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An interesting aspect of Oprah Winfrey’s interviewing the stray royals is that in the United States in 2021, the royals are the television personality’s social inferiors, and Harry and Meghan’s economic situation is so far from Oprah’s that they can’t even see it from where they are, in spite of the fact of their geographic proximity.

This passage in a Washington Post article on President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus jumped off the page:

Dave Hopkins, a professor of political science at Boston College who studies the Democratic Party, said the Republican base is no longer “stoked” by criticisms of overspending.

“Moderate vulnerable Democrats feel a lot more freedom to vote for a big spending bill in the current moment — because the polls suggest it’s popular, and because the case against Democrats is being made on Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head, not the debt,” Hopkins said.

“Cancel culture” and “wokeism” are worthy of concern. But conservatives should remember that simply being outraged by them and venting about them accomplish very little.

The Right should direct its energy away from outrage about Dr. Seuss and towards crafting a positive, forward-looking policy agenda.

Nicholas Kristof is scandalized by the shortage of public toilets in New York City. It is, indeed a problem. (I stand by my description of Starbucks as a chain of public toilets with a sideline in coffee.) But he leaves out a big part of the story.

New York used to provide public toilets in the most straightforward way: as a commercial service. If you want something to happen, then figure out a way for somebody to make money from it – which is what New York did, for years.

In 1975, the usual reformers and improvers did what they usually do: They made things worse, legally prohibiting pay toilets at the behest of the National Organization for Women. And so New York went from having a modest economic incentive to provide public toilets to having no incentive at all — more accurately, negative incentives.

This is the kind of problem that a rich society wants to have: one that can be fixed with money.

One of the odd things about cancel campaigns is the habit of treating that which is very, very public as though it had been a secret. Consider this sentence, from music journalist Will Lavin about the recent campaign against Eminem: “The new track arrives after a TikTok campaign was started earlier this week calling for Eminem’s cancellation after lyrics from his 2010 single with Rihanna ‘Love the Way You Lie’ resurfaced.”

Resurfaced? As though they previously had been hidden?

“Love the Way You Lie” is a song famous enough that it is familiar even to such far-from-the-vital-center-of-pop-culture types as yours truly. It is Eminem’s best-selling single, went to No. 1 on the charts, was nominated for a handful of Grammys, and is, still, inescapable on the radio. Who, exactly, is learning about this song for the first time?

You discovered that Eminem has some controversial lyrics? Well, Sunshine: There’s a difference between new and new to you.

As I have warned here before, euthanasia activists are pushing for laws that permit people to write advance directives ordering themselves starved to death if they become mentally incapacitated. That effort is apparently gaining steam. The assisted suicide supporting organization Final Exit Network published a poll that supposedly found only 15 percent of respondents would oppose. Here’s how the question was worded as quoted in the pro-euthanasia crusading bioethicist Thaddeus Mason Pope’s blog:

Some people also propose that individuals with early stage dementia, who are still competent, should be able to stipulate for their future incompetent selves, that they want food and drink withdrawn and for doctors to keep them comfortable so they can die peacefully.

Notice the passive language. If I threw you in a room and locked the door until you starved and dehydrated to death, would you consider that dying “peacefully?” Would you consider it “peaceful” if a doctor drugged you so deeply that you could not ask for food?

But Wesley, you may say, that’s what they want!

No! It’s what they may have wanted in the past out of understandable fear. But we are talking about starving people who willingly eat and drink. We are saying that people can become incompetent to ask for the basics of life. We are pondering a circumstance in which vulnerable patients may ask for food only to have it refused because of something they may have written years previously. (That awfulness happened at least once in a feeding tube case.) And these are people who may not be suffering or whose symptoms can be palliated effectively. In a sense, we are making dementia patients slaves to the thoughts and fears of their younger selves.

We are also talking about forcing caregivers to starve their patients to death at risk of lawsuits for “wrongful life” or other legal sanction.

Moreover, advance directives are supposed to be about accepting or refusing medical treatment. Oral sustenance is not medical treatment, but humane care akin to keeping warm or turning to prevent bed sores. I mean, if someone directed that they be left without a blanket in front of an open window so they die of hypothermia–which can be a peaceful death–would we ever say that should be done? Of course not!

There are some things that no one should have the right to force others to do. Killing them — by whatever means — is one of them.

Pope says these advance directives are legal in several states. He is very knowledgeable about these issues — he really keeps track — but I know of only one where the permission is somewhat explicit: Nevada. If I find out otherwise, I will add an update to this post.

Ezra Klein writes:

If Democrats won Senate seats roughly in proportion to how many people voted for Democrats to win Senate seats this would all look very different.

The “center” of the Senate is well to the right of the center of the country. And today is the result.

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) March 6, 2021

Klein writes this because the Senate rejected Bernie Sanders’s plan to impose a $15 minimum wage on every state in the union. The vote ended up with 42 senators in favor and 58 senators against — or, put another way, it ended up 18 senators away from a filibuster-proof majority and eight senators away from the simple majority that Klein favors.

Klein also writes this because he doesn’t understand how the American system of government works.

Klein’s operating assumption seems to be that the federal government is the only government in the United States. But it’s not — and, moreover, it’s not by explicit design. The federal government is staffed by representatives who are supposed to consider only questions of national import, while leaving everything else to the states. There is nothing in the American system of government that prevents the Democratic Party from winning elections in the majority of the states, and passing into law — at the state level — all of the things that Ezra Klein covets. By contrast, there are many provisions within the American system of government that make it more difficult for a simple majority to do this nationally: among them, the enumerated powers doctrine, the structure of the Senate, the filibuster, and the presidential veto. These are not flaws or loopholes or anachronisms, they are wise and logical rules that were not only established from the country’s inception, but to which everyone involved in today’s vote has consciously sworn an oath.

If it were the case that Wyoming was able to prevent California from setting its state minimum wage at $15, I’d agree with Klein that we had a problem. But it is not. On the contrary: Wyoming has no say over California’s own laws, but it does get to weigh in as an equal on the matter of what California’s voters may force Wyomingites to do.

And that is exactly how it should be.

1.  Wall Street Journal: Cuomo Advisers Altered Report on Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths

The changes Mr. Cuomo’s aides and health officials made to the nursing-home report, which haven’t been previously disclosed, reveal that the state possessed a fuller accounting of out-of-facility nursing-home deaths as early as the summer. The Health Department resisted calls by state and federal lawmakers, media outlets and others to release the data for another eight months.

2. New York Times: Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll

State health officials could see from the data that a significant number of residents died after being transferred to hospitals. The state health commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, had been aware as early as June that officials in his department believed the data was good enough to include in the report, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

But Dr. Zucker testified to lawmakers in early August that the department was still auditing the numbers and could not release them. State Senator Gustavo Rivera, the chair of the health committee, suggested during the hearing that the data was being withheld to improve the governor’s image.

“That’s a problem, bro,” Mr. Rivera told Dr. Zucker. “It seems, sir, that, in this case, you are choosing to define it differently so that you can look better.”

3. An open letter in defense of the good name of Armenia and its people

We cannot address all the misinformation streaming out of Baku. But we would like to declare here that we, precisely as Jews and Israelis, support the right of the Armenian people to live as a free nation in their home land. We respect their ancient, honorable, unique culture. We condemn the hateful slander directed against them. We also condemn all expressions of antisemitism, regardless of their pretext. We oppose aggression against the Armenians and believe our country should have no part of it. We will stand by their side.

4. New York Post: Uighur exile who hasn’t heard from family in years speaks out against China

It’s been years since Tahir Imin heard from his family.

Yet the Uighur activist and academic still remembers the last conversation he had with his young daughter in February 2018.

“The last word from my daughter was that ‘father, you are a bad person,’” he recalled in an interview with The Post.

“The Chinese police are with the people, and you are against our country and our Communist Party. So don’t contact us,” he remembers the girl, then 7, saying over the phone.

5. Nicholas Rowan: Becerra downplayed China’s abuses as a ‘different perspective’ on human rights

For instance, upon returning from his 1997 trip to China, Becerra defended the communist regime against allegations of widespread human rights abuses. While acknowledging that the country needed to improve its record, Becerra said that China has a “different perspective” on the issue.

“We have two very different cultures, and we have two very different perspectives on the world,” Becerra told NPR. “That’s not to say one perspective is better than the other.”

Continue reading “Twenty-One Things That Caught My Eye Today: Andrew Cuomo, Dr. Seuss, Pluralism & More (March 5, 2021)” →

Today on The Editors, Rich, Charlie, Maddy, and Daniel discuss the slew of rotten bills being passed by the House, the absurd overreaction to Texas and Mississippi’s mask mandate repeal, and the debate over removing the security fencing from around the Capitol. Listen below, or subscribe to this show on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or Spotify.

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One of my favorite churches in the United States is St. Mary’s in New Haven, Conn. It’s basically on the campus of Yale University, inasmuch as Yale buildings surround it. It’s run by Dominican fathers — many of them in the Province of St. Joseph are friends of mine — and it is where Fr. Michael McGivney’s earthly remains are. He was the founder of the Knights of Columbus, and he was recently beatified (one of the steps to official recognition as a saint).

I’m also attached to it since I went to Mass with my late friend Andrew Walther and his family possibly every time I ever visited New Haven in recent years and his vespers service and funeral Mass were there. I remember it like it is happening now – during the Mass, the sun brightened the Ascension window in a way that I couldn’t take as coincidence. The veil is thin between Heaven and earth during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass — it truly is. I tell you as a matter of faith and lived experience.

And St. Mary’s is beautiful. There’s a Sacred Heart of Jesus statue I always visit, among other things. And that was all a long way of saying: Women’s History Month began with the pastor of St. Mary’s announcing that windows on the doors of the recently renovated church dedicated to four women were smashed in over the weekend. They depict Saints Catherine of Siena, Catherine de Ricci, Rose of Lima, and Agnes of Montepulciano. (Each of these windows, too, is a pilgrimage spot for me at every visit there.) The windows were cracked and can be restored. But this is just one incident — at a historic church in this case — in an alarming trend of vandalism in churches around the country — which I think NR alumna Marlo Safi has been the best chronicler of. It comes, too, after we’re about to mark one year since we seemed to collectively say: Religion isn’t essential, when the churches were closed for way too long.  But of course religion is essential! Many people still haven’t gone back. There are some prudent reasons for some, but there ought to be an examination of the why. John Paul II talked about a practical atheism. There’s something even worse going on now, increasingly, it seems. A real hostility, in sync with our violent times.

Here’s a write-up about the vandalism and a description and response from the pastor of St. Mary’s, where he does the right thing: He asks for prayers for whomever would do such a thing. Prayers are clearly needed.

As heartbreaking as this was, Father Walker urged prayers for the person responsible for the vandalism at St. Mary’s. “Pray for the person who did it,” he said.  “They’re clearly troubled, whether with mental issues or a hatred for the faith or the Church.  Pray for the healing they need and to come to a repentance for what they did” and have a “conversion of heart, that their life might be marked by growth in holiness and virtue, and ultimately for their eternal salvation.”

I should add that St. Mary’s has no reason to believe that it was anything other than vandalism. But churches are seeing more and more destruction. It’s hard to believe it’s all just random violence.

And as we end the week, it never hurts to whisper a prayer: Saints Catherine of Siena, Catherine de Ricci, Rose of Lima, and Agnes of Montepulciano, pray for us. 

If I commented on every interesting part of this interview that Eric Levitz conducted for New York magazine with socialist data scientist David Shor, I’d end up recapitulating the whole thing. Shor has a lot to say that strikes me as plainly correct. But he also develops one line of thought that strikes me as completely nuts. For Democrats to get a decent election outcome in 2022, he says, it’s

very important that we add as many states as we can. Currently, even if we have an exceptionally good midterm, the most likely outcome is that we lose one or two Senate seats. And then, going into 2024, we have something like seven or eight Democrats who are in states that are more Republican than the country overall. Basically, we have this small window right now to pass redistricting reform and create states. And if we don’t use this window, we will almost certainly lose control of the federal government and not be in a position to pass laws again potentially for a decade. In terms of putting numbers on things, I think that if we implemented D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood and passed redistricting reform, that would roughly triple our chance of holding the House in 2022 and roughly the same in the Senate. The fact that it’s possible to triple those odds is a testament to how bleak the baseline case is.

The likelihood that a Democratic Senate that can’t pass a minimum-wage hike is going to add states (let alone do it for the purpose of giving Democrats an edge) in filibusterable legislation — and in time for the midterms! — seems pretty low. But he returns to the idea at the close of the interview: “We can’t control what Trump or Republicans do. But we can add states, we can ban partisan redistricting, and we can elevate issues that appeal to both college-educated liberals and a lot of working-class ‘conservatives.’ If we don’t, things could get very bleak, very fast.” Well no, you can’t, at least for two out of three of those suggestions.

Trip Gabriel writes in the New York Times that while Senators Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) talk about a new working-class conservatism, they haven’t been offering much to blue-collar workers. Gabriel has two pieces of evidence: They didn’t talk about a blue-collar agenda when they spoke recently at CPAC, and they’re not supporting Biden’s COVID-relief plan.

Rubio has, however, worked for a long time to expand the child tax credit and apply it against payroll taxes, not just income taxes. He has advanced an innovative proposal to enable new parents to take time off from work. He wants to change tax policy so as to encourage more investment in the U.S. and reduce stock buybacks.

Hawley, meanwhile, recently proposed an increase in the minimum wage combined with a wage subsidy, the goal of the combination being to raise take-home pay without eliminating jobs. He has also pushed for the Fed to set monetary policy with trade balances in mind; there his goal is to encourage manufacturing employment.

I like some of these ideas better than others. But you’d think that an article on what the senators have to offer blue-collar workers would at least mention them. And it’s simply untrue that these Republicans are not offering them anything.

Update: A new profile of Rubio in RealClearPolitics gives a better picture of his agenda, and reminds me that Rubio has also endorsed changing labor laws to increase “worker representation.”

1. Pope Francis at the Syro-Catholic Cathedral of “Our Lady of Salvation” in Baghdad, where 48 people, including women and children and two priests, were martyred in 2010:

What must never be locked down or reduced, however, is our apostolic zeal, drawn in your case from ancient roots, from the unbroken presence of the Church in these lands since earliest times (cf. BENEDICT XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, 5). We know how easy it is to be infected by the virus of discouragement that at times seems to spread all around us. Yet the Lord has given us an effective vaccine against that nasty virus. It is the hope born of persevering prayer and daily fidelity to our apostolates. With this vaccine, we can go forth with renewed strength, to share the joy of the Gospel as missionary disciples and living signs of the presence of God’s kingdom of holiness, justice and peace.

Here’s some video of that stop, to give you an idea of the joy in the midst of suffering. A pope has never been to Iraq before, even though Christians have been there since the beginning of Christianity. JPII wanted to, but couldn’t because of the instability.

2. Luma Simms: Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq answers the prayers of the Christians who refuse to flee — and face extinction

In anticipation of Pope Francis’ visit, NPR conducted interviews with Muslims and Christians in Iraq. It was encouraging to hear from Muslims who care about the Christian community, who care about people of different faiths living together in peace and who are upset about the persecution of their fellow citizens. At the same time, I cannot help but think if there are Muslims in Iraq who feel this way, they must be afraid to advocate for their Christian neighbors; otherwise this horror would not have happened.

3. Kevin Clarke:

There are also diplomatic landmines to navigate over the next three days. Stephen Rasche, a vice chancellor at the Catholic University of Erbil, where he directs the Institute for Ancient and Threatened Christianity, describes Iraq as perhaps the most complicated political environment on earth. Speaking from Erbil in the autonomous Kurdistan region during a National Review Institute briefing on March 4, he said the pope will face a terrific challenge in balancing interests and sensibilities without offending one or another among the region’s fractious religious and ethnic parties.

The pope’s itinerary calls for him to arrive on March 7 in the de facto heartland of the Christian community in Iraq when he visits Erbil, where hundreds of Christian families now live after fleeing the ISIS rampage in 2014, and then travels by helicopter to Qaraqosh in Nineveh. That Christian city is still rebuilding after its sacking by ISIS and a devastating offensive to drive the Islamic militants out. The city’s Christians will no doubt be profoundly heartened by the pope’s visit, a welcome endorsement of their struggle to maintain a remnant Christian presence in Nineveh. But when Francis leaves, the many challenges to Christian viability in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan will remain.

4. Crux: Amid pandemic, pope goes to Iraq to rally fading Christians 

In Iraq, Francis is seeking to not only honor its martyrs but deliver a message of reconciliation and fraternity. That’s a tough sell given the few Christians who remain in Iraq harbor a lingering mistrust of their Muslim neighbors and face structural discrimination that long predated IS and the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that threw the country into chaos.

“The Pope’s visit is to support the Christians in Iraq to stay, and to say that they are not forgotten,” the Chaldean patriarch, Cardinal Luis Sako, told reporters in Baghdad this week. The aim of Francis’s visit, he said, is to encourage them to “hold onto hope.”

…

“I am the only priest in Mosul. Every Sunday I hold mass at 9 a.m., and only around 70 people attend,” said Father Raed Adil Kelo, parish priest of the Church of the Annunciation in Mosul, the onetime de-facto IS capital.

Before 2003, the Christian population was 50,000, he said. It had dwindled to 2,000 before IS overran northern Iraq.

5. Associated Press: Ahead of Pope visit, survivor recalls Iraq church massacre

One gunman told a mother to quiet her wailing infant. When she was unable, Climis heard the pop of a bullet. The screaming ceased.

Continue reading “Twenty-One Things about Pope Francis in Iraq That Caught My Eye Today (March 5, 2021)” →

The Utah senator is sponsoring an amendment to the COVID bill that says, per his office’s press release, “Any school districts that don’t have at least 50% of their students back in class at least 50% of the time by April 30, would get none of the $125 billion in K-12 education money provided in the bill. In its place, each student in those districts would be eligible for $2,500 to use for immediate educational needs such as: tuition for open schools, tutors, homeschool costs, summer school, etc.” I hope the amendment passes, but even if it doesn’t it will be good to force a debate and a vote on it.

The Ethics and Public Policy Center has assembled a group of heavy-hitters who, together, try to allay the concerns that pro-lifers may have about taking these vaccines. From their statement:

While there is a technical causal linkage between each of the current vaccines and prior abortions of human persons, we are all agreed, that connection does not mean that vaccine use contributes to the evil of abortion or shows disrespect for the remains of unborn human beings. Accordingly, Catholics, and indeed, all persons of good will who embrace a culture of life for the whole human family, born and unborn, can use these vaccines without fear of moral culpability. . . .

The HEK293 cell line currently used around the globe in scientific research and those like it do not contain the remains of any human being and so its use does not show disrespect for human remains, any more than the contemporary use of products, such as roads or train lines, that were constructed by unjustly enslaved human beings, or use of land unjustly taken, shows disrespect for those victims in the distant past. . . .

To be perfectly clear, we are not saying that people are justified in using and promoting these vaccines because the great goods they provide offset the evil of appropriating a prior wicked action. Rather, we believe that there is no such impermissible cooperation or appropriation here. The attenuated and remote connection to abortions performed decades ago and the absence of any incentive for future abortions offer little if any moral reasons against accepting this welcome advance of science.

I find the statement wholly persuasive.