Wednesday Potpourri

First, Ross Douthat offers some perspective on the current Trump trials. This time, regarding the charges of sexual improprieties, as in paying for sex.

Writing in the New York Times, Douthat remarks that this is not the first time that America has been embroiled in issues about presidential sexuality. And yet, precious few Trump-hating commentators have bothered to recall the sordid past of one Bill Clinton.

Douthat writes:

As it happens, America spent a pretty important period of time litigating the question of whether it’s a serious offense for a lecherous politician (one whose campaign apparatus notoriously labored to prevent “bimbo eruptions”) to conceal an inappropriate sexual liaison. Indeed, we even litigated the question of whether committing brazen perjury while trying to conceal a sexual liaison is a serious offense. And the country answered this question by embracing the consensus position of American liberalism at the time and offering Bill Clinton tolerance, forgiveness, absolution.

He continues:

Instead the revelations are about the seeming hypocrisy of his political enemies, and how easily the former Democratic indifference to lying-about-sex gave way to prurience when it offered a path to getting Trump.

Second, on the therapy front, the latest and most pathetic treatment involves supposedly sane women going out into the woods and screaming while beating the ground with sticks. 

It’s women’s liberation, on steroids.

Oli London reports on Twitter:

Liberal women spend $4,000 to bash sticks on the ground and scream at a ‘Rage Ritual Retreat.’ The bizarre wellness retreat is designed to help women deal with anger.

I will mention, in passing, that this and similar techniques have been tried before. They have failed before. As the old saying goes, there’s a sucker born every minute.

As for why these women are so angry, and whether they really are so angry, I will offer a thesis. Modern women have bought feminist ideology. They do not understand that this ideology was designed to make a mess of their lives. They learn to disparage men and then they cannot figure out why there are no men in their lives.

Third, on the Cold War II front, David Goldman remarks sagely that American policy makers continue to get China wrong:

Every American policy shop signed on to tech war against China, and virtually all of them bought into the China's-going-to-collapse fairy tale. The tech war flopped, as I predicted it would, and China's manufacturing grew fast enough to more than compensate for the property bust, as China shifted exports to the Global South. They don't want acknowledge the facts, because the facts make them look silly.

Fourth, you heard it here first. But, you did not just hear it here. I addressed the question of the new Biden tariffs and the old Trump tariffs in a prior post. See my post from Sunday May 19.

Now Steven Ratner examines the issue in the New York Times.

While there are political and security reasons for tariffs, America’s new protectionist stance will raise prices, limit consumer choices and risk our future growth.

The past aggressive and widespread imposition of levies of this sort has made clear that restraining trade brings with it serious risks to economic prosperity, both for the United States and other affected countries.

Every student in an introductory economics course learns about David Ricardo’s 200-year-old theory of comparative advantage: the idea that by specializing in the products that they can produce most efficiently and then trading with others, nations can be better off.

In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Though pitched as a means of protecting workers and farmers during a downturn, the tariffs triggered a wave of global protectionism that exacerbated the Great Depression and contributed to an estimated two-thirds decline in global trade.

Ratner clarifies:

The general problem with tariffs is that study after study has shown that they raise prices for consumers and probably cost more jobs than they save, particularly as affected countries retaliate.

Mr. Trump declared victory when China promised to purchase an additional $200 billion of American products — a promise it didn’t keep.

As for retaliation, it is already happening:

Retaliation, the inevitable result of tariff imposition, has already begun. The “buy American” provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act helped spur Europe to add its own “buy European” requirements to its new green infrastructure bill. All told, the number of worldwide protectionist trade interventions roughly doubled in 2020 and has remained elevated, according to Global Trade Alert.

Fifth, Darren Grimes has a comment on the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi:

Kill 26,000 people, execute children and women in Iran, forcibly displace 7 million Syrians, fund and plan the October 7th genocide in Israel, support terrorists in Yemen, Gaza, and Iraq, and chant "death to America." Then, die in a helicopter crash, and the UN will stand for a minute of silence—not for your victims, but to mourn you. What a morally bankrupt outfit this taxpayer-funded farce is!

Sixth, the body called the International Criminal Court wants to indict both Israeli and Hamas officials for war crimes. Among the members of the consulting body is one Amal Clooney, wife of celebrity George Clooney. 

The Biden administration has denounced the court for overreaching, but Joe Biden is still, to the best of my knowledge, holding a fundraiser headlined by one George Clooney.

Richard Goldberg explains in The New York Post:

The International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crime charges.

The Netherlands-based International Criminal Court on Monday exposed itself as a deeply antisemitic and politicized institution that ignores facts and jurisdiction to conduct lawfare against democracies that defend themselves against terrorism.

American policy should now turn toward pressuring allies to defund this kangaroo court and imposing financial sanctions to grind its operations to a halt.

The ICC’s indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes has nothing to do with law and everything to do with lawfare – that is, the use of legal systems to damage or delegitimize an adversary.

In this case, detractors of the United States and Israel are using the ICC to attack a free democracy exercising its inherent right to self-defense in the face of a brutal terrorist enemy.

In effect, the ICC has joined an Iran-led axis as a partner in a multi-front war to destroy the one Jewish state – all under cover of international law.

In a perverse game of public relations, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan packaged the Israeli indictments alongside charges against the terrorist leaders of Hamas – an attempt to look even-handed while creating a false moral equivalency between bloodthirsty terrorist organizations and democratic governments.

But, what is  the Biden administration going to do about this? The Trump administration had placed sanctions on the court and its members. Apparently, the Biden crowd removed them, thus paving the way for the current judicial abomination.

Goldberg recommends this:

Washington must act decisively by threatening financial sanctions against any bank that processes a transaction for or on behalf of the ICC. Its officials should face asset freezes and visa denials.

And the ICC’s leading donors must be put to a choice: stand with democracy and the rule of law or stand with terrorist sympathizers using lawfare to undermine both.

The ICC should not be dismissed as symbolic or a joke.

The institution is misusing law as a weapon of war, and the United States should act accordingly.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for this to happen.

The Wall Street Journal editorializes about the matter:

Mr. Biden denounced the ICC’s move Monday, but will he back it up? In 2021 he rescinded President Trump’s executive order threatening sanctions against anyone involved in ICC actions against an American, Israeli or other nonconsenting ally. Congress has long authorized a President “to use all means necessary and appropriate” to resist such ICC actions.

The ICC’s budget, coming largely from Japan, Germany, France, the U.K., Italy and South Korea, should be in jeopardy. How can these countries host or train with U.S. troops while funding a body that threatens to prosecute them without jurisdiction?

Mr. Khan was warned of the consequences of subordinating the law in pursuit of Israel. The judges who will consider his arrest warrants are being asked to sign the ICC’s epitaph.

And then, the Daily Mail provides some context regarding Amal Clooney:

Amal Alamuddin Clooney’s UNCLE is Lebanese arms dealer and convicted felon Ziak Takieddine, who supplies weapons to Islamic Jihadist terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

Seventh, meanwhile on the streets of Manhattan, more and more drug stores are closing up shop. Retail theft, coupled with the Amazon effect, is putting them out of business.

The New York Post reports:

New York City is losing drugstores as retail theft continues to surge.

Gotham has logged 21,578 shoplifting complaints this year through May 12, up 5% from the 20,552 thefts during the same period last year.

Manhattan has seen 8,896 incidents of retail theft alone.

Crime is so rampant, national chains like Target, CVS and Walgreens are closing locations and tempering expansion plans.

Target announced at the end of last year the closure of nine stores across four states, including one in Harlem, due to theft.

Eighth, speaking of crime, especially migrant crime, Sweden has been a laboratory for open borders policies. The result-- it has become overrun with migrant crime.

Tell me you are not surprised. The story comes from the London Express:

Göran Adamson, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Uppsala University, told Express.co.uk that his country was becoming a “capital of violence” - partly due to a wave of suspected criminals moving there.

According to official figures from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), the number of fatalities a year per million from gun violence is more than double the European average.

In 2017, there were 281 shootings in Sweden and by 2022 that number had grown to 391, 62 of which were fatal. According to the Office for National Statistics, in the UK there were 28 people killed by shooting in the year ending March 2022.

That means the Swedish rate of death by shooting was more than twice that of the UK, despite Sweden having a population less than a sixth the size.

Most startlingly, in 2022 the gun murder rate in Stockholm was around 30 times that of London, despite having a population of less than a million.

Mr Adamson said that the main pockets of the violence in the Swedish capital aren’t found in the centre of the city, but in residential neighbourhoods.

“It’s terrifying. You can barely believe it," he said. “That has mainly to do with the suburbs of Stockholm because some of these suburbs are extremely violent and so forth. So things are getting worse.”

A research paper he published in 2020 shows a link between the sharp uptick in crime and the marked increase in immigration into the country.

He found that in 2017, 58 percent of those “suspected of crime on reasonable grounds” had migrated to Sweden. However for murder, attempted murder and manslaughter the figures swelled to 73 percent. The corresponding data for robbery was 70 percent.

The 60-year-old explained: “Even though most migrants are law-abiding people… still the likelihood of a migrant - especially from the Middle East or Africa, especially below 50 years of age - committing a crime is much, much higher than for a Swedish person. These are just the facts.”

Yes, indeed, most migrants are law abiding people. And yet, the chance that a youngish migrant male will commit crimes is significantly higher than for Swedish people.

Finally, for those of you who are ready to get out of your minds and into your lives, I recommend a dose of life coaching. Now I have some free consulting hours in my coaching practice and would be happy to oblige. Contact me via email at StuartSchneiderman@gmail.com. Or via telephone at 212-682-6678.

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