The New Clarion

A National Day of Unity: it begins. Inauguration day saw a flood of orders, proclamations, and revocations. It evinced an energy belied by the campaign and took on a very progressive cast. Lowlights include:

• Rejoining the Paris Accords
• Revoking the Keystone XL pipeline’s permit and a bunch of executive orders that expedite environmental reviews; defining stakeholders as “State local, Tribal, and territorial officials, scientists, labor unions, environmental advocates, and environmental justice organizations;” requiring cost/benefit analysis of all environmental regulations—oh, but the costs analyzed are the “social costs” of carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide; and generally treating global warming as the existential crisis it isn’t
• Rolling back any deregulatory or reformist tendencies that the Trump administration had
• Enacting regulatory reform that “promotes policies that reflect new developments in scientific and economic understanding, fully accounts for regulatory benefits that are difficult or impossible to quantify, and does not have harmful anti-regulatory or deregulatory effects” and “propose[s] procedures that take into account the distributional consequences of regulations, including as part of any quantitative or qualitative analysis of the costs and benefits of regulations, to ensure that regulatory initiatives appropriately benefit and do not inappropriately burden disadvantaged, vulnerable, or marginalized communities.” Further: “[t]hese recommendations should provide concrete suggestions on how the regulatory review process can promote public health and safety, economic growth, social welfare, racial justice, environmental stewardship, human dignity, equity, and the interests of future generations. The recommendations should also include proposals that would ensure that regulatory review serves as a tool to affirmatively promote regulations that advance these values.”
• Embedding racism in every executive decision and program, both explicitly by promoting “equity” at every turn and implicitly by revoking Executive Order 13950—possibly the most effective federal anti-racism (in the good sense) program in the modern era. The likely worst part of this EO in the long-term is the disaggregating of datasets “by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, income, veteran status, or other key demographic variables.” This will foster “disparate impact” lawsuits and actions with wide-ranging effects.

This is going to be a long ordeal.

A Mexican Hospital, an American Surgeon, and a $5,000 Check (Yes, a Check): this is a stunning indictment and proof that the health care industry is not operating under market forces. What specific distortions and historical forces got us here are up for discussion, of course, but this has to implode or change. {via}

China, Capitalism, and the New Cold War: thought-provoking review of a book that seems to defend capitalism on pragmatic grounds, only to cede the argument in the end with leftist solutions to its perceived defects. The review does a credible job of laying out the nascent battle for dominance and is replete with links to other treatments.

Rand Paul on His Book The Case Against Socialism on The View: sorry for another Rand Paul item so soon but this clip has it all: presentation of true facts, allegations of “mansplaining,” “no true Scotsman,” false reliance on the wisdom of crowds, and literal shutting down of conversation.

Rand Paul – Pulling US Troops From Syria ‘May Be The Best Thing That Ever Happened To The Kurds’: intriguing perspective that I haven’t heard anywhere else. We shouldn’t be in the business of “homeland building” for sure; I’m not sure we should be in the middle of anything in the area.

Turkey & the Kurds – Defending Trump’s Decision to Remove Syria Troops: Andy McCarthy splashes some cold water on the fevered concerns about the abandonment of our “ally” in Syria. His recommendation that Congress decide on military action in Syria after we exit the region. In other words, leave and don’t come back since there’s really no American interest there. I agree.

Impeachment Town Hall: Saturday Night Live skewers the Democratic candidates and does so funnily. TNC only found this clip humorous and does not recommend watching an entire episode.

So Who Is John Galt, Anyway? – A Reader’s Guide to Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”: a new book by Robert Tracinski. It looks like it mostly comes from blog entries but, seeing as how those are behind a paywall, it’ll be new to you. I’ve found his writing to be cogent and I just recently finished Atlas Shrugged so I might give this a look.

My Gift to Climate Alarmists: this is a succinct overview of the fraud perpetrated by the alarmists. It focuses on the mechanics of the fraud rather than the philosophical aspects. For that, I’d recommend Alex Epstein’s PragerU video.

St. Greta Spreads the Climate Gospel: this reflects my experience with climate alarmists. Their faith and fervor is identical to any born-again fundamentalist. The scary part is that the rest of the culture agrees with them and is only minimally hesitant about their goals.

European Union – A Massive Expansion of Top-down Powers: thus insuring that the 21st century will not be the European Century.

The Price I’ve Paid for Opposing Donald Trump: this is one of my many misgivings about possibly voting for Trump. These cretins don’t need any access to political power.

Sure looks like this girl’s townhall question to Hillary was staged: if her interviews are all scripted and staged, why wouldn’t the town halls be?

National Security Workforce to Address ‘Intersectionality’: do you ever get the sense that you’re in a waking nightmare? Money quote from the memo: “Our greatest asset in protecting the homeland and advancing our interests abroad is the talent and diversity of our national security workforce.”

Students cancel annual ‘Speedo Hike,’ say it’s not inclusive enough to all body sizes : “…heavily swayed in the direction of outdoor—and otherwise—privilege…” What the hell is going on in colleges!

The most baffling moments from Donald Trump’s Washington Post ed board interview: he’s incoherent. If his speaking is reflective of his thinking—and I think it is—he has no business being in politics and he’s a business success in spite of his muddled mind.

Deputy FM Cautions US to Remain Loyal to Nuclear Deal: that’s from the state news agency of Iran and warns that if the United States imposes sanctions on Iran then Iran will renege on the deal. As they violate the deal by testing ballistic missiles. {via}

Security Logs of Hillary Clinton’s Email Server Are Said to Show No Evidence of Hacking: said by the former aide who just provided them to the FBI. “Mr. Pagliano told the agents that nothing in his security logs suggested that any intrusion occurred.” And that gets reported as “Security logs of Clinton email server show no evidence of foreign hacking” without a mention of who vouched for the lack of evidence.

Political correctness devours yet another college, fighting over mini-sombreros: this is how free speech dies.

Last Week Tonight on Donald Trump: bit long, but great takedown of the Trump mythos. In a more rational political environment, this would have killed his presidential campaign. I’m not sure it’ll make any difference.