Scenes from the NSC

Civil Discourse

A social media message from an old college friend:

Seems reasonable

Back in the 1980s, the individual who posted this suggestion was a nice young woman from a small town about 40 miles from my hometown. As I remember her, she was a little awkward socially, but smart and attractive. She was on the periphery of my social circle and I didn't chat her up a lot, but I was always happy to see her around. Thirty-five years on, she'd prefer I were obliterated, but she is polite about it.

This sort of toxicity doesn't make me angry. It makes me sad.

Full display

Readers of this feature will remember that I was, during the 2016 election, in the NeverTrump camp. I hated being there, because I did not want Hillary Clinton to be president, either, but I had serious misgivings about Trump's demeanor and assumed he was going to do irreparable damage to the conservative cause.

Once he was elected, I took a "wait-and-see" stance. I also stopped being a NeverTrumper, because what was the point? In the 2+ years of his presidency, he's really helped to clarify a few things, to wit:

• His opponents on the Left are unhinged
• His opponents on the Right range from unhinged to cynical, sometimes both (a good trick, by the way, but watch Bill Kristol some time if you doubt this assertion)
• Nothing that the mainstream media says about Trump can be taken at face value

A liberal college-era friend of mine made an astute comment about Trump. My friend, who has struggled with mental health issues, objects to the "Trump is mentally ill" tropes that seem to be back in the air, now that Mueller looks to be a disappointment. He said this:

Apparently, [George] Conway thinks diagnosing Trump will some how confirm or nail down some "secret" about him. Trump is already on full display. We don't need psychiatry.

And that's spot-on. Trump has been on full display his entire adult life. What you see is what you get. So, having viewed the display of Trump, and the circus that surrounds him, what do you make of the display? 

Elder

One can be an elder and still be other things. As we learn more about Nathan Phillips, the man who presented himself as a victim of evil Cincinnati-area teenagers, we discover a few things that might be worth consideration.

First, he's not a "recon ranger," whatever that was supposed to mean:

Discharged, but not never promoted

He was actually a guy who repaired refrigerators, and he never left the United States while he was a Marine:

Cold hard truth

Nothing wrong with that, but the records show he not a guy who ever saw combat, even though he hinted he served in Vietnam. And yes, he did hint that:

Phillips: When I was there and I was standing there and I seen that group of people in front of me and I seen the angry faces and all of that, I realized I had put myself in a really dangerous situation. Here’s a group of people who were angry at somebody else and I put myself in front of that, and all of a sudden, I’m the one whose all that anger and all that wanting to have the freedom to just rip me apart, that was scary. And I’m a Vietnam veteran and I know that mentality of “There’s enough of us. We can do this.” (Emphasis added.)

As has been well established, Phillips wasn't surrounded; in fact, he instigated the incident. And he wasn't done:

While chanting and playing ceremonial drums, a group of Native American rights activists reportedly led by Nathan Phillips attempted Jan. 19 to enter Washington, D.C.’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception during a Saturday evening Mass.

The group of 20 demonstrators was stopped by shrine security as it tried to enter the church during its 5:15 pm Vigil Mass, according to a shrine security guard on duty during the Mass.

“It was really upsetting,” the guard told CNA.

The kids from Covington Catholic, including the kid with the apparently radioactive smirk, did not enter the day intending to be the target of invective. It's quite likely these kids are sinners. We all are. But it simply won't do to say these kids were victimizing a tribal elder. They weren't.

I don't know

Should transgender people be able to serve in the military? I don't know. I've not worn the uniform, so I can only speculate how the interactions would play out. And uninformed speculation isn't worth much.

The proper thought experiment

Writing for WaPo, Eugene Volokh comes up with the right hypothetical regarding this week's scandal to end all scandals:

Say that, in Summer 2016, a top Hillary Clinton staffer gets a message: “A Miss Universe contestant — Miss Slovakia — says that Donald Trump had sexually harassed her. Would you like to get her story?” The staffer says, “I’d love to,” and indeed gets the information, which he then uses in the campaign.

Did the staffer and the Miss Universe contestant just commit a crime? Yes, under the analysis set forth in the past couple of days by some analysts, such as my University of California colleague and leading election law scholar Rick Hasen (UC Irvine School of Law) and by Common Cause; Hasen was cited by the Wall Street Journal and CNN; similar arguments were quoted by Dahlia Lithwick (Slate).

If this theory is true, why have a First Amendment? Volokh makes the salient point:

If a Slovakian college student who is studying in the United States called the Clinton campaign with such information, that would be a crime. If the Clinton campaign heard that Mar-a-Lago was employing illegal immigrants in Florida and staffers went down to interview the workers, that would be a crime.

And it would make opposition research on much possible foreign misconduct virtually impossible. Say that Clinton’s campaign heard rumors that the construction of a Trump resort in Turkey might have involved some shenanigans. It’s likely impossible to effectively follow up on that without soliciting some valuable information from foreign nationals, such as foreign government officials who were (hypothetically and allegedly) bribed, or rivals who may have a motive to provide information (recognizing, of course, that any such information may be untrustworthy unless it’s otherwise corroborated). Or say that Bernie Sanders’s campaign heard rumors of some misconduct by Clinton on her trips abroad — it wouldn’t be allowed to ask any foreigners about that.

Volokh has the answer:

 First, noncitizens, and likely even non-permanent-residents, in the United States have broad First Amendment rights. See Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135 (1945) (“freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country”); Underwager v. Channel 9 Australia, 69 F.3d 361 (9th Cir. 1995) (“We conclude that the speech protections of the First Amendment at a minimum apply to all persons legally within our borders,” including ones who are not permanent residents).

Second, Americans have the right to receive information even from speakers who are entirely abroad. See Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965). Can Americans — whether political candidates or anyone else — really be barred from asking questions of foreigners, just because the answers might be especially important to voters?

The Supreme Court did affirm (without opinion) a federal court decision in Bluman v. FEC, 800 F. Supp. 2d 281 (D.D.C. 2011), that upheld a ban on contributions and independent expenditures by non-citizen non-permanent-residents, on the theory that the government can use such a ban to limit foreign influence on American elections. But the panel decision expressly stressed that it was limited to the restriction on spending money. And it seems to me that restrictions on providing information to the campaigns — or on campaigns seeking such information — can’t be constitutional. Can it really be that the Clinton campaign could be legally required to just ignore credible allegations of misconduct by Trump, just because those allegations were levied by foreigners?

More to the point; if Fredo Trump cannot talk to Russian lawyers, then how could anyone at all have talked to anyone about the infamous Steele dossier, which also included (purportedly) foreign sources? It's nonsense.

Much, much more at the link, including the dissembling response from Hasen as he defends his nonsensical interpretation of the law.

The toy department

A question that answers itself:

“How many sportswriters have you seen on Twitter defending Donald Trump?” asked the baseball writer Rob Neyer. “I haven’t seen one. I’m sure there must have been a few writers out there who did vote for him, but there’s a lot of pressure not to be public about it.”

Just like real life, actually. I recommend the linked article from Bryan Curtis because it confirms something you've most likely sensed for a long time. It also explains why the portsiders who are now firmly in control of the sports media intend to keep things just as they are.

Submitted without further comment

Speaks for itself.

Hmmm

I missed this when it first came out, but it's worth mentioning. It's Kevin Drum, writing for Mother Jones, providing some revisionist history about Flint:

These people desperately need to be told the truth:

• What happened in Flint was a horrible, inexcusable tragedy.

• Residents have every right to be furious with government at all levels.

• But the health effects are, in fact, pretty minimal. With a few rare exceptions, the level of lead contamination caused by Flint's water won't cause any noticeable cognitive problems in children. It will not lower IQs or increase crime rates 20 years from now. It will not cause ADHD. It will not affect anyone's ability to play sports. It will not cause anyone's hair to fall out. It will not cause cancer. And "lead leaching" vegetables don't work.

For two years, about 5 percent of the children in Flint recorded blood lead levels greater than 5 m/d. This is a very moderate level for a short period of time. In every single year before 2010, Flint was above this number; usually far, far above.

For a little context about lead exposure, consider this:

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, in the mid-1970s 88 percent of children nationwide had blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dl). In the old days the dangerous level was thought to be around 30 ug/dl, but of course we’ve moved that down to about 5, and you hear a lot of people breathlessly say that there is no safe level. 

When I was a child, lead levels were much, much higher, primarily because most of the cars on the road were burning leaded gasoline. Steve Hayward shares the relevant chart:

We got the lead out

The meaning of this chart -- in the late 1970s, nearly 90 percent of children had lead levels over 10 micrograms per deciliter. This was all over the country. If you look at the numbers from Flint, about 5 percent of children there had similar levels for a short time.

Does this mean we shouldn't solve the issue in Flint? Of course not. However, as we consider the path forward, there might be other issues to address as well:

The Flint water crisis has triggered yet another lawsuit, this one filed by the city's former administrator, who claims she was wrongfully fired for blowing the whistle on the mayor of Flint for allegedly trying to steer money from a charity for local families into a campaign fund.

Former City Administrator Natasha Henderson, 39, who now lives in Muskegon, claims in a lawsuit filed today in U.S. District Court that she was terminated on Feb. 12 for seeking an investigation into allegations of misconduct by Flint Mayor Karen Weaver.

Specifically, the suit alleges that Weaver directed a city employee and volunteer to steer donors away from a charity called Safe Water/Safe Homes, and instead give money to the so-called "Karenabout Flint" fund, which was a political action committee or campaign fund created at Weaver's direction.

As the man said, never let a crisis go to waste.

Including me

The title of the article: "What No One Seems to Know About Ted Cruz's Past." I sure didn't know:

At the [Federal Trade Commission], Cruz’s agenda could have been written by Milton Friedman. 

Cruz promoted economic liberty and fought government efforts to rig the marketplace in favor of special interests. Most notably, Cruz launched an initiative to study the government’s role in conspiring with established businesses to suppress e-commerce. This initiative ultimately led the U.S. Supreme Court to open up an entire industry to small e-tailers. Based on his early support of disruptive online companies, Cruz has some grounds to call himself the “Uber of American politics.”

Moreover, and perhaps surprising to some, Cruz sought and secured a broad, bipartisan consensus for his agenda. Almost all of Cruz’s initiatives received unanimous support among both Republicans and Democrats.

Ted Cruz a consensus-builder? He was, at the FTC.

And consider this anecdote:

As an independent agency, the FTC has five commissioners, and during Cruz’s tenure, two of them had served in President Clinton’s administration. All five commissioners voted to support almost all of Cruz’s proposals.

Cruz achieved this consensus by listening to policy experts and political opponents. He listened to the FTC’s economic experts and marshaled empirical economic analysis to support his policy objectives. He solicited input from prominent Democrats, including the late Senator Howard Metzenbaum, who spoke at the e-commerce conference. In addition, Cruz worked to develop personal relationships across the aisle. He regularly met with Democratic commissioners and incorporated their ideas into his policy proposals.

Getting along with Howard Metzenbaum was a good trick, by the way.

VDH with a full head of steam

More Victor Davis Hanson:

For half the week, I live at ground zero of Trump’s so-called poor white support, such as it is in blue California, and half the week I am with his critics on the Stanford campus. Aside from logic and to be crude, class is the chief divide that reveals attitudes about Mr. Trump. “Comprehensive immigration reform” for elites is a catchword that your children are not going to schools with Mexican illegal immigrants, who are not all dreamers but often include at least a few quite dangerous gang members. I know open-borders advocate Mark Zuckerberg’s kids will not enjoy a diverse Redwood City immigrant experience. (Why exactly has he stealthily bought up his surrounding neighborhood and staffed it with private security teams to adjudicate whom he sees while entering and leaving his compound?)

The children of Republican elites do not sit in classes where a quarter of the students do not speak English. When that specter of diversity looms, parents yank their kids and put them in the prep schools of Silicon Valley that are rapidly reaching New England numbers (or maybe better southern academies that followed integration). Their children are not on buses where an altercation between squabbling eight year olds leads to a tattooed parent arriving at your home to challenge you to a fight over “disrespecting” his family name. The establishment Republicans have rarely jogged around their neighborhoods only to be attacked by pit bulls, whose owners have little desire to speak English, much less to cage, vaccinate, or license their dogs. They have never been hit by illegal-alien drivers in Palo Alto. In other words, they do not wish to live anywhere near those who, as a result of an act of love, are desperately poor, here under illegal auspices, and assume California works and should work on the premises of Oaxaca.

But in rural Fresno County it is not uncommon to have been sideswiped and rear-ended by those who fled the scene, leaving their wrecked cars without insurance and registration. I doubt that CNN morning anchors have woken up to an abandoned Crown Victoria in their yard that swerved and went airborne in the night—its driver (who spoke neither Spanish nor English but a dialect of Mixteca Baja) found in the shrubs still sleeping it off.

There's a lot more at the link. And you should read it.

Standing room only on the fainting couches

Let's stipulate that no one really wants to think about Donald Trump's, ahem, private parts, other than his wife. Let's also stipulate that it would have been better for everyone concerned if The Donald would have let the topic pass without further comment.

Now that we've said that, can we please, please stop with the fainting couch responses that we've reached some sort of cultural nadir because a presidential candidate really ought to have a two-drink minimum? How long have we been making these sorts of jokes? Well, Bill Clinton was the subject of a million of them, but you can go back further than that. Here is an image from an episode of Saturday Night Live that aired on December 2, 1978:

It's short, it's sweet, and everybody wants to see it

That's Dan Aykroyd playing Richard Nixon, proposing a comeback campaign for president and showing his aide (Walter Matthau) a prototype bumpersticker. I remember watching that episode well, as I was a teenager and didn't have anyplace in particular to go that evening. But it goes back even further than that. Jimmy Carter famously discussed his own libidinal urges with Playboy magazine in the run up to the 1976 election, which he further discussed in a debate with President Gerald Ford. And Lyndon Johnson. . . well, let's just say he had a healthy regard for his own equipment. We could go further back than that (hello, Grover Cleveland!), but you get the point.

Let's just say this -- if you are a fan of Bill Maher, or Jon Stewart, or anyone else who talks about politics while working blue, and you are saying that what Trump said is scandalous, just stop it, because you have no credibility.

The west

I don't trust most of what I read about the standoff taking place in Oregon, but I did find this map useful:

Control

The role of the federal government differs substantially in the western part of the country, because much of the land itself is under federal control. If anything, the amount of land under federal control has increased since 2004. And how the feds manage the land can have huge impacts on those who own land in those states. It's not coincidental that most of the major wildfires we have in the United States take place in areas where the feds control much of the land.

You can read more about the case here. I am skeptical about mandatory minimum sentences, which are at issue in this case. What I would suggest is this: most of the people who are either sneering at the principals involved, or who are shouting "terrorism" about the actions of the always annoying Bundy family, need to think a bit more about the larger context. We are always admonished to be more nuanced in our thinking. Wouldn't hurt in this case, either.

Quote of the day

“We just want some answers,” said Draper Larkins. “The federal investigation might get answers. But we want the correct answers.”

I'm not sure who Draper Larkins is. The Star Tribune article, written by Erin Golden, really doesn't tell us. The topic at hand is the shooting of Jamar Clark in North Minneapolis over the weekend. A member of the police shot Clark. Clark was, depending on whose version of events you believe, either a bad dude who was interfering with first responders who were attending to his girlfriend, or a guy who was executed in cold blood. At last report, Clark was on life support, but some reports indicate the family is taking him off life support. We don't really know.

A lot hangs on the notion of what the "correct answers" are. Are established facts the correct answers? Or is there an overarching narrative at play here? Who knows? Increasingly, I feel lost in the funhouse on these questions. I sent an email to Ms. Golden asking about the identity of Larkins. I'll let you know what I find out.