Keeping Others Awake at Night

Politico reports the Trump administration is cracking down on leakers in the White House, the intelligence agencies and elsewhere in government. Bureaucrats are experiencing paranoia about it. Good.

Deep State members should worry, they've been damned overt in their opposition to their new boss. I don't know what their governmental experiences have been, but in the private sector leaking, if discovered, can get you fired and blackballed; it can basically ruin a good career.

Bureaucrats beware, the new boss is from the private sector and embodies its values. Prior to joining government, his most famous quote was "You're fired!" These are words you don't want to hear, prefaced by your name. Hat tip to Secretary Mattis for the title.

Spengler: A Most Inspiring Speech

As regular COTTonLINE readers know, we often enjoy the commentary of David P. Goldman, whose nom de plume is Spengler. See his opinion of the President's speech in Poland.

President Trump's speech yesterday in Warsaw was better than inspiring. It was calculating and subtle, and sent strong messages to both our friends and adversaries.

It was a brilliantly crafted speech, the slickest as well as the most inspiring foreign policy address of any American president since Ronald Reagan.

High praise, indeed. Even though the foreign policy bar has been set fairly low during the last four presidencies.

Clinton was a good speaker but cared and spoke little about foreign affairs, neither Bush was memorable, and Obama was stylistically adequate but said hateful, anti-American things.

Saturday Snarkfest

Most of Steven Hayward's collection of cartoons, captioned photos, and snarky sayings this week for Power Line deal with the CNN meltdown. When those dudes shoot themselves in both feet, their aim is perfect. Some favorites described:

Photo of Donald Trump holding up a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune, showing this headline:

YOGI BEAR DEFEATS CNN

Poster with the slogan:

Is that true?
Or did you hear it on
CNN

Photo of a flaming dumpster; dumpster is labeled "CNN"

Poster with this slogan:

CNN

THE MOST DISTRUSTED NAME IN NEWS

Cartoon of Trump flying on the back of a Twitter bluebird, while below a guy labeled "Media" holds a microphone and has bird droppings splattering his head.

Cartoon of Trump as NFL running back carrying ball, tackled by three guys in referee shirts labeled "lower courts." The caption below says:

After further review by the Supreme Court, the ruling on the field is overturned. First down, Trump travel ban.

Cartoon: at the back door of a McDonald's restaurant, a uniformed employee is thrust out the door by a robot. The fired employee holds a sign saying "$15 Minimum Wage Now" while a newspaper on a dumpster headlines "McDonald's Stocks Soar."

Nice Headline

Scott Johnson, another of the Power Line regulars, posts a photo of the front page of Friday's New York Post. Alongside a sneering photo of New York City mayor de Blasio, they print this headline:

The day after an
NYPD cop was
executed, Mayor
de Blasio jets
off to Germany
to rally lefties
against the G-20

AND DON'T COME BACK! (their caps)

Snarky tabloid journalism can be fun when it's on your side.

Quote of the Day

Paul Mirengoff, one of the Power Line regulars, reacts to a Washington Post story that claims 35% of DC residents have participated in an anti-Trump rally or protest.  He notes much greater numbers of those so reporting were white and made over $100K per year, whereas the district is more black and Hispanic than white. However, compared to the nation:

Washington’s population is disproportionately liberal, disproportionately affluent, disproportionately activist, and disproportionately mid-level bureaucrat.

To this characterization, COTTonLINE would add: disproportionately swamp-like.

Not Precisely Celibacy

The Daily Beast reports further info on the gay orgy in the apartment of Monsignor Luigi Capozzi, secretary to Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, who heads the Vatican Council for Legislative Texts. Nosy neighbors complained to the Swiss Guard about the noisy flocks of young men.

The article concludes by mentioning another papal aide and financial expert, Cardinal George Pell of Australia, who recently went home to face charges of sexual abuse alleged to have happened while he was a priest there years ago.

All this, and the many other examples of which we are sadly aware, suggest the "celibate priests" thing has had the effect of preselecting candidates for the priesthood who already knew they'd never marry a woman. The priesthood attracted pedophiles and gay men who had no interest in an adult heterosexual relationship and understood the priesthood gave them perfect cover by proscribing behavior they a priori found repellant.

Furthermore, the church has been aware of the problem for many decades. A former priest, long married to a former nun when I worked with him in the mid-1970s, reported a 'drill sergeant' priest at his seminary would angrily exhort the novices to "be manly."  He inferred both the existence of the problem, and an institutional awareness thereof, some 5 decades ago that I know of.

Canada Envy

Writing at The Walrus, Stephen Marche marvels about the current interest in Canada, particularly among U.S. liberals. He attributes it to Canada's ability to implement policy.

Marche doesn't say so, but the difference is Canada having a parliamentary system. Their national leader has a majority in the only legislative house that matters and can pass what he and his colleagues choose.

The U.S. government is based on the notion that most things government might want to do should not, in fact, be done. So the founders made it difficult to set in place new policies.

We have a presidential veto, they have none. We have two houses with different electoral cycles both of which must pass any new policy. Our Supreme Court can strike down a passed law if it is found to contradict the Constitution.

We should not be surprised, therefore, that Canada has a more activist government than does the U.S. It is their chosen modality, it is not ours'.

Piling On

Kurt Schlichter, who blogs at Townhall.com, observes the MSM in general, and CNN in particular, in trouble and gleefully piles on.

The mainstream media is almost entirely composed of liberal activists who hate normal people and who see absolutely nothing wrong with using their platform to aggressively promote a leftist agenda, all while presenting themselves as non-partisan public servants.

It’s all a lie, and we know it, and beyond the hate directed at us, having the hypocrisy of it rubbed in our faces is even more galling. You know, if you want the prestige and honor due a nonpartisan, objective truth teller, you need to actually be a nonpartisan, objective truth teller. If you won't do the hard work of doing that, then you don't get the benefit.

CNN’s own actions have validated every bad thing Trump has ever said about the lying media. That he was totally and completely correct about CNN's moral bankruptcy makes it all the sweeter.

Analysis: correct. Hat tip to RealClearPolitics for the link.

Thinking About Korea

Let's think about the threat increasingly posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea ruled by a psychopath with near-absolute power. China fears the very real prospect of being overrun by starving Norks, in the event the Kim regime collapses. Thus, they won't do what is necessary to rein in Kim.

It seems likely within 1-2 years Kim will have his threat assembled. At the point at which Kim has a nuke on an ICBM and threatens Seattle with it, what then?

Everybody says the 25 million South Koreans living in greater Seoul are hostages, under Nork guns, missiles, and bombs. Do you believe this U.S. president would shrug off Seattle to save Seoul?

More to the point, do the South Koreans believe it? Indeed, why would they? Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear he puts U.S. interests first. In extremis, it may well be in the U.S. interest to bomb North Korea mercilessly, even if that puts Seoul's millions at risk of annihilation.

If South Koreans conclude this is a likely outcome, might they not surrender to the North, open the border and invite the DPRK to rule them, in order to survive? Do you suppose that is Kim's plan for reunification of the peninsula? I wish I found that scenario farfetched.

Travel Ban Popular

Politico underwrote a poll by Morning Consult asking whether people supported the ban on travelers from six Muslim nations. One supposes they believed they'd like the results, but they don't.

Asked whether they support or oppose the State Department’s “new guidelines which say visa applicants from six predominately Muslim countries must prove a close family relationship with a U.S. resident in order to enter the country,” 60 percent of respondents said they support the guidelines, and only 28 percent oppose them.

I give Politico credit for reporting results they don't find pleasant. Is it too much to hope your decision to "commit journalism" was a conscious choice driven by professional ethics?

Cold Logic

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, implacably plays out the logic of dating/mating.

Women generally want to marry men who make more than they do, so the more career opportunities there are for women, the fewer "eligible" men there are.

Analysis: true. The result: fewer marriages.

A Fourth of July Wish

On this Independence Day I have a malicious wish for all of America's liberals. I wish you a successful Trump presidency that lasts a full 8 years.

As Niall Ferguson writes, that outcome is a liberal's worst nightmare. Unlike Ferguson, I don't believe it will be dumb luck if it happens.

President Trump is a survivor in a tough business, as well as subsequently in politics. He plays the media like a fiddle, runs a lean operation, is a workaholic, and is perhaps the best self-publicist on the planet.

Face it, any guy who can sequentially marry three supermodels, have children by each, and end up with none of them hating him, is a magician. And none of his kids is a drugged-out mess, which is no small feat.

Anti-CA Bias in OR

Lucianne.com links to a story in Portland's The Oregonian about a California couple who moved to Portland because his job was there. Someone in the neighborhood trashed their house and car with "Go Home" and "Don't Californicate Oregon" graffiti.

I spent 3 academic years in Eugene, OR, and I can confirm that anti-CA sentiment has been the norm in Oregon for at least 40 years. While there, I learned an interesting way to diffuse anti-CA bias.

I'd tell any Oregonian hassling me about screwing up Oregon that I didn't like their state and would leave as soon as I finished my degree. That was both useful and true. As long as I didn't plan to stay I was okay, that made me a visitor and visitors who go home are okay with most Oregonians.

You'd think some would have been mildly put out that I was sponging off the OR taxpayers at their state university. No native ever mentioned that flaw in my reasoning, and I failed to point it out to them. I guess relief that I wasn't a "settler" did the trick.

Eight months of the year, Oregon and Washington west of the Cascades Range are too wet and gloomy for people with a tendency toward Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. I have a mild case which leaves me sleepy and low energy, but not depressed, on days with no sun; I got through grad school in spite of it. Interestingly, the diaries of the Lewis and Clark expedition are full of complaints about the soggy winter they spent at Fort Clatsop near Astoria and the mouth of the Columbia River.

Happy Independence Day

COTTonLINE wishes all of our readers a Happy 4th of July. Be safe, have fun, remember the sun screen and mosquito repellant, eat and drink well in moderation, and enjoy tonight's fireworks. If you've got a U.S. flag, fly it today.

Something to remember on this day when we celebrate our Independence: freedom isn't free. Our freedom was purchased with the blood of patriots, the lives of heroes, and the expenditure of untold billions.

The DrsC have visited at least briefly 115 countries. We've yet to see a place we'd happily trade for the U.S. on a permanent basis.

Every time we return home from overseas, no matter how much fun we've had traveling, there is a relief as we touch down in the States. Warts and all, we love the good old U.S. of A., every state of which we've visited, most repeatedly.

We Don't Trust Much

The Daily Mail (U.K.) has a story about a "who do you trust" poll done by Marist College for National Public Radio. Americans were asked their level of trust in the intelligence community, the courts, fair elections, public opinion polls, the Trump administration, Congress, and the media.

Of the list above, only the first two had more people saying they trusted them a good amount or a lot, than said not very much or not at all. Elections broke even, all the rest were in negative territory - more distrusted than trusted.

The Trump administration was distrusted by 61% which looks bad until you note that Congress and the media are both distrusted by 68%. A confounding factor, public opinion polls are distrusted as much as the Trump administration.

In case you're wondering, I don't trust any of the above a great deal. A possible exception are national elections which are hard to covertly rig because there are so many diverse players in the vote counting and tabulating process. Hat tip to Drudge Report for the link.

How and Why the Media Went Wrong

Michael Goodwin writes opinion for the New York Post. Using his column as a platform, he posts the text of a speech he gave at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Atlanta.

In it he describes the decay of the MSM, muses knowledgeably about the causes of its decline, and suggests what we as consumers of news can do to help solve the problem. If the state of the MSM, particularly The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the three senior TV networks concerns you, Goodwin's speech is very worth reading.

The Battle Lines in Syria

Writing at War on the Rocks, Beirut-based Sam Heller paints a picture of the current state of play in Syria. He suggests we ignore the literally hundreds of armed groups and focus on the large groupings. Some key thoughts:

Syria’s war is complex, but it’s not random.

The three main opposition enclaves are disconnected geographically. (snip) Yet these opposition areas are also disconnected politically, each run by a different mix of factions sponsored by their own respective international backers. Only one of the three opposition enclaves, Syria’s rebel-held northwest, is reliably motivated and able to fight the regime.

The relationship between the Assad regime and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) – the dominant political force in those two Kurdish areas – is not properly adversarial. (snip) Importantly, the PYD has always set its ambitions for local autonomy below the threshold of secession or regime change in Damascus.

The picture is of a sort of non-aggression pact between internationally backed regime and Kurdish-led forces that are dividing the country amongst themselves before, potentially, coming to their own accommodation. The mixed opposition and the Islamic State have lost, by international consensus, and are being edged out of a future Syria.

How the regime’s various paramilitary auxiliaries relate to the central regime-state – and whether the Syrian regime and state still exist at all – is one of the most hotly contested and relevant debates on Syria today.

My understanding is that those militias – which, without context, look like a teeming, undifferentiated horde – actually fit into existing regime networks of control: a set of official and unofficial strings that all run up to the single, pivotal locus point, Assad himself. These sub-factions enjoy substantial autonomy to engage in criminality and local predation, but when those strings pull taut, they can be puppeteered in sync.

Winding down sections of the war, and America’s involvement in them, is going to require Washington to engage Syria as it really fits together and operates – Syria as it is, not as we want it to be.

Bottom line: Heller believes Assad will not be beaten, meaning any talk of regime change needs to stop. Backing groups that will lose makes no sense either.

Non-Contiguity

James Taranto, editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal, interviews historian Allen Guelzo, a specialist in the Civil War at Gettysburg College. Their talk is about the divisions in the U.S. today as compared to those in the 1850s and 1860s.

Guelzo makes an interesting point. He believes the factor that made the U.S. Civil War "thinkable" was the contiguity of slave states.

What gave the question “political mass” was geography: Slavery had been outlawed throughout the North by the early 19th century, leaving 15 states where it was legal. “Because these slave states were all contiguous, they could look at a map and see themselves as a political unit.” Eleven did in 1860-61.

Today's divisions don't have that same geographic clustering, most progressives being bicoastal plus a handful of mid-country large cities. Then Guelzo focuses on what he calls:

A party’s “political center.” For Democrats, it is “local”; for Republicans, “national.” Mr. Guelzo isn’t talking about policy. His argument is that Republicans think of themselves as Americans first, whereas today Democratic localism takes the form of subnational identity politics.

“A sense of belonging to an American nation is much more attenuated,” he says. “Do you identify yourself as being a woman, transgender, black, Latino—you go down the list—or do you identify yourself as an American? That has actually now become an issue. This would have been unthinkable two generations ago.

If Trump voters think of themselves as "Americans," how long before they begin thinking of Democrats as something else, as not-American? Where do you suppose that thought can take us policywise? Some answers could be decidedly unattractive.

Abolish Sanctuary, Lower Crime

Fox News reports the comments of Levi Bolton, Executive Director of the Arizona Police Association,  interviewed by William La Jeunesse about sanctuary city policies with particular focus on Phoenix.

When we eliminated our sanctuary policy back in 2008, we saw crime, violent and stolen vehicles fall by 25 percent. We saw a 20-year low crime rate. When we were allowed and had the discretion to contact our federal immigration partners, crime fell drastically.

You could argue that eliminating the "sanctuary city" designation had the effect of causing the migration of the criminal immigrant population to other cities with more welcoming policies. Do you suppose that exodus offended law-abiding Phoenix residents? I'd guess they were delighted.

Finding "Home"

Sarah Hoyt is a naturalized American, a native of Portugal, a science fiction author, a Ph.D., a regular guest blogger at Instapundit, and therefore a conservative. Like many immigrants she loves the U.S., and in her latest column for PJ Media she reminisces about how she came to the States.

You could accurately call her either a successful American or a failed Portuguese, as many immigrants likely were failed whatevers wherever "home" was. Part of the magic of life is moving to where you fit in, feel comfortable.

For example, I knew expat "haoles" on Guam who loved it there and, while they'd visit "the mainland," wouldn't voluntarily move back to the States. I knew others who moved back for family reasons and regretted it. And some, like me, who moved back and had no regrets doing so.

I've had the same experience with brief (1-2 year) sojourns in the Washington, DC, area and in the Dallas area. All 3 were fun, interesting, and ultimately impermanent. I suppose for most of my life I fit into a category labeled "serial expat," I liked the expat experience but didn't want to make it permanent.

Ronald Reagan said something like "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, they left me" meaning they changed while he didn't. I've had that experience with California; it has evolved into something with which I'm no longer comfortable. It wasn't always that way, I once loved it and am sad about it's degeneration.

On the other hand, this is our 25th year of association with Wyoming, as property owners and, since 2004, residents. After 25 years I'm still an expat in WY - I still lock my house and car when leaving them, have never applied for a hunting license, and still flee the looooong winters. Expat or no, it is home and I'm proud of it, like any happy immigrant.

It's an experience I've had repeatedly in my life, the keep-looking-till-you-find-the-right-fit experience. It's how I ended up in a career I enjoyed, a 46 year marriage I cherish, and a state I admire. I believe I can relate to some of Sarah Hoyt's experience.