The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually large half-point, a dramatic shift after more than two years of high rates that helped tame inflation but also made…

When I last visited Okinawa, protesters daily gathered outside of the gates of Camp Schwab, one of America’s many military installations on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The site of one of the Second…

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous observation, made in his 1846 poem Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing, that “things are in the saddle, and ride mankind,” applies with some force to the current…

Supreme Court justices seldom get an opportunity to fix a botched decision. But as the Court takes up a Tennessee transgender case, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has that chance. His fumble came four…

Hefty spooky action.

Foreign Affairs Okinawa Suffers for Imperial Japan’s Sins Washington should free the island from the Pentagon’s grip. Credit: image via Shutterstock When I last visited Okinawa, protesters daily gathered outside of the gates of Camp Schwab, one of America’s many military installations on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The site of one of the Second World War’s most horrific battles, Okinawa was occupied for decades by the American military, which loaded the territory with military bases.  Today a fifth of Okinawa’s main island remains in US hands, to the frustration of most residents. Just 0.6 percent of Japan’s land mass hosts 70 percent of American military forces in the country. As a sop to locals Washington is supposed to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the coastal territory in Henoko. The project, however, is now more than a decade behind schedule and won’t be completed until sometime in the 2030s. Moreover, reported journalist Thisanka Siripala, Okinawans are overwhelmingly against the replacement plan, saying their prefecture already carries too heavy a burden in terms of hosting U.S. bases. They want the Futenma replacement facility either moved to another prefecture within Japan or scrapped altogether. Successive governors of Okinawa prefecture have sought to delay construction through legal wrangling, including revoking permits for necessary work and questioning the environmental impact. Japan’s central government, however, remains committed to the current plan, seeing it as crucial for the overall Japan-U.S. alliance. Unfortunately, Okinawa’s problem runs far deeper than the location of just one base. As the Second World War rushed to its bloody conclusion, the U.S. seized the island from Imperial Japan. Hundreds of thousands—American and Japanese soldiers and Okinawan civilians—died in the nearly three months of fighting. The main island is dotted with memorials, such as the Peace Memorial Park, where the Japanese army headquarters was located and the final battle occurred, and the Cornerstone of Peace memorial, where victims’ names are inscribed on 116 wide granite pedestals.  Japan regained its sovereignty in 1952, but the island remained under American occupation. Washington seized private land, interned residents, suppressed public protests, and militarized the island. Base construction utilized “bayonets and bulldozers,” that is, expelling the land-owners and reworking their property. Washington’s excuse was the Cold War.  Although the island was returned in 1972, the U.S. military continues to intrude in island life. Prime real estate and beautiful beaches still are controlled by the Pentagon. Neighborhoods abut bases. Long fences keep Okinawans out of territory once part of their community. The presence of thousands of foreign young men creates social friction, including high-profile crimes. Three cases of alleged sexual assault this past summer caused Okinawa’s Governor Denny Tamaki to complain about the U.S. military’s lack of transparency. Alas, Okinawans’ protests have achieved little because Tokyo as well as Washington benefits from the current system. The U.S. wants military facilities in the region, especially in a country which provides significant “host nation support,” but emphasizes that Japan makes the final decision. Tokyo desires a military presence atop America’s underlying security guarantee and points to Washington’s requirements. This perfect circle freezes out the Okinawan people.  Tamaki explained, “Even 50 years after Okinawa’s return to Japan, the prefecture is still being forced to bear the excessive burdens of military bases, including accidents, crimes and the problems of noise and environmental pollution.” By denying Okinawans use of their own land and resources, the U.S. presence, though bringing in U.S. money, has been estimated to divert far more from the island, as much as $8 billion annually, though the number has been declining of late.  Of course, many nations host American military facilities, and not always happily. But their landscapes are not covered in bases. The U.S. presence is magnified on an island, since it is impossible to simply move down the road another mile or two. Moreover, noted the prefectural government, “most of the U.S. military bases on Okinawa are concentrated in flat and highly useful lands in the urban area of the Central and Southern part of” the main island, which holds 80 percent of the population. Overall, editorialized the New York Times: “The concentration of military gear and troops has created noise, pollution, deadly accidents and a history of assaults.”  In 2013 a new think tank, the New Diplomacy Initiative, formed, and published a blueprint for ameliorating the burden on Okinawans while maintaining the US-Japan defense relationship. Alas, NDI found little interest for its ideas in Washington. After his election in 2018, Tamaki, who never met his U.S. Marine father, visited America’s capital to lobby the Trump administration. He explained, “I want the American people to understand what has been, what is and what will be, to solve this problem.” Again nothing changed. Today U.S. bases put the Okinawan people in great danger if the United States and China end up at war—most likely over Taiwan, or one of several maritime and territorial disputes. Noted Yoko Shima, editor of the Ryukyu Shimpo, which has backed closure of the American facilities, “There is a high possibility that Okinawa will become a target, because there are currently U.S. military bases here. So, it shouldn’t become a target.” The Okinawan people agree. While 70 percent of them believe that they bear an “unfair” burden of US bases, an incredible 83 percent believe that “military bases in Okinawa Prefecture would be targets of an attack in an emergency.” The Okinawan people have not chosen to take this risk. America’s oversize military presence did not arise out of the free choice of the Okinawan or even Japanese people. Rather, Washington turned the island into a major military hub while occupying the province. Even after the US returned political authority to Japan, the latter remained in a subordinate position, reluctant to challenge its protector. Okinawan frustration peaked after the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl. The commander of U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Richard C. Macke, compounded the outrage when he publicly wondered why the three men had not simply hired a prostitute. The incident set off mass demonstrations (and forced his retirement). Yet the bases remain. Washington and Tokyo have done as little as possible while seeking to placate the population.  First was an emphasis on better PR. In 2012 the CIA suggested that the Pentagon emphasize economic benefits, cultural exchange, and disaster relief. The agency dismissed arguments based on deterrence: “Okinawans may react with frustration to messages about the deterrence value of U.S. forces because that does not answer their ‘why us’ question.” Moreover, the CIA urged no mention of the environment, which “presents challenges to alliance managers” since there obviously is no pro-environment argument to be made. Matthew Reisener of the Center for the National Interest similarly advocated improved “community relations by exploring opportunities for expanding [America’s] popular educational outreach programs.” Second was lightening the community burden by moving Futenma Air Station. The objective, according to US officials, was to make America’s military presence “more geographically distributed, operationally resilient, and politically sustainable.” However, the Futenma to Henoko palliative failed to satisfy Okinawans. Complained Tamaki, Tokyo officials “say Henoko is the only [option], Henoko is the only solution. But we think that it is definitely not the case and that they’re refusing to think critically.” Popular protests continue. Demonstrators with whom I spoke offered a range of reasons for opposing the base move, including environmental threats, military burdens, and anger at the “bullying” of their island.  Only once has Tokyo seemed genuinely sympathetic to the plight of the Okinawans. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama led the Democratic Party of Japan to victory over the Liberal Democrats in 2009 and committed to relieving the burden on Okinawans. The Obama administration launched a brutal political offensive against the Hatoyama government, causing the premier to reluctantly abandon his promise and resign after less than a year in office. His successor, Naoto Kan, returned to a policy of supine submission to Washington, which continues today, and endorsed the Futenma relocation.  Although the island has been called the “Keystone of the Pacific,” its value is more assumed than demonstrated. “The United States must remain in Okinawa despite local opposition,” Reisener insisted. “American military installations on the island prefecture are essential to ensuring both American and Japanese interests in the critically important region of East Asia.” However, though the Marine Expeditionary Force packs impressive firepower, it has little practical role in the region. It is not necessary for Japan’s defense. If Tokyo believes it needs a few thousand more ground forces, it could raise them. Similar is the MEF’s potential value in any war on the Korean Peninsula, where South Korea could expand its own military if necessary. The U.S. has no security interests at stake which warrant deploying the MEF in Southeast Asia. Finally, if the U.S. and China end up battling over, say, Taiwan or the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, combat will not be on the ground. Nearly three decades ago, Mike Mochizuki, a professor at the George Washington University and former Brookings Institution scholar, and Michael E. O’Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution, observed that “Marines are simply not the right instrument of military force for addressing possible Chinese threats to the Spratly Islands, Taiwan, or the sea lanes of the South China Sea.”  As for issues of international credibility, Japan could do more for the region as well as itself. Some analysts contend that host nation support makes it cheaper for the U.S. to maintain troops overseas, but the most important cost is raising the forces. Commitments require force structure. Washington should be shedding, not just sharing, its allies’ defense burdens. Fear of China and North Korea have spurred Japanese military efforts in recent years, but Tokyo could do even more in response to an American drawdown. Tokyo also would be free to decide that it would be better to stay out of a U.S.–China fight, that the risks would be greater than any rewards of war. Even if Washington and Tokyo decided to maintain an American military presence, the burden should be spread more evenly throughout Japan. That objective alone warrants closing some facilities on and shifting others from Okinawa. Although the primary responsibility for doing so lies with Tokyo, Washington was responsible for the prefecture’s initial burden and is complicit in the continuing unfairness. It is well past time for the U.S. to leaven security concerns with justice and fairness, which requires listening to those who live with the bases. The post Okinawa Suffers for Imperial Japan’s Sins appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics It’s Time for the Supreme Court to Repudiate Gender Ideology The Court has a chance to reverse the damage of Bostock. Credit: image via Shutterstock Supreme Court justices seldom get an opportunity to fix a botched decision. But as the Court takes up a Tennessee transgender case, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has that chance. His fumble came four years ago, when the Court declared in Bostock v. Clayton County that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal law that forbids sex discrimination in employment, also bans employment discrimination based on transgender status. Critics have charged that Gorsuch, an avid textualist and the author of the majority opinion, botched his “textual” analysis in that case. But this is a mischaracterization. Instead, Gorsuch botched both the textual analysis and the philosophical analysis. While we agree with Associate Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote in his dissenting opinion that Gorsuch’s opinion was like a “pirate ship … sail[ing] under a textualist flag,” perhaps the bigger problem with that opinion is that Gorsuch and the justices who joined his opinion wrongly concluded that transgender status and sex are “inextricably” linked. Since then, gender ideologues, activists, and the Biden-Harris administration have weaponized the Court’s holding to force women to share intimate spaces with biological males who identify as women; to force women to compete against those biological males in athletic competition; to compel health insurance plans to pay for gender transition treatments and surgeries; to mandate “preferred pronoun” usage; and to pursue a laundry list of other policies forcing everyday Americans to bend the knee to the new orthodoxy of gender ideology. Even a textualist must sometimes answer philosophical questions, and when those answers are wrong, there are often profound societal consequences. Americans have painfully discovered that in the wake of Bostock. So, what did Justice Gorsuch, the textualist, get wrong? After all, at no point did he conclude that sex and gender identity were the same thing. Here’s what happened. Title VII forbids making certain employment decisions based on a person’s “sex.” Justice Gorsuch rightly assumed that “sex” refers to whether a person is biologically male or female. And he rightly recognized that “sex” and “transgender status” are two different things. But Gorsuch concluded that transgender status was inextricably linked to sex. When noting an employee’s transgender status, an employer will also observe the employee’s underlying sex—something entirely different from how that employee chooses to self-identify. An employer who fires a person for being transgender thus fires a person for having traits—identities, attitudes, or behaviors—tolerated in one sex but not the other. Gorsuch assumed that, all else being equal, the only difference between an employee who identifies as female but was assigned the male sex at birth and an employee who identifies as female and was assigned the female sex at birth is the employee’s sex at birth. If a male who dresses like a female and female who dresses like a female are equally suited to the job, but the male is fired for the way he dresses and identifies, then he was, Gorsuch concluded, terminated “because of… sex”—something Title VII expressly forbids. But claiming to be female based solely on gender identity is not at all like claiming to be female based on sex, that is, based on biological reality. Even the National Institutes of Health explains that gender identity “is not necessarily visible to others,” but is wholly determined by how individuals perceive and interpret their “internal sense” of being male or female. In short, gender is cultural, sex is biological. In reality, the label for one’s sex or gender identity might be the same—“female,” for example—but the term means entirely different things in different contexts. Thus, assuming that an employee’s transgender status was, in fact, the basis for the termination, the employer fired the employee for having a trait not cognizable in either sex—a “gender identity” different from one’s underlying sex. That’s not all. Gorsuch adopted a popular definition of transgender status, something that is rooted in the new and trendy gender ideology, but is incorrect. In saying that sex and gender identity align, Gorsuch may as well have said apples and bananas are the same because they are both fruits. Because sex and gender identity are fundamentally different, they cannot be compared to determine whether they align or not. If that were not enough, Gorsuch also incorrectly referred to sex as being “assigned” and “identified with.” It is neither. One’s sex objectively exists, whether it is recognized or not. By accepting the gender juggernaut’s definition of transgender status, something that conflates sex and gender identity and presumes that sex is either assigned or identified with, Gorsuch bought into a way of thinking about reproductive, bodily, and biological reality that has set the culture on a path to disaster. That literalist approach was precisely the basis for Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s dissent in Bostock. To his mind, Gorsuch got lost in the literal meaning of the text but failed to account for the plain and ordinary meaning of Title VII when read as a whole at the time it was adopted. Gender activists, progressive politicians in Washington, D.C., and cultural elites have used Bostock as the basis of their argument that any law banning sex discrimination also bans transgender status discrimination—something that flies in the face of Bostock’s very limited holding, and something that Justice Alito predicted would be a natural consequence of the Court’s ruling in his blistering dissent. Thankfully, the Supreme Court has, at least thus far, unanimously rejected that argument within the context of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972—the law that bars sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. Title IX permits separate sports teams, bathrooms, locker rooms, and housing accommodations for males and females, so long as both sexes enjoy equal educational opportunities. When the Biden-Harris administration reinterpreted Title IX to mandate nondiscrimination based on gender identity by way of a federal rule finalized and published in April of this year, several states were quick to sue. The Supreme Court unanimously agreed in a per curiam (that is, unsigned) order denying the Biden administration’s request to lift a lower court injunction on its newly minted rule. Now, however, the Court has the chance to repudiate gender ideology wholesale. The Court has decided to hear United States v. Skrmetti, a case in which three minors, their parents, a physician, and the Biden-Harris administration are challenging a Tennessee law that bans transgender medical treatments and surgeries for minors. They claim that the law unconstitutionally discriminates based on “transgender status” in violation of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. As the challengers frame it, under the Tennessee law, a minor whose sex is male and who identifies as male can get testosterone treatments, but a minor whose sex is female but who identifies as male cannot. Thus, discrimination. The Court should reject this argument by recognizing that a person who claims to be female based solely on gender identity is not the same as a person who claims to be female based on sex, that is, based on biological reality. In other words, a person of the female sex is not the same as a person who identifies as female based solely on his self-described gender identity. The Court should also dispense with the language of gender ideology by dropping terms such as “assigning” or “identifying as” a given sex. For millennia, infants have been immediately recognized at birth as being one sex or the other, save for exceedingly rare incidents of sexual development disorders. Short of that, the contagion of gender identity is a poison of relatively nascent propagation. The Supreme Court has the chance to fix a four-year-old mistake, limit the progressive Left’s ongoing effort to expand Bostock’s reach, and recognize (and thereby protect) biological reality while it does so. Let’s hope at least five justices are courageous enough to do just that. The post It’s Time for the Supreme Court to Repudiate Gender Ideology appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Why U.S. Foreign Policy Won’t Grow Up American foreign policy lacks Gaullist mesure. Credit: image via Shutterstock Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous observation, made in his 1846 poem Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing, that “things are in the saddle, and ride mankind,” applies with some force to the current circumstances surrounding the war in Ukraine. In the past week, reports by Ukrainian media indicate that Russia has deployed 16 ships, including seven carriers equipped with 48 Kalibr cruise missiles, to the Black Sea. U.S. Army Col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregor, a former senior adviser to the acting secretary of defense who is now a contributing editor at The American Conservative, warns, “All the signs point to major offensive action by the Russians.”  At the same time, the U.S. Defense Security and Cooperation Agency has approved a $7.2 billion sale of 32 Lockheed Martin F-35A fighter aircraft to Romania. This comes amid discussions between the Biden administration and the British government on whether to allow Ukraine to use long-range American ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory. In response, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin issued what the New York Times referred to as “an unusually specific warning,” saying that the use of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles would “mean that NATO countries—the United States and European countries—are at war with Russia” because of the need for Western technicians to operate the systems. And yet the prospect of a direct war between Russia, the United States, and its European allies leaves many within Washington’s foreign policy establishment unmoved. The former State Department official and Catholic University professor Michael Kimmage took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal last week to claim that the war is going so well for Ukraine that “in no way does Kyiv need to sue for peace.” Likewise, an open letter to the administration issued by a group of 17 former ambassadors and generals urged Biden “to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western-provided weapons to strike deep into Russia.”  “After more than 900 days of war,” they wrote, “we can safely assert that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats are nothing less than an attempt to deter Ukraine’s partners from properly arming her. Easing the restrictions on Western weapons will not cause Moscow to escalate.” While the 17 signatories did not disclose the source of the crystal ball in their possession, the letter does raise a question as to whether there are any alternative strategies available to the administration other than risking World War III on the basis of their assurances. A recent installment of the Financial Times’ intermittently interesting series, Lunch with the FT, featured a conversation with the controversial French novelist Michel Houellebecq during which the topic of Trump and Ukraine was broached.  “What if,” asked the FT’s Magdalena Miecznicka, “[Donald Trump] stops supporting Ukraine?” “That’s good,” responded Houellebecq.  “But,” pressed Miecznicka, “Ukrainians want to liberate their territory.” “What do I care?” responded Houellebecq. “At the start of the war, I was surprised because I thought Ukraine was Russian. “ “People who have humanitarian ideas are a catastrophe,” continued Houellebecq. “It doesn’t work and motivations are doubtful.”  Houellebecq’s comments seem intentionally provocative, but whether he was conscious of it or not, they were a kind of crude echo of a key precept of Charles de Gaulle’s foreign policy—that of mesure. It is a precept that has been sorely missing from the American foreign policy playbook for some time. As de Gaulle himself once wrote, the practice of statecraft depends on “avoiding abstractions, but holding on to realities, preferring the useful to the sublime, the opportune to the spectacular, seeking for each particular problem not the ideal solution but the practical one.” For de Gaulle, there was “no value in a policy that does not take account of realities.” This way of thinking became the hallmark of de Gaulle’s successful, innovative foreign policy when he served as president of the Fifth Republic from 1959 to 1969. It was premised on the recognition of the national interests, not just of France, but of other countries as well. At the same time, de Gaulle deplored what he viewed as the overextension of the United States and the Soviet Union during what was then the height of the Cold War. As the distinguished scholar of Europe David Calleo has written, De Gaulle’s own view of history taught him not only how pusillanimous leaders allowed their countries to drift into disaster, but how gifted leaders were often done in by overreaching themselves. The successful hero required a vision and audacity but also mesure. What Calleo referred to as the “Gaullist combination of foresight, agility and balance” is nowhere on display in the Washington of 2024. Indeed, it would be fair to say that the formulation and practice of U.S. foreign policy has been defined by the near total absence of “foresight, agility and balance” in the two and a half decades since 9/11. George W. Bush’s declaration that countries are either “with us or against us” in the so-called War on Terror was as concise a rejection of the concept of mesure as could be imagined—and in many ways Bush’s statement set the tone for what was to come. The administration of his successor, Barack Obama, issued such ex cathedra pronouncements as  “Gaddafi must go” and, later, “Assad must go.” For his part, Trump is a living, breathing repudiation of the very concept of mesure, while the current president, Joe Biden, has issued public calls for regime change in Moscow, all the while debasing his office (and his country) with unstinting support for an extermination campaign being waged against the Palestinian people. In the hands of the current establishment, American foreign policy lacks discernment, maturity, and an ability to distinguish between core and peripheral national interests—which itself is a, perhaps the, mark of mesure. And until the policy community learns how to distinguish between these, we will remain stuck in this unvirtuous, dangerous cycle of threat inflation and, ultimately, endless conflict. The post Why U.S. Foreign Policy Won’t Grow Up appeared first on The American Conservative.

The following article, Bloodthirsty Democrat CSPAN Caller Praises Would-be Trump Assassins, Calls Attempts To Murder Trump ‘Defending My Country’ (Video), was first published on Conservative Firing Line. On Wednesday, a man identifying himself as a Democrat Vietnam veteran from Louisiana called into CSPAN and praised the two would-be Trump assassins. The stunned host asked the caller if he was advocating violence.  The man replied that he was talking about “defending my country.” Here’s video as posted to Twitter/X: ?DISGUSTING? A Democrat caller … Continue reading Bloodthirsty Democrat CSPAN Caller Praises Would-be Trump Assassins, Calls Attempts To Murder Trump ‘Defending My Country’ (Video) ...

Absolutely terrifying. Incredible testimony. Please send this to ALL - WAKE people up and SAVE LIVES!! “I’m one of 3 people that didn’t take the vaccine at this hospital…and you wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen…I don’t even use the washrooms here…I go home…” UTL COMMENT:- And what do people / media / Govt / Police whatever do about it....nothing....