NATIONAL REVIEW
JUN 14, 2024 |
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◼ That journalist with three hostages in his apartment sure missed the scoop of a lifetime.
◼ President Biden's son Hunter was convicted on three felony gun charges. The federal jury in Delaware deliberated only briefly. There was overwhelming evidence that the younger Biden, as a habitual user of crack cocaine, unlawfully possessed a firearm he'd purchased after denying on a required federal form that he was a drug-user and addict. With no plausible defense against that charge, the Biden family, led by the first lady, showed up at the trial in numbers, hoping their presence would sway the Wilmington jury. But sympathy for loved ones rarely moves a jury to nullify strong criminal charges. On appeal, the president's son will push a Second Amendment claim that the criminal charges on which he was convicted, and that his father has championed for decades, are unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms (which some of them may be). Hunter Biden is expected to be sentenced in late summer—around the time that his second criminal trial, on tax charges supported by similarly daunting evidence, is scheduled to commence, just two months before Election Day. The president has vowed not to pardon his son. We'll see if this promise applies after the election.
◼ U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested eight foreign nationals with ties to the terrorist group ISIS-K, an Afghan branch of the Islamic State. In the past week, the Tajik nationals were apprehended in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia. FBI director Christopher Wray in April warned of potential threats from ISIS-K: "Increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia concert hall a couple of weeks ago." ISIS-K carried out an attack at Moscow's Crocus City Hall in March that killed 145 people. The terrorist organization also reportedly threatened to attack a cricket match between India and Pakistan in New York recently. One U.S. official reportedly confirmed that the eight individuals were not flagged during their screening at the southern border but that security officials tracked and later tied the individuals to ISIS-K. Well done by the arresting officers and intelligence agents who caught the terrorists, and shame on the Biden administration's laxity in border enforcement. It could have cost many Americans their lives.
◼ The House held Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to disclose the electronic recording of Biden's interview by special counsel Robert Hur. Garland accused Republicans of demanding the recording for political rather than legislative reasons, a hilarious bit of defiance since it is politics, not law enforcement, that is driving Garland's stonewalling. Hur concluded there was sufficient evidence to charge Biden with illegal retention of classified intelligence but that he shouldn't be charged because a jury might find his mental competence suspect. The transcript of the interview, which the DOJ did release, was humiliating for Biden; the recording can only be worse. That this is the main reason Republicans want the recording is not a valid basis for Garland to withhold it. House Democrats demanded Trump's financial records for political reasons, even though they pretextually cited a dubious legislative purpose. Garland's claim that Congress doesn't need the recording because it has the transcript is bogus; judges routinely instruct juries that, when a recording is admitted as proof at trial, the recording is the evidence, not the transcript. Anyone persuaded by Garland's expressed fear that politicians might distort the recording should try using that excuse if one of Garland's prosecutors gives him a subpoena.
◼ For almost a quarter century, through three Democratic presidencies, the Food and Drug Administration has bent the rules to approve the mifepristone-based chemical-abortion pill RU-486 on a fast-track basis and then stripped away safeguards regarding its distribution. The goal of this campaign has been to create facts on the ground: Chemical abortions increased from under a third of all U.S. abortions a decade ago to nearly two-thirds in 2023. A legal challenge to the pill made it all the way to the Supreme Court but failed. The FDA ran out the clock on challenges to the pill's initial approval in 2000. The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, concluded that doctors who did not prescribe the pill and were under no requirement to do so lacked standing to sue. As recently as 2020, the Court had allowed pro-abortion doctors to assert standing to represent the interests of their patients. But the Court recognized the imprudence of creating a general right of doctors to sue whenever any loosening of a government regulation could cause injury or illness that requires medical attention. A silver lining is that the Court emphasized—without dissent—that doctors cannot be forced to prescribe abortion pills against their conscience.
◼ Trump-appointed federal judge Carl J. Nichols ordered former Trump adviser and confidant Steve Bannon to surrender to federal authorities by July 1. Trump-world caterwauling about that is misplaced. In July 2022, Nichols imposed a four-month sentence after a Washington, D.C., jury convicted Bannon of contempt for refusal to comply with subpoenas from the House January 6 committee. There is room to complain that the committee was politically biased and that the Department of Justice departed from decades of precedent by putting the executive's prosecutorial muscle in service of a congressional probe. Still, Bannon was swiftly convicted because he had no defense—it turned out that a Trump lawyer had rightly advised him that much of what the subpoenas demanded could not be covered even by an expansive executive-privilege claim. Though found guilty, Bannon remained at liberty for nearly two years because Nichols was generous about the possibility of an appeal. But in May, once the D.C. Circuit unanimously affirmed his convictions (with a Trump appointee on the three-judge panel), there was no longer a basis in federal law to delay his sentence. Bannon got a pardon from Trump when he was convicted of defrauding people who thought they were contributing to a border wall; he would need a favorable election result to repeat that luck.
◼ Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, admitted there was no evidence of the efficacy of six-foot social distancing to limit the spread of Covid-19. "You know, I don't recall. It sort of just appeared. I don't recall, like, a discussion of whether it should be five [feet] or six or whatever," he testified. Fauci also conceded that he couldn't recall any studies that showed the utility of masking children, acknowledged that it was contrary to recommendations from the World Health Organization, and said that no one ever bothered to do a cost–benefit analysis. In additional testimony, Fauci distanced himself from his former adviser, Dr. David Morens, repeatedly denying knowledge of Morens's efforts to evade transparency by conducting official business on his personal email account. Meanwhile, the public-health world continues to wonder why it has lost so much credibility. |
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◼ It was supposed to be the resurgence of the United Auto Workers (UAW). The union that made front-page news for its strike against automakers last year—despite losing members overall, and despite thousands of layoffs of autoworkers—was supposed to go on an organizing rampage through the right-to-work South, to which auto manufacturing had moved largely to avoid the UAW. Workers did vote to join the UAW at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, where the UAW had twice before failed to win. But workers at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama voted to remain nonunion, ending the winning streak at one. Between the two major votes in the South, workers at a Nissan facility in New Jersey who had experienced UAW representation for four years voted to decertify the union. Most workers aren't interested in giving part of their paycheck to an organization whose president, Shawn Fain, is under investigation from a monitor appointed by a federal court after a yearslong corruption probe and that uses member dues to fund progressive politics on everything from electric cars to the war in Gaza. The UAW is now asking its friends in the Biden administration to figure out a way to get a do-over election in Alabama, even though the result wasn't close. The workers in Alabama wish to remain with the 94 percent of private-sector workers who aren't union members, and that wish should be respected.
◼ In March 2022, Texas Children's Hospital announced that, under pressure from GOP state officials, it would no longer be offering gender-transition drugs and surgery. But behind closed doors, the hospital continued its medically dubious regimen. We know this thanks to Eithan Haim, a resident surgeon who leaked evidence of the hospital's subterfuge to City Journal's Christopher Rufo. Now the 33-year-old surgeon has been indicted on four felony counts of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Based on the publicly available information, there is no reason to believe Haim violated HIPAA. Both Haim and Rufo insist that sensitive personal information was redacted in the documents they exchanged; it was redacted in what Rufo published. The wrongdoers here are not the ones the administration has identified. |
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◼ The pro-Hamas Left—a compound of Islamists, Marxist-Leninists, Islamist-Marxist-Leninists, and garden-variety deadbeats—reacted to Israel's hostage rescue with the fury of losers. Washington, D.C., was immobilized by masked and keffiyeh-wrapped protesters, whose particular target was the White House. They hurled abuse at President Biden, for being a supposed tool of Israel, painted "Death to Amerikkka" and other charming slogans, and defaced statues of Rochambeau and Lafayette in the park named after the latter. (Nice touch after the Franco-American celebration of D-Day.) Washington's Metropolitan Police and federal security stood down to let them have their way, in a shameful dereliction of duty.
◼ In elections to the EU parliament, the EPP (a group of center-right parties) made gains and once again came out on top, winning about a quarter of the seats. It could renew its grand coalition with the center-left S&D, which lost a little ground, and the centrist Renew Europe, which took a battering. But the EPP should note the major hits taken by the enthusiastically EU-integrationist Renew, and the Greens should note that EU voters have signaled their unhappiness with Brussels's Green Deal. Rather than stick with the status quo, the EPP should respond to the electorate's broader swing to the right by trying to come to an arrangement that incorporates the conservative ECR, the most mainstream wing of the insurgent Right. The elections will have ramifications in the domestic politics of some EU member-states, above all in France, where Marine Le Pen's RN took about twice the votes of President Macron's Renaissance Party. Macron called a snap parliamentary election. The RN is expected to win the most seats but not a majority, with consequences that, for now, can only be guessed.
◼ "A slow-rolling nightmare." That's how one Wall Street Journal staffer described life at the paper under its new editor, British transplant Emma Tucker, and her band of deputies from across the pond. Tucker has slashed the paper's Washington, D.C., bureau, has prioritized clickbait lifestyle stories, and lacks a basic understanding of American culture and government, according to eleven current and former Journal veterans who spoke to NR. At one point, Tucker was surprised to learn that Congress includes two chambers. In at least one meeting, she made a dismissive comment about American gun culture. (A Journal spokesperson denied the allegations.) The Journal has historically enjoyed high levels of trust across the political spectrum. But staffers are worried that Tucker and her team are jeopardizing that increasingly rare commodity through short-term thinking and questionable personnel decisions. The Journal is one of the few profitable newspapers in America, and not for its lifestyle features.
◼ On Wednesday, transgender swimmer Lia (formerly Will) Thomas lost a challenge to an international swimming rule that prevents men from competing in women's events. The ruling prevents Thomas from competing in the women's races at the Summer Olympics in August. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, based in Switzerland, said that Thomas did not have standing to bring the suit against World Aquatics, the international swimming federation, because Thomas is not eligible to compete in "elite events" hosted by it or USA Swimming. The federation, which called the ruling a "major step forward in our efforts to protect women's sport," does not set rules for NCAA competitions but created an "open" category in 2022 to accommodate transgender swimmers. International organizations governing other Olympic sports—cycling, track and field—have also prevented men from competing in women's sports. Sometimes men have to learn to leave women alone.
◼ Caitlin Clark is a good basketball player. In college, she was national player of the year. Twice. She is the leading college scorer of all time. Now she is in her first season in the pros, playing for the Indiana Fever. Plenty of people are interested in taking her down. Some have complained that she benefits from "white privilege." As the Chicago Tribune observed in an editorial, she actually benefits from a "talent privilege." A rival player committed a nasty foul on her, uttering an epithet as she did it. (The player was neither ejected, suspended, nor fined.) When news got out that Clark would not be selected for the U.S. Olympic team, there was sniping satisfaction. Through it all, Clark has been poised and gracious, which is in itself a victory over envy.
◼ Often misunderstood and caricatured by its adversaries and even self-proclaimed proponents, libertarianism cries out for a clear definition. David Boaz had one. "The philosophy of freedom," he called it. He saw libertarians as "heirs" to the tradition of "classical liberalism," dedicated to "individual freedom, equality under the law, pluralism, toleration, free speech, freedom of religion, government by consent of the governed, the rule of law, private property, free markets, and limited constitutional government." In the 1980s he joined the Cato Institute and remained for life, serving as its executive vice president. He wrote for the top libertarian magazine, Reason, as well as publications left and right, including National Review. The author, co-author, or editor of half a dozen books, he appeared often as a quick-witted but adamantly civil commentator in mainstream media. He knew the value of kindness and an occasional joke. Dead at 70, the godfather of contemporary American libertarianism and its éminence grise. R.I.P. |
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