The South Gibson Star-Times serves the towns of Haubstadt, Owensville and Fort Branch.
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1465915
B-6 Tuesday, April 26, 2022 South Gibson Star-Times While President Joe Biden's lead- ership has thus far been largely MIA, Russia has steadily ravaged Ukraine. Yet the Ukrainians are hanging in there, and Biden has at least more than two years left in office. That means there is still time for him to emerge from the back shadows and start delivering the solid leadership the West needs to assure a satisfac- tory end to the fighting, as well as post-war security and prosperity for our European allies and ourselves. What, exactly, would that leader- ship entail? No one can know how the fight- ing will play out, but we can make an educated guess about where Vladi- mir Putin now hopes he can take this. The next time Moscow pauses, Putin will want to be in a position of strength. To get there, he will continue three odious tactics. First, he will keep tar- geting civilians in an effort to break the will of Ukrainians, making them war-weary enough to stop fighting. Second, he will concentrate his of- fensive in the South and East, so that, if Russia pauses, Moscow has control of some new territory. Third, he will forcibly remove even more Ukrainians to Russia. He's already transported hundreds of thousands, giving him a hefty, albeit wholly in- humane, bargaining chip. If that is the state of play when ma- jor fighting ceases, it will not be the end of the story. If Putin has his way, this Ukrainian campaign will just be the down payment on his next move west. For Ukraine to survive and thrive—and to put a lid on Putin's expansionism—President Biden will have to exercise extraordinary lead- ership. For starters, the West will have to ensure that Ukraine has a fu- ture. In the short term, that prob- ably means making sure that Ukraine has the means nec- essary to defend it- self against anoth- er invasion. No piece of paper signed by any power can substi- tute for a substantial- ly well-armed people. The U.S. must partner in helping build a sus- tained Ukrainian mil- itary, a resilient logistical base and dependable domestic production ca- pacity for the long term. Lend lease might be lending for a long time. Ukraine is also going to have to re- build Ukraine. Seized Russian assets can help pay for that, but Ukraine needs to rebuild its country faster than Putin rebuilds his army. To fin- ish first, Ukraine will need the help of America and other nations. Then there is the question of mak- ing sure Putin can't threaten the rest of Europe. That means checkmating Putin's two most potent weapons: a military with no compunction about taking a wrecking ball to polite so- cieties and Moscow's energy influ- ence. Both tasks require a lot of Yan- kee can-do. On the military front, the U.S. needs to strengthen its extended nuclear deterrence and missile de- fenses, while pushing NATO to field strong, forward-deployed forces that can actually defend NATO's front- lines. On the energy front, the U.S. needs to resume leadership in glob- al energy production. That means not just providing for our own ener- gy needs, but partnering with others to invest in reliable, affordable, de- pendable energy solutions for allies. Accomplishing these tasks would make Europe more stable and make the U.S. more secure and prosperous. It would also help checkmate China, which seeks to take advantage of Pu- tin's disruptive actions to advance its own agenda in Europe and elsewhere. The question is, can Biden muster the vision and focus needed to pull this off? It will, at the very least, be an uphill battle. At home, the president is distract- ed and weakened by an unpopular domestic policy agenda that seems to sink more deeply into a quagmire by the day. Will he have the time, en- ergy, and interest in building back a better Europe? Biden also must fight against the weight of his own policies that make the U.S. a less effective force at home and abroad. This challenge is partic- ularly daunting when it comes to en- ergy policy because he would have to abandon his unrealistic ambitions of reaching "Global Zero" and power- ing the nation solely on renewable green energy. Perhaps Biden will find his in- ner-Harry Truman and take on the tough leadership role these times de- mand. But a betting man would wa- ger that, even if he decides to take on these difficult challenges, he will want to lead with the same woke po- lices that have thus far left him lead- ing from way, way behind. And that's just not enough to get the job done. James Jay Carafano is a leading ex- pert in national security and foreign policy challenges. Macomb County GOP ousts party leaders Editor's note: Star Parker is off and will return next week. Last Monday evening, each of Michigan's 83 county parties held Republican conventions. Conserva- tives met with the purpose of elect- ing delegates to the state endorse- ment convention to begin the process of nominating candidates for attor- ney general and secretary of state, as well as to the Supreme Court and state education boards. This is a granular yet critically im- portant process that gives Michigan- ders, as well as reporters and ana- lysts covering the midterm elections, a glimpse of what direction the Re- publican Party is headed before this fall's elections. In particular, Macomb County, one of the state's largest and a bastion of blue-collar Republicanism, had 288 credentialed delegates meeting, each representing his or her home pre- cinct. This county, which support- ed former President Donald Trump twice, could be described as one of the most "America First" large coun- ties in the nation. Trump was even there for a rally last week. It is argu- ably a bellwether as to the current state of the party and its new con- servative-populist coalition going forward. When Macomb Township Republi- can Jamie Roe walked into the event at the Shelby Gardens convention space, he said the place was well on its way to being packed and that the mood was "spirited." County conventions choose the county executive committee, which in turn elects officers, including the county chair. A fter the 2020 election, the executive committee members and officers became solely focused on re-litigating the 2020 election. If you disagreed with them or doubted the utility of the exercise, you would quickly be called a RINO. Frustra- tions grew among Macomb conserva- tives, who generally did not think the election was stolen and were tired of hearing about it. They wanted to fo- cus on winning in 2022 at the state, local and congressional levels while the chances seem good. "Last night, everyone who was focused on winning the election in 2022 had been pushed over the edge," said Roe. "Fed-up activists and elected officials joined together to remove the Executive Committee and officers from office and replace them with a new group focused sole- ly on winning in 2022 and not on the past." The event, which was raucous, also unified people who have been political adversaries for years but un- derstood that the current path of the county party would lead to disunity and defeat. Roe was one of those elected to the new Executive Committee. In 2020, Republicans in Macomb County had an incredible election; they won a majority on the County Commission for the first time since before the Great Depression. They won the offices of county prosecutor, county clerk, county treasurer and public works commissioner, and they gained state legislative seats. A fter redistricting in 2022, they have a chance to hold both of the U.S. House seats in Macomb if they re- elect Lisa McClain to the House and elect John James to the new open seat at the south end of the county. Roe added, "We also have great op- portunities for legislative gains, and our success here is vital to maintain- ing majorities in both houses of the state Legislature. Additionally, build- ing a GOP margin in Macomb Coun- ty is a must if we are going to defeat Gretchen Whitmer and others at the statewide level." Macomb's new county leadership is not by any means anti-Trump — it is just unwilling to be stuck obsess- ing over a lost election. "We have all the opportunity in the world to win a lot of races and to govern according to our conserva- tive populist values, but you cannot accomplish anything if all you talk about is what happened in 2020 and try to re-litigate it," said Roe. "The people who lost always presented themselves as the 'most pro-Trump' and are the same as those who sit in the front of church and try to make Editor's note: Stephen Moore is off and will return next week. In March, inflation jumped 8.5 per- cent, the biggest spike since 1981. Economic growth is expected to slow. Voters are expected to be an- gry. Yesterday, press secretary Jen Psaki warned, "We expect March CPI (consumer price index) head- line inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin's price hike." Today, her future employer, NBC, reported: "Inflation hits 40 -year high of 8.5 percent due to war in Ukraine, rent hikes." The Washing- ton Post says much the same. Pres- ident Joe Biden's senior adviser for communications at the National Eco- nomic Council, Jesse Lee, went even further, accusing those who blame Biden for inflation woes of being "ful- ly in lockstep" with Russian Presi- dent Vladimir Putin. The main problem with this trans- parently silly talking point is that most voters will surely recall that inflation concerns predated the in- vasion of Ukraine. I'm not sure what Putin's position is on American infla- tionary pressure, but if that's it, he would be correct — murderous dic- tator or not. The Biden administration, in fact, spent a year downplaying inflation fears despite the warning signs, con- tending that inflation was only "tran- sitory," claiming that "nobody" was "suggesting there's unchecked infla- tion on the way — no serious econ- omist," dismissing price spikes as a "high-class" problem, and arguing that higher prices might actually be a good thing. (Let's just say Psaki isn't cracking jokes about "the trag- edy of the treadmill that's delayed" anymore.) Like most presi- dents, Biden wants credit for every deci- mal point of positive economic news but blame for nothing. Considering that we are seeing the return of jobs initially dec- imated by state-im- posed COVID lock- downs, the president's boasting is even more misleading than usual. Inflation is a complex, multifac- eted problem that, of course, isn't entirely any one person's or event's fault. Yet easy monetary policy and lots of federal spending during a re- covering economy were probably bad ideas, as it turns out. Democrats threw $2 trillion into an overheating economy, on top of the $ 3 trillion bipartisan COVID-re- lief bill that preceded that bill. With an assist from some Republicans, Democrats approved another $1 trillion-plus infrastructure bill. The Biden administration wanted to pass another $5 trillion in social spending despite inflationary concerns. Setting aside today's numbers, Biden policies often demonstrate the unseriousness, incompetence and partisanship of the governing class. Even as energy prices spike, for example, Democrats contin- ue to indulge in their clean-ener- gy fairy tales. The first item on the White House's fact sheet, "President Biden's Plan to Respond to Putin's Price Hike at the Pump," instructs Americans to drive pricey, unreliable electric cars and rely on niche, inef- fective, highly subsi- dized "clean" energy sources. It should not be left unsaid that Dem- ocrats want to arti- ficially drive up the price of fossil fuels — which account for 80 percent of our energy — as a means of con- stricting usage. This is the intent of almost every climate-agenda proposal. On Inauguration Day 2021, the average price of gas in the U.S. was $2.37 a gallon. Between that day and Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Biden signed an executive order pausing all new government leases on public lands, shut down the Key- stone XL Pipeline and stopped pur- suing drilling in the Gulf of Mexico over concocted "social cost of car- bon" externalities. Russia provided less than 8 percent of all oil import- ed into the U.S. World communities are fungible, but Democrats want to prepare for the next gas-price shock by ignoring the abundant availability of reliable energy and retrofitting the entire economy to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars. You might also recall that before "Putin's price hike" became the go- to talking point, Democrats spent months trying to convince us that, after 30 years of low inflation, cor- porations had suddenly conspired to stop competing and began reck- less gouging. These ham-fisted ef- Main Street Politics By Salena Zito Heritage Viewpoint By James Carafano Biden's greatest Ukraine challenge is coming Give Me a Break By John Stossel Economic Outtakes By David Harsanyi The 'Putin's Price Hike' canard Uber clueless The media's ignorance about basic economics is galling. I expect it from politicians. I expect it from The New York Times. But it's sad to see in the New York Post, my town's rare alternative to Democrat media. Recently the tabloid freaked out over higher prices imposed by ride- share companies. "New Yorkers are fed up with forking over excessive amounts for Uber and Lyft rides." Excessive? Just what is "exces- sive? " Who decides? Prices were already up because gasoline costs more, NYC keeps im- posing new taxes and regulations, and the federal government pays so many people not to work that there's now a shortage of drivers. That day, unusually high "surge" prices were in effect because there had been a horrible shooting on the subway. Commuters, fearful of anoth- er subway shooting, turned to ride- share services. How should a company like Uber deal with that? Suddenly, there is much more demand for rides than supply. Should customers just wait in line? Most wouldn't get a ride for days. So, ride-share companies do the sensible thing: They temporarily raise prices. They lower them again when there are free cars. This is the best solution for the most people. Those who desperately need rides can pay extra for them. Those with spare time can take a bus, walk, call a friend, etc., or just wait for prices to drop. Higher prices also mean higher pay for drivers, which encourages part- time drivers to drop what they are doing and start offering rides. Such congestion pricing could also reduce traffic jams if politicians gath- ered the courage to impose it. But this pretty good solution is not good enough for economically igno- rant reporters. The Post said, "Crit- ics say the sticker shock is unsustain- able." "Critics say" is a clue that you are reading the product of lazy reporting. When reporters don't take the time to search out reliable sources or gather actual data, they simply write, "crit- ics say." The critics could be their friends, family or a couple of Uber users at the airport. How do these critics know the pric- es are "unsustainable? " They don't. Ride share investors, with their own money on the line, know more about what is sustainable. If prices were really unsustainable, the company would go out of business. The reporter went further: "critics say (the fares are) ...sometimes down- right unethical." Unethical? Uber drivers don't force people into their cars. They don't even trick us with advertising. In fact, they do the opposite. Be- fore I can book a ride, I get a mes- sage warning me that the cost will be "higher due to increased demand." Economist Don Boudreaux wrote the Post (good for the Post for publish- ing his letter): "Prices reflect underly- ing realities of demand and supply. In New York City, rising crime (thanks, Bill de Blasio!) simultaneously raises the demand for Uber rides as it low- ers the supply of such rides. These re- alities cannot help but push fares up- ward." Right. Uber and Lyft are great innova- tions. They forced taxi monopolies to treat customers better and let or- dinary people use their cars to drive for money. But businesses get clobbered in the media whenever there's an aberration. On that day, social media exploded with comments like, "Fare surge af- ter a mass shooting ... Shame on you @Uber." The companies quickly went into damage control mode. "Our hearts go out to the victims," tweeted Uber Support. "We disabled surge pricing in the area." Disabling surge pricing may be good PR, but it's a terrible practice. At the beginning of the pandemic, when toilet paper and hand sanitizer were scarce, politicians told people, "Report merchants who raise prices! " They called that "illegal price goug- ing." But "gouging" was a good thing even then. It disincentivized hoard- ing and got suppliers to make more of the products we need most. Yes, today "gouging" is often ille- gal. But that's only because when it comes to what makes markets work, well, most politicians and reporters are just clueless. See CANARD on page 7 See LEADERS on page 7