Tag Archives: Donald Trump

The Federal Reserve and Coronatative Easing

09 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by in Monetary Policy, Pandemic

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Laughs erupted all around when the Federal Reserve reduced its overnight lending rate by 50 basis points last week: LIKE THAT’LL CURE THE CORANAVIRUS! HAHAHA! It’s easy to see why it seemed funny to people, even those who think the threat posed by Covid-19 is overblown. But it should seem less silly with each passing day. That’s not to say I think we’re headed for disaster. My own views are aligned with this piece by Michael Fumento: it will run its course before too long, and “viruses hate warm weather“. Nevertheless, the virus is already having a variety of economic effects that made the Fed’s action prudent.

Of course, the Fed did not cut its rate to cure the virus. The rate move was intended to deal with some of the economic effects of a pandemic. The spread of the virus has been concentrated in a few countries thus far: China, Iran, Italy, and South Korea. Fairly rapid growth is expected in the number of cases in the U.S. and the rest of the world over the next few weeks, especially now with the long-awaited distribution of test kits. But already in the U.S., we see shortages of supplies hitting certain industries, as shipments from overseas have petered. And now efforts to control the spread of the virus will involve more telecommuting, cancellation of public events, less travel, less dining out, fewer shopping trips, missed work, hospitalizations, and possibly widespread quarantines.

The upshot is at least a temporary slowdown in economic activity and concomitant difficulties for many private businesses. We’ve been in the midst of a “flight to safety”, as investors incorporate these expectations into stock prices and interest rates. Firms in certain industries will need cash to pay bills during a period of moribund demand, and consumers will need cash during possible layoffs. All of this suggests a need for liquidity, but even worse, it raises the specter of a solvency crisis.

The Fed’s power can attempt to fill the shortfall in liquidity, but insolvency is a different story. That, unfortunately, might mean either business failures or bailouts. Large firms and some small ones might have solid business continuation plans to help get them through a crisis, at least one of short to moderate duration, but many businesses are at risk. President Trump is proposing certain fiscal and regulatory actions, such as a reduction in the payroll tax, wage payment assistance, and some form of mandatory paid leave for certain workers. Measures might be crafted so as to target particular industries hit hard by the virus.

I do not object to these pre-emptive measures, even as an ardent proponent of small government, because the virus is an externality abetted by multiplicative network effects, something that government has a legitimate role in addressing. There are probably other economic policy actions worth considering. Some have suggested a review of laws restricting access to retirement funds to supplement inadequate amounts of precautionary savings.

Last week’s Fed’s rate move can be viewed as pre-emptive in the sense that it was intended to assure adequate liquidity to the financial sector and payment system to facilitate adjustment to drastic changes in risk appetites. It might also provide some relief to goods suppliers who find themselves short of cash, but their ability to benefit depends on their relationships to lenders, and lenders will be extremely cautious about extending additional credit as long as conditions appear to be deteriorating.

In an even stronger sense, the Fed’s action last week was purely reactive. Scott Sumner first raised an important point about ten days before the rate cut: if the Fed fails to reduce its overnight lending target, it represents a de facto tightening of U.S. monetary policy, which would be a colossal mistake in a high-risk economic and social environment:

“When there’s a disruption to manufacturing supply chains, that tends to reduce business investment, puts downward pressure on demand for credit. That will tend to reduce equilibrium interest rates. In addition, with the coronavirus, there’s also a lot of uncertainty in the global economy. And when there’s uncertainty, there’s sort of a rush for safe assets, people buy treasury bonds, that puts downward pressure on interest rates. So you have this downward pressure on global interest rates. Now while this is occurring, if the Fed holds constant its policy rate, it targets the, say fed funds rate at a little over 1.5 percent. While the equilibrium rates are falling, then essentially the Fed will be making monetary policy tighter.

… what I’m saying is, if the Fed actually wants to maintain a stable monetary policy, they may have to move their policy interest rate up and down with market conditions to keep the effective stance of monetary policy stable. So again, it’s not trying to solve the supply side problem, it’s trying to prevent it from spilling over and also impacting aggregate demand.”

The Fed must react appropriately to market rates to maintain the tenor of its policy, as it does not have the ability to control market rates. Its powers are limited, but it does have a responsibility to provide liquidity and to avoid instability in conducting monetary policy. Fiscal actions, on the other hand, might prove crucial to restoring economic confidence, but ultimately controlling the spread of the virus must be addressed at local levels and within individual institutions. While I am strongly averse to intrusions on individual liberty and I desperately hope it won’t be necessary, extraordinary measures like whole-city quarantines might ultimately be required. In that context, this post on the effectiveness of “non-pharmaceutical interventions” such as school closures, bans on public gatherings, and quarantines during the flu pandemic of 1918-19 is fascinating.

 

 

 

 

 

Not Obama’s Economy

01 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in economic growth, Macroeconomics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The “Trump economy” hasn’t been half bad, though one can’t attribute all of the results to the economic policies of his administration. In fact, the economy was growing when he took office, though it took several years after the Great Recession to recover under Barack Obama, and various sectors were showing strains before Trump took office. And yes, Obama inherited a very bad economy, but he went off the rails a few weeks ago in a pathetic attempt to take credit for ten-plus years of economic growth. Here is one of his tweets:

“Eleven years ago today, near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history,”

The tweet was immediately ridiculed by Trump, as is his habit, but at best Obama received lukewarm support from his usually adoring media outlets. How interesting, however, that just a few days before Obama’s tweet, Chuck Jones, a regular Forbes contributor who really needn’t prove he’s an Obama hack, submitted a scorecard of economic performance covering President Trump’s first three years in office. It was an exercise in throwing shade at a series of good numbers. Then, a week later, Jones had the chutzpah to claim the Obama’s “shovel-ready” stimulus program of a decade ago, which proved anemic in its effects, was the proximate cause of healthy growth under Trump’s watch. Who gave him that idea?

Jones’ effort to diminish Trump’s economic accomplishments is music to the ears of leftists wistful for the days of Obama. They fancy Jones’ appearance in what they assume to be a right-leaning outlet as an enhancement to the credibility of his claims. Forbes, however, is certainly not the bastion of conservatism the Left would have you believe. Their model pays contributors who drive circulation, which has little to do with political alignment. To the extent that Jones is able to stroke the predilections of the Left, he probably can play well at that game.

The truth is it’s difficult to attribute variations in economic growth to different presidential administrations. This fairly well-balanced piece at NPR.org gives one very simple reason:

“Let’s stipulate that presidents of both parties often get more credit and blame for economic conditions than they deserve, given that much of what happens is outside their control.”

It is true that a new administration inherits economic conditions and policies from its predecessor. Trump inherited an economy that was growing, but there were plenty of strains, including sluggish wage growth, low labor force participation, weak business startups, and a languid housing sector, as this link makes clear. Moreover, economic expansions have lasted an average of only about five years in the post-WW2 era. The current expansion was about 90 months running at the time of Trump’s inauguration, a stage at which vulnerabilities might develop. But new policies often lead to new economic realities. In Trump’s case, that included tax cuts, and especially corporate tax cuts that spurred hiring and wage growth, and more liberalized regulation. Accommodative monetary policy by the Federal Reserve also provided an assist. As the chart at the top shows, Trump’s platform lifted small business enthusiasm considerably, which is a broad indicator of economic vibrancy. Of course, his trade initiatives have probably had negative effects thus far, but his way of negotiating new trade agreements might well end up making a positive contribution, on balance.

Now, the danger of a caronavirus pandemic is presenting major economic challenges. It’s unlikely to produce as many deaths as a bad flu season in the U.S., in part because the Trump Administration took quick action to limit domestic exposure. Nevertheless, the economic consequences of the virus and attempts to control its spread will be significant. At least the economy was strong when the shock occurred, so it is reasonable to expect a rebound if the outbreak runs its course over the next month or two.

The economic record since Trump took office has been impressive given the stage of the business cycle at which he took office. Not only that, but minority wage growth has surged, and minority unemployment has fallen substantially. Let’s face it: Obama and Joe Biden are eager to neutralize any plaudits a strong economy might earn Trump in an election year, but they shouldn’t embarrass themselves by trying to take credit for it, and Chuck Jones could do better than carrying their water.

 

 

Scorning the Language of the Left

12 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by in Censorship, Leftism, Political Correctness

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s hard not to ridicule some the language adopted by our lefty friends, and it can be fun! But it’s not just them. We hear it now from employers, schools, and otherwise sensible people too eager to signal their modernity and virtue. Lionel Shriver dissects some of this “Lefty Lingo” in an entertaining piece in Harper’s. It’s funny, but it aroused my contempt for the smugness of the “wokescenti” (a term Shriver attributes too Meghan Daum) and my pity for those “normals” simply desperate to project progressive sophistication.

Here are a few of Shriver’s observations:

“Privilege”: makes you incapable of understanding that which you criticize.

“Whereas a privilege can be acquired through merit—e.g., students with good grades got to go bowling with our teacher in sixth grade—privilege, sans the article, is implicitly unearned and undeserved. The designation neatly dispossesses those so stigmatized of any credit for their achievements while discounting as immaterial those hurdles an individual with a perceived leg up might still have had to overcome (an alcoholic parent, a stutter, even poverty). For privilege is a static state into which you are born, stained by original sin. Just as you can’t earn yourself into privilege, you can’t earn yourself out of it, either. … . it’s intriguing that the P-bomb is most frequently dropped by folks of European heritage, either to convey a posturing humility (“I acknowledge my privilege”) or to demonize the Bad White People, the better to distinguish themselves as the Good White People.

Meanwhile, it isn’t clear what an admission of privilege calls you to do, aside from cower. That tired injunction ‘Check your privilege’ translates simply to ‘S.T.F.U.’—and it’s telling that ‘Shut the fuck up’ is now a sufficiently commonplace imperative to have lodged in text-speak.”

“Cisgender”: “Cis-” is a linguistic shell game whereby the typical case is labelled cis-typical.

“Denoting, say, a woman born a woman who thinks she’s a woman, this freighted neologism deliberately peculiarizes being born a sex and placidly accepting your fate, and even suggests that there’s something a bit passive and conformist about complying with the arbitrary caprices of your mother’s doctor. Moreover, unless a discussion specifically regards transgenderism, in which case we might need to distinguish the rest of the population (‘non-trans’ would do nicely), we don’t really need this word, except as a banner for how gendercool we are. It’s no more necessary than words for ‘a dog that is not a cat,’ a ‘lamppost that is not a fire hydrant,’ or ‘a table that is actually a table.’ Presumably, in order to mark entities that are what they appear to be, we could append ‘cis’ to anything and everything. ‘Cisblue’ would mean blue and not yellow. ‘Cisboring’ would mean genuinely dull, and not secretly entertaining after all.”

“Microaggression“: Anything you say that bothers them, even a little.

“… a perverse concoction, implying that the offense in question is so minuscule as to be invisible to the naked eye, yet also that it’s terribly important. The word cultivates hypersensitivity.”

“_____-phobic”: the typical use of this suffix in identity politics stands “phobia” on its head. To be fair, however, it started with a presumption that people hate that which they fear. Maybe also that they fear and hate that which they don’t care for, but we’ll just focus on fear and hate. For example, there is the notion that men have deep fears about their own sexuality. Thus, the prototypical gay-basher in film is often compensating for his own repressed homosexual longings, you see. And now, the idea is that we always fear “otherness” and probably hate it too. Both assertions are tenuous. At least those narratives are rooted in “fear”, but it’s not quite the same phenomenon as hate, and yet “phobic” seems to have been redefined as odium:

“The ubiquitous ‘transphobic,’ ‘Islamophobic,’ and ‘homophobic’ are also eccentric, in that the reprobates so branded are not really being accused of fearfulness but hatred.”

“LGBTQ“: Lumping all these “types” together can be misleading, as they do not always speak in unison on public policy. But if we must, how about “Let’s Go Back To ‘Queer'”, as Shriver suggests. The LGBs I know don’t seem to mind it as a descriptor, but maybe that’s only when they say it. Not sure about the trannies. There is a great Libertarian economist who is transsexual ( Dierdre McCloskey), and somehow “queer” doesn’t seem quite right for her. Perhaps she’s just a great woman.

“The alphabet soup of ‘LGBTQ’ continues to add letters: LGBTQIAGNC, LGBTQQIP2SAA, or even LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA. A three-year-old bashing the keyboard would produce a more functional shorthand, and we already have a simpler locution: queer.”

“Problematic”, “Troubling” and “Inappropriate”: I’m sure some of what I’ve said above is all three. I must confess I’ve used these terms myself, and they are perfectly good words. It’s just funny when the Left uses them in the following ways.

“Rare instances of left-wing understatement, ‘problematic’ and ‘troubling’ are coyly nonspecific red flags for political transgression that obviate spelling out exactly what sin has been committed (thereby eliding the argument). Similarly, the all-purpose adjectival workhorse ‘inappropriate’ presumes a shared set of social norms that in the throes of the culture wars we conspicuously lack. This euphemistic tsk-tsk projects the prim censure of a mother alarmed that her daughter’s low-cut blouse is too revealing for church. ‘Inappropriate’ is laced with disgust, while once again skipping the argument. By conceit, the appalling nature of the misbehavior at issue is glaringly obvious to everyone, so what’s wrong with it goes without saying.”

Here are a few others among my favorites:

“Patriarchy“: This serves the same function as “privilege” but is directed more specifically at the privilege enjoyed by males. Usually white, heterosexual males. It seeks to preemptively discredit any argument a male might make, and often it is used to discredit Western political and economic thought generally. That’s because so much of it was the product of the patriarchy, don’t you know! And remember, it means that males are simply incapable of understanding the plight of females … and children, let alone queers! Apparently fathers are bad, especially if they’re still straight. Mothers are good, unless they stand with the patriarchy.

“Hate Speech“: This expression contributes nothing to our understanding of speech that is not protected by the Constitution. If anything its use is intended to deny certain kinds of protected speech. Sure, originally it was targeted at such aberrations as racist or anti-gay rhetoric, assuming that always meant “hate”, but even those are protected as long as they stop short of “fighting words”. There are many kinds of opinions that now seem to qualify as “hate speech” in the eyes of the Identitarian Left, even when not truly “hateful”, such as church teachings in disapproval of homosexuality. There is also a tendency to characterize certain policy positions as “hate speech”, such as limits on immigration and opposition to “living wage” laws. Hypersensitivity, once more.

“Sustainability“: What a virtue signal! It’s now a big game to characterize whatever you do as promoting “sustainability”. But let’s get one thing straight: an activity is sustainable only if its benefits exceed its resource costs. That is the outcome sought by voluntary participants in markets, or they do not trade. Benefits and costs “estimated” by government bureaucrats without the benefit of market prices are not reliable guides to sustainability. Nor is Lefty politics a reliable guide to sustainability. Subsidies for favored activities actually undermine that goal.

There are many other Lefty catch phrases and preferred ways of speaking. We didn’t even get to “safe space”, “social justice”, and the pronoun controversy. Shriver closes with some general thoughts on the lefty lingo. I’ll close by quoting one of those points:

“The whole lexicon is of a piece. Its usage advertises that one has bought into a set menu of opinions—about race, gender, climate change, abortion, tax policy, #MeToo, Trump, Brexit, Brett Kavanaugh, probably Israel, and a great deal else. Reflexive resort to this argot therefore implies not that you think the same way as others of your political disposition but that you don’t think. You have ordered the prix fixe; you’re not in the kitchen cooking dinner for yourself.”

 

3 Cheers, No Tears for Strike on Master of Iranian Terror

08 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by in Middle East, War

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Note: As I finish this post, Iran has fired missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq, so we know a bit more about their response to the killing of Qassim Soleimani. Tonight’s response by Iran looks to have been impotent. There are risks of other kinds of action, of course. We shall see.

Last week’s killing of Iranian General Qassim Soleimani was not prompted solely by the attack on the U.S. embassy in Iraq by Kataeb Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia. Iran, perhaps the largest state-sponsor of terrorism in the world, has been guilty of provocation and aggression in Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere under Soleimani’s direction for many years. And he was reviled for his ruthless treatment of protestors within Iran’s borders. In recent weeks there had been a series of rocket attacks on U.S. bases, and there was “chatter” that much more was planned. It’s been noted that the presence of so-many high-level officials in one place at the time of the attack on Soleimani indicated that something big was in the works. This Reuters article gives some insight into Soleimani’s suspicious activities in the weeks prior to his death, of which the U.S. was surely aware. While the attack on the U.S. embassy provided additional pretext (as if it was needed), all of this indicates that Soleimani’s assassination was not an impulsive decision, but deliberated, contrary to assertions by critics of President Trump’s decision to act. It was both retaliatory and preemptive. Soleimani’s travels and whereabouts were well known, and it’s highly likely that a “decapitation” had been planned as a contingency for some time. This report in Politico provides details of the decision making leading up to the strike. The attack was executed brilliantly by all accounts.

The U.S. had retaliated to earlier rocket attacks with strikes against Kataeb Hezbollah positions. That the strike on Soleimani was more than retaliation and an act of self-defense against additional threats is, I believe, the flaw in arguments against the strike like the one Tyler Cowen seemed to make in Bloomerg (though his main point was different). The value of the strike goes far beyond retaliation. This was not intended to be another volley in an ongoing series of “tits-for-tats”.

In addition to Soleimani, several other high-level Iranian military personnel were killed. This undoubtedly disrupted plans that would have threatened U.S. soldiers and assets, yet some describe the strike as an “impulsive” act on Trump’s part, and an “act of war”, as if unprovoked. And as if Iran had not been warring on the U.S. for the past 40 years. What to make of those who take this position?  Of course, most are reflexively anti-Trump, refusing to evaluate the decision on it’s own merits. They pretend that Soleimani and the Iranian overseers of the stooge government in Iraq have legitimacy. Anderson Cooper actually compared Soleimani to Charles De Gaulle. It would be more accurate to compare him to the murderous Che Guevara, but then again, many on the Left worship Che’s memory as well! These fools will tell you that Soleimani was “worshipped” in Iran. In fact, there are a great many Iranians who are quietly celebrating his death.

Middle East analyst Avi Melamed does not mince words in describing the impact Soleimani has had on the Middle East (emphasis his):

“Some argue that the assassination of Soleimani will increase tensions in the Middle East. This outlook confuses cause and effect: Tensions in the Middle East have intensified over the past decade because of the violent Iranian aggression which Soleimani spearheaded. Aggression which has led to Syria’s destruction and the disintegration of Lebanon and Iraq. Aggression that threatens maritime routes and safe passage in the Arab (Persian) Gulf and the Red Sea, a direct attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities that spiked oil prices and compromised the world’s oil supply. Aggression that has fueled and intensified tensions – including direct military confrontations – between Iran and its proxies and Israel.

General Soleimani and the Al-Quds force led the escalation in the region in the service of the hegemonic vision of the Iranian Mullah regime. Their actions have so far claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, led to the destruction of states, the disintegration of cities, and caused a wave of millions of refugees. Killing Soleimani is not the cause of the escalation – but the result.”

Malamed expected Iran to take retaliatory actions in Iraq, where it already has a strong military presence and good reconnaissance. Missiles have now been fired at U.S. bases from Iran (as of tonight), but with few or no casualties. It remains to be seen how effective a response the Iranians can mount. Any short-term U.S. casualties should probably not be viewed as incremental, given the high likelihood of casualties had Soleimani lived. Perhaps Iran will fire missiles at Israel from western Iraq or Syria, or at Saudi Arabian oil assets, as it did last September. Or it might make a bold military intervention in Iraq to strengthen its control there, which Iran considers crucial to its own security.

Al Monitor believes the assassination “leaves Iran with very few options to retaliate” with any strength, at least in the short-run:

“… the economic hardship in Iran — in addition to the challenges the government is facing internally — would not allow Tehran to increase the tension. Iran’s past conduct against Israel strikes on Iranian bases in Syria also shows it will not seek revenge if its national security and interests are in danger. … This all indicates that Iran and its proxies in the region most likely would not seek revenge in the near future and — in regard to Iraq, in particular — would not lead Iraq to fall into a civil war or mass destruction, because it would lose even more in Iraq if it takes such a risk.”

So despite the brash talk, Iran is weak and spread thin across commitments outside its borders, and the regime has real fear of retaliation by its enemies that can only have been reinforced by the strike against Soleimani. Of what other retaliatory actions is Iran capable, assuming the regime can survive in the longer run? And assuming the Mullah regime itself is willing to take existential risks? It has threatened actions against civilians in the West. Can it bring down planes? Can it bomb targets in the U.S.? Can it develop or buy a small nuclear device? It can try any of those things, of course, but with uncertain odds and with risks it might not want to take. Survival is of the utmost importance to the regime, and it is already on shaky ground.

Trump’s critics claim that he authorized the “decapitation” without a plan for its aftermath. Trump has made clear his intent to “punch back twice as hard”, as it were, in response to any additional force from Iran. This is, first and foremost, a game of deterrence. Beyond that, however, and despite talk of “changing the Iranian regime’s behavior”, it appears that the larger plan pursued by Trump is to continue undermining the regime with sanctions and targeted strikes, if necessary. “Maximum pressure”. But there will be no World War III. The markets seem pretty comfortable about that as well, including the oil market.

I do take issue with Trump’s mention of the possibility of striking “cultural sites” in Iran, though he seems to have retracted it. On that point, however, I fully agree with Tyler Cowan (linked above). The only plausible rationale for such a statement is to frighten Iran’s leadership, especially if it has located military and intelligence functions within cultural sites.

Trump still maintains that our ultimate goal should be withdrawal from Iraq. That assumes stabilization in the region and fair elections, which would be well-served by a weaker Iran or a regime change there. As Victor Davis Hanson explains, the Middle East is of declining importance in world energy markets and trade generally. That’s one reason we’re unlikely to ever again send a huge ground force to the region, and it’s a good reason to scale back our presence in the Middle East generally.

Keeping My Resolution Starts With the Bee

01 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by in Blogging, Fake News, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m too lazy to check the archives right now, but I’m sure I’ve said this once before: I resolve to mix in more brief posts in the new year. My blogging hours (sometimes minutes) are limited on a day-to-day basis, so it’s taking too many days to wrap-up posts. My son says I should break them into parts. Maybe, but that won’t reduce the time I spend on a given topic.

Another motive for my resolution: I see so many items I’d like to share here, but I put them off in order to get back to a draft. I have to go where the whiffs of inspiration take me in a given session. But then… I either forget the short items or something else comes along to excite my long-windedness.

So, here is my first “short-form” blog share of 2020, from the Babylon Bee in early 2017:  

“Culture In Which All Truth Is Relative Suddenly Concerned About Fake News”

The piece reminded me of when poor Kellyanne Conway was castigated by the Left for using the expression “alternative facts” in reference to attendance at Trump’s inauguration. She’ll be fine, of course, but the photo comparison favored by the Left used an early pre-ceremony photo for Trump in 2017 and a peak-crowd photo for Obama in 2009. The Obama crowd was almost certainly larger than the real Trump crowd, but the whole thing was sort of a big “so what?”, especially given the well known political leanings of the local population.

Both Left and Right have been selectively reporting and distorting news (and editing photos) for a long time, the rise of so-called “fact checkers” notwithstanding. Alternative “facts” indeed! But our leftist friends are constant champions of relativism, often to the point of kookiness, while blissfully unaware that their “truths” and “facts” are severely shaded.

This was supposed to be short! Gah! More fake news! With that, here are some choice quotes from the Bee:

“One Oregon man, who rejects the idea that humanity can even be sure the universe exists in any meaningful sense, was nonetheless disturbed by the idea that websites could publish completely false information, for anyone in the world to read. …

Tech conglomerates such as Facebook and Google have vowed to meet the trend head-on, assuring the public that they are taking bold steps to filter out any news that contradicts the version of truth that they decide is acceptable.”

The Impaired Impeachment

22 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by in Impeachment

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

biden-impeach-trump

To avoid defections in their ranks, House Democrats had to pare back so much on the counts for impeaching Donald Trump that they laid bare the raw political motives for bringing the action. Not that their motives needed clarification. They’ve been dying to find grounds on which to impeach Trump since the day of his election. They also know the Senate will not remove Trump from office. Now, the real point is to stain the President as he seeks re-election, and that should strike anyone as an illegitimate purpose.

The two impeachment counts, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, are flimsy. Proof of the first would require infallible mind-reading skills. It’s doubtful that the Democrats are any better at that than their inability to follow the simple facts of the case. During the controversial phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Trump clearly expressed interest in whether the Ukraine would investigate possible interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and whether the Bidens had been involved, given their involvement with Ukrainian organizations that may have had connections to the Steele dossier. That’s a fair question and a legitimate area of inquiry for the chief executive. It can’t be helped that Joe Biden happens to be running for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2020, as if running for office was enough to absolve one of crime.

The second impeachment count against Trump relies on vacating the constitutional privileges accorded to the chief executive, privileges to which President Obama, and others before him, generously availed themselves (also see here).

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now has opted to delay transmitting the impeachment articles to the Senate. She said it was important for the House to wrap up their proceedings quickly, so much so that her party could not be bothered to bring a court challenge against Trump’s assertion of executive privilege. But now, Pelosi insists that she must be assured the Senate trial will be conducted “fairly”, as if the proceedings in the House were remotely fair to the President.

One of the House Democrats’ own expert witnesses asserts that the President’s impeachment is not official until the articles are transmitted to the Senate. That might be, but he overlooks the Supreme Court’s 1993 ruling in Nixon vs. the United States in which the Court said that no trial is required for the Senate to acquit anyone impeached by the House, and it may do so without judicial review. So, the Senate can acquit the President now, without a trial and without waiting for Speaker Pelosi to transmit the “charges”, should Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decide to bring it to a vote. Of course, he might not want to as a matter of optics as well as pressure from an incensed Trump to air all of the laundry.

Like the misguided impeachment itself, Pelosi’s motive for holding the transmittal in abeyance is political. Democrats, quite possibly unaware of the Senate’s power under Nixon, and facing their comeuppance, might hope the public forgets the charade that took place in the House and blame Republicans for an “unfair” Senate process that would let Trump off the hook. Or, Pelosi might be hoping for a weakening of Republican resolve on establishing rules for a trial in the Senate, but even that calculation is chancy. It’s even possible Pelosi imagines she can delay the transfer through the 2020 election, hoping to use the House impeachment again and again as a cudgel with which to batter Trump’s re-election chances. Fat chance!

Or is the delay a form of damage control? Does it have something to do with Joe Biden’s vulnerability? He is perhaps at greater risk under a Senate impeachment trial of Trump than Trump himself. Biden is the one who gloated publicly of how he cowed the Ukrainians into dropping an investigation of Burisma, the gas company for which his son Hunter was a board member, by threatening to withhold loan guarantees. Quid Pro Joe!

Biden’s has stated that he would not comply with a subpoena to appear before the Senate in the matter of the Trump impeachment, apparently confusing Trump’s status as the executive with privilege with his own status as an out-of-office candidate for the Democrat nomination. Oh, wait! Now Biden says he would appear after all! Is the contrast between Trump’s phone conversation with the Ukrainian President and Biden’s gloating admission pertinent? You bet!

Or perhaps Pelosi believes it’s unwise to hand the impeachment counts over to the Senate with John Durham’s investigation still hanging in the balance. Durham is looking into the efforts of U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016. An ill-timed and damaging outcome for the Obama Administration could make the impeachment trial into a catastrophic event for Biden and other Democrats.

The Democrats’ have brought their longstanding lust for impeaching Trump to fruition only to find that they’ve miscalculated. First, Trump is practically guaranteed an acquittal, so the whole effort was and is a waste of time. Second, public opinion is far from rallying to the Dems cause. According to Gallup, Trump’s approval now is higher than Obama’s at the same point in his presidency, and support for impeachment hasn’t responded as the Democrats had hoped. In fact, if anything, support has eroded, especially in swing states, and the effort has strengthened Trump’s base of support. I would argue that it’s much worse for Democrats than the polls show. Many anti-Democrats, like me, actively avoid participating in polls. That’s partly because the framing of questions is often biased, and partly because I don’t want to be bothered. Finally, the Democrats seem not to fathom the political risks they face with impeachment: 28 Democrat representatives from districts Trump won in 2016 may now face stiffer odds against reelection in 2020, having cast their votes for impeachment. More critically, there are severe risks of a Senate trial to the Bidens, potentially other Obama Administration officials, and the Clintons.

Note: An acknowledgement goes to the Legal Insurrection blog and A.F. Branco for the cartoon at the top.

Another Flop at the Impeachment Playhouse

04 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by in Impeachment

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Listen, President Trump drives me crazy. His policy instincts often strike me as dangerous: trade protectionist, inflationist, and cronyist. I’m still suspicious that he might play ball with statists left and right on critical issues, when and if he perceives a political advantage in doing so. And Trump is hopelessly inarticulate and belligerent. Nevertheless, I will almost certainly vote for him in 2020 for several reasons, not least because the feasible alternatives are completely unacceptable. That view is reinforced by the behavior of the Democrat party in their effort to fabricate “high crimes and misdemeanors” on Trump’s part. That effort is not just dishonest, it is foolish, and they have a lot to lose. Their machinations are likely to blow up in their faces.

For one thing, the Democrats don’t seem to have much of a case. This time they are focused on a May 2019 phone conversation that took place between Trump and the recently-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The Democrats contend that Trump held up military aid in order to pressure Zelenskiy to investigate the Biden family’s activities in the Ukraine, a charge flatly denied by Zelenskiy. In fact, at the time of the call, the Ukrainians has no idea that military aid had been suspended, a fact first reported by The New York Times.

The Trump Administration released a transcript of the Zelenskiy call, which offers no evidence that a quid pro quo was offered by Trump. Even the text messages released this morning fail to support the claim. Joe Biden’s name came up during the call in connection with potential interference by the Ukraine in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. That’s reasonable in light of the events reported to have taken place, and it is certainly within the scope of presidential powers, as were Trump’s efforts to discuss election interference with Australia, the U.K., and other countries.

If you don’t know it already, a successful impeachment in the House of Representatives will not remove Trump from office. It will constitute a referral of charges to the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, and a conviction requires a two-thirds majority. Ain’t gonna happen.

In the meantime, there really is no formal “impeachment” underway, despite what you think you’ve heard. This is a “proceeding” that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi really had no authority to initiate, and there is no set of rules or procedures guiding the spectacle. An impeachment investigation requires a House vote, but Democrats voted to table a resolution calling for such a vote because they really don’t want one, not yet anyway. Why? Because it would force them to go on record before they’re quite sure they want to, but more importantly it would demand due process for the accused. A House vote for an impeachment investigation would give House Republicans subpoena powers, something Democrats don’t want to take a chance on.

Again, the whole effort by the Democrats will ultimately be futile, and the trial proceedings in the Senate might be very ugly for them as well. It is likely to shed light on several matters that offer unflattering context for the impeachment effort and might well lead to criminal charges against prominent Democrats and their operatives:

These are all troubling questions that should be investigated. We may or may not get to the bottom of it before the impeachment vote in the House, if it ever occurs. Senate Republicans will undoubtedly be interested in pursuing many of these areas of inquiry, and Joe Biden will not come out of this unscathed. There is likely considerable evidence to support claims that he used political influence to gain his son Hunter favor in the Ukraine and China. 

This month, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his report on the origins and conduct of the Russia investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. including potential corruption of the FISA process. His report will reflect the findings of two U.S. attorneys conducting separate inquiries into various aspects of the matter. These reports are a potential disaster for Democrats. Perhaps the distraction of impeachment theatre seems desirable to them, but the longer they continue the fruitless effort to “get Trump”, which began well before he was elected, the more incompetent they look. They don’t seem to have noticed that the whole spectacle is strengthening Trump’s base of support.

Which brings me back to Trump’s belligerence, which I briefly decried above. And it’s true, I often wince, but then I often laugh out loud as well. His political opponents and the media are constantly aghast at his every unapologetic response to their attacks. I will readily admit that it’s deeply satisfying to witness him hurling the crap right back at them, right on the schnoz. In the case of the impeachment drama, his base of support and many others in the middle know the Dems richly deserve it.

 

Memes, Satire, and Deception

26 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by in Fake News

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Not long ago I wrote about how Snopes.com, the alleged “fact-checking” site, had become so politicized that its staff was rating posts on The Babylon Bee as false. Those posts were plainly written as satire. A related issue came to mind last weekend when I saw a meme on social media attributing the following statement to President Trump: “My crimes can’t be investigated while I’m president“. The meme used quote marks, but there was no link to a source.

It’s well known that Trump’s legal team contends that certain statements and actions he might take are protected by executive privilege and immunity. Given Trump’s frequent clumsy use of the language, I thought there was an outside chance that he DID say something like that! My uncertainty was ironic in the wake of my Snopes post! So I did a quick search and found an article in Vanity Fair headlined: Trump: My crimes can’t be investigated while I’m president, without quote marks. The opinion piece that followed was indeed a characterization of the Trump team’s legal strategy. The headline was obviously sarcasm and of course there was no attribution. Trump did not make any admission of criminal activity, contrary to the meme’s implication.

I knew the poster of the meme, whom I’ll call Dan, to be an individual who regards Trump with contempt, and certainly not the sort of guy who would bother to investigate the veracity of such a claim. Against my better judgement, I decided to tweak him a little. I asked if he could provide a source for the quote. He didn’t respond until late afternoon the next day, and not before one of his pals had attacked me for asking the question.

The crux of their defense was this: “It’s a meme! Don’t you know what a meme is?” There were other choice words from Dan’s pal… insults that is. The idea seems to be that memes can say anything and it’s okay if we say so. After all, they must think, people should know that such a misquote is fine because it illustrates the wrongheadedness of the Trump legal strategy… and Trump… via satire.

Do people know that it’s satire? No link. No source. Quote marks added. It was clearly intended to influence people, and I think it was intended to deceive as well. I’m not a Trump hater — more a critic of leftism having little choice other than Trump — but even I had to check on the quote! I’m pretty sure that lots of Trump haters and many non-haters would be duped. Not too many would bother to check, but at least a few did: I was surprised and delighted that Snopes rated the claim as false on Monday, and in a relatively straightforward way. Well, bully for Snopes!

Okay, the ridiculousness of it all! The idea that Trump would take ownership of alleged crimes, as in “my crimes”, an admission of guilt, is kind of funny, but mostly because it sounds like the kind of sloppy language he might have used. And of course people with a jaded view of Trump’s assertion of presidential powers might find the “quote” apropos. They should have their fun, but many of them know little about executive privilege, which is intended to protect the confidentiality necessary to carry out many presidential duties, or they give it short shrift, at least when a republican is in the White House. Less informed Trump detractors might be ready to accept the quote as fact without question.

What’s the difference between satire of the sort produced by The Babylon Bee and the fake quote? Again, posts from the Bee always link to its site, allowing immediate investigation for those who find the headline plausible. The story at the link always adds additional satire, usually so ridiculous that anyone should get the idea. But in case that’s not enough, the Bee clearly promotes itself as “Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire“. Yes, the Bee has an edge and it is often political. It is designed to get a laugh, provoke thought, poke fun, and influence people. Some of the humor might be too close to the truth to suit observers on the Left, but perhaps that’s why it annoys them so much. Nevertheless, it is satire and it says so.

Humor has long been used as a political tool, but does good faith require some form of demarcation between purported facts and…  the joke? The problem is that many such distinctions must be understood from context, or at least from experience with the source. Cartoons are readily interpreted as humorous commentary. A comedian’s audience is generally under no misapprehension about the “facts” presented during the set. Parody and satire might or might not be billed as such. Much like a comedy club, the audience is probably uninterested in fact-checks. But what about internet memes? They often lack the context provided by a source. It’s still a relatively new form of commentary and an extremely effective means of spreading messages… and misinformation. People have an irrational tendency to believe things they see in print. Quote marks are meaningful, and they should lend legitimacy to a retelling of someone’s words.

Was the “quote” so outrageous that I should have known it was merely a sarcastic meme? Maybe not when the subject is Trump! Anyway, my real objective was to make sure before taking a little dig at Dan, the poster. I quickly concluded the intent of the meme’s creator involved deceit, and I still think so. It’s all too common, which is too bad, but let the social media user beware!

 

 

 

Snopes Attacks Satire In Ominous Self-Satirization

12 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in Censorship, Free Speech

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Snopes.com began as an investigator of urban legends and rumors, exposing myths in an exercise that was useful and often fascinating. More recently, despite its founder’s weak argument to the contrary, Snopes has fully revealed its bias against certain political viewpoints, along with a tendency to avoid reporting some actual facts as facts when it suits itself. Lately this has reached a pathetic level, with the site drawing amused reaction to its confusion over the satiric nature of The Babylon Bee. The Bee is a truly funny site similar to The Onion, but it bills itself as “Christian Satire”. If you find that off-putting or think it means the humor must be cornpone, think again. Of course, there is no doubt that the Bee’s humor often pokes fun at the Left, which probably explains Snopes’ motives.

Snopes itself has not been above a bit of fibbing. Its “political fact-checker”, Kim Lacapria, is a former leftist blogger, known to have maligned the Tea Party as “Teahadists”, a funny mischaracterization of the unquestionably peaceful movement as violent. She’s not exactly a person you’d trust as an impartial arbiter of political “fact”. Linda Sue Grimes wrote an informative article with several prominent examples of bias by Snopes. There have also been reports of sordid personal and financial exploits  by one of Snopes’ founders, much of which stands up to scrutiny. 

In its latest misadventure in fact-weaving, Snopes’ has charged that the Bee published a story “intended to deceive” readers, and it claimed the Bee  had done so in the past. The story was entitled “Georgia Lawmaker Claims Chick-Fil-A Employee Told Her To Go Back To Her Country, Later Clarifies He Actually Said ‘My Pleasure“. It was inspired by an incident in which the same Georgia lawmaker apparently had too many items in the express checkout at a Publix grocery store. She claimed that an angry white man told her to “go back to where you came from”. However, the Publix clerk with whom she had the altercation, who happens to be Cuban, denies having said any such thing, though he did admit to calling her a bitch. The lawmaker’s allegation seems suspiciously coincidental, having come in the immediate wake of Donald Trump’s controversial tweet that the quartet of federal lawmakers known as “The Squad” should “go back to where they came from”.

Apparently, the humor in the Bee’s article was just a bit too subtle for Snopes, whose “woke” employees have particularly vivid imaginations. The Bee article was funny precisely because it ridiculed those who hear racial “dog whistles” everywhere. The idea that a Chinese employee working a drive-through at Chick-Fil-A would say such a thing is unlikely to say the least. Anyone who has ever visited a Chick-Fil-A knows it. Too many of those with whistles in their ears haven’t had the pleasure.

Has the Bee intended to deceive its readers in the past? Perhaps Snopes was referring to an article entitled “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News Before Publication“. Snopes went to the trouble of calling that story false and bringing it to Facebook’s attention. Facebook actually issued a warning to the Bee (for which FB later apologized). But here’s the thing, in Grimes’ words:

“Debunking a piece of satire renders the debunker as functionally illiterate, appearing too ignorant to understand that a piece of satire does not function to relay information as a news report would.”

It’s actually much worse than that. If Snopes wants to to assess the objective truth of claims, that’s one thing, but it has drifted into the assessment of literary and authorial intent. That’s ominous for the cause of free discourse, especially to the extent that social media sites rely on Snopes as a filter to deplatform certain voices or silence points of view. Snopes has no business attempting to draw distinctions between satire and “fake news” or any intent to deceive, because it’s bound to get it wrong and already has. They might as well fact-check stand-up comics whose routines might confuse a few dimwitted members of the public, and Snopes just might do so if the comic doesn’t support its preferred political narrative. Snopes’ role is not to protect the unsophisticated from satire, and apparently its fact-checkers feel no compulsion to debunk the satire produced by The Onion, for example. The Bee’s pointed satire often serves the purpose of exposing the Left for its congenital stupidity, but that is anything but an effort to deceive, as much as Snopes might wish it was so.

 

Open Borders or Racism: a False Dichotomy

27 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Immigration, racism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What are you, a racist? To avoid that charge, apparently you must support fully open borders with absolutely no restrictions on crossings. The basis of that bizarre claim is that most immigrants are not of the ethnic majority, or rather most illegal immigrants are not of the ethnic majority. Thus, if you favor border controls of any kind, you must hate ethnic minorities. You are a racist! This hasty generalization is commonly made by reactionary minions of the Left, and it is standard rhetoric of leftist propaganda.

As many have noted, the U.S. benefitted for many years from a relatively liberal immigration regime, but policy became increasingly restrictive over a period of six or seven decades starting in the 1870s, sometimes in ways that were racially motivated. A few reforms began to take place in the 1940s, though various quotas remained a fixture. More recently, the threat of terrorism prompted restrictions, and the large population of illegal immigrants in the country, including immigrant children, stimulated debate over deportation vs. a path to citizenship.

Disparate Impacts

A real outcome of border controls takes the form of a “disparate impact”, a phenomenon prominent in areas of the law such as employment, fair lending, and fair housing. For example, standards like degree requirements or minimum credit scores tend to disqualify minority or “protected class” applicants disproportionately. Those standards, however, are not targeted explicitly at any class of individuals. Likewise, minorities represent a disproportionate share of those disqualified under immigration quotas. And minorities represent a vastly disproportionate share of illegal entrants apprehended by ICE because, as a practical matter, most border controls are targeted at country of origin, but not at specific minorities. Almost all illegal U.S. immigrants are members of populations that are ethnic minorities within the U.S. The top 10 countries of birth for all U.S. immigrants also have predominantly Hispanic or Asian population. These countries accounted for roughly 57% of legal immigrants in 2017.

The courts have generally ruled that business standards having a disparate impact are defensible based on business necessity and the absence of effective alternatives having less disparate impact. So the issue here is whether border controls meet a compelling need having nothing to do with racial or ethnic preferences, and whether any adverse impact on protected classes can be minimized.

The simple fact is that most Americans opposing illegal immigration simply want those entrants to go through a liberalized legal process, which would of course reduce the disparate impact of tight border controls. So the worst that can be said about a preference for legal over illegal immigration is that it might have a disparate impact on prospective minority entrants, and that is uncertain under a liberalized regime of legal immigration. This preference is not racist, and it is not racist to demand that all entrants be vetted and identified, whether you believe it is economically sensible or that immigrants are more or less likely to engage in criminal or even terrorist activity.

Public Resources

Again, there are strong rationales for controlling immigration and enforcing the border that have nothing to do with racial preference. Borders are a critical aspect of national sovereignty, of course, including taxpayer sovereignty. There is no question that large numbers of immigrants strain scarce public resources in a variety of ways including public aid, education, law enforcement, housing, and other public services. In fact, the mere existence of aid programs provides incentives that encourage immigration, especially as activists push for broader accessibility of program benefits. The consequent strain on public resources escalates costs to taxpayers and compromises the quality of public programs for the qualified citizen-beneficiaries for whom they are intended. There is nothing racist about asserting that those strains should be minimized for the benefit of taxpayers and beneficiaries. Indeed, a recent poll found that a majority of Hispanics favor controls on immigration, including a border wall.

A further consequence is that citizens might perceive an unhealthy opportunism or exploitation by illegal immigrants availing themselves of what might seem like very generous public benefits. Rightly or wrongly, that perception tends to encourage forms of “otherism”. This is an example of how public policy can undermine social cohesion and the successful assimilation of immigrants.

The Labor Force

In general, immigration is a positive economic force. At a macro level, it supplements the growth of the labor force, traditionally a major driver of output gains. At the more fundamental micro level, it represents a movement of productive resources in response to incentives guiding them to higher-valued uses. The most productive workers tend to migrate away from low-wage economies toward high-wage economies. Again, however, low-productivity workers are attracted by the bundle of public benefits available, including our minimum wage laws. Those immigrants do not contribute to output gains at all if their productivity is less than the minimum wage. They will, however, attempt to compete for jobs at the minimum wage or even below that wage if their employers are willing to cheat.

Obviously, the legal minimum wage does not adjust to market conditions such as excess supplies of labor. The development of such a surplus would mean unemployment, including job losses among low-skilled legal residents. That is unfortunate not just for those losing jobs, but because these effects create more fertile ground for racism among both groups. This is another example of how public policy can create barriers to social cohesion.

So Who’s a Racist, Anyway?

Those casting aspersions of racism are often guilty of of losing historical perspective, and sometimes worse. A recent example is the refusal of democrats to deal with “the racist” Trump on the DACA bill he proposed in early 2018. That bill would have offered amnesty and a path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers, individuals who arrived in the U.S. as undocumented child immigrants. How easy it is for progressives to forget that President Obama dithered away four years during which he could have proposed legislation to end the prosecution of Dreamers.

A more cogent example of selective memory among progressives is the history of the Democrat Party as one of racism, Jim Crow, and eugenics. The contention that the Republican Party has a history of racism is categorically false. We constantly hear that Republicans are guilty of using “dog whistles” to appeal to racist sentiment, but Mark Steyn provides a marvelous quote of James Taranto in which he gets at the truth of these divisive claims: “… if you can hear the whistle, you’re the dog.” There is great truth in that statement.

No one should forget that immigrants attempting to enter the country illegally are exposed to real dangers, and it should be discouraged. Natural conditions are harsh along the southern U.S. border, and many of those wishing to cross must contract for the services of guides who are often dangerous and untrustworthy. The risks for families and children should not be trivialized by those who would encourage massive flows of illegal entrants as a tool of policy change.

Border security is important to Americans because of the risks inherent in an uncontrolled border. These risks span national security, drug policy, taxpayer sovereignty, and other economic concerns. While racists might hate most immigrants, opposition to illegal immigration is often paired with support for liberalized legal immigration. That fact does not square with accusations of racism. Perhaps most importantly, encouraging an uncontrolled flow of immigrants in defiance of existing law creates harsh risks for the immigrants themselves, and especially the children who become innocent human collateral in the process. That the same shortsighted individuals who encourage such flows make a blanket charge of racism against those who demand a more rational and even liberalized process is grotesque and an affront to decency.