Dear Weekend Jolter,
The Biden reality of 2023 looks a lot different from the Biden narrative of 2020. Recall those heady days when, upon consolidating Democratic support in the primary, the politician with more baggage than Dulles International was instantly recast for the voting public as a paragon of every virtue.
An Atlantic piece highlighted his “decency, honor, respect, and, yes, empathy.” A CNN article imagined him as the “empathetic answer to Trump” amid the pandemic. These attributes were at the core of the Democrats’ virtual convention, with the candidate driving home the theme in his nomination-acceptance speech: “Character is on the ballot, compassion is on the ballot.”
In hindsight, even considering the contrast with the man he was (and probably is) running against, those descriptions were about as accurate as a Theranos investor pitch. Biden is almost certainly corrupt, definitely mendacious, without a doubt profligate, and frequently lawless in his exercise of power. It’s not even clear he’s very empathetic. But National Review never bought into the Biden rebrand, and never wavered in telling the truth — and so we are asking you, our valued readers, to consider contributing to this work as part of NR’s ongoing webathon.
Many of you have contributed already, helping us exceed our initial goal of $50,000. But we are pushing a bit further, asking for whatever you can spare — five bucks, 50 bucks; really, stick as many zeroes on as you wish — to help reinforce our team. I’ve mentioned in these webathon appeals before what it actually takes to run an operation like NR, so I won’t belabor the point; in short, it takes a substantial crew of writers, editors, content managers, marketing and sales folks, developers, and more to put together an always-updating website every day and best-in-class magazine every month. Donations are a substantial part of what keeps us afloat; as Jack Butler notes, that funding may be “on a much smaller scale than the Bidens are used to” — but is very important to us. And we give you a return on investment. In the immortal words of LeVar Burton, you don’t have to take my word for it.
Just look at the work of our own Andy McCarthy in sorting through and explaining the many twists and turns of the Biden corruption scandal — not just the extent and nature of the first family’s dealings but the ways in which prosecutors have slow-walked investigations. Andy put perfectly this week how he and we view our role in covering the many investigations and prosecutions involving the Bidens and others:
I don’t pretend that NR writers who cover this don’t have points of view about the players and the issues. But we’ve always seen our main mission as telling you, objectively and honestly, what is happening and why. Sure, we’ll tell you what we think of it — but only after we’re clear with you on what the “it” actually is.
Charlie Cooke, meanwhile, has been tirelessly writing about how the Biden narrative that voters were sold and the reality of his presidency and character don’t remotely align. As for the corruption allegations — well, Charlie put succinctly how it’s increasingly difficult to conceive of an innocent explanation for the details James Comer’s investigation has uncovered — unless Comer’s facts are plain wrong. Our news team, too, has been all over the developments in Comer’s Biden investigation from the start, and will keep covering the impeachment and other inquiries closely. As Rich Lowry wrote earlier this week, the tune of the Biden-defense league has changed considerably over the years and now sounds something like: “Yeah, Joe knew about this, Yeah, the Bidens got Chinese money, Yeah, Joe participated in calls, but, Dammit, you still don’t have a check made out directly to Joe Biden.”
And if said check does appear, surely the line will change to, But you didn’t prove that he cashed it — did you?
What is indisputable at this stage is that the narrative of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has changed a great deal since 2020. But our assessment of him hasn’t. If you can spare it, please donate to our webathon to help sustain our work. Thank you for all your support.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
To roughly quote the late Logan Roy, Matt Gaetz is not a serious person: Now What?
Hey, give Gavin Newsom points for efficiency: California’s Lobbyist Senator
ARTICLES
Rich Lowry: Biden Family Values
Philip Klein: Kevin McCarthy’s Speakership Came with a Ticking Time Bomb
Audrey Fahlberg: McCarthy Allies Say Steve Scalise Has Clearest Path to Speakership, but Point to Concerns about His Health
Haley Strack: McCarthy-Aligned PACs Spent Millions Supporting Republicans Who Ousted Him
Henry Olsen: Matt Gaetz Should Be Careful What He Wishes For
Dan McLaughlin: What Is Wrong with the People in Congress?
Madeleine Kearns: Don’t Underestimate Gavin Newsom
Noah Rothman: Joe Biden Quietly Builds the Wall
Yuval Levin: Why the Latest Continuing Resolution Changed More Than You Might Think
Jimmy Quinn: Trump-Admin Officials Mount Push for More Ukraine Aid amid Congressional Chaos
Jeffrey Blehar: The Only Questions That Matter for Jamaal Bowman
Ari Blaff: ‘God Help Us’: John Kelly Confirms Trump Mocked Veterans during Arlington Memorial Service
Caroline Downey: U.K. Health Secretary Moves to Restore Sex-Segregated Hospital Facilities, Reversing ‘Gender-Inclusive’ Policy
Andrew McCarthy: Trump’s Civil Fraud Trial, Explained
Abigail Anthony: Lord of the Satanic Flea Market
Dominic Pino: The Emergency Alert System Is Useless
CAPITAL MATTERS
It wasn’t just Lehman Brothers and AIG. Douglas Carr goes deeper in looking at the causes of the 2008 crash and recession: What Caused the Great Financial Crisis?
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Brian Allen spotlights a sui generis kind of artist: Grayson Perry Goes from Eccentric to National Treasure
Armond White appreciates a classic: Airplane! — the Ship-of-State Farce We Need Today
IF YOU THOUGHT OUR HEADLINES WERE GREAT, WAIT TILL YOU READ WHAT’S BELOW THEM
Well, it was a banner week for the U.S. House of Representatives. We now know that chaos can raise a majority any time — here’s NR’s editorial on why the Kevin McCarthy ouster achieves nothing for Matt Gaetz and his collaborators:
Even if, for the sake of argument, we dismiss the most obvious interpretation of Gaetz’s actions — that he craves attention — and take him at his word that he has earnest concerns about the direction of policy and congressional procedure, it is hard to see how getting rid of McCarthy will advance his stated goals. Still less clear is why gaining attention for Matt Gaetz serves the interests of the other seven or their constituents, let alone the rest of the Republican conference.
Gaetz complained that McCarthy worked with Democrats to avert a government shutdown (in a move supported by 126 Republicans). But Gaetz just worked with Democrats to oust McCarthy (in a move supported by just eight Republicans). Gaetz complained that the budget deal did nothing to address border security. But Gaetz refused to vote for a bill to fund the government that included border-security measures, which would have given McCarthy more leverage in negotiations with Democrats. Gaetz claims he wants to tackle the nation’s $33 trillion national debt — but he has not offered proposals, such as a plan to reform entitlements, that would be necessary to seriously address the problem.
While we have had our disagreements with McCarthy, the reality is that he was attempting to govern with a historically slim and fractious House majority and with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling or fund the government indefinitely — even if either was politically sustainable — was never going to balance the budget or seal the border with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Biden in power.
Dan McLaughlin asks the question — “What is wrong with the people in Congress?” — that we’ve all been thinking. In true lawyerly fashion, he brings exhibits:
The past month has not exactly been the finest hour for Congress. Sure, the institution itself has clanked along and somehow managed to avert a government shutdown. But its members have showcased a really astonishing variety of failures to conform to the most basic standards of behavior. These people seemingly don’t know how to open a door, how to speak or dress like adults, how to act in a theater, how to function as a team, how to commit crimes, or even how to tell their health is failing.
Exhibit A: Bob Menendez. The desire for a place in the history books may be a laudable one, but not when it means becoming the first senator indicted in two separate scandals. The cartoonish corruption of Menendez — bills stuffed in jackets with his name on them, gold bars with traceable serial numbers — is astounding even for the man who occupies a seat once vacated by Harrison Williams after Abscam. Menendez was googling the value of gold bars after returning from an influence-peddling trip to Egypt. He offers the totally implausible excuse that jackets full of cash is some sort of Cuban family tradition. There will always be petty crooks in Congress, but stupid and brazen ones? And yet somehow, after the feds raided Menendez’s home and found all this incriminating evidence that pointed to him selling out his country, Chuck Schumer let Menendez keep on chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 15 months.
Exhibit B: Jamaal Bowman. The New York progressive firebrand pulled a fire alarm in a House office building, apparently in an attempt to stop a vote on a Republican bill to avoid a shutdown. The stunt, more suitable for a middle-school delinquent, forced the evacuation of the building and an hourlong delay in the vote. Not a great look for a guy whose party wants interruptions of congressional business treated as insurrection and sedition. He was caught on video doing it. Bowman, himself a former middle-school principal, has ridiculously claimed that he was confused between the fire alarm and the button to open the door. A grown man, much less a member of Congress, should know better. He now faces potential sanctions from the House and accomplished nothing by doing so. For the cherry on top, he had to walk back calling Republicans Nazis for noticing what he did.
Exhibit C: Lauren Boebert. You might have expected the right-wing populist from Colorado to tone things down a little this year after barely surviving a reelection challenge in a good Republican environment in 2022. Or, if she was going to go down swinging, you might have expected her to do so over some cause or at least a political stunt. Instead, she got kicked out of a musical in Denver after not just vaping but making out in an indecent manner. On a first date with a guy she then dumped. If this, as is widely predicted, spells the end of Boebert’s career, it will be one of the most humiliating exits in congressional history.
Noah Rothman takes note of a remarkable reversal by the Biden administration:
Conditions are so acutely calamitous that the Biden administration has been compelled to break the emergency glass around an option that the president and his running mate emphatically rejected during the 2020 campaign. Much to its chagrin, the Biden administration is building the wall.
“The Secretary of Homeland Security has determined, pursuant to law, that it is necessary to waive certain laws, regulations, and other legal requirements in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in Starr County, Texas,” read the public notice produced by DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s office this week. The plan is to build at least 20 miles of new border barriers along the Rio Grande — an area Congress, in 2019, designated as a vital crossing point and appropriated $1.38 billion for the construction of a border wall to close.
The Biden White House is waiving no fewer than 26 federal laws — including the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, among others — to construct the additional miles of wall with all due alacrity. Given the administration’s sensitivity to criticism from its left flank, this is not an initiative this White House would pursue if it had a choice. Moreover, the administration’s decision opens it up to the charge of hypocrisy, given the president’s categorical denunciation of the very concept of a border wall.
“It’s imperative that we secure our borders, but ‘build the wall’ is a slogan divorced from reality,” Biden wrote in a 2019 op-ed condemning the Trump White House’s “racist” policies toward the “Latinx” population. Building the wall, he wrote, was a waste of time and money. It would not “stop asylum seekers fleeing” north, nor would it reduce the undocumented population, “most of whom overstay legal visas.”
Following on Maddy Kearns’s piece for the magazine on the U.K.’s perhaps-unexpected stance in the trans debate, Caroline Downey reports on a significant development across the pond:
The British health secretary on Tuesday committed to removing certain gender-inclusive language from the U.K.’s public health-care constitution “to ensure privacy and dignity for women.”
Steve Barclay, a member of the country’s Conservative Party, ordered an overhaul of the National Health Service constitution with respect to gender following a forthcoming “consultation,” he told conservative conference delegates in Manchester.
Under Barclay’s plan, male hospital patients will be barred from receiving treatment in female-only facilities and vice versa. The official also ordered the NHS website to restore references to sex-specific medical issues. For example, the website’s discussion of cervical cancer implied that men can develop the disease. The cancer “mostly affects women,” the website states, adding that “all women and people with a cervix between the ages of 25 and 64 are invited for regular cervical screening.”
Barclay also ordered the cancellation of an NHS policy by which staff must declare pronouns to each new patient.
However, if you read one story this week (apart from the newsletter you are currently reading), I would recommend strongly it be this one. Dominic Pino does what he does best, explaining what about government is completely pointless:
The national Emergency Alert System, which probably startled you when it was tested on Wednesday, is a perfect example of useless big government. It has never been used to communicate about a national emergency and likely never will be.
The Emergency Broadcast System was created in 1963 as a way to preempt television and radio broadcasts to allow the federal government to communicate directly with viewers and listeners. It was replaced with the Emergency Alert System in 1997, which has subsequently been augmented with Wireless Emergency Alerts to send alerts to cellphones as well. The test on Wednesday was the first-ever nationwide test of the Wireless Emergency Alerts system.
Plenty of really bad stuff has happened between 1963 and today. Only a few months after the Emergency Broadcast System was created, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Serious attempts were made on the lives of Gerald Ford (twice) and Ronald Reagan. If the murder or attempted murder of the president isn’t sufficient to trigger an alarm, it’s hard to think of what would be.
Shout-Outs
Adam Kredo, at the Washington Free Beacon: Member of Iranian Influence Network Visited Biden White House Five Times
Zoe Strimpel, at the Jewish Chronicle: Saudi Arabia’s attitude to women warrants no praise – despite what our politicians may claim
Ellie Rushing, at the Philadelphia Inquirer: Philadelphia journalist Josh Kruger fatally shot inside home
CODA
When the Beatles wrote this song, they clearly had never met our generous donors. (Have I mentioned the webathon? I probably should . . .) Have a good one, all.