Month: March 2024

Traditionally, hardliners have made the absurd claim that all or most criticisms of Israeli policy in the Middle East are antisemitic, a vile accusation designed to shield the Israeli government from any criticisms at all. Yet even democratic governments—because they spend other people’s tax money and often seemingly care little about foreign non-voters’ (and sometimes even voters’) lives—often have incentives to take morally and financially challenged actions. In the Gaza War, the Israeli government is making costly decisions in terms of both lives and money; it is thus taking actions which likely will damage the security and prosperity of its own people. Is it antisemitic to warn against such actions? The answer seems to be no.

The primary dictionary definition of a Semite is a person who speaks any one of the Semitic languages—for example, Arabic, Aramaic, Assyrian, Hebrew, or other Canaanite languages. The common usage of “antisemitic” means being prejudiced against Jews. Yet Judaism is a religion with adherents all over the world; Zionism is a political movement supporting the creation and maintenance of the state of Israel in Palestine; and Israel is a country of 80 percent Jews and 20 percent Arabs. When talking of public policy, however, “Israel” usually refers to the Israeli government. Finally, more Jews live outside of Israel than within it, and some in the diaspora don’t support Zionism. Therefore, it is absurd to equate any criticism of the Israeli government with maligning the Jewish religion or Jews no matter where they live.

In fact, recently, some American Jewish politicians and media figures have criticized the Israeli government’s actions in the Gaza War—for example, the normally pro-Israeli Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Peter Beinart, a professor and editor at large of Jewish Currents. In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, Beinart reported that in 2002, Democrats supported Israel over Palestinians by 34 percentage points, but, in early 2023, that had flipped with Palestinians being favored by 11 points; in November 2023, among Democrats under 35, Palestinians were favored by 58 points. 

Unfortunately, some of this shift in legitimate public criticism of the Israeli government has spilled over into illegitimate antisemitic actions on college campuses. Beinart noted that this unwarranted misdirection of hostility against external actors toward domestic U.S. citizens perceived to be linked to the foreign entities is an ugly American tradition—for example, hostility to German Americans during World War I, violence against American Muslims after the 9/11 attacks, and assaults on Asian Americans during the Covid pandemic. Beinart further cited research by political scientist Ayal Feinberg, who discovered that antisemitic incidents in the United States tick upward when the Israeli government takes major military actions. That finding is especially ironic since the Israeli government claims to protect Jews worldwide.       

It is also ironic that a food-fight involving the right criticizing the left for antisemitism on college campuses has erupted at the same time that the gentile Donald Trump, former president and 2024 presidential candidate, has been criticized by many Jews for his attempt to define what it is to be a good Jew, saying that Jews who vote Democratic hate Israel and their own religion.

It is not antisemitic to critique the Israeli government for its slumber even when it was warned a year prior about a planned Hamas attack; for telling Qatar to keep funding Hamas three weeks before the attack in order to prevent Palestinian unity and a two-state solution; and for falling into Hamas’s trap by conducting an over-the-top of military response to the group’s heinous terrorist attack on October 7—thus raising overwhelming international condemnation of the Israeli government’s killing of more than 31,000 Gazans to date, with the prospect of tens of thousands more dying of famine.

Under international law, war crimes are not justified in response to war crimes. Some commentators claim that Israel is being held to a higher standard than applies to the conduct of other, bloodier civil wars—for example that in Sudan—and that that double standard amounts to antisemitism. But Israel is a developed democracy that is a U.S. ally; Sudan is none of these.

The American commentator David Brooks recently listed several options instead of the Israeli government’s massive invasion and flattening of Gaza from the air by using huge bombs in urban areas: 1) fighting Hamas with a lighter, more surgical strategy, 2) using targeted assassinations of Hamas’s leaders (a counterterrorism strategy), or 3) conducting a long-term counterinsurgency strategy. He found all of the options wanting, asserting that the only way to peace is through defeating Hamas completely by continuing the Israeli government’s pounding of Gaza into dust.

Yet from the beginning, most military analysts, few of them likely actual antisemites, thought eliminating Hamas was an Israeli pipe dream. In addition to grossly underestimating the threat from Hamas and approving Qatar’s continued outside funding of the group before the attack, the Israeli government disregarded President Joe Biden’s entreaties to avoid making the same mistakes of overreaction that the United States did after 9/11. The Israeli government did not listen. Instead of using the more rational retaliation of surgically targeting Hamas’s leaders over time, it began to whale away at Gaza, killing and starving civilians, and inflaming future generations to join groups that will likely become Hamas on steroids. 

Even this more targeted response should have been a stopgap measure until a one-state or two-state solution to peace could have been achieved—because experts know that you cannot kill your way out of an insurgency. Instead, to eliminate the insurgency, the underlying cause needs to be removed. Even if the Israeli government turns the rest of Gaza into rubble, it is ensured to be ensnared in a counterinsurgency quagmire for many years—similar to that experienced by the United States in Iraq. 

The post Criticizing the Israeli Government’s Incompetence Is Not Antisemitic appeared first on The American Conservative.

The great irony is that, despite all the fear-mongering spewed out about Donald Trump ending democracy, it is mostly the Democrats who are taking shots at its most sacred freedoms: those of the First Amendment.

The House recently passed a bill, HR 7521, seeking to “ban” the popular app TikTok from America’s smartphones. The logic works like this: TikTok is owned by a Chinese company. Chinese companies are under the control of the Chinese Communists. Therefore, TikTok is brainwashing American youth while at the same time gathering their personal data for some undefined yet assumed nefarious use. TikTok thus should be banned.

No evidence has been presented for any of the assertions listed—no evidence the Chinese government exerts direct control over TikTok, whose contents are 100 percent user-created, no evidence the app has any purpose other than to make money, and no evidence the app collects data to use it in some way, nefarious or not. It just feels scary and bad, as in any other red scare, so the House moved to ban it. The Senate votes soon, and Joe Biden says he will sign the bill if it reaches him.

This is not the first time the government has tried to ban TikTok. In 2021, President Donald Trump issued an executive order against TikTok that was halted in federal court when a judge found it was “arbitrary and capricious.” Another judge characterized the national security threat posted by TikTok as “phrased in the hypothetical.” When the state of Montana tried to ban the app in 2023, a federal judge said that it “oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users,” with a “pervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment.” Candidate Trump now opposes the TikTok ban.

You’d think that was enough for TikTok. Yet note the ban is just on a Chinese company owning the app, and the bill allows for an American company or ally to buy TikTok and go on its merry way. It’s not a ban; it’s a hijacking. And don’t think the Chinese won’t find an American app to retaliate against. Listening, Apple and Android?

But that is not where the true First Amendment challenge lies, though “banning” the app can itself be seen as restricting speech in its raw form. The real challenge lies in the details of the TikTok bill, which proves to be another Patriot Act in hiding.

Section 2(a)(1) of the bill prohibits “foreign adversary controlled applications” (FACA) from operating in the U.S. The prohibition applies not just to the app itself but to app stores and Internet hosting providers. There’s even a provision for a penalty of $5,000 per user fine; TikTok has 170 million users.

Effectively, the bill creates a federal government kill switch preventing distribution of “prohibited” apps or websites at the hosting level—clear top-down central government censorship of speech, and absolutely unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Unless, of course, the weasel excuse is used that the actual killing of the imported app is carried out by Apple and Google as proxies without being touched by the Feds, the same trick currently used to gather American citizen data, in addition to direct hoovering up of material by the NSA on a scale the Chinese can only dream of.

What is a “foreign adversary controlled application” under Section 2(g)(3) of the new bill? Any social/content-sharing website, desktop app, mobile or VR app that has more than a million monthly active users creating content is a FACA when two conditions are met: First, if it is “controlled by a foreign adversary” or a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity controlled by a foreign adversary. Second, if the President determines it “presents a significant threat to the national security of the United States.”

The term “controlled by a foreign adversary” means that the company (a) is domiciled in, headquartered in, or organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country; or (b) has a 20 percent ownership group from one of those countries; or (c) is “subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity” from one of those countries (Section 2(g)(1). “Adversary” is currently defined elsewhere in the U.S. Code as Russia, China, North Korea or Iran, but can be changed to someday be, say, France (remember “Freedom Fries”?)

There in the details lies the real challenge to the First Amendment, a set of vague criteria that allow the president to ban websites and apps based on his own finding of threat. No appeals, no due process. Censorship.

Americans have a right to speak freely, and to listen/read/watch freely and make up their own minds. The Supreme Court in Lamont v. Postmaster General already ruled in 1965 that this right even extends to foreign propaganda (the case involved Soviet propaganda materials passing through the U.S. Mail.) In addition, the irony of the U.S. government showing concern for what a foreign company might do with user data when in the U.S. such data is openly for sale, including to the government itself, cannot be dismissed. The TikTok ban is bad law, probably unconstitutional, and generally unconscionable.

The TikTok bill is not the only current challenge to the First Amendment. As exposed by the Twitter Files and elsewhere, for years the Biden administration worked hand-in-glove with the big tech social media companies, Jack Dorsey’s old Twitter in particular, to censor speech. Various agencies, including those responsible for Covid-19 policy, would contact the media companies to demand wrongthink posts be taken down. Particularly offensive were conservative posts questioning the efficiency and safety of the Covid vaccine, and those dealing with election fraud.

The question of whether or not the government can do that—demanding specific online speech be killed—reached the Supreme Court, and oral arguments were held earlier this month in the case of Murthy v. Missouri. The Court seemed skeptical of the idea that such action by the government was unconstitutional on its face, as the states claimed. Instead, the justices’ questions seemed to lean toward how the censorship was done.

The government was free to persuade social media carriers, cajole them, argue with them but as long as the government did not force them to take something down, it was likely legal. The states contend the looming power of the federal government made each request, however bland and polite, into a threat. Same as when the mafia thug in the movies says, “Nice place you got here, hate to see anything happen to it if you’re late paying us.” In one interaction a government watchdog seeking to deep-six some posts stated, “the White House is considering its options” if the “voluntary” take down effort fails.

There was room for debate. Justice Alito stated, “When I see the White House and Federal officials repeatedly saying that Facebook and the Federal government should be partners…regular meetings, constant pestering…. Wow, I cannot imagine Federal officials taking that approach to print media.” Alito also thought the barrage of emails from the White House and others to the social media companies may have met the legal standard for coercion.

The states agreed, saying, “Pressuring platforms in back rooms, shielded from public view, is not using a bully pulpit. That’s just being a bully… We don’t need coercion as a theory. The government ‘cannot induce, encourage or promote’ to get private actors to do what government cannot: censor Americans’ speech.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson replied, “Whether or not the government can do this…depends on the application of our First Amendment jurisprudence. There may be circumstances in which the government could prohibit certain speech on the internet or otherwise. My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways.”

Justice Barrett seemed uncomfortable with the lower courts’ conclusion that the Biden administration could be banned not only from “coercion,” but also from any action that “significantly encourages” platforms to take down protected speech. “Encouragement would sweep in an awful lot,” she said.

Interactions between administration officials and news outlets are part of a valuable dialogue that is not prohibited by the First Amendment, said Justices Kavanaugh and Kagan. The Justices suggested instead there is a role for vigorous efforts by the government to combat bad speech, for example discouraging posts harmful to children or conveying antisemitic or Islamophobic messages.

The remarks of Brown et al. are frightening from a constitutional point of view, basically saying when the government is ineffective in creating dominant content of its own to address public messaging (i.e., “vaccines are safe”) it justifies proxy censorship to eliminate counter information.

A Supreme Court decision is expected in June.

The post Could a TikTok Ban Be a Second Patriot Act? appeared first on The American Conservative.

Longtime readers of The American Conservative are no stranger to making common cause with people on the left when necessary. The effort to forestall decades of disaster in Iraq may have failed, but it was not TAC alone in that defeat; the magazine’s editors were dubbed “unpatriotic conservatives” not only because they were antiwar and David Frum loved the war, but explicitly because in seeking to avert a debacle they had made “common cause with the left-wing…movements.” So doing, it was suggested, and is still suggested, violated a friend–enemy distinction that placed them outside the political bounds of, if not the country, at least the conservative movement. The war party dismissed appeals to prudence and constraints, conflating resistance to the war with terrorist sympathies. 

Today, you can be a patriotic conservative and agree with Democrats, apparently, but only if it is about Trump—not about liberal overreach. The war party still resists the prudential recognition of limited resources, and its right wing will find such recognition all the more difficult when it entails agreement with members of the traditional left. But the national political distinction that matters in our moment is between those who put the interests of American citizens and their posterity first and those who don’t, often hiding behind gestures toward an abstract idea of America. This is a distinction that cuts across conventional affiliations, leaving both parties in upheaval, as the Democrats become the party most comfortable with liberal internationalism and the global financial elite. Everyone should be prepared, going forward, to find perhaps temporary allies of convenience to both his right and left. 

For those who seek to put America first, NATO reform presents a new risk of being associated with people neoconservatives will dismiss as leftists. So be it. A recent essay in Foreign Affairs by Max Bergmann, currently of the Center for Strategic and International Studies but formerly of the Center for American Progress, argues for a “more European NATO.” His call pairs nicely with what Sumantra Maitra, my colleague both here at TAC and at the Center for Renewing America, calls a “dormant NATO” strategy for the United States, something Bergmann acknowledges negatively, framing his case as a matter of insurance against such policies. 

Nevertheless, the two perspectives are harmonious. In a time of limited resources, and thus ruthless prioritization, American policymakers must focus on managing our relationship with China and responding to China’s relationship with the rest of the world. If, as Bergmann suggests and Maitra has proposed, Europe can fulfill the core purposes of NATO without America as principal, then embracing that reality gives U.S. policymakers one less distraction. The benefits are not one-sided in the long term. Bergmann writes that the main problem facing Europe collectively “lies with NATO’s overdependence on the United States.” 

In a world where even President Biden’s Democrat administration is preoccupied with the situation in the West Pacific, this is an obvious vulnerability for martially atrophied European member states. The traditional major threat to U.S. grand strategy is the emergence of a hegemonic power that dominates the Eurasian landmass and thus, surpassing the United States in material and cultural resources, can afford to strike North America across the oceans. The reality now of the global political and economic situation is such that this threat slouches not toward Europe, as it did in the 20th century’s conflicts with Germany and Russia, but instead moves its slow thighs in Asia. American focus is turning, if still in starts and stops.

Thus NATO should be, or will be by events, demoted from a critical global institution to a vital regional one. As Bergmann writes, “After decades of drift, the alliance has found new purpose in deterring Russian aggression, its original raison d’etre,” and the European members of the alliance are capable of such deterrence largely without the United States. Bergmann acknowledges that “when Americans travel to Europe, they see sophisticated infrastructure and citizens who enjoy high standards of living and robust social safety nets.” 

Being one of those rare professional liberals with enough imagination to model a normal person’s thoughts, he adds, “They cannot understand why their tax dollars and soldiers are needed to defend a well-off continent whose total population far outstrips that of the United States.” 

This highlights, however, a peculiar pretense in discussions of NATO’s future. What Bergmann passes over as “decades of drift” have also been decades of enthusiastic enumeration of new responsibilities for the alliance, as it transformed itself from a straightforward defensive arrangement into a full-suite security organization executing military interventions far outside the European theater, let alone the North Atlantic. For decades, NATO has been looking for things to do, and finding some. So when officials outraged by the dormant NATO proposal claim there is nothing to scale down, nothing for America to decline to participate in, that the alliance is just what it has always been, there should be some outrage in return. 

In fact, the alliance has evolved, so it can evolve further. Defenders of a smaller role for the United States will have to be prepared, however, just like defenders of the status quo, to set aside compunctions about agreeing with members of “the other team.” As NATO has become so much more than for keeping Russia out, it has not ceased from also being, in Lord Ismay’s famous words, for keeping “the Americans in, and the Germans down.” Conservative interventionists will resist a European-led or dormant NATO with invocations of future war on the continent; reliance on American firepower, they say, is the only thing keeping member states off each other’s throats. In making this argument, they will probably have the support of both small states concerned at the prospect of further dependence on France and Germany and a European left happy to keep the defense burden squarely on American shoulders. 

Meanwhile, a coalition for making American troops the backstop of last resort, rather than the backbone of forward defense, will be no less offensive to American prejudices. France may be our oldest ally, but after two World Wars, bickering with Charles De Gaulle, and observation of the country’s creative riot and vacation schedule, her reputation with American conservatives is the stuff of jokes. That reflects the shortness of U.S. memories far more than France’s civilizational status, and will need to be overcome. France has always wanted to play a larger role in NATO, repeatedly snubbed by the Anglo-American special relationship. A French-German-British triumvirate backing up the alliance’s Eastern border states would work as well at preserving peace for the foreseeable future as the current imbalanced consulship. 

Foreign policy does not fit tidily within domestic partisan divides, because it deals with delimiting that domestic area. It is too large. Like immigration policy, it conditions these other debates, creating what I have described before as a political order of operations. At the beginning of this column, I defined our new disruptive national political distinction in domestic terms, but I conclude now with the distinction that divides foreign policy, because it is the distinction that bounds other debates. The defining division in American foreign policy today is over the status of unipolarity. 

No one denies that, after 1989, the U.S. experienced a period of hyperpower; the question is whether three decades of bipartisan liberal hubris at the end of history undermined that hegemony beyond repair. Committed liberal internationalists believe unipolarity can be salvaged, that America needs only assert herself on the battlefield and further entrench in the multilateral institutions of the last century. They still think in the Cold War terms of “hawks” and “doves,” and accuse those who have come to terms with reality—an increasingly bipolar global order and a multipolar future—of inviting and even ushering in these conditions. (Never mind who has been at the controls for the last 30 years). The advocates of making the best hard choices can be sure they will still be called “unpatriotic conservatives.”   

The post ‘Dormant NATO’ Is the Best Hard Choice appeared first on The American Conservative.

Mary Harrington once wrote that America is a satanic theocracy. Not in the literal sense, of course, but more in the literary sense of the word. “Perhaps Milton is to blame,” Harrington wrote, “Cromwell’s chief propagandist is famous for creating the most sympathetic Satan in literary history. In Milton’s 1663 Biblical epic Paradise Lost, Satan both longs for the Heaven he’s renounced, but stubbornly refuses to be ruled, declaring: ‘Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.’”

To simplify, the central thesis is that America is a society that is primed to ideologically worship radical self-love to the point that it is a perpetual rebellion against any natural authority and hierarchy. 

A plausible realist qualifier to that is that America is a revolutionary (and ideologically Protestant) society from its foundation; that means, unlike dispositionally satiated status quo powers, it needs a sense of providential destiny and a sense of rebellion in relation to other powers and authorities. That is perhaps all there is to it. America stood against empires when imperialism was the global norm. It then co-opted proto-imperialism to push back against other empires in its own hemisphere. 

Imperial priorities dictated that America have an industrial base and expand from coast to coast. Imperial priorities dictated a (Teddy) Rooseveltian educational system for a republican citizenry. Imperial priorities decided asset prioritizations, railways, different English spellings, and alliance with Britain, pre-world war. The special relationship was purely imperial elite choice from both sides, most Americans (and Britons) were ambivalent about it. The Cold War was a conflict between ideological modernist cousins of liberalism and communism. The secular liberals made peace with the religious fellow citizens, to defeat the more fanatically secular and authoritarian fascism and communism. Hollywood churned out pro-faith and pro-family propaganda until the alliance of convenience was over. 

Today there is no competition to the elite liberals from the authoritarian left across the globe. Naturally their Sauron-like gaze is towards the faithful. That’s why they see a Christian Russia to be far more a threat than the brutal authoritarian and secular China. If tomorrow China truly threatens American power, Hollywood will pivot towards worshiping faith, flag, and family again. Unipolarity explains foreign and domestic policy. 

Of course, hierarchy is the natural state of affairs. The argument that hierarchical disparity is not natural but material is the root justification for any totalitarianism. To balance that, the American liberal elite needs state power to actively discriminate or pressure one or other side. By that logic you can justify unlimited external intervention and control to fix that always everywhere, even things which are unfixable, like culture in Afghanistan, or educational and material disparity within our own country.

All that is to say that, unlike the notion that America itself is a liberal “satanic” theocracy, it is easier to see that America, like the rest of the Anglosphere, is under the thumb of a secular liberal priestly class. A farmer in Idaho or a small businessman in Ohio has more in common with one in Mansfield, UK, or on the shores of the Volga than the sociology department at Yale or the gender studies faculty at Rutgers. 

And that explains more than anything why the liberal priest class celebrates Easter as the new “Transgender Day of Visibility.” The presidential “day of visibility” edict wasn’t a  random event. It was a deliberate, targeted powerplay by those who know their core support group across the country and the globe. Presidential edicts are always like royal charters, every single word thought out and planned. If you don’t get that, you don’t get politics. 

The question here therefore isn’t about state neutrality. The American state has never been “neutral” or even aspired to be neutral. That is a myth. The current elite and the state is actively undermining one side, and promoting the other. The idea that elegiacs to neutrality can and will defend against this elite ideology is a ludicrous concept. It is at the end of the day, like all conflicts, hot or cold, a theological war. Of course, one can refuse to have a theocracy and that’s fine. The chances of having a Protestant Franco are near zero. 

But the Dawkinsian idea that the American state can be truly secular, without a worldview dictated by a specific religion is also absurd and ahistorical. There will always be a faith, some sort of a faith. Even the Jacobins—a movement qualitatively similar to modern American liberal internationalists—worshipped “reason” in a temple. It is pretty much that. To change that, change the ruling class and install a counter elite. Restructuring the modes of propaganda, reforming the universities, the bureaucracy, and state theology is the way to change the country. It won’t happen in one day—and neutrality won’t win a theological conflict. 

In Edward Watts’s fascinating book, The Final Pagan Generation, the cultural shift that engulfed Europe took over a period of four hundred years. Romans, who were used to old gods and older ways, continued with their traditions, but that got mixed with new symbols. People were buried with both wooden gods and crucifixes as a new faith slowly engulfed the old. But the two most important factors were state powers, and time of change. Romans only changed when the state symbolism changed; the revolution was top-down, and one set of elites replaced the other set. It took centuries to transform society. 

There is a tendency among the commentariat to cherry pick holy books and scriptures that justify one’s ideology, the liberals focusing on eliminating poverty, and the conservatives focusing more on virtue and sexuality. But as a military historian, the most important lesson one can draw about implementing political power from the rise and establishment of Christianity is the necessity of steady martial resolve. The changes will be elite-driven and come from the top. It will be stable, subtle and resolute, without verging on fanatical, idiotic, and overtly preachy. And it will take time. 

The post The Ignominious Timing of Trans Visibility Day appeared first on The American Conservative.

In a move that has sent shockwaves through the political landscape, Kari Lake, a staunch conservative and MAGA favorite, has made headlines with her decision to not defend herself in a defamation lawsuit filed by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.

This decision, which has stunned critics and supporters alike, is not just a legal maneuver but a powerful statement against what Lake views as a corrupted legal system being weaponized for political ends.

My two highest priorities in the Senate are securing the border & fixing our economy.

Both of these things directly impact the quality of life we pass along to the next generation.

This open border is importing drugs, crime, potential terrorism, & chaos. It’s killing our… pic.twitter.com/xCYugkABVw

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 30, 2024

Kari Lake, known for her unwavering commitment to conservative values and her close alignment with the MAGA movement, has long been a thorn in the side of the political establishment. Her refusal to participate in the defamation case brought against her by Stephen Richer, a figure she controversially labels as a “fake Republican,” underscores her disdain for what she perceives as attempts to silence dissenting voices through lawfare.

The roots of this legal battle trace back to the contentious 2022 elections, during which Lake vocally criticized the handling of the voting process by Maricopa County officials. She highlighted significant machine failures on Election Day, affecting a majority of the county precincts and disproportionately impacting Republican voters. Furthermore, the discovery of an additional 25,000 ballots after the election only fueled her allegations of electoral misconduct, casting a shadow over the integrity of the election results.

Who else agrees that Kari Lake will be an awesome United States Vice President? pic.twitter.com/etbJ6fJfZc

— Trump Lover (@SUBRATA30016572) March 27, 2024

Lake’s decision to concede in the defamation lawsuit is a strategic one, aimed at preserving her resources and focus for a more significant battle ahead. With her sights set on succeeding retiring Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Lake is courting moderate voters in what promises to be a highly competitive race. Sinema, who recently registered as an independent, leaving the Democratic Party, represents a shifting political landscape that Lake aims to navigate successfully.

By stepping away from the lawsuit, Lake sends a clear message: she will not allow legal entanglements to distract her from her political objectives or legitimize what she sees as a perversion of the legal system. In her own words, participating in the lawsuit would only serve to “legitimize this perversion of our legal system and allow bad actors to interfere in our upcoming election.”

This bold stance has resonated with many of her supporters, who view Lake as a fighter unafraid to challenge the status quo. Her approach to politics, marked by a refusal to play by the established rules when they serve to entrench the power of the political elite, has earned her a dedicated following among conservatives and MAGA enthusiasts.

As Kari Lake continues her political journey, her decision to forego a defense in the defamation case will undoubtedly be a defining moment. It highlights her commitment to her principles over political expediency and sets the stage for a Senate race that will test the strength of her convictions against the realities of a politically divided Arizona. In the end, Lake’s gamble may very well redefine the boundaries of political engagement and set a new precedent for how conservative candidates confront their adversaries.

The post Kari Lake’s Bold Stand: A Defiant Message to the Political Establishment appeared first on The Conservative Brief.

According to a principle enunciated by Ronald Reagan, “If you want more of something, subsidize it.” Real-world examples of this phenomenon abound, from electric vehicles to solar panels, but broad generalizations inspire a search for exceptions. Is it true in all cases? And if not, what causes the results to differ?

Affordable housing is a fitting subject to test the theory, as it can be divided fairly neatly into opposing categories, public and private. A privately owned apartment building financed with funds from a privately owned institution can be as affordable to tenants as a project financed with government loans, grants, and subsidies, but the former will not typically be counted as progress towards an affordable housing goal. Why not? Because it won’t be the scene of a ribbon-cutting or ground-breaking ceremony, or provide a naming opportunity for a politician, living or dead. Does the rule that you get more of something if you subsidize it apply equally to the public and private sectors?

No, because of the countervailing principle known as “the Bureaucratic Rule of Two.” 

Formulated by the late economist Thomas Borcherding, this theory concluded empirically that “removal of an activity from the private to the public sector will double its unit costs of production.” 

Affordable housing provided by the public sector is, despite the label, not very affordable. As a result developers are starting, in Nancy Reagan-fashion, to just say no to public funding. In Los Angeles, where a 2016 bond issue for low-income housing raised $1.2 billion, the city of San Jose found that affordable housing units funded in part by tax credits cost an average of $939,000 per unit. The end result of this well-meaning effort? The number of people living on the streets actually grew by 60 percent. By contrast, a private fund raised by SDS Capital Group that did not use this subsidy was able to build comparable units for only $291,000 per unit.

What accounts for the difference? There are several contributing factors. One is the necessary complexity that public funding adds to the cost of such projects. Some of these factors are intrinsic to government; you don’t want to hand out credits that can be used to reduce taxpayers’ liability on a dollar-for-dollar basis without legislative safeguards to prevent abuse by the rich. On the other hand, losing tax revenue is hard-wired into subsidized housing programs; in 2023, the low-income housing tax credit cost around $13.2 billion in lost revenue according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, and that figure is expected to increase by $2 billion by 2025. As the late Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois said, a billion here, a billion there—pretty soon you’re talking real money.

The utility of low-income housing tax credits is limited to those with large tax liabilities and high disposable income, however, which means—the rich. Investors buy the credits at a discount—currently around 90 cents on the dollar—with the net funds flowing into the project. Before those monies are spent on land, labor and building materials, however, they must run through a gauntlet of service providers—“syndicators, general partners, managers, and investors,” in the words of a Tax Policy Center study—that is longer than a comparable private sector project would face. Each of these players—plus the usual crowd of lawyers, accountants, consultants and appraisers—takes a whack at the pork at it scurries by. 

Then there are the public policy encumbrances that are added on to serve social goals that may be laudable in the abstract, but which can have unintended negative consequences. Take, for example, project labor agreements that mandate all building trades on a job be union shops. This requirement operates to exclude most minority-owned contractors; in New Jersey, for example, 98 percent of African-American and Hispanic construction companies are non-union. Some public sector competitive bidding laws have the perverse effect of raising construction costs by requiring separate sub-contractor bids, thus ruling out innovative construction methods such as so-called “design-build,” which allows private sector developers to have a single point of responsibility for an entire project.

Viewed in perspective, then, the benefits of affordable housing subsidies flow in a pattern that resembles a snow-boarder’s half-pipe: on one high side, dollar-for-dollar reductions in taxes paid by the rich; on the other, housing for the poor; that big dip in between means nothing for the middle class.

So what is to be done? Ask developers and they say their comparative advantage over the public sector would widen even further from streamlined permitting. How to protect the interests of tenants from private landlords who don’t maintain their properties? The amount of subsidies sloshing around in the low-income residential real estate market—expected to grow to $15.2 billion next year—would pay for a lot of housing inspectors.

Many years ago I was a legal tyro in a law firm that specialized in subsidized housing. A fellow associate would sometimes spend the night, burning the midnight fluorescent bulbs. When I commiserated with her and told her she should ease up for the sake of her health and well-being, she said her work was fulfilling because she was helping poor people.

I recalled for her the investor list from a recent deal I’d worked on: It included movie stars, name-brand musicians, big-time real estate investors, and other high-net-worth types. What about them? I asked. Who’s looking out for their interests?

She thought for a moment, then an expression of enlightenment slowly crept across her face: “I guess I am.”

The post Make Affordable Housing—Expensive appeared first on The American Conservative.

With his grit and populist charisma, legendary wrestler Diamond Dallas Page, aka DDP, rose to the height of pop culture in 1997–1999 as he brought the wrestling world to the broader public with crossover appearances and matches with Hulk Hogan, the NBA star Karl Malone, and the Tonight Show host Jay Leno. Since then, he has maintained his influence in the culture by successfully reinventing himself as a motivational speaker and health guru through his work in his eponymous yoga program. 

However much confidence he has mustered to achieve these successes has not allowed him to lose touch with his servant-leader attitude. He is infectiously down-to-earth yet confident. I recently sat down with him for an in-depth discussion to learn about the secret to his success in business and what America can learn from it.

As so many raised in the latter 20th-century America, Dallas Page was a victim of a broken home. He also suffered from conditions diagnosed as dyslexia and attention deficit disorder. Early on he had visions of being a professional athlete but was hit by a car in 7th grade—shattering his knee and his sports plans. Nevertheless, this crisis of people telling him he cannot do something sparked in him a lifelong mindset of resilience and positivity that has influenced millions around the world.

Today, DDP’s main enterprise, DDP Yoga, has worked to bring longevity-increasing exercises, discipline, and mindset training to people not traditionally interested in yoga—particularly men. His videos of people’s transformations and interviews on programs like the Joe Rogan Experience have gone viral to millions of people looking for solutions in our negative culture and toxic dietary landscape. From his wrestling mentor Jake the Snake’s dramatic turnaround from addiction to the late Scott Hall’s journey to sobriety and, more recently, the retired boxer Butterbean’s health transformation, DDP has become a name associated with a never-give-up, positive spirit of healing.

DDP credits Napoleon Hill, the early 20th century positive thinking and hard work advocate, as an influence in his personal philosophy. Hill, the author of the popular book Think and Grow Rich, had a big impact on another WWE Hall of Famer: The former president Donald Trump, who credits the sermons of Norman Vincent Peale, a student of Hill’s philosophy, with shaping his own worldview.

DDP has no interest in national politics. “Who owns the government? Big business. We don’t have government anymore, bro,” he said. 

Keeping with his populist perspective, he continued, “People say, ‘Your vote matters.’ No, it doesn’t.” When it comes to voting, he says he is the first guy to vote in local elections where change can happen. As for the 2024 presidential election: “They both suck…but Trump did do some pretty cool things.”

Surveying the irreparability of politics, DDP quickly pivots back to the mind. “You can think you’re in control but, constantly, each one of us is hit with one adversity after the other, most of which we cannot control. The only thing we have control over is our mind.”

Whatever one thinks of concepts like “the power of positivity” or figures like Hill and Peale, there is no denying that there is something quintessentially American about the message DDP preaches. His American dream story of overcoming poverty with hard work and beating serial health and career setbacks with discipline and visualization harkens back to an earlier time in America wherein the culture celebrated underdogs overcoming challenges. This is in sharp contrast to today’s dominant culture of victimism in which people are encouraged to wallow in trauma and identify as oppressed in order to gain social status. 

Asked how America can get rid of its victim mentality in the workplace and the culture, DDP says, “The first thing you need to do is learn how to breathe…. When you own your breath, it’s like having a superpower. When you start to really own your discipline—those are two superpowers I have.” Rather than indulgence, he says, “Discipline is the truest form of self-love.” 

Whether you are in a car accident, giving birth, or reading an emotionally manipulative piece of propaganda from the news media, DDP says it’s the same physiological response. “If you start to get anxiety, I will guarantee you you are not breathing,” he predicts. “When you’re deep breathing, you are literally sending neural hormones to inhibit the stress producing hormones which triggers a relaxation response in the body.”

Asked what his state of the union speech would be to the American people, DDP rejects grand impositions of policies and brings it back to the person. He calls the public to take sovereignty over their minds and bodies: exercise, eat real foods (he eats organic and avoids seed oils), and practice daily deep breathing. It is reminiscent of President Kennedy’s calls for fitness.

Amid the chaos of foreign affairs, border invasions, inflation, crime, and social distrust, it is easy to want a hero to come save us from it all. That desire is the seductive recurrence of politics, especially presidential elections. However, DDP’s message cuts against that delusion. For years, he called himself the “people’s champion”; the message he is championing now at nearly 68 while standing on one foot with his other held above his shoulder is this: no one is coming to save you. Take your thoughts captive. Your emotions, including pride and fear, are not you. These too shall pass. Eat real foods and see your emotions improve. Stay out of debt. Exercise, even if you are trapped in bed or a chair, even if you are severely ill or obese. Breathe deeply when bombarded by a media owned by hostile interests. Find a way to serve others and watch how much more abundant life becomes in the process.

So many negative thoughts invade our minds daily when we challenge ourselves. When DDP approached the podium of the WWE Hall of Fame as an inductee surrounded by his daughters, he thought, “The only voice I will allow to come in: This is going to be the greatest thing I’ve done in professional wrestling.”

The post Diamond Dallas Page Tells America to Breathe appeared first on The American Conservative.

In a startling revelation that has sent shockwaves through the heart of America, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has boldly accused the Democratic Party of embodying a “Satanic cult,” igniting a firestorm of controversy and debate. This accusation comes in the wake of the Biden White House’s decision to exclude religious themes from an Easter Egg contest for children of National Guard members, coupled with the declaration of Easter Sunday as “Transgender Day of Visibility.” These actions have not only sparked outrage but have also raised questions about the underlying motives of the Democratic leadership.

On March 30, 2024, Senator Tuberville took to Twitter to voice his concerns, drawing a direct line between the Democrats’ policies and what he perceives as a broader, more sinister agenda. His comments have resonated with many Americans who feel alienated by the current administration’s stance on religious and moral issues. The senator’s critique extends beyond the Easter controversy, touching on deeper fears about the erosion of traditional values and the infiltration of a “satanic cult” into the fabric of American society.

Only Satanic paganism for the democrats. Nothing less will do. Moloch gets what Moloch wants. https://t.co/v6Oqlc6yZd

— Thomas Tatum (@JackSmart007) March 30, 2024

The reaction to Tuberville’s statements has been mixed, with figures like Reed Galen of The Lincoln Project challenging Republican voters to distance themselves from what he describes as extremist views. However, this call to action seems to overlook the growing concern among conservatives about the direction in which the country is headed. For many, Tuberville’s words are not the ramblings of an outlier but a clarion call to defend the nation’s moral foundation.

At the heart of this debate is President Biden’s proclamation of March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility. While intended as a gesture of inclusivity and support for the transgender community, it has inadvertently fueled the flames of discord, with critics arguing that it symbolizes a departure from traditional American values. The proclamation’s message of love and belonging, while noble, has been interpreted by some as an endorsement of a progressive agenda that undermines the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

The democrats have become satanic,they’ve sold their souls to the alphabet Mafia. They love abortion,homosexuality,transgenderism, and all other forms of imoral acts https://t.co/gQwZqF5dxo

— Marcus (@Marcusatim68) March 30, 2024

Senator Tuberville’s previous remarks, made during a campaign speech in Utah, further underscore his belief in the existential threat posed by what he calls a “satanic cult.” According to Tuberville, this shadowy force is actively working to groom America’s children, steering them away from the principles enshrined in the Constitution and the Bible. His stark warning paints a picture of a nation at a crossroads, forced to choose between its foundational values and a new, uncharted path.

The juxtaposition of the Biden administration’s actions with Tuberville’s accusations raises important questions about the role of religion and morality in public life. As the United States grapples with issues of identity, inclusion, and cultural change, the Easter controversy serves as a microcosm of the broader tensions that permeate American politics. It highlights the deep divisions that exist between those who advocate for a progressive vision of the future and those who seek to preserve the nation’s traditional mores.

In light of these developments, it is imperative for Americans to engage in a thoughtful and respectful dialogue about the values that define their country. The accusations of a “satanic cult” may seem extreme to some, but they reflect a genuine concern about the direction in which the nation is heading. Whether one agrees with Senator Tuberville’s assessment or not, it is clear that the United States is at a pivotal moment in its history, facing challenges that will determine the character of its society for generations to come.

As the debate over the Easter controversy and the alleged satanic agenda of the Democrats continues to unfold, it is crucial for all citizens to remain vigilant and informed. The battle for the soul of America is far from over, and it will require the collective effort of its people to navigate the complex moral and ethical landscape that lies ahead. Only by confronting these issues head-on can the nation hope to emerge stronger, more united, and true to its founding ideals.

The post Unveiling the Shadows: The Easter Controversy and the Alleged Satanic Agenda of the Democrats appeared first on The Conservative Brief.

In a move that has sent shockwaves through the political landscape, Kari Lake, a staunch conservative and MAGA favorite, has made headlines with her decision to not defend herself in a defamation lawsuit filed by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.

This decision, which has stunned critics and supporters alike, is not just a legal maneuver but a powerful statement against what Lake views as a corrupted legal system being weaponized for political ends.

My two highest priorities in the Senate are securing the border & fixing our economy.

Both of these things directly impact the quality of life we pass along to the next generation.

This open border is importing drugs, crime, potential terrorism, & chaos. It’s killing our… pic.twitter.com/xCYugkABVw

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 30, 2024

Kari Lake, known for her unwavering commitment to conservative values and her close alignment with the MAGA movement, has long been a thorn in the side of the political establishment. Her refusal to participate in the defamation case brought against her by Stephen Richer, a figure she controversially labels as a “fake Republican,” underscores her disdain for what she perceives as attempts to silence dissenting voices through lawfare.

The roots of this legal battle trace back to the contentious 2022 elections, during which Lake vocally criticized the handling of the voting process by Maricopa County officials. She highlighted significant machine failures on Election Day, affecting a majority of the county precincts and disproportionately impacting Republican voters. Furthermore, the discovery of an additional 25,000 ballots after the election only fueled her allegations of electoral misconduct, casting a shadow over the integrity of the election results.

Who else agrees that Kari Lake will be an awesome United States Vice President? pic.twitter.com/etbJ6fJfZc

— Trump Lover (@SUBRATA30016572) March 27, 2024

Lake’s decision to concede in the defamation lawsuit is a strategic one, aimed at preserving her resources and focus for a more significant battle ahead. With her sights set on succeeding retiring Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Lake is courting moderate voters in what promises to be a highly competitive race. Sinema, who recently registered as an independent, leaving the Democratic Party, represents a shifting political landscape that Lake aims to navigate successfully.

By stepping away from the lawsuit, Lake sends a clear message: she will not allow legal entanglements to distract her from her political objectives or legitimize what she sees as a perversion of the legal system. In her own words, participating in the lawsuit would only serve to “legitimize this perversion of our legal system and allow bad actors to interfere in our upcoming election.”

This bold stance has resonated with many of her supporters, who view Lake as a fighter unafraid to challenge the status quo. Her approach to politics, marked by a refusal to play by the established rules when they serve to entrench the power of the political elite, has earned her a dedicated following among conservatives and MAGA enthusiasts.

As Kari Lake continues her political journey, her decision to forego a defense in the defamation case will undoubtedly be a defining moment. It highlights her commitment to her principles over political expediency and sets the stage for a Senate race that will test the strength of her convictions against the realities of a politically divided Arizona. In the end, Lake’s gamble may very well redefine the boundaries of political engagement and set a new precedent for how conservative candidates confront their adversaries.

The post Kari Lake’s Bold Stand: A Defiant Message to the Political Establishment appeared first on The Conservative Brief.

With last week’s lawsuit, the Department of Justice has joined the chorus of voices that have risen in opposition to Apple’s poor treatment of users and developers. In its complaint, the DOJ accuses Apple of neutralizing “competitive threats by imposing a series of shapeshifting rules and restrictions in its App Store guidelines and developer agreements that [allow it] to extract higher fees, thwart innovation, offer a less secure or degraded user experience, and throttle competitive alternatives.” 

In its response to the lawsuit, Apple fell back on the same argument it has used for more than a decade: that user privacy and security require the company to have total control over its ecosystem. This argument is unfounded. As policymakers, courts, and individual Apple users alike strive to counteract Big Tech’s anti-competitive tendencies, they should recognize that protecting user privacy and security is much more feasible than many corporations claim, and that openness, privacy, and security are not incompatible values.     

All of the major tech companies have become restrictionist institutions. But Apple is the progenitor of the ecosystem lock-in business model. In the 1980s and 1990s, as Microsoft and Apple were competing for the burgeoning market for personal computers and operating systems (OS), Apple built a heavily centralized and controlled ecosystem. Microsoft went in the opposite direction and bet on openness, allowing third parties to easily build and deploy applications on their Windows OS. 

When it introduced the iPhone in 2007, Apple made the decision to only allow users to download applications through an app store that it controlled. While such a closed ecosystem allowed Apple to tailor its user experience to be sleek and accessible, it also insulated the company from competition. Apple’s first-mover advantage as the inventor of the touchscreen smartphone, combined with the company’s cutthroat tactics, has given it a dominant market share in the United States and disproportionate capture of mobile market revenue, even as Google’s open source Android OS has usurped Apple globally. Apple’s closed nature has also protected it from facing the same legal and regulatory scrutiny that more open ecosystems such as Android have faced.  

Third-party app developers—the people and companies that make all of the apps which make the iPhone so useful—protest that Apple’s app store policies are overly restrictive and opaque. Developers complain they are subjected to an unpredictable approval process, arbitrary changes to terms of service, minimal due process, and, in some instances, being locked out of the market by Apple’s default settings. Meanwhile, developers are also prevented from guiding users to purchase subscriptions or digital goods outside of the App Store. 

These accusations are the impetus for the DOJ’s recent suit against Apple, but EU regulators were quicker to strike than the DOJ. Fully adopted in July of 2022, the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is targeted squarely at large tech companies—dubbed “gatekeepers”—and the ways that they use their market position to create “imbalances in bargaining power” that result in “unfair practices and conditions” for business and users. Among a laundry list of requirements that includes bans of self-preferencing and data portability requirements, the DMA requires gatekeepers to allow third-party software to be downloaded—the very thing Apple has repeatedly claimed is impossible.

From Meta to Google to TikTok, none of the major tech companies are exempted from scrutiny and regulation as “gatekeepers” under the DMA. But Apple was especially targeted and has been dragged kicking and screaming into quasi-compliance with the DMA. The most significant change Apple has implemented to date came when the most recent software update allowed EU users to begin using third-party app stores and third-party payment processors.  

In lobbying against the DMA, Tim Cook argued that opening up iOS “would not be in the best interest of users.” He even went so far as to claim that the company’s fight to maintain total control over its ecosystem is “one of the most essential battles of our time.” In its plans for DMA compliance, Apple warned that these changes would “open new avenues for malware, fraud and scams, illicit and harmful content, and other privacy and security threats.” Despite such strong language, the iOS ecosystem has not been destroyed by DMA-imposed openness. Europeans’ Apple devices remain private and secure. 

One could argue that this is because Apple engineers, in the face of regulation, performed a miracle and secured their ecosystem in spite of its newfound openness. Yet, as Harvard professor and privacy and cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier observed in 2022, Apple’s “claims about risks to privacy and security are both false and disingenuous, and motivated by their own self interest and not the public interest.” There is not an inherent tradeoff between privacy, security, and openness. Both closed and open ecosystems are subject to cybersecurity vulnerabilities and openness can actually improve both privacy and security. The reality is far from the disastrous tradeoff that Apple has been asserting. 

Apple itself clearly understands this. Internal documents from previous litigation show that the company once considered allowing third party software to be easily and freely downloaded but decided against it, not because it wanted to protect the privacy and security of its users, but because openness would cut into their bottom line. Nevertheless, Apple continues to rely on the bogeyman of privacy and security concerns because fear mongering is an effective political tactic.  

In order to have a good-faith discussion about the merits of public policies, we must first be honest about what is within the art of the possible. In the face of a potentially existential lawsuit, and regardless of what has happened in the EU, Apple continues to argue that in order to “protect people’s privacy and security, and create a magical experience for our users” the company needs a closed ecosystem. As the U.S. moves forward with litigation and legislative proposals to promote openness, we should be wary of apocalyptic claims about privacy and security and understand that shifting the architecture of digital platforms is more possible than companies like Apple would have us believe.  

The post Apple Should Not Be Exempt for the Antitrust Tomahawk appeared first on The American Conservative.