Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War
by Benedict Vipers, Gallup, November 19, 2024.
Excerpt:
After more than two years of grinding conflict, Ukrainians are increasingly weary of the war with Russia. In Gallup’s latest surveys of Ukraine, conducted in August and October 2024, an average of 52% of Ukrainians would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible. Nearly four in 10 Ukrainians (38%) believe their country should keep fighting until victory.
Ukrainians’ current attitudes toward the war represent a decisive shift from where they stood after it began in late February 2022. Surveyed in the months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Ukrainians were defiant, with 73% preferring fighting until victory.
Trump Will Want to ‘Confess Error’
by Chris Horner, Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2024. (November 18 print edition.)
Wait. What? Trump confessing an error? But it’s not what you might think.
Excerpt:
Agencies aren’t permitted to lie about their reasons for imposing a regulation—a doctrine known as the rule against pretext. Yet it happens. EPA Administrator Michael Regan, for instance, has shown a willingness to use authorities unrelated to climate change to force closure of plants to achieve climate goals. This presents the new administration with an opportunity to rein in some of the most egregious Biden-administration overreaches before the rules achieve their intended outcomes.
Trump administration officials will need to review promptly internal agency files to establish the record of pretextual rulemakings and other improprieties. Government lawyers will then need to acknowledge these improprieties in court.
“Confessing error” is the practice by which government attorneys inform a court that the state has legally misstepped and that annulment of an agency’s judgment is warranted. A change in administration philosophy or interpretation is insufficient. But the courts would almost certainly accept a confession of error of law, fact or procedure supported by documents that illustrate the admitted wrongdoing.
The Democrats Made RFK Jr.
by Alyssia Finley, Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2024. (November 18 print edition.)
Excerpt:
Then came the vaccines. Officials overstated their benefits and played down potential risks. People who claimed to have experienced adverse events were shunned. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was late to warn of myocarditis as a side effect. U.S. public-health authorities still haven’t acknowledged some rare side effects that European counterparts have, such as temporary facial paralysis and abnormal skin sensations.
And:
The Food and Drug Administration further eroded public trust by stonewalling a Freedom of Information Act request for data it relied on to approve Pfizer’s Covid vaccine. The agency also green-lighted shots for children, who were at low risk for Covid, a recommendation based on shoddy data, as I noted at the time.
And some well-deserved skepticism about RFK Jr.’s world view:
He’s also right that Americans would be healthier if they ate less processed foods and exercised more, which are better ways to lose weight than taking drugs. But calorie-rich foods, not additives, are what’s causing an increase in chronic illnesses and obesity. All-natural, non-GMO Häagen Dazs won’t make Americans healthy again.
Gitmo Continues To Haunt
by Andrew P. Napolitano, antiwar.com, November 20, 2024.
Excerpt:
The military prosecutors – who initiated the plea negotiations two years ago because they recognized that they cannot ethically defend the torture regime of President George W. Bush – complied with Pentagon orders and asked Judge McCall to reject the plea.
Last week, the judge denied the government’s request and rejected the Pentagon’s order and scheduled hearings at which Mohammed and the other defendants will presumably acknowledge their guilt under oath.
The judge’s ruling is essentially unassailable. He ruled that when Defense Secretary Austin rescinded the authority of Gen. Escallier – a retired military judge – to agree to guilty pleas, it was too little and too late. By the time Sec. Austin removed Gen. Escallier’s authority to approve guilty pleas in all Gitmo cases, she had already approved these pleas. Thus, she was fully possessed with the power to approve them at the time she signed the approvals.
DRH note: Every once in a while I’m reminded of the respect I have for many career military officers. Not so much for SecDef.
California Bucks Alaska and Missouri by Rejecting Minimum Wage Ballot Initiative
by Jack Nicastro, Reason, November 20, 2024.
Excerpt:
Californians have voted against increasing the state’s minimum wage, despite raising that of fast food workers to $20 per hour with Assembly Bill 1228 in 2023. Of 31 minimum wage ballot initiatives since 1996, California’s Proposition 32 is only the third to fail.
Proposition 32 would have raised the state’s current $16 per hour minimum wage to $18 per hour for businesses employing more than 25 employees in 2025 and for those employing 25 or fewer in 2026.
One of the unintended consequences of such a staggered minimum wage increase is fewer job openings as firms would wait to employ their 26th employee. Under such a plan, the marginal cost of the 26th worker is $141,440 per year: the sum of one full-time worker paid $18 per hour plus 25 full-time workers paid $2 more per hour. Unless the marginal product of that twenty-sixth worker defies the law of diminishing marginal returns, the 25-person business delays expansion, producing less than it otherwise would. Californians’ rejection of Proposition 32 averts this distortion.
DRH comment: This is great news. Also, note the nice use of thinking on the margin in the last paragraph quoted above. The bottom line is that you would virtually never see a firm hiring just a 26th employee. If the firm were to expand from 25 employees, it would almost certainly add 4 or more employees.
Backfire: Buying EVs Hasn’t Worked for Hertz
by Matt Posey, thetruthaboutcars.com, November 15, 2024.
Excerpt:
Hertz foolishly bet the farm on vehicles where the primary benefit is being able to charge them conveniently at home as part of your normal weekly routine. Handing EVs to a customer base that was unlikely to be able to charge their vehicles overnight and would undoubtedly be driving more miles than the daily commute would warrant was, frankly, one of the worst ideas I’ve heard in a while.
DRH note: I could see this coming. I could see it in other customers’ and my resistance to Hertz trying to get me in an EV. And the reason is obvious: When you’re driving long distances, which you often do in a rental car, it’s much more difficult to recharge than if you’re doing a daily commute.
READER COMMENTS
Matthias
Nov 24 2024 at 6:12pm
People in Ukraine might want a quick negotiated piece, but barely anyone is willing to make the sacrifices that would take.
Similarly, Russian public opinion (as far as we can tell, polling is a bit dodgy there) also in principle wants an end to the war, but again, ain’t willing to make the compromises necessary to bridge the gulf with what Ukrainians find acceptable.
Matthias
Nov 24 2024 at 6:16pm
See also how that second question only applies to people who said ‘please negotiate’ in the first question. So only about 52% we want to negotiate are willing to make territorial concessions at all.
steve
Nov 25 2024 at 4:10pm
I looked at that poll and if memory serves it says most people want peace but it doesnt ask under what conditions. They should have had a second question asking what, if anything, they would be willing to give up to attain peace.
Steve
Craig
Nov 24 2024 at 9:15pm
“The judge’s ruling is essentially unassailable. He ruled that when Defense Secretary Austin rescinded the authority of Gen. Escallier – a retired military judge – to agree to guilty pleas, it was too little and too late. By the time Sec. Austin removed Gen. Escallier’s authority to approve guilty pleas in all Gitmo cases, she had already approved these pleas. Thus, she was fully possessed with the power to approve them at the time she signed the approvals.”
Bm’but your honor, I retroactively revoked her authority…..’
That’s a weird one.
steve
Nov 25 2024 at 4:41pm
I wish the WSJ would have people knowledgeable about the area they are writing about do their editorials. I understand it is probably cheaper to have an existing board member write them but as in this case with Finley, they get a lot of factual stuff wrong. Just as an obvious example, in one of her own pieces she references she claims that late during the pandemic some hospitlized kids may have had a viral illness other than covid, apparently not knowing that by then we were routinely using tetravalent tests to look for multiple viruses. AS another example myocarditis was noted as an issue very early and has been studied in depth. She fails to note that and to note that myocarditis is an outcome of covid. From memory, the risk of myocarditis from covid is about 10 times that from the vaccine and the post vaccine myocarditis has been milder. Then, there are also other complications like MIS-C, rare but severe, and we are still seeing papers coming out looking at PASC in kids.
Anyway, this is very much akin to having a kindergarten teacher writing their editorials on economics, business or finance. They just wouldn’t do it.
Steve
Kurt Schuler
Nov 25 2024 at 8:22pm
I enjoy your weekly reading lists, David, and often then read myself at least one of the items.
Concerning your first item, it would be easy for Ukraine to end the war quickly. All it would need to do would be to surrender to Russia. Then, of course, Ukrainians would have to endure the repression of their language, religion, politics, and persons that would follow. They have ample experience already of what would happen.
It would also be easy for Russia to end the war quickly. All it would need to do would be to withdraw within the borders established at the collapse of the Soviet Union. Then, of course, Russians would have to confront the reality that the invasion of Ukraine was not only evil but fruitless, and that most Russians were silent accomplices to it.
David Henderson
Nov 26 2024 at 12:22am
Thanks, Kurt.
You write:
What’s your basis for thinking that the Russians would repress their language, religion, and politics? Also, do you think that they would repress the Ukrainians’ religion more than Zelensky has done to Ukrainians?
Mark
Dec 1 2024 at 7:20pm
German. Having worked 8 years in Russia and another 4 in Ukraine + being passably fluent in Russian (not in Ukrainian, as all Ukranians always talked only Russian to me – most because they knew Russian better, too), I find your question(s) surprising: 1a) “basis for thinking that the Russians would repress their language” – Russia did repress Ukrainian language during all times of their rule over Ukraine: Only Russian was used in school and university, other languages taught were German, English and French – but not Ukrainian. Fun fact: Munich had an Ukrainian university teaching Ukrainian; Ukraine in the CCCP had not. Ukrainians are also a/the major ethnic group in regions in the South of ‘Russia proper’. You would never see a street sign in Ukrainian there. Mostly, language is a non-issue; no Ukrainian goes to the front to defend the right to speak Ukrainian. It is actually about freedom, you know.
1b) religion: see below, but considering “religion” a real issue in Ukraine is a sign of not knowing the country 1c) and politics? Indeed, there’s the rub, the invasions in 2014 and 2022 are about Putin not accepting a democratic government in Ukraine making decisions the people want them to make (ie going west, ie EU). As was the poisoning of Ukrainian President Yushchenko, if anyone remembers.
2.”Repress the Ukrainians’ religion more than Zelensky has done to Ukrainians?” – Many/most ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in both countries are atheist/agnostic/superstitious and very few church-goers (if you ever attend orthodox service, you will understand why most then just light a candle for luck and leave quickly). Easter is kinda magical ritual (oh, and magic is important to many!), else marriage and death are the occasions where one might consider a priest – oh, and going to war: saw some blessings myself, it was Chechnya then) – There are no relevant “religious” differences between those Ukrainian/Russian orthodox-churches; the ‘Russian’ ones are simply financed by the Kremlin and those priests work/preach accordingly. Again, religion is a non-issue. You might want to read the articles of my friend Dr. Andreas Umland or the blog of Prof. Branislav L. Slantchev on wordpress.