Saturday Miscellany

First, there is the case of Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. She has just declared her candidacy for yet another five year term.

The Telegraph has the story of her impressive failure:

She steered the continent through the pandemic. She has massively increased the powers of the European Commission. And she has led a response to the challenges of climate change, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and competition from China.

Ursula von der Leyen might well have convinced herself of the strength of her record when she launched her bid for five more years as President of the Commission on Monday. There’s a problem, however. She has been a disaster for the European economy. Over the last five years, she has launched a ruinously expensive round of borrowing as well as a green strategy that will de-industrialise the continent, all while imposing round after round of growth-destroying regulations. On Von der Leyen’s watch, the EU has fallen decisively behind the rest of the world – and there is little hope of it recovering during a second term.

Second, from Indiana, of all places. A boy told his parents that he had decided to be a girl. His parents refused, on religious grounds, to support his delusions. 

When the case was reported to civic authorities, they removed the boy from his home. The parents are appealing the case to the Supreme Court.

The New York Post has the story:

In 2019, Mary and Jeremy’s son told them that he identified as a girl, but in line with their Catholic religious beliefs that God created human beings with an immutable sex, male or female, they did not believe in referring to him using pronouns and a name inconsistent with his biology.

In addition, the Coxes believed their son was struggling with underlying mental health conditions, including an eating disorder, so they sought therapeutic care for both.

But, in 2021, Indiana officials began investigating the Coxes after a report found they were not referring to their child by his preferred gender identity, removing the teen from their custody and placing him in a “gender-affirming” home. Despite the unsubstantiated claims of abuse, they claimed the Coxes made the child’s eating disorder worse even though it worsened after he was removed and placed in a transition-affirming home….

“This is what every parent is afraid of,” Mary and Jeremy Cox said in a press release. “We love our son and wanted to care for him, but the state of Indiana robbed us of that opportunity by taking him from our home and banning us from speaking to him about gender.”

“We are hopeful that the Justices will take our case and protect other parents from having to endure the nightmare we did,” they added.

Third, the fallout from the New York court decision against Donald Trump is continuing. We recently remarked that Kevin O’Leary, of Shark Tank fame, had declared New York State unsafe for any investments. 

Now, another money manager has also stopped investing in the state. This, from the Washington Examiner:

Prominent investors have signaled their intent to halt their business in New York following the $355 million verdict in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud case.

Real estate mogul Grant Cardone announced on Tuesday that his firm Cardone Capital would no longer underwrite New York real estate, one day after Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary vowed to no longer invest in the state as a result of the verdict.

“Immediately discontinue ALL underwriting on New York City real estate,” Cardone ordered his firm in a post on X. “The risk outweigh the opportunities at this time. Recent political decisions will continue to deteriorate price and benefit states that don’t have these challenges. Focus on Texas & Florida.”

Fourth, the pushback against pro-crime prosecutors has found a new champion in Arizona. Maricopa County prosecutor Rachel Mitchell has refused to extradite a criminal to New York City, because she has no confidence in New York’s District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The New York Post reports:

The Arizona prosecutor refusing to send an accused prostitute killer to New York said she is looking out for his victims' families and cannot guarantee the suspect will remain locked up due to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's lax bail policies. 

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell has ordered her staff not to extradite Raad Noan Almansoori, 26, to New York where he's wanted for the alleged murder of sex worker Denisse Oleas-Arancibia, 38.

He was arrested in Arizona after police said he stabbed two women - one in a McDonalds and the other while stealing her car.

Fifth, Alvin Bragg counts among the most prominent of Soros DAs. Apparently, the Soros effort to promote crime in America’s great cities is failing. Or better, succeeding. Single-handedly Soros has unleashed a crime wave across the country.

People are beginning to notice and the DAs are being replaced and removed. One recalls that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has led the way, firing two prosecuting attorneys who refused to prosecute.

The New York Post tells what has been happening:

For $40 million — a rounding error for one of the wealthiest men in history — George Soros helped remake the nation’s legal system.

Supporting prosecutors who vowed not to prosecute, Soros and related entities pushed district attorneys who aimed to reshape law and order into anarchy and disorder.

It worked. At his peak influence, 75 Soros-backed prosecutors held office. As a result, one in five Americans, and half of those living in the nation’s most populous cities, were living in an area run by a Soros DA, or one who shared his ideology.

The damage they have done has been immeasurable. Shoplifting and drug use was decriminalized, repeat offenders were set free with no bail, and murders, robbery and rape increased in Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco, New York and more.

But the worm has started to turn. Through a combination of corruption and voter backlash, a significant number of these district attorneys have been ousted.

There’s still a long way to go, but the message is clear: The Soros experiment has been a disaster for the nation.

Sixth, meanwhile in the Middle East the leftist propaganda machine is firing on all cylinders. Among the lies it has been perpetrating is this one-- that Hamas did not rape and murder scores of Israeli women and children. 

Now, Legal Insurrection reports the truth:

The use of rape as a weapon of war by Hamas and Palestinian “civilians” during the October 7 attacks and upon hostages abducted that day is well-documented, and has been confirmed even by news outlets traditionally hostile to Israel, like the NY Times and Associated Press.

Nonetheless, there is a concerted rape-denialism movement stoked by the same people who also claim Israeli killed many if not most of the October 7 Israeli and foreign victims. They exploit the fact that the Palestinians murdered almost all of the rape and sexual assault victims on the spot, so there are few if any survivors to step forward. Israel also was in the midst of a chaotic mass casualty event and invasion where the bodies were in the middle of a war zone. It took many days, and in some cases weeks, to round up all the Palestinian infiltrators, so not as much evidence was preserved and documented as might have happened in an isolated event. But witness testimony and forensic evidence has been accumulating.

And also,

Hamas’s attack on October 7 included brutal sexual assaults, carried out systematically and deliberately towards Israeli civilians. Numerous testimonies and pieces of disclosed and classified information present a clear picture of identical patterns of action repeated in each of the attack zones – the Nova Festival, private homes in the Gaza envelope kibbutzim, and IDF bases. With the abduction of 254 individuals to the Gaza Strip areas, sexual assaults continued to occur also in this arena. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that the kidnapped women and men in Hamas captivity are still at risk of sexual abuse at any given moment.

Hamas’s attack included violent acts of rape, accompanied by threats with weapons, and in some cases targeted towards injured women. Many of the rapes were carried out as a group, with the participation of violent terrorists. Often, the rape was perpetrated in front of an audience – partners, family, or friends – in a manner intended to increase the pain and humiliation of all present. Hamas terrorists hunted young women and men who fled the Nova festival, and according to testimonies, dragged them by their hair amid screams. The actions targeted women, girls, and men. In most cases, the victims were killed after or even during the rape.

Seventh, from the University of Georgia, authorities have arrested a suspect in the murder of a nursing student, named Laken Riley. The suspect is an illegal alien from Venezuela. The Customs and Border Patrol had released him because they did not have any room to hold him.

The Daily Mail reports:

An illegal immigrant freed because of lack of detention space is now accused of murdering a 22 year-old University of Georgia student after she went for a run. 

Jose Antonio Ibarra was arrested for the murder of Laken Riley in Athens - a sanctuary city - on Friday and is now being held at the Clarke County Jail.

NewsNation reporter Ali Bradley said Ibarra, 26, is originally from Venezuela and crossed into El Paso, Texas, in September 2022.

He was released into the United States by Customs and Border Patrol because the worsening migrant crisis means they have insufficient facilities to hold all border crossers that they intercept.  Cops don't believe Ibarra knew his victim. 

Riley, 22, was found dead Thursday afternoon after her roommate reported her missing, saying she had not returned from her jog. 

Ibarra has been charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call, and concealing the death of another. 

Thanks to Joe Biden for opening the nation’s borders! We are anxiously awaiting the campaign ads.

Please subscribe to my Substack, for free or preferably for a fee.

Should You Supercommunicate?

It feels like a magic bullet. Learn how better to communicate and you will rule the world. Learn how better to connect with other people and you will be showered with fame and fortune. 

Charles Duhigg offers the answer to whatever has been troubling you. He has written a new book about it all, helping you to become what he calls a supercommunicator.

Most people have enough trouble communicating. Now they must aspire to supercommunicate. 

It is all very tempting. You should learn to say the right thing to the right person at the right time in the right place. Apparently, you need but read Duhigg’s new book and you will learn how to do it. 

One feels compelled to return to a point that I have occasionally made on these pages. Namely, that men and women do not communicate in the same way. Men share experiences; they do things together. Women share feelings. So said New York Times editorial writer Michelle Cottle, and she was surely correct. 

If you adopt a communication style that is unsuited to your sex, you are going to turn people off and turn them away.

Besides, saying the right thing to the right person at the right time in the right place requires you to have a command of the language. And of the situation at hand.

If you are barely literate and mumble your words you are not going to supercommunicate. You are not even going to communicate. To imagine that you can overcome your deficiencies by feeling feelings or by showering the room with empathy is a ruse to dupe the gullible.

Duhigg explains his point of view:

Why are some people better at connecting with others, hearing what’s unsaid and speaking so others want to listen? Can anyone learn to do this? 

He is highly optimistic about what it takes to say exactly the right thing. If an individual has nothing to say and does not relate to the conversation, his ability to supercommunicate will be easily compromised.

One finding is that some of us seem to be what I call “supercommunicators”—people capable of saying exactly the right thing, breaking through to almost anyone, figuring out how to connect in even the most unlikely circumstances.

Given the limitations of an op-ed Duhigg seems to be ignoring the basic point. You cannot communicate if you do not know your subject. You cannot have a conversation about football if you know nothing about football. The same applies to a discussion of how to manufacture mechanized widgets.

And, lest we forget, social status, occupation and status define what you can and cannot say, to whom, when and where. 

When Duhigg recommends that you ask questions of your interlocutor and that you probe deeply, he does not place sufficient emphasis on the simple fact that you need to know what the purpose of the conversation is. And you need to know who you are and the nature of your relationship with the other person. 

Duhigg recommends deep questions, which is often rude and disrespectful. Why would you confide in someone you do not know whether or not you can trust? Do you want to explain to a stranger your childhood traumas, your sexually transmitted diseases or your plans for future exploitation?

Many good conversations begin with small talk and do not probe too deeply. Asking deep questions is often rude, depending on who you are, your position in society and your interlocutor’s function. 

You do not ask your manager how he really feels. You might offer your opinion about a subject, but larding feeling on it all will often make you sound like a whiner.

Duhigg seems to want people to act more like therapists and less like interlocutors. 

When we meet someone new, it’s natural to ask about facts of their life: What kind of medicine do you practice? Where’d you go to college? But those kinds of questions are often conversational dead-ends.

Rather, ask something that invites someone to talk about their values, beliefs or experiences—such as, How did you decide to go into medicine? What did you love about college? Deep questions are powerful because they invite us to share something authentic and potentially vulnerable. When we match that vulnerability—You decided on medicine after seeing your dad get sick? I became a lawyer when my cousin was unfairly arrested—we trigger instincts that make us feel more trusting and more eager to listen and share. “Vulnerability is one of our loudest emotions,” Harvard researcher Amit Goldenberg told me. “We’re hardwired to notice it.” 

In today’s psycho world, “vulnerability” is a buzzword. It has taken the place of the notion that we should all get in touch with our feminine sides. It ignores the simple fact that we are trying to forge a connection, not to do therapy. We are first trying to figure out whether we belong to the same group as the other person, and whether we can trust him to keep a secret. We are not in it to plumb the depths of his or her soul. 

Great leaders do not become great because they advertise their vulnerability. Being vulnerable is not the same as being trustworthy or reliable. Most often we begin conversations with small talk, with comments that do not probe too deeply into matters that do not concern us. If we cannot make small talk about non-threatening subjects we are very unlikely to advance to big talk.

When we first meet someone we want to know whether they are trustworthy, loyal and reliable. It is not about their biography, their past history, their parents and their siblings. We are connecting as social beings, not as soulful whiners looking for another therapeutic experience.

Please subscribe to my Substack, for free or preferably for a fee.

An Enfeebled President

By now you must have heard: America’s political scientists took a survey. They pronounced Donald Trump the worst president in American history and rated Joe Biden the 14th best.

For reasons that need no explanations they rated current Democratic presidents ahead of the greats of American history. Daniel Greenfield summarized:

And the survey from the American Political Science Association says that Obama is greater than Eisenhower and JFK, that Bill Clinton was greater than John Adams and Biden is greater than Reagan (not to mention Ulysses S. Grant and James Monroe of the Monroe Doctrine).

Is Biden really the 14th greatest president in American history? Obviously not. But these same “political science experts” also ranked Obama as the 7th greatest president, Bill Clinton as the 12th greatest president and Carter near the upper middle as the 22nd greatest president.

Since the purveyors of this nonsense are academic historians, the only sane conclusion is that college students should avoid taking courses in history and political science. Add to that the drivel that pretends to define work in the humanities, and you have learned to stick to STEM subjects. Outside of the STEM field, the American academy has been dumbed down to the point where it has become an international embarrassment.

So, we turn to Arthur Herman, a serious thinker, who labels Biden a tragic figure who has done nothing but fail. Biden has failed the country. He has failed his constituents. People who would never have voted for Donald Trump are beginning to wax nostalgic for the old days. 

According to Herman, Biden has failed. He has failed tragically. He was not up to the job and is evidently not in charge. Next to Richard Nixon he will be considered the most discredited president in American history. Quite the achievement, that.

Instead of uniting Americans as he promised in 2020, he has made us weaker and more divided, in large part because he lacked the strength and integrity to do his job. Those closest to him knew it and let it happen. In the end, it isn’t Mr. Biden’s tragedy, or even theirs. It’s America’s.

Those who define themselves by how much they hate Donald Trump would have accepted anyone but Trump. To do so they emptied their minds of judgment and covered up Biden’s manifest inadequacies. At present, thanks to the Robert Hur report, the lie has been exposed and the serial fabulators are running for cover.

We can say it’s infuriating that those around Mr. Biden know he is failing mentally and physically and have worked to cover it up, just as those around Woodrow Wilson, including his wife, tried to cover up his strokes. It was infuriating to see Mr. Biden publicly blame Donald Trump for the border mess he himself had created by reversing Mr. Trump’s policy in the first place.

Biden was incapable of making deals or even of addressing the nation’s problems. He was committed to undoing whatever Trump did, beginning with the successful border policy. 

From his first days in office, Mr. Biden handed out concessions to anyone who seemed to threaten American interests, in hopes they would leave us in peace. Some called this appeasement; I call it the Art of the Bad Deal. Among them: deals with the Taliban by abandoning Afghanistan, with Russia by not blocking the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, with China by allowing it to buy Russian oil and natural gas after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, with Iran by not enforcing Trump sanctions.

We have occasionally noted the mess that Biden’s foreign policy has produced. When it came to domestic policy, Biden defined himself a the anti-Trump. He promoted green energy and opened the nation’s borders:

On the domestic front, instead of a deal maker we got a rigid ideologue on issues like green energy and open borders, while soaring government spending gave us the worst inflation since the 1970s. Mr. Biden has used the bludgeon of woke ideology to silence critics, including opponents of Covid vaccine mandates. He has resorted to lawfare to cancel Mr. Trump, even as many Americans look back with nostalgia to the presidency of the man Mr. Biden wants to destroy.

The largest question about the Biden presidency is going to be: who is in charge? Joe himself is barely awake most of the time. His staff spends its time covering up his obvious mental deficiencies.

For now things have gotten so bad that the Democratic Party has begun to see that Biden will most likely lose an election to Trump. Thus, it has set about working to remove him from the scene, without his knowing what is happening. 

Perhaps the most important point does not involve policy. It involves bearing and demeanor. Joe Biden comes across as weak and frail, as one misstep from calamity. He does not work very long or hard. He does not command respect. He does not stand tall and proud, representing a proud nation.

Consider the Daily Mail’s description of a typical Biden day:

Bleary-eyed and with a sleep apnea machine strapped to his face, Biden wakes up most mornings when his cat Willow crawls across him.

After getting out of bed, he heads for a 45-minute workout with his physical therapist, who focuses on balance exercises to stop him falling and to deal with his increasingly stiff gait.

The president is not at his Oval Office desk until at 10am and usually leaves at 7pm – Obama, by comparison, began an hour earlier.

Aides schedule most of his public events between 10am and 4pm because, White House insiders say, 'that is when he is at his sharpest.'

His news conferences are heavily limited, and he has clocked just half the number of them compared to Obama. He is often late to them, by up to an hour – aides refer to this tardiness as 'Biden Time'. Follow-up questions are heavily limited in case disaster strikes, as it did recently when he got the Egyptian premier's name wrong.

In short, he does not seem to be leaderly. He is one slip from embarrassing himself and making America look enfeebled. His staff and now the American people watch each of his public appearances, in dread of the moment when he will collapse into a puddle, making the nation look weak and frail.

How can he run when he can barely walk?

Please subscribe to my Substack, for free or preferably for a fee.

Wednesday Potpourri

 First, if you have always suspected that men and women think differently, science has just caught up with your intuition. Researchers from Stanford University have discovered that male and female brains are distinct.

The Telegraph reports the findings:

‌There has never been any definitive proof of difference in activity in the brains of men and women, but Stanford University has shown that it is possible to tell the sexes apart based on activity in “hotspot” areas.

‌They include the “default mode network”, an area of the brain thought to be the neurological centre for “self”, and is important in introspection and retrieving personal memories.

‌The limbic system is also implicated, which helps regulate emotion, memory and deals with sexual stimulation, and striatum, which is important in habit forming and rewards.

‌Experts said the brain differences could influence how males and females view themselves, how they interact with other people and how they recall past experiences.

‌Dr Vinod Menon, prof of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford, said: “This is a very strong piece of evidence that sex is a robust determinant of human brain organisation.”‌

“Our findings suggest that differences in brain activity patterns across these key brain regions contribute to sex-specific variations in cognitive functioning.”

This tells us that men and women are not interchangeable. But, you already knew that.

Second, it does not seem to be limited to one or another sex, but Gen Zers have already learned how not to be up to the job. Their bad manners began with dating but now extend to their jobs. Not that you will find that surprising.

Yahoo news has the story:

Ghosting isn’t just for dating anymore. Now Gen Z are treating their would-be employers like bad dates and not showing up for job interviews or their first day on the job without as much as a phone call.

Employment website Indeed surveyed 1,500 businesses and 1,500 working people in the U.K. and found that job ghosting is rife, with 75% of workers saying they’ve ignored a prospective employer in the past year.

But the youngest generation of workers are by far the worst offenders.

A whopping 93% of Gen Zers told the global recruitment platform that they’ve flaked out of an interview.

Worse still, a staggering 87% managed to charm their way through interviews, secure the job, and sign the contract, only to leave their new boss stranded on the very first day.

Their reason for doing so? According to the survey, it makes them “feel in charge of their career”.

But it’s having the opposite effect on businesses left high and dry: More than half of businesses surveyed have said that ghosting has made hiring more difficult.

Third, as an adjunct piece of information, American schoolchildren are continuing to fall behind in international assessments. This, from the Epoch Times:

The most recent results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) highlight a concerning trend for U.S. students in the field of math.

In comparison to their counterparts in other industrialized nations, American students are falling behind. The rather sobering results revealed a 13-point decline for U.S. students when compared to the 2018 exam.

In stark contrast, 28 countries and economies managed to either maintain or improve their 2018 math scores, with countries such as Switzerland and Japan leading the way—and leaving the United States in the dust. These considerably more successful nations share a number of common characteristics, including, most notably of all, shorter school closures during the pandemic, as noted in the report.

America continues to suffer from pandemic era school closures. Time to ban teachers unions, don’t you think?

Fourth, the Biden administration has been hard at work onshoring manufacturing, especially semiconductor manufacturing. Without very much success. Apparently, as I have reported, America does not possess the human capital needed to fun modern chip manufacturing plants. Our educational system is producing social justice warriors but not tech savvy engineers.

The New York Times has the story:

In December 2022, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the key maker of the world’s most cutting-edge chips, said it planned to spend $40 billion in Arizona on its first major U.S. hub for semiconductor production.

The much ballyhooed project in Phoenix — with two new factories, including one with more advanced technology — became a symbol of President Biden’s quest to spur more domestic production of chips, the slices of silicon that help all manner of devices make calculations and store data.

Then last summer, TSMC pushed back initial manufacturing at its first Arizona factory to 2025 from this year, saying local workers lacked expertise in installing some sophisticated equipment. Last month, the company said the second plant wouldn’t produce chips until 2027 or 2028, rather than 2026, citing uncertainty about tech choices and federal funding.

Fifth, diversity quotas are killing American ingenuity. The College Fix reports:

The continued embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM combined with a broad decline in academic standards is producing a generation of scientists who are less capable than their predecessors, warned some scientists in recent interviews with The College Fix.

From easier math classes in high school to the elimination of standardized tests to extreme grade-inflation to DEI tropes that elevate lived experiences and ways of knowing over facts and data, the trend represents a pressing problem for science professors working to protect STEM and preserve its standards and meritocracy.

Sixth, apparently, the lust to punish Donald Trump is costing New York State. Certain businesspeople are adding New York to the list of loser states, states they do not want to invest in. Our governor, Kathy Hochul, says that there is no problem, but that can only mean that there is a problem.

This, from Newsweek:

Conservative businesspeople and public figures including investor Kevin O'Leary and author Scott Adams have vowed to stop doing business in New York, following the ruling that banned Donald Trump from running a company in the state for three years.

O'Leary, a Canadian businessman and television personality, told Fox Business on Monday that he would never invest in New York now, saying he was shocked at Judge Arthur Engoron's ruling. On Friday, Engoron—who is overseeing the New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case against Trump—ordered the former president to pay $355 million plus interest for lying about his wealth and inflating the value of his assets. The former president still denies any wrongdoing.

"I can't even understand or fathom the decision at all; there's no rationale for it," O'Leary said.

"It doesn't matter what the governor says; New York was already a loser state, like California is a loser state. There are many loser states because of policies, high taxes and uncompetitive regulations," he added. "It was already at the top of the list of loser states. I would never invest in New York now, and I'm not the only person saying that."

Seventh, when you have lost the New York Times, you have a serious problem. Such is the case of one Joe Biden, via the Daily Mail:

New York Times' publisher has revealed the White House said they have been unhappy at recent press coverage in the newspaper after a series of opinion articles focused on President Joe Biden's age and his unsuitability to run for a second term.

A.G. Sulzberger, 43, who has been publisher for the last six years, said the White House was 'extremely upset' - yet he insists the paper will 'continue to report fully and fairly.'

'We are going to continue to report fully and fairly, not just on Donald Trump but also on President Joe Biden,' he told the Reuters Institute in an interview. 

Eighth, obviously, the Biden foreign policy is a calamity. War in Eastern Europe; war in the Middle East; terrorists shutting down shipping through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

And yet, our foreign policy maven, one Antony Blinken, has gone to war against people who misgender.

The New York Post has the story:

Attention, enemies of America: You can go ahead and kill, bomb and terrorize with impunity — just make sure you don’t misgender anyone. 

That’s American foreign policy in a nutshell under President Biden, a fact confirmed by recent reports that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned his staffers in a memo against using gendered language. 

No more “manpower,” for example. (Also presumably forbidden would be “Uncle Sam” and “Lady Liberty.”) 

Blinken also wants Staties to ID themselves by preferred pronouns — like “ze/zir,” per the memo — in meetings and emails. 

This is what our secretary of state spends his time on, as the world burns around him?

The country is not in the best of hands. We are becoming an international laughing stock.

Please subscribe to my Substack, for free or preferably for a fee.