Month: October 2018

President Trump’s historic initiative on Korea continues to confound critics and succeed in easing tensions and working toward de-nuclearization, and ultimately open relations and re-unification.  Hours ago, both North and South Korean military units began removing mines from the Demilitarized Zone, usually reckoned to be the largest concentration of land mines in the world.

The land mine deployment was the first line of defense for both Koreas against invasion.  This means that removal constitutes an actual, meaningful measure of trust.  It demonstrates that the extensive talks between the two Koreas have produced results, for this move was agreed to earlier.  Hyun-Jin Kim of the Associated Press reports:

The agreement to clear mines, the first such effort since the early 2000s, was among a package of tension-easing deals struck by the Koreas’ defense chiefs on the sidelines of a leaders’ summit last month in Pyongyang.  Aiming to reduce conventional military threats, they also agreed to remove 11 front-line guard posts by December and set up buffer zones along their land and sea boundaries and a no-fly zone above the border to prevent accidental clashes.

Image credit: Rishabh Tatiraju.

Nobody is saying that Kim Jong-il is a fully trustworthy actor, and vigilance is still required on matters of destruction of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.  But this does mean that North Korea apparently is meeting its commitments and that further de-escalation moves may well be forthcoming.

Never forget that President Obama threw his hands up and did nothing to meet the growing threat of North Korea’s nuclear program.  He reportedly told incoming President Trump in the limousine ride to the Capitol for inauguration that North Korea was the biggest national security hot potato he was handing off to Trump.

Trump, the deal-maker, has made a deal that promises an entirely new era.  President Reagan taught us to “trust, but verify.”  Presidents Trump and Moon appear to be following that policy, and it appears to be working magnificently.

President Trump’s historic initiative on Korea continues to confound critics and succeed in easing tensions and working toward de-nuclearization, and ultimately open relations and re-unification.  Hours ago, both North and South Korean military units began removing mines from the Demilitarized Zone, usually reckoned to be the largest concentration of land mines in the world.

The land mine deployment was the first line of defense for both Koreas against invasion.  This means that removal constitutes an actual, meaningful measure of trust.  It demonstrates that the extensive talks between the two Koreas have produced results, for this move was agreed to earlier.  Hyun-Jin Kim of the Associated Press reports:

The agreement to clear mines, the first such effort since the early 2000s, was among a package of tension-easing deals struck by the Koreas’ defense chiefs on the sidelines of a leaders’ summit last month in Pyongyang.  Aiming to reduce conventional military threats, they also agreed to remove 11 front-line guard posts by December and set up buffer zones along their land and sea boundaries and a no-fly zone above the border to prevent accidental clashes.

Image credit: Rishabh Tatiraju.

Nobody is saying that Kim Jong-il is a fully trustworthy actor, and vigilance is still required on matters of destruction of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.  But this does mean that North Korea apparently is meeting its commitments and that further de-escalation moves may well be forthcoming.

Never forget that President Obama threw his hands up and did nothing to meet the growing threat of North Korea’s nuclear program.  He reportedly told incoming President Trump in the limousine ride to the Capitol for inauguration that North Korea was the biggest national security hot potato he was handing off to Trump.

Trump, the deal-maker, has made a deal that promises an entirely new era.  President Reagan taught us to “trust, but verify.”  Presidents Trump and Moon appear to be following that policy, and it appears to be working magnificently.

Calling it “The Most Important Least-Noticed Economic Event of the Decade,” the New York Times finally acknowledges the degree to which Barack Obama’s policies were strangling business investment in his final year in office. During the presidential campaign, acknowledging this “mini recession that many missed” was taboo, of course. And among those “many” who “least-noticed” it was the New York Times. So, why is the Times admitting it now? Why, of course, to denigrate the achievements of President Trump in rescuing the economy from the miasma Obama inflicted on it with taxes and regulatory policies. Neil Irwin writes:

[In 2015 and 2016] There was a sharp slowdown in business investment, caused by an interrelated weakening in emerging markets, a drop in the price of oil and other commodities, and a run-up in the value of the dollar.

The pain was confined mostly to the energy and agricultural sectors and to the portions of the manufacturing economy that supply them with equipment. Overall economic growth slowed but remained in positive territory. The national unemployment rate kept falling. Anyone who didn’t work in energy, agriculture or manufacturing could be forgiven for not noticing it at all.

Even though the Times and its readers were able to disregard the suffering in the oil patch, on farms, and in the rest belt manufacturing strongholds, candidate Trump actively campaigned  with these constituencies and won the presidency on his promise to revive them from the suffering inflicted upon them. He knew, he acted, and after he won, he revived them. As Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds  quips:

It wasn’t invisible — Trump saw it — they just didn’t report it because they didn’t want to make Obama look bad or hurt Hillary’s prospects.

Now, the Times acknowledges the reality, and immediately turns to crediting Obama. I kid you not

It helps explains the economic growth spurt of the last two years. The end of the mini-recession in the spring of 2016 created a capital spending rebound that began in mid-2016, and it has contributed to speedier growth since. Oil prices have reached four-year highs, a major factor in a surge in business investment this year.

Actually, in very different language, I acknowledged weeks ago that the wreckage left by Obama did help Trump look good in comparison:

Obama shackled existing businesses and entrepreneurs contemplating new businesses with tax increases and years’ worth of red tape. That’s why his recovery from the 2008 financial shock was the slowest recovery from a recession on record.

But during this period, technological innovation did not stop, nor did opportunities for business projects stop developing in the minds of people who would carry them out, should the business environment (taxes + regulations) improve. There was, in other words, a substantial backlog of business opportunities that built up during the 8 years of Obama’s oppressive anti-business policies.

But far be it from the Times to recognize achievement on the part of Trump. No, they have to wag their fingers and warn of danger!

The episode is stark evidence of the risk the Trump administration faces in threatening economic damage to negotiate leverage with other nations on trade and security. What happens overseas can return to American shores faster and more powerfully than once seemed possible.

Here is a sign of the actual risk over which the Times frets, unveiled hours ago:

Even more winning! China announces tariff cuts on ‘wide range of products’



 

 

Calling it “The Most Important Least-Noticed Economic Event of the Decade,” the New York Times finally acknowledges the degree to which Barack Obama’s policies were strangling business investment in his final year in office. During the presidential campaign, acknowledging this “mini recession that many missed” was taboo, of course. And among those “many” who “least-noticed” it was the New York Times. So, why is the Times admitting it now? Why, of course, to denigrate the achievements of President Trump in rescuing the economy from the miasma Obama inflicted on it with taxes and regulatory policies. Neil Irwin writes:

[In 2015 and 2016] There was a sharp slowdown in business investment, caused by an interrelated weakening in emerging markets, a drop in the price of oil and other commodities, and a run-up in the value of the dollar.

The pain was confined mostly to the energy and agricultural sectors and to the portions of the manufacturing economy that supply them with equipment. Overall economic growth slowed but remained in positive territory. The national unemployment rate kept falling. Anyone who didn’t work in energy, agriculture or manufacturing could be forgiven for not noticing it at all.

Even though the Times and its readers were able to disregard the suffering in the oil patch, on farms, and in the rest belt manufacturing strongholds, candidate Trump actively campaigned  with these constituencies and won the presidency on his promise to revive them from the suffering inflicted upon them. He knew, he acted, and after he won, he revived them. As Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds  quips:

It wasn’t invisible — Trump saw it — they just didn’t report it because they didn’t want to make Obama look bad or hurt Hillary’s prospects.

Now, the Times acknowledges the reality, and immediately turns to crediting Obama. I kid you not

It helps explains the economic growth spurt of the last two years. The end of the mini-recession in the spring of 2016 created a capital spending rebound that began in mid-2016, and it has contributed to speedier growth since. Oil prices have reached four-year highs, a major factor in a surge in business investment this year.

Actually, in very different language, I acknowledged weeks ago that the wreckage left by Obama did help Trump look good in comparison:

Obama shackled existing businesses and entrepreneurs contemplating new businesses with tax increases and years’ worth of red tape. That’s why his recovery from the 2008 financial shock was the slowest recovery from a recession on record.

But during this period, technological innovation did not stop, nor did opportunities for business projects stop developing in the minds of people who would carry them out, should the business environment (taxes + regulations) improve. There was, in other words, a substantial backlog of business opportunities that built up during the 8 years of Obama’s oppressive anti-business policies.

But far be it from the Times to recognize achievement on the part of Trump. No, they have to wag their fingers and warn of danger!

The episode is stark evidence of the risk the Trump administration faces in threatening economic damage to negotiate leverage with other nations on trade and security. What happens overseas can return to American shores faster and more powerfully than once seemed possible.

Here is a sign of the actual risk over which the Times frets, unveiled hours ago:

Even more winning! China announces tariff cuts on ‘wide range of products’



 

 

The impending collapse of NAFTA may not have been seen as a “big deal” on the same scale as Brexit, at least internationally, but it certainly had President Trump’s critics quite exercised over it. Now, however, it looks like everyone can go back about their normal business. After months of stalling and preening to the media, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has come back to the table at the eleventh hour and tentatively agreed to join the United Staes and Mexico in a new version of the deal. How much of substance has actually changed remains to be seen, but in the game of diplomatic chess, this round clearly seems to have gone to Trump. (NY Post)

The US and Canada reached a deal late Sunday on reforming the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to reports.

Canada agreed to join the revised trade deal that the US and Mexico had signed last month — just hours before a midnight deadline, that allows Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto to sign the accord on his last day in office, two people familiar with the talks told The Washington Post.

The new treaty is expected to be signed by President Trump and his counterparts in Canada and Mexico within 60 days — preserving a three-country NAFTA trade pact.

We still don’t know much about the new deal with Canada. At this point, all that’s being specifically mentioned is improved U.S. access to Canada’s dairy market in exchange for some protection against future American tariffs on automobiles. Canada has traditionally operated a strict system of government control of the dairy market, protecting Canadian dairy suppliers from any foreign competition through a strict market management scheme. But they already had to make some concessions to the EU in an earlier deal and Canadian analysts were predicting back in August that Trudeau would have to offer the same benefits to the United States if he wanted a deal with Trump.

As recently as early June, Trudeau was talking tough and rejecting not only the dairy market access idea but also a provision for a five-year sunset clause in the new NAFTA deal. His position has clearly changed, but there’s no word as to whether or not he’s accepted the five-year window. Don’t be surprised if it’s in there, though.

So how did the tough-talking Trudeau wind up coming onboard the new NAFTA train? It seems obvious that Trump and outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto were finished with their negotiations and if last night’s deadline had passed, Canada would have found itself out in the cold watching a new Mexican-American trade pact go into effect without them. Mexico’s incoming President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s position on trade, including their future relationship with Canada, isn’t entirely clear yet. Trudeau seems to have realized that half a loaf now might be better than nothing in the future.

There are more details to be worked out and this could still fall apart, but Canada is clearly back at the table and ready to bargain. It would appear that Donald Trump’s version of hardball on a new NAFTA deal has paid off, though how much actual economic benefit we’ll see from it remains unknown.

After last Thursday’s testimony by Christine Blasey Ford, commentators rushed to call her a credible witness. Did the professional prosecutor with 25 years of experience in sexual assault cases agree? Not really, no, as Rachel Mitchell explained in a detailed analysis she provided after the hearing to the Senate GOP caucus, The Arizona prosecutor laid out her case in a memo published earlier today by the Washington Post.

The “bottom line,” Mitchell writes, is that this case doesn’t meet either a probable-cause nor a preponderance-of-evidence standard. Furthermore, the experienced sex-crimes prosecutor states, there are significant reasons to doubt Ford’s recollections:

In the legal context, here is my bottom line: A “he said, she said” case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that. Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event, and those witnesses either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them. For the reasons discussed below, I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee. Nor do I believe that this evidence is sufficient to satisfy the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.

Mitchell notes how the story has changed in the telling of it, even over the last couple of months, although she never states that Ford is being deliberately deceptive. One key point: in her original letter, Ford told Feinstein that she could hear Kavanaugh and Mark Judge talking with other party-goers while she hid in the bathroom, but testified in the hearing that she didn’t hear any talk at all. Ford had just “assumed” a conversation took place. Furthermore, the timing of the attack seems to have shifted since Ford’s initial text to the Post on July 6, when she described it as the “mid 1980s,” a time which matched the Post’s reporting of her therapist notes that said Ford had claimed it occurred in her “late teens.” Only after Ford got in contact with Feinstein did the timing of the attack get narrowed to the “summer of 1982.”

There are logical gaps in Ford’s story as well as suspicious details within it, Mitchell argues. For instance, Ford can recall that she was taking no medication the night of the alleged assault and that she had only one beer — but she can’t remember how she got to the party, and more importantly, how she left: 

Given that this all took place before cell phones, arranging a ride home would not have been easy. Indeed, she stated that she ran out of the house after coming downstairs and did not state that she made a phone call from the house before she did, or that she called anyone else thereafter.

Mitchell also raises questions about Ford’s memory in the near term. Ford couldn’t recall whether she’d been recorded during her polygraph, even though that was a significant event from less than two months earlier. Ford also couldn’t recall whether she shared her therapy notes with the Washington Post or summarized them. In fact, Ford seemed to insist that she had paraphrased them, even though the Post report clearly stated that Ford had provided at least a portion of them to the reporter.

Ford never shared her therapy notes with the committee, Mitchell points out, which makes it tougher to determine just how dispositive they might be. However, the Post’s account of those notes give different details than those Ford gave the committee. Ford claimed that the Post’s account of them was in error. Although Mitchell doesn’t make the argument explicit here, the prosecutor clearly implies that a refusal to share share supposedly dispositive evidence reduces Ford’s credibility.

This won’t help much in dealing with the media onslaught on Kavanaugh, of course. Mitchell was hired by the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to handle Ford’s allegations, after all, which the media will stress — if they cover this aspect at all. However, Mitchell addresses that in her memo as well, reminding people that she has no particular political aspirations:

This memorandum contains my own independent assessment of Dr. Ford’s allegations, based upon my independent review of the evidence and my nearly 25 years of experience as a career prosecutor of sex-related and other crimes in Arizona. This memorandum does not necessarily reflect the views of the Chairman, any committee member, or any other senator. No senator reviewed or approved this memorandum before its release, and I was not pressured in any way to write this memorandum or to write any words in this memorandum with which I do not fully agree. The words written in this memorandum are mine, and I fully stand by all of them. While I am a registered Republican, I am not a political or partisan person.

After reading the memo, it should be clear how Mitchell approached this task — as a prosecutor rather than a defense attorney, in order to get as clear a picture as she could. That may not have made for great sound bites, but it gave Mitchell significant credibility in assessing the case Ford presented. In a legal sense, it was a wise approach. Perhaps it wasn’t satisfying politically — certainly not so much as the Republican responses during Kavanaugh’s questioning — but it laid the basis for fair-minded members of the Senate to dispense with this allegation and evaluate Kavanaugh based on his life’s work. The political failing of this is that there are so few of that group left in the upper chamber … which is no failing of Mitchell’s.

Update: One point should be noted: Mitchell doesn’t address Kavanaugh’s testimony or credibility at all in this memo. That may be because Republicans on the panel decided to use their time in the second half of the hearing to push back against Democratic attacks on Kavanaugh, leaving Mitchell little time to assess his responses. However, it may also be because Kavanaugh shouldn’t have had to endure this questioning based on the vague and contradictory allegation in the first place.