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MARCH 22, 2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

ANOTHER GREAT GOVERNOR – FROM PJ MEDIA:  We’ve got quite a post-modernist culture war on our hands over transgender issues. Former Navy SEAL and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis just went kinetic with fiery remarks about the NCAA. On Tuesday, DeSantis issued a proclamation announcing that native Sarasota, Fla., athlete Emma Weyant, who swims for the University of Virginia, logged “the fastest time among all women swimmers” at the NCAA championship in the NCAA Division I final over the weekend. He accused the NCAA of “destroying opportunities for women” and perpetrating “a fraud on the public,” and berated them for “putting ideology ahead of opportunity for women athletes.”  The governor issued a statement with the proclamation saying, “due to the NCAA’s policy allowing men to compete in women’s athletics, she was designated the second-place finisher. To recognize the accomplishments of this outstanding athlete and Floridian, Governor DeSantis issued a proclamation today recognizing Weyant as the best female swimmer in the 500-yard freestyle event.”  Good for the governor.  No disrespect meant, but there must be a place in this world for common sense.

March 22, 2022     Permalink  

THE NEW GOVERNOR MAKES HIS MOVE – OVERNIGHT: Virginia's newly elected governor shows that his game is action, not words.  I see him as a future resident of the national ticket. From insidescooppolitics:

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin announced that he will temporarily suspend the state’s gas tax. Youngkin’s move is pending approval by the Virginia legislature.

With gas prices soaring in the United States, it’s about time that we found some relief. The Virginia Governor’s plan would put a 3-month halt on the existing gas taxes in the state. It will save drivers 26 cents per gallon on gasoline and 27 cents per gallon on diesel.

Here’s some of what Glenn Youngkin told CBS:

“This is a break that people need right now, and the whole purpose of suspending the gas tax was to recognize Virginians have real needs to save money and we need to do it now,” Youngkin said.

The governor’s proposal would suspend the gas tax in May, June and July and phase it back in throughout August and September.

“We actually have an expectation we’re going to have $1.1 billion more in the Commonwealth Transportation fund than we thought. And so this will cost a little over $400 million. We’ll still have $700 million more than we thought to fund road projects and fill potholes,” Youngkin said.

A news release also indicated that the legislation would cap changes to the annual gas tax. Even following the three-month suspension, gas taxes wouldn’t be able to change more than 2% annually.

This doesn’t solve the issue of high gas prices alone. It does, however, soften the blow on average Americans who only want to provide for their families.

COMMENT:  Smart move by a governor who won his seat by listening to ordinary citizens. Tax cuts are almost always good.  They give people a break, and the extra personal spending boosts the economy. And they remind citizens that tax revenues belong to the people, not the politicians. I look forward to Youngkin's next move.

March 22, 2022     Permalink

MARCH 21, 2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

BAD POLLING NUMBERS FOR JOE – FROM ISSUES AND INSIGHTS: Are you better off today under President Joe Biden than you were a year earlier? And are you financially prepared for a downturn in the economy or a job loss? The March I&I/TIPP Poll suggests most Americans would answer “no” to both of those questions. The poll asked: “Generally speaking, is your family better off today than it was one year ago, worse off than it was one year ago, or about the same as it was a year ago?” Fewer than one in five (20%) said they were “better off.” while more than twice that number — 42% — said they were “worse off.” Another 36% said they were “about the same.”
Taken as a whole, that means 78% of Americans have seen no progress or improvement at all in their financial and economic lives since Biden took over in early 2021. Despite this, Biden’s recent speeches have included references to the “best economic growth in the last four decades.” “We did it alone. Without one single solitary Republican vote,” he said in Philadelphia on March 11, speaking to House Democrats. “It was the Democrats — it was you — that brought us back.”
If that’s the message, Americans don’t seem to be buying it. And a big reason for that is likely the sudden scary surge in inflation, which hits low- and middle-class Americans hardest of all.
While wage gains have averaged 5% or higher for four straight months, unfortunately, inflation during the same period has surged by an annual rate of over 7%, and looks likely to go even higher.
Americans, it seems, are feeling the pinch of Bidenomics.  Those ungrateful Americans. Don't they realize that it's an honor to suffer?  I'm sure AOC will explain that to them, as she votes to take away their cars.

March 21, 2022     Permalink

WELL SAID – OVERNIGHT:  Occasionally we come across a piece that explains a moment in time, or at least directs us toward answers.   The historian Niall Ferguson has written such a piece, and I urge you to read it.  It contains the line, "Joe Biden must ditch the backseat diplomacy of the Obama era, which is part of what got us into this mess to begin with." Can't be more correct than that.  From Daily Mail:

There was once another loathsome Russian dictator called Vladimir – in this case Lenin – who is popularly believed to have said: 'There are decades where nothing happens; there are weeks where decades happen.'

He didn't. The real quote is from a letter Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels in 1863, in which the founder of Communism argued that 20 years were 'no more than a day where major developments […] are concerned, though these may be again succeeded by days into which 20 years are compressed'.

Since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine just over three weeks ago, it does feel as if decades have been compressed into days. A great many commentators have rushed to declare this is one of history's great turning points – the end of one epoch, the beginning of another. 

Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz referred to a 'Zeitenwende' (a 'turning of the times'). 'The world after this,' he declared, 'is no longer the same as the world before.' And in some obvious ways he is undeniably right.

With its 'policy for the East' (Ostpolitik), Germany has pursued closer economic links with Russia since the late 1960s. Scholz's predecessor, Angela Merkel, even believed it made sense to make Europe dependent on Russian natural gas and oil. 

All that is over. So, too, are Germany's post-war days of pacifism, as defence spending is due to increase to at least two per cent of GDP, belatedly catching up with the ten NATO members (including the UK) who fulfil their burden-sharing obligations.

And why is this? After all, Putin has long been a murderer and warmonger: this is his fourth invasion of a sovereign state since 2008. Yet somehow the smaller scale of his previous wars allowed the delusion to persist that he was still someone with whom the West could do business. 

But now, with mass graves in besieged Mariupol, with much of Kharkiv reduced to rubble, and with millions of refugees fleeing West, there is no longer any denying it.

The scenes are too familiar. Turn off the colour and they could be photographs from Eastern Europe in the Second World War. So, yes, it certainly feels like the end of an interwar period. And now, you might think, only the details of this turning point need to be finalised.

Namely, how quickly can Europe's defence spending be cranked up? And how quickly can we find alternatives to Russian gas and oil?

In neither case is the answer measurable in weeks, but clearly there is an impetus for these things to happen, and irreversibly.

The return of the brutal Russian bear has shattered the illusion that peace in Europe was a free lunch paid for by the Americans and cooked on Russian gas.

COMMENT:  Please read the rest. Ferguson is setting out the various ways the current crisis can either end, or melt into a larger one. He actually knows what he's talking about, and comes down hard on American leadership, or lack of it.

I think Americans sensed, right from the first day of battle, that Ukraine is different. It does remind us of the battles of World War II that we first saw in black-in-white. It is not that the world will now be different.  It will be. But in what ways?  And where will this weakly led countries of ours stand?  At the top, or as a relic of history to be gently pushed aside?

March 21, 2022     Permalink