Basking in Vanities

                A commentary

By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

“This also is vanity.”

               – Ecclesiastes 1, 2; 2, 23

Democrat leaders have been rejoicing over passage of their bill, hilariously named the Inflation Reduction Act. “It’s been a long, tough, winding road, but at last we have arrived”, gushed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. But exactly where have they arrived and what will this bill really accomplish? Its $433B in spending and $739B in taxes is, thankfully, far less than they originally sought with Build Back Better. It passed the 50-50 Senate without a single Republican vote using the Budget Reconciliation Process with Vice-president Kamala Harris doing what she does best, casting the tie-breaking vote.

                The misnamed bill will do little if anything to tame inflation in the near term when it is needed but it will add to federal spending with a recession threatening and will increase taxes on corporations which will undoubtedly be passed on to households in the form of lower wages and smaller stock dividends. Do Democrat leaders really understand that stocks are owned, not only by the affluent, but by millions of ordinary working Americans in retirement plans?

 The bill will authorize Medicare to “negotiate” prices on certain prescription drugs. “Negotiate”, in this case, means that the pharmaceutical companies will be forced to agree to price controls which will almost certainly reduce their spending on research and development which produce life-saving medicines. Subsidies for purchasing healthcare insurance through the Affordable Care Act would be extended as would the $7,500 tax credit to buyers of electric vehicles.

                Supporters say that the bill’s tax incentives will channel investments in wind and solar systems and battery improvements which would add power to the grid and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, that is. It may result in minor reductions in emissions in the United States but it will do nothing measurable to reduce global emissions and it is pure vanity for us to imagine that what we do here to reduce emissions will have a significant effect on the rest of the world which will depend upon fossil fuels for decades to come. So long as the developing nations including China, India, Indonesia, most of the rest of Asia, Latin America and all of Africa, containing most of the world’s population, continue to burn fossil fuels, what we do in the United States will have little effect on world climate overall. China, in fact, is increasing its use of coal, notwithstanding its pledge to start reducing emissions in 2030. And neighboring Mexico, the world’s tenth most populous nation, now plans to increase fossil fuel production and consumption as a matter of national economic policy.

 What makes us think that the miniscule reductions in emissions that we may achieve here will do anything but make our climate warriors feel good? Will it inspire developing nations to follow our example? Probably not enough to risk freezing in the winter or doing without electricity. What we do here will make precious little difference globally except to signal our virtue. This, again, is vanity. The time and effort would be far better spent on research to develop cleaner methods of using abundant, cheaper carbon-based fuels and promote more use of nuclear power and our large supply of clean natural gas.

                What most Americans, at least most Americans I know, want most from government is not more green, feel-good legislation, but rather action to get control of the inflation that is eroding their purchasing power and causing real pain and suffering. 60% of Americans recently surveyed said that their financial situation was getting worse. They also want safe communities, more police presence and a return to proactive policing. They want assurance that their country, still the greatest nation in the world and its largest economy, has sufficient military resources, industrial capacity and infrastructure to adequately defend us against the multiple threats we face. These are the things I hear people worrying about, not climate change that has occurred throughout world history. Most of them seem to realize that the United States, with only 4.3% of the world’s population, can do little about it while most of the world, including China and India, which together account for 35% of the world’s population and most of the emissions, continues to burn fossil fuel including coal.

                It is amusing, therefore, to watch Democrat leaders celebrate their recent, modest legislative accomplishments, feeling that they have finally “arrived”, meaning, I guess, that they finally managed to get something– anything– passed in pursuit of their agenda. This, also, is vanity.

August 23, 2022

The Future of Taiwan

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                I’m not often in agreement with much of anything that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, but I heartily applauded her when she said that her recent visit to Taiwan signaled “America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.” Unfortunately, though, support from the executive branch has been anything but unwavering over the years, given our policy of strategic ambiguity regarding the extent and nature of that support should the People’s Republic of China (PRC) attempt to change the status of the self-governed island by force.

                We are indeed committed by agreement to come to the aid of the island should it be attacked but it’s not clear if that aid would extend to engaging in armed conflict with the PRC or be limited to just providing weapons and other assistance it needs to defend itself. In either event we had better get on with providing all the weapons it needs to deter an attack or defeat it. Even so, it’s doubtful that the island could hold out indefinitely against its much larger and stronger mainland neighbor without the armed intervention of America and its allies.

                Nobody wants a war between the United States and China which would become a global catastrophe so clearly, deterrence has to work. But to be deterred, one has to be convinced that the consequences of an action would make that action unthinkable. Deterrence is not well-served by a policy of ambiguity, strategic or otherwise. We have to be clear about our red lines and what the consequences would surely be if they are crossed. Both the PRC’s communist leaders and our allies need to fully understand the extent of our commitment to support Taiwan’s right to choose its future and to defend it if attacked. If China’s leaders are going to fly into a rage over this, it might as well happen now as later and they need to be reminded that a war would be in no one’s interest, least of all China’s 1.6 billion people.

                The best deterrent will be a strong alliance of nations committed to preserving peace in Asia consisting of the U.S., U.K., Japan, Australia and others who wish to counter Beijing’s expansionist aims. But they need to be assured of America’s commitment to lead. Instead of allowing Beijing to draw red lines first and determine what is acceptable U.S. foreign policy, we need to make clear that one of our red lines is our intention to defend Taiwan by any means we choose if it is attacked. The United States has traditionally championed the right of free people to choose their own form of government and we must support Taiwan’s right to do so whether that be some relationship with the PRC or remaining the free and independent democracy that it, in fact, is. Taiwan, formerly known as the Republic of China (ROC), has never been ruled by communists or been a part of the communist-ruled PRC.

                China’s Xi Jinping, in a two-hour phone call with President Joe Biden, had warned that Pelosi’s visit would severely damage U.S.-China relations and that China would retaliate. The Chinese Foreign Ministry warned of unspecified “potential disastrous consequences if the U.S. mishandled the situation.” Mr. Biden said that U.S. policy toward China was unchanged. But it needs to change or at least be clarified. It didn’t help that Mr. Biden reportedly had said that our military had advised against the visit. Had Mrs. Pelosi followed that advice and cancelled the trip, details of which had already been leaked, we would have appeared before the world to be backing down from a Chinese threat.

                Mr. Biden might have reminded Xi that this visit set no precedent. Then-speaker Newt Gingrich visited Taiwan in 1997 and other members of Congress have since visited as well. Congress is an independent branch of government and its members do not need the permission of the executive branch or the military to visit friendly countries.

                Mrs. Pelosi and her party flew to Taipei from Kuala Lumpur vis a circuitous route across Indonesia before turning north, remaining east of the Philippines instead of taking the much-shorter direct route through the South China Sea used by commercial aircraft, apparently to minimize the chance of harassment by PRC aircraft. Unfortunately, it may appear to the world that we are intimidated by China’s claim to sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea.

                She was warmly received in Taipei as were previous visitors from the U.S. Taiwan is an important trading partner with the United States and a leading source of advanced microprocessors. The prosperous island of 26 million is the world’s 18^th largest economy and among the leaders in ocean shipping and ship construction. It has all of the ingredients of an independent nation and we need to make clear to China’s communist leaders that we intend to continue doing business with Taiwan, will support its right to choose its future and will not be intimidated by Beijing’s threats, temper tantrums and military provocations.

                The live fire exercises carried out by the PRC in response to the visit were provocative and dangerous. The appeared to demonstrate the PRC’s growing ability to eventually blockade the island into submission which would be an act of war. They also serve to demonstrate our urgent need to greatly increase the size of our military and especially the Navy and Air Force as fast as our industrial capability will allow. Time grows short. 

August 19, 2022

Is the Military Fit to Fight?

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                I’m a bit uncomfortable even asking this question and too far removed from my over 30 years of active duty to pretend to know the answer but lately it seems, many are asking whether or not their military is ready for war should deterrence fail. They deserve honest answers and transparency from our military leaders who should have the answer. So also do the taxpayers who foot the enormous bill for defense. Are they getting what they are paying for?

                What we are hearing is that the major services are struggling to meet recruiting goals. That may not come as much of a surprise to many, given our current historic low rate of unemployment. There are still more jobs than there are applicants to fill them. But with the probability of a recession following two successive quarters of economic decline, unemployment will likely soon rise which can be good for military recruitment with its promise of excellent benefits including valuable technical training, medical care and, for those who stay in long enough to qualify, retirement benefits.

                We read, however, that nearly three quarters of America’s youth and young adults of service age are not qualified to serve. Reasons include inability to meet the physical, mental or behavioral standards. Military service is not just another job and applicants can be rejected for many reasons because of its unique requirements and the often-strenuous working conditions. Common reasons include obesity and low math and science scores which would predict difficulty in qualifying for technical training and hence advancement.

                For much of our history, interest in the military was high enough to enable the services to meet their needs, if not always their goals. But today, surveys have shown that fewer than ten percent of Americans of service age would even consider military service, much less a career, in today’s all-volunteer and thoroughly modern military in spite of generous bonusses, valuable training and other benefits. We read that the Army, for example, may be understaffed by 28,000 troops by the end of 2023.

                This is bad news because the world, as you know, is growing more dangerous and I’m not talking about climate change. There is a nasty war of attrition in Ukraine with no end in sight. We are providing a major source of funding for the defense of Ukraine but probably still not enough to ensure a satisfactory outcome. Vladimir Putin’s future intentions are unknown and we, as a member of NATO, are committed to come to the defense of any of its members if attacked, including countries which could be overrun by Russian tanks in a matter of days if not hours. Iran is well on its way to obtaining nuclear weapons and has little interest in resuming negotiations with us to prevent this. President Joe Biden says we can’t allow this to happen. Iran, however, will not be stopped by words alone. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un says his nuclear missiles are ready to be used to counter American “aggression”. China’s Xi Jinping warns President Biden of the serious consequences of a visit by House Speaker Navy Pelosi to our important trading partner, Taiwan.

                The possibility of armed conflict on multiple fronts to protect our vital interests or to respond to attacks is real. To deter this threat and face it with confidence requires much larger military and especially a larger navy and yet we are having difficulty even reaching current recruiting goals. The navy says its battle force requirements call for 373 manned ships plus 150 unmanned vessels. But we can’t even get to 300 manned ships and the fleet is shrinking each year as we retire more ships than we build. It is doubtful that we even have the industrial capacity to get to 373 manned ships and, in any event, to do so will require significantly more investment in shipbuilding and ship repair infrastructure.      

                Obviously, this is an inconvenient time to have to deal with recruitment problems but it never is convenient and we have a history of being unprepared for conflict which means high initial casualties. It takes time in the training pipeline to train soldiers, sailors and airmen from raw recruits and you cannot just turn a spigot on and out they flow. It’s fair to ask for starters, “What needs to be done to attract more Americans to military service?” Jimmy Byrn, a Yale law student and former army officer writing in the Wall Street Journal offers a possible reason for the drop in recruiting. Hear him out. He notes that most members of the military tend to be conservative with a disproportionate number coming from southern states with strong military cultures. Some of these states contribute over 30 percent of their service age populations to military service, many to military careers. Mr. Byrn speculates that the military’s embrace of woke policies, including diversity and sensitivity training, may be acting as a turn-off.

                I have only anecdotal evidence of the amount of time spend in the military on such training but it sounds excessive and unrelated to mission. It is not at all clear that such training contributes anything measurable to military readiness or effectiveness in battle. The military should consist of a colorblind band of brothers and sisters dedicated to the defense of America and its citizens and willing to give their lives in the process, if necessary, or to save one of their own. Qualification and advancement is by merit and demonstrated performance, period. These are among the key values that are instilled in recruits during basic training or boot camp, the marine model being, perhaps, the most effective. Race or other accident of birth does not matter and if a recruit cannot accept this then he or she or them or they need to find another line of work because training will be wasted on them.

                The unique purpose of a military is to fight and win wars if being prepared does not deter them, not to serve as just another platform for social change. Its members serve to fight or prevent real wars, not culture wars. In real wars, which most culture warriors appear to know little about, it matters much less how woke you are than whether or not you win. In a war for survival, losing is simply not an option.

August 11, 2022

Midterm Election Issues

               A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                Campaigning by incumbents seeking re-election or higher office and those seeking to defeat them, plus some fresh faces new to the political scene, has begun in earnest. The issues are too weighty and numerous to be discussed in depth in the space available here, but not too numerous to at least be identified. They include, in no particular order, an epidemic of crime and violence; rising inflation and the coming recession, if indeed, it has not already arrived; Illegal immigration; chaos on the southern border; a flood of illegal drugs into the country; the threat posed by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea; fallout from the overturning of Roe v. Wade; climate change, what to do about it and the war on fossil fuels; dealing with Covid and its variants; the health, vitality and performance of the president; the future of Donald Trump and probably more to come.

                Republicans expect to win control of the House and if history repeats, they should but never underestimate the ability of either party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Regaining control of the Senate will be more challenging but party leaders are optimistic, perhaps too much so. There are more female voters than male voters and many are angry over the abortion ruling. Still, most Republicans say that voters will be more concerned with the rising cost of living and out-of-control crime and violence which affects their safety and quality of life more directly.

                Rising prices, especially for gasoline and fuel, have forced many Americans to make painful choices on which essential to do without in order to make ends meet. This causes anxiety, for sure, but the increase in crime and violence and the sense that police cannot ensure their safety and that of their family actually causes fear and no American should have to live in fear. Their safety, moreover, is the most important responsibility by far of their state, county, city and town officials. Yet, in municipality after municipality these elected officials have utterly failed in this responsibility. They must be held accountable or nothing will change.

                Most opinion pieces, including mine, generally start out with a paragraph or two of rising crime statistics and a ranking of the major cities. Let’s dispense with that. They’re readily available and you can look them up yourself. In the process, you will see that they are mostly run by Democrats. Let’s also dispense with a recitation of the causal factors like poverty, single-parent households, poor parenting skills, etc. We’ve talked about all these problems and we need to work on solutions but if we wait for solutions we will never regain control of our crime-infested cities.

                So, while we work toward solutions which may not work, let’s do something that may and elect people who will do what it takes to protect their constituents, including more aggressive policing. If they will not act to protect their people from vicious street criminals, nothing else they do will really matter and people will increasingly take measures to protect themselves by arming themselves.

                A principal cause for the increase in crime as everyone knows is the fallout from the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020. Righteous public anger led to demonstrations that quickly morphed into violence, vandalism, looting and arson and gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM). The popularity of BLM peaked at 52% about a month after Floyd’s murder and has trended downward since after a summer of destructive riots and the high-jacking of the movement by those whose object is to demonize, defund and repurpose the police. The movement was also damaged by numerous myths and fabrications surrounding police shootings of black men, almost every one of which precipitated charges of police brutality even before investigations were completed.

                There were and, unquestionably, still are, cases of police brutality but it is simply not a problem of the same magnitude as growing violent crime. A police officer is statistically at greater risk of being shot by a black man than a black man is of being shot by a policeman. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Jason L. Riley, a black columnist who writes frequently on the subject, most blacks believe that criminal behavior is a larger problem than policing methods and is the top concern of blacks according to a Pew Research Center survey in April.

                The efforts to defund and repurpose police departments has caused immense and lasting harm to Americans, especially black Americans who too often are its victims. It may take decades to repair the damage done. The difficulty being experienced in recruiting, retraining and retaining police in cities ranging from relatively peaceful San Diego to relatively lawless Seattle, Portland and Chicago is resulting in increased response times if, in fact, there is a response at all. Incredibly, clueless progressives are trying to enact gun control legislation even as increasing numbers of citizens find it necessary to arm themselves for the first time.

                It’s often said that the people deserve the quality of government that they tolerate. Those who suffer most from violent crime are city dwellers and particularly minorities. Yet, they continue to elect and re-elect mayors and district attorneys that repeatedly fail to protect them and their families. Maybe this time will be different.

August 4, 2022

Help Make America Great Again

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                It’s almost two and a half years before the 2024 elections and we still have the mid-terms to get through, but it’s not too early for Democrat leaders to keep discouraging President Joe Biden from running for re-election. Nor is it too early for Republicans who really want to make America great again to discourage Donald Trump from ever running again. In spite of the train wreck that is the Biden presidency and a woeful approval rating now in the low thirties, a recent poll actually shows Biden edging Trump if the election were held today.

                If Mr. Trump really wants to make America great again, he could do the nation and his party a yuge favor by retiring from politics now so that the GOP could get on with the important task of identifying and building support for candidates who are better fitted by temperament and judgement to be president of the world’s most powerful nation and largest economy.

                Donald Trump is an asset to the Democrat Party and its candidates. They would miss using him as a reason for everything that’s wrong and would be lost without him to blame for their own failures. They might then be forced to run on their own thin records. He is, therefore, a liability to his own party as long as he remains active in politics.

                Few expected him to win in 2016, even against the deeply-flawed Hillary Clinton with her Benghazi fiasco and private server scandals haunting her. She was, nevertheless, poised to win until then-FBI Director James Comey intervened at the eleventh hour, influencing an election by re-opening the investigation into her use of that private server for official business while she was Secretary of State.

                Democrat leaders and the mainstream media never accepted the legitimacy of his election victory. They launched a lengthy and expensive investigation into unfounded allegations that the Trump Campaign colluded with Russian agents to influence his election, charges that were shown to be without merit but only after a lengthy and unproductive investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. An early attempt to remove him from office via the impeachment process failed to convict him in the Senate.

                Yet, in spite of constant efforts to delegitimize his presidency, he accomplished much of what he promised. What a concept; a politician who actually delivers on campaign promises! He presided over a robust economic recovery and removed many restrictions that had hampered business expansion. More jobs than there were workers were created. Unemployment fell to record lows, including for minorities. Illegal immigration was reduced and we became energy independent and the world’s leading producer of energy including clean natural gas. He nominated three conservative judges to the Supreme Court. His Operation Warp Speed produced Covid vaccines in record time.

                But he lost his bid for re-election against a lackluster, ageing career politician with no executive experience, who twice failed in previous attempts to gain his party’s nomination for president and who ran an uninspired campaign from his basement. Trump lost, not because of his policies, but because of his behavior, character, bombastic style and sophomoric tweets. Then, in a manner reminiscent of Democrat attempts to delegitimize his 2016 victory, he tried to delegitimize Biden’s. He wouldn’t accept defeat. His claims of widespread election fraud were not supported by sufficient evidence. Even if they had been, they were not of sufficient magnitude to change the result. He tried to pressure Georgia officials to “find” enough votes for him to win there, tried to pressure his own Vice-president to refuse to certify Biden’s electoral college victory and then gave an inflammatory speech that inspired a rally crowd to march on the capital, disrupting government, damaging federal property, endangering members of Congress and the Vice-president and embarrassing the nation. Finally, he meddled in Georgia’s runoff election for its two U. S. Senate seats, which cost the GOP control of the Senate.

                Americans hate a sore loser and Mr. Trump personifies one. Refusal to accept election defeat is characteristic of banana republics and dictatorships, not the United States of America. Richard Nixon in losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Al Gore in losing the famous “hanging chad” election to George W. Bush in 2000 probably had more valid claims to victory than did Mr. Trump but they had the good grace to put the country first and spare the nation more weeks of uncertainty. It’s past time for Mr. Trump to put the good of the nation ahead of his own quest for power.

                If Mr. Trump runs for president again, he will bifurcate his own party at a time when a uniter is needed and all but ensure its defeat. Like Mr. Biden, he also is too old to run again. He would be 82 by the time he finished another term. For the sake of his party and the country, he should retire from politics, take up a new hobby and take credit for what he managed to accomplish. And he should do it now so that the question of his candidacy or endorsement is not an issue for mid-term election candidates to have to deal with.  

                Perhaps he can learn to be an elder statesman. On second thought, nah.

July 31, 2022