• A few footnotes on Trump’s manly withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. The best part of the whole thing was not that he decided to withdraw, but how he did it. Trump could have just issued a statement from behind his desk in the Oval Office, or had a press spokesperson make the announcement, just as President George W. Bush did in withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol back in 2001. Instead, Trump delivered a high-profile speech about it on the White House lawn, complete with brass band! And the completeness of his attack on the Paris Accord, along with his dash of nationalism (“I was elected to represent the people of Pittsburgh, not Paris”), suggests he deliberately wanted to maximize the outrage of the climatistas and their media toadies. It’s not enough for Trump to disrespect every respectable institution (including big business); he had to talk about how much he loves coal miners, who are the wretched of the earth for gentry liberals. To paraphrase Shakespeare very roughly, nothing in the life of the Paris Accord became it like Trump’s leaving it.
In the immediate aftermath of the announcement, it was impossible to distinguish between the aggrieved activists and the mainstream media “journalists” who parroted every climatista talking point. I watched some of the press conference with EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, and the media gaggle came across like a cross-examination by Greenpeace. I cannot now recall any media skepticism or critical question of Obama’s EPA administrator Gina McCarthy when she rolled out the so-called “Clean Power Plan,” such as what it would cost, or how the EPA could justify its outrageous discount rate that went into its “social cost of carbon” calculation. Simple rule: when Democrats run the EPA, the press corps is happy to serve as stenographers for pro-agency propaganda.
• So, once again we have a terror attack in Britain from a “known wolf” Islamic jihadist. Guess we need another benefit concert from rock stars, to go along with the one already organized for the victims of the Manchester terror attack three weeks ago.
A couple of tweets to note, one from an Imam in England who acknowledges the problems of Islam and wants to reform it, and a clueless liberal interlocutor.
And what would we do without Paul Krugman’s finely tuned sarcasm:
• More scenes from the party of “diversity” and “inclusion”: A city council member in Seattle boasted last week that she doesn’t have any Republican friends, and the council chamber audience cheered. Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat observed:
Kshama Sawant wasn’t having any of that. She stood up and said Burgess wasn’t speaking for her with this “our Republican friends” stuff. Because, she assured the crowd, she doesn’t have any Republican friends.
Yay, cheered the crowd.
Now it’s hardly surprising that Sawant, a socialist, isn’t having GOPers over for mint juleps. But it’s pretty unusual to my ears for a politician to boast that her tribalism excludes even the possibility of warm feelings toward political opponents, even as humans.
Reminder from Harry Jaffa: “Those who see each other as utterly alien cannot be fellow citizens.”
But if this is the way the left wants to play it, then game on.
• Update on Evergreen State College: The campus is closed again today:
Maybe someone threatened that some actual learning might take place. But here’s a curious thing: faculty directory on the college website is closed to outsiders, even though this is a state institution, so it is impossible to do any research on the faculty members, though does anyone guess what a search will find? Not surprising they want no attention for their tendentious mediocrity. Prof. Weinstein notes that even he has “mysteriously” been cut off from the faculty directory.
Since Evergreen is a state institution, might as well just turn it into a mental institution right now and get the formalities over with.
• Finally, who says Trump isn’t draining the swamp? Here’s more collateral benefits of the Paris Accord decision:
Acting US ambassador to China resigns over Trump’s Paris decision: report
The acting U.S. ambassador to China has resigned from his post over President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, according to CNN.
David Rank’s decision was reportedly directly tied to Trump’s announcement last week that he would withdraw the U.S. from the global climate change pact, which nearly 200 nations are a part of.
I suggest the rest of the foreign service follow this noble example.
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