I don’t think I’ve ever read an article at The Daily Wire before let alone linked to one. But if this piece there by Luke Rosiak on the abuses revealed by going through the books of the African Development Foundation unit of the USAID is even approximately accurate it’s not merely an outrage and a scandal but a crime and calls the probity of the entire federal government into question. Here’s a snippet:

By law, the agency is only allowed to give grants to Africa-based groups. But to keep more of that money for its own employees and officials’ friends, while concealing how much money actually went to overhead, it would require Africans to send money back to the United States at its direction, employees said.

Until shortly before DOGE gained access to the building with the assistance of U.S. Marshals, the agency was led by CEO Travis Adkins, who arrived in 2021 after a stint at USAID as a Joe Biden political appointee. An assistant to Adkins said that after she asked why her paycheck was lower than agreed upon, Adkins informed her that the remainder would be coming from an overseas account.

I have been calling out official corruption at the federal, state, and local level for a long time. That’s why I think, for example, that even if Mr. Trump’s solicitation of a new 747 from Qatar to be used as Air Force One be legal and necessary it is certainly unseemly and provides the impression of corruption. Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.

It also calls into question Democrats’ full-throated defense of the shuttering of USAID. It’s no accident that the anti-insider trading bill making its way through Congress is called “the PELOSI Act”.

I encourage you to read Yascha Mounk’s post at The Dispatch. Here’s the opening passage:

Largely unnoticed by the general public on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean is a particular way America has pulled away from Europe: The average American is now vastly more affluent than the average European. The difference is not only reflected in the overall sizes of their respective economies but by the much more practical metrics of disposable income, living space, and accessibility to basic services.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, though, the idea that Americans are better off than their European counterparts is an unpopular sentiment. I casually mentioned on a recent episode of Paul Krugman’s interview show that, whereas both continents were similarly affluent a few decades ago, America is now nearly twice as rich as Europe. Cue a flood of outraged emails.

The strength of this reaction may have had something to do with Krugman’s audience, which skews progressive and American. But I’ve had similar reactions from very different audiences in the past. When I cited the same stat to a center-right member of the European Parliament a few months ago, he insisted that such stats just weren’t meaningful; in all of the metrics of life quality that truly mattered, such as disposable income and access to good housing, Europeans were surely doing at least as well as Americans. But they are not.

The discrepancy cannot be explained away by claiming that American prosperity is a statistical fiction produced by some people being extremely wealthy:

America is indeed somewhat more unequal than Europe. But the difference is not nearly as stark as some people on both sides of the continent seem to assume. Indeed, the GINI coefficient (a standard metric economists use to measure inequality) for the United States, at 0.39, is only modestly higher than that of Britain, at 0.36, and only moderately higher than that of Germany, at 0.29. As a result, metrics that aren’t skewed by outsized wealth at the top, like household income at the median, still show a vast divergence between the two continents.

or by appealing to quality of life issues:

Since home prices are very expensive in the United States, many Americans might imagine that Europeans can afford to live in nicer apartments despite their nominally lower incomes. But the figures paint a different picture. The average home size in the United States is about 2,200 square feet. In Germany, it is 1,200 square feet. In the United Kingdom, it is 800 square feet. This extra space translates into all kinds of everyday amenities: Americans, for example, have about double the number of bathrooms per resident, enjoy much bigger refrigerators, and are much more likely than Europeans to have a dryer or a dishwasher in their home.

Dining out tells a similar story. The numbers are a little less exact, but estimates suggest that Americans eat out at a restaurant, have food delivered to their home, or order takeout about twice a week on average. According to a 2022 Gallup poll focusing exclusively on takeout food, for example, about 3 in 5 Americans say that they order food for pickup at least several times a month. Eating out is far less common in Europe, where there is a smaller number of restaurants per capita, and the percentage of income people are able to devote to eating out is significantly lower.

I suspect that throws a certain amount of sand at the claim that our European allies will soon be carrying the weight of their own defense. Even if they’re able to afford it that probably won’t be politically possible.

Although I acknowledge this:

But even on the American right, many have now become convinced that the global system built by America has turned to its disadvantage. They see the country, as President Donald Trump did in his first inaugural address, as the land of American carnage, with “mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities [and] rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.”

I think I see that a bit differently than President Trump does. I think our prosperity means that we can afford to be taken advantage of a little by our European allies. All the more reason for us to maintain that prosperity which I believe means that we need to produce more of what we consume.

Once upon a time both of our major political parties were what were called “catch-all parties”. They both had liberals, moderates, and conservatives and their leaderships reflected that.

Over the last 50 years both parties have moved more in the direction of programmatic parties and their leaderships have come to be dominated by the most radical 10% of the population. Republican and Democratic National Committees of the sort that run the parties now would have been unthinkable. In a parliamentary system that may make a certain amount of sense but it makes no sense at all in a large, diverse country like the United States with a “winner take all” and “first past the post” electoral system like we have. The outcome is that most people are effectively disenfranchised. That is reflected in the waning popularity of our political parties. Forty years ago Americans were divided roughly evenly among Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Now independents outnumber either Republicans or Democrats.

In those olden days laws were enacted either by persuading legislators to vote for them or by compromise. Both persuasion and compromise are rooted in reason. Increasingly, laws are only enacted by mustering, at the most extreme, 50%+1 of the legislators to vote for them, generally along party lines. That is not rooted in reason but in tribalism.

In reaction to several stories over the last few days in wildly different areas. There is no such thing as a permanent ban. There is no such thing as life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

In a recent post economist Bob Graboyes lists twelve strategies that won’t work for persuading him to vote for you:

1. If your message only works when shouted, you won’t persuade me.


“DONALD TRUMP IS A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY!!!!!” is a message that only tends to be delivered loudly and angrily—and shouting almost never persuades. (Say that sentence softly, with a smile, and you’ll sound a bit unhinged.) If you think Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, calmly itemize his behavior on January 6, his unsettling third-term chatter, and his suggestions that the U.S. take Greenland by force. To help you distinguish between these modes of communication: Bernie Sanders, AOC, Chuck Schumer, and Jasmine Crockett always shout. Josh Shapiro, Ro Khanna, Abigail Spanberger, John Fetterman, and Ritchie Torres tend to discuss.

2. If you reflexively ignore or reject what I say, you won’t persuade me.
   I agree that President Trump’s behavior on January 6 was deeply unsettling, but, personally, I’m just as bothered by President Biden’s decision to allow protestors to surround the private residences of Supreme Court justices, day and night, for months. Dismiss my view out-of-hand, and your power to persuade evaporates. Acknowledge that my point is legitimate—even if you disagree—and you may still sway me.

He continues with ten more. Appealing as I might find his list, I’m afraid he’s whistling past a graveyard. If you don’t understand that expression, it means persisting cheerfully with a hopeless task. It’s hopeless for reasons I explained at length more than twenty years ago. Before smartphones.
Before X or Instagram or Facebook had the reach they do now. Relatively few of the brains of people under 60 work that way. Agonistic (that means combative, emotional) modes of expression work where logical discourse does not. The written word is becoming less and less meaningful.

Trump communicates the way he does because it works. Others are communicating that way because it works. It isn’t an Atlantic world any more. It’s an Instagram and X world.

Nearly everything he describes as something that won’t persuade him is an artifact of the modes of communication that are effective in this post-literate world. I despair of anyone taking his advice and, indeed, of democracy itself. I don’t believe it can survive in the post-literate world.

I haven’t written about the kerfuffle surrounding President Trump’s soliciting and the Qatari royal family, apparently, offering a new Boeing 747-8 aircraft to be used as Air Force One because it is a kerfuffle. Have we learned a thing that is new from it? Donald Trump has little understanding or even patience with the niceties of protocol or the law and has gauche tastes. We’ve known that for a long time. Indeed, his indifference/impatience with the law is one of my main reasons for consistently opposing his election to office. We haven’t learned a thing about the Republicans, the Democrats, or even the media. The Democrats and major media outlets hate Trump and the Republicans love him or, at least, are afraid to oppose him.

What I miss in all of the coverage is any intellectual curiosity. Air Force One is a Boeing 747-200BC. That’s a more than 40 year old aircraft. Why is the president of the United States flying around in a 40 year old aircraft?

Furthermore, Boeing has been under contract for new 747-8 aircraft to replace the old crates presently being used for Air Force One since 2016. And it’s my understanding that the 747-8 is already obsolete. Fewer than 40 747-8 passenger aircraft were built. Why is it taking Boeing so long?

IMO these are the questions that real reporters should be asking. Why aren’t they asking these questions?

I’ve got to say that I’m skeptical about this story reported by Tom O’Connor at Newsweek:

A group of Iranian dissidents has unveiled what it alleges to be a secret nuclear site dedicated to developing a weapon of mass destruction in Iran ahead of a new set of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran.

The goal, according to Alireza Jafarzadeh, spokesperson for the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MeK or MKO), is to persuade President Donald Trump to demand the total dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program in order to create an existential threat to the Islamic Republic.

“The nuclear program of the regime is a tool for their survival, if they accept to abandon their nuclear weapons program, that would clearly be a huge weakness of the regime,” Jafarzadeh told Newsweek.

“It will have a big impact within the regime as the population, which is already saying, ‘How in the world did we spend $2 trillion for nothing, of our wealth, of our money,’ would have more reason to want to overthrow this regime than they already had.”

and

Speaking at a press conference organized Thursday at its Washington, D.C., office, representatives of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) claimed that the Iranian Defense Ministry’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research was covertly pursuing nuclear weapons-related research at a location known as the “Rainbow Site” in the Ivanaki area of the north-central province of Semnan.

The site, claimed to be operating under the guise of a paint factory overseen by the Diba Energy Siba company, was said to be involved in the production of a nuclear warhead, specifically for a hydrogen bomb, based on sources linked to MeK.

MeK is the leading faction of NCRI and claims to have an extensive network of members and activists within the Islamic Republic. MeK is designated as a terrorist organization by Iran due to its past involvement in violent attacks and was considered a terrorist organization by the United States as well until its delisting in 2012.

Satellite imagery was shared of the purported site as well as apparently associated off-site air defenses and military infrastructure. Jafarzadeh acknowledged, however, that the imagery did not immediately hold evidence of the alleged activities being conducted there, including the extraction of tritium necessary for the development of a hydrogen bomb and the production of warheads to carry such a weapon.

I would have significantly more confidence if the story were being corroborated by another source. It’s not that I think that the Iranian mullahocracy is pure as the driven snow. It’s more that I think that a group of “Iranian dissidents” has every motivation to lie about a program if they think it will convince the U. S. to go to war with the mullahocracy.

I should add that I have long been skeptical of any agreement with Iran that did not include unannounced third party inspections anywhere in Iran. We just don’t know how much we don’t know.

It has been announced that India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire. Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam, Shivam Patel, Charlotte Greenfield and Aftab Ahmed report at Reuters:

SLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, May 10 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire” after a fourth day of strikes and counter-strikes against each other’s military installations.
Pakistan’s foreign minister also said both countries had agreed to a ceasefire “with immediate effect” and India’s foreign ministry said it would start at 5 p.m. Indian time (1130 GMT).

“After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

There’s a good backgrounder on the conflict from Brij Khindaria at The Moderate Voice. Modern journalism suffers from the abandoning of the 4Ws style of reporting in favor of a point-of-view and the piece is distinctly from the Indian point-of-view.

Will the ceasefire hold? Stay tuned.

One of the reasons that the things being written—posts, columns, editorials, and just about every other kind of opinion piece—that are being written are so frustrating for me is that they are just too darned post-modern. Many if not most of the arguments made depend on peculiar or counter-intuitive definitions of things. That’s why, for example, I rarely write about “wokeness” or DEI. DEI, just to look at one of them, stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. You can sum up my views on that subject in one not particularly grammatical sentence. Diversity—yes; inclusion—yes;equity—no. As used “equity” means racial discrimination. That’s how Ibram X. Kendi defined it: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.”

In light of that in anticipation of some comments about what I think is a very good but puzzling post, I want to define some terms as I use them.

The post is Noah Smith’s post, “Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class”. In the post Mr. Smith neglects to define globalization, middle class, or “hollow out”. He also does not define “manufacturing” although from context he apparently means manufacturing finished good which is not how I would use the term. I would define manufacturing as any step from extraction through finished goods manufacturing. I would also point out that with organizations like Temu globalization now includes retail sales.

I think it is obviously true that globalization, particularly businesses extending their supply chains into China, has, indeed, hollowed out the American middle class. Let’s break that up into pieces. American businesses have extended their supply chains into China and that has had an adverse effect on American manufacturing employment.

and

Now let’s look at incomes:

Looks like “hollowing out” to me.

Just about everything else in Mr. Smith’s post is a red herring. It doesn’t make any difference if other countries are manufacturing less, too. It doesn’t make any difference if we don’t import as much as some other countries do. All that makes a difference is whether we have been globalizing (we have) and whether the middle class is being hollowed out (it is). Perhaps Mr. Smith can come up with an alternative explanation for what we’ve experienced. His post does not include that.

Just for the record I don’t defend President Trump’s tariff strategy and, especially, I don’t think it will be effective at bringing extraction and manufacturing back to the United States. I think that will require much broader reforms, particularly tax reforms to which I suspect Mr. Trump would reject.