In a bold move that has sent ripples through the global financial community, the United States House of Representatives has passed legislation that could pave the way for the confiscation of billions…

Incredible.

"Wake-up call to humanity."

Politics Time to Adopt a ‘No First Use’ Nuclear Policy The prevailing nuclear orthodoxy at Washington is dangerous and destabilizing. Days prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, US Secretary of War Henry Stimson recorded in his diary a recollection of a meeting in the Oval Office during which President Franklin Roosevelt speculated that the Japanese were likely to attack soon, and “the question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.” It was, wrote Stimson, “a difficult proposition.” The attack came on December 7, 1941 and set in train a series of events that would culminate 79 years ago this week, with the decision by President Harry Truman, acting against the advice of his top military advisers, to decimate the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs. According to contemporaneous reports, Truman was “jubilant” after destroying Hiroshima, boasting, “We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history—and won.” “The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor,” said Truman. “They have been repaid many fold.”  During the 40-year Cold War with the Soviet Union that followed, U.S. policy was generally to steer clear of nuclear confrontations—and was it not uncommon for members of the Washington establishment to publicly express their misgivings over U.S. nuclear policy.  Though largely forgotten today, as the U.S. entered the final decade of the first Cold War, McGeorge Bundy, the former national security adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, formed (perhaps as an act of penance) a “Gang of Four” with the former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the scholar-diplomat George F. Kennan, and the arms-control negotiator Gerard C. Smith to push for a change in America’s nuclear policy.  In 1982, the Gang of Four published an article in the establishment organ Foreign Affairs calling on the U.S. to scrap plans to deploy nuclear weapons in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe.    “It is time to recognize that no one has ever succeeded in advancing any persuasive reason to believe that any use of nuclear weapons, even on the smallest scale, could reliably be expected to remain limited,” wrote the authors.  “There is no way for anyone to have any confidence that such a nuclear action will not lead to further and more devastating exchanges,” they continued. As such, the authors called for the adoption of a no-first-use policy that would, in their view, “bring new hope to everyone in every country whose life is shadowed by the hideous possibility of a third great twentieth-century conflict in Europe-conventional or nuclear.” American national security elites have traveled a long way in the wrong direction in this (and many other) matters since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Indeed, political support for sane and ethical nuclear policies such as those advocated by the Gang of Four is virtually non-existent within the American political establishment in today’s Washington. Instead, the nuclear policies pursued in conjunction with U.S. allies and non-allied “friends” such as Israel (with its undeclared stockpile of around 90 nuclear warheads) have made the world far less safe than it need be. And worryingly, solutions that once found support in establishment figures like Kennan are today often dismissed as the height of naïveté among Washington’s nuclear clerisy. Yet, as nuclear watchdog groups such as the Arms Control Association have argued, a no-first-use policy would clearly serve the national interest; after all, “a clear US no-first-use policy would reduce the risk of Russian or Chinese nuclear miscalculation during a crisis by alleviating concerns about a devastating US nuclear first-strike.” While a no-first-use policy is—let’s be honest—nowhere on the horizon, there are other steps that a future Harris or Trump administration might take to lessen the already unacceptably high risks of nuclear catastrophe. One such move, suggested by prize-winning investigative journalist and author of the bestselling book Nuclear War: A Scenario, Anne Jacobsen, would be for the U.S. president to issue an executive order to rescind the current “launch on warning” policy which  currently keeps American intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) on hair-trigger alert at all times. As Princeton University professor Frank von Hippel has written,  Launch on warning is controversial for two reasons: First, history has shown that false warnings do occur due to equipment failure and human error, and today there is the additional danger of hackers. Second, a launch-on-warning posture is indistinguishable from being constantly poised to mount a first strike, which pressures Russia and China to put their missiles on hair trigger as well. The United States would be on the receiving end for any mistaken launch one of them makes. A no-first-use policy would, perhaps, transform U.S. foreign policy in the eyes of the world—a defensive nuclear policy, one that would be in keeping with St. Augustine’s theory of just war (jus ad bellum) is one that is also morally defensible. It would also be in line with the pledge made in Geneva in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The post Time to Adopt a ‘No First Use’ Nuclear Policy appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics The New National Defense Report Misses the Point The main threat to American safety comes not from abroad, but from Washington. The Pentagon. (Frontpage/Shutterstock) The American public must be informed, explains the Commission on the National Defense Strategy in a new report. Despite war propaganda daily flooding Washington, the CNDS complained that people “have been inadequately informed by government leaders of the threats to U.S. interests—including to people’s everyday lives—and what will be required to restore American global power and leadership.”  In the Commission’s view, the United States is at great risk. Threats are multiplying around the globe. Only great effort can save the country. Americans must turn over more of their money and sacrifice more of their liberties. They must be scared into compliance. In fact, this is nonsense. For decades the United States has been the most secure great power ever. The U.S. has dominated its continent and entire hemisphere since the mid-19th century. Surrounded by deep waters east and west and weak neighbors north and south, America is largely invulnerable to attack.  Which enabled it to become the most dominant great power ever. With middling effort at home, the U.S. turned into the decisive power abroad. World War II left America as the globe’s most powerful nation, with half the world’s economic production as a foundation for the world’s most sophisticated military. Almost all of its allies remain dependent on US money and production. Today’s world is becoming multipolar, but military threats against the continental US remain minimal, other than assorted nuclear arsenals, most importantly Russia’s. With Americans living in an extraordinary security cocoon, the 9/11 attacks came as a shock. Of America’s many conflicts, only the Civil War occurred at home. And it ended 159 years ago. Compare the U.S. to the other major powers. Russia, Germany, China, France, Japan, Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, South and North Korea, and so many other nations have been attacked, invaded, occupied—often repeatedly, and sometimes by the U.S. The fact that Washington almost always fights overseas demonstrates that US policy is usually offensive. Most of what America does militarily has little to do with its own security. Wars of choice have been constant, which explains President Joe Biden proudly informing journalist George Stephanopoulos that “I’m running the world.” (Or at least purporting to.) Yet the Commission is worried, declaring, “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war.” Worse, apparently, than during the Cold War and Korean War. China is “the pacing and global threat.” Russia is the “chronic and reconstituting threat.” Iran, North Korea, and terrorism constitute “an axis of growing malign partnerships.”  Indeed, warned the CNDS,  There is a high probability that the next war would be fought across multiple theaters, would involve multiple adversaries, and likely would not be concluded quickly. Both China and Russia independently have global reach and have committed to a ‘no-limits friendship,’ with additional partnerships developing with North Korea and Iran, as described previously. As U.S. adversaries are cooperating more closely together than before, the United States and its allies must be prepared to confront an axis of multiple adversaries. The commissioners quail before this supposedly imposing phalanx: “Although China poses the most consequential threat to the United States and its allies, all five adversaries threaten vital American interests and cannot be ignored. Attempts to deprioritize theaters and significantly reduce U.S. presence—notably in Europe and the Middle East—have emboldened U.S. adversaries and required the United States to surge forces back.” Hence America faces an emergency. What to do? Mobilize the public! Spend more money on the military! Station more troops overseas! More of everything is required. We must even be prepared, apparently, to invade China and Russia: “Landpower remains central to American security, no matter the adversary or theater. In large-scale operations, the Army remains critical to dominating adversaries.”  Yet there is a lot less to this seemingly daunting threat list than initially meets the eye. Terrorism is only a minor national problem (individual victims understandably feel differently). It is best addressed by doing less overseas, especially the bombing missions, foreign occupations, and miscellaneous interventions that trigger foreign hostility and vengeful attacks. Iran and North Korea are nasty regimes but have no intrinsic interest in tangling with America. For instance, if Washington were not in the Middle East backing both Israel and the Sunni Gulf monarchies, the Iranian ayatollahs would pay the U.S. little mind. Today the Biden administration is preparing for war with Iran, not to defend America but Israel—a regional superpower, with conventional superiority, nuclear weapons, and security relations with leading Arab states. Pyongyang directs abundant threats against the U.S. because the U.S. is there, on and around the peninsula threatening the North day and night. If Washington left the Republic of Korea, vastly more powerful than the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to defend itself, America would hear little more from DPRK Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. The U.S. should ignore rather than confront Tehran and Pyongyang. Russia is no threat to America. Moscow has no territorial conflicts or inevitable disputes with the U.S. In fact, the two governments have cooperated against Islamic terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Russia is authoritarian, but neither ideological nor evangelistic. Vladimir Putin has been in power for more than a quarter century and originally demonstrated no animus to America. Putin’s attitude changed after the allies did their best to antagonize all Russians with an aggressive, even reckless foreign policy.  As for territorial conquest, Putin, though a criminal aggressor, is no Hitler. In 2008, he promoted preexisting separatism in South Ossetia and Abkhazia against Georgia, which he attacked after it fired on Russian troops. He invaded Ukraine after years of warnings against bringing Kiev into NATO—which the allies did indirectly by bringing NATO into Ukraine. Putin’s government is challenging the Biden administration elsewhere in retaliation for Washington helping to kill thousands of Russian soldiers in Ukraine. The U.S. could defuse today’s Russian threats by adopting the “humble foreign policy” that candidate George W. Bush once promoted and stopping attempts to dominate everywhere up to Russia’s border. As for Europe’s security, why cannot a continent with ten times the GDP and three times the population of Russia protect itself?  Finally, there is the People’s Republic of China. Even if it is the “pacing” challenge, as the Commission claimed, Beijing is not a serious military threat to America. The Chinese Communist Party is Leninist, determined to hold on to power, rather than Marxist, determined to revolutionize the world. Nevertheless, Beijing has become an important geopolitical rival. It possesses a large and sophisticated economy and is the world’s greatest trading nation. Its armed forces are ranked third in the world, amid an ongoing nuclear buildup. Required is a nuanced and multinational response.  The primary bilateral battleground is economic, not military. Although Chinese military power is expanding, that doesn’t mean the threat is significant, at least in the sense of putting America’s people, territories, independence, and liberties at risk. Beijing has neither the desire nor the ability to attack the United States, conquer its Pacific possessions, exclude it from global markets, or otherwise turn America into a tributary state. There is a military issue, but it involves U.S. influence in East Asia. Members of the Washington Blob, like Biden, continue to believe that they are entitled by birth to “run the world.” As such, their objective is not to defend America from attack by China, but to coerce China, along with any other nation so ill-mannered as to reject U.S. hegemony.  Beijing seeks what America has, dominance in its own region. If the U.S. refuses to accommodate a more powerful PRC, military friction is inevitable and military conflict is possible, perhaps likely. Nevertheless, while the U.S. benefits from its unnatural role in East Asia and surrounding waters—effectively ruling the Pacific up to China’s shores—that position is not vital to American security, and thus does not warrant war with a serious conventional power that possesses nuclear weapons over interests it believes to be vital. The U.S. should not be indifferent to increasing Chinese influence. Rather, it should help friendly states acquire the wherewithal necessary for their own defense and encourage them to work together to constrain the PRC. They can rely on anti-access/area denial strategies, just as Beijing does against Washington. America has committed to the defense of its treaty allies, most importantly Japan, Philippines, and South Korea, but what matters is their independence, so far not threatened by Beijing, rather than their control over every barren rock that they claim in contested waters. The U.S. should calibrate its commitments to its interests, avoiding war over peripheral matters.  The most incendiary issue is Taiwan, which matters to China both because of history, having been lost to Japan during “the century of humiliation,” and security, since possession by a hostile power would threaten the Chinese homeland. Although Beijing’s objective is to regain control through coerced negotiation, it is widely believed that the PRC would act militarily if Taiwan declared independence. Although there is no evidence that the Xi government has any firm deadline in mind, some Western analysts believe that an impatient China might act in the coming years. Like Russia’s attack on Ukraine, a Chinese assault on Taiwan, though a moral atrocity, would be only a geopolitical inconvenience for America. From a U.S. security standpoint, the island is useful in impeding the PRC, not defending America. Taiwan is not worth a war, one against a nuclear power which has both nationalistic ego and serious security interests at stake. Washington should promote other forms of deterrence, not risk this nation’s very survival. The report warns “that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.” Confidence to do what? Americans should not expect to defeat China and occupy Beijing. What matters is preventing China from defeating the U.S. and occupying Washington, D.C. Which we can do. The Commission on the National Defense Strategy’s report reads like a long litany of militaristic screeds emanating from America’s military industrial think tank university complex. The proposed solution is always a frenzied military buildup and war against all. The world may be dangerous, but the U.S. remains surprisingly secure. The greatest threats against America result from Washington policymakers making other nations’ enemies America’s own. How to better safeguard U.S. interests? Stop confusing them with the wishes of foreign friends and fantasies of Washington officials. The post The New National Defense Report Misses the Point appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Only Trump Can Go to Tehran He’s uniquely positioned to restore the Iran nuclear deal. Credit: Borna_Mirahmadian Following Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, the Middle East is on the brink of regional war. The killing occurred in Tehran after Haniyeh attended the inauguration of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, a moderate who campaigned on reengaging the West. Pezeshkian has been open to negotiating a revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal). But Israel’s attack makes that less likely—and raises the odds of the U.S. getting dragged into war with Iran. Strangely, the best bet for improving relations with Tehran and putting the Iran deal back together may be a return to the White House of Donald Trump, the very man who blew up the accord in 2018. To understand why, consider an old American adage. “Only Nixon could go to China” captures a general truth about politics in a polarized democracy. Conservative politicians who pursue liberal policies, and liberal politicians who pursue conservative ones, signal that those policies really are in the national interest. Nixon’s reputation as an anti-communist liberated him to try improving relations with Red China in 1972, since voters could then infer it wasn’t some peacenik aspiration. This dynamic helps explain why President Joe Biden, early in his presidency, failed to revive the JCPOA, which likely would have involved lifting all of Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions and removing his designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. Had Biden freed up funds for the “mad mullahs” and legitimized the IRGC, he would have gotten hammered by the same forces that panned his Afghanistan withdrawal, from which his poll numbers have never recovered. To many voters, these steps would have seemed part of a reckless liberal agenda, and Biden would have seemed weak. Kamala Harris, if elected, would face the same political calculus. Even after the reformist Pezeshkian’s surprise electoral victory, the White House dismissed the idea of negotiations. Asked whether the administration would make diplomatic overtures, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby answered with a curt “no.” Asked to elaborate, Kirby said “it seemed like a pretty easy question to answer” since Iran supports Russia and militant groups across the Middle East. Of course, the whole point of negotiations would be to get Iran to stop doing things America doesn’t like—such as backing Moscow and militants—and start doing things America would like—such as reining in its nuclear program.  The White House has provided a second reason not to negotiate: The real decision-maker in Iran, observed State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, so the election results don’t really matter. It’s true that Khamenei is the Supreme Leader in Iran. But it’s not true that the Iranian president is powerless to alter foreign policy. Paul Pillar—who served from 2000 to 2005 as national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia—writes, “The Iranian president is a power center in his own right and has an influence over a wide range of policy. The ideological orientations of past Iranian presidents, which have ranged from hardliner to reformist, have made visible differences in Tehran’s foreign policy.” The White House didn’t forego diplomacy because Pezeshkian is politically constrained, but because Biden is. But how constrained would Trump be? Pillar doesn’t rule out that “Trump as president may see an opportunity to score political points” by striking the “better deal” that he’s promised. Trump does indeed seem to see things this way. During a recent appearance on the All-In podcast, Trump said that he “would have made a fair deal” with the Iranian regime if he had won re-election. “I had them at a point where you could have negotiated,” Trump boasted. “A child could have made a deal with them. And Biden did nothing.” Evidently, Trump thinks he already seems “tough” enough on Iran and is ready to take a more dovish approach. To make good on his promise to strike a better deal, a future President Trump would need to re-negotiate certain features of the agreement, such as the “sunset provisions” that lift some uranium enrichment restrictions after specified dates. If Trump managed to secure an agreement that was stronger than the one Obama got, he’d demonstrate his deal-making skills and antiwar bona fides.  Khamenei and Pezeshkian may prefer negotiating with Trump than with a Democrat, since a future Republican president would be less likely to undo their efforts. “I voted for you during your election,” Mao joked with Nixon during their famed meeting. “I like rightists.” To which Nixon replied: “In America, at least at this time, those on the right can do what those on the left talk about.” There’s another reason, aside from the “Nixon paradox,” that Trump is uniquely well-positioned to improve relations with Tehran. While neoconservatives see the Islamic Republic as an implacable nemesis, America-First conservatives have supported negotiating with the regime. When the Iran deal was signed in 2015, Patrick Buchanan called it the “singular achievement of the Obama administration in foreign policy.” Three years later, as then-President Trump contemplated withdrawing from the agreement, Buchanan warned that Israel and Saudi Arabia were pushing him to trash the deal because they wanted a U.S.–Iran war. Israel—and the Israel lobby—still fiercely oppose the agreement and would obstruct any effort to salvage it. But Saudi Arabia may be more persuadable these days, following a rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran brokered last year by Beijing. If Trump, in pursuit of a new deal, further bridged the Sunni–Shia divide by involving Riyadh in negotiations, he’d help stabilize the Middle East. The idea isn’t fanciful. In the All-In podcast, Trump suggested that Iran could one day join the Abraham Accords, the bilateral agreements that he facilitated between Israel and Arab nations. Biden and Harris, reluctant to give Republicans political ammo, would never dream of saying such a thing. By contrast, Trump has consolidated his power over the GOP to a remarkable degree and received no pushback for the bold proposal. No doubt, influential hawks would try to block Trump from reviving the Iran nuclear deal. But that too is a reason for Trump to go to Tehran—few policies would more dramatically distance him from the Beltway War Party that many of his supporters despise. The post Only Trump Can Go to Tehran appeared first on The American Conservative.

The post Am I Racist? first appeared on Worth it or Woke.

Remy is a rat who dreams of becoming a great chef despite his family’s wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession. When fate places Remy in Paris, he finds himself ideally situated beneath a restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau. Despite the apparent danger, Remy forms an unlikely partnership with Linguini, a young kitchen worker at the restaurant. Together, they create culinary masterpieces, impressing critics and customers alike. The post Ratatouille first appeared on Worth it or Woke.

"You really felt his relationship with God in his playing." The post The artist Patti Smith said “invented” a whole new style of music first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, then–vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, was adored in the media for being the epitome of a supportive husband. Vox deemed Emhoff a “wife guy extraordinaire” and said he “could be a new role model for men.” Marie Claire ran a profile of him headlined “The Good Husband.” The Washington Post, in an adoring piece, called Harris and Emhoff “a match made in Hollywood” and quoted a professor who described Emhoff’s effort to usher a protester away at his wife’s campaign event “superhero-ish.” Emhoff, so the narrative went, was the antithesis to toxic masculinity. He had set aside his career as a lawyer so that he could support his more successful wife, and he had no problem playing the secondary role. Emhoff embraced this narrative and on numerous occasions spoke out against “toxic masculinity.” In an interview with MSNBC, he said, “There’s too much of toxicity — masculine toxicity — out there, and we’ve kind of confused what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine.” He asserted that true strength is “how you show your love for people.” Emhoff made it clear that opposing toxic masculinity would be a central focus of his work as first gentleman. “I am going to continue to use this platform every time I get to speak out against this toxic masculinity that is out there,” he said. The media loved Emhoff’s advocacy against toxic masculinity. The Washington Post even went so far as to dub him “the antidote to toxic masculinity.” The Post’s Jonathan Capehart gushed, “In American politics, we are not accustomed to seeing men sacrifice their careers for powerful female spouses…. But as the first man in this role, he is not only shattering perceptions of gender roles; he is also taking a sledgehammer to toxic masculinity.” The narrative of Emhoff as the feminist model of the perfect husband came crashing down this weekend when he acknowledged that he had engaged in an extramarital affair during his prior marriage. He made the acknowledgment via a vaguely worded statement: “During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times on account of my actions. I took responsibility, and in the years since, we worked through things as a family and have come out stronger on the other side.” The media also reported — sometimes in an almost reassuring tone — that Harris had known about the affair before marrying him. Emhoff’s admission of the affair came after the Daily Mail reported that he had engaged in an affair with his daughter Ella’s teacher and nanny. At the time, Ella was 10 years old. The nanny became pregnant with Emhoff’s child, the Daily Mail reported. It remains unclear whether the child was aborted or placed for adoption, as Harris’ campaign has not provided an answer. The Daily Mail asserts that the nanny “did not keep the child.” Suddenly, it has been become much more difficult for the Harris campaign to leverage Emhoff’s persona as the perfect feminist husband to enhance perceptions of Harris. This poses a problem for Harris, who already struggles with likability. While Emhoff was previously an effective surrogate who could positively influence opinions of Harris, the scandal now threatens to overshadow all that he does. For example, for Father’s Day 2023, the Biden–Harris administration deployed Emhoff to speak at a roundtable on families. Emhoff touted the administration’s work on families and built good will by explaining that he approaches everything through the lens of a father. He said, “I approach everything I do, whether it was as a lawyer and now as the first second gentleman or the first man ever in a role like this, I approach it as a father and I really tried to look at this through the lens of what a parent would care about.” Today, that message would come across poorly given the decisions Emhoff has made when it comes to his children. Americans may also question Harris’ decision to marry a man who cheated with his kids’ nanny. When coupled with the fact that Harris carried on a public relationship with a legally married man, this could diminish perceptions of her personal judgment. In fact, Harris’ family will now come across as mired in the type of drama that usually afflicts Hollywood celebrities. This will detract from her relatability and make it harder for her to connect with voters. Whereas Harris’ people had previously sought to garner public affection with the idea that Harris and Emhoff were almost like newlyweds in their love for one another, with Emhoff’s son telling the New York Times, “Doug and Kamala together are like almost vomit-inducingly cute and coupley,” their relationship may now only be a negative for the campaign. Perhaps most importantly, the affair will diminish the Harris campaign’s ability to attack former President Donald Trump’s own moral problems, including the allegation that he had an affair with a porn star while his wife was pregnant. With the impregnating-a-nanny story hanging Harris’ head, any such attacks on Trump will not come from a place of moral high ground. The post Doug Emhoff’s Character Problem Could Hurt Kamala’s Campaign appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.