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The first is by Dan Henninger and is based on pure logic.
Our politicians believe if they pass more laws they will solve problems. It is the character of a nation's population that is more likely to relate to solutions than placing another clean legislative shirt on a dirty body.
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The U.S. system is mired in sludge after decades of trying to solve problems like mass shootings.
By Daniel Henninger
Wonder Land: The U.S. system of government is mired in sludge after decades of 'doing something' to solve problems, only to make things worse. Images: AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly
A phenomenon of our times is that public events often get transformed—or reduced—into phrases, and the one that has followed the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, is “do something.” Here it means that because of the recurrence of mass shootings, something should be done to control the availability of guns in the United States.
A related phenomenon is the belief that “do something” will produce the desired result. But what if we have arrived at the point where something close to the opposite is true? Step back and it’s hard not to notice: The American political system has accreted so many solutions and sub-solutions to so many problems that what we have created is a system mired in sludge.
The political left is forever in the streets screaming the system “doesn’t work” for many people. Who could disagree? But they should take a closer look at what the “system” actually has become—whether the public schools, health care, criminal justice, mental health, climate or for that matter, the Pentagon.
It’s a morass of laws, follow-on laws, rules, administrative procedures, court decisions and revisions of revisions that have produced both unresponsive sludge and, increasingly, disasters. A sad political truth is that over time, do something often produces less of its intended good. The social cost of this nonperformance is significant: a spreading loss of faith in the governing system.
The big story in the news before Uvalde was the baby formula shortage, the result in large part of the risk-averseness of the Food and Drug Administration. People wondered why the FDA so overcompensated on risk. The explanation lies in a long-ago impulse to “do something.”
In the early 1960s a drug for morning sickness called thalidomide caused the birth of deformed babies, and laws were passed to tighten drug approvals. A mindset of hyper-precaution became embedded in the FDA’s culture. The agency quickly erected a drug-approval process of great complexity and cost, which often delayed the development of lifesaving treatments. The high approval cost—now estimated at $2.6 billion per drug—also means rarer diseases receive little research attention.
In 1969, under pressure to “do something” about air quality, Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act. Today, there is little serious disagreement that NEPA—a case study in rule accumulation producing policy sludge—is eroding its own goals.
Two weeks ago in this space, after the Buffalo mass shooting, we described how the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the 1970s, presumably for their own good, led to homelessness. The system proved incapable of producing the do-something goal of community-based care.
After George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, pressure built to do something about police accountability. Last week, President Biden issued an executive order with 19 accountability measures for federal police (his authority doesn’t extend to state and local levels). Over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, 51 people were shot with nine killed. One reason gun violence has spiked in Chicago and elsewhere is that the police—under pressure from new rules or lawsuits—have retired or simply stepped back. The result is that neither police nor criminals are accountable.
House Democrats are moving to a vote on the Protecting Our Kids Act, combining eight separate gun-control acts. As a soundbite, it seems simple, obvious and straightforward. In practice, our too-complex system degrades just about every public responsibility into nonfeasance. Why would gun control be different?
Democrats and the media are raging at Republicans for refusing to “do something” about guns. I watched Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor last week and was struck by the intensity of his animosity toward the “MAGA” political opposition. A top official like Sen. Schumer is supposed to be a source of stability, but he’s not even trying anymore.
This recurring descent into political rage, on the left and right, has the makings of a systemic crisis—if we aren’t there already. As public confidence ebbs, the appeal of demagoguery spreads past the fringe.
This column won’t end with an appeal for a placating bipartisanship. That’s gone. Years back, a Democratic movement called “reinventing government,” an effort to streamline the bureaucracies, formed around then-Vice President Al Gore. But the big-government-forever Democrats—today led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and the Congressional Progressive Caucus—defeated that self-reform movement.
This refusal to brook any reform of public-sector performance created charter schools. It caused businesses like Tesla to leave California for Texas. It created Donald Trump.
What an irony that is. While the opposition after 2016 went mad over something called “Trump,” the Trump government’s Office of Management and Budget, under Mick Mulvaney, methodically undertook a reduction and rationalization of many federal rules. My larger point here is that something like that—basically a flushing out of the system’s sludge before more of the fed-up public heads into the streets—is the only real answer.
On taking office, Joe Biden reversed many of the reforms by what he calls “the previous president.” So we’re back to “do something.” That guarantees just one thing: more frustration.
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In the next op ed, Kim Strassel discusses the Durham decision and the incestuous culture that prevents justice from prevailing even when facts suggest otherwise.
In the 2d op ed, Kim discusses Pelosi's contrived Jan. 6, hearings and there irrelevance to extracting the unbiased truth.
The 3rd posting is written by a Democrat expressing his disappointment with the Jan 6 hearings:
The 4th op ed points out, as long as this incestuous culture and the mass media's linkage with same exists, equal distribution of justice will always fail and thus, a double standard will continue to prevail.
The 5th article discusses a variety of events and focuses, to a certain degree, on what a screw up Obama was;
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John Durham vs. the Beltway Swamp
Michael Sussmann’s trial showcased the incestuous culture of elite Washington.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
The Michael Sussmann trial is over, but the stench lingers. Special counsel John Durham did more than expose Hillary Clinton’s dirty political tricks. He exposed the incestuous elite Washington world that enabled those tricks to succeed. America, meet again the Beltway swamp.
Mr. Sussman was acquitted Tuesday of lying to the FBI, but not before the Durham team revealed the Clinton campaign’s work in 2016 to use both the FBI and the media to smear Donald Trump. The campaign relied on outside techies for false accusations of Trump links to Russia’s Alfa Bank, which Mr. Sussmann fed to the FBI. Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele separately funneled their infamous dossier to the Bureau. Then the Clinton team shopped the dirt to the media, using the fact of FBI investigations as proof it deserved coverage.
Still, it’s a long way from unfounded smears to full-fledged FBI investigations. The entire Clinton operation depended on getting the FBI to bite. The Durham trial was a glimpse at the chummy web of brokers who used their access and influence to make that happen.
One trial revelation was that Rodney Joffe —the tech executive who used privileged access to nonproprietary data to create the Alfa claims—was a confidential human source for the FBI in 2016. Yet Mr. Joffe, according to testimony, didn’t take his accusations to his regular handler. He instead gave them to . . . Mr. Sussmann, a lawyer in private practice whose clients included Mrs. Clinton.
Why? Mr. Sussmann was tight with the FBI. So tight that according to trial evidence, the bureau in 2016 allowed him to edit the draft of one of its press releases. Mr. Sussmann was even on a first-name basis with then-FBI general counsel James Baker. He was able to text his “friend” (Mr. Baker’s description of their relationship) and score a meeting the next day. He assured “Jim” he didn’t need a badge to get in the building—he already had one. All this allowed Mr. Sussmann (who later sought to recruit Mr. Baker to his firm, Perkins Coie) to avoid the pesky agents and questions that would accompany any average Joe trying to sell the FBI on wild claims.
Mr. Joffe meanwhile called a separate special contact at the FBI (again, not his handler), an agent who had once nominated the techie for an award. Mr. Joffe relayed his Alfa data again and asked the agent to pass it along but not tell anyone he was the source. The prosecution during trial dryly asked this agent if he was familiar with “circular reporting”—where a source plants info with two different parts of the FBI to make it look corroborating. It’s a crafty tactic—one that most people wouldn’t have the access to pull off.
The Steele dossier likewise received special handling. Fusion GPS happened to choose for its dossier duties a guy who’d also worked as an FBI source. Mr. Steele initially went to regular FBI agents. But he followed up with his own top contact—former senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose wife worked for (where else?) Fusion. Mr. Ohr handed the dossier up to Deputy FBI Director Andy McCabe. Mr. Steele separately shopped his dossier to a top State Department appointee, Jonathan Winer —who also handed it up the chain.
Getting the dirt to the top made all the difference. Prosecutors in the trial introduced an internal message from FBI agent Joseph Pientka two days after the Sussmann-Baker meeting, reading: “People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server. . . . Did you guys open a case? . . . Its [sic] not an option—we must do it.” This despite testimony from rank-and-file agents who said they’d quickly dismissed the claims as ludicrous.
And the powerful guys at the top continued to work their influence. Former CIA director John Brennan tipped Harry Reid to the collusion claims, prompting the Senate minority leader to write a letter that went public with the accusations. Mr. Comey engineered a Trump briefing in January 2017 that served as catalyst for BuzzFeed to publish the dossier. Mr. Comey secretly memorialized his privileged conservations with the president, later leaking these to provoke the appointment of his colleague and mentor Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate President Trump. All this was aided by the Beltway media, which ably served as scribes for their claims, and those of their buddies at Fusion GPS, some of whom formerly worked for the Journal.
The trial environment was no less intimate. Judge Christopher Cooper worked with Mr. Sussmann at the Clinton Justice Department in the 1990s. Merrick Garland, today attorney general, officiated at the judge’s marriage to Amy Jeffress, an Obama Justice Department official and now a private lawyer representing former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. And on and on the special circles go, down to the judge’s refusal to grant prosecutors’ request to dismiss a juror who admitted her daughter is on the same crew team as Mr. Sussmann’s child.
None of this—the special access, the abuse of power—would be granted to an average American, and it explains how the Clinton team was able to spiral a dirty trick into a national hysteria. If Washington institutions want to reclaim the public trust, they’ll first need to remember that the country is rooted in the notion of one set of rules for all. Not a special set for D.C. operators.
And:
The Uncredible Jan. 6 Committee
Americans needed a serious accounting. Democrats assured they won’t get one.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Potomac Watch: Americans need a serious accounting of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. Democrats assured they won’t get one. Image: Jabin Botsford/Bloomberg News
This week’s Washington corollary to the tree-in-the-forest thought experiment: If the Jan. 6 committee holds professionally polished hearings, amid wall-to-wall prime-time coverage, will anybody pay attention? If the answer is no, the committee will largely have itself to blame.
The prospect of public apathy is already deeply vexing the establishment. “Democrats have the steep challenge of convincing a disillusioned American electorate to tune into” the hearings, Politico worries. The Washington Post frets that even weeks of this miniseries may not “change hearts or minds.” The vexed are already laying blame. It’s the fault of Republicans who will “downplay” the findings, Americans who are too focused on gasoline prices, and Fox News for deciding not to air Thursday’s hearing live (although Fox Business and every other station said they would).
What’s actually missing in this special sauce of prime TV hours, slick videos and positive press is the one ingredient truly vital for public interest: credibility. If huge swathes of America ignore the committee’s work, it will be because the committee itself—through its construction and through its actions—made it easy.
Can Americans trust the findings of a panel whose members began with a preconceived narrative and blackballed any dissenting voices? Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s unprecedented decision to veto Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s picks last July in favor of her own handpicked Republican members blew the committee’s credibility before it even started work. Americans will find it easy to reject “evidence” that is too fragile to bear the scrutiny of fellow House members.
And consider Mrs. Pelosi’s Democratic picks. California’s Adam Schiff is the House face of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax and secret Ukraine impeachment proceedings. Maryland’s Jamie Raskin knows a little something about objecting to the counting of electoral votes. On Jan. 6, 2017, he objected to Donald Trump’s Florida victory. Mrs. Pelosi had more than 200 Democratic members to choose from, yet her picks allow Americans to dismiss the committee instantly.
The committee might have redeemed itself even with this makeup had it conducted its work in a sober, professional manner. Instead, within months, it had become the worst type of Washington leak machine—dribbling documents, texts, emails and inside tidbits about who was up for a grilling next and what was coming out of depositions. At least one of the text messages it released was altered (by—who else?—Mr. Schiff) to exclude context and falsely malign former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
This practice reached a low in March, when the committee leaked personal text messages of Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas. The messages had no real bearing on the events of Jan. 6 but were perfectly timed to coincide with a left-wing campaign to smear Justice Thomas and pressure him to recuse himself from key cases. How much confidence should Americans be expected to have in a body that has abused its investigative powers for political gain?
Speaking of those powers, is it fair for the nation to be skeptical of a committee that has trampled any number of institutional norms and practices in the name of returning us to institutional norms and practices? Mrs. Pelosi’s veto of Republican members. The committee’s initial directive to telecom and social media companies to preserve the communications of private citizens—including members of Congress—but to keep the targets in the dark so they’d have no opportunity to litigate. The flurry of criminal referrals to the Justice Department with no debate over whether those accused might have legitimate claims of executive privilege. The committee’s more recent, jaw-dropping decision to subpoena sitting members of Congress.
Finally, how can Americans be asked to trust a committee whose work Democrats are openly broadcasting as a political operation? “Jan 6. Hearings Give Democrats a Chance to Recast Midterm Message,” explains the New York Times, noting that the party hopes to change the subject from the Biden White House’s mounting liabilities—which include roaring inflation, a porous border, soaring crime, and a baby formula shortage. Republicans last year darkly hinted that this was the real purpose of the committee, and leave it to Democrats to make that case for them.
It didn’t have to be this way. Each of these decisions was deliberate, and each was an obvious exercise in self-sabotage. Most Americans would like to know more about the events of that horrible January day, to have a serious national debate, and to ensure it never happens again. But this committee isn’t a credible messenger.
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Jan. 6 Hearing Disappoints This Democrat
The country needs an objective accounting of the Capitol riot, not a partisan one.
By Ted Van Dyk
nt me as a Democrat disappointed by the way my party has responded to Donald Trump—with narratives that often prove untrue. Two impeachments by House members failed because they were undertaken on a partisan basis.
The House Jan. 6 hearings offered an opportunity to examine Mr. Trump’s activities carefully. But it didn’t happen. Thursday’s opening statements by Chairman Bennie Thompson and Republican Rep. Liz Cheney were more like prosecutors’ closing arguments than introductions to a fact-finding inquiry. Ms. Cheney read aloud a statement by Mr. Trump that was supposed to implicate him in inciting his followers—but she left out that he told his followers: “Go home.”
The committee members included harsh Trump critics like Rep. Adam Schiff. Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected Republican members nominated by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and allowed only Mr. Trump’s outspoken Republican opponents—Ms. Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger—to serve on the committee. As a result, chances for a bipartisan outcome were lost and any minority report will be undertaken outside the committee. There will be no consensus on any findings, only further polarization.
The country is desperate for pragmatic problem solving and at least an attempt by leaders to collaborate across partisan and ideological lines. This applies not only to Jan. 6 but to the economy, national security, immigration, homelessness and crime. That isn’t what we are getting.
Republicans, too, are guilty of pursuing one-party approaches and reflexively opposing anything put forward by the Democratic administration or congressional leaders—including firearms-control legislation. Both parties seem to be directed by their fringe elements. The test of these approaches will come in November midterm elections.
The Jan. 6 hearings will have a long run. There remains time for testimony and exhibits that address unanswered questions: Why didn’t clear advance warnings of trouble result in enhanced security in and around the Capitol? Why was there such a long delay before reinforcements arrived? Did Mr. Trump’s encouragement of the demonstrators extend to planning and direction of their Capitol invasion?
Americans, including me, want a full accounting of everything surrounding the Jan. 6 chaos. It wasn’t a Fort Sumter-like insurrection, but it was an unprecedented and uncalled-for planned disruption of a vital constitutional process—the validation of electoral votes—and an offense against the rule of law. The hearings shouldn’t be a nonstop prosecution but a traditional, serious inquiry into everything and everyone involved in Jan. 6. The country needs the latter. So do both political parties.
Mr. Van Dyk was active in Democratic national policy and politics for 40 years. He is author of “Heroes, Hacks and Fools.”
Correction
An earlier version of this piece misidentified the chairman of the Jan. 6 committee.
AND:
Hillary’s Role in the Russia Smear
The Sussmann trial provides more evidence that she personally directed the effort.
By Douglas Schoen and Andrew Stein
The acquittal of former Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann—charged with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation while acting on behalf of her 2016 campaign—leaves major questions unanswered about Mrs. Clinton’s role in her campaign’s effort to tie Donald Trump to Russia. It also provides new evidence that she personally directed the effort.
In July 2016, John Brennan, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, briefed President Obama that Mrs. Clinton gave “approval” for a “proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up scandal and claiming interference by the Russian security service,” according to Mr. Brennan’s notes from the meeting, which were obtained by Fox News.
During Mr. Sussmann’s trial, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, testified that he and other top aides decided to feed the press a story in October 2016 about the now-disproven allegations of secret ties between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank. Importantly, Mr. Mook said that Mrs. Clinton was aware of, and approved of, this plan. “We discussed it with Hillary,” Mr. Mook testified. “She agreed with the decision.”
When the campaign leaked the unverified story, Clinton aide Jake Sullivan—now President Biden’s national security adviser, and perhaps the foreign-policy adviser to whom Mr. Brennan referred—issued a statement indicating that a probe could be imminent: “We can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia as part of their existing probe into Russia’s meddling in our elections.” Mrs. Clinton tweeted out Mr. Sullivan’s statement.
Another reason to think Mrs. Clinton directed the effort was its sheer cost. The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee paid $12.4 million, $5.6 million of which came from the campaign, to Perkins Coie, Mr. Sussmann’s law firm, to pay Fusion GPS for this opposition research on Trump.
One of us (Mr. Schoen) worked with Mrs. Clinton during her 2000 Senate race and worked closely with President Clinton during his 1996 re-election campaign. In 1996 both Clintons had detailed knowledge of virtually every aspect of the campaign and the Whitewater investigation. Mrs. Clinton is far more precise and organized than her husband, and she is meticulous about campaign spending. It isn’t plausible that her campaign would have spent so much money without her knowing every major aspect of the undertaking—including how this information would be shared with federal authorities.
Mr. Clinton is also obsessed with October surprises. In 1996 he led Bob Dole comfortably, yet six months before the election the campaign had internal conversations about what Dole’s October surprise would be and how the campaign could blunt it. It’s probable that Mrs. Clinton, a prohibitive favorite 20 years later, also worried about October surprises.
FBI director James Comey delivered an October surprise, the revelation that the bureau had reopened its investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s improper use of a private email account to conduct official State Department business. But in September 2016, when Mr. Sussmann went to the FBI, she had every reason to believe the bureau wouldn’t be hostile. Mr. Comey had issued a favorable decision for Mrs. Clinton on the email matter in July 2016, and the wife of then deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe had run for Virginia Senate with the Clintons’ support.
Taken together, the revelations from the Sussmann trial, the resources that went into the campaign’s attempt to tie Trump to Russia, the Clintons’ focus on October surprises, and their cordial relationship with the FBI make it abundantly likely that Mrs. Clinton not only knew about but led the entire smear campaign.
Mr. Schoen was a senior adviser to Bill Clinton’s 1996 campaign, a White House adviser (1994-2000) and an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 U.S. Senate campaign. Mr. Stein, a Democrat, served as New York City Council president, 1986-94.
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‘Degrade and Destroy
By Michael R Gordon
Reviewed by John Bolton’
(Review: Illusions and the War on ISISA history of the struggle to defeat Islamic State in Iraq casts a cold light on America’s strategic decisions in the region. )
"Our objective is clear: We will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy - Barack Obama , Sept 10,2014
In what may be the final volume of a tetralogy covering U.S. activity in and around Iraq over the past three decades, Michael Gordon’s “Degrade and Destroy” combines Washington decision-making with battlefield reporting in ways that few other writers can manage. This account of America’s war against the Islamic State is Mr. Gordon’s first without co-author Bernard Trainor, who died in 2018, but it equals its forerunners in quality. While daily press reporting strains to draw overbroad conclusions from insufficient data, Mr. Gordon, a national security correspondent for the Journal, maximizes history and minimizes judgments. He presents his analysis, of course, but it’s always moored in reality.
“Degrade and Destroy” is bracketed by two colossal presidential mistakes a decade apart: Barack Obama’s 2011 decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq and Joe Biden’s 2021 decision to do likewise in Afghanistan. They are proof, if proof were needed, of what Winston Churchill called “the confirmed unteachability of mankind.”
Degrade and Destroy: The Inside Story of the War Against the Islamic State, from Barack Obama to Donald Trump
The unteachability starts with Mr. Obama, who, as a U.S. senator in 2007, told Mr. Gordon that his personal engagement with Iran and Syria, coupled with America’s withdrawal from the region, would mean that “all these parties have an interest in figuring out: how do we adjust in a way that stabilizes the situation.” Mr. Gordon sees this view as “more of a projection of Washington’s hopes than a reflection of the hard realities in the region.” Mr. Obama’s words expressed his visceral opinion that America’s presence was the real problem—not the region’s long-standing animosities.
A love letter to the American mall, lessons unlearned in the war on ISIS, the tale of a historic thoroughbred and more.
Mr. Obama confidently announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2011, saying that “the tide of war is receding.” Unhappily, no one told ISIS, which launched its war shortly thereafter, or Iran, which had never given up its war against the U.S. Mr. Obama remained unteachable, asserting in 2014 that if Iran would “operate in a responsible fashion”—that is, if the regime would stop funding terrorists, stirring sectarian discontent and developing nuclear weapons—we might begin to “see an equilibrium developing between” Sunnis and Shiites. Also in 2014 he said “it’s time to turn the page” on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, adding arrogantly: “This is how wars end in the 21st century.” In 2016, he called on U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia “to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace” with Iran.
Mr. Obama’s deeply flawed views shaped policy toward the ISIS threat even as he tried to conceal his intentions. Thus in 2011, while advisers urged keeping at least a small U.S. force in Iraq, Mr. Obama insisted that extending the existing status of forces agreement, or SOFA, be approved by Iraq’s parliament—a political impossibility. He then used the inevitable failure to necessitate total withdrawal. Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thought the White House was just going through the motions. “It was pretty obvious to me that their [troop] number was zero,” Mr. Mullen said of the administration. Retaining U.S. forces in Iraq would have given Washington “an earlier heads-up” on ISIS’s rise, as Mr. Gordon puts it, perhaps averting the subsequent war against the caliphate or at least reducing its scope. When things went wrong after the withdrawal, Mr. Obama fell to “blaming the military for the chaos that had unfolded following . . . the decision to exit Iraq.”
When ISIS seized Mosul in 2014, not only did Mr. Obama “have a new crisis on his hands,” Mr. Gordon explains, “but his paradigm for ending the ‘forever wars’ had collapsed.” America was coming back to Iraq. Such was Mr. Obama’s plasticity, however, that returning U.S. troops were protected by a SOFA not approved by Iraq’s parliament—precisely what he had rejected in 2011. His administration hoped that “the media would not ask too many questions.”
Mr. Gordon makes clear how much of Mr. Obama’s 2011-14 blindness stemmed from his focus on Iran, specifically negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal. His anti-ISIS strategy was directly tied to Iraqi Shiite militia groups under Tehran’s control, resulting in close encounters with the likes of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, now deceased. Mr. Obama repeatedly accepted risks that benefitted Iran, or he probed for closer coordination or joint action with the regime and its surrogates, blissfully unaware that Iran was already fighting the next, post-ISIS war against the U.S. and its allies to establish dominance across the Middle East. Mr. Obama was determined that degrading ISIS would not disturb closer relations with Iran. Mr. Biden follows this illusion today, seeking to revive the Iran nuclear deal.
Mr. Obama focused on public opinion rather than strategy and leadership: the tail wagging the dog, as Mr. Gordon and Bernard Trainor previously described it. (Mr. Biden does the same now.) Mr. Gordon writes that the pattern was persistent: “The White House was not trying to wage a war as much as manage one.” Mr. Obama invariably justified his actions “in the narrowest possible terms” or, fearing a negative public reaction, tried to reassure Americans “that the military’s intervention would be virtually cost-free.” The terrorist attacks on Paris in November of 2015 chilled Mr. Obama because it shredded his foundational misperception that ISIS was a “jayvee” terrorist group, not as threatening as core al Qaeda. He worried that further attacks would reaffirm the idea that the threat of terrorism persisted and that it would imperil his domestic agenda.
Mr. Obama’s reaction was the antithesis of leadership and exhibited disdain for his fellow citizens. When the threat is sufficiently grave, and the leader candid and persuasive, Americans rise to the occasion. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy to say that they are tired of “forever wars” when their leaders never explain the threats and justify the necessary responses in the first place. Mr. Obama achieved the opposite of his stated intentions, not only failing to “end the endless wars” but working overtime to lull voters into the misapprehension that there were no longer real threats in the Middle East.
Donald Trump elaborated Mr. Obama’s mistake. Mr. Biden compounded the errors of both in Afghanistan, saying that “we’ve turned the page,” even though his appointees later explained that America would soon again be under threat of terrorist attacks launched from Afghan territory.
Whether Mr. Gordon will have a fifth volume to write may depend on whether Mr. Biden revives the 2015 Iran deal. Since 1991, U.S. military interventions in the Middle East have reversed Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait; overthrown Saddam Hussein, thereby terminating his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and attacks on neighbors; eliminated the ISIS territorial caliphate and degraded ISIS itself; protected Israel and our Arab allies; crushed the Taliban in Afghanistan and decimated al Qaeda, until we gratuitously allowed their return to power and Afghan sanctuaries; and had a decidedly mixed and incomplete record on countering Iran’s manifold threats.
We could have done better, but it’s good to remember U.S. accomplishments—as Mr. Gordon has done here and elsewhere—if for no other reason than to prepare ourselves to deal with a growing list of threats around the world. The lesson of the Obama years, in any case, appears clear: Constantly underestimating both our adversaries and the capacity of the American people to rise to their own defense is a losing proposition.
Mr. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, served as national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019.
Appeared in the June 11, 2022, print edition as 'Unteachable Moments'.
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Happy Father’s Day! Dennis shares his thoughts on fathers, raising children, and love in the parent-child relationship. He tackles the complex question of God's necessity vs. God's existence. Don't miss Dennis's lighthearted signoff saying "thank you" in the languages he’s learned. If your dad has had a positive impact on your life, don’t forget to say, "Thank you!" |
| Watch Now +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Finally, I am posting 3 additional articles pertaining to ESG, and 2 on Energy. The first relates to The ESG Movement and is something I picked up after reading the most recent book by Glenn Beck (I have his last chapter to finish and report on.) ESG is a vey dangerous trend which has pretty much swept in like a wild fire and now directs the socio-political thinking of some of the largest corporation's in the world. Three enormous investment entities control 25% of mostly domestic corporate votes and thus, are in a strategic position to influence their boards on green, racial, gender etc. matters and thus, in concert with governments, actually can eventually achieve the goal of the elites who direct these entities, ie impact and curtail your freedoms. +++ The ESG Movement Is A Ripe Target For Trustbusters By Sean Fieler Russia’s invasion of Ukraine calls into question the wisdom of the environmental, social and governance movement’s policy centerpiece: restricting oil and gas investment. In addition to causing hydrocarbon shortages and strengthening the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia, the coordinated effort to depress oil and gas production is potentially a violation of American antitrust law. This combination of bad policy and legal risk will likely prove too much for profit-minded ESG supporters, and the movement will lose much of its support. ESG standards are top-down and coercive for a simple reason: Suppressing oil and gas consumption is unpopular. Given this political constraint, the ESG movement has steered clear of hydrocarbon taxation and focused on undemocratic efforts to restrict the supply of oil and gas via elite institutions, specifically corporate boards. This strategy has delivered spectacular results. Look at the movement’s victory over Exxon Mobil last year. It’s no coincidence, however, that the ESG movement’s successes in the boardroom coincided with years of depressed energy prices. Exxon Mobil’s board succumbed to the ESG onslaught only after posting a $22 billion loss in 2020. Persistently low energy prices convinced capital markets that a painless transition away from oil and gas was possible. Exxon Mobil’s stock rallied on the news that the company’s largest shareholders had forced three directors onto the board to ensure the company’s eventual divestment from hydrocarbons. The invasion of Ukraine makes last year’s attack on Exxon Mobil look imprudent. Not only are hydrocarbon investments significantly more profitable than they were last summer, but the strategy of deliberately underinvesting in oil and gas production is obviously jeopardizing the world’s energy security. While the ESG-influenced shareholders of Exxon Mobil couldn’t have known that Russia would invade Ukraine, they should have known that eventual tightness in the oil and gas market was the likely, if not inevitable, outcome of long-term underinvestment. A decarbonization strategy that doesn’t threaten the world’s energy security would have done the opposite of what the ESG movement has done—reduce demand while continuing to invest in exploration and production outside OPEC and Russia. By boosting energy exports and taking share from OPEC and Russia, the U.S. could have achieved a real geopolitical advantage. The problem with this strategy is that it concedes the obvious truth that global fossil-fuel consumption is neither declining nor about to decline. Given this unpalatable alternative, the ESG movement opted for the top-down, undemocratic route instead. Unfortunately for the ESG movement, its coercive tactics are possibly a violation of American antitrust law. Advancing the ESG agenda requires that the owners of capital collude to restrict the supply of certain goods and services. Regardless of the colluding parties’ motivations, this is a textbook antitrust violation. Given this legal vulnerability, it was only a matter of time until action was taken. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has launched an antitrust investigation into potential market manipulation by members of the Climate Action 100+ network, a group of institutional investors with $68 trillion of assets under management. Even if the ESG movement is engaged in only a fraction of the activities that Climate Action 100+ takes credit for on its website, Mr. Brnovich won’t have to look hard to find evidence of coordination and coercion. The notion that ESG proponents are colluding solely to make the world a better place is neither completely true nor a particularly robust legal argument. No matter how noble the ESG movement’s intentions, its proponents are profiting from their efforts. First, to the extent that members of Climate Action 100+ continue to invest in oil and gas companies, they are benefiting from the higher profits that have resulted from their effort to restrict the supply of oil and gas. Second, by excluding non-ESG money managers from bidding on certain contracts, the members of Climate Action 100+ are reducing the competition they face in the marketplace. The impulse to do good underlies mainstream support for the ESG movement. That’s not going away. But the coercive and undemocratic tactics that characterize the push for decarbonization have likely peaked. As the ESG movement pivots, its proponents will need to recognize that prudent capital allocation decisions can’t be reduced to a reporting and box-checking exercise. Mr. Fieler is president and chief investment officer of Equinox Partners. +++++++++++++++++++++++ The remaining 2 articles relate to energy. The only person who does not understand his disruption of energy production in America is, in large part, the basis/genesis of the inflation we, and the world , are currently experiencing, is Biden. This may come as a shock to Putin. Biden must not comprehend the enormity of oil's usage in virtually every thin we eat, swallow and use and perhaps because he lives in a basement cocoon and has become a puppet of the green community. Oil appears as a commodity in just about everything used by humans and animals in an advanced society. By curtailing energy production before an adequate transition to renewable energy was in place, even for Biden, was a truly dumb decision. But then, perhaps it was purposeful because unbridled inflation is likely to destroy, if not severely impact, the middle class. After all the goal of elites (think Kerry, Gore, Sanders, Pocahontas etc.), radical Democrats, progressives has always been to grow government so it intrudes into and controls every facet of our lives and threatens our freedoms. Elites know better, they fear those who are free because they are control freaks if not fascists. Finally, Biden's verbal attacks on "evil" energy company management is a last resort to shift blame and the curtailment of their ability to obtain capital in order to do what they do best- drill and find oil- becomes severely strained. First strangle the energy management then blame them for what you imposed on them. This is right out of "Casablanca." I purposely began with Henninger's op ed and ended with the article by Stoltenberg and Matthews. Why? Because they fit like a glove. Pass laws believing they work when empirically they fail, because your ultimate goal is to cripple so you can control. +++ The Costly Contradictions of Biden’s Crusade for Green Energy The assault on fossil fuels distorts or undermines many other domestic and international priorities. By Thomas J. Duesterberg President Biden’s energy program is crystal clear: an all-of-government assault on the domestic fossil-fuel industry to further a green agenda. But its economic and political fallout is a muddled contrast. The Biden plan distorts or undermines so many other domestic and international priorities that it is in dire need of a midcourse correction. The administration’s efforts, led by climate czar John Kerry and propelled by the progressive wing of Mr. Biden’s coalition, have included curtailing new leases for drilling, preventing new pipeline development, and expanding the areas off-limits for production. The Securities and Exchange Commission has discouraged new financing of fossil-fuel projects. New automobile mileage standards and increased mandates for ethanol blending in gasoline are part of the program. Pressure to phase out coal-fired electricity production and thwart new mining projects also contribute to the higher prices deemed the best tool to force the transition to a green-energy infrastructure. To avoid the political brunt of historically high consumer energy prices, the administration apparently is considering allowing more exports of oil by Iran, as it is for Venezuela. It is also tolerating the somewhat inconsistent application of oil and gas embargoes on Russian supplies and increased purchases by China and India. Despite the urgent global need to displace supplies of Russian oil and gas, encouraging domestic production of these fuels isn’t part of the administration’s response to Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. And pressure on domestic production undermines other administration initiatives, such as rebuilding the manufacturing sector, creating jobs, strengthening supply-chain resilience, and weakening dictatorial adversaries such as Iran and Venezuela. On the renewables side of the ledger, the Biden team is trying to speed up the adoption of green-energy resources and has proposed massive tax incentives and subsidies to that end. On June 6 the administration announced a workaround for a dumping investigation on imported solar panels, giving a two-year reprieve to imports from Southeast Asian suppliers. Many of these are partly owned and supplied by Chinese firms, including with the basic component of polysilicon from Xinjiang. The U.S. recently passed a law banning direct imports of polysilicon and other materials from the province due to the use of forced labor and other human-rights abuses. Coupled with the possible easing of Trump-era tariffs on Chinese products to combat inflation, such actions directly benefit China, a country that hasn’t condemned Mr. Putin’s war. The Middle Kingdom leads the world in making solar panels—and wind turbines. As First Solar, the only U.S. firm still competitive on a global scale in photovoltaic solar panels, commented, the reprieve on imports from Southeast Asia “directly undermines [U.S.] solar manufacturing by giving unfettered access to China’s state-subsidized solar companies for the next two years.” The administration’s crackdown on mining projects also disadvantages the U.S. electric-vehicle industry. China, which controls much of the mineral production needed for lithium-ion batteries, is ramping up domestic production of these minerals while buying lithium and cobalt mines in Africa and South America. As far as Mr. Biden’s aim to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing, his energy policy undermines hundreds of thousands of good jobs in the fossil-fuel industry and does little to foster a renewable-energy industry at home. The administration’s program may help promote new jobs installing solar heating panels and in large-scale electric generation plants, but the underlying hardware is largely sourced outside the U.S. with raw materials mined and refined from foreign sources. Last month there were 54,700 jobs for solar installers in the U.S., with average wages of $23 an hour. At the same time, the oil- and gas-extraction industry employed 137,400 workers, who were paid an average of $45 an hour. Many U.S. foreign-policy goals are compromised by the Biden energy policy. Domestic producers can help European and other allies limit dependence on Russian energy, while at the same time preserving U.S. energy independence. And encouraging domestic production of oil and gas would spare Washington from compromising with hostile leaders in Venezuela and Iran. Forgoing domestic production in favor of Saudi Arabia and other dictatorships also exacerbates the carbon-emission problem, as these producers are largely indifferent to production methods limiting methane and CO2 leaks. American producers have made cleaner production a priority. Devoting more land to ethanol production for blending with gasoline is also misguided amid shortages of grain for basic food needs. A pragmatic understanding of the overall costs and benefits of the transition to a green economy at a time of war and economic challenges would lead to a more coherent policy. It is time for a revised energy plan. Mr. Duesterberg is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He served as an assistant secretary of commerce, 1989-93. AND: Why Energy Companies Won’t Produce They expect the war on fossil fuels to resume when the current crisis ends. By Wayne Stoltenberg and Merrill Matthews President Biden has urged oil and natural-gas companies to ramp up production, and you’d think, given the current high prices, that it would be in their interest to do so. But the industry has been slow to respond, with some justification. Companies expect that as soon as the current turmoil subsides, the Biden administration will shift back to hostile rhetoric, anti-energy legislative proposals, and oppositional regulatory policies. Chesa Boudin's Recall / Gasoline Nears $5 a Gallon Oil and gas prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange are at five-year highs. But many publicly traded producers are pursuing a strategy that looks like “orderly liquidation”—only maintaining or modestly increasing production volumes. Meanwhile, they are returning significant cash to shareholders in dividends and share repurchases. Devon Energy recently issued guidance for 2022 that refers to capital spending in the range of $1.9 billion to $2.2 billion on new-well drilling and completing activity, and a production target of 570,000 to 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day. That’s a modest increase in capital spending, from $1.85 billion in 2021, and a modest decrease in production, from 611,000 in the fourth quarter of 2021. Devon also anticipates increased cash returns to shareholders for 2022. Like many in the industry, Devon obviously believes it’s better to return capital to its shareholders than to reinvest in the business. The reason is the left’s incessant demonizing of the fossil-fuel industry, leading to near pariah status, which has succeeded in driving capital away from the industry. Small and midsize producers rely more on outside capital than larger companies such as Exxon to increase their production. Last September, 20 House Democrats introduced the Fossil Free Finance Act, which would require the Federal Reserve Bank to take steps to stop banks from investing in fossil-fuel production. The bill’s goal was “no financing of new or expanded fossil fuel projects after 2022,” the Naderite group Public Citizen noted approvingly. Then there’s the harping about excessive profits, which led Sen. Elizabeth Warren to propose a new tax. “The oil companies need to understand that the benefits of price gouging will be sharply undercut by a tax that’s not across the board, but instead is a tax on how their profits increase during this short-term crisis,” she declaimed. There was a time when most people understood that if you want less of something, tax it, and if you want more, subsidize it. Even though Democrats’ more radical legislation is unlikely to pass, the message to participants in the highly regulated financial markets is clear: We want to see less, not more, capital flowing to domestic oil and gas production. Unsurprisingly, many larger institutional investors have heard the message and are touting their support for clean energy and opposition to fossil-fuel production. Oil and gas producers are subject to many of the same supply-chain roadblocks and price increases that hinder other industries. If they can’t find willing long-term capital providers, it is difficult for them to ramp up production. And they can’t find that funding primarily because they’ve been the target of a multiyear mission to defund and destroy the industry. If investors and producers are acting as though they don’t hear the current administration’s demands for more drilling now, it’s in large part because they heard their condemnations for drilling in the past. Mr. Stoltenberg, a former executive vice president and chief financial officer of Vine Energy Inc., is chairman of the Dallas-based Institute for Policy Innovation. Mr. Matthews is a resident scholar with IPI. +++++++++++++++++++++++ |
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