewarded the spirit of free enterprise. We have always had an abundance of natural resources, but it has taken people of genius and vision to exploit them and bring them to market. That genius is reflected, for instance, in the discovery of vast fields of shale oil and the development of methods like fracking to extract it.

            In spite of the opposition of radical environmentalists to fossil fuels, successive administrations have pursued balanced energy policies that rely on hydrocarbons to fill our gas tanks, heat our homes, and produce electricity to run our factories. These hydrocarbons account for 80% of our energy consumption (37% from petroleum, 29% from natural gas, and 14% from coal). The other 20% comes from nuclear power (9 %) and renewables (11%, including 3% from much-favored wind and solar). Imagine what would happen if we adopted the left’s Green New Deal and eliminated fossil fuels.

            Russia is one country that would love to see the United States go for the Green New Deal. This would guarantee Russia’s stranglehold on European countries that rely on Russian exports of liquid natural gas (LNG). Lithuania, for example, used to import LNG chiefly from Russia and paid through the nose for the privilege. No longer. Russia’s prices have dropped 40% since Lithuania started importing LNG from the United States.

            President Trump has been wise to let the outgoing Energy Secretary Rick Perry and his replacement Dan Brouilette pursue a sensible “All of the Above” energy policy that has achieved energy independence for this country and exported freedom in the form of LNG to 36 countries around the world. Much-maligned coal and nuclear will continue to generate about half of our electricity, while we supplement them with renewables that will play an increasing role in keeping our air clean.

            The United States is the largest energy producer and consumer in the world. But, of all the world’s advanced industrial nations, it is has also done the best job in controlling noxious emissions. That’s not a bad formula for 2020 and beyond. Signatories to the Paris Accord should take notice.