Monday 24 January 2022

Daily Digest

Daily Digest

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Coping with inflation, New York Times style

Posted: 23 Jan 2022 07:44 PM PST

(Paul Mirengoff)

Today’s Sunday’s New York Times focuses on inflation — not so much the thing itself, but rather its political implications. This frontpage story is about an alleged debate over whether Joe Biden’s covid stimulus is to blame for America's inflation rate being higher than most other countries it’s fair to compare us with.

I’m not sure there is a genuine debate about this. However, to the Times’ credit, the article makes it pretty clear that economists generally identify overspending by Biden and the Democrats as a key factor in inflation.

The Times’ reporters state:

[A] chorus of economists point to government policies as a big part of the reason U.S. inflation is at a 40-year high. While they agree that prices are rising as a result of shutdowns and supply chain woes, they say that America's decision to flood the economy with stimulus money helped to send consumer spending into overdrive, exacerbating those global trends.

At least as interesting as the Times’ news report is this editorial. The Times stopped producing regular formal editorials a while ago, according to my friend who reads to that paper. Yet, it saw the need to write one about inflation for today’s edition. We view the editorial as a response to, or at least an attempt to cope with, the frontpage story.

The editorial ruefully acknowledges that to some extent Biden’s stimulus played a role in inflation and that Biden hasn’t so far seemed concerned enough about the matter. However, the Times insists that the flood of stimulus money wasn’t a mistake, and it expresses continued support for Biden’s policies.

My friend points to the absence from both the news report and the editorial of the role Biden's energy policy has played in the current inflation. But at least the Times has finally gotten around to informing its readers about the “chorus” of economists who make the strong (and obvious) connection between the administration’s stimulus and inflation.

American Politics, Down Under

Posted: 23 Jan 2022 06:30 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

I appear periodically as a guest on Sky News in Australia, attempting to explain American politics to Australians. These are my favorite media appearances, in part because the hosts are so good. Last night I was on “Outsiders,” a Sky News program hosted by Rowan Dean, Rita Panahi and James Morrow. It is always a fun show to do, and last night was no exception.

They posted my interview on YouTube earlier today, and I am impressed that it has already gotten nearly 22,000 views. It is about 11 minutes long and I hope has some entertainment value as well as being informative.

What’s next for Ukraine?

Posted: 23 Jan 2022 05:04 PM PST

(Paul Mirengoff)

Vladimir Putin has several options for going after Ukraine short of an out-and-out ground invasion. The Washington Post tries to lay them out in this article.

For example, Putin could launch air attacks, perhaps combined with cyber-attacks, and seek Ukraine’s capitulation that way. Or he could step up the war of subversion he’s been waging in eastern portions of Ukraine for some time.

The Post quotes two analysts who doubt Russia will invade Ukraine. Says one:

This 'minor incursion, major incursion' is all part of Western fears and fantasies and has no relevance to the thinking in the Kremlin or the plans of the [Russian] General Staff. The idea behind Russia's moves, in my view, is not to wage war against Ukraine but to use a demonstration of military power to bring the United States to the negotiating table to discuss security issues in Europe, including those related to Ukraine.

However, another analyst finds this relatively optimistic view implausible given events on the ground:

It looks like they've deployed units from every military district, including the Northern Fleet, to near Ukraine. That's unprecedented. They're moving equipment from not far from the border of North Korea all the way to Belarus. They're doing a ton of things that are not standard. What they're doing is not something they've done before, so we're in uncharted waters.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Russian occupation of Ukraine. The same analyst thinks Russia will launch an overwhelming attack to destroy Ukraine's military, inflict casualties, and swiftly force the Ukrainian government to accede to the Kremlin’s demands.

But Ukraine might not roll over. In that case, Putin would have little choice other than to occupy the country.

What does the Biden administration think Russia will do? The State Department has ordered families of U.S. Embassy personnel in Ukraine to begin evacuating the country as soon as tomorrow. It is also expected to encourage Americans to begin leaving Ukraine by commercial flights, while such flights are still available.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Team Biden thinks a ferocious Russian attack on Ukraine is more likely than not. But clearly, it considers such an attack a definite possibility.

It’s hard for me to see how anyone could conclude otherwise.

Palin Goes to Trial

Posted: 23 Jan 2022 04:02 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

In 2017, the New York Times editorial board viciously libeled Sarah Palin by asserting, as a fact, that she incited Jared Loughner to commit multiple murders. The Times editorial was particularly outrageous since the paper itself had already reported in news stories that this claim was untrue.

Palin sued the Times for defamation; I wrote about the case here and embedded her complaint, and again here. I commend those posts to you if you want to know more about the facts.

The trial court dismissed Palin’s case, applying (or misapplying) the ridiculously high bar that public figures must surmount to get a defamation case to a jury. Paul wrote about that ruling here. But that dismissal was reversed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and tomorrow the trial of Palin’s case will begin with jury selection in the federal court in New York City.

The Times has since corrected the editorial, acknowledging both falsely linking Palin to the violence and mischaracterizing an ad Palin's political action committee ran, which put certain congressional districts, including Giffords, under crosshairs. Originally, the Times said the ad placed lawmakers themselves beneath the crosshairs.

To me, the Times editorial epitomizes “actual malice,” which is the legal standard that Palin must meet. They asserted, with zero factual basis, that there was a “clear” and “direct” causal relationship between a map published by Palin’s PAC and Loughlin’s six murders. In fact, there is no evidence that Loughlin ever saw the map (or, for that matter, that he had ever heard of Sarah Palin), and the Times’s own reporting stated that the smear against Palin was false. The editorialists have to be arguing that they don’t read their own newspaper.

The biggest question in the case, I think, is whether Palin can get a fair trial in deep-blue Manhattan. I do not understand why her lawyers brought the case in New York rather than Alaska. Perhaps there was some legal or tactical reason that escapes me. But I have a hard time seeing how any unbiased jury could fail to find in Palin’s favor.

At least two Supreme Court justices have expressed interest in revisiting the absurdly high legal standard that public figures must meet in order to recover for defamation. Sarah Palin’s case perhaps represents the acid test of whether it can ever be possible to recover under the current standard, and if she loses the effect could be a long overdue impetus for legal reform.

Podcast: A Conversation with Charles Murray and Steve Sailer, Pt. 1 [With Comment by John]

Posted: 23 Jan 2022 03:02 PM PST

(Steven Hayward)

The idea for this episode was born on Twitter. Someone wondered if Charles Murray would be willing to do a podcast with journalist Steve Sailer, who, like Charles, is willing to confront openly the most delicate aspects of race and class in America—and gets the same treatment from liberals everywhere: complete demonization.

I offered to host, and Charles and Steve, who have never met, agreed.

Well I asked a lot of questions, by mostly just tried to get out of the way and let Charles and Steve talk, and really work through some questions at leisure. We talked so long that this became a two-part episode (with part 2 coming next week).

We start here with some general observations about "the great awokening" of the last decade, and how the roots of the madness we saw in the aftermath of George Floyd's death in 2020 were well under way years before. What were those roots, and how did Obama figure into this story? The consequences of substituting "equity" for equality are too obvious to need mentioning, but we discuss them anyway.

The second half, next week, will examine some of the more specific aspects of education today, starting with the current attack on meritocracy, which Charles and Steve agree, paradoxically, is not without it merits!

Listen here, or over with our hosts at Ricochet.

P.S. Here’s the podcast episode with Charles from four years ago I mention in the introduction, “How Charles Murray Became Charles Murray.”

JOHN adds: Charles Murray is of course a hero, but I am also glad to see that Steve is talking with Steve Sailer. I haven’t kept up with Sailer’s writing systematically, but have found him to be a perceptive and entertaining commentator. I still remember his article in National Review titled “Why Lesbians Aren’t Gay,” which I learn from this tweet was his first magazine article:

If you follow the link in the tweet, you can read the NR article at Unz.

Time to sign off now, and listen to the podcast.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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