Tag: hit&run

Romney v. Trump. Mitt Romney, soon to be sworn in as Utah’s junior senator, took to the pages of The Washington Post Tuesday to register his dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump, whom he blamed for a number of recent bad policy maneuvers.

“On balance, [Trump’s] conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions this month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office,” writes Romney.

The 2012 Republican presidential nominee notes that he agrees with many of Trump’s policies—”[Trump] was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on China’s unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges”—but thinks Trump himself is damaging the character of the nation:

To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow “our better angels.” A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring.

Reactions to the op-ed have been mixed. Some have branded Romney a hypocrite for accepting Trump’s endorsement in the Utah Senate race and then turning on the president after he was safely elected. Fox News talking head Dan Bongino called him a sell-out, a fraud, a phony, and a fake.

On the other side, The Week‘s Damon Linker speculates that Romney might be positioning himself as an option for anti-Trump conservatives who could suddenly find themselves in power again if this presidency goes down in flames:

The most likely reason Romney has chosen to fire a shot across the president’s bow at this moment, less than two days before he takes his Senate seat, is that he wants to set himself up as the de facto leader of the (sizable but mostly silent) faction of the Republican Party establishment that still stands strongly opposed to Trump as a person and as a president….

But it may well be that Romney’s only motive is doing what he deems to be right. That might sound naïve in our age of all-pervasive political cynicism, but recall the brutal speech attacking Trump and his campaign that Romney chose to deliver on March 3, 2016. There was no reason for him to launch that broadside beyond the conviction that Trump was unfit to serve as president and the desire to do something about it.

Trump responded to the op-ed as well, of course. Needless to say, he was not pleased:

Here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast! Question will be, is he a Flake? I hope not. Would much prefer that Mitt focus on Border Security and so many other things where he can be helpful. I won big, and he didn’t. He should be happy for all Republicans. Be a TEAM player & WIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2019

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Netflix has complied with a demand from the government of Saudi Arabia to take down an episode of the show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj.

The episode featured Minhaj—a Jon Stewart/John Oliver–style comedian who offers a smug liberal take on the news—urging the U.S. to revisit its close relationship with Saudi Arabia in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.

Saudi Arabia claimed the episode violates its cybercrime laws, which prohibit the “production, preparation, transmission or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals and privacy.” It’s essentially a catch-all law that gives the government broad authority to censor critics online.

Netflix defended its decision thusly: “We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and only removed this episode in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request—and to comply with local law.”

Arguably, the company had little choice in the matter, but that doesn’t mean it stings any less. At least Saudis can still view the episode on Netflix’s YouTube channel.

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There’s no end in sight to the government shutdown, which entered Day 11 on Wednesday.

Furloughed employees will likely receive back pay covering the days they missed, once a deal is reached. Contractors, though, are out of luck, according to The Wall Street Journal:

Lila Johnson, 71, is one of those contract workers. She works part time as a custodian at the Agriculture Department in Washington to supplement her social security and pension income and support her two great-grandchildren.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pay my car insurance, my life insurance, credit cards, rent and all that bills that I have being head of household,” she said. “I am going to have to figure out how to get all this done without a paycheck.”

But temporarily out-of-work government employees in Washington D.C. are receiving support from private enterprise. Celebrity chef Jose Andres, for instance, says that anyone with a valid government employee ID can receive a free sandwich at his restaurants “every day until back to work!”

The shutdown is also beginning to effect small businesses that rely on federal workers as customers, according to USA Today:

Sam Samhouri’s corner cafe in Oakland, California, sits on what might normally be considered a prime piece of real estate: directly across the street from an 18-floor office building.

The problem for Samhouri is that the campus that supplies most of his customers is the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building. That means many of his lunchtime regulars have been furloughed by the partial government shutdown in its second week.

“There’s nobody there,” said Samhouri, whose City Cup cafe employs three people.

It’s not all bad news: The FCC says its “activities will cease” on Thursday if the government is still shut down.

QUICK HITS

• Trump has invited Congressional leaders to the White House to work on a shutdown deal.
• Speaking of not making progress, Trump’s negotiations with North Korea have stalled as well.
• The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria will now take place over four months, rather than 30 days, according to the president.
• Feminist writer and activist Amy Siskind reportedly tried to get a Boston College professor fired because he criticized her statement that she would withhold support from all white male candidates.

Donald Trump has been complaining for years about the promiscuous use of American military personnel. Two weeks ago, he did something about it, announcing the withdrawal of 2,000 troops from Syria and 7,000 from Afghanistan.

Republicans joined Democrats in condemning Trump for acting impulsively, sowing “chaos,” and precipitating a “national security crisis.” Jacob Sullum says it’s the president’s overwrought critics who are making choices without thinking, driven by the momentum of military mistakes to support open-ended commitments that make no sense.

View this article.

“Since the federal government fostered housing segregation in the 20th century, the government should foster housing integration in the 21st.”

That’s the proposition under debate at the next Reason/Soho Forum debate, which takes place at New York City’s Subculture Theater on Monday, January 14. Tickets cost between $12 and $24 and must be purchased online. Admission includes a buffet of light fare and a cash bar. Details below.

Reason is proud to sponsor The Soho Forum, a monthly debate series covering topics of particular interest to libertarians. Moderated by Gene Epstein, long-time economics editor at Barron’s, the debates are conducted “Oxford style,” meaning the audience is polled before and after the proceedings and the winner is the debater who moves more people to his or her point of view. Each debate is subsequently turned in to a Reason video and podcast for later listening. For a full archive of past Soho Forum debates, go here.

Here are specifics about the debate on Monday, January 14:

“Since the federal government fostered housing segregation in the 20th century, the government should foster housing integration in the 21st.”

For the affirmative:

Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a fellow of the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and of the Haas Institute at the University of California (Berkeley). He is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America. His other recent work has documented the history of state-sponsored residential segregation, as in his report, The Making of Ferguson. He is the author of Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right (2008) and Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap(2004). Other recent books include The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement (co-authored in 2005); and All Else Equal: Are Public and Private Schools Different? (co-authored in 2003).

For the negative:

Howard Husock is vice president for research and publications at the Manhattan Institute, where he is also director of the Institute’s social entrepreneurship initiative. City Journal contributing editor, he is the author of Philanthropy Under Fire (2013) and The Trillion-Dollar Housing Mistake: The Failure of American Housing Policy (2003). From 1987 through 2006, Husock was director of case studies in public policy and management at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he was also a fellow at the Hauser Center on Nonprofit Organizations and an adjunct lecturer in public management. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Society, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Philanthropy, The Wilson Quarterly, and Public Interest. Husock has written widely on U.S. housing policy, including Repairing the Ladder: Toward a New Housing Policy Paradigm (1996).

As always, the comedian Dave Smith (follow him on Twitter and listen to his podcast Part of the Problem) will open the eveing with a fresh set of material based on the evening’s topic.

Here are details of the event:

Cash bar opens at 5:45pm
Event starts at 6:30pm
Subculture Theater
45 Bleecker St
NY, 10012

Seating must be reserved in advance.

Bonus: I interviewed Rothstein about his path-breaking book, The Color of Law, which reveals all the ways in which federal housing policy, especially as it got kicked into high gear under Franklin Roosevelt, segregated housing patterns in the United States. Rothstein is a liberal—a former New York Times education reporter, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, and a fellow at the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund Thurgood Marshall Institute—but pulls no punches when it comes to the effects of what transpired.

“In many cases,” says Richard Rothstein, “the federal government did create…segregation in metropolitan areas and in cities that had never known segregation before. In other cases…it did reinforce segregation that was already in existence. But the country was much, much more segregated as a result of these federal policies than it was before, or would be today without them.”

What he and the Manhattan Institute’s Howard Husock will be debating is less about the past and more about what to do next. It should be a fascinating conversation with direct relevance to housing policy in every city in the country. Here’s the podcast I did with Rothstein:

For years, American leftists have been saying that Sweden is proof that socialism works, that it doesn’t have to turn out as badly as the Soviet Union or Cuba or Venezuela did.

Not so fast, says John Stossel. In international economic-freedom comparisons, Sweden often earns a higher ranking than the U.S. That’s because Sweden’s free market is not burdened by the U.S.’s excessive regulations, special-interest subsidies, and crony bailouts. That, Stossel observes, is what allows the Swedish government to fund Sweden’s big welfare programs.

View this article.

Election results are rarely good news for libertarians—or for the economy. The 2018 midterm election was no different.

The Republicans lost the House, an outcome they deserved thanks to their failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, their lack of opposition to President Donald Trump’s destructive trade policies and the resulting $12 billion farmers’ bailout, and their responsibility for the return of $1 trillion deficits three years ahead of schedule, writes Veronique de Rugy.

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An Argentine radio host has agreed to a plea deal that requires him to have a feminist guest on his show each week for five months. Angel Etchecopar must let the women speak for 10 minutes without interruption and cannot criticize them after they leave. Prosecutors had charged him with making “disrespectful, insulting, denigrating and discriminatory” remarks about women on his show.

Early polls showing Joseph Biden leading the large field of Democrats who are potential candidates for president in 2020 may leave some wondering what the Democrats could possibly be thinking.

Against President Trump, the Democrats would match up their own East Coast white male candidate in his 70s who doesn’t drink alcohol and didn’t serve in Vietnam? It would seem to violate Phyllis Schlafly’s “choice not an echo” theory of how American presidents are chosen.

The polls, though, are picking up a truth perhaps not immediately obvious to casual observers, which is that a strong case can be made for Biden as the Democratic nominee in 2020. He’s something unusual in presidential politics: a candidate who can excite the party’s base while also winning back independents and voters in swing states and swing districts—the voters and places that supported Obama in 2012 but Trump in 2016.

View this article.

More than a decade ago, a young Rep. Paul Ryan (R–Wisc.) swooped into the House Budget Committee, talons extended. Even before he ascended to committee chairman in 2011, the hardcore hawk had already drafted functional legislation to replace Medicare with vouchers. He was going to privatize Social Security! There were tax cuts balanced by huge cuts to discretionary spending! He gave his interns copies of Atlas Shrugged and slept in his office to save taxpayers money! His reputation as a wonk preceded him and he rose high, gliding on the updrafts of the Tea Party movement.

But as the 115th Congress comes to a close, Ryan is slinking out the door like a trod-upon rattlesnake, writes Katherine Mangu-Ward.

View this article.

U.S. Senators Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono, both Democrats, say they are concerned that Brian Buescher, who has been nominated by President Donald Trump to a federal district court in Nebraska, is a member of a “extreme” group: the Knights of Columbus. The Knights of Columbus are a Catholic fraternal service organization and charity known to many for the colorful hats members wear. But Harris and Hirono say they have taken “extreme” positions such as defending traditional marriage and opposing abortion.

Ofificals in Maricopa County, Arizona, appear unbothered after footage from a shelter captured vide of migrant children being trated poorly.

According to a report by The Arizona Republic, incidents involving three children and several employees led to the fall suspension of the shelter’s operations by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. The newspaper released videos of employees dragging, slapping, and pushing children throughout the facility.

The compromising videos were obtained by sending an open records request to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

The Sheriff’s Office maintains not only that the actions were acceptable restraint techniques, but that there was nothing in the footage that should bring about criminal charges. The state health department has not commenting on the videos.

Despite the lack of concern from local officials, the incidents have been referred to local prosecutors.

The deaths of two migrant children in federal custody this past month has drawn attention to the question of the conditions faced by migrants in custody. On Saturday, President Donald Trump tweeted that Democrats and their “pathetic immigration policies” were responsible for the deaths of children on the border:

Any deaths of children or others at the Border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally. They can’t. If we had a Wall, they wouldn’t even try! The two…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2018

In the wake of the first death, Department of Homeland Security officials claimed that the main takeaway should be their need for more resources to accommodate family detentions. Others, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, blamed the death on a lack of accountability and a “culture of cruelty” at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Though the number of illegal border crossings is at a 10-year low, DHS officials have repeatedly stated that the current facilities were designed for “male single adults” and struggle to meet the needs of family detentions.