Apr
25
2025

I'm Disgusted, Also Unamused

And my disgust gets a little deeper every time I see stuff like this:

Ukraine's "fact check" of Trump's post is here.

The NR editorialists point out the obvious: Forcing Ukraine to Surrender to Russia Is No Path to Sustainable Peace.

On the face of it, the members of the Trump administration who set out their ideas for the basis of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine appear to know as little about dealmaking as they do about diplomacy as they do about Russia. The suggestion that Ukraine should legally cede Crimea to Russia, something that had not been on the table before, does nothing other than strengthen Moscow’s negotiating position, while sending a terrible message to both Kyiv and the European members of NATO (a message that will not be overlooked by China or those threatened by it). Kyiv has rejected the idea, and the peace process (such as it is) is in disarray.

And the WSJ looks at A Moment of Truth in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin’s overnight missile assault on civilians in Kyiv is a grim moment that strips away the false pretenses and excuses about the Russian dictator’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s also an opening for President Trump to rethink his strategy, which is failing to produce peace.

Mr. Putin’s onslaught included more than 200 missiles and explosive drones. At least 12 are dead and dozens more wounded. The images of bodies pulled from rubble are horrifying, even after three years of carnage.

But the assault is clarifying about the war and its causes. Mr. Putin didn’t invade because Ukraine might join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which the Trump Administration has ruled out anyway. Mr. Putin’s war isn’t about Russian ties to Crimea, which he swallowed before he rolled tanks toward Kyiv. It isn’t about a few provinces, as Mr. Putin pummels civilians far from the front lines. It isn’t about a lack of U.S. respect for Mr. Putin’s security concerns.

Two hundred fifty years back, Patrick Henry famously said "Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace." We could use some of that clarity in the White House.

Also of note:

  • How many trillions do you have? James Freeman asks How Many Trillions Do Americans Spend Complying With Federal Rules? (gifted link)

    Wayne Crews at the Competitive Enterprise Institute is out with his annual “10,000 Commandments” report on federal regulation. He finds an economic burden of biblical proportions:

    Federal regulation’s total compliance costs and economic effects are at least $2.155 trillion annually in Ten Thousand Commandments’ estimate, and almost certainly higher. Last year’s total was $2.117 trillion.

    As staggeringly large as the federal leviathan is, Mr. Crews suggests why he could be low-balling:

    An October 2023 National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) report models regulatory compliance at $3.079 trillion annually.

    I get that James is trying to maintain the scriptural metaphor when he describes the economic burden as being "of biblical proportions". But I'm unsure that the Bible contains anything that big.

  • Put down the popcorn bucket and listen. Greg Lukianoff explains his position on Uncle Stupid putting Harvard in the Crosshairs. He goes into great, honest, detail about the recent history. A random excerpt:

    A number of the proposed “remedies” in the government’s April 11 letter involve giving the federal government a role in approving changes to hiring, admissions, departmental viewpoint diversity, and discipline. As you’ll see, I have (and have had) concerns about how Harvard does all of these things. But I also have no confidence the federal government is any better suited to the task.

    If the government wants heightened oversight of college programs, it can accomplish that by making it a condition of new funding, and letting colleges decide freely whether to accept that condition or walk away. What it can’t do is provide funding, then turn around and say, “You know how there are these conditions that are tied to processes we have to follow? We’re going to just ignore the processes and impose the conditions, and also demand the following dozen things that dramatically exceed what we agreed upon.”

    The former is a deal; the latter is a heist.

    The government could impose some of these rules by revitalizing the oversight for accrediting institutions in a way that requires them to seriously weight free expression and non-discrimination when they accredit schools and programs. But that should be done systematically, for everyone, as a use of government power. It shouldn’t be done as a punishment meted out by abusing that power.

    But that's just a small part of Greg's criticism.

  • Well, not that new. Writing at the lefty Guardian, Ed Pilkington invites readers to Meet the new American refugees fleeing across state lines for safety. Subhed blames Team Orange:

    Americans have often moved between states for opportunities. Now they’re being forced to uproot themselves to escape hostile forces under Trump

    And one escaped from New Hampshire!

    John Dube, 63, takes great pride in his decades-long public service. He has been a high school history teacher for the past 35 years.

    “I encourage an inquiry- and evidence-based approach,” he said. “It’s a mantra of mine: if you have an understanding of the past, you can understand a lot about the present.”

    That’s the sensibility he infused into his classroom at Timberlane regional high school in Plaistow, New Hampshire, where he taught for more than 30 years. The town is also where he brought up his two children, living what he described as a “normal, some would say boring, suburban life”.

    It stopped being normal around four years ago, when headwinds started to build over what rightwing groups claimed was the victimization of white kids through the teaching of “critical race theory” (CRT). You won’t find CRT mentioned in any of Dube’s courses, and yet it became a battlefield in the culture wars and in his life.

    This is Pilkington's number one example of fleeing "hostile forces under Trump", but you, careful reader, have already noticed that this particular case is from four years ago, and you can do the math.

    Executive summary: New Hampshire enacted its so-called "divisive concepts" law back in 2021, intended to stop public school pupils from being inoctrinated with "woke" left-wing claptrap. (The law was struck down in US District Court last year, and the state is appealing that decision.)

    But:

    [Dube] was angered by the edicts of Orwellian thought police in a state whose motto is “Live free or die”. In that spirit, he added his signature to a nationwide petition called a “pledge to teach the truth”, which vowed to oppose state-sponsored censorship.

    The "Pledge to Teach the Truth" petition was sponsored by the "Zinn Education Project". As I type, over the past years it's garnered 8,809 signatures ("Only 3,991 more until our goal of 12,800").

    (I won't go into the iffy relationship between "Teach the Truth" and "Zinn Education Project". Click around their website and make your own call.)

    My hot-headed friends at Granite Grok harvested the New Hampshire-based signatories and posted them in the summer of 2021. There are quite a few of them, maybe 50 or so.

    Allegedly this resulted in a subliterate Facebook message directed to Dube. The cops alerted him that his name "was circulating on obscure chatrooms frequented by violent militia members."

    But (reading between the lines) nothing close to legally actionable, no "true threats". His car (apparently) remained unkeyed. Nevertheless, it all was enough to worry Dube, and he acted on his own motto: "Live Free or Move to Vermont."

  • But it's not just Plaistow teachers getting hassled for controversial opinions. At the Free Press, Frannie Block interviews The Young Black Democrat Dubbed a ‘Puppet of the Right’.

    Standing in line at the cafeteria of the New Hampshire statehouse, Jonah Wheeler is dressed in a tweed suit, his dreadlocks pulled back in a ponytail. Tall and lanky, with sharp cheekbones and a knockout smile, the Democrat could easily be a Ralph Lauren model. But, in fact, Wheeler is one of the youngest state representatives in the country. First elected in 2022 at the age of 19, he is now 22—and already making national waves.

    That’s because on March 20, he voted in favor of a bill allowing New Hampshire businesses to ban transgender women from female spaces, such as bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams, and prisons. Before casting his vote, Wheeler declared that “the orthodoxy of the Democratic Party on this issue has left us where we can’t have nuanced discussions. And women are being silenced in this conversation.”

    Swift backlash ensued.

    Wheeler told me that more than 100 of the 177 Democrats in the chamber walked out in protest. He added that some stayed behind to heckle his decision, with one comparing the bill to bathroom bans faced by black people in the segregated South. (Wheeler is among the less than one percent of New Hampshire state legislators who is black.)

    Over the last few weeks, Wheeler said, he’s been called a “Nazi,” a “fascist,” a “transphobe,” and a “puppet of the right.” At an angry town hall, Wheeler’s own high school art teacher said, “I don’t know how you sleep at night.” She added: “I proudly voted for you and I am ashamed at what you have done out in the world.”

    The article contains no indication that Jonah Wheeler plans on moving to Vermont.

  • Just a reminder. George Will says The Education Department was born of banality, and it shows (gifted link). Among the tidbits shared:

    The National Assessment of Educational Progress (the “nation’s report card”) shows that fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores are where they were 33 years (the NAEP was first administered in 1992) and $2 trillion in federal K-12 spending ago. Aside from teachers unions, who is pleased by K-12 education’s trajectory since 1979?

    A recent Gallup poll showed 24 percent of adults were satisfied with public education, the lowest amount in the 24 years the question has been asked. Social science tells us not what to do but the results of what we are doing. Surging support for school choice programs, and for charter schools emancipated from union straitjackets, tells what the public thinks about the government-school monopoly tenaciously defended by teachers unions.

    George is unafraid to use the "government school" label. The government schoolers don't like it when you do that, but it's accurate.