MWI Weekly 3.3.2023
"LEGO - Back to the future / Delorean" by seter82 is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.
And we go back to the future . . . This week, we return to our traditional format for our weekly free newsletter.
This week, rather than publishing a full essay, we’re returning to the digest format for MWI Weekly. There are a few reasons for going back to what we’ve done previously, but the most important one is the purpose of this newsletter: it’s supposed to be a review of the news from the past week from a Whig perspective.
The reason we moved it to Friday in the first place was to stay timely, and hopefully not miss anything big.
We’ve also gotten some feedback on how a full essay was a bit much for just before the weekend. Several subscribers have pointed out how much more they enjoyed our breezier, zippier (and maybe snarkier) content from over the summer and into the fall of last year. They miss it now.
And, of course, the Gazette is meant to be the home for our in-depth commentary and analysis -- meaning essays. MWI Weekly has always been kind of a different animal. (By the way, we have a couple new verticals, meaning titles, in development besides the Gazette. Stay tuned.)
So, from now on we’ll drop this newsletter in your inbox every Friday, although we’ll be letting it fly a little earlier in the day than we have of late. We’ve been getting into the evening hours every week, sometimes not until after 9 p.m. EST, which isn’t really ideal. From now on we’re going to target 5 p.m. EST for a delivery time.
As we’ve been doing, we’ll also be publishing to the website’s MWI Weekly tab and to the Gazette, and posting to all our social media accounts. By getting it all done by close of business on Friday we think our readers will have a better opportunity to check out the links we embed and also (hopefully) share us with their own social media contacts.
With that, let’s take a look at the world.
Hallo, lieber Freund
In what has all the earmarks of a “we need to talk” talk, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rocketed over from Germany for a private meeting with President Biden. Unlike the usual visits by a foreign head of government -- especially an ally -- this one won’t have any of the typical pomp and circumstance. There won’t even be a joint press conference.
Reportedly, a main topic of discussion is the possibility of China taking a greater hand in the War in Ukraine. So far the best intelligence reports indicate the Chinese haven’t supplied any weapons to the Russians. But that might be about to change. There can be little doubt Putin would love nothing more; after all, he’s burned through his inventory of shells, tanks, missiles and bullets even faster than he’s burned through his people.
Whether the Chinese are willing to take that step is the question. Since China is Germany’s biggest trading partner, it’s possible President Biden is hoping Chancellor Scholz may have some insight into the matter. But even more importantly, it’s a certainty the president wants the Germans to be willing to use whatever leverage they have to prevent a change in Chinese policy to begin with.
And then there’s the matter of defense spending. For all his cluelessness, in at least one matter the former president proved the old adage of even a broken clock being right twice a day (of course he got, and continues to get, the details all wrong, but whatever): Europe has relied too heavily on America for their defense and deterrence capabilities and need to do more.
But it has to happen quickly. Just as the Russians have expended enormous amounts of ammunition, so have the Ukrainians. What’s worse, current production across the West can’t keep up with Ukraine’s needs. We’ve been drawing down already-existing stocks to keep them in the fight. Unless all the countries of what we once called the Free World (and probably should again) invest more in their defense industrial bases and ramp up their armaments production, we’re eventually going to get caught short.
It’s not a happy prospect either way. We’d all much rather spend our tax money on domestic needs and the more positive things in life -- education, health care, infrastructure, social security, greater opportunity and prosperity for all. But it’s no good having all those things if you can’t defend them. And it’s abundantly clear now, the Bad Guys aren’t messing around.
Speaking of Bad Guys
Over the past week or so, there have been a slew of bombshell revelations in the lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems is pursuing against Fox News and its parent corporation. Maybe the biggest single eye-popper came courtesy of the head honcho himself, Rupert Murdoch. While under oath in a deposition, the Fox chairman admitted Fox News commentators had “endorsed” the election-rigging conspiracy theories his network was regularly airing in the aftermath of Trump’s defeat in November 2020 -- and which we know the hosts themselves (at least the ones in prime time: Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham) didn’t actually believe.
Hoo boy. That one is going to be tough for even the whitest white-shoe lawyers to get around.
But it’s not just a matter of the Big Lie stuff, of course. Dominion’s suit has revealed a truth many of us have known about Fox News for many years, and in a way where it’s impossible to deny: they go beyond the usual bias and pandering and venture into outright dishonesty. And they do it consciously. What the lawsuit has done is tell us why. In the words of Rupert Murdoch himself, “It is not red or blue. It is green.”
As the head of the business, it’s not at all strange for Murdoch himself to be concerned with his profit and loss statement. (Of course, as a moral matter making money on a bed of lies is, shall we say, a problem, but let’s leave that aside for now.) What is strange is the degree to which his prime timers were more concerned about the network’s brand and stock price than about telling the truth to their audience. It’s almost as though they’re not really journalists and they’re not really doing the news at all.
Imagine that.
For those of us who love business, things like strategy and models and culture and leadership are manna from heaven. There’s nothing like digging into the nuts and bolts of a going concern to see what makes a company a success (or vice versa). But when the business revolves around the mission of telling the American people the truth about their country, their government, their society and the world around them, the singular focus on profits of a going concern becomes a growing concern. There’s a bigger issue than the stock price at closing.
A lot has been written about this case over the last seven days, and no doubt there will be a lot more. But for now, this piece by Amanda Carpenter sums it all up very neatly. It’s worth a read:
Exposed: Fox’s Pander-for-Profit Business Model - The Bulwark
As we’ve mentioned many times, the fourth star on the Whig Owl represents the Fourth Estate. We all rely on our news outlets to keep us informed. The Founders certainly understood the vital role of a free press in legitimating a government of the People; they made sure to protect it right at the top of the Bill of Rights. And while some of us maybe expect too much from the press, and others might be too quick to dismiss it, and still others are only interested in having their biases confirmed, all that is strictly on the audience. For the news organizations themselves, their duty to our society is irrevocably intertwined with the rights they’ve been granted.
It’s not green. It’s red, white and blue.
What a Piece of Work
Congress has always had its share of characters, including plenty with some very deep character flaws. Which is to be expected. As much as we might not like to think about it, our members of Congress don’t arrive from some distant planet (well, not most of the time). They’re us. And as good as most people are, plenty aren’t -- you know who you are -- and not everyone is on the up and up. Get 535 Americans together and you’re bound to find more than a few who are, at the very least, pretty sketchy.
But there aren’t too many cases like Rep. George Santos (R-NY). The sheer volume and extent of his lies is almost mind-blowing. At this point, it would be almost impossible to believe him if he pointed up on a sunny day and said, “Look, the sky is blue.” Where someone like Trump is more a masterful bunko artist than anything else (and more than possibly believes a lot of what he says, given his ignorance), Santos is nothing short of pathological.
He’s also brazen. In his latest episode of “look, nothing up my sleeve,” Santos has apparently conjured up a new campaign treasurer out of thin air. It’s actually . . . well, it’s actually quite funny:
George Santos has a new campaign treasurer but questions persist | CNN Politics
To say questions persist may be the understatement of the week.
With the House of Representatives so closely divided, Santos is probably safe for now. It’s hard to kick someone out of the chamber anyway. But with Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) leaving Congress this summer, it’s at least theoretically possible for Speaker McCarthy to figure he’s got a seat to spare and make a move. After all, it’s the right thing to do. Having such a blatant pathological liar, fraudster and cheat sitting in elective office isn’t worth whatever political advantages their presence may provide. Sometimes honor demands sacrifice. Sometimes being right matters more than having might. Sometimes . . .
Oh, never mind.
Odds and Ends
Lots of interesting stuff crossed the wires over the past week. On Monday, we took a look at one of the longstanding issues we’ve been thinking about: whether the Space Force was unnecessary, and whether creating a Cyber Force would have been a better idea. You can check it out here:
To Infinity and Beyond - by The Modern Whig Institute (substack.com)
Turns out, we may have gotten ahead of ourselves just a little. We, of course, already have a Cyber Command (we already have, and still have, a Space Command too), and its developing new capabilities:
US Cyber Command developing own intelligence hub (defensenews.com)
For their part, the Biden Administration just released a proposal to make software companies liable for software which doesn’t meet certain specific standards. The document was light on specifics, but the overall intent was clear enough. Whether it’s a good idea or not is very much up for debate, but either way it’s something to keep an eye on:
White House cybersecurity strategy stresses software safety | AP News
Another one to keep an eye on is the battle between the governor of Florida and Disney. While it’s obvious DeSantis is burnishing his culture warrior cred for a run at the White House, and appears to be winning so far, his willingness to stretch his executive authority as far as he can is more than a little worrisome. Especially since he’s so willing to ally himself with people who have few limits at all:
DeSantis Disney oversight board features 'combustible mix' of culture warriors: Expert (yahoo.com)
How much is show and how much is go will determine Disney’s ultimate reaction. If the whole thing sort of fades away and they get to go about business as usual, likely it will all soon be forgotten (which is a danger in itself). But if someone decides to start turning the screws, the Mouse may very suddenly roar. You know, maybe around early-to-mid October 2024.
Of course, no week would be complete without a dip into the fun and the absurd. First up, turns out Elon Musk is not actually going to get a free pass to plant microchips in our brains:
U.S. regulators rejected Elon Musk’s bid to test brain chips in humans (reuters.com)
Shockingly, despite some of the stuff running around on the internet, constipation did not actually kill more people last year than rifles (let alone, lots and lots and lots more):
Constipation does not kill more people than rifles in the US | AP News
[Pro tip: if it’s a meme, don’t trust it.]
While Gov. DeSantis is chasing mice, he’s going to have a hot potato dropped on his desk courtesy the Lee County Republican Party, who are intent on saving us from “genocide”:
Lee County, Florida, Republican Party Passes Resolution To Ban Covid-19 Vaccines (forbes.com)
We may have trouble getting along here on Earth, but in space everyone is just an astronaut. Maybe if we all took a few minutes to look at some of the pictures from the ISS every day we wouldn’t be so quick to see our differences before the things we have in common (either that or we all need milk at cookies and a nap at 3 p.m.):
SpaceX rocket boosts U.S.-Russian-Emirati crew into orbit – Spaceflight Now
And finally, in England a replacement bus driver lassoed a stray sheep with her handbag and delivered it to a local farm and went on to her destination -- arriving just a minute late:
Bus driver helps rescue sheep from busy Sussex road - BBC News
Ewe can never go wrong seeing the best in people. See you next week.
Kevin J. Rogers is the executive director of the Modern Whig Institute. He can be reached at director@modernwhig.org.
----------------------------------------
The Modern Whig Institute is a 501(c)(3) civic research and education foundation dedicated to the fundamental American principles of representative government, ordered liberty, capitalism, due process and the rule of law.
To join the Institute, click here.
